Update

Our computer has crashed. As in really, fully, completely, crashed. There is no resurrection for it this time.
So we ordered a new one, which theoretically will be shipped to us on the 16th, and may arrive anywhere between the 19th and July...that's how it is when you live in Alaska.
Meanwhile I have no computer, and my posting will be sporadic at best. I may get on this weekend and schedule a couple of posts, because there are several swirling around in my head just desperate to be written...but in the meantime being without a computer means I have a cleaner-than-usual house, nice dinners every day, I've read two books in the last week, I'm sewing, and I'm exercising. These are all good things, so while I admit to missing my computer, I figure it's probably healthy to be without it for a little while.

Delight in service and good works

(continuing with the topics from the RS theme...)

I have always been one who was ready and willing to help others. I enjoy making others happy and helping them out. However, service has two sides--in order for someone to give, someone else has to receive--and I have never been good at receiving. I have a hard time taking a compliment. I have a hard time letting people help me. When Eagle was born my husband stayed home from work for a week so that I could take it easy. It took a great deal of willpower to make myself stay in bed for the first 24 hours, and I had a hard time sitting around for the remainder of the week and letting him make meals and do dishes and laundry. I knew I shouldn't try to be up and doing things, but it was hard for me to let him do things.
This last week I had a good lesson in receiving service. We've had some things come up recently that have caused some stress and worry (financial concerns, a family member in the hospital, etc). I emailed a dear friend of mine--not to ask for anything (because I'm terrible about asking even if I'm in need), but just to have someone to talk to about it all. She emailed back and said "here is my phone card number, please use ALL OF IT and call your grandma in the hospital without worrying about the cost."
My first thought was oh that's sweet, but of course I couldn't...and then I stopped myself. Yes, it is very sweet. But she would not have offered if she hadn't meant it. In the long run it amounts to a few dollars--dollars that I don't really have at the moment and dollars that she does have. But on Sunday evening I spent an hour and a half on the phone with my grandma. (At present her body is unable to do much but her mind is alert so she's really struggling with being stuck in a bed in a boring hospital room, and she said my phone call really brightened her day.)
So thank you to my dear friend for your gift, and for a chance to practice accepting service.

My dishes

I mentioned in my microwave post last week about our corelle dishes. Today I thought I'd take a few minutes to tell about why we chose corelle, and what pattern we settled on.

We have kids, so we needed something sturdy and long-lasting. Corelle is tough enough that after twoish decades my grandma finally gave her corelle dishes to my mom because she (grandma) was tired of the pattern and wanted something new!
We like to have big fancy meals for holidays, and entertain, so we wanted something attractive.
We needed something affordable, so that we could have enough to feed lots of family/friends without resorting to paper, blech!
We wanted something dishwasher-safe and ideally oven-safe as well.
We are fairly minimalist, and wanted something versatile so that we did not need to have multiple sets of dishes (the "Christmas China" verses the "daily use dishes" and so on).

We opted for a simple, classic, white pattern, which will coordinate with any season or table decor, and does away with the need for any other sets of dishes. It's called "Enhancements." Simple, but not boring. Elegant, but not expensive.
The only downside to Corelle dishes is that they are mostly sold in place-setting sets (as shown above). If your family is like mine, you use a lot more bowls and plates than you do cups and saucers, so this seemed a bit wasteful. However this last year we discovered that we could buy individual pieces at Fred Meyer. So we bought two of the box sets (4 place settings each) and then a few spare dinner plates and bowls. As our family grows we will probably buy another box set, because they are more economical than pieces a la carte, but it's nice to know that we can also get individual plates or bowls as needed.

Have you done this?

Our church women's group played a game at our birthday party last week: each woman stood up and said something she had done that she figured not any (or many) other of the women had done. Everyone who had done it stood up and each of them got a bean. At the end of the game, the person with the most beans (the one who had done the most things) got a prize.

I thought about what I had done that few or no other people in the group would have done. I considered the group, and then when it was my turn I said:

"I gave birth to a baby at home, on purpose"

Amid whispers of "ohmygosh I can't imagine..." two other women stood up, and you know, I immediately felt this connection to them! Something that makes us unique among all the sisters in the group.
Of course, here among my blog readers there would be lots of beans passed around for something like homebirthing. In this group, I'd have to go with something else, like:
"I danced salsa on the banks of the Seine (in Paris) at dusk"

or I could say

"I got pulled into a traditional folk dance in a restaurant in Athens" --->

or

"I blew an alpenhorn [yes a full-size one] so that it echoed off the mountainside above Lake Lucerne in Switzerland"

or

"I lived for two years in a town with fewer than 100 people and no roads"

or maybe

"I was part of an impromptu 'street choir' singing multi-part harmony Christmas Carols in a cafe, and someone liked us enough to buy us all hot cocoa"

or even

"I was part of a performing formation ballroom dance team when I was in high school"


Have you done any of my things?
What have you done that you figure nobody else has done?


ok fine, you can see the Paris pictures too ☺
(they are photos of my photo album, thus the funny shapes...)

Yes, I was dancing with my daddy. ☺

First Friday Health Corner

First Friday of the month = breast self exam, so hop to it ladies!

(see, look, I was funny there, I made a bunny reference around easter time, did you notice?!)



Today I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to talk about autism.Today, April 2, has been declared "wear blue for autism awareness" day. I have no idea who declared it, but I'm wearing my blue because autism has recently entered my personal life in an unexpected way. A young person that we're close to seems to have many of the 'markers' and the family is starting the process of having a formal evaluation done. This young person is very bright and "high-functioning" but some things are just a little "off-kilter" so to speak.
Autism was always something that was out there but it was never part of my life. Well, now it may be part of my life, and I'm realizing that most of us probably know someone who has autism (to some degree), and we just may not recognize it.
As I've been reading up on aspergers and high-functioning autism in particular--trying to understand this young person better--I've realized that this is not a 'disability' so much as just an entirely different way of perceiving the world. We hear about how diagnosis rates are increasing, and I wonder if that is due to increasing pressure from our culture to 'fit in', rather than from an actual change in the incidence of autism. We live in a fast-paced and no-excuses kind of world, and for someone who needs time or space to be a little different, it is hard to just go with the flow. It's a good reminder to all of us to be patient with people--all people--and to accept that everybody is a little bit different, and that's ok. In fact, it's good to be a little different. Who would want to live in a world with a bunch of clones anyway.

April Fool's Dinner

Cake!!

and asparagus ☺

(yes, we eat our vegetables here...we actually had to stop Wolf when he was on his third helping of the asparagus or we wouldn't have gotten much!)

Oh, did I mention that the cake was meatloaf with mashed potato 'frosting'? Oh yeah. Bear was initially disappointed that it was not chocolate frosting, but I told him it was a special meat cake and he was ok with it--so long as I let him eat the part with "da eyes and da mouse."

In Which I Melt a Stainless Steel Pan

I wish this were an April Fool's Day joke.

It's not.

Many women like to boast about their 'multitasking' skills. Newsflash folks, there is no such thing as multitasking, there is only jumping rapidly from one task to another. Some people jump more rapidly than others, and some people do it with more grace than others, but nobody really does more than one thing at once.

Unfortunately, while I often jump rapidly from one thing to another, I do not always do it with much grace, because I tend to forget about some of the multiple things that I'm in the middle of.
Such was the case this week when I put some water on to boil (Bear and I were going to have some oatmeal). I measured the water, put it in the pan, turned the stove on high, and went to do something else for a few minutes. Something turned into another thing and within a couple of minutes I'd completely forgotten about that water on the stove. I guess at least 15 minutes elapsed before I went back into the kitchen and realized that the pot had boiled dry. This was not the first time I had boiled a pot dry (embarrassing though it is) so I turned off the burner and grabbed the pan to put some water in it and cool it down. I intended to use hot water, so as to not stress the metal so much. I was holding the pan in the air above the sink waiting for the faucet to warm up when I noticed something in the sink.

What the...?!?!

Then I noticed this
Apparently my stainless steel pan had an aluminum core (which makes sense, since aluminum conducts heat well). Apparently I had sufficiently overheated the thing so that the stainless steel bottom split on the seam and the liquid aluminum poured out.

I am grateful that it poured into my sink, and that I had very little in the sink at the time, and the only real victim (besides the pan) was one plastic-handled spoon.

I collected quite a nice little pile of aluminum blobs. (If you look just to the left of my ring here you can see the reverse print from the 'good cook' logo of the spoon.) I have no idea what to do with them, but it seems a shame to just toss them out...does anybody know what to do with a bunch of aluminum? I don't really want to heat it to the melting point again.

The World According to Monsanto

We recently watched the documentary The World According to Monsanto (watch it here, read other reviews from TwilightEarth and Greenpeace). It was originally in French (it was dubbed) and for someone who doesn't read or speak French that is a little distracting because of some of the visual aspects (which I'll explain in a moment).

There is a lot of information in this film. It is packed full of primary source interviews--meaning interviews with people who were there, not just people who heard about it later. There is not a very smooth flow to the film though; it sortof jumps from one thing to the next. The overall message is clear: that Monsanto is and has been doing very shady things with our food production, from bovine growth hormones (rBGH) to roundup-ready seed to suing farmers out of everything they have. Most of the information was not new to me, as I had learned it from other sources (notably The Future of Food), but while FoF focuses on Monsanto's effects on the USA, this film spent more time on the international ramifications, including the way the company is making small independent farmers from Paraguay to India dependent on buying their seed and herbicides and is pushing monoculture (to the destruction of the traditional small family farms). It traced the infiltration of Monsanto's roundup-ready corn hybrid into Mexico's ancient corn strains, and showed photos of the truly disturbing results (if you know anything about how corn is supposed to look, these photos will give you chills).

The downside of this film is that it feels like an amateur movie. The numerous interviews and world traveling indicate a big budget, but the main transition method in the film is a woman (the filmmaker) sitting at her computer and googling various terms such as "monsanto rgbh falsify study" and so on. Yes, googling. In French. So that was a little distracting for me. The rest of the content was great, but the transitions (and there were many) were annoying.

In general, I do recommend the movie because of the content (which does go above and beyond other food documentaries I've seen). Just be warned that it doesn't have as polished a feel as some other documentaries.

Mother's Ring

We got the new stone added for Eagle.

Bear (garnet), diamond, Eagle (citrine), diamond, Wolf (alexandrite)

(for the whole background story on my mother's ring, read here)

They also cleaned the ring, and now the comparison shows just how dirty my wedding ring has gotten. Hmm, guess I need to get that one cleaned too huh? (Hubby says maybe it's appropriate, that the kids are 'bright and shiny' and that he is 'a bit dirty and dinged up'...) I guess I could take off my rings anytime I wash my hands or do dishes or cook or shower...but I'd rather wear them and have them get dirty than not wear them.

"Good" Food

I was talking with my mother recently about her efforts over the last two years to establish a farmers market in her area, and my new project of getting involved to improve the school lunch program here. We were talking about some different sources (blogs, other websites, books) tout healthy recipes or ideas, but that some of them are not helpful for us because different people have different ideas about what constitutes 'healthy eating' or 'good food.' Due to those differences, I thought I would take a few minutes to briefly explain what I believe to be the important things in food. (Please note that we don't have any food allergies to worry over, and have reached these conclusions via thoughtful reading of the Word of Wisdom and other nutrition book, and consideration of the information gleaned from books and documentaries about mainstream horticultural and agricultural practices in this country and the politics driving them.)

The staff of life
Grains are important, and they should be whole grains at least most of the time. With that said, wheat does not have the corner on the market. I don't care for the taste of regular red wheat myself, so I use some white wheat (still whole wheat, just lighter flavor), and I also use oats, cornmeal, and I've recently begun learning to use quinoa. I hope to continue to diversify the grains I use. (I do use regular white flour too, more on that later.)

The spice of life
Variety!! If we ate the same thing every day I would probably shoot myself out of sheer boredom (that is if my family didn't shoot me first). We enjoy eating foods from other countries, we enjoy trying new recipes and new foods. We have vegetarian meals, we have meat-lite meals, we have meat-heavy meals. We eat a variety of grains, a variety of legumes, and a variety of vegetables. Due to our preference for a variety of flavors in our meals, my herb/spice/condiment collection is fairly extensive, and yes we use everything in it.

Moderation in all things
There is almost no food that is "off limits" in my kitchen (mostly just caffeine and alcohol). If I want brownies, I make brownies, with white flour and white sugar and lots of butter. I am not afraid of sugar or butter or white flour or deep frying. We do not do these things often, but it is normal to want something like that sometimes, and I would rather go ahead and enjoy a treat, rather than making it strictly taboo (because that tends to make cravings worse).

'Naughty' and real is better than fake
I don't fancy the idea of mummifying myself before I've even died, so I try to avoid preservatives in my food. Since most prepared foods have preservatives, if I want something I'd rather make it myself. It's true, brownies aren't good for me, but I would so much rather make my own (with all those 'bad' ingredients) and know that there are no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.

Living as a Locavore
I'm not a hardcore locavore, in that yes, I do buy some foods from out of state, but I try to get all my perishables from in-state or at least within a few hundred miles. I grow some vegetables, I support my farmer's market, and our dream is to have a small homestead and raise chickens, sheep, a milk cow, and the occasional beef cow. We also hunt and fish for local wild meat.
Foods that are shipped from halfway across the world--even if they are cheap--are not earth friendly. They are not very yummy either, since they had to be picked long before they were ripe, and then shipped thousands of miles to get to me. I would rather limit the foods in my pantry and know that they are fresh. Fresh produce has more flavor--and more vitamins--than pre-picked/chemically-ripened produce.
I know a lot of people who focus on whether a food is organic, but for me that is not as big an issue as whether it is local. I will wash my fruit anyway, and while I prefer that it not have been sprayed with anything (because that kind of farming isn't sustainable), I look for that 'grown in Alaska' tag first.

Ethics Matter more than Dollars
Animals raised on factory farms are fed diets based on maximum weight gain, not on the best nutrition for the animal. They stand in their own filth all day, and are shot full of antibiotics to keep them from sickening and dying before they reach the slaughterhouse. The meat/milk/eggs from these animals are poor at best. So I willingly pay more to get local meat from smaller farms.
Secondly, for things that have to come internationally (such as spices), I try to look for the 'fair trade' sticker. Fair trade means that the workers involved are making a living wage. Firstly I think that's just the right thing to do, but secondly a decently-paid worker is more likely to do good work, so I think fair trade (as opposed to cut-every-corner-to-save-every-penny free trade) brings better products.
As Michael Pollen says, I 'vote with my dollar' about what I think is important in food. No, it's not as cheap, but it is better for us nutritionally, and my conscience tells me it's the moral thing to do. If I really care about what I am putting into my body, then the price tag shouldn't matter!