And I Believed, A Christmas Story October 21, 2009

I mentioned my Theology on Tap writing class in an earlier post, and this is our assignment for week 1. Take one specific memory about going to church during the holidays—where you didn’t hear anything said because you were thinking of what Santa might have brought. Or, write about what your family did to prepare for Christmas, and what those traditions looked like. How have they shaped you? Your understanding of what you believe?


Here’s what I wrote (editorial note: I’m torn in wanting to add a whole second section where I unpack the story, but I also kind of like the mystery of just ending it without theologizing or sentimentalizing about what it all means).

And I Believed, A Christmas Story

I was by this time too old to believe in Santa. I had heard the rumors. I had friends with older siblings—siblings who teased us for still hoping that Santa was real. I even had some concrete proof: Santa didn’t like egg nog, and surprisingly, neither did either of my parents. But I couldn’t quite not believe. Not yet.

So that year, I devised a plan. Santa’s reindeer—if they really did have to get Santa all around the world in a single night—might get hungry. But everyone just leaves out food for Santa. The reindeer are normally forgotten, relegated to a single carol and even then it’s really just Rudolph who gets most of the attention in that song. But not that year. Not at my house. Beside Santa’s milk and cookies I left a plate of carrots out for the reindeer. I didn’t tell anyone about my plan, not even my parents. I knew that if Santa and his reindeer were truly real, the reindeer would eat the carrots on Christmas Eve.

I woke up early that Christmas morning, but like every other Christmas I remember, my parents were awake before me. I rushed to the front of the house and headed straight for the fireplace to inspect the remnants of milk and cookies—and carrots. The carrots were gone!

Much later that day, after the stockings were emptied of their candy and the paper removed from the presents and was burning with flashes of red and gold and green in the fireplace, I was playing outside with what is now a long-forgotten toy. Then I saw something in the grass. Little bits of carrot everywhere. By the chimney, in the grass and down the driveway.

And I believed.

Dog-Like Faith October 13, 2009

I do my best to resist posting photos of my dogs on facebook and my blog every day, but sometimes I can’t help it. Without over-sentimentalizing anything, I think I learn a lot from my dogs–and not just how they force me to learn patience. They show us how to be loving and devoted, and how to be excited by small joys in life. (We’ve also learned how to clean red clay out of everything, how to dispose of dead rats, and how to fit 2 adults and 2-40 pound dogs in a queen size bed.) When we first got both of them they would startle fairly easily, but they’ve become less fearful and more trusting the longer they’ve been with us.

Last night, I looked over at Oliver sitting in one of our chairs and saw this: (we actually see this pose quite often, here’s O’Malley doing it too)



That’s such expectant hope. He knew if he waited long enough someone would come along and rub his belly. He was also prepared–legs up in the air and his big turkey-like chest sticking out–so when someone did notice him and walked by, he’d be ready.

What if we took that own posture? Figuratively of course, although I’ve had days where literally seems like a good idea too. Expecting good things. Being prepared for good things to come our way. Trusting that we are safe. Knowing that we are loved.

Gettings Things Done-Wally B Style October 13, 2009

Over the weekend I had a chance to meet and spend some time with a hero of mine, Walter Brueggemann. He is an Old Testament scholar, all around nice guy, and the author of 62 books. 62, can you imagine?! His book The Prophetic Imagination did whatever the theological equivalent of rocking my world is. It showed me how things could be different than they are, and gave me hope that we might be different. I brought my copy of this book with me to the conference, and in a quiet moment I asked him to sign it. While the two of us were there alone just chatting about politics and his new home town of Cincinnati, I asked if I could ask him a question I’d always wanted to ask him. Of course, he replied.



“How do you write so much? Tell me more about your work habits and how you seem to get so much done.”

I know from my seminary friends and colleagues that we’ve all wondered about this. He’s prolific, to say the least, and not only has he written a lot of books, he’s written a lot of really meaningful, insightful, thought-provoking and well-written books.

His reply? Just do a little bit everyday. As he elaborated, he shared that the always writes longhand since he doesn’t type fast enough to keep up with his thoughts. Then, he said if you write 8 pages every day, over time you’ve written a lot of pages.

On one hand, that sounds pretty simple. 8 pages a day seems manageable, right? But wait, I just spent 30 minutes writing a single paragraph! I’ve learned over time that when I write I average 2 pages an hour, so 8 pages would be 4 hours, of if you consider he writes longhand, that’s closer to 4 typed pages for 8 handwritten ones–a mere 2 hours a day, everyday I would need to spend writing. Yikes. (I definitely spend 2 hours most days either watching tv or goofing off online, I don’t need anyone to point that out).

It’s also clear that Brueggemann is also incredibly well read–ask him a question and he’ll answer with a book you need to read. There have been times when I felt like a really good writer, but it was an intense process, never sustained over a long time. Let’s be honest, mostly done between the hours of 11pm-3am in coffee shops the day before a paper was due. And in addition to the time set aside to write, it also took a lot of time to read and prepare. But to do that everyday? Over 40 years? So maybe it’s not so simple after all.

What I do know is that it gets easier the more you do it. My brain thinks faster, my hands move on the keyboard more accurately (that was real cute about WB writing longhand–but I can’t read my own handwriting, and no one else can either), and it’s easier for nice sounding phrases to come the more I work at writing. I think I have some talent for writing and this gift has been affirmed by teachers and professors over many years, but I certainly have less skill at doing something useful in my free time without a grade-imposed deadline (Hulu anyone?).

So starting tomorrow I will be intentionally cultivating my interest and ability for writing a little more by working through Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird with my friends in St. Mark’s Theology on Tap class. We’ll be writing, blogging and sharing our stories with one another through this journey. I thought about starting a separate blog for this but decided against it. So, whatever comes from those exercises will be posted here, and whatever else ends up here will get shared with them. I hope they like pictures of my dogs and are dying to know what I cooked for dinner.

State Fair and Cotton Candy October 5, 2009

This past Saturday we took my cousin Dee to the North Georgia State Fair. I haven’t been to a fair since I was a kid, and haven’t even been on any carnival type rides since going to Six Flags in college, but when I heard the fair was in town it sounded like fun. We always say we should go to one of the strange little fairs they have in parking lots sometime, but this was probably much more fun and safe.

After paying for admission, and parking, we bought a package of ride tickets. We had seen a schedule of some free shows, we we toured the grounds and decided to wait for the shows to start. We visited the petting zoo and saw baby ducks and baby chickens, along with some beautiful Japanese Silken Chickens. We fed goats and petted an emu, and PL told me I couldn’t have a baby chicken for my birthday, even though I begged and whined a little.




Then it was time for some of the shows to start. First we saw The Penguins of the Arctic High Dive Show. It was people dressed in penguin costumes performing diving and acrobatic tricks. I was a little embarrassed for the actors (ok a lot since they had to dance around a little and flap their penguin wings), but as the show went on was also impressed by their athleticism. I guess there isn’t a professional high diving circuit, or even a diving version of the ice capades for retired divers to join, so this was it. Next we saw a BMX bicycle stunt show–totally the kind of thing Dee loves, and we actually all enjoyed watching it too.

Next were some rides. I’m not scared of rides, but I tend to get a little motion sick, and PL tends to be scared of rides, and we were a little too overeager in selecting our first ride given these factors. It was called the Ion and had a bit too much spinning around–PL had to keep her eyes closed and I got a little queasy, but it still was fun. Dee didn’t want to ride this one with us. We then took Dee on a slightly less scary ride, and I got seated with an 8 year old girl while Dee and PL sat together. The little girl was really sweet though and didn’t throw up on me, which is even better. Dee then had some funnel cake, and we had a few bites but were still not brave enough to eat and then ride. Next up were the bumper cars, and we got some great photos of all of us:







We also went on a tall slide which seemed to for kids or for adults with kids on their lap, but it looked like fun we we went on it anyway. Next up was the Ferris wheel. Somehow PL had never ridden a Ferris wheel before and we all enjoyed it–especially since we could all go in one car together. It was actually a pretty cool Ferris wheel-it was designed by the same folks as the Seattle space needle for the world’s fair there in the 1960s. PL tends to be afraid of heights, but I really like to be on top of tall things for the view, so being able to see everything seemed to not make her too scared. (I still doubt that she’ll ever get on our roof to help me clean out the gutters.)





Last but not least, PL and I rode the Tilt-a-Whirl together, which was a ton of fun and really seems like one of those really “couple-y” things to do. Once we spent all of our ride tickets and were done for the day, I got some cotton candy, perhaps my favorite food ever.

We ended up spending a really long time there (not to mention having spent a lot of money!), but it was a great day. On the way back home, we even saw the famous Big Chicken. PL had never seen it before, so she made me take a picture. If you’re not from the Atlanta area, the Big Chicken is a local landmark–his beak opens and closes and his big beady eyes spin around.

Oliver’s Big Day October 1, 2009

Today, October 1st, marks the 1 year anniversary of our dog Oliver coming home to live with us. When O’Malley had been with us a year, last March 1st, I made a little blog post in his honor. So to be fair, I should also commemorate in a small way Oliver’s time with us so far.

Here’s a photo I took of Oliver this morning making himself nice and warm in our bed:


Even though Oliver looks a lot like O’Malley, he has a very different personality, and in the last two months especially we’ve noticed he finally seems at ease and at home with us. Just this week he laid down in PL’s lap in bed, something we don’t think he’s done before. He’s a very timid soul, prone to being a little jumpy with noises or fast movement, but he’s also incredibly sweet. I can’t imagine how either or our dogs ever ended up as strays and can’t imagine them ever being in a place where they weren’t adored since they both want so much attention. Even as we brought Oliver home we weren’t sure if it was a smart decision to get a second dog, but we just went with our gut, so to speak, and got him anyway.

He’s such a great dog-so laid back, so lazy, and so sweet. He has sad eyes, so tends to get whatever he wants. He’s not as quick to learn as O’Malley but he’s also calmer so he doesn’t need to sit or do down quite as well since he’s so mellow. His new favorite thing to to (thanks Keira and Aggie!) is to pull the filling out of his soft toys. He doesn’t eat it at all, just sits there and pulls it out and spits it to the side and goes in for more. He’s also a surprisingly fast runner for a dog that’s so lazy most of the time, and loves to chase and be chased. And while he’s learned he does like to snuggle in bed and lounge on furniture, he’s definitely a country dog–jumping into lakes and rivers with no hesitation. Oliver definitely found a good place in our family, and we tell him all the time that we’re happy we found him.

And here’s Oliver lounging in a river, with his happy face:

End of Month Budget Update September 30, 2009

Well we’re at the end of our first month sticking to our new budget. As I shared at the mid-month update, things were going well so far as I monitored our expenses. I was embarrassingly excited for the end of the month to be here so that I could tally up everything and look at some receipts and split expense categories. At the very least I knew we stuck to our restaurant/eating out budget thanks to the cash system.


Here’s the full report:
$108 over budget, but still $683 under our income for the month. I wish we had come in under the budget but certainly happy with how we did. The budget still might need some adjusting (and our spending might too), but I think we’re on the right track. It is a nice sense of accomplishment to know we spent less than we earned (what a novel and shocking idea!). The cash system for restaurants has been the best part for me–I know we would stick to the budgeted amount and that made our eating out adventures even more fun–they were planned for and intentional rather than just the spontaneous, ‘oh crap we forgot to figure out something to eat tonight.’

We were over budget in some categories but that was mostly balanced by being under in others. I also know exactly where most of our extra spending came from–$20 for a tarp to sit on at a very wet concert, $60 in emergency new raincoats thanks to Atlanta’s torrential rain to keep us dry at the concert, and $20 of extra groceries(over and above what we normally buy and nicer stuff too) for fun picnic at the wet concert. We had a really hard time finding raincoats at the last minute and couldn’t shop around, but we actually found nice ones that will last. So even though that $60 was a lot to spend on 2 new coats, to me it’s better to spend more money for good things rather than having wasted $10 or so on cheap plastic ponchos that we would throw away.

Sadly, we were over our budget in a few categories:

Groceries-$43 (fancy picnic food plus buying some large packages of meat on sale this weekend probably put us over, the real test is if we manage to be under next month thanks to some of our bulk shopping)
Gas-$25 (but remember we drove 12 hours on a weekend trip)
Personal Care/Health-$44 (that $44 deficit came from buying a large package of toothpaste at Sam’s plus 2 large bottles of Fish Oil tablets that will last a long time)
Pet Food-$26 (we technically had to buy dog food 3 times this month, but will probably need it just once next month since when we buy it is usually lasts 2 weeks–hopefully it evens out.)
Clothes-$33 (including $60 for above mentioned emergency but nice raincoats)
Gifts-$51 (a birthday present plus a wedding/wedding shower present put us over the category for the month–most of our gift buying for the whole year is located September-December each year so I’ll watch this budget category but I’m not concerned for now)


We did succeed in coming in under budget in several categories:

Electricity +$15 (that’s based on this month last year, so that’s very exciting)
Prescription Medicine + $15 (this is a relief since we were worried about PL’s new insurance, but her new doctor has done a good job shifting to cheaper alternatives and even changing dosage size of the same drugs to make the same amount she takes cheaper to buy)
Entertainment +$25 (we’re cheap dates, what can I say)
Car Maintenance/Emissions +$15 (I had to get an oil change and emissions done, but PL seems to have taken my car for me when they were running a special and to a place that offers cheaper emissions that most-nice job! I’d much rather have that $15 to spend on something more exciting.)

Recipes and Notes September 29, 2009

If you happen to be one of the 8 people who have looked at my recipe blog recently, you might have noticed that I just added a ton of stuff. We haven’t been eating that much, I promise. While I hadn’t really gotten behind on posting new recipes to What’s for Dinner, I did have a large stack of recipes that I had yet to make and then post to the blog. You see, I had a large stack of Cooking Light and a few other magazines with some recipes in them I wanted to try. Then I decided I needed to clean out the magazines (I can’t remember if this was before or after I watched my first episode of Hoarders ever and then had to organize everything I own that night and the next day), so I tore out the recipes I wanted to try. A stack of paper is less clutter than a stack of magazines, right? Then, they sat in a stack on our kitchen island for a few weeks. Finally, this past weekend while it was raining, again, I sat down and entered all of these new recipes into the blog, even though we hadn’t tried them yet. While I had used the blog to enter recipes we tried, I created it just to organize and store our recipes, and spent a lot of time thinking about how I could search by tags and categories. So for instance, I can type in dijon mustard or black beans and it pulls up several recipes with that as a main ingredient, or I could scan by categories like soup or dessert. Clever I know.

Getting the recipe blog updated was a labor intensive process, but was helped mightily by GT football winning their game in the background. It was also helped by the fact that since most of the recipes I had to enter were from Cooking Light, all of their recipes are online (mostly at myrecipes.com so you can search for the dish name and cooking light and pull it up), so I had to do the post naming, categorizing and tagging, but I could copy and paste the recipe into the blog and then just clean it up a little. I probably spent 2-3 hours entering all of the recipes though. You’re welcome.

So far we can’t guarantee that all of these recipes are good, but looking through all of those recipes in order to post them made me eager to try some new things this week so I can already give a few comments.

Sunday morning I made these pumpkin ginger waffles as a surprise for PL. While she was getting ready for bed Saturday night I was sneaky and went back to the front of the house and pulled our pureed pumpkin out of the freezer so it would be ready for waffle batter Sunday morning. I thought I had ground ginger, but didn’t so I added pumpkin pie spice instead. We still remember some gingerbread pancakes we had a few years ago, so this recipe was appealing since it seemed to pick up some of those flavors that were so good. The waffles were awesome! I bought some ginger later that day at the Farmer’s market so these will be even better next time.

Yesterday after a really hectic day at work, I came home and made Dijon Mustard Chicken Fricassee and Lemon Chive Roasted Vegetables (I used purple fingerling potatoes, red new potatoes, carrots, parsnip and onion). I had to spend 5-10 minutes in the morning getting the chicken marinating in the mustard-herb sauce, but it was worth the time. This dinner was incredibly good, and not terribly hard for how fancy looking it was. The carrots were especially good with the lemon and chives–who knew? PL washed all of the dishes and even swept the kitchen, so it must have been good.

Trials and Tribulations of a Yuppie September 23, 2009

PL and I are admittedly crunchier than many people–we’re lesbians with 2 dogs living in Decatur for cryin’ out loud, but often we’re probably more yuppie than crunchy at the end of the day if we’re honest. Our tight budget and inability to be current on pop culture make us more crunchy daily, so there’s hope for us yet.

We still experience regular moments of yuppie shame though, the latest of which happened this past weekend at our neighborhood Kroger. We were shopping for picnic food for an Indigo Girls concert (crunchy) at Chastain Park Amphitheater (yuppie). It was raining so hard while we were shopping that we just decided to go to the Kroger right near our house instead of the one we normally shop at or at the Farmer’s Market, both of which are a few minutes further away. (We don’t go to Whole Foods–no boycott or anything, just cheap–so that keeps us from being total yuppies). To our great horror, we found out that they only sell one kind of goat cheese, and their “fancy cheese aisle” was 3 packages of different kinds of cheese of the same brand in a wooden basket over near the deli. (A deli which sells fried chicken livers.) Then we went to the wine and beer section. I’ve found a red wine I really like (Cellar No. 8 cabernet) and often buy it now anytime I need a bottle of wine to take somewhere, and of course they didn’t have it–it sometimes costs upwards of $12. They also didn’t have PL’s favorite wine-Ecco Doman which has been known to go over $10 per bottle. Strawberry Hill anyone? Also, they only had white bread pita, not whole grain or multigrain. And yes, we did realize it’s us with the problem.

While we force ourselves to make do with Parmesan cheese in green cans and not imported blocks, there is at least usually something out of the ordinary and entertaining going on in our neighborhood shops. Luckily our neighborhood isn’t generally unsafe, just unsavory and uncool. Though there was that one time I got interviewed by a detective, we sometimes make a mental note of the time of day we hear “fireworks,” and then there was something Robert and Julia overheard at the grocery store about a getaway car…

Maybe us yuppies living in bad neighborhoods should start an “overheard in…” blog. An old favorite blog from my DC days was Eavesdrop DC. DC is a great city for overhearing conversation on the streets and subway–it’s a good mixture of smart people saying weird things, airhead college students, tourists, grifters and other assorted street characters.

Here’s our version:

“I don’t know nothin’ about no other girlfriend. I’m not even gonna get in the middle of that.”-young man on cell phone, overheard Saturday in Kroger

“You’re not supposed to eat meat out of a bag.” One young woman to another carrying a package of beef jerky, overheard today in WalMart.

(That reminds me, have you seen the People of WalMart blog? Stunning.)

Project Nintento Rescue–Win! September 23, 2009

I received an original Nintendo for Christmas many years ago, but after several years it stopped working. I think most people with a Nintendo were familiar with the blinking screen, and usually this could be fixed by blowing on the cartridge. Eventually even this failed to work to fix the blinking screen, so my Nintendo just sat around broken for the last 20 years.

On a recent trip to visit my parents, I cleaned out a lot of childhood things from their house, and I found my old Nintendo and a few games. I only had a few games total, but all that’s left is Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt, Super Mario 3 (my all time favorite) and Tetris. Rather than throwing everything away, I decided to bring it back to my house and see if it could be fixed. I figured I could search online for a solution, attempt to fix it, and if I couldn’t, I would finally get rid of it.

I found several useful You Tube videos and web postings on fixing the original Nintendo system and learned which parts need to be taken off to get to the actual piece of hardware that reads the games. The main problem with broken and blinking screen Nintendo is that the game cartridges are read by a connector with lots of metal pins, and over time they get worn down and also covered in grime. Sometimes the whole part–the 72 pin connector–needs to be taken off and replaced (less than $10 to buy a new one–so much cheaper than a Wii, and 1000% more awesome), but I decided to first try just to clean it really well.

I finally made time to work on this project this weekend, and start to finish I probably spent 45 minutes on it–and that includes taking it back apart again since the game slot wouldn’t click into place when I reassembled it all, so I had to loosen a few things to fix that. I also cleaned the cartridges themselves really well with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips.

Here are the steps I followed:

Take off the cover.



Take off the metal shield.



Remove the game cartridge holder.



Clean the metal pins with rubbing alcohol, a toothbrush and Q-tips. I didn’t remove the 72 pin connector, just cleaned it in place. If it does need to be removed for more cleaning or to replace it, it just slides off–but I did read it might be on there pretty tight.



Reassemble.



Test:



Success!

My Facebook friends got a sneak peek of this since I was so excited I had to take photos with my phone and post them immediately. But I wanted to turn it into a blog post since it wasn’t all that hard to fix, and it actually worked.

Guess what we’re doing for my 30th birthday party? On the same trip home, I found my New Kids on the Block, Vanilla Ice and Debbie Gibson cassette tapes—soundtrack? Check! Entertainment? Check!

Save the Towels! September 21, 2009

This weekend I did a lot of picking up clutter in the house, organizing and even getting rid of some clothes and games. With the torrential rain in Atlanta and trying my best to stay inside, I found it a good weekend to work on some home projects. While it’s nice to sometimes get rid of things you no longer use, it’s even better to give your belongings new life and not need to buy replacements.


Problem:

One of our major household problems lately has been that our towels never seem to get clean anymore and begin to smell after the first time they are used. We have a lot of nice towels–some matching no less, and then also have some towels that I got for high school graduation, so I’d hate to have to buy more.

Lifehacker continues to be one of my favorite blogs to read, and on the weekends they often feature home, garden and kitchen hacks along with their usual work-week geek advice. This Saturday morning I woke up early to clean the house, and was taking a break and reading some articles when I found this post:

Use Vinegar and Baking Soda to Recharge Your Towels

I had been planning to get some color safe bleach to start using on our towels to kill the smell, but saw this article and decided to try this first. I learned that detergent and fabric softener can leave a residue on towels that over time builds up and makes the towel less absorbent. When the towel becomes less absorbent, it also doesn’t dry out as quickly as it should after you use it, and then gets smelly. By using more fabric softener on towels to try to make them soft and nice smelling, it seems we actually made the problem worse.


Solution:

Wash the towels twice with hot water. On the first round add a cup of white vinegar (which we buy in large bottles anyway for cleaning). On the second wash add 1/2 cup of baking soda (ditto on the large container already in the house). Don’t use vinegar and baking soda in the same load, unless you like cleaning up a mess. Then dry them with no fabric softener sheet. I realized later that I should have put the vinegar in with the water first to dilute it, and then added the towels to keep them from being discolored. They all looked fine though, and we don’t really care anyway if some of our towels get discolored–see my earlier note about some towels dating back to being high school graduation presents.


The Science:

Vinegar is an acid, baking soda is a base. When either dissolves in water, the molecules dissociate and then the atoms can re-bind to minerals, salts and other chemicals that have built up on the towels. The recombined molecules can more easily rinse away. Yay science.

Final verdict:

Even without chemical fabric softeners, the towels were very soft when they came out of the dryer–vinegar is a natural fabric softener. I got out a new hand towel from this load of laundry, and used it last night and again this morning. It smelled fine both times, so that’s good news so far.

As I read more about this, I learned it might take some time washing them this way for them to truly become as soft and absorbent as they can be. As cleaners, baking soda will get your towels cleaner and whiter; vinegar will get rid of smells and stains. I have already discovered ways to use vinegar and baking soda for household cleaning, so now I want to explore how to best use it for laundry. I was also reminded that you can put a couple of tennis balls (clean ones!) in the dryer with towels to make them fluffier, so I need to finally try that folk remedy as well.