I feel quite certain that I shall be full to the brim from Easter dinner for several days. It can’t be possible to consume that quantity of food (Christ is risen; let’s eat!) and be hungry again in the same week. But when there’s a table spread with good eats from end to end, the rule is that you just keep eating until you can no longer reach for more food for fear of buttons popping off your clothing and putting out the eye(s) of your neighbor.

And when Jesus did that whole “should you remove the beam from your own eye before tending to the speck in your brother’s” story, I don’t really think he was referring to ocular injuries sustained from a third helping of sweet potatoes gone horribly awry. Seriously. So by all means, eat yourself into a stupor, but then stop before someone gets hurt.

Was I going somewhere with this? Oh, right. I remember now.

I dined with friends, because when there’s a holiday and it’s not my turn with the kids, everyone I’ve ever known invites me to dinner. It’s nice. Now, a normal, cultured person would conclude dinner by thanking her hosts for a lovely meal. Me? I asked for the ham bone.

What? I said thank you, afterwards. While I was putting it in a ziploc and promising to bring soup later this week.

I love to make soup. It takes a long time. It’s not all that labor-intensive, you understand; but it requires patience and care. And at the end, you have a large quantity of something delicious, to be enjoyed, shared, frozen, etc. If you follow the steps, at the end you have exactly what you expected. You have sustenance. It’s a very rewarding activity for a control freak such as myself.

A friend of mine introduced me to the split pea recipe from the Moosewood cookbook. I didn’t even like split pea soup before I had this version. But now I’m hooked.

(And yes, the Moosewood recipes are vegetarian. The addition of a ham bone to this recipe is divine. Besides, if God had wanted me to be a vegetarian, he would not have made cute little piggies so tender and delicious.)

Now I’m making soup, even though the thought of eating again any time soon makes me feel a wee bit nauseous. Experience suggests that I will need to eat again. Experience also suggests there is very little in my life right now that I can control or predict. It’s possible there are even fewer things that feel productive.

So. Soup! The house smells good. There’s a pot bubbling on the stove, promising me a few fuss-free meals in the remaining cold days before spring really takes over. It’s not much, in the grand scheme of things. But it’s something.

As long as I can keep planning ahead, I can keep going ahead.