Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

I steamed one of my little pie pumpkins, so i could make pumpkin-black bean tostadas. But first, i had to clean the seeds out of the pumpkin.

I put them in a colander and then rushed out the door. When i returned home, my sweetie had cleaned them up and put them on a plate to dry. Oh, sweet man!

I put them onto a little baking sheet, with a rim, doused them with soy sauce, and put them in the toaster oven for 40 minutes. I was in and out of the house, so i asked my sweetie to look at them when the timer rang. He turned them and then worried about them. How much longer? They were still sticky. What were they supposed to look like?

Dealing with the pumpkin seeds was causing him a lot of stress, mostly in the form of worry and anxiety, and also (i suspect) some irritation at me because i wasn't doing "my" job.

I don't like to see him suffering, so i went into problem-solving mode. "Just stop, honey." What i meant was just-stop-stressing-out over the pumpkin seeds, stop looking at them, stop caring about them. We can ease our suffering in any moment, simply by being mindful--of what we are doing, what we are feeling, what we are thinking, what we are saying.

My sweetie likes to make me happy. (Note: His stress was not making me happy.) So he tried to perform a job he didn't really want to do. He doesn't even like tamari pumpkin seeds because they're tough and hard to chew.

The end result is that the pumpkin seeds are roasted; they are delicious; and i am happy. And he is happy because i am happy.