falling behind September 21, 2008

So many little observations in the last week or so that I keep mulling over putting into a post.  Fall is a tough time of year.  It’s my favorite season, but it’s also the busiest one.  Every fall, I tell myself that next year I’ll remember how busy things are, and I’ll get started on everything earlier.  Every fall, I look ahead and think, this year won’t be so bad, I’ve done this before.  Every fall, I’m just barely keeping my head above water.  It stays above water, and it’ll stay above water this year, too.  But I have no left over mental energy for much else.

I think that’s maybe why I keep noticing little things recently.  Some things I’ve seen recently, with  no additional commentary:

• on a walk around the lake, a heron standing stately on a sandbar in the lake.
• on the same walk, a woman on a bike with a pomeranian in the basket on the handbars.
• a hummingbird flitting through the flowers a block from my house.  I’ve never seen a hummingbird here.
• that feeling of anxiety in the pit of my stomach at the beginning of the school year, as I think about all the school work and exams and papers, that always catches me by surprise, until I remember that I’m not a student anymore

autumn raspberries September 11, 2008

There was a little box of beautiful, ripe autumn raspberries in our farm share this evening.  Zoe recognized them immediately and pointed to them saying “my! my!”  (”My” is her new favorite word, edging out even “no” at the moment.)  I handed her 3 berries, which she immediately shoved into her mouth.  I handed her four more.  Same thing.  “Can you stop shoveling these straight into your mouth, and instead eat them one at a time?” I ask as I hand her a couple more and put the rest away.  She can not.  After dinner, Chris took her up to take a bath, and as I put away the other produce from the farm share, I see the little box of beautiful, ripe autumn raspberries.  I pick out one and taste it.  Perfection in a small bite.  Doing away with decorum, I shove the next half dozen in my mouth and devour them in a single bite.

that’s what mothers do September 7, 2008

Zoe is trying to walk down the stairs all by herself, without holding on to the wall or railing.  And she can almost do it, but it’s pretty terrifying to watch.  I offer my hand for her to hold on to, and she yells “no!” as she wants to do it all by herself.  “Ok,” I say, “I won’t hold your hand, but,” I continue, in what sounds more like a threat than the promise it was meant to be, “if you fall, I WILL catch you!”

when life gives you really good heirloom tomatoes August 21, 2008

tomatoes from our garden

make pizza!

really, really, good pizza . . .

for toppings we used  green peppers, tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh onion, olive oil and mozarella cheese.  The dough was the light whole wheat dough from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  All the veggies were from the farm share, except for the tomatoes that came from our garden.  It’s really satisfying to use so many good veggies in our dinners, especially since we know exactly where they’re from.

Ok, so here’s where I’m looking for your help.  Today was farm share pick up and we’re now hitting that point where we’re getting lots of stuff and I’m starting to run out of ideas.  I need your best ideas for any or all of the following:

• tomatoes
• cabbage
• summer squash (mostly zucchini, some pattypans)
• carrots
• sweet peppers
• cucumbers

I may need to add a new category “zombies” to this blog August 21, 2008

Who knew there could be so much to say on the topic of zombies?  My wonderful husband Chris, who didn’t bother to tell me that his field of study in college included zombies, has tried to make up for that fact by pointing me towards this post on geekdad about zombie critters.  I will probably require a bit more chocolate, but then all will be forgiven.

Also, my brilliant coworker Iris sent me a link to this video which clearly elucidates one of the best tools in surviving a zombie attack - the library!

(no, I have not yet finished writing that guest post, why do you ask?)

very important questions regarding produce July 24, 2008

We’re fully into the greatness of summertime produce. Yesterday, Zoe and I went to friends’ house and picked a whole bucketful of very ripe raspberries. Well, I picked. Zoe mostly held the bucket, then would set it down, grab a couple to eat, and then pick it up again. Today, we got our weekly farm share from our CSA. For people not familiar with farm shares, we pay a set amount at the beginning of the summer, and then each week receive a share of that farms produce. If they have a great year, we get a lot of yummy veggies, if it’s a bad year, we get a smaller share - of still great, organic produce. It helps support the farmers regardless of the weather and other risks involved in farming.

So dinner tonight was a big salad for Chris and I, and a plate of fresh raspberries, fresh sugar snap peas, and some cheese and dan dan noodles for Zoe. After Zoe went to bed, Chris made us raspberry milkshakes with vanilla ice cream, fresh raspberries and chambord. It was lovely.

Which leads me to two questions about summer foods:

1. Which is the best summer fruit - strawberries or raspberries? For me, great strawberries are better than great raspberries, but raspberries are much more reliable and always good and sweet, where you can get strawberries that are pretty bad, even though they look beautiful. So brilliance or reliability?
2. Which is the best fresh summer vegetable - tomatoes or sugar snap peas. I’m still torn on this one. A heirloom tomato is a pretty gorgeous thing and can be used so many ways, but eating sugar snap peas in the garden is such an essentially summery thing. So versatility or pure summeryness?

drained July 7, 2008

This morning when I got to work, I got an email from Chris about a coworker whose eldest son was killed in a mountain biking accident this weekend. I don’t know the person, and Chris doesn’t know him well, but the idea of losing a child is just chilling. My heart and prayers go out to the family. I feel a little silly about some of the things I listed as fears in my previous post. I don’t fear them nearly so much as that.

Over lunch and into the early afternoon, we had a lovely baby shower for a coworker. Good food, cute gifts, good people, and perhaps the best cake in the world - the princess torte - a cake that contains no chocolate, yet is still the best cake in the world, so that’s saying something (the cake came from a different bakery than the link - the bakery we used didn’t have a picture - and the picture is from the bakery that made our wedding cake, so I don’t feel bad linking to it).

Then it was back to work. Where a friend and coworker learned that her beloved family dog had died unexpectedly that afternoon. I watched her struggle with the raw grief of losing a wonderful pet, when you’re not able to be there, and tried to offer what comfort I could, while being hit with memories of my own pets that I’ve lost.

Luckily, dinner, playtime, bath and bedtime were pleasant and easy, because I’m emotionally drained. Now I’m reading emotionally unengaging websites, and answering silly, trivial questions on YahooAnswers.

15 things July 6, 2008

I was tagged by Melinda (thanks!) last week and am just now getting around to this.  I hope that everyone who celebrates it had a wonderful Independence Day, and that everyone else had a great weekend.  We took it easy - went to a bunch of cooks outs and took a lot of walks.  No fireworks yet, but we’re really looking forward to Zoe being old enough to go to them.  They’re just so late when you live far enough north that it doesn’t get dark until around 10.

Blog Tag Rules: Answer these 15 questions on your blog. List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts. Tag 5 people by leaving their names at the end of the post.

3 Joys:

1. That first day of spring in Minnesota, when it’s warm enough to go outside without bundling up, and everyone and their dog heads out to one of the lakes and walks around with this look of absolute bliss at the fact that they can once again enjoy the fresh air and outside without risking death.
2. Making Zoe laugh, usually by doing physical comedy - that really deep, full-body laugh that toddlers do.  I’m a sucker and I’ll do almost anything to get that laugh out of her.  Luckily, she laughs easily.
3. Working with a student who thinks that their research is impossible, and managing to help them find what they’re looking for, and all of a sudden their eyes light up as they start to get really excited about the research they’re doing and the stuff they’re finding.  Makes me love my job.

3 Fears:

1. Looking stupid.  I’m always afraid of making a fool of myself or doing something to let others know that I might not always know what I’m doing.  It’s one of the things I’d most like to change about myself.  I really wish that sometimes I’d just up and do it, who cares what others think, how else can I learn if I don’t look stupid occasionally?  It’s one of the things I hope Zoe does not learn from me
2. Touching already chewed chewing gum.  Seriously.  I have trouble carrying tables in the library because I fear touching the gum.  I hate even thinking about it.
3. Starting up the trying to conceive thing again and not succeeding (no, we’re not trying right now)  Not that I fear only having one child, because I’m extremely happy with our little family of three.  But I hate the idea of deciding to go for it and spending the energy and having nothing to show for it.

3 Goals:

1. Spend a summer on Antarctica, preferably doing library or some kind of research assistance, but really, I’d just be happy being there.
2. Work with an author to help them with the research they need to do for their book and then be mentioned by name in the aknowledgement section of the book.
3. Get back into yoga.

3 Current Obsessions:

1. Baking bread.
2. My blog stats.  I know it’s totally silly, but I check a couple times a day and I get really excited when I have a relatively high number of visits (I don’t get all that many, so it doesn’t take much to get me excited).
3. Doctor Who.  Man I do love that show.

3 Random, Surprising Facts:

1. I hate driving.  I speed so that I can cut the time as much as possible.
2. I am a chocolate purist.  I really believe it’s an affront to chocolate to pollute it with things like peanut butter or hazelnut.  The exception is mint.  Mint and chocolate is ok.  Though not as good as just straight chocolate.
3. I’ve co-authored three articles about rocks that had been deposited by ancient tidal estuaries.  By looking at the layers, you can see what the ancient lunar cycles were (they were shorter in the past as the moon was closer).  I love lunar cycles and tides and rocks.

So now to tag.  I tag YOU!  Yes, internets, I choose all of you!

More on the baby bunnies June 14, 2008

This evening as I was out watering my garden, I saw the mama bunny feeding her babies, so I grabbed my camera. I tried not to disturb her, but she did see me after a bit and hop away. From my web searching, it sounds like mother rabbits immediately hop away from their offspring if they’re threatened, so as to distract the threat and pull it away from the babies. I felt kind of bad about disturbing their evening meal, but then, such interruptions probably happen a lot in the wild, and she really has it pretty good in our yard. Plenty of food nearby (I love that she eats dandelions), her burrow in a gated community (well, our yard has a fence around it with a gate) to keep out the riff-raff and neighborhood dogs, a spacious (for a rabbit) lawn, and someone to take care of the yard work. Maybe I don’t feel so bad for her.

You can just see the babies eyes under the mom’s body

Babies outside their burrow after mom left. They hopped into the burrow quickly thereafter.

One of the babies was peeking out of the burrow until it saw me and quick scrambled back in.

Taggity goodness June 8, 2008

I was tagged by Kat at Oranges and Peaches, so here goes:

What was I doing 10 years ago?

• Working as a programmer at a software company, had moved from new development to customer support and training
• On a brief break from dating Chris. We’d get back together in just a couple of weeks
• Had just moved into my own apartment by myself - I had been living with 3 roommates before that
• Had just bought my first car - a 1995 hail-damaged Honda Civic

What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

• Laundry
• Celebrate Mother-in-law’s birthday - yay!
• Pack picnic for aforementioned birthday
• Clean up around the house
• Respond to some emails

Snacks I enjoy….

• Chocolate
• Cheese
• Chocolate chips melted in a flour tortilla, rolled up
• Pita chips with cinnamon and sugar
• Chocolate

Things I would do if I were a billionaire: [wow, a billion is a lot, this could be fun]

• Pay taxes happily
• Buy a new house that’s a little bigger and remodel the kitchen, with the same designer that did our current kitchen
• Pay for someone to do native plant landscaping so we wouldn’t have to worry about landscaping upkeep
• Pay off mortgages for family
• Set up endowment funds to fund research in
  • Children’s vision
  • Clean, renewable energy
  • Infertility, particularly reducing the risk of multiples
• Pay to go into space - they still do that, right?
• Set up an endowment fund to support the new Community Sponsored Agriculture farms
• I’d want to keep my job, but I would also want to work only a few days a week, and that’s really not fair to my coworkers, so I’d probably end up quitting.
• Oh, throw a big party. Biiiig party. You’d all be invited. There would be free childcare. And crash space.

Places I have lived:

• South Dakota (3 different locations)
• Colorado
• Indiana
• Germany (2 different locations for one year combined)
• Minnesota (4 different locations not counting college)

Jobs I have had:

• Babysitter (from age 11 on)
• After school child care at local elementary school (high school)
• Research assistant at Indiana Geological Survey (high school and college, summer and winter breaks)
• Circulation desk assistant (college)
• Software developer, Software programming trainer, Customer Support consultant, Supervisor, Interim Manager (post-college, 7 years in total, the interim manager job was the worst 8 weeks of my working career)
• Science Librarian - Yeah!

Bloggers I’m tagging for this meme…[but only if you want to - this is the first time I've ever actually tagged anyone]

• Fighting Windmills
• Untethered Nothings (who I was just getting to know really well 10 years ago…)
• The Therapist is In
• At the Foot of the Bluff (who I was working with 10 years ago…)
• Alicia
• You! (If you want)