So you're 30? Get over it.

I'm going to post about this topic just one time and then, having said my peace, try to bite my tongue ever after...

For several years now, my friends have been reaching and passing the great life landmark of turning 30 years old. During the next year, many more of my friends will turn 30.

I'm dreading their birthdays.

So far it has mostly been my experience that people approaching this milestone freak out. They stress. They whine.... a lot. Apparently if you wake up on February 1st and it's your birthday and you are now 30, you've transform into a gray-haired, hobble-stepped person with wrinkles. In other words, you suddenly and magically got really old.

At the very least, can we please stop with the excessive hyperbole about how "old" you feel when you turn 30?

(I'd really like it if you would refrain from whining, too.)

In the first place -- and I know this is weird, but just to get it off my chest -- me, personally? Not so much with the worrying about the big 3-0. I am actually very, very excited about the end of my twenties. I look forward to being a comfortably adult age and shedding the last obnoxious vestiges of my (perceived) youth. In some ways, I've always been a lot older than my age anyway. I like to think that when I hit 30, the numerals attached to my lifespan will indicate the grown-up-ed-ness I've long felt. (Yes, I know I have a propensity for pranks and a love of technology, both of which make me seem pretty youthful, but I assure you there's a very old soul inside this rambunctious exterior.)

Now here's the other thing: I don't think you should be worried about turning 30, either. Perhaps you could do me a favor and try to see this landmark from a different angle. Will you consider something for a moment?

You can't stay in your twenties forever, so there's only one alternative to turning 30...

Death.

Don't laugh. I'm being serious. Dead serious. And this is the real reason it bothers me so very, very much when people complain about turning 30: Not everyone gets to turn 30.

Just think about that for a moment. Please think about it.

This is the moment in the post where I planned to throw a bunch of statistics at you (want to talk about Africa, anyone?) and then some true, tragic tales of young death. But as I sit here typing, I don't think either of those options are the best course. Instead I'll just use a bit of simple reasoning...


We're all going to die at some point. If you're reading this, how blessed are you, you are still alive. You have made it to your current age. Is your body the springy, flexible figure of youth? Or have you started to stoop and ache with age? Do you have a few gray hairs, or maybe a whole head of them?

Who cares? You're alive.

Too many people die young. Childhood cancer. Car accidents. Freak accidents. Abuse. Disease. Stupidity. We're fairly blessed in the United States to have a long life expectancy and low rates of childhood mortality, but we're not immune to loss. That we -- you and me -- are the ones who have made it this far is a blessing.

Because you could be dead.

So yes, while I have my own freakish reasons to be genuinely excited about turning 30, I also feel there is a Universal Reason to embrace the transformation into a triple-decade winner: YOU ARE ALIVE. And with time to spare, perhaps? You still have time to chase your dreams and enjoy life's pleasures and hug your loved ones.

This is why it irks me to hear people complain about turning 30. Every time the muttering and whining slips out of their mouths -- even when it's people who I deeply, truly love -- I want to shout: YOU SHOULD FEEL BLESSED TO BE ALIVE. Too many people do not get the opportunity. There are people younger than you or me who, right this very moment, are at the end of their lives, and they would give anything if they could live long enough to turn 30. Hell, they'd be happy for one more month or week or even just one more day. But they don't have that much time left.

Meanwhile, you made it to 30...

(Or to forty, or fifty, or whatever age you've reached and you want to complain about being -- because really this post goes beyond the unhappy middle-years folks. It's something I wish we would all remember and take to heart...)

You are alive. You are blessed.

Every breath you take, every morning you get to wake up and have yet another day on this earth, you are blessed. I know life is not always easy or pretty or fun, but the alternative is death, and there are young people who lay dying who would gladly trade places with you and turn 30, and they wouldn't care at all. They just want one. more. day. How many days you have! How fortunate you are!

So please, my dearly beloved friends, stop complaining. Stop freaking out. Count your blessings, eat your cake, and kiss the people you love. Because you still can.

"To be alive is to be blessed, no matter your age."


End rant.




P.S. Okay, I couldn't help myself -- I looked up a lot of statistics as I prepared this blog post and I have to share at least one: In 2012, the CIA's World Factbook listed the average life expectancy in Swaziland (southern Africa, population 1.2 million) was 32 years. In other words, the majority of people in that country are dead by age 32. How many of them don't even make it to 30?

Several Uplifting Things

Here are some uplifting things -- the highlights from my week...

1. An empowering message for all women (I've watched this once or twice a day, all week long):

2. Then I found an insightful TED. The title of it is misleading. It's really a video about the importance of having hard conversations and being compassionate:
www.upworthy.com/a-4-year-old-girl-asked-a-lesbian-if-shes-a-boy-she-responded-the-awesomest-way-possible?c=ufb1


3. Seth Adam Smith wrote a blog post that was nice but didn't quite sit right with me. Then I read a reactionary post, which I think sums up the situation much better (but yay for Seth and his sudden whirlwind of fame): www.askyourdadblog.com/2013/11/marriage-is-for-me-and-you-and-kids-and.html

4. A video of my brother walking: http://juliebike.blogspot.com/2013/11/bill-sat-nov-2-walking-hall.html

5. This new blog, started by a woman with whom I went to high school, which is going to be really fun (and educational) to read during the next year or so: http://myannoyingspendingfreeze.blogspot.com/

6. My novel is going to be published tomorrow. Holy. Crap.

Love One Another

This post was originally going to be a FB status update, until it became clear to me that it was going to be ridiculously too long. So it's here on the blog, instead.

I didn't expect to have such an emotional morning. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. Maybe I'm just going crazy. But I have some thoughts that have been heavily on my mind, today especially but really...always. So here it goes:

Two days ago (9/3) I noticed an article trending in my FB news feed, "FYI (if you're a teenage girl)". I noted it on my to-read list. I didn't get around to it.

When checked FB after I got up this morning, I noticed there was a reactionary post trending on my news feed, "Dear Mrs. Hall, Regarding Your 'FYI (if you’re a teenage girl)'".

So I decided to check out both articles. First I read Mrs. Hall's letter (the original FYI to teenage girls). It bothered me a bit. Not a lot, since I quickly jumped to read the reactionary letter and didn't have time to really ponder Mrs. Hall's letter.

Beth's response letter to Mrs. Hall's post really touched me. It made me cry, in a good way. The part that reached me so deeply was "I’m someone who needed a second chance as a young woman."

Wow. Did I change my name to Beth and write a post in my sleep last night? Those are my words. At least they feel like my words. I made a lot of bad choices as a young teenager. When I was  about sixteen years old, I finally wised up and looked around and realized I needed to make some changes. I turned to the people around me, my "friends," for support. But no one was handing out second chances. Looking back, I might even say that my "friends" were the kind of people who had Mrs. Hall for a mother.

After a few months of struggling on my own, I fell back on all of my old, bad habits. Eventually I felt like the only choice left for me was to physically leave my circumstances. I walked away from my school, my friends, and the life I had known. I will forever be grateful for that decision. I look on it with no regrets -- it was one of the the most important decisions I have ever made because of where it has led me during this second half of my life.

When I started at my new school (this was my senior year of high school), I made new friends. Different friends. They didn't know I was looking for a second chance. Heck, they didn't know anything about me. I was a blank slate to them and thus I could become the person I wanted to be, instead of the person I had always been.

But here's the thing -- the real difference: The new friends I found were the kind of people who I imagine must have Beth for a mother. I still screwed up and made bad choices and did dumb things, but these friends loved me anyway. They could see that I was more than my actions, or even the sum of my actions. They knew something I had yet to learn, which is that I am a daughter of God, loved of Him, beautiful in His eyes, and of immense worth. I deserve as many second chances as I need, which are infinitely many. "Beth's children" gave me those chances, and that strength enabled me to become the woman I am becoming.

(Because let's face it, I'm still not perfect. I still need second and third and fourth chances.)

So what am I trying to say in all of this? I think my message is that we should be gentle with each other and follow the example of Jesus Christ, our Savior. He taught us to not judge, and to love and forgive. We should not permit or encourage negative and damaging things, but we also should not neglect our duty to love and forgive and be a light unto the world.

Here is one of my favorite stories about Jesus, as an example of what I mean (see Luke 7:36-50): When a sinful woman came to see Him while he was dining at the home of a Pharisee, Jesus did not say to her, "Too bad. No second chances for you." He permitted her to come and bathe His feet with her tears, and wipe them clean with her hair, and anoint them with oil.

The Savior of the world said of her, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." And to her, Christ said, "Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."

Let us please give people room (opportunity) to change. Let us give them all the second chances they need. Let us enable and encourage each other to become better people -- our best selves. And let us love others even if they don't.

Home Improvements in the Yard

My daughter is down for her nap and the kitchen is clean. I can't continue working on my ciabatta rolls for another 30 minutes. It's too early to start dinner. It's Sunday so I can't (shouldn't) work on my novel, hang drywall or go outside and shovel stuff. I've written my ROW-80 post for the week. I'm caught up on The Bachelorette. I'm not interested in the novel I started reading yesterday. There's no laundry to fold. I'm not in the midst of any sewing projects. Darling's toys are put away....

So I guess I will just have to write a blog post. :o)

I'm not sure what has gotten into me lately. I've been driving full-steam ahead on various house projects. I think it's just because I am fed up with being halfway through so many different things, and having so many goals and dreams that just aren't going anywhere. I've said, "Screw it. I am going to get some things done!" It probably helps a lot that Nate is off work for the summer and the weather is finally good.

Outside in the backyard, we (Nate) got the tree stump from that old, massive pine tree out of the ground. That was a huge task all by itself. Then came the trouble of how to chop it up and haul it away. The thing probably weighed 300 pounds! The short version of the story is that it's gone now. (Of course, before we were finally rid of it, the !^@%ing stump broke the back window in our truck. The window is fixed now. In retrospect, it would have cost less to hire a tree removal company to take out the stump than it cost us to put in the new window. Ugh!!!)

The stump went away a couple of weeks ago. Since then, we've been working on clearing and leveling the ground that use to be at the base of the tree. Part of it is going to be planted with new grass in the fall. Another part of it will be a play area for our daughter.... I just need to find her a playet or a yard. (I really want this one from Costco... but something like this would be great too.)

Here's a series of picture of the backyard, from when we moved in until today (sorry, these are not the best photos; I didn't do a good job getting the "before" shots):

It's a huge difference. There's still quite a bit that we need to do, but I am very happy with the progress we've made, especially this last year

In the front yard there have been a few improvements so far this year, with several more planned this summer. We re-did the planters that lead to our front door. I have a "before" picture from when we first moved into the house, but unfortunately I don't have any "between" pictures. Then again, the current look of the planter is still not final -- it's just a nice-looking improvement until we can afford to make a rather drastic set of changes. Oh well. Here's the original planter, and the current version (noting that we did not make all of these changes this year, but have been working on it for the last four years):

On the north side of the front yard, projects include rebuilding the planter with new stonework, pouring a "BBQ" patio just off the kitchen, and pouring/building a new shed for our garbage cans.

...

And with that, I'm out of time. I need to go work on cranberry ciabatta rolls and start thinking about dinner. I guess I will need to find time for an inside-the-house post later this week!

(P.S. I'm also posting updates to my writing blog: brookerow80.blogspot.com)

This week: Recovering, rebuilding, and re-attempting

My work sent me to Nashville last week. As I mentioned in my last post, my mom came with me so that I could bring my daughter, too. My mom wrote two blog posts about our trip -- one that highlighted all of the negative experiences (mostly caused by our hotel), and another about the good/fun stuff. You can check out her blog for the details; I don't have anything to add.

Darling girl has had a rough time this week, transitioning back to being home. She missed her dad but at the same time is being a total mama's girl and wants nothing to do with him. (Paradoxical much?) I think it's just really confusing for her that he's here-and-gone so much.

Because, speaking of the hubs, he had this awfully busy week that made for stress all around. It was the last week of school. So he spent many long hours getting files in order and helping his staff get the sites cleaned and ready to close for the summer. Thankfully the next couple of weeks should be much easier for him, and then he will be off for the summer.

Unfortunately, he's probably going back to work full time in September. I can't remember what, if anything, I've shared about the changes going on at his work. We don't know exactly what's going to happen yet so I won't speculate. When there's solid news to share, I'll share it.

To keep myself from going crazy while Nate was gone this week, I fell back on a very dirty habit: I worked on the electrical wiring in our basement. I spent my evenings standing on a four-foot ladder, shoving wires through tiny holes in the ceiling. I'm not kidding about it being dirty -- I came away from these adventures with sticky black dust up to my elbows, and chunks of I-don't-even-know-what in my hair. Nasty. But I can proudly report that, at long last, all of the lighting on the west side of the basement is rewired and it all works. There's one part that needs a fix (the wiring is backwards), and there's a bunch of old wiring that I still need to strip out. So maybe there's an evening or two of cleanup before I will be done.

This also means we can work on putting our basement back together! We can hang drywall, close up the ceiling, and do some finishing work. Neat.

As if that wasn't enough, I also made three batches of macarons this week. I finally had a taste of some real macarons when I was in Nashville and they were amazing; totally worth all of the fuss. I also had a duh moment, as I realized that I don't have to make a massive batch of macarons every time I want to try cooking them. I can half or even quarter the recipe. (Like I said, it was a duh moment.) So each little batch this week was just a quarter-sized batch. It only makes half a cookie sheet worth of macarons.

Batch One: Every single shell was cracked and none of the cookies had feet, but the insides were perfect. That's some serious progress after so many hollow batches.

Batch Two: Every shell was perfectly round and pretty with beautiful feet, but I baked them too long and they were very hard. (Grr!!!)

Batch Three: I had a toddler yanking on my pants when I was piping the cookies, so they came out in a variety of sizes and kinda oddly shaped, although most of them had feet. The insides are excellent, although perhaps a tad undercooked. I think two more minutes would have been just right.

I'll make another batch again soon (tomorrow???) and I anticipate that my cumulative knowledge is going to yield some perfect cookies here very soon. Stay tuned!

Highlights of the last six weeks

Oh my, has it really been six weeks since I last wrote a blog post? How is that possible? I was thinking that it had been about a month but nope, my last post was April 8th. In my defense, I was sick for most of April, and life has been crazy busy...

But when is life not busy? Seems like all the careful efforts I've made recently to make life less hectic has just meant I have more time for one of the 1,000 other things that are clamoring for my time. (Sound familiar, friends?)

At this very moment, I am sitting in a hotel conference room, very far away from home. I'm here for a week-long work conference. My mom came with me to see the sights and so that I could bring my daughter. (There's no way I could have left Darling at home for the week; I would have been miserable.) They are at the public library this morning, which is just one block down the road. Yesterday they did a bit of sight-seeing. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain so I think they will get trapped inside. Thankfully we have a whole bunch of toys and books with us because we needed a lot of things to keep Darling busy on the long airplane ride, so I think they will have plenty of things to do tomorrow.

Now let's see if I can remember all of the things I've been doing and working on during the last six weeks...

We had family in town, which is definitely the highlight among recent event. Nate's brother, who currently lives in southern California with his family, had some work-related meetings in a city near us. His wife (my SIL Amy) and their daughter Maddie came with him so they could visit us and Amy's family. We got to spend several days together.

It was great to spend time with them, talk, play, and cook. Darling and Maddie had a great time together. They played and read books, and even took a bath together. Darling spent the whole long weekend saying Cousin. We tried to get her to say Cousin Maddie but she didn't seem to get that Maddie is Maddie's name -- I think she thinks that Maddie's name is Cousin. Lol. She still asks for her cousin every couple of days. It's adorable. We loved their visit but did not get enough time with them. Hopefully we'll be able to go to southern California sometime soon and visit them.

That excitement happened during the first weekend in May.

The week before their visit, I took a little day trip to visit friends Kimmy, Nathan, and Little. That's the second-best thing to happen in the past six weeks. I got to see their newly fenced garden and recently built garden boxes. We attempted to make macarons, and had many other delicious things to eat. The babes played with each other. I temporarily lost my keys. I started to panic about the lost keys while I was there, but right now I can't think why I was so worried. I'd love an excuse to move in with my friends and never go home. :o)

Since I'm ordering recent events from most-to-least favorite, I guess the next thing on the list is Mother's Day. Nate was kind enough to make it a bit of a Mother's Weekend for me. I didn't get a complete break from the madness of life, but I did get extra time to rest and read, and I had to change fewer diapers. The Saturday right before mother's day, I actually spent most of the day running some errands while Nate was Super Dad. Some of the errands were fun, others were not. But it was nice to be out of the house and able to do things at my own pace, not at the will and speed of the Toddler.

My mom's day gift this year was an ice cream maker. I specifically requested it, and even went with Nate to get it from Costco. I also picked out the gift wrap that Nate used. (He was "allowed" to pick out the card on his own, ha ha.) Nate was a little bit upset that I picked and helped buy my own gift -- he prefers for gifts to be a total surprise. I'd rather have something I know I'll like. I told him the fun part was the beautiful wrapping he was required to do, and the unknown card.

Unbeknownst to me, Nate had decided to spice up the experience. He spent a couple of weeks writing a series of rhyming riddles, which together made a scavenger hunt. I had to hunt down my present! It was great. The riddles were so well done that I thought he'd found something on the internet that he copied. But no, it was completely original! I loved it, maybe even more than the ice cream maker. So thoughtful.

I think that's it for all of the big events. So in other news, we've been working on the garden. We had some uncharacteristically warm weather in April -- it was hot! The cool-weather plants were unhappy, but then I also couldn't seem to get the warm-weather plants to sprout because it was still cool at night. I finished all of my planting last week before I left on this trip; hopefully when I get home everything will have started growing.

I sold one of our Burleys. I can't remember if I ever blogged about the fact that I have three Burley bike trailers. If I haven't explained this, then don't worry about why I have three. Chalk it up to me being crazy. The good news is that we're down to two because someone came and bought one (the little Bee). I'm working on selling the Cub. I had a couple of people show interest -- one offered me a pathetically low price, the other one wants to come see it. Let's all cross our fingers!

I've also been doing a fair amount of writing. I started a new writing project a few months ago. It's a novel about angels and demons. I feel weird saying that because "supernatural" stories are not in my normal realm of writing, and not even the kind of thing I typically read. But an idea came to me one day, and I've been going for it. Between the outline and the sections I've written, I have more than 12,000 words down. (Generally novels are 50,000+ words.)

One of my goals with this project is to create a complete, detailed outline before I dive heavily into the writing. As of right now, I have a skeleton outline for the whole novel and have written detailed scene outlines for the first half of the story. I want to finish writing the actual story by the end of this year (2013), have it edited at the start of next year, and self-publish it in spring 2014. I think I'm going to re-join a writing challenge called ROW-80 in July, when the next (3Q) round begins. Right now my unofficial goal is to write 1,200 words a week.

My biggest cheerleader for this goal has been author-friend J.R. Pearse Nelson. It's good to know someone who has already jumped through the self-publishing hoops; she's an invaluable resource. She also has another novella coming out soon. I just got to Beta Read the story -- it's the third book in her Children of the Sidhe series, called Flight. It was great. It will be out sometime in July. She plans to publish another novella (book 4 of CotS) and a novel by the end of the year! Amazing. She's such an inspiration.


With that, I think I covered the major news. I hope everyone is doing well!

A bunch of recipe recaps with links to printable recipes

I'm sick again. It has made for a long week -- a week which is mostly a blur in my mind. I did some work, I cooked some food, I cleaned the house and laundry; Nate was home sometimes; my toddler screamed at me a whole bunch. I guess it was really just like any other week, except for the part where I stopped to blow my nose every so often and had to take naps.

Because it was such an uneventful week, I thought I might take this opportunity to share some Recipe Recaps instead. But then I remembered how long it takes to write the recaps. So here's a list of some of our dinners from the last six weeks, with links to print-ready recipes where available (and a few notes... or... maybe a lot of notes, now that I'm done writing them! Ha.):


Broccoli Chicken Casserole on Penne: I actually made this with rotini noodles instead of penne, but it was still great. Nate says... more salt. I disagree. But that debate is eternal and applies to all of our meals.

Pesto-Stuffed Chicken Breasts: I've made this recipe twice so far and been disappointed both times. It sounds good and seems like it would be good, but the chicken comes out dry and you actually get very little of the pesto flavoring. I'm going to have to think about how to "fix" this recipe because I think it could be amazing, with a little help.

Chicken Biscuit Pot Pie (<<< title links to my printable version, but the original recipe comes from Kimmy's Bake Shop): This recipe is delicious and comforting. I love it. I've used 1% milk where it calls for milk. In the biscuit ingredients, I use 4 Tb butter (not six) and I've never added the scallions (green onions). If you're really in a hurry, you could get a bag of frozen mixed veggies instead -- that's the more modern approach to most pot-pie making.

Chicken Divan (on rice): From the Better Homes and Garden cookbook, 90s version. A classic dish in my family, although I make it with a few tweaks to my mom's recipe (because my (newer) copy of the BHG cookbook told me to). We call it Divine Divan.

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup: Original recipe calls for turkey but I made it with shredded chicken. It's good.

Chicken and Rice Casserole: I think this recipe is perfect just the way it is.

Thai Peanut Chicken (with Broccoli and Quinoa): From "Quinoa 365", but use peanuts instead of cashews. An excellent dish.

Tofu Pad Thai: This is my own recipe, a mix of a Martha Stewart recipe I tried and the shrimp pad Thai recipe in the "Pasta Revolution" cookbook. Note that the recipe is written for me/us, so it has some funny and distinctive notes. If you don't like tofu, you could substitute chicken or shrimp, or maybe even pork.

Tofu Mushroom Stroganoff: This is my very own recipe, and it's good.

Stuffed Bell Peppers, Southwestern Style (stuffing pictured above; peppers pictured below): Good. I recommend. I don't like traditional stuffed bell pepper recipes -- it calls for too much pepper, in my opinion. So I cut the peppers in half, thoroughly pre-cook the halves, lay them in a glass baking dish, and pile the stuffing on top of them. I also hate to see the pepper tops go so completely to waste, so I cut out the edible bits and cook them up in the stuffing.

Loaded Baked Potatoes (black bean and corn): The salsa you choose will really define how the recipe tastes. I also recommend using more cheese than it calls for.

Mexican Lasagna: I felt like the tomatoes in this recipe made it very watery. Next time I'll try adding a can of tomato paste to thicken things up, and maybe let it cook down a bit more.

Veggie Quesadillas: My own original recipe. And very good.

Black Bean Enchiladas in Pumpkin Sauce: The sauce was too watery and too spicy, and didn't really taste anything like pumpkin (not that it needed to, per say). I'd say use half a jalapeno, and reduce the water to 1-1.5 cups. The tortillas are a pain to work with; if you heat them a little in the microwave they are more flexible. But for us, they just fell apart in the watery mess of the sauce. The resulting dinner was mushy and almost unpalatable. Conclusion: The recipe needs work.

Black Bean and Quinoa Burgers (<<< links to my printable recipe, but is originally from Kimmy's Bake Shop): Original recipe calls for rice. I used quinoa because it was handy and it cooks faster. I put beef bullion in the quinoa while it was cooking to add more flavor. The homemade buns are great. I baked mine until they were just done, then toasted them in the toaster oven. Perfect. I also used the bun recipe for the other version of the quinoa burgers, listed next...

Quinoa Burgers: The original recipe is for mini burgers, but I bumped them up to full size. It makes 10 burgers if you use 1/3 cup of the mix for each burger. The proportions are excellent. I used one carrot, and Monterrey Jack cheese on top. The avocado is a must. I recommend mixing in the quinoa when it's still hot, I think it made them stick together better.

Chickpea and Corn Burgers (on homemade buns): Okay, I confess, there was a two-week period when I got a bit obsessed with different ways to make burgers. And I'm not done experimenting, just giving my family a break. These burgers I threw together using themes I saw in the quinoa and black bean burger recipes. They were unfortunately a bit dry and didn't stay together well; I need to work on that.

Quinoa and Bean Chili: Instead of using 6 cups of white beans, I tried it with 3 cups of cooked quinoa, 1.5 cups of garbanzo beans (chickpeas), and I added 1 cup of corn. It's mild a bit bland. It definitely needs the cheese and avocado. Nate says it needs the sour cream. (I don't like sour cream, so I couldn't say.) It's better with chips, too.

Quinoa "Mac" n Cheese: Good. Surprisingly good. I used 5oz of fresh spinach and it was a good balance. Could fry up some garlic with the spinach. Could reduce the cheese to 6oz. I used a couple teaspoons of chicken bullion while the quinoa was cooking and it definitely improved the overall flavor. Yes to the dash of salt. I don't know that I could taste the nutmeg.

Mulligatawny: This soup was okay. Good flavor, but lacking in substance. You could easily double the lentils, maybe even triple. I'd also suggest cutting up at least one more carrot, and adding it with the lentils, after you blend/puree the rest of the soup. Nate says this would be better as a side soup, not a main course. I might be inclined to agree with him, but I won't acquiesce until I've tried it again with tweaks.

Tikka Masala (pictured below; we ate it on rice): I didn't especially like this recipe. I thought the proportions were unbalanced; it had too much tomato. Next time I'd go with maybe half as much tomato...? And I'd try adding chickpeas.

Moroccan Tagine (pictured below): I used raisins instead of apricots, orange instead of lemon. I liked the carrots, but thought they could have been cooked more.

Lasagna Bites: Don't believe the recipe -- rolling out your own "wonton" wrappers takes some muscle and is very difficult if a screaming toddler is yanking on your pant legs. I didn't use vegan ricotta, just the regular stuff. Actually, I can't even remember what all I put in these things. But they were yummy.

Beef and Mushroom Lasagna: This is based on the classic Campbell's recipe and requires a can of cream of mushroom. Yes, I know how we feel about that. I'm sorry. But it's delicious.

Goulash (with veggies): This makes a lot of food. I used 1.5lbs of beef and probably an extra 1/4 to 1/2 cup of noodles. The ratios still seemed fine to me.

Bachelor Beef Stew: From "Slow Cooker Revolution." Just a basic slow-cooked beef stew, nothing special or interesting to report. Throw some beef, baby carrots, chopped potatoes and diced onion in a slow cooker with beef broth and a bit of seasonings. Low heat. Eight hours later, nom.

Lentil Stew (with sausage): Hearty winter comfort food. Filling and tasty. Nate discovered this recipe.

Broccoli Beef: We've been asked for this recipe a few times. It's one of Nate's specialties. I think it's okay, but I don't ask him to make it very often.

Cabbage Soup: Gosh, isn't this one of those recipes that everyone just magically knows how to make? No seriously. Apparently it is. But I had to make Nate write it down for me because I don't ever remember having cabbage soup when we were growing up, even though it is some kind of American classic/staple.

Pork and Ramen Soup with Spinach (slow cooker): This recipe comes out of "Slow Cooker Revolution." It's good, not great. Always comes out a little watery and bland.

Tofu and Eggplant on Noodles (pictured below): I thought this recipe was horrible. Nate said it was fine. My mom said it was fine. But I will never, ever make it again. I think it's the eggplant -- we never get along in recipes -- and the hefty dose of lime. Yuck, lime.

Now for the SWEET TREATS...

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti (<<< links to my printable recipe, but originally comes from Kimmy's Bake Shop): Kimmy mailed me some of these in March, when I was sick. Bless her. They were amazing. As soon as I got better, I made them for myself. The result was delicious, but the instructions needed a little help because I had no idea what I was doing the first time around. I've made them twice now.

Banana Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting: I hate it when recipes tell you to turn down the temperature because you're using a glass dish. Yes, the food is more likely to burn in glass at a high temp, but it also takes a bazillion years longer to cook if you turn down the temp. And this cake took a million billion gazillion years to cook all the way through, and it still burned. I had to cut off the crust. It was tasty, but it was a pain. I don't know what the answer is, except maybe that I should buy a metal dish or two.

Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cookies: I've made these a couple of times, using the "from scratch" instructions. You can't really taste the cream cheese flavor, but it adds richness to the cookies that make them heavenly. Milk vs. dark chips? The jury is still out. I tried it both ways. I like the dark because I like dark chips in cookies, but the milk weren't bad.

Raspberry Crumb Breakfast Bars: Good but frustrating. The raspberry makes the bars mushy in the middle. You could pre-cook the crust even more to help prevent this, but then it will burn on the second round of cooking. I don't have a good solution yet. Maybe try mixing the raspberry mix with the topping? That's what I will try next time. Also, I didn't think one pound of raspberries was sufficient; I'd use at least 20oz, maybe even 24oz (1.5 lbs).

The last couple of weeks: Gardening and visiting family

Sorry I missed last week's post. We've still been getting back to normal around here after the rounds of illness and Nate's busyness with school. And, honestly... things have been pretty normal, so I don't feel like there's been much to say. Here goes the hum-drum post...

Our garden is growing. The pea plants popped up and look happy. Most of my boxed seeds are fully sprouted (kale, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, bok choy and carrots). The carrots were the last to come up, but now they have sprouted in abundance. I have a ton of them -- they will need a lot of thinning. My onions did not come up. I mean, like, nothing at all. I think the seed packet was a dud. Last year I got three seed packets of Walla Walla sweet onions, planted two of them, and got nothing. I assumed it was because I planted the seeds too late (aka it was too hot) and they didn't want to come up. Now that I've used the third packet but at the right time (in the cold weather) I feel more confident that I can declare the whole package of seeds to be the cause of the failure, and not something on my end. Whew.

On the downside, this means I have to replant my onion seeds, and just pray that they will be mature before the summer heat comes. (Onions don't like it hot.)

In the greenhouse, cilantro and basil have sprouted. The cabbage starts did nothing. I'm a little disappointed, but since Nate got the garden mostly ready this week, I can now just direct-sow a little row of cabbage. Here's a picture of Nate taking a break from tilling the garden to chat with grandma and Darling:

Tilling was his big project last Monday, on his first day of spring break. He did great -- the garden is pretty much ready to go! Now to figure out how we can keep the weeds down until it's time to actually plant most of the garden (which is not until early June). It would have been nice to wait and till the ground a little closer to the actual planting season, but this was the time Nate had available and so we used it.

Nate also spent some time this week working on building a new "pantry shelf" for the kitchen. We have a little shelf in the corner of our kitchen for foodstuffs...

The design is odd. The original shelf doesn't really fill the space. We happened to have a cheap little homemade bookshelf thing that sorta fit underneath, so we stuck it in the corner. But really, the whole system doesn't make the best use of the space. So we came up with a new design that uses up the whole corner, giving us deeper shelves that are sufficiently tall/short for our needs. (This corner is essentially our pantry space, and it's a bunch of shelves, so we call it the "pantry shelf.") I hoped he would get most of it done this week, but it just didn't work out. We'll keep plugging away in our free time.

Yesterday we went to go see my parents and run some errands. I loaned Nate to my parents for slave labor in the morning (he cut down three trees) while I ran to the church cannery, then in the afternoon after we put the Toddler down for a nap, we went to the temple. My mom made us a pot roast for dinner when we got back. (Yum.) I enjoyed the arrangement; hopefully we can do it again at the end of April and this time go to Ikea in the afternoon. I've been yearning for an Ikea trip. And it's nice to feel like we are helping my parents, who do so much for us!

Today was Easter. Darling wore a lovely white dress with blue flowers. (Yikes, I just realized that I forgot to take a picture and one of my co-workers specifically requested an Easter dress photo -- will have to dress her up and take it tomorrow.) My mom joined us for church, which was really great. She addressed the fun-but-exhausting task of playing with the toddler during the hour of worship service (aka sacrament meeting). My kid was a lot nicer to grandma than she is to me during that hour, even though she was still no picnic today!

After church and Darling's naptime, Nana came to see us. She had an Easter present for our girl: some hand puppets! She made four sets of hand puppets -- four different animals/creatures, with one mommy-sized puppet and one toddler-sized puppet of each. I wish I could take a picture but they are with Darling's toys in her room (and she is asleep). Will have to do that tomorrow, too.

I need to write a post about my goal progress in March, so that will cover some some other recent updates, whenever I get time to write it. I also have several pictures and recipes to share, should I find some time to writing a cooking blog post! I hope everyone had a nice Easter and that all of my local friends were able to enjoy this lovely stretch of spring weather!

No more MIM for him

Nate had his last MIM class yesterday (Saturday). It was the last class of the school term, but more importantly for us, it was his last class for the program. Nate has decided that he is not going to continue pursuing this particular Master's degree. It was a difficult decision for him to reach because he has wanted to get a Master's degree for such a long time, but now that he's gotten a feel for the nature of this program, and with it a better sense of his own strengths/weaknesses and desires, he doesn't feel it's the right program for him.

I'm delighted. While I fully support his desire to get more education, I was also feeling like this program wasn't a good fit for him or for us. It was supposed to be designed for people who work full time -- it was supposed to have a well-paced, manageable course load. Unfortunately it did not live up to the advertisement.

Pile on all the challenges of these last six weeks, and you can see why I would prefer he didn't sign up for another term. Granted, I probably won't get sick THREE TIMES in the next couple of months, so it probably would be a bit more bearable. Still. We like having the man around the house once in awhile, and work and church already take him away from us quite a lot. Maybe this summer, when Nate starts working part time, I will feel differently. For now though.... HOORAY!

While Nate was at class yesterday, I took our daughter to visit his parents. Darling enjoyed reading books, coloring, and chasing after their hoard of chickens. She also got to pick up some of the chicken eggs and look at the baby chicks.

Back on our own farm, we've got some sprouts popping up in the planter's boxes. My bok choy, lettuce, kale, and spinach are all up. The chard, carrots, and onions are still hiding under the dirt. As are the peas that I planted this week. My mom agreed to grow pumpkins for us this year, which will save a LOT of garden space. With all the extra space, I'm thinking I might grow even more corn (it's good chicken food) and maybe more tomatoes (so I can can stuff), and then maybe a bit of newer, experimental plants, like black beans and quinoa

Darling has been helping us out with gardening:

I am nearly recovered from the latest round of illness. Ditto Baby Girl. We both have a bit of a persistent runny nose but are otherwise cured. Err, except for the more sore diapered bottom in the world, poor kid. We've been battling the redness for weeks now, then finally about a week ago her skin just got raw and sore down around her bottom. It has been a horrible week in that regard -- every diaper change means screaming, crying, and getting kicked. I don't blame her (although I do try to dodge the kicks). Hopefully we can see the pediatrician tomorrow, maybe get some stronger medicine. This makes me grateful we haven't had any issues with diaper rash before -- such drama!

2013 Goals: February Recap

I think it will help me make progress with my goals if I occasionally have to give an update. I originally promised to check in at least once each quarter, but more frequent (as often as monthly) updates would be better motivation. So I'll make some notes here and there as I have time, and then publish this post when it's ready!

(...It only took a week to get this written...)


Goal 1: Be Positive
January started out rocky with me falling into negative habits after only a couple of weeks. Then February gave me a bunch of challenges between everyone in the family getting sick illness and Nate being gone a lot for his MIM classes... and I did good! Not great, but better. Nate has been good at reminding me to be positive and vice versa. My mom is also kinda participating in this goal, which is great.

My one confession: I did kinda yell at a driver the other day when I was riding my bike. It wasn't the most uplifting thing to do. But she ran a red light in front of me while talking on her cell phone, and since her window was open I thought it an appropriate opportunity to remind her to HANG UP AND DRIVE. Wouldn't you like to have a bicyclist yell that in your face as you almost run her over? In my defense, she kinda deserved it.

I haven't made any progress on identifying places in the house where I could hang "be positive" reminders. I'll find them this month, since we're done being sick. (Ha, ha. I must have written that sentence before the baby and I came down with colds, again. We're both pretty sick right now.)


Goal 2: Scripture Study (15 mins every day)
I started out strong this year, continuing the full-steam-ahead progress I made in 2012. But then I dropped the ball for most of February because of the aforementioned illnesses and absence. I've been better the past couple of weeks, but still not totally consistent, and not studying for a full 15 minutes. Really, I've just been reading, and only for 5-10 minutes. But at least I'm back on track, if a little behind. I'm making progress on the D&C, still ambitiously hoping to finish it this month. (We'll see.)


Goals 3&4: Blog once a week. Write recipe recaps.
Goal 3 has gone quite well, if you look at the numbers. We're at the 10th week of the year and I have 13 posts done (not counting recipe recaps). I've missed a week or two -- during the "everyone's sick" time in February -- but I'm totally comfortable with the "write weekly" goal, and rockin' it.

Recipe recaps, not so much. I wrote three. I loved them, but they took a long time. And time has been scarce. I think I'll have more luck starting next month (in April) of making this a habit. I'm thinking about changing this goal just a bit. Instead of listing all my recipes each week and making notes, I could try to recap just one recipe each week. In my ideal world I'd still like to write a recap each night and then publish the week's worth at the end of the week, but that's just too ambitious for right now. My apologies to the handful of you who were loving the big, long cooking posts.


Goal 5: Turn my 2012 blog posts into a book (and order a printed copy). 
I haven't even started, haven't really even thought about it. I have the whole year to get this done, and will worry about it later. Maybe... I don't know... next month?... I will get started. I would still prefer to get this done before the summer, but it's not a high priority.


Goal 6: Bike to work every day
There was one week in February when I drove to work a couple of days. It is very hard to bike when I am recovering from a cold because my nose is still runny, so I didn't even try. I think that's completely justified and so I'm going to claim 100% success on this goal so far.


Goal 7: Dessert after dinner, not after 8pm
Ha. I forgot this was a goal. Fail.


Goal 8: Technology off by 9pm, lights out by 9:30pm
Not so good. I started the year out doing good, turning off the tech by 9pm every night, but then when I got sick I reached for the comfort of Netflix and Hulu and cuddled my technology up to bedtime. (Then promptly had trouble getting to sleep, no surprise.) I've been pretty good about bedtime at 9:30, with a couple of misses when I was cleaning the house and one miss when I was watching a really engaging episode of I don't even remember what show. (It wasn't worth it.) There's room to improve.


Goal 9: Blitz journal (daily recap) each day
Success. Kinda. I haven't actually been doing it every single day, but I have one written for each day. In other words, I often do two days at once. It's not my ideal but it works okay. I also find myself sometimes writing notes throughout the day, rather than doing it all at the end of the day. Overall it's going well and I have a complete record, even if it's not been a smooth process.


Goal 10: Grow a garden.
Progress! There are four planter's boxes set up around the back yard. Just this afternoon I went out and filled them with "salad ingredient" seeds (lettuce, kale, carrots, onions, spinach, etc.). I also have a plan for starting some of my seeds in the greenhouse, and a plan for how to lay out the garden (although the plan needs to be updated). It's still too early to do more than these tasks, but I'm on track for a successful growing season.


Goal 11:  Do some canning.
Too early to actually do this, but I've been preparing. I'm buying one set of jars each month, so I now have a dozen quart jars, a dozen pint jars, and a dozen half-pint jars. I have a few jars from my grandma, mom, and MIL. I have plastic lids for freezing jars. I have a list of supplies still to buy (water bath, Tattler lids... pressure canner?). I have a list of things I want to can. There's more planning and prep work to do; I'm loving it.


Goal 12: So some creative writing
I made some progress on this goal. I have a rough outline for a brand new novel. I have detailed outlines for three of the scenes. I have half of the opening scene written. There's nearly 9,000 words between all of those pieces, which is a great start. At the end of the month, I anticipate having more weekend time to write, so I will keep working. If I have two free hours and ideas in my head, I can bust out 2,000+ words in a sitting. After this term of Nate's classes, when I have free Saturday mornings to write, I think it would be reasonable to expect myself to put in 2,000 words each week. I want to do much, much more... but I'll start with that and see how it plays out.


###


There's my update for January and February. Overall I feel like I am making progress and I feel confident that I will be successful in accomplishing my goals this year. Thanks to all of you for your support!

Dig up the yard, y'all!

Yard work, yard work, yay yay yay!

We are really making progress on our yard. I'm exited. When we are all done with it, there will be a lot less weeding and maintenance to do. It will look beautiful and we won't have to slave in the yard. Oh! It's going to be sooooo nice!

The former owners of my parent's new house really loved to garden. A little bit too much, as it happens. Whenever they planted something, they seemed to have decided that more is better, and they planted 10 of them. This is true of plants and bushes and trees. It's a good thing my mom is retired because she spends hours every week just trying to trim and maintain the yard.

The benefit to us has been some new gardening supplies and plants, especially a pair of beautiful maple trees! One of them has green and yellow leaves with gorgeous, coral-colored bark. The other has rich, green bark and bright red leaves. We drove up to see my parents on Saturday (3/2) and dug up the two trees. By we I unfortunately mean Nate, who did all of the laborious digging. I helped him bag the roots and we threw the trees in the truck. We went home, where Nate promptly tilled up a long swath of weeds and we put our new beauties in the ground. The area is now covered in a thick layer of hazelnut shells to keep down the weeds.

Earlier in the week I set up and filled some planter's boxes by the location for the new trees. The boxes will hold "salad fixings" like lettuce, spinach, kale, and carrots. There's a big box for onions farther back on the lawn. (The main garden area will have everything else, like squash and pumpkins and tomatoes and corn and beans and... you get the idea.)

The one disappointment this weekend? I drove all the way out (30 minutes) to the place where we get our bags of hazelnut shells, picked up 15 bags, only to discover when I got home that we were about 5 bags short of covering the whole weeded/prepared area. So next weekend or at least some time this month, I again have to make that hour-long trek to buy more shells. Or else I have to look at the incomplete dirt and fight back the weeds -- that's not appealing! Hopefully Nate's parents will be available to watch my daughter for a little while so I can make a trip. They live about halfway between our house and the hazelnut place, which is convenient.

Here'a a picture (I wish I had a good "before" picture of the yard but I don't, sorry!):

This shows our lovely new trees and the hard work we accomplished. You can see on the right side of the picture where the shells stop and we need to add a few more bags. We also want to add more shells in the back of the yard, over on the right by the water barrel. On the left, behind the greenhouse, is the main garden area. We have to till up that section of grass this year -- that will not be fun -- so we can expand the garden. And we need to add grass seed in the main yard to fill in a few places. But it's really coming along!!!

Good news at work

I got good news at work this week. It came to me in such a way that I thought it was going to be bad news, or that maybe I was in trouble, but turns out the uber boss was just really excited to tell me the good news: My position and I are doing a little shuffle, moving to a different manager and changing my duties a little bit.

I arrived at the office on Tuesday morning, about five minutes before my official start time (as per usual). I bicycle to work, so I need to change my clothes as part of my morning routine. But I don't usually "get dressed" until after I've been in the office for about 15 minutes -- partly because the janitorial staff just happens to clean the bathrooms on my floor at exactly the same time I arrive for the day, and partly because it just takes that long to get the computer started, check emails, put my things away, etc.

So I arrived five minutes early and was in the process of doing my usual unpacking/starting computer/saying good mornings, when one of the managers came over....

"I know you don't know this, but you have a meeting with the uber boss right now."

I looked down at my cycling clothes. I had taken off the bulky outer rain-proof layer, which leaves me in skin-tight thermals from chin to wrist to ankles. It's not exactly the kind of thing one wears to a meeting with the uber boss. Nevermind the tousled (not attractively) hair and lack of face paint, or the twinge of sweat smell...

"Uhm, can I go change first?"

"Well... it's just going to be a really quick meeting?"

He said this very apologetically. I could tell he wanted to just say yes, I could go change. But instead he said, "We'll be in his office. See you in a minute."

I sighed, collected a notepad, fished out my glasses, and walked across our floor to his corner office. The uber boss made some joke about me being in trouble, then teased me that I don't keep a close enough eye on my meeting schedule, and basically put me on edge. As if I wasn't already outrageously uncomfortable.

But then he dropped the good news. The Big Change. I couldn't believe my ears, it was like I had won the lottery. Almost. I even get to move cubicles.

So now you're probably wondering, gosh, does Brooke hate her current boss that much? Are her cube neighbors that bad? The answers are no and no. You might know that my current boss and I got off to a bit of a rocky start two years ago, when I was promoted into my current position. But we smoothed that all out pretty quickly and it's been a great working relationship since then.

Really, the reason I'm so excited is that I'm going somewhere that makes me feel like I belong. I feel like I'm going home. In my current place (under my current boss), I am the odd man... er, woman... out. My immediate boss manages seven other people, all of whom are men, their average age is probably about 45, and they all work on various aspects of building and maintaining our website. They are great people, but me and what I do at work -- totally different from them. I do research and analyze data. I think at one point, back when my position was originally created, the person in my job actually did some computer programming and published data to the website. But me? I just make a list of changes and give it to one of the programmers.

Two years ago, before I was promoted into my current position, I did a wide variety of research and analysis. I worked with a team of people. It was a very collaborative, give-and-take environment. I really liked my boss, my (physical) location in the office, and what I was doing. And now I am RETURNING to that group. I get to be back with my old team, working under my old boss, and doing a slightly broader set of things compared with what I work on right now. In fact, one of the duties I don't like to do right now, I get to do less of it! The uber boss asked me to scale back on the thing that I don't even like doing so that I could make time to do some new things. How great is that?

But wait, it gets even better (is that possible?). You'll probably recall that I interviewed for a promotion a couple of months ago, and I was one of the top candidates. In my final interview, when the panel (including the uber boss) asked me why I was interested in the promotion, I said several things: I want to work with a team again, because currently I do a lot of stuff on my own; I want to do a greater variety/diversity of things; I want to do some new things; I want to travel a little more; I want to build up my skills and have more chances to learn new things.

A couple of days after I got This Good News, it hit me. Wham. Even though I didn't get that promotion a couple of months ago, the uber boss heard what I was saying in my interview. He heard it, and took it to heart, and he's doing something about it. How cool is that? This change might not come with a higher salary, but it does give me so many of those other benefits that I was seeking. Bonus for my business, the changes will make us more efficient and more productive, too. What a blessing all around.

So really, the best thing to come of this change is being reminded of how much the uber boss cares. He cares about us worker bees, as people, and when we have an idea or a complaint, he is really, truly listening. I'm not saying he's perfect or that we always get what we want, but he's not deaf and he's not blind, and he DOES want us to be happy. How cool is that? It seems so rare that people have a great boss, but I do. It really makes me feel blessed!



(Thanks Graham.)

Sick and books and stuff

So... I haven't written for a couple of weeks. I was violently sick with a stomach flu for about three days, and then immediately thereafter I came down with a head cold. The baby got the head cold. It had been passed on to the two of us by dad, who had spent several days decommissioned by severe back pains prior to getting sick.

In other words, February started out like this: Nate had immobilizing back pain for several days, bookended by weekends of MIM classes. The pain cleared up just in time for him to come down with a severe head cold. He was only just barely starting to get better when I got the stomach flu, sending me to bed for three days straight. (Seriously, I couldn't get up to do more than rush across the hall to the bathroom.) The first day I felt somewhat normalized after the flu, I started coming down with a head cold, too. The baby got the head cold two days later, as I was in the midst of feeling the worst of it.

Somewhere in the midst of all that, I spent many hours making final revision notes on Queen Witch for J.R. Pearse Nelson.

Whew.

I've actually managed to maintain a fairly positive attitude through most of this. I'm tired and certainly it has been trying, but really, I feel like I was reasonably upbeat this month. Except maybe at the ends of days, when I was feeling the weight of the day on my shoulders. That's when I would sit down to blog but could only find the frustration and exhaustion. So I didn't write. I felt obligated to write -- I still feel obligated, and that's why I'm putting down words right now -- but the actual desire to write is currently absent, as is the feeling that I have anything much to say. I think all of the editing for J.R. was also a drag on my word-related inclinations. (Not a diss, not a complaint, just an observation.)

Speaking of J.R. and Queen Witch, have you picked up a copy? You really should. Go to Amazon and buy the e-book. Or keep an eye on the blog for the availability of the book in print (should be out next month).

So let's turn for a moment to other forms of entertainment: Somewhere in the midst of being sick I read another Susan May Warren book. (You probably don't remember the review I gave of Heiress -- I read it last summer.) The book I read was "My Foolish Heart." Warren is a Christian writer and so her books always talk about God. The religion was weaved much more smoothly into this storyline than it was in Heiress, though I still found it a tad annoying (overbearing) at times. Nevertheless, I do recommend the book. It's a solid 3 or 4 star book. At times I felt like I was reading a Nicholas Sparks novel. (I mean that as a compliment, even though I'm not especially fond of Mr. Sparks.)

I also finally got to watch Dark Knight Rises. I think it took me three nights to through the movie (such is life when you only have about an hour a night to yourself.) I thought it was brilliant and beautiful. Joseph Gordon-Levitt...I could stand to see more of him. I like that guy; he's actually rather talented and surprisingly well-rounded. Nate says he has too much of a babyface. But I saw a little of him during the Oscars highlights and you know what? He can pull off much older looks, I think. So rock on, JGL!

Finally, here are three cute pictures of my kid (because this post is utterly random, so I'm just gonna roll with it...)

I asked her to smile for the camera and got about eight of these, sigh: 

She's really into books the last few days, and especially loving "Where's Waldo?" Notice her feet helping her hold up the book:

Let's Go Outside

First and most importantly, Kate Voegele rocks. If you're not familiar with her music, go check it out. "Don't Look Away" is a perfectly good album, but it's "A Fine Mess" that's really rocking my moods lately.

I'm a home body. If you know me well, you know this about me. I like my home. I like to be at home. I don't like not being at home. I really don't like to travel. (Part of the travel aversion most definitely stems from the fact that I can easily and violently become "motion sick" when I'm traveling, especially in a car.) But even though I'd always rather be home, I've found myself feeling a bit cramped lately. I think it's probably just the winter blues and too much time spent following the exact same routine every day, confounded by the many evening hours I've spent walking up and down a twelve foot stretch of my basement while staring at the ceiling as I replaced the electrical lines. Nothing encourages you to make a break for freedom quite like hours of a windowless hallway in a cold basement at night...

I say all this because we've been spending an inordinate amount of time outside the last couple of weeks. Yes, it is very cold and somewhat damp out there, and it still gets dark too early, and the ground is muddy. But the world is also beautiful. Most of it is still hibernating for the winter, but there are some signs of life. Little signs, and welcome. The daffodils will bloom soon, quickly followed by one of my favorites -- tulips. These are the first bright signs of spring after the long, dark winter. I watch for them in earnest every year. I have some planted in my yard, but not enough. I think I need to get more bulbs. (Some of you are chuckling at that comment, and you should; my obsession with bulbs is a bit out of control.)

Despite the unforgiving weather, it is a critical time of year to get certain things done in the yard. There are bushes, trees, and bulbs that cooperate better when handled during winter hibernation. The ground it also soft from the rain so it's easy to work the land.

In the front yard, we've been taking out some bushes. Those of you who saw the house when we first moved in might remember that the front yard was a bit of a jungle. Nothing but big, overgrown trees and bushes all around. We've cleared away almost all of the original plants from the front yard, save one little row of bushes. Well, most of those are gone now, too. We left just two of the bushes that were in the front yard when we bought the house. One bush is in its original locale, severely trimmed down. Another one has been transplanted across the yard and also trimmed. We added a couple of smaller, low-maintenance, pretty trees to replace what we took out, and there are a ton of bulbs (go ahead and laugh) in the flower/plant beds. There's still a bit of landscaping work to be fixed, but most of the front yard is now in shape, designed for a minimal amount of maintenance. Score.

The backyard continues to be a project. Sometimes I really need to step back and remind myself how far we've come with the backyard, because there is still a lot to do and it can be overwhelming. Since I can't finish painting the shed, it's too early to work the garden, and we don't have the funds to rebuild the retaining wall or replace the greenhouse, I'm working on another flower bed area, setting up a few planter's boxes to grow our lettuce, and daydreaming about the long-run goals for the backyard.

My daughter loves to run around and do all of these projects with us. It's adorable. She's delightful. Because it's so very cold out, we bundle her in two or three layers before going outside. Usually we don't go out until after naptime, and then only for 30-40 minutes. Her capacity for being outside right now maxes out at about 45 minutes, and even that is sometimes pushing it. I wish we had some outdoor toys for her because I think it would make things even more fun when we're doing yardwork.

I'm excited to start the garden. I want to plant so very many things in the yard. It's such a delight to walk outside and pick the lettuce or onions or tomatoes or zucchini that I need for a recipe. And watching things grow from tiny seeds to overflowing plants, weighed down with delicious vegetables... there's nothing quite like it. Such a joy. My fellow gardeners, green thumbs, urban farmers: What are you most looking forward to growing this year? Which plants do you miss the most?

QUEEN WITCH IS HERE! Go buy a copy right now!!!!!!!

Queen Witch: Available on Amazon as an e-book, with a print edition available soon. (I'm going to get a couple of extra print copies when it comes out, so let me know if you want to borrow one!)

Finally, finally, finally!!! I have been waiting for this book to come out for six months. It doesn't even matter that I got to beta read the novel twice, I was still crazy impatient for it to finally be published.

Full disclosure: I'm friends with the author, J.R. Pearse Nelson. She's a self-publishing Indy writer. In addition to Queen Witch, she has also published a pair of novellas (Tribute and Vessel). They are paranormal romance... not really my preferred genre. I don't mind the paranormal but I could do without the "romance." Yeah, call me prudish, I won't be offended.

Queen Witch, however, is just a straight-up paranormal novel about a young witch wrestling with her destiny, her family, and her moral compass. It's written to the young adult crowd so it's (thankfully) pretty PG. But don't let the intended audience dissuade you -- I'm an older Gen Y and I still loved it.

I've read a lot of self-published stuff, and I think that Queen Witch is far and above its peers. So many of the other books I read are poorly edited, the characters fall flat, the scenes feel contrived and forced. Not Queen Witch. It's a real winner. As I said to J.R. when I finished my second beta read, it's a Grand Slam. (That's a baseball reference. Don't worry if you don't get it. :o)

The book is excellently edited. The characters are well-rounded and realistic -- and that's one of my most important criteria in a book. I like to connect with my characters. Sage, the protagonist, is real and genuine and deep. You can't help but like her and root for her, and worry about her when things get dangerous.

There are a couple of good twists in the novel, giving it a bit of thrill and just a hint of darkness.

The storyline generally progresses at an excellent pace, it's always moving forward but you don't feel rushed. I appreciate that all of the scenes have a good flow and add to the overall storyline. It's just plain good, creative writing from J.R. Pearse Nelson.

I will say that this novel started out a little bit slow for me. The story starts when Sage is 14 and those first couple of chapters, at that age, aren't as interesting. But definitely by the middle of the book I was hopelessly hooked, and as the end drew near I couldn't put it down. So if you likewise find that it starts slow, just give it a little more time, it's worth it!

Always look on the bright side of life (doo-doot, do-do-do-do-do-doot)!

I got up this morning thinking I was going to retract yesterday's post. In my mind, it was altogether too negative. But when I re-read it today, it didn't come off as quite the downer I expected. I know I walked away from writing it with a heavy feeling in my chest, but I don't think I ever really put that darkness on the "page." So up it stays, and that's okay.

It's not so much the  subject of the last post that made me blue, it's more just life in general these days. It's the pressure of always having so much to do in a finite amount of time. How do you make the hours stretch? How do you accomplish all the things you have to do, and all of the things you want to do? How can you be a responsible adult and still have some dreams and some sanity at the end of the day? More and more I find myself marveling at how well my mom managed everything when we were growing up. I know I still don't really understand what it must have been like for her, but I have an inkling, and that gives me a lot more sympathy and patience for, well, everything.

But I digress. What matters right now is that I need to get serious about my goal to be positive. All around me, all I can see is what I need to do, what I haven't done, what I want to do, what I won't have time for, what I have to give up... you get the idea. But what about what I do have? What about what is here? What about what I have done? Thinking about these things, this is what's going to make life better.

For instance: My daughter started going to daycare this week. It makes me feel like a failure as a parent, that I can't find a better situation for her and/or be home to take care of her. It was a depressing week. And the day I dropped her off for the first time, I later went to the mall and had all of my hair chopped off. In retrospect I fully recognize that the one event definitely caused the other. (Granted, I've been thinking about getting a shorter trim, but the resulting 'do is definitely sadness-induced.)

What I should be thinking about is that I have been very fortunate so far. My daughter is 20 months old and this is the first time we've had to enroll her in daycare. She's been with family and family-like friends since I had to go back to work. That's worth something. I also only have to send her two days a week, for less than 7 hours each day. There are a lot of people who have to send their kid to daycare five days a week, nine hours a day. There are moms who have to raise children entirely on their own, without a spouse or family to help. There are a lot of situations much worse than mine, and it's not right for me to feel sorry for myself. I'm blessed. I'm richly blessed. And if I can't see all of the good things in my life, well, then I really am a failure.

So let's do this instead: Here are some good things in my life right now...
- Bread baking in the oven
- A mom who loves me and my daughter
- Nate, a kind and patient man who honors the Priesthood and loves me...despite all the grief I give him
- My daughter, who is beautiful and smart and inherently good, and who also loves me despite my shortcomings
- The gospel and its blessings
- A solid roof over my head
- A stable job that enables me to provide for my family
- Das Hund, our reliable and efficient car
- The fact that I can go take a nap with the baby right now.

Here's a quick video that shows my haircut. Amy asked for pictures, but this was faster for me to take and upload:

Nate and his MIM, and me, and you

As if our lives weren't already busy enough, complicated enough and stressful enough, we've decided to add to the madness. Nate is going back to school... at least for this term, but possibly for the next two years.

I'm not sure how many of you know about Nate and what I unaffectionately refer to as "the eternal pursuit of the Master's degree." About a year after Nate finished his Bachelor's degree, he started talking about going back to school. So he's been talking about it for more than five years. I won't go into all of the gory details -- and trust me, there have been some gory moments -- I'll just flash forward to February 2012, one year ago. Nate started talking in earnest about taking the GRE, which is the test you have to take before you can get into a graduate program. He even ordered a book and started studying from it.

I can't remember now when he originally wanted to take the GRE. It might have been last summer, or in the fall. But after several weeks of intense studying, life got in the way and he put the book down. That was until this fall, when he started studying in earnest and actually scheduled a date to sit for the test. It was just after New Year's. And he started actually looking into Master's degree programs.

Flash forward again, to right about the time Nate was taking the test. One of my co-workers started telling me about this new Master's in Management program that was going to be available here in town. You see, we only have one university in our little town, and it's a private school (translation: very expensive). Other options for school were an hour north or an hour south of us. This MIM program is through one of the public universities here in our state. The actual school is about four hours south of us, but they are holding all of the classes for the program at the local community college. And online.

Bonuses: It's less expensive that a typical Master's degree program. It will only take about a year and half (it ends in August 2014). Most importantly, it's designed specifically for people who have a job and work full time -- it's designed to accommodate people who are not full-time students.

One very hectic month after first hearing about the program, Nate went to the first class. That was last Saturday. Last night and today, he had the second class. Next weekend he's free, but then he has classes on the three subsequent weekends. Yikes. Suddenly I've become a single mom.

(My own mom just groaned at that statement. Yes mom, I know, I don't have a clue what it's really like. Just let me have my pity-party for a minute.)

I don't know what the future holds. I don't know if Nate will continue this program beyond this term of school (which goes through mid-March). Nate has to figure out how to pay for the rest of the classes. He also needs to do a cost-benefit analysis and provide some evidence of how this decision will help the family. If the research backs it up, I'm all for this new adventure. I totally support his desire and decision to go back to school. But I do want to make sure it's a good investment, one that will yield a return on investment.

So what does all of this mean for me? Ugh. I just started to write a list but it's all a bunch of negative stuff, and I'm really trying to be positive...

What does it all mean for you? Less of me. I'm not going to have the time and/or brain power to blog the way I hoped. Maybe during the week I can somehow find a few hours to write some cooking blogs. Maybe. For now, when it comes to blogging, my emphasis will be on just getting my weekly post out there. If you're disappointed, well... I am too. But sometimes we must all sacrifice for the greater good.  :o)

For now, I am going to strain some yogurt and cook some milk. And try to turn my brain off.