From Scratch

1 Down, 11 To Go

2012-01-26T07:52:00.000-05:00

One of my goals for 2012 is to read twelve books this year. And I don't mean non-fiction books, self-help books, or anything related to work or school. I need something that will take me away to another place, something that I look forward to reading every night, something that I just don't want to put down. That being said, I just finished my first book of the year.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book, particularly the second and third sections on India and Indonesia, respectively. I felt that these two sections really spoke to my heart and that there may really be a take-home message there. This book has especially encouraged me to look into including meditation into my prayer life. I'm looking forward to reading the "sequel", Weddings and Evictions .

Next up on the reading list: The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone

View all my reviews

No 'poo

2011-09-19T08:55:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking of trying this whole no 'poo (i.e., no shampoo) method for quite some time, but I've been too chicken to actually try it. I'm afraid of the transition period and what it will do to my curly hair! So I told myself I'd give it a try if my shampoo and conditioner ever ran out at the same time. Since this pretty much never happens, I thought I had given myself an indefinite "out". However, yesterday the inevitable happened. I'm thinking about getting my hair cut on Thursday (can you tell I'm still procrastinating?) and then it will be experiment time! Here's the plan:

Have a jar of baking soda in the shower. Combine baking soda with water to make a paste and massage into scalp.
Rinse well.
Make a 1:4 solution of apple cider vinegar : water in a spray bottle. Spray on hair.
Rinse with cold water.

We'll see how it goes. Anyone else out there have any tips for me?

Productivity

2011-09-16T08:21:00.004-04:00

This has been a horribly unproductive week. Let's recap, shall we?

Baby girl and I were both sick on Monday. I dragged my butt to class and then straight home. I tried to write in bed, but is just wasn't happening, so I gave up and laid on the couch instead.

Tuesday was better. I actually finished my to-do list, started training for a 5k I want to run in October, and felt ahead of the game. Unfortunately, that productivity, drive, and motivation was short-lived.

Wednesdays are usually my most productive day because I head out to my office after class and work until dinner at church -- a good, uninterrupted 4 hours! However, this week I had a once-a-month group meeting that lasted at least 2 hours. I then met with my advisor to go over notes for the class I'll be teaching next week while he's in China. Before I knew it, I had a half-hour until I needed to take the shuttle back to campus in order to exchange a textbook. Spencer picked me up from school and we headed to church early. We had a great time socializing with everyone, but didn't leave until probably 8pm. I got maybe 1-2 hours of writing done all day, but at least finished the homework that's due today.

I don't know what happened yesterday. I wasted the entire day! I knew I had many things to do and that I would regret being lazy today, but I just couldn't focus. Hopefully this isn't a sign that my depressing is returning (or hasn't left). Maybe it's time to find a new counselor?

Today isn't looking wonderful on the productivity front, either. Between classes, meetings, and commuting time, I'll probably only get 1-2 hours of writing in. I wish working on the bus didn't make me sick!

What I'm really trying to get at here is that I'm bummed. Because of my laziness, I need to work all weekend instead of spending quality time with Adelaide, Spencer, or my friends. But enough of this pity party. Next week is a new week, and it will be better!

Creamy Linguine with Shrimp and Veggies

2011-09-06T20:18:00.000-04:00

We had this recipe from Cooking Light for dinner tonight, and it's a keeper! It was fast, easy to make (and would be even easier if I had more proficient knife skills), and definitely qualifies as a budget meal. I wonder how it would taste with yogurt substituted for part of the cream cheese.

As a side note, this was Adelaide's first experience with pasta, and she thoroughly enjoyed playing and "eating" it. We should have taken a picture!

Menu Plan Monday - Labor Day Week

2011-09-04T21:47:00.001-04:00

This week's menu is brought to you by Cooking Light magazine. My parents gift me a subscription each year, and I've filled a binder with recipes I think sound interesting. It's time to try some of them out.

Monday - Labor Day
B: Baked oatmeal
L: Grill-out with friends
D: Hotdogs, potato salad, and s'mores

Tuesday
B: Green smoothie
L: Leftovers
D: Chicken Tostadas with Avocado Dressing, Mexican Rice

Wednesday
B: Yogurt
L: Hummus sandwich, veggies, fruit
D: Church

Thursday
B: Chick-fil-a
L: Leftovers
D: Herb and Goat Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Red Pepper Couscous, Sautéed Spinach

Friday
B: Yogurt
L: Leftovers
D: Creamy Linguine with Shrimp and Veggies

Saturday
B: French toast, fruit
L: Leftovers
D: Beef and Mushroom Sloppy Joes

Sunday
B: Church
L: Church
D: Greek Festival

Check out the rest of Menu Plan Monday at I'm An Organizing Junkie! What's your family eating this week?

Green Smoothie

2011-09-02T08:54:00.000-04:00

I made my first green smoothie for breakfast this morning: kale, whole milk, goat's milk yogurt, strawberries, and mango. It tastes...interesting. Grainy. It needs to be sweeter. I tried adding honey, but that hasn't helped. It gets a little better with each sip. Next time I'll decrease the amount of kale, increase the fruits, and maybe add a little cucumber.

The real test -- how long until I'm hungry again? I'm trying different breakfast ideas because cereal just isn't sticking with me long enough.

Have you tried a green smoothie? What's your favorite combination?

Depression Sucks

2011-07-07T06:52:00.000-04:00

Last week was an amazing week. I was happy, productive, and felt like there was finally some balance in my life. It was a good mental health week. Then Tuesday arrived and it's like I've hit a wall. I'm unfocused, unproductive, and unbalanced.

I want every week to be like last week and it's not. Depression sucks.

Kitchen Questions

2011-07-05T09:08:00.000-04:00

I'm working my way through One Year to an Organized Life by Regina Leeds. Part of the first section is devoted to helping me understand how I currently use my kitchen and how I would like to use it. Here are my answers to selected questions posed in the text.

What do you like about your kitchen?
I like that there is plenty of storage space for my pots, pans, and baking supplies. There is sufficient lighting and even a window overlooking the back yard. My favorite part is probably the pantry. I imagine it filled with self-canned, homemade, and real foods. I like having a double sink and really hot water. In general, the layout seems to work for us given the small space. It's not like we could change that anyway!

What do you dislike about your kitchen?
Pretty much everything else! Unfortunately, most things can't be remedied since we rent this house:

Fridge/Freezer. When we first moved into this house, we were excited about the side-by-side fridge/freezer with a water/ice dispenser. Since then, we've realized that the ice maker and water dispenser never have worked and never will work. Because there are no shelves in the freezer, only curved drawers, we can't even make our own ice in ice cube trays. Instead we have to buy bagged ice from the store. Also, the shelves/drawers are immovable on both halves. This is particularly problematic on the fridge side; it's so hard to make everything fit!
Cabinets. On first glance, the cabinets aren't that bad. They're not my style, but aren't the end of the world. I think it's annoying and pointless that the area between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling is closed off. However, my biggest problem with them is the insides, which are unfinished! We tried lining each shelf with contact paper, but it doesn't stick. Any other ideas? Splinters in my glasses and on our plates is unacceptable!
Counters. After living in three rental properties, we've realized the utter lack of respect people have. Do people not own cutting boards? There's also not enough counter space, but I'm not convinced any kitchen would have enough counter space for me :)

Are there any cosmetic changes or tools you could introduce that would make the space work better?
We would really like to buy a small deep-freeze in order to preserve more foodstuffs throughout the year. This would also provide a space to make our own ice.

We recently purchased a small cabinet for the bread and coffee machines, which freed up some counter space. Hanging a mug rack above the coffee machine and storing items with the two machines in the cabinet would make this space even more functional. I've recently started setting up the coffee maker in the evening and setting the timer so that coffee is already ready by the time I get up. I may use a similar feature on the bread machine in the future.

The kitchen, and house in general, is not personalized. We've been cautious of putting money into a rental property in the past, but since we're planning on being here for another 3-4 years, we are starting to consider making temporary cosmetic changes. We don't plan on painting any walls, but are looking at hanging artwork and pictures, making curtains or valences, etc. We want to be happy living in this space!

What we need is a simple, functional space. Our kitchen is not there yet, but it's a work in progress.

What do you like/dislike about your kitchen?

Menu Plan Monday

2011-06-27T07:00:00.001-04:00

Last week I made egg rolls and fried rice for the first time. They tasted OK, but were lacking in flavor. While I don't normally experiment in the kitchen (I tend to follow recipes to the letter), I may tweak my recipes in the future. I'll post any success if I do :)

That being said, my first kitchen experiment is going to be to invent (or reinvent) some sort of fruit egg roll as a dessert. I don't want our extra egg roll wrappers to go bad. But enough of my rambling; here is our dinner menu for the week:

Monday: Pasta and Salad (spinach, blue cheese, balsamic vinagrette)
Tuesday: Spinach Quesadillas and Refried Beans
Wednesday: Hamburgers with Blue Cheese and Spinach
Thursday: Almond Chicken, Broccoli, Mac & Cheese

You'll notice that spinach is the predominant vegetable on our menu. That's because we didn't manage to make it to any farmer's market last week and our next chance isn't until Wednesday. So, we're trying to minimize our grocery list (and avoid spoilage) by only buying a box of (sort of) fresh baby spinach and some frozen broccoli.

Check out the rest of Menu Plan Monday at I'm An Organizing Junkie! What is your family eating this week?

Love List II

2011-06-24T07:42:00.000-04:00

This is going to be short and sweet so that I don't miss the bus to campus. This week I'm thankful for:

Matching undergarments and aquamarine jewelry. They make me feel pretty even when I'm wearing yoga pants and an old t-shirt.
A brother-in-law who lives closer than 8 hours away. We enjoyed your visit, David!
A daughter who can hear! There's a lot of background on this, but the short and sweet history is that we thought she couldn't hear due to some birth trauma.

What are you thankful for this week?

Anything Does Not Mean Everything

2011-06-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

"You can be anything you want to be."

"You can do anything if you just put your mind to it."

These phrases became my mantra during high school and college. They were the source of my motivation. If anyone suggested I couldn't do something, it only made me work harder to prove them wrong. But everything changed when I started graduate school; the "magic" of those two phrases was lost. Now they are discouraging instead of encouraging and it's taken me a long time to figure out why. Somehow anything got replaced with everything. It doesn't take long to feel like a failure when you stretch yourself too far, try to be the perfect everything.

"You can't have your cake and eat it, too."

The message is slowly sinking in. I may have to give up some of my real food, crunchy mama, From Scratch ideals -- at least for this season of my life.

I work part-time, go to school full-time, and have a daughter who isn't even 3 months old yet. On top of that, I expect myself to make perfectly nutritional meals (From Scratch), be fit and stylish, have a Martha Stewart home, and run a successful blog, among other things. When I can't do it, I beat myself up about it and then try even harder to do the impossible. This incessant guilt cycle is the root of my depression and it has to stop. I'm working hard to break the cycle and create balance in my life, but it isn't easy.

One of my post-baby gifts was a sack of Seventh Generation products: laundry detergent, diapers and wipes, and disinfecting wipes. I love using the disinfecting wipes primarily for wiping down kitchen counters. I have to admit that they are much more efficient -- and I have to admit, easier -- than my usual old washcloth and vinegar/water spray routine. I resisted using them at first because they're disposable. I cringe every time I throw one away, quickly imagining how long it's going to sit in a landfill before it decomposes, telling myself what a bad environmental steward I am (how could someone studying Environmental Engineering do such a thing?!). Still, I might buy more when I run out. I have found something that makes cleaning fast, easy, and (dare I say?) enjoyable, which helps create some balance in my life. Isn't it better (for me and my family) to have a clean and sanitary kitchen at the expense of a few disposable disinfecting wipes than to not clean the kitchen at all?

And maybe in a different season of my life, I can think about how to make them From Scratch.

Menu Plan Monday

2011-06-20T14:48:00.000-04:00

Once again, my menu is based around the items we bought at the Farmer's Market: purple kale, zucchini, snap beans, and cabbage. I'm hoping it won't be too much longer until I can use produce from my own garden :)

Monday: Pizza, Salad
Tuesday: Fish, Macaroni and Cheese, Zucchini
Wednesday: Egg Rolls, Fried Rice
Thursday: BBQ Chicken, Snap Peas
Friday: Quesadillas

I'm using all the kale to make kale chips for snacking on. It's so easy and they are pretty darn tasty! Just strip the leaves off the stems, rip into bite-sized pieces, drizzle with olive oil and salt, and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Yum!

Check out the rest of Menu Plan Monday at I'm An Organizing Junkie! What is your family eating this week?

Love List I

2011-06-18T11:27:00.000-04:00

In general, I feel like I complain too much and don't focus on the things I am thankful for in my life. So, I'm joining Bonzai Aphrodite in creating a love list each week:

~~Getting up early to read journal articles.~~ Getting things accomplished before Adelaide wakes up. God has blessed me with a child that likes to sleep in with her daddy, which means I've been able to get in 2-3 hours of PhD work before she wakes up and I don't miss spending any time with her.
Walking with friends in the Botanical Gardens. Just what I needed several times this week. Thanks guys!
Sleeping on my stomach. I was a dedicated stomach sleeper before I was pregnant and it was hard learning to sleep on my side. Now I'm thankful that it's once again comfortable enough to do so.

What's on your love list?

Cloth Diapering While Traveling

2011-06-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, our little family of three took our first week-long trip away from home since Adelaide was born. Every year, my grandparents rent a beach house off the coast of North Carolina and my dad's whole side of the family gets together for a week-long reunion of sorts.

The last time we took a trip, it was only over a weekend and we decided to switch to disposables since it was our first time away from home with Adelaide. This time, I was determined to use my cloth diapers, especially since I knew the beach house had a washer and drier.
My diaper packing list:

BumGenius and Fuzzibunz pocket diapers
Thirsties Fab wipes and wipes spray
Rockin' Green detergent
Fold-up hanger for drying shells
Reusable pee pads
Blueberry pail liner

Things went as well as I could have hoped, but there are a few things I want to keep in mind for next time:

We need a different pail liner/wet bag for traveling. The Blueberry pail liners we brought only have drawstring closures and didn't do a good job of containing the diaper stink problems we are having. We'll be looking for one with a zippered closure and loop to hang on a doorknob.
I need to figure out if there's a way to avoid bringing dirty diapers with us. I'm not sure that's possible unless we use disposables the day before we leave, which I don't want to do.
Be prepared for different washing conditions than we're used to at home. The house we stayed in had extremely hard water, which meant that it took nearly all day to wash a load of diapers.

Has anyone else here traveled with cloth diapers? Any suggestions for this new mama?

Menu Plan Monday

2011-06-13T09:00:00.001-04:00

I'm so glad that summer is here. Want to know why? Because that means the farmer's markets have returned! I'm lucky enough to have three local markets on three consecutive days (Wed-Fri). I could also go to a market on Saturday morning if I wanted to drive a little further. And I can't forget what I'm growing in my garden, though nothing is ready to pick yet.

The broccoli and carrots came from the local student organic farm. We've already eaten the broccoli (note this menu plan starts at the end of last week) and it was amazing! I'm sure the carrots will be equally tasty. I'm planning on using the carrot fronds in my first ever green smoothie this week. I hope I like it!

Friday:
B - Baked Oatmeal
L - PBJ Sandwiches
D - Ranch Chicken, Rice, Steamed Broccoli

Saturday:
B - Baked Oatmeal
L - BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Cheez-Its
D - Out

Sunday:
B - Cereal
L - Leftovers
D - Pasta Bake, Salad

Monday:
B - Green Smoothie
L - Tuna Sandwich, Pretzels
D - Black Beans & Rice, Steamed Carrots

Tuesday:
B - Green Smoothie
L - Leftovers
D - Cream Cheese Chicken, Steamed Carrots

Wednesday:
B - Yogurt
L - Leftovers
D - Sloppy Joes, Salad

Thursday:
B - Cereal
L - Leftovers
D - Franks & Rice, Corn

Check out the rest of Menu Plan Monday at I'm An Organizing Junkie! What is your family eating this week?

Cloth Diapering Problems

2011-06-10T17:46:00.000-04:00

Before Adelaide was born, Spencer and I decided we were going to use cloth diapers instead of disposable ones. I had a good time putting her "stash" together, composed mainly of prefolds, covers, and pocket diapers. I even made my own cloth diaper detergent and thought I had a good washing routine.

But now, we've run into our first cloth diapering issue -- diaper stink! I've since switched to Rockin' Green Classic Rock detergent and tried soaking them, but things aren't much better. So I've searched the web hoping find a solution to my problem, but of course there are many different options out there! Here is what I plan on trying until something (hopefully) works:

Cold rinse followed by two wash cyles (hot wash, cold rinse, cold rinse) with detergent.
Normal wash cycle with detergent followed by hot wash without detergent and double cold rinse.
Wash my washing machine: add 1 cup vinegar to machine and run hot wash and rinse cycle.
Strip diapers.

Any other suggestions or modifications to my plan? I'm not at risk of getting rid of my whole stash or anything, but I would like to walk past the diaper pail without holding my breath :)

I'm Cleared!

2011-05-26T18:24:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had a postpartum visit to check my stitches, and received the green light to resume "normal" activities. This is great because my ideal schedule includes 3.5 hours of exercise per week. I just need to develop a plan.

I've thought about doing a workout DVD like 30 Day Shred or P90, both of which I already own. Slim in 6 and 10 Pound Slimdown have also been suggested to me, but I'd have to purchase (or borrow) them. The problem is that I'm pretty sure I won't be able to stick to it. There's just not enough variety to motivate me for 1-3 months. Maybe there's more variety available on streaming Netflix.

I used to consider myself a runner (maybe jogger is a better term) and I've thought about doing the Couch to 5k program. I'm afraid this may be doing too much too fast, though, and might be better suited for when Adelaide is able to sit up by herself and I can use our jogging stroller.

On our walk yesterday, Spencer and I (and Adelaide) stopped by the rec center, which is similar to a YMCA. The membership fees aren't that expensive and could probably be built into our budget. They seem to have a variety of classes in addition to a swimming pool, cardio and weight machines, free weights, and basketball courts. But I've had a gym membership before (just not to this gym) and don't know if I'd keep going. I'll also have "free" access to the university gym once I'm registered for classes in the fall.

None of these ideas seems like the perfect plan, so I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe I just need a workout buddy to motivate me. That worked in college.

Anyone local looking for a workout buddy or have any other ideas or suggestions?

Where Does My Time Go?

2011-05-24T08:00:00.009-04:00

If my calculations are correct, there are 168 hours in a week. What exactly am I doing with all that time? During an average week, I spend:

49-56 hours (~33% of my time) sleeping
50-60 hours (~30%) taking care of Adelaide
21 hours (13%) running errands and doing chores
20 hours (12%) working
10 hours (6%) watching TV, wasting time on Facebook, etc. (aka, screen time)
3 hours (2%) on schoolwork
4 hours (2%) at church and related activities
3 hours (2%) with friends

I think that encompasses most things. Can you think of anything I may have left out? While these are my best estimates, I know they're not completely accurate since some categories overlap. For example, I'm usually watching TV while feeding Adelaide.

There are some things that are not included in this list that should be, such as time with Spencer, a hobby, religious study, and exercise. Ideally, I would like to see the time distribution look more like this:

50-60 hours (30% of my time) taking care of Adelaide
42 hours (25%) sleeping
20 hours (12%) working
20 hours (12%) on schoolwork
14 hours (8%) running errands and doing chores
7 hours (5%) on screen time
6 hours (3%) at church and on religious study
3-4 hours (~2%) with friends
3-4 hours (~2%) with Spencer
3.5 hours (1%) exercising

This is the distribution I will be aiming for when I plan my weekly schedule. I'm not going to try to achieve this ideal overnight - that's just a recipe for discouragement - but will hopefully be pretty close by the end of the year. I'm also pleased that it lays a good foundation for me to reach my goals.

What do you spend your week doing? Do your weekly activities support your short- and long-term goals?

Setting Goals

2011-05-23T08:00:00.002-04:00

There are many times when I sit and daydream about how I wish my life was different. Sometime this can be encouraging, while other times it is a destructive waste of time. That being said, I'm a big fan of setting both short- and long-term goals and so is Regina Leeds.

Changes in my life that I hope to see after I learn how to manage my time:

I protect myself by planning my life at least one week at a time.
Work, school, family, and personal time are all balanced.
I do not procrastinate doing things that I don't enjoy. (And the corollary, "I've learned to say 'no'".)
My advisor is proud of my work as a PhD student and I am a role model for other research group members.
Adelaide is on a schedule.
Spencer and I have quality time together.

What goals do you have in your life right now?

Looking Back

2011-05-22T08:00:00.003-04:00

I've just starting reading a book Spencer got me for my birthday, One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good by Regina Leeds. Before you ask, no it's not a hint from him, it's a book I've had on my wish list for quite some time now. I'm just weird like that. It's set up so that each month has a dedicated focus:

January - Understanding Time Management / Kitchen
February - Bedroom
March - Office / Finances
April - Bathrooms
May - Attic / Basement / Garage / Laundry Room / Guest Room
June - Traveling
July - Scrapbooks / Memorabilia / Greeting Card Collections / Address Books
August - Moving
September - Back-to-School
October - Common Rooms
November - Entertaining
December - Holidays

Although it's May, I've decided to work through the book from the beginning and start with January's concepts. I think it will be easier on me this way, especially since it's not even the first week of May.

The first week of every month is dedicated to journaling tasks. The first set of questions are supposed to help you "examine your past for clues to the present reality". What exactly does that mean? I'm not going to list the questions here, so you'll have to borrow (or buy) the book for yourself. :-p

I used to believe that if you arrive on time for an event, then you are late. I think this comes from my adolescence; when I was growing up, I don't remember my family ever being late for anything. In fact, we were always at least 10-15 minutes early for things. Of course, this requires some extra planning and adding a buffer to your estimated travel time. What if there is an accident? What if you get lost? Growing up in Northern Virginia, this meant that even if you could get somewhere in 10 minutes, you left at least 30 minutes early. I distinctly remember leaving for school by 8am when school didn't even start until almost 9am! Granted, this meant I got a close parking spot and I had time to hang out with friends before classes started.

After I moved south for graduate school, I realized my (excessive) buffer time is unneccessary, and I started to arrive at places (only) 5-10 minutes early. Two years later, I married my husband and we started to arrive to places on time. Gasp! How could this be?! I'm not kidding when I say I nearly had a panic attack during every car trip. It was something I was working on...until we had Adelaide. Now things have completely changed. It doesn't matter how much buffer time we build into a trip we're still lucky to arrive on time. Something always takes longer than I had planned despite my best preparations. Surprisingly, I'm pretty OK with this. Probably because most people, in general, are more forgiving when you have a newborn, so I don't feel as judged when I'm tardy. Hopefully by the time Adelaide isn't a newborn anymore, we'll have our act together.

What are your time paradigms?

My First Real Garden

2011-05-21T22:30:00.001-04:00

Last year was my first attempt to grow anything at all, and all I tried to grow were some herbs in a tiny tin on the porch of our third-floor apartment. I thought I was doing pretty well until the first really hot summer day arrives and everything shriveled up and died.

Now that we're renting a house, I figured I could take a stab at growing some real food. We decided a little strip of land next to the house would be the best spot. I wish I had remembered to take a before picture. This tiny strip of land was half covered with vines, weeds, and nasty roots, not to mention the fact that it's horrible red clay. Not the most ideal growing conditions for vegetable plants. At first we tried to till the ground with the few hand tools. After we had worked for several hours without seeing much progress and my husband had developed a blister, we decided it was time to give in and buy some normal sized tools. Oh, and Adelaide hating being outside the entire time.

It's amazing how much faster things went after we had the proper tools. It only took us 30 minutes to finish preparing the ground and maybe another 30 minutes to plant our crops. I wasn't sure how far apart the plants should be planted, so they're roughly a foot apart. Here's what we planted:

Four everbearing strawberry plants.

Six tomato plants of three different varieties.

Red Brandywine Heirloom Tomatoes

Better Boy Tomatoes

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes

Four yellow squash plants of two different varieties.

Butternut Squash

Yellow Straightneck Squash

Six cucumber plants of two different varieties.

Three "slicing" and three "pickling" plants.

The cucumber plants have since been planted in containers that are on our porch. That little strip of land next to the house is shorter than I thought it would be and there wasn't enough room for them there. If I had thought to lay the plants out on the little plot of land before digging any holes, I might have avoided this. We've also rabbit-proofed the garden by encasing it in chicken wire.

I make it a habit to water my garden every day before noon. I'm not sure how much water I should be giving them. Is there any rule of thumb?

I'm already starting to see some buds form on some of the plants, so I'm eagerly awaiting my first bounty! I'm looking forward to updating everyone on the garden's progress throughout the season.

Do you have a garden this year? If so, what did you plant?

Facial Cleansers

2011-05-04T13:33:00.000-04:00

Right before heading off to grad school, I signed up to be a Mary Kay consultant. I don't know what I was thinking, but it was a huge waste of money (for me). I promised myself I would at least use all of the stock I could if I wasn't going to sell it, and after nearly six years, I'm on my last bottle of facial cleanser. Time to look for something new!

Since beginning my quest to be From Scratch, I've learned a lot about the questionable ingredients that are used in skin care products and cosmetics. Unfortunately, this industry is not properly regulated by the Federal government. Fortunately, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has created the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, which provides safety ratings on over 68,000 products!

From what I can tell from the database, the Splash Facial Oat Flour Face Wash from Coastal Classic Creations is the highest rated facial cleanser rated by EWG. You know why? Because it's only ingredient is "finely ground colloidal oatmeal".

So my question is, why can't I just grind us oatmeal in my blender/food processor/coffee grinder and use that instead of paying $10 + S&H for 75 grams? I might just give it a try!

What facial cleansers do you use on a regular basis?

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

2011-04-19T15:58:00.000-04:00

I am pleased to announce that I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Adelaide, on March 27 at 6:56am. She weighed 8 lbs. 10 oz. and was 22 in. long. There were some complications with her birth, but I was able to deliver her at home as planned and we are both doing well.

39 Week Update

2011-03-15T21:45:00.000-04:00

Spencer and I had a pretty rough weekend. Instead of making major headway on the nursery as we had planned, I wound up taking Spencer to the ER for gastroenteritis (read: stomach bug). We then spent the rest of the weekend recovering. He's back to normal now, though, and I thankfully didn't catch it from him.

As of yesterday, I'm 39 weeks pregnant. I can't believe I'm going to have a baby any day now! I'm really excited because my mom flew down yesterday. Today we made a large batch of breakfast burritos to put in the freezer and put together the pack-n-play/bassinet. We were hoping to go for a walk, but it was pouring rain for most of the day.

On the to do list for tomorrow:

Long walk
Decorate baby room
Last home birth preparations

That should make for a pretty full day. We'll also be joining the college group for dinner at the church (yay for free meals!). This week is already flying by too quickly. I can't believe tomorrow is already Wednesday!

36 Week Bump Picture

2011-02-23T19:41:00.000-05:00

I got my hair cut today and I wanted to capture it while I can before I wash it and it's all curly again. I figured we might as well get a picture of my 36 week bump while we're at it, so here it is. Please excuse the mess! What do you think?

Menu Plan Monday - Valentine's Day 2011

2011-02-14T11:08:00.000-05:00

This is my first time joining the Menu Plan Monday linkup at I'm An Organizing Junkie! Here is my menu plan for the week. We'll see how well we stick to it:

Monday:
B - Cereal
L - Tuna Sandwiches
D - Out to celebrate Valentine's Day

Tuesday:
B - Green Smoothie
L - Leftovers
D - Middle Eastern Rice with Black Beans and Chickpeas, Spaghetti Squash, Yogurt, Pitas

Wednesday:
B - Yogurt
L - Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
D - Church

Thursday:
B - Oatmeal
L - Leftovers
D - Egg Pie, Salad

Friday:
B - Green Smoothie
L - Hummus & Veggies
D - Chicken-Broccoli Bake (Batch cooking)

Saturday:
B - Breakfast Burrito (Batch cooking)
L - Out
D - Leftovers

What is your family eating this week?

Cleaning Schedule

2011-02-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

After all the recent changes in our lives, the cleaning schedule has gone out the window (not that I really kept up with it in the first place). Time to reclaim it! In the past, I've made pretty spreadsheets and charts and fantasized about having a Martha Stewart home. And you know what? It never worked. Why? Because I was trying to establish way too many habits all at once and I wound up overwhelmed. So this time, I'm going to focus on adding one or two chores to my list at a time. What am I focusing on first?

Make the bed every day
Do a load of laundry every day

Sounds simple, right? I hope so, because that was the point. If other chores get done in addition to these, that's great, but my goal is to do these two things every day for two weeks. By then, they should be a habit. The other key is to not beat myself up if one (or both) of these don't happen sometimes. No one is perfect, not even me (though my brain thinks otherwise). Life happens and you move on. Tomorrow is a new day.

What are your every day chores?

Vermicomposting Update

2011-01-31T11:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure the wormies survived the move. Last time I added kitchen scraps to the bin, I saw no movement. I added more wet shredded paper, hoping it would revive them, but I've been afraid to check on their progress. I know, I'm a big chicken, but I just feel so bad. I may have killed 500 of God's creatures!

I promise to get up the courage to check on them soon. Maybe we'll be building a new compost bin outdoors (sans worms) now that we live in a real house instead of a third story apartment!

Anyone else having composting woes?

Our December Travels

2011-01-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

For the last three weeks, Spencer and I have been traveling:

We spent a week in Honolulu, HI for the Pacifichem 2010 conference. While I was presenting and sitting through symposium sessions, Spencer got to check out Waikiki beach and downtown Honolulu. Our last two days we spent sight-seeing. We went up to the Polynesian Cultural Center (amazing!), visited Pearl Harbor, and stopped briefly at the Dole Plantation (pineapples) and a macadamia nut farm.

We were home for barely 24 hours before heading off to Virginia to visit our families for Christmas, but we had a few hiccups first. At 10pm the night before we were supposed to leave, Spencer started having chest pains. We called an on-call nurse at the university who told us to call 911. We did, and the EMTs showed up shortly after. Although an EKG of his heart looked normal, they still recommended a trip to the ER, so I drove Spencer there myself instead of letting the ambulance take him. Another EKG and blood tests came back normal enough, so we left with a list of symptoms to look out for.

After a few hours of sleep, we were off to VA, or so we thought. Not 5 miles from the house, Spencer's car broke down. At least we were close, right? A good friend (who we are very indebted to) came to pick me and the cats up while Spencer waited for the tow truck. We had the car towed back to our house, repacked everything in my car, and finally got on the road.

We had a very nice Christmas Eve day with my parents, my brother, and his girlfriend ending at church. All day Christmas was spent with Spencer's family. It was the first time I started dating him that all the siblings were home for Christmas. Nine (and a half) people plus seven cats makes for a full household, but it was a lot of fun. On the way back home, we made a short stop in KY to see my grandparents, cousins, aunt, and uncle.

We made it back home just in time to spend New Year's eve with our friends, then zonked out for a good 10 hours or so. Yesterday we spent doing nothing, which was nice, but today we need to get back with the program! I'm trying not to stress and worry about everything that needs to be done, and remembering my therapist's advice to keep it to four things or less per day. So, here are my TODO's for today:

Go to church
Go to Hypnobabies class
Meal planning
Grocery shopping

I'm hoping much more gets done today, but that defeats the purpose of this whole exercise.

TODO: Day 1

2010-12-11T22:24:00.000-05:00

My list of things to do today:

~~Cloth Diaper 101 Class~~
Work on Pacifichem presentation for 1 hour
Spend 15 minutes unpacking
~~Write blog post~~

The Cloth Diaper 101 Class was amazing and has me really excited about cloth diapering our child. Spencer went with me and is also on board :) We even started our stash:

1 bum genius 4.0 one-size pocket diaper + 2 inserts
2 FuzziBunz one-size pocket diapers + 4 inserts
1 flip cover + organic insert
18 disposable flip inserts

Do any of you cloth diaper and have any suggestions for us newbies?

I'm alive!

2010-12-11T22:13:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a long time since I posted, but I promise I'm alive! A lot has happened since May. First of all, I'm pregnant with our first child, due March 2011. We are really excited, but have also been dealing with a lot of stress. In August I took my comprehensive exams, but I failed 2 of them and it's taken a while to figure out the next course of action. A few months later, Spencer lost his job. Shortly thereafter, I was diagnosed with depression. Oh, and we've moved! Because of all this, I've decided to take next semester off from school to focus on myself.

This week my therapist gave me some homework. Part of what's perpetuating my depression is the extremely high expectations I have of myself. Each morning, he wants me to write down a list of things to accomplish that day. My only goal is to complete those items. I'm supposed to start with about four items and evaluate from there. If I can't get four things done, the next day I'm only supposed to write down three things to do, etc. Even if I only have one thing on my list for the day, if I accomplish it, I'm supposed to be proud of myself, and not dwell on what else I could have, should have, done that day. That will be hard for me.

I'm going to try to post my lists here on my blog and comment on how I feel about my progress. Feel free to play along!

Recipe: Chicken Pad Thai

2010-05-21T10:07:00.001-04:00

One of the things I used to love to make before I was married was Pad Thai, but I had never made it from scratch. Here was my first attempt, which turned out rather well. We didn't have any limes, so the lime zest and juice were left out. I also tend to skip the garnishes in recipes, so we didn't use any cilantro, either. Overall, this recipe was a hit, and my husband even reheated some for lunch the next day.

Changes for next time: I would decrease the amount of chile sauce; it was a tad spicy with a whole tablespoon. I also want to experiment with incorporating the egg into the dish. I thought it was weird to just sprinkle it on top.

Source: Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book
Serves: 4

8 oz. rice noodles
1/4 c. salted peanuts, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. grated lime peel
3 tbsp. fish sauce
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
2 tbsp. packed brown sugar
4 1/2 tsp. rice vinegar
1 tbsp. Asian chile sauce with garlic
3 tbsp. cooking oil (we used vegetable oil)
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-size strips (we used chicken tenderloins)
1 tbsp. finely chopped garlic (we find using a hand grater is easier and faster)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 c. fresh bean sprouts
1/3 c. sliced green onion (approx. 3)
2 tbsp. snipped fresh cilantro

Place noodles in a large bowl. Add enough hot water to cover them; let stand for 10-15 minutes. Drain well.
For peanut topping, combine peanuts and lime peel. Set aside.

Combine fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, rice vinegar, and chile sauce. Stir until smooth. Set aside.

In a 12-in nonstick skillet, heat 1 tbsp. cooking oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken and garlic. Cook and stir for 6 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Transfer to a bowl.

Add egg to the hot skillet and cook for 30 seconds. Turn egg with spatula and cook for 30-60 seconds until set. Remove egg from skillet, chop, and set aside.

In same skillet, heat remaining 2 tbsp. cooking oil over high heat for 30 seconds. Add drained noodles and sprouts; stir-fry for 2 minutes.

Add fish sauce mixture and chicken. Cook for 1-2 minutes until heated through.

To serve, sprinkle each serving of noodle mixture with egg, peanut topping, green onion, and cilantro.

ENJOY!

P90 Cardio/Abs Day 2

2010-05-16T14:01:00.000-04:00

Somehow we made it through our workout yesterday, but both of us found it so difficult! My body just wasn't cooperating. I think it's because we took Friday off to spend some time with friends and didn't eat the healthiest things (read: pizza). But we survived and tomorrow it will be easier, right?

P90 Cadio/Abs

2010-05-13T08:04:00.000-04:00

Last night we did our first night of P90 Cardio/Abs. It wasn't that bad, but I learned that I'm really bad at yoga. Does the instructor really think I can do planks and pushups after yesterday's strength training? Oh, and the yoga dog must be Episcopalian.

P90

2010-05-12T10:20:00.000-04:00

About a week ago my husband, frustrated with my poor self-esteem, ordered the Power 90 workout series. The package arrived yesterday and we started our 90 day journey to fitness! We took "before" pictures, but I want to wait until I have some comparison photos before I post them. The first day was a strength training workout. I think I had an easier time than my husband, but only because I was using free weights while he was struggling with a resistance band. It will get easier as we get familiar with the routines. I am surprised that my chest and arms are a little sore this morning, but it makes me happy. I am really proud of myself this morning and am a little nervous about what the cardio/abs video may hold for this evening. I think we are going to wait until next week to use the accompanying meal plan. I looked at it last night and am honestly not that excited about it. Hopefully we'll still see results even if we don't follow the meal plan!

Have you used the P90 system? What are your favorite workouts?

Confirmation

2010-05-04T21:14:00.000-04:00

Today I participated in a Graduate Student Boot Camp hosted by my university's library. It was an intensive, productive, information-filled day. Sessions covered Graduate School requirements for theses and dissertations, methods for searching article databases, RefWorks, writing center resources, plagiarism and copyright, and career center resources.

They also provided snacks and lunch...and I had a revelation. I looked at the ingredients list of the granola bar they provided and new it provided high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, but I ate it anyways. Who knows what the catered lunch (BBQ, vegetarian baked beans, hummus) really contained. I should have skipped the meat and ate vegetarian, but I didn't. I also drank sweet tea and ate two cookies. The kicker was later that afternoon I was dying of thirst, and instead of making the effort to find a water fountain to refill my own water bottle, I was lazy and took one of the bottled waters (OMG!!) that was provided. I hate the taste of bottled water; I always have. And because it left a funny taste in my mouth, I ate two more cookies, which only made me thirsty again. But I stopped the cycle there.

I'm not writing all of this because I want pity for my poor eating choices today. The point is that this food made me fell "off", which just reinforced that I've been making good choices by eliminating high fructose corn syrup (and corn syrup), all-purpose flour, and other things I can't remember right now. My body is adapting to real food!

This is a major step for me, and I refuse to beat myself up and apologize for my eating today. Tomorrow is a new day and I will do better :)

Weekly Meal Plan

2010-05-03T12:09:00.001-04:00

Last night we had a few friends over to celebrate me completing all the course requirements for my PhD. We made hamburgers and baked french fries from scratch, which turned out extremely well. Check out what we'll be eating for dinner the rest of the week:

Monday: My mom's recipe for lentil soup

Tuesday: Chicken Marsala and spaghetti

Wednesday: Out to eat for Cinco de Mayo!

Thursday: Greek Cod with corn-on-the-cob and rice

Friday: Frozen pizza

Saturday and Sunday we'll be on my first backpacking trip, but we haven't decided what we're going to eat yet. My husband wants to do prepared meal packs you buy at sporting goods stores, but I'm convinced there's a healthier, cheaper, better way. We'll see who wins.

We will also be making strawberry ice cream with my new Kitchen Aid ice cream maker attachment. We had planned to have that ready last night for our guests, but didn't read the recipe all the way through before we started (you'd think I'd have learned that lesson by now), and it wouldn't have been done until about 3am. So we had grain-free brownies instead. Check back for my review later this week!

I'm doing my best to remain gradually make better eating choices. So, what's a healthy meal choice at a Mexican restaurant? I was thinking fajitas, but I don't really like peppers and onions in that quantity. Any other thoughts?

What do your dinner plans look like this week?

I'm Back!

2010-05-02T08:25:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry for seemingly falling off the face of the earth. I was struggling through my last week of classes and then final exams, but on Wednesday, I turned in my last final ever! I even did a little happy dance after I pressed the send button. I've now completed all of the classes for my Ph.D. degree, so it's just research and seminars from here on out. My goal is to graduate by the end of 2011. That's ambitious, but I'm hoping I can do it. I'm ready to live a real life!

I'm already really enjoying all the "extra" time I have. I diligently went to the gym on Thursday and Saturday, and hope to be able to continue going to the gym three times a week and doing yoga, pilates, or another workout video at home at least twice a week. I feel like I've finally managed to catch up and climb back onto the healthy lifestyle bandwagon!

I've also been reading a lot of new blogs lately regarding real food and gluten-free diets. I plan on taking baby steps to encorporate some of the ideas I've read about into my life, even though I want to jump in head-first and do it all at once! I know that I will crash and burn and feel like a failure if I do that though, so I'm going to try and restrain myself.

Struggles

2010-04-10T07:44:00.000-04:00

The last couple of weeks have not been good for me. I have many things to be thankful for in life, so many blessings, and yet I've been...sad. Sad is the only word I can think of to describe how I feel. I wouldn't say that I feel depressed, but does depression have a distinct feeling? I don't know.

My healthy living habits have gone down the tubes. My husband and I ate vegetarian meals for all of Holy Week, which was great. I used to be a (flexible) vegetarian before we got married, and I felt very empowered returning to those eating habits. But then Easter came. Against my better judgement, we bought three small bags of candy because I had a coupon. The very next day we received two medium-sized boxes filled with candy and other Easter goodies form my mother-in-law. While that was a very nice gesture (and I certainly don't want to come across as ungrateful), I made my husband take 90% of it to work. I have sucky self-control. I also decided to make a carrot cake from scratch as part of Easter dinner. Next year maybe I'll remember to make cupcakes instead to help with portion control and so that it's easier for my husband to take the "left-overs" to work.

After that, it has been downhill. I'm totally stressed out with going to school full time as a Ph.D. candidate, working part time, being overinvolved in church, and trying to keep up with my wifely duties, spiritual life, and general adult responsibilities. As a result, I can't stop eating, I've had not time to go to the gym, I've gained weight, my skin looks like I"m going through puberty, and I feel fat.

But I'm not going to give up. I'm going to re-establish my healthy living habits one at a time until I'm back on track. I have a pretty good chance at having an abstract accepted for a conference this December in Hawaii (how sweet is that?!!!). I want to be back to my pre-wedding size by then, which means losing approximately 20 pounds. If I can do it by our second wedding anniversary in July, even better. Besides, I pledged to lose 19 pounds for the Pound for Pound Challenge.

To end on a happy note, I made it through Sam's Club at 4:30pm without eating any samples. Also, I've been medically cleared to start running again, so I've entered a give-away at Shut Up and Run! for some new running gear. If I don't win, I might get some cheap new running clothes at Target for some motivation.

Question of the day: What's your favorite workout gear?

Polymers

2010-04-08T21:37:00.000-04:00

Can you imagine your life without polymers? They are all around us: clothing made from synthetic fibers, styrofoam cups, Fiberglas boats, plastic bags, polymer-based paints, silicone heart valves, Teflon-coated cookware, and much, much more! Did you know that these materials didn't even exist until after World War II? Before then, the construction and manufacturing industry relied on steel, glass, wood, stone, brick, and concrete and the raw materials for clothing and other fabrics were cotton, wool, and jute (burlap).

While polymers have revolutionized several industries, particulary the biomedical field, they are also are the basis of all the plastic in our lives.

I was a Chemistry major in undergrad and in my polymer chemistry class, we learned about the history of polymer chemistry, polymer synthesis and reactions, thermodynamics and kinetics of polymerization, polymer characterization and testing, and polymer uses. On the last day of class, we even made marshmallow guns out of PVC piping and had a marshmallow war.

Unfortunately, the lack of biodegradability and other environmental harm caused by this branch of chemistry was never discussed. The minimial exposure I got was because one of my undergraduate research projects was supposed to be on the leaching of bisphenol-A (BPA) from plastic baby bottles. I say "supposed to be" because I never got to do the project. The instrument I needed (a gas-chromatography mass spectrometer if you care) broke when I needed it and couldn't be repaired in a timely manner, so I had to change projects. That was a couple of years before the media picked up the whole issue.

I'm still researching how the plastics industry, among other things, impacts this wonderful earth we live on. For more information on the environmental impacts of plastic, Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish has a wealth of infomation and suggestions for "living life with less plastic". Also, check out the Spring Cleaning Carnival: Get the Plastics Out at Kitchen Stewardship.

There are also several great give-aways you can sign up for this week:
Stainless Steel Airtight Containers by Life Without Plastic at Kitchen Stewardship
Stainless Steel 11oz Infant Bottle by Pura at Fake Plastic Fish

Fess Up Friday: Kitchen Disaster

2010-03-19T10:31:00.001-04:00

Every Friday, New Life on a Homestead hosts the Fess Up Friday blog event, where bloggers can "write up a short post confessing that less than perfect housekeeping secret you’ve been sweeping under the rug." This week's focus is on kitchen disasters.

This one time (at band camp -- just kidding) I tried to make my own foccacia for panini sandwiches. In the process, I set off the fire alarm THREE TIMES! My poor cats (and probably poor neighbors)! I blame it on the recipe directions the first time and on my own stupidity the second time. Note to self: corn meal burns in the oven very easily. I haven't attempted the recipe again; maybe it's time for a second shot.

Sabotage

2010-03-17T08:03:00.000-04:00

I keep sabotaging myself. Why? I don't know. I stepped on the scale yesterday morning to see that I had lost 3.5 pounds. So what did I bring home for dinner? Pizza. And what did I drink with that pizza? A beer. I also had ice cream while watching The Biggest Loser.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this. How do I stop they cycle?

Eating Habits

2010-03-12T07:18:00.000-05:00

I started this week off really well with eating and exercise, but these last two days I have made some really bad eating choices. I'm using self.com to track my eating, exercise, etc. I've tracked my eating before by keeping my own food journal, but have never been concerned with calories. I never realized how much (or little) I was eating! Very insightful. I'm not going to beat myself up over the choices I've made this week, but focus on making those sorts of decisions less often.

On a site note, I'm trying to train for a triathalon. Since I can't run, I'm using an elliptical, unless my doctor tells me that's out, too. Swimming is harder for me. My normal gym doesn't have an inside pool and it's still to cold to swim outside. Plus, it's a really dinky pool. The university has a pool, but open swim hours aren't that convenient and I talk myself out of going there frequently. There has to be a better solution.

Recipe: Homemade Bread Bowls and Cream of Broccoli-Cheese Soup

2010-03-11T08:12:00.000-05:00

You know those bread bowls you can get at some restaurants that hold soup? I've been addicted to them ever since undergrad, when one of the places in the food court started carrying them. So I was really excited when I was able to adapt two separate recipes to make my own at home!

Pizza Dough
From: Baking Illustrated

1/2 cup warm water (about 100 degrees)
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 cup water, room temperature
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups (22 oz) bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

Measure 1/2 cup warm water at about 100 degrees into a 2-cup measuring cup. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it stand until swollen, about 5 minutes. Add enough room-temperature water to equal 1 3/4 cups and then add the oil.
The food processor is the easiest place to make pizza dough. Plse the four and salt to combine them. Then pour the liquid ingredients through the feed tube while continuing to pulse.
Once the dough comes together, process it until it is smooth and elastic, about 30 seconds.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and shape it into a smooth, round ball.
Place the kneaded dough in a deep oiled bowl and cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap.
After the dough has double in size (about 2 hours), deflate it by pressing down on it with your fist. Divide into 4 equal portions and shape each into a smooth, round ball.
Cover dough balls with a damp cloth and let relax for at least 10 minutes, but no longer than 30 minutes.

Crispy Bread Bowls
Adapted from: The Pampered Chef Soups, Stews & Chilis

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place dough cut-side down on baking stone and press lightly.
Brush dough with olive oil. Bake 21-23 minutes or until golden brown.
To serve, slice off top of each bread round. Carefully remove centers to form bowls. Place on plates and ladle soup into bowls.

These freeze really nicely. Wrap leftover bread bowls in aluminum foil and store in a plastic bag in the freezer. When ready to use, pop bread bowls, still in the aluminum foil, directly onto the middle shelf of the oven until warmed through.

Cream of Broccoli-Cheese Soup
From: Better Homes & Gardens The New Cookbook

4 cups fresh or frozen chopped brocoli
1 1/2 cups chicken broth or vegetable stock
1 tbsp butter or margerine
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp lemon-pepper seasoning
1/4 tsp salt
black pepper
1 cup milk, half-and-half, or light cream
1/2 cup shredded American cheese

In a large saucepan cook broccoli, covered, in a large amount of boiling water for 8-10 minutes or until tender. Drain well. Set aside 1 cup cooked broccoli.
In a food processor, combine the remaining broccoli and 3/4 cup of the broth. Cover and process about 1 minute or until smooth. Set aside.
In same saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour, seasoning, salt, and a dash of black pepper. Add milk all at once. Cook and stir until slightly thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 1 minute more.
Stir in the reserved cooked broccoli, shredded cheese, and remaining broth. Cook and stir until heated through. If necessary, stir in additional milk to reach desired consistency. If desired, season to taste with additional salt and black pepper.

This was a huge hit and we will definitely make it again! Here's what it looked like all put together:

Creating Your Own Worm Bin

2010-03-05T08:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I received the worms for my worm bin and, after charging the batteries to my husband's drill, quickly set to work preparing their new home!

I ordered 500 worms (approximately 1lb.) from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm. They looked like this when they arrived:

Not very exicing, I know. I decided to build my worm bin out of two 10 gallon rubbermaid tubs:

The first step was to drill 24 evenly spaced holes in the bottom of each bin using a 1/4-inch drill bit. These holes will allow the "worm tea" to drain and the worms to move between bins.

Then, I tool a 1/16-inch drill bit to drill air holes along the top edge of each bin and across one lid.

That's pretty much it for preparing the worm bins. Next I had to prepare bedding for the worms. I used both paper from my shredder (i.e., old bills and credit card offers) and newspaper that was cut into 1-inch strips. I soaked all the paper in water, wrung it out really well, then distributed it among one of the bins. All in all, I had about an inch of shredded paper at the bottom of the bin and maybe three inches or so of newspaper on top of that.

Finally, it was time to introduce the worms to their new home! Inside the shipping box was a cloth bag containing the worms and some of their native soil

All I had to do was dump the worms and soil out of the bag and onto the moist bedding I had prepared. I then cut a piece of carboard to cover the bedding and moistened it before putting it on top of the worms.

All that was left to do was assemble the completed worm bin. The bin containing the bedding and worms was nestled into the other bin. I used four empty aluminum cans (yay for repurposing!) to prop up these two bins on the second lid, which will catch any "worm tea." Here's what the final set-up looked like inside my laundry room:

Tonight I'll probably add my first few food scraps, burrying them in the bedding on one side of the top bin.

Do you have a composting set-up? If so, I'd love to hear how it's going or any tips from fellow vermicomposters.

Resources: Cheap and Easy Worm Bin

Worms!

2010-03-04T14:36:00.000-05:00

The worms for my long awaited vermicomposting bin have finally arrived! I'm in the process of finishing their bin, but both batteries for my husband's drill are dead, so I have to wait for one of them to charge before I can continue. Pictures and further explanation will follow!

P.S. I'm way too excited about this.

Financial Strength

2010-02-21T19:51:00.001-05:00

I'm reading Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money With Your Honey by Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar. In the first part of the book, they ask the reader to respond to one question --"When I live my life from a position of financial strength, I will...." I'm curious how people respond to this question. Here's my response, what's yours?

When I live my life from a position of financial strengh, I will...

feel confident about my career choice;
not worry about future expenses (mortgage, college tuition, medical bills, etc.);
live in an environmentally sustainable way; and
be able to help others in need.

I may add on to this later, but I think that's a solid statement for now.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

My husband and I had a wonderful weekend. First of all, we finally got some snow!! It has been torturing us to hear how the DC Metro area has almost 6 feet of snow when we had nothing. Unfortunately, it all melted within 24 hours, but it was nice while it lasted. I'm still holding out for some more, though!

On Saturday night, we went to a local non-profit theatre to see their production of Macbeth. I know, really romantic. But, we both loved it. I hadn't read that play since middle school and my husband had never read it. I still have a hard time understand Shakespearian language sometimes, but seeing it acted out obviously helps tremendously. We're looking forward to seeing other productions there in the future. Yay for local theatre!

On Sunday after we returned home from church, we snuggled on the couch to watch the Olympics before getting all dressed up for dinner. We went to the Melting Pot and had a fabulous time! There was a set 5-course menu (read - way too much food) that was amazing. They also took our picture and gave us a magnet frame for it along with those refridgerator words. I also got to take home the yellow rose that was on our table.

We returned home to watch more of the Olympics before I passed out at 9 or 10pm.

How was your Valentine's Day?

The future

2010-02-01T12:17:00.000-05:00

Last week my 6 year old laptop decided to finally bite the dust. Although it was inconvenient timing, I was able to transfer all of "My Documents" to an external hard drive. I've ordered a new laptop that I am really excited about, an Acer Aspire Timeline. It is considered a lightweight laptop and has an 8 hour battery life! It's supposed to be arriving today, so I'm on pins and needles waiting for the UPS truck to show up!

In other news, we're not even a month into the new school semester and I am very behind, maining on reading. Is it really possible to keep up with all the readings professors assign? I'm starting to think not.

I'm taking a course titled "Preparing for the Professoriate", which has caused me to really think about what direction I want to take my life (and my husband's) when I graduate with my Ph.D. We've been doing some tough thinking, but the answer is never clear as day. One thing we are really concerned about is when will we start a family? If I decide on a tenure-track faculty position, I essentially wouldn't be able to take maternity leave for 6 years. Six years!!! So do we try and have a child while I'm still in school. I know many people, including nearly all my family members, would advise against this, but my huband and I don't want to be nearly 40 before we start to have children. It's all up in the air right now. We have no concrete answers.

There was something else I was going to write about, but now I forget. Oh, yes. My husband and I have instituted a date night once a week as part of our New Year's resolutions. Tonight, we are going to our favorite local pizza place and then bowling. Another great thing to look forward to!

Okay, enough procrastinating, more reading...

Poem

2010-01-25T09:05:00.000-05:00

I wrote this limerick with a few classmates about our potential new career path. Can you guess what it is?

Enless directions for our research to go
Countless students to encourage to grow
An eye for collaboration
A hobby to kill frustration
And the freedom to create our own flow

Yay for using the right side of my brain!

Laundry

2009-12-20T17:20:00.000-05:00

I'm trying out a new laundry system. First of all, I separate my clothes by color:

1. Red, Orange, Purple
2. Blue, Green
3. Black, Gray
4. White, off-white

I haven't figured out where yellow should go, but we don't wear much yellow, so it hasn't been a problem yet. I do it this way so that I can wash everything in cold water, which saves on electricity. I also try to run as many loads back-to-back as possible so that the drier stays warm between loads. This also saves on electricity. I do need to get one of those long lint brushes to stick through the lint vent. I think there may be a back-up because it't taking more than one cycle to dry a load of clothes right now. My long-term goal is to dry my clothes outside most of the year, but that will have to wait until we buy a house. It's against our current lease to dry clothes outside. Even though I see other people do it, I don't want to take my chances.

In an endeavor to use more environmentally-friendly cleaning products, I just made my first batch of homemade laundry detergent! The first load using this recipe is in the washer now, so I'll have to give you my review later. I was going to take pictures, but my husband is taking a nap and I can't take a picture of myself...

Homemade Laundry Detergent:
1/2 cup powdered Borax
1/2 cup powedered washing soda
1 cup grated Fels-Naptha soap

I was able to find all three of these ingredients at a combination of my local grocery stores. Fels-Naptha was the hardest to find. I recently found out that the local General Store also carries it, and it can also be ordered online. I used the smallest grain on my box grater to grate the Fels-Naptha by hand. One cup is approximately 1/2 a bar. I use 1 tbsp. of this powdered detergent per load. You can increase this to 2 tbsp. if you have an especially dirty load.

I've almost finished using up all of the liquid fabric softener I bought quite a while back. I switched to liquid softener because I thought it was such a waste to use the drier sheets and throw them away. I could never figure out another use for them. After the liquid softener is gone, I plan to switch to plain old white vinegar in its place.

Have you tried any homemade laundry detergents?

Random Thoughts

2009-12-10T12:15:00.002-05:00

I find myself thinking all the time about things I want to blog about, usually when I'm driving in the car. But when I get back to my computer, I've completely forgotten it all! So right now, I'm going to try and do a brain dump. Hopefully I'll be able to elaborate in future posts.

I'm making progress in physical therapy. I even got to run in place on a trampoline yesterday!
Christmas decorations: we bought our first Christmas tree, I made an advent wreath, and I'm trying to knit our Christmas stockings.
I'm confused about what direction I should be going with my life.
I restarted my part-time job.
I think I need to do some reading on time management, but not until I study and take my geology final tomorrow night!
I "quit" one of my challenges.

I have quite a bunch of pictures ready and waiting on my camera. Hopefully I can add them and update recipes as well.

I'm not going to promise to elaborate on these thoughts later, but I'll do my best!

The start of a new week

2009-11-30T23:38:00.002-05:00

I can feel it. This is the week that I get back on track, the week I start adding parts of my "old" life to my "new" life. How do I know?

A. I'm still awake and it's almost midnight. As an undergrad, this was not unusual. As a matter of fact, midnight was early! Now, 10:30pm is late for me...

and

B. I went to the gym at 10pm. I've noticed a pattern over the last few weeks. If I don't make it to the gym on Monday, I'm unlikely to make it any other day of the week.

I found a site, Beginner Triathlete, that has a three month beginner cycling program. Today was my first day on the program, so I was supposed to warm up for 10 minutes, do 10x30 seconds at 100rpm with 1 minute recoveries, and cool down for 5 minutes. I'm not sure how the bike at the gym measures speed, but it's certainly not in rpm, because my warm up was around a 10.0. So I did my 10x30 seconds at approximately a 15.0 on whatever scale the bike uses. It felt good to be on a bike, but I still need to figure out the right level to provide enough of a challenge for me. This first day of the program didn't get me anywhere near sweaty, though I was a bit tired at the end. After the bike, I did a little weight lifting, but didn't really feel that into it, so came home. Hey, at least I made it there and did something, right?

Food Journal:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: leftover chicken noodle soup and multigrain crackers
Snack: 30g pistachios in the shell
Dinner: homemade pizza with mushrooms and olives, diet pepsi
Other: less than 1/4 cup of ice cream, 2 hershey's kisses

I'm not sure I made it on the whole drinking 80 oz. of water front. I'm finding that to be much more of a challenge now that it's starting to get colder.

I've lost track

2009-11-26T08:01:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope that if you are/were traveling you arrived or will arrive safely to your destination. My husband and I spent all day yesterday driving to his parent's house. In a few minutes we will be off to see my family for the morning. I am so excited!

Before I get to my journal entry, here's a little background on my ankle: While I was working this summer, I noticed that my left ankle would swell up pretty badly. It eventually got to the point where I went to an urgent care facility, but they could do nothing for me. Since it wasn't hurting me, I decided not to pursue it any further until I returned to school. Fast forward to the end of October, when my ankle really started to hurt. The health clinic on campus took x-rays, found no broken bones, and referred me to a physician with a health medicine background. This new doctor prescribed an anti-inflammatory for a few weeks, which didn't help at all, so I was sent for an MRI, which I have to say was a cool experience for someone with my background. The MRI revealed a bone bruise above my ankle (sorry, I don't remember all the technical terms) and fluid build-up (edema?) around my ankle bone. So now I've started 6 weeks of physical therapy, which I really hope gets me back into running!

Anyways, here's my journal entry from Nov. 24:

Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch: chicken noodle soup

Dinner: Mexican restaurant: chips and salsa, diet coke, cheese quesadilla, chicken enchilada, chicken burrito (or something like that)

Other: oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, nerds, pumpkin seeds, yoplait delights, graham cracker

Over the past week, I've really fallen off the weight-loss train. I was flat out lazy and stopped keeping track of my eating, which has not been all that wonderful. I've particularly had problems with snacking now that my husband has started his new job.

I've also been slacking on the gym time. After talking to my husband, I'm going to have to start going to the gym without him in order to get enough exercise time in. I also need a training goal to work towards. I'm not allowed to run or do any other weight-bearing activity because of my ankle, but the physical therapist has approved bicycling and the elliptical. I tried the elliptical yesterday and was really paying for it today, so I don't think I'll be trying that again until after my next PT appointment. So that leaves the bicycle. I've been unsuccessful so far in finding a training regimen for it. Can anyone point me to some book websites for bicycling that would have training plans on it?

Food Journal Week 2, Day 3

2009-11-11T22:39:00.002-05:00

Breakfast: 1 cup Kashi Go Lean Crunch and a splash of milk
Lunch: the last of the BBQ (~1/4 cup) and 2 slices sourdough bread
Dinner: BBQ sandwich with cole slaw and potato chips, sweet tea

Sorry these haven't been very interesting posts lately. Too many things to do and not enough time!

Food Journal Week 2, Day 2

2009-11-10T23:28:00.002-05:00

Breakfast: Cheerios and raisins with a splash of milk
Lunch: none
Dinner: 2 slices of mediterranean pizza and a diet coke

I think I fell off the bandwagon today, but tomorrow's a new day! My husband promised me we'd go to the gym tomorrow morning.

Food Journal Week 2, Day 1

2009-11-09T22:46:00.002-05:00

When I did my weigh in this morning, I was pleasantly surprised--I've lost 3 pounds! Hopefully this trend will continue!

Holiday Health Nut Challenge:
Breakfast: 2 graham cracker sheets with peanut butter
Lunch: leftover vegetable couscous
Dinner: Lentil-Tofu Soup and sourdough toast with margarine
Other: Apple Pie, 1/2 apple during making of said pie

I'm still doing poorly at getting my 5 fruits and vegetables a day. Somehow I need to make them more accessible when I'm constantly on the run. I also didn't make it to the gym as I had hoped and I don't forsee getting even a workout DVD in because it's so late--way past my bed time!

HFN Holiday Challenge:

drink enough water--5 points
30 min incidental activity--5 points
eat 3x per day--5 points
6-9 hours of sleep--5 points
no junk food--5 points
compliment yourself--5 points
wear sunscreen--5 points
take inventory--5 points
eat breakfast from home--10 points
eat lunch from home--10 points
eat dinner from home--10 points
avoid alcohol--10 points
drink only water--10 points
eat vegetarian for the whole day--15 points

Pictures are coming soon, I promise! I also want to figure out how to post a graph of my pedometer output.

Food Journal Day 5

2009-11-06T21:08:00.003-05:00

Breakfast: 2 graham crackers with peanut butter (<2tbsp)
Lunch: Spinach and mushroom quiche
Dinner: at least 1 cup of white rice, chicken curry (sortof)
Other: mini skittles and mini snickers, several toasted pumpkin seeds

So to explain the whole dinner thing, my husband and I made a chicken curry dish and it was way more spicy than I expected. So I'm not sure how much of mine I ate; I wound up eating plain rice to cool down my mouth. I also definitely reached my 80oz of water! The rest of what was on my plate got packaged up and will be a weekday lunch for my husband.

Wow, am I really sore from that body sculting class I went to yesterday. I am definitely aware that my butt is a muscle and I'm sure I waddle a little when I walk. Hopefully I will be much less sore tomorrow, as I will be standing for most of the day parking cars for the football game (yay). Despite my soreness, I managed to make it to the beginner step class at the gym this morning and I even survived the whole hour, though I was definitely more tired than the last time I took the class.

I remembered to take a picture of the quiche today at lunch, so I will try and post that sometime this weekend. Off to bed I go, considering I have to leave at 5am tomorrow to park cars.

On a totally random note, I say 'definitely' a lot; I should find another word...

Food Journal Day 4

2009-11-05T21:38:00.002-05:00

Holiday Health Nut Challenge:
Breakfast: 1 cup cheerios with 1/4 cup raisins
Lunch: 1 slice spinach and mushroom quiche and 1 serving carrots
Dinner: Chicken-broccoli-tortollini soup and 2 corn bread squares
Dessert: Coffee with 2 tbsp french vanilla creamer and 1 slice pumpkin pound cake
Other: ~1 handful total of toasted pumpkin seeds

Since my class was cancelled this morning, I decided to attend a body sculpt class at the gym. I felt really good about myself afterwards because I was able to do most of the moves with only a few modifications and I didn't really wimp out on any of the moves until the end of the class. I also learned that I have really horrible balance, especially when doing lunges. Maybe this is because of my injured foot? I wasn't too sore after the class, but now I'm starting to get stiff. I did my best to stretch, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be hurting tomorrow, which is unfortunate because I can't take any more pain killers! Since I don't have to work tomorrow morning, I think I'm going to try the beginner's step class again. I'm kinda bored with the bike machine, but need to get cardio in there somehow!

HFN Holiday Challenge Points:

Drink enough water--5 points
Perform 30 minutes of incidental activity--5 points
Eat at least 3 times a day--5 points
Get 6-9 hours of sleep--5 points
Look in the mirror and compliment yourself--5 points
Wear sunscreen--5 points
Take inventory--5 points
30 minutes of dedicated exersize--10 points
Eat breakfast prepared at home--10 points
Eat lunch prepared at home--10 points
Eat dinner prepared at home--10 points
Stretch before bed--10 points
Avoid alcohol--10 points
Work out with someone else--15 points
Go to a new group exercise class--20 points

Today's total: 130 points

That's the highest number of points I've reached in one day since I started this challenge! One thing I'm finding it hard to earn points on is eating 5 servings of fruits/vegetables a day. I came close today with 4 servings, but I will have to work harder on this point. I've also picked out a book to read for the challenge, which will earn me 30 points when I finish it--Life At These Speeds by Jeremy Jackson. I also picked up The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, by Alan Sillitoe, but it's really short, so I figured I wouldn't count that one. It's certainly an interesting read, though!

Recipe: Weeknight Cheese Quiche

2009-11-04T22:17:00.003-05:00

Last post of the night, I promise!

Here is the recipe I used for the spinach and mushroom quiche, which was quite delicious.

Source: Kraft foods
Makes: 6 servings

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

1 onion, chopped

1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained

4 eggs

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1 frozen pie crust (9 inch), thawed

1/4 cup bacon bits

Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Cook mushrooms and onions in a large nonstick skillet sprayed with cooking spray on medium-high heat 5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Remove from heat and stir in spinach.
Beat eggs, milk, and mayonnaise in a medium bowl with a whisk until well blended. Add spinach mixture and cheese and pour into crust. Top with bacon bits.
Bake for 50 minutes or until center is set and top is golden brown.

Food Journal Day 3

2009-11-04T22:10:00.002-05:00

Breakfast: 1 cup cheerios, 1/4 cup raisins, dash of 1% milk
Lunch: leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes
Snack: 2 small chocolate chip cookies
Dinner: 3/4 cup chicken pot pie, 1 cup fruit salad, 2 small rolls, lemonade
Dessert: 1 small slice of snickers pie and 1/2 small slice of peanut butter pie

So obviously sweets were my weakness today. I also failed to make it to the gym...again. However, I did do a stability ball workout DVD, so I did get some exercise in. I'm planning on attending at least one gym class tomorrow, maybe two. Maybe I'll be able to avoid the sweets since I'll be away from home most of the day and should make it home at a relatively decent time. It just occurred to me that if I put the Halloween candy away in a cabinet, maybe I'll eat less of it.

You know what's most frustrating about trying to lose weight? Every Monday is the Monday. The start of the week where you're finally going to do it all right. But that week never pans out the way it's supposed to, at least for me. One day I'll have my Monday.

Handwritten Journal Entry

2009-11-04T22:03:00.002-05:00

So last night I was way too tired to face another computer screen, so I wrote my update in a real journal. Remember those? Here's what I wrote:

November 3, 2009
So I've started these two challenges and I'm starting to wonder why. I guess I was hoping they would provide motivation to eat healthily and go tot he gym, but it doesn't seem to be working. I guess it did get me to do my stability ball strength training last night, but if that's what I'm going to do, then why am I paying for a gym membership, especially when [my husband] still doesn't have a job? I think the eating front would be easier if we didn't have Halloween candy in the house. When I'm starving and waiting for [my husband] to go out and get the one dinner ingredient I've forgotten (two nights in a row!), they're just too tempting.

One thing I don't like about one of the challenges is the awarding of points for drinking only water. I drink my 80oz. of water and then I want a different flavor! And if I ever start this co-op...then I'm definitely going to need some coffee when I get up a 5am!

What I ate today:
Breakfast: cheerios with raisins and 1% milk
Lunch: leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes
Dinner: 2 slices spinach and mushroom quiche
Other: a pinch of mozzarella cheese; Reese's peanut butter cup; mini laffy taffy; mini skittles

While I didn't make it to the gym because I was exhausted and my ankle was really hurting (I know, excuses, excuses), I logged 11336 steps on my pedometer! 3154 of those were considered aerobic steps. Therefore, I burned 236 calories by walking 2.14 miles. So I definitely get my points for incidental exercise.

New Motivation

2009-11-02T19:40:00.003-05:00

I'm not able to run due to possible shin splints, so I've been slacking off in the exercise department. However, I hope I've found some new motivation--two fitness challenges. The first is HFN Holiday Challenge from The Nest, which runs from November 1 until December 31 and has a point basis. The second challenge is the Holiday Health Nut Challenge, which is being run by Destination: Athlete from November 2 until December 28. For me, this is a weight loss challenge, similar to The Biggest Loser (my favorite show!). I am attempting to lose 12 pounds by the end of the challenge, drink 80 oz. of water a day, and keep a food journal. I'm hoping that these two challenges will help keep me accountable for the food I put in my mouth and provide motivation for going to the gym, or at least to do a workout video here in the apartment!

So, here are my check-ins for each challenge:

HFN Holiday Challenge:

drink enough water - 5pts
30 minutes of incidental activity - 5pts
3 meals a day - 5pts
wear sunscreen - 5pts
blog about how you feel - 5pts
get 6-9 hours of sleep - 5pts
eat home-made breakfast - 10pts
eat home-made dinner - 10pts
avoid alcohol - 10pts
drink only water for the day - 10pts

I need to find a Health & Fitness related book to read. Any suggestions? I'll need to make a stop at the public library or the school library.

Holiday Health Nut Challenge:

My beginning weight for this challenge is 142 pounds. I hope to make it to 130 by December 28, with a long-term goal of 120 pounds. Surprisingly enough, I actually did drink 80 oz. of water today. That sounds like so much water to me, that I didn't think I really accomplished it, but I did! For the food journal, here's what I ate today:

2 graham cracker sheets spread with peanut butter (~1 tbps)
canned fruit (~1/2 cup)
6 inch turkey sub on 9-grain honey oat with spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, and pickles
small box of Milk Duds
canned fruit (~1/4 cup)
mini snickers bar
2.5 cornbread squares
1/2 cup pork BBQ
a little more than 1/4 cup baked beans

My biggest problem was that I was starving when I got home from school, or else I wouldn't have eaten the extra canned fruit or the mini snickers bar. This actually sounded a lot worse in my head, but doesn't seem so bad written down, which may be due to crappy estimating (note to self: measure food from now on). If I can find a calorie estimator online, I'll post the tally later on.

The big thing I haven't done yet today is make it to the gym for a dedicated workout. I know these are crappy reasons, but my foot was really hurting, I have a rebound headache from the anti-inflammatory medicine the doctor has me on, and I'm tired. Maybe I'll play Wii for a little while. Does that count as a dedicated workout? Something tells me no.

Goal #1 Update

2009-10-12T20:00:00.002-04:00

On my very first blog, I established a set of goals I set for myself, the first one being:

1. Return to my pre-wedding clothes size.
a. Work my way back into a running program.
b. Portion control
c. Prepare meals from scratch with organic/local/environmentally friendly ingredients
d. Drink eight 8oz. glasses of water a day
e. Take a multivitamin and calcium chew every day

So how am I doing with the very first goal I set myself? Well, I've started a new running routine and am supposed to run a 5k on halloween. However, last week my knee and ankle started hurting when I tried to increase my mileage. Since I have a tendency to get injured, I'm going to back of the mileage for a little while. It may wind up that I have to walk a lot of that 5k, but at least I'll finish it!

My husband and I somehow managed to fit a gym membership into our tight budget, and until last week we had been really good about using it almost every day. I think last week we both lost motivation. For my part, I am frustrated because I've been doing all this working out and I'm not seeing the scale budge or much of a change in my body shape. I also get bored really easily, so I think I need to try out some different weight lifting machines.

Portion control is still an issue for me. I've even tried using a small dessert plate, but that doesn't help if I keep going back for seconds (or thirds). I think my lack of self control is at its worst when I'm eating dinner at church. I'm not sure how to remedy this--eat slower, drink more water?

My husband and I have been doing fairly well with cooking from scratch, although I haven't taken any pictures of our yummy creations recently. I did find some pictures of the feast we prepared for Cinco de Mayo, though, that I never posted!

Honestly, I haven't been keeping track of how much water I've been drinking, but I'm certain it's not anywhere near enough. I also left all my vitamins at my parents house when I moved back here and I haven't bought a new stash. Vitamins are expensive!

Update

2009-08-31T13:42:00.003-04:00

A lot has happened in the past month. I finished my internship and have moved back to be with my husband. In addition, school started two weeks ago and all my activities are back into full swing. I have to admit, I'm finding it a little difficult to adjust back to this life and I'm lacking some serious focus and motivation.

While most of our things are unpacked and we're essentially moved into the new apartment, there are a few lingering boxes and a serious lack of decoration. While I would love to be able to go to any store and buy what I want to make this feel like a home for us, I know I can't do that right now. My husband still has not found a new job and while we have started to receive unemployment benefits, our budget is still very tight. Nonetheless, we've been finding ways to entertain ourselves without spending too much money. Just yesterday we drove up to one of the "local" state parks for a short 2 mile hike. My husband also took pictures and collected information to use in his hiking/backpacking blog (http://www.examiner.com/x-11420-Columbia-Backpacking-Examiner).

On top of my "normal" obligations, I've added several new commitments to my already busy schedule. I know what you're probably thinking--why would I try to cram more things into less time? For me, at least in my younger years, it was easier to keep motivated and productive when I had a multitude of activities and responsibilities. I didn't have time to procrastinate, so everything got finished on time or even early. I'm still hoping to get back to that old me.

Over the next few posts, I'll revisit some of the goals I set for myself when I first started this blog so that I can evaluate any progress I've made. But for now, I think I'll start by writing some to do lists.

Left Behind

2009-08-05T22:28:00.002-04:00

I've been feeling like life has been passing me by lately. I started to feel this way when I realized I'm the only one in my group of friends who is working towards a Ph.D. While everyone else is moving on with their life (jobs, marriage, buying a house, having babies), I feel like I'm standing still. I feel like I'm being restricted by the choices I've made in addition to holding my husband back from his own career aspirations. There are just no job opportunities in his field where we live.

Will it be worth it in the end?
What am I really gaining by earning a Ph.D.?
Why can't I just be happy with the path I've chosen and be proud of all my accomplishments?

WHAT IF I'VE MADE A MISTAKE?

I Love Running

2009-07-14T20:42:00.003-04:00

I love running, but I forgot.

I went for a walk this evening all by myself. I'm working on achieving 10,000 steps a day, which is harder than it sounds. At least I think it's harder than it sounds. Anyways, before I knew it, I was walking faster and faster until I broke into a jog. Without anyone with me and without any music or other distractions, I was able to focus on how good it made me feel to run again. I miss running.

I still felt some twinges of pain in my legs, but I suspect that may have been partly due to me not wearing my running shoes. The real test will be tomorrow. We'll see if I can walk normally or not.

And in case you're wondering, I didn't reach my 10,000 step goal. I'm just shy with 9,405, but you know what? I'm ok with that.

:)

Bragging Rights

2009-07-11T17:10:00.002-04:00

I have to admit that I'm proud of myself. Yesterday was a good eating day and instead of driving up to the drug store at the end of our street when I need to replenish my toiletries, mom and I walked up there. That means I did a good thing for the environment and I got some exercise (by walking more than 11,000 steps!). Hopefully this trend will continue...

Picking Myself Back Up

2009-07-08T20:25:00.003-04:00

I am really disappointed with myself. I've gained almost 20 pounds over the last year, most in the last few months. The worst part is, I'm finding it nearly impossible to pick myself back up and get back with the program.

I eat compulsively, and a lot of the times, I really am hungry. Waking up at 5 to go to work has really messed with my eating schedule. I eat breakfast at about 5:30am before I leave and then am starving again by 10am. I struggle to make it till at least 11:30am to eat lunch, but then am starving again on my drive home before dinner. I can barely make it to 5pm. *sigh* I don't know how to fix this!

Unrealistic Expectations

2009-06-14T20:52:00.002-04:00

Why can't I do everything? Why can't I work a full-time job, keep up an exercise routine, cook meals, and keep the house clean?

How do I make my expectations more realistic?

*sigh*

An Avalanche of Receipts

2009-05-28T19:22:00.004-04:00

My husband and I have a drawer that we put all of our credit card receipts in when we come in the house so that they are all in one place when it's time to pay the bills. The problem is that neither of us had actually been going through them when it was bill time. Don't follow our example! This is what the drawer wound up looking like after months of piling up:

This drawer was so full that we had quit opening it an were just shoving the receipts through the cracks. So lazy! I eventually got fed up with it, so I organized all of the receipts by month and put each month's receipts in a separate envelope. The envelopes go into a shoebox sorted by year that we keep in the closet. Look--only one receipt left!

Hopefully we can keep this habit up. Do you keep your credit card receipts? If so, how do you organize them? I'm always looking for better ideas!

Adventures in Running

2009-05-18T21:21:00.003-04:00

Almost a year after I stopped running seriously and six months since I stopped running, I have started a new program. On Saturday, I went on a run with my ROTC brother, who effectively became my personal trainer. Unfortunately, I didn't run as far as he had hoped, but at least I got back into it. We covered a total of 2 miles. I ran a maximum of 1 mile, but probably less; I'm bad at guessing my running mileage. I am a very stubborn person and therefore was resistant to my brother's encouragement to keep running. I have suffered far too many running injuries and would like to avoid that situation again. Sorry bro, but I'm going to listen to my body before I listen to you.

Yesterday and today my legs hurt so bad I could barely walk. Stairs were pretty much out of the question. I've learned from previous running conquests that running again will help ease the pain, so against my body's wishes, I went for another run this evening. I have absolutely no idea how much ground I covered or even how long I was gone. I had no watch on and forgot to put on my pedometer. Additionally, I decided to run a different course last-minute than I had on Saturday, so I can't even compare the two days. That's fine with me.

I've decided for not to focus more on proper running style than time or distance. As my body gets stronger and realizes I'm not giving up this time (I hope), my running time and distance will increase. My goal is to be able to run 30 minutes straight by the end of the summer. Wish me luck!

New Work

2009-05-14T21:22:00.002-04:00

So I've started my new job, and not even 24 hours into it, I get sick. I still went in, though. I know, I'm a horrible person, but summer hires don't get any sick or vacation days! Luckily, I'm starting to feel much better and hopefully I'll be more or less back to normal tomorrow.

Now that I'm working a full-time job, I'm finding it much harder to get things done. I get up at 5am so that I can be at work by 6:45am, and it's usually 5:30pm before I get home. After eating dinner, I've been pretty much vegging out since I've been sick. I don't understand how working moms everywhere do it. How do they find time to work a full shift, cook dinner, clean, work out and do everything else that comes with taking care of a family? They must be sleep deprived.

So obviously I have not made very much progress on my goals. I have not worked out hardly at all. Until I got sick, I was pretty good about reading at least one bible chapter before I went to bed. I have been pretty good about taking my vitamins and drinking water. I make so many trips to the women's restroom during the day! Hopefully once I'm over this sickness for good I can find time to run in the evenings. If not, I have a 45 minute lunch break and may consider bringing sneakers to the office so I can walk around the block a few times. I'm not sure how well that will work once it starts getting really hot, though. Looks like I'll just have to get used to running in the dark.

As always, suggestions and comments are always welcome!

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T20:01:00.002-04:00

Today my brother and I joined my mom at church, where she sang a fabulous solo. Go mom! After grabbing a quick lunch at home, we headed on a road-trip to my new office tomorrow, just to make sure I knew where I was going. After returning home, we watched "The Dutchess", headed to a yummy dinner at TGI Fridays and banana splits at Friendly's :)

What did you do for mother's day?

Study Skills

2009-05-06T21:12:00.002-04:00

For now, I'm off the hook for this goal. Unlike the typical graduate student, I'm not taking any classes this summer. I'm not even going to be doing research at my home institution. I'm heading off to the Washington, DC area to work for three months at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

However, I do have ideas as to how to improve my study skills when the new semester arrives. I fully admit that my note-taking skills are horrible. I can either listen to what my professor is saying or write down what he/she is writing down on the board, not both at the same time. For my birthday this year, my parents gave me a digital voice recorder. I used it for a few classes at the end of the semester and was surprised at how much I was missing when I listened to one of them. The only problem now is finding an extra hour per class in my busy day to re-listen to the class and fill in my notes.

I also need to work on my time management. It's not that I don't have the time to do things, it's that I don't make the time to do things. This goes back to the laziness issue. When I get home from work/school, I want to veg out in front of the TV, even if it means watching a show I've already seen. This needs to stop.

I will be doing a little bit of studying this summer in preparation for my qualifying exams this fall. Although there are not lectures to attend, just my old class notes and textbook, hopefully I won't slack off and will really put some hard studying in so that I pass my qualifying exam with ease.

If you have any study suggestions that work well for you, I'd love to hear about them!

Cleaning

2009-05-05T21:39:00.003-04:00

I hate cleaning, and yet I yearn to be "good" at it. Why can't I be one of those people whose homes are seemingly immaculate at all moments in time? There are moments in my life when I get really excited about cleaning (weird, I know), but I usually burn out after cleaning the kitchen. You should have seen this apartment during the last two weeks of the semester. It was a wreck. Books, binders, and miscellaneous papers strewn the entire 360 degrees around my workspace.

I've tried several cleaning schedules that others have laid out for themselves. Most consist of a list of daily cleaning chores as well as a set of weekly cleaning chores that are spread throughout the week. I have yet to be able to stick to any of these schedules, mostly because I'm lazy and addicted to crappy reality TV shows...

Recently, I have had a breakthrough. I bought myself an organic cleaning book and am very excited about implementing many of the ideas when we move to our new apartment in July. I know, why wait till then? Because a) it will be like starting from scratch and b) I'm moving 650+ miles away for a temporary summer position. Maybe I'll employ my new-found techniques while living with my parents this summer. Look for updates!

My Spiritual Journey

2009-05-04T20:40:00.003-04:00

As the Peer Minister at our local Episcopal church, I am in charge of planning and coordinating weekly meetings and events for the Canterbury college ministry. I try to be as open as possible about my spiritual journey. Sometimes I'm just as confused and unsure as everyone else and I don't feel comfortable telling other people what they should believe. Everyone has their own spiritual journey.

For awhile, I was diligent about reading my bible every night and I'm not really sure why I stopped. I think it's because I started bringing other books into bed with me at night. So my first goal is to get back into this habit. I have never read the entire bible cover to cover, but that is something I would like to accomplish.

I also struggle a lot with prayer. Most times, I am unable to turn off my brain and just listen. This is something I need to work on. One week at Canterbury, we learned about centering prayer. Maybe I should look into this practice a little more in detail.

Eventually, I would like to enroll in the Education For Ministry (EFM) courses offered through the University of the South. These courses use a group setting to delve deeper into bible passages and their meanings. They also cover topics such as church history and theology. But like I said, this is a ways down the road for me; I don't need any more courses at the moment!

Feel free to leave a comment about your own spiritual goals. God Bless!

Twenty Pounds

2009-05-03T15:49:00.003-04:00

That's how much weight I've gained since I was married on July 12, 2008. It's possible the number may be a little higher; I've been afraid to step on the scale. But to me, it's not really about the weight. I am more concerned with fitting back into my clothes and feeling sexy again. So how am I going to go about losing this weight?

1. Work my way back into a running program. I've been injured since January and really hope that I can start getting into some more high-impact activities. I will be following the First Steps program laid out by Runners World, which is a 10 week training plan.

2. Portion control, especially with respects to my weakness--dessert!

3. Avoid prepared foods by making meals from scratch with as many organic/local/environmentally conscious ingredients as we can afford.

4. Drink eight 8-oz. glasses of water a day, and remember to take a daily multivitamin and calcium chew.

Please feel free to comment with any suggestions or encouraging words!

A New Start

2009-05-02T13:32:00.000-04:00

Over the last couple of months, I've been contemplating the direction my life has gone, and lamented on the person I've become. Why can't I be the girl I was in undergrad--involved, studious, religious, and (mostly) healthy? I've become very lazy and it's starting to affect my graduate studies and overall health and happiness; not a good thing!

So here are my general goals. I'll be posting specifics over the next few days.

1. Return to my pre-wedding clothing size.
2. Refocus my spiritual life.
3. Develop a reasonable regular cleaning schedule.
4. Improve study skills.
5. Improve cooking skills.
6. Be less critical and more understanding.