turn the page...

winds of change & remembering

2011-12-29T21:11:00.000-06:00

It's been a few months shy of a year since I wrote last! Life has been so full that, sadly, this blog had to take the brunt of the busyness, and now I've forgotten how to write. I hope you'll forgive me and work with my growing pains. I'm like someone who has forgotten how to speak, read, walk. The remembering is slow and painful.

It's fitting that this blog is called Turn the Page. I'd forgotten about that too. I started it when I began writing (reading?) one of the most important pages so far. The year 2009 was one of the fullest years of my adult life, in terms of change. I got engaged, was let go of my job, got married, moved into a new home and began a new life, my husband graduated and then found a job, then I graduated from college and a new job fell into my lap. All within a year. God is good. Now the pages are rustling again, and there is a breeze of change ahead. The corners of the next page flutter up, and sometimes I glimpse a word or two, and I am thrilled into the center of my soul.

I have realized recently that I always need change. I crave it and so I create it. I'm a daughter of a military man; change is the fabric of which I'm sewn. If changes don't happen regularly, there is an itchy crawly thought, wiggling the back of my mind, a nearly imperceptible movement out of the corner of my eye, telling me that I'm still exactly like I was last year and such a thing is unacceptable to a thinking, living person. Even if it's just forming a new opinion of some small matter, or discovering a new truth about the world, this is change, and it's necessary if I don't want to stagnate and mold.

Difference, then, comes easily to me. I've formed many habits and thought processes this past year or two, shaping them to be in agreement with my convictions and knowledge. I have changed the way I eat, the way I buy, what I want, how I see material things. At least, I feel like I changed all those things. A beautiful discovery I've made along that journey is that while I write my pages, God is holding the pen along with me, and has been all along. I feel like I am shaping my life and my self, but it's God who convicts, and then gives me the guts to make changes when others think my convictions are strange and must therefore be ignored.
It's nearly 2012 now. I am not one of those people who thinks New Years resolutions are something shallow or crude, something to roll my eyes at. Most years I make a list of things I'd like to do differently in the new year. But that list isn't much different than the one in my mind yearlong. I make changes in my life all the time, I have to, or I would wilt. But what better time than a fresh year to take a look around you, be honest with yourself, and fix what needs fixing?

I plan to get back into the habit of blogging this year. I want to do more work with my hands, sewing and crafting and getting those awful neck aches from looking at small things for too long. I plan to listen to more sermons by pastors I don't know personally. I want to learn the truth of hospitality and generosity, and put that into action, starting with my husband, then radiating out from there.

2012 is going to be full of change. I can feel the soft, subtle breeze from those fluttering pages ahead of me. I am growing older. My pen is ready.

I love me some coconut oil.

2011-03-17T10:24:00.003-05:00

Six months ago I bought a gallon of canola oil. Currently it's sitting in my hall closet and hasn't even been opened, because shortly thereafter, I bought a tub of coconut oil! I've decided that it is a much better choice than canola.

I think canola oil (besides being a newly invented, industrial oil) is smelly and tastes awful. Have you ever tried a spoonful of the stuff? It also smokes up my cast iron pans like crazy, so it's useless when I cook in cast iron (which I've been trying to do more). I can smell a canola-fried food a mile away, and it's a bitter, awful odor. I just really don't like it anymore!

So, instead of canola, I've been using a lot more healthy fats like coconut oil, which is the topic of this post. I love me some real butter too, and use it often. This is not a post about replacing butter! Butter is also full of healthy yummy goodness, and I think it's a great real food to use. I just wanted to share some of the ways I use coconut oil, and why I love it so very much!

By way of introduction, coconut oil is solid below 76 degrees or so, and it is liquid around 80 degrees. It is a very stable oil that doesn't go rancid easily. There are apparently lots of really science-ey reasons why it's healthy -- but I don't like having to be a biologist to understand my food. If LDL/HDL cholesterol, lauric acid, medium chain fatty acids, and such things excite you, you should probably look it up. Coconut oil is full of healthy saturated fats, and it helps our bodies absorb the nutrients it's eaten with.

Coconut oil is a little pricey, at least seemingly so - but it's an incredible multitasker, and it's healthy, so that makes it a much better use of our money than a smelly, newly invented oil with no health value. I buy my coconut oil from Amazon. Watch for deals on it, and stock up! I purchased a 54oz tub in mid-December, and still have 1/3 to 1/2 of the jar left. I really like being able to use it for so many different things, which cuts down on the stuff I have to keep around.

Here are some of the things I do with coconut oil:

The obvious cooking purposes: sauteeing, frying, baking, cooking (it has a medium-high smoke point, and a subtle flavor)
I replace Crisco in any recipe calling for it with butter or coconut oil, one-for-one
Throw some in a smoothie - it freezes and adds little nubs of flavor
As a facial moisturizer and lip balm
To help the little spots of eczema that pop up on my hands in the winter
As an incredibly softening hair serum/smoother -- just a dab does the trick
For seasoning my cast iron pans
As a quick-absorbing, super-moisturizing hand and foot lotion
For cooking popcorn the old-fashioned way -- gives it a great flavor
And my latest discovery...oiling my wooden cutting boards and spoons!

Other possibilities (not used by me, yet):

Shaving oil (I use olive/almond oil, but I'm sure this would work too)
Make a Hershey's "Magic Shell" - melt, mix with cocoa or peanut butter powder, and drizzle over ice cream (going to try this soon...YUM!)
Toothpaste??
Leather conditioner
Antibacterial cleaner for small cuts and sores
Deodorant (I had bad luck with this, but many people report better experiences)
I've heard it makes some killer sweet potato fries...

How else do you use this great oil?

"The Adventure of a Lifetime"

2011-03-08T09:18:00.002-06:00

Today I'd like to share something that I wrote about a year and a half ago, for one of my final English classes before I graduated. The class was actually something I'd put off for two years; it ended up being the most worthless class I ever took, except for this paper.

The assignment was something like "write about an event in your childhood." Everything in the class seemed to be geared towards sixth graders. The class roster was full of nonmajors who had to take one English class, and had heard this class was easy.

This essay is kind of long, but I hope you read it to the end. Every time I read it, even though I wrote it, for pete's sake, I get teary. This ended up being one of my favorite things I've ever written. It's about a piece of my life, of my family's life really, that most people don't know about, and that we rarely talk about anymore.

"The Adventure of a Lifetime"

Everywhere was wood, beams of wood on the ceiling, slats of wood on the walls, planks of wood on the floors. Needles of light pierced through in places, illuminating, for a fraction of a second, a million microscopic specks of dust, each one glowing briefly and then returning to its dusky journey through the air.

Everywhere was sound, still singing in my mind to this day, that joyfully creaking floor, the sound of bright and clear quiet, punctuated by whinnies and the shuffling of feet and hooves. Oh, the sound of peace in the world. Not utter silence, but the calm chorus of creatures in harmony, man and beast in interdependence.

Everywhere was the fragrance of molasses, of dust on its travels, of shiny, worn leather and ancient trusty woolen blankets, of the creaking wooden floor powdered with bits of hay, alfalfa and manure. Earth, dung and food mingled in the air to bless us with a sweetly organic and remarkable scent, which has been found no other place in the universe, save for every stable which has ever existed.

An eleven-year-old mind cannot process everything it takes in, but instead, subconsciously stores it all up for later. As I took in these sights, smells and sounds, my younger sister Johanna stood next to me, both of us on the threshold of a world of new experiences. We stood in the entrance of a stable. A real horse stable. On a real horse ranch, and a real horse rider next to us. Her name was Skye – which was appropriate, since it seemed like Johanna and I had been granted an early pass to heaven itself. And, as we stepped into the stable, in awe of all its wonders, we knew the pinnacle of our new adventure was yet to come: Skye was going to teach us to ride horses.

It was very cold, that day when we first walked into the stable. We’d worn our favorite cowboy boots and the black cowgirl hats we’d gotten as gifts; under my embarrassingly not-cowgirl (puffy pink) coat I wore my favorite sweatshirt, a white one adorned with appliquéd cowboy boots. The luckier of us might have even donned a pair of plastic spurs – we only had one set between us, and we had to share.

Christmas day had come and gone, but the decorations were still on the walls at home, and the frigid Colorado winds weren’t nearly finished bringing snow to our town. The holidays were always joyful at our home, but this year had brought a special treat to us Trexel girls, when we were given a year’s worth of horseback riding lessons. Nothing could have been more appropriate, more desired or more benevolently granted. Johanna and I lived under a wide Colorado sky, and we had been reared on a good dose of Chris LeDoux and other Cowboy music (totally different from Country music). Our favorite songs had titles like “Call of the Wild” and “You Can’t See Him From the Road.” We were more in love with horses, and the freedom and adventure they epitomized, than with anything else in the world. We collected models of them, subscribed to magazines about them, cut out pictures of them whenever possible, and dreamed of the day we would have one of our own. Our model horses had creative names: Running Water, Romantic Rosebud, Little Mermaid, Grey Ghost.

The library was of particular interest to us, as it served up an infinite supply of (free!) horse-related literature. We buried ourselves in the novels of Marguerite Henry, memorized horse breeds and the names of forehead markings, and convinced ourselves that Western, cowboy-style riding was far superior to English style. Our dad fed our obsession by securing a steady flow of Paint Horse magazines from a coworker who raised that particular breed – she gave us every precious, glossy tome when she finished reading it. After devouring every word of the articles, we would cut out the best pictures (sometimes the original owner even left the centerfolds for us!) and tape them onto our walls. We watched rodeos with enthusiasm and derby races with detachment – derbies were about horses, but after all, those were English riders who rode in fences and in circles. In our young minds, Western riding was about wildness and untamed freedom (although the cruelty of keeping panicked horses in rodeo cages never occurred to us). We had been catechized in the theology of Chris Ledoux; English-style riding, fences, country music, perfectly manicured lawns, and everything perfect and restrictive were sheer blasphemy.

The origin of our love of horses is both obvious and impossible to answer. On one hand, I don’t remember the first time I felt entranced by the idea of horses. Yet how could two girls, wild with imagination and surrounded by ranches, cowboys and mountains, not be in love with horses? How could anyone read Marguerite Henry and Walter Farley, and not be in love with horses? The question is not how we noticed them in the first place; the better question is, how could we, living in a world saturated with ideas of freedom, cowboy life and ranches, not have fallen in love with these powerful, gleaming beasts? The idea of a horse, to us, symbolized freedom, romance and adventure; it somehow represented far-flung sunny beaches and mysterious forested islands. It is like the idea of a pirate which, in little boys’ imaginations, conjures up wild tales of hidden treasures, stormy seas and epic battles. Calling it ‘being in love’ is no stretch.

So there we were, two girls, loosed, giddy, in a real stable for the first time. I was eleven years old and Johanna seven. Here is where the adventure starts, we thought to ourselves. We darted around, delighting in every find, recognizing pieces of equipment we’d only read about, as though something we thought was a dream had suddenly become reality.

We were given an initial tour of the stables and corrals. There were perhaps a dozen horses in residence, so it was a small ranch. Skye’s home was on a hill, like a castle, overlooking the stable, corrals and the pasture beyond. As she led us around the place, I drilled Johanna in technicalities of horse, hoof and saddle anatomy, showing off what we knew. “So, Johanna, what’s the hair on that horse’s forehead called?” I casually asked. “Easy – that’s a forelock,” she answered, and we both looked at Skye out of the corners of our eyes. Her eyebrows might have gone up a little, so I continued. “What’s the back part of the saddle called?” “The cantle.” “Where do you find the cleft of the frog?” “In the very center and front of the bottom of the hoof.” “How can you tell a pinto from a paint horse?” “That’s a trick question – pinto’s just a color marking, and Paint is a breed!” Pretending like quizzing each other was part of our routine conversation, we managed to verbalize plenty of our accumulated trivia. Skye seemed thoroughly impressed with our knowledge, and, I’m sure, was amused by our showing off.

Only now, as an adult pondering the education of my future children, do I realize the value of our own self-motivation and resourcefulness. Before our riding lessons, no one ever taught us anything about horses; as homeschoolers, we were used to finding things out on our own. To this day I still would much rather learn things myself, instead of being told. One of the potential strengths of traditional home schooling is that students are required to be self-motivated; learning itself is a learned process which the student must master. With the internet today as the library of my childhood, there is no limit to what can be discovered without ever having to purchase a single credit hour.

The first day at the stables was basic training for Johanna and I: special terms (which we mostly already knew), where the bathrooms were, and all that stuff which is pure blather for two girls drooling to just, please, get on the horses. Finally, the next week, I was allowed to climb into the saddle. We’d learned how to put the saddle on – blanket first, cinch the strap underneath, make sure the bit and bridle were correctly inserted, don’t walk too close to the back of the horse. We also learned that we’d need to pull the saddle strap tighter, a few minutes after we’d initially put the saddle on, because horses are tricky and will hold their breath, expanding their sides so the strap is looser later on.

The horse we were assigned was a quarter horse named Skip (what a tragically lifeless name – Apache Warrior would have been better), who was russet orange, 19 years old and fairly senile. A senior citizen in the horse world, Skip was gentle, without a lot of energy left in him. He patiently stood there in the stable, probably falling asleep, as I struggled to get into the saddle. I tried to remember what Skye had told me. The stirrup had to be twisted backwards to put the left foot in it, whilst I stood on the ground, one foot stuck in the stirrup, facing the back of the horse – in all manner of speaking, totally counterintuitive. The smooth saddle loomed high above me, gleaming brightly against a background of wooden ceiling and traveling dust; and I wondered how I’d ever make it all the way up. Skye gave me a little push as I grabbed at the saddle horn and somehow ended up in the saddle, miles above Johanna and our teacher. I smiled modestly, not too ecstatically, for I was still the older sister. And of course I could get into that saddle with hardly any help.

I always had to be the mature one, as I was the oldest of (at the time) four children. On Christmas day, after the family had opened all of our presents, my parents drove Johanna and me out to see the ranch where we’d be taking our lessons. From our steel gray Suburban, we briefly surveyed the snowy, empty web of fences – the horses must have all been keeping warm inside the stable – and all too soon, turned the truck around in the rocky driveway and headed back home. But Johanna, somehow under the impression we would begin our lessons at that exact minute, sobbed miserably as we drove away, watching the quiet corrals shrink away in the back window. We had a desperately long six weeks to wait, and I was just as disappointed as she was, but I’d remained aloof, maturely consoling her as a parent would.

Now, six eternal weeks later, as I sat high in the saddle in my pink coat and black boots, smelling the alfalfa and gazing over what suddenly seemed like a little wooden kingdom, I could understand why the tyrants and dictators throughout history had thirsted for power. They rode horses all the time. Something about the height, the pride, the sheer power of it all, filled the rider with an urge to dominate, to control. It was understandable. The thousand-pound creature under me, an eleven-year old, would be utterly commanded by a subtle twitch of the reins, a gentle squeeze of the thighs. Anyone who gets on a horse, I mused, would believe they could control anything.

We quickly learned the format of our lessons. Skye would talk about riding as we walked around the stable, preparing the riding equipment; then, since she could only teach one person at a time, one of us would ride in the corral while the other would watch. Then Jo and I would switch places. The time on Skip’s back was always over all too quickly, and it seemed like hours that I had to spend sitting on the wooden fence, watching Johanna ride around and around in circles. But it was mesmerizing. Skye stood like the Sun at the center of Skip’s orbit, the blue lounge line tethering his bridle to her carefully controlling hand like the force of gravity. I don’t think we ever realized that we had become what we hated about English riders – confined by fences, riding in circles. It would have been humiliating, had we realized. But the sheer joy of riding the horse, and of all that the stable had to offer, overpowered any sense of shame we might have felt.

Sometimes we would have to ride in figure eights around the corral, without Skye’s lounge line. This tested our skills in every way. It was terrifying at first to concentrate on the trajectory of the horse, while remembering all the signals necessary to stay on course (and on the horse!). Anyone who can ride a horse in figure eights around a corral should be allowed to operate a motor vehicle. Maybe it was harder as a child, but looking back, it seems that the skill required to guide a horse in this way is just as complex as the attention needed to keep a car between the yellow lines. Atop the horse, in figure eights or any other time, we had to position our legs just right so we could give subtle signals with ankles, calves and thighs – without falling off. To do this, we had to match our own movements with the horse’s gait, much like you want to jump along with the bounce of a trampoline. If you come down while it’s coming up, the result can be very painful. I couldn’t forget about the sensitive, careful guiding of the reins – if I pulled it too hard, Skip would refuse my wish and simply come to a halt. Eventually I could do the figure eights without much effort, but the faster the horse went, the harder it was to control. It was far easier to simply ride in the circular orbit around Skye. Skip seemed to instinctively understand this, or at least realize that circles were less complex than eights. I never had much trouble getting the senior citizen back to his standard circle. For that matter, he never seemed ashamed to slow down.

Skye was a faithful and knowledgeable teacher. She had short dark hair, was very tomboyish, and lived in a small, rustic home with her husband, two boys, and a rowdy gang of dogs. She was helpful and not overbearing, as though she could sense our ability to absorb knowledge instead of being spoon-fed. She often spoke of taking us on trail rides, through her pastures and hilly forests. But we never did get out of that corral.

Even though we stayed in the circular fences, Johanna and I soaked up everything Skye had to show us: how a horse’s ears gave away its mood, why real cowboys didn’t comb their horses’ tails, the best sorts of saddle blankets, how eating oats and chewing hay made cowboys healthy. Our thighs ached after hours of riding in circles in the corral. We stuffed our pockets with sweet, sticky horse food to eat at home (“no really, it made the cowboys healthy, mom”). We blissfully dreamt of the day we’d own our own horses, and could ride away into the sunset whenever we wanted – galloping light-speed through meadows, and meandering through green forests of speckled sunlight.

I don’t remember exactly how long we took the lessons, but it was generously beyond the year promised by our parents. But it had to end. We were moving again, this time to someplace called San Angelo, Texas. It seemed to us that there would be cowboys there, too -- although a rougher, dustier sort than the Colorado species -- so we looked forward to the move and assumed we’d take up lessons again. For our final lesson, which was to be a special one, Skye let us ride bareback. Sleek pictures of saddle-less riders filled my mind. Johanna wasn’t too excited at first, but I reminded her, “it’s what you do on the beach, you know” and “don’t you remember The Black Stallion?” She was still skeptical. To get on the horse without using stirrups or saddle horn, I had to bring him to the fence, climb it, and grab wildly at Skip’s mane. I eventually gained a seat on Skip’s back, and quickly (skillfully, I imagined) went through the drills. First, a few laps of boring walking, a few jerky trotting, and finally, beautiful cantering – a smooth, loping gait, not quite galloping, but very fast.

In the canter, once per stride, a horse has all its feet off the ground at the same time. On the return voyage, they all hit the ground not-quite together, like the quick rattle of a snare drum. So the sound of a cantering horse is back and forth between silence – as we were both suspended in the air for a moment – and then the quick, thundering contact of hoof on earth. Then we would both be flying again. I can still feel the rhythm of the canter. The wind fell on my face in intermittent, slow-motion gusts, as I clutched Skip’s mane and held tighter than ever with my legs. I could feel all of his muscles churning underneath me, with no saddle to separate us. I forgot about the fences, the circles; I was on a beach, I was in a great meadow, I careened over mountain plateaus. Again there was that sense that I held immense power. The experience was over far too quickly.

Johanna’s turn came, and she wanted to canter, too. But she didn’t make it that far. The trotting stage, always uncomfortably bumpy, was too much for her, and she ungracefully tumbled from Skip’s back to the sandy ground. She sobbed (of course) as Skye and I consoled her. As far as I know, that was Johanna’s final experience riding horses.

Neither of us took up riding lessons in Texas. It’s not that we were without the desire, but I think our parents had to be more careful with their money. Our new home, a modestly sized one-story built in the 1930s, was on the very edge of town. Our new property included a two-acre field, which was very dusty, as everything in west Texas tended to be; it was covered in a blanket of tall, yellowed grass, and embroidered by the curling stems of wild gourd vines. A magnificent hem of bright and hardy wildflowers dotted the edges. But we barely noticed the beauty of the field. In the corner of the field was a tiny stable. It was made of weathered wood and wavy sheets of tin, not very fancy, but certainly big enough for a horse to live pleasantly. It only had two rooms, one closed off for food and supplies, and the other open, to shelter its guests.

Johanna and I practically lived in the little stable at first, imagining ourselves as the deliriously proud owners of a horse. We saved our money and yearned like never before. As we swept and cleaned the tack room, we reveled in the ancient musty smell of hay, still stuck in the corners and perfuming the air. A window and a few holes in the wooden walls let in tiny sunbeams, showing the dust we’d kicked up in our efforts. The ground in the shelter was made of dirt, not slatted wood. But, while it was not as large as Skye’s stable, we knew that any horse of ours would live like royalty.

All along, we pleaded and cajoled and tearfully begged our parents to let us have a horse, but we all knew we wouldn’t be living in San Angelo forever. The military life was a scrapbook of places and times, each place temporary, with pages turning almost as fast as you can adorn them with memories. A new, blank page would eventually be ours to fill, and who knew what the next would be like? The stable stood ready, but we didn’t get a horse. There were no forests near our house either, and no mountains or beaches. We were confined by the plainness; a horse would have been joyless in our little field, lovely as it was.

Slowly, as the months passed, the stable became caked in spider webs again, and the dust, undisturbed, sat on the ledges in the tack room. The walls of the little stable, without our constant intervention, yielded to the laws of entropy, and it began to sag, like it was sighing at the end of its life. Johanna and I both had a difficult time putting away the model horses. I was older, and of course, grew out of the ‘phase’ of horses before my sister did. I became interested in clothes, makeup and boys before she put hers away, and it was a serious point of contention between us. We were in Texas for two brief years, and by the time we said goodbye to our life there, we’d both done a fair amount of growing up. Most of the model horses were already in boxes, forever awaiting the attention of two younger sisters who would never know a passion for cowboy life. The stable seemed to bow out gracefully. Our family relocated again to northern Minnesota for a year, and then to someplace called Lincoln, Nebraska. Our lives were new and different whenever we changed locations; more than that, we changed to fit the special and unique opportunities of each place.

But for us, the draw and the thrill of horseback riding had never been only the gentle beast itself, tamed and controlled by the slightest of commands. It was the feeling of adventure that horses symbolized in our souls. Many famous horse stories take place in exotic, beautiful, dangerous places. For Johanna and I, the love of adventure through horses became a love for travel, and a passion for seeing the world. Military life, although it would officially end in San Angelo where my dad would retire, had left its mark on my whole family. We still take chances to see new places, whenever we can. Johanna and I discovered that life itself offers more excitement than our fantasies of riding horses through meadows and forests. They were, after all, just dreams. We never did get ride anywhere but that corral, in endless circles. But it wasn’t meaningless. Our obsession over horses was a placeholder for what we really wanted all along: romance, passion, excitement, wildness, love, the chance to be uninhibited. When we realized we could have these things without having to live a Marguerite Henry novel, we turned to the adventures that real life can offer.

sprouting, brewing, fermenting, growing, culturing...a tour of the living foods in our home

2010-12-31T12:58:00.003-06:00

This post is linked at Real Food Wednesdays from Kelly the Kitchen Kop!

As I loftily surveyed my kingdom last night (the kitchen/living room/hallway is as much as I can see at once, but it was quite impressive), I thought fondly about the abundance of living things that are growing, brewing, sprouting and fermenting themselves in my home.

It's kind of like having children. I coo at them, talk about how cute they are (those little sprouted tails! adorable!), pamper them, make sure they are at the right temperature, and occasionally put them to 'bed' (in the fridge). (I also eat them, which is where the children analogy kind of breaks down.) It is a joy to see how foods can, with a simple set of circumstances, transform themselves into another entity altogether....something that is highly nutritious and tasty too. There is a tiny universe of microbes, enzymes, proteins, and nutrients all swirling around, underneath my nose! Cultivating living food is a world of wonder and amazement to me. And it's so rewarding to see things happen like they should! So I thought I would give you a little photo tour of the living foods currently residing with the Moores.

Let's start with something simple (and not frightening). Sprouting is fun, easy, and a very simple way to increase the nutritional value of the seeds, legumes and grains we put into our bodies. It's my understanding that without soaking or sprouting, the nutrient 'packet' in grains and seeds (the fuel for the seed to begin growth) will pass through our bodies unused. During soaking or sprouting, the nutrients are activated/released, and become available for our bodies to absorb and use.

Lentils...

...pinto beans (I think I need to let these grow a little more)...

...and chick peas! These haven't totally sprouted yet, but you can see the little pointy ends where the tails have begun to squirm their way out.

What do I do with these things? Use them the same way I would the unsprouted versions. Just the other day I made "sloppy joes" but used 2/3 sprouted lentils and 1/3 beef. It was incredibly tasty, and we got the nutrition of both the meat and the lentils. And since good meat is so pricey, I'm all for the frugalness the lentils offer. We ate it on plain bread, openface. SO good. We both agreed it should go into our regular rotation! Here's my recipe inspiration for my sloppy joes.

Kefir! (Sorry, the grains are kinda hard to see.)

Kefir grains live happily in fatty milk at room temperature, yielding a cultured dairy product similar to yogurt (but containing many more beneficial bacteria). The grains grow and reproduce themselves over time. It is a very strange thing. I have to admit I've had my grains in the fridge for a few weeks, instead of on the counter where they can culture. We haven't been home all that much over the holiday and I wanted them to stay healthy! I've been using the kefir as the acid medium for soaking and sprouting things, and also in smoothies (which haven't sounded very good lately...one reason we haven't been using the kefir much). I've got plenty of grains to give away if anyone wants them -- they are happy, growing kefirs!

My beautiful thyme plant.

I love my little plants so much. This thyme bush was such a trooper outside when the weather got cold...I could tell it did NOT want to die! So I brought it in. The thyme has since rewarded my heroic deed with a forest of new, tiny shoots, springing out, fresh and pale, all leaning themselves towards the light of the window. It's a beautiful thing to see. I have rosemary inside too. They're both fragrant, and quite a welcome sight in a dull winter.

I've saved the best (scariest?) for last...my kombucha tea!

I am so proud of my kombucha. See that slimy thing in the jar? I grew it myself! It's happily fermenting the sweet tea it's living in, chowing down on the sugar and producing acids, enzymes and other scientific-sounding things that our bodies need and love. I've already drank through a one-gallon batch of the stuff, which I double fermented with grape juice. My second batch is currently undergoing the second fermentation, this time with lots of different flavor combinations. All the while, another batch of the tea is brewing in the gallon jar with the scoby (the slimy thing).

SCOBY=symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. Great for parties.

Each batch takes about a week and a half or two weeks total...about a week in the gallon jar with the scoby, and a few more days in smaller jars with the sweeteners/flavors added. A long time to wait, but at least now I have the previous batch to drink while I wait! If I ration myself, at least...

Here are a few jars of my current brew! They're fermenting in sealed jars, with the kombucha tea and various flavors added. Some of the flavors I tried this time: ginger lime honey, blueberry, honey vanilla, lemon ginger echinacea (that one's just juice from a bottle). I can't wait to see what they taste like!

If you haven't tried kombucha before, pick up a bottle of it sometime and try it...it's like nothing else you've tasted! Be prepared for a slight vinegary flavor. I was hooked immediately!

I love to have all these living things in my kitchen. It's so much fun and I learn so much every time I try something new! I hope you have enjoyed this little tour. Happy New Year!

~nikki

Submitting to Authority

2010-12-13T16:31:00.005-06:00

On Sunday, our pastor spoke on a few verses at the beginning of Titus chapter 3. We've been going through Titus for quite a while now -- what an incredible book full of practical, REAL wisdom. But I have to say that I felt very convicted about these verses more than any others so far:

Titus 3:1-2 "...be submissive to rulers and authorities...be obedient...be ready for every good work...speak evil of no one...avoid quarreling...be gentle...show perfect courtesy toward all people."

There it is, unequivocal, that chafing s-word: be SUBMISSIVE to rulers and authorities. The book of Titus is full of commands to be submissive: wives to husbands, slaves to masters. The word for submission in regards to political leaders is no different than the one used by Titus for marriage and social institutions. Which got me thinking...

I haven't been married very long, but I've heard the words "submit to your husband" more than I've heard "marriage is a blessing." (No joke. Sad.) I believe submission is something real, that needs to be practiced. But (we're still newlyweds, okay?) we don't really disagree on stuff. Like almost ever. So, when we're living in harmonious bliss, does that mean submission is nonexistent? It only occurs during disagreement and then goes away? I think not. That would make it a negative thing, not a force for good! Rather I believe submission is more than gritting my teeth and letting a stubborn hubby have his way. It's also more than bland lazy deference, the doormat syndrome for which many believing women are (justly) maligned by society. No, it's an attitude, a lifestyle, a way of thinking and living that simply respects and honors those above me. I may speak my mind, I may discuss and think, but ultimately I'm under someone else. This kind of submission is a positive force, continuously flowing whether Justin and I are in harmony or disagreement. A forced submission that only rears its head during tension can only be a negative, frustrated, finger-pointing beast. No wonder the world isn't too impressed.

Even if my hubby makes decisions I don't approve of or appreciate, those are still his decisions to make. My role isn't to sit there and seethe at him. It's not to begrudgingly drag my feet, shooting snark and sarcasm. And it's not to woefully bemoan my situation and make a plaintive martyr of myself. It's to respect the institution of marriage because God set it up, and that includes continually -- whether or not we're in disagreement -- honoring Justin and respecting his authority. (After all, it wasn't Justin's idea either.)

Now...apply that line of thought to the government. Here's a telling exercise. Choose someone that just irks you to no end, imagine them as President, and put their name in the paragraph above: "Even if Glenn Beck makes decisions I don't approve of or appreciate, they are still his decisions to make. My role isn't to sit there and seethe at him. It's not to begrudgingly drag my feet, shooting snark and sarcasm. And it's not to woefully bemoan my situation and make a plaintive martyr of myself. It's to respect the institution of government because God set it up, and that includes continually -- whether or not we're in disagreement -- honoring Glenn Beck and respecting his authority." See? It's downright painful! I could hardly bring myself to type that! Look how wired we are NOT to think this way!

I have NEVER heard anyone, myself and any Christians included, say "I don't approve of all the laws and decisions the government makes for me, and I'm pretty taxed-out, but God has put them all in place, and I respect that, so whether or not the current laws or the current President respect God, I'm going to honor the institution of government itself, which includes those laws and President, because of its God-given authority."

WOW.

Sadly, I can see in my own heart a little streak of anarchy - "Who cares if the city ordinance says I can have only two chickens, dangit...they don't regulate dogs or cats or snakes...I'll be getting five or six chickens, so there!" That's an example of a bad attitude, pure and simple. Submission isn't trying to sneak around the rules; it's not going 40 in a 35 because no cop will pull me over for such a minor infraction; it's not making fun of the Governor of Alaska whenever her name comes up. What else does that Titus passage say? "speak evil of no one...avoid quarreling...be gentle...show perfect courtesy toward all people." Again, in my pastor's words yesterday...WOW. Especially if these commands are seen in their proper context: of relationship to our government. Don't trash talk politicians or presidents or mayors or senators. Don't argue about it. Be kind and respectful. And show perfect courtesy towards all...ALL...ALL people! Politicians included!?! Even Glenn Beck??!?! Talk about a high standard! I definitely do not measure up.

Somehow we have gotten the idea that political issues give us a free rein to be angry, whiny, mean, rude, grumpy, complaining, selfish, know-it-all, obstinate, stubborn, offensive, condescending, bitter irrational jerks.

In my mind, this Titus passage also helps cement my conviction that the "Founding Fathers" were not acting biblically when they rebelled against their government and started a bloody war. (Which is SO shocking because I thought those Founding Fathers were a little band of nice Christian men who only wanted to do Bible studies in peace!) In addition to the Titus verses I quoted above, there's also this passage in Romans 12:1-2, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." The point here is that political leaders are God's agents. Thinking about defiantly unbiblical leaders, I don't know how that works exactly, but whether the leaders themselves understand that or not, God put them there. Kind of a divine irony. When we act out against them -- whether it's getting all our rebel friends together and running off to start our own country, or just bad-mouthing the president's latest decision while we're hanging out with friends -- we're acting out against God's very intentions and purposes. Submission is a lifestyle that must be practiced by all believers. I'll probably get skewered for saying this, but if the "Founding Fathers" were really Christians, or at least actually behaving like it, they never would've done what they did. There, I said it.

"I pay taxes and vote...so I can COMPLAIN!" I've heard that more times than I care to remember. Besides how it sounds like an angry old man with crusty overalls and a rifle, that's not submission. And simply doing what I'm told, especially when I have no choice, means very little. Gritting my teeth through my husband's decisions doesn't make me submissive.

What is my real attitude behind the actions? That's where reality is found. Jesus was constantly peeling away the layers of superficial behavior, exposing the most profound of motives and hearts and attitudes. The bottom line is that I am very convicted that I need to work on this area in my life. (As an example of how ingrained this is, I wrote probably a dozen snarky comments about politics/television/history throughout this blog, only to realize my bad habit over and over again each time I deleted them.)

I could get into a thousand disclaimers, caveats, and apparent exceptions. But what do you think?

Garbage In, Garbage Out - a journey to less waste

2010-10-24T08:28:00.003-05:00

This is a post about garbage. Yep. And at the end of this post I've made a long list of stuff I've done to reduce our garbage output. But I can't make a list without a lot of editorializing, so here goes. :)

I'd venture to guess that most of us don't think about our garbage. But lately I've been doing a lot of consideration about that very topic. And I've become convicted that all of us need to be more mindful of the level at which we trash the world. The average U.S. citizen throws out four and a half pounds of garbage every day. That makes 230 millions tons every year, just here in the U.S.!

It's a huge disappointment that Christendom, which should be a haven of care and respect for the physical creation, seems to be the least interested crowd. Somewhere along the way, Christians got the idea that since the world is fallen and going to be fixed up someday anyways, we can do whatever we like to it in the meantime. (It's funny that you don't hear that argument being made about human bodies.) The first thing lost in that train of thought is the biblical concept of stewardship. Just like it's wrong to pollute our bodies with excessive smoking/drinking/poor eating, it's also wrong to rampantly degrade anything that's been entrusted by God to our care. Something else to consider: creation has been entrusted with displaying God's attributes. People understand God through the physical world, and that's no small entrustment. So creation is no less a part of God's master plan than humans are. Humans and the rest of physical creation have the same destiny (renewal), and should be treated with similar honor.

One last thing: forget what politics has to say. Party politics has (ill-)advised us on this issue for too long.

Here's a huge pet peeve of mine, considering how I think believers should behave: churches produce SO MUCH TRASH. The amount of styrofoam and paper and plastic dishes used even at one event is, frankly, embarrassing. A typical Sunday morning might produce hundreds of styrofoam coffee cups, each used for five minutes and thrown "away." There are alternatives that I think churches need to consider. First, attendees, bring your own reusable mugs for the coffee. Churches should be encouraging this, and also offering normal (non-disposable) mugs for those who didn't bring their own. Also, at group eating events like potlucks, let's wean ourselves off the throwaway plates, forks and cups (which are flimsy and tacky anyways). If it's a larger group, another option is for each family to bring their own regular plates and flatware to the church potluck, and wash them later at home. This is actually the way get-togethers were done in the past, when we did not buy things for the purpose of throwing them away. This idea might sound a little nuts, but that's because we've been infected by the culture of throwaway. If you actually think about it, it makes much more sense. I'm pretty sure people from 150 years ago would think we're nuts (and more than a little wasteful) to have so many things intended for one time use, and immediately discarded.

You see, there is no such thing as throwing something "away." Yes, it goes somewhere we can't see it (at least without spending five seconds on Google) but it still exists. You might argue that most trash decays over time, and in a natural setting, that's true. But I was shocked to learn recently that most trash isn't put in an environment where it can decay/biodegrade. If I leave a newspaper in the woods, soon it'll be dirt again. If I throw it in a landfill, it'll be covered by layers of plastic or other material that keeps it from oxygen and light, and so it can't decay. So all my trash stays trash, in deeper holes and larger piles. Some gets burned (creating other environmental problems). Some is allowed to decay, and the resulting methane gas is used for power. But most of my garbage will never decay. Just because I can't see it anymore, doesn't make it any less of my responsibility.
Trash is built into our lives on so many levels. Especially in an culture which values convenience at the expense of everything else, it feels unnatural (and even a little rebellious) to shift the focus away from What Is Easiest For Me Right This Exact Second and towards What Is Best For Me And Everyone Else From A Long Term Perspective. It really comes down to convenience, or in most cases, I think laziness. We'd rather mindlessly subsidize the landfills than use our brains for five seconds. Do I really need to serve five people with throwaway plates and forks; is it that hard to wash a few dishes instead? Why do I believe paper napkins are actually an improvement over cloth ones? Do I actually need to use a produce bag for the apples, and one for an orange, and one for a cluster of bananas? Or, why do I need those produce bags at all? Do I truly need a plastic sack to carry a few small items to my car? Why do they give me a throwaway cup to drink out of at Panera, and can't I simply order my drink in a reusable cup? Must I wrap gifts in paper, which will be thrown away immediately, or is there an alternative?

The habits in which we discipline ourselves, right now, will end up being how we live long-term. I am trying to develop good habits now, at the beginning of our marriage and family life, so as our children watch our behavior, these and other important habits will be magnified over several lifetimes.

I am not going to be perfect in this area. We do produce trash, although much less now than we used to. It has really helped to simply start seeing the amount of trash we produce, and simply being aware of it. But I acknowledge that nobody is going to be perfect, and so I don't think anyone should be held to a standard of perfection. The point is to do something. SO many people are simply lazy and so they do nothing. We aren't going to "save the earth" either; you'll never hear me arguing that. The earth has been groaning under the weight of sin for most of its lifetime, and one of the ways we see that is how people treat it. We can't stop massive companies from carelessly polluting our rivers and air far more than one family ever could (although we can quit supporting those companies). But that's not the point. We're all responsible for ourselves, and that's where we need to focus.

Just a note: recycling our garbage is absolutely essential. But it's not enough. Remember the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle? The first step is to reduce the trash coming into my home or possession. I start out with less trash, reuse whatever I possibly can, and whatever's left, yes, we recycle that. One other thing: plastics are pretty much the worst ever. Glass and paper can be recycled right back into glass and paper; plastic can usually only be recycled into non-recyclable plastic, and even then it's an extremely inefficient, oil-guzzling process. If you must buy something disposable, always choose glass over plastic! Not to mention you won't get those lovely chemicals leaching into your food. And glass is great for reuse, too.

So here are some things I/we have been doing to create less trash in the first place (and some great bonuses you'll experience when you start using these tips)...

I've given up plastic bags (duh) not only at grocery stores, but other stores too. If I buy lots of things and have forgotten my fabric totes in the car, well, I make myself go and get them. Then I probably won't forget again. (Bonus #1: fabric bags can hold a lot more and are way sturdier. Bonus #2: many stores give you a rebate when you use them.)
I don't let myself use paper towels, except for emergencies. (Mostly for cleaning up meat juice.) I keep a roll in another room where they're inconvenient to get at, and we use cloth rags instead, which actually work much better for most things.
I use the rags instead of Kleenex too. I happen to hate Kleenex so this is great.
We simply don't buy throwaway plates or utensils. I have a dishwasher and plenty of real dishes.
I try very hard to reduce/eliminate my use of plastic or styrofoam plates or cups wherever I am. I sure don't need a plate to catch three crumbs from a cookie.
At work, if I get something to eat at the cafeteria, I get it on a real plate, and bring the plate back later.
We don't get takeout a lot, but I've been remembering to bring my own containers for takeout food. (Bonus: real containers=much less chance of spillage in the car on the way home.)
If I have leftovers from a restaurant, I put them in my own containers. (I keep my own containers in the car at all times if you hadn't gotten that yet.)
I've been purchasing as much food as possible from the bulk bins, in my own containers. (Bonus: it's cheaper.)
For the shower, I choose bar soap wrapped in paper, instead of liquid soap in a plastic bottle.
I try to get secondhand stuff as much as possible. There must be some law that says new things must be covered in multiple layers of trash. (Bonus: it's cheaper.)
I quit canned food cold turkey a few months ago and have only missed canned foods about twice. (Bonus: fresh is way better anyways, and you won't be eating the nasty chemical BPA.)
I've learned to make a lot of things (sauces, etc.) from scratch instead of buying them in dedicated bottles and jars. (Bonus: you control the ingredients, and it'll probably taste better!)
I've found a place to get meat on recyclable trays instead of (toxic) styrofoam.
I make my own chicken and veggie broth in the crock pot (from food scraps, no less!) instead of buying that box stuff. (Bonus: real stock is super healthy and tastes awesome.)
We keep all our 'scrap' office paper and print on the blank sides as much as possible.
I wash and reuse my ziploc baggies and aluminum foil whenever possible.
I'm planning not to replenish my supply of ziploc baggies, aluminum foil or saran wrap. (Here's one of the tragic side effects of refining aluminum.) I think people did make food before plastic and foil. (Bonus: saves money.)
Instead of ziplocs, I'll keep the bags our bread comes in, and other little plastic bags I'd normally throw away, to use in the same ways as ziplocs. (Bonus: you save money.)
All of our hand soap is pumped out of reusable bottles (so I don't buy a new bottle every time, which is just insane) and I refill the main bottle of soap at Open Harvest. We use foamers anyways so we don't use much soap (which saves money too).
I try not to buy individual sizes of bottled water, pop, or juice. That should be a no-brainer. If I do buy a small bottle of something to drink at a gas station, I choose a glass bottle instead of plastic. (Bonus #1: You won't waste money on the epic scam of bottled water. Bonus #2: You'll drink fewer sugared artificially flavored beverages.)
I buy produce that is not wrapped in plastic and paper. I can just put it all into my (cloth) bag, and if not, I've brought my own containers (for small things like mushrooms and spinach and brussels sprouts). Shop at places that don't use pointless wrapping. If you are concerned about it getting dirty, remember your food GREW IN DIRT. Remember to wash your bags often.
I try to remember to bring my stainless travel mug to places like Starbucks. Travel mugs work for pop and water too! (Bonus: it's less likely to spill.)
I choose ice cream cones at ice cream shops - which means I don't need a dish or plastic spoon. (Bonus: cones are awesome.)
I try not to buy things that can't be recycled, like PAM, which is just overpriced canola oil in a can. I already have canola in the cupboard, as well as butter and other alternatives.
Also, shaving gel cans cannot be recycled, so try normal soap or another alternative. I use olive oil and it's fantabulous. (Bonus: olive oil works better than anything else EVER.)
In general, I look for food that's less packaged. I've found butter in a block, wrapped in one layer of paper instead of in paper AND in cardboard. (Those used butter wrappers are great for greasing pans, too, instead of the stupid PAM.)
When we have a baby, I'm planning to at least try to use cloth diapers and wipes instead of disposable ones. (Bonus: you will save thousands of dollars.)
No individually wrapped candies and treats. Open Harvest carries some candies in bulk. (Bonus: you can eat them faster.)
I steer clear of single-use sponges, cloths and cleaners, as well as those one-time-use toothbrushes and floss thingies.
We use plastic can liners in one trash can (in the kitchen, where the food scraps go) but all the other ones are unlined. When we start composting (ie, when we get a house) I'd like to quit using liners altogether.
Our daily work lunches go with reusable containers and normal silverware.
Instead of buying my own set of subscriptions, I get magazines lent to me from a coworker when she's done with them. (Bonus: it's FREE.) I don't really read newspapers, but the same idea would apply.
Also, it's good to remove yourself from unwanted mailing lists, and get electronic bills whenever possible. (Bonus: less annoying mail.)
I save bits of (clean) recyclable trash that I produce throughout the day (papers, napkins, pop cans, containers) and bring it all home to our bins if there's not a recycle bin nearby. I also just put a little basket in our office, for my coworkers to leave their cans and bottles.
Ladies, feel free to ask me what I've done to reduce "personal" throwaways! I'm not 100% comfy with publicizing details here, but if you are interested, I'd love to share...in private. ;)

Did you notice that lots of my ideas started with "I try to..."? This isn't about mandating 100% compliance! It's about truly doing your best. As much as I'd like to encourage baby steps, I also feel like that sentiment makes people feel good about doing one teensy thing (like, when they're out and about, putting their pop bottle in the recycle bin, which is right next to the garbage bin). Then they think they are 'good' for a while and neglect other important efforts. So I am not merely encouraging you to do a few scraps of thinking here and there, but to make real lifestyle changes. It isn't difficult at all, but what it does take is being intentional.

The good news is, in our home, it's working! More often than not, our trash gets "taken out" not because it's full, but because it's smelly! (Food scraps, remember?) Our recycle bins fill up more slowly now as well. Last time we took the recycling out, I was thrilled to see how much less plastic we'd used over the last month or so. One great benefit of recycling is that you see your waste piled up, and see how your stuff really adds up. Then you can take the appropriate steps to reduce it.

What do you think? Do you have any of your own trash-reduction hints to share?

my own culinary invention: autumn soup

2010-10-07T19:32:00.006-05:00

[DISCLAIMER: I'm as bad at writing recipes as I am at following them.]

Autumn Soup? What else shall I call it? I have no idea. Normally I get really annoyed by recipes with titles like "Breakfast Hooray" and "Jimmy Boy's Favorite Stew" "Apples Phoenix" and other stupid things that mean nothing and do nothing to enlighten the reader to the contents of the meal.

However, although I prefer 'titles' that are merely descriptive, I fear this one would take up the whole recipe card. Even the trimmed-down version, Squash Apple Carrot Potato Maple Cream Cinnamon Chipotle Bacon Soup, is a little overwhelming. So, since everything in this soup reminds me of autumn, I guess I'll call it that, for now. But, didn't reading that long title make you curious? make your mouth water a little? make you want to try it? Recipe names are the perfect way to entice somebody; they're not the time for mystery and secrets. (This photo is from FoodChannel.com. Looks somewhat like mine, but more like yellow paint. Mine looks way better. But I ate all my Autumn Soup before I had a chance to photograph it. Sorry.)

Anyways, even though it does have a lot of ingredients, this soup is SUPER easy. Even better, this recipe begs for your own interpretation. This isn't even a recipe. *cue Pirates of the Caribbean* "It's really more like...guidelines." You can swap, add, delete, or substitute to your heart's content, because it's pretty much impossible to screw this up. I also like this soup because it more or less all happens in one pot (assuming your meat is already cooked). Use a knife, peeler and chopping block, and there's not a lot of dishes to clean later.

FYI, this post will also contain the greatest frequency of the word 'mush' of any blog I've written so far.

Sometimes I break this up into two days, but you could just as easily do it in one, if you have the time like on a Saturday.

Main ingredients as I often choose them:

1 roasted butternut squash (4-5 cups of squash mush) (also try other squashes and/or a can of pumpkin mush!)
2-3 big potatoes, peeled and diced (also try sweet potatoes)
2-4 carrots, ends removed, chopped into smallish bits
2 apples, skinned, cored and chopped smallish (also try apple sauce)
5-10 cloves of garlic, peeled
Other ideas: parsnips, onions, zucchini (can't guarantee the beauty of the final product, though), eggplant, various chili peppers

Liquids (you can use one or the other, or any combo), probably a quart altogether (add as needed during the puree stage):

chicken or veggie broth
apple cider/juice

Spices:*

Cinnamon
Garam masala if you have it
Coriander seed powder if you have it
Powdered ginger
Curry powder
Smoked paprika
Chili powder
Chipotle powder
Salt and pepper (generously)

*I have never measured any of these so I don't know what to tell you. Just keep adding and tasting til you like what you've got. This soup is all about the harmony of sweet and savory. You want the spices to give a kick, add a lot of layered depth, but not overpower the sweetness. Definitely use whatever you have/like, but don't try to skimp out. The soup will be very boring if you do not spice it adequately. I've tried to think of any spices I could leave out for simplicity's sake, but...I just love the beauty of all of these, together. Really don't neglect the roasty, smoky, spicy flavors. Just keep tasting and be generous with everything you put in there.

Animal flesh (choose one or the other, or leave out altogether):

Diced ham
Crumbled bacon

Secret ingredient:

Equal parts heavy cream and maple syrup, mixed together separately and drizzled on top of the soup when serving (you could sub brown sugar for the syrup)

Here are the general, easy (I promise!) directions...

Roast squash and set aside the mush. (This is the part that takes an hour or two, so I usually roast it and put it in the fridge for another day. To roast it, just chop your squash in half longways, scrape out the seedy goopley part, brush cut areas with olive oil, and put in a pan with sides, cut side down, for an hour or more. I usually use one average sized squash per soup. After it's cooled, scrape the mush out of the skin and that's it.)
Cook the other fruit/veggies (potatoes, apples, garlic cloves, carrots) in a big pot of water til soft and mushy. Drain, mostly. A little liquid left is fine.
Put heat on medium low and add squash mush, liquids of choice, and a lot of your spices. Stir for a while, letting everything reduce into itself. Continually adjust liquids and spices to taste.
Puree the whole kit and caboodle with an immersion blender* if you have one, or in batches in a regular blender. I like a really silky texture here, so I always blend it really well. You might be tempted to skip this step because it all looks pretty smooth by now, if you've been simmering and stirring, but...usually there are some squash strings still hanging around, yucky-like. If you like the slightly chunky texture, go for it, it'll kind of feel like applesauce in your mouth, but I think the pureed version really helps the flavors to melt together.
Add meat, if using (I can attest to the tastiness of a bit of bacon or ham in that pot)
Simmer a while longer, if you can stand the wait, to let those golden flavors melt together
Top with the maple cream

*I got a blender like this one for Christmas last year (I pretty much begged for it) and it's so useful! You can mix up broths and soups like this, or blend iced drinks, sauces, and egg whites. I love it and highly recommend it. The first time I made this soup I used a regular blender, and it was a HUGE mess and I burned myself on the hot liquids. Never again.

This soup is SO good served with some crusty bread, maybe with a smear of apple butter on it. Oh, and following the general laws of soup, it's always better the next day! But don't let that stop you. Eat that lovely ~~Squash Apple Carrot Potato Maple Cinnamon Chipotle Bacon~~ Autumn Soup. And enjoy!

Our Apartment Is Just Fine...For Now?

2010-09-28T21:56:00.003-05:00

Yikes! It's been almost a month since I've written. I've been seriously consumed with getting my new wedding & portrait photography business off the ground...up and rolling...or is that off and rolling? Up off the ground? Well anyways, my wedding and portrait photography website is now online, and while I still have a HUGE list of things to do for my business, that was the first really big step in the right direction. (That and getting my sales tax license...which was pretty exciting too!)

Anyways, today's blog is about a response that I often receive, when I tell someone that my husband and I don't own a home (or rather, we don't live in a home the bank owns). We live in an apartment, as many newlyweds do. It's a really nice one though. We don't have a pool or a gym or anything, but we have almost 1100 feet of space, two floors, and more storage space than I ever had to myself in any standalone house I lived in. There's a nice patio with room for a little grill, a pair of chairs, and a dozen or so potted plants, and it's got a pleasant view of the little courtyard. We only live 5 minutes away from Justin's workplace, and about 20 from mine. This apartment is such a perfect fit for us in so many ways, and about once a week I sigh to my darling husband, "I just love where we live." You can see some photos of our little nest here, and here's some that were taken before we moved in.

But usually when we tell people we're in an apartment, they say something like "well that's nice...for now." The last part is ominously intoned. And then they give a knowing look, as if they sympathize with our non-home-owning misery, they understand we are at this pathetic little place through which all newlyweds must suffer, and we should be encouraged that this, too, shall pass.

Don't get me wrong. I look forward to a regular house one day, with room for a garden and some chickens and a dog and a dedicated photography studio...and windows on all sides, not just one. Someplace with wood floors, and walls that can be my favorite shade of Anything. Except. Beige. (Who invented this horrid "color" anyways, and why do landlords seem to like it so much?) Oh, and a garage. One day, yes, this will all be very luxurious and pleasant.

But really, I feel like people see apartment living as a transition, as something no real person would choose if they had any ambition, money, or self-respect. I'm sure there's some truth to that, at least in the super-sprawling Midwest where we have more land than we know what to do with, but we aren't suffering here. I have heard of grown adults, with children even, making rational choices to live in apartments instead of standalone homes. (!!!!!) There's a tradeoff either way you make the decision. And although I know home ownership is the American dream for many people, some people would rather not be saddled with high mortgages, a lawn to brainlessly maintain, siding and roofing and sod and walls and foundations and heaters and carpets and water softeners and plumbing to fix and replace, and generally the constant upkeep. Even the white picket fence will fall down and need to be replaced. You already know my true feelings about lawn care, but there's really something to be said for not having to worry about ANY of that other stuff, either. Sure, you get the nice feeling that all your money is actually going someplace, towards equity or whatever they say you need, but guess what? It's going everywhere else too (siding and roofing and sod and walls and...)! I'm sure very smart people have figured out it's all worth it, but...meh. Don't blame me for not being thrilled.

This isn't to disparage people who own homes. That option seems to be very popular despite everything! :) It's just that we are very happy right here, right now. We picked an apartment we loved, because we figured we'd be here for a good while. And I do believe a small child would fit very well here too. There's no reason anyone needs 1,000 more square feet of house, plus a patch of non-shared green grass, to hold a 5 pound baby. Just look at the sizes homes used to be! I don't plan on buying (or accepting!) tons of baby paraphernalia and I think that if we needed to, we could do just fine with one or even two kids here. With all the time we're not spending maintaining a standalone house, we can do stuff we actually like doing. Like playing with that 5 pound baby. Also, I am not pregnant.

Who knows what will happen? It'd be a good time to buy a house, economically, right now. We aren't in a position to do so, but if we were, well, maybe we'd have jumped on the proposition for the reason of getting some great deal. In five years, who knows where the housing market will be?

So I'm not saying I never want a house. I do, eventually. But it's not something I constantly covet, and I've realized it's sure not a necessity for normal, enjoyable adult living. I have my moments, like when we're driving past perfectly beautiful little houses covered in ivy. Or when I see people in regular houses not seeming to appreciate them, and not realizing the opportunities they have that I don't (a garden, anyone? hello? a place to keep a bike, anyone?). Or when people work so hard for their awesome homes, they're never home to enjoy them. And it's a tradeoff, like I said. I don't have to weed whack, ever. The roofers came and left and we have new roofing and we had nothing whatsoever to do with the process. I can call the landlady if the light's broken and it'll be fixed by the time I get back from work. I can fill as many little pots as my patio can hold, with herbs and flowers. And it's all beautiful and perfect. And we don't need any sympathy. For now. :)

We Are Who They Were - a 'guest' post :)

2010-08-31T12:35:00.006-05:00

I had another blog, long ago. Like other neglected blogs, it has now been lost in the murky waters of unnoticed cyberspace. I wrote this post on that blog about two years ago. I still remember writing it, while I was working at the stadium, where I hardly ever did anything but transfer the occasional phone call and write papers for my homework.

In a swirl of history and literature classes that semester, a spark hit my mind and ignited: the reality of the continuity of human history, the multitude of events and ideas that shaped the past, and now shape us. The idea that we can't escape history, even when we're ignorant about it. The past isn't something that's gone; we all carry bits of it. I'm not just talking about simple traditions or stuff we blindly do because that's how it's done. I mean thousands of years of time and people, all doing things and having ideas, the way we think, how we view reality itself. History is not all in the past.

Nobody ever commented on the original post, which couldn't possibly mean it was uninteresting to everyone but me. The only possible explanation is that nobody saw it, or they couldn't comprehend it due to my poor capitalization skills. So I've gone to the trouble of capitalizing the proper words (back in the day, I didn't do that) and have revised it VERY slightly.

----
Have you ever wondered why we do the things we do? Either you and me individually, or maybe our entire culture? Why are we like this? Can we - individually or as a whole culture - develop independently of and differently than those who have lived before us?

I've come to be convinced that the understanding of current times, at least in a very large way, lies in the past. The study of history illuminates today with a clarity and wonder that cannot be otherwise manufactured. The more history I learn, the more I understand about today, my culture, myself. I make no exaggerations. Then was another time, another place, another culture. But we wouldn't be who we are without the ideas, expectations and behaviors set in place by those very long ago. We are who they were.

Many of us believe we are independent thinkers (which, ironically, is also an idea given to us by some who lived before we did). But, how we think is in a very large way determined by the history of older civilizations. The way of thinking in thirteenth-century French romances has bled into your mind whether you've ever read Lancelot stories, and the influence of ancient sages like Plato -- removed from us by miles and millenia -- permeates our schools, churches, families, and even our deepest perceptions of reality. Ever read any Shakespeare? Even if you haven't, you've used the words and phrases and metaphors he invented. The very language we speak, our tool of fundamental communication, is a product of stone-age nomads, Roman military maneuvers and road-builders, and rosters of warriors, crusaders, emperors, despots. The way our classrooms are set up -- even the very concepts of teachers, students and exams -- is a result of decisions and controversies made by pompous theologians and traveling humanists during the Renaissance. And the ideals of religious and political freedom we hold so dear, often as dear as our faith? They showed up in the sixteenth century, in books by a band of Enlightened rebels, who efficiently usurped the Christian conviction that God raises and removes kings.

My friends, we - you, me, our culture, many cultures - are a conglomeration of them - the ancients, the rebels, the teachers and the poets.

They are indelibly stamped in our very cores. And if there is one thing I've learned in my literature and history studies, it's that those who write are the boldest tools of radical change throughout history. A word spoken is gone; written, that same word has the potential to become immortal and affect millions.

Just like the lives and texts of ancient times affect us so strongly, our lives and ideas will affect those far after us. This postmodernist culture is the forerunner for another kind of culture, whether or not they will know about how postmodernism worked. The writers of the books today will be -- even create -- the history that is studied and embedded in peoples' worldviews. The way our churches work, what our priorities are and how we influence our surroundings, will be the mark left on future Christians and pagans alike, regardless of how much they knew about us. Whether or not the future will know about what made us tick (perhaps they, too, will be mad with the idea that they are independent), they will be patchworks of all that have come and gone -- of our culture, of you and me, who are ourselves quilts of ancient expressions.

It's something to think about.

Smoothie Heaven

2010-08-21T14:18:00.001-05:00

I love making smoothies. I love how there aren't any hard and fast 'rules' per se, and...best of all, there's no recipe needed! It's just my style! I never liked store bought smoothies that much, either because there were chips of ice in there, or they just didn't have enough flavor. (Exception: the NuVibe smoothie with banana, honey, chocolate and peanut butter. Amazing!) And just recently, Justin declared my smoothies to be better than purchased ones! HOORAY! (It was at that point I admitted that I'd always thought mine were better, too...although I'm very picky about most things involving food.) Here are the most important elements, in my opinion, of an excellent smoothie. I don't think I have any specific structure though...you just put in what sounds good together, with some exceptions. Oh, and I'm not talking ice cream/chocolate smoothies here...those are shakes and malts, and in a TOTALLY different category. :) I still make those, but they aren't what I'm talking about here.

To me, a smoothie inhabits that sweet spot between Healthy and Tasty. In fact, it can be both Healthy and Tasty, which is always what I go for! I make smoothies for meals, usually breakfast a couple times a week, and occasionally for a light dinner. My aim is to get healthy stuff in us, and have a nice breakfast we can enjoy together. Put the right stuff in there, and you'll be full all morning. I'm usually pretty hungry well before lunchtime, but these keep me full.

The most important thing when you are making your smoothies: DO NOT USE ANY ICE! A lack of ice may sound antithetical to the very concept of a smoothie, but it's the most important! Ice=water. (I guess you knew that.) It melts and then your smoothie is watered down. Also, ice has no flavor, which is the worst thing I can think to put in anything I make.

In lieu of ice, the main ingredient in all my smoothies is frozen fruit. (Not so with 99% of purchased smoothies!) Having frozen fruit available makes the process super slick! So the first step is to always have fruit in the freezer. Whenever you get a load of the stuff, put some in the freezer, cut up a bit if necessary. Bananas, freshly cut pineapple, strawberries, peaches...they go in baggies and containers (bananas are peeled first and broken in half). I also sometimes buy precut, prefrozen fruit in bags for a fast option. Thus, a good amount of your ingredients are frozen, so you won't need to use a tasteless load of frozen water in your smoothie. Which is just...wrong.

If you're not making your smoothie mostly out of fruit, you'll want to freeze other stuff like milk or yogurt, probably in ice cube form, to use in lieu of water. Just make sure you've frozen the main component and you should be good.

(It's my opinion that not all the smoothie makins' should be frozen solid, though. You're supposed to be able to drink the smoothie, without a spoon if necessary. If I can hand it to Justin like they hand you a Blizzard at DQ, and hold it upside down for a few seconds, it's just a little...much. To each her own, but apart from the fruit, I don't use any other frozen stuff.)

Almost all of my smoothies contain plain yogurt, either purchased or homemade. (In general, flavored yogurts, even the supposedly healthy ones, contain all sorts of additives, so check the labels and make sure you're not eating a load of sugar, high fructose corn syrup and aspartame.) I usually put about a cup or a little more, for two small-meal-sized drinks. Or skip the dairy...it's not actually necessary. But yogurt lends a great base consistency when it's not frozen, and I like the flavor.

Sweeteners? Sometimes. I only ever use honey, and even then just to balance out the tang of the yogurt (and to help cover the taste of other ingredients to be announced shortly). You may not need it, but other 'flavors' listed below might also double as sweeteners (like maple syrup). Or you may prefer sweetened yogurt. You can also rely on other naturally sweet ingredients like fruit juices. In any case, you don't need much.

I always want some texture in my smoothies too (something that most purchased ones are pathetically lacking). I always add a few spoonfuls of ground flax for texture, and because flax is so danged healthy. (As far as I know, the flax seeds have to be ground up to be of any healthful benefit, so I just buy them that way.) Often I'll add a handful of oats too...although I've kind of stopped doing that because they can get a wee bit soggy. Nuts are a great addition, especially sliced almonds or chopped pecans. (Whole almonds probably won't get chopped too well.) Sometimes, back in the day when I bought that kind of stuff, I'd throw a NutriGrain bar in there. Or Grape Nuts. Granola is a great option, as is any cereal that won't get too soggy too fast. I always suggest something grainy, to add texture and help fill you up, and there are lots of options.

Now you can have tons o' fun with any other flavors you like. Cinnamon is one of my favorites. You could use coconut cream/shredded coconut, craisins/raisins, cardamom, peanut/almond butter, vanilla extract, applesauce, maple syrup, Nutella, instant coffee, lemon or lime juice, cocoa powder, jam or jelly, pure green tea powder (been dying to try that one), almond milk, other fruit juices, even a scoop of ice cream. Or add a gourmet note with a sprig (or dash) of basil, mint, lavender, lemon verbena, or thyme. Just play off the flavors in the main ingredients and be creative!

We're almost done! Next is Stuff I Won't Taste But That's Good For Me. I have recently stumbled upon the idea of putting healthy green leafy things in our smoothies...like chard, spinach or kale. I have only ever tried using kale (I keep meaning to use some of the chard growing on the porch), but let me tell you...you can't taste it at all, and obviously, the whole point is that it's SUPER healthy. If you aren't getting at least one dose of dark green stuff a day, this is a good way to do it! I put 2-4 torn up leaves in there, with the big ribs removed (they just taste funky to me), and tada, we're eating leafy greens for breakfast. When I use kale, I use it with blueberries or other dark things, to help disguise the greenness. I think spinach, being brighter and more watery, adds more of a green coloring, so if you are feeding people who won't eat healthy colors, it may help to disguise it.

The moral of this story: smoothies are a great disguise for stuff you might not eat raw (or at all) on its own! You can also use fruits that are past their prime or not looking so hot, like bruised strawberries, smushed bananas, or peaches that have gone mealy. Look through your kitchen, and while being discerning (I don't suggest nachos or asparagus), think outside the smoothie box.

Last thing: you'll probably want to use a splash of liquid to even out the frozen stuff. Maybe a half cup or a cup, depending on how much other stuff you've got in there. I usually use some kind of fruit juice, whatever's in the fridge...or else a little milk. (You could use water too, but it has no taste. Your call. :) I put the liquid in last because if it sits too long with the frozen ingredients, it'll also freeze, which is so not the point of it being there. So I dump it in right before I put the lid on. It trickles down and helps everything blend together well.

To blend, I always use the 'ice chopping' setting for a few seconds to get everything chopped, then pulse at the highest level (puree on my blender) for a while til everything is REALLY blended. It's not rocket science, but I've found it's always best to blend a little longer than I think I need to.

A quick recap: no ice, frozen fruit, yogurt, honey, texture, flavors, Stuff I Won't Taste But That's Good For Me, liquid, blend. There ya be!

And just for the record, Justin knows our smoothies have green stuff in them, and he still thinks mine beat out all the competition. :)

Do you make "green smoothies"? What else do you put in your smoothies?

The Return, and Discovery

2010-07-25T00:28:00.003-05:00

Since coming back from this trip I've begun to understand why some people say you need "a vacation from your vacation." Our trip was structured and fast-paced, so we didn't have much time to relax. We were up early every day (which, if you know us, is really saying something) because we had so many things to see and not enough time.

Oh...and check out a good assortment of additional photos here, on my photo blog! (I sorta tried to put different photos on the blogs, because different people read them, but there is some overlap.)

For the first full day of our trip, we drove through the south part of Wyoming and headed north into the Tetons. I was pretty stoked to see the Tetons, and let me tell you why. When I was young and bored, I had a stamp collection. Quite the hobby it was. One of my all-time best stamps was a longish one with a painting of the Tetons on it! The sunset was glowing on those tall, jagged, craggly peaks, sharp like razors slicing through the clouds. The Tetons always looked so much better than the Colorado mountains I was used to seeing all the time. Those ones were like dull butter knives, soft and swaying in shape. But the Tetons...now THOSE were some serious mountains.

As we got close to the park, I still hadn't seen them, even from a distance. I was looking SO hard for them. Then, just for a split second as we wound our way through the town of Jackson, I saw them jutting through the green butter-knife hills, sharp as they were on the postage stamp...

This is what they looked like when we got closer. Aren't they absolutely breathtaking?

We spent a day in Teton and a day and a half in Yellowstone. From there we drove to Seattle, stayed for three days, then camped in Olympic National Park.

Campsites:

Our first campsite ever, in Teton National Park.

This one's in Yellowstone.

And here we are camping in Olympic National Park, just a few steps away from the Pacific Ocean. Can you see how insanely tall those trees are??

Before we left, I was pretty excited to see Yosemite, especially Half Dome. Well, it turns out I had Yosemite and Yellowstone backwards in my mind MY WHOLE LIFE. Or maybe I thought they were two parks in one...? But I was recently informed by my husband that Yosemite was in California. I didn't know what was in the real Yellowstone except for buffalo and Old Faithful, which didn't excite me all that much.

But having visited it, I can now say that the real Yellowstone is about the most epic and unreal place I've ever been to. I don't know how many times I gasped and said, "I've never seen anything LIKE this before!" and "I have never imagined anything like this!" Sometimes it was like being on the moon, with white, chalky, barren cliffs. Then there were psychedelic ponds of steaming neon colors, and bizarre "bacterial mats," these bright orange streaks, like flowing lava. Oh, I'll just show you, even though these photos are also on the other post.

There were also a lot of waterfalls, which tend to really look a lot alike after the first few. One thing I firmly believe: if the water never actually falls (ie, if it is just running down a hill), it is NOT a waterfall and should not be billed as such.

Anyways, after packing up our Yellowstone campsite, and after a full day of driving, we arrived in Seattle, Washington.

On the way, we crossed the Columbia River, and pulled over at an overlook for this magnificent view:

Here are a few highlights of our three days in Seattle: taking a tour of Seattle's (pretty bizarre) underground...

This, friends, is a crapper. Really, that's what it's called. One thing we learned on our Seattle Underground tour is that the modern toilet was invented by a chum called Thomas Crapper, and this is one of the original versions. Who knew??

We ate dinner at the Space Needle, which rotates around so you can see the whole city...(I liked watching the waiters go about their business, because it was funny to me that they had to ignore the city behind them.)

Here's the view of Seattle from the observation deck, right below the restaurant. The natives said they hadn't had this clear of a day in months!

I had seared ahi tuna with jasmine rice, wilted greens, and a heavenly spicy blackberry sauce. There was also a soy-ginger sauce. This might have been the best meal of my life. (It was served as quite the presentation, but I immediately dug in and then was like OH NO, take a photo!)

We also climbed a very old watertower...

and hung out at the Pike Place Market quite a bit...including THE original Starbucks! Look at me!

Oh, and then there was more amazing food. We arrived on July 4th, and like any good American we ate a hearty Irish dinner at a little place near our hotel. After that we ate salmon, clam chowder, pasta, pizza, burgers, French pastries, Russian pastries, and a whole lot of really good coffee.

Oh yes...our hotel! Somehow we lucked out on this place. We were on the 7th floor of a very old building in the heart of downtown, overlooking Puget Sound. We had high ceilings and large windows (sorry, forgot to take photos!). But after a few days of camping, a hot shower and a soft bed felt pretty great too. And it was really inexpensive...our hotel in Sidney, NE cost quite a bit more than this gem!

After we were done in Seattle, we had to take a ferry across the sound, to get to Olympic. On the way, we drove to Hurricane Ridge, another view that required a movie clip to capture it all. It was very windy.

You wouldn't believe our campsite. It was like a jungle. We were also only yards away from the Pacific Ocean. Here is me, stepping in the Pacific for the first time (it was pretty cold water).

Some more photos from our campsite area and beach...

a driftwood collector's paradise...

We'd bought salmon and scallops at the fish market before leaving Seattle that morning. You never tasted anything so fresh. Because I am THAT cruel, here are some photos of this neon-red-fresh Copper River salmon, and these perfectly seared scallops (probably my favorite food ever)...we fried it all in butter with salt and pepper, and that's it. Beautiful.

Let's have one more shot of those perfectly-carmelized, almost-as-big-as-your-palm, fresh-as-rain scallops.

We also visited a rainforest, though only for a few hours. It was also pretty spectacular. It was like where the hobbits lived, green and mossy and primeval and mysterious. Above: something accurately named The Big Cedar Tree. (Just look at that thing!) Below: a giant spruce tree.

Hey look, we're in a rainforest!

These trees all started growing on a fallen tree when it started to rot. Then the fallen tree disintegrated and left this row of trees with tall, cave-ey roots. There were lots of rows like this.

Cape Flattery, Washington. The northwesternmost point in the continental U.S. (Doesn't sound so awesome with all those conditions.)

We couldn't see them, but there were PUFFINS out there!

Driving back to our campsite that evening, we stopped to check out some beaches at low tide:

When we were in all these amazing places, I kept imagining what it'd be like to discover something. And I don't mean being the first European to "discover" it. I mean being the first human to make it to the top of that ridge for that surreal, monstrous vista. Hearing the water for miles as you walk along, and suddenly, there is the crashing, raging waterfall. Sludging your way through the woods only to be startled by a vast flower-covered meadow slanting up to meet the mountains in the sky. What would that be like, to find something of such profound beauty? I think that is what Heaven -- or should I say, the new earth, redeemed and restored to its first beauty -- will be like.

I read the book "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn a few years ago. Justin hadn't read it yet, so before our trip we downloaded the audio version and listened to it in the car. If you haven't read it before, you need to! This book emphasizes the reality that our eternal home won't be some boring, vague, glowy spiritual existence. God will restore this very earth to its initial perfection, just like he's planning to restore the physical bodies of all who have trusted in Him. The entire creation will once again be as he intended. The pollution and havoc we've wreaked upon God's creation will be swept away. Disease, heartache, betrayal, disappointment and grief will be distant memories. And no more evil, and no more separation from God, no veil between this world and the spiritual one. Can you imagine it?? It is what every heart yearns for, why things seem so beautiful and yet so horrible at the same time. We belong to this earth, this same exact one we're on now, because God always intended for us to live here. And one day, it'll again be as it was supposed to be.

What if we were always imagining what eternity be like, sincerely and honestly looking forward to it? What if we could hardly wait? Will the mountains be higher? The water bluer, deeper, multicolored? The planets and stars all visible to the naked eye? All the animals and flowers that have ever been extinct? A hundred new colors? Music coming from the sky? Discovery, new vistas around every corner, as though you were the first native to stumble across Old Faithful. Learning, finding, and finally knowing, finding answers and reality as we always knew it should be. And God is there, enjoying it all with us, and we brilliantly see his divine signature in every fraction of the universe and in our own selves.

That is what eternity will be like. What if I was just as stoked for that, as I was for this vacation?

Do go check out Heaven by Randy Alcorn. (You can get the iTunes version for $10.) It might just shake up your perspective...which, I think, is always a good thing. Thanks for reading about our trip, and about Heaven! :)

The Bulk Bins (& Making Less Garbage)

2010-07-17T17:34:00.008-05:00

I really wanted to blog about my trip, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I've had this post waiting patiently in the wings for awhile, and it wants to be read. Vacation posts (and photos) to come shortly! :)

One of the best ways to stretch your dollars while buying natural, whole foods is to use bulk bins as much as possible. Most of us are used to grabbing a prepackaged, premeasured, prepriced version of something off a shelf, but once you have a good system down, it's easy to use the bulk bins to
produce much less garbage,
spend only what you want,
buy only what you need, and
buy the very best you can.

Bulk buying is part of my effort to create less trash (and not-recyclable-in-Lincoln trash at that). I've been thinking about this a lot: our culture is highly consumerist, and very disposable-minded. Even the clothes we buy are supposed to be disposable after the trend has run its course. Electronics and appliances aren't made to last; they're made to stop working in a few years, at which point we will assumably desire a newer model anyways. Creating less garbage should be a priority for all of us. The amount of trash we produce is shameful, and our perpetual carelessness with it demonstrates an inherent lack of respect, or even basic appreciation, for God's creation. How is throwing it in a landfill any better than tossing it on the side of the road? If it's disrespectful to litter in your neighbor's lawn or in a pristine national park, it's disrespectful to trash any other part of God's world. Christians should be leading the charge in this area. (More to come in another blog...)

When we get out of the habit of constantly buying packaging, in the meantime, we find ourselves saving money. At our house, we don't use disposable cups, plates, silverware, grocery bags (most of the time), napkins or paper towels. And I've been trying to cut way back on plastic packaging - check out Fake Plastic Fish for some hard-core inspiration! This sort of lifestyle shift will really realign your perceptions about stuff in a lot of good ways. Not to mention you will end up with longer lasting clothes, less expensive food, and better quality things in general. (Or maybe even...dare I say it...fewer things? Hmmm...)

Now I will climb off my soapbox and wander back into the grocery store. Yes, bulk bins. I think people have this idea of "bulk bins" as a place where you get a 25lb sack of something, then throw it on your horse and ride back out to the farmstead. But 'bulk' just means the store has it in bulk, which lets you get however much you want. Need a quarter cup of something called ''teff'' for a recipe? Or want to try a serving of steel cut oats for breakfast before committing to a whole bag? You can use bulk bins to get whatever amount you need. And you don't have to use a horse.

Plenty of stores have bins, but by far my best experience in Lincoln has been at Open Harvest. They have a huge section of bins with everything you can imagine. It's also a 'refill center' for lots more than just dry goods. I was a little intimidated by the bulk buying process at first, but now I'm so very glad I've gotten the hang of it.

(There is a general feeling that Open Harvest is a "really expensive health food store." If it was, I wouldn't be shopping there! Yes, packaged healthy food is more pricey than packaged conventional food. Thank the government for that. But stay away from the packages and brand names, and you might be surprised at how many options you have. Lots of things are actually cheaper at Open Harvest than Hy-Vee. Oh, and I've also found the bulk bin contents to be much fresher than the bagged stuff from a regular grocery store.)

With traditionally packaged foods, someone else has decided how much you get, and you are also paying for the packaging and marketing (and often transportation) that went into that particular brand. With no-name bins, you're foregoing those unnecessary elements that help make a teensy box of, let's say, Quaker steel-cut oats over $5 at the grocery store...which is more than three times what the Quaker rolled oats would run you. Steel cut oats are LESS processed than instant oats, right? So in a rational world, they would be cheaper. But steel-cut oats are trendy amongst healthy types, so Quaker prices them higher. When you buy that box, you aren't just paying for a very simple, minimally processed whole grain; you're buying all the research and marketing Quaker does for that type of cereal. And you have to pay for the box, and all the equipment and gas used to transport it across the country to your store. But you're smarter than that, right? Because you have just read Nikki Moore's blog on bulk-bin purchases. So you head to the humble bulk aisle. You can get about the same amount that would've been in the arrogantly priced Quaker box for less than a dollar. And they're even organic oats! Sorry, Quaker lady.

While each store will obviously be a little different, here is my process for shopping at Open Harvest. First, I round up my containers, bags and jars at home. (Yes, this requires planning and thinking ahead on my part.) Sure, there are bags at the store, but we want to use LESS garbage, remember? So if you're not saving your jars already, START NOW! You have paid for them already, so unless you're obsessive about everything exactly matching in your kitchen (creepy), no need to go out and buy OTHER jars. That would just be stupid. Keeping jars is is the best way to build up a collection of containers to store your purchases. I usually forego cans and plastics when I buy food anyways, so I have plenty of jars. They come in handy for so many other things, like salad dressing, spice mixes, marinades, cocoa mix, freezer jam, etc. When you make lots of stuff from scratch, you need places to put it.

Bringing jars to the store can get heavy, so I use a couple of good sturdy canvas bags -- wide, shallow ones, so the jars don't have to stack on each other. (I get a rebate for bringing my own bags and containers, too.) Also bring a Sharpie. Forget not thy Sharpie.

If I have a jar I haven't brought in before, I first weigh it, with the lid, on their digital scale. This is the tare (empty) weight. I write that weight on the bottom of the jar with my Sharpie, which I have not forgotten, because it is always in my purse. (At some stores, the employees might have to weigh and mark it for you.) Then I go fill up my jar with whatever from the bin, and write that bin number on the bottom too. Then the checker will know how much to subtract off the total weight (for the jar weight), and he won't have to look up my obscure and unidentifiable flour on his chart. Repeat for each new jar.

It gets easier the more times you go! Because once you have established jars for certain things, you just refill them. All the info is already on there. And look at you. You reused a jar, produced no garbage, and in return you have super frugal food, and maybe it's even organic to boot. And jars look great in your kitchen, too!

Really Important Stuff I've Learned (mostly the hard way):

Make sure your jars have WIDE MOUTHS. More than once I've dragged in a huge jar with a 2" opening, while the bin spout has maybe a 3" opening, and that's a problem. Yep. You can use a wide funnel, but...I don't have one. Just...improvise...and promise yourself you'll do better next time. (I make this promise to myself each time. :)
Don't forget the Sharpie.
Try to freeze stuff for a few hours after you get it home. I haven't had any problems, but bulk bins, just like commercially purchased grains and flours and sugars, can harbor lots of baby bug eggs. This is totally legal.
Make sure all your containers have lids that fit TIGHTLY. 'nuf said.
Keep an eye out for cross-contamination, if you have allergies/intolerances. Sometimes I need to cook gluten-free, so if I've had flour in a jar, I make sure and wash it real well before putting pecans or something else in it. Or just keep certain jars for certain things.
Make sure the jars and lids are completely dry before you fill them.
Even if you think it's rather obvious, please label the jars with their contents. Green lentils start to look a lot like split peas when they're in clear jars next to each other (especially for a confused husband).
Whole grains (brown rice, wheat flour etc) tend to go rancid more quickly than processed ones (Minute rice, white flour), because they still have the oils and nutrients intact. So if you're not going to be using it up in six months or less, keep it in the fridge.
Your Sharpie is black. Molasses is also black. You can't see your sharpie-marks when the jar is full of molasses. Use a label of some kind.

Here are some things I can get in bulk (most of these are organic and/or local): honey, olive oil, spelt, white and wheat flour, coffee beans/grinds, soy sauce/tamari, pasta, all kinds of beans, raisins, molasses, peanut butter, tahini, oats, all kinds of rice, wheat berries, split peas, corn meal, vital wheat gluten, citric acid, granola, cereal, all kinds of nuts, cereal, chocolate, all kinds of dried fruit, every spice I could think of, loose teas...well you get the idea. I can also get some liquid soaps and shampoos refilled into my own bottles! I bring my own jars or containers for all of these. Oh, and eggs. They aren't in a bin with a spout, but I reuse the same egg box.

The point is that once you get a good system down, you can really save a lot of money, reduce the amount of garbage you contribute to the earth's landfills, and get high quality, whole foods for your family as well. Questions? Your own tips to contribute? Please comment! Thanks for reading, friends.

I Hate Exercise

2010-06-16T16:46:00.007-05:00

I don't make a secret of the fact that I can't stand exercise. It makes me miserable, pure and simple. I don't mind exercise in disguise, which some people call tennis or two-hand-touch-football or ultimate frisbee. As long as I have something else to distract me, I can forget for a few moments that running, jumping and making my heart beat quicker aren't a) fun, or b) any fun at all.

What is it about exercising that so many people seem to like? Runners especially! Every runner I have ever seen seems to be having the most miserable time of their life. They are red and sweating, their clothes are hanging funny all over them, they can't get water in their mouth accurately, and they have horrible, painful grimaces on their face. When I ask runners how and why they run, they say "It's not so bad after you get used to it. It feels good to push yourself." True, or I could take a razor blade and run it in between my toes every day, really push myself, and maybe eventually it won't hurt so badly.

I need to do some kind of physical activity though, but I feel so dumb that I have to think about it, and even dumber that I am considering paying for it by signing up for a gym membership. Feeling dumb makes me wish I lived some place, some time, where "exercise" wasn't ever thought of; I would just do my daily activities and get physical activity in the process. The idea of a gym is grimly amusing to me, for one because I would be paying money to be in misery. Plus, if you think about it, it's pretty silly to pay for something as free as exercise. And it's hard to get excited about hanging out in a shrine to a pampered, overfed, sedentary culture where most people (um, myself included) will accidentally get too fat if they don't go and burn it off on purpose.

There is also a great, delicious irony here. So many of us have these easy-peasy lives now, with desk jobs and automatic everything. We are told these are improvements (and of course, many are). Except that now, because all our hard work is done by machines, we have to spend time in the gym on a different kind of machine, sweating away the extra time we've been given by technological and industrial advances. It's hard to beat that for irony, eh?

BUT, because I am not a farmer from 1850, and do have a sedentary office job and general ease of, um, everything, I need to find a viable way to do some physical activity. The gym is the absolute last resort. I have tried other things, though. Exercise sections in magazines are completely, totally, 100% useless to me. There's always a photo of an evenly-lit, perfectly tanned, muscular girl in a sports bra standing on the sand, just exercising away like she loves it and doesn't care who's ogling her. (Which is so realistic.) The next five pages are fifteen different poses, which you apparently must memorize and then do in rapid succession. But the photos never can clearly articulate what, exactly, you must do, so there are paragraphs telling you. "First do this with your left foot, then put your one arm over your other arm and then take your beach ball and fold your mat in half..." For one, I'm unfortunately in a living room, 1,000 miles away from a real beach. No beach balls, no sand, no ogling strangers (oh right, that's why I'm inside). Can anyone ever remember what exactly to do, and in what order, and how many reps in how many sections?? If you're really exercising, you definitely cannot READ THE MAGAZINE WHILE YOU'RE DOING IT. And if you were really on a beach, the magazine would blow into the sea before you finished the first set.

So that won't work. I've tried exercising at home, with DVDs and Netflix yoga instructors. This is slightly better, because someone is telling me what to do, and instead of one picture of each pose followed by a complex paragraph, I get to watch Evenly Lit Girl doing the stretches and poses and moves. This is much more sensible. But one problem remains. With yoga, I of course am twisting myself around pretty good. It is at the moment of perfect pretzeled bliss that the instructor will say "now put your arm like this" and I can't see her (at least not without dangerously craning my neck around even more). No matter which direction I start in (I've tried them all), I always end up facing away from the TV when I need to see what they are doing. So this DVD instructor thing is just not working for me. Plus, I pretty much have to rearrange the living room to make a space to do the exercises. I do love doing yoga, but I unfortunately have no motivation to continue with the DVDs.

Despite my great annoyance at most street bikers I encounter, I'm going to try to start biking, and I'm going to try really hard not to be like most street bikers. (If you are a biker reading this, please remember that if you are going to ride on the street--which is fine and legal--you have to follow all the rules just like cars do! You don't get to run stop lights, turn the wrong way down one-ways, weave in between cars where there is not a lane, or go your tranquil, zero-emission 10mph in a 35mph zone.) First I am hoping someone will give or lend me a bike, even though we don't really have a place to keep it. In addition to biking, my final option is to succumb to the ridiculousness of paid gym memberships. I hate the idea of it, but I'm also feeling forced into it. Biking is great for cardio/fat burning (that is the same thing, right?), but if I am going to spend time exercising, it's gotta be serious stuff.

So: I'm thinking about joining Curves. (Right. After I just insulted everyone who has a gym membership. I gotta stay humble.) The great thing about Curves is that you have no cryptic diagrams or invisible instructors to follow, and no lengthy sets to memorize. And no men. You just go around the circle of machines for 30 minutes, and look, you have done some exercise, and a full and valuable bit of it too. It is still exercise for its own sake, so I still know I will hate it. And, the idea of using sweaty gross machines is not exactly thrilling either. I think I am just going to go as quick as I can, not think about it, and get out of there. And I am thinking of putting some interesting things on my iPhone so I can be using my brain while the rest of me does its boring, bland, miserable duty to itself. So now all that remains is to convince myself that my physical activity, and ultimate personal health, is more important than my dislike of exercise and gyms. Curves doesn't sound too bad, right? At least it's better than razor blades?

A list of fake organic and fake natural products!

2010-05-28T10:30:00.001-05:00

I am reposting this blog from organicgal007 because I think it is a very good resource as we educate ourselves about what's going onto...and therefore into...our bodies. What is often marketed as one thing, may not be what it seems. She has created an extensive list of products that claim to be "natural" or "pure" or "safe" and then reveals those products and companies who are just plain faking it...and the lists of toxic chemicals they're still using. We must be aware that the FDA does not regulate the terms "natural," "pure," or "safe." The word "organic" can even be used as long as some of the ingredients are organic...but there is no regulation about the safety of other ingredients! These terms can be included on any label with no oversight. Do not trust the front of the bottle.

I'm a little sheepish to say I found some of my own products on this list. While I knew they weren't really 100% pure, I knew they were better than what I had been using. It is a process. When that bottle runs out, I'll use something else.

The other reason this list is helpful is that she has also included, near the end of the list, some companies with genuinely safe/organic ingredients. This is a good place for us to start looking for real natural cosmetics to replace the junk.

As I have said before, the Food and Drug Administration does not regulate makeup, shampoo, hairspray, lotion, or any other cosmetics. We must do our own research. I think this list is a good resource to help in this long and daunting research process. It might also bring some surprises for those (like me) who are trying to make better choices but still had a little too much trust in the industry. Don't make that mistake!

Everything else in this blog is written by organicgal007, from her excellent post here.

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THE LIST...

Fake Organics: These companies use synthetics and sometimes very little organics in their finished product. The ingredient names following the brand name are examples of the exact toxic ingredients these companies use, that landed them on my No No list and the USDA Organic regulations do not condone use of. You won't see the USDA Organic logo on any of these brands, yet, they still try to trick the uneducated public into believing they are an "organic" product by calling their brand name " ____ organic".

Alba Botanica - Phenoxyethanol, Dimethicone, Octinoxate , Oxybenzone, Peg-100, Sodium PCA, etc.
Avalon Organics - Cocamidopropyl betaine, Phenoxyethanol, Disodium oleamido succinate, Sodium PCA, Octinoxate, Oxybenzone, etc.
Babywise Organics - Octyl Palmitate (I'm finding this to be another name for Dimethicone..correct me if I'm wrong), Retinyl Palmitate , Phenoxyethanol, Ceteareth-20, Dimethicone, Cocamidopropyl Betaine , Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate, etc.
Derma E Organic Expressions - PEG-7, Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate, Dimethicone, Peg-175, PEG-200, Phenoxyethanol, Hexylene Glycol, etc.
Giovanni Organics - PVP (which is vinyl), PEG-40, Polysorbate 60, Dimethicone, Cyclomethicone, Octylmethoxycinnamate, Diazolidinyl Urea, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Disodium Cocamphodiacetate, PEG-8, etc,
Head Organics - PEG-7, PVP (which is vinyl), Dimethicone, Phenoxyethanol, Cetrimonium Chloride, etc.
J ason pure natural organic - Cocamide MEA, Polyquaternium-7, Propylene Glycol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Dimethicone,
Juice Beauty - Retinyl palmitate, Phenoxyethanol, Ethylhexyl (octyl) palmitate, Cocamidopropyl betaine. Only 4 of over 30 products actually carry the USDA Organic logo, all other 30+ products do not. To me having only 4 certified products, does not make you an organic company.
Kiss My Face Organics - Phenoxyethanol (funny their adverts claim they are "Obsesivly Organic". HA! Really?)
Lotus Touch organic & natural - PEG-100 Stearate, Dimethicone, Disodium EDTA, Phenoxyethanol, Retinyl Palmitate, Bisabolol,
Mill Creek Organics a.k.a. Amazon Organics - Cocamidopropyl betaine, Octyl dimethyl PABA, Acrylates copolymer,
Natures Gate Organics - Disodium EDTA, Phenoxyethanol, PEG-120, Avobenzone, Octinoxate, Octisalate, Octocrylene, Oxybenzone, PEG-100, Dimethicone, Disodium EDTA, PVP, Dimethiconol,
Organix - Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Cocamide DEA, Dimethicone, (Behentrimonium 2 of 4 are toxic, they don't notate which of the 4 types they are using..so this one is iffy), Tetrasodium EDTA, Methylchloroisothiazolinone , Methylisothiazolinone, etc.
Organix South Inc, a.k.a. Thera Neem - Sodium Acrylates Copolymer, Phenoxyethanol, Lauramide DEA, PEG-7, PEG-40,
Pharmacopia Organic - Phenoxyethanol; Chlorphenesin, Cocamidopropyl betaine
Sexy Hair Organics. i can't find even 1 website online, including the company website, that lists the ingredients. next time i'm at the mall i will jot them down, this is where I saw them first and was appalled by the list of toxins.

Fake Naturals: These companies claim they are natural, safe, part of wellness, or pure; but use toxic synthetics in their products. The words Natural, Pure, & Safe have no regulations guiding their use. Any company can make these claims regardless to if the claim is true or not.

365 by Whole Foods (so confusing to me at to why their body care products contain junk ingredients).
Alba - Phenoxyethanol, Dimethicone, Octinoxate , Oxybenzone, Peg-100, Sodium PCA, etc.
Arbonne - Cocamidopropyl Betaine Coconut , PEG-80, Peg-120, Retinyl Palmitate, Triethanolamine, Phenoxyethanol , Hexylene Glycol , etc. (their baby line is horribly toxic).
Arm & Hammer Essentials Deodorant- propylene glycol, tricolsan, (they test on animals, this alone is enough to boycott them)
Aveda - Many forms of PEG's, Dimethicone, etc. (sorry list not complete. I popped into an Aveda Salon because Aveda does not list online nor will reply to my emails. I did a brief look over of the bottles before it was frowned upon by the salon staff and I left.)
Aveeno - Dimethicone, Petrolatum, Distearyldimonium Chloride, PEG-80, Trisodium EDTA, PEG-150, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate
The Body Shop - PEG-100, Parabens (1 product alone had 5 different types of parabens), EDTA, Yellow #5, Red #4, PEG-8, Cocamide DEA, Dimethicone, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Cocamide DEA, Phenoxyethanol, PEG-18, PVP
Derma E - Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Phenoxyethanol, Retinyl Palmitate, Dimethyl MEA , PEG-100, Cocamide DEA
Earth Science - Phenoxyethanol, Retinyl Palmitate, Dimethicone, benzophenone-3
Healthy Times baby line - Parabens
Huggies/Pamper naturals. "Yeah, right." yes that was sarcasim
Jackson Reece Herbal baby wipes - cocamidoproyl betaine, phenoxyethanol
Kiss my Face - Trisodium EDTA, Retinyl Palmitate, Phenoxyethanol, Octinoxate, Oxybenzone, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Propylene glycol, Triethanolamine.
Korres Natural Products - Propylparaben, Methylparaben, PEG- 8, Aluminium Oxide, PEG-100, Phenoxyethanol, Butylparaben, Ethylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Methylparaben, PEG-60, Phenoxyethanol, Propylene Glycol (one product had 5 parabens & pheno. That's just ludacris)
Lush - Triethanolamine, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, (this company is at least 1/2 honest...when listing their ingredients, they color code the natural & synthetic so it's easy to read, but they call them "safe synthetics", I have to disagree)
Melaleuca - Dimethicone, PEG - 100, Phenoxyethanol, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Avobenzone, Ostisalate, Octinoxate, Octocyrlene, EDTA, Triethanolamine, PEG-7, PEG-60,
Method - Cocamidopropyl betaine, Methylisothiazolinone, Sodium lauryl sulfate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Cocamide DEA, retinyl palmitate, (gets sneaky & shady by not disclosing the name of their preservatives or what type of color they use. it just says "preservative" "color")
Mill Creek Botanicals - Disodium-EDTA, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Cocamide DEA, Imidazolidinyl Urea
Nature's Gate - Phenoxyethanol, PEG-100, Butylene Glycol, Triethanolamine, Cocamide DEA, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Disodium EDTA, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Octinoxate; Oxybenzone, Dimethicone
Pure and Basic - Cocamidopropyl Betaine, PEG-90, Acrylates Copolymer, Phenoxyethanol, Propylene Glycol, Methylparaben
Shaklee - Phenoxyethanol, Didodium EDTA, Octinoxate, Octisalate, Oxybenzone, PEG-10, Dimethicone, AMMONIUM LAURETH SULFATE, SODIUM LAURYL SULFOACETATE, COCAMIDOPROPYL BETAINE, PEG-12, RETINYL PALMITATE
Tom's of Maine - SLS, Proplyene Glycol
Zia - Phenoxyethanol, Octinoxate, Oxybenzone, Octisalate,

Real Organic: no synthetics; never ever.

Badger Balm
Bottled Earth Company
Dr. Bronners
Earth Mama Angel Baby
Eco-Beauty Organics
Eminence
Essensa
Gratefulbody Organics
iLike (i have no idea how to pronounce this one)
Intelligent Nutrients
Le FP Green body Care
Miessence Organics (food grade, carries USDA label)
Nature's Baby Organics
Nourish (food grade, carries USDA label)
Oracle Organics
Organic Essence
Pangea Organics
Perfect Organics
Sun Dog
Trillium

Real Natural: though they might not use all organic ingredients, their finished product has NO added synthetics.

Alaffia (* Fair Trade)
Aubrey Organics, (they are not on my organic list because not all products are fully organic, though they never use chemicals or synthetics in finished product)
Bon Vital's natural line
Devita
Dr. Bronners
Earth Mama Angel Baby
Mexitan
Mychelle
Rare 2 B
Suki
Weleda
Zum

Hit & Miss/ Murky Companies. These companies have some products that are really clean and other products that are not. Read Labels and know what you are choosing before you spend the $$. be on the look out for: Phenoxyethanol, Dimethicone, Disodium EDTA, PEG's, Parabens, Urea, Propylene Glycol, Cocamidopropyl Betaine...if those are in it, stay away.

Aura Cacia - Very Hit and Miss. Their certified organic line of esseintial oils are the bomb though, VERY high grade and very clean!
Bare Minerals- I found Dimethicone in 1 product out of about 12 that I researched. Seems they have taken out most of their nasty ingredients. I used to have them on my fakers list.
Beeceuticals - some products carry the USDA logo, other products have phenoxyethanol in the ingredients. I have spoken with the owner of the company and they are working on an enzyme based presevative to replace the pheno. so be on the look out for this positive change.
Burt's Bees - the good thing, is each product tells you on the front of the bottle exactly what % it is natural. they are a pretty clean company. there's not much i would shy away from.
Desert Essence - again a truly hit or miss. mostly miss. mostly on my fakers list with the exception of their pure oils and castile face soap, essential oils; those are truly natural and some even organic
Eco-Bella. All of their body care is 100% clean, but their cosmetic line still carries several ingredients of concern, including parabens.
EO - Phenoxyethanol, Retinyl Palmitate, Dimethicone; mostly on my fakers list, though their lip balm is really organic
Honey Bee Gardens
ikove

cooking dry beans

2010-05-17T12:36:00.002-05:00

If you told me a few years ago (heck, even one year ago) that I'd soon be passionately (or not) writing on the topic of cooking dry beans, I'd have laughed at you. Yet here we are. :)

I've been discovering lately that many of the staples of convenience, like canned foods, aren't always the best option. And I love eating beans and other legumes. (Legumes definitely win the sexiest word contest, I think.) They're extremely healthy, and they provide lots of protein, especially when we don't eat acres of meat. Sure, it's easy to rinse a can of black beans and dump them into a burrito. But for lots of reasons, I have been purchasing dried beans and cooking them up myself. Come to find out I really enjoy it, and it's super easy, and there's not much reason NOT to do it this way.

Yep, this takes longer, at least the first time around before you have a nice convenient frozen stash. Most beans need soaking overnight or at least a few hours. I usually put them in water when I go to bed, or when I get up in the morning and they'll be ready to eat by dinnertime. I've really savored the realization that not all meals need to be made in twenty minutes flat, with no prior consideration. Sure, quick cookin' is a necessity sometimes, and my life isn't nearly as full as others' are, especially parents. I don't know how they do it. But I decided to start doing this based on a few "mommy blogs" that recommended it. And if moms can do it, I should be able to find the time too. Here are some of the reasons I've decided to go this route:

Canned foods almost always contain bisphenol A (BPA), the dreaded synthetic chemical that the FDA is even starting to "suggest" we minimize our exposure to. (It has to be pretty bad for the FDA to say something.) I've learned that it's found in many plastics and also in the liners of tin cans, from whence it leaches into foods, especially under high heat (like in the microwave for your plastic containers, or as the food is being canned at the factory). BPA is a hormone disruptor, shown to cause problems including recurring miscarriages, male infertility and other reproductive problems, insulin resistance, greater risk of prostate cancer, and breast cancer. One of the ways to reduce exposure is to minimize the use of canned foods. It's also recommended to stop microwaving and dishwashing your plastics, as this also causes the chemical to leach into your food, especially if they are acidic like tomatoes. This could be a post all on its own! (BPA is especially toxic to small children and fetuses.)
Canned foods often contain preservatives, super high amounts of salt, and other random junk that isn't food. So the food itself, apart from being contaminated by industrial chemicals, isn't always the most nutritious, either.
Not surprisingly, the fresh stuff tastes way better. Like, a hundred times at least.
Not that canned beans were ever cost-prohibitive, but dried beans are a fraction of the price of canned. I can buy organic dry beans for about half of what I was paying for off-brand, nonorganic canned beans.
There is less waste. Even though our cans get recycled, I'd rather not use what we don't need. I take my tupperware containers (retired from the microwave and dishwasher and general use) to the bulk bins, fill'em up, and create NO garbage at all.

So the first step, after you've chosen your dry beans, is to lay them all out and pick them over. Take out anything that isn't a bean and throw it away.

Then refer to this super handy chart to find out whether they need soaking. Soaking the beans isn't 100% necessary for any bean, but it will cut down several hours of cooking time. Put them in at least 3x as much water as you have beans, and put the container in the fridge. (If you are trying to make an exact amount of cooked beans, sorry, I can't help you. Cooked beans will usually be 2-3x the size of dry ones. I never measure them though...I just use as many cooked beans as I need for that night's meal, and the rest get to be in leftovers or they go in the freezer.)

When the soaking is done, the water should be dumped out (don't use it to cook the beans in). The beans release a chemical into this water...the one that causes indigestion problems in humans. So this step can reduce your, ah, more sheepish moments related to bean consumption.

Then, after they've been drained, you put your nicely soaked (or not) beans into a pot of water for the proper amount of time (look at the chart again to see how long), and you will have the tastiest, least-gassiest, cheapest, least-waste-iest, BPA-free-est beans you ever ate. And isn't that what we all want, deep down?

At least with black beans, you can definitely keep the cooking broth after you've taken out the cooked beans. Taste it, and reduce it down in the pot if you think it's too watery. Black bean broth is very dark and black and tasty, and you can use it to make a killer black bean/Mexican soup base. (I freeze broth in plastic ziploc bags, laid flat. Then when the broth is frozen, the bags can all stack upright like books, and take up less room.)

Those listed cooking times are very rough. Sometimes I soak the beans all night AND all day, which reduces the cooking time. Just eat a bean when it's getting near the time. It's done when you can mush the bean into the top of your mouth with your tongue. And depending on what you're using it for, this will vary too. The last time I made chickpeas (AKA garbanzo beans, which got second place in the super sexy word contest), I couldn't stop eating them fresh out of the pot. Beware!

Since beans take a while to cook, don't be afraid to make a big batch and freeze the extras! Use a flat tray so they don't all freeze in one lump. Freezing this way makes everything really easy the next time around, like canned-food easy. And no annoying can opener that never works. Especially when you take freezing into account, there is very little convenience lost over canned beans. Almost all your cooking time is passive (you don't have to be at the stove the whole time). A very tiny sacrifice for a lot of return. I've read they'll keep in the freezer for 2-3 months, but mine never last that long. :)

And in case your appetite still isn't too excited, here are some recipes using your delightful freshly cooked beans! (I've used some of these, but not all of them.)

Traditional refried beans
Coconut rice with black beans & fried plantains (wow this looks amazing)
Spicy roasted chick peas
White bean/olive/basil spread
Baked beans
Black bean soup
Hummus! (this one got an exclamation point because I love hummus and it's SO easy to make and so much better than that premade junk from the stores)
Chipotle chili
Classic minestrone

Of course, you can use them in many other soups, stews, fajitas, or enchiladas/burritos. yum.

Why Are Small Children's Ages Referred To In Months Instead Of Years?

2010-05-10T22:06:00.004-05:00

Here is a mystery. Why do people, moms in particular, always refer to small children's ages in months instead of years (once there's at least a year to count)? They are always saying their child is 18 or 23 months old instead of the much simpler "year and a half" or "practically two," whatever. I mean, isn't that why we have the unit of the year? And whenever possible, don't we always use the unit of the Mile instead of the Foot, and the Dollar instead of the Dime, and the Gallon instead of the Pint?

To me it is like an improper fraction, plain and simple. In the arithmetic lessons I was always so bad at, I was always taught to simplify the fractions as much as possible...and I was pretty freaking good at simplifying fractions. I was a fraction-simplifying MONSTER. Writing 10/3 is wrong...everyone is taught to write 3 1/3 instead.

Even small children, when they have learned to count, choose the unit of years whenever possible. I remember telling people that my baby siblings were "zero" prior to their first birthday, and that was before I ever knew about fractions. Kids know. Anyone who has had the same number of birthdays is THE EXACT SAME AGE AS YOU. If they turned 7 before you did, then for a period of time they were older, then you caught up once you had your birthday, and you were equals once again. Makes sense to me.

Whenever someone tells me that their child is X number of months old, I am momentarily stunned to silence as I simplify the fraction in my mind. If we have had this interaction personally, I hope I did not seem rude or shocked for some reason to hear that your child was X months old. It's just that, when presented with an improper fraction such as that, I have to convert it before it can make sense to me. Another apology: on my end, instead of saying that I am nearly 25 years old, perhaps I should have converted it to YOUR time-unit of choice...which would make me 299 months old. Hope that helps.

The only reason I can imagine for this phenomenon is that at such a young age, babies and toddlers have so many packed-together landmarks and proper-development milestones that it is best to be as precise as possible. I guess if you are talking to a pediatrician or a child therapist, it is good to use months (if this theory of mine is true). But why do you say it when talking to normal people? And people who aren't moms? And don't kids all develop in different ways, along their own unique timelines?

If that is all true, then the "nineteen month" thing also contains a sly reference (wasted on me, of course) meant to draw attention to the fact that the child at hand is perhaps sagely beyond his months in emotional development, cognitive skills, or hand-to-mouth coordination. Do all moms understand these cleverly disguised cues? Maybe one day I will be a part of this elite world where nobody cares about improper fractions, and then maybe I'll refer to MY kid in weeks or minutes just to throw everyone off and make THEM do a little math, quick, in their minds. Then we'll see who can simplify the fractions around here.

No, but really...someone please enlighten me.

My True Feelings About Lawn Care (late night imagination)

2010-04-26T11:39:00.016-05:00

This might be a scary thing, but I'd like to give you a little glimpse into my late-night imagination. This is a little scene that has played itself out many a time as I fall asleep, and the story has many variants. But here is the basic idea. The setting: we live in a pleasant neighborhood, own our first home, and consistently fail to mow the lawn.

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Someone knocks on the door. It is the Head of the Neighborhood Association (HNA).

HNA: "Hello Mrs. Moore. I am here to remind you that your neighborhood contract requires you to care for your outside property so that its aesthetic properties will be satisfactory."

Me: "What do you mean?"

HNA: "Mrs. Jones across the street, along with several other neighbors, have registered concerns that the grass in your yard is way too long, and smattered with weeds."

Me, still uncertain: "We do take care of our yard. But, now that you mention it, I don't really care for Mrs. Jones' marigolds." I start to walk across the street to register MY concerns with Mrs. Jones.

The H.N.A. follows me. "Mrs. Moore, you can't let weeds grow in your yard. You signed the covenant."

Me: "Yes, we said we'd take care of our property, and we do. What do you mean by weeds, anyways?"

HNA: "Ma'am, your lawn is smattered with dandelions and flanked by large bushy things."

Me: "Well, Mrs. Jones's porch is smattered with marigolds, and I don't like those. Can I sic you on her plants?"

HNA, exasperated: "You just have to mow your lawn, and get rid of those bushy things."

Me: Those are beans and peas and [other yummy foods]. What exactly is the problem here? How about we look up the word 'weed' in the dictionary?

We walk back in my house and I proudly take out my enormous English-major-gear Oxford English Dictionary, set it on our table with a satisfying thunk, hand her the accompanying magnifying glass, and ask her to go ahead and please tell me what a weed is. [Hey, it's my imagination, and I use the OED as often as possible, okay?]

HNA, after a few minutes of compliant (and I think a bit curious) searching with the magnifying glass: "Weed...an undesirable plant."

Me: "So if I desire it, it's not a weed anymore. Or if I undesire Mrs. Jones' stinky marigolds, which look almost just like dandelions, they're weeds. Right?"

The HNA leaves, defeated, and a little embarrassed that she never thought to grow food in her own yard.
----

I desperately hope we will never live in the kind of neighborhood where people try and tell you how to run your household. So it's no shock that this little fantasy never ends well for the HNA. She could never be the hero. Sometimes she is red-faced, angry. I would rather she just see things my way, but very rarely does the light of reason dawn upon her. Once Mrs. Jones even came out of her marigold-smattered home and started getting angry at me. In all scenarios, though, I clearly, consisely, and effectively point out the stupidity of immaculate lawns and pointless green patches of grass. Maybe if they had kids to actually play in their lawns, that would be a good reason to keep the grass a *little* shorter, but come on, really...it's not like kids and dandelions are mutually incompatible.

I always tell them both that the lawn care industry conditioned our brains to think grass should be flat and short. They can now sell us all manner of cutting equipment, making the average homeowner think he needs a lawn cutter and a trimmer and a crew of professional grass-growers in order to have an acceptable yard in which to do absolutely nothing. They even came up with ways that we didn't have to water it ourselves, like hiring these professionals to install pipes in the ground (!) so the grass we don't even care about enough to water ever day will be the right shade of green. They pitted neighbors against each other in a constant battle of comparison, just to make a buck off well-conditioned, ever-insecure homeowners. You have to mow your lawn, or else your neighbors' flat square of uselessness will look better than yours. Bonus neighborhood-points for making diagonal lines in it.

Who else could come up with all of this nonsense, except someone who stood to profit from it? Homeowners certainly don't, that's for sure. They spend countless hours of precious weekend time, mowing and trimming and raking and aerating and fertilizing, or if they can afford it, hiring people to do all these chores, just to have nothing but a useless, money-and-time-sucking flat piece of greenery.

Working towards a reasonable end is one thing, but working for no good reason is what they did to Russian prisoners. Dig a hole, fill the hole, dig it again. It was demoralizing, recurring, back-breaking work that never got them anywhere. Not so different than what we've been trained to do with our lawns. Plant grass, cut grass, plant more grass, fertilize it so it will grow longer, cut it short again. This is basically psychological torture invented by the same people who thought up the gulags.

A good way to put that piece of earth to good use is to plant some actual stuff on it. Flowers, yes, and lots of people have figured that one out. I'm going to have as many flowers as possible, and I don't discriminate. But planting food is another no-brainer good idea. I don't think everyone needs to have a veggie garden, but instead of wasting time manicuring a pointless lawn, is it such a horrible suggestion to spend that time investing in something that'll give you tangible benefits, like a veggie garden? (If not a garden, just spend your extra time doing something you really enjoy.) A garden will provide you with something to show for all your efforts. You'll have incredibly tasty food and people will think you are amazing for growing it. AND, because you didn't spend all your time in a silent, passive-aggressive competition with your neighbors, you might have some better friends too. Together you can overindulge in surplus zucchini and fend off the zealous HNAs (who are probably just disguised employees of the lawn care industry. Why else would they care so much?).

That way, your friends might take it better when you tell them you're raising chickens in your backyard, too. But that's a post for another day.

Growing up and needing new stuff (and orange furry monsters)

2010-04-16T10:23:00.001-05:00

It didn't occur to me when I got married. Or when I graduated from college. It snuck up on me. Maybe I just ignored it, pretending it wasn't there, like the orange furry hunger monster in those Weight Watcher commercials. But slowly, it began to dawn on me, or maybe I started to acknowledge it, like the orange fur started coming into focus in my periphery. But I eventually acknowledged the fact that I have outgrown my wardrobe.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't really been clothes shopping in a while. Other things like weddings and household setup had distracted from my time, budget and desire to shop for many new clothes. I mean, I would get things here and there like anyone else. For some odd reason though, my clothes had recently been getting tossed into the giveaway basket at an alarming speed. That meant I needed more clothes (oh, I hate it when that happens). There is currently a laundry basket in my closet which is not only filled, but heaped like a mountain full of clothes I just DO NOT WANT ANYMORE.

So I made the tour of my go-to clothes stores (which shall remain unnamed), hoping to get a good amount of stuff to replace the giveaway mountain. I quickly became frustrated that I wasn't finding anything I liked. I couldn't put my finger on it, but nothing was quite right. Then I began to notice the other shoppers, and the slow weight of reality settled into my mind. All of them appeared to be least five years younger than me.

You may think that five years isn't a lot. Except that five years has made me into a different person. There is a big difference between me at 18 or 20 years old, and me now so rapidly approaching the terrifying milestone of 25. And there's a big difference between me and the other girls I observed shopping in those stores. The kinds of things I wore five or eight years ago are not what I want to wear now, as a married college graduate (eek!). I can't even put my finger on what makes my old clothes, and my previously-favorite stores, so antiquated. I was never a particularly trendy or flashy or 'hip' dresser. I just don't like them anymore, and that's all there is to it.

I am horrified that College and High School are Done And Over With. I'm now one of those people who can say "Back when I was in college..." It's not even about high school now. I'm Done With College. And I'm Married. This newness, being Older Graduated and Married and a Mrs., is why I was throwing out so many of my clothes. In the back of my mind, I knew that even though they still fit my body, they somehow just didn't fit my identity anymore. I guess I am all grown up now, as much as I hate to acknowledge that furry orange monster too.

I have accepted my lot in life. I will drink the bitter cup of being A Quarter Of A Century Old, and go on a shopping spree. Maybe it is a quarter-life-crisis. Whatever it is, life is rough when you get to be my age.

why we don't eat much meat

2010-04-13T10:25:00.003-05:00

Last fall I stopped buying meat. Well, at least for a while. I've returned to buying some here and there, but overall, meat is rarely the main attraction in our meals. We aren't going vegetarian, not by a long shot. But we've both agreed that eating meat only occasionally and in small quantities, instead of in large portions at every meal, would be a very good thing...in our own home.

I do not believe it is ethically wrong to eat animals, and I think it is wrong to impose my own decisions on others' cooking when we're out and about. Just thought I'd get those out of the way.

But I do want to talk about why I...Justin and I...made this decision. (It was my idea originally, but we discussed it a lot, and we are in full agreement.) There are plenty of reasons people may choose to eat less, or no, meat. For me, three main reasons surfaced as I began thinking and researching. (Those two things, put together, never fail to result in some new life-changing decision!)

1) Plants and veggies are just plain healthier. You don't have to look very far to discover some very compelling information: people who don't eat meat (especially red meat), or who eat small amounts of it, are happier, more fit, less likely to be obese, less likely to have cancer or heart disease or high blood pressure or diabetes. Vegetarians live, on average, ten years longer than their omnivore counterparts. (This can also be chalked up to the fact that vegetarians are also very health-conscious in other areas of their lives.) It's an established fact that a healthy plant-based diet is one of the best things you can do for your physical well-being.

Plus, the Bible attests to it! Think about it: a perfect garden, the best conditions imaginable for man and beast, and...Adam and Eve ate the bounty of the earth, not other living creatures. It was God's original ideal. Animals weren't even harmed, much less eaten, until the world was perverted by sin. While we live in a fallen world, it is very obvious that the gifts from the earth--God's best plan!--is the original ideal diet.

2) Meat is often tainted with chemicals. There's lots of competing interests on this topic, but it's a fact that most of the meat sold in grocery stores contains traces of antibiotics and growth hormones. Hormones are given to animals to fatten them up quickly, and antibiotics are supposed to "remedy" all the diseases they inevitably contract in the feedlots they live in. Cows, for example, naturally eat grass, not corn. When they eat corn, which their bodies aren't set up to do well, they often get e.Coli in their stomachs. And instead of simply feeding them grass instead of corn, they are given antibiotics, which we end up ingesting. While the long-term effects of these chemicals on humans aren't documented, there's enough cause to avoid them.

Many chemicals simply haven't been around long enough to test their effects on humans, although cattle often get sick from them. You may ask, how could something bad be legal? Well, in the European Union it's not legal at all, and they don't allow any imported beef from the U.S. Also, there's a lot of shady-ness about how those hormones were approved in the first place. And you already knew this if you read my post about chemicals in cosmetics, but...if you're looking for true protection and oversight, don't rely on the FDA. That is just reality.

3) Of course, there's the ethics/morality issue. Whether we're talking about animals in food factories, or the poor treatment of many people that work in them, there is cruelty inherent in the factory-food system. I'm not going to lock myself in a cage or throw fake blood on your fur coat. And like I said before, there is no inherent moral problem with eating animals -- that's in the Bible too! But there is a serious moral deficiency when we are aware of true cruelty, and yet continue to fund it throughout our lives. It's disgusting and foul. You can use Google if you don't believe me...but you have to be prepared to act on what you discover.If you continue to eat meat, there are plenty of responsible places to get it. It really is our duty, especially if we believe the Bible and in fair treatment of man and beast.

There's another element of the ethics question, and that's the simple fact that when we eat animals, we're diminishing the world's food supply twice over. This article from Cornell University says that "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million." WOW. There has always been world hunger and starvation, but when I started thinking about this, gobbling meat started looking awfully selfish to me. This was actually the very first reason I decided there would be much less meat in my house. It's simply a stewardship issue.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to discredit ANY animal operation, large or small, that's run by responsible farmers who treat their animals well. I also think it's important to recognize that while corn-fed beef might not be the healthiest, our country feeds a lot of other people with it. I need to continually remind myself of this balance. Still, for me and my family, we're going with responsibly-raised food.

People have asked me a few questions when I tell them about this decision...
What about when you're away from home? Honestly, we don't worry about it at all when we're away. Since we have not "gone vegetarian" there is no reason not to eat what others graciously and generously serve to us, and gratitude is far more important than any of these other ideas. Plus, since we still eat plenty of meat when we're out and about, we don't miss it nearly as much at home. And, eating it while we're out makes me extra motivated to eat less of it at home. :)

What do you eat now, you tree-hugger...just salad and tofu? (I knew this one was coming, probably from my relatives!) There's no reason tasty, quality, fresh veggies and fruits and grains can't be the main attraction in a given meal. I love colorful, flavorful food and I also have shifted to buying more fish (wild caught). Fish tacos, teriyaki salmon, stir-fries with chunks of fresh tuna. We are both pretty well fed. :)

More often than not, my meals are all in one dish, with a combination of chopped-up veggies and healthy grains, and yes sometimes pieces of meat. I might use bok choi, carrots, edamame, quinoa, kale, asparagus, spinach, purple cabbage, corn, potatoes, brussel sprouts (we actually tried them and they weren't half bad!), wheat berries, brown or jasmine or basmati rice, black beans, sweet potatoes, all kinds of squash, lots of mushrooms, peas...and then there's pine nuts, almonds, peanuts, pecans, SO many spices and herbs and cheeses and pastas and breads...oh and I haven't even mentioned any fruits...okay, I have to stop now because I'm getting pretty hungry. Seriously, there are plenty of other things to eat, and most of them are way better for us.

Did you just stop buying meat to save money? Yes and no. I decided that when we do eat meat, it's going to be from ethically-raised, well-treated animals, hopefully from a local farm, and antibiotic and hormone free. Yes, all this is going to make the meat more expensive. This also helps us to eat less of it, though. So often I use it in small amounts: strips of canadian bacon over pasta, ground beef in spaghetti sauce, chopped bacon in potato soup. Eating it in small amounts is the intended goal, but it also helps to save money because of the higher expense of quality meat.

Do you miss it? Not really! At first it always looked like something was missing from the dish. Like the meat was simply forgotten. By not forbidding it, often eating it when we're out, and at home seeing it as more of a side dish/flavor enhancer than as the main course, we don't feel deprived at all. I've purchased a few vegetarian cookbooks on Amazon, which really helped me in the beginning. There's an abundance of resources on the Internet as well!

I really recommend taking a look at your own diet and cooking habits to see if eating less meat would be a good idea for you and your family. You can try doing a one or two meatless dinners a week, and work beyond that if you're so inclined. Start small! Even if the only habit you make is learning to more greatly appreciate the abundance of plants that God originally gave us to eat, the time I spent writing this has been a success. :)

everyone's afraid of something...or several things

2010-03-28T16:39:00.001-05:00

For some reason, I had the idea last night, as I was floating through subconsciousness towards sleep, that I should write about the things I'm afraid of. Both serious things and seemingly goofy things make my list.

I'm a little terrified of deep, dark water. Unidentifiable beings pulling me underwater. Getting disoriented while underwater, and not being able to find the surface. Large creatures underwater. Sometimes, movies and photos of deep seas, especially the ones that look up towards the surface, make me dizzy and I can't look at them.
Mirrors have always freaked me out. When I was little, sometimes kids would go into the church bathrooms, turn out the lights, and say a little chant (usually having something to do with "bloody Mary" or "Sandman"...freaky, I know), turn around three times...and supposedly a face would appear in the darkened mirror. I'd never go in with them, or if I did, I'd always run out before the face was supposed to appear. Also, I remember a movie where the mirror was actually another world, and sometimes things moved in the mirror but not in "real life." I'm constantly imagining that maybe one day, there will be something in the mirror that isn't in "real life." Or the other way around. Either way, it would be really scary, and I consider this possibility quite frequently. Mostly late at night. :)
At some point many years ago, I had a daydream wherein I was sitting in an old, creaky wooden chair, and it broke underneath me, and a long splinter from one of the rails went into my spine and paralyzed me. Don't ask me where, in the unplumbed depths of my imagination, the dream came from. ...But, I mean, it could happen. I don't make a habit of sitting in creaky wooden chairs anymore. I bet you won't now, either.
Sometimes I watch TV shows I really shouldn't, like the ones about hauntings and spirits and demons and general contact with the spiritual world. I'm a Christian, and I know the spiritual world is far more extensive, and active, and powerful, than we realize. I also know God is always with me, but I've heard enough tales from other Christians that I know we certainly aren't exempt from truly chilling experiences. I'm scared of having some kind of experience of my own. (Especially if it were in conjunction with the mirror issue. See what I mean? Do you??)
My most real fear is probably finding out that I have been deceived by someone I love and care for. Realizing they aren't what I thought they were. It hasn't happened to me yet, so I don't know why I'm so afraid of it. In general, I'm afraid of dishonesty, or maybe more significantly, some inability of mine to discern it.

What kinds of things are you afraid of...whether silly things, or serious ones?

"Indian Stew"

2010-03-24T13:23:00.004-05:00

You're probably thinking, "There's no such thing as Indian Stew. You just made that up." You are correct. But, this is easy and delicious, and deserving of its own title.

Stews weren't meant to be made with precise recipes. (That's how I feel about most food.) For the sake of my readers' sanity, though, I've listed the ingredients so you can reproduce this fragrant and delicious meal. My Indian Stew is a variation of Potato Pea Masala, but I made it into a soup you eat with a spoon and pita bread, rather than the original chunkier dish you eat with a fork. As in much Indian food, the spices are key, because the main ingredients are so simple. So don't think you'll make it on a meek little dash of chili powder. Embrace the spices! That's what this food is about.

Pitas. You can make them. I made the pitas one day and made this stew the next, to break up the kitchen work. (I also use my Kitchenaid for everything requiring kneading.) Or you can make your own Indian naan, although I haven't tried that one yet! Or just get some naan from an Indian food place. Wherever you get it, this stew really needs, craves, warm flat bread of some kind.

Here's a general idea of what you'll need:

Potatoes - I used 8-10 baby Yukons
Broth - I used some homemade veggie broth from the freezer (I think the beautiful photos on this site drove me to try it!). I used one freezer bag full...how much is that? A quart maybe?
One can of tomato paste/sauce
A few cups of frozen peas
An abundance of peeled/minced garlic cloves (not powdered stuff). Since everyone has a different relationship with garlic, I leave it to you to decide how to interpret "an abundance." I love garlic and used probably 4-6 BIG cloves.
Spices: curry, cumin, coriander, chili powder, ginger (powdered or regular), black pepper. Maybe a bit of lemongrass if you have it.
Optional: some sort of meat. I used some shredded turkey (also from the freezer), Ground beef or lamb would also work well. (It'd also be perfectly fine without the meat.)

Chop the potatoes into bite-size pieces, 1-2". (I often use baby potatoes because the skins are so thin and mild, and I don't have to peel them.) Throw the garlic in the water, boil the potatoes until they're cooked through, then drain and set aside in another dish. Use the same pot to build your broth. Start over low heat with your base broth, whatever you're using. Then pick the garlic cloves out of the potato chunks, add them to the broth, and mash them up good. Pour in the tomato sauce or paste (diluting the paste, obviously). Add the spices in layers, tasting as you go, to get the flavor you (and those eating with you) will appreciate the most. Curry is intended to be the dominant feature here, so start with that. It's a warm, distinctive spice that really adds an exotic element to your food. Ginger also is pretty intrinsic to this great flavor...you can either use a lot of ginger powder, or grate up some fresh ginger, making sure it has enough time to soften. (I can't remember which I used.) Coriander seed powder is really important too. Just promise me you won't leave out the spices.

As soon as you have a decent flavor you like, add the potatoes back in. They need to settle and simmer in that pure spicy goodness. You can also add your shredded/ground meat now, if you're using it. Adjust the flavors as you like them...the flavors might change after the other stuff is swimming around in there. Simmer this on low heat for as long as you like, leaving plenty of time for the potatoes to soak. Add more broth or water if you need, to get the consistency you like. Throw in the frozen peas shortly before serving, leaving just enough time for them to thaw well.

If pitas aren't an option, this is also fairly palatable over jasmine rice. :) But you should have warm, fresh pitas.

I love food.

eating healthy + saving money

2010-03-12T12:11:00.001-06:00

I'm new to being a wife, and almost as new to cooking. I think myself rather lucky that I get to start these two things together, at once, because they're both a large part of my life. I get to learn cooking, as a part of homemaking, as a part of stewardship, as a part of a new marriage, as a part of worship. It's pretty dramatic to think about it that way! It's basically up to me to make food that will benefit our bodies and our souls, and to make sure our food money is spent in a way that will please God, and get along well with our newlywed budget. To this end, I really believe that cooking healthy, filling food is just as important, if not more important, than cooking on the cheap. There is a balance I try to achieve, and it's not always easy, but in the process of being terrified of turkeys and finding things to cook other than stir-fry, I've come up with a bunch of ways to keep us and our budget healthy.

The first step is realizing and accepting that because of a largely irresponsible food system, healthy, quality, simply produced food is often MORE expensive than highly processed, less healthy food. This is because, I've found out, the federal government subsidizes processed foods and cheap grains, most of which the typical "western diet" is made up of. Now you also know who to thank for the U.S.'s high rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Cheaper is not always better. (Highly recommended reading: Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. I'll happily lend it to you if you live near me.) And did you know that because of ruined soil and chemical fertilizers, an average, conventionally produced apple today only provides you with 1/3 of the nutrients and vitamins it did 75 years ago? You'd have to eat three apples instead of your great-grandpa's one. (And I thought an-apple-a-day was a tall order!) So even in many cases when we think we're eating healthy stuff, the deck is stacked against us.

For us, the slightly higher price of quality food is something that just has to be factored into our budget. And everyone has to decide for themselves. Cheaper doesn't always mean lesser quality, but just ask: why is it cheaper? Because the government helped to pay for and process (read: remove the nutrients from) the flour, or because it's easily, simply produced? How many ingredients should there be in a loaf of bread? Was this potato grown in overused, nutrientless soil, or did it come from a real farm? What did that cow eat before it was made into meat: cheap subsidized grain, or its natural diet of grass? The $3 carton of eggs might look just like the $1 carton...but are the eggs the same? (On the eggs issue...it's helped me to realize that the $1 eggs shouldn't set the standard for price, but it's more like the super-cheapo price, whereas maybe the $3 eggs, produced like they should be, are closer to the standard/normal price. Maybe.) I hope you will look into these issues and draw your own conclusions.

I have a couple of things to clarify before I give you my list of ideas. First, I'm not going to suggest you replace all of your current food with organic food. Organic does not necessarily mean healthy: what about organic Doritos? (I don't know if they exist, but still.) There are a few things it's better to buy organic, though...and I usually try to go by this general list. (Organic milk is one thing I haven't yet decided to splurge on, but Hy-Vee offers a local, antibiotic and hormone-free version that I always buy...it's the same price as regular milk.) Just remember that responsibly produced versions of these crops, which may not be officially organic, may be just as good, or better, than their "USDA certified organic" counterparts. It's very expensive to get certified, and many farms can't afford it, or don't see a need for it. This is where the farmers market will become our best friend.

Secondly, I also don't want to give the impression that quality food=gourmet cooking. It's as simple as choosing one potato over another, or in the frozen-foods aisle, deciding that the plain organic veggies will suffice over the fancier name-brand microwaveable steam-in-box veggies with gourmet spices and sauces.

So, having just convinced everyone to spend a little money on quality food, here are some habits I've begun to develop, which allow me to buy quality food, for the same or (sometimes) even less money. And just for the record: I'm in no way an experienced cook, grocery shopper or wife, so I'm not trying to give advice to those who have far more wisdom than I do! I just wanted to share my thoughts--hopefully you will too!--and perhaps help out anyone who's in the same boat I am.

My biggest tip: COOK FROM SCRATCH. I know, it's easy for me to say because I have the time and I enjoy cooking, but the principle works the same for everyone. Reject precut, prepared, packaged or processed options, in favor of whole foods that you fix yourself. Doing it yourself means you can buy more food for less money, and you can fill the price gap by choosing better food to begin with. Plus, when you invest time and energy into your food, you're more likely to enjoy it, savor it, and be thankful to God for it.
Buy in bulk! You only have to purchase what you need, and bins of organic/unprocessed grains, etc. are cheaper. I've found that many kinds of organic oats, quinoa and many flours are significantly less expensive at Open Harvest's bulk bins than the off-brand, non-organic ones at Hy-Vee. You'll also use packaging and create less waste this way. (Make sure you put your bulk stuff in the freezer for at least a few hours before storing it...this kills the little baby bugs).
This also goes for eggs...you can bring your own egg carton to some grocery stores, like Open Harvest, to fill it up with local/organic/free-range/whatever eggs. Again, less packaging waste, and the cost goes down. But, because they're a little pricier, we eat fewer of them, which is probably good too. I often go for vegan recipes when I'm making cookies, muffins or cakes, and then I get to save the eggs for when we'll taste them.
Buy whole organic carrots instead of precut baby carrots. We eat a lot of carrots...but chopping them is not difficult.
Try new kinds of produce...especially the humbler, overlooked ones. Squash, eggplant, turnips, rutabaga...they all have their place, and can be very inexpensive. In the right recipes they can really shine and provide a lot of nourishment.
Eat less meat (I've devoted an entire blog to other, non-financial reasons why this is a good idea). We eat meat few days a week, and it's almost always in smaller pieces, like in a soup or stir-fry. It goes a lot further that way, too. So it's better on the wallet and better for our health. (I'd be glad to lend anyone my vegetarian cookbooks - they have lots of great ideas.)
Even if I'm not looking for meat in particular, whenever I'm at Open Harvest, I always check out the 30% off local/free-range meats, near their sell-by date. The meat goes in the freezer until we need it. This allows me to buy meat at a very competitive price...without also buying the hormones, antibiotics or other additives present in conventional meat.
Use the same tactic with quality bread. Or make your own. I've yet to make a really great loaf of bread myself (they all end up like very tasty bricks), but I've purchased marked-down loaves of good-quality bread and they keep in the fridge just fine. Or just look at the labels of your usual bread, and see what you'd be paying for. Bread is essentially made of yeast, water, and flour; if there are 50 ingredients in that loaf of "bread" it's best to look elsewhere. But if you recognize all the ingredients as real ingredients, go for it.
Buy a whole organic/locally raised/free range/whatever chicken or turkey. The cost per pound is much lower, and can be comparable to conventional pre-cut meat. You can roast the entire thing, freeze the meat you don't need right away, and make a LOT of broth. You'll get a lot of mileage out of it and maybe even save money, because even non-organic broth is pricey. And not nearly as good as homemade.
On a related note, any sort of larger cut of meat is less expensive. I've yet to learn this well, but if you dissect the bones and meat and fat yourself, you won't have to pay someone else to do it.
No need to buy muffin/cake mix. (Still working on this one myself; we love brownies from mixes.) Is it really that much easier to put 3 ingredients in a bowl instead of 6? Mixes are a waste of money, and they're usually full of preservatives and other stuff. The blessing of doing it yourself, in this and many other cases, is that the result is usually TASTIER!
Instead of bagged lettuce, purchase a whole head of organic/farmer's greens, and just cut it up yourself. (Are you seeing a pattern here? :)
Read the labels. Off-brand might not be the best quality, but it isn't the enemy either. You should always know what you're eating, but always check out less expensive options. I buy lots of store-brand things.
Grow your own food. This is such an obvious and good idea and I can't wait to do it myself! Start with seeds to save even more money. This spring I plan to buy started plants and grow them in pots on my little balcony. I get to control the soil and the quality, and I don't have to grow the veggies we don't especially like. (I have NO experience gardening, so the idea is all I can share with you at this point.)
Make your own staple foods, like yogurt, bread, granola, even cheese. The quality is up to you, as is the option of being organic.
Forego premade sauces, dressings and marinades. Look at the ingredients list on the bottle at the store, and then go home and make your own. There's a good chance your own will taste quite a bit better. And again: no questionable or unknown ingredients.
Check out a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm or garden in your area. Here in Lincoln, we've looked into Community Crops CSA, Common Good Farm and Shadow Brook Farm. You'll pay a certain price up front which helps the farmer pay for seed and equipment, and receive a share of freshly harvested produce throughout the growing season. If the price looks high, go in together with another family or couple and split the benefits. Shadow Brook Farms even offers a discount for early subscriptions (although we're past that date now...oops), and in addition to produce you can buy cheese, flowers, starter plants and herbs.
Make cuts in other areas, and put the money towards quality food. For example: we stopped buying paper towels in favor of rags (a couple of old cut-up t-shirts). It's just as easy, and the cost is zero.

Again, I'm pretty new to this, so...what are some of your tips for careful shopping and quality eating?

p.s. A few days after I published this, I've found two very wonderful blog entries on another site, with lots of great ideas in the comments!
Finding Time to Cook from Scratch
Whole Foods on a Budget

chemicals on your skin=chemicals in your body.

2010-03-06T19:23:00.000-06:00

Okay. We all know by now that many common beauty products, like shampoo, conditioner and facial cleanser, don't really help us in the beauty department...in fact, they may be the source of our beauty frustrations in the first place. For most people, that's plenty of reason to find other options, like going no-'poo or using oil to clean your face. But some are very routine-oriented or product-loyal, and may need more convincing. So I'm going to outline some of the reasons we need to be cautious. And while I'm assuming the people interested will mostly be women (and women are generally at greater risk), all of this applies to men, too...who also use personal care products like shampoo, body wash, hair gel, aftershave, cologne and deodorant. At least we can only hope.

Just a disclaimer: I'm not an scientist or an alarmist, and I'm not saying we're all going to die tomorrow. Some people have a lot of doubts about this stuff. But hopefully, as you click on my links throughout, you'll see that I'm not making this stuff up. I didn't link you to places like the Mossy Hippy Meadow of Earth Mother Beauty. I've done my homework.

You might be thinking (and people have actually said this to me), "If we believed everything they say, we'd think there's poison everywhere, and we're not all dead, right? So how could there be a problem?" Of course I'm not advocating running in terror from everything in the world. We all need to be careful and do our research about which "scares" are valid. But, it's obviously not true that that the more risks there are, the less likely ANY of them are to be valid. I'd also point out that many harmful chemicals have been around for only a few years, so there's no way long-term effects can be studied. But there are plenty of concerning health trends, most with no apparent cause: more kids with autism, decreased sperm count/quality, more heart disease and diabetes, deformed male genitals, earlier onset of puberty, more breast cancer, more lymphoma, more birth defects, etc. Of course there are many causes for these conditions, including our less-than-responsible food system. So yeah, we're not all dead. But maybe we're not all fine, either. Read the studies and articles I've linked to below. The only thing anyone can ask is that each of us makes an informed, rational decision, and not be ignorant on purpose.

The first thing to understand: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate the stuff in your cosmetics. (Cosmetics=personal care products.) According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, 89% of ingredients in personal care products are untested before they hit the shelf. The FDA website says that their "legal authority over cosmetics is different from other products regulated by the agency...Cosmetic products and ingredients are not subject to FDA premarket approval authority, with the exception of color additives." AND, the "FDA is not authorized to require recalls of cosmetics." If there's something wrong, SURPRISE! the government doesn't care. (Sorry if that actually surprised you.) Cosmetic companies, who are their own policemen, do test a few ingredients...for allergies and sensitivities. But when they do, they assume the subject is only being exposed to that ingredient in one way.

Yet, we young women might have a dozen or more products making their way into our blood and organs, at any given time. (Not surprisingly, research shows that hair salon workers have higher rates of infertility and spontaneous abortion.) Think about it: in the shower you use shampoo, conditioner, misc hair treatment, body wash/scrub, and shaving gel. Many of us also use any combination of leave-in conditioner, creme/gel/mousse/hairspray, perfume/body mist, deodorant, nail polish remover, finger/toe nail polish, cuticle cream, body oil/lotion/cream, foundation, concealer, powder, mascara, bronzer/blush, brow pencil/powder, eyeshadow/cream, eyeliner, lipstick and/or lip gloss, and chapstick... and then there's mouthwash, toothpaste, contact lens solution, eye drops, hand sanitizer, sunscreen, tanning spray and hand soap. And we use products to get our hair highlighted, our skin waxed...Sure, we don't all use all these all the time. But there are probably multiple toxins in each of our products, which affect us even if--and especially if--the amounts are extremely small. (For the guys reading this: just kidding. We don't wear any makeup ever, and are all effortlessly, accidentally beautiful.)

Many kids' products also contain toxins. The terms "natural" or "pure" or "safe" or "gentle," aren't regulated, so they can mean anything, or nothing, at all. Toxic products are bad enough for adults, and they're worse for younger children who are more vulnerable, and who were probably born with Mom's chemicals already in their bodies. If you're still doubtful, check out another interesting article: "Children more likely to have attention, behavioral problems when exposed to phthalates in womb."

Here are a few of the most harmful chemical families to stay away from.

Parabens. They're preservatives, and they're totally banned in cosmetics in the European Union. I first heard about it when I saw that my deodorant said "Paraben Free" on the label. Once I started looking into parabens, I was glad I had a paraben-free deodorant! One theory suggests that since you put the deodorant/antiperspirant in your armpits, which are close to the breasts, these toxins can affect breast health or even cause breast cancer. In my experience, antiperspirants literally caused painful lumps to grow under my arms. So I switched to a deodorant that didn't stop me from sweating. I haven't used antiperspirant in several years. (I sweat much less than I used to.)

Once you start looking for parabens, you'll find them pretty much everywhere. Look at your products, and you'll probably find methylparaben, propylparaben, ethylparaben, or others with -paraben as the suffix. Parabens mimic hormones like estrogen. The Skin Deep database says that "parabens are linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, reproductive toxicity, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and skin irritation" and they are especially linked to breast cancer. One famous study showed that parabens are found in cancerous breast tumors.

The American Cancer Society says that "larger studies are needed to find out what effect, if any, parabens might have on breast cancer risk." One thing is for sure: it's something to stay away from. Your skin is porous, and it absorbs what you put on it. What we put on our bodies ends up inside them, for better or worse. And exposures add up.

Phthalates. Only my recollection of learning to pronounce the word "chthonic" in my Ancient Near East Literature class prepared me to encounter this word. (And here I thought that class wouldn't be useful in real life!) You just drop the ph- and say "thalates."

Again, this chemical family is illegal to use in cosmetics in all of Europe. But even though their use is restricted in some states here in the U.S., phthalates are everywhere. And you'd never know it. Bet you didn't know cosmetics companies don't even have to tell you what's in the bottle! Pick up a bottle of something, and it probably includes Fragrance. Hmm. The truth is that "fragrance" often contains phthalates, among other things. Nail polishes have high levels of phthalates, and nail salon workers have heightened rates of cancer and birth defects. These chemicals affect children in utero, especially the genitals/hormones/reproductive systems of little boys. Read the Body Burden case study for phthalates for more information. Then read Not Too Pretty: Phthalates, Beauty Products and the FDA. If this isn't icky stuff, I don't know what is. If a company won't tell me what's inside, they won't get my dollars.

BPAs. Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in plastic containers, baby bottles and sippy cups, and many food cans. Research is showing that BPAs, along with these other chemicals I talked about, are present in babies before birth, and give people increased risks of many conditions like heart disease and diabetes. I haven't done as much research into BPAs, but I've seen enough that I wanted to give you a heads-up. This issue has been hot for a while, and I'm probably way behind the curve, but perhaps you'll do your own research and make the appropriate changes in your purchasing habits.

It's hard to know what not to buy...especially when companies don't even have to disclose the ingredients! To help out, I've found a really great resource called the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. You can search by product or by ingredient. They've researched and reviewed thousands of ingredients, and assigned each product and ingredient a simple number between 0 and 10 (0=harmless, 10=most hazardous).

In the search for better products, here's something that makes good sense to me. Next time you're at the drugstore perusing the mind-numbing rainbow of cosmetic options, look at what is being marketed as the "good ingredient" and then just go get some of that good ingredient! Some "good ingredients" often found (in small amounts) in commercial products are olive oil, shea butter, coconut oil, jojoba oil, avocado, and oatmeal. You've seen them on the labels. If that's the good stuff, why not just use that? You'll be saving money by not wasting your dollars on pointless filler ingredients, wasteful packaging, or pricey marketing, and you'll know there aren't toxic chemicals mixed in with the stuff we all know is healthy. Simple DIY beauty is popular for many reasons: it's less expensive, it's simpler, no worrisome chemicals, no contaminating the water system, it's fun, and it WORKS!

I know this is getting long, but just so you know I still use many products, here are a few that I use and recommend, which are much safer than what they replaced. I'm still working on makeup.

Kiss My Face Deodorant - Lavender Scent
Giovanni Styling Mousse
Jason Naturals Fragrance Free Shampoo
Honeybee Gardens: Mascara, Bronzer and Eyeliner
California Natural Lavender hand lotion (no info on Skin Deep...purchased in Lincoln at Open Harvest)
Dr. Bronner's 18-in-1 Soap (I use it diluted in foaming hand soap dispensers, but you can use it for pretty much anything)

I'm making good progress at replacing things! My bathroom has much more storage space now, and I'm getting rid of things that not only don't help me, but may be hurting me. See for yourself: the first photo is products containing parabens in the ingredients list. I'm getting rid of these, no questions asked. (I wasn't really using them anyways.)

Second group: there weren't any parabens listed on these (and the Mary Kay stuff had no ingredients list), but they all contained that mysterious Fragrance, and most weren't listed on Skin Deep. I decided to get rid of these as well. I had to search high and low to find Mary Kay ingredients, and I never did find out what was in my Arbonne face mask. Seems that these companies doesn't like to disclose ingredient information, which I found surprising and disappointing. As far as I could find, my two Mary Kay things (TimeWise cleanser and moisturizer) each contained several parabens, so they're on the GONE list. That's okay though! I already decided not to spend any more money on pricey products. That money could go to much better use. I'll dump the product into a plastic bag if I plan to reuse the bottle (otherwise the empty bottle will go in the recycling bin), and that bag will go in the trash...not in the sink or toilet. I don't want it in my body or my tap water.

I know this has gotten long, so I'll wrap it up now. I hope I've made you consider some things that, maybe, you hadn't before. The bottom line, the very undisputed fact, is that whatever we put on our bodies ends up inside our bodies. While research has yet prove exactly how extensively they affect us, there's plenty to consider.

So...what do you think?

Why I Stopped Using Shampoo, Why I Started Again, and What I've Learned Along The Way

2010-02-23T12:10:00.003-06:00

I know a lot of people who are interested in living a more natural life, getting away from unnecessary chemicals and skin irritants. They've told me about their own health concerns and their relation to commercial products they were using. In general, the idea of using fewer products is attractive to many of us who are a) exhausted with trying to keep up with current beauty standards and routines, and/or b) alarmed or concerned by the way these products are affecting us.

So, while I've told you all about my olive oil skin care (and received overwhelmingly positive feedback), I've also been eager to share my shampoo-free experience for some time now. Honestly, I was hoping it would work beautifully and I'd have another naturally effective, safe and frugal practice to recommend to you. Alas, at least for me, it was not to be.

But, while the no-shampoo thing didn't quite work out for me, I discovered a lot of really legitimate problems with popular commercial hair products. Based on what I've learned, I'll never, ever go back to Pantene, Herbal Essences or even my beloved Redken leave-in conditioner. And, my husband and my future kids will never use them, either. They all contain the same garbage, and it all screws up your scalp and hair (to say nothing of the water and sewage systems and the damage done to the environment). Which, as I'll get into in my next post, is really the least of our concerns.
Let me back up. For those of you who haven't heard of this outrageous-sounding practice before, "no-'poo" is a shortened version of 'no shampoo' and it means quitting the use of commercially produced shampoos, and usually conditioners as well, and often all other hair products. You use a gritty/scrubby paste of baking soda, salt, or coarse sugar to clean the scalp and hair. This acts as the shampoo or cleanser. The other elementis the acidic rinse, which works as the conditioner, and is usually one ingredient: diluted apple cider vinegar, strong black tea, or weak lemon juice. As I understand it, this step restores the hair to its proper pH balance. There are numerous ways to do no-'poo, but they all involve mostly stuff you can find in the kitchen.

So, if this is a new idea to you, you're probably asking yourself...why would anyone ever do this? Actually, there are a multitude of reasons to get away from popular hair products. First, what traditional shampoo does, while a small percentage of it is actually busy cleaning, is strip your lovely hair of its essential oils and moisture. This requires you to use conditioner, as your hair has very little moisture left, and usually multiple styling products. Which, if you think about it, you also have to purchase, preferably (so they say) from the same line of products. Huh, it's like they thought this through, to get you to spend more money... You buy their shampoo, which necessitates a half-dozen steps to superficially remedy the problems caused by the first chemical bath. Except that everything else is also a chemical bath and doesn't actually help, though it might seem like it does.

It's a vicious cycle. Your scalp, continually deprived of everything it needs to be healthy, produces larger and larger amounts of oil. And how do we respond? Like monkeys, we do what billions of marketing dollars have trained us to do. We reach for more and more, pricier, stronger, harsher products to compensate. It never occurs to us that what we used in the first place is the real problem.

So take away the ickyness that is regular shampoo, and your scalp is happy...at least after it realizes it doesn't need to produce extra oil. There's a transitional period before it adjusts. But after that, obviously except in the case of a genuine medical problem, your scalp should regulate itself, like it's designed to do. It'll still need occasional cleaning, but many people who don't use shampoo find they need far fewer washings...often about once a week or less.

Before I realized all this, though, I had my own reasoning for at least changing my own hair care routine. I didn't start doing no-'poo in a paranoid frenzy. Rather, I had some icky dandruffy issues that wouldn't go away, not even with the most medicated off-the-shelf shampoo in the store. (Eventually I found out I really need to stay away from it. But more on that later.) I'm really opposed to going to doctors unless I'm genuinely ill, and itchy scalp does NOT count as being ill. So prescription shampoos, also known as Horridly Stinky and Toxic Chemical Dumps of Black Danger, weren't an option.

I wandered into the no-shampoo community and stayed around for nearly five months. Yep, you read it right. Sorry if it grosses you out, but starting early last October, I totally quit using shampoo and conditioner on my hair.

Starting out, it was beautiful. I used a baking soda paste and weak lemon juice, along with a few carefully chosen essential oils: tea tree oil to help with dandruff, and lavender and peppermint for fragrance. I scrubbed and scratched the baking soda mixture into my scalp, and at first it really stung, but that's also how I knew it was working. Afterwards I'd do a quick rinse with the lemon juice mixture (about 1 cup in a 16-ounce bottle). The lemon juice worked, and still works, like a miracle. The baking soda left my hair squeaky and clean for sure, but very tangly. The lemon juice, like magic, transformed the mess into a silky waterfall of hair. After the very first non-shampoo wash, my hair was noticeably softer, cleaner and much more manageable. It was incredible. I hadn't expected the lack of shampoo to affect my hair (again, this is before I knew what I now know). My hair was amazing. It dried almost immediately, was probably 90% less frizzy, and needed VERY little hair product to keep the curls defined and glossy. And more importantly, my dandruff was gone in less than a week! Overall, it was pretty much a miracle for me, and if I'd had this blog then, I'd probably have recommended it to everyone wholeheartedly.

If only it'd have stayed that way. Sure enough, shortly after I began, I had a very oily scalp (the transition period). This lasted a few weeks, and I almost gave up. Eventually it ended, but my hair never really recovered. And, over time, it's like the baking soda wouldn't come out of my hair anymore. My theory is that, perhaps due to our horribly hard water and low water pressure, the baking soda accumulated in my scalp. There was this grimy residue, no matter how much scrubbing and rubbing and rinsing I would do. It just...built up. No dandruff, no flakes. Just an overall residue. I was devastated. I really wanted no-'poo to work!

Fast-forward another month or two. (Yes, I tolerated it for that long.) My hair, once shiny and bright, was heavy and dark. (If you and I crossed paths during that period, I apologize for my appearance, and now hopefully you understand.) I wanted this no-shampoo thing to work like it had at first...but I was sick and tired of the way I looked. I got into the shower at 6 a.m. one morning. I'd forgotten to mix up my weekly batch of baking soda stuff and the bottle was empty in the shower. Next to it was Justin's shiny, purchased bottle of all-natural, paraben and fragrance free shampoo. I caved. Even though it didn't lather much (real shampoo won't), the bubbles and freshness were luxurious.

So, long story short, I'm done with no-'poo. The shampoo I'm now using is the only one that passed our highly objective and scientific Smell Test, as we perused the small offering of natural hair products at Hy-Vee. It's by a company called Jason Naturals, and it's about the same price as the last dandruff shampoo we were buying. It's really wonderful for my hair, which is now free to be genuinely shiny and soft. We are still saving money overall, because I don't buy any fancy, expensive (and still just as damaging) salon products. Justin and I use the same shampoo, so that part's easy. Plus, I use the diluted lemon juice as conditioner. It still works like a dream!

If you're up for a challenge and some creativity, I'd encourage you to try going without shampoo for a while. I know many people who swear by it. If the idea grosses you out, there's still an important lesson: many popular commercial hair products are still very bad for your scalp and hair, and even if you aren't up for no-'poo, you should look into finding healthier, more natural products that don't ruin the normal balance of your scalp and hair.

But the real problem isn't even the superficial damage done to your scalp. Your skin is your largest organ, and the most porous. Whatever we put on our skin, especially repeatedly over time, and when it's in many different products, ends up in our bodies and in our bloodstream. And, frighteningly, it's even being shown to affect the brain development of children in utero. Overall, while research is in the beginning stages and no one should be screaming in terror, it's pretty clear that there are more than enough reasons to throw away what you were using (recycling the bottle, of course) and start fresh. Or at least finish the bottle and buy a different product next time. My next blog will be about these problems...read it here.

In the meantime, you can read for yourself:
Why It Matters
Maybe you didn't know: The FDA does not test safety of personal care products
Top 20 Worst Offenders/Brands of Greatest Concern
Your Shampoo Is Made of Psychology

And you can search the Skin Deep records to see what's really in your favorite products.

the best potato soup you might ever eat

2010-02-19T15:35:00.000-06:00

I've made potato soups before that have ended up more like soggy mashed potatoes. But this time I got it right! Justin said this soup was one of the best meals I've made...so hooray! The secret is knowing when to stop boiling the potatoes. It's also best to add the liquid ingredients shortly before serving it -- don't simmer for long -- because the potatoes are like sponges and sop up anything they're offered.

As for the taste - oh the taste - parsnips are the secret ingredient. If you haven't used them before, you can get them at Hy-Vee or Open Harvest, and they look like fat white waxy carrots. :) Peel them lengthwise as you would a carrot or potato.

basic ingredients
3 russet potatoes, peeled & chopped into large 2" chunks
2 parsnips, peeled & chopped into smaller 1/2" pieces
1-2 cups frozen corn
2-4 cloves fresh minced garlic
1/2 tube lean pork sausage
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk

to taste/optional
one glug of extra virgin olive oil
2-4 tsp oregano
2-4 tsp thyme
1-2 tsp smoky pepper powder (like chipotle)
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup half & half
1/4 stick butter
sour cream for 'garnish'

Put the parsnips, potatoes, olive oil and garlic in a pot on the stove, in just enough water to cover all the pieces. Cook over medium/high heat until cooked through, adding more water if needed. (I always put the fresh garlic right in there with the potatoes whenever I cook them for any reason...the garlic cooks through, seeps into them and gives a mellow, sweet flavor.) You do not want the potatoes to be mush, but they should break up easily when poked. Meanwhile fry up the sausage in another pan and drain the grease and pat dry.

When the potatoes and parsnips are done, drain most of the water off. Reduce heat to medium/low and smush up the larger pieces of potato. Now I didn't say mash...I said smush. This is not mashed potatoes, it's supposed to be soup. You still want chunks in there. Then add all the rest of the ingredients, putting dairy in last (if you're using it). Add a dollop of sour cream on top when you've ladled it into bowls.

And like I said, the potatoes will really absorb most of the liquid over time. Add the majority of the liquid near the end, so the soup is more...like soup. And less like mashed potatoes. I don't mean to give mashed potatoes a bad rap here, because I do love them. But not when I want soup.

If you have leftovers the next day, despite all your efforts, it probably will look like mashed potatoes. Foiled again, Batman! But you can still win. Just add a bit more chicken stock or milk to transform it back into soup. It won't be quite the same as Day One, but hopefully no one will notice because it tastes SO GOOD.

yogurt - you can make it yourself!

2010-02-05T15:55:00.000-06:00

While I try to buy healthy and unprocessed food, I've found that some of it tends to be more expensive than fatty garbage premade food. This is a serious problem with our food system and I won't go into it here, but it's made me look for ways to get super-healthy things to eat without spending a fortune on simple natural/organic choices. The idea is to avoid prepackaged 'health' food (very cleverly marketed to, and priced for, extremely busy health nuts with plenty of money) and make it yourself. There are tons of things I've found out that I can make myself, with the ingredients being as healthy as I like. Without all the extra preservatives/sodium/MSG/fat/sugar/high fructose corn syrup. It takes extra time to make things from scratch, and I do have that kind of time right now, but I know lots of others don't, and some do, and I probably won't forever so I'm doing the learning part now so it will be just part of life later on. :)

Just to get you inspired, here are some things I've made instead of bought...
food: bread, granola, veggie/chicken broth, croutons, salad dressing/teriyaki sauce, pitas, green leafy mixes (instead of getting them in the bag), cream cheese, pesto,
other: shampoo, conditioner, all of my face washing stuff, body scrub, air freshener /shower spray, household cleaning products, shaving 'gel' (hint: it's only one ingredient...with the initials E.V.O.O.)

Stuff I plan to try sometime...
hand lotion, ricotta cheese, red wine vinegar, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, bagels, flour and butter, infused olive oils, sprouts, hummus

Yogurt is another thing I've tried and you can make yourself. (By the way, I'm no expert...try googling yogurt-making for more ideas and tricks.) The benefits of making your own yogurt are: it's tastier, it's healthier, and it's cheaper. Drawbacks: it takes time, and it may need tweaking to get your 'recipe' right.

You'll have to make this when you'll be home for quite awhile, as it needs to stay in the warm oven for up to 12 hours, plus the hour or more preparation time.

You'll need:

about 1/2 gallon of milk (any kind is fine, including soy)
1/2 to 1 cup of plain 'starter' yogurt with active cultures (make sure it says 'live and active cultures' on the container)
Candy thermometer, the kind that clips to the pot
Vaguely oven-safe bowl with lid (this will make sense later)
Ice cubes and an empty sink

You might want:

Flavorings: vanilla, honey, cinnamon, fruit, or whatever you like your yogurt to taste like
Sweetener (sugar, honey etc)
Fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth

Heat the milk to 180 degrees.
Simmer the milk on the stove over medium or low heat. I used about 1/2 gallon...no need to be precise. Put the thermometer in the milk (not touching the bottom) and heat on low/medium til the milk hits 180 degrees, stirring occasionally. This is the point at which the milk starts to get frothy, and any existing bacteria will die a painful death.

Put milk in cooling bath.
Meanwhile, fill one side of your sink partway with cold water (I included ice cubes), because you'll put the hot pot in the water as soon as your thermometer reads 180 degrees. I hear that this cold water bath isn't completely necessary but supposedly it's best to cool the milk quickly rather than slowly. Obviously, make sure the water isn't high enough that it'll spill into the pot.

Add the starter and cool to 110 degrees.
As soon as the pot's in the water, stir in your active yogurt, along with whatever flavorings/sweeteners you want. (Use at least 1/2 cup starter for 1/2 gallon of milk, and adjust accordingly.) Leave the thermometer in and cool to 110 degrees. This took about 30 minutes.

Prepare a warm place to keep the milk.
I used our oven because it has a low setting. Other ideas: a crockpot, oven with pilot light, or electric warming blanket. While the milk's cooling in the sink, preheat the oven to 110 degrees.

OK, time out. My oven has a WARM setting, but it doesn't say what the temperature is, so I had to fiddle around to find out where 110 degrees was. I put a little glass bowl of water in the oven, with the thermometer in the water so I could see how warm it was. It took a couple of hours of checking every once in a while to see if it was too warm or cool, but eventually I figured out where it needed to be (just at the end of the W in WARM on my oven dial).

Put the milk in that warm place.
So let's back up to where we were. Pour your milk from the pot into an "oven safe" bowl with a lid. I used a glass Pyrex bowl, and I don't know if it's oven safe, and it has a plastic lid. But really, it's all OK since the oven will just be warm. Put it in the oven, next to your already-heating little bowl of water. Then transfer your thermometer to the water. Do this little process quickly because you want the milk to stay about the same temperature.

Let the nice bacteria do its job!
The milk simply needs to stay at 110-115 for 6 to 12 hours for the bacteria in the starter yogurt to do what it does. The longer you leave it, the thicker and tangier it will become. I liked using a glass bowl because I could reach in and jiggle it and see how thick it was getting. There will be yellowish/greenish liquid that forms on the top, and don't be grossed out, because this is a GOOD thing! (That's the whey. Don't throw it away.) I left my yogurt in the warm oven overnight and took it out in the morning. It tasted perfect, but it still hadn't thickened very well, and I think it's because I didn't use enough starter yogurt. I'll use more next time. I put it in the fridge all day before using it, which helped thicken it up a bit more.

Strain if it's too runny for you.
I don't like runny yogurt personally, so I set a fine mesh strainer over a bowl (you can also use a cheesecloth), and put the thin yogurt in the strainer for maybe an hour. The yellowish liquid (the whey) separated and drained into the bowl. (Keep the whey - you can use it for lots of things such as ricotta cheese, which I plan to try next time.) What was left in the strainer was nothing less than the yummiest, fluffiest, best-tasting yogurt I've had! I added some honey and homemade granola, and enjoyed a big bowl right then (picture below)

Important: Keep some to use for your next batch!
Now that all your yogurt contains bacteria, keep out a cup or two for use in your next batch. This way you won't have to buy any more yogurt to make yogurt. :) You can also freeze your starter, as you may have enough yogurt to last you awhile.
And because you read this far, here's a photo of my yogurt along with my homemade granola, and a bit of honey. It was SO good.

I also squeezed all the whey out of part of my yogurt, which resulted in a very nice cream-cheese-style creation. Just another way to use it all up!

So here's to making wonderfully tasty and healthy food without hopping on the pricey-health-food-products bandwagon. :)

exploring the moments

2010-01-23T16:01:00.000-06:00

Justin and I are coming up on our six-month 'anniversary' of the day we were married. Our wedding day was long and very busy, like most, and it was filled with precious, instantaneous memories and moments. My mind has recently been revisiting a few of these moments, and playing them back over and over, like a song on repeat, and I guess I need to figure out why they're so important.

One such moment came very early in the morning on our wedding day. I woke up, with no alarm clock, around 7. Like a serene valley surrounded by a shattering dam, my empty, sleepy mind was inundated with the list of things to do. I mentally sorted through the debris of mundane tasks, and remembered the one thing I'd been saving for last. The one I was looking forward to. I had to make my bouquet.

I did all my own flowers and corsages and boutonnieres for the wedding. Most of the decorations at the reception and ceremony were very simple - just a riot of vivid blooms, in glass vases and jars culled from thrift stores and our own home. I loved making everything I possibly could, like the corsages. I made them out of fake flowers so I could do it ahead of time. For weeks, our dining room table had been strewn with scraps of flowers, twigs, ribbon, hot glue, and the antique brooches I attached to all the women's corsages. Each one was unique. Our pastor's boutonniere matched the one for our wedding coordinator...who happened to be his wife. The moms and grandmas had scraps of lace, trimmed from my gown, incorporated into their little arrangements. Each one was special, with meaning. I'd sit down at the table almost every evening, not beginning with any tangible ideas; but what came from my fingers was fueled by pure imagination, and the finished product was always better than I could've imagined.

Some of the flowers. :)

I only had to make four main bouquets, and these were made almost completely of real flowers. My sisters, the bridesmaids, each had unique bouquets, and I'd never made bouquets before so they weren't anything fancy, but I made each one for them, just the right size and shape. I made them the night before the wedding, two before the rehearsal dinner, and one after.

And, I wanted my arrangement to be different from the others...different than other bouquets I'd seen brides carry, and different than my sisters'. I didn't want this big stiff shield. I wanted something beautiful, natural, easy-going. And I wanted it to look the same on all sides. This might sound weird, but I didn't want to have to worry about the best side facing out. (And besides, shouldn't I be the one to see the pretty side in that scenario?) Oh, and no roses. Actually there were no roses anywhere in the entire place. Boo-ya.

But as I quietly made my way downstairs that morning, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and trying to prepare myself for the day, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted my flowers to look like. I should have been terrified.

The house was quiet and still, full of promise and early clear sunlight. I remember these moments so vividly. The only other person awake was my mom, ever hard-working, putting dirty clothes into the washer and flapping the dry ones in the air, to work out the wrinkles. She wouldn't have time to iron that day. Just because her daughter was getting married didn't mean the others wouldn't need clean, unwrinkly clothes that weekend.

The basement table was covered with flowers...so many flowers I could hardly clear a place to work. Ideas danced vaguely in my mind, and before I knew what I was doing, I'd decided I had to use the rest of my creamy white ranunculus, the full, lush buttercups. The working of my hands was therapeutic; the small busyness of it relaxed my mind, like a vacation from all the large busyness I knew the day would bring. The floral wire was pushed through the length of the wimpy stems, the disproportionate blooms needing support. The stems were juicy and full of lively water, and for a fleeting instant, I felt guilt for destroying those delicate little miracles to make something else.

Marriage is a sacrifice, there's no arguing that point. And when you think about it, everything worthy and good in this life--a promotion, having kids, buying a house, traveling the world to do charity work, going to college--only comes through some sort of loss. Freedom. Independence. Family proximity. When I agreed to be married, I decided that marriage was more important than many other things in my life, and not all of them were bad things. Like me, those ranunculus had to be cut and strengthened on the inside, not painlessly, so they could be part of something neither they nor I could have known.

While I knew I needed to use the ranunculus, I also wanted to incorporate my tall, deep purple dendrobium orchids, the prized flower of the day. They were, and still are, the most beautiful flowers I'd ever seen. They were in all the bouquets, in all the simple arrangements in the church and at the reception, all over the cake, and right before we all walked the aisle, I even tucked a few into my sister's hair. The ranunculus, by this time, had formed themselves, now confidently sturdy-stemmed, into a small, tight cluster. It looked perfect on all sides. On its own, it would have made a charming little bouquet. I didn't want to break it up, so I started sticking the dendrobiums into the top of the whole thing. I used four or five orchid stems, and maybe 20 ranunculus.

I also used a few tiny stems of fake Lilies of the Valley, both in my bouquet and in all my sisters'. When all the real flowers had died, I wanted us all to have a memento. The fake little ones were clustered at the very center, the starting point of the whole creation, a tiny bouquet created on their own. The real flowers would die all around them. Isn't that interesting, and a little sad? I hardly know what to make of it.

I finished my flowers with a deep purple ribbon from one of our gifts. (Bed, Bath and Beyond used my exact color for the ribbon they wrapped lots of our gifts in.) So, somehow, I ended up with my bouquet. I had no intent going into the process, and very little direction once I'd begun. I really have no idea how it came together like it did. The result was unusual, and a little strange, and just perfect. Later I'd joke that it looked like something from Dr. Seuss. Even in its oddity, though, it was right and good, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

It was like writing, I guess. Or anything creative. You just have to go to it, give yourself time and the raw materials, and let your hands do the work. There's real energy in your hands, I think. And there's always more in your brain than you'll ever realize, and so when you get chances to make things, your brain gets to be exercised even in the background, where you don't usually notice it. That background noise is the creative energy; it lives behind you all the time. I can't usually define up-front what I want, but once I start putting the words, or flowers or fabrics or foods together, the creativity comes out, and something wonderful happens.

My bouquet got kind of soggy after sloshing around in a jar to keep it fresh, as we drove from place to place to take our photos that day. When I walked down the aisle, I didn't hold it up to my waist. It just didn't feel right that way. Superficial somehow. I held it at my side, naturally and easily, right where it belonged. My sisters ended up holding theirs in the crooks of their arms, although I hadn't planned that either. It looked much better to me than holding them stiffly at the waist. But I didn't know how to make any kind of bouquet, other than the long slender kind. That is okay. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

What does all this mean? It's about something beautiful being produced, spontaneously and unplanned, from a mess...and it was always better than I could've imagined. That's how all of my flowers were. The mess at the dining room table needed to stay a mess for a month, so I could sit down and let my creativity flow through my hands, making something lovely and unique. My own bouquet wasn't planned, and we hadn't planned how to carry our flowers. But that really worked well, too.

At the beginning, I didn't mean for my relationship with Justin to turn out like it did. Neither of us had dated before and we fumbled around it, gaining more understanding as time passed by us. The raw materials laid around us, and slowly, bits of our lives came together, and, sometimes painfully, began to form a greater, more meaningful whole. More than once I felt mangled and useless. God guided used each of us to guide and shape the other, to make us fit together. The great Creator, working in the background.

Even when two flowers complement each other perfectly, you can't make a bouquet by just laying them next to each other. It's a process. You trim off the extra leaves, and cut the stem, and wire the stem if it's too weak on its own, and you wrap green tape around everything. You may not realize what it's going to be, but you simply trust that whatever's working through your hands, speaking and living from an unknown, silent place, is proven and trustworthy, and can make the most wonderful things out of a mess.

I didn't know what I was doing when I began, but the raw materials--along with the creativity, imagination and faith--were all there. And I knew the result would be beautiful.

This Isn't A Food Blog...

2010-01-20T16:02:00.000-06:00

...But it might as well be, from what's been on my mind lately. :) And on my blog reading list, which is mostly home design and food blogs! So fun!

Most of my experiments lately have been with very basic food staples, which I'm rather used to buying at the store, but I can actually very easily make myself. Bread, salad dressing, pitas, yogurt...and today, granola. I know I may not always have the time or energy to do this, but it feels good.

Yesterday, as many of you know, I made granola for the first time. I looked at a lot of recipes before I set out on my own, so I'm going to tell you what I did, what I didn't do, what I did wrong and what was awesome. Then you can take what you want from those things and hopefully apply them correctly in your own crunchy endeavors. (I forgot to take pictures during the process, but I took a few after the fact...)

I didn't use any specific recipe, because everyone can make granola as they please. Which is totally the fun of it, and I don't like making things that need specific ingredients. (It's also one reason I've been preferring to make my own stuff instead of buying it: I'm kind of picky! :) However, although I don't love following recipes, I do need to find out what's necessary/common to get good results. All the recipes I read about involved creating some sort of sticky sauce to coat the dry mix. They all needed oil, and they all needed to bake. So here are the basic ingredients I used...mix and match and add and subtract at your own taste! All measurements are approximate, because I didn't measure anything.

THE DRY STUFF

3c quick OR old-fashioned oats

1c cashews, rinsed to take off that stupid salt powder

1c ground flaxseed (find it in the health section at Hy-Vee - it has GREAT flavor and very healthy...I think it helped keep stuff together after the sauce was poured in)

1/2c walnut pieces

1/2c unsalted sunflower seeds

1/2c slivered almonds

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Mix this all together in a nice big bowl. Other ideas: peanuts, a bit of wheat germ, pecans, spelt flour, pistachios, pretzel bits, coconut flakes/shreds, or hazelnuts.

You can also mix in craisins, raisins, dried apples or bananas or mangoes or any other dried fruit you can think of, M&Ms, cereal (cheerios, chex etc) chocolate chips, peanut butter chips...but just wait with these ones til after you've baked everything else. :) Note: If you leave dry fruit in the granola, it can get really hard over time and the granola will get soggy. Also, I saw several warnings not to use whole almonds, as they can get too hard to eat after baking. (Here is a rather ominous picture of cashews.)

THE SAUCE

1/4 to 1/2c canola/coconut/hazelnut/other vegetable oil

1c maple syrup

1c honey

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla

a few grinds of salt

Heat the syrup and honey with the oil (or whichever of the two you're using on its own) in a little pan on low heat. When it's runny, add the cinnamon and vanilla.

Add any other spices you think you'd enjoy: nutmeg, dry/fresh ginger, molasses, allspice, orange/lemon zest, applesauce, agave nectar, even a bit of cayenne pepper. You might also want to add some brown sugar (maybe 1/2 cup), as the honey doesn't really add a ton of sweetness. I've also read that nut butters (peanut, almond, hazelnut) add a lot of richness and flavor.
(Those of you in Lincoln: have you ever been to Gateway mall around Christmastime, and there's that candy/nut stand in the middle, selling baklava and candied nuts? Well, the simmering sugary stuff smelled exactly like that stand. It was kind of startling.)

My biggest mistake was to TOTALLY FORGET the oil. The resulting granola was still very tasty, but definitely a bit dry, in part due to overcooking (grr) but I think the oil would have helped save it. So you can use just honey or just syrup or whatever, but neglect not ye oil.

After everything's nice and liquidy in the pot, pour it over your mixed-up dry stuff, and combine it till everything's sticky. If it's not enough, add more if you want, and if it's too sticky add some more oats or whatever. You want the final mixture to be sticky but not soupy! It should stick together, but still crumble apart. But the amount is really up to you.

Spread it on your flat pan/s (oh, did I mention to preheat the oven to 300 or so?) and bake for 15-20 minutes. Most recipes say to turn it midway, but I didn't. What I did do was get distracted and leave the pans in a little too long. Not like carcinogen-long, but long enough that I had to throw away some of the edges, which got really dark really fast.

So my suggestion is: don't spread it too thin. Take it out when it's a little golden, and it'll get darker and crispier as it cools off. (I left mine on the pan all day because I had to leave for work.) Once it's cool enough to handle, you can transfer it to a bowl or whatever.

enjoy!

a miracle face-washing epiphany

2010-01-09T23:50:00.001-06:00

Hey ladies! This post is mostly for you. Most of us work hard to keep our faces clean, zit-free, and even-toned, right? Maybe glowing, at least in our dreams? :) Forget about budget-friendly or all-natural, and we're not even thinking about all those icky chemicals in commercial cleansers! I wanted to share something that I've been doing for several months now, and it might sound strange at first, but...

I've been washing my face with olive oil.

Yep, just the stuff from the grocery store. Extra-virgin olive oil has been used for centuries as a cleanser and moisturizer, and there's no lack of information on the internet about its amazing effectiveness. Mixed with a little castor oil to help cleanse, it neither leaves oil on my skin or makes me smell like salad. It has worked better than any cleansing/moisturizing/toning method I've ever tried in my life.

I haven't ever had horrible skin, but it's always been really frustrating. Every month I'd get several zits, and my skin was always either really oily (in the summer) or flaky-dry (in the winter). Sometimes I'd have dry patches and oily patches at the same time. I tried pretty much everything available at normal stores, and even ProActiv at one point. And Mary Kay stuff worked fine, but even with some discounts I got, the expense wasn't something my conscience could really justify. I wanted something that I could conscionably use without thinking about how my stupid soap could feed a kid in Africa for a month. Or dig a well to give a whole village clean water...you get the idea. Expensive products are something we don't need, and the money definitely could be better appropriated.

Plus, I've generally been looking for ways to simplify my routine and my needs. What I didn't want was some pricey, time-taking, messy procedure that I'd surely get sick of, and neglect. I am really trying to think about what I actually need, and what's just been marketed to my age segment, to get me to spend money on stuff. If I don't need to buy another product (for face washing or whatever else), I'm not going to do it. This goes for household cleansers, paper towels, kitchen gadgets, shampoo, lotion, hand soap, conditioner, etc.

So, with a little bit of a burden on my conscience and a general desire to make things simpler and defy expensive marketing campaigns (as long as I get to defy something, I'll do just about anything), I discovered this 'oil cleansing method' on the internet. Once I started, I knew this one was a keeper. This website has a lot of info, and it's more detailed than mine, and there are plenty of other places to look if you're skeptical of my conclusions. :)

There are a few things I learned when I was researching this:

Oil isn't the enemy. Your face creates oils, which your skin needs in order to be healthy.
Commercial soaps remove this necessary oil, and so your skin produces even more oil to compensate.
Oil is the only thing that dissolves oil.
Olive oil is the closest thing to our own skin's formula.

So not only is this method inexpensive and easy, it's extremely good for your skin, unlike commercial soaps that dry out your face, and contain potentially harmful chemicals that are absorbed through your skin. Here's what I do...

Mix 1/4 castor oil with 3/4 olive oil.

Basically, the castor oil deep-cleans, and the olive oil moisturizes. You can experiment with this ratio, but this is what's worked for me in this very dry winter. When it's more humid outside (or if you have really oily skin), increase the amount of castor oil. Conversely, if your skin is particularly dry, add more olive oil. There's no particular rule, but the castor oil, while a very effective cleanser, can make your skin pretty dry if you use a lot of it.

I found castor oil at Hy-Vee, really cheap, like $1.28 for a smallish bottle. I think it was sold as a laxative, but if you look at the ingredients of your commercial facial products, a lot of them contain castor oil. So don't let a weird label throw you off. :)

Again, make sure it's extra virgin olive oil, and nothing else! The stuff you may have in your kitchen is just fine. This isn't about buying more stuff, it's about making the best use of what you have! Extra virgin olive oil is also super healthy, tasty, and widely useful, so if you don't have any in your kitchen, you should probably invest in some. :)

To keep it in, I reused a soap dispenser (the kind you're just supposed to throw away). I washed out all the soap, peeled off the label and had a perfect dispenser, pump and everything.

Make it smell pretty (if you want).

This is totally optional, but you can put in a few drops of your favorite essential oil. If you don't care about this, don't worry about it. I happen to love lavender and have added a few drops of lavender oil, which is not only a lovely perfume, but is also good for your skin.

Massage it into your face.

I use something like 3-4 pumps from my handy little bottle. Rub it in for about a minute, and don't forget your eye area - this is an incredible makeup remover as well.

Steam it off with a washcloth soaked in very warm water.

After your nice massage, wet your washcloth with reeeally warm water...about as hot as you can stand it. Wring it out and lay the cloth over your face, pressing it all over. This steams the olive and castor oils out, along with any impurities, makeup, dirt, and bacteria in your pores.

You probably don't need to do it more than once a day, in the evening. Then, in the morning, all you might need is a little splash of water (I just take a quick pass with a damp washcloth over my eyes). At any point, if you have dry spots of skin...if you washed it too heavily with the cloth, or it's really dry outside...just get a teensy drop on your finger and dab it on your face.

That's it! I really would have no interest in sharing this with you unless I had seen some serious results on my own face. My skin is well moisturized all the time, I have had far fewer breakouts (and this month I had NONE!) and I've even started forgetting to wash my face...because it doesn't feel dry or greasy! My skin is SO soft, and I swear it even glows a little. :)

I've really wanted to start using olive oil on my hands and other dry areas. But I haven't really thought of a good way to do that. I have a few little spots of psoriasis that pop up in the winter, and I just started dabbing some olive oil on them, and it seems to be helping a lot, but I haven't done it long enough to report on the effectiveness there.

In short, this is a very frugal, easy, natural, and effective way to clean your face, and not only that, but it might just leave your skin healthier than it was before.

Definitely let me know if you try this!

for the love of thrifting

2010-01-01T23:11:00.000-06:00

It seems like most people have a very specific attitude towards thrift stores. You either love thrift stores or are terrified of them. Either you think they're great, or you can only conceive of them as dimly lit, smelly, homeless-bum dens of holey socks and tattered, coverless books. However, this also means you never visit them. Whatever irrational fear is keeping you away, once you get the hang of it, you'll love thrifting as much as I do.

Did I mention that I love thrift stores? I have for quite a few years now, ever since I was old enough to drive and also old enough to have to buy my own clothes. I have this issue talent for searching for bargains and hidden treasures, and thrift stores are a great place for both of these things. (Photo: our room, most of the things on the wall from thrift stores & garage sales).

When I first started shopping at secondhand stores, I bought mostly wearable, practical things: shoes, clothes, purses, belts, sweaters. I balanced out my addiction to $.75 cardigans with the occasional splurge at Banana Republic, perhaps treating myself to a pair of $50 pants. (It still feels like a splurge, and I'm glad it does.) I needed to convince remind myself that I wasn't obsessed with thrifting, and I had more money for clothes since I'd gotten so many great deals at thrift stores, so...it was the least I could do. A duty. :) My find of the year--no, of the century--was a barely-used pair of Birkenstock sandals, exactly my favorite style and color, and exactly my size, for $6. SIX DOLLARS. They'd have set me back $150 if I'd bought them new. If you aren't sure there's a God, thrifting might just change your mind.

I've also bought and resold a lot of those little hidden treasures, on sites like eBay and my Etsy shop. It's amazing how a $.50 trinket, old and charming, will go for $22 if you clean it up a little and take a few nice pictures. I've made money from my thrifting addiction, which is not the main reason I do it, but it helps. And it's so much fun! (Except for the pictures of our home, these photos are all things I've bought and resold.)

Lately, though, since I suddenly have a home of my own to fill and decorate and supply, I've been buying useable practical things. (Crazy, huh?) I've bought gorgeous mixing bowls, lots of serving saucers, beautiful plates, handy pots and casserole dishes, and a brand-new cheese plank with little knives and forks (still wrapped) stored inside it. Vases, pitchers, framed art, empty frames, chairs, coasters, books, fabric, candles, lamps, tools, baskets (oh the baskets), lidded jars, mugs, tote bags (please don't buy special, brand-new bags for grocery shopping) and storage boxes have also found their way to my apartment, all at a tiny fraction of what I'd have paid for them, merely for the extravagant privilege of not having to pick off tags. Oh wait, I'd still have had to do that. I meant the extravagant privilege of being the VERY FIRST OWNER. It's addicting to feel like you need to be the very first owner, but really not very practical.

Not that it's not ever appropriate to be the first owner. Things I would never buy (and have never bought) at a thrift store: lingerie, nail polish, electric kitchen gadgets, unwashable
shoes, socks, pillowcases (that I was intending to use as pillowcases). But that leaves a lot of things that don't need to be purchased new. Since we're all trying to save money, why not try your local Salvation Army or DAV before heading to your normal shopping source? (You're also supporting charitable organizations when you shop at these places.) If you're looking for something specific that you need right now, thrifting might not be the best option. But, for example, I've been wanting a set of individual-sized baking dishes, and I don't need them right now, so I'm just keeping my eyes open.

I've also started realizing that my thrifting has taken on a deeper, even philosophical motivation. I'll always enjoy the fun of thrifting little treasures, but lately, I've realized how much I pointlessly depend on brand-new things, and how much more efficient, smart, frugal, and yes, even 'green' it is to do everyone a favor and reuse stuff. This goes for things in my own home, like the jars/bottles/containers that have juice/spaghetti sauce/sour cream in them. But for whatever reason, we're trained to throw those things away before we go out and buy brand-new jars/bottles/containers. I felt really silly once I realized what I was doing! This same principle applies for practically everything I need. If you must buy it new, do that. But I've discovered that it feels really good to do things intentionally, carefully, and not mindlessly like we're used to.

This Christmas, I gave several gifts that I'd purchased secondhand, and I also wrapped many of them in thrifted fabric (yes, I washed it). A few beautiful antique poetry books were gifts for my sisters, and the collection of small gifts for my parents was collected in a basket I probably paid $.75 for. I could have bought brand-new poetry books (which would have had very little appeal) and stupidly spent twenty times what I did on a silly basket. These are just a few ways that I can save money and really enjoy shopping, too! (Photo: I realized that everything in this picture, except for the cabinet (an heirloom) was purchased at thrift stores and garage sales! Shelf, modern vases, antique plates, books, lamp, basket, art. Woohoo!)

Some suggestions if you're interested in thrifting...
-Go when they have their additional deals...usually stuff like "50% off ladies clothes on Wednesdays."
-I kinda mentioned this earlier, but don't go expecting a very specific item to manifest itself for you.
-On the other hand, thrift stores may have the psychological effect of making you purchase a lot of stuff you don't need at all, just because it's cheap! If you'll never use it, it's still a waste of that money.
-Thrift stores' stock changes very regularly, so if you go a week later, you might find totally different stuff!
-Some require you to pay in cash, or don't take many credit cards, or require you to purchase a certain amount before they'll accept your card. This is because credit card fees are very high, and since their item prices are so low, it can actually cost them money to sell some things. Just be aware, have some cash with you, and understand why it's that way.
-Be open--very open!--to gifting your thrifted treasures! Sometimes a gift is more meaningful, not to mention more interesting, when it's a vintage mixing bowl or antique crystal vase. Less expected, seems more sincere somehow.
-I hope this goes without saying, but wash everything you get, before wearing/using it!! Even if it still has its price tags on (which is pretty common), just assume strangers have worn it, eaten from it, whatever you need to imagine. :)

My favorite thrift store is the ARC, about half a block west on 27th and Vine. Their store is bright, cheerful, well-organized, not overcrowded, well-staffed, and...AND...students get half off on Fridays. :) Let me just say that a $4 sweater might start to look pretty steep after a while!

My least favorite store in Lincoln is the Goodwill on north 27th, between Highway 6 and Superior. For some strange reason, it's horridly overpriced. And I don't mean that because I'm used to paying pocket change for stuff, or maybe it is because of that, but I'm talking $8 for a glass jar, and $10 for t-shirts. If I wanted to pay retail prices for used stuff, I'd...I don't know, I'd be crazy, because that doesn't make any sense. If you're looking for great bargains, steer clear. It's also oddly shaped, like a bowling alley.

Oh yes, maybe you are still wondering whether the stereotype of ratty, smelly thrift stores is accurate! In most stores I've been in, it's really, truly not. A few are a little dingy, but only because they're charities and they send the money where it really needs to go, not pampering customers. Besides, if you're willing to stick around and search awhile, who knows what you might find? :)

2009: the fullest year of my life!

2009-12-31T13:25:00.000-06:00

2009 was one of the most adventure-packed years of my life. It started with my boyfriend of two years, Justin Chase Moore, asking me to be his wife on January 10th. Somehow, although I can't explain know why, I knew he was going to propose to me that day! I wouldn't let myself believe it, telling myself it was just wishful thinking. But whatever it was...intuition, a vision or some kind of dream...I was right! I said yes. :) That evening was a tour of families and relatives, with me showing off my handsome fiancee, and maybe my ring too. ;)

In May, Justin graduated from UNL with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Going to his graduation ceremony, the first I'd been to, was wonderful. He had been working at an internship with a defense contractor here in Lincoln, but at that point, the job market was very lean for engineers, and we didn't know if we'd have to move so he could have a job. The company didn't officially hire him until after we'd been married for about a month, and we had already had to sign a lease on an apartment, so we were trusting that God would provide something in Lincoln. Now he is a full time Design Engineer at General Dynamics. He designs rocket casings. Which is pretty cool. :)

Shortly after the May graduations, my brother Jim married his sweetheart, Kelsey. He'd proposed to her just a month before Justin proposed to me, so of course they got the first choice of wedding date. :) Jim and Kelsey were married on June 6th, in a beautiful outdoor morning wedding. God gave them a beautiful day, but the day before (which we hadn't remembered to pray for, I suppose) it had rained like a hurricane in Lincoln. So the ground was a little soggy, but they went ahead and had the wedding in the "Green" of our church.

Less than two months later, Justin and I had our big day, and I married the love of my life on July 31st, at 7:00 in the evening. We put a lot of time and thought into planning our wedding, especially the ceremony and programs (which ended up being 8 pages long!), so it was really great to have everything happen relatively smoothly. We had an outdoor reception, and God also gave us a perfect evening. A little breezy, overcast, no bugs, the perfect temperature. However, it did get dark a lot sooner than we'd planned, and the latter part of our reception was quite dark. :)

We honeymooned in Mexico, in the Riviera Maya. We'd scored some great deals when we booked our flight and resort, and stayed at an all-inclusive hotel for six nights. It was the low season for Mexico's tourism, so we had a very quiet and peaceful stay. The weather was indescribably beautiful, and we spent lots of time snorkeling, lazing around on the beach, and even doing a little tourism to visit, among other things, Chichen Itza--one of the seven wonders of the world. It didn't disappoint!

A few weeks after we got home, I began my last semester at UNL. I was taking 15 credit hours, and working around 15 hours a week. My employment ended in September or October, and I was really grateful, because I could spend more time at home, and more time with my HUSBAND! :)

Around this time is also when Justin was officially hired at General Dynamics. A long time ago, I'd promised to take him out for steaks when he got his first job. Well, it's all our money now, so technically I couldn't take him out, but we had a great evening out at Misty's to celebrate nonetheless.

I graduated college a few short weeks ago, with a major in English and a minor in History. I took part in the ceremony, which I'm really glad I did. It's pretty long and dull, but you only graduate with your bachelor's degree once, and it was worth it to have the closure and finality of what's really been seven years of (on-and-off) college. Wow. I graduated high school in 2002, and it's taken me this long to complete my degree, since I took a couple of years off to work full time, and also did school part time for several terms.

Out of the blue, no more than a week ago, a former coworker from the Legislature called me up and asked if I needed a job! Seriously? Yes, I said, I'm looking to work part time. I emailed an updated cover letter and resume to Senator Kate Sullivan, and I'm going to be working for her, starting Monday! Another big WOW. Plus, I'll be working with the same district and some of the same coworkers, 8-2, which means I'll still have afternoons and evenings to be home and work on my photography! God has provided so abundantly, and because I have this job, we'll be able to pay off my school loans a lot more efficiently, and still be able to save some.

That brings me to today, and I have to leave in a few short minutes to fill out some paperwork for my new job. This is a really quick overview of my year, but it is so abundantly evident that God has worked everything together for our good. He truly cares for our lives, and guides us in everything we do. I don't know if 2010 will have so many landmarks, but I know God is already there, preparing the path for us.

a very tasty dinner

2009-12-28T19:25:00.000-06:00

My goal for the past few months has been to convince myself, as well as my husband, that food can be truly healthy and also truly tasty. So here's a 'recipe' that I've made a couple of times now, altering it here and there. The original is here: Squash, Sage & Parmesan Pasties. (Pasty=pocket of food.) The first time I made this, although the pockets were delicious, the dough didn't turn out all that great. So this time I bought a premade puff pastry and used that instead. Usually I wouldn't go out and buy something I can very easily make myself, but...mine wasn't very good. (And it wasn't easy.) The premade pastry was really easy, and tasted way better.

First, here's a photo of tonight's finished product.

This recipe is enough for four pockets/servings, although tonight, I made two pockets, and kept the extra filling to help make a meal another night. What I like best about this is that you could pretty much throw anything in the pockets and with the right seasoning, it'd be amazing. Carrots, potatoes, corn, spinach, leeks/onions, mozzarella or gouda cheese, sweet potatoes, broccoli, feta cheese, walnuts, etc. You could also add meat, like ground beef or shredded chicken, but it's definitely not necessary; it's a good idea to cut meat from your diet wherever you can.

So here's what you'll need.

2 thawed puff pastry sheets (thawing takes awhile, so take these out of the freezer first thing!)
2 cups diced butternut squash (in small 1cm pieces - this also takes awhile)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts (just put them in a skillet over medium heat, and toss occasionally, for about 10 minutes, til golden brown)
2 tablespoons sage
2 cloves garlic, peeled & chopped into tiny pieces
1 teaspoon basil
1/4 to 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 egg, stirred up with a fork
Salt & pepper

Preheat your oven to 375. In a medium bowl, mix together the squash, peas (best if they're still frozen), sage, garlic, basil, cheese and toasted pine nuts. Liberally sprinkle salt and pepper into the mix (I didn't measure this, but I probably used 2 teaspoons of each. You do not want the salt, especially, to be lacking.)

Lay the first pastry on a lightly greased cookie sheet/pan. Cut it in half (now you'll have two long rectangles). Spoon the filling onto one side, fold over, and crimp the edges. After you've done two, make sure the pan's still greased up, and lay out the second pastry (now that you have room on the pan) and do the same thing. Use a brush to 'paint' the egg mix onto each pocket, making sure to cover every part of it.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cut a little slit into the top right after they come out of the oven. Serve immediately!

Let me know if you make these, and how they turn out! I'd also love to know any other filling you end up using.

Christmas music & the future

2009-12-25T20:06:00.000-06:00

Like most people with souls, I really enjoy Christmas music, especially the old, traditional carols. Maybe part of the magic is that we only hear them for a few glorious weeks each year...but there is something, yes, magical, even primitive or ancient, about them, and I feel like a part of history when we sing them at church, with the lights down low, candles shimmering and glowing on faces.

It's probably because I've studied words and poems and sentences and literature for so long, but I can't help see the beauty of the lyrics, so much more complex and layered than the monotonous choruses our generation turns out. The lyrics are timeless because they are meaningful and beautiful.

Traditional Christmas carols are about the baby Jesus, about the manger and the stable and the angels and the shepherds. But the Christmas story isn't just about that instant in time, that particular nativity (birth) scene that we replay and make shrines to. It's about peering into the future. Christmas is about waiting for something. We are all waiting for something.

Jesus was born so that man and God could be at peace, so God could loosen the burden of the sin we were born with. He was born to be a King of the world, to make his blessings known far as the curse is found. He came to remove the ugly and humiliating stain of evil that's all over our universe, soaked through our hearts. But we could quite legitimately object to lyrics like these, from a few of our favorite Christmas carols:

"He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love..."
"Born that man no more may die...born to raise the sons of earth...born to give them second birth."
"Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled."
"His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease."

That last one is especially objectionable. In Christ's name oppression will cease? Not yet, that's for sure! Horrible and heinous things have been done in Christ's name, staining history with the deeds of his so-called followers. Why do these song writers seem to think the world became wonderful when Christ was born? It's actually just as bad as it's always been, and a lot of people think it's worse than it's ever been (although I'd probably disagree in a way).

I really had to think about this: does Jesus reign now? Sure, we talk about him reigning in our hearts, but for the most part, in our world, it seems like someone else is in charge. God's enemies are the real princes of this universe, and while we've read the last pages of the book already and know how it ends, God's power is restrained in this world, at this time. The curse on the earth--which includes sin, evil, greed, selfishness, death, oppression and injustice--is still widespread and dominant. It's the default of our human condition; we have to work against the forces of entropy and evil and selfishness, if we want anything to be different.

But Christmas is about pointing not just to the past and the baby away in the manger, but to the future, when the work Christ began will be completed. He didn't make the world a better place, and he doesn't reign in this world, and, no, the nations don't all proclaim his righteousness, and everyone still faces evil and death and all the other pains of being alive. The point of Christmas is that humanity needed to be reconciled to God, and we needed a way to do that.

On an individual level, however imperfectly, we can see these promises fulfilled. We can now have peace with God, and he can reign in our lives, and we can live for him. But that's not the full story: the curse has not been lifted. That's why we can't fully experience these truths. Rather, Jesus's birth is a key chapter in the continuing drama of God's relationship with Man. One day, what we can now experience in an imperfect way, will be perfectly and wholly true throughout the vastness of the world, after the hideous crookedness of sin has been done away with.

In many ways, life is wonderful. And in many ways, it's terrible. There is a tension between our desire to stay on earth--we were made for this place, made out of it--and our knowledge that heaven is a place without pain. The point of Christmas, and all those wonderful traditional songs, is that one day we'll live in real, lasting peace, on this very same earth. We won't have to choose between this beautiful earth, and our awesome Savior. There won't be this tension between physical and spiritual. We are waiting for God's plan to be complete, because until then, we all suffer in this world, even as we love the beauty in it, and even as God speaks to and through us.

So, while these Christmas songs seem to be confused in their assessment of the current state of humanity, many of them still express the idea of waiting. There's a verse that I haven't heard sung very often, in the song "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" that says it much better than I could. Christmas is a crucial moment in the story of salvation, but it's not the last chapter.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

why I write

2009-12-23T12:31:00.001-06:00

I've been wanting a new blog for months now. Actually, any old blog will do, but I was just too embarrassed at how long I neglected the last one. I'm really excited about this, and I have so many things to say.  

The problem is, when I'm out and about doing normal life, I'll plan out topics and ideas for blogging, but...when I arrive here at my computer, I lose focus and all my ideas. So for my first blog, I forgot all the epic and world-changing things I was going to say. I'm sorry. I need to get used to this again. This is boring. This is why I'm a little afraid of blogs, too...because I'm afraid I was just deluding myself and I don't, actually, have anything much to say.  

Alright. Here's the truth of the matter. Somewhere in the past six months, I realized that I need this outlet. I need to write, and for some reason, the writing has to be "out there" in the world or the public or for someone else to read. I suck at journaling. Mostly I can't stand the physical act of writing, and my wrist cramps up. In-class essays are the worst. Typing is better. And, I very rarely write just for myself, to understand myself better or to get my thoughts out on paper. That's why most people journal, but it isn't enough for me, and it never was. When I was ten, if I thought of a good story, I'd run to my desk, and begin penning a copy for Reader's Digest. I'm serious. My grandpa sent me that magazine for probably ten years of my life, so maybe that's why I felt that everything needed to be shared. Even the most personal of stories found their way into the public pages of Reader's Digest. I don't count enough to be the sole audience even for my own thoughts.  

But the funny thing is, once I start writing on my blog, or in a paper for a teacher perhaps, I'll discover hidden thoughts and motivations, and secrets I didn't know I had. I don't start out in freakish desperation to expose my inner thoughts to friends and strangers and professors, but when I start making words and sentences, it's like suddenly my mind can process what it's been holding close. Like a hot wire suddenly touching another wire, and the electricity has no choice but run to the new place.  

That's why I need to write. Here's the best example I can give you, proof that words always outgrow themselves. It may sound pathetic, but I barely realized the reason I need to write before I started typing twenty minutes ago. At the very least, I sure hadn't hashed it out like this, so I could understand it. And, I wouldn't have ever sat down to write in the first place for anyone but you, for anyone except everyone. And when I did, I found a little bit of myself along the way. It's really incredible, when you think about it.