Day 3

Day 3

This is not a beautiful photo. Let's get that out of the way.

When I decided to do this 365 project, I knew that I would need to take inspiration wherever I could find it. It turns out that my cousin is also doing a photo-a-day project, although she has only committed to a month, and she is using a set of prompts. Day 1 was "resolution", Day 2 was "street", and Day 3 is "lunch". 

Under normal circumstances, I would only photograph my food if it were particularly beautiful, or looked like buttholes. Because we all remember Ptomaine Wednesday and that got OLD and I am not a food photographer.

But.

Despite its modest appearance, this is a special lunch. 

This year for Christmas, my husband's grandmother gave me (among other things) a cardboard box full of canned ingredients for "Terry's Taco Soup", with a hand-written recipe card and in true Grandma fashion, a five dollar bill to buy the ground beef, cheddar cheese and sour cream that would have spoiled under the tree.

It was one of my favorite gifts. I made the soup last week and brought leftovers for lunch today. It tastes much better than it looks.

Day 2

Day 2

Today we made beer. Well, actually, we made wort. In three weeks, it might be beer.   My house smells like West Seattle used to, when Rainier beer was made right next to the freeway. I think they make coffee there now.

365 project: Day 1

Day 1

In 2013, I will take a photo every day.
This morning, I woke up very early at my mother's house. I took Gus for a walk to the creek,  our feet crunched the frozen grass.  I saw beautiful frost on some brush, and I thought it would make a lovely day one photograph. An hour or so later, Gus and I went for another walk, this time I had my camera and the sun was fully up. But my camera battery was not fully up. I did not remember that my back-up camera was in my purse until all the frost had melted.
But we did see about a million elk this weekend, and I took a picture of a few of them. 

It's 2012

So this is the year that the world might end. I am going to pretend it isn't going to end, because really, it's just too depressing to think otherwise.

Did you know that if you google "Wintergreen alcohol and aspirin", the first result is my blog? I've contributed to the greater good! Maybe sometime soon I will make a recipe/ tutorial for the magic salve. I think we are getting low.

I've discovered Pinterest. Pinterest is like a magazine... just photos and links that you can browse through. If a photo interests you, you can “pin” it to one of your “boards” which everyone can see. It also seems to be the place to go to plan a wedding. I get the feeling that the average Pinterester is a 26 year-old single girl who hasn’t yet had her dreams squashed. It’s kinda neat to see what she thinks her life might be like: trips to the Maldives, a beautiful home with furniture covered in chalkboard paint, fancy cupcakes for school field trips, scrapbooks filled with expertly posed and photoshopped family photos with just a hint of whimsy. Oh and smoky eyes.
I started using pinterest a few weeks ago, and it quickly evolved into a shopping list. I realized a few days ago that Pinterest could get expensive for me if I keep pinning all the outfits I like. Also, yesterday, I noticed that a lot of the aforementioned Young Pinners pinned a lot of things that I already have, or places I have already been, or things I already do. I thought, “Woo HOO! I’m living the dream!” So I made a board of things that I have that I need to appreciate. But then I thought it might be braggy. So now I don’t know how I feel about Pinterest and how it can fit into my life.
Christmas
The holidays are over. I can declare that because we have visited all four of our parents and my husband is taking the tree down today. One of the pros/cons of having divorced parents and being married to man with divorced parents is that Christmas isn’t a day, it’s a season. I don’t want to be the kind of person that complains about gifts, I really don’t. (Even though I do it every year) But how many pairs of microfiber slipper socks does one woman need? Five. Five is the answer.
Robotics
My daughter is on her school’s robotics team. The team is part of FIRST, and organization started by Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway Human Transporter and the first portable dialysis machine among other things. The team designs and builds a robot that competes in a game. Each year, the game is different. All the teams across the country find out the rules of the game on the same day and have six weeks to design a robot to compete. This year’s kick-off is on Saturday. I found out at a parent meeting last night that for the next six weeks, my daughter will spend nearly every non-school hour in the robotics room, which means I will put many miles on my car and have many hours to kill. She will leave the house at 7 am and will not return until 7:30 pm. This must be what it’s like for parents of student athletes. I will spend the next few days scouring the internet, okay, Pinterest, looking for crock-pot recipes. I think I also need to get a programmable crock-pot so that my food doesn’t cook for 12 hours. Because I can barely tolerate crock-pot foods, let alone overcooked crock-pot foods.
The gym
For winter term, the university gave employees who aren’t active a membership to the student recreation center. When I signed up for it a few months ago, I thought it sounded like a good idea. Now that my membership has been activated, I am a little nervous about actually going. I do have all those after-school hours to kill, though. I will keep my blog updated with fitness reports because I know how riveting shit like that is to read.
Some things I’d like to do
New Years means resolutions, but I am horrible at keeping them, so I am just going to commit a list of things that I might like to do if I get around to it to the world wide web. First of all, my garage needs to be cleaned the fuck out. It scares me, because I know that there are mice and snakes in there. If I can get the garage cleaned, I will consider it the greatest single achievement in the history of garage cleaning.
I’d like to do something with my yarn stash. I’m inclined to make an afghan. I think this is a leftover thing I’d like to do from a year or two ago.
I want to get up just a few minutes earlier each day so that I am not late all the time. This seems like a really hard thing to do.
Maybe once a week I’d like to wear matching a bra that matches my panties. See where that takes me.
I want to be able to do some real pushups. Okay, one real pushup.

This salad is 10 days old.

I hate to make my lunches in the morning. Wait, that's not true. The truth is, I have no idea how I feel about making lunches in the morning, because I have never tried it. I don't have time in the mornings to chop, scoop, portion, bag, stack or pack. I barely have time to grab. But I do hate to spend seven or eight dollars per day to buy lunch at work. Also, I want to eat healthy foods and avoid processed crap. I want to eat salad every day for lunch.
The salad problem is this: It’s pretty difficult to make an adequate salad ahead of time. Lunch salads could certainly be prepared in the morning before work, but that involves preparation, and what I need involves grabbing.
Which is why I was thrilled to find this post at salad-in-a-jar.com, which was featured on Lifehacker, detailing how to use mason jars and a vacuum sealer to prepare a weeks’ worth of salads ahead of time. So thrilled, in fact, that I immediately ordered the jar sealer attachment for my FoodSaver. $10.00 and four days later, I “canned” my first batch of salad.
I bought the wide mouth lid attachment, because it seems like it would be easier to stuff salad into a jar with a wide mouth than a into a jar with a narrow mouth. Unfortunately, I could only find four wide-mouth quart jars in my entire home. I have tons of wide-mouth pint jars, but I like a larger salad than that. I had a brand-new box of narrow-mouth quarts.
So I packed up my four jars, placed the lids on top, put the FoodSaver “jar hat” on the whole thing, and pressed seal. Not all four jars sealed the first time, but they all did eventually, after some shifting and a little swearing.
The salads were great, they lasted 3 days.
I went to my mom’s house for Thanksgiving, and talked her out of 6 or 7 wide-mouth pint-and-a-half jars. The perfect size for salad! Small enough to fit in my husband’s lunch box, large enough to hold a plateful of delicious fresh greens. According to her, that is all they are perfect for- they are too small for pie filling and too large for vegetables. I gave her my box of small-mouth quarts.
My second batch of salad turned out beautifully, but it was much harder to seal. I had to get help from my husband. He thinks that I didn’t have the tubing seated deeply enough into either the FoodSaver or the attachment. He got them all sealed, I think we made 9 or 10 jars. The whole process took about 30 minutes. This time, I used iceberg lettuce instead of romaine, thinking that the higher water content of iceberg lettuce of might make the salad turn brown faster. I decided to keep an eye on it. I also added garbanzo beans, radishes, green onion, and peppers. I thought about adding in some tomatoes or cheese, but I decided against it. I chose not to use tomatoes because I know it’s tricky to can them- you process them like meat instead of like vegetables-even though I am well aware that what I am doing is not canning at all. I chose not to use cheese because in this early experimental stage, I would hate to lose good cheese should my salads start to turn. Also the watery lettuce-I have a thing about wet cheese. Ugh.
Here is the salad I ate for lunch today. I packed it 10 days ago. It was fresh and crisp and bright. I bring a small container of dressing and sometimes I bring some pre-packaged croutons or dried berries or sunflower seeds. I just grab it all in the mornings and I am out the door.

Four Great Clips

For the past three or four years, I’ve been getting my hair done at the same place. Going to the salon (I like to say SALL- on) has never been completely gratifying, I always walk out feeling guilty because I either spent too much or didn’t buy enough products. And my hair always looked fine.

But since I’ve started my new job, I have much less free time to make, let alone keep, hair and nail appointments. So I’ve let my hair get scraggly and I just try to keep my nails short and clean.

Last week, school started, and it was time to take Madison in for her back-to-school haircut. I hadn’t made her an appointment at the SALL on, so I decided, since this was Saturday and school started on Tuesday, to take her to Great Clips.

When I decided to take her to Great Clips, I did so thinking that a: We wouldn’t need an appointment, and b: even Great Clips probably can’t screw up just trimming the ends. The thing with Great Clips is, you never know who is going to cut your hair. Usually it’s a woman 25 years older than me, who smells like cigarette smoke and who obviously did not have time to wash her won hair in the morning. Which is one thing that has always puzzled me. Why don't’ the haircutters do their own hair? I guess because at Great Clips it doesn’t matter. You go in, sit down, get your hair cut. When you walk out it will be shorter. My husband always gets his hair cut there, but you know, he’s a guy.

So, in we went. And four noteworthy things happened:
1. All the haircutters looked normal. In fact, the lady who cut my hair, had hair that I really liked. I’ve been asking my stylist at the SALL-on to put layers in my hair for years. She puts exactly two in- one long one, and one about an inch shorter than the other. I want 1985 Joan Jett layers. Not that I want to look like 1985 Joan Jett... I just want layers. So the top has some volume. I got the best haircut I have had in years at Great Clips. I paid twelve dollars for it.

2. Madison got the best haircut she has EVER had at Great Clips. I had so much confidence in the way her stylist looked (young, hip, clean) that I said, “Just make it look better, please.” She put in bangs and layers. So pretty. Twelve DOLLARS!!!

3. As we were getting our haircuts, a guy walks in and asks for a haircut. He says, “Make it good, I am getting married today.” Can you believe it? This guy is not only getting his haircut on his wedding day, but he’s doing it at Great Clips. That’s a hell of a crapshoot. But he walked out looking fine. And a little nervous.

4. The next guy that walked in and asked for haircut said, “Make it good, I’m going to be national TV, on The Biggest Loser.” A Biggest Loser contestant from Albany! He couldn't’ tell us much about the show or how he was doing, but he did say that he had started at 396 pounds. He appeared to be in the low 200s. He was home for “at-home” week. Again, quite a crapshoot to get your haircut at Great Clips.

So that’s my Great Clips story.

Speaking of unimaginable foulness...

A couple weeks ago, we noticed that we have mice in the garage and attic, as we do every Spring. (next month: ants!)
So I bought D-Con, which they ate, as they do every Spring. But this year, something new. One of the bastards went in a wall to die. Usually they stagger out into the back yard or the driveway.

The stench in my computer room is impressive. I've opened the window and plugged in a Scentsy and closed the door. I wondered how long it takes for a mouse to decay, so I googled it, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that many, many people have asked the internet before me. The consensus is that it takes a week or so, and short of ripping out the wall, there isn't much to do but wait it out and try various combinations of sprays, vinegar, coffee grounds and baking soda. I've noticed the smell for a couple days, I remember on Wednesday giving the dog and cat disapproving looks because I thought one of them had took a hidden dump somewhere. By yesterday, my husband had identified the smell..."That's something dead." And today, it's really bad but it seems to be confined to one room.

So I'm off to buy Lysol. Maybe I'll pick up some ant traps while I am out.

I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head.

I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

So yeah. I got the job. The first job I have applied for in over 13 years. I was told there were an unusually large number of applicants, and many of them were current university employees. And even though I feel like Red on the beach right now, earlier today I felt like Andy Dufresne crawling through 500 yards of unimaginable foulness.

Last night I had to break the news to my boss that I was being considered for the new position and that the department chair wanted to talk to her about me. I had to tell her on the phone, and she took it...okay. She didn't swear or cry, but she wasn't overly happy for me, either. After that tortuous conversation, I sent her numbers to the chair, let's call her Ann. Ann told me she would contact my boss in the morning.

So this morning, I sat alone at work from 9-1, hoping for a call from Ann. No such luck. At 1:00, my boss came to work and didn't say much to me. She did say, "your people didn't call me."
And that was the beginning of two of the most uncomfortable hours I can remember. Did I just piss off my boss for nothing? Why wasn't Ann calling? Was she interested in someone else?

Longest afternoon ever. Maybe she will call tomorrow. I walked down to the mailbox, and when I got back, the nurse was taking a message from Ann. My boss called her back as soon as she got a chance, and shortly thereafter Ann sent me an email to set up a good time to talk to me.

So tonight at 8, she called and offered me the job. She is going to get some more information from Human Resources about salary, but it's a done deal. One of the amazing benefits of this job is that employees are eligible to take 12 credits per term at 30% of the in-state tuition rate, and that is transferable to their children. So even though I am negotiating a strong starting salary, I would probably work for minimum wage and the tuition discount.

I am so excited to work with people who like people. I felt such a great energy in my interview, and having had a number of conversations with Ann I am convinced that this will be a great move.

I am really grateful for my friends, who texted and emailed and encouraged me over the past two days. We all need friends in here.

I hope.

Today I interviewed for a new job, a Program Specialist at the university near my home.
I applied for this job over a month ago, and heard back from them about a week ago- about three days after I had assumed that they had found someone else.
I can't tell you how badly I want this job.
The interview, I think, went well. I was in the room with three tenured professors and two office ladies. I think I made strong connections with the office ladies. I think I impressed upon all of them how quickly I can learn. I mostly listened to them tell me about the job, and speak as if it were already mine.
I know I was the first interview, and I know they called at least one of my references this morning. I know there was at least one other lady in the lobby waiting to be interviewed as I left.
I hope I wasn't overdressed. I wore a black suit and a beautiful pair of burgundy patent heels, to which I wish I would have given a more thorough test-run- I had to stop in the ladies room on my way to the interview and stuff toilet paper in the toes to keep my heels from slipping out.
I hope they read my resume and my cover letter. They didn't have copies with them, but I supplied them. There were a lot of things on paper that I may not have had the chance to detail verbally.
I hope my friend Erica is right when she says that interviews are just to make sure you aren't crazy. It sure seemed like it. They asked vague questions from a list that Human Resources had given them. I tried to sound very sane and reasonable when I answered.
I hope that I did not misinterpret the "I like you a LOT" twinkle in one of the office ladies eyes as I left. It was such a warm look that I could have hugged her.
I hope to hear from them today or tomorrow.
I hope.

Shame on Mio.

The other day one of my facebook friends, a relative actually, pondered her self-sabotage along these lines: "Why, when I am constantly saying I want to simplify, simplify, simplify, do I find my life becoming more complicated?"

I wonder the same thing. A week or so ago, as I made my grocery list, I tried to keep whole, "real" foods in mind- sugar rather than artificial sweeteners, dairy rather than non-dairy, fresh rather than from concentrate. As I walked through the doors of grocery store, into the "Aisle of Values", I reminded myself to buy things that might take longer to prepare, but would be better choices for me and my family.
As I walked past the Mio, I put two bottles into the cart. Mio is 100% pure artificial sweetener and color, to be expressed into water. Mio very well could have been on the bottom of Clark Griswold's aluminum sled-dish. Evan as I pushed my cart away from the Mio, I realized that Mio is the opposite of food, and I did not put it back.
In case you are wondering, I bought red Mio, which my daughter picked- I think it's fruit punch, and peach-mango which is orange. I think they taste terrible, my kid is really amazed that you don't even have to stir the drops into the water- it magically makes an even solution.