Well, since I've been sitting here staring at the screen for almost ten minutes, maybe I'm not as ready to start posting again as I thought I was. But for those of you who caught my mini-meltdown on Monday, thank you for being concerned. I had a bad experience with a group of people I work with here locally, and (how utterly silly this sounds) got my feelings hurt.
Social interaction is just beyond me right now. I want to say something melodramatic and self-serving like, I just don't get all these games people play, but honestly, from their perspective, it's possible that they think I'm the one playing games. That's the way complicated situations work. They're complicated.
It was an easy enough problem to solve, at least temporarily. It's a group that has functions twice a year-- around the holidays, and in the spring. I helped out with the holiday functions, and it was no big deal to bow out of the spring season. It will give me time to figure out what happened and maybe I can participate again later. Or maybe not.
That seems to be all I have to say at the moment. I do have three half-written posts in my Drafts folder, so maybe I will start up again next week. Have a great weekend!
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
END THE SHUTDOWN. GOOD GRIEF.
We interrupt our regularly scheduled break to bring you this public service announcement. If you, like me, are not financially affected by the government shutdown, you may not know that the Department of Agriculture has found a way to pay February SNAP benefits (the program commonly known as food stamps, which are now paid out on debit cards), but they can only do it by distributing those funds early-- this week, in fact.
If the shutdown continues, those funds are the last that SNAP recipients will receive for the foreseeable future. At our local food bank today, I listened to the staff try to plan for the inevitable result of this news: an enormous increase in people needing the food bank. It's not pretty. This affects millions of people nationwide, including well over 100,000 in Montana.
You can claim the moral high road for awhile, and I certainly have my opinion on which side has it (hint: if you ask me, building a wall would be a huge waste of taxpayer dollars). But that time has ended. Get your butts back to the table and figure this out. This is about children being able to eat.
If both sides compromise and present a plan to the president (which I sincerely hope does not include funding for a wall, but at the moment, that's not my highest concern), it will be clear that the problem is the president. He will sign. And one suspects that he will figure out a way to call it a win, because he always does.
That's all. This has to stop.
If the shutdown continues, those funds are the last that SNAP recipients will receive for the foreseeable future. At our local food bank today, I listened to the staff try to plan for the inevitable result of this news: an enormous increase in people needing the food bank. It's not pretty. This affects millions of people nationwide, including well over 100,000 in Montana.
You can claim the moral high road for awhile, and I certainly have my opinion on which side has it (hint: if you ask me, building a wall would be a huge waste of taxpayer dollars). But that time has ended. Get your butts back to the table and figure this out. This is about children being able to eat.
If both sides compromise and present a plan to the president (which I sincerely hope does not include funding for a wall, but at the moment, that's not my highest concern), it will be clear that the problem is the president. He will sign. And one suspects that he will figure out a way to call it a win, because he always does.
That's all. This has to stop.
Friday, January 11, 2019
7ToF: ding dong the decorations are dead
1. Finally got the Christmas decor put away. It seems like it took 7 or 8 hours divided between last night and today, but that can't be right, can it? No wonder I was dreading it. I do love all my Christmas tchotchkes but that seems a little excessive. If I had to do it again next week, I would do something about it. But by next December I will have forgotten, so I will do it all again. Happily.
2. Do you keep up with food and nutrition news? In the past few years, many of the sacred cows of healthy eating have fallen -- it's OK now to eat eggs, fat is no longer the big demon it once was, and more and more signs are pointing to sugar as the real problem in our diets-- and then did you notice that it's OK to eat full fat dairy products again? (as long as you can handle dairy, I guess. I have several lactose-intolerant friends/family.)
Montanans were never fooled. The dairy industry has been part of the local economy for decades, and long-time locals have never varied from their preference for full fat milk. If we have full fat milk at the food bank, it gets grabbed off the shelf so fast you'd think there were $20 bills inside. I used to think they were uneducated, but turns out they were right.
3. But you know what food advice has never, ever changed? Eat your vegetables. No one has ever come along with a fad diet that said to avoid vegetables. (Have they? given the insanity of the diet industry, maybe they have.) I was raised in the sixties and seventies in Middle America, when veggies were usually soggy and canned, or frozen and then overcooked. I was not a fan. Is there anything more disgusting than canned spinach? What was Popeye thinking? I didn't experience fresh veggies lightly cooked until I was in college. I liked those just fine.
4. But you can only get fresh, in-season veggies a few months of the year in Montana. So I am making a concerted effort to investigate creative ways to use winter vegetables, or frozen out-of-season ones. Maybe I will even try some canned ones. I read an article that with modern canning techniques, less time elapses between harvest and processing canned vegetables than getting them to your grocery store. (I'm still not doing canned spinach, though. I have my limits.)
5. The first try was cabbage. When I was a kid, cabbage was always a soggy, overcooked mess that smelled terrible. I was determined to try it, though, so I found a recipe in Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons cookbook for steamed cabbage. Result: I was so worried about overcooking it that it was still practically raw. The recipe called for coring and quartering the cabbage and then steaming the wedges and drizzling with butter, lemon, and thyme. But it was almost impossible to eat those big chunks (possibly because it was still crunchy-raw). I think I need to give it another try, because the outside leaves that were reasonably cooked tasted pretty good. What doesn't taste good with butter and lemon drizzled over?
6. However. It was also a perfect illustration of the problem with organic produce (at least after it has been shipped three or four states over to Montana). The 3 lb head of organic cabbage was nearly $7. I bought a 2-pound pork roast (hormone- and antibiotic-free and no additives) that was less expensive than the cabbage. It's ridiculous. (The pork roast was also an experiment, I'd never cooked one before. It was OK. We are not big eaters of roasts.) It's not going to break our bank to pay $7 for a head of cabbage, but that puts it out of the reach of many. We're talking about cabbage.
7. Lots going on around here. It always seems a little silly to announce that I'm taking a break, because why don't I just do it without feeling like I need to tell everyone? Plus, I'm not sure how long I'll be offline. Maybe a weekend will be enough. Or maybe I'll post once a week instead of twice. But since I'm in the sort-of habit of posting on Tuesday and Friday, it always feels like I should give you a heads up if I'm going to miss one or two. Or ten. Last time I said I'd be gone at least a month and it only ended up being a couple of weeks (did you notice?).
This week's interesting read: hope vs. cynicism (from 2015)
Have a great weekend.
2. Do you keep up with food and nutrition news? In the past few years, many of the sacred cows of healthy eating have fallen -- it's OK now to eat eggs, fat is no longer the big demon it once was, and more and more signs are pointing to sugar as the real problem in our diets-- and then did you notice that it's OK to eat full fat dairy products again? (as long as you can handle dairy, I guess. I have several lactose-intolerant friends/family.)
Montanans were never fooled. The dairy industry has been part of the local economy for decades, and long-time locals have never varied from their preference for full fat milk. If we have full fat milk at the food bank, it gets grabbed off the shelf so fast you'd think there were $20 bills inside. I used to think they were uneducated, but turns out they were right.
3. But you know what food advice has never, ever changed? Eat your vegetables. No one has ever come along with a fad diet that said to avoid vegetables. (Have they? given the insanity of the diet industry, maybe they have.) I was raised in the sixties and seventies in Middle America, when veggies were usually soggy and canned, or frozen and then overcooked. I was not a fan. Is there anything more disgusting than canned spinach? What was Popeye thinking? I didn't experience fresh veggies lightly cooked until I was in college. I liked those just fine.
4. But you can only get fresh, in-season veggies a few months of the year in Montana. So I am making a concerted effort to investigate creative ways to use winter vegetables, or frozen out-of-season ones. Maybe I will even try some canned ones. I read an article that with modern canning techniques, less time elapses between harvest and processing canned vegetables than getting them to your grocery store. (I'm still not doing canned spinach, though. I have my limits.)
5. The first try was cabbage. When I was a kid, cabbage was always a soggy, overcooked mess that smelled terrible. I was determined to try it, though, so I found a recipe in Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons cookbook for steamed cabbage. Result: I was so worried about overcooking it that it was still practically raw. The recipe called for coring and quartering the cabbage and then steaming the wedges and drizzling with butter, lemon, and thyme. But it was almost impossible to eat those big chunks (possibly because it was still crunchy-raw). I think I need to give it another try, because the outside leaves that were reasonably cooked tasted pretty good. What doesn't taste good with butter and lemon drizzled over?
6. However. It was also a perfect illustration of the problem with organic produce (at least after it has been shipped three or four states over to Montana). The 3 lb head of organic cabbage was nearly $7. I bought a 2-pound pork roast (hormone- and antibiotic-free and no additives) that was less expensive than the cabbage. It's ridiculous. (The pork roast was also an experiment, I'd never cooked one before. It was OK. We are not big eaters of roasts.) It's not going to break our bank to pay $7 for a head of cabbage, but that puts it out of the reach of many. We're talking about cabbage.
7. Lots going on around here. It always seems a little silly to announce that I'm taking a break, because why don't I just do it without feeling like I need to tell everyone? Plus, I'm not sure how long I'll be offline. Maybe a weekend will be enough. Or maybe I'll post once a week instead of twice. But since I'm in the sort-of habit of posting on Tuesday and Friday, it always feels like I should give you a heads up if I'm going to miss one or two. Or ten. Last time I said I'd be gone at least a month and it only ended up being a couple of weeks (did you notice?).
This week's interesting read: hope vs. cynicism (from 2015)
Have a great weekend.
Monday, January 7, 2019
Bingo! Tag'em and Bag'em! aka the entertainment report
I know it's Tuesday (actually, it's Monday as I'm writing this), but I don't have the energy to think up an entire post at the moment, and I am so far behind on the basic life tasks (laundry, replacing my lost driver's license, etc etc). So I'm doing a list. Maybe it will turn out to be seven things but it might not.
➧ Status report from the convoluted depths of my brain: one of the most difficult things for me to manage is the balance between routines and change-ups. If I have to do the same thing day after day, I go nuts. Not kidding-- routine makes me wiggy and depressed. But if I change things up and I'm out of my comfort zone for too long-- say we have house guests for more than 4-5 days or the Christmas decorations are still up on January 8th-- I go a different kind of nuts. It's like my brain starts shorting out. I can't get anything done because things have been abnormal for too long. So, definitely have to get the decorations put away before poor Dean has to peel me off the ceiling.
➧ We were fans of the original Transformer movie-- the crazy parents, the neurotic kid, the military guys-- and we have a dozen lines from it that have entered our family lingo. Left cheek! Left cheek! and Shut up, Grandma! and Sam's happy time and the chihuahua with the bandaged foot who wears a jeweled collar (it's his bling!). Judy, Sam's mom, is possibly my favorite cinematic character ever. We re-watch it at least once a year.
➧ So we had high hopes for Bumblebee, especially since it is getting such great reviews. But don't bother. Like all the subsequent Transformers movies, it was disappointing. I might have liked it better if I hadn't gone in with high hopes. (It did, admittedly, have some good moments.)
➧ Aquaman was also thoroughly average, but I wasn't expecting much from it so it didn't bother me as much. Typical superhero origin story. It had a few good moments (like the edible roses) but was otherwise just a decent way to pass 2 1/2 hours on a rainy day. (because in case I haven't told you often enough, it rained every. single. day. we were in Florida.)
➧ I don't usually read suspense or horror novels, because I like to sleep and I can't sleep after reading that stuff (or watching the movies, either). So I wasn't sure how I was going to do with The Marsh King's Daughter, which was our book club book for this month. A woman who was responsible for putting her psychopath father behind bars years earlier goes out to hunt him down when he escapes from prison. I will admit that I avoided reading it right before bed, but it ended up being a really good story. It has some seriously dark moments, but it also has some redeeming moments, and it makes sense, which counts for a lot. If you like that stuff, recommended. It has not, however, convinced me to read any more suspense/horror novels. One every twenty years or so is plenty.
So maybe once the wrapping paper is back in the store room I will be able to write something interesting again. Hope your new year is off to a good start.
➧ Status report from the convoluted depths of my brain: one of the most difficult things for me to manage is the balance between routines and change-ups. If I have to do the same thing day after day, I go nuts. Not kidding-- routine makes me wiggy and depressed. But if I change things up and I'm out of my comfort zone for too long-- say we have house guests for more than 4-5 days or the Christmas decorations are still up on January 8th-- I go a different kind of nuts. It's like my brain starts shorting out. I can't get anything done because things have been abnormal for too long. So, definitely have to get the decorations put away before poor Dean has to peel me off the ceiling.
➧ We were fans of the original Transformer movie-- the crazy parents, the neurotic kid, the military guys-- and we have a dozen lines from it that have entered our family lingo. Left cheek! Left cheek! and Shut up, Grandma! and Sam's happy time and the chihuahua with the bandaged foot who wears a jeweled collar (it's his bling!). Judy, Sam's mom, is possibly my favorite cinematic character ever. We re-watch it at least once a year.
➧ So we had high hopes for Bumblebee, especially since it is getting such great reviews. But don't bother. Like all the subsequent Transformers movies, it was disappointing. I might have liked it better if I hadn't gone in with high hopes. (It did, admittedly, have some good moments.)
➧ Aquaman was also thoroughly average, but I wasn't expecting much from it so it didn't bother me as much. Typical superhero origin story. It had a few good moments (like the edible roses) but was otherwise just a decent way to pass 2 1/2 hours on a rainy day. (because in case I haven't told you often enough, it rained every. single. day. we were in Florida.)
➧ I don't usually read suspense or horror novels, because I like to sleep and I can't sleep after reading that stuff (or watching the movies, either). So I wasn't sure how I was going to do with The Marsh King's Daughter, which was our book club book for this month. A woman who was responsible for putting her psychopath father behind bars years earlier goes out to hunt him down when he escapes from prison. I will admit that I avoided reading it right before bed, but it ended up being a really good story. It has some seriously dark moments, but it also has some redeeming moments, and it makes sense, which counts for a lot. If you like that stuff, recommended. It has not, however, convinced me to read any more suspense/horror novels. One every twenty years or so is plenty.
So maybe once the wrapping paper is back in the store room I will be able to write something interesting again. Hope your new year is off to a good start.
Friday, January 4, 2019
7ToF: make it so, number one
1. We've all sometimes seen the disconnect between someone's online presentation and their real life. Some present a carefully curated front to the world, some seem to be genuinely themselves, although I suppose you can never really know how real it is. Here, in this blog, I hope you can tell that I make no claims that this is an accurate representation of my life-- it's just whatever I'm thinking about at the time I'm writing.
2. But in case it isn't obvious, I have bad days. Weeks. Dean and I have rough patches in our marriage, more often than we probably should after 34 years of marriage. I sometimes lose sleep worrying about my kids. I can drive myself to distraction obsessively trying to figure out what I'm doing next-- back to work? more volunteer work? three months in the UK? (you have no idea how much that last one tempts me). There are days when I have a hard time thinking of a reason to get out of bed.
3. Some people-- for example, the Bloggess-- can turn their bad days/weeks/childhood into hilarious, touching, meaningful posts, but when I try to do it, it turns out maudlin and boring. It bores me, so lord knows I'm not inflicting it on you. At least not very often. But in case you can't tell, it seems important to put it out there. I don't think I'm projecting an image of a perfect life here, but if I am, now you know. Things can be (and often are) a mess around here. So there. That's enough about that.
4. I don't do New Year's resolutions because I can never keep them, but having a theme, something I want to work on, has been a good thing in the past. My word/theme for 2019 is action. Be active. Take action. Participate. Engage rather than observe. Do instead of think. Or at least, don't just think. Maybe engage is a more succinct way of putting it, and it has the additional benefit of invoking Captain Picard, which is never a bad thing, right?
5. About this time last year, I read Dan Harris's book 10% Happier, where he describes how he has used meditation to cope with anxiety and stress. He talks about one of his mentors, Mark Epstein, in a way that intrigued me, and I just finished reading Epstein's book Advice Not Given. I'm gradually becoming convinced that a more serious meditation practice than my usual half-assed attempts would be a good thing for me, but I think I need a little more structure than just thinking, hey! I should meditate more often! So I've been poking around various meditation apps and I downloaded Dan's 10% Happier app a few days ago. So far, I like it. I'll let you know how it goes.
6. I think I told you awhile ago about hearing Whitney from the Unread Shelf Project on Anne Bogel's podcast What Should I Read Next. I think last year when I started on Bookstagram (a subset of Instagram found by following the hashtag #bookstagram), I became much more aware of new books that were being published, and pretty editions of old books, and instead of buying fewer books last year I think *cringe* I actually bought more. So inspired by Whitney, I'm renewing my intention from last year to not buy new books and instead read the ones I've got.
7. Because I have lots of good books sitting on my shelves that I want to read. Step one of the #unreadshelfproject2019 is to count the number of unread books you have. So I did this yesterday. I didn't count books that belong to other family members, and I didn't count ebooks. My number: 172, which is considerably fewer than I thought it would be. Which makes this seem like a much more doable project. I'm not going to get them all read this year, of course, but I can cross a few off the list. And I can use the money I would have spent on books to save for the trip to the UK, right?
What are your plans for the new year?
Previous posts about New Year's:
be forewarned that as long and wordy as my posts are now, they used to be worse.
New Year's Not Resolution (2010)
Six Days into 2014
Last year's offline experiment (2018)
2. But in case it isn't obvious, I have bad days. Weeks. Dean and I have rough patches in our marriage, more often than we probably should after 34 years of marriage. I sometimes lose sleep worrying about my kids. I can drive myself to distraction obsessively trying to figure out what I'm doing next-- back to work? more volunteer work? three months in the UK? (you have no idea how much that last one tempts me). There are days when I have a hard time thinking of a reason to get out of bed.
3. Some people-- for example, the Bloggess-- can turn their bad days/weeks/childhood into hilarious, touching, meaningful posts, but when I try to do it, it turns out maudlin and boring. It bores me, so lord knows I'm not inflicting it on you. At least not very often. But in case you can't tell, it seems important to put it out there. I don't think I'm projecting an image of a perfect life here, but if I am, now you know. Things can be (and often are) a mess around here. So there. That's enough about that.
4. I don't do New Year's resolutions because I can never keep them, but having a theme, something I want to work on, has been a good thing in the past. My word/theme for 2019 is action. Be active. Take action. Participate. Engage rather than observe. Do instead of think. Or at least, don't just think. Maybe engage is a more succinct way of putting it, and it has the additional benefit of invoking Captain Picard, which is never a bad thing, right?
5. About this time last year, I read Dan Harris's book 10% Happier, where he describes how he has used meditation to cope with anxiety and stress. He talks about one of his mentors, Mark Epstein, in a way that intrigued me, and I just finished reading Epstein's book Advice Not Given. I'm gradually becoming convinced that a more serious meditation practice than my usual half-assed attempts would be a good thing for me, but I think I need a little more structure than just thinking, hey! I should meditate more often! So I've been poking around various meditation apps and I downloaded Dan's 10% Happier app a few days ago. So far, I like it. I'll let you know how it goes.
6. I think I told you awhile ago about hearing Whitney from the Unread Shelf Project on Anne Bogel's podcast What Should I Read Next. I think last year when I started on Bookstagram (a subset of Instagram found by following the hashtag #bookstagram), I became much more aware of new books that were being published, and pretty editions of old books, and instead of buying fewer books last year I think *cringe* I actually bought more. So inspired by Whitney, I'm renewing my intention from last year to not buy new books and instead read the ones I've got.
7. Because I have lots of good books sitting on my shelves that I want to read. Step one of the #unreadshelfproject2019 is to count the number of unread books you have. So I did this yesterday. I didn't count books that belong to other family members, and I didn't count ebooks. My number: 172, which is considerably fewer than I thought it would be. Which makes this seem like a much more doable project. I'm not going to get them all read this year, of course, but I can cross a few off the list. And I can use the money I would have spent on books to save for the trip to the UK, right?
What are your plans for the new year?
Previous posts about New Year's:
be forewarned that as long and wordy as my posts are now, they used to be worse.
New Year's Not Resolution (2010)
Six Days into 2014
Last year's offline experiment (2018)
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Signs and portents
Today while busily shopping the sales in Florida, I passed a short, plump woman—she couldn’t have been more than 5’3” —who had two six foot wooden giraffes, one under each arm. I’m taking that as a good omen. 2019 will be better.
By the time you read this, the new year will be upon us. I probably went to bed at 10:30, how about you? Happy New Year! Nothing but good times ahead.
By the time you read this, the new year will be upon us. I probably went to bed at 10:30, how about you? Happy New Year! Nothing but good times ahead.
Saturday, December 29, 2018
7ToS: OOPS
1. Sign of a good vacation: you lose track of what day it is. We are in Florida, where we go every other year with my mom and sisters for the week between Christmas and New Year's. The weather is truly, epically awful this year (it started raining about 11 this morning and never stopped), but we are managing to have a good time anyway. And you are getting Seven Things on Saturday instead of Friday because I didn't realize what day it was until it was too late.
2. There are seventeen of us in a big VRBO house, but it's way calmer than it used to be because our collective youngest kid is now 12. No toddlers waking up at dawn these days, which--predictably enough-- I kind of miss.
3. With the weather so awful, we're all grateful that there are a bunch of fun movies to see. We went to Mary Poppins this afternoon, and we'll probably make it to Aquaman, Bumblebee, and maybe Mary Queen of Scots before we go home. (we saw Spidey-Verse before we left and definite thumbs up). No one has ever accused us of having good taste.
4.The promised "what's not working for me" list: This was much harder to think of than the list of what's working that I posted on Tuesday. In fact, for the "what's working" list I thought of another one. What's really working for me right now is carrying a couple of reusable shopping bags in my purse. I use the standard sized ones from Baggu, which come in great patterns and can be rolled up cylinder-style and stashed vertically in a corner of my bag, but anything you like is better than getting a dozen plastic bags every week at the grocery store. The resuable bags usually hold as much as three plastic bags, so you don't need as many trips to carry your groceries in, either.
(If you need motivation for that one, just Google "pictures of plastic pollution." The results make me slightly sick to my stomach.)
5.OK, so what's not working? I need to do better about getting some cardio into my day. When the weather is better, we frequently go for walks. But in the winter, I get really sluggish. I have a treadmill just a few steps away from my bed, and I'm one of the rare people that doesn't mind treadmilling once I get on it. I have audiobooks and podcasts and music to listen to. It's just the mental hurdle of doing it. If you know me IRL, next time you see me ask me if I'm walking.
6. Not working: I need to be a better friend. Those of you who only see me every few months may not realize how bad I am about this (or maybe you do). I don't even know how to start. This may be a multi-year project. My temptation is to go to the library and start reading up on it, but in this particular case that may not be the best approach, since diving into books and research is one of the things that keeps me from being a good friend. At a minimum, I need to be more intentional about setting up coffee dates or going for walks or whatever. I've been so antisocial this year that I've mostly just waited until people contact me rather than being proactive.
7. Not working: My stalled project from last year to read books I already own instead of buying new ones. I've already talked about this so much that I don't think I need to say more than that. Or I could say what's not working is the stalled clean-out-the-storeroom under the stairs project. I did pretty well on the rest of the house, but I still haven't tackled the most packed, cluttered space we have.
So maybe I could just categorize those two as "I need to continue to chip away at big projects."
That's all for now. I'm suddenly so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. This vacation thing is exhausting. Have a great weekend.
2. There are seventeen of us in a big VRBO house, but it's way calmer than it used to be because our collective youngest kid is now 12. No toddlers waking up at dawn these days, which--predictably enough-- I kind of miss.
3. With the weather so awful, we're all grateful that there are a bunch of fun movies to see. We went to Mary Poppins this afternoon, and we'll probably make it to Aquaman, Bumblebee, and maybe Mary Queen of Scots before we go home. (we saw Spidey-Verse before we left and definite thumbs up). No one has ever accused us of having good taste.
4.The promised "what's not working for me" list: This was much harder to think of than the list of what's working that I posted on Tuesday. In fact, for the "what's working" list I thought of another one. What's really working for me right now is carrying a couple of reusable shopping bags in my purse. I use the standard sized ones from Baggu, which come in great patterns and can be rolled up cylinder-style and stashed vertically in a corner of my bag, but anything you like is better than getting a dozen plastic bags every week at the grocery store. The resuable bags usually hold as much as three plastic bags, so you don't need as many trips to carry your groceries in, either.
(If you need motivation for that one, just Google "pictures of plastic pollution." The results make me slightly sick to my stomach.)
5.OK, so what's not working? I need to do better about getting some cardio into my day. When the weather is better, we frequently go for walks. But in the winter, I get really sluggish. I have a treadmill just a few steps away from my bed, and I'm one of the rare people that doesn't mind treadmilling once I get on it. I have audiobooks and podcasts and music to listen to. It's just the mental hurdle of doing it. If you know me IRL, next time you see me ask me if I'm walking.
6. Not working: I need to be a better friend. Those of you who only see me every few months may not realize how bad I am about this (or maybe you do). I don't even know how to start. This may be a multi-year project. My temptation is to go to the library and start reading up on it, but in this particular case that may not be the best approach, since diving into books and research is one of the things that keeps me from being a good friend. At a minimum, I need to be more intentional about setting up coffee dates or going for walks or whatever. I've been so antisocial this year that I've mostly just waited until people contact me rather than being proactive.
7. Not working: My stalled project from last year to read books I already own instead of buying new ones. I've already talked about this so much that I don't think I need to say more than that. Or I could say what's not working is the stalled clean-out-the-storeroom under the stairs project. I did pretty well on the rest of the house, but I still haven't tackled the most packed, cluttered space we have.
So maybe I could just categorize those two as "I need to continue to chip away at big projects."
That's all for now. I'm suddenly so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. This vacation thing is exhausting. Have a great weekend.
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
What's Working, 2018 edition
I know I should write something thoughtful and inspiring since this will go up on Christmas day. Something about gratitude and the birth of the light in the midst of great darkness, yadda yadda yadda. But I can't quite get there today.
I had plenty of Christmas spirit this year-- more than I've had in four or five years now. It's just that we did our family Christmas when PellMel and her boyfriend were here ten days ago, so I've had this strange feeling that Christmas is over even though it hasn't happened yet.
We don't even have any presents left to open. It will be a strange Christmas day for us, since we're not doing our traditional Christmas brunch with our neighbors, either. Maybe we will go to a movie or clean the bathrooms or something equally non-traditional.
I sincerely hope that you've got something more exciting to do on Christmas Day than to read my drivel anyway, so it's probably after Christmas as you're reading this. Ergo: I'm not going to write about Christmas. So there.
Which means I have to think of something to write about. OK. Anne Bogel does a list she calls "what's working for me, and what's not" on her blog at the end of the year. Maybe I will try something similar. (later: this got way too long. Like Anne, I'm dividing it up into two parts.)
What's working for me right now:
(note-- I started clicking around and reading other people's similar posts while I was working on this, and for two of the following things that are working for me, I found someone else who said the exact opposite was working for them. ymmv, as always.)
- I'm still doing squats and stretches in the shower. It's still helping me feel stronger and more fit.
- Taking a shower as soon as I get up. When I stopped working last spring, I got into the leisurely habit of waiting to take my shower until I was getting ready to leave the house. That --first of all-- meant that I would frequently be late to wherever I was going because I would underestimate how much time I needed to get ready. It also meant that I was losing a lot of the benefit of a daily shower (waking up, steaming my sinuses open, doing my stretches, etc). Heading for the shower as soon as I get out of bed works much better.
- Carrying a real pen-and-paper weekly planner in my purse (i.e., non-digital). I need to see my week laid out in front of me, and I've always benefited from writing things down and making lists. Carrying a real calendar instead of trying to keep it in my head or on my phone has been a game changer for me. (Although I do make extensive use of phone reminders.)
- Breaking big tasks down into small, manageable chunks. And by manageable, I mean an amount of work that I can get done in 5-10 minutes. I'm a little bit ADD, and I can have trouble sometimes with starting projects, getting overwhelmed, and giving up. Breaking it up into do-able pieces has helped me get more things done.
- Limiting my sugar intake to the afternoon (i.e., no sweets in the morning or evening). Mid-afternoon is when I usually want something sweet, anyway. And also, it gives my body time to metabolize the carbs before I go to bed. I am really happy with this one, although it admittedly has been difficult to be strict about it during the holidays.
- Writing book reviews on Goodreads. I always thought that it was kind of pretentious to think that people wanted to know your opinion about a book. But I realized this year that you don't do it for other people, you do it for yourself. I doubt anyone else ever reads them (with the possible exception of my brother-in-law). It only takes 5-10 minutes to write a quick review when I finish a book, and it really helps me remember what the book is about, when I read it, and what I thought of it.
So there you have it. I'll combine what's not working with my Seven Things on Friday. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyeux Noel, Happy Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad, Happy Festivus, or whatever works for you. Have a good day.
I had plenty of Christmas spirit this year-- more than I've had in four or five years now. It's just that we did our family Christmas when PellMel and her boyfriend were here ten days ago, so I've had this strange feeling that Christmas is over even though it hasn't happened yet.
We don't even have any presents left to open. It will be a strange Christmas day for us, since we're not doing our traditional Christmas brunch with our neighbors, either. Maybe we will go to a movie or clean the bathrooms or something equally non-traditional.
I sincerely hope that you've got something more exciting to do on Christmas Day than to read my drivel anyway, so it's probably after Christmas as you're reading this. Ergo: I'm not going to write about Christmas. So there.
Which means I have to think of something to write about. OK. Anne Bogel does a list she calls "what's working for me, and what's not" on her blog at the end of the year. Maybe I will try something similar. (later: this got way too long. Like Anne, I'm dividing it up into two parts.)
What's working for me right now:
(note-- I started clicking around and reading other people's similar posts while I was working on this, and for two of the following things that are working for me, I found someone else who said the exact opposite was working for them. ymmv, as always.)
- I'm still doing squats and stretches in the shower. It's still helping me feel stronger and more fit.
- Taking a shower as soon as I get up. When I stopped working last spring, I got into the leisurely habit of waiting to take my shower until I was getting ready to leave the house. That --first of all-- meant that I would frequently be late to wherever I was going because I would underestimate how much time I needed to get ready. It also meant that I was losing a lot of the benefit of a daily shower (waking up, steaming my sinuses open, doing my stretches, etc). Heading for the shower as soon as I get out of bed works much better.
- Carrying a real pen-and-paper weekly planner in my purse (i.e., non-digital). I need to see my week laid out in front of me, and I've always benefited from writing things down and making lists. Carrying a real calendar instead of trying to keep it in my head or on my phone has been a game changer for me. (Although I do make extensive use of phone reminders.)
- Breaking big tasks down into small, manageable chunks. And by manageable, I mean an amount of work that I can get done in 5-10 minutes. I'm a little bit ADD, and I can have trouble sometimes with starting projects, getting overwhelmed, and giving up. Breaking it up into do-able pieces has helped me get more things done.
- Limiting my sugar intake to the afternoon (i.e., no sweets in the morning or evening). Mid-afternoon is when I usually want something sweet, anyway. And also, it gives my body time to metabolize the carbs before I go to bed. I am really happy with this one, although it admittedly has been difficult to be strict about it during the holidays.
- Writing book reviews on Goodreads. I always thought that it was kind of pretentious to think that people wanted to know your opinion about a book. But I realized this year that you don't do it for other people, you do it for yourself. I doubt anyone else ever reads them (with the possible exception of my brother-in-law). It only takes 5-10 minutes to write a quick review when I finish a book, and it really helps me remember what the book is about, when I read it, and what I thought of it.
So there you have it. I'll combine what's not working with my Seven Things on Friday. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyeux Noel, Happy Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad, Happy Festivus, or whatever works for you. Have a good day.
Friday, December 21, 2018
7ToF: 2018 books worth reading
1. Here is my list of books I read in 2018 that were worth reading. I used to do this every year, but I don't think I have in awhile. If you want the reader's digest version, hmmmm..... I think my top favorites were Brown Girl Dreaming, A Tale for the Time Being, and A Gentleman in Moscow for fiction, and Columbine for non-fiction.
Carry on for the full list.
2. Fiction:
- Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Not exactly page turners, but you fall in love with the characters. I didn't want either one of them to be over.
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Starts out with a conventional literary story about two unconnected people, a Japanese teen and a writer living on the west coast of Canada. Their lives overlap more and more as the story goes on. The ending requires major suspension of disblief but it worked for me.
- Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Terrifically good writing, but I seriously do not agree with reviewers who say that her biggest accomplishment is making the drug addict mom into a sympathetic character because SHE IS NOT. FEED YOUR CHILDREN, YOU DEADBEAT. But it's still a good book.
- Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie. Two English professors, one middle aged and female, one young and male, spend their sabbatical in London (and no, they do not have an affair, which is what I was expecting from the blurb, although their lives overlap in interesting ways).
3. Non-fiction: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Confederates in the Attic, Lost City of the Monkey God, Reality is Not What it Seems (about quantum physics!! and I read it! and it was good!), The Art of Memoir (Mary Kerr), and Columbine. Columbine (by Dave Cullen) isn't an easy read, but it's not as awful as I was afraid it would be, either, and it is fascinating. It is probably the best book I read this year, even though it was published in 2009.
4. Mysteries: The Dry by Jane Harper. A Melbourne police detective returns to his rural hometown for the funeral of his childhood best friend and then things get complicated. Several by Catherine Aird, which I already told you about. I made myself take a break so I wouldn't get tired of them, but I'm still enjoying them. Some of them are better than others (of course). I'm also slowly working my way through Donna Leon. I read two by Tana French (The Likeness and Faithful Place) and liked them both, but both required major suspension of disbelief (for different reasons).
5. Memoirs: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, We're going to Need more Wine by Gabrielle Union, I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O'Farrell, Plan B by Anne Lamott, Calypso by David Sedaris.
6. Kids/Young Adult: Dumplin' by Julie Murphy, The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, The Red Pencil, by Andrea Davis Pinkney, El Deafo by CeCe Bell, The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang.
7. One 2018 new year's resolution that I did pretty well on was to track my reading on Goodreads. I also decided that I would write a review for every book I read. I didn't do quite as well on that one-- I think I missed half a dozen or so-- but if you want to read any of them, click here and scroll down a bit.
Happy Solstice! By the time you read this, we will be on the other side of the winter dark and headed toward the light again. Have I told you recently how much I appreciate you, my gentle readers? (Especially if you waded through to the end of this one.) Have a lovely, relaxing holiday, and let me know your best reads of the year in the comments.
Carry on for the full list.
2. Fiction:
- Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Not exactly page turners, but you fall in love with the characters. I didn't want either one of them to be over.
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Starts out with a conventional literary story about two unconnected people, a Japanese teen and a writer living on the west coast of Canada. Their lives overlap more and more as the story goes on. The ending requires major suspension of disblief but it worked for me.
- Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Terrifically good writing, but I seriously do not agree with reviewers who say that her biggest accomplishment is making the drug addict mom into a sympathetic character because SHE IS NOT. FEED YOUR CHILDREN, YOU DEADBEAT. But it's still a good book.
- Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie. Two English professors, one middle aged and female, one young and male, spend their sabbatical in London (and no, they do not have an affair, which is what I was expecting from the blurb, although their lives overlap in interesting ways).
3. Non-fiction: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Confederates in the Attic, Lost City of the Monkey God, Reality is Not What it Seems (about quantum physics!! and I read it! and it was good!), The Art of Memoir (Mary Kerr), and Columbine. Columbine (by Dave Cullen) isn't an easy read, but it's not as awful as I was afraid it would be, either, and it is fascinating. It is probably the best book I read this year, even though it was published in 2009.
4. Mysteries: The Dry by Jane Harper. A Melbourne police detective returns to his rural hometown for the funeral of his childhood best friend and then things get complicated. Several by Catherine Aird, which I already told you about. I made myself take a break so I wouldn't get tired of them, but I'm still enjoying them. Some of them are better than others (of course). I'm also slowly working my way through Donna Leon. I read two by Tana French (The Likeness and Faithful Place) and liked them both, but both required major suspension of disbelief (for different reasons).
5. Memoirs: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, We're going to Need more Wine by Gabrielle Union, I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O'Farrell, Plan B by Anne Lamott, Calypso by David Sedaris.
6. Kids/Young Adult: Dumplin' by Julie Murphy, The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, The Red Pencil, by Andrea Davis Pinkney, El Deafo by CeCe Bell, The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang.
7. One 2018 new year's resolution that I did pretty well on was to track my reading on Goodreads. I also decided that I would write a review for every book I read. I didn't do quite as well on that one-- I think I missed half a dozen or so-- but if you want to read any of them, click here and scroll down a bit.
Happy Solstice! By the time you read this, we will be on the other side of the winter dark and headed toward the light again. Have I told you recently how much I appreciate you, my gentle readers? (Especially if you waded through to the end of this one.) Have a lovely, relaxing holiday, and let me know your best reads of the year in the comments.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
The Lazy Person's Guide to Eggs Benedict
Last week was insane. You might have been able to tell since I didn't post. I had two rehearsals, three performances (two choir and one band), and since our daughter could only be home last week, we had our family Christmas on Saturday-- so all the shopping and planning and etc. But now I'm done with all that and I hope I can just enjoy the rest of the holiday season.
There are a bunch of things I've been thinking about and would like to write about eventually, but it's late in the day today, so we're going with practical advice instead: I am going to pass along my treasured recipe for Eggs Benedict Casserole. You were hoping I would, right?
Dean's family always had eggs benedict for Christmas breakfast. So I tried to continue the tradition. But after a few years of being totally stressed out on Christmas morning with toasting english muffins, poaching eggs, browning canadian bacon, making hollandaise from scratch-- I gave up. There was one year we had bagels with lox and cream cheese and all the trimmings, and I think we tried something else one year.
AND THEN!!! I discovered the Desperation Dinner recipe for Eggs Benedict Casserole. It takes about fifteen minutes to throw together the night before, it bakes in less than an hour, and you make the hollandaise in the microwave, which is almost foolproof. It is now one of our favorite meals, and MadMax requests it whenever he can convince me to do it.
So here you go, just in time for the holidays. This is a modified version of the original from this cookbook. I double the recipe and put one and a half in a 10x15 ceramic casserole, and the remaining half in a 8x8 pan with no canadian bacon for the vegetarians (it is still not vegan, of course, since it has eggs and several dairy products). The double recipe serves 8-10 people, although around here that has always included several people with big appetites so it might go further with your crowd if you are dainty eaters.
Eggs Benedict Casserole
6 English muffins
10 oz canadian bacon
8 large eggs
2 C milk
two good-sized pinches of salt
one small pinch of pepper
a couple of shakes of powdered onion
Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Cut up the english muffins and canadian bacon in bite size pieces and put them in the prepared pan. Toss to evenly distribute. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk until the yolks and whites are combined. Add the milk and seasonings and whisk to combine. Pour this mixture evenly over the muffins and bacon. Use a wooden spoon to press the muffins down into the egg mixture so that everything is moistened. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.
In the morning, preheat the oven to 350. Bake the casserole, still covered with foil, for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until the muffins are just beginning to brown. During the last ten minutes, make the hollandaise. Just before serving, pour about half the Hollandaise over the casserole, and pass the rest in a gravy boat.
(There may be some standing liquid in various pockets on top of the casserole once it starts to brown--it's better not to overbake this thing, so I usually just blot it up with a paper towel.)
Microwave Hollandaise Sauce:
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
Melt the butter in a smallish microwave-safe bowl. Let cool slightly. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Whisk them gently into the butter. Add the whipping cream and lemon juice and stir until combined. Microwave the mixture on high, uncovered, stopping every 20 seconds to whisk, until thickened. Stir in 1 t Dijon mustard. If you have a large mouth thermos, this can be made up to an hour ahead and held in the thermos until ready to serve.
Wisdom of the Hollandaise: every year, every single freaking year, halfway through I think this isn't going to work. But it does. Don't get impatient. Just stand there, set the microwave for 20 seconds, take it out and stir, and then do it again. And again. For about 3 or 4 minutes. At first it looks like nothing is happening. And then it actually gets thinner and you start to despair. And then finally suddenly the top of it will start to look like it's puffing up. Whisk it back down into the liquid and do it one last time. Usually it only takes one more time after the top puffs. Don't overdo it-- remember with microwave cooking, it will continue to cook for a minute or so after you stop, so as soon as it thickens up, stop. (If you keep going, the sauce will break--turn into an oily mess--and yes, I know that from experience.)
There you have it. If the hollandaise makes you nervous, do a trial run a few days before. It really does work just fine, but I admit I've gotten better with practice.
p.s. I could swear I've posted this before but after 15 minutes of searching, I couldn't find it. So for those of you who've been around for awhile, you may have already seen this.
There are a bunch of things I've been thinking about and would like to write about eventually, but it's late in the day today, so we're going with practical advice instead: I am going to pass along my treasured recipe for Eggs Benedict Casserole. You were hoping I would, right?
Dean's family always had eggs benedict for Christmas breakfast. So I tried to continue the tradition. But after a few years of being totally stressed out on Christmas morning with toasting english muffins, poaching eggs, browning canadian bacon, making hollandaise from scratch-- I gave up. There was one year we had bagels with lox and cream cheese and all the trimmings, and I think we tried something else one year.
AND THEN!!! I discovered the Desperation Dinner recipe for Eggs Benedict Casserole. It takes about fifteen minutes to throw together the night before, it bakes in less than an hour, and you make the hollandaise in the microwave, which is almost foolproof. It is now one of our favorite meals, and MadMax requests it whenever he can convince me to do it.
So here you go, just in time for the holidays. This is a modified version of the original from this cookbook. I double the recipe and put one and a half in a 10x15 ceramic casserole, and the remaining half in a 8x8 pan with no canadian bacon for the vegetarians (it is still not vegan, of course, since it has eggs and several dairy products). The double recipe serves 8-10 people, although around here that has always included several people with big appetites so it might go further with your crowd if you are dainty eaters.
Eggs Benedict Casserole
6 English muffins
10 oz canadian bacon
8 large eggs
2 C milk
two good-sized pinches of salt
one small pinch of pepper
a couple of shakes of powdered onion
Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Cut up the english muffins and canadian bacon in bite size pieces and put them in the prepared pan. Toss to evenly distribute. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk until the yolks and whites are combined. Add the milk and seasonings and whisk to combine. Pour this mixture evenly over the muffins and bacon. Use a wooden spoon to press the muffins down into the egg mixture so that everything is moistened. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.
In the morning, preheat the oven to 350. Bake the casserole, still covered with foil, for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until the muffins are just beginning to brown. During the last ten minutes, make the hollandaise. Just before serving, pour about half the Hollandaise over the casserole, and pass the rest in a gravy boat.
(There may be some standing liquid in various pockets on top of the casserole once it starts to brown--it's better not to overbake this thing, so I usually just blot it up with a paper towel.)
Microwave Hollandaise Sauce:
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
Melt the butter in a smallish microwave-safe bowl. Let cool slightly. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Whisk them gently into the butter. Add the whipping cream and lemon juice and stir until combined. Microwave the mixture on high, uncovered, stopping every 20 seconds to whisk, until thickened. Stir in 1 t Dijon mustard. If you have a large mouth thermos, this can be made up to an hour ahead and held in the thermos until ready to serve.
Wisdom of the Hollandaise: every year, every single freaking year, halfway through I think this isn't going to work. But it does. Don't get impatient. Just stand there, set the microwave for 20 seconds, take it out and stir, and then do it again. And again. For about 3 or 4 minutes. At first it looks like nothing is happening. And then it actually gets thinner and you start to despair. And then finally suddenly the top of it will start to look like it's puffing up. Whisk it back down into the liquid and do it one last time. Usually it only takes one more time after the top puffs. Don't overdo it-- remember with microwave cooking, it will continue to cook for a minute or so after you stop, so as soon as it thickens up, stop. (If you keep going, the sauce will break--turn into an oily mess--and yes, I know that from experience.)
There you have it. If the hollandaise makes you nervous, do a trial run a few days before. It really does work just fine, but I admit I've gotten better with practice.
p.s. I could swear I've posted this before but after 15 minutes of searching, I couldn't find it. So for those of you who've been around for awhile, you may have already seen this.