I'm back... I guess?

Since July, you could say that "change" was a common theme for me. 

My webcomic: One Day Closer, a comic about LDRs

I got a full time job (July). I started another artsy project (July). I moved out (October). I started paying bills (October). I got and lost a new animal companion (October), followed by the adoption of two new ones (November). I learned about dealing with out of the blue expenses (October - January). I make change for laundry (weekly). I got engaged and celebrated my third anniversary with CK (December).

My job at the Washington Youth Garden: Helping FoodCorps members at an event

When the office got too technical, it's awesome to go out to the garden.

Life went forward, and yet Meals with Morri stagnated and seemed difficult to update. Recipes were thrown together and not meticulously tested. Food was made, eaten, and forgotten about.

Thistle, my first rabbit, died too soon. RIP October 2015.

My friends and family encouraged me. They asked when another post would be put up. It raised the question as to what this site was, and how it would go forward. To quote one of my dearest friends: "Wait, Meals with Morri is a food blog?"

Bran and Teague: my Super Pooper Fluffbutts

When I started this blog, it was to talk about managing and healing my various ailments. It was to share my progress and experiences in taking back my life into my hands. It was to process the concept of cooking at home and to self-reflect my day-to-day life.

On a positive note: I've become quite good at pizza.

So no, I suppose it really wasn't a food blog. It was a journal, a diary, a reflective practice with gluten/soy/cane sugar recipes. It revolved around food, but it wasn't an online cookbook.

Through Meals with Morri, I overcame my disordered eating habits, found a healthy middle man with exercise and being okay with chocolate and fried food, became confident in my body and my abilities, learned about the local food movement, and found my passions that led to the start of a fulfilling career.

But the things I expected from this blog never really came to fruition. I saw amazing men and women turn their lives around and make careers from their blog. I saw amazing artistic and aesthetic abilities in their photography, and beautiful contemplation in recipe design. 

It's so weird to call CK fiance now, but he is and it's awesome.

Me? I certainly enjoyed it, but I happened to be okay with recipes not "replacing" their gluteny counterparts in look and taste. I was quite content with simply enjoying new grains to incorporate to my expanding diet, and accepted that it may turn out a little differently. But how do you convey that to a reader? How do you say, "It isn't a replacement, it's a recipe all it's own?"

I've also realized that my initial goals for blogging didn't grow up with me. I don't have a best selling cookbook. I'm not known in the gluten free community. And oddly enough, it felt weird for me to push that. My blog was an individual experience to taking back my health, talking about the links with the environment, the body, and the spirit, learning about the psychological effects of being "other" simply because you happened to eat differently.

I learned how to make latkes from the ultimate source: CK's nana. Coincidentally, I used the term putz correctly when describing someone, and she promptly laughed, hugged me, and called me adorable.

I'm not the same person who started this personal movement in April 2011. My tolerance for bullshit and worrying about what people think has decreased significantly, and that cost me a lot of unfulfilling relationships (no issues there). In retrospect, writing and capturing my life on Meals with Morri met the personal goal that honestly should have been my top priority: I took back my health and gave the status quo the finger. I got angry and was okay about it.

So you will see that I've changed the Meals with Morri motto to being personal, to not being about the gluten free movement, and being more about self-reliant and sustainability mind. There are enough gluten free bloggers to empower others in taking care of themselves, and I'm proud to say I participated in that and helped people by answering questions or making recipes they could enjoy.

Five years is a good time to evolve, don't you think? 

 I want to thank everyone who participated in this blog up until this point, for the support, the criticism, the good, the bad, the screwups, and the successes. MWM is no longer the focus of my abilities, but an addition to my dialogue. It may be days, weeks, months, until I update. It may be never.

And for the first time, I'm pretty okay with that.