saltycrunchybitterfresh

Spring

2012-03-05T13:39:00.000-06:00

It's full-on Spring here and the weather has been mostly fantastic. I missed my chance to take photos of bare branches against the winter-grey sky because now everything is either blooming like crazy or leafing out in a green so bright it hurts your eyes. Or both.

I've been grilling dinner pretty much every night and walking the dog pretty much every morning and sneezing my head off and trying to just BREATHE whenever I get a chance, because from now until late May it's going to be one long thrill ride of band concerts and theater competitions and high school course selections and birthdays and standardized testing and summer camp registration. Whew! I kind of wish I hadn't written all that down.

... breathe ... breathe ... breathe ...

In other news:

Son C bought a trumpet. Yep. He plays tuba in his high school band, and before that he played it three years in middle school, and he has no desire to switch to trumpet, you know, professionally or whatever. He just wanted one and saw a used one on Craigslist that he could afford. This kid can play any instrument you hand him, so it was no surprise that in less than 24 hours he sounded like he'd been playing for a year. I don't know where he gets this freaky savant-like musical talent. I only know he didn't get it from me.
Daughter H is getting ready to say goodbye to middle school and hello to high school, which I sort of can't believe. Didn't I just give birth to her a couple of years ago? She already has a dress for the 8th grade formal, which is like a mini-prom, and she's picked out all her classes for next year and her graduation track and everything. So super exciting. H is a planner and she has pretty much her entire life mapped out. I hope she lets me visit her at her summer home in Paris someday. I mean, SOMEONE will have to dust all those Oscar, Emmy and Tony awards, right?
I've been reading House of Thieves, a short story collection by Kaui Hart Hemmings, and it's pretty great. Hemmings wrote The Descendants, the book on which the movie was based, as an expansion of one of the stories in this collection and boy howdy, I haven't seen the movie or read the book but I can hear George Clooney's voice delivering every line of his character's dialog in the short story. That was some perfect casting, right there. I'm not sure what I'll read next but I am SUPER excited about Lauren Groff's Arcadia, which will be out later this month. I haven't been this excited about a book since Joshilyn Jackson's A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, which was excellent, by the way.

That's about all that's going on around here. I'm still making granola and eating salads and just trying to breathe.

Typical Wednesday

2012-02-29T11:55:00.000-06:00

What am I up to today? Oh, you know.

Just lying on the floor, taking extreme close-up photos of my dog's nose.

And you?

Coconut-almond granola

2012-02-28T15:36:00.001-06:00

A jar of granola, some out-of-season tomatoes, a really filthy window, and thou.

I feel like all of my recipes should come with a disclaimer: This is just how I made it. Feel free to make it however you want. I'm definitely the type of cook who regards a recipe as a sort of loose guideline/framework rather than a blueprint that must be followed exactly. This is mostly because I'm lazy; if I have all the ingredients except one for a particular recipe, I refuse to go all the way out to the store (a whole .6 miles from my house)(see? LAZY) for that one thing. I would rather scrounge through my fridge/pantry to see what I already have and then make a substitution. Usually this works out okay, like substituting green onion tops for chives in an egg dish. Occasionally it doesn't, like the time my dad tried to make creamed cucumbers with powdered non-dairy coffee creamer. But, you know. That's how you learn.

I don't like to think of myself as a food snob -- I mean really, I will eat ANYTHING -- but I do have strong opinions when it comes to food, along with some weird prejudices. On the subject of granola, I don't like it too clumpy or too sweet, I prefer crispy to crunchy, and I refuse to put flavoring extracts in my granola. I don't know why; that's just how it is with me. This particular recipe makes a dry, not very sweet, delicately flavored granola, which is just how I like it. Please see the notes at the bottom of the recipe for ingredient explanations and possible substitutions if dry, not terribly sweet granola isn't your bag.

Coconut-Almond Granola

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup roughly chopped almonds
1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/3 cup unsweetened coconut chips
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar granules
generous pinch of salt
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to coat. Spread onto a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 300 degrees F for 15 minutes; stir, rotate sheet 180 degrees, and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until well-toasted. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

NOTES:

I use Bob's Red Mill unsweetened shredded coconut, which can be ordered online if your store doesn't carry it and is fabulous added to any sort of baked goods, oatmeal, smoothies, etc. So don't worry that you won't use a whole bag -- if you like coconut, you'll use this stuff up fast.
Coconut chips are those big shaved bits of coconut, also called flaked coconut. They will get very brown/toasty in the oven. If that weirds you out, don't add them until halfway through the cooking time.
I do NOT recommend substituting sweetened shredded coconut for either of the above -- it will burn and get weird. Also, I don't like it. But you do whatever.
Coconut palm sugar -- it's what I had. Don't feel like you have to go out looking for this stuff -- just substitute brown sugar. Or, if you like your granola a little bit sweeter/clumpier, use a liquid sweetener like honey, maple syrup, brown rice syrup or agave nectar -- whatever you have, basically -- and increase the amount to 1/3 cup.
Coconut oil is fabulous stuff and will really boost the coconut flavor of this granola, but if you don't have it, you could certainly substitute melted butter or a neutral-flavored vegetable oil.
Feel free to stir in some chocolate chips or chunks after the granola has cooled completely. Because that would be amazing.

Around here

2012-02-23T14:03:00.000-06:00

Squirrel!

We are having a very busy February at our house. I'm sort of glad it's almost over. Is it just me, or has this been a weird winter? It's been very mild here most of the season. Mild and wet. And yesterday and today it's like 90 degrees. In February! WTF?

I've developed a few obsessions this month. The first is coconut. I cannot get enough coconut right now, both scent-wise and flavor-wise. I have a coconut-almond granola recipe I'll be sharing with you very soon, I swear. I think I have it perfected now, and I can't stop eating it. And it smells so good that it practically qualifies as edible potpourri.

The second obsession is tea. There is something about having the crud that makes me want tea instead of coffee. Hot tea. Spicy tea. I finally made this recipe for spiced chai tea concentrate that I pinned forever ago, and it is so good. I did make a few changes, though: I used rooibos tea to make it naturally caffeine-free, and I cut the brown sugar back to 1/3 of a cup because I am not a fan of sweetness (unless it's this Sweetness). I mix this 1:1 with So Delicious Coconut Milk (Original flavor)(which does not taste at all like coconut, although obviously I WOULD BE OKAY WITH THAT) and heat it in the microwave and it's a caffeine-free, dairy-free (leave out the honey and it's vegan!) cure for everything! Except things that can be cured with caffeine and dairy (and honey, if you went that route).

Third, I cannot stop eating this salad: mixed baby "spring" greens, cubed grilled chicken, walnuts, dried cranberries and a tiny sprinkling of bleu cheese. With this dressing: dijon mustard, honey, apple cider vinegar and olive oil. I CRAVE this salad. I, like, go to bed at night all excited at the thought of eating this salad for lunch the next day. If I weren't making it myself from scratch, I'd swear there was crack in it. So weird.

I'm not obsessed with my garden, but I am a tiny bit excited about getting it going again. I used to grow vegetables and stuff but that awful dog in the photo above put the kibosh on that, because he eats everything. EVERY. THING. So now I pretty much only grow herbs on my awesome dog-proof herb table and flowers in the front beds where the dog can't get them. Last weekend I pruned my roses and cut back a bunch of dead stuff, and today I bought some lavender and cilantro to replace what died ~~in the inferno~~ last summer. I came thisclose to buying basil and some patio tomatoes, but it could still freeze here so I restrained myself. Barely.

My daffodils are up! Well, three of them are, anyway. That may be all I get this year.

In other news, thanks perhaps in part to all that chai tea, my annual February Crud has reached the point where I no longer FEEL sick, but I still SOUND like I have tuberculosis. So, that's fun for me and all the other people in line with me at the grocery store.

Alrighty! That's all for now. Gotta get back to driving somebody somewhere for something. Oy.

The ramen diaries

2012-02-10T14:02:00.000-06:00

Hello, I haven't been posting because we have been sick, and that's boring. We get sick every February the way some families go to the beach every summer. It's tradition. If I don't feel that little tickle in my throat by February 2nd or so, I kind of feel like I should go around licking doorknobs or something just so I can get it over with.

This year it started at the very end of January with C, who went to school one morning with a bit of a sore throat and came home in the afternoon sounding like Froggy from The Little Rascals. He missed two days of school and gave it to H, who also missed two days of school. Now, nearly two weeks later, P and I are in the thick of it and it JUST. WON'T. GO. AWAY. Just like every February. Argh.

The only good thing about being sick (if you're not tummy-sick, which we are not, thank goodness) is the food. I am all about the spicy, brothy goodness of ramen when I have some rotten head/nose/throat crud that won't go away. Ramen is so cheap the store practically pays you to take it off their hands, and you've gotta love anything that cooks in three minutes, right?

I throw away the little "flavor" packet that comes with packaged ramen, because that's crap, and boil the noodles in broth instead. Then I just toss in any random combination of the following:

leftover cubed/shredded meat
fresh garlic
fresh ginger
lime juice
sliced jalapeno
cilantro
baby spinach
shredded carrots
miso
soy sauce
mirin
chili oil
sriracha
sesame seeds
green onion

So, so good. The spicier and more aromatic, the better. This is exactly what my body craves when I'm sick. I love that it's such a blank canvas -- you can add virtually anything to it and it comes out awesome. The possibilities are endless, really.

Just like this freaking head/nose/throat crud. Oy.

It's new to me

2012-01-26T13:51:00.000-06:00

So here are some things that I've discovered/tried/liked lately.

This whackadoodle gift shop at my local mall. I've walked past it many times but never gone inside until today. OMG. If you're ever in Austin and need someplace to buy a fake skull that holds restaurant-style salt and pepper shakers in its eye sockets, a life-sized semi-pornographic fairy sculpture for your garden, a neon pink katana, a crapload of cell phone charms and some Pocky, I can hook you up. One-stop shopping!
Elk. You know, the animal? Or more accurately, the meat from the animal? I am always looking for non-CAFO animal protein to which none of my family members are allergic (P is allergic to poultry, C is allergic to beef, my body can't metabolize non-heme iron and we are all sick of pork). My local health food store had ground elk so I made meatballs out of it and we all loved it. It's very lean and tastes a lot like beef, only richer. Not gamey at all. Will DEFINITELY buy again.
Starbucks. Oh, I know. But see, I've managed to completely avoid Starbucks all these years. First I didn't like coffee, then I DID like coffee but couldn't handle caffeine, and I was intimidated by all the roasts and shots and pumps and whips and whatnot. However, while we were traveling over the holidays P taught me the code words to say for the drink I like and now, a couple of months later, I've got a grande decaf soy latte monkey on my back. (And he brought his friend, the cranberry-orange scone monkey.) I feel so unclean. But I cannot deny, that freaking coffee is DELICIOUS. (And so are the scones. God help me.)
Sherlock, the contemporary version of the classic with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. My local PBS station shows this on Sunday nights right after Downton Abbey, which means Sunday nights are suddenly the most awesome nights of all time. I don't usually like "updated" classics but this one, I love. Cumberbatch is pitch perfect and I have adored Martin Freeman since The Office.
"Resistance" by Muse. This really could not be further from my "usual thing", musically speaking, but I heard it while sitting on an overstuffed ottoman waiting for daughter H to finish trying on clothes at Kohl's and I fell in love with it. I don't even know myself anymore, you guys. (Do I like Muse now? Am I ALLOWED to like Muse? Are they too young for me? OMG, THEY PROBABLY PLAY THIS SONG AT STARBUCKS.)

In other news:

I have a new laptop, because I keep killing laptops. I hope not to kill this one anytime soon. My old favorite photo editing software doesn't run on the new laptop because apparently the company that made it was bought by another company in 2004, which tells you how old my copy of this software is, and anyway I can't edit photos now so I'm not posting any until I get new software and have learned it. And since learning curves are my anathemata ... it might be a while. Is what I'm saying.
Son C fell in the shower yesterday and while he did not get hurt (apart from some bruising), WHICH IS THE IMPORTANT THING, he did somehow manage to destroy, like, an entire wall in the upstairs bathroom, and all the tile on it, and all the plumbing behind it. We picked an excellent time to replace our floors, eh?
Speaking of the floors, the dog is still completely freaked out by them and I am so over it. We have done everything but smear the floors with cheese and cat poop to convince him they are awesome and totally not going to kill him, but he is not having it. I think we might have to lobotomize him. Or I might have to move to another house and take the floors with me. Or start drinking more.

Yep. That's about all that's going on around here.

Stuff and nonsense for your Friday

2012-01-20T14:18:00.000-06:00

So what happened was, we got new floors.

They're hand-scraped hickory, and they're only downstairs and on the actual stairs (upstairs is still manky horrible carpet).

And I love them. I love that they are all distressed and mis-matched, like crappy old wood that we just found rotting in a pile somewhere and decided to put on our floors.

Even though they show, like, every single speck of dust. As you can see by these photos. Fortunately daughter H's OCD has kicked in and she's sort of obsessive about Swiffering them (when she's home, which she wasn't when I took these photos).

UNfortunately, in getting these floors we broke the dog's brain. He has only two speeds: OFF and 11. If he isn't sitting/lying perfectly still, he is running around like a crazy thing. So, he slides on the floors. Which makes him afraid of the floors. Which makes him want to run across them even FASTER. Which causes him to slide. Which makes him afraid of the floors. Rinse, repeat.

We have a bunch of rugs thrown around everywhere and he kind of hops from one rug to another like he's playing a game of Frogger. It would be funny if it weren't driving me absolutely nuts. I'm not sure which one of us needs sedatives more, quite frankly.

Apart from the floors and the dog we are our usual busy selves around here. I found out one day before the first rehearsal that son C was going to be in a week-long musical performance for school, so that was fun. We're still in the midst of that now, and since it's at night and I can't see to drive in the dark, husband P has been ferrying him around while I stay home to help H with her homework, which seems to involve an awful lot of glue and colored sand lately for some reason.

Speaking of homework, son C is supposed to be reading Jane Eyre just now, although I don't think he actually is, and since I hadn't read it myself I thought it might help if I did, and so I am. (It's appalling how many classics I haven't read considering I minored in English in college.) I am enjoying it quite a lot and trying to convince C that he will too, but he's too busy playing Skyrim. Oy. Meanwhile I have ordered a paperback copy, even though I don't read real books anymore, of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea and am very much looking forward to reading that as a followup, assuming I even remember how to read real books. We shall see.

Prior to starting Jane Eyre I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I also hadn't ever read, and now that I have I'm thinking that could have been a MUCH better movie in the right hands. Just sayin'. I read TWWoO because H and I have tickets to see a Broadway Across America production of Wicked in a couple of weeks, and I was thinking I might re-read the Gregory Maguire book before seeing the musical and that it might be nice to have a frame of reference before reading the book this time, only now I've decided NOT to re-read the book beforehand and instead just to enjoy the musical for what it is without the need for comparisons. So. I'm glad we got that all worked out.

Let's see, what else is going on? I've had the same weird, nebulous crud that I get every year around this time, which I always assume is some sort of flu that my body is fighting off owing to having had the shot back in October. (Except this time it might actually be dust/cedar poisoning. Hard to tell.) I'm trying to beat it back with naps, hot toddies and lots of sriracha. That usually works.

My hair, which I shaved off in May 2010 and have been growing back for a little over a year, is making me completely insane but I am not going to let myself shave it again because boy howdy, that was a pain to maintain. Assuming I didn't want to look like a Monchhichi, which I did not.

I recently read this article and loved the concept of setting seasonal goals rather than annual goals, so I promptly resolved to make more homemade granola, take more photos and drink more chai tea this winter. So far I've made ONE batch of granola (coconut almond -- it's OKAY, but not worth sharing the recipe until I've tweaked it), taken ... the three photos you see in this post, and consumed not a single cup of chai tea. Heh. I even suck at REMEDIAL resolutions.

Yep, that's about all I've got. Enjoy your weekend.

New year, same old me

2012-01-07T13:25:00.000-06:00

Hello, I did not mean to quit blogging at you for so long but the thing is, I have been too busy sneezing. Sneezing, blowing my nose, throwing away tissues. That is all I do now. There's no time for anything else.

We're all sneezing really, even the dog, and the reason we're sneezing is that Phase One of our big home improvement project has been completed, and that particular phase involved cleaning out closets and clearing bookshelves that hadn't been dusted in ... well, EVER ... and also ripping out 9-year-old carpet that had been professionally cleaned ONCE in its entire life, and now we're all dying of dust poisoning. I had no idea how much dust was lying dormant in my house until it all rose up in a great big angry tsunami which is still swirling around a couple of days later, trying to kill us all. You'd think opening the windows would help, but this is what's going on OUTSIDE the house right now:

Image courtesy of Your News Now.

Do you see that second column? The cedar? That is the pollen to which I am most allergic in the world. THE CHART IS NOT EVEN HIGH ENOUGH TO CONTAIN IT. I am going to die, I'm pretty sure.

I did manage to accomplish a few things earlier this week, before the very air I breathe went on its murderous rampage:

Bath and Body Works put their tiny little holiday-scented candles on sale, one candle and one little glass holder for $1.50. I am not even going to tell you how many of these I bought, but suffice it to say that the next several Christmasses around here are going to be EXTREMELY fragrant.
The prize I won during NaBloPoMo arrived! And I was very excited. And very sad that I no longer read real books. And then I looked it up on the Kindle and it was only 99 cents, so I bought it. That's right. I WON A TOTALLY FREE BOOK and then I BOUGHT ANOTHER COPY. Please mark this down as reason #4,583 why I am not a millionaire, and reason #52 why husband P is in charge of all our money.
Speaking of (Kindle) books, I read Darcie Chan's The Mill River Recluse and liked it well enough, and then I intended to read Jennifer McMahon's The Island of Lost Girls because I very much enjoyed Promise Not To Tell, but I accidentally read a free sample of Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends instead and decided that I had to read that next. So I am. And it's good.
I took advantage of an Amazon gift card and bought a whopping ton of MP3 music, including the first album I ever bought with my own money (Queen's News of the World) and all the Florence + The Machine I could get my hands on. (Also The Head and the Heart. And some old Chicago. I know, I am so eclectic! Or maybe just weird. I'll let you be the judge.)
I bought a poodle calendar for 50% off and hung it in my bathroom next to the toilet. Yes. That happened.

And that pretty much brings you up to speed. More soon, I hope. If I don't die.

Year's end

2011-12-26T16:28:00.000-06:00

The older I get, the more this becomes my favorite part of the holidays -- the part when they're over. I don't mean that in quite the nihilistic way it sounds. I just mean ... no more stressing over when I'll have time to decorate, because the decorations are up. No more stressing over what to bake, because the cookies have been eaten. No more stressing over which presents to buy for whom and when to wrap them, because the presents have been received and opened and put into use. No more stressing about travel, because that's over. No more stressing about anything related to the holidays because they've come and gone, for better or worse.

So much didn't get done at our house during this holiday season -- so many unbaked cookies, unsent cards, unbought presents, undecorated corners of the house -- and I felt bad about that until yesterday afternoon, when I realized it was too late to do anything about any of it anyway. And that everything had really turned out okay. And that we were all happy. Even me.

Since then, even though we have a very busy week ahead, I've felt my shoulders lowering themselves from my earlobes, where they've been clenched for most of the month of December (and bits of November)(and October too, for that matter). This week will bring appointments and errands and chores, but it's all mundane stuff. Daily rhythm stuff. Background stuff that we could do with our eyes closed, really.

The part of my brain that's been cluttered up with worry and stress is being given over to other things now. Things like:

Being so grateful for all the rain we've had this month. Pretty much our entire December has been filled with gentle, soaking rains. It feels like a bit of a miracle after the last several long, brutally hot, bone-dry months we've had. I've learned to love walking the dog in the drizzly mist, seeing all the wet-black tree trunks against the late autumn gold and crimson leaves.
Thinking back over all the new-to-me things I discovered in 2011. Like negronis (I've tried to like them, but I don't really), American Horror Story (surprisingly good and so creepy/fun), and Florence + The Machine (LOVE!). I read some books I loved, some I wanted to love but didn't, and I started and abandoned a few I didn't care for at all. More about that in another blog entry, I think.
Looking forward to the year to come. Somehow our home-improvement project of switching my downstairs office with our upstairs guest bedroom has morphed into giving H the guest bedroom furniture, moving my office upstairs, and turning my former downstairs office into an exercise/game room. I guess it's good we don't get overnight guests very often, eh? So we still need to finish that up, and do something about our horrible manky floors, and I've decided to take up running again but I haven't yet figured out how to work it back into my day/week. All in good time, I suppose.

Bring it on, Winter. Let's do this, January. Come on, 2012. I'm ready for you.

The fog

2011-12-09T10:02:00.000-06:00

I was all set to whine at you this morning about how stressed out I've been all week, with the decorating and the baking and the shopping and the upcoming travel and the kids' end-of-semester school stuff and husband P deciding we need to do this home improvement project RIGHT NOW and how I am coming down with the crud in a big way and possibly C is also, but then!

We woke up to a pea soup fog.

As soon as the kids were deposited at school, I grabbed my camera and Herr Pudel and I hit the greenbelt.

I don't know about you, but I feel a whole lot calmer now.

Even though my camera batteries ran out at the end there and I had to switch to my phone. Heh.

Day 30 (thank goodness)

2011-11-30T22:06:00.000-06:00

Well! This final day of November/NaBloPoMo has been rather eventful.

First, I decided El Guapo and I should hit the greenbelt this morning instead of our usual walking route though the 'hood. I don't know why, exactly. I just felt like seeing some cactus, I guess. This being Texas and it being November and whatnot, the greenbelt was positively lousy with white-tailed deer. All does, no bucks. Absolutely gorgeous.

Can ya see 'em?

Mr. Awful Adorable was on his best behavior, curious but not the least bit interested in any sort of up-close investigation. I snapped a few photos with my cell phone camera and we walked on. A couple of seconds later, we saw a doe tearing full-speed through the brush with two unleashed dogs in hot pursuit. The owners came looking for their dogs soon after, shrugging it off and saying that they just couldn't hold onto them with all those deer around. Um, maybe don't walk your dog through the greenbelt during deer season, then? Just a thought. (The "dumbass" is implied there, right? Good.)

The afternoon was spent in the company of an absolutely adorable young man (like seriously romcom-level adorable)(hush, I am old enough to be his youthful, hip auntie) from a local family-run flooring company who came to measure our square footage and talk to us about laminates vs. engineered wood and how to get our dog to stop eating our house. So that was fun.

While he was finishing up my folks called to say they were in the neighborhood and wanted to drop something by, and P and I realized we hadn't eaten lunch and were STARVING, so the guy finishing and the folks dropping by and the lunch eating all sort of happened simultaneously and with a quickness, because I had to leave to pick up daughter H about five minutes later.

Daughter H has athletics right at the end of the school day, and she was still in her uniform when she walked out to my car, which wasn't unusual. What WAS unusual were all the bandages and the giant ice pack on her wrist. She (gingerly) hopped into my car and asked if it would be at all possible for her to get an x-ray, like soon-ish, because she had fallen while doing sprints and the right side of her body was one long road rash from shoulder to ankle and she couldn't use her right hand or rotate her forearm. Yep.

This was excellent timing, unlike the time she broke her collarbone (every family has an emergency room kid; H is ours) while P was out of town several years ago. P was home today, and fortunately able to take her for her x-ray because I had to pick up son C from his after-school activity and take him to neurotherapy. Whee! Parenting is never boring, I'll tell you what.

While C was getting his brain re-wired, I tried to get hold of P to find out what the diagnosis was for H, but my cell phone decided to quit working. Swell! Turns out she does not have any detectable bone breaks but she might have broken her growth plate. That takes a few days to show up, apparently. For now she's in a splint (and like a million bandages) and seems to be okay, though she's in a bit of pain. Argh. Worst belated birthday present ever!

Despite the moderately sucky conclusion, overall November was not a terrible month. The weather was nice, the kids and I survived P's absence for two weeks, and I managed to complete NaBloPoMo despite all our crazy busy-ness. Sure it was all quantity and very little in the way of quality, but IT COUNTS. And I even won a prize doing it, so that is way swell.

I also really enjoyed taking daily photos for the habit flickr pool this month. And my photos were even featured on the habit blog five times, on the 4th, 11th, 20th, 21st and 25th! Very cool! You can see the entire set of photos I took/submitted this month here, if you're interested (clicking on the thumbnails brings up bigger photos + captions). And I encourage you to check out the habit flickr pool proper because there are some amazing, inspiring, heartbreaking, encouraging words and photos there. I will definitely try to participate the next time they open it up for submissions. And you should, too! It's not scary at all, I promise! Everyone is so nice. If I can do it, you can do it, believe me.

So that pretty much wraps up November. I leave you with one last gratuitous dog photo:

I am a very good boy if there are deer nearby, but I will totally eat your entire house.

Alrighty! Thanks so much for hanging in there with me this month! Now go forth and have an awesome December!

Happy happy

2011-11-29T17:08:00.000-06:00

This darling baby is 14 years old today!

Happy birthday, daughter H. You are amazing.

Day 28

2011-11-28T13:27:00.001-06:00

Oh, you guys. I have totally half-assed this NaBloPoMo thing, I know, and I am really sorry about that. It seemed like such a good idea back in the idyllic days of October, knowing that both C's marching band practice/performances and H's theater rehearsals would be ending at the beginning of the month, and that I'd be able to sleep later than normal and go to bed at a decent hour which should TOTALLY get the creative juices flowing, right? As it turns out: not so much.

And then husband P unexpectedly got shipped halfway across the world on business. He was in India mostly, with a brief stop in the UK on his way home, and he was gone for two weeks, and get this -- he LOST HIS CELL PHONE like five minutes after he got to India. At the very beginning of his trip. I've never been a very good multi-tasker and it turns out I was completely unable to worry every second of the day about him dying in India, unable to reach me so I could hear his last words, AND blog at you at the same time. I know. My bad.

Anyway, he is home now, thank goodness. He brought loads and loads of presents back with him -- jewelry and pashminas and yards of silk and tiny sandalwood carvings and larger non-sandalwood carvings and single-malt scotch and Israeli pottery and silver goblets (and an upper-respiratory infection, but that seems to be on the mend). I have no idea how he fit all of this stuff into his luggage. Turns out when he's not watching podcasts and reading news articles and playing Angry Birds on his phone, he goes shopping! (He still hasn't gotten a new phone. Guess where he is right now? SHOPPING.)

December is going to be even busier than November was, as we are taking advantage of P's annual Month o' Personal Days off from work (his company has a use 'em or lose 'em policy on those, so he saves them up for the holidays) to do some major stuff around the house, switching my downstairs office with the upstairs guest/exercise room and painting all the walls and re-doing all the floors. To say I'm not looking forward to tackling a project like this right in the middle of kid exams and holiday decorating/shopping/cooking/travel would be an understatement, but when it's all over I'll be glad we did it. Right? OH GOD, I HOPE SO.

So, don't expect to hear from me much in December, is what I'm saying.

In the meantime, we still have two days of NaBloPoMo to get through. And I still have a bunch of pictures of my dog that I haven't even shown you yet!

This one actually is a photo of my dog

2011-11-27T21:06:00.000-06:00

But it's a cute picture, so that totally makes it okay, right?

Right?

Hello?

Sigh.

My girl

2011-11-26T19:57:00.000-06:00

I went into labor with daughter H fourteen years ago today.

But her birthday isn't until Tuesday.

Go ahead, do the math.

(She was worth every single one of those 80 hours.)

Home at last

2011-11-25T22:05:00.002-06:00

For the past two weeks, husband P has been 10,000+ miles away.

And now he's home.

And I am glad.

And that's all I have to tell you today.

Thanksgiving with the folks

2011-11-24T18:48:00.000-06:00

"What do you have left to do today?"

Nothing. Well, I still need to blog.

"What are you going to blog about?"

I don't know.

"I think you should blog that your 91-year-old grandpa peeled potatoes today."

Maybe.

"Or post a picture of your dad and call it Definitely Not a Picture of My Dog."

Or I could just call it What Up, Dawg?

"Or you could blog that I wore pilgrim shoes to Thanksgiving!"

Also not a photo of my dog

2011-11-23T20:50:00.000-06:00

Oh you guys. It's been such a busy day. I woke up at around 4:00 for some unknown reason and then I just dozed until my alarm went off, or maybe didn't go off, because I overslept. Then it was all: cram a bowl of cereal down my maw, take a quick shower and run out the door with son C so we could make it to the driver's license office before it closed early today for the holiday. He needed a new learner's permit for driving, because he lost (as in misplaced) his old one about a month after he got it, which was more than three months ago because that's when school started and the driver's license office is pretty much only open during school hours, so I couldn't take him to get a replacement until he had a day off from school that was not also a state/federal holiday. I know, right?

Anyway, we had to wait forever but we got it. So then it was all: rush home, throw some crappy microwaved lunch down my maw, rush C to his neurotherapy appointment. That's what we're trying for the misophonia. Is it working? Well, I don't really know. He's not worse but he doesn't seem a whole lot better, either. His therapist just started some new techniques and we've gone to a more frequent therapy schedule, and whatever, I guess we'll see. At least I manage to get quite a bit of reading done out in the waiting room, which always seems to smell like mildew and pee.

Then we came home and I made a pumpkin pie using my grandma's old Tupperware measuring cups. When we knew she was dying and her house and most of her stuff would have to go, my aunt asked everyone what they wanted. The only thing I could think of was her set of measuring cups. I have them hanging in the same spot where she kept them in her own kitchen, on the upper cabinet left of the sink, by the window. I know she would be happy I have them and I am REALLY happy I have them, but sometimes they just remind me that she's gone and today was one of those days. So: made a pie, had a little cry.

Fed the kids fast food for dinner because I didn't want to cook or dirty any dishes what with Thanksgiving being tomorrow and us hosting it and all, and the shake machine was broken. So no pumpkin pie shake. Which was the main thing I wanted. Oh well.

The dog keeps trying to eat my Thanksgiving decorations and also he has gas that will curl your eyelashes, and he keeps jumping all over H and she keeps yelling at him, and my laptop screen has a big patch of dead pixels that I don't know how to fix, and I'm thinking I'll have a nice whiskey and go to bed early tonight and let the parade tomorrow cheer me up. That always works.

Yep. Talk to you tomorrow.

Not a photo of my dog

2011-11-22T18:54:00.000-06:00

Yeah. So that can happen. Enjoy your beach vacation!

Smells like Fritos

2011-11-21T15:13:00.000-06:00

What, you thought I was kidding about the dog photos? Yeah. No.

Did you ever have one of those days where you go to the Hallmark store and seriously cannot find the birthday wrapping paper? Like, anywhere?

And then you're driving through the neighborhood behind your son's high school and you see some young, skinny meth-head-looking dude all black-hoodied up, aggressively slouching along like he's looking for trouble, and you think "uh oh" but then you notice he has something in his hand, and that something is the handle of a leash, and at the other end of the leash is a morbidly obese dachshund just waddling along, snuffling at the fallen leaves?

And then you buy a turkey but on your way home from the turkey store you have to stop for, like, the longest train in the history of trains, like a two-Jethro-Tull-songs train, and you're really super glad you brought an ice chest for the turkey so it doesn't go all ptomaine in the back of your Hyundai?

And then you have to stop real quick-like at the non-turkey grocery store somewhere between the train tracks and home only you get there right after the retirement center has dropped off a busload of old people, and this one parks-the-cart-diagonally-in-the-middle-of-the-aisle lady keeps magically appearing right in front of you in like EVERY SINGLE SECTION of the store, and you just need to get to the freaking oranges OH MY GOD DO NOT MAKE ME CUT A GEEZER RIGHT HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF PRODUCE LADY MOVE YOUR FREAKING CART BEFORE I LOAD IT WITH C4 ARE YOU NOT AWARE THAT THE HOLIDAYS MAKE ME SORT OF PSYCHOTIC??!!!?

... No?

Well. Let's pretend this never happened.

Poodle in landscape

2011-11-20T16:40:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so the rest of NaBloPoMo might just be pictures of my dog. You guys are okay with that, right?

Here's what we've been doing this weekend.

Son C: playing tuba etudes, composing electronic music and enjoying the new Minecraft update.

Daughter H: unbeknownst to me (because I was sleeping) dug out an old VHS tape of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, watched it, and is now obsessed with it.

Husband P: working working working and dealing with some nasty upper-respiratory crud.

Me: reading the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy, doing laundry, making plans for P and me to chuck everything once the kids are grown and move to a tiny house.

Yep. That's about it. The calm before the holiday storm. (With poodle.)

Saturday

2011-11-19T19:30:00.000-06:00

It's been a lazy Saturday here at the saltycrunchy house.

And then Buffy staked Edward, The End

2011-11-18T16:40:00.000-06:00

(Yes, I stole that. Because IT'S AWESOME.)

So hey, guess where I WON'T be tonight? Waiting in line at a theater with a bunch of overexcited adolescents and pervy middle-aged mom types to see the new Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn Part I or whatever they're calling it.

That's because my darling almost-14-year-old daughter H, who has read all the books (as have I)(they are awful) and seen all the movies (as have I)(see above) and even OWNS all the movies turned to me and said, AND I QUOTE: "Yeah, we can just wait for the DVD on this one, Mom. And we can RENT it."

Whether that's because she truly does not care about seeing this movie or she's tired of me MST3King the damn things when we watch them, I don't know, and I don't care, because either way VICTORY IS MINE.

Mwahahahaha!

So tired

2011-11-17T21:43:00.000-06:00

Oh, you guys. Husband P works from home 99% of the time, only he has not been doing that for the past week, and I am so tired. I never realized how much I rely on having another adult here 24/7 with another vehicle to pick up Kid B from Activity D while I am picking up Kid A from Activity C. Oh, and taking Dog E to Activity F. And picking him up. Oof. I think I put 100 miles on my car today, never driving more than 10 miles at a time. (Yes, that hole in the ozone layer/fossil fuel crisis/crappy cell phone reception is all my fault! I'm sorry! I live in the suburbs!)

Things are looking up, however.

It's almost Friday. It may already be Friday when you read this! Yay, Friday!
I froze some pumpkin puree (okay, it was organic canned pumpkin! I'm sorry! I live in the suburbs!) today for smoothies tomorrow and I really have not been this excited about breakfast in a LONG time.
P is halfway through this crazy work thing he's doing, so thank God for THAT.
My kids only have two days of school next week because of Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving! I love!

Eyes on the prize, people. EYES. ON. THE. PRIZE.

Toot toot

2011-11-16T19:37:00.000-06:00

Hey, you guys! So you know how I am participating in the habit flickr pool this month, even though I am frankly no great shakes as a photographer? Well, that is working out surprisingly well! My photos have been included in the habit blog twice so far this month -- on November 4th and November 11th, and one of my other photos was requested for the flickr group In Love with the Light! (That is their exclamation mark, not mine.)(Although: pretty exciting!)

I suspect the habit thing is more due to my words than my photos, because I am WAY better with words than photos, which should tell you how bad I am with photos, in case you've landed on this page without ever having read me before, but still! That is pretty dang cool!

Maybe I am getting the eye after all? Gosh, I hope so. It's been a long time coming.

Dogs are the worst

2011-11-15T14:57:00.000-06:00

Well, we had a bit of excitement today courtesy of El Guapo here. He had a grooming appointment this morning (we have a mobile groomer who comes to the house and grooms him in a snazzy dog-spa trailer hooked to her pickup and WE LOVE HER) and apparently one of his toenails was clipped a little close and the rain (it rained! a bunch! finally!) and his general hyperness (do not EVEN get me started) combined to melt/dislodge the styptic powder she put in there and suddenly when she brought him back inside there was BLOOD EVERYWHERE. All over my house! Well, not the whole house, but the entire FRONT of the house looked a bit like we'd slaughtered a goat.

The groomer was horrified (totally not her fault; he has solid black toenails and a loooong quick) and ran back out to her grooming trailer for more styptic powder, which stopped it tout de suite. She offered to help me clean up all the blood but I was like, "Um, there is not enough tip money IN THE WORLD to compensate you for that," so I shooed her out the door. And then I had to wrestle the dog into his crate so I could clean up the floor, all while shrieking at him, "OMG, STOP LICKING THE STYPTIC POWDER OUT OF YOUR TOENAIL, you jerk! It already looks like Dexter's kill room up in here! STOP IT."

But anyhoo, the dog is fine. And I cleaned up all the blood. This story has a very anti-climactic ending, sorry. In happier news, we are halfway through NaBloPoMo so you only have 15 more days of inane crap like this! Yay!

Busy Monday

2011-11-14T21:38:00.000-06:00

Oh holy crap, you guys, I almost forgot to blog today. Or didn't have time to blog, more like. Um, yeah. I've got nothing for you. Here, have a picture of some cookbook spines!

I'm still trying to figure out the macro setting on my camera, in case you couldn't tell.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be rainy/stormy all day. I totally can't wait. Those weatherpersons better not have lied to me.

Dutch Dutch Baby

2011-11-13T19:16:00.000-06:00

I was on my own for breakfast this morning, which is rare.

So I made a Dutch Baby (using Amy Karol's recipe).

And drizzled it with honey.

And ate it with my fingers.

It was delicious.

Rewards

2011-11-12T18:27:00.000-06:00

Somewhere in this crazy blur, daughter H is getting an award for the acting competition in which she and her school theater group participated this morning. She got one even though her big monologue, which provides the resolution to the central conflict for the entire freaking play, was cut at literally the last second.

It's always something, you know? Either your sousaphone bell falls off in the middle of the biggest marching competition of the year, or your monologue gets cut and as a result your entire play makes no sense. I'm beginning to learn that if something freaky happens but things work out anyway, there is a good chance one (or more) of my kids was involved somehow. Heh. Story of our lives.

I will tell you something, though: seeing my girl on stage and my boy out on the field fills me with a pride that I never anticipated when they were teeny-tiny. Those parenting books with all their talk of milestones can never prepare you for the feeling of watching your child excel at something they love. There are no words.

11-11-11

2011-11-11T13:33:00.000-06:00

Hey, everybody! Welcome to November 11, 2011. Also known as Veteran's Day in the U.S., Remembrance Day or Armistice Day in various countries outside the U.S., Binary Day pretty much everyplace that has nerds, Nigel Tufnel Day for the Spinal Tap fans, and/or Corduroy Appreciation Day wherever people are just plain weird.

On this historic day in our house:

Husband P is embarking on a new adventure (I am both nervous and excited for him).
Son C suffered a rather heartbreaking disappointment (he is not at all upset but I am, because I know the full implications of it while he does not).
Daughter H is basking in the afterglow of having been TOTALLY AMAZING in her school play last night (seriously, I know how talented she is and she blew ME away).
And, um ... I am washing dishes (because somebody has to).

Alrighty! Have a great Friday!

Book review: Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers

2011-11-10T13:34:00.000-06:00

So this book can pretty much be summed up like this: a freaky global disaster happens, and people try to deal with it. The End.

The disaster in question is the sudden disappearance of literally millions of people worldwide -- men, women, children, Christians, Buddhists, atheists -- basically all sorts of people from all walks of life with no real rhyme or reason. They disappear instantly, all at the same time, vanishing in some cases before the very eyes of eyewitnesses. No one knows why or how, or where they've gone. And they don't come back. The book picks up on the three-year anniversary of the Sudden Departure, as it comes to be called, and follows a year in the lives of some of the folks left behind.

I don't know, you guys. It's not that I didn't like this book -- it was very well-written and all of the characters were interesting and I enjoyed spending time with them -- but there's not much PLOT. We just kind of see people trying to get through the day. For a year. Some of them try to ascribe meaning to the event, some of them suspend their lives completely in anticipation of what might happen next, and some just shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives.

Having just recently read a book that was all plot with very little character development, you'd think I would be up for the ol' switcheroo, but I guess I wasn't. I mean, I LIKED it. But it was one of those books that took me forever to read, you know? Not because it was at all difficult to read, but because it was way too easy to just read a page or two at a time and then go about my day.

If you like Perrotta, you will like it. I do, and I did. But don't expect a page-turner, I guess is what I'm saying. Oh, and don't expect any real answers, because it just sort of ends. Practically in the middle of a sentence.

Greens

2011-11-09T17:16:00.000-06:00

I can't get enough of green salads lately. I am seriously eating them every day. This started as a BLT salad but then I added bleu cheese and homemade honey-mustard dressing. OMG. So good. (My other favorite: baby spinach with walnuts and dried cranberries.)

I am going to figure out how to make a pumpkin spice vinaigrette very soon now. Oh yes. Just watch me. This salad thing is about to get CRAZY up in here.

NaBloPoMo Day 8

2011-11-08T10:46:00.000-06:00

It rained today for about five minutes.

So ... we've got that going for us.

Children of the night

2011-11-07T10:50:00.000-06:00

For the past three months or so my alarm clock has gone off at 4:50 a.m. every weekday. Yes, that is the middle of the night. I would haul myself out of bed in the pitch dark, throw on some sweats, drag C out of bed, push him into the shower, drag H out of bed (she showers at night), take C to early-morning band practice still in the pitch dark, take H to school in the dim pre-dawn, then come home, snap the dog's harness and leash on him, and drag him out the door as the sun was just barely beginning to peek above the horizon.

The end of C's early-morning band practice (which only happens during football/marching season) just happened to coincide with the end of Daylight Saving Time this year. So this morning, my alarm went off at 6:20. I hauled myself out of bed as the sun was just barely beginning to peek above the horizon, threw on some sweats, dragged H out of bed, dragged C out of bed, pushed him into the shower, took H to school in the morning light, took C to school in full daylight, then came home, snapped the dog's harness and leash on him, and dragged him out the door while the sun was high in the mid-morning sky.

And that's when I discovered that I really, really miss the dark mornings. Huh. Go figure.

Might have to switch the dog's walk to evenings instead.

At least it was cloudy.

I'ma go crawl back into my coffin now.

Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket

2011-11-06T21:59:00.000-06:00

I have two pieces of news for you on this Sunday:

1. Son C's band came in 7th place at their weekend marching contest (out of 14 finalists and 59 bands total)! This despite the fact that C's sousaphone bell FELL OFF during their performance and four people tripped over it! I know! It was a little bit more exciting than any of us had intended! Thank goodness everyone who tripped is okay; it was amazing to watch them all recover instantly and finish out the show like the rock stars they are. There were a CRAZY number of injuries at this contest. And ... that's why marching band counts as a P.E. credit, I guess.

2. I won a NaBloPoMo prize! And I totally never win anything! And it's A BOOK, which is tied with chocolate for the Very Best Thing To Win Ever! As soon as husband P fixes our fax machine so I can return the signed prize agreement whatsit thingie, a copy of Melissa Ford's Life From Scratch will be winging its way to me. I AM SO EXCITED. (And can I just say that I am in love with the cover of this book? I would like a wallpaper border of that made for my kitchen, please.)

Alrighty! Talk to you tomorrow! And the next day, and the next day, and the ... we have 24 more days of this, people. (I will try to become less boring. But don't hold your breath.)

Busy Saturday

2011-11-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

Hey! Lots to do today and no time to blog, except to tell you:

1. Um yeah, we got TROUNCED by my alma mater last night. Gah.
2. I made the habit blog! Holy cow!
3. I am in love with this song right now, Chuck Ragan's "Rotterdam":

Alrighty! Talk at you tomorrow, a.k.a. NaBloPoMo Day Six. Oy.

Rivalry

2011-11-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

Tonight son C's high school football team is playing my alma mater. It's the last game of the regular season.

Back when these were the only two high schools in the district this was a HUGE game with much vandalism effectuated on both sides in the name of competition. I believe things are a bit less misdemeanor-y these days, maybe because there are a bunch more high schools in the district, or maybe because kids today spend all their time on the internet instead of out perpetrating mayhem the way God intended. Kids! They don't know what's fun!

This rivalry was SO big back in the day that when I found out our neighborhood had been re-zoned such that my kids would be attending my old rival school, I had a bit of a problem with it. Not because I didn't think it was a good school and didn't want my kids to go there for academic reasons, but because I wasn't sure I could bring myself to cheer for the football team and wear their colors at games. As a devout Pigskinopalian (what? don't tell anyone in MY family that football isn't a religion), it just felt wrong.

I'm happy to say it only took one game (well, really one halftime show since my kid is in the band) to turn things around and now I hate my old alma mater with a burning passion! Yay! That is totally mentally healthy and not at all something I would need to bring up in therapy, right? Right!

So yeah, talk to you later. I've got to go buy some cowbells and paint my face or my car or whatever.

Some random for your Thursday

2011-11-03T11:56:00.001-05:00

A cold front came through here overnight and now it is chilly and SUPER WINDY and I'm thinking about my poor boy C and his sousaphone, which becomes a 50-pound brass sail in the wind. He and his high school marching band preformed their very last marching show rehearsal of the season in their home stadium early this morning; tomorrow they ride a bus down to San Antonio for a very big competition, then ride the bus back here for the last football game of the regular season (an away game), then back to San Antonio on Saturday to see if they made (and to perform in, if they did) the finals of the very big competition. And then marching season is over for another year. Whew!

I have been reading Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers. I like it very much; the characters are all interesting, but there isn't much in the way of plot. I sort of want to just finish it and move on to something else, but I don't know what. I have so many books on my Kindle now, it's ridiculous.

I bought Zee Avi's new album Ghostbird but I'm not sure I love it, and I decided not to buy Feist's new album Metals but now I'm wondering if I should.

It does not look like fall at all here yet. In fact, some of the Bradford pear trees in my neighborhood are apparently very confused because they are BLOOMING, which they only do in the spring. So weird. The weather here in the U.S. has been crazy this year. I guess that's just how it's going to be for a while.

This is the time of year when I feel like I'm just kind of holding my breath, waiting. Waiting for marching season to end, waiting for husband P to go on and then return from a business trip, waiting for Thanksgiving and daughter H's birthday and Christmas, waiting for our annual reunion with P's family, waiting for the days to get shorter and darker and then longer and brighter again. Waiting to flip the calendar to 2012.

Yep. That's pretty much all that's going on around here.

A thousand words

2011-11-02T15:49:00.000-05:00

I took a photography class in college. Not because I was particularly interested in photography, but because it was required for my journalism major. It was taught by my friend and fellow co-ed dorm resident, Paul (he of the ambiguous sexual orientation)(misplaced crushes were a hallmark of my college years) and it was a fun class.

My favorite part by far was the darkroom. This was back before digital photography, and the cameras we used for the class were ancient boxy things that required large-format rolls of film. I loved the dim red lights, the smell of the chemicals, the miracle of developing film, the meditative action of making prints. I am a lab rat by nature and probably could have been some sort of scientist if not for all the math.

My least favorite part, by WAY far, was taking the actual photos. I just didn't have the eye. In theory I understood the rule of thirds and the way a photo was SUPPOSED to be composed, but my eyes just didn't see that way. I had no awareness of light and shadow, no appreciation for texture, no concept of contrast, no patience for framing a shot. I just didn't get it.

I still don't. Heh.

This is probably why I find myself slightly obsessed with photo blogs. Those who can't do, teach? Um, no. Those who can't do stand in awe of those who can, at least in my case. My favorite photo blog of the moment is habit -- it absolutely takes my breath away on a daily basis the way words and images can combine to create mystery, tension, comfort and jubilation. I was thrilled to learn that the folks at habit have opened up the blog for the month of November -- anyone and everyone is invited to post photos and words in the habit flickr pool this month. Some of those words and photos will be published on the habit blog, but even the ones that don't get chosen are just amazing and inspiring and well worth a look.

So, in addition to doing NaBloPoMo, my meager photography skillz and I have jumped in with both feet and are participating in the habit flickr pool this month! I doubt any of my photos will be chosen to appear on the blog, but I'm hoping it will goose my creativity just a bit. The more amazing images I see from other people's lives, the more inspired I am to REALLY see and to capture images from my own. I'm trying to get "the eye". I haven't given up!

See you over there?

Afterween

2011-11-01T11:57:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe it was ten years ago that I had an almost-four-year-old "spider witch princess" and a five-year-old skeleton in my house who were SUPER excited to go trick-or-treating.

Sigh.

Halloween kind of snuck up on me this year, which it always seems to do even though it's the SAME FREAKING DAY EVERY YEAR. I have no idea how this happens, but I always find myself scrambling the weekend before the holiday, hastily throwing mangled years-old decorations up on the doors and windows and buying ridiculous amounts of candy and paying way too much money for last-minute pumpkins at the church up the road. Ah, well. What are the holidays without a ~~desperate need for Xanax~~ little stress?

Almost-fourTEEN-year-old daughter H came home from school yesterday, shoved her costume and makeup into a bag, then dashed right back out the door; she and several friends were meeting at another friend's house to suit up there and go trick-or-treating in "the rich neighborhood" (her words, not mine). By the time she got home she'd removed the fangs and scrubbed off the fake blood so I didn't even get any photos of her in full vampire regalia. Argh!

Fifteen-year-old son C decided to stay home last night sans-costume and hand out candy. Apparently you're too old to trick-or-treat if you're able to grow a full beard in less than a week. I know, right?

I'd insert a "where did my babies go?!" whine here, but H out with friends and C handing out candy and P on dog-wrangling duty meant that I was able to spend last night sitting on my butt in the recliner, watching this week's episode of Dexter and drinking a very dirty vodka martini.

Sometimes, change ain't all bad.

Photo taken THIS MORNING. For the love of God, get over here and eat this candy.

Hope your Halloween was happy! And now it's November. Holy crap.

A Halloween playlist

2011-10-31T09:53:00.000-05:00

Hey! Happy Halloween, everyone! I've been listening to Pandora's Halloween Party genre station all week in preparation for the holiday, and while I like it just fine, it occasionally plays songs for which I do not particularly care. Or, like, 42 different versions of "Monster Mash" within a 30-minute period. Oy.

This inspired me to comb through my collection of digital music and come up with my own darn Halloween playlist for my Not-an-iPod, so I thought I'd post a little sampling from it just for grins. My pre-NaBloPoMo gift to you! Some of these are pretty obvious, and some of them are ... just because I'm weird.

"Lonely is the Night" by Billy Squier
"I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" by the Ramones
"The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen
"Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring
"Devil Inside" by INXS
"Destroyer" by the Kinks
"Carnival" by Natalie Merchant
"The Ghost in You" by Psychedelic Furs
"Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads
"Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon
"I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow
"Skulls" by the Misfits
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" by the Pixies
"Possum Kingdom" by the Toadies
"Seether" by Veruca Salt
"Witchy Woman" by the Eagles
"Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter
"Magic Man" by Heart
"Run Like Hell" by Pink Floyd
"Killer Queen" by Queen
"Black Magic Woman" by Santana
"Strange Magic" by Electric Light Orchestra
"Bat Out of Hell" by Meatloaf
"Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones
"Runnin' with the Devil" by Van Halen
"Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
"Space Lord" by Monster Magnet
"Drain the Blood" by The Distillers
"Zombie" by The Cranberries
"I Wanna Kill My Wife Tonight" by Mojo Nixon
"Dragula" by Rob Zombie
"Creeping Death" by Metallica
"Beyond the Realms of Death" by Judas Priest
"The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden
"Bad Things" by Jace Everett
"My Body's a Zombie for You" by Dead Man's Bones
"Psycho" by Imelda May
"You Want the Candy" by the Raveonettes
"Friend of the Devil" by the Grateful Dead

Loving right now

2011-10-28T12:07:00.000-05:00

Oh, October. You were crazy busy, but I kind of loved you with your apples and band competitions and dog walks and classic (free!) horror on the Kindle and theater performances and happy celebrations and little touches of autumn (weather-wise and otherwise)(FINALLY).

I will be doing NaBloPoMo in November, which means I'll be posting something here every day for the entire month. Maybe that will make up for neglecting you all summer and most of the fall. Or ... maybe it will irritate the crap out of you. Who knows?

We'll see!

Recent discoveries

2011-10-14T14:37:00.000-05:00

I've discovered that I don't mind the days getting shorter, even though it means taking the kids to school in the morning while it's still dark.

I've discovered that daughter H has a stronger sense of self at 13 than I have at 45. And I am totally okay with that.

I've discovered that son C has developed a coffee habit. For 15.5 years I managed to keep him caffeine-free, and then the stupid high school went and installed a coffee shop in the new cafeteria annex. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, SCHOOL.

I've discovered that I do like oatmeal after all, as long as it's sweetened with brown sugar and has plenty of shredded unsweetened coconut stirred in. And isn't baked.

I've discovered that a bit of Dijon mustard and honey with apple cider vinegar and olive oil, shaken together in a little lidded jar, makes a quick and super yummy homemade salad dressing.

I've discovered, or rather remembered, that walnuts are delicious. Husband P is allergic to them and anyway pecan is the king nut here in Texas, but I bought some walnuts when I was on the paleo diet and have been sneaking them out of the freezer and devouring them by the handful.

I've discovered that a lot of pretty good music came out in the '90s when I was too busy getting married and having babies to notice. (I'm looking at you, Smashing Pumpkins.)

I've discovered that I actually enjoy walking the dog, as long as it's early in the morning and we're on the quiet back roads rather than the main roads (or the park or the greenbelt) of our neighborhood. Because I am JUST. THAT. ANTISOCIAL.

I've discovered that after months of walking instead, I don't really miss running all that much.

I've discovered that all it takes is a good soaking rain and a couple of weeks with no triple-digit temperatures to restore my will to live.

If by "Indian summer" you mean Rajasthan in May

2011-09-30T13:06:00.000-05:00

Hello, as of yesterday we were still in the triple digits here. I know I said I was going to stop complaining about the weather, but that was when I assumed the weather was going to stop being stupid. I cannot ever remember it being this hot at the end of September, and indeed, the heat record we broke yesterday had been set sometime in the 1920s -- just a LITTLE bit before my time.

It is so hot that the other night we had thunderstorms with no rain. Oh yeah. Apparently that's an actual thing. Tuesday evening the sky filled with low, dark clouds and there was lightning and thunder and the middle school football game was canceled and we were all chortling with glee because we thought we were in for a good, old-fashioned gully-washer, but no. We got maybe 30 fat drops of rain over a 10-minute period, and then it all went away.

But a cold front came through last night apparently, and now it's only supposed to be in the 90s for the foreseeable future, so excuse me for a moment while I go BUY A PARKA. Sheesh.

Anyhoodle, here is some stuff I've been doing lately:

Reading Gail Carriger's Soulless, a comedy of manners set in a Victorian England in which supernatural beings (vampires, werewolves, etc.) have been integrated into society. I know, we're all SO OVER vampires and werewolves by now, but this book is a little different from most of what's out there. There's a bit of romance, a bit of mystery, and a lot of dirigibles and steampunk gadgets (also tea)(and biting). It's a little like Jane Austen meets Charlaine Harris meets Connie Willis. So fun. Prior to that I read and absolutely loved Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, an adventure novel chock-full of 1980s sci-fi and fantasy gamer geek references. If you've ever played Dungeons & Dragons or Tempest or found yourself quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail in casual conversation, you will love this book. And if you haven't done those things, you also will love this book, probably. It's that good.

Listening to the new Blitzen Trapper album, American Goldwing, which is making me super happy. People seem to either love or hate Blitzen Trapper and I guess I sort of love them. They remind me of the folk rock music my Dad used to listen to when I was a kid. Must be all the harmonicas and tambourines.

Watching so much TV, I can't even tell you. All my shows are back! Except Dexter, which won't be back for a couple of days. And The Walking Dead, which won't be back for a couple of weeks. But still, ALMOST all of my shows are back! H and I are spending several evenings a week curled up in my room watching shows while she does homework. That's our version of Girls' Night In.

Walking El Guapo every morning. We take a different route each time, because I like to mess with his head. This morning we made our way through the greenbelt and met a short, angry dog with a round, cheerful owner; a playful, hairy dog whose elderly owner did not have her leashed (argh); and a small family of white-tailed deer. Superfreak was not at all interested in the deer until the buck showed up. He was VERY interested in the prickly pear cactus that lines the trail in the greenbelt, though (argh, again)(he is totally fine, no pokes this time).

Yelling myself hoarse at high school football games. C plays sousaphone in his high school marching band, so really the games are all about halftime for me, but my brother played football for 10 years and old habits die hard. I just have to yell and scream at football games. I HAVE TO. And then I have to peel out of the stadium parking lot early in the 4th quarter to beat the rush. And maybe buy a Frosty from Wendy's on the way home. Don't you judge me.

Celebrating my birthday/anniversary fortnight. I like to combine them, because it's more festive! Last Tuesday I had a birthday, as you all know (thank you for the birthday wishes!), and it was swell. My big present from P and the kids was a huge honkin' 15-inch pre-seasoned cast iron skillet, which I asked for and LOVE SO MUCH. One of the extra things my mom and dad tossed into my bag o' loot from them was a pack of Burt's Bee's pre-moistened facial cloths, because my Mom loves them and thought I would too, and now I have become hopelessly addicted to them. And I have been spending gift cards all week long with reckless abandon. So! Birthday: awesome. And now we move into the anniversary phase of the celebration, as P and I will have been married for 18 years on Sunday. Whee!

Cooking not much of anything at all. During football/marching season there's maybe one night a week when we're all here at the same time for dinner. Ugh. Hate that.

Eating a ton of crappy non-meals. See above.

Wearing the gorgeous earrings I bought myself (for my birthday, don'tcha know). I have long been a fan of Julie's blog, and now she has an Etsy shop full of jewelry that feels like it was made just for me! Seriously, I have the hardest time describing the kind of jewelry I like to P. He knows I don't like "fine jewelry" from jewelry stores, all precious and polished, and he knows that I don't like anything too big/chunky. Now instead of trying to explain what "delicate and kind of earthy artisan pieces, but not too expensive" means, I can just point him here. Done and done. (And I love love LOVE my earrings!)

Feeling cautiously optimistic about C's new therapy cocktail for his misophonia. I am always cautiously optimistic, except when I'm positive ~~we're all going to die~~ things aren't working, but this time I really do have hope that we're on the right track. Fingers crossed.

In other news, I dyed my hair for the first time in like 4 years and while I could swear the label said Nice 'n' Easy, I must have picked up a box of Nice 'n' Brassy by mistake. "Dark Blonde"? Yeah, not so much.

Also, that crazy lady running through the high school lobby this morning with no makeup, greasy orange hair and sweaty workout clothes, smelling like a goat and looking like she went straight from walking her dog 1.8 miles on a dust-choked greenbelt to frantically delivering her son's forgotten Pre-AP English II homework on the last day of the grading period so he would be eligible for a UIL contest this weekend? Yeah, that was me. Teenagers! Can't live with 'em, can't sell 'em into slavery without Child Protective Services getting involved! Am I right? Yeesh.

And that pretty much brings you up to speed.

Hatred of sound

2011-09-19T14:42:00.000-05:00

It started several years ago. At first we thought it was just an affectation. Son C has a lot of those; he had been diagnosed a few years earlier with Asperger Syndrome and mild Tourette's so he has a lot of quirks. We thought this was just more of the same.

Our rectangular dining table was arranged at the time such that I was to C's right and husband/father P was to his left, with his sister H sitting directly across from him. Every time we sat down for a meal, C would put his left elbow on the table, lean the left side of his head into his left hand and leave it that way for the entire meal. I didn't think too much of it -- he was right-handed so he needed that hand free to eat, right? No big deal.

But P, who as I've mentioned sat to C's left, began noticing things. He noticed that C was pressing his hand, not against the left side of his head, but against his left ear, as if he were trying to block out sound from that side. We also noticed that C often seemed distressed at meals, and that he would make angry grunting noises (which is something he does when stressed). It didn't take long to connect the dots and figure out that C was trying to block out the sound of P's chewing, either by covering that ear or, if/when that didn't work, by making other sounds himself to mask the chewing sounds.

I'm afraid that P took this rather personally at first. The poor guy had throat surgery several years ago and as a result has a shortened soft palate and no uvula. He does sometimes make quiet, involuntary sounds when he eats certain things, and he's rather self-conscious about it. He was a bit insulted that at every single meal his son would turn away from him, cover the ear closest to him, and make angry sounds to cover up his chewing. They had many conversations about it but nothing was ever resolved; P explained that it was hurtful and that he found it disrespectful, C explained that it wasn't personal and he couldn't help it, and neither side was happy (not to mention the stress this put on me, as the person who loved them both and knew they both loved each other and who was attempting to mediate this whole thing)(not to make it all about me, but it IS my blog, you know).

P and I have always felt that mealtime is family time. Eating meals together as a family is important to us and always has been. We tried many things to try and resolve this issue. We all played musical chairs around the table, trying to find an arrangement that worked for C, but with only the four of us (and the discovery that H's chewing bothered C, too) and the table only being so big, nothing really worked. We tried playing music in the background at dinner to try and mask all the chewing noises, and that worked up to a point, but C needed the music to be so loud that the rest of us really couldn't carry on conversations around the table. Mealtime became a silent, angry, resentful time in our family.

In the late winter/early spring of this year things got dramatically worse. C told me that he was having a lot of trouble in class because of kids chewing gum or snacking around him. He could not stand to hear his father or sister chew anything at all, ever. He described the feelings these sounds engendered in him -- terror, rage, panic, a feeling like he was going to die, an urge to do violence to the offender. C has seen a number of occupational and behavioral therapists over the years for his Asperger Syndrome but we were between therapists at the time -- the ones we really liked no longer accepted our insurance, and the ones on our provider list were ones that C did not like and with whom he would not cooperate, rendering any attempt at therapy useless. We didn't know whom to call or what to do.

P got on the internet and within a couple of hours of Googling, we had a (self)diagnosis: misophonia. It was a real thing, a well-defined disorder. Many people had it, and there were online communities dedicated to it. I felt the same sense of relief that I felt when we got C's Asperger diagnosis: this is a Thing. It has a name. People know about it. There are things we can do to help him.

Unfortunately, the more we read about misophonia, the more my relief melted away. Yes, it's a real thing, but no professionals in our area have ever heard of it, much less know how to treat it. It tends to get worse over time, not better. Many of the people who suffer from it live in isolation because they can hardly stand to be around other people. Hello, we've spent umpteen thousands of dollars out of pocket (because occupational therapy for Asperger Syndrome isn't covered by insurance in this country) trying to bring our child OUT of his shell and give him social skills! Now that was all going to be erased?

As soon as we had a name for it, I wrote to C's teachers. I explained the problems he was having in class (we'd already had his Section 504 meeting that year so there were no accommodations in place for this) and asked that they let him change seats, wear his ear buds, whatever worked for them and him in the classroom. They were all very understanding, though unfortunately nothing we tried really worked and he had a very stressful spring semester as a result.

At home, we reluctantly allowed C to do two things: eat his meals away from the family table (on a desk in our kitchen, facing away from the rest of us) and wear his ear buds with his music playing during meals so he couldn't hear us. This has helped a bit; he does inhale his entire plate of food in like 90 seconds so he can get away from us entirely, but at least he's in the room with us up until then so we still have the barest illusion of family mealtime. We've learned that the only real medical treatment for misophonia so far is anti-anxiety medication, but since C is only 15 and has a lot of weird issues with medication like I do (strange side-effects, etc.) we wanted to try something gentler first, so I bought him some nutritional supplements for anxiety that seemed to take the edge off somewhat. He's been taking two before school every day and for a while they seemed to get him through with just a baseline anxiety -- not as many spikes. However, the supplements aren't really working so well anymore.

His misophonia has gotten much worse just during the past couple of weeks. He has so many more triggers now -- not just chewing/eating but breathing, yawning, coughing and certain speech sounds set him off. I laugh now (bitterly, before tossing back a couple of fingers of whiskey or vodka) when I think how stressful things were when he was "only" set off by eating/chewing sounds.

He cannot stand to be around his father or sister at all. EVERY sound they make with their mouths -- breathing, sighing, talking, anything -- sets him off. And by "sets him off" I mean that he makes this horrible, horrible sound. A very sudden, very loud, very angry sound. Can you imagine having that directed at you repeatedly, continuously, all day long? Whenever you are around someone with whom YOU LIVE? Its effect on H has been absolutely devastating and I don't know how to help her. She can't help breathing, for crying out loud, but neither can C help his reaction to it. Neither of them is doing anything wrong! How do I fix that?

I set him off too, but not as badly for some reason. Still, we are all walking on eggshells here, breathing shallowly, freezing and cringing when C walks into the room whether or not we are eating anything at the time. He cannot stand to be around us, and it's getting very close to the other way around. Things we can no longer do as a family include: eating meals together (whether at home or in a restaurant), watching TV/movies together (whether at home or in a theater), playing games together, taking long car trips together, going to gatherings where there will be snacks sitting out for people to eat, going pretty much ANYPLACE in public where people might be eating or chewing gum (you know how they put food samples out at grocery stores? we don't shop together anymore). We pretty much can't do ANYTHING together anymore, and taking C out in public anywhere is a risky proposition these days.

We are in crisis over here, in other words.

After months of looking for someone, anyone, within a day's drive of our house who knows what misophonia is and how to treat it, we have given up on that. We're now focusing on finding someone who works intensively with stress, anger management, anxiety, phobias and that sort of thing. We have an appointment this week, in fact, with someone we hope can help. And we're looking into family therapy, since H refuses to do therapy on her own even though she clearly needs to talk to someone who can help her deal with the effect this is having on her. Meanwhile C has some new noise-canceling ear buds, and we are looking into finding stronger nutritional supplements or possibly approaching the anti-anxiety medication discussion with his doctor. (Just to be clear, P and I are not opposed to putting him on this medication and C is all for it. I personally would just prefer that it be prescribed by someone who KNOWS misophonia, knows what it is, how it works, has treated people who have it, and truly believes that anti-anxiety meds are the best course of action for my individual child. I don't want psychotropic drugs thrown at my kid the way you throw darts at a dartboard, hoping something will stick in the right place. That's all.)

We have felt very alone in all of this. If you describe it to someone, if they see him react to a trigger and ask what is wrong, it's nearly impossible to say. It sounds like it's all in his head, like we are coddling him by letting him take his meals upstairs to eat when we have company over, like he is a brat and we are indulging him. I assure you, this is not the case. C is not being willful. He told me the other day that he would happily let doctors cut out parts of his brain if that would stop this. As stressful as it is for us, it is even more stressful for him. His life with Asperger Syndrome was already like walking through a minefield every day, and now it is 100 times worse, because he never knows when someone will come around the corner smacking their gum or munching on a breath mint and send him right into a full-fledged panic/rage attack. If you've ever had a panic attack yourself, then you know what he is feeling multiple times per day, every single day. It is debilitating.

This post is getting very long so I will attempt to wrap it up. I want to make it clear that I'm not writing this in hopes of generating sympathy or anything like that. Things could be SO much worse, and I know that -- my kids are alive, they are physically safe and healthy, and we are still united as a family. Many people aren't that lucky, and I am hyper-aware of that, and grateful for our luck in this regard, every minute of the day. No, I'm writing this in part to let you all know why I haven't been posting much these last few months; this has been a bit all-consuming, as you might imagine. It's hard to think about anything else lately, and all my (drafted, unpublished) attempts at writing about other subjects have sounded false and weird to me.

But mostly I'm writing this because a couple of weeks ago my dad sent me this article from the New York Times, and I posted it to my personal Facebook page telling people that C has this disorder, and you would not believe the number of people from my list of only 125 friends who told me that they have this, or that their spouse has this, or that their child has this and that they never knew it had a name. The more people who hear that name and know what this is, the better the chance that someday we will all FIND SOMETHING THAT WORKS. It's been considered a very rare disorder up to now, but what if it isn't? While my heart breaks for anyone dealing with this, the thought that the misophonia community might in fact be a rather large one is sort of scary-exciting. There is strength in numbers, and history has shown that a vocal minority can bring about amazing changes, or at least awareness. Maybe there's hope?

Here are a few more websites, articles and media mentions of misophonia for those who are interested. I urge you to look at these when you have a chance if you even THINK you might have misophonia, or know (and most especially love) someone who does.

Here's a recent spot that was done on the Today Show.
A ten-minute radio spot that talks about it from a medical standpoint (WARNING: they play trigger sounds between 5:39 and 6:17).
Again, the New York Times article linked above.
Also again, the misophonia message board on YahooGroups.
A fantastic article by an audiologist.
Another article written from a psychiatric standpoint.
This video describes in a non-verbal way what it's like to suffer from misophonia.
This guy is very honest (and verbal) about how misophonia affects him every day.
Here's a followup to the above video which describes the type of thing that C has been dealing with in class/school.
US-based website about misophonia.
UK-based website about misophonia.

So. That's what's been going on with us. It feels good to get it off my chest. Now that I have, I fervently hope I can start writing about other things, like the book I just read and loved (spoiler: it was Ernest Cline's Ready Player One) and how it might be FALL someday soon and how I seriously just remembered that my birthday is tomorrow. Huh. We celebrated over the weekend and it was swell, and I would like to tell you about it.

And also, maybe from time to time I'll tell you how the misophonia thing is going. If that's okay with you.

Purple haze

2011-09-07T13:28:00.001-05:00

The weather here in central Texas this week has taken a turn for the passive-aggressive.

On the one hand, it has been GORGEOUS. Cloudless skies, extremely low humidity, breezes ranging from stiff to gentle, with highs only in the 90s and morning lows around 60. And I'm here to tell you, that "dry heat" thing is not a lie. There's a world of difference between 97 degrees at 15% humidity and 97 degrees at 85% humidity, boy howdy. It's been cool enough in the morning when I drive the kids to school that I've been running the heater in my car. I know! This break from the relentless heat we've experienced since May feels like an absolute gift, and one that we have damn sure earned.

On the other hand, as you may have heard, pretty much all of Texas is literally on fire right now. We've been lucky here in our neighborhood so far, but there have been fires in every direction from where I live, some of them within 10 miles of my house and less than 2 miles from my parents' house. Like many suburbs in Texas, the neighborhoods on our end of town are surrounded by open ranch land for the most part, all of it fried a crispy brown from the heat and lack of rain (have I mentioned LESS THAN THREE INCHES ALL YEAR? and pretty much no rain at all since April?). Our recent winds and low humidity have made things so much worse, and the situation has become somewhat terrifying, if by "somewhat" you mean "a lot". It's getting so I have to talk myself through driving past these open, dessicated spaces the same way I have to talk myself through driving over really high bridges and overpasses. (I have phobias. Don't judge me.)

Today we're experiencing some sort of weather inversion thing as the result of all the cooler, drier air and apparently the smoke from all these fires is trapped at the surface in a nice little bubble over central Texas. Walking out of your house and seeing/smelling smoke when it's this dry? Terrifying. And ironically, all the smoky haze on the horizon looks just like a wall of rain coming in -- the kind of rain that falls out of a uniformly grey sky and gently soaks the earth for hours at a time. The kind of rain that we desperately need here, but there's none to be had in our forecast.

No triple-digit temperatures either, though it's a near thing.

I'm honestly not sure how to feel right now.

What I learned from 7.5 days on the paleo diet

2011-09-02T08:06:00.001-05:00

Hey, so one thing I did during my summer vacation was go on a really restrictive diet! Because why not? It's not like I was going to go out and EXERCISE in that heat, right?

I first heard about the paleo diet a couple of years ago, and I remember thinking, "Huh. That makes sense." And then I promptly forgot about it. But recently a couple of prominent bloggers (Alice and Heather) came out of the paleo closet (or maybe ... paleo CAVE! see what I did there with the OH NEVERMIND) and I took another look at it. In truth, it was Heather's photos of what she was eating that got me. I am down with ANY diet that includes sausage. Just so you know.

So after Googling around and realizing I needed a bit more structured guidance than what Doctor Internet could give me, I bought and read Loren Cordain's The Paleo Diet. And I liked it okay, except for the part where his information on saturated fat was kind of out of date and he was okay with people drinking diet sodas, which I'm pretty sure they did not have back in the paleolithic period, yo.

But the basic info on what to eat and what not to eat was there, and that was what I wanted. To whit:

No dairy. Check. I've been dairy-free (with only occasional, always-regretted lapses) for a couple of years now, because dairy makes me all congested and mucusy. You're welcome.
No grains. At all. That was going to be tough, not because I'm a carb junkie (I don't think) but because grain is EVERYWHERE. I mean, think about it. We're not just talking low-carb or gluten-free here, we're talking ALL GRAIN. Rice, wheat, oats, barley, quinoa, everything. No pasta, no baked goods, no nothin'. But whatever, I was down with it.
No legumes, including soy and peanuts. I forget why, something to do with agriculture blah blah that part of the book was boring. Not a big deal though, because P and H are allergic to legumes (except peanuts) so we don't eat them much, anyway.
No potatoes or corn. Say what now? I'm not in love with corn, but potatoes make up a good 30% of my diet, I'm pretty sure. BUT FINE. WHATEVER.
No refined sugar. Only the occasional dollop of honey. Alrighty.
Lots of meat. Swell! I love meat! And since my body can't utilize non-heme iron, I NEED meat.
Lots of fresh veggies. Awesome!
Lots of fresh fruit. Okay then!
Alcohol is allowed, if you already "enjoy" it. Sign me up!

So I went cold-turkey hardcore paleo overnight. I would like to point out that I did this for no particular reason. I wasn't having any major health issues, was not looking to lose a significant amount of weight, nothing like that. I was just sort of bored. And CRAZY FROM THE HEAT. And as you read these meal descriptions, please know that I did NOT force my family to eat this way with me. I made a grain or potato dish along with all the paleo stuff for dinner most nights; I just didn't eat it.

Day one: Ate eggs, lots of fresh veggies, nuts, chicken legs and giant salads all day. Felt okay. Excited about this new way of eating! Can't wait to go grocery shopping for more meat, fruit and veggies!

Day two: Woke up ravenous with a splitting headache. Egg and veggie scramble for breakfast, spicy tuna wrapped in lettuce leaves for lunch, flank steak and grilled veggies for dinner. Snacked on nuts and fresh fruit. Feeling pretty darn good and getting massively full at every meal.

Day three: Woke up ready to eat my pillow, P's pillow, and possibly the dog. Had coconut milk yogurt with fresh fruit and nuts for breakfast, leftover steak and veggies with spinach salad for lunch, grain-free meatloaf with steamed broccoli and sliced tomatoes for dinner. Snacked on turkey slices and guacamole. Feeling fantastic, super committed to this new lifestyle! Really need to go shopping, though.

Day four: Woke up with a headache and my blood sugar level hovering somewhere down around my toenails. Ate a peanut-free Larabar for breakfast, washed it down with black decaf tea and nearly passed out in the grocery store. Spent like $300 on meat, fruit and veggies, OMG. Lunch was a small broiled steak and leftover veggies. Dinner was grilled pork tenderloin and a humongous salad. Snacked on beef jerky and half an apple with almond butter, a little closer to bedtime than usual in hopes of avoiding that whole morning hypoglycemia headache thing.

Day five: Woke up without a headache, yes! Breakfast was an egg and veggie scramble, sausages and fresh fruit. Lunch was a massive spinach salad with fruit and grilled pork. Dinner was a massive green salad, also with pork. Snacked on jerky and fresh pineapple spears with chili powder. Getting a little bored.

Day six: Ate paleo. So bored. All this fruit is starting to go bad already.

Day seven: Woke up hungry, got a migraine. Not a terribly bad one, but still. I used to get them all the time but now I only get them maybe once every 12 to 18 months. Stress and hormones are the usual triggers, but neither of those were a factor for this one. Curious. Ate paleo all day, including a delicious pot roast for dinner (with cauliflower puree standing in for mashed potatoes)(discovered I freaking LOVE cauliflower puree).

Day eight: Ate paleo for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Was blindsided by a MASSIVE migraine at dinnertime. Two migraines in two days in the absence of my usual triggers? For me, that is statistically significant. The ONLY thing I have changed has been going on the paleo diet. Hmm. Maybe I'll just eat this handful of whole-grain tortilla chips and see what happens. And maybe also these Pringles.

Day nine: Woke up feeling fantastic. No trace of a migraine hangover. Ate whole-grain toast with fruit for breakfast, a whole-grain tortilla wrap with turkey and veggies for lunch, stir-fried shrimp with veggies over rice and a big salad for dinner.

And I have been fine ever since going back to my old diet. No more waking up with low blood sugar, no more migraines.

One could probably argue that I didn't give it enough of a chance. That my body just needed time to adjust. To that I say: sorry, man. Two migraines in two days is a deal-breaker. I would not willingly subject myself to that for ANY reason.

Since going back on my regular diet a couple of weeks ago, I've had time to reflect.

On the one hand, this experiment was worth doing. I've been on restrictive diets before for health reasons, and what they tend to do, for me, is bring my awareness to what the heck I'm putting in my mouth. I like to think my usual diet is pretty healthy -- moderate amounts of mostly pastured meat and eggs, fresh veggies, mostly whole grains, a bit of fruit now and then -- but the truth is I had veered a bit into Processed Food Land this summer. Also, I eat a LOT of grain, boy howdy. I do still think there is merit in the philosophy behind the paleo diet, so I've been trying to be aware of and cut down on the processed crap and the non-whole grains since I went off it. That probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't cut them out entirely for a few days.

On the other hand, WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?! Putting myself on a restrictive diet! Being the person who walks into a restaurant, looks at the menu, and thinks, "Well, I can't eat ANY of this!" Or worse yet, doing that at someone's HOUSE when they have invited me for a meal. OMG. I pride myself on being willing and able to eat almost anything. I am seriously the least-picky person you know when it comes to food, probably. I AM somewhat annoying in that, if we are going out for a meal, I will always insist YOU pick the restaurant, but that's because I am literally up for ANYTHING. Italian? Mexican? Indian? Thai? Ethiopian? Japanese? Burgers? Sandwiches? Salads? Vegetarian? Yes, please! I will go anywhere and eat anything, it doesn't matter to me. I love it all, and I have no idea why I suddenly decided to stop eating some of it. Sheesh!

So yeah. That happened.

It was the worst of times

2011-09-01T10:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, well that sucked. Summer 2011 can pretty much bite me.

I took a little blog break in August to spare you all my whining about the heat, so let's just get this out of the way in one big chunk and then we need never speak of it again. According to my local weather station, this year in Austin we:

set a record for the highest number of days with temperatures in the triple digits (76 so far, but the forecast calls for more over the next few days)
set a record for the most consecutive days at triple digits (27)
set a record for the highest number of days at 105 degrees or above (23! TWENTY-FRICKIN-THREE)
tied the record for the hottest day EVER recorded in Austin (112 degrees -- pretty sure we did this at least twice this year)(so far!)
had an average temperature (factoring in both high and low temps) this summer of 89.5 degrees, making this officially the hottest summer on record
had an average high temperature of 104.8 OMG ARE YOU KIDDING ME degrees last month, making August 2011 not only the hottest August ever recorded here, but the hottest MONTH ever recorded, period

That is science, bitches. That's not just me whining about the heat. IT WAS HOT HERE, OKAY? And dry, so very dry. We've had less than three inches of rain in my area for the entire YEAR so far, with no rain whatsoever in June, July or August and only .01 inch in May. It was so hot and dry that my bay leaves all dried up right on the tree. It was so hot and dry that my gladiolus never bloomed. It was so hot and dry that H got heat exhaustion while she was IN A SWIMMING POOL FULL OF WATER.

I managed to do very few of the things I had planned to do this summer, but that's okay. We survived, and that's all that matters. We didn't have any earthquakes or hurricanes, but it was a natural disaster all the same. I fervently hope that YOU are all safe and well and whole after whatever nature happened to throw your way this summer.

And now let's all flip the calendar to September, take a deep breath, and think about autumn in the northern hemisphere. (You lot in the antipodes are on your own. Good luck!)

Wake me up in September

2011-08-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

Oh, you guys. I KNOW. I have not been blogging at you AT ALL this month! Trust me, it's better for everyone this way. August is my most hated month of the year, with its unbearable heat (15 days of temperatures above 105 degrees? REALLY, Texas?) and the craziness of the last days of summer vacation/first days of back-to-school and whatnot. My silence here is the only way I know to spare you all my whining. Just be glad you don't have to live with me. It ain't pretty.

Fortunately, flipping the calendar over to September always restores my will to live regardless of the temperature or back-to-school craziness. Let's meet back here then, shall we?

The week that was

2011-08-01T09:51:00.000-05:00

Well. I'm pretty sure THAT, the most recent block of time in which I did not blog at you, was the busiest week in this or any other summer. In addition to daughter H needing to be in one place and son C needing to be in another place 10 miles away, both at the exact same time in the morning, and then H picked up ten minutes before C was picked up, and then C taken back and then picked up again a couple of hours later (I know, right?) here are a few things that happened:

We had a lovely visit with husband P's sister S and her husband R, who were in town for their anniversary. (I know, with the initials. I suppose I could make up nicknames for everyone, but then I'd have to keep THOSE straight in my head and I know my head well enough to know that will never work.)

This ridiculous dog turned one year old. 'Nuff said.

I helped H dye her hair "crimson red". It was temporary, and after a couple of shampoos she is already back to her usual golden brown. But it was absolutely lovely, and I'm warming up to the idea of letting her do this on a more permanent basis, maybe next summer when she will be *gulp* fourteen and about to enter high school.

We bought peaches and figs at the farmer's market, and then ate them all before I could take pictures. (Also, I harvested ONE fig from my tiny little potted fig tree -- known to some of you as Ferdinand the Fig Tree because my fig tree is internationally famous -- but I ate that before photographing it, too. It was delicious.)

Meanwhile I have been reading and am nearly finished with Amanda Eyre Ward's latest, Close Your Eyes, and it is every bit as wonderful as her previous works. (I should know, I've read them all.) I'm debating whether to force myself to wade through the only slightly giant pile o' books still living on my nightstand before reading any more Kindle books, or plowing straight into Rachel Devenish Ford's The Eve Tree, which I downloaded this morning. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

In other news we are now approaching 50 days of temperatures at 100 degrees Fahrenheit or above for the year (and many more at 99 degrees or thereabouts), with no end in sight.

Oh, Lord. Please send autumn. And rain.

One more thing and then I'll shut up

2011-07-21T11:12:00.000-05:00

About the Kindle, I mean.

See, this is how my nightstand looked not too long ago:

You see the problem here, right? That lamp is FAR too short! No, wait ... that's not it. The problem is that I took my life in my hands every single night, lest that towering double stack o' books should topple over and kill me in my sleep.

I'm a book hoarder, is what I'm saying. I cannot resist a clearance rack, a library sale, a thrift store bookshelf. Cheap books are my crack; I buy them in bulk and let them pile up in sedimentary layers. Occasionally I even read one! But for every one book I read, I tend to buy three or five or twelve more.

It's a sickness, and I'm here to tell you: the Kindle is NOT a cure. Nope. Not even.

Because while I've managed to whittle that towering stack o' ACTUAL books down considerably since that photo was taken, here are the books that currently reside on my Kindle:

Steig Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. This is the book I'm reading now. So exciting!
Robin Mather's The Feast Nearby. That's the book I most recently finished (highly recommended, by the way). Did I delete it from my Kindle when I was done, knowing that Amazon would store it for me and I could re-download it whenever I wanted to for free? No, I did not. I moved it to a "finished" folder instead. BECAUSE I'M A HOARDER.
Johnny Virgil's The Snitch, Houdini and Me. Haven't read this one yet, but very much looking forward to it.
Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games. My kids have read all the books in this trilogy (along with her earlier Gregor the Overlander series) and loved them, and I want to read them too, but I'll be darned if I'm going to go digging around through all the crap in their rooms looking for them.
Ransom Riggs's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It looked interesting.
Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Because Michael Cunningham's The Hours made me want to read it.

So that's not too bad, right? A book I'm reading now, a book I've recently finished, and a few new books on deck to keep me busy.

Oh, but people. It gets so much worse. I also have all of THESE books on my Kindle. Because they were free! If cheap books are my crack, free books are my crystal meth, or something! I don't know! Stay off drugs, kids!

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey
L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White
Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment
George Elliot's Middlemarch
Dorothy Canfield Fisher's Understood Betsy
Jack London's The Call of the Wild
Jack London's White Fang
Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Circular Staircase
Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island
Elinor Pruitt Stewart's Letters of a Woman Homesteader
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace

And to top it off? I have sample chapters from all of THESE books loaded onto my Kindle. So I can decide whether I like them enough to buy and read the whole book(s):

Sarah Bird's The Gap Year
Emma Donoghue's Room
Barry Estabrook's Tomtatoland
Tina Fey's Bossypants
Tana French's Faithful Place
Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones & Butter
Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches
Eleanor Henderson's Ten Thousand Saints
Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts
Paul Murray's Skippy Dies
Carolyn Parkhurst's The Nobodies Album
Ann Patchett's State of Wonder
Donald Ray Pollock's The Devil All the Time
Mary Doria Russell's Doc
Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Patti Smith's Just Kids
John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley
S.J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep

Um, so yeah. You can take the girl out of the library sale, but you can't take the entire freaking library out of the girl's e-book reader, apparently. Heh.

Can I get a 12-step program up in here?

A blur

2011-07-20T15:07:00.000-05:00

Summer is pretty much over at our house, and my brain feels every bit as out-of-focus as this photo. It still will FEEL like summer, temperature-wise, until Halloween or so, but starting two days ago and continuing until winter break in December, someone at my house needs to be dropped off at 8:00 a.m. or earlier every single weekday. And guess who's the designated dropper? Yep. Me.

So we're back to bedtime routines and early-morning wakeup routines and it's all okay, really. I kind of thrive on routine and tend to get a little weird if I don't have one. But holy cow, this getting up while it's still dark outside is for the birds. Yeah. LITERALLY.

Other stuff that's going on...

You remember how I told you that I'm in love with adorable Dublin-born singer Imelda May? Her latest album, Mayhem, was (finally!) released in the U.S. yesterday and I can't stop listening to it. It's making me so happy right now.

I've started running again! I hadn't run since the kids got out of school at the end of May. And it shows. Ooof. Since it's eleventy billion degrees out, even early in the morning, I'm just hitting the treadmill for now. But I'm very much looking forward to cooler weather and to running with the dog, who will be a year old next week and thus officially cleared for takeoff.

Husband P's sister and her husband are coming for a visit next week! Very much looking forward to that also, though I wish the kids and I weren't going to be so freaking busy while they're here. (Seriously, so crazy busy. From now until football season is over. Oy.)

I'm still loving the heck out of my Kindle. And no one is more surprised by this than me. I have found -- shhh, don't tell anybody! it'll blow my rep! -- that I actually prefer reading e-books to reading real-live books. I know! I can't explain it. It's kind of weirding me out, to tell the truth. I read faster on the Kindle, somehow. Like, I never realized how fatiguing it was to turn pages all the time! And look for my reading glasses! And carry books! And hold them open! Maybe it's a fibromyalgia thing? Or an old person (of which I am one) thing? I don't know, but I am finishing books more quickly reading them on the Kindle than I ever did reading them the old-fashioned way. Weird!

I love it so much, in fact, that I'm knitting it a sweater (pictured above, if you can look at that blurry photo without going cross-eyed). Sock yarn, U.S. size 3 needles, just a garter-stitch rectangle that I'm going to seam across the bottom and up one side. And maybe add a button and i-cord (or crochet) loop closure at the top. I do like the hard cover I bought for protecting my Kindle in transit, but I don't like reading with it on, and it's kind of a pain to take off and put back on all the time. So I thought I'd make a nice knitted sleeve instead.

You know, in my copious free time. HAHAHA.

My summer is your winter

2011-07-12T11:42:00.000-05:00

I'm not just talking to the Australians and other Southern Hemisphere types, here. I'm talking about this:

Graphic courtesy of austin.ynn.com

It is stupid hot here, y'all. And it has been for ages now. We've had 28 days so far of triple-digit temperatures with no end in sight. (Oops, except it looks like it'll only be 98 next Tuesday! Cold front!)

I have often said that I am fine living in the south, where summers are long and brutal, because you don't have to shovel heat. But I'm beginning to rethink that philosophy. The heat this summer feels like a physical thing, a sentient thing, a malevolent thing. It hunches in the yard, round-shouldered and sullen, surrounding itself with a soupy miasma of pollen and mold spores and gnats and mosquitoes. It breathes humidity on us but withholds rain. It means to do us harm if we aren't careful, I'm pretty sure.

The only way to survive it is to avoid it. We've been holing up indoors in the air conditioning as much as possible, swilling cold drinks and casting accusatory glances out the window at the unrelenting sun. We are in hibernation mode because it's too hot to go anywhere or do anything. That baseball game we went to the other night? Miserable. Dangerous. Our clothes and hair were plastered to our bodies within seconds and stayed that way the entire time, long after the sun had gone down. I actually began to wish one of the drunken loud-mouthed fratholes sitting behind us would spill his beer on me, it was so unbearably hot. (And also, then I could have punched him without going to jail! The heat makes me crazy! I'm not responsible for my actions!)

That's the only way I can explain my recent purchase of a Kindle e-book reader from Amazon. Me, the print girl! With the degree in journalism! Who spent her entire paid professional career (R.I.P.) working in print! Who mocked her husband terribly for getting excited about e-readers when they first came on the market! Who said she would never, every buy one because she needed to feel the paper and smell the cover and appreciate the fonts and white space and design choices and whatnot! Whose husband got a Kindle as a combined birthday and Father's Day present and kept talking about how awesome it was! Who was sent a coupon from Amazon that lowered the price of the model her husband had by, like, a third! And who, as I may have mentioned, is completely and totally batshit crazy from the heat!

I did it. I caved. I lost my mind, and I bought a Kindle. And I freaking looooove it. I already had the free Kindle apps for both my Android phone and my laptop, and I liked those fine, but neither was ideal. My phone's screen is super small, so increasing the font size to a comfortable level for me meant I was swiping the page every 1.7 seconds (you know, approximately). The laptop screen was better, but even though my laptop is technically portable, I don't really carry it around with me from room to room or from home to wherever it is I'm going (nowhere! because it's too hot!) at any given moment.

I like the size and weight of the Kindle. I like the added functionality the actual device has over the apps, most notably the ability to organize my books into collections. I like that it's easy to operate with one hand, and that it has page-forward and page-back buttons on BOTH sides, so I can use it either right or left-handed (very convenient when one is stretched out on the sofa with a standard poodle in one's lap, demanding to have his ears rubbed)(or when one desires to shove chips and salsa into one's pie hole in an uninterrupted fashion)(just as random examples).

I like that, unlike with my phone and laptop screens, the screen on the actual device is not illuminated or reflective and is therefore very easy on the eyes. I like that I can read sample chapters of books for free before purchasing them (or not), and that I can finally FINALLY read books when they first come out instead of waiting for the paperback (because hardbacks are difficult to read in bed, at least for a delicate flower like me). I like that it keeps me from making impulse purchases of actual, physical books which more often than not go on to become unwanted space-taking furniture in my house because I never get rid of anything.

I just like it. It keeps me off the streets, and in this weather, that's the most important thing.

P.S. The model I got is this one, with free 3G and "special offers". The special offers are static advertisements that appear as screen savers when the device is in sleep mode and as very unobtrusive banners at the bottom of the home page. They do NOT appear in the text of the book(s) at all, ever. Worth the $25 cost savings, in my opinion. I also have this cover, which I like just fine. And if you follow me on Pinterest, you'll see that I'm going a little bit nuts shopping for skins.

Scenes from a summer

2011-07-09T12:37:00.000-05:00

Hello, can someone please explain to me how it got to be practically mid-July already? Is this a getting-older thing, with the time passing so quickly? I'd be annoyed, but summer is my least-favorite season so I guess I'll let it pass. This time.

Here are some random things that have been happening around here:

Our July 3rd Fourth of July party was a success! Even though it was 105 degrees outside when I was inside chopping vegetables before the party, and the dog barfed on one of the few clean patches of carpet left in the living room about an hour before our guests were due to arrive (OF COURSE HE DID). The photo above of our backyard with the volleyball net and the gazebo tarp thingie over the patio was taken this morning; obviously the recovery stage is taking a while.
I'm all caught up on Breaking Bad and am totally ready for the premier of Season 4 later this month, so you may all collectively exhale and move on with your lives. Except that now I'm trying to get caught up with Dexter. So maybe hold off for another couple of weeks.
Husband P has had a work colleague in town from India this week, and last night we took him to a baseball game. And I discovered that baseball is about 100,000 times less complicated than cricket, rules-wise. So it's probably a good thing I live in the U.S. of A. because I fear I'd be an extremely confused sports fan if I lived elsewhere (see also: hockey, I totally don't get it).
In related news: I am so ready for football season. SO. READY. Mostly because football season is in the fall, which is my FAVORITE season, even though we don't really get much of a fall here in central Texas, weather-wise.
We ate a lot of crappy junk food in the week leading up to our party (because there was no room to store leftovers in the fridge with all the party food in there) and a lot of leftovers in the week after our party (because HOLY CATS did I ever make way too much food) but now everything has been either frozen or pitched and I am cooking again and this pleases me.
I think my reading mojo is returning, too. On the to-be-read stack right now: Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and Robin Mather's The Feast Nearby.
Both in Kindle form. More about that later.

True confessions

2011-06-30T07:32:00.000-05:00

Confession #1: Patton Oswalt, Oliver Platt and Nathan Lane are all the same guy in my head. I realize this is wrong. If it makes you feel any better, I LOVE that guy!

Confession #2: I cannot say the word "kingpin" out loud, with my mouth. It comes out "kinping" every single time. No idea why. Fortunately that word doesn't come up in conversation very often, except when discussing certain TV shows (see Confession #4).

Confession #3: We decided at the last minute to throw a big party this weekend for the 4th (but not ON the 4th, because we're rebels). It's a cookout. We live in Texas, the beef capital of the South. At least one of the people coming is a vegetarian, but at least two of the people coming (actually, two of the people who live here in my house and who therefore will be at the party by default) are allergic to soy. As the person responsible for all the food, this both freaks me out and exhilarates me. Soy-free vegan barbecue? I CAN COOK THAT. Just watch me.

Confession #4: I'd love to be able to tell you that the reason I haven't blogged in so long is because we've been super busy, what with the upcoming partially vegan cookout and all, but the truth is that I've spent the past mumblemumble hours/days catching up with Breaking Bad. The pilot re-aired a while ago and I loved it, so husband P bought me the first season on DVD, and from there I was hopelessly hooked. I've still got half of Season Two and all of Season Three to get through before Season Four starts on July 17th. Are you watching this show? Let's talk!

And the solstice is still three days away

2011-06-18T13:18:00.001-05:00

Oh, you guys. Our summer has been so busy so far. It almost feels like it should be over already.

Son C has his learner's permit! For driving! So far I have let him sit behind the wheel of my car in the driveway and ease up on the break a little bit in both Drive and Reverse. Thrilling stuff, eh? He's been taking the classroom portion of driver's ed all month and has his first actual driving lesson next week, with an actual instructor who knows how to teach that, as I clearly do not. Once he's got a few lessons under his (seat)belt, perhaps I will take him to an empty parking lot and let him do donuts or something? Is that how it works? I don't know! I maybe shouldn't have been allowed to have children.

Daughter H just finished a very cool and rather prestigious film acting camp (her career goal right now: to be famous! that is a major in college, right?) in an adorable neighborhood that's very very far from the neighborhood where we live. It's the kind of neighborhood where you can walk to a tiny 1970s-throwback grocery store and a non-chain pharmacy and various trendy eateries and where an old man rides a bicycle down the sidewalk (and also occasionally right out in front of cars! I'm just saying, that totally would not have been my fault) selling paletas out of a cooler hitched to the back. I fantasized about moving there for two seconds before I discovered it's also the kind of neighborhood where, for the amount of money we paid for our 5-bedroom 3-bath 2-living 2-dining w/study suburban house with a big yard and attached garage, we could MAYBE buy a 1-bedroom 1-bath condo. With no yard OR garage. Heh.

But the MOST exciting thing that happened so far this summer was that a couple of weeks ago my brother, who lives two or three states away depending on which way you drive, emailed me to tell me he was coming into town for a visit and that he wanted it to be A SURPRISE for our parents! I immediately scrambled to make plans with them for the day my brother was arriving so they wouldn't be off gallivanting around someplace (they take a lot of day trips; my mom would have plotzed if she'd found out my brother was in town for however many hours while she and Dad were off antiquing in the Hill Country all day).

I cannot tell you the anxiety this caused me, trying to make sure the logistics of this would work out without spilling the beans to my parents. I totally avoided them for an entire week because I was so afraid I would blurt it out. (Do not EVER trust me with a secret; I am terrible.) But anyway it totally worked, and they were super surprised and we all had a really nice visit, yay!

I'm still having trouble getting my reading mojo back. I finished and absolutely loved Tana French's The Likeness, and now I'm reading Joshilyn Jackson's Backseat Saints, and I LOVE HER and the book is very good but I'm just slow getting into it for some reason. I think the combination of triple-digit temperatures plus high winds plus high humidity plus no rain for weeks on end is scrambling my brains in addition to making my hair all crazy. (Now I remember why I decided to shave my head this time last year! It's grown out just enough to look terrible all the time and annoy the crap out of me. Wind + humidity = NOT HELPING. Oy.)

Today I'm making a double batch of blueberry muffins (the traditional Father's Day breakfast in the saltycrunchy house) along with deviled eggs and freezer pickles for husband P's requested barbecue dinner tomorrow night. The poor guy has been working so many hours lately that I'm not sure he even remembers what the rest of us look like, so here's hoping we can get him to slow down for a couple of hours tomorrow. (Hmm, I might have to get him drunk. That will probably work, and he could use the nap.)

Happy Father's Day weekend to all you dads out there!

Salsa, simplified

2011-06-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

I had every intention today of sharing with you my recipe for this, a delicious grilled pineapple salsa that I made the other night. A salsa that I found glorious, but that none of the other picky eaters in my family would touch with a ten-foot pole. But YOU would like it! I just know it.

And so I intended to tell you all about it, but the more I thought about how I'd made it, the more I thought about different substitutions and variations and whatnot that could be made to the recipe. And that got me to thinking about salsa in general, and how much I love it, and how much better homemade salsa is than that stuff in the jar, and how ridiculously easy it is to make a super awesome killer salsa completely from scratch.

So hey! Let's talk about salsa in slightly more general terms. Just to simplify things.

Here is what you need for salsa:

Fruit. Tomatoes count, yes, and they are awesome when in season. But let's think a bit beyond that, shall we? Howsabout mango? Or pineapple? Or fresh melon? Or any of the stone fruits -- peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, even cherries. Sweet citrus fruits, like oranges and red grapefruit, are awesome, too. Or hey, try corn! Which ... is not a fruit, I don't think, but it still works.

Peppers. I like jalapenos or serranos best, but use what you like. You can even use bell pepper if you're going for something really mild. Or habanero if you enjoy pain. Or if you need some salsa RIGHT NOW and there are no fresh peppers in the house/garden, use canned green chilis or those dried red pepper flakes in the jar.

Something onion-y. White onions, red onions, sweet yellow onions, scallions, garlic, chives, it's all good.

Acid. Fresh lime juice, fresh lemon juice or vinegar, usually.

Herbs. I have learned there are two types of people in the world: those who like cilantro (or fresh coriander, as some of you know it) and those who regard it as poison. I fall into the former category, so the more cilantro, the better, as far as I'm concerned. But if you just can't stomach it, try branching out a little. Mint is great in a salsa, as is parsley, tarragon, basil -- pretty much any of the delicate leafy herbs will do.

And ... that's pretty much it. Apart from a bit of seasoning in the form of salt/pepper/whatever, that's all you need to make a really excellent salsa to serve with tortilla chips, fish, grilled or broiled meats, cream cheese and crackers, whatever floats your boat.

There are endless variations here, really, especially if you branch out beyond "raw" salsas and consider grilling or oven-roasting your fruits, peppers and/or onion-y things. You can chop your ingredients by hand or dump them into a food processor. You can serve your salsa warm or cold. It's pretty forgiving stuff.

So! That being said, here's what I used to make the grilled pineapple salsa pictured above:

fresh pineapple spears, grilled, cooled and chopped by hand
fresh jalapeno peppers from my dad's garden (I removed the seeds and ribs; you can leave them in for more heat)
red onion from the farmer's market, chopped by hand
fresh lime juice
lots of fresh cilantro

Here are some other wicked awesome combos:

mango, serrano pepper, red onion, lime juice, cilantro
watermelon, jalapeno, scallions, lime juice, mint
nectarine, bell pepper, sweet yellow onion, fruity vinegar, mint and tarragon
roasted tomatillo, roasted serrano, roasted garlic, white vinegar, cilantro
honeydew melon, red pepper flakes, chives, lime juice, thai basil
tomato, canned green chili, white onion, red wine vinegar, cilantro or parsley
diced avocado and orange segments, serrano, red onion, lemon juice, parsley
grilled corn, grilled jalapeno, grilled white onions, lime juice, cilantro

Don't be afraid to experiment. It's really hard to screw up salsa, I promise!

Every day is Wednesturday

2011-06-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

We are not quite a week into summer vacation over here and already I have taken to lounging in my pajamas until noon and forgetting what day it is. (Not to mention: sleeping in until the sun is already up! In the sky! It's weird!)

All that will change next week, as this is pretty much the ONLY non-crazy-busy week during our entire summer. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

So here is what I've been doing so far on my summer vacation, in addition to the above:

Starting to read books, realizing I don't like them, setting them aside in favor of other books, lather, rinse, repeat. So far this has happened with John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let Me In (too much distasteful/disturbing, not enough creepy/scary) and Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World (depressing and kind of boring). Right now I am semi-happily reading Tana French's The Likeness and trying very hard not to compare it in my head to Donna Tartt's The Secret History, for which I did not much care. Sigh.
Drinking lots of cold brew (coffee, not beer).
Eating weird breakfasts, like Wasa bread spread with peanut butter and sprinkled with dried pineapple, or brown rice topped with baby spinach and a fried egg. I can't quite find my breakfast mojo.
Walking the dog in the evening rather than in the morning (see above). He doesn't much care either way, but if I walk him in the morning he sleeps all day, and if I walk him in the evening he's hyper all night. What's THAT about?
Watching Extreme Couponing on TLC. I am obsessed with these grocery-hoarding freaks.
Listening to Gaga's new album. I know! I'm not really in her target demographic, I don't think, but this new album is kind of good, you guys.
Grilling everything. Last night it was tilapia in foil packets with herbs, onions and lemon.

In other news, it's already in the upper 90s here. Every damn day.

And that pretty much brings you up to speed.

The baked oatmeal

2011-05-24T10:35:00.000-05:00

Everyone who's anyone in the food blogging world is making this, the baked oatmeal from Heidi Swanson's new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day, I suspect because the recipe also appeared in the May 2011 issue of Martha Stewart's Whole Living magazine.

And hey! It's also on the Whole Living website. You can find it right here.

I made a few changes to the recipe:

I used pecans (it's what I had), toasted in a dry skillet and chopped by hand.
I used So Delicious coconut milk (original flavor) for the milk (because I don't do the milk thing).
I used frozen blueberries instead of fresh (again, it's what I had).

It occurred to me while mixing things up that you could easily make this vegan by substituting virgin coconut oil for the butter (I came THIS CLOSE to doing that, but didn't) and whatever it is vegans use in place of eggs (ground flax seeds? or something? which I also have ... hmm). We're not vegan and I suspect most of my readers aren't either, but you know. The option is there for you, if you're into that sort of thing.

But the important thing is how it tastes! And I'm here to tell you ... it's pretty darn good! I should confess that I'm not a HUGE oatmeal fan. I like oats just fine, in granola or cookies or whatever, but actual cooked oatmeal and other porridgey things are not really my bag, baby. If I made this again I think I'd bake it just a bit longer because it came out a little more custardy than I was hoping (the coconut milk substitution probably contributed to that). Also my fruit wasn't particularly sweet, so I found it really needed the maple syrup for serving.

All that being said, as far as oatmeal goes, this is pretty much the best darn oatmeal I've ever tasted. If that's damning with faint praise, then so be it.

Still life with tomatoes

2011-05-23T10:11:00.000-05:00

This is the last week of school for my kids before summer vacation, God help us all.

I haven't traditionally done all that well with summer vacation as a stay-at-home parent. When my kids were wee tiny tots, summer vacation meant that all of our favorite hangouts were suddenly overrun with ~~hulking behemoths~~ school-aged children who swatted my kids away from the swings and picture book shelves and children's museum displays, shoving ahead of them and refusing to take turns. When my kids reached school age themselves, summer meant scrambling to come up with affordable day camps so that my sudden loss of seven precious hours a day of kid-free time wouldn't ~~kill us all~~ send me into a tailspin. And during the hours they weren't in camp, summer meant toting them along to every grocery run and doctor's appointment, which was less than fun on all but the very best days.

Now that they're teenagers, summer mostly means that my kitchen is never, ever clean. EVER. See also: my living room, the den, the dining room, every bathroom in the house. I do get plenty of "me" time, however, because they generally don't roll out of bed until well after noon. And I'm able to run all of my errands kid-free regardless of the time of day, because going out in public with your mother is a fate worse than death, apparently (unless she's buying you something, in which case it would be swell if she could just pony up the cash and make herself scarce).

I've been afflicted with a particular malaise the past several summers. The first summer it really hit me hard was one in which my maternal grandmother was terminally ill, and I assumed it was due to the impending loss (and, if I'm being honest, the consequent cross-country travel -- I believe I've mentioned that I don't travel well). But the following summer it hit me again. And the summer after that. And now I've just come to accept it -- I am not a summer person. I've learned there is such a thing as reverse seasonal affective disorder, where folks living in warm climates get all morose during the summer, so let's just assume I have that, okay?

Because I'm sure it has nothing to do with the messy house, or the surly teenagers, or the fact that every summer brings me closer to the one in which they will move out of my house, and then I will be looking at long years of clean kitchens and bathrooms and no one to decline my offers of an afternoon at IKEA or the mall. No need to leave a note on the kitchen counter to let them know I've just popped out to the farmer's market or the dentist, to tell them that there's orange juice in the fridge and tortilla chips in the pantry, to remind them about that orthodontist appointment later in the afternoon.

Yep. I'm sure all that has nothing to do with it. Must be that other thing.

Coffee and me

2011-05-13T21:23:00.000-05:00

I was a late adopter where coffee is concerned. As in, I am firmly ensconced in my mid-40s and have only been drinking coffee for a little over two years.

No one I knew really drank it while I was growing up, you see. Maybe my grandparents, but I didn't eat breakfast with them very often. I think my mom may have been a coffee drinker, but she mostly indulged at work as far as I knew. My dad was a tea drinker, and so was I.

I WANTED to be a coffee drinker, though. I so wanted to be part of that club, especially in college. This was long before Starbucks and various other coffee houses invaded the universe, incidentally. Coffee drinkers had to get their fix at home or in greasy-spoon diners. The coffee was black, served in a small (by today's standards) ceramic mug or Styrofoam cup, and usually accompanied by a cigarette. During exams my dorm would offer free coffee in the lobby for anyone pulling an all-nighter, and the caffeine junkies would descend like locusts.

I tried a sip, a couple of times. It tasted like burnt bean juice. I added sugar. It tasted like SWEET burnt bean juice. I added cream. It tasted like Kahlua vomit. I could not do it, y'all. I just didn't like coffee. And I was okay with that, for years and years. Once coffee exploded all over the place, with a Starbucks on every corner and painfully hip independent coffee shops lining the sidewalks in-between, I kind of felt like a rebel, all counter-culture and stuff. "Yeah, go on and guzzle your coffee, you sheep! I'll be sitting over here, quietly sipping some herbal tea and basking in my moral superiority! Take that!"

(It didn't help that I was forced to give up caffeine years ago for medical reasons. Much like non-alcoholic beer, there didn't seem much point to decaf coffee. Why drink something that tastes bad AND is drug-free, for crying out loud?)

Okay, this story is getting long and rambling so I'll cut to the chase. A couple of years ago, I tried coffee again. It was winter, the weather was cold and gross, and I was trapped in the human Habitrail that is my local IKEA store. Also I was hungry and thirsty, I wanted something warm, they had decaf, and it was free. The planets may also have been in perfect alignment, I'm not sure, but something was different (menopause hormones? brain tumor?) because this time I LIKED THE COFFEE. I liked it very much. It actually tasted pretty dang okay.

So then I went right out and bought some (decaf) coffee beans and a Melitta cup-top drip brewer thingie, which led to a coffee grinder and a French press, which led to a ridiculously convenient-yet-expensive Keurig coffee maker. And the rest is history.

Except! Somewhere along the way, when the weather here in Texas was 100 degrees for weeks in a row and the very thought of drinking a hot cup of ANYTHING nearly made me spontaneously combust, I developed a fondness for iced coffee. Except, again! I couldn't quite get it right. I tried brewing over ice, but that was gross and watery and never cold enough. I tried brewing hot coffee and putting it in the fridge, but it was bitter and seemed like an energy waster.

That's when I discovered cold-brew coffee. And I figured out how to make it. And I have never looked back. Cold-brew coffee is amazing! You don't have to heat anything! It brews itself overnight! It's so easy! Let's make some!

Here's all you need for step one: coffee, a coffee grinder if you're a whole-bean kind of gal/guy, and a container.

I like this coffee.

And this grinder.

What we're actually making here is a coffee concentrate, so you'll want to brew it extra strong. I used enough coffee for 18 cups.

Then I dumped the ground coffee into my container (that's a Slom jar from IKEA -- serendipity!) and added six cups of cold, filtered water.

We have a Brita pitcher so I used that as my water source, but you could certainly use bottled water. Or heck, use whatever water you usually use to make your coffee. It'll probably turn out just fine.

Then just let it sit on the counter overnight (or for about 12 hours). You'll want to give the jar a stir or shake or swirl at some point so all the coffee grounds settle at the bottom instead of floating on top, but that's all there is to it!

Phase two happens the following morning, and you'll need this: your container of coffee and water that's been brewing overnight, a funnel, a coffee filter and another container to hold the filtered brew (that's a Slom stoppered bottle from IKEA! it matches my jar! and the funnel is from IKEA, too! they should totally be paying me to write this, but they're not).

So, just rig yourself up a little funnel/filter jobbie and pour in the coffee/water!

This is sort of a frustratingly slow process, but in the end you're left with a jar of coffee grounds for your garden (don't feed these to your rabbit; I'm pretty sure that would be a bad idea) ...

... and a bottle of liquid gold.

This will keep in the fridge for at least a week. Maybe longer; mine is always long gone by then.

Coffee made this way tastes soooooo smooth AND it doesn't require any heat or electricity (er, except for the grinding, if you did that). You can drink it cold over ice (diluted with cold water or not, depending on how strong you like it), add hot water and drink it hot, use it in recipes calling for strong brewed coffee, mix it into a cocktail with some Kahlua and/or Bailey's, bring it on a camping trip, wash your dog with it, whatever you want!

Me, I like it like this: over ice, undiluted, with a teensy drop of vanilla syrup.

Aaaah. Perfect!

Currently in love with ...

2011-05-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

... kale chips.

We belonged to a CSA a couple of years ago and while I loved it, I got so sick of box after box of kale during the winter months. I was the only one eating it and most of it landed on our compost heap because I just couldn't stomach another bite. That was before I discovered the wonder of kale chips. Now I actually go out of my way to buy kale every week at the farmer's market while it's in season, just so I can make these chips! I totally cannot stop eating them. They are THAT good. Really!

If you've never heard of kale chips, well, they're exactly what they sound like they would be. Crispy, crunchy chips made from kale, a leafy green vegetable that is super healthy. If you're the type that craves crispy/salty stuff, this is the snack for you. Kale is in season during the cool months of late fall through early spring, so if you happen to be located in the northern hemisphere, your farmer's market and/or grocery store probably has some right now. Howsabout we make chips out of 'em? C'mon, it's easy! We'll do it together!

I think the hardest and most intimidating thing about making kale chips is looking at that giant bunch o' curly greens and knowing you have to somehow wash them, dry them, and convert them into bite-sized pieces. Fortunately, if you have a salad spinner this is super easy!

Just tear bite-sized pieces of kale off the stems with your fingers and drop them directly into the basket of your salad spinner.

Then trot the basket over to the sink and give your kale a good wash. (You'll want to put the stems in your compost heap. Or feed them to your rabbit. Or maybe not. Maybe rabbits aren't supposed to have kale? I have no idea. Anyway....)

Once you've washed them up, just spin the crap out of them so they get nice and dry.

And then toss them onto a couple of rusty baking sheets! See? Easy!

If you don't have a salad spinner, your best bet is to wash the kale while it's whole, dry it really well on some paper towels, then cut or rip it off the stem into bite-sized pieces. THEN whomp it onto your rusty baking sheets, as above.

Anyhoodles, that was the hard part. I know, right? I told you this was easy!

Now you've got some choices. Normally I just drizzle the kale with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkle it with kosher salt, and toss it in the oven at 300 degrees for maybe 20-30 minutes, depending on how much kale I have and how much oil I've used (too much oil makes the kale soggy, which means it will take much longer to crisp up).

The most recent time I made it (and the only time I actually remembered to take photos), however, I used a recipe from the May 2011 issue of Everyday Food magazine for sriracha-spiced kale chips. Hello, that is GENIUS. I love sriracha on everything. I've even been known to eat it plain on Ritz crackers. I might have a sriracha PROBLEM, is what I'm saying.

But don't let that stop you from trying this recipe. Unfortunately it's not yet up on the Everyday Food website, or if it is I can't find it, but it's just sriracha mixed with olive oil, you guys. That's all there is to it. If you don't have sriracha, I imagine any hot sauce will do. In fact, I may try this someday with my second-favorite hot sauce, Trappey's Red Devil.

Here's the raw kale all loaded with sriracha-laced olive oil, sprinkled with salt, and then tossed around so that all the leaves are coated.

Then all you've got to do is pop your rusty baking sheets into the oven at 300 degrees for half an hour or so, tossing the kale around with tongs every 10 minutes to make sure everything is crisping up the way it's supposed to. It'll get a little bit brown around the edges, but don't let it get too brown.

Oh, and also? Your house might not smell great while this is cooking. It'll smell kind of cabbagey, to be honest. Don't worry about it, the kale chips will still taste great! I promise!

While you're waiting for the kale to cook, you might get distracted by the evening light coming through your kitchen window and making your tomatoes look all pretty.

Hello, pretty tomatoes! I bought these tomatoes at the farmer's market from the same booth where I bought the kale.

Hello, filthy window! Someone should wash you one of these days. Someone who isn't me, I mean.

Hello, tomato on the right that's already starting to shrivel a bit! You're still pretty. I don't mind a few wrinkles.

Oh hey, the kale chips are done! They've cooked down a bit, as you can see.

Once they've cooled completely there's only one thing left to do.

Put them in a pretty white bowl, and eat them by the bushel.

Wait, was that two things? Well, whatever. They're delicious!

Spring is what happens while you're waiting for summer

2011-04-26T10:10:00.000-05:00

Breakfast: eggs and tomatoes from the farmer's market topped with fancy salts.

My kids only have four and a half weeks of school until summer vacation. That hardly seems possible when some parts of the country are still seeing snow, but it has been hot and humid and gross here for a while now, so yes. Summer is coming!

A few weeks ago P and I sat down to make our summer vacation plans. Working around son C's summer band schedule and some possible upcoming business travel for P, we decided that early June would be the best (okay, only) time to go on an inexpensive little family trip. We kicked around a few ideas: New Orleans? That's only a day's drive away and the kids and I have never been there. Maybe drive a few hours more and visit P's brother and our niece on the gulf coast of Alabama? Son C really wants to go out on his uncle's boat one of these days. What about one of the beaches here in Texas? We went to Padre Island last summer and had an absolute blast. Or maybe West Texas? Or Arkansas? A long day's drive could take us any number of places for a relatively cheap week-long vacation. The possibilities were endless. We decided to table the destination discussion for a couple of weeks, see what the rest of the extended family was doing and what the kids wanted to do.

You know what comes next, right?

Yeah. P did our taxes.

And then daughter H expressed a keen desire to go to a particular film acting camp here in town.

And then we realized C had just turned 15 and if he was ever going to take driver's ed, which is not taught in the schools here, it would have to be this summer before band starts.

Aaaand ... there went all the days we had blocked out on the calendar for a vacation. And all the money we had available to spend on it. (See also: Mother's Day. I've been told to expect a nice card. I asked P to throw in some coffee and donuts and the expectation that I would not be cooking or changing out of my pajamas all day, and he agreed, and we're both happy.)

So it's going to be a (very busy) stay-at-home summer for us here in the saltycrunchy house, which is totally okay by me. As much as I spent our unusually cold winter dreaming of daiquiris on the beach, the thought of not needing to pack and drive and kennel the dog and tote around bags full of damp laundry and find sand in places that sand should never be is almost a relief. (I am not a good traveler, people. That's something you should know about me.)

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I love the idea of a travel-stress-free summer. Here are some at-home summer things to which I'm looking forward:

Buying a cheap kiddie pool for the dog. It will be his first summer with us! Hilarious antics are sure to ensue!
Watermelon, blackberries and peaches from the farmer's market. Hell yeah.
Putting our ice cream maker and shaved-ice machine into heavy rotation.
Finally perfecting alcoholic popsicles!
Swimming laps at the neighborhood pool when it's too hot to run.
Camping out at IKEA. All day long.
Catching up on Weeds and Breaking Bad via DVD.
Basil in/on everything. (I have somehow accumulated five different varieties of basil this spring. Not sure how that happened, but I'm not complaining.)
Sleeping in my own bed every night. I like my bed.
Showering in my own bathroom every morning. I like my bathroom.
(Have I mentioned that I'm a terrible traveler? It's not that I don't like seeing the places and doing the stuff, I just like going home immediately afterwards, is all.)

So yeah. No vacation for us (cue the tiny violins).

This might turn out to be the BEST. SUMMER. EVER.

There is no photo with this post

2011-04-20T08:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, wow. Where did those couple of weeks go? I didn't mean to stay away from the blog so long, honest. I realize this isn't the first time I've said that, and it probably won't be the last.

I don't know what to tell you except that we've been really busy with birthday stuff around here and I haven't been feeling altogether well. That last bit doesn't bear mentioning, but as for the first bit ... well, husband P had a birthday one week ago yesterday, and then this past Sunday our boy C turned 15. I would be all "Sunrise, Sunset" about that, but the truth is that C has FELT 15, at least to me, for a while now. In fact I sort of have to remind myself on a regular basis that he is ONLY 15. He is the tallest person in our family by multiple inches, his voice is very deep, he is shaving every day. He opens jars for me and reaches things on high shelves. He has strong opinions and is becoming less afraid to share them. This is both good and bad. But mostly good. Last week the school band of which he is a part took solid "I" ratings (that is the best) at UIL, and he won an academic award at school for maintaining an average of 90 (that is an A) or above, and he talked me into letting him get an M-rated video game because his reasons for wanting to play it were so compelling and I thought he could handle it. He makes me proud every day, even as I worry myself into an ulcer over him (and his sister) every day.

I have been reading Kathleen Grissom's The Kitchen House and it is wonderful. If you liked Kathryn Stockett's The Help, you would like this book, too. Or at least I think you would; I'm only halfway through it but I'm fairly certain it's not going to turn crappy anytime soon. It's a bit more violent/awful than The Help because it takes place during slave times, but it is so absorbing and so good. And it talks about Irish indentured servitude in the U.S., which is something that's not talked about much but is almost certainly how at least a few of my ancestors ended up here.

My herb garden is coming along nicely, despite the windy, bone-dry weather we've had for weeks (a house burned down in my neighborhood last week, someone died in the fire, I drive past the ruins multiple times per day and want to cry every time). I meant to take photos of my rose bushes to show you how they were going crazy with blossoms but it was too windy for photos, and then the roses all blew away. I'll have to wait until they bloom again, I guess. And it stops being windy. Assuming that ever happens.

The other day I took all of my old flared and bootcut jeans that still fit in the waist/tummy/hips and cut them off to capri-length with a pair of pinking shears. And now I have all these flared/bootcut denim capris WITH POCKETS, WHICH IS IMPORTANT and I love them. Even daughter H thinks they're cute, and she is the harshest critic I know. (She is 13. Enough said?)

In other news, yesterday that Sith lord we call a dog whomped his whole face onto the keyboard of my laptop, as he is wont to do fairly often because apparently he likes the shrieking noise I make when he does it, only this time I was in my Google reader and he somehow managed to mark everything read AND make the font/display all wonky and I don't know how to fix it, argh.

And that's about all that's going on around here.

Table of joy

2011-04-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

I used to have an herb garden. It looked like this:

Tucked into a nook between our back patio and chimney, just steps away from the kitchen door, it was overflowing with potted herbs. They seemed to love the partial sun/partial shade in that little spot, and I loved having so many delicious fresh herbs so close to the kitchen. We were happy, my herb garden and I.

And then this happened:

Yeah. The dog, who came to live with us in September, pretty much napalmed my fall herb garden. He ate everything down to twigs, and what he couldn't or didn't want to eat, he dug up and scattered across the yard. And then he salted the earth, summoned demons, and started the apocalypse.

And I was sad. Very, very sad.

I am okay with not having a vegetable garden (I GUESS) because there are so many awesome farmer's markets in my area that are open year-round. But I NEED my herbs. I have a biological imperative to walk out the kitchen door, snip a few stalks or leaves, give them a rinse, and transfer them immediately into a pot or pan or bowl full of vittles at any given moment.

Sure, I could plan ahead and buy fresh herbs at the store so I'd have them on-hand when I need them, but ... have you met me? "Plan ahead" is not in my vocabulary. Herbs are delicate and on those few occasions when I do remember to buy them ahead of time, already cut and whatnot, they tend to wilt before I have a chance to use more than a very small portion of them. That is money down the drain, people!

I need MY OWN herbs, growing right outside my kitchen! NEED THEM. I just do. But the dog will eat them if he can get at them. Husband P and I spent a large portion of this past winter trying to decide what to do about this -- build some more raised beds? The dog is big enough that if I can reach into the raised bed, so can he. Plus, I like the control that POTTED herbs give me -- I don't want to plant them in the ground. Chicken wire or bird netting? Not ideal, because it's kind of a pain for me to navigate around it (I know this because for the past few weeks my herbs have been living in the berry patch, which is covered in bird netting)(and full of completely dead berry bushes, but that's another story). A hot wire? Potentially expensive, and no guarantee the dog won't find some way around it (hello, he's a poodle -- he is nimble AND clever)(also: evil).

Then P proposed building me a dog-proof table for all of my herbs, in the same location where I used to keep them. And now, after a couple of weekends' worth of labor, my herb garden looks like this:

Hello, amazing! I love this little table so, so much. It's deep from front to back and it has fence pickets all around it, so the dog can't reach my plants even if he jumps up there. The wire grate surface allows for drainage. I can open the gated door to access the storage area below and/or to reach the plants that are way at the back. And P even extended one of our sprinkler heads so it would reach way up through the grate and water my herbs automatically when the sprinklers run! HOW AWESOME IS MY HUSBAND?

So now I'm happy. And so are my herbs.

As for the dog? Well, he can go back to eating grass and devouring souls.

And now it's over, and I'm glad

2011-03-30T11:48:00.001-05:00

So this has been kind of a weird week so far. I have spent most of it suffering from some nebulous malady that I suspect would be described in romantic terms back in Victorian times, like consumption, or wasting sickness, or something sexy like that. I still don't know what it was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually tuberculosis. The best way I could describe it to the husband was that it felt like I was bleeding to death. Soooo tired, weak, dizzy, achy and generally drained and completely sans appetite. No fever, no other symptoms. Huh. That sucked.

While I was busy drinking lots of tea and having the vapors or whatever, the dog ate everything in the house. He ate my reading glasses and one of H's stretchy headbands and a whole box of Kleenex and he tried to eat my computer mouse but we got that away from him in time. He ate a receipt. And some fireplace rocks. And the husband's earbuds. He is trying to destroy us all, and I suspect the proper name of my recent malady is something along the lines of Oh My God, This Dog. It's a good thing he's cute. And fast.

Anyway, today I'm feeling much better and the dog is tethered to the husband's office door with all of his toys and water and food and stuff (the dog's toys, etc., not the husband's). I'm thinking yak stew for dinner! Yes, really!

It's good to be back.

Good for the soul

2011-03-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

Readers, and most especially fellow runners, I have a confession to make. I fear it will alienate me from the majority of you, that it will instantly place me in the category of Not One Of Us. It may confuse and bewilder you. It may even anger you. But it's been weighing on me and I've got to say it. I can't live a lie, people. I need to tell you what's in my heart.

Here it is: I prefer running on the treadmill to running anywhere else.

Oh, I know. I'm a freak. Demented. Perverted, even. But it's true.

To illustrate why I operate outside the confines of human decency in this regard, let me share with you my inner monologue under four different running situations.

Trail Running
Geez, this trail is hilly.
What does that sign say? A WILDCAT has been spotted on the trail?! OH HELL NO.
Was that a wildcat? Probably not.
Wait, what was that? Was THAT a wildcat? I think it might have been.
What are you supposed to do in a wildcat attack, anyway?
I should have brought some mace.
Ack! Deer poop!
Another hill? Are you kidding me?
Whoa, it got a little washed out here during that last rainstorm.
Hey! Leash your dog, dumbass!
This trail is super uneven. And I think I'm allergic to all these trees.
WILDCAT! Oh, no. Just a squirrel.
Two squirrels!
Probably running from the wildcat.
WTF with this rutted, uneven, washed out trail?!
Aaaand ... there goes my knee. Crap.

Street/Sidewalk Running
Do I look stupid?
Holy crap, it's humid out here. And hot. Super hot.
This is seriously some serious humidity.
Seriously.
It's like running through soup. Really hot soup.
Do I look stupid?
OMG, I think I just swallowed a bug.
Does that car see me? Because it's kind of swerving my way.
Hey! Cars drive on the road, not the sidewalk, idiot!
OMG, it's so hot. Soooo hot. And humid. This is ridiculous.
I'm way too tired to run up this hill but I don't want all these people to see me walking.
And I have to pee. Really really bad.
How far is it back to home now?
What the heck was I thinking taking this route?
Do I know anyone who lives over here? Will they let me use their bathroom?
Just swallowed another bug. AWESOME.
Gottapee gottapee gottapee gottapee OMG gottapee.
Do I look stupid?
I'm pretty sure I look stupid.
And OMG, THE HUMIDITY.
I'm going to pee my pants.

Track Running
This is the most boring freaking thing I've ever done.
How many laps was that?
I should run clockwise, just to freak people out.
I can no longer make right turns. Ever. In my life.
I'll be listing to the left whenever I walk now.
This is the most boring freaking thing I've ever done.
How many laps was that?
This is the most boring freaking thing I've ever done.
How many laps was that?
This is the most boring freaking thing I've ever done.
How many laps was that?
(Repeat. Forever.)

Treadmill Run
Alrighty, blinds open, ceiling fan on, mp3 player fired up, let's do this!
Ha! Look at those poor bastards running in the park in 90-degree temps and 98% humidity!
Suck it, losers!
OMG, I love this song. Kicking it up to a 6.
Woo! That felt amazing!
Oops, pee break.
Okay, back now.
OMG, I love this song, too!
Working up a sweat now. I'll turn on the treadmill fan.
Aaaah. Nice.
Another awesome song! Reminds me of hanging out at the lake that one summer.
That was a fun summer. I can still smell the Coppertone and mesquite and taste the grilled burgers and Hawaiian shaved ice.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzen.
(Remainder of run is carried out in a mindless endorphin haze.)

So yeah. I love the treadmill. I love it the way I love Lindor truffles, dirty vodka martinis, Billy the Exterminator and my new running shoes.

The treadmill is the only place I can get my mind right, without any outside distractions.

(Plus I'm antisocial. And a control freak.)

I hope we can still be friends, but I'll understand if none of you can be seen talking to me in public anymore.

Heh.

Grandma

2011-03-22T12:40:00.000-05:00

Today would have been my paternal grandmother's 90th birthday, except that Saturday was the one-year anniversary of her death. Which means that one year ago today, I was back in my old hometown with my parents and brother and all of my aunts and uncles and cousins trying not to think about the fact that it was Grandma's birthday and we were about to bury her. I think today may have been the day my brother and I drove around town looking at all of our old houses (we moved a lot) but I really can't remember. I don't remember much about the funeral, which was one year ago tomorrow, either. I think I was just a little numb.

One thing I do remember about that trip was going to my aunt's house after the service and helping my dad sort through boxes and boxes of old photos that had belonged to my grandmother. Grandma was big on photos of family; she brought out the photo albums whenever we went back for a visit and I never got tired of looking at them with her and listening to her recollection of the details of each photo. I wish now that I had taken notes, or recorded her, or something like that.

But these were photos that I had never seen before. Many of them were of my grandma and her siblings, or her parents, or other family members long gone. Some of them were of Grandma when she was younger.

I don't know much about my grandma's early years. I know that she and Grandpa grew up on the same street, and that she worked in a factory during World War II, and that she gave birth to my father while Grandpa was off in Europe fighting the Germans. I guess I knew that she had been a young girl once upon a time, but until I saw the photos, it never really hit me.

She never talked about herself. When we called or visited, she'd talk about what other family members were up to. Now that she's gone I sometimes wish I had asked her more about herself, about what she liked to do when she was a girl -- did she read? Draw? Dance? What were her hopes and dreams? But I suspect that even if I had asked her all these things, my questions would have been kindly and subtly deflected. She'd turn the conversation back to me somehow, to what I liked and what I did. Then she'd offer me an RC Cola and an ice cream sandwich, and I'd forget what we had been talking about.

By the time I had arrived on the scene, she'd settled into a happy rhythm as a wife and mother. She took care of her husband and her children and her house. She was modest and kind and gentle and sweet. She managed to be quiet and lively at the same time. There was a calmness to her, a steadiness, and yet a thrum of energy. She created beauty and love wherever she went. And, I suspect, she was stronger than any of us ever knew.

She was the heart of our family.

I miss her every day.

Whoopsie

2011-03-18T15:40:00.002-05:00

Where did THAT week go? I didn't mean to go so long between updates, I swear.

It's just that, well, my kids were/are on Spring Break this week. And my husband is working 18-hour days (at home). And we have this dog.

'Nuff said? I think so. Spring Break eats my brain.

I had intended to post photos of all the signs of spring in my neighborhood -- the daffodils and redbud trees and Bradford pears and ornamental peaches and whatnot that have been blooming like crazy -- but then I blinked and spring was over before it even started. Today at my house it is full-on summer, sunny and in the mid-80s and all the trees have leaves (except the pecans) and all the flowers have quit blooming (except the dianthus). I am wearing shorts! And flip-flops! And sunscreen! It's crazy up in here!

Since last we spoke I have un-mulched and weeded and planted and re-mulched the front garden beds (actually, the husband did most of the labor on that)(but I helped!)(A LOT), bought and re-potted a massive poo-load of herbs and then stashed them in the berry patch where the dog can't destroy them (I hope), taken my daughter shorts shopping and for a run on the middle school track, taken my son to the dentist and bought him cookies (I know), cooked many a meal and read many a magazine and played approximately 12,487 hours of Plants vs. Zombies, for which I may need a 12-step program. And also I bought Swedish Fish. In bulk. At Sam's Club. Ditto.

Anyhoodles, once these kids are back to school and my kitchen is able to stay clean for more than 4 seconds and my brain has slithered back into my cranium where it belongs, I'll be back. Boy, will I. Just you wait.

Walking the dog

2011-03-11T17:19:00.000-06:00

I took this dog for a walk today.

It was a long walk. Really long. Like, 2.41 miles long.

That's pretty long when you're only 7 months old. (Okay, fine, 7.5 months old. STILL.)

Did I ever tell the story of how we came to own a standard poodle? My kids are seriously allergic to dogs, but daughter H and the husband really wanted one. They finally wore me down sometime last year and I agreed to get a dog, but for obvious reasons, it had to be a hypoallergenic breed. After some research, we narrowed our choices down to a schnauzer or a poodle.

But I had a further requirement (and I felt like the family owed that to me, since I finally agreed to get a dog and all): I wanted a dog that would be big enough to run with me.

There are large schnauzers, yes. But I wanted a REALLY big dog. And a schnauzer just didn't feel like a good fit for our family. So, a standard poodle it was.

Mister Awful Adorable is getting pretty big now. I'm allowed to start running with him when he's a year old, so to prepare him for that, I've been walking him quite a bit and working with him on matching my pace. He is doing SO GREAT on the leash. Like, amazingly great, when you consider he's still a puppy. (Our awesome trainers get the credit for that. They have worked miracles with this dog.)

He doesn't lunge or pull my arm off. He doesn't pee on every vertical object we pass. He doesn't bark at anyone or anything, not even the dogs behind the fences who bark their freaking rottweiler heads off when we walk by. He does tend to hesitate a bit when someone is walking toward us on the same side of the street, and he's a little freaked out by kids on bikes (he's used to strollers, though). He pays no attention whatsoever to the cars. He mostly stays right by my left side, or just a step ahead of me, trotting happily along.

For the first mile and three-quarters, anyway.

Then he got tired. He just wanted to sit down. I'm sure he would have been happy if I'd carried him, but hello, he is 50+ pounds now. That was not going to happen. So he'd sit, and I'd pet him, and then I'd make him get up and walk a little more (which he did, gamely). Rinse, repeat. For .66 miles along a busy street. It began to feel like some sort of twisted doggy death march after a while. I was pretty sure the poodle rescue people were going to pull up any minute, take him away, and give him to a nice, sane family that doesn't exercise.

But as soon as we turned the corner onto our street he rallied and dragged me the rest of the way home. Then he drank a gallon of water, peed a gallon of pee, and took a nap on the nice cool tile in our entryway.

I was a little worried I had overworked his hips, but after his nap he was 100% fine and has been bounding up and down the stairs and jumping around like a maniac (in other words, acting completely normal)(for him). There's a chance I may have given him a whopping case of Stockholm Syndrome, because while he is usually glued to the husband's side, today he hasn't left mine. And he's been extra cuddly and affectionate, which I don't mind at all.

Still, I think we'll keep our walks a little shorter for a while and work our way SLOWLY up to 2+ miles.

He's still just a baby, after all. Even if he is the size of a Volkswagen.

A playlist for the slow

2011-03-09T10:43:00.000-06:00

Last night daughter H and I were watching The Biggest Loser and one of the contestants was running on the treadmill and complaining about how she hates to run. This got H and me talking about how we pink-puffy-heart LOVE to run, and about how we should run together sometime (I usually run when the kids are at school) and how she is so much faster than me so ... that might not work after all.

H: What speed do you run on the treadmill?
K (that's me): Um, usually 4.2 miles per hour.
H: *raised eyebrow* RUN? You RUN at that speed?
K: Well, yeah. For an easy run.
H: *incredulous* What's the fastest you run?
K: I can do a 6 but not for very long.
H: *cackling like the 13-year-old she is* You're kidding! I run at a TEN.
K: Wow. That's pretty fast.
H: You RUN at a 4.2?
K: Yes. FOR AN EASY RUN.
H: What speed do you JOG?!
K: Go clean your room.

People, I am slow. I am a slow, slow runner and I am totally okay with that. I'm 44 years old and I have fibromyalgia -- I think the fact that I'm running AT ALL is pretty awesome, if you don't mind me saying.

I'm not a competitive person by nature. I don't run to win races; I run because I can and because I love it. In fact, the more I give myself permission to be slow, the more I love it. I'm even slower than usual right now because I'm taking this entire year to work on distance rather than speed. I plan to run a 10K in early 2012, so my goal is to work up to that distance however I can -- walking, jogging, running, or any combination thereof -- over the next 12 months.

I know a lot of runners who use their running time to let their minds puzzle over problems and decisions they might be facing. Running gives them the solitude they need to focus on stuff like that and get their thoughts in order. Or if they run with a partner, they have another person to act as a sounding board and give them another perspective on whatever is going on.

I am not one of those runners. Running, for me, lets me turn my brain OFF. Normally my brain is like a methed-up rodent on a wheel. I have a frantic monologue in my head every waking moment -- I spend ALL of my time puzzling over things and trying to sort things out. Running is my escape from that. When I am running along, listening to a song I love, working up a sweat, that recharges my mental and emotional batteries like nothing else. It hits my reset button. It gives me a break from myself and the world around me.

Music is an essential part of that, which brings me to the point of this post. I recently loaded up my mp3 player with songs that have a somewhat slower tempo than the rest of the songs on my running playlist (because as previously mentioned, I'm working on distance right now instead of speed), and boy howdy, that is working out a treat. I am plodding along at a snail's pace and having an absolute BLAST.

So if you are slow like me, or you walk rather than run, or you're fast but need something new-ish for your warmup/cooldown, I implore you to consider the following songs, which are rocking my incredibly slow world right now:

"She's Got A Hold on Me" by Hacienda
"Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman Turner Overdrive
"Orphans" by Beck
"Down on the Corner" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
"All This Time" by Heartless Bastards
"Dare" by Gorillaz
"I Wish" by Stevie Wonder
"Road to Nowhere" by Talking Heads
"Kiss Them for Me" by Siouxsie and the Banshees
"You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC
"Train Kept A Rollin'" by Aerosmith
"Energy" by The Apples In Stereo
"Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen
"Me In Honey" by R.E.M.
"Whiskey in the Jar" by Thin Lizzy
"Helter Skelter" by the Beatles
"Can't Stop" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Alrighty. Enjoy!

A catch-up post for your Tuesday

2011-03-08T10:19:00.000-06:00

Well, I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Ours was so stupendous that it took me an extra day to recover, apparently, because I have no idea what happened to Monday. Wait, it IS Tuesday, right? Because when I woke up, I thought it was Wednesday. Oy. I think I need to get a perpetual calendar tattooed on my forearm. Or a corneal implant. Or something.

Anyway, yes, the weekend! It was good. After waking up to gale-force winds and rain lashing the windows Saturday morning, but being determined to visit the farmer's market anyway because I'm stubborn like that, I was thrilled when my inherent laziness resulted in the sun coming out and all the clouds being swept away before I even left the house. It was cold and very windy, but daughter H and I were able to procure victuals any old how.

Yak, eggs, kale, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, carrots and sorbetto. Awesome! I love my farmer's market.

The rest of my weekend can be summed up in one word: LAUNDRY. Ugh.

Let's see, what else is going on?

The redbuds are blooming. Also the Bradford pear trees. The plum tree blossoms are on their way out, and the tree is leafing like crazy. When I've spotted my first bluebonnet and gotten my first whiff of mountain laurel, then I'll know spring is here for reals.

I did indeed go back and re-read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking, since I wasn't in the mood for anything else. I love that book so much. Every time I re-read it, it's like a visit from an old friend. Gone too soon, Laurie Colwin.

Upon finishing Home Cooking, which I'm likely to do within the next day or so (it's a fast read but I'm reading it slowly, because I love it), I hope to be in the mood for Kathleen Grissom's The Kitchen House, which is sitting here on my nightstand waiting patiently for me to notice it. Irish indentured servants in the Old South! That's got to be good. I hope.

As of this morning both of my children have graduated to nighttime-only retainer use, orthodontically speaking, so that's something.

Oh, and if you're not reading my Facebook page, you really should. You don't have to be a member of FB to view it, I don't think, though if you are that obviously makes things easier. For some reason I feel compelled to post photos and descriptions over there of what we eat for dinner almost every night. Tonight we're having jambalaya, because it's Mardi Gras! You certainly don't want to miss THAT.

Alrighty. I think that brings you up to speed. Soon we will be discussing kale chips and neem oil, though not necessarily together. Because that would be gross. (Spoiler!)

Shake it up

2011-03-03T14:02:00.001-06:00

I cook dinner for our family 90% of the time (5% of the time we order pizza, 3% of the time we "fend for ourselves", 1% of the time the husband makes pancakes, and 1% of the time we eat out)(I don't know why I felt the need to break that down for you, but there you go). That is a lot of cooking. I feel simultaneously tired, bored and a little stressed just thinking about it.

Most of the meals I cook follow a basic formula: one entree/meat type thing, one pasta/grain/potato type thing, and one vegetable type thing. I tend to focus all of my energy and effort on the entree, which means the other components of the meal get short shrift. I'll lovingly marinate a flank steak for hours, grill it, rest it, cut it across the grain into perfect medium-rare slices, then hastily whip up some buttered egg noodles and microwave-steamed broccoli to go with it. Or I'll mix up a meatloaf with all sorts of yummy seasonings and diced onion and pepper and whatnot, then serve plain boiled white rice and a boring green salad alongside.

I fall into a rut, is what I'm saying, and that has definitely been the case lately. I've fallen into such a rut, in fact, that I've been relying on -- gasp, swoon -- packaged side dishes! Processed food! I know! Lately whatever entree I make has been accompanied by some sort of packaged, oven-baked potato product and a microwaved bag of frozen vegetables. This is awful. This has got to stop. My family is so incredibly bored by these offerings and I feel kind of bad serving them. Me, who used to make everything from scratch! I don't know what's wrong with me. I blame the peri-menopause.

Anyhoo, it's gotten so the kids don't even eat their vegetables anymore, because they are so sick of the same old stuff every night, so last night I decided to shake things up a bit. When I serve a green salad, which is OFTEN, I serve it "bar" style with a big bowl of romaine lettuce and little bowls of sliced cucumber, shredded carrot and cherry tomatoes so everyone can fix their salad however they like it. I followed that same principle last night, but instead of lettuce I put out a big bowl of baby spinach leaves. And instead of little bowls of cucumber, carrot and tomatoes, I put out little bowls of sliced fresh strawberries, blackberries, mandarin orange segments and raisins. I even whipped up my own from-scratch dressing with some wild berry vinegar I bought at IKEA ages ago, good olive oil, honey and a bit of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

My teenagers were ecstatic. Neither of them touched the spinach, but they loaded up their plates with fruit (alongside grilled sausages and oven-baked sweet potato fries) and ate it enthusiastically. And that's when I realized that I couldn't remember the last time either of them had eaten any. We always have fresh fruit in the house, but it's tucked away in the fridge where the kids tend not to bother with it.

It was what you might call a light-bulb moment. So now I've decided: fresh fruit with dinner, every single night. If I prepare it and put it out with the other dishes, the kids will eat it, and I won't stress so much if they decide to skip that night's vegetable offering.

Sometimes I'm really smart. And sometimes I'm really slow. I think this counts as both.

Welcome, stalkers!

2011-03-03T08:41:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone, saltycrunchybitterfresh is now on Twitter! Also, there's a brand spanking new Facebook page! So if you do those things, now you can do them with me. We can do them together! It won't be creepy at all, I swear.

Also, tune back in here later today and I will tell you all about how I fed my kids fruit for dinner last night. I know! It's groundbreaking stuff.

Signs of spring

2011-02-28T06:27:00.002-06:00

Five years ago, we planted a plum tree in our backyard. (And a bunch of other trees, too, but those aren't important right now.) It was a Methley plum, which is supposed to be self-pollinating.

Do you know how many plums that tree has given us in five years? NONE. Zero plums. A complete absence of plums.

Now ask me how many times the tree has even blossomed in its entire life. Once! ONE TIME. That was last year.

Can you guess how many blossoms it produced last year? Can you? Because I'll tell you. ONE BLOSSOM. Oy.

In short, this plum tree has been a giant pile of fail. Until this year.

Check it out, you guys! I know it's hard to tell from this terrible photo (the dog, a.k.a. Mister Awful Adorable, a.k.a. Gozer the Destructor, Destroyer of Plants and Peace and Socks and Souls, was simultaneously jumping on me and trying to eat the tree while I was taking pictures) but this year the dern thing is simply LOUSY with blossom buds! There are at least a couple of dozen on there, a few of which have just begun to open.

This makes me SO very happy, I can't even tell you. Maybe we'll get some plums this year! You think? Well, even if we don't, the tree gets points for effort.

I guess we won't chop it up for kindling after all.

Currently NOT in love with...

2011-02-26T13:18:00.001-06:00

Oh, you guys. I have been reading and decidedly NOT liking some books lately. Do you want to hear about them? Of course you do.

The first book I read and didn't like very much was Kristin Kimball's The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, And Love. I wanted to like this book. I wanted to like it very much. It's a memoir of sorts in which the author describes how she, a Harvard graduate living in NYC and making her living as a writer, fell in love with a hippie farmer type guy and chucked everything to run off, marry him, and start a new farm. I mean, that sounds good, right? That sounds INTERESTING. Their farm is a whole-diet farm, meaning they aim to provide their subscribers/customers with EVERYTHING they need to eat, from dairy products to a variety of meats to flours to dried beans to MAPLE SYRUP, for crying out loud! How could a book about THAT go wrong?

I'll tell you how: tone. The author has one, and it can be described in one word, and that word is "elitist". She is an elitist, and she has an elitist tone. At first I thought she was doing it on purpose, emphasizing the fish-out-of-water thing and setting herself up for the big epiphany she has halfway through the book in which she realizes that hey! Maybe farmers aren't stupid after all! Yeah, maybe some of them are even every bit as smart as the ad execs she knew back in NYC who went to college and stuff! Mind-blowing, eh?

But no, the tone continues far beyond that light bulb moment. After a few too many comments about how the impoverished kids she went to school with were snot-nosed and filthy, and how Amish men wear the same glasses that the kids in shop class wear (what?!), and how she eventually built up enough upper-body strength that she was able to make her way through the barn with a full pail of milk in each hand "like a Chinese peasant", I just ... yeesh. I decided she wasn't doing it on purpose. She was just kind of a jerk, and she probably didn't even realize it, and that made me kind of sad while reading the book. It was certainly well-written in terms of her ability to put a sentence together, and parts of it were fascinating, but I ended up not liking it (or her) very much.

So then I started The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz and hey, guess what? I didn't like that one either. I bought it because it won the Pulitzer and because I had heard someone talk about it somewhere, sometime, I don't know. I almost gave up on it just a few pages in, because there were FOOTNOTES, which I find obnoxious in a work of fiction. But I stuck with it for 50 pages, and then I had to bail out. I just didn't care about the characters at all, despite the fact that the main character was from the Dominican Republic (I had a childhood friend from there) and was a giant sci-fi nerd (I married one). I found the writing sort of dense and disjointed and borderline incomprehensible. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for that sort of book, I don't know. But life is too short to read books you don't love, right? Right!

After bailing on Oscar Wao I started reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, and it LOOKS good and I think it probably IS good but I'm having a hard time getting into it for some reason. I'm reading the hardback version because that's what was available at the super cheap library bookstore where I buy most of my ~~crack~~ books, but it is unwieldy (duh). And it's long. And there are a lot of chapters. And ... I don't know, you guys. I think maybe I'd rather be re-reading Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking for the umpteenth time.

I should probably just go do that then, eh? Yep, I think so. Glad we got that all worked out.

Yak: it's what's for dinner

2011-02-24T10:06:00.000-06:00

We are not vegetarians over here at our house. Let me just say that right up front. My body isn't able to process and utilize non-heme iron, my husband and daughter are both allergic to most vegetable sources of protein (tree nuts, soy and assorted other legumes), and besides, meat is delicious! So we eat it fairly often.

I have, however, tried to source our meat as responsibly as possible. We buy a lot of meat at our local farmer's markets, which offer sustainably raised meats from small farms and ranches here in Texas. We've been lucky enough not only to purchase local, responsibly raised "traditional" meats like beef, pork and chicken, but also "alternative" meats like lamb, goat and bison. And now? Yak! For reals!

When I heard that Texas Yaks was selling at our local Saturday farmer's market, I couldn't wait to get hold of some yak meat. Yak is naturally 95 to 97% lean because like bison, the fat grows in a separate layer from the muscle rather than being marbled through the meat (as with cows). It's lower in saturated fat, cholesterol and triglycerides than beef, but high in protein, Omega 3 and other good-for-you fats. Ounce-for-ounce, yak is even lower in calories than skinless chicken breast!

So this weekend at the market I bought one pound of ground yak, just to try it out. The ground yak from Texas Yaks is normally $6 per pound, but on Saturday it was on sale for $5. Either price is very good for pastured meat sold in this area. I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to prepare it at first, but in the end I settled on burgers. We eat a lot of grass-fed beef burgers as well as bison burgers, and this would let us compare the yak to those meats.

The verdict?

Kathy: LOVED the yak. To me it had a very similar appearance, both raw and cooked, to bison. However, the yak seemed more juicy after grilling. The flavor and aroma were quite mild and not even a little bit gamey. It tasted almost like a cross between bison and veal.

The Husband: Loved the yak as well. He said he liked it even better than bison!

The Son: Scarfed down his burger at record speed. Said it tasted like bison to him.

The Daughter: No comment; she was too busy eating her ENTIRE BURGER, which almost never happens. I'm counting it a win.

Our family gives the ground yak from Texas Yaks a solid four out of four stars! I definitely will buy this again at our local market, and would love to try some of the other cuts available. (Yak ribeyes? Yes, please!)

(Oh, and please pretend there's a picture of a delicious, juicy yak burger connected to this post. We were too busy inhaling them to photograph them.)

Because I can

2011-02-20T15:10:00.001-06:00

I was halfway through a planned 1.25-mile easy treadmill run this morning. Pandora's Classic Rock station was blaring from my smartphone, and if I recall correctly T. Rex was banging a gong. I was going pretty slow, trying to ignore that weird off-and-on pain in my left knee and the persistent ache in my right foot and the fact that gravity was pressing down unusually hard and it felt like I was running through oatmeal, when suddenly it happened.

First the aches and pains just disappeared, like someone had injected me with the most wondrous fast-acting painkiller known to mankind.

Then the oatmeal melted away, and gravity lifted its curse.

My breathing was completely in sync with the motion of my legs as they carried me forward effortlessly, and I felt -- no, I KNEW -- that I could run forever and ever if I wanted to.

I was flooded with euphoria.

Runner's high! Score!

If you had told me a few years ago that someday I'd call myself a runner, that I would enjoy running, that I would WANT to run, I would have laughed in your face. I hated the running we had to do in gym class when I was in school. It hurt. I was slow. I didn't see the point. Getting from there to here was a loooooong journey (you can read about it over here, if you're so inclined).

All I can tell you is, now that I've got it, I want to keep it. Running has done amazing things for me. It's the best way I've found to manage stress. I'm on a much more even keel emotionally (all month long, ifyouknowwhatImean). I'm sleeping better at night and feeling less fatigued during the day. My blood pressure, which had started creeping up a bit over the past few years, has settled back down to where it was 15 years ago. My cholesterol numbers are fantastic. And perhaps most telling, for me -- the heart murmur (mitral valve prolapse) I've had all my life, which in the past has allowed blood to regurgitate between two chambers in my heart, thus greatly increasing my risk of endocarditis, no longer does that. I still have the murmur and always will unless I get the valve replaced, but I no longer have regurgitation through the valve. Which means my risk of endocarditis has dropped significantly. That right there is what you call life-changing. Or life-extending, anyway.

Of course, I don't know for sure that running caused all these changes, but it's pretty obvious it hasn't HURT. And it's not like I'm an elite runner with 1% body fat who runs ultramarathons every weekend. I've been running an average of maybe 4 to 7 miles a week for the past year. And I run them SLOWLY. Like, really slowly. You could probably walk faster than I run.

There was a marathon here in Austin today. Do I wish I had been out there running it? Nope. Hello, those things are 26.2 miles long! That is a LOT of running to do all at once, and I have no plans to join those ranks anytime soon (someday, maybe ... but not soon). I absolutely applaud everyone who did run it, and I hope they all had a fantastic time and achieved their goals.

Me? I'm happy with my 1.25-mile slow treadmill run. I hit my runner's high and finished exhausted and happy, and every time that happens it reminds me of the real reason I do it.

Because I love it. Oh, I do. I really really do.

Currently in love with ...

2011-02-17T09:36:00.000-06:00

... Smith's Menthol and Eucalyptus Balm.

Smith's Rosebud Salve has long been a cult-favorite beauty product. When I first heard about it several years ago -- that makeup artists were using it to gloss everything from lips to cheekbones to eyelids, and all the fashionable Girls In The Know were dabbing it on everything from dry cuticles to razor burn -- I knew I had to get hold of a cute little tin of this wonder product. When I finally had it in my hot little hands, eagerly but gently removed the lid of the tin, and dipped a fingertip into the product, I thought I had been punked.

Let's face it, people. This stuff is nothing more than fancy, expensive Vaseline. I mean, it's tarted up with a nice flavor/fragrance and a little tint, but it's essentially petroleum jelly. Petroleum jelly for which one is expected to pay $6 to $7 per ounce, which I'm pretty sure will buy you a lifetime supply of Vaseline at Costco.

I hooted and hollered about this ridiculous product. I trumpeted throughout the land that the emperor has no wonder salve. I marveled over the fact that rich people were willing to pay through the nose for this stuff when it was just petroleum jelly! Which is cheap! Unless you buy this fancy version of it because you have nothing better to do with your money!

And then I somehow acquired two more tins, one of the strawberry lip balm and one of the Brambleberry Rose lip balm. Heh. I'm not sure how that happened. The tins are SUPER CUTE, okay? I'm kind of a packaging whore. That's something you should know about me.

ANYHOW, here's how I happened to get my hands on and fall in love with (completely against my will, you understand) the mentholated version of this product: I Googled "mentholated lip balm".

Wait, that probably requires a little more backstory ....

Hi, I'm Kathy and I'm a menthol junkie. (Hi, Kathy!) I first started using back in childhood, when my parents would smear me from clavicle to sternum with Vicks VapoRub every time I got a cold or cough, which was often. And not only would I wear it, I would breathe it, because the hot-mist vaporizer they'd set up in my room to ease my breathing overnight had a little reservoir for a dollop of Vicks right there next to the steam port. It was mentholated heaven. I was hooked.

Eventually I graduated to the Vicks VapoInhaler, a little tube of ~~crack~~ wonderfulness that I loved/craved/needed so much, I wrote a sonnet to it which I will share with you now (some of you have seen this before, but for those who have not, behold the glory of my four-year liberal arts education).

Your quasi-phallic shape should not deter
Those seeking nasal comfort. Nay, it serves
Only to ease the passage, to deliver
Sweet, sweet menthol past the rhinal curves.

Your vapors stir my senses. And my snot,
It flows from deepest caverns in my head.
At last the remedy I long have sought
Enfolds me like a gentle lover's bed.

O, Vicks VapoInhaler! Your name
Lends itself not to iambic pentameter.
And yet, I sing your praises just the same.
Your comfort tube is the perfect diameter.

I'd wear one in each nostril if I could.
If only my septum were made of wood.

So, you see the problem here. I've got it BAD for menthol. Real, real bad. And it's not like I can go around huffing Vicks 24/7, either. For one thing, that would look weird and kind of creepy. For another, it might kill me, or at least cause some moderate brain damage.

HOWEVER, eventually I discovered the perfect way to get my fix. Coty used to have a line of aromatherapy products called The Healing Garden, and within that line was a sub-line of products called Cold Comfortherapy, and within THAT line was a lip balm that was wondrous and miraculous. It was a stick lip balm -- larger than Chapstick, but smaller than the old 70s-style Bonne Bell Lip Smackers -- that was scented with menthol and eucalyptus. Both the fragrance and the product itself were very long-lasting. I'd slather my lips with it before bedtime, and when I woke up in the morning it still looked, felt and smelled freshly applied. This lip balm fast became my drug of choice. All I needed was that one little hit at bedtime, and I was happy.

However AGAIN, this product had its drawbacks. For one thing, it was only available in a rather expensive gift set that contained other products in which I was not at all interested. For another, eventually even that gift set disappeared from stores, which meant I could no longer get my hands on another tube of ~~crack~~ lip balm. I managed to make the tube I had last for YEARS, but the smaller that little column of balm got, the more I panicked. I resorted to scraping the last bits of balm out of the tube with the bent end of a bobby pin, but eventually I managed to use every last speck of this stuff. My supply dried up. I was bereft.

So yeah, I went Googling for mentholated lip balm. OKAY? And I found out the Rosebud people made one. OKAY? And I bought it, and now I love it. Yes, it's still fancy, expensive Vaseline. But it's MENTHOLATED fancy, expensive Vaseline. It gives me that little hit of menthol that I need in order to sleep, but it's milder than straight-up Vicks, and it keeps my lips hydrated all night long.

Plus, have you SEEN that little tin in which it's packaged? ADORABLE.

Our long national nightmare, etc.

2011-02-15T10:20:00.001-06:00

Hello, as of 9:00 this morning my son and I both have full use of all our teeth. You know, collectively. I realize that sounds kind of wackadoo, but it's a milestone for us, trust me.

In my son's case, he finally FINALLY, after 2.5 years, has all the orthodontic braces brackets off his teeth. This was supposed to happen last summer, but then it didn't, because his teeth weren't ready. Then it was supposed to happen in December, but it didn't, because the orthodontist office closed down between Christmas and New Year's Day. Then it was supposed to happen in January, but it didn't, because his teeth STILL weren't completely ready. (Some of them were, and he got THOSE brackets removed, but some of the brackets had to stay on.) Today ALL of his teeth were ready, and so he finally has braces-free teeth, although he does have a permanent retainer on the bottom and three different removable retainers that he has to wear all the time in various parts of his mouth, but we aren't talking about those.

In my case, a crown popped off one of my lower left molars back in May (MAY! nine months ago! I coulda had a BABY by now!) to reveal a crumbled tooth underneath, which then needed to be extracted, and this began a months-long roller-coaster ride known as the Dental Implant Process. And it really is a process -- first the bone where the extracted tooth used to live has to grow back, then the implant (which is essentially a giant titanium screw) is drilled into said bone, then the bone needs to make happy with the implant in some esoteric way that I don't fully understand, then the implant needs to be uncovered and have a little doohickey put on top to stop the gum from growing over it, then FINALLY a crown is loaded onto the implant and hey presto, you've got a tooth again. That happened a couple of weeks ago, and you'd think I would have been celebrating then, but you'd be wrong because my dentist decided, on the day she loaded the crown onto my implant, that the crown in my upper jaw right above the implant crown needed to be replaced so she took it off and put a temporary crown there instead. I know, right? I couldn't even FLOSS around that thing for fear of popping it right off (I am now completely paranoid about popping off crowns, since that's how this whole nightmare started), much less chew gum or nuts or crunchy pretzel sticks or any of the other stuff that I had been looking forward to eating again, finally, after MONTHS without a tooth on the implant site. No, now I had to wait TWO MORE WEEKS to get the permanent crown on top.

That happened yesterday, and it was way more of an ordeal than I was anticipating but WHATEVER, I HAVE ALL MY TEETH NOW. And so does my boy.

I'm thinking crunchy tacos for dinner, with toffee and peanut brittle for dessert.

Recipe review: Mad Hungry's Spaghetti Carbonara

2011-02-14T11:14:00.000-06:00

Last night I was in no mood to cook dinner. We'd had a brief, lovely visit from my parents in the afternoon, but apart from that my day consisted of multiple loads of laundry, homework cajoling, and my barely teenaged daughter off on a "double date" at a neighborhood park (OMG). I was tired. I wasn't feeling it. I wanted pasta, but I wanted EASY pasta. And not our USUAL easy pasta (which consists of pasta, butter and shredded cheddar cheese, OH YES IT DOES), either.

I recalled a recent bacon-centric episode of Mad Hungry in which Lucinda Scala Quinn made what appeared to be an obscenely easy spaghetti carbonara, so I went Googling for the recipe and, ta da! I found it. It's right here.

I made a couple of modifications to the recipe. For one, I used fettuccine instead of spaghetti. For two, I only had about four strips of bacon, so ... not quite the half-pound that the recipe calls for. Also, instead of adding the egg mixture to the pasta/bacon mixture in the pan, I added the pasta/bacon mixture to the egg mixture in the bowl, which is how Lucinda did it on the show (also, it seemed like there'd be less chance of scrambled egg that way).

I served the pasta with a fresh green salad consisting of torn romaine lettuce, shredded carrots, sliced cucumbers and tiny cherry tomatoes (arranged salad-bar style, so everyone could fix their own). Bread would have been nice, but I couldn't be arsed to make any.

The verdict?

Kathy: I absolutely loved this pasta. It was delicious, and so easy, and so different from what I usually make. I will definitely make it again, but with more bacon next time!

The Husband: Commented that he'd put too much on his plate and that he didn't realize how filling it would be. I failed to quiz him at length as to whether he liked it. I get the feeling this was not his favorite, but that he'd eat it again if I made it.

The Son: He does not like eggs. AT ALL. I told him what was in it, and he wanted to try it because it smelled good. He told me he LOVED it and ended up eating two generous helpings. I love cooking for this kid!

The Daughter: Loves bacon, loves pasta, loves eggs, loves cheese. Agreed to try this, but was so squicked out by the whole raw egg thing (and did not believe me when I told her the hot pasta cooked the egg just fine) that she talked herself out of eating more than a tiny bite. She begged off, claiming she didn't like the texture of it.

On to the ratings!

Kathy: Three out of four stars. Yummy and easy, what's not to like?

The Family: Two out of four stars. Two of us were not crazy about it, but two of us looooved it.

Introducing Mister Awful Adorable

2011-02-12T14:04:00.000-06:00

We bought a dog last fall, a male standard poodle puppy, and when we brought him home he looked like this:

He was overly fond of my daughter's toes.

Now he's six months old and he is a behemoth, a 50-pound monstrosity that is only going to get bigger.

Pictured here with my son, who is six feet tall. You do the math.

Today we gave him the run of the house for the first time ever and it is BLOWING HIS MIND. We moved some stuff, closed some interior doors to block his access to certain rooms, and for the most part he's under supervision but he still can't believe he has all this freedom. He's been roaming from room to room with a stupid grin on his face, occasionally looking at us as if to say, "You know the other end of this leash isn't attached to anything, right?" (Yes, he's walking around dragging his leash behind him. Because it makes him easier to catch. We're not stupid.)

So far the only casualties have been four socks (not mine) and two pairs of earbuds (mine, but old and kind of broken already).

But the day is young.

I'll keep you posted.

Homemade granola

2011-02-09T10:02:00.000-06:00

I have been on a bit of a granola kick lately, which is to say that I can't seem to stop making and eating it.

I had heard that granola was easy to make, but I didn't believe it because the first granola recipe I ever tried was this one from Nigella Lawson, which has a long list of ingredients and required a special trip to the store to purchase brown rice syrup, like I'm ever going to use THAT for anything else again. And to make matters worse, the granola was not good. I don't know where I went wrong, but it tasted like what I imagine the floor under the bulk bins at Whole Foods would taste like if you bent down there and licked it. I ended up throwing it out. Total waste of brown rice syrup!

But I was determined to try again (not for a couple of years, but you know, it takes time to recover from trauma). That's when I found this recipe for Maple-Nut Granola. Do you see the relatively short list of NORMAL ingredients there? In fact, I'm pretty sure I had everything on hand to make this when I first read the recipe. So I did. And it was SENSATIONAL. I finally felt like I understood this whole homemade granola thing! It IS easy! And it's way cheaper and tastes so much better than anything you can buy in a store. It really, really does. I've made it enough times now that I've started modifying the recipe somewhat, coming up with different additions and sweeteners and fats and whatnot based on what we like and what's in the pantry when I get a granola craving.

My daughter is allergic to tree nuts, and I wanted to make a granola that she could eat. So I substituted seeds for nuts, added a bit of chocolate, et voila!

Nut-Free Granola

3 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds (known as "pepitas" hereabouts)
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds
3 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
generous dash of kosher salt
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips (or other chopped chocolate)

Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips. Spread onto a foil-lined baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Stir, rotate baking sheet 180 degrees and bake for 10-15 minutes more or until toasty. Let cool completely, then break it up and mix in the chocolate chips. Store in an airtight container.

The kicker? My daughter doesn't like this granola. She says she's not a fan of sesame seeds. NOW she tells me. So I've been eating this up myself, and I'm here to tell you, it's fantastic with vanilla yogurt and sliced bananas. Or even just eaten out of hand as a snack.

Here's another favorite, which does contain nuts.

Apricot-Almond Granola

3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup coarsely chopped almonds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
3 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
generous dash of kosher salt
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots

Combine all ingredients except apricots. Spread onto a foil-lined baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Stir, rotate baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes more or until toasty. Let cool completely, then break it up and mix in the apricots. Store in an airtight container.

Do you see now how easy this whole granola thing is? You basically need some oats, a small amount of fat of some sort, a bit of liquid sweetener, a dash of salt, and then you can tart it up with whatever else you like in the way of spices, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, chocolate chips, whatever. What I love about it is that I can make the granola EXACTLY how I want it. Store-bought granola is never quite right for me. If I like the nut(s) in it, then the fruits are all wrong, or vice-versa. When I make it myself it is just exactly right, every time. The only downside is that because the homemade stuff doesn't contain preservatives, it doesn't keep quite as long. That's not really a problem around here though, seeing as how I'm porking this stuff down 24/7 right now.

So yeah. Granola! It is easy and cheap! You should make some.

Currently in love with ...

2011-02-08T11:42:00.001-06:00

... Imelda May.

I had never heard of this Dublin-born singer until I saw her sing "Inside Out" on the Graham Norton show last month. I don't know whether she just hasn't quite hit it here in the US yet, or whether everyone already knows about her and I've just been living under a rock.

Regardless, I am instantly smitten! Isn't she lovely? And isn't that, like, the funnest song EVER? Her new album, Mayhem, sounds fantastic and I can't wait until the mp3 version is available on Amazon (the CD is available now, but it's an import and therefore kind of expensive and anyway I hardly ever buy CDs anymore).

I think she needs to come to Texas. Because Texas would LOVE her!

Mother Nature is bipolar

2011-02-08T08:36:00.002-06:00

A little over a week ago, it was sunny and in the 80s. I grilled ham steaks on the patio for dinner. In JANUARY.

Then, exactly one week ago, the temperature dropped below freezing and stayed there for three days.

Then on Friday, my yard looked like this:

And my kids did not have school.

The next day? And every day since then? Sunny and in the 60s.

Tomorrow we're supposed to have freezing rain/sleet/snow again.

And then this weekend it'll be back up in the 70s.

Texas weather, man. You've gotta love it.

Because if you don't? You're probably going to need some sort of medication.

Currently in love with ...

2011-02-07T07:05:00.003-06:00

... Billy the Exterminator.

This is all my parents' fault, of course. I wouldn't have known this show existed if they hadn't told me about it, but now that I've seen it several times, I am full-on hooked. It doesn't help that:

Billy totally looks like someone I would have dated in high school. I'm not proud of this, but it's true.
He doesn't kill anything he doesn't have to. Awwww!
The show takes place in my husband's hometown. I LOVE my husband's hometown, not just because I have excellent associations with that place (I married well; my inlaws are awesome) but because it reminds me, just a little bit, of a southern version of my own hometown.
I love Billy's parents. LOVE THEM.
I also love that his brother Ricky is literally deathly allergic to insect venom but always seems to be present when they get a call about wasps, hornets or yellowjackets. That's just the sort of twisted family dynamic to which I can relate.

So yeah, I have an unseemly fondness for this show. That's something you need to know about me. Also, I could easily eat my bodyweight in grapefruit, if that were medically advisable, which I suspect it is not.

Staff of life

2011-02-06T13:30:00.000-06:00

I'm sort of fascinated by the whole concept of bread. Do you know what it takes to make bread? Flour, water, yeast and salt. That's all.

Even if you're using all sorts of schmancy flours, it's still just flour, water, yeast and salt.

Maybe I'm easily amazed, but isn't that kind of incredible? That when you combine those four simple ingredients, let natural forces take over, and apply a little heat, you get something that takes care of such a basic biological need?

Something around which so many thousands of indigenous cuisines have been built?

Maybe it's just me, but I think that is WAY cool.

My go-to bread cookbook is Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. This book has forever changed my breadmaking. The recipes and techniques are so easy! There's no kneading or anything! You mix the dough, you let it rise, you stick it in the fridge (if you can find room in there with all the wine bottles, sheesh).

And then you wait. A couple of hours, at least. Maybe a day or two.

Then you shape it and slash it and let it rest for a bit.

Then you bake it.

And then, after taking a moment of silence to acknowledge its rustic magnificence, you eat it for breakfast.

Maybe with a little local honey, a LOT of butter, and a giant mug of coffee. Or whatever you're into. I'm not judging.

The authors of ABin5, as we bread-making hipsters like to call it, have a blog and it is a fantastic resource if you own the book (and/or their followup book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day). They share all sorts of tips and variations on their basic recipes there, along with new recipes and a list of errata for some of the earlier printings of the book(s).

So go! Make some bread! It's easy!