Oh, Let's! 

05/27/2012

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As a consumate fan of The Bloggess, I have been anxiously awaiting Jenny Lawson's first book. I snagged it on my Nook the first day it was available, and it did not disappoint. I definitely embrace her whole-heartedly because I identify with her Texas roots and even more so with her rather quirky outcast introvertedness; but I can't claim quite the surreal childhood that she recounts in her book. Though subtitled as a "mostly true memoir," I definitely found no reason to doubt her recounting of her childhood in a tiny west Texas town with her mother and taxidermist father who embraced his responsibility to entertain his girls by bringing home wild animals and creating hand puppets from road kill. As Jenny would say, "You can't make this stuff up, y'all." Another favorite chapter was her story of bringing her now husband to meet her parents for the first time. Let's just say that her daddy had a suitor test worthy of wild kingdom.
I read this right after having our second little one during a haze of milk-covered sleep deprivation and questionable mental health. I could not have picked a better read. The Hubs often came in the room to check on me because I was laughing so loudly sitting completely alone. I think he was rather relieved to find me enjoying the book and therefore able to put off committing me for at least another day. 
Despite my intense anticipation, this book not only didn't disappoint, it far exceeded my expectations! I recommend it a hundred times over! 
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Pick of the Mix

05/26/2012

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I've decided that on Saturdays I'm going to post a "Pick of the Mix." Basically it's going to be my go to inspirational song on my run mix for the week. I plan on putting it into the mix around the three quarter mark, and when I hear it I'll know it's time to redouble my effort. Music I work out to is not necessarily music I just listen to around the house or in the car, but I think that's even better, because it keeps the music fresh during work outs. I pick tunes for their BPM, their inspirational lyrics, and/or a serious drum beat that keeps me pounding the pavement! The first "Pick of the Mix" is P!nk's "Raise Your Glass." I love the tempo of this song for workouts, plus the lyrics just give me extra sassitude. It's easy to kick a$$ when you are rocking out to this one! So raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways! Here's to an awesome week of runs! 
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Back on Track

05/25/2012

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I finally had my 6 week postpartum check up, and after getting the all clear to get back in action, it seemed like a great time to get back to writing as well! 
Having Baby C has been a totally different experience than Li'l E. For one thing: she sleeps! After having a sick baby that was up at least every hour 24 hours a day for 7 months, it feels nearly miraculous to have a little one who has actually had two 8 hour nights so far, and always makes it between 2 and 4 hours at a go each night regardless. I still feel like throwing a party for myself over that beautiful fact! 
I'm so happy to have the all clear for all things physical as well. Between the long sickness and the bed rest, and FINALLY having the baby, I'm down to 105. I need to rebuild my muscle mass and get back in shape! Yesterday I laced up and headed out. It's definitely been a long while since I used any of those muscles, and I discovered I'm still healing a bit internally from the surgery. I have a quite a tug in my side. However, it wasn't so bad that I couldn't toss in some jogging. It felt so nice to be out again, but it was a little shocking how far I am from the person who could run 13 miles in one go. I'm working hard to go slow and build up steadily, so I don't injure myself and get sidelined even longer.
Luckily, I'm back to martial arts next week, so I won't get too frustrated with the slow going! I'm so excited to get both my mind and body back up to speed on that front. Plus, I can't wait to see everyone again. It's been SO long! And once I'm back in shape, it's back to P90x workouts as well, which will be a great way to blow off steam when I have to be home. Hopefully Baby C will be easily amused by Mama jumping around all over the place! 
In any case, all of these things will be such a great sanity check. A good way to get out of the house, get some adult convos in, and keep my head and body healthy! Hooray! 
Obviously, I'm out of practice with this whole writing for public consumption thing, too. Hopefully that will get better with practice
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Review: The Sun Also Rises

02/22/2012

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"Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
What profit have we from all the toil
which we toil at under the sun?
One generation departs and another generation comes,
but the world forever stays.
The sun also rises and the sun sets;
Then it presses on to the place where it rises."
-Ecclesiastes 1:2-5

Ernest Hemingway is one of my favorite short story writers. "The Hills Like White Elephants" is one which no matter how many students over how many semesters I get to break it open with, it never gets old, and never fails to touch me on some deep level. Because of my deep love for Papa's prose, I find myself rather surprised that this is the first time I have actually read one of his novels!
"The Sun Also Rises" did not disappoint. It was Hemingway through and through. His phenomenal ability to write by telling "just enough" with such straightforward, detachment. Even when we feel the strain and pain of the characters, it is almost a sense of experiencing them through the eyes of a reporter. No surprise considering Hemingway's earlier career. But there is also something so immediate to the writing, a sense of being propelled forward in the story without any effort on the part of the reader. And much like a book is superior to a film in that the imagination can create world's far more vast than those contained on screen, so much more so do I feel that way about Hemingway's prose compared to other literature, no matter how fine.
The book documents the lives of those Gertrude Stein dubbed "The Lost Generation." The post-WWI ex-patriots who wander aimlessly through Europe, lost in a a world that seems to have been stripped of its morality and innocence. The main character, Jake, is an American journalist who ostensibly works in Paris while spending the majority of his time wandering from bar to bar and party to party with his fellow ex-pats and friends who comprise of fallen English nobility.
There is a strong theme of manhood: activities, interactions, and relationships, made more poignant by the fact that while Jake and his divorcee friend, Lady Brett Ashley, seem to share an intensely strong bond, Jake himself is impotent due to a tragic wound in the war, and is forced to play the role of facilitator and savior for this promiscuous and impulsive Lady.
While the delicious descriptions of life in Paris and later those of the company's experiences in Spain during the Fiesta and bull fights are not to be discounted, they truly serve as a spring board for the slow loss of everything Jake holds dear as he engages in a hopeless dance with Lady Ashley and her string of lovers.
It is hard to walk away from the characters with any feeling of resolution or consolation, and I think Hemingway sums up the characters best when he says: "maybe there is not any hero at all. Maybe a story is better without any hero." No black, no white; just adrift in a sea of alcohol and grey.

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Egg Carton Gardening

02/22/2012

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It just so happened that I had gone to the nursery and picked up some seeds and supplies for our spring garden just before Li'l E watched "Ferngully" and began questioning me about people, plants, pollution, and the powerful life in all seeds. I took full advantage of her fascination to create this year's garden together! Normally, I buy plants at the nursery and transplant them, but this year it just so happened that I was determined to get all of our plants straight from seed.
I had spent the past few weeks saving up the biodegradable egg cartons (not the icky plastic, but the compressed paper kind in which you buy free-range, organic eggs). These make great "starter pots" because once the seedlings are ready to transplant, you place the whole container into the soil. The roots easily grow through it and it biodegrades quickly into the garden soil. There is a lot less disruption to the roots and to the plant itself since it gets to keep some original soil.
Click below at the right to see our planning and progress with our Egg Carton Garden!

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Renovations Update: The Outdoors Edition

02/22/2012

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We also had a dog run built for the back yard. I know that I mentioned in the first renovations post about the monster truck rally arena that is the land behind our house. This situation is not helped by the doggers, who really enjoy running the same paths through the yard, completely destroying the grass and eroding the soil. Not to mention that they used to have a long standing game with the neighbor dogs of running the full length of the fence and barking at each other. The new run is phenomenal! The team completed it in just two days. We filled it with tons of toys, and now the doggers make a bee-line for their special yard the moment we open the back door. And my favorite feature? No more muddy paws to clean on the rainy days!


The very sad and underutilized before picture of the side yard.


The fantastic new, freshly built dogger play pen!


The doggers jealous to be on the outside looking in while my Hubs coats everything with sealant to make sure things stay looking pretty for years to come!


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Long Overdue Renovations Update

02/22/2012

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I realized that a while back I had posted about meeting with a contractor in regards to some renovation ideas that I had for indoors and outdoors. The planning went really well and our contractor and his team did some AMAZING work. Unfortunately, the day before they wrapped up, was also the day the house got struck by lightning, so handling the fallout from that pretty much overshadowed everything else for a while. However, there is no time like the present so click below to see a few pics of the super amazing work we had done!
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Review: The Year of Magical Thinking

02/02/2012

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In my past week of voracious reading, another book I chose was Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking." I had been both drawn to and afraid to read it for some time. I knew the topic would be an intense one for me. After finishing in a day because I simply couldn't leave the narrative without resolution (if one could call the end a resolution), I needed a few days to digest what I had read before writing about it. It touched me deeply. I will attest up front that I am a stalwart fan of Didion's without ever having read a single of her books. I have read many of her essays and especially enjoy the ones regarding writing and its process.
In this work, she documents a year of her life in which her daughter is hospitalized and comatose with sepsis, a complication of pneumonia. Returning from sitting with her at the hospital, she and her husband are conversing in their flat as they make dinner when he suddenly slumps from a massive coronary from which he dies. She discusses the aftermath, her reactions and thoughts to losing her husband of almost 40 years and waiting in limbo for a daughter who may not wake up. The book also chronicles the subsequent complications for her daughter as Didion attempts to put her life back together as a widow.
Didion has an incredible style which I came to appreciate even more in this autobiographical work. She has the ability to completely draw one into her story with out resorting to maudlin dramatics. Quite honestly she seems almost detached despite the topic of her story. For some reason, that made it feel even more real and more honest to me. One could sense the complete lack of affect, the surreality of coming to terms with a world in which a partner of almost half a century no longer inhabits. Her analytical writing, her reference to the ridiculous amount of research that she read on the topic of the psychology of death and mourning, simply served to draw me more into empathy with her. I could feel deeply that need to understand the inexplicable, the need to seek any and all answers in an attempt to control what is beyond anyone's power. 
This was an intense and powerful read. It was told from a place of depth almost past emotion and with such skill as to keep the reader ruminating on life (and death's) larger lessons for days afterward.
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Say hello to my little friend, Yogurt Cheese!

01/31/2012

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I have found a new obsession. Yogurt cheese! Non-fat, super-easy to make, versatile in everything from savory to sweet-- it's AMAZING! All you need is some non-fat plain yogurt, cheese cloth, a colander/strainer, and a bowl.

All that you need to do is layer four pieces of damp cheese cloth in the colander. Then place the colander over a bowl to collect the liquid whey that will be straining out. Scoop the yogurt directly into the cheese cloth, cover, and place in the fridge for 24 hours. Then remove from the fridge, dump out the bowl of liquid at the bottom and scoop your new yogurt cheese into a container!
It is awesome. For my first foray into using the yogurt cheese, I made some Greek Flatbread "Pizzas" from one of Tosca Reno's Clean Eating recipes (for the record I own ALL of her Eat Clean Diet Cookbooks and so should you-- I haven't found a recipe in one yet that I haven't loved!)

I marinated a certified organic, grass-fed steak (the recipe uses lamb, but the thought of little lambs makes me weepy) with oil, lemon juice, oregano, sea salt, pepper, and a ton of finely chopped garlic, and then threw it on the grill. Next I thinly sliced red onion and cucumber and halved cherry tomatoes and kalamata olives. I spread a healthy layer of my newly made yogurt cheese on a flat bread from Phoenicia and then added all of the delicious toppings, a drizzle of olive oil, and some pepper and sea salt. It was a huge hit with the Hubs! The picture below is of the first iteration. As it was a tad unwieldy and the toppings were SO scrumptious, we piled more inside and then folded them up like gyros. The flavor was phenomenal!

3But wait! That's not the end of the story for the yogurt cheese. I just went downstairs and made myself a really healthy but sweet, filling, and delicious dessert. It was kind of a simple inspiration while I was upstairs considering all of the things for which I could now use yogurt cheese! I had sliced bananas in the freezer, so I took just a few of those and mashed them, then added a healthy scoop of yogurt cheese and blended it all together. Honest to goodness, y'all... better than ice cream!!! It was SO cold and creamy and decadent tasting, but SO good for you-- even for me with The Diabetes! I wish I could post a picture, but honestly it looked so creamy and delicious when I mixed it up, that I dug right in and then spent the rest of the time making nummy noises! ;)

"'But that is not all I can do,' said the Cat." There are so many more interesting ways to use yogurt cheese. Just a sampling of the ideas I came across:

1. Appetizer spread- add finely chopped sun dried tomatoes and kalamata olives to yogurt cheese and use as a spread on crackers or tiny toasts.

2. As a substitute for cream cheese on bagels or English muffins.

3. As a substitute for mayo: I found a phenomenal Eat Clean recipe for egg salad using the yogurt cheese which I am definitely going to try out soon!

4. As a substitute for whipped cream: just a 1/2 tsp of vanilla and whip up!

5. Chocolate mousse: Add powdered chocolate drink mix (like Nestles Quik) and blend.

I'm also intrigued by the idea of trying out flavored yogurts. Apparently, draining the whey takes a lot of the sugar with it, but you still get the sweet flavor in the yogurt cheese. I saw a yummy looking recipe using lemon flavored yogurt. You put a Nilla Wafer at the bottom of cupcake tins, add the lemon yogurt cheese, place a little piece of fruit on top (I'm definitely thinking berries), and chill! Sounds amazing. Might wait til I'm no longer having to watch my carb intake for that one-- too much fruit for Gestational Diabetes Girl.

I completely recommend taking three minutes in the kitchen (it does all the work itself in the fridge for 24 hours) to make your own yogurt cheese! Definitely let me know how you use yours and any new and delicious creations that you come across!



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A Review of Two Lahiris

01/30/2012

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Over the past few nights, I have read two books by Jhumpa Lahiri. The first was her Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories, "Interpreter of Maladies"; followed immediately by her novel, "The Namesake." I found reading this Bengali author both intimate and culturally fascinating.
At university, I took many classes focusing on female writers and some often concentrated within a specific ethnicity. I was introduced to Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo in a Chicanas in Literature class; the African American author, Zora Neale Hurston, and the Iranian poetess, Forough Farrokhzad, in a Women's World Literature class; and later to author Rauni Magga Lukkan in a Saami Literature class. I find that women writers have a beautiful gift of capturing the everyday lives and traditions within their own culture. All of the women above were able to tell amazing stories while effortlessly opening a door into the most private lives within their cultures. I definitely would add Lahiri to this list.
Lahiri's stories were beautiful and sad, describing people caught between two worlds, and generations gazing at each other from across an impassable chasm. Her short stories encompass this and, more universally, the natural ebb and flow of relationships and marriages. Over all the "Interpreter of Maladies" is a beautiful collection of rituals and relationships.

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"The Namesake" takes an epic look at the lives of a Bengali couple who immigrate to American from India, their attempt to both assimilate and cling to their traditions, and then continues the story with the life of their American-born son. The boy is raised traditionally by his parents and throughout the novel struggles desperately with his own history and identity as he attempts to navigate relationships with both American and Bengali American woman, as well as both be a part of and be free of his own family.
The writing is so immediate and personal and the conflicts so heart-rending yet familiar, that I found myself staying up incredibly late just to finish it in the same evening that I had begun.
Both books are well worth the read.
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