insert clever title here

Hi. So. I'm sorry to clutter the blog world, but I was feeling the deep need for a clean slate. So, I've started a new one. So far, I've just typed up all these journal entries that I had marked as also for the blog, but never put on here. It's not enough to just change the visual, I wanted a fresh blogging start.

I know this is complicated... there's the baby blog... and this one, and now a new one. But, oh well.

Here's the new one that I plan to actually update and keep looking visually pleasing. This one has become so ugly to my eyes.

http://creamnosugarplease.blogspot.com/

Trying to stay on top of this whole being organized and planning meals thing...

Monday – Simple Angel Hair Pasta with a garlic/olive oil sauce. Plus whatever veggies I have in the fridge.

Tuesday – Experiment Day with some Asian recipes I found in Sunset magazine. Foil wrapped Chicken, Spicy Rice Balls, steamed broccoli, and for dessert: Egg Tartlets.

Wednesday – Grilled Salmon with Sweet Corn, Tomato and Avocado Relish, and Grilled Asparagus. Plus Mashed Broccoli Potatoes (Just what it sounds like, mashed potatoes with steamed broccoli smashed in). And we're having company over that night, so maybe I'll make a dessert too....

Thursday - Chinese Chicken Potsticker Soup (or leftovers... again depending on leftovers and energy...)

Friday & Saturday - We've got other plans...

Sunday - something simple or leftovers... or if I feel ambitious and have energy, I'd like to eventually try making this Rosemary Chicken Pizza.

So, today I'm all motivated to get organized thanks to my good friend who runs the blog: Simple Mom. I read her blog about a Home Management Notebook and I got quite excited. One thing that overwhelms me about becoming a mother and a mostly stay-at-home mother (except for graduate school) is the fear of being totally disorganized and living in a constant disaster zone. I have great aspirations of organization, but frequent lapses in motivation discourage me. But, the point being that her suggestions about compiling everything in the notebook and daily to-do list strategies were very encouraging.



I was also motivated to start Menu Planning! I really love to cook, but it's our irregular schedule that makes it hard to make good meals because I never know when Graham is going to be home and it's no fun cooking a full meal for one person. If I had a dishwasher, the story might be different, but in our tiny house, with our tiny sink and tiny dish rack that takes up my only counter space, it's not conducive to cooking for one. All this to say, I think that if I plan ahead what I'm making and let Graham know when I'm cooking what, it will help bring a little more routine to meal-making. For example this week as you will see below, we have evening commitments during dinner time three nights this week, so I need to take advantage of the nights we are home to make healthy, tasty, stress-free meals.

It was through the Simple Mom blog that I heard about Menu Planning Mondays. Basically, it's another blog where people link up their weekly meal plans and I have to say that cooking is way more fun with the resource of online recipes. It's amazing that you can basically google what you've got in the fridge, or what you're craving and come up with something to make. So, here's my plan this week:

Monday - The in-laws are coming over for dinner! Salad & Risotto are on the menu.

Baby Spinach Salad with cucumber, broccoli, carrots, and cherry tomatoes. Then, I soak onions in olive oil, vinegar, with a little salt, pepper and sugar and just before serving toss the whole thing in with the salad. The onions aren't so painfully acidic and it's adds a light balsamic dressing to the whole thing without all the additives in normal salad dressings. I've never soaked the onions longer than 1/2 an hour or so, mostly because of my schedule when making the salad, but I'm sure you could soak them up to a few hours and they'd still be tasty.

Risotto! I've made risotto multiple times, so when I make it now, I just sort of adjust the basic recipe with whatever meat and veggies I feel like including. This time I'll be using some leftover Turkey/Chicken sausage, red bell peppers, onions, zucchini, carrots, and garlic. I usually make it heavy on the veggies, because that's just how I like it.


Tuesday - not at home (Risotto makes the BEST leftovers!)

Wednesday - Cornbread and a great Lentil soup I found in my vegan cookbook. If it's good, I'll post it. We're planning to do some LONG over-due laundry tonight, so a simple meal will be great.

Thursday - not at home

Friday - not at home

Saturday - Depends on if we're having people over for dinner..... I'll let you know... maybe tacos, maybe something more exciting....

Sunday - Mashed Potatoes, Cornflake-crusted Baked Chicken, and whatever veggies I have left over from the week.

Here's a list of other recipes I want to try sometime:
Big Mush pot Bowl Quinoa Recipe
Ratatouille
Creamy Broccoli Soup
Jicama Salad

One of my favorite places to get fancy dessert recipes is Williams & Sonoma.

Labels: menu planning monday

Last night I saw T.C. Boyle in the grocery store. He was picking out a tomato. An older man started talking to him and I wondered if the man was simply mentioning the piled red vegetables or taking that moment to discuss a theme or concept from Boyle's work. Perhaps the man didn't even know who he was. After all, Boyle wasn't wearing his signature "I'm going into public to read from my books" red shoes that I always see him in, so maybe the old man didn't recognize him, or maybe he never even reads novels, maybe the T.V. Guide is the extent of his weekly reading material.

As I passed by, checking out the price of Avocados, I exchanged a glance with Mr. Boyle and wondered if he assumes people know who he is, or if he assumes that people don't know who he is. After all, I could just be checking out his strange, frizzy hair, and have no idea that he's an extremely successful author. But, authors are not like movie or t.v celebrities; it's their words and book covers that people remember, not necessarily their faces. heck, I usually don't even remember an author's name even though their book made me weep.

I considered walking up to Mr. Boyle and letting him know what I thought of his latest book, mainly that it was total crap, but decided that wouldn't be fair since Talk, Talk is the only book of his I've ever read. But, I will say it was nice to know that he gets some fresh air now and then. I've heard him say it's normal that he'll spend 8 hours a day writing, and not just researching, but actually writing. That's intense. Plus, there's something satisfying about seeing a very rich man doing his own grocery shopping.

As I was going through old stuff, I found this page in an old journal. It records the inital ideas for designing the tatoo on my left arm. I thought it was interesting, seeing as the actual had to be much more simplified to be so small. I prefer the simplicity of the end design on my arm. Also, I'll have you note that the journal entry is in January and I didn't get the tattoo til the end of that summer. Fyi. You shouldn't rush into these things.

Labels: sia

First, let me clarify that blogging more is not one of my New Year’s Resolutions. However, I do think that for me blogging is a worthwhile discipline, mostly because it fills an intellectual need that was formerly met by academic papers and is now certainly not satisfied by writing press releases. It may be overly self-conscious, but I feel the need to explain the reasons why I have neglected my blog - because it has not been lack of interest or busyness that has held me back. (If you don’t care skip to paragraph 4)

Basically, I used to be single and as most of you reading this should know, I am now married. This makes my life not only my life, but “our life” and in addition to the extreme challenges faced in our relationship this past year and a half, I have not known how (or had much desire) to write about it in such a public forum, as a searchable blog. Perhaps later I will reflect on what this recent season of life has been like, but I’m still processing it, and obviously not ready to process it here.

The second culprit (and just as significant in refraining from blogging) has been my many jobs. Even now, I do not want to mention them by name because I do not want this blog to pop up when someone googles one of the aforementioned employers. And my life has been focused primarily on working and beingng married making it hard to blog without mentioning either. I suppose I could just blame google for these inhibitions. When I first started blogging about 5 years ago, there was no search engine fancy shmancy enough to find this stuff.

Paragraph 4:
Wow, unless you’re my mom, the above three paragraphs were probably fairly boring. But, let me also say that I am returning to blogging primarily for self and not you. Don’t be offended, it’s just that I can’t count on you to read these or stay current on my blogging. So, I’m writing here because I miss writing papers. I still write all the time at my jobs and in my journal, but there is another kind of muscle when you’re expressing your own thoughts and experiences to be understood by another person, even if it is informal.

Aside from work and husband, my main focus lately has been applying to graduate schools. My hope is to get some nice school to pay me to focus my time and energy exclusively on writing and reading, and perhaps teaching, as that would be lovely as well. See, humor me again, but I’m not going to list the schools I’m applying to lest they appear when someone searches MFA Creative Writing + School Name. I know you may think I’m weird about this, but just laugh it off and we’ll be okay. Instead of particular schools, here are the locations of the schools I’m applying to: Austin, Texas; San Diego, California; Oakland, California; and two schools in Oregon. Five total. The process of narrowing down which schools to apply to ended up something like this 1) All admitted students get a completed financial package (either from being a TA, or from a non-teaching fellowship) and 2) It doesn’t snow. The only way these two factors were canceled out was if a person (sister or friend) lived very near the proposed school.

Anyways, I’ll keep you updated on where or if I get in. I still havn’t even mailed all the applications. Although I rewrote my entire personal statement no less than 10 times, I thoroughly enjoyed having an assignment and it spurred lots of great contemplation on why writing has value to me personally and to the world at large. This will be the topic of my next post. Until then, thank you for reading.

Okay there friends, I just have to say this this website is one of the actual cool products of the internet, nothing so false as myspace, but truly a creative use of the community that the internet allows. Basically, people create a design for a T-shirt, then submit it to the website, then other users vote on what they like, then the winning shirts are made and sold on the site. Just check it out, okay? Okay. Trust me, some pretty cool t-shirt are made. Plus, I have a $3 coupon for ya.




Also, in case anyone needs it, here are all the 2 letter words that work in scrabble:

AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY BA BE BI BO BY DE DO EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA GO HA HE HI HM HO IF IN IS IT JO KA LA LI LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU OD OE OF OH OM ON OP OR OS OW OX OY PA PE PI RE SH SI SO TA TI TO UH UM UN UP US UT WE WO XI XU YA YE YO

picture #2 from here: http://www.bunshine.com/drawings.html ...most of these images I found from this blog, or from links from this blog... http://decor8.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html

http://www.namarococo.com/history.html