The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of motion and activity, in which I wake up each morning, trying to orient myself to the ways in which life is different from how it was the day before.

Two Saturdays ago, Scott and I were waiting in the parking garage, planning on driving to the Bridge (a movie theater in University City) to see Watchmen, when Sabu, the garage’s weekend manager came over to us and said, “Something’s happened to your car, you’re not going to be able to take it out tonight.” He walked us over to another car and drove up to the third floor. My car was sitting there, the right front tire bent at a sickly angle and a big, crunchy dent over the wheel well. Nearly two weeks later it is still there (a myriad of miscommunications and generalized incompetence). I’m hoping to finally get it towed today and find out whether it will be fixable or if it will be declared “totaled” by the garage’s insurance company.

My sister has been on the east coast for the last several weeks (she’s up in Vermont now, and is currently on the cover of a Vermont newspaper, in the buff). Last week, she and her traveling companion Rebecca were driving from Anapolis to Scranton, PA, when she called. They were going to be passing through Philly right around dinnertime. Could they stop by? Having never lived in the same city as my sister during our adult years, it was an unparalleled delight to have her simply drop by for dinner.

Last Friday was my final day at Slashfood, and while the leaving was hard, I’ve been quite shocked at how little I actually miss it. Being relieved of responsibility for the day-to-day operations has been liberating. I’ve been reading at night before I go to bed, instead of frantically writing posts and checking to ensure that posts are queued to appear come morning.

I’ve launched my own little food blog, called Food in Jars. I’m quite excited about it, and plan to post at least one canning/pickling/preserving project a week, along with some other posts about cookbooks, jars and tangentally-related food news. I’ll also be giving away one jar of everything I make.