Tidy every room in the house? Check.
Make cranberry bliss bars? Check.
Force NavyGuy to vacuum? Check.
Make mini cookies? Check.
Make chocolate covered strawberries? Check.
Hide all remaining junk in closets and under the bed? Check.
Display fancy flower arrangement to impress fellow Navy wives with my style, grace, and flower-arranging abilities at our meeting tonight?
BlaZOW. Check.
You can refresh your memory of the before photos here, and then check out the new and improved version below!
First up is the new shower curtain (the axis around which the rest of the bathroom revolves). I opted for a clearance Kohls number in pear green. According to HGTV, you should always leave your shower curtain halfway open, to make the bathroom feel larger. :)
A matching hand towel (mixed with one of our basic white towels to shake things up). The framed "art" above is three retro Seattle postcards.
More Kohls finds. The three square blocks have been up for a while (and worked extremely well to showcase Christmas knick-knacks), but I haven't completely finished decorating.
Mom provided the cute brown basket in the corner, which works well to hold the other new hand towel. I still need to add some art work on that wall by the door, but I'm torn. Should I go with a photograph? Stick with the Seattle/Washington theme? Make something with paper in the green color scheme? For now, it's going to remain blank.
The only thing not pictured is the new bath mat on the floor by the shower. (It's light brown.) Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results. And think - I got it done with NavyGuy gone for just two weeks! Imagine what I can accomplish throughout the whole house with NavyGuy gone for at least six months... :)
Wanna know the secret? I don't have the after part done yet.
Oops.
My thinking is, if I put the before pics up on the blog, enough of you will bother me/guilt me into getting the project done quickly, instead of leaving all the supplies in the Kohls' bag on the bathroom floor... for another four days... at least.
So, that's where we're at right now. An old shower curtain that (while cool in its day) has seen better. Lots of potential, but it's all too white and blah.
Stay tuned!
Whew! A very productive blogging day if I do say so myself. There are a few more stories from the weekend that need their telling, but I've made a significant dent in the list. I'll leave you with a few random snippets...
*I have to go back to work tonight. In fact, I'm probably steaming milk or cleaning dishes while you read this. It should go without saying that I'm not happy about this fact. I've been off since last week Thursday and it's been blissful. The only coffee I've been in contact with has been sipped out of my own cup while standing on the customer side of the counter.
*Tally pup doesn't have worms. The vet called NavyGuy today and little girl is a-ok. Guess the $80 in tests and medicine was totally worth it.
*There will be bathroom re-do photos coming soon. I got bored already with NavyGuy gone and me home alone, so I decided to redecorate the upstairs guest bath (not a good precedent to set I know, but such is life). It's going to look super awesome, just wait!
*I'm hosting my first spouses' club meeting next week. Very nerve-wracking. Luckily I can put NavyGuy to work helping me get the house ready, but I still need to create an evite, come up with some food ideas, and decide on an outfit that screams, "casual, sophisticated, and effortlessly gorgeous, yet won't show sweat stains or any possible food spills."
*Is it wrong that I'm already really excited to go back to Wisconsin in a few weeks?
I almost forgot...
Tally will have a place to hang her stocking as well, courtesy of Mom:
I tend to go a little Christmas crazy when it comes to decorating the house. I have five large rubbermaid tubs of decorations, boxes of Willow Tree Nativity pieces, wreaths, lighted garlands, a Christmas train... and that's just for inside the house. And being this is the FIRST year in our FIRST house, and the FIRST year NavyGuy and I won't be going home to our parents for the holidays, we may reach a whole new level of insanity.
Step 1 in the decorating process should have been to inventory and take stock of what items I already have.... whoops. Instead, I carried four bags of Target holiday items home yesterday (which I blame on the fact that I spent half of Black-Friday working the seasonal department of the store... and thereby eyeing up all the new holiday decorations). But everything I got is sooooo fabulous! Check it out:
A decorative pillow and matching kitchen towels, from the "Birchwood Chalet" theme of decorations.
Stocking holders for our mantle (NavyGuy vehemently stated that his stocking would hang from the reindeer... why he felt so strongly about it I haven't gained the courage to ask...)
An advent calendar with room for a little piece of candy as we count down the days to Christmas.
I also got some red and gold ball ornaments, and another strand of white lighted garland (it's my Christmas crack). Annoyingly, Target doesn't have most of these items available online, so sorry for the shoddy photographs. Everything was on sale (so no guilt trip Mom!), and I can't wait to bust out all of my other decorations and trim the house! Lots more photos and possibly some how-to's to come...
NavyGuy, breakfasting in the early morning, after taking our truck to the car shop. Yes, the donut is pink :)
Puppy preparations are in full swing. NavyGuy's parents sent us a little care package with this fabulous Ikea leash holder.
NavyGuy checking his computer game status the news of the world before heading off for a full day on base.
A balanced lunch is the key to a productive afternoon.
A DIY project in the works.
Mom's brilliant suggestion of where - and how - to store a couple of my aprons. Close to the kitchen, but not right out in the main room. And a great use for the key holder that Sister brought me back from her college study abroad in Venezuela.
The remainder of the day mostly revolved around television, and I just didn't have the heart to photograph myself, sprawled across the couch, mindlessly absorbing Glee, How I Met Your Mother, and Top Chef... all as a warm-up for tonight's main event - Jim and Pam's wedding on The Office!!!! So you'll have to just imagine that image... Happy Thursday :)
We're having a bit of a garbage issue. The first week we lived here, neither garbage nor recycling were picked up. Last week, the garbage was picked up, but not the recycling; this week, the opposite.
NavyGuy tasked me with calling the city this morning and sorting out this refuse ridiculousness... (my un-voiced thoughts are italicized)
1st Phone Call
NavyWife: Hi, can I speak to someone about trash pickup?
Operator: Sure, I'll transfer you to Mark our sanitation supervisor.
(Ouch, someone with a worse title than my current one.)
Mark the Sanitation Supervisor: Hello?
NavyWife: Good morning, I'm calling because our garbage was not picked up yesterday.
Mark: I have NO idea.
(Is this supposed to be a general statement about your life, or are you referring to my problem? Cuz clearly I'm calling you because I as well, have no idea.)
NavyWife: Yes, well, I was told to speak to you about the problem. You see, we just moved into this house a few weeks ago and have been told different things about where to put the trash cans so I'm guessing that's part of the problem.
Mark: Who's telling you things?!
(Russian KGB operatives. Who do you think has been telling us?!?!?)
NavyWife: Well, the lady who gave my husband the new trash can sticker told him one thing, then the garbage man told us another thing, and the recycling guy told us a third thing.
Mark: Oh. Well, so what's your address?
This went on for a bit until Mark finally believed I had a legitimate city concern and was not just calling to punk him on a Thursday morning. Eventually, he told me to put the garbage can back out on the street, that someone would come pick it up yet today, and that the route supervisor would call me in a bit to confirm the street the cans should be on.
2nd Phone Call
NavyWife: Hello?
Unnamed Route Supervisor: Hello Ma'am, I'm calling about your trash.
(Hallelujah!)
NavyWife: Yes, I wanted to confirm which street our trash and recycling cans should go on for pickup.
Route Supervisor: Okay, give me your address... yup, you should put them on X street. Did you need either picked up today?
NavyWife: Yes, the trash please.
Route Supervisor: Alright ma'am, we'll take care of it.
(Score one for the little guy! Or gal. A municipal agency that actually deals with citizen concerns!)
8:30pm Tonight
Guess what was still sitting at the bottom of the driveway (unemptied!) when I arrived home from work...
Sigh.
As we're starting to make headway on the chaos, a list is forming. A list of things we want need for the house...
- flat screen television for the livingroom
- coffee table for the family room
- desk chair for my desk (which yes, Keby, came from Target - but of course!)
- bookcases for the library nook
- curtains for the bedroom
- blinds for the family room and guest room
- craft table / storage
- medicine cabinet for bathroom
- storage shelving for garage
We're obviously not purchasing all of these items in the next two weeks... however, Mom is coming on Friday and we're crashing IKEA hardcore. So, if one had to prioritize that list, what would you buy first? What item is crucial that we get ASAP?
We had our inspection today for the new house - everything was great! The house was just built in 2006, and was lived in for a very short time, so we sort of expected that things should be in order, but we were still worried. You never know what hidden surprises could be waiting for you once you send an inspector into the house. Luckily, Dan our "BrickKicker" inspector, rocked, and found not one major problem.
While NavyGuy followed the BrickKicker around, I took more photos of the place, and made some measurements so I can do a little furniture planning :) If you'd like to check out our new digs, here are the collection of photos that I took, and that were provided by the real estate website:
One of the main reasons for my visit to TWP's home was to re-do their office/guest room. Their daughter Macy is almost a year and a half. Discussions and negotiations for a second little one have begun, so it's getting to be time for Macy to upgrade to her toddler room. Both TWP and her husband are definitely not ready to have Macy vacate her nursery and move into her "big girl room" quite yet, but TWP wanted my help in the decorating. So we figured we'd get it done while I'm home, and maybe they'll be willing to let Macy grow up and move into her new room sometime before kindergarten ;)
Sadly, I have no before shots. Imagine a basic room with office stuff, and plain green walls. Now, check out the after shots...
Tell me you would not DIE if that was your room as a two year old?!?!?! Seriously! It looks like it came out of a magazine, and I would have killed for that bed netting and princess decal on my wall. The toddler bed and netting are from IKEA. I love how the bed matches all the trim in the room (and the bulk of the other furniture). The princess and star decals on the walls are from a company called Hip in a Hurry - TWP found the vinyl decals on clearance at Michaels and snatched them up. They stick to the wall very well, but are also easily removed. All we did was peel the paper off of them, and smack them onto the wall, smoothing out any bubbles - shockingly quick and easy, yet they make a huge impact.
The bed netting is attached to the ceiling, and has convenient ties so you can secure it to the bed (thus preventing your child from a) pulling it down, and more importantly, b) suffocating).
This is the view opposite the bed. TWP has two of those bookcase/toy storage units, so another one will be moved into the room once the remaining office furniture moves to its new home. The curtains were a garage sale find for only $2! I love how they look sort of Renaissance-princess-castley, to compliment the theme. They're just another nice pop of color and whimsy for the space. We put in a good deal of time arranging the furniture and decorating, but it was totally worth it. I know Macy is going to have so many happy memories of playing in that room. What did your dream bedroom look like or have as a kid?
Setting: Our bedroom, 5:16 am this morning.
NavyGuy: MUGS!!!
Mugs: Whaaah!
What, pray tell, did I possibly do to warrant such an unholy awakening?
Allegedly, I stole covers. This is an ongoing battle in our house, as I fall asleep almost instantly most nights (the word "narcoleptic" has been bandied about at times), and then sleep very soundly throughout the night. Apparently, in my deep and restful sleep, I tend to bunch the sheets and blankets in a death grip, leaving NavyGuy out in the cold - literally. Supposedly, I am impossible to awaken to retrieve any sort of bed covering and I guess this morning was the last straw.
Normally NavyGuy is easy-going and deals with my more annoying traits quirks, but last night I happened to fall asleep with my special blanket on top of the comforter. This blanket was my high school graduation gift from my mom; she made it using all many sentimental t-shirts, jerseys, theater costumes, etc. from my younger years. I'm crazy about this blanket - which NavyGuy knows and respects - because it also has snippets of my baby blanket. (You can see a small strip of it on the right side of the YMCA basketball t-shirt.) Now, the cover stealing was only the most recent blanket issue.
A few nights back, NavyGuy woke in the middle of the night, to find my knees up in the air. The way the blanket was covering me, the red #22 jersey (holla Miss Ann Klapperich, Fondy basketball star of my youth, who yes, signed that t-shirt... respect the shirt) was draped over my knees. In his just-woke-up stupor, NavyGuy thought there was someone sitting on me on the bed, hunched over, with this jersey on their back! He about flipped a lid, thinking someone had broken into the house. Again, because of my very dead-like efficient sleeping, I had no clue any of this happened until the following morning when NavyGuy blamed me (and my blanket) for his minor heartattack and inability to fall back asleep.
Between the blanket scare and cover stealing, I fear a) I'm going to be exiled from the bed and end up sleeping on the couch, or b) my blanket is going to mysteriously "disappear" at some point resulting in either the end of our relationship or his death. As giving up the blanket is sooo not an option, I'm not sure how this war will end....
Another successful venture in the kitchen! Last night's mission: basic quiche. I had grabbed a recipe out of last month's Real Simple magazine, and finally realized that quiche was actually quite simple! (And, a great use for leftover refrigerated pie crusts that I stocked up on for Thanksgiving and never ended up using.) Aside from the cheese that this recipe calls for, the ingredients are pretty cheap, and it filled both NavyGuy and I up without needing anything else for supper.
The recipe can be found here, but I'm going to give my version as well as some notes.
Basic Quiche - Ingredients
- 1 9 inch refrigerated piecrust (any brand works; they usually come two in a box so just freeze the other one for later use)
- 2 medium onions, chopped (I used one big one and it seemed to be enough)
- 1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (I didn't measure this either, just chopped up a bunch and kept adding until the mixture looked "green" enough)
- 4 large eggs
- 3/4 cup half-and-half (I used fat-free)
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (totally forgot to buy this, so I substituted "one shake" of pumpkin pie seasoning - hey it has nutmeg in it! no complaints from anyone)
- 8 oz. , approx. 2 cups, Gruyere, grated (fancy cheese is expensive! from my online search, I found you could substitute Jarlsberg, Emmantaler, or plain old Swiss. I used Jarlsberg which was still more than I'm used to paying for Kraft cheese slices, but just use what you can find at the store - it's not going to make that much of a difference in terms of taste unless you're a cheese snob)
- salt and pepper
- oil to cook the onions
Directions
1. Heat oven to 375. Fit the piecrust into a 9-inch pie plate. Place on a baking sheet. (You totally don't need one of the fancy quiche/tart pans like is in the photo above - I used a regular pie pan, or you could probably even get away with a round cake pan. I sprayed the pan with Pam so the crust wouldn't stick.)
2. Cook the onions in oil over medium-low heat in a skillet, with a little salt and pepper thrown in. Stir occasionally for 5-7 minutes until onion is soft. (My onions were in the pan for a good 15 minutes because it took me longer to grate the cheese than expected. No harm, no foul.) Stir in the parsley.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, half-and-half, nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir in the onion/parsley mixture, and the grated cheese.
4. Pour the egg mixture into the crust. Bake until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. (Mine needed 40 minutes.) Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
It was awesome - this is now a go-to recipe for me if I need a nice brunch item, or just a quick dinner. Now that I know better how to grate cheese, I could probably do all the prep in less than 20 minutes. You can also jazz it up by adding other vegetables (asparagus, spinach, mushrooms) or meat (diced ham) - it's basically a fancier omlete, so I assume anything that works in an omlete, can probably be added to a quiche!
Let me know if you try it out or have any other variations or tips for this recipe!
First new recipe of 2009! It comes from a new cookbook my mom got me for the bridal shower - Taste of Home Busy Family Cookbook.
Corny Chicken Wraps (love the name!)
2 cups cubed cooked chicken breast
1 can (11 ounces) whole kernel corn, drained
1 cup salsa
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
8 flour tortillas (the 6 inch kind), warmed
(I used three chicken breasts that I had thawed, and just chopped them up into pieces, and cooked them in a skillet on the stove with some Pam, before adding the other ingredients.) Combine the cooked chicken, corn, and salsa. Cook over medium heat until heated through.
Sprinkle cheese over tortillas (I warmed them in the oven first by just pre-heating the oven to a random temperature and wrapping them up in some aluminum foil). Add the chicken mixture on top of the cheese, roll, and chow down! NavyGuy was suspicious at first, but a few bites won him over. I like that it's a little different than just a regular taco, yet still has a good taste, and is probably healthier. The corn gives it a nice crunch. We had a basic bag salad on the side.
Thanks for the cookbook Mom! It's already saved us from frozen pizza once :)
Another bridal shower gift arrived at our house in Washington today! Beautiful martini glasses and tumblers from my future mother-in-law :)
Fun, flirty, and fabulous, no? Yummm.... a Cosmo will look so darn pretty in these. And the tumblers will satisfy NavyGuy's whiskey habit (and he was worried I'd come home with only piles of pink towels...).
(Glasses pictured available from Macys.)
I am starting the official countdown to my first Thanksgiving as the hostess. T-minus 29 days until my and NavyGuy's families arrive in our zipcode and expect to celebrate a treasured holiday. It's funny how these kinds of things always sound like such a good idea when you're just talking about them...
Before Turkey day, I need to
1. create a menu
2. de-boy-ify the house
3. turn the house into a scene from Martha Stewart Living
4. build another dining room table to fit the expanding guest list
5. learn how to cook several infamous side dishes and desserts
6. assemble an outfit that will look effortlessly chic while also resisting gravy stains and cooking/stress induced hot flashes
7. give up control of the bird to NavyGuy who plans to deep fry the main entree...
With that said, I began my taste-tests for the big meal, and I started with dessert. This afternoon, I made a pie. Yes, I did. No, I was not wearing heels and pearls (nor was I barefoot OR pregnant thankyouverymuch). I wore jeans and a look of sheer determination. The mission: chocolate chip pecan pie. There had been a prior attempt at my apartment in Wisconsin, but there was an oven temperature situation and I still hold that the resulting pecan goo was not my fault.
Today's experiment (with accurate oven temperature readings) turned out better, but alas, it will not be making the menu come T-Day. NavyGuy and I both thought it tasted alright, but the filling still doesn't set quite right, so it does not meet my exacting presentation standards (plus I managed to scorch the pecans on top). I have included the recipe though for the more accomplished chefs out there, because I'm sure in the right hands it's a wonderful pie.
Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie - Woman's Day Magazine
Below are additional selections from Barbara Kingsolver's book on seasonal eating. If you have not read the first part of this book review, most of this will make absolutely no sense to you whatsoever; I highly encourage you to scroll down and read part 1 first.
"Waiting for foods to come into season means tasting them when they're good, but waiting is also part of most value equations. Treating foods this way can help move "eating" in the consumer's mind from the Routine Maintenance Department over to the Division of Recreation."This is where the instant-gratification culture becomes a problem; why only eat asparagus during the few spring weeks when it's actually at it's peak, when you can buy it at Safeway year round? According to Kingsolver, most Americans don't even know what good asparagus tastes like, because we've transformed it into a fancy side dish available any time in any restaurant. I would argue that one should aim for more balance; ingest all the asparagus you can stomach when it's really good in the spring, and then save it as a special treat a few other dinners during the year.
"Woe is us, we overfed, undernourished U.S. citizens - we are eating poorly for so very many reasons. A profit-driven, mechanized food industry has narrowed down our variety and overproduced corn and soybeans. But we let other vegetables drop from the menu without putting up much of a fight. In our modern Cafe Dysfunctional, "eat your vegetables" has become a battle cry of mothers against presumed unwilling subjects. In my observed experience, boys in high school cafeterias treat salad exactly as it it were a feminine hygeine product, and almost nobody touches the green beans. Broccoli was famously condemned in the 1990s, from the highest office in the land. What's a mother to do? Apparently, she's to shrug and had the kids a gigantic cup of carbonated corn syrup. Corn is a vegetable, right? Good, because on average we're consuming 54.8 gallons of soft drinks, per person, per year."Yeeeooowza! First off, picture 54 gallon containers of milk. Compare your stats - does your household go through a gallon of milk per week? Because that's probably the minimum amount of soda you're going through if we're playing the law of averages. Second of all, I've been in high school cafeterias in the recent past and can personally vouch that "salads" and all other green items were not well received. Peer pressure is a huge factor in high school diets; find a kid who admits to not liking french fries, and you'll find a kid who's ribbed mercilessly by his friends. Find a kid who admits he'd rather eat carrot sticks than french fries - well, if you find that kid let me know, cuz I haven't found one yet. Kingsolver does not address the school cafeteria proper in her book, but most are as horrible as you remember, and teens are not rewarded for choosing healthy options - if they even exist. For some reason, a turkey sandwich costs more than a slice of pizza; gee, which one of those do you think a teenager is going to pick?
"... A perception of organic food as an elite privilege is a considerable obstacle for the farmer growing food for the middle-income customers whose highest food-shopping priority is the lowest price... Grocery money is an odd sticking point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion of our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history.... it's interesting that penny-pinching is an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains. The majority of Americans buy bottled drinking water, for example, even though water runs from faucets at home for a fraction of the cost, and government quality standards are stricter for tap water than for bottled. At any income level, we can be relied upon for categorically unnecessary purchases: portable-earplug music instead of the radio; extra-fast Internet for leisure use; heavy vehicles to transport light loads; name-brand clothing instead of plainer gear."It is certainly interesting as we barrel towards the Great Depression "the sequel" (trademarked by my mother - no copyright infringement here), to reflect on the personal economic decisions that many made in the past few years. I love Kingsolver's argument that we're willing to go into debt to entertain ourselves in our downtime (iPods, premium tv channels, vacations, and so on and so forth), yet not willing to pay an extra dollar for arugala... which according to many is "elitist." (Remember the uproar over Obama's comments about the price of arugala - since when is it elitist to name-check a vegetable? Sigh.) Anyway, Kingsolver addresses the elitist/budget issue in several ways throughout the book, and the argument that I fall back on is that a person has to prioritize; if you want to spend your money on entertainment, that's fine, but don't expect that that choice won't come with consequences eventually.
"Shoppers who are most daunted by the high price of organics may be looking at bar codes on boutique-organic prepared foods, not actual vegetables. A quality diet is not an elitist option... Globally speaking, people consumer more soft drinks and packaged foods as they grow more affluent; home-cooked meals of fresh ingredients are the mainstay of rural, less affluent people. This link between economic success and nutritional failure ahs becomes to widespread, it has a name: nutrition transition."
"A survey of National Merit Scholars - [super smarty pants high school seniors] - turned up a common thread in their lives: the habit of sitting down to a family dinner table."Not rocket science, but, a good reminder nonetheless. Mom, thanks for forcing us to sit at the kitchen table and eat tuna noodle casserole with you so often - it did more than just a body good.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Barbara Kingsolver (with contributions from Camille Kingsolver and Steven Hopp)
c2007 Harper Collins, 400 pgs.
For dinner tonight, I had two slices of sausage and pepperoni pizza, washed down with a Oreo blizzard from Dairy Queen (an extreme example, but it could be a homecooked meal and it would still make the same point). The sauce on the pizza was potentially made from tomatoes grown in China, responsible for 1/4 of the world's output. The cheese on the pizza and milk in the ice cream may have come from cows in California, or far away Wisconsin. Not knowing what specific brand or type of sausage and pepperoni Papa Murphy's chooses to festoon their pizzas with, I can't be certain where the meats came from, but the lack of livestock roaming the hills of northern Washington leads me to believe they didn't come from around here. Needless to say, had I not been engrossed in the book featured in this review, I would not have given my dinner a second thought - except perhaps to contemplate a third slice.
Thinking about and being aware of where your food comes from is only one aim of Barbara Kingsolver's most recent book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver is a well-known novelist (begin with The Poisonwood Bible, and go from there), so when I saw her latest on a table at Barnes and Noble, I was curious what a fiction writer would have to say about a year's worth of food. The book is essentially a year of Kingsolver's life; quoting from the book, "This is the story of a year in which we [she and her family] made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew...". Basically, using a lot of family gardening know how, some helpful rural connections, and extensive use of local farmer's markets, the Kingsolver family swore off Pop-Tarts and grocery store ground beef for a year, choosing to provide their bodies with only food that they knew had been grown or tended in a healthy way - healthy for the animal or vegetable, the environment, and the humans consuming it. They have some ups and downs, but by the end, the family celebrates their success. Kingsolver chronicles their year with educational information on food and farming; statistical information substantiating the idea that eating locally is better for your diet, wallet, waist, children, and planet; anecdotes about turkey sex and cheese making; and thought-provoking information about the priorities most Americans have and how our food choices seem too often in contradiction with every other goal we have in life.
For those of you who know me well, you might be wondering at this point how or why I read this entire book, basically encouraging a lifestyle I am not only completely unqualified to subscribe to, but also probably not really interested in. In the past, I've been known to use the word "organic" as a slur, and vegetables usually arrive in my body via ketchup, pie, or mistake. However, I am turning over a new leaf - figuratively and literally! Why this change of heart? Well, several reasons: 1) for budgeting reasons, I am trying to force NavyGuy (and myself) to eat homecooked meals more often, requiring actual cooking, not just radiating Lean Cuisines; 2) in an attempt to retain my youthful physique (for health reasons solely, I would never be so vain as to want to be super fit and hot for the upcoming wedding...); 3) doctors claim that injesting vegetables and other healthy alternatives will improve your overall health and wellness, and they're probably right; and 4) I can't figure out any rational downsides to this idea. Additionally, this book is incredibly convincing; reading it inspires a person to want to cook more, to shop more discriminately; to be more patient, and to search out quality instead of quantity (or our modern equivalent - the cheapest/fastest option).
Kingsolver is not a rabid environmentalist or an angry farmer ranting about the big corporations who are killing the small family farm (she rants a few times, but that's just good writing). She doesn't expect the majority of readers to start their own gardens in the backyard or survive just on roots and grasses for life. She simply wants people to be more involved in what they put in their mouths - where the food came from, whether it has any nutritional value, etc. It is difficult to summarize all of the issues covered in the book, but when you stop to think about it, food and the act of eating is really a "current event" that impacts everyone on a daily basis; it connects to countless issues in society - environmental concerns, food costs, transportation costs, childhood obesity - even family values. Kingsolver gives a wonderful sound bite about the irony of how many Americans complicate their attempts to provide a healthy lifestyle for their children:
"Family time is at a premium for most of us, and legitimate competing interests can easily crowd out cooking. But if grabbing fast food is the only way to get the kids to their healthy fresh-air soccer practice on time, that's an interesting call."Throughout the book, Kingsolver refrains from sounding preachy or condescending, which I appreciated. Obviously, I'm not going to go out and start only eating locally produced food; Nabisco and General Mills will still have my business. Krispy Kreme and Qdoba can still count me in their quarterly profits. But, I can take small steps - the other day, instead of buying pre-cut, bagged baby carrots, I bought a regular bunch of full length, un-cleaned, fresh from the ground, carrots. Sure, I have to clean them and peel them and cut them and sort them into my own small baggies, but it felt kind of good! Plus, I finally got to use the cute vegetable peeler I bought at Target four years ago. Did it take a little more time? Yes. Did I do it while I watching a television show I would have normally been sitting on my ass watching? Yes. Did I save a little money? Yes. Do I feel better? Yes.
"The main barrier standing between ourselvs and a local-food culture is not price, but attitude. The most difficult requirements are patience and a pinch of restraint - virtues that are hardly the property of the wealthy. These virtues seem to find precious little shelter, in fact, in any modern quarter of this nation founded by Puritans. Furthermore, we apply them selectively: browbeating our teenagers with the message that they should wait for sex, for example. Only if they wait to experience intercourse under the ideal conditions (the story goes), will they know its true value. 'Blah blah blah' hears the teenager: words issueing from a mouth that can't even wait for the right time to eat tomatoes, but instead consumes tasteless ones all winter to satisfy a craving for everything now."
The beginning of the book takes a little while to rev up; there's a lot of vegetable explanations and for a novice, it's a lot to absorb. Kingsolver's explanation ("picture a single imaginary plant, bearing throughout one season all the different vegetables we harvest...") of a "vegetannual" helps create a visual mnemonic device for remembering when different plants are in season (left). Regardless of your political feelings, beliefs about climate change, or personal food tastes, I would strongly urge each of you to read this book (or if not, at least carefully read the excerpts I've included below and in a following post). Living in an urban area, struggling on a limited budget, or having any specific dietary regulations are all challenges to changing the way you eat; the most difficult obstacle to overcome though is willpower and attitude. I am certainly not trying to guilt trip any of you into avoiding Pick'n'Save; I will still be eating pizza at least once a week. It's quick, it's easy, and I almost never mess it up. However, there's nothing wrong with me buying an actual onion or pepper to chop up and add to the basic pizza though... food for thought? :)"In two generations we've transformed ourselves from a rural to an urban nation. North American children begin their school year around Labor Day and finish at the beginning of June with no idea that this arrangement was devised to free up children's labor when it was needed on the farm. Most people of my grandparents' generation had an intuitive sense of agricultural basics: when various fruits and vegetables come into season, which ones keep through the winter, how to preserve the others... Few people of my generation, and approximately none of our children, [know this]. This knowledge has vanished from our culture.I leave you to hem and haw over this tidbit. It was the first page I folded down in the book, and I'll post more excerpts from the book soon. If you're interested in more info now, check out the accompanying website: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Read more...
"We also have largely convinced ourselves it wasn't too important. Consider how Americans might respond to a proposal that agriculture was to become a mandatory subject in all schools, alongside reading and mathematics... The baby boom psyche embraces a powerful presumption that education is a key to moving away from manual labor, and dirt - two undeniable ingredients of farming. It's good enough for us that somebody, somewhere, knows food production well enough to serve the rest of us with all we need to eat, each day of our lives.
"If that is true, why isn't it good enough for someone else to know multiplication and the contents of the Bill of Rights? Is the story of bread from tilled ground to our table, less relevant to our lives than the history of the thirteen colonies? Couldn't one make a case for the relevance of a subject that informs choices we make daily - as in, What's for dinner? Isn't ignorance of our food sources causing problems as diverse as overdependence on petroleum, and an epidemic of diet-related diseases?
Things I've Found in Anacortes That Make Me Happy
1. the public library - it's new, it's big, it's chock full of books, and it has free wi-fi.
2. Safeway - grocery store with an excellent prepared food / deli section up front. So far it's been the best Chinese food we've located.
3. Village Pizza - spicy and hot - just the way we like it ;)
4. view of Mt. Baker - we've been blessed with five sunny, cloudless days in a row, so we've been taking in the scenery.
5. my, er, our house.
Examples of How I Know NavyGuy is Crazy About Me
1. He let me have all the good spaces in our closet (including unlimited shoe room!)
2. He helped unpack all of the kitchen and bedroom, all the while putting up with my cries of "No! Not there - over here!"
3. He has yet to tell me to stop whining about not having cable until next week.
4. Despite our hard and fast rule about always having our own ice cream containers in the freezer (there was an ice cream "raping" a few years back when he dug out all the fudge swirls and peanut butter cups in my ice cream container while I was gone to Book Club, and I vaguely remember a projectile ice cream scoop as a result...). Anyway, we only had one container in the freezer today and he ate out of it following my specific instructions, without gouging any unsightly holes or eating all of the cookie dough chunks!
Unpacking Projects I Still Want to Finish Tonight
1. Arranging the shoes neatly on the closet floor.
2. Locating my bedside lamp.
3. Organizing the jewelry in my jewelry box (which was "carefully" thrown in a box along with a variety of other belongings).
Things I'm Hungry for Right Now
1. Chocolate Oreo Volcano ice cream from Culvers (I blame my mom).
2. a good clementine (hmmmm... cravings for fruit... a sign of the apocalypse, or just scurvy setting in...)
NavyGuy and I are currently camped out at the aforementioned kickass Anacortes Public Library, making good use of our tax-payer funded wi-fi connection. We spent most of the morning and afternoon attempting to locate our bed and/or bedroom floor (I really didn't care which, because the carpet in our room is super soft and I totally would have slept on that if I couldn't unearth the bed). We were successful on both counts - hooray! There's still a bit more organizing to do, but we made lots of progress and added three more boxes to our Goodwill count.
I wanted to give a quick shout out to a new blog that I've put in the "More Reading Material" column. Now that I'm officially a house-dweller, I've been feeling especially domestic, and discovered Hostess with the Mostess blog. I haven't investigated it a lot yet, but it seems to be chock full of decorating ideas, photos, and craft projects - yea! I'm already thinking about where I could use the "paper pumpkin ornaments;" perhaps the entryway? So many new spaces in the house to fill with the craft projects of an easily bored unemployed person! :)
Alas, my wi-fi time is quickly running low, and I was supposed to be using this time to check for the nearest Goodwill site. Ooops... Happy Thursday night Must-See-TV! You all better be watching for me!
NavyGuy and I planned to unpack the house until I threatened to, or actually did, throw something at him.
We left the house at 5:45pm. I consider that a successful day. :)
Today's project - plus five boxes of pots and pans stored in the dining room.
Tomorrow's project... (note - you can only see half the room!)
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