Skip to main content

Dilemma: Bloom Where You Are Planted or No?

I've been a fan of that quote for some time: Bloom Where You Are Planted.

You know, make the most of where you are, be all you can be, etc., etc.

But I'm at a real crossroads these days regarding this adage.  I'll be graduating soon with an Associate's in Culinary Arts.  If there's food in the place, that means I can work there.

However, I can't really neglect my other experiences as well...high school and college teacher, writer...I mean, surely there's got to be some job out there that marries those things together, right?

The closer and closer I get to leaving for my internship (little over a month to go), the more I think about what I'm going to do when I come back.  And, honestly, the answer is?  I don't really know.

To illustrate the point, with my school and work schedules being fairly open right now, I contemplated going out for lunch today.  But...here were my options (in an Iowa town of 11,000 people):

*Two Chinese buffet-type places
*A Mexican restaurant (currently under inspection after a recent kitchen fire)
*A mediocre BBQ place
*Two family "homestyle" restaurants
*Three "casual fine dining, sit-down" restaurants (the newest one being my current place of employment)
*The grocery store that contains a Chinese and Italian Express, not to mention a soup and salad bar
*Two pizza places
*Seven fast-food restaurants (two of them being a Subway)

In the end, I opted for staying home and making a Garden Minestrone soup for lunch...and it was good, don't get me wrong...but sometimes, it's just nice to sneak out for a nice lunch when your kids are in school.  And, feeling like it's the sameoldsameold for choices is disheartening.

And circling back to where the blog entry started, I start wondering what it would be like to live in or near a big city where I would have access to many lunchtime spots...and different and unique ones, at that.  And I begin to daydream, nay, fantasize about moving.  Immediately, though, I feel a sense of guilt and disloyalty...why don't I bloom where I'm planted?  Why don't I create something amazing right here in this town where I live?

Why, indeed?  The road ahead will be paved with difficult decisions.

Comments

  1. Sometimes, the most terrifying the thing the world is knowing that you can have and do anything.

    I think you made a wise choice with the minestrone. However, you did overlook the bakery, which would have been a very solid choice.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

(She) Blinded Me With...Citrus

Excuse my attempt at tying today's blog entry with an iconic Thomas Dolby song.  What a terrible pun-ishment. Har har har. So, we're on the backside of Winter Vacation/Christmas Break/Holiday Hiatus here.  The kids return to school tomorrow, the freshman and I start back to our respective colleges next Monday. The clock is ticking and suddenly, I am whipped into frenzy to Get Work Done.  I suspect this phenomenon happens to many, many educators who try to avoid that panic-stricken night before they go back to work. And believe me when I say, I had the deepest, most earnest of intentions to write lesson plans, write quizzes, and generally prepare for the restart of my classes next week.  Like, really. And then...I was distracted by...citrus.  This happened. Okay, so....the lemons on the far right are no big deal.  They're available year-round.  But Meyer lemons...MEYER...I only find around here in the winter.  I first read about them i...

Keeping It Short, Keeping It Real

Today marked the penultimate day of Cake Decorating...and it was by far the most stressful of the last three weeks...and I mean, to quote the youth, I was a hater . But, that time is done and gone.  Here's what happening right now: A glass (which may turn into a bottle) of a Riesling I have not had in quite some time (read about that here ), and a episode (or more) of AMC's The Walking Dead . Let me clarify...quickly because TechMeat's got the Netflix cued.  School friends of mine went on and on about this TV show, so I got nuts one night and watched the first episode (with Brent, natch)...and now, we're kinda interested.  We're on episode 4 of Season One, so yeah, a long ways to go to catchup. Honestly, the last time we had this much interest in a TV show was Spin City and Dharma and Greg in the early 2000s.  For real.  We don't do a lot of TV around here.  Movies, yes.  TV, no. I'm going now.  To recover my strength and gear up for t...

The Salisbury Steak Haunts Me...

Let's jog the ol' memory tonight. Nah...let's more like shake the crapness out of my memory until it wets itself and surrenders any and all information I ask it for. If you read between the lines (not the Blurred Lines) on my Kenny Rogers-related post, you'll get that my childhood family meals were pretty Amurican.  Beef stew, pot roast, pan-fried pork chops.  I do recall cans of La Choy Chop Suey and chow mein noodles, and in the later years, tacos (and that was ethnic food at our house).  But, for the most part, Hamburger Helper (and this was long before Tuna, Chicken, or Asian Helper) and Swanson's made up the bulk of my childhood eating. And here's where things get even more murky: What in world did I eat for lunch when I was a kid? Take a moment to ponder this very question for yourselves.  Are you having as much trouble as I did answering this question?  Or am I just getting old?  Or have I repressed it? I know I did not get the cafeteria ...