Happy Birthday 2010!

To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question.

I've been pondering this question for weeks. I've had long lists of ideas for resolutions for the new year. Unfortunately, I can't remember most of them now. The two that are still floating around in my head are:
1. Write letters to friends/sisters at least one Sunday a month . . . more often after I finish student teaching. This was a dear tradition I started early in the almost past decade. I loved spending Sunday mornings drinking coffee, eating pastries, listening to soothing music, writing letters, and chatting with the other regulars. Cafe La France is something else now, but as far as I know, Bristol, Rhode Island is still the most patriotic city in the U.S.

2. Eat LOCAL foods. Not too much. Mostly plants. I've been inspired by Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan this year. I stumbled upon Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer at an awesome new book store in Portage, Books 'n Beans, and life hasn't been the same since. Then, while Christmas shopping, I saw a copy of Michael Pollan's book that stirred up quite a bit of controversy on the UW-Madison campus this fall - In Defense of Food - and couldn't resist supporting my local book store. I would love to start the new decade with a new outlook on food. Part of this resolution definitely involves joining a CSA, which Michael and I have already agreed to do. It might also have to involve gardening, which is less exciting, because I don't really think I have an aptitude for caring for plants, but teaching seems like a good match for gardening, except for the fact that my first harvest will (hopefully) fall during my first semester of teaching in my very own classroom. But both the gardening and the teaching will only get easier, and it might be nice to have an outlet during the early part of the school year. Particularly if that outlet can help to feed us all winter!

I'm really not sure what the rest of my resolutions were going to be. Probably something about being less stressed and more relaxed, getting more exercise, keeping my house cleaner, and being more productive in general, being more positive, networking in the teaching field, etc.

I may make a resolution to read at least a page or two of a book for FUN every night before going to bed. That would be a good stress reliever for the last three weeks of student teaching, and Michael and I still have a gift card to spend at Barnes and Noble, and I've promised myself a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. (I'd get it at Books 'n Beans, but she mostly stocks only newly released books or used books, and I did not see it on the used book shelf when I was in there last week.)

But the question remains when I start getting into long lists of resolutions . . . should I make a bunch of them, and fail to keep them all, or should I just make one, and really concentrate on it? I don't think I have to worry about the local food resolution, because I'm excited enough about it to keep it up without actually having to make a resolution to do it . . .

Well, I have 52 minutes left to ponder . . .

In the meantime, I'm still working on a best of/worst of list for the 2000s . . . stay tuned.

Getting Ready . . .

These pictures are old but I wanted to put them on my blog, and amazingly, never got around to it before the wedding . . . I can't imagine why.


Making place cards for dinner:



Gift bags for our guests:



Folding programs for the ceremony:
Thanks Mom, Carol, and Tracy for all of your help!

December

December by George Winston is one of my favorite albums to listen to at this time of year. It's been playing on repeat on my computer most of the day today.

Last year Michael and I watched the river slowly freeze. I think I tried to write poetry about it for the poetry class I was taking. I don't recall that any of those poems worked out very well, but so it goes. This year, I was looking forward to watching the river freeze. I remember lines of poetry that never materialized, about the river looking like ice soup - chunks of murky black slush slipping rapidly through the barely-liquid heart of the river, pulled along by the deadly current. (I'm not making up the deadly part. According to our next door neighbors, several people have drowned in the river close to our home over the years.)

Anyway, during the little free time I had last year I liked to stare out at the river and lose myself in contemplation. Then one day it was completely frozen and we started to see animal and then people tracks in the snow that built up on top of the water. This year, I have even less free time, so it is probably a good thing that our side of the river (there is a gigantic sand bar in the river behind our house) froze instantly overnight during our big snow storm last Tuesday. When we woke up to a snow day on Wednesday morning the river was gone. Our back yard had expanded by hundreds of yards overnight. The far side of the river, across the sand bar, was still chugging along, but I noticed yesterday that it, too, has frozen completely. I wonder if it will stay that way until the thaw party in March. Time will tell.

This weekend I made Christmas "cookies" - or, rather, truffles. I had the idea, I found a recipe online, and within a week I was in full truffle-making mode. Pretty exciting. They're actually really easy to make.









In addition to making truffles, I've just started reading a really fun book for a book club I joined that will have its first meeting at a little independent book store in Portage, Books 'n Beans, in January. The book is Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves words, language, and conundrums.

Michael and I are slowly working our way through wedding thank-yous (that's actually what I'm supposed to be doing right now . . . ) and I'm still getting the hang of student teaching, although last week even my unruly seniors finally started to respect me as the authority in the classroom. Part of that is because I've learned how to relate to some of the most obnoxious . . . er . . . challenging students. Part of it is also that I've finally felt comfortable enough to teach lessons my own way instead of trying to teach the way my cooperating teacher teaches. I designed an "epic" writing assignment for one class, and just on Friday decided to rearrange the schedule my cooperating teacher had chosen for his sophomore class - I take over tomorrow and I thought it would be better to have the sophomores write a descriptive paper of a concrete experience and THEN write a paper defining an abstract concept, rather than defining the abstract concept first . . . it makes sense to me but we'll see how it goes.

Also, Michael took Oliver to be groomed on Tuesday. Oliver needed the grooming badly. He looked like a fluffy mop - his fur hadn't been trimmed in 6 months, except some little spot jobs I had tried to do on his feet and tail. It was honestly taking me an hour and a half to groom him, and I only had time to do a good brush-through once a week, so he was getting messy and matted. And he couldn't see so he kept running into things! (Like all of the wedding presents stacked in our living room.) Dale, his groomer, did a fantastic job, especially in light of the oncoming blizzard. I think he gave Oliver a kind of Poodle cut. (When I took Oliver in back in June for his first grooming as a member of the Buechner-David family I had no idea how he should be trimmed - having never taken a dog to the groomers before - but I knew that I didn't want him to have a Westie cut, since he's not a Westie. ((Petsmart gave him a Westie cut before we adopted him. It was confusing.)) Dale talked through the cuts he thought he'd make with me, categorizing Oliver as a "Poodle Mix" and I let him work. Mainly, I was interested in getting the fur out of his eyes, but I wanted his fur to stay long because I wanted to see what it would look like when it grew out all the way.) By now, I am completely satisfied that I know everything I need to know about Oliver's fur when it grows out. My instructions for Michael to pass along to Dale were, "remind him that the vet thinks it is best to trim the hair in his ears, rather than plucking it." Dale did what he wanted with Oliver, which I think is a modified Poodle cut, and he looks like an adorable little fluff again. But now he's an adorable fluff who can see! (As far as I know, Oliver has not run into anything since he got his hair cut.)

We discovered on Wednesday morning that Oliver loves to play in the snow! I will have to get some pictures of our snow-dog (who is afraid to walk on grass.) What a change from one dog to the next. Frodo loved to run in the grass, sit on the grass, walk in the grass, sunbathe in the grass, etc., but hated to have snow touch any part of his paws. We'd go for walks and he'd hobble along on three legs, not because he was injured but because he wanted to save one paw from the misery of snow. Oliver, on the other hand, really hates putting his paws in grass, but now that the snow is here he bounds through it, romping through our yard. I feel a little bit badly that we had all of his long fur cut off right before the first big snow storm - that would have been extra insulation for him when he goes outside!

For now, here are some before and after pictures of Oliver. And then I'm off to thaw out soup for dinner and finish my school work and to write some more thank-yous . . .

BEFORE . . . Look, ma, no eyes!








AFTER - I can actually, factually see! Isn't it grand?

Winter

A quick count on my own fingers and toes, my dog's toes, and Michael's left hand leads me to believe that I have been in school for 22 years of my life. (Okay, I didn't need Oliver to help with that, but still . . .) This is the first time I have experienced winter as a(n almost) teacher. I learned something about teachers today. Or maybe I just learned something about myself.

Teachers like snow days almost as much as, if not more than, the students.

I am the type of person who believes that life can be jinxed. When deciding what to be called at my second student teaching placement, I thought very seriously about what students should call me. For three weeks, I would technically be Miss Buechner, and then for the other six weeks of the placement I would become Mrs. David. But why on earth would I want to put those poor high school students through pronouncing Buechner for three weeks, only to turn around and present them with an utterly pronounceable, memorable name like David? (My seventh and eight graders at my first placement knew and called me by my maiden name because I actually wrote "Beak ner" board when introducing myself. If they had received a letter from Miss Buechner they would have been dumbfounded.)

Well, for one reason, I was terrified to go by "Ms. David" before actually getting married because I did not want to jinx the wedding. Apparently my cooperating teacher believes in the power of the jinx too (or he's just like that) because he asked me, "are you sure he's not going to leave you at the altar?" when I decided to be Ms. David.

(In a sidenote of this sidenote, I think it is hilarious that my cooperating teacher really emphasizes the "Mrs." part of my name now.)

So anyway, today my students kept talking about how we would not have school on Wednesday, and how great their day off was going to be. I tried to shush them, but they would not listen to me. I tried to counterbalance their tempting of fate by loudly proclaiming (well, not that loudly, but I am the teacher . . .) that there is no guarantee that school will be canceled tomorrow. (As I write this, school is still on, and I'll plan to be there with bells on, as long as I can physically make it to Ripon.) I mostly just wanted them to shut up and let the powers that be make that call, without any interference from students who have no apparent concern for jinxing a good thing!

In an effort to prepare for the . . . um . . . worst, I reserved that media center computer lab on Friday, just in case we're not able to use the media center computers tomorrow. While I was in the media center, the new head librarian (who likes me because it is easy for her to remember my name is Katie David since her name is Kathy Davis) confided that she could really use a little bit of extra time at home tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm going to stop thinking about whether or not I have school tomorrow, and go eat a Pastie (good for a cold night) and watch a movie with my husband (who introduced me to Pasties) :)

Three Days and Counting . . .

When we were little kids, really, really little, because we still lived at the old house on Correy St., Karen and I learned an eerie lesson one day: Don't touch hot cooking appliances. It was eerie because simultaneously, while Karen was outside cooking something on the grill with Dad or Uncle Steve, I was inside cooking something on the stove with Dad or Uncle Steve, at just about the same moment, Karen touched the hot grill and I touched the hot stove. Not a good idea. So we learned a little lesson: Don't touch hot appliances! (Steve and my dad also learned a lesson - don't cook with little girls with shrill voices!) (As it happens, I like it better when I learn about the painful side of life vicariously through Karen - if she does it first, often I'll just decide not to do it - getting ears pierced, getting tested for allergies, grabbing the hot end of a sparkler . . .) (I also like learning other lessons from Karen . . . like how to tie my shoes, blow bubbles, drive a stick shift, and, hopefully, how to have a happy marriage.)

So why do I bring up this eerie story today?

Michael's mom and step-dad came to town today to help us get ready for the wedding. Since they are going to be in town for Thanskgiving, and since the idea of going out to dinner for my favorite holiday really depressed me, Michael and I decided we would cook a small Thanksgiving meal for Carol and Vern at our house. (Plus, it's practice for next year, when my mom says I'll be hosting Thanksgiving . . .)

To preface this next paragraph, I just want to say that I am pretty certain I have never, ever burned my hand while taking a pie out of the oven before. Ever. In 30 years. And I actually make a lot of pies. So, why, three days before my wedding, did my hand slip as I went to take the pumpkin pie out of the oven, catching my finger on the 425 degree metal rack?? 'Which finger?' you ask. My ring finger on my left hand, just above the knuckle. Are you kidding me?? Last night I think I drove my mom and Tracy a little bit crazy, because I was being overly protective of a fingernail - catching myself from breaking down cardboard boxes just in time to prevent breaking the nail on my right thumb - a nail that will be nowhere near pictures of my brand new sparkling beautiful wedding band on Saturday! I held my finger under lukewarm, cool, and cold water, so hopefully the burn mark won't be too bad by Saturday.



Well, if a burned ring finger is as bad as it gets, I think my wedding day will be pretty wonderful.

I'll be keeping my other 7 fingers crossed . . .

(by the way, the pie was delicious)

Busy

In March, when I told some of my professors that I had gotten engaged over Spring Break and was planning a fall wedding, they told me I was crazy to get married during my student teaching experience. Even at the time, I knew they were probably right, but Michael did not want a long engagement, and I didn't want to wait until the summer of 2010 to get married either, so we set the date in November and started planning.

Last Friday was my last day at my first student teaching placement. I love teaching middle school!



In less than two weeks, all of the wedding craziness will be over (except writing thank-you cards). I am excited about being married, I can't wait to see our as-of-yet-untaken wedding pictures, and I'm really looking forward to having an entire weekend without doing wedding planning!

Last weekend Michael and I went to Madison early Saturday morning to meet with Ubaldo, our fabulous cake decorator. I can't wait until everyone can see the amazing works of art he is going to make. After the cake, my mom and I met up with Jenny and we headed to Vera's for our final dress fittings. The seamstresses at Vera's worked wonders with Jenny's dress, so she's not drowning in excess fabric anymore. My dress is great too - it's amazing how much easier it is to move with the dress hemmed to an appropriate length! Jenny knows exactly how to get me into my dress (though the seamstress said Michael is on his own for getting me back out . . .) and after Jenny bustled the skirt I exclaimed something like, "Wow, I'll even be able to dance in this dress!" which is exciting considering how much we're paying the DJ.

Michael and I had brought a carload of food to my parents' house, because the other teachers surprised him with a wedding shower at school on Friday and sent him home with leftover cake and veggies that would have fed a small crowd. My dad was having a party to celebrate the completion of his new patio (see marksretirementblog.blogspot.com) so we through there was a good chance some hard workers would help us eat the leftovers - but my mom had made a pie and a pan of brownies, so we ended up bringing a lot of food back home. (Don't people know I'm trying not to gain weight before my wedding???)

After the feast, my mom took me to the hair salon, where I met Teresa, my wedding day stylist. I flipped through some books of hairstyles which were much more helpful than my stack of bridal magazines (the models in bridal magazines all have slicked back hair and very few of them wear veils) and Teresa helped me create a wedding day hairstyle. I may try to go with more curls on the big day, but that kind of depends on what my hair looks like Saturday morning.

When she was finished with my hair, Teresa did my makeup, which was almost as odd of an experience as my first (and only) pedicure, but I felt like she did a pretty good job of listening to what I wanted. I also learned that the brown tones that I like so much when I buy makeup tend to turn orange on my face (which I noticed in my engagment pictures) so Teresa stuck with pinker colors. I'm trying to get used to the pink . . .

The salon doesn't sell makeup anymore (they did 4 years ago) so Teresa explained I'd have to go out and buy more lipstick if I wanted to keep my lips looking great all day . . . which was kind of annoying. About 75% of the reason I decided to pay $60 to get my makeup done was to save the trouble of picking out the colors myself! My mom, Jenny, and I were too wiped out to go lipstick shopping that evening, although we did head over to Macy's where I picked out new wedding jewelery for my bridal party. The first set of jewelery I bought does not match their dresses, which should have been obvious to me when I got it in May or June.

We met my dad at the Great Dane for dinner and I came home to Michael many dollars poorer, but excited to look at the pictures my dad had taken of my hair and makeup.

On Monday I started my second student teaching placement. I have 120 new students, whose names I need to learn! I began teaching two sections of a World Literature class on Wednesday, which was a little bit sooner than I hoped to begin, as I'm still trying to figure out who everybody is, but it's actually easier to learn names when you're teaching than when you're observing. In addition to learning their names, I'm also trying to learn my own. My cooperating teacher thought it would be best if I didn't change my name three weeks into my student teaching placement, so on Monday I was introduced to the students as Ms. David. (I was introduced to faculty and staff as Katie-going-to-be-David-in-three-weeks-Buechner.) After the wedding I'll make the switch to Mrs. David. (When I decided to go as Ms. David my cooperating teacher asked, "you're pretty confident he's not going to leave you at the altar?" I have to admit, I'm a little bit superstitious, but at the same time, I'm pretty confident Michael's not going to have a change of heart in the next two weeks . . .)

Today I got up fairly early and made some additions to one of our wedding websites (you can find a link at the bottom of this page). Then Michael and I headed to Madison to meet with our minister and to figure out where to put the piano during our wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, although it had not been listed on the church calendar, there was a service going on in the church at our meeting time, so we were not able to move furniture around in the church to try to get the piano in the front rather than in the back. We're sure it will all work out, but I'm a little bit nervous because our original photographer, who was going to come to the rehearsal, and would have been able to tell us how our pictures would turn out with the piano in various locations, cancelled our contract because she has a medical condition that makes it difficult to see whether her camera is in focus. I guess that's the bad side of going with an individual instead of a photography company that has many photographers. We hired a new photographer on Tuesday (and are excited about the package we're getting, as this company's prices were discounted for the remainder of the year, so we're getting more bang for our buck this way) and we're excited to get to know these photographers, but they won't be able to be at the rehearsal, so we'll meet them for the first time on Saturday morning.

After our somewhat less productive than planned meeting with the minister, Michael and I went to La Brioche (where we're getting our wedding cake) for breakfast, and then he headed home, to rest up before his bachelor party, about which I know almost nothing, although there was a rumor of sushi. I went to my parents' house to figure out how much the wedding reception is going to cost. Then my mom and I went lipstick and shoe shopping, where I successfully found lipstick I think I like, and my mom was disappointed because she found a great, comfortable pair of shoes that were not available in her size.

After shopping, we went out for orange lattes at Steep and Brew, and made a plan for wedding day transportation (whoo-hoo, another item to cross off of my To Do list on The Knot). My parents were the excited recipients of a somewhat frantic phone call from my sister asking if they can come and visit for a week, since Adele's babysitter is sick. They took me out for dinner, and I came home, where I've spent an hour and a half on the computer, typing student teaching reflections from my first week at my new placement and finally catching up on my blog!

I'm sorry there aren't more pictures. Soon enough there will be plenty of pictures for everyone. I think the part of my wedding I'm looking forward to the most is looking through pictures for the next 50 years, which is strange since I hate having my picture taken.

I'll try to blog again before the big day . . . but I have a lot of reading and a lot of wedding stuff to do before then!

Catching Up

Here's what I've been up to lately:

Trying to make lots of good food while I still have access to fresh fruits and veggies.

Here's a pizza I made from scratch.



The recipe for whole wheat pizza dough came with my bread maker.



Next time I'll grease the pan, even though the recipe said not to . . .

At least it tasted good!

In addition to the quasi-disastrous pizza, I made two huge pots of vegetable beef soup recently. My mom and I found a place at her local farmer's market that sells really reasonably priced grass-finished beef. For $3.75 a pound they sell "soup bones" which do in fact contain a bone, but are mostly huge meaty slabs of yummy-ness. When I used to make beef and vegetable soup with bones from the grocery store I always had to supplement the soup with additional stew meat or whatever meat I had in my freezer. Not necessary with the Jordanal Farms meat. The first pot I made, which cooked down to four big containers of soup in my freezer, cost about $6.50 for the meat and $3.00 for some of the veggies from the farm stand down the street (corn, carrots, potatoes, and an onion). The rest of the vegetables (green beans, peas!, and tomatoes) came from my dad's garden and were free. Yum.

Sorry I have no pictures of my soup :(

I also got some incredible Italian Sausages from them (also reasonably priced) that made a great meal I might have blogged about before - I've made it three times now because we love it so much. The first time I was trying to use up zucchini, fingerling potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and basil. I threw in some garlic for good measure, and cooked it down into a stew-like concoction. I added some store-bought frozen meatballs to the mix, and it was really good. But the next time I used the sausage instead, and it was even better (and I felt better about what I'd cooked.) This time I didn't have any fresh basil, but I had some dried basil in my cupboard which worked out well enough.

Michael and I sent our wedding invitations out.

We went out for breakfast to our favorite local bakery/coffee shop on Saturday morning, after stopping by the post office to check the weight on our invitations and to buy stamps. We carried the stamps and invitations into the bakery, ordered, sat down, etc. While I was filling my coffee cup one of the employees asked if she had seen a wedding invitation in my hand. I expected her to say congratulations or something sweet. Instead, she sighed and said, "I don't miss that at all." I didn't think it was going to be that bad. After all, over the summer my mom and Michael's mom came up to help address the envelopes, so I thought the hard part was over. HA! It took us most of a weekend to get the directions sorted out. (Okay so we did decide to drive to Madison to make sure the directions were good, and while we were in Madison we might have stopped by Ginza for sushi . . .)


And I've been trying to keep Oliver looking good.


I swear he actually loves this! Usually I brush him while he's laying on the couch, but that evening he wanted to snuggle on the floor, and I got out his comb.

Yesterday I spent an hour and a half brushing him. He was in heaven.

Other than that, I've been working hard at learning how to make social studies relevant and accessible for 7th and 8th graders. I've been trying to implement different strategies to reach different kinds of learners. Some people learn best by reading independently. Others learn best through spatial representations of facts. Others learn best by listening. Some learn best by actively doing things - which could be in shop class but in my class it is more likely to be dividing the class into a House of Representatives, a Senate, and three smaller committees, and actually engaging in the process of making a bill into a law. On Friday we wrote 7th grade social studies constitutions. It was a low-key day because it was homecoming, and everyone was excited about the parade that afternoon - all of my students did remarkably well. This weekend I am creating guided notes for my students who need a little bit of help in order to be able to transfer ideas that they read in the book into their own words on paper. It's kind of tedious, but it feels good to know that it will help my students learn this stuff - and not fail the next test!

Finally, yesterday Jenny and I went shopping at the Tanger Outlets in the Dells. We'd never been there before, but we will probably go back. We found some awesome sales (buy one pair of boots at regular price, get two pairs free) and then we went out for sushi at the Ginza in the Dells. The sushi was awesome, even if the service was kind of slow.

Okay, I better proofread this and then get to work!

Summertime, and the eating is easy

I know I haven't blogged in a long time . . . student teaching takes up a lot of time. Not more than I expected, necessarily, just a lot. Oliver is trying to make do with only two or three good brushings a week. Right now, though, he's enjoying a tiny soup bone.

I'm making home-made, all-local (except the lentils I threw in because they've been in my cupboard for many months) vegetable beef soup today, and Oliver got one of the scraps. There are three more bones, if he's good. We actually had an old soup bone when we got Oliver, and he ate it right up. We're in the process of transitioning him onto hypoallergenic food, but haven't cut out all of his old food yet, so I figured why not give him a bone. I know bones aren't great for dogs, but I'm keeping a close eye on him.

Last week I also made a pizza with all local toppings (cheese, veggies, pesto sauce) and home-made crust which was almost a disaster, and broke my spatula . . . maybe I'll put some pictures up when I get a chance!

Back to School

Tomorrow I go back to school. My student teaching begins with several inservice days. I'm not exactly sure what to expect, as my cooperating teacher just learned within the last week that I would be in his classroom in September, instead of November.

For the last few weeks of summer I've been trying to relax and enjoy myself! Michael's mom threw a weekend of showers two weekends ago - a baby shower for Michael's step sister, Liz, on Saturday, and a wedding shower for us on Sunday. We played fun games at the baby shower, and fortunatley, no games at the wedding shower. It was a great weekend, with nice weather, and I think everyone had a good time. Thanks Carol!



I've been baking a lot lately. Especially since I borrowed my parents' bread maker on Friday afternoon.


Friday night I made a loaf of whole wheat bread. Saturday morning I made a loaf of pumpernickel; today I'm making a loaf of white bread, mostly because I ran out of whole wheat flour (I used some to make blueberry-zucchini muffins this afternoon) and hopefully I'll have enough bread to live off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the first few days of school, until I figure out where the refrigerator and microwave are . . .



The muffins are good, by the way. I found the recipe at Cooks.com, and was able to find both zucchini and blueberries at a little farm stand on my way to register for classes today. I didn't have enough flax seed meal to substitute it for the oil, but I did substitute fresh blueberries for the frozen ones called for in the recipe.


I also picked up an Amish-grown yellow watermelon. It's delicious.


Other than baking and making too many recipes with tomatoes in them (okay, really only two - tomato pie and tomato salad - Michael opted for Jimmy John's the other night instead of eating any more tomatoes) I've been spending the last few days of summer doing wedding things (writing thank-yous for shower gifts - although Michael did most of the work on those, organizing decorations, and meeting with the hotel to go over our plans for the reception, and to taste entree options), cleaning (I still haven't gotten to my desk, but I did take about 8 sweaters to Goodwill, along with several pairs of shoes!), and reading. I spent all day on Sunday reading Breaking Dawn. Some people I know really loved the Twilight series. Okay, so a lot of those people were students who I observed last semester during a teaching clinical. But still. These guys were really into the books. Personally, while I can see how appealing the would have been 15 years ago, I just didn't get the whole series. I think Stephenie Meyer is a good writer (and I'm not just saying that because I live next door to the parents of her publisher) but for the first three books, I really couldn't get my head around the relationship between Bella and Edward. I don't want to give up too much for those of you who haven't read it, but I was definitely on Team Jacob, not Team Edward. One of Michael's students said he wouldn't like the ending . . . Michael still has a couple hundred pages to go, so I'll have to wait a little longer to get his reaction. Personally, I didn't mind the ending, but it seemed to me like the series went from being "out there" to being "really out there and very hard to believe." But the ending could have been a lot worse.

I also just read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I wonder if I would have noticed all of the discussion of seeds and agriculture if I had read that novel before I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

And speaking of locavorism - the cover story of the most recent Time Magazine is about eating local foods and moving away from the Big Business of farming!

Time to do dishes . . .

Locavore In Training

I don't have a whole lot of time for a blog post right now, but I really wanted to post about what I've been up to since I bought the Best Book Ever. Barbara Kingsolver and her family moved from Arizona to Virginia, and made a pledge to live off of their own land (or the land of nearby farmers) for an entire year. In March, their food pickings were pretty slim - fresh fruit was limited to rhubarb at the first farmer's market of the season - but as the summer progressed, they found themselves up to their eyeballs in tomatoes and squash.

The whole idea of this project - and the greater Locavore movement - is to encourage sustainable farming practices, and to cut down on the amount of fuel that we're guzzling when we buy bananas in Wisconsin (or Virginia). Kingsolver calls well-traveled food "oily."

Going entirely local doesn't seem entirely feasible for me right now, since I don't have a garden, and school will be starting in a few weeks - I'll probably be very grateful for frozen pizzas with ingredients that have been shipped back and forth across the country a few times before ending up in WalMart's frozen pizza aisle . . . but that doesn't mean I can't start making more sustainability-conscious food choices right now.

Which is why I was so excited that it's Thursday - Farmer's Market day in Portage. I walked down to the farmer's market today with $11.00, all the cash I had, intending to get the ingredients for a couple of meals, at least.

I found fresh basil at the first stand I saw - which was very exciting, because somewhere in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle there's a sentence about how actual fresh basil is unbelievably better than even fresh basil that you can buy in the grocery store. (I wanted to type it out for you here but I can't find anything about basil in the book's index - available online only - and I flipped through the book a few times looking for the passage, but can't find it. Besides, you should just read the book yourself!) The most exciting thing about the basil that I bought today is that the huge bunch only cost $1. I would have had to get 3 or 4 of the little plastic containers at the grocery store to get this much basil - and Kingsolver is right, the taste of the fresh stuff is unbelievable.



Unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at comparison shopping at the farmer's market. Yet. I'll get there. Today I shelled out $3 for a single heirloom tomato.



I spent the rest of my money on some early apples, garlic, and fingerling potatoes. I wanted to make Caprese salad, so I had to run to the grocery store for fresh mozzarella, and I decided to stop by the little farm market that's always set up in the Culver's parking lot down the street from the grocery store - I've gotten great tomatoes, blueberries, and a couple of onions and cucumbers from them. The best part is that they're right on the way to the grocery store, so I can get all the fruits and vegetables I need before I spend money on oily produce.

Michael and I did a taste test, comparing one of my $1 Flynt's Farm Market tomatoes with the $3 organic tomato. Michael preferred the Flynt tomato. I think the heirloom tasted a little bit tangier but I guess I'd have to go with the Flynt tomatoes next time.



The Caprese salad is great. Michael did a taste test, and the basil is really so amazing that I had to take it out of the salad and chop it a little smaller to make it less potent. Yum!


I'm not sure how far I can go with eating locally this year, but next summer my dad might expand his garden (which is already producing a ton of squash in addition to yummy beets, awesome green beans, lettuce, and lots of different kinds of tomatoes), and Michael and I will probably buy a share (or half a share) from a CSA farm.

I'm very excited about making environmentally responsible food choices. I guess I'm just going to have to say goodbye to banana bread (and it's too bad because I just found/created a really great recipe for banana muffins using all whole wheat flour - instead of just half - and local honey instead of sugar, plus I substituted flax seed for the oil, and they turned out great - with the addition of a little vanilla and chocolate chips) but I'm looking forward to zucchini and pumpkin muffins in the not-too-distant future!

Distracted

I wanted to start a blog in part because I spend too much time reading blogs. Some of the blogs I read are written by people I know well and love dearly. Other blogs are written by complete strangers, and have very little to do with my own life (although I do sometimes get awesome recipes from bloggers I have never met).

Strangely enough, just as I started my own blog, I got so busy that I although I've been racking up things to write about, I haven't actually put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, or somehow emitted little electronic (?) signals that make my words appear on the internet for all two of my blog readers to see.

First, there is that pesky dog to groom. Okay, he's not pesky, he's a little four-legged cloud, according to a local woman who sells soap at the relatively tiny Portage Farmer's Market. (If you're from a large town or small city, you would laugh at the postage stamp sized Portage Farmer's Market that lasts a mere four hours on Thursday afternoons, but if you happen to hail from Beaver Dam, the Portage Farmer's Market just might overwhelm you with all 20 or so of its booths.) (Really, I only spend about 30 minutes a day on Oliver, but dog grooming is still a relatively new phenomenon in my life.) (Like jogging.)

Plus, last week Michael and I noticed a new store in town. It's called Books and Beans, so from the name alone, I was insanely curious, and Michael knew he shouldn't let me near the place unsupervised. I wandered in early last week, just to see what they had, without plans to buy anything (except maybe a cup of coffee . . . ). I felt a little bit silly browsing the Young Adult section, but I'm trying to keep up on the books that are being marketed to my future students (which is why I have a two-month old email from Amazon in my inbox with the subject of "hottest books for teens" or something to that effect, and is also why I'm sort of reluctantly in the middle of the Twilight series). I was, of course, the only customer in the store, and I was afraid the lady behind the counter was going to start looking at me funny, so I moved on to the adult section. (Okay, I also noticed that I had a pile of three books in my arm and I wasn't sure how I'd be able to pay for our wedding limo if I kept going at this rate . . . )

Amid several pieces of fiction that looked like they'd make great book club selections, I found a nonfiction book by the novelist Barbara Kingsolver called "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral." I'm not sure why the book called to me. The shelves were sparse, but there were many other titles that my eyes simply passed right over. (The shelves are sparse because the book store opened on August 1, and the owner thought it would be wise to get some consumer input before stocking her shelves with . . . well, I can't think of a book that I wouldn't want to buy . . . but other customers might be more discriminating.

Anyway, this book is so great I'm going to post about it later . . . right now Michael wants his computer back. And seeing as how it is his computer, I suppose I ought to give it to him. (But I totally won't after we're married - because then it will be my computer too, right?) Just kidding sweetie!!

Bon Jovi Rocks

In preparation for my wedding, and also because it's something I've needed to do for a long time, I'm trying to get in shape. My most recent get-in-shape efforts started when I was ordering a couple of books from Amazon.com. These books were exciting in and of themselves - they deal with using young adult novels in the literature classroom and using "literature circles" (think mini book clubs) in the classroom. I'm totally excited about these strategies in the classroom, and was going to buy the books no matter how much Amazon charged me for shipping - but Amazon conveniently told me that if I spent $4 more in my order, I would avoid a $7.95 shipping charge, or something like that. So I began to browse their bargain books. (I have been shopping on Amazon for at least 10 years but that was the first time I'd noticed the bargain section. Maybe it was new?) I found Bob Greene's Get With the Program for $5. I ended up saving money by buying the book, and when it arrived in the mail, I had a ready-to-go plan for getting in shape.

Yeah, weddings can be cause for major stressing out. But I wanted to get in shape the right way, not the crash diet way. So I read Get With the Program cautiously, keeping an eye out for too-good-to-be-true promises. I didn't find any. The Program is hard work - lots of aerobic exercise, then careful meal planning and eventually strength training. I was eager for the strength training part, but not so much for the aerobic exercise . . . but I decided to do what the book suggested anyway.

And amazingly, I became a jogger. Okay, not a great jogger. In fact, I'm a pretty poor jogger - I'm still thrilled if I can do better than a 10-minute mile - but at least it is a start! The first time I jogged, I made it a few blocks from home, and walked part of the way out of sheer exhaustion. I had timed myself, and this complete outpouring of effort had taken exactly seven minutes. There must have been something wrong with the clock!

After another jogging session or two, Michael started jogging also. He was much better at jogging than me, but we decided to jog together. In the beginning, he would take a different route than me, to get a longer jog in. But as time went on, we started to be able to go the same distance - and we kept increasing the distance every day. When it was still a struggle to go .75 miles in one outing, I remember saying "by the end of the summer I want to make it to Kwik Trip" (which is a gas station about 1.25 miles down a path near our house). About three weeks ago we made it to Kwik Trip. We can now jog over 3 miles in a night, if we want to.

Therein lies the rub. I have made it to the final phase of the book. I have reached the strength training portion, which I enjoy, but it makes the jogging harder. And Michael is doing is last week of grad school for the summer, so he has tons of studying to do . . . so last night I jogged for 1.25 miles alone, and walked home because my knee/shin/ankle was sore (from the strength training) and I was lacking motivation.

Tonight I knew I was going to have to jog alone again. I had already taken Michael away from his studies for an hour and a half beating him at Scrabble. (Okay, I beat him once by a few points, then he creamed me as revenge.) I really didn't want to jog, but I also didn't want to sabotage my efforts to get in shape. Fortunately, a little band from New Jersey stepped in to provide my lacking inspiration. I have a Gazelle, which is a low impact aerobic machine thingy (technical term), and sometimes I get in some of my 150 aerobic minutes a week on the Gazelle instead of jogging. (I prefer jogging because it is a more natural activity and I have a better sense of progress when I see the fast food restaurants flying . . .er . . plodding by.) Since it was 10:00 by the time I had finally gotten ready to exercise (I put my work-out clothes on at 8:30, did my 3 sets of four kinds of crunches, plus some other "functional exercises" as Greene calls them, and then spent an hour goofing off on the computer) I opted not to jog in the dark by myself. Being proud of myself for overcoming my inertia was not enough. I still needed help to get moving.

Fortunately Michael gave me an iPod for my birthday. And fortunately I've put a few of my Bon Jovi songs onto my iPod. (Not all of them. Putting songs on an iPod takes forever. Does that drive anyone else crazy?)

Yay Bon Jovi. I spent 40 minutes on the gazelle and got to listen to most of the Bounce album too. Jon, you're the inspiration . . .

If your sisters jumped off a cliff . . .

What on earth am I doing starting a blog?? I have a wedding to plan, I’m going to begin student teaching in less than a month, and I have a goofy, fluffy dog to groom daily!

Nevertheless, everyone else is doing it (that is to say, my sisters . . .), so I figured I ought to start a blog too.

So what am I going to blog about?

Life, I guess . . . just like every other blogger, even if my life is exponentially less interesting. Stay tuned for my thoughts on cooking, book reviews, wedding planning freak-out moments, dog love, student teaching stress, and hopefully some cool pictures too.

I had the idea to blog the other night when I created a really yummy dinner (and dessert) with all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of the meal. (It occurred to me, but dinner smelled delicious and I didn’t want to take the time to find a camera with a working battery.) Next time I will, I promise!

Dinner wasn’t anything special, but it hit the spot in the middle of summer. I started out with a salad with fresh basil, tomatos from a local farm stand, and fresh mozzerella, drizzled with balsamic vinegar. The main dish was a frittata that I modified from Betty Crocker. (Betty Crocker's Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Cook Today. Wiley Publishing Inc., 9th ed. 2000, p. 207) Mine had new potatoes and onion from the farmer’s market, three cloves of fresh garlic, mushrooms, more farm stand tomatoes, a cup of spinach from the farmer’s market, eggs, marjoram, pepper, and Swiss cheese. Michael and I love this dish, but this time I actually measured the ingredients, and it turned out much better. The first time I made the frittata I was just trying to get rid of some spinach, and I ended up using too many potatoes, too much spinach, too much tomato, and too many mushrooms (which aren't even in the recipe). The result was that the eggs, when poured over the top, failed to cook all the way, and I had to flip the whole thing over and cook it upside down for a few minutes. More is not always better!

Betty Crocker's Fresh Spinach and New Potato Frittata:

6 eggs (I used 5)

2 Tbsp milk

1/4 tsp dried marjoram leaves

1/4 tsp salt (I omitted this salt and added pepper instead)

2 Tbsp butter (it works just fine with cooking spray)

6 or 7 small red potatoes, thinly sliced (2 cups) (baking potatoes also work)

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup firmly packed bite-sized pieces spinach

1/4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and sliced (I substitute a real tomato or two)

3 medium green onions, cut into 1/4 inch pieces (I use a white or yellow onion)

1/2 cup shredded Swiss cheese (2 oz)

(I add about a cup and a half of mushrooms and 3 cloves of garlic too)

1. Beat eggs, milk, marjoram and 1/4 tsp salt; set aside (I used 5 eggs and omitted the salt).

2. Melt butter in 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes to skillet; sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt. Cover and cook 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender. (I cook the potatoes, onion, mushrooms, and garlic together).

3. Stir in spinach, tomatoes and onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, just until spinach is wilted; reduce heat to low. (I've already added the onions by this point.)

4. Carefully pour egg mixture over potato mixture. Cover and cook 6 to 8 minutes or just until top is set. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover and cook about 1 minute or until cheese is melted.

Yum! This dish works for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

For dessert I made a mixed berry pie. Michael requested a pie on Saturday night, and rather than stopping at Perkins and buying one, I offered to bake it myself. I used two cups of strawberries, one cup of sweet cherries, one cup of blueberries, and half a cup of blackberries. Betty Crocker’s fruit pie recipies usually call for six cups of fruit, but this was a good amount for my 9 inch pie dish. I added ½ cup of flour, and about three or four tablespoons of sugar. I spread about two tablespoons of chopped butter on top of the fruit. I can’t make pie crust (especially because I do not own a rolling pin) so I had to rely on Pillsbury for my crusts. I have a rolling pin on my wedding registry, so I may have a chance to improve my crust-making skills in the future. (Michael will gladly be my pie crust guinea pig!)