It was a good week

I didn't have one specific thing to blog about today, but more of a list of things I've appreciated in the last week.

Things have returned to a more normal level of busy at work, compared to the last month which was really crazy. The office celebrated with champagne and cupcakes Friday afternoon.

Also work-related, I am getting some relief from the late schedule I've been working. It means getting to say yes to more things during the week and (hopefully) cooking and eating dinner at a decent hour.

It's been seven months since I first sighted the raccoon, and he still hasn't gone away. I begged my landlord to do something else, and she called in a professional. He's set three traps, and promised me he won't give up until they (convinced there are two now) are caught. They were having quite an evening on Sunday, so no luck yet, but I now have someone to call about it.

If it hadn't been for the raccoons, I would have been in tears watching a family from my hometown get a new house on Extreme Makeover Home Edition on Sunday. It's cool to see my city on TV, but the boy the house went to stole the show. He has a great attitude in the midst of disabling disease. He was hilarious and his smile just seemed to be contagious.

I've slowly accumulated various kitchen gadgets, pots, pans, utensils, etc., but I still have a list of things that would be nice to have. Occasionally, I break down and buy one of those things. Last week I gave myself a salad spinner. It's been great with all the greens I've been eating.

It turns out that I like rhubarb, at least in muffins and pies.

It was kind of a gross weekend weather-wise, but it made for a good excuse to visit an IKEA store a couple of hours away. Of course, no new furniture for me, but it is certainly fun to look.

I took a photography class on Sunday, and I finally know a little something about my camera. And I can now shoot manually instead of on auto all the time.

I am starting the week with the laundry and ironing (very rare) done. Just need to work on the dishes.

And lastly, here's a link to a really good blog post about remembering that we live in God's will in our current situations too, not just the future. It was something I really needed to read and be reminded of. My verse for the next two weeks came from reading it:  "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." Jeremiah 29:7

Random Friday post

* My herb garden is doing very well. Of course it has nothing to do with my green thumb, it's thanks to all the rain we've had here. The basil and parsley have served me well in several recipes.


* When my mom gave me my food processor several Christmases ago, it sat in its box in a cabinet for a year. Even then I used it for one recipe very rarely, and I almost gave it away when I moved last summer. But now I honestly don't know what I'd do without it. There's no way I would have shredded all that zucchini by hand.


* My only motivation to go to the gym in the last two weeks was when I didn't have power and wanted to blow-dry my hair.


* I am going camping this weekend. It has been several years since I've been camping; it's possible that the last time was when I went backpacking in Colorado for six days after graduating from high school. I'm thinking the fact we can drive to the campsite will make it a little less intense. But I keep having nightmares about waking up with cold feet, so I have now packed more socks than I wear in a week during winter. Seriously though, we are going to a beautiful place, and I'm looking forward to being outside and enjoying the hang-out time with friends.

* I went to Target to pick up a few things for the trip (and because I rarely drive out there and was having withdrawals). It was totally worth it too because they had retractable marshmallow sticks in the dollar section. But anyway, the point of the trip was to buy sunscreen and bug spray. I found the bug spray easy enough, but the sunscreen was a different situation. I have a specific brand and type of sunscreen I always buy, and I found it in the display but the only spf they had was 80 and 100. Maybe they really have improved sunscreen so much that they can have these high spf numbers, but I am a skeptic (and so is WebMD). I think it is a marketing ploy, and it probably makes people more confident that they can go longer without reapplying sunscreen. My mom is probably dying that I am writing this, but I just couldn't be convinced to spend $8.99 on this marketing scheme. But after much searching, I found my spf 30 (and I promise to reapply, mom).


* I listened to a sermon recently where the pastor said, "Rest does not come in understanding." What a great truth. So often I believe that if God will clearly explain things to me, then I will find peace in my current situation. But I know I would be like a kid, asking "why" to every answer I got and never actually find peace, and I would also miss out on the way God is preparing me for what's ahead. But the point of the sermon is that God Himself is all we need to find rest and peace no matter what. Just something I've been thinking through the last couple of weeks.


Apologies for the random post, but it's all I've got today. Have a great weekend!

The dreaded Crock-Pot

My mom owned a toy store for 10 years. She opened it when I was in the third grade and sold it my senior year of high school. Needless to say, a lot of my childhood memories are connected to the toy store. 

Now that I look back on it, I am amazed by my mom’s ability to balance owning a small business while raising four children — ages 5 (times two), 8 and 11 when it opened. But she designed it that way, working while we were at school and often going back after we went to bed to do some of the administrative work.

She was so good at it that we didn’t consider her to be a “working mom.” When teachers needed parents to help in the classroom and would ask whose mom didn’t work, my siblings and I all raised our hands. When asked about the toy store, we would just say, “Oh, that’s not really work.”

But there was one time of year that it often hit home that mom worked — Christmas. From Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, things were more hectic than usual, and as another child of a retail storeowner described it, it was crock-pot season.

I have already established that I am a picky eater, and there was little that I hated more than the crock-pot. I think my hatred lies in the fact that I didn’t particularly like pot roast, which was what came out of the crock-pot more often than not. And beef stew wasn’t high on my list either. In fact, the only thing I remember coming out of the crock-pot that I liked was baked beans, but that was usually a summer cookout thing, not a December dinner solution.

So as an adult, I have accumulated a number of kitchen gadgets and small appliances, but a crock-pot has never been on the list of things I would like. But as I started planning this experiment with the co-op, I started to realize a crock-pot might just be a necessary evil. 

When one was put up for sale on what I call my company’s inner-office Craigslist, I actually purchased it.

Let’s just say that the first night I came home to a meal completely ready to eat as soon as I walked in the door from work, I called my mom to apologize for refusing to eat crock-pot dinners as a child.

Now I am actually excited about using my crock-pot. I have discovered an entire section in one of my cookbooks dedicated to slow cooker recipes and even downloaded the Crock-Pot iPhone application.

So yes, the appliance that I once dreaded has changed my cooking and made it possible to eat when I walk in the door at 7 p.m., rather than coming home and searching for something to eat.

And I am hopeful that between my crock-pot and my iPhone I will find a way to deal with this whole chicken I’ll be getting. Now if only I liked leftovers…