The bear claw

Today I want to talk to you about stress relief. More specifically, the things you do to get rid of stress.

Back in the day, before I had a job that takes up 80 hours every week and all of my youth with it, I used to clean when I got stressed out. I know, it makes little sense, but there you have it. People could always tell when I was busy at work, because the entire house would shine "like the top of the Chrysler building" (to paraphrase Ms. Hannigan from "Annie"). When I was finishing up my dissertation, you could pretty much eat off my baseboards. Then, when I moved here and that didn't do the trick anymore, I added running. And bicycling. Nothing to clear your head like a long, sweat-filled, slightly painful workout session.  And then, when I had ran and biked so much I was doing triathlons, adventure races, and half marathons as though they were little more than a trip to the mall, that too just wasn't enough anymore. And what did I do next?

Did I start taking yoga? Or perhaps took a meditation class? Or did I, lord-have-mercy, address the cause of my stress head on instead of finding yet another way around that?

Well, of course I didn't. I live in the south, what do you expect? We don't do yoga, and we definitely do not meditate. The bible doesn't mention those things, which means God sure didn't put His stamp of approval on it, and so unless you live in that worldly, heathen-filled, Philistine town also known as Atlanta, you will not find anything like that down here thankyouverymuch. Of course, I don't need to mention that "addressing something head on" is a phrase invented by those lesser-mannered Yankees, and thus an absolute no-no in the south, where we prefer to simmer and stew, while pretending everything is JUST FINE!

So what is a semi-southern gal to do? Well, she can start on a whole host of activities to distract her, including forming a new bible study (I think my status as a non-fundamentalist pretty much preempts that one), homeschooling her children (someone would die, y'all), cooking (that's husband dear's Area of Responsibility), quilting (uhm..did I mention I don't know how to sew on a button?), or baking.

Hm. Baking.

I'm not sure how this happened, but I'm finally beginning to understand why southern women love to bake. It's probably as soothing as an intensive yoga class, as relaxing as addressing the cause of the stress (but without any sort of confrontation), and tasty to boot. As you all know, I started baking when we moved down here, so I could meet the annual "bake something for your neighbors at Christmas" standard, but no more than that. Then two weeks ago, I decided to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch (from! scratch!), and last Sunday, when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed, I caught myself saying, "I am so stressed out, I think I need to bake something." To top it all off, last night, after meeting some friends at Panera Bead and having one of their almond-filled bear claws, I decided that that was going to be my next baking project: the bear claw.

I believe I have found my next set of stress relieving activities: baking. After all,  why talk about stuff if you can just bake it all away? *


*No worries, I will still be cleaning AND running AND biking AND swimming...there will not be a "how I became obese like all those other Georgians" blog anytime soon. Although I suppose then I could join Weight Watchers, another incredibly popular stress-relieving activity here in the south. And start dieting and exercising, which I'm sure will do wonders for my stress. Oh. Wait.....