Broccoli

I love broccoli. Covered in cheese. In soup. In a veggie casserole. Even just plain steamed. It's delicious! This is probably a good thing, considering there are so many other foods to love that don't quite love you back as much.

And broccoli does love me! At least a little. It provides me with Vitamin C and beta carotene and also contains nutrients with anti-cancer properties. That's really pretty awesome. It makes me feel good that I eat broccoli. My favorite way to fix it lately has been steamed in the microwave with a curves steamer and then sprinkled with fresh grated parmesan cheese. Simple. Perfect. Delicious.

As long as I'm on the subject of veggies my other favorites are cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts. I believe they're all from the same family of brassica vegetables. The only one I'm kind of uncertain about is cauliflower.

I love steamed brussel sprouts dipped in soy sauce. Yum. They're the perfect combination with each other. The sweet bitter mixed with the salty just makes my tongue dance. Similarly I love stir fried cabbaged and caraway seeds tossed with lemon juice and soy sauce. I'm noticing a pattern. I love simple foods that don't take many specific ingredients. I'm not a 15 step 20 ingredient cook. I'm a 5 ingredient 3 step cook. Much easier and better. Not that I can't do the other cooking it just isn't as appealing.

Enough about food. Yeesh. No wonder I have a little bit of extra cushion around my middle. I adore food too much!

So I swore I would never get a Kindle. And I find myself with a Kindle. It's not so terrible. It's actually kind of nice. I recieved it as a gift from one of my most thoughtful friends this Christmas and it's so convenient. I know I will find myself using it more than I ever thought I would. Especially because I seem to be traveling so much to different climates all in one trip. Which makes packing somewhat difficult. However, it does make for a more interesting trip.

The year of the panda

Once upon a time I used to play the bass. In high school, in my first two years of college, and now it sits hiding in my closet. My baroque flute that I couldn't live without, perished in my dorm room during my time of experimentation and delinquency. I did not care for it as I should have and it split, destroyed. Possibly the final crushing blow to my musical desire.

During my 4th year of college I changed majors from Art to Math. Other than a sketch here and there this ended my relationship with drawing. Which is sad because I remember enjoying it. Now it seems the only artwork that I do is beading or crocheting or of the craft persuasion. Which isn't a bad thing, but it is limiting in some ways.

Lay your heavy head to rest.

Consumerism is upon us. Or wait I mean Christmas. Ha. :) Which mean that there will be an increase in trash. When I think about how our society is destroying the planet on which we live and that sending out 26 bags of cans to be recycled compared to the bales and bales of garbage that we put in the landfill it just doesn't seem like it will make a difference. It's overwhelming. And saddening. I guess I need to keep repeating to myself the one day at a time mantra.

I've had my iPod on shuffle all week going through just a teensy bit of my music and Day of the Baphomets by The Mars Volta came on and I fell in love with it. So genius. I've listened to it about 10 times today. Right off the bat it the bass line just pulls me in. And then everything gets going and just entrances me. So marvelously complex. And then the lead singers voice just jumps down into my gut and makes me feel good. My office mate is probably going to come in and smack me on the back of the head if I listen to it again. The last time I found a song that I could listen to over and over again was Reincarnation Waltz, by my friend Patrick Murphy. So good. Music is just so good.

It's sleeting/raining out and yucky. I'm supposed to be getting on a plane and going into Anchorage tomorrow. :( If it doesn't happen I probably won't be going into Anchorage till next weekend. And Amanda is going to be there and I really want to be there. I really hope it clears up by tomorrow afternoon or I'm gonna be one super sad panda.

Someday you will find me

caught beneath a landslide.

I love music. I haven't been listening to it enough lately.

I have been rather crafty as of late though. I've finished a number of projects that had been hanging over my head for a good bit. They were for the most part small projects. And now I have rather large projects looming over me. I will conquer them over the winter as I'm hiding out from the snow.

I don't have anything to say, other than I'm tired and hungry and my head is a wee bit swirly from the beer I over consumed last night.

i love cooking

and i especially love cooking for people. i made pizza tonight and stuffed bell peppers. stuffed bell peppers is definitely becoming one of my favorite foods to cook and eat. especially with caribou. yum. freaking yum. i added some onions and mushrooms to the filling today. i think i should saute up some minced garlic next time and toss it in there. i'm drooling just thinking about it.

lee and odie brought banana bread and blueberry pie for dessert. they picked blueberries yesterday and oh man the pie was so freaking amazing i had two pieces. :) perfy end to the dinner. especially with french vanilla ice cream. i'm really happy that we had two pieces of pie left over. i guarentee you i'll be eating one tomorrow, if not later on this evening.

i haven't been able to cook for the last two weeks because of all the traveling that i was doing. denver for a week and anchorage for a week after that. i don't think i've ever cooked when i've been traveling. which kinda sucks because i end up cooking for the same people over and over again. and i don't think they mind but it'd be fun to change up my audience. and then i would get different opinions on improving my favorite recipes. which i realize is fairly dorky.

i think i'm still uncertain about cooking for strangers but i am mostly confident cooking for friends. i know for the longest time i didn't really feel comfortable cooking for anyone except for myself because i used to rush things and fuck things up all the time. even when i was trying sooooper hard. although i think part of it is that i've relaxed about cooking and just kind of go with it and roll with the punches, sometimes things don't turn out quite right but there are little things you can do to fix them and with enough practice you figure out what they are.

i'm wearing wool socks right now and my feel are super hot.

Things to do

Pick beach strawberries.

Pick blueberries.

Pick salmonberries.

Pick blackberries.

Pick cranberries.

Well you get the idea. :)


Bottle my apple wine and then start blueberry rhubarb wine.

Put fish away with Momma.

Make fireweed jelly.

Clean out sheds.

Beautiful

Previously in my life the word beautiful had only been used to describe sunsets, artwork and amazing math proofs. However, I met a guy or knew a guy or know a guy that used the word a lot in reference to me. This was a very new thing. At first it was a joke to me, but after a good bit of time it became something real to me. The word/idea/concept became defined in a way that was more than the perfect picture or the platonic ideal of whatever you were thinking of.

Maybe my previous friends just didn't like using the word, or didn't see me that way. I don't really know. I do know that certain friends that I have now use the word freely, without thought of gain or reciprocation, directed at me. It makes me feel incredible and so worthy of the attention that I crave and that I seem to get, even when I don't understand how or why.

I need to think about this more and reformulate my words and thoughts.