Living alone

This is my first time fully living on my own. I don't have a roommate or family to help with the chores, nor do I have a cafeteria or refectory to provide some of my meals. Sometimes this living alone is refreshing, and other times I become lonely. Seminarians had told me before that internship can be the loneliest time, and to some degree that is true. After bonding so closely with my peers at seminary, I miss them dearly. And yet ministry at Lakeside is so wonderfully encouraging and challenging that I don't have much time to be lonely. For that, I am grateful.

Cooking has been a saving grace for me. Because there isn't much of anything to do on the lake, I can get bored on my time off. I have taken to cooking as a form of entertainment, as a way to keep me moving and thinking without leaving the apartment. I have two cookbooks and the internet as my resources, but I rarely follow a recipe exactly. Somehow, however, my meals always turn out ok. Often they even are pretty good. I then put the left-overs into single-serving gladware containers and freeze half of the food. That way, when I come home from work, I only have to pop a container from the fridge or freezer into the microwave and enjoy. I am grateful for this system of cooking and eating because I never have to cook after a long day at work, and I am able to spread out my meals so that I never get bored of my cooking.

I also don't have anybody to remove the bugs in the house, either. I don't mind killing the usual household spiders and other small bugs, but I do mind killing the centipedes. They are too fast for me to easily catch them. There are a lot of centipedes in the rest of the garage, but I am grateful that only two have entered my apartment. I don't appreciate them hanging out on the garage door, either. When coming home after dark, I don't want to be greeted by such an animal!