to the top

from the bottom, originally uploaded by arahsae.

This time next week, I will be done with my first quarter of library school. My final website for my HTML/CSS class incorporates some of my photos, so I had to process a bunch more. FROM EDDIE'S VISIT BACK IN JULY. Quite the backlog.

I'm not a warmonger or anything, but the trip to to missile silo was fascinating. Scientifically and mechanically, I'm amazed at how it works.

Today I made pizza doughs; they are fermenting in the fridge for a couple days before popping into the freezer. AND I baked two loaves of white bread! I haven't done that since August.

Bread is a good thing.

I bake, therefore ...

bacon and chive and goat cheese loaf - savoury cake, originally uploaded by arahsae.

I've been an okay student this quarter, but I've been a horrible photographer and a worse baker/cook. This weekend I remedied both flaws by baking and then taking a photo of the baked good.

I also turned the leftover turkey into a faux bolognese dish that will give a day or two of good eating.

I don't remember being this tired at Simmons. Maybe time has faded those memories or I don't know, but the group project I worked on last weekend stole all my vital juices. (NOTE: Group projects between people in four time zones are not easy.) This is the last week of classes and I'm working really hard at sticking it until the end. There is a week of posting on the discussion boards, a bunch of group presentations to watch and evaluate, and two papers remaining. And my final website, which maybe I will post here.

PS: I've also been a bad blogger and a rather embarrassing correspondent; I will get caught up on emails and phone calls. (The only thing I've been good at is non-school reading.) (Okay, I've also been a very good pet owner, what with all the emergency vet trips and drugs and special treatments. Both cats are doing very well and are almost normal.) (What am I saying; neither of them are "normal" in any sense, but you know what I mean.)

i cannot tell you how much i love these mountains

view from the couch, originally uploaded by arahsae.

School is good but it makes me feel crazy. I still don't know what kind of librarian I want to be. I am being brave and assertive in my online interactions.

Bruce got me cowboy boots for my birthday. I need to photograph them.

Fall is creeping in.

I am working at the library I volunteer at, on a real project making actual money. It is only a handful of hours a week, but it is very good.

The kitchen is a mess.

I drive by several schools on my way into work and feel a sense of happiness and relief that I am not one of the teachers leading a line of students inside.

grad school part deux

Almost two years ago I was subbing in a middle school library near Omaha, Nebraska and I thought, "Hmm. This might be a good job move. Hmmmmmmm."

Fast forward to yesterday: me stumbling into the house after a week in Seattle, brain overflowing with information concerning everything it takes to do an online MLIS program. There were icebreakers, lots and lots of software intros (LOTS), notes notes notes, a trip to financial aid and introductions to fellow students. Meeting new people is not my favorite thing. It stresses me out. But I stepped outside my comfort zone and invited people to lunch and asked if I could sit here and tagged along and took photos. There is one other Arizona person and she lives in the Phoenix area, within driving distance, and she is fun and nice and interesting.

I also had a LOT of espresso, which fit in perfectly with the traditional NW fall weather (I was lucky -- there was sun and rain and fog and breeze and it was all lovely).

NOTE: I had lunch in a ramen restaurant and ate my entire bowl of noodles with chopsticks! My hands hurt a little bit afterwards, but still! Yay! (Chopstick dexterity is a Goal for 2010.)

So here I am, gearing up for the day the discussion boards open on my first class. Because I filled out some forms, wrote a couple essays (thank you my editors!), and made certain papers appear in Seattle, Washington, this is happening. It is so great to have a title again: I am a grad student. Not a substitute teacher or an unemployed lazy-ass. That Grad Student-ness comes with a community of other students and university support staff and passwords. Oooh, the passwords -- the access.

INDEED: I want to push at the boundaries of my comfort zone during this program. This is mostly not being so reserved, instead actively making connections, networking (gag). I didn't talk a lot in class (Simmons people can verify this) but maybe the online bulletin board format will be better for me.

Regardless, this also seems kindof weird.

FYI: One of my classes is website design and I foresee a new website or two in the future.

Please wish me luck!

100/100: last one

100/100: last one, originally uploaded by arahsae.

I finished my 100 Days in Arizona photo project last week!

The whole set is here. I have some grandiose closing statements to make at some point, but I'm still gathering my thoughts.

I'm also gathering my brain cells together because orientation for my MLIS program is next week. I'll have to pretend to be social, too.

Summer is still not over here but there have not been any 105° days for a week or so. I am very happy about that.

not genius

augh, originally uploaded by arahsae.

People who are totally clueless about computers and phones and all things Mac must really like the helpful, paper-less, free-range clerky clerks who roam around the Apple Store. These salespeople will go on and on and on and on with one customer! Sometimes two or three blue shirts will gather around one customer to help cajole, explain, encourage, etc. How helpful!

That setup is maddening when you know what you need (a charger, maybe?), go and get it off the wall, and then spend ten minutes stalking clerks like a deer hunter and looking for one to make a break so you can corner them and force them to take your credit card.

Gah.

But I do have a new charger ($$ ouch) and am back online. Let's hope this one doesn't catch fire.

that's nice

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Have you tried?

this blog is not dead

Usually, a new place does not feel like home until I've left for a trip and then come back. Despite being in Portland for a week, coming back to Tucson did not feel capital-H-Home. I think it's because because I still don't have a job here and, therefore, no real sense of belonging or any sort of schedule. But it is beautiful and not quite as hot as before. Hopefully we've seen the worst of the summer highs.

There's a lot I didn't know about Tucson. I didn't know the ground water temperature would be 76° in the summer, meaning the water is never exactly cold when I brush my teeth. I didn't know summer was the down season for growing things, meaning the farmers markets run thin in June-July-August. And then there's what I found out last week.

Before I get to that, let me give some background information. Omaha meant getting used to praying mantises on the screen door. One day a large stag beetle tumbled out of my basil plant pot. On another afternoon, a wolf spider scared me half out of my pants (I did not get a photo of the wolf spider; she ran away) when I moved some gardening supplies around on the deck. These were all outside creatures. I prefer outside creatures. They stay outside. Montgomery was my first experience with cockroaches -- and they grow them big in Alabama (these snuck into the laundry room from the garage and I smashed them) (you don't want a photo of that). San Antonio meant learning to deal with fire ant mounds in the backyard (ouch ouch ouch) and the paper wasp nests under the eaves and enjoying the monarch butterflies as they flitted through every year.

I thought I had Tucson down when it came to creatures -- don't leave the garage door open unless you want lizards everywhere and keep the back gate closed to keep the javelinas from eating the shrubbery. We had some tiny ants get into the cat food but they were easily diverted. I can handle these things.

I cannot handle scorpions.

Scorpions inside my house.

Did you know scorpions commonly infest Tucsonan houses? Did you?? I didn't!

It all happened the night before I left for Portland -- I had a super-early flight and had to leave the house by 3.30am to make the plane. I hate packing and put it off and put it off and put it off, meaning I was sloppily stuffing suitcases at 1am and berating myself for not planning better and thinking of all the sleep I was missing.

Twenty minutes later, I called it a done job (done enough), and went into the kitchen to turn out the lights before heading back down the hallway. The cats were running around, happy that someone was awake to keep them company. Paulette suddenly became all attention about something on the floor. I bent over to make sure it was something okay for her to maul and/or eat -- both cats like to eat bugs and get just as excited about a fly as they do about a random piece of masking tape stuck to the floor. It was a SCORPION, dancing around, tail up and ready. Paulette was fascinated. I was barefoot.

I broke out in a cold sweat and hauled up both cats, one under each arm, and threw them in the bathroom. By the time I got back, by the office doors, the scorpion was gone. I grabbed a fat-handled screwdriver for smashing (where was the hammer?) (is the screwdriver enough?) (what do I do? what do I do?) and looked up the hall, in the entryway, and carefully opened the office door; maybe it had crawled underneath?

The office is full of moving boxes that we shoved in there to make things more presentable for Eddie's visit. It is full of perfect hiding spaces for scorpions. I was not about to start shifting boxes. After a lot of hand-wringing, I grabbed a roll of duct tape and securely taped up the space between the bottom of the doors (stupid scorpion goes missing in front of stupid double-doored room) and the carpet. That meant five and a half feet of double- or triple-layer very sticky duct tape.

I let the cats out and vowed never to walk around the house at night without shoes on. The cats ran over to the scene of the crime and sniffed everything. I went online to try to identify the scorpion and learned:

1) It was probably an Arizona bark scorpion, native to the Sonoran Desert.
2) The Arizona bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in North America. It can kill babies and elderly people. And small animals, like cats. One woman said it was the worst pain she's felt aside from childbirth.
3) They can live up to six years, meaning my plan to leave the office taped up until it dies would not work.
4) They are very good climbers, like they sometimes fall off ceilings.
5) They can squish themselves down to the thickness of a nickel and fit through tight places.

Then I tried to go to sleep. I did not do a very good job.

My alarm went off at 3am. I was not hungry but ate a bowl of cereal. I finished packing. I brushed my teeth and tried to bring some organization to my hair.

Looking into the hall from the bathroom, I saw Paulette facing down another scorpion. ANOTHER SCORPION! What the hell?! Do they just take over the hallway every night? Has this been going on the entire time we've lived here???

Thinking in a shockingly clear manner considering my lack of sleep and caffeine, I upended a bucket over the scorpion, threw the cats back in the bathroom, and contemplated my next step. The scorpion must die.

The fat-handled screwdriver seemed too short and too awkward for easy smashing and I had no time to look for the hammer. Pacing through the entryway, I picked up the brand new four-inch-thick Tucson phone book, shifted the bucket aside, and thumped the book down on the scorpion. I stood and stomped on top of the phone book, alternating feet, trying to focus all my weight down on the scorpion.

After ten seconds of stomping, I carefully lifted up the phone book. There was the pale brown scorpion, very flat against the carpet. It did not move --

-- until I poked it with the book, then it sprang up into 3-D life, ready to fight. I none-too-gently lay the book back down, and did a few more sessions of trampling and stamping, but the phone book was too thick to do more than make the damn creature mildly uncomfortable. And stomping on the scorpion through anything thinner was uncomfortable for me.

So I woke Bruce up. He'd been using the hammer to hang pictures, so he retrieved it and we crouched down to formulate a plan. Despite my efforts, the scorpion was quite lively; instead of a straightforward hammer blow, we settled on bashing it through the back cover of the phone book, insuring solid contact without the chance of guts flying everywhere and keeping the hammer clean (I learned something while smashing those Alabama cockroaches). I lifted the book to make sure of the scorpion's location, lay down the cover, and Bruce pounded confidently and thoroughly at the entire area.

I lifted the book to find assorted scorpion parts ground into the carpet. I covered the remains with the phone book to keep the cats away. Bruce went back to sleep. I threw my luggage into the car and drove to the airport.

I've almost completely convinced myself that it was the same scorpion I found before I went to bed.

Almost.

(Today I invested in some very nice weatherstripping and will be checking all doors and windows for tight seals.)

routine

I am settling into a new morning routine here. It involves filling the birdbath with water and scattering seed for the baby quail and their parents. This was not something I ever expected to be doing, but it is fun and nice and ohhhh they are so adorable.

I also found local eggs. They come in a decorated carton. The size differences will require some planning for baking usage, but anyone who takes the time to do that to cartons and include quotes on slips of paper must really love their chickens. They do have lovely-bright-golden yolks.

new project

Finally, I can say we are relatively settled in Tucson. The house is a mess and there is still unpacking and sorting to do, but the heavy lifting is all done. And the cats are happy.

I spent much of this week touring the grocery stores and stocking the kitchen cupboards. I cannot find a source for SAF instant yeast anywhere but I did find a store that carries all the King Arthur Flours. I tried a new brand of gin, No. 209, and like it very much. I also found limes. And tonic water.

More importantly, I've started a photo project! It is called 100 Days in Tucson and will document my first 100 days here, give or take the weeks we've been offline (those weren't much fun; you aren't missing anything). You can view the set here and my goal is to post one photo a day. There are five so far.

If anything, I think living here will change my definition of "hot."

coming with

It feels like I've been playing at getting ready for the move up until now -- there were so many other things to do to prepare. Too much pre-move stuff. And it didn't feel really real until Bruce got back and boxes started popping up like mushrooms all over the house.

People are coming to pack everything up on Tuesday and Wednesday. A giant truck will take everything away on Thursday. As early as possible Friday, we are off.

Before then, I need to pre-pack so the movers can just box things and I need to decide what goes in the car with me. Camera gear and coffee things and cats are easy calls, but what about books? Which ones do I not trust strangers to box??? And which ones will I need to bear up through that month or so until the moving truck deposits everything wherever we happen to end up? (Really, I want to take them all, since, to most movers, a box labeled BOOKS is treated like it reads BRICKS.)

I picked up Diana Wynne Jones's latest book last week but have not read so much as a word. I am too anxious about all this Tucson business to pay the book the attention it deserves, but she is also fighting lung cancer right now and I worry about that, too.

So it's been just me and Raymond Chandler's hard-talkin' & drinkin' Marlowe for a couple of weeks and I'm running out of his books.

EDITED TO ADD:

I just found the "Moving? Then Take These Things" list I made a few years ago.

• Joy of Cooking
• plates, bowls, knives
• bath mat
• two pillowcases for each pillow
• printer
• wi-fi stuff
• shower curtain(s)
• garbage bags
• Ziploc bags, sm and lg
• clock radio
• as many clothes as possible
• Swiss army knife
• stamps
• computer passwords
• toaster

That's a good help.

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getting learned

I had my first MLIS experience last week! ---an online meet&greet type of business. It started with a live video feed and a bunch of profs and current students introduced themselves, then a there was a series of casual voice-over presentations by the profs about classes. The last segment gave prospective/future students the chance to message in questions.

It was informative and helpful, but also kindof surreal. I kept thinking, "Welcome to the future!" and "I'm at school!" and I was just sitting in my kitchen, drinking tea and taking notes (old school pencil and paper, yo). I feel so modern.

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Pink Feathers: A Short Story

Ah, a Friday morning in April. The sun is warm but it is still a little chilly. Keaton wraps up with a pink boa.

---

Paulette stops chasing imaginary bugs when she spies Keaton and his accoutrement.

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Pink feathers on a BOY?!

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Regardless of her (admittedly rude) reaction, Keaton remains calm--serene, even. He wears what he damn well pleases.



THE END.

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bright side

(oh what a hellish time now is)

Because we are moving now instead of in June, I will not miss any World Cup games.

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The Year in Books; 2009 Recap

Well, this is a little late.

Here's all about what I read last year. My crappy job situation (or lack thereof) meant an EXCELLENT year for books. It was also the first year I kept track of everything on goodreads. Do join me!

GENERAL BREAKDOWN

+ 126 books in toto (way better than last year's anemic 100).
+ a surprising 38 of those were nonfiction.
+ 64 were from the library.
+ 6 audiobooks.
+ 14 rereads.
+ 18 comix.
+ 8 titles in translation, mostly from The French.
+ 40 books were of the science fiction or fantasy genre.
+ and, as usual, a large contingent (35 tomes) were set in the UK.

READING GOAL

In the kitchen, 2009 was The Year of the Oven. On the shelf, it was The Year of Dumas! [insert fanfare] The Three Musketeers is one of my favorite books--I never tire of it. I purchased the further adventures of d'Artagnan & Co. (as well as Dumas's Queen Margot) over the years but had never read them; Dumas was taking up significant real estate in my To Be Read Bookshelf. I reread the first book, again, and then, 3855 pages and many months later, I sat back, very pleased. And very sad, because I quite enjoy Dumas's elaborate, over-the-top style that totally caters to the author's whims, regardless of the historical facts. Happily, there is another Big Fat Series, the Marie Antoinette Romances, that are somewhat obscure but will be very enjoyable to track down when I need another Dumas fix.

So: GOAL ACCOMPLISHED!

The Most Disappointing Books in No Order:

The Crow by James O'Barr. AKA the graphic novel that inspired the film, which I have not seen. Bad art, underdeveloped story, and the worst depiction of an anti-hero I've ever seen.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. I tried reading this when it first came out, got mired in the lack of punctuation and put off by the meh characters and gave it up. I was quite disappointed because the premise (UK post-war survival story, with love!) sounded right up my alley. Then it won the Prinz and I thought I should try again. I did, on audio, and if I had not had an eight-hour drive, I would not have bothered finishing the story. I'm sure some of my opinion is based on not liking the narrator, but a decent story will shine despite that. And I DID finish this book, something I cannot say about the three titles below. Anyway, the cloying thoughts/actions/personality of the main character made me vomit. The end.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Oh UGH. If you like to read books that recount the pontifications spewn forth by introspective concierges and suicidal pre-teens who cherish their giant, enormous brains, this book is for you!

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. This was the other audiobook from my long dinosaur fossil trip. I normally like Sarah Vowell but this was terribly dull. "If anyone can make American colonial times interesting," I exclaimed, "Sarah Vowell is that person!" Wrong wrong wrong. Her witty turns of phrase and quirky voice could not overcome my low tolerance for puritans, etc.

Life of Pi by Yann Martell. Another book I tried in print, failed, and attempted again in audio format. This shared some issues with the Hedgehog book: lots of exposition--mini-essays, really. I got tired of waiting for the story to begin.

The Best Books in No Order:

Miss Buncle's Book by Dorothy Stevenson. Set in 1930s England, a woman writes a book about her small village, borrowing rather heavily from real life. Her friends and neighbors read the book, find themselves in it, hilarity ensues.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold. Oh, this was fun. 1920s, magicians (the vaudeville kind), secrets, Houdini, all good all around.

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas. This final book in the Epic Tale was the best of the follow-ups. There was an awful lot of Court Intrigue! in some of the others and very little Swashbuckling, which is like totally my favorite part. The Oxford editions are great for explaining random things (VERY random, at times) and connecting Paris of the story to Paris of today (street name changes, etc.). So now I gotta go to Paris.

The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford. (Winner of the World Fantasy Award) I am reading the sequel to this right now. This book was short, sparely written, and had some stellar world-building. I'd call it speculative fiction, I suppose? All I want to say is that it's about Cley, who determines if you are evil or good, smart or stupid, guilty or innocent, etc. based on the construct of your face and head.

Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce. This is a YA title. Magic, quirky characters, and crazy plots. Some of the place-names were too twee and Flora's actions didn't match her age all the time, but great stuff overall. The second book in the series was also good and I'm looking forward to #3.

Nation by Terry Pratchett. (audio version) This won lots of awards and such, but I didn't realize how much this book sunk in until I couldn't stop thinking about it. Of all the books I read last year, Nation affected me the most. It has oomph. I have loads of visual imagery from it, still (read last June), and I am not a visual person. Basic story: giant storm, shipwrecks, deaths, gathering together, clash of cultures, fin.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. My last Austen. Now I only have her Juvenilia and Letters to read. Sigh.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. The only bread book you need if you want to learn about bread. I'm cooling two loaves of Anadama bread right now!

Previously:
2005
2006
2007
2008

Do you remember reading anything stellar or sucky last year?

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finally.

It's still cold, but at least the sun is out. I don't know if Keaton or I appreciate it more.

I've been cooking lots. Here are a few online successes:

Veselka's Cabbage Soup: This does not sound great. Cabbage soup? What? It took recommendations from two foodbloggers I trust, but I made this last week and it was excellent.

Granola Bars: Bruce has already made these twice (the first time with supervision, the second alone but after a run-through). They are the only granola bars I've ever had that FILL ME UP. Bruce takes them to work for snacking and to impress his co-workers (and they are impressed!). He did apricot-raisin-cranberry the first time and mango-cherry the second. Both used pecans and almonds, no sunflower seeds.

Mushroom Bourguignon: Julia Child would be shocked by how much this vegetarian dish tastes like her famous boeuf (except I used a meat stock). Meaty and very very satisfying. NOTE: Get the big mushrooms. The grocery store had only small creminis and it took FOREVER to wash and prep two pound of those things. Worth it, though!

Time to start marking SPRING recipes! I can't wait for the farmers market to get started.

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Cheers to St. Patrick

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here's something way better than the green stuff showing up in the supermarket bakeries, a Chocolate Guinness Cake, from Nigella Lawson via Meera, who let me know about it. (Click through the photo for recipe links.)

This photo is of the ugly half--I didn't butter the side of the pan enough, alas. The half with the pretty sides was packed up to take to work; I'm trying to see how long I can maintain an air of baking perfection there. So far, I've brought in two kinds of scones, a batch of madeleines and now the cake during the past six weeks. Oh yeah.

This cake sort of makes up for the fact that snow is back in the forecast. Augh.

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so close . . .

The snow was melting. It left icky gross mud behind, but it was leaving.

Now it is back. Again.

WOE.

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"There's a certain Slant of light . . . "

Today is February 21st. Winter has been cold and terribly snowy this year:

DECEMBER 9




DECEMBER 27




JANUARY 13




FEBRUARY 5




It doesn't help that that in October, we had snow during our entire trip to South Dakota, plus extra waiting in Omaha when we got home.

OCTOBER 16




Alas, the last time the ground was snow-free--you can see a little bit of brown to the left in the bottom photo:

DECEMBER 6



The only positive is the regular snowfalls keep covering up the dirty snow so it doesn't look bad. More is forecast today. Again.

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mortar mouth

After THREE DAYS in the thick of it, all the tile is on the shower walls. The wet saw is back at the rental place. The scrapers and trowels are clean again.

The house is a mess. White gravelly chunks of thinset litter the floor from the shower to the garage (through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and laundry room). I am too tired to vacuum it up. The kitchen sink is full of dishes, the garbage full of take-out boxes.

Next weekend means grouting, a gloriously short half-day event. Then up goes the shower door, then final touches on the drywall and painting.

And then we have to tile the bathroom floor. This will be a piece of cake in comparison. CAKE.

It is still freakishly cold and snowy. They should have had the Olympics here.

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this whole job routine

has really messed up my previous routine of yore. Oh, yore!

I'm glad to do away with the phone-induced-subjob-potential dread. Not having a MLIS app to finish (sposed to hear by mid-April) or a decent job to trawl for is nice. I just need to fit the rest of my life around this job.

It is so weird to have coworkers again. Lookit me talking to people!

And I started this, with the intent to post something interesting daily or thereabouts.

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new job job job

Unlike this helpfully-labeled door at the Field Museum (where I saw dermestid beetle larvae happily and thoroughly removing flesh from various animal carcasses), you don't really know what will happen when you walk into a new job.

I'm officially a library aid! It's not the lowest on the totem pole, but somewhere near the bottom. I spend most of my time behind the circulation desk. There are two or three people younger than I am on staff.

The first day: exhaustion, what with trying to absorb all the procedures and system rules and the names, oh, the names (25)! (AND my hair was uncooperative.) I always forget how frustrating a new job is. I hate not knowing How To Do Stuff and not being useful. It is inefficient.

Teachers are all about clearly explaining processes. STEPS. PROCEDURES. STRATEGY. At the library, my brain keeps getting stuck on some tasks because there's no logic to the system. I want to document everything on a How-To list so everyone is on the same page (and so I have a reference to learn off of). I ask why something is done a certain way and answers are vague or "just because."

I'm not complaining--everyone has been friendly and approachable. It is absolute loveliness to not dread going to work. It's just that when I'm exposed to a new system, my brain automatically sorts through ways to improve it, even when I don't know all the details.

Obviously, I am a cyborg.

You know, I forgot how many elderly people use the library. They run to extremes: grouchy or bubbly. I also forgot how annoying it is when people ask to "re-check" a book out instead of saying RENEW. I will try not to be snarky about this.

Verdict So Far: GOOD!

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Monday: First Day @ New Job

Very excited not to be teaching tomorrow. Hello, library!

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in which patience is found to be rewarding

FINALLY, after being offered the job on 22 December, all the paperwork is done and I show up at my new library job on Monday! Do have a drink to celebrate.

I subbed a 6th grade half day today and, although the kids behaved because I am so killer, it just reminds me of how ready I am NOT to do that anymore. The school scene is over, dudes. Oh---ver.

This week will also see the completion of my MLIS application and then we get to play the most boring game in the world, the Waiting Game.

I may have to go librarian-clothes shopping. Leather skirts, fishnets, you know.

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schedule

Plans for tomorrow are to involve a film camera, coffeeshop, and getting a solid draft of my personal statement completed.

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soufflé-ing it up

I should make more food-based goals because they are (usually) delicious to achieve. Check soufflé off my 2010 list--this is made of four yolks, five egg whites, and a combination of Parmesan and Appenzeller cheese. I used the basic cheese soufflé recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Bruce has requested that a ham-based soufflé enter our lives at some point in the near future. What a beautiful canvas is the soufflé! Oy.

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in progress

I'm still chugging away on my MLIS application. There is a personal statement to finish, a resume to polish, and a supplemental question to answer in 100 words or less:

"Imagine that sometime in the future a movie is being made about your life as an information professional. What incidents from your life (past or projected) would it portray? Who would play you in the movie, and why?"

In some ways, 100 words is too long--plot synopsis, please. But, then again, it is also too short. I could write a thoroughly involved story chock full of cracking good information professional excitement, people. CRACKING. It would be more fun than working on my terribly serious personal statement, anyway.

I did find time to make some sausage this weekend and we had them in patty form last night:

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Less plastic in 2010: #1 of 3

On the left: THE LAST PLASTIC MILK JUG OF 2010

One of my 2010 goals is to "implement three new ways to cut back on plastic consumption." Here is the first.

We go through a lot of milk---cereal, coffee, making ice cream. This means a lot of plastic milk jugs. Although the empties go out in the recycling bin every week, most of the lids do not. I don't like using plastic for many reasons, one being there is a lot more plastic gathered for recycling than actual market for reuse. Some "recycled" plastic ends up in landfills or in third-world countries for processing. (There IS a market for recycled glass and aluminum.)

All the grocery stores here (except Whole Foods, oddly) carry milk from this Nebraska dairy, sold in sturdy glass bottles. It is more expensive than the regular plastic gallon milk (about $3 a half gallon and then there's a $2 bottle deposit) but the milk is excellent and it came from a farm three hours away. My grandparents were dairy farmers and I grew up hearing my mom talk about how people shouldn't complain about the cost of milk going up because the dairies barely made anything anyway. I haven't done any investigative research (and I really should) (okay, I WILL), but I think this glass bottle dairy might actually be getting a fair price for their products.

This all takes some extra effort---the glass bottles are heavy and I have to buy two at a time. They have to be washed and returned to the grocery store. I'm okay with that.

Bruce has ISSUES with the pouring capabilities of the dairy bottle so I tracked down a glass decanter (made in FRANCE, ooh la la) that is not made from tempered glass, so if it ever breaks, it can be recycled. And its lid, although not glass, is numbered for recycling.

Yay cows!

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Places I am not cold:

• in bed
• in shower
• in car

Unfortunately, not one of these three places is a practical place to be while getting things done.

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Light tomorrow with today! - E. B. Browning

2010: The Suggestions

It is difficult for me to look too far into the future---so much is open to change. But small things that lead to small but definite successes have been very helpful in the past year (when it felt like so much was out of my control). Here's what I'm working on this year.

IN THE KITCHEN:

• bake a soufflé
• improve knife skills (I've ordered a book: An Edge in the Kitchen.)
• learn to use chopsticks properly so I can use them in a restaurant without being embarrassed
• learn hand and sight measures instead of using measuring cups and spoons all the time
• work on cooking without depending so heavily on recipes (Make more of my own recipes!)
• make sausage
• continue baking bread

BOOK THINGS:

• read twelve books in translation (Around the World in 2010)

PERSONAL THINGS:

• continue going to a new restaurant once a month with Bruce (We have four lined up already.)
• get into MLIS program (please please please please please!)
• travel (At this point, I can only list Chicago as we may be moving in the summer.) (I want to list Italy.)
• make more money than I did in 2009
• implement three new ways to cut back on plastic consumption

CREATIVE THINGS:

• take photos with vintage cameras - if they don't function, out they go!

(If I WAS to look five years into the future, I can fathom a few goals: working full-time in a library, travelling to Italy, visiting friends and family, and living in a place conducive to year-round outdoor activities---AKA, NOT Nebraska or The South or the Midwest.)

Where do you want to be this time next year? Or are you better at long-term goals?

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rehashing 2009; or, AHH! 2010 already?

From Loose Ends Tied Up In Knots

Photo: Sarah Waits for the Buster Keaton Bus, by Meera.

I put together a list of "Vague Plans" last January. It looked like the one below. I've lined though Accomplished Tasks.

FOOD THINGS:

• Do kitchen a favor and take my knives in to be sharpened. (I actually did this twice last year.)
• Calibrate all thermometers.
  
• Get candy/deep-fry thermometer. (Thank you, Meera!)
  
• Make amazing, rustic, pain-in-the-ass inconvenient loaf of bread. (Completed many, MANY times over.)
• Bake a soufflé. (Er, I ate a soufflé. Does that count?)
• Try a new restaurant once a month (with Bruce). (This was a great idea.)

MONEY THINGS:

• Get a new job. Preferably something I don't hate and/or dread. (This is a new, unofficial, very good thing; more soon.)
• Look into School Librarian qualifications for Oregon and see if it's something I can get a jump on. (This unexpectedly morphed into APPLY TO LIBRARY SCHOOL and that's also a very good thing.)
• If 2009 is the year I win a random large pile o' cash, give a big pile to Terry Gilliam and free up some creative juices. (Okay, that was dumb.)
  
• Renew Oregon teaching license.

BOOK THINGS:

• I feel like I've fallen off the boat in the book world--it used to be that most of my Internet time was spent finding out about books. That's changed. Maybe I just need to shrink my Web footprint. Anyway, I'm feeling a hankerin' to read things in translation. Recommendations?
  
• Visit Brownville, Nebraska for bookstores. Bring and stick to a budget. (What a waste of time!)
  
• Read a lot of Dumas. (I read over six inches (books stacked) of Dumas! I am okay with not reading anything set in France for a while.)
  

PERSONAL THINGS:

• Shrink Web footprint. Stop maintaining 300 profiles & pages. (I got rid of accounts on AllConsuming, 43Things, Vox and Bloglines, among others.)
  
• Make Omaha friend(s). (I kept in touch with the person I knew before . . . )
• See a play. (With Omaha friends?) (The Shaolin Monks were cool but not a play.)
  
• Travel: Boston, Portland, Chicago, Badlands, overseas . . . (Done, done, done, done, and DONE! Yay Scotland!)
  
• Make more phone calls.
  
• See a doctor (it has been YEARS). (Why am I paying for health insurance if I'm not using it?)
  
• Find competent Omaha hairstylist. (HAH. Impossible, my friends.)
• Do more creating, less consuming. Don't buy crap. (I am super good at avoiding crap.)
• Do more DOING and less reading & thinking ABOUT doing. (Still need to work on this.)
  

CREATIVE THINGS:

• Take sewing class (Jan-Feb!). (WASTE OF TIME. I need to look beyond the Continuing Ed classes.)
  
• Finish sewing drapes. (Ummmm . . . )
• Make own laundry detergent. (Very successful. Details here.)
• Buy wide-angle lens (do before travelling). (What a lovely purchase.)

Before thinking too much about next year, I'm basking in the glory of all these completed items. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Are you basking? What successes/accomplishments did you have in 2009?

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