I am out of here

I am moving to Wordpress. Come find me! www.bloggingisforlovers.wordpress.com

Asking for trouble

So I'm feeling kinda overcommitted in my life right now, hence the neglect of this sad little blog. A couple of weeks ago I thought, Hey, I should do that NaNoBloMo thing. And then I thought, No way. That would just be asking for trouble. But, I'm only a few weeks away from escaping The Busiest Fall of My Life and then maybe I'll pull myself back together and this blog along with me. We shall see. A couple of the topics (I hope) to come:

• Baking something with the persimmons Fresh Abundance delivered a couple of weeks ago (if they are even still edible at this point, eek)
  
  
• Muggle Quidditch (I'm writing an article about this for the Inlander this weekend, yay, but that's just one more aspect of my overcommittment, boo, but it's worth it, right?)
  
  
• Parks and Recreation, which has totally shaken itself out of the awkwardness of last year and become a complete delight
  
  
• Details about our upcoming bargain vacation to Disneyland! Here's a photo of us in Disney World from our trip to Florida last Thanksgiving, to get everyone in the Disney mood. Brad and I dressed in matching outfits so that our mom could find us easily if we ran off and got separated.
  

Actually, the truth is, we didn't realize we had worn matching outfits until we looked at these pictures. Isn't that adorable?? No. No, it isn't.

Look no further

Mostly for my own entertainment, here are a few more of the phrases people searched for that led them to my blog. All typos and general weirdness have been left intact.

• "aches and pains all over"
  
  
• "best comment word;is for lovers"
  
  
• "describe an ideal day an shopping"
  
  
• "is a neibor stareing for hours stalking"
  
  
• "who did rory end up with on the series finale"
  
  
• "lovers anniversary blog"
  
  
• "fembot blogspot"
  
  
• "happy birth day questions for lovers"

Don't bore Nina!

Is it me, or is the current season of Project Runway totally boring? I still watch, but I just don't care. Their clothes seem so-so -- not much is shocking, except occasionally for how BAD it is (skanky hot pants?! 30 yards of white ruffles?!). Could this be because the season was filmed so long before it aired? Carol Hannah's dress pockets, for example, don't seem like a big deal now, because pockets have swept the nation over the past year. Maybe what once would have seemed inventive now looks like old news. But, that doesn't address my other issue: there's not much fun conflict. Irina is bitchy, Carol Hannah is super cute, and Althea has giant 80s hair and a complementary wardrobe. But it just feels like it's missing something. Maybe a guest appearance by Wendy Pepper would help?

Butternut disaster

Last night was the second time Brad and I and our friends Joel and Bekka met for dinner party club (man, we really need to think more about what to call this - really, "dinner party club"? Ew). Since Bekka and I cooked last time Brad and Joel were up yesterday. When I came home in the afternoon I peeked in Brad's grocery bag and was a little bit shocked to see not pizza dough or hamburger buns or taco shells, but butternut squash, red onion, and artisan bread. I had been wondering how things would turn out, because we have two guys who eat meat and don't do much cooking, and two girls who don't and love to cook, but the groceries showed a lot of potential for vegetarian delights.

When Bekka and Joel got here the ladies sat at the table eating an appetizer of bread and several bread dipping options served in ramekins (Brad: "Joel, we're going to put this stuff in ramekins." Joel: "A ramekin? What's a ramekin?" Bekka: "Joel, you know, like the big white one I have." Joel: "A ramekin? What's that?" Repeat.) I had just decided to get out the camera and take a picture of the boys in the kitchen when, while attempting to peel the squash, Brad sliced his whole finger off.

It wasn't really his whole finger, but a pretty serious, very gushy cut in his left middle finger. Squash fell on the ground, Bekka and I ran around looking for bandages and tape, and Joel examined the wound. It bled a lot for a while, and then they ended up wrapping it tightly in gauze and securing it with duct tape.

Of course this would be the one month of our entire lives when Brad doesn't have health insurance. That's right: this is the one time EVER that Brad hasn't had medical insurance. He's in an off month between being covered through his old job and the new one, and when he went to apply for temporary coverage to get him through October, he was already past the deadline, so here we are, just waiting for November 1. Joel thought he might possibly "need a stitch." Would we have seriously considered the possibility of stitches if he were covered this month? I think so. It was bleeding a lot. But knowing it's 8 pm on a Friday night and the only thing open is probably the super expensive emergency room limits what you're willing to seriously consider.

Very professional bandaging

For the time being dinner preparations just went on. I jumped in and did some quick peeling of the squash while all of the chaos was going on, and then got out of the kitchen so the guys could finish up. They made Warm Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad (as seen on Smitten Kitchen, who got it from Orangette, who got it from somewhere else), and it was DELICIOUS. The tahini dessing is fantastic. Everything about it is fantastic. Except that there aren't any leftovers for me to eat today.

Ramekins!

This salad might cost you a finger, but it's worth it

For dessert we ate brownies and ice cream, and then Bekka and I went to the store and bought some New-Skin, and when we woke up this morning Brad's finger was still attached - so far, so good. Because if he loses a digit over peeling squash for dinner party club, it could really cast a pall over the whole operation.

So hot right now

Have you lost the pulse of pop culture? Me too, but I'm pretending I'm on it. Things I'm loving right now:

• Ben Folds, who we saw perform with the Spokane Symphony on Sunday at The Fox. So fun! So much orchestration! And I loved the disjointed crowd - the dressy symphony season ticket holders, intermingled with the uber casual Ben Folds fans pleading for Folds to "Rock this bitch!"

• The September Issue - holy cow, what a cool insider's view of the life of Vogue, Anna Wintour and her insanely far-reaching influence over the world of fashion, and the Creative Director, Grace Coddington, who's more of a free-spirited artist in the commercial world. It's really great. My brain can't even contain all of that fashion.

• Mad Men, Mad Men, Mad Men. Beautiful, quiet, informative, heartbreaking, often hilarious. Keep your eyes out for riding lawnmowers - not for indoor use.

• Where the Wild Things Are - it looks perfect, the music is great, the characters are developed and believable and sad and funny. For what it's worth, I think it really captures the destructive yet cuddly yet angry yet loving yet stubborn yet dependent nature of boyhood like nothing else I've seen. Of course I'm an outsider when it comes to boyhood, but from what I've observed, this movie really nails it.
  

Avant garde marketing

Today I received an issue of Gourmet (a magazine I've never subscribed to) in the mail. Every so often I receive just such an unsolicited magazine. I'm assuming that's because I'm part of X magazine's target audience and they want to lure me into becoming a subscriber to X by flaunting all of its goodness in my face. But that's not really an option with Gourmet, since they're on their way out - the November issue, which I received today, is their last. And here's the kicker: the magazine was wrapped in plastic, and inside the plastic was a piece of paper that says this:

"Give the gift of Gourmet - only $4....Use the Card [yes, they capitalized Card, but I won't dwell on that] below to send a holiday gift to your favorite epicurean!" The detachable card shows all of the rates and options (12 issues, 24 issues) and even has a "Bill me after Jan. 1" option.

What is this all about?! Were these all bundled up and ready to go before Conde Nast announced the closing of the magazine and they just decided, "Who cares that we're promoting lies? We're sending them!"? Because a lot of people might take this offer and send in their little Cards. And then Conde Nast or whoever deals with these things is really going to have a mess on their hands. I think current subscribers are being bumped to Bon Appetit, or something like that. They'd have to do some serious bait and switch with any newbies.

The sad thing is, I really like what I see in the magazine. If they weren't already out of here, they might have won me over. Bad timing, I guess.

Big day

So yesterday was the first day of the last year of my twenties. I think that is what is called a mind f. Getting older is the weirdest thing. It hurts my brain to think about how time passes and how I feel young and grown up and accomplished and unsettled all at the same time, and I know that's not going to stop, ever, even when I turn 500. Time is weird. But everybody knows that. And I feel like turning 29 is a bigger deal than turning 30 somehow, because 29 is the last of something, and 30 is the beginning. And I also feel like, who even cares how old I am or any of this thinking I'm doing right now? Let's all just spend a few minutes celebrating me!

And that is what we did yesterday. Because I am such a mature and responsible lady, I spent most of the day working from home and then writing essays (for school) from a coffee shop. But I really went crazy at the coffee shop, and instead of just buying a cup of coffee, I treated myself to a whole bowl of soup. On my birthday I really go nuts.

Then last night we went to dinner at Mizuna with Bekka and Joel, sometimes known as Lady B and Gentleman J. I had never been there for dinner before and it was great. They have a huge vegetarian menu, which meant that there were like five whole entrees I could choose between. I was in the lap of luxury. And our super cooky server took $6 off a really nice glass of wine in honor of my big day. The only downside of the Mizuna experience was that the same cooky waitress (can I still say waitress? do I have to say server? I'm not going to) knew it was my birthday, and when we were ready to leave came over and looked at me and said, "If I were you, I'd stick around for about ten minutes or so, if you know what I mean," POINTED LOOK. So we're all thinking, ooh, birthday treats to come for me! Dessert, etc. But here's what happens: she leaves us alone for about twenty minutes, and then gives us the bill. No dessert or mention of the fact she'd asked us to stick around. Happy birthday!

But Brad and I took care of the dessert thing by wandering over to the mall and getting some Oatmeal Cookie Chunk ice cream at Ben and Jerry's before he took me to see The September Issue. Ice cream=my favorite thing. Fashion documentary=fascinating. Me=so, so old, but having a very nice life.

There is more to life than food...

...But apparently that's all I want to blog about. First, a quick Fresh Abundance update: I forgot to order my fourth variety box last week. But I still had a few things left from previous weeks (potatoes and yams, a couple of pears, celery, onion, a couple of peppers, Swiss chard), so I made a delicious minestrone out of most of that stuff (no pears or potatoes or yams) with a recipe I modified a lot out of Gourmet. Because really, I just don't have two hours to spend on soup most days. I also don't eat pancetta. So instead of cooking the first group of ingredients (through chard stems) for a leisurely 45 minutes, I went with about 15. The soup was still delicious. In your face, Gourmet! Maybe a few tips from me would have saved your little magazine.

That was a joke.

And on to the main event! Cookies. I made some flourless oatmeal cookies last week and they were a big hit. I was a little nervous because I hadn't gotten to taste the cookies before I brought them to class the night I baked them, but they were very popular and also, I am in love with them. I made about 50 cookies with the amount of ingredients shown below. The original recipe is for "monster cookies" but I think mine were just people-sized cookies. I also used a combination of white and dark chocolate chips instead of other chocolate candies - and I'm pretty sure I used WAYYYYYYYYY more than the one cup originally called for. Probably more like one cup of each kind of chocolate. Probably more like one cup of chocolate per cookie. Brad and I ate every single cookie that I didn't take to class, too - and that doesn't usually happen. If you knew for certain that there were no traces of gluten in your oats (like Bob's Red Mill, or quelque chose comme ca), these would also be officially gluten free.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Monster Cookies
About 4 dozen cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, slightly softened
1 1/2 cups creamy natural peanut butter, well-mixed
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
About 2+ cup chocolate or mix-ins (follow your heart)

Preheat oven to 350F and line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper (or Silpat).

Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Beat in baking soda, then oatmeal and mix-ins.

Drop onto cookie sheets with an ice cream scoop and flatten slightly. Bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes or until done. Do not overbake! Don't you dare!

Remove from oven when slightly golden. Let cool on the sheets for a few minutes until they have firmed up enough to remove to wire racks.

A bloggy deal

Here's what I just learned from my blog stats:

• Most readers come from the U.S. The country with the next highest number of readers? Obviously, Brazil!

Searches that have brought people to my site:

• "dressing up for sporting events" (like that has ever happened!)
  
• "zaftig veronica mars" (excuse me??)
  
• "doesn't that sound nice" (there's a nice, specific search, holy cow)
  
• "one year anniversary for lovers" (I recommend Vermont)
  
• "rory logan goodbye" (that might make a nice subtitle for part of the episode, robot)
  

And my favorite:

• "I'm a fembot" (you ARE? So is Francie!)
  

True love

Brad and I saw Paper Heart at the Magic Lantern a couple of nights ago. This is a super quirky doc(mock?)umentary featuring super quirky comedian/musician Charlyne Yi and the ever-adorable Michael Cera (directed by Nicholas Jasenovek). The premise of the documentary is that Charlyne doesn't believe she is capable of love (specifically, of being "in love") and so takes a bunch of trips all over the country to talk with regular people, scholars, romance novel writers, and others about their experiences with and understanding of love. Along the way she and Michael Cera meet at a party in L.A. and start dating, which then becomes part of the documentary, because HOLY COW, if Charlyne is finally finding love as we're making a documentary about Charlyne not being able to love like other people, we better capture that on film! Hope that doesn't cause any conflict in their tender young love!

Something about the way their relationship plays out doesn't really ring true (and I don't even think they intend for it to, and also some say they'd been dating for years before this came out), but it doesn't really matter. The documentary is quirky (have I mentioned it is quirky?), funny, occasionally touching/cute/sweet, and worth checking out.

Rings like trees

Well world, I am way into my second produce variety box, and you know what that means: I just ate my first beet ever. I roasted beets in the oven today, how crazy is that? My only real beet knowledge comes from seeing them dying in their own sick bloody juice in salad bars. They have always looked way too disgusting to consider eating. But I decided that I'll try everything that comes in my variety box, so today, it's beets.

The one I just ate was golden yellow inside, and a little bit sweet, with texture kind of like a cooked carrot. It was very pretty and I sliced it into little circles. Also, apparently beets have rings, like trees. Mine was six years old.

(Note: I didn't put my beets in the refrigerator for a few days after I received them, because I thought they should be stored in a cool dark cupboard like potatoes are, but I was so very wrong about that; they're supposed to be refrigerated. So there is a chance that my mis-storage altered the way they turned out. Who can say for sure?! Produce is so exciting!)

I am doing other things besides dedicating my life to local abundance (which is an experiment that may die off at some point, although I hope not). School has started again (and I am taking an EEK SCARY POETRY WORKSHOP, among other things), and this is a really busy time at work, so I won't be blogging nearly as often for a while, although hopefully more than once a week. We'll see.

My bizarro best

Last week I signed up for a produce box, delivered to my home for free, from Fresh Abundance. This is something I did a couple of times about a year and a half ago, and loved and thought I would continue to do forever and ever, with one "variety" box of produce (a.k.a. seasonal grab bag, selected by Fresh Abundance, not me) arriving on my doorstep every Friday. Well, I did it exactly twice and then forsook Fresh Abundance altogether, probably because it's not exactly cheap. A variety box costs $35. To me, this was too big a chunk of our ideal grocery budget.

But recently I've been doing some thinking, and here's what that thinking has revealed: I think most of my diet should come from things that grow in from the ground: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, etc. Not EVERYTHING. Oh no, let's not get crazy. I'm going to eat cheese and eggs and ice cream. But if, as most health/diet experts would advise, I made the majority of my diet fruits and vegetables (really good, local, in-season ones), those fruits and vegetables should probably merit a big chunk of my food budget.

So, back to my variety box. I got a lot for my $35, all of it organic, most of it local. I'll list everything just so that you can take in the vast majesty of it.

• 3 apples
• 2 oranges
• a whole bunch of the best nectarines I've ever had
• a few peaches
• a few bunches of grapes
• several pluots
• two pears
  
• one head of red cabbage
• one giant head of romaine
• one HUGE onion
• 2 potatoes
• 3 or 4 carrots (THE BEST CARROTS OF MY LIFE)
  
• a bag of green beans
• a red pepper
• a jalepeno
• another unidentified pepper; it is tiny, which makes me think it might burn my mouth off
• a gigantic bunch of cilantro
• a ginormous bag of tomatoes

This is a lot of produce, way more than I would normally eat in a week. But I am trying, and it's been fun for me, and so I keep looking for recipes that will use some combination of the menagerie of abundance I have here. Last night I made Indian food with potatoes and onion and carrots and peppers and coconut milk and spices, and served it with quinoa and a lot of cilantro (which I thought I HATED, I must add, but it is so good with Indian food, apparently), and it was fantastico.

Other times, I just get panicky at the thought of all the produce in my refrigerator and start flinging things together into bowls and eating them. Which brings me to the weirdest ever BEST FOOD EVER.

Sarah's Bizarro Cabbage and Bean Salad
Now, the reason why this is so freaking bizarro to me is because I thought I didn't really like cabbage, especially not purple (or red) cabbage, especially not as the star ingredient in anything. In fact, yesterday, I was so unconfident in what I made that when I was eating at work I hid it from view whenever anyone passed by, to avoid scorn and ridicule. But, omg, it is delicious, with the best texture and flavor. I am in love with my bizarro salad. I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup chickpeas or kidney beans
1 cup chopped red cabbage
some chopped olives
lemon juice
olive oil
sriracha
sunflower seeds
feta

So, you simply and wonderfully combine everything through olives, put in some lemon juice, olive oil, and sriracha to taste, top it all with a little bit of feta and a handful of sunflower seeds, and then indulge in the surprise treat of your life.

Growing up

My brother was here visiting last week, for the first time in three years. Not that I haven't seen him in three years, just not in the Inland Empire. So, we spent a lot of time talking and lounging and playing Rock Band and eating and watching TV both good and bad and generally staying up a little later than I normally would, and sleeping in. On weekdays I get up at 6 and for me sleeping in is something like getting up at the ripe old hour of 8:30, but when I asked Ty what time he usually wakes up he said, "Ohhhhh, I don't know. Sometime between 10 and 11." Because he stays up late doing things like playing in three bands and planning a beautifully nomadic trip to South America, and I stay up "late" editing church newsletters and working on my thesis. And so when he said 10 or 11, I thought, oh good, because that meant I could sleep in AND sneak around getting things done in the morning and avoid being a mega boring married work machine during his waking hours.

So one morning at around 9:45 I called Brad's mom to check on a few things, including how those muffins I made recently were treating her. And as a mega boring married work machine I thought, hey, while I'm on the phone, why don't I sweep the house?! Our brooms and dustpans and mops and Swiffer-type things are all hanging in the stairwell that leads straight to where my brother was sleeping, so I knew I'd have to gather that broom very quietly. So I tucked the phone between my shoulder and ear, slowly opened the door at the top of the stairs, took the broom off the hook, and promptly bumped the mop hanging next door, which in turn knocked EVERY SINGLE OTHER MOP, SWIFFER, DUSTPAN, ETC. clattering and thundering and colliding down the entire flight of stairs, where they landed within several feet of the couch where Ty slept.

Or so I thought. It turns out that he had woken up a little bit early and was watching back-to-back episodes of Top Chef. Meaning, I was upstairs being boring and worried about keeping quiet, and he was being just as boring downstairs. So he put all of the brooms and dustpans and mops away and came upstairs, and I made him watch The Rachel Zoe Project for a while before we went to a coffee shop, where I did boring work stuff and my co-grown-up did the New York Times crossword puzzle.

Muffin man

Last night I spent a few hours as the muffin man, baking about six dozen. Some for my mother-in-law, some for a staff meeting, and a few little baby leftovers for me and Brad. I made some pumpkin ones which were decent, not great, but the others are what I need to share with the world. These strawberry cinnamon muffins are soooooo so so good. Normally, I believe that any food thing with some semi-liquidy food thing lurking in the middle is at best questionable (Cadbury Creme Eggs) and at worst DISGUSTING (Gushers). But these have jam in the middle, and that very jam is a pure delight. I'd also like to note that these are low fat, if you care about that sort of thing. Please, treasure them.

Note: a good blogger would post a picture to really sell you on these muffins. I am not that blogger.

Happy birthday

Good morning world,

After that oh-so-bloggy last post, I had to stop blogging for a few days. But I'm over it now. And today is a very important day. It is the birthday of my most faithful of readers, Miss Danyeal Jones. Danyeal is a Johnny-Flynn-loving, Emmy-godmothering, world-traveling, barefoot-in-the-summertime best friend of mine since junior high whose history is littered with terrible birthdays. I hope that someday we will live together in the same city. Happy birthday, Danyeal!

What blogs are for

Thoughts on my weekend (ohhhh, openings like that are what blogs are all about!)

• I Love You Man is mostly not that funny, but the Andy Samberg parts are.
• I don't want any more of my friends to move to the Tri Cities.
• I was wrong when I said I was acclimated to hot summer weather. It is disgusting.
  

The neat freak

Fact: Emmy hates being dirty. She cleans her paws and face like a cat, will go awkwardly out of her way to avoid mud puddles, and won't even let sprinkler water touch her sensitive hide. But for reasons unknown, about once a year, our meticulously clean little dog finds something incredibly disgusting and gets it all over her petite self. Last year, she rolled in some sort of unnamed animal poop while she and Brad were vacationing at Priest Lake and had to have a bath, immediately. Since they weren't at home Brad had to use Head and Shoulders instead of dog shampoo, and she's been flake free ever since.

Two days ago, Brad and I took Emmy for a walk and for some bizarro reason, she rolled in a bunch of overripe plums. She smashed so much onto the top of her head that it seemed like she had covered it in gel, and it looked like she had gashes of plum blood on the sides of her body. When we got home she jumped onto the couch right away and I shrieked because I didn't want plum blood on it, but it turns out that all of the plum had hardened, much like hair gel, and was no longer leaving stains. So, it was into the bathtub with Emmy again, but this time she had her Pina Colada doggie shampoo.

She can be a little bit annoying sometimes, but even in the midst of that she always makes me laugh, and there is just nothing nicer than having a little dog live with us. Even when she gets water in her beard and drips it all over the kitchen floor, every day. Even when she jumped up to pick plums out of our backyard tree and broke her foot and had to be taken to the doggie emergency room. And especially when she greeted us at the front door one night with such an excited wag of the tail that the vet officially diagnosed her with a tail sprain. That's love.

A night of fashion

Whoops, I fell asleep early last night and forgot to post. Or, to be more accurate: I fell asleep from about 9 until 10, when I of course woke right up and watched Project Runway before falling immediately back asleep at 11, only to be cruelly (I thought at the time, but soon changed my mind) awoken by Brad at some point between 11:30 and midnight to watch a little segment on Conan called "Puppies Dressed as Cats." Omg, omg.

Anybody?

My rule for the rest of the summer (a.k.a. the few weeks I have left to draft essays for my thesis before school starts): I will not panic. So far, my approach to thesis writing is the same as my approach to most important and complex things requiring careful thinking mixed with bursts of creativity. Things which will ultimately be evaluated based on their quality. My pattern: thinking about big things that need to get done, deciding that it’s really unlikely that I can ever do them justice in the time allotted, procrastinating because the potential for failure or mediocrity is just too great, making some un-thoughtful, blind stabs at work that I end up tossing, feeling confirmed in my fears of mediocrity because my panic-induced attempts have turned out poorly, spending a lot of time moping about the fact that I'm not getting anything done, making lists of ways to start getting things done, worrying more about how badly things could all turn out if I don't hurry up and finally do something, repeat, repeat, repeat.

And then: in the last little smidgen of an inch of time remaining, I buckle down and rapidly turn out exactly the necessary amount of work, and whatever I was supposed to do turns out just fine, or better. Just IMAGINE what would happen if I would use all of that time for thinking and daydreaming or playing or brainstorming or praying or pondering instead of worrying and mulling and psyching myself out.




PS: This post is not intended to be a pity party. I'm just thinking. And I'm assuming I'm not the only one out there like this. :) This emoticon welcomes you to Procrastination Nation.