Why I don't exercise

This morning, I woke up feeling happy and positive. I decided to take a little walk around the block to get the body moving. Yesterday I finally finished a skirt, the pattern for which was fit when my tummy wasn't as round as it is now, and it's not terribly flattering. I can make another skirt that is more flattering, but I also want my flat tummy back. Better get off my butt and do something about it.

So I decided to just walk around the block. It's a 1-mile walk. Just a little something to get myself going again. I haven't really done any exercise since my last attempt at walking 4 miles on the elliptical machine with no breakfast before and not enough after left me feeling wretched for a day and a half.

And it happened again. Ever since college, I've had this very annoying problem. I found out about it the hard way when I tried to go jogging with some friends. I got half a block from our dorm and started itching like mad. My legs first but eventually my whole body will itch. It is torture. I can't jog or even do a brisk walk without this all-over itching happening. When I do walk, I have to go pretty slow so I don't get itchy, which means I don't get my heart rate up, which means not the best exercise ever.

I have asked doctors about this problem, I have asked anyone I've met with any kind of sports background, and no luck on finding out what is causing it. Is it something to do with nutrition? I mean, probably, but what? What specifically do I need to eat or not eat to make it so that I can walk around the block without wanting to claw off my own skin?

It doesn't happen with rollerblading or biking, which leads me to believe that something about the impact of walking is part of the problem. It also doesn't happen when I walk on the elliptical, so that's something, but I just wish I could be outside in the fresh air to get my exercise. I could bike, but it's so much easier to walk here. I live in a somewhat non-bike-friendly suburb, alas.

I really wonder how the heck I can find out about what causes this problem and what to do to solve it. If anyone reading this has any clue what could possibly be going on, I'm all ears. Right now I'm going to go try not to scratch.

First sign of spring and zipper practice

Well, around here anyway. Remember how we planted that pea? The seed has germinated!


Let's take a closer look, shall we?


Can you see him there in the middle? I even forgot to turn the sun on for him yesterday. I think I might be enjoying this grow bulb almost as much as my little green friend here. And I think this is the first time I have grown anything myself since we stuck carrot tops in some water in Sunday school when I was 4. Hooray for new life!

In other news, I had a fun day of zipper practice last weekend. I started out with a mess of inherited 7" zippers (not the right size for the Cynthia Guffey zipper technique, she recommends using a 9" zipper):


I made 10 faux mini skirt back samples, marked tailor tacks and clipped, notched, etc. I did 7 of them, the first 3 using copies of the checklist I made from Cynthia's zipper book so that I could walk myself through the steps. When I ran out of checklists (my print cartridge croaked), I kept missing one step and kept having the same problem, so I learned something once I thought about it for a bit and realized why the steps have to happen in the right order. I also identified which steps gave me trouble and where I need to be more careful to hit it just right. A very good experience. I have 3 more to finish my practice; I'm going to do at least one of them by hand. I have also devised a way to practice waistbands, so that's my next task that I'm setting for myself. Now I just need to make myself a detailed waistband checklist. I love the checklist!

Takin' the Snap Pea Challenge

I am not a fan of dirt. But I have become a loyal reader of Jenna Woginrich's blog, Cold Antler Farm, in which she recently issued a challenge, and I heard the call. Here's what I did this morning in the name of eating local and taking control of our food supply.

I got The Professor to bring me in some supplies. Compost:
Vermiculite:
Peat moss:
(Not eat moss. That would be gross).

Some rocks and a pot:

I mixed up the first 3 ingredients and got this:


I put it in the pot:



I took a seed from the pack:



Just one little seed:


I laid him on the dirt:

He's there in the middle, can you see him?

I put some more dirt on him and gave him some water:


I built him a ladder:


I installed some faux sun:



And I've welcomed him to his new little home next to me:

Here he is on Day 1.

I'll take another photo when he looks like something. Stay tuned!

And a huge thank you to Jenna, because if she hadn't issued the call, there is no way I would have spent part of my Sunday messing around with dirt on the kitchen floor.

As promised

Well, I said I would come back and report on what we did for the Feast of Madelyn, so here I am. In the morning I called my godmother, and it was nice to catch up on her life, hearing about her recent visit to my godbro, Jay, and his lovely wife, Andrea, seeing their lovely new house and going whale watching. I also called my Uncle Timmy, who is an adopted uncle and my mom's oldest childhood friend. Tim is always interesting to talk to, and I always learn something new. Like, I had no idea Smucker's jam was made here in Ohio, or that Wisconsin is actually more known for its swiss cheese than its cheddar. Maybe those things were obvious to everyone but me, but at least now I'm all caught up.

As or the evening, well, it was a bit of a bummer. I am so not my mother. With nothing planned and The Professor getting home unexpectedly late, I didn't manage to figure out anything that seemed worthy food-wise (ie, not leftovers). My mom could make a feast out of anything and make even the simplest meal special, but I tend to choke under meal-related pressure and wind up eating standing up at the sink or out of the pan I cooked in. I'm not proud of it, but there you go. Cooking is something I'm trying to get more into, but it's not my most favorite activity the way it was hers.

The Professor did manage to whip up some super delicious pina colada smoothies (anyone know how to get the tilde over the n?), and we're planning to have a belated Feast of Madelyn meal this weekend, perhaps even tonight. I think the best part of the day for me was reading that other people participated and celebrated the memory of my fantabulous mom. Thank you again to everyone who commented on the last post and to everyone who just did something without writing about it. I wish I could hug you all in gratitude.

Your help needed

This year the date snuck up on me, and I didn't plan any sort of gathering or celebration in honor of my mom, and I didn't even realize it until I woke up at 3 am that today was what I've taken to calling the Feast of Madelyn, aka the day seven years ago that my little momelet checked out. So, in that unwelcome wakefulness, the idea came to me to ask anyone who reads this post to do me a favor and join in me in a virtual celebration wherever you are by either:

a) eating a delicious meal or

b) spending some time with a friend.

Food and friends were my mom's big things; she was always organizing parties or book clubs or golf tournaments, and just about everyone who knew her, including me, felt like she was one of their very best friends. Heck, you could just raise a glass of wine in her name, or call someone you haven't talked to in awhile, and that would be enough. Just come back here and tell me about it, to bring all the separate little actions together in one place. Let's celebrate the Feast of Madelyn all over the world. Anyone with me?

I haven't figured out what The Professor and I will do this evening in her honor. The easiest plan would be to go out for a meal, but after unexpectedly having to pay for three new tires yesterday, I think we'll be eating at home. I want to call some people today that my mother loved just to connect with them, like my godmother Joan, who is the one on the left in the photo. I'll come back and report, too.

In other news, I started exercising again today for the first time in I don't even remember how long, which felt great, and in a couple hours, the nice man from the women's shelter is coming to take away the dining room set my wonderful aunt and uncle donated to me when I moved in to the house. We've rearranged things and have a different place to eat now, and someone else who is starting over with nothing could no doubt make better use of it.

Thank you in advance to anyone who helps me mark this day. To Madelyn!

Second harvest of the day

Some potatoes, a little more broccoli and another cabbage.

He grew all this stuff from seeds people! Well, the potatoes are grown from other potatoes, but how incredibly cool is it that he took seeds and turned them into food. Are we going to live on what we can grow? Not any time soon, but it's a nice supplement to all the money we spend at the farmer's market, and if next year we can grow more, and the year after that a little more, so much the better. This soup is going to be pretty darn good.

And while I chop mountains of vegetables (carrots, leeks, jerusalem artichokes and collards done, onions, potatoes, broccoli and now cabbage to go), The Professor is outside building a pathway to our side door, taking advantage of the warm (albeit wet) weather while we can. I better get back to it, but I am just so excited about food being produced this late in the year that I couldn't contain my excitement for even a moment.

We grew carrots

Well, The Professor grew them. I had nothing to do with it. But weren't these a lovely surprise to get from the garden today?

Here they are fresh from the yard:


And here they are all cleaned up and ready to be chopped up for soup:


We managed to get some food from our front yard this year. Among other things, we grew tomatoes, a couple little heads of broccoli, two wee cabbages, some peas (delish!), and a mess of rogue tomatillos that were mostly left to die on the vine because I didn't know what to do with them. So not a lot of food, but some, and I didn't do a good job of chronicling our efforts at all, mainly because they weren't our efforts but just The Professor's efforts. He didn't do such a great job of chronicling either. I have photos of some of the stuff we grew around here somewhere, and I will try to put together a post with a little more information about our first year with veggies in the front yard. For now, though, I've got soup to make.

My trip to City Hall

Yesterday afternoon I chanced to read an email from Green City Blue Lake, a local non-profit promoting sustainability in Cleveland and beyond, and I found out that there was a meeting today of the Cleveland City Planning Commission to allow public input on a proposed ordinance to allow (and regulate) the keeping of small livestock within the city limits: chickens, ducks, rabbits, bees, etc. Because this issue relates so closely to our food supply, I knew I had to attend, and I am so glad that I did.

I haven't been downtown too much since I moved to the Cleveland suburbs about 5 1/2 years ago, so just getting dropped off at City Hall by The Professor was enough of a new experience. The security at City Hall is not at all intimidating: a guy looked in my bag. Feh, no big deal. My only other municipal building experience in Cleveland was at the Police Headquarters where I went to fight a parking ticket (broken meter), and they had sent me through a metal detector and my bag through an X-ray, then confiscated my knitting needles. This time I took a crochet hook, and I got a fair bit done on a little project bag during the course of the meeting.


The City Hall building was beautiful and stately, with a huge atrium and broad stairways, and I wished I'd had my camera with me to take a picture of the beautiful marble water fountain I passed. When I sat down at the meeting, I noticed that I was feeling quite jittery. I think municipal buildings make me nervous, or maybe it's being anywhere near the workings of government, I am not sure. I was glad that I had some yarn to keep me calm.

I was surprised at how many people stated their names and then copped to owning illegal chickens and bees. I suppose that as of today their flocks are probably legal (depending on the size of the flock, because the ordinance did have some restrictions), but still, yipes. Actually, I think that was what had me so jittery, now that I think about it. Even though they said many times during the meeting that these ordinances are enforced on a nuisance basis (like, they aren't driving around looking for illegal henhouses and busting the owners, carting them away in the paddywagon; if you keep chickens and you don't keep their area clean and your neighbors complain, someone comes out and... I don't know, but you get in trouble), it still freaked me out.

At the very end of the meeting, I finally screwed up my courage, with the help of the guy sitting behind me to whom I confessed my fear of speaking at the meeting and who vetted my whispered version of my input and told me "Yeah, they need to hear that." My input was simple: I just thanked them for considering more liberal legislation for livestock ownership in the City because they would be setting an example for the region and leading the way for other areas, our suburb for instance, to follow suit. Now I just need to find out who, if anyone, is leading the charge to get a similar revision to the ordinance in front of our City Planning Commission.

Book: In Defense of Food

Subtitle: An Eater's Manifesto

by Michael Pollan

This book is woefully overdue at the library, but I had to wait a while to get it, so I was willing to pay the fine for me and The Professor to read it, and since it was TV Turn-off Week last week (hmmm, have I mentioned that enough times yet?), I was especially concerned about having compelling books to fill the void left by the boob tube. I finished it Saturday, and The Professor's about half way through it. Soon, fellow library patrons, we will return it so that you can have your turn.

When I first started this book, I could only read it in small doses, because the overall message, while hopeful, is bolstered by some rather depressing facts about the industrialization of our food supply. I was pleased that Pollan referenced, albeit briefly, one of my favorite books and one that stoked my love of non-fiction, The Paradox of Plenty by Harvey Levenstein, which is brilliantly written, funny, enlightening-- all the things I look for in a book. I wish I had had Pollan's book 17 years ago when I read Levenstein's, although I don't think this new book could have been written then. What I like about Pollan's book is that it cuts through the BS about diet recommendations and says, you know what? Forget all that, we don't understand the science well enough and we might never; just make healthy choices and be done with it. And he's quite clear and simple about what those healthy choices are, which is refreshingly useful. Trying to follow nutritional recommendations has never really worked for me, but I think I can follow the simple rule to eat only food that my great-grandmother would recognize as food. That one's easy to remember.

I remember when my inner health-food nut was awoken from it's slumber by my dear friend Adi feeding me sprouted grain breads and different kinds of nut butter on our lunch break from the American Poetry Center one day. Not long after, I started taking macrobiotic cooking classes and got turned on to delicious things like Jerusalem artichokes and hato mugi (the most delicious barley in the world). I remember the first time I ate burdock and thought, How can I have not known about this delicious food before now? If only I'd had Pollan's book telling me, yeah, none of what you've been taught about nutrition is based on a solid enough foundation to put your faith in it completely, I think that would have helped me quite a bit even when I let macrobiotics slip away from me. Alas, I've had to muddle along without it, but now that I've read it, I hope to use these simple ideas to improve my diet even more.

The book is well-summarized by the seven-word description on the cover, "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much." I would summarize his recommendations for eaters in eight words. "Shop at the farmer's market. Plant vegetables. Cook."

Book: The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken

I read about this book on someone else's blog (spoiler warning: she tells more about the books contents than I will). I have no idea how I even found and started reading that blog, but I thoroughly enjoy it. The writer, Tea, spins lovely tales, takes fantastic photos, and from what I can tell makes incredibly delicious and complicated homemade food. It's always a treat to see a post of hers pop up in my Google Reader.

Well, we all know how much I can't resist a good memoir, so when I heard about this one I went straight to my library('s web site) to check it out. Since it's TV Turn-off Week this week, I have been reading in the evenings, and I plowed through this book in only a couple days (Michael Pollan was, through no fault of his own, bumming me out). I haven't read the recipes in the back yet, but I do plan to make some homemade ravioli at some point, if for no other reason than to heal The Professor's relationship with this fine foodstuff. Apparently as a child, he was served some canned cafeteria ravioli in school, and since the rule at home was Clean Your Plate, he just sat there crying because they were so disgusting he couldn't force himself to eat them, until a kind teacher released him from ravioli jail and let him dump the vile things in the trash.

I'm planning to use mom's pasta machine (I know my limits), and heck, maybe even the KitchenAid again. Reading about food is hungry-making, though, and last night I finally couldn't stand it anymore, and we went out for dinner to a newly opened Japanese restaurant a few blocks from our house because the author mentioned gyoza as a ravioli-like item from a non-Italian cuisine. These were interesting gyoza, I think they contained either fish or chicken, not the beef I'd been expecting, but that was fine. I was all about the pasta wrapper anyhow.

About the book: I enjoyed it. Well written, compelling, and informative. I learned a lot I didn't know about ravioli and cooking traditions in general, I was drawn in by the family history aspects of the book, and I sincerely cared whether she'd achieve her goal of finding the lost recipes and recreating them successfully. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in food and culinary tradition (ahem, Kelly, Anne, Claudia). But I would caution you to plan to have some delicious meals ready to go because while you are reading, you are going to get hungry.

Bread again

Okay, this development might not be as exciting to anyone else as it is to me, but I had to share. I've been continuing to make bread since my initial post about it a couple months ago. I've been using the same recipe (whole wheat version) every time because trying to get it so that I have the recipe in my head and don't need the book, which is looking pretty ratty already from always being opened to the same page and getting flour and water splashed onto it. And I've started making double batches, because The Professor loves his bread, so we go through it pretty quickly, as in two loaves in maybe 4 or 5 days? Bread does not get stale around here.

Well, one thing I've noticed is that the loaf that gets made in the one terra cotta loaf pan I have always comes out way better than the one made in the metal pan. Okay, that's nice, but I only have one terra cotta loaf pan. But wait, I do have a terra cotta pie pan. So today I made my first attempt at a braided loaf just so it would fit better in the terra cotta pie pan. Check this baby out:


Isn't she lovely? I can't wait to tear off a hunk of that bready goodness and slather it with butter. Mmmm, mmmm, guess what's for lunch today?

And the regular loaf is looking pretty yummy, too (albeit washed out from the flash).


In other news, this morning I had my first astrology lesson. I met Bill Tuma last year through the Cleveland Astrology Meetup. As far as I can tell, a successful meeting of this group has never taken place, but Bill and I managed to connect on our own (thank you, Bill, for reaching out to me), and now he's teaching me astrology. In return, I'm helping him get his online astrology business off the ground, using my sharp administrative and get-it-done skills, donchaknow. I'm having lots of fun. Our first conversation about his business was last week, and I just had so much fun brainstorming and problem-solving with him, and it was especially nice that he was very open and receptive to most of my suggestions and to the homework assignments I gave him.

If there's a way I can do more of that kind of work, I think that would make me very happy indeed, which reminds me that I need to follow up with the brilliant Steve Coxsey, with whom I shared a little of my reverie last week via the Fast Track forum, a membership site started by Valerie Young for people trying to get their own business ventures going, and others who, like me, want to find work that is going to feed our souls as well as our bellies. Steve was kind enough to email me his reactions to something I wrote there to Armelle, another member, and he's given me some thinking to do. What did I say to Armelle? Just that "I guess you have to be careful having me as an accountability buddy, because I will not rest until you are living your dream life." Hear that, Bill? That goes for you, too!

Excuse me, now I need to go eat some bread. I need to get fueled up for my bike ride to work!

Updated to provide a link to one of Bill's astrology articles online.

Movie: Batman Begins

It occurs to me that some people might be wondering to themselves, Why is this woman posting about movies that are so old and out of date? Good question. This section of the blog posts grew out of the profile I had on the alumnae forum for my alma mater, where it asks you to describe books and movies that you like, in order for others to judge whether they might form an affinity with you, I suppose. I consume too many books and movies to keep a little profile thingy like that up to date in any meaningful way, so I started using the journal function of that profile to track movies and books, and when I started the blog I moved that over here. I also figure that I'm not the only one who doesn't get to the theaters to see every new movie and is often casting about for what to bring home from the library/video store. So, for anyone scratching their heads over this mystery, there you go.

Saturday night I had tried to gather some people together to try out contra dancing (I have an acquaintance who goes and it sounds like fun), but alas, I was unsuccessful. I must confess that I didn't try that hard, just sent a mass email the day before. Next time I'll have to get on the horn and do a better job selling the idea. The one taker wound up with a headache, so we just gave it a miss, stayed home, ate delicious homemade bread with delicious homemade soup and watched a video. The Professor is finally making an effort to check out shows from the library that he is interested in watching (having had it up to here with British murder mysteries, no doubt), hence Batman Begins. I was prepared to mock it and really just focus on getting some knitting done while hanging out with The Professor, but I really enjoyed it. I loved some of Morgan Freeman's lines, and the way they wove in all the gizmos Batman has and why he has them. Katie Holmes I could have done without. Sorry, but her character was just a little too reminiscent of her Dawson's Creek character. I thought she was decent in Thank You for Smoking, but if she just dropped out of movie-making, I would feel no great loss. Anyhow, Batman Begins was a fun movie. Made me wish we had some other Batman movies on hand to do a little marathon.

And good news, I did get a bunch of knitting done. Finished the first sleeve for my Fair Isle Yoke sweater, which is possibly morphing into a cardigan instead of a pullover. On Sunday I got the second sleeve going, and I made bread again and got some more spinning done while The Professor practiced piano (finally! I love when he plays, and I'm hoping he'll do it more often). The whole wheat version of the bread was even more delicious, and as I am writing this right now more bread, a double batch of the whole wheat variation, is rising in the oven. Man, I feel so cool. I am making bread. I didn't think I had it in me. I need to go do some more spinning to make my morning of homemaking activities really feel complete.

Bread!

For weeks now The Professor and I have been wanting to make our own bread. We have two perfectly serviceable bakeries quite close, but The Professor's mom makes her own bread, and it's heavenly. Also, it's expensive at the bakery, and we seem to be going through it at an alarming rate. I suggested we each make a loaf, sort of a Bread-Off, because it would be more fun to be in the kitchen together and feel more like play than work if we were each making bread. The usual trash talk ensued about whose bread would be better. I decided to go with a trusted volume from my mom's cookbook library that I inherited.

The corner was folded down on this recipe. I took it as a sign.


I also used mom's KitchenAid that I inherited. If James Beard tells me I can use a KitchenAid mixer, I believe him. Here's the dough after it's initial kneading in the mixer.



Next I let it rise (forgot to take a photo), then punched it down and put it in the loaf pan for its second rising. This is how it looked at the end of that (and after I'd sliced the top open per the instructions to ready it for baking.


And a mere 33 minutes later, I took this out of the oven.


Looks pretty good to me! The proof will come when we cut it open, but the instructions say to wait 2-3 hours before doing so. It's been half an hour so far. Luckily The Professor is taking a nap so that should help me restrain myself. I want him to see it unsliced.

Alas, his loaf has not fared so well. He used the Joy of Cooking, and he used some wheat flour and some bread flour that might be past its prime (but does flour go bad? I didn't think it did). His dough didn't rise properly and so he worked some more gluten into it, and it seems to have risen a little more, but I just don't know. I'm still hoping it can somehow be salvaged.

UPDATE: The bread was delicious. It's 3/4s eaten already. Andy's never rose. We're going to do some more experimenting with it today, but it might just be compost. Live and learn.

Bowling was awesome

We had such a great time bowling that we are going to do it again soon. So those of you who missed it can still get in on the fun. And if it's just The Professor and I who go, that is fine with me, too. What a super fun time. Paul was by far the best of us, and he gave me some good pointers so that I could achieve my initial goal of at least one non-gutter ball. I even got one strike and one spare! That allowed me to accomplish my second goal of all 10 pins down in one turn. Alas, I didn't achieve my final goal of breaking 60 points in one game, but that just leaves me something to strive for next time. Not too shabby for essentially a first-time bowler. I took my camera but was too busy having fun to take pictures. Whoops. Again, I am so grateful to the people who came out to celebrate with us. Thank you.

And the dinner I made to take with us turned out great, if I do say so myself. It was my first time inventing a crock pot dish, and I was a little worried about it. I don't really understand crock pots as well as I do things like baking and sauteeing. With crock pots, you read the recipe, you follow it, and as if by magic, the ingredients become a meal. How many cups of liquid per cups of dry are needed in a crock pot? Who knows? I winged it with 2 C wheat berries, 2 C white beans (northern or navy, I'm not really sure), an onion, and 7 1/2 C veggie stock, because that's what I had. When it was done, 9 hours later (7 on high, 2 on low), I tossed it with grated carrot (2 C?), steamed green beans (1 bag frozen) and a lovely homemade vinaigrette, and it was a very nice wholesome dinner with a little grated parmesan sprinkled on top. Big thanks go to The Professor who babysat it while working from home yesterday afternoon and called to give me periodic updates on the doneness of the beans and wheat berries. I am excited finally to cross the threshhold into experimentation with the crock pot, and if anyone knows of any resources on the science of slow cooking, I'd be much obliged.

Tonight I'm going to an E4S meeting. That's Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, dontcha know. I'm meeting a woman I met at November's Ladies Who Launch meeting there, so that will get me to go, because honestly, I'd just as soon stay home and keep reading the book I'm on now and maybe do some knitting. I got to within 20 sts of the end of BSJ #3 before running out of yarn, and that's using ALL of it, saving nothing for seaming (I can use whatever for that). So I have some scraps in my stash that will just have to do, and I had to cut it a few rows short as it was. I also started a preemie-sized BSJ to donate to Christopher's Angels. Thank you to Seven on the Knittyboard for the link, and thank you to Elizabeth for the pattern.

I cooked!

My most exciting news for the weekend is that I cooked. I have been really bad about cooking for a long time, leaving The Professor to fend for us most of the time for longer than I care to admit. Oh, the shame of it all. But Friday, spurred on by who knows what inspiration, I made some sweet potato soup in the crock pot (recipe from this cookbook) and boiled a big pot of brown rice. I couldn't risk interrupting my momentum to stop and snap photos, but it really didn't look like much anyhow. An enormous yam, an equally enormous onion, cut and plopped unceremoniously into the crockpot, along with some garlic (2 cloves), some spices, and 4 cups of turkey broth made from Old Tom, the turkey The Professor cooked a few weeks back. The broth was treated with the appropriate amount of reverence, especially as it was nicely measured out and clearly labeled in the freezer. After 6 hours in the crock pot, I processed it in the Cuisinart with a little bit of peanut butter and lime juice. Yum. The rice we ladled it over gave it a nice stick-to-your-ribs quality, and I was so glad to have it ready to go when The Professor got home from work.

Yesterday, I made both a casserole and rice pudding. The rice pudding was in the crock pot again, using this recipe, except I left out the apricots and used brown rice and some cream that we needed to use up subbed in for some of the milk. The pudding cooked overnight and made a delicious breakfast this morning-- we both had seconds. The casserole was the leftover rice from Friday plus a can (jar) of beef that we got from The Professor's mom and dad for Xmas (they gave us 10, and they put it up themselves, which made it an extra special gift), some frozen green beans, grated cheese (grated by himself) and some cream of ... soups (celery and mushroom) as well as some eggs and milk. I ought to have put in some spices as it was a bit bland, but it was clearly adequate because while it was cooking, The Professor came downstairs and said, "The whole house smells like dinner," in a happy and satisfied way. Why don't I cook for him more often? He certainly does appreciate it. Oh, and once I added some Worcestershire sauce to it, it was divine. Didn't discover that until eating it as leftovers for lunch today, but there's still half of it left to go. Mmmmmm, Worcestershire sauce. I practically licked the dish.

On the knitting front, BSJ #3 is nearing completion. I forgot to do my increases on the buttonhole row and so had to rip back, so here's a photo I snapped while the needles were out and it actually looked like something:

I will have *just* enough yarn, I think, if that. No I-cord edging this time around, though. I'll have to try it on my next one, because of course there will be more. I continue to be thrilled with the way the color changes worked themselves into nice healthy stripes and the way the two colors of yarn (the variegated hot pink/green/white/orange and the salmon pink) work together.

You can also see evidence in this photo (upper left corner) of me finally managing to read and knit at the same time-- the cookbook holder that has been languishing in one of our icky old cupboards for so long it's acquired a funky smell (and it's lucite, so that's got to be hard to do) comes out of retirement to hold my book on the table in front of me, hands free. I'm reading an excellent book called Made from Scratch (partly responsible for the cooking blitz?), and I'm about half way done. My reading progress is likely to skyrocket now that I can read while I knit. Goodbye, television! Hello, books!

The Professor is working on some rewiring today (upstairs hall light and bathroom outlet), and he opted for the wiring scenario that did not require a trip to the hardware store and the purchase of new materials, so that was good.
Oh, and speaking of not purchasing things, today I glued up my awesome homemade pill box that I made last weekend. From a nondescript gift box to a happy little pill container. I did a much better job this past week of taking my supplements since they were in this handy little box and didn't require me to dole them out of all the different bottles each time. Anything to get them down the hatch.

Time to finish the baby sweater, and ferret out some buttons from my insane button stash. Final photos to come tomorrow-ish. Hope everyone else is having as lovely a weekend as we are.

The Compact: Eating Out

Well, this morning I just couldn't decide what to have for breakfast. We were out of bread, and I'm currently sick of my favorite apple/yogurt/walnuts concoction. The kitchen's a bit of a mess, so cooking an egg didn't feel like the best option. My ideal scenario would have been to find a friend who wasn't busy and go to the nearby bakery/cafe for a pastry and some chat (we are going to skip right over the fact that 9 times out of 10, pastry = sugar = what the heck I thought I was giving up sugar), but alas no one I tried was answering their phone this morning, and the one person who did had just eaten. I then proceeded to spend a good hour or so wrestling with myself about whether or not eating out fits in with our Compact-ing journey or not. The Professor and I have discussed it some, but we didn't reach a resolution, so I couldn't just go with a clear conscience and be done with it.

Given that the wrestling was occurring on an empty stomach, it's no surprise that I finally gave up, bundled up, grabbed some videos to return to the library, and stalked off to the bakery for a frickin' cheese danish, no-sugar pledge be damned. On the way, I stopped into the hardware store to see about a light bulb we need for the office, and who should I run into but The Professor himself. Hooray! Alas, he was rushing late to an appointment to do lab/science things, so we didn't get to hash out our self-imposed rules on eating out, but we will, I hope, continue the conversation at the first available opportunity. He did give me his blessing on the danish, and a loaf of bread he'd picked up at a different, slightly less convenient but decidedly yummier bakery that he'd gotten since leaving the house this morning. So, I could have skipped the danish and eaten toast, but I got the danish anyhow. And a muffin. And a croissant. You have to spend $5 to use a debit card at this bakery, so I couldn't just get the one item, alas. And at that point, my mind was made up.

The whole eating out issue brings up so many questions. I am not even going to start going into it now, but I am sure it will be the source of more than one future post. I wonder how other people have answered this question. I'm going to go hunt around other Compact blogs and the Yahoo list and see what I can find out.

We also started a little bit of interesting conversation in the hardware store. On hearing a little bit of our Compact conversation, our favorite salesperson there asked, "Well, if everyone stops buying things, wouldn't the economy just grind to a halt?" I wanted to say, but didn't, is the American population so moronic that if everyone did stop buying unnecessary things all at once (in that insanely unlikely scenario, I know many people who have no intention whatsoever of changing their consumption patterns even one iota), that we would all just sit here with our thumbs up our asses and not figure out any other ways to make a living? I mean, people are going to need stuff (nice clean new spiral-bound journals for one thing), but having less of it isn't going to stop the world spinning. If the bulk of American jobs were manufacturing jobs, I might buy it, and I need to do my research before I can say for sure, but my guess is that most of the stuff people are buying isn't even made in the US, so whose economy are we worried about? This whole experiment is definitely going to be a thought-provoking one, I can tell.

Some more substantial updates

Frankly, I think I've got a bit of stage fright. I've told a few people I started this, and y'all might actually be reading it. Gasp. What to tell you about?

The other hitch is that there has been so much going on lately that I don't know where to start. The Professor (my sweetie) was out of town for a few days and I went gangbusters getting stuff done around the house, cleaning out the last of the paper that began accumulating 6 years ago when I moved to Atlanta to be with my mom when she was sick, catching up on laundry, some small doses of sociability, which included some knitting time (working on the charity blanket that I just can't seem to finish) and also watching my cool former cooking teacher, Christina Pirello, on TV thanks to Mary Ann Tivo-ing her appearance for me. It was pretty wacky to watch her using tomatoes and chocolate, which are pretty wide for macrobiotics, but of course it makes sense if she's trying to appeal to a national TV audience and come up with a menu for less than $40.

I'm reading a fantastic book called Write It Down, Make It Happen, by Henriette Anne Klauser, which is completely rocking my world. I've had a few experiences in the past of writing a wish list and magically everything on it coming true, so I know it works. I'm using the technique again now and already having fabulous results. I'm hoping to convince The Professor to use it to get his current NSF grant.

As for our progress on The Compact, I have bought only groceries and some take-out food (trying to wean myself) and one used book (a copy of the Klauser book as the one I'm reading now is the library's). The Professor broke the rules big time on Day 2, but I'll let him tell you about that. He's agreed to write a guest post as penance. There have been a few times already when I've thought, darn, I need a ... fill in the blank, but so far, every problem has been solved with a homemade solution.

I think that's all the updates I've got in me for today. Hope everything is well in your world.