July 12, 2010
Yesterday was deliciously lazy.
I laid in bed til almost eleven. ELEVEN! I kept dreaming of water boiled bagels from Brighton, and french toast from Midtown Dessertry and even, I think, a Bojangles biscuit.
I don’t even really like Bojangles biscuit but that tells you how delusional slash sleepy I was.
When I did finally get up, I had Dad’s homemade banana bread instead. I won’t tell you how many slices I had, but I will confess my luggage had two more loaves in it.
It’s hard to want to be in two places at once.
I had Pontillo’s for lunch one last time and continued working on cleaning out my room. I can only do a little bit at a time, because it’s hard for me to get rid of stuff.
Like slap bracelets.
And best friend necklaces.
And my parents’ pass to get into basketball games.
Those are memories, ya know? (I’m a bit of a packrat.)
Then I packed, and we left for the airport. Weekends at home go too quickly. My travel back was uneventful, but I’m thinking that I’m going to stick with driving more these days. It bugs me that ever since airlines made us pay for checked bagged, everyone is bringing ginormous bags as carry-on. Now you can even pay more to get on early to make sure you get overhead space, which at first I thought was totally stupid, but now I see is kind of necessary. And it’s becoming a vicious cycle of paying for more things and it annoys me.
I’d rather pay for gas, diet mt. dews, combos and roll up I-95 with the windows down, singing to myself at the top of my lungs.
(My biggest fear in life is that I’ll purse-dial someone while I’m singing “Don’t Stop Believing” at the top of my lungs and instead of hanging up when they realize it’s a purse dial, they’ll listen to the whole thing because my singing is so atrocious.)
(For real. Whenever I’m singing in the car, I check my phone compulsively to make sure it didn’t dial anyone.)
Travel makes me punchy. I got to Charlotte around 10:30, and drove up to Winston. Then, because I had started a really good book on the plane and was almost done, I stayed up til almost 3 am finishing in the book. File under “bad decisions.”
But, I did come home to a clean house. Swiffered floors, laundry put away, dishes done. That is the best surprise I could have ever asked for.
I don’t have any work to do until later today, so I’m having a slow morning. A few more slices of banana bread, and I might get going.
Might. It is Monday, after all.
March 26, 2010
I am having fun.
In the last year, I think I’ve rediscovered just about every hobby I left behind in 4th grade. My favorite things to do as a kid: read and write stories, sew and take pictures. I don’t know when I stopped doing most of these things, but it was probably sometime around middle school or high school. (Enter: homework, internet, driver’s license, etc.) Throughout college and grad school, most of my free time was taken up with schoolwork and part-time jobs, and of course, hanging out with friends. Just a few months after I finished grad school, I started coaching training and diverted my free time to getting my business off the ground. I think I have forgotten what it was like to do things just for fun.
It’s a bit like being 12 again, to get lost behind a camera lens, in the whirring of a sewing needle, or watching my thoughts become strung together in a cohesive story as I type.
After our crafts night and spending an obscene amount of time perusing sewing blogs, I felt inspired to revisit my sewing machine. I’ve had that machine since middle school, but in the last 8 years, I think the only thing I’ve actually sewn is a set of curtains that Buddy tore down.
I didn’t really know exactly what I was going to do, but I had some inspiration from Lex’s blog. Matt and I had these bright blue matching t-shirts, the kind you buy at a crafts store, from playing on an softball team last year. I knew we weren’t going to wear them again, so I just started cutting his up and making ruffles out of the scraps. Eventually, I got brave enough to cut the neckline on my t-shirt into a v-neck and re-hem it, and then started laying the ruffles out on it and sewing them down. I was shocked to see it come together – I confess, I love it. Beginner’s luck?
Anyways, here’s the end result. By the way, it’s really hard to take a self-portrait without feeling like a giant goober, so forgive me.
I can’t wait to go home and tear apart something else in my goodwill pile.
March 17, 2010
Growing up, my mom always made corned beef & cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. I guess I’ve never asked, but I’m assuming she started doing it for my Dad, whose father is Irish. (Although, from what I’ve heard about my Grandma Swales, my mom’s mom, boiling everything in one big pot would have been right up her alley when it comes to cooking!)
This was my first time attempting to cook it myself, and I was pretty pleased with the results. (I actually made this on Sunday, but it seems appropriate to post it today.) Then again, you basically just continually add things to boiling water: meat first, then potatoes, then cabbage. Making the sauce involves stirring and microwaving. It’s pretty much a no-fail, and it goes a long way. Definitely can see why my Grandma Claffey (my Dad’s mom) would have been a fan of this, since she was tasked with the challenge of cooking for nine every night!
I could hear her voice while I was cooking, with one of her most famous quotes:
“If potatoes weren’t so common, they would be a delicacy!”
I guess this should go on my cooking blog, but then again, it’s not the healthiest meal I’ve ever made, so between you and me, let’s just agree to leave it here.
Did I mention soda bread? Mmmm, soda bread. We’ve been eating this for almost a week now.
I love being Irish. Growing up in the North I experienced a big focus on “where your family comes from.” Maybe it’s because the northern states were “melting pots” much more than the South, but I’ve not come across this same fascination with the place of origin in the South. Here, when you ask someone where they are from, they are likely to tell you which county their relatives have lived in for the last 100 years! That kind of longevity of place is a bit of a novel concept for most Northerners.
In 3rd grade, we had to make cut out paper dolls to represent our family’s country of origin. I specifically remember using an excessive amount of red yarn for hair, and plenty of freckles. In 4th grade, we had to interview an older relative about their relatives – during this project I learned my great aunt was supposed to come over to America on the Titanic but fortuitously fell ill and couldn’t make the departure! In 5th grade, we had Immigration Day in elementary school. We had to dress up from whatever country our ancestors had come from, and if I recall right, there was a pretend Ellis Island type experience and a swearing-in assembly. Oh, us melting pot of Western European suburban kids!
I was very conflicted as to whether to represent my Swedish ancestors (Mom’s side) or my Irish ancestors (Dad’s side.) In the end, I choose Swedish for one simple reason: I was blonde.
Other than our somewhat odd fascination with immigration projects from 3rd grade to 5th grade, I haven’t dabbled much in my family’s roots. My brother spent sometime in college tracing my Dad’s line back to Ireland, and my mother’s father has a great record of his family dating back to England. The first time I learned that my Grandma Swales (Mom’s side) had descended from Swedish missionaries who had lived in Venezuela was at her funeral!
As I grow older, I find myself being tugged back towards my roots. I know very little about my family beyond my grandparents – which is the complete opposite of my “100 years in one county” husband who can tell tales of a great-great uncle who was a physician who traveled on horseback throughout Lincoln County and a great-great grandfather who was a pilot. It wasn’t until about a year ago, when putting together a family tree in my wedding scrapbook, that I learned that my sister’s name – Kathryn – was my great-grandmother’s name.
I know that, strangely enough, this is some of my reason for blogging. Ever since learning my great-grandmother’s name, I’ve wondered who she was. At 27, what was she doing? What did she think? My mom has recently found and shared some writing from my Grandma (her Mom) and there’s something that seems magical about hearing the voice of the people who came before you. Especially, in the case of my Grandma, hearing her voice as a wife and a mother, before she played the only role I knew her as – grandmother. I blog for myself, to shake the voices and stories out of my head, to supplement my not-so-trusty memory, but also to put my voice out there for my someday children or their children to read and know who I was, before I play the only roles they will know me in. Isn’t that the fascinating thing about people? We play so many roles in our lives, yet we generally only know each other in one or two of them.
Maybe it’s the process of beginning to start a new branch of a family tree – getting married, the joining together of two families – that makes the desire to know more about where you come from grow stronger. Maybe it’s totally random. What do you think? Do you know much about your family line? Have you ever been curious to know more? Where would you start, if you wanted to know?
Who knew a blog on boiled cabbage was going to end up being a soliloquy on immortalizing my own voice? I think I forgot to mention another reason I blog: it turns out I can, and will, talk about anything I want.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, from a 25% 5th-Generation Proud to Be Irish Woman. Although, you should know, that’s just one of my roles.
February 25, 2010
I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolution – I prefer to make them all year round, just to keep things interesting. But happenstance was that I made a resolution, it was in early January and thus, I decided it would be my NYR. It’s a bit of an odd one. I decided that I was going to make it my goal to stay out of the library until I have finished reading all the books I have borrowed (and returned them to their rightful owner… two I admit I have had since 2008), swapped or bought this year.
This may not sound like something that requires a resolution, but I tell you I have an insatiable weakness for library books. I’ll get a notion of a book I want in my head, I’ll look it up on the catalog and put it on hold. They call me to tell me it’s ready and I “dash” in to pick it up. Thirty minutes later, I am checking out with a good dozen other books. I don’t know what happens to me in those thirty minutes but I become overcome with something akin to binge-reading. Because they have a due date, they take precedence over the books that are sitting on my shelf, neglected and humble. So this year, I pledge to finish all my borrowed, swapped and bought books before I set foot in Reynolda Manor Library again. You heard it here first. I’m 2 months in, and making good progress.
Here’s the breakdown:
Borrowed, To Read:
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (just finished)
- Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (just finished)
- Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee
- Food Matters by Mark Bittman
- Fat Like Us by Jean Renfro Anspaugh
- Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge
- Wild at Heart by John Eldredge
Swapped, To Read:
- Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg (currently reading)
- Mindless Eating by Brian Wasnick
- Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Bought, To Read:
- The Master Key System by Charles Haanel
- The Writer’s Home Companion by Joan Bolker
- The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Already Read Once, but Want to Read Again:
- Master your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels
- End of Overeating by David Kessler
And then…. THEN…. my reward. Here are the books that are accumulating on my library list. Feel free to lend them to me if you have them, I’ll make sure to return them by 2013.
- Real Food by Nina Plank
- Inside A Dog by Alexandra Horowitz
- Better by Atul Gawande
- The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson
- Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
- Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
- Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson
- The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah
Have you read any of these? What did you think? Are there any I must add to my list?
In the meantime, should you see me approach a library, book store, or your own bookshelf, please feel free to dive in front of me to stop me. I know not what I do.
August 5, 2009
4:26 am. Alarm goes off. I disagree. Buddy pokes his head around the corner to see if I’m getting up. As he sees the comforter tossed back over my head, he flops down on the floor with a heavy sigh to wait ten more minutes.
4:36 am. Ten minutes goes so fast. Shoes are on, leash is in, dog is practically twirling to get outside. We walk. It is dark, it is quiet, it is peaceful and I often look up to the sky on these hushed mornings and wonder what God has in store for me that day. My contemplative state is nearly always broken by noticing that my dog is squatting somewhere, and if I don’t hurry over, I’ll be left to using my cell phone as a light to try and see where his poo is in the grass. From revelry to reality.
We walk until the leash goes slack, and that’s when I know I’ve worn him out, and then we walk a little bit more for good measure. For both of us. We return, we both get food, and then I get ready for work.
As I’m pouring my coffee, Dr. C comes home. I’m fixing an English Muffin while he’s scrounging in the freezer, heating up a Lean Cuisine or microwaving leftover She-Crab Soup. We could not be on more opposite schedules. He updates me on his night, we say good-bye, he goes to bed and I go to work.
6:25 am. My first class starts at 6:30, and they’re usually hover outside the door raring to go. No matter what time of day I hold class, there is always someone who arrives 20 minutes early. I’m very particular about my time – being late is my pet peeve, but being early infringes on my nerves nearly as much, for some reason. Perhaps it’s because those 20 minutes while I’m setting up my class are the last 20 minutes of quiet I’ll have for awhile and I savor each one. I’m teaching a class on portion control, and the front table is set up with enough fake food to delight a six year old with a Play-Skool kitchen.
8:15 am. My two classes are done with, and I begin to make the rounds picking up the room. The adrenaline rush that is with me while I am pouring my heart into each class, and answering questions that I hope will inspire and educate begins to wane. .. I sit down, and my feet scream THANK YOU. For an hour, I alternate between checking emails and following through but also losing myself in the pages of twitter, facebook or someone’s blog I may not even know.
9:05 am. “Am I too early?” My first appointment is here. The next two hours pass by in a blur. I do four 30-minute coaching session in this time. At least one will move me to tears, at least one will leave me wondering what I could have done differently to light a spark that seemed fizzled. There is nothing I like more than coaching people through their challenges, or hearing stories about the lives that go on outside my classroom. There’s little time to think about it, because my next class is gathering out in the hallway.
12:00 pm: I am walking across the tennis courts in high heels. I pray the Rec director does not come out and give me THAT look. But I am carrying a laptop bag, a purse, a backpack full of handouts, food logs, newspaper articles, and a lunchbox. I arrive in the office and have a hard time fitting through the door, without dismantling the bags from my arms and shoulders. For two hours, I enter data, read food logs or do research, updating the classes I’ll be giving tomorrow or the next day. There’s a book on tape on my ipod as I enter data and the numbers fly by as I soak in Tim Ferris, Michael Gerber or Rhonda Byrne.
2:25 pm: I am pulling into the Starbucks parking lot. I am pondering whether I will have an iced skinny vanilla or a light-java chip frap. My client’s car is already here, and I am excited for the hour that will transpire and the transformations we’ll make. Did I mention already that I love coaching?
3:55 pm: Coaching is done, so now I am hustling to the gym. Fortunately, it is 2 minutes away. I arrive and my PT client is already on the treadmill. He waves, and I have a mini heart attack that he might lose his balance. He is 72 years old, and lost 50 lbs working with me on his food intake over the course of 2 years. Now we’ve added in exercise, and for some reason, 3 years later, he’s still putting up with me. I work him through our machines – a serious of leg exercise, upper body and core. I hold my breath as he does crunches on the medicine ball and I am posed to catch him. He notices me doing this and yells at me for making him feel like an old man. I retract my hand and he immediately rolls off the balance ball. We finish his workout, and I begrudgingly say good-bye to him and drag myself over to a stair mill. 5 minutes later, I am deeply engrossed in Kate Gosselin’s bodyguard romance and the timer ticks down on the machine. I repeat the exercises I just took my client through, and leave thoroughly exhausted but happy.
6:05 pm: I arrive home and can hear the barking as soon as the garage door rolls up. I grab the leash, open the door and whisk him out the door before he can say heyyyy you’re home. Nervous energy, BE GONE. A quick lap and he’s himself again, and will spend the rest of the night testing out different spots in our living room as suitable nap locales. I drag out a cutting board and chop, pour oil in a pan, throw in, sizzle and wait. I open the plastic clamshell of triple washed greens, throw on some fruit, some cheese, some olive oil, some pepper.
8:45 pm: My energy is waning, so I pop my ipod books back on and bustle around my end of day routine. Pack gym bag, lay out clothes, pack lunch. Walk dog one last time, brush teeth, turn on TV. DVR-ed versions of Stacy & Clinton, Cesar or Joel McHale lull me into a vegetable state.
9:27 pm: “You in the bed?” When the Dr. calls from the hospital after 9, he knows where I’m at. I’m reading Dr. Kessler’s “The End of Overeating” and it doesn’t take more than six or seven pages before I start to go a little cross-eyed. Flop the book on the floor, throw the glasses on my nightstand and *click*. Lights Out.
To do it again tomorrow.
July 3, 2009
Clearly my proclivity to dry cleaning and hair dye should be a dead give away that I’m not exactly a poster girl for Green Living, but I have been trying to figure out little ways here and there to start being a little more kind to the environment. From a selfish perspective, I totally believe that the amount of chemicals and fakey-fake stuff we use in our lives (and our foods) has to negatively impact our health, so I’m all for trying out products with friendlier ingredients.
Note: This may be one of the dorkiest entrees I’ve ever written, but the best part of writing a blog is I’m author, editor and publisher. Woo.
The good thing about shopping at Wally-world is that it makes going green affordable – many of the regular cleaning products I buy now offer “green” products that are negligible in their price differences. Are they really better for the environment? I don’t know. As adamant as I am about food label reading, the whole “factual” realm of green products vs. the “you’re a big fat sucker for marketing” realm still eludes me. But, it makes the ego feel good to use them, doesn’t it?
WELL. Not if the end result is crappy. I bought Palmolive Eco dishwasher soap and was all “woohoo, I’m nice to the Earth.” HARUMPH. My warmnfuzzy feelings were short lived.
See that label? Cleans to A Sparkly Shine?FORESHADOWING, PEOPLE, I’M FORESHADOWING…For weeks, I kept pulling spotty glasses and silverware out of my dishwasher, and couldn’t figure out why. I finally realized it had started when I bought the new cleaner. I was home in Rochester and watched my mom pull a less than sparkly cup out of the dishwasher and lament over how their water seemed to be dirty… I looked under her sink and TA DA! Eco friendly dish cleaner letting her down too. A quick google search proves I’m not crazy – by and large, a healthy dose of white film seems to be the norm for other Palmolive Eco users out there.
Oh, hey house guests, welcome.
Don’t mind our gross dinnerware.
So, I’m going back to the Cascade that pollutes our oceans and streams, until someone can point me in the direction of a dishwasher soap that is nice to Mother Earth AND makes my dishes sparkly clean. Yea, I said it. COME AND GET ME, EPA. Ok, really, please don’t? But, is it too much to ask that a product that is eco-kind also works really good? Green homemaking FAIL.
June 27, 2009
Matt’s Nanta had a beautiful hydrangea bush growing her front yard and I asked if she would part with a few of the blooms. Happily, she obliged and I have a huge beautiful bouquet now sitting in my living room. (And I have not killed it! I even changed the water! Maybe there is hope for me.) It makes me happy every time I walk past it.
Of course, since I love zooming in on things, the flowers have provided a fun fodder for playing with the dials on my camera.
Want Your Wedding Done in Macro (and only in macro)?
I’d be your gal.AND I am even learning my photo editing software – although I haven’t gotten past the “fun effects” tools. My grandma is one talented lady with the oil paints – I wonder how she’d feel about my lazy-man’s oil painting setting?
