Current Obsessions

I just had a note from our friend Bridget about her addiction to Facebook and it got me thinking about my current obsessions, of which there are many. So here are just some of them, in no particular order:

1. Thirtysomething
Since I discovered that I could watch all the old episodes of Thirtysomething on Youtube I have been hooked. I was about eight when it first came out so all the issues in it about relationships and work and being a thirtysomething went completely over my head. However now that I am a thirty-(three) something, the lives and problems of these characters totally speak to me. When Eric can hear me laughing, crying, or giving out (to one of the characters) in the other room, he knows I'm having a Thirtysomething moment.

2. Baking
I am completely and utterly obsessed by baking at the moment. Cakes, breads, cookies, biscuits, you name it, I want to bake it. It's like this urge that totally overcomes me and won't go until there's something in the oven and the kitchen is covered in flour. The funny, or maybe not so funny, thing is that the more obsessed I get with the baking, the worse the cakes, breads or cookies get! Baking disasters in the last couple of weeks include a flaxseed bread that I could have used as a doorstop it was so hard, sourdough bowls that looked like saucers and zucchini (yes, zucchini) brownies that Eric described as 'rubbery, but in a nice way'! It seems my obsession is inversely proportional to the success of the end product, and I now officially have the baking blues. I've decided that it might be like a relationship. It's like I'm coming on too strong and the baking is being scared off by my desperation. So I am now acting breezy and hard to get. Hopefully this will work. For all our sakes.

3. Cycling
When I was a kid I used to love cycling and in fact used to cycle for miles and miles when we lived in the countryside. Then I got older and kind of grew out of it. However since we got our bikes here in Berlin I've totally reconnected to this way of travelling. I absolutely love it. There are the usual reasons to like it - it saves us money, it's good for the environment and it's healthy. But what I love is that it has totally opened up the city to us. We are lucky that Berlin is very cyclist-friendly with bicycle lanes mostly everywhere so there isn't any part of the city we can't cycle to. And I suppose when I'm freewheeling down a hill with the wind in my hair I probably do feel like I'm a kid again. It's just fun, plain and simple. If you haven't been on a bike for a while, try it!

So that's it with my current obsessions. Feel free to share yours in the comments section!