Passive-Agressive Baker

Lately, with the state of the world as it is, it seems that there is a ton of stress. Of course, with the dawn of a new president, who we hope and pray will deliver (think good thoughts!), the economy still stinks and there are plenty of people out of jobs. My job, however, isn't slow. Which has its perks and disabilities. The latter being that I pull really late hours for what appears to be stupid reasons. I won't go into that, because if I talk about it anymore, I will just get mad. So I will tell you how I deal with my frustration. I bake. I bake a lot. Whenever I am upset or need to just HIT something, I do something that appears to be quite the latter. I do some comfort baking. This weekend, I baked three times. I made chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and Double Chocolate Oat Preachers. For some reason, the gentle whir of my handheld electric mixer, the crack of eggs against the bowl, the sifting of flour (when I'm not too lazy to sift it), the spatula cleaning the sides of the bowl as I slide the pan into the oven...once I take whatever it is out that I am baking and set it on the counter to cool (I've recently rediscovered my wire cooling racks- very awesome!), I am just <> at peace again with the world. That's not to say I don't bake unless I am stressed or upset. But there is something truly cathartic about baking. People generally don't seem to mind that this is how I deal with things. I suppose there are worse things out there I could do to deal with stress. And those things generally relate to where those baked goods go once they are cooled and out of the oven :)