This morning I made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast with the last of the pumpkin puree I froze from last summer's volunteer vine. I added just a bit more milk and some white sugar (since we like our pancakes ever-so-slightly sweet) and they were great - thick and substantial, spicy and smooth. And lovely with some pink grapefruit marmalade spread on top.


In taking the pumpkin out to thaw the other day, I noticed that I am down to one bag of frozen pesto (made from my own basil), one bag of (home-grown) cilantro cubes, one-each bags of blueberries (not home-grown, but local and home-frozen at least), cherries (ditto) and raspberries (another ditto). We have already finished what at one time looked like way too many pints of tomatoes and even more spiced apples. This is, of course, what happens as winter marches on - freezers and canning shelves empty as we enjoy the bounty of previous seasons and simultaneously make room for the hoped-for abundance of the coming year. It's the rhyme and reason of the seasons and I've been incredibly lucky to be able to experience it to the extent that I have.


This year, though, my empty shelves and freezer may not be filled the way that I've enjoyed recently. We are at a crossroads, professionally and personally, and must (quickly) decide if we are to leave Virginia and seek our fortunes elsewhere. If we move our family and possessions, it will be so that I can continue what I am told may be a promising career and so that my husband can establish his credentials - we will likely make some money and gain greater and better reputations than we even now enjoy. If we stay, it will be to continue a life that has proven so satisfying in so many ways - room for our children to run and play, space enough for a large garden to fill our bellies in the immediate and the aforementioned freezer in the long-term, a house that is only now beginning to shape up to what we hoped it could be.


Each choice has its negatives, to be sure. On the one hand, a family life and, on the other, the financial security - however illusory - that comes with "a job". For a variety of reasons I will not bore you with, these paths are mutually exclusive and, despite our hopes that with enough time they would be combinable we are realizing that we are running out of time and waiting even longer might remove the choice altogether.


Our conversations on the topic are beginning to become wrenching and rather heated. Every time we resolve to follow a certain path we see what seem to be signs directing us the other way - strong signs, virtually undeniable as to their message. Neither of us desires to spend our lives tethered to someone else's desk, moving at another's command. At the same time, we would rather enjoy the money required to not stay awake nights worrying about the electric bill, braces and our son's desire to play pee-wee hockey.


And then there are the lines. You know, the ones we're all supposed to color inside.


I have an MBA. With good research results my husband will, within months, have receive a Masters degree in Tissue Engineering. I have always said that one should not attend college to get a job but rather to get an education. And I stand by the statement. Sort of. It's just very hard to tell you mother that you're pretty sure you're not going to go to work for the Fortune 100 big-pharma that's been calling because you'd spend too much time away from your kids and your garden and the furniture you've been wanting to refinish and even though the money is good, you'd be working like 90 hours a week so what's the point. And it's even worse to try and explain to your mother-in-law that, yes, even though her son is a credentialed engineer and an excellent researcher and he's loves the field, he's more interested in highly theoretical stuff and being more a kind of crazy inventor guy is really more his speed.


And then you watch their heads explode. When their heads stop exploding they tell you how you're throwing away perfectly good educations that you've been lucky to receive and how you're ruining your kids' lives by not earning every cent coming to you and what kind of example are you setting anyway? That it's o.k. to just be happy when life is about work? Is this what we taught you?


And we dust off our resumes again. Because somewhere in there we recognize the kernel of truth, even if it makes us wince.


This is where we are today. From pumpkin pancakes to existential crises in one stream-of-consciousness blog entry.