Saturdays

I was going to sit down and write a nice, long, inspirational post on this Saturday morning. But, as you might guess, based on the entry sentence, I will be doing no such thing. No... all week long (and this was a long one), I look forward to Saturday. I love my job, I love my co-workers, and I love the unpredictability (who knew executive assistants, business managers, and human resources coordinators dig and lay gravel paths??) of the five days spent at work. But, I also love my Saturdays. Throughout the week, when I'm short on sleep, busy hanging out with friends and family, trying to coordinate two people's schedules in two different cities with one car, figuring out what's for dinner, and spending the majority of the day on the job, all I can think about is how excited I'll be when it's Saturday and I don't HAVE to do anything. And when Friday comes (only one more day til Saturday!), I think, "Oh MAN. I get to sleep in tomorrow. I can do nothing tomorrow. I can go on a run in the sunshine tomorrow."

Who am I kidding?

No, no. This Saturday (not unlike the rest of them) is packed to the brim with no resting available. Of course, it's different kind of work, the kind that I choose to do, but still, it's not being lazy. This Saturday began at 6:45 a.m. because my stupid brain thinks it's time to get up. And when the brain thinks, there's no stopping where it goes. Therefore, I'm up at 7 this morning, trying to be quiet so as not to wake my peacefully sleeping (jealousy stirs in me at the mention of sleep) husband. Well, there's really no being quiet when I decide to start a load of laundry. One might think I could wait until later, but no, not when there's 5 loads to do, one of which is mud-caked clothes thanks to two days of digging in the rain with my lovely co-workers. So, in goes the laundry.

Then, I realize that the recipe I've landed on for the rolls I'm bringing to dinner tonight at our friends' house are more time-consuming than planned. Thus begins the baking. And while looking on the website for the recipe (which is amazing by the way - Pioneer Woman), I feel ambitious and decide I'm going to make these at the same time. It was a good thought. Until I made the classic mistake of beginning the mixing process before double checking that I have all the ingredients. Ran out of flour. Not good when making a batch of rolls and a batch of breakfast puffs. Good thing is, all my kitchen commotion woke my amazing husband who went to the store for me in his sweats to get more flour. I didn't have to twist his arm too much once I promised to make him a latte and showed him the photo of what was for breakfast. Thank you, husband, for letting me bake for you. So, the rolls begin, the breakfast puffs (as I like to call donut muffins) begin, and I throw all my prep dishes in the dishwasher. That's right, I have a dishwasher. A working one. How bout that!

And in the process of all this, I begin folding and putting away the laundry, realizing that while it is only 10:36, I still have a lot to do in the next 7 hours and 24 minutes before we go to dinner. All of which will be interrupted by a much needed trip to look for a couch... again. Yes, the couch-looking is a never-to-be-completed quest. There's lots to do today, but, it's the only thing I really want to do... look for a couch. That and listen to my dishwasher run.

So, that's what my Saturday has become. And, now, I've taken up just as much time explaining my busy Saturday as it would have taken to write something inspirational. Sorry, this will have to suffice as inspiration. And please don't get confused - this busyness was by choice. I realize that I am inducing self-inflicted work. No big deal. It's life, right?

That thing called the Olympics.

Every two years there's this thing called the Olympics that countries first compete to host and then compete to win. And every two years I watch this thing called the Olympics in mass quantities. I think the television and news-webpages consume me more during when these thing called the Olympics are on than total for the rest of the year. What a waste of time. And, it's not always necessarily my decision to watch the sports or not - that is partially credited to my lovely husband. Any Olympic sport, you name it, I've watched it. And let me tell you, I've learned a lot of new things.

For example:

A. Curling. Who came up with this sport, or should I say hobby? Ok. seriously. curling? Curling. According to the dictionary curling is:
Main Entry: curl·ing
Pronunciation: \ˈkər-liŋ\
Function: noun
Date: 1620
: a game in which two teams of four players each slide curling stones over a stretch of ice toward a target circle
Simple enough, I guess. I watched it for the first time two nights ago and I found myself saying repeatedly "What the heck?" I'm sure that it is much more difficult than appearance lets on, but still. It's weird. Brushing ice with a broom is weird. Hearing "CLEAN! CLEAN" yelled in twenty different languages is also weird.

B. Ice Dancing. No longer ice skating, but ballroom dancing on ice. WELL oookay... It's actually pretty impressive. I will secretly admit that I enjoy watching ice skating, especially pairs. But don't tell anyone.

C. Nordic racing. Wow. These people get going really fast. It's incredible how they zoom down a hill at like 90 miles an hour. Is it bad that my favorite part is watching people face gnarly crashes? Ouch. These people are studs. I wish I was a nordic skier. Too bad chairlifts and me don't get along. That's a historical story for another entry.

D. Speed skating. I put on my leggings and underarmor and said to Mac, "hey, look, I'm Apolo Ohno!" Disregarding the aerodynamic spandex suits, and the fact that they go round and round on the track with what seems to be zero effort, the last 2-4 seconds of these races is actually kind of exciting. Why do I watch 4 hours of television a night for literally 4 seconds of excitement? Apolo Ohno is awesome.

E. I almost forgot - hockey. I love hockey. I didn't use to, but then I watched Olympic hockey and it's much more exciting... there's more strategy, more goals, and more passionate victories. My kind of game.

This is a cop-out first entry in 4 months. I'm trying to ease myself back into the writing nonsense that I use to do so regularly. Hope you enjoyed it.

Neglect

Oops... I have really neglected this blog in the last 3 months!  I really have no excuse, except that I'm lazy and lack ideas for good blogs.  I don't want to write just because people expect me to... it's a matter of enlightenment; of inspiration.  So, I apologize for neglecting writing for so long, if you check this regularly.  And, I also hope you thank me for sparing you of boring, purposeless posts, such as "my day with pink eye". :) 

So, you might ask:  what's the inspiration behind this sporadic post?  Well... two things, really.  No, three: Moving, Saying Goodbye, and Jury Duty.  

In case you haven't heard, Mac and I feel the Lord is calling us back to Oregon, so we took a step of faith, and decided to move to Corvallis at the end of the month!  This was before we found a place to live or jobs, or confirmed Mac's acceptance at OSU... and things are slowly falling into place, in God's own perfect timing.  Last weekend, we took the trek down and found a beautiful little house to rent from an amazing couple!  Now, we are just waiting on jobs and our decision about Mac's going to school.  Trusting the Lord is a hard, but rewarding thing, and I highly recommend risking it all to follow him!  It's exhilarating, really.

Somehow, I managed to get randomly selected for Spokane County's jury duty the last two weeks of work.  Luckily, I think I've been dismissed early.  Through my couple days of experience, though, I just realized how completely and utterly selfish humankind is.  As I sat in the jury lounge for hours upon hours, leisurely reading my favorite novel, I found myself complaining and griping about the fact that I had to be there rather than at home or at work.  When, in reality, all I had to do was sit there and wait... and read, or check my email, or whatever it is that I wanted to do, as long as I stayed in the building.  I think the Lord was trying to get my attention; trying to get me to slow down in life, just for a minute... to stop and thank him for the perfectly comfortable life he's given me!

And lastly, saying goodbye... today, I began training my "replacement" at work; spending 7 hours showing her how I run programs with my client, how to do his paperwork, and explaining the ups and downs of the job.  And in it all, I realized first of all, how much I'm really going to miss my little guy... well, all of them really, but especially little J-man.  I taught the kid how to walk, helped him learn how to communicate, and now I'm saying goodbye.  I hope he continues to succeed, and I know he will.  It's just hard to let go, to trust others, and believe I've done just as much as the Lord had purposed for me to do in this little boy's life.  

Then, there's my dear friends who have made my time in Spokane just completely, 100% amazing and completely, 100% difficult to leave.  One texted me today with a question making me laugh out loud, while working, and I almost cried when I realized I would get to make funny comments and ask advice from in person anymore.  The other friend happened to see my car on her drive to the store, and left a note on the windshield, praying the storm wouldn't take it out, just to say "hi" and she missed me since we haven't seen each other for a few days.  I'm not even going to go into what that did to my heart... I miss them after not talking to them for a few days, and now I'm considering going MONTHS without seeing them.  Of course, I'm going home to old and wonderful friends, but it's still going to leave a hole in my heart to leave these two in particular behind!

Okay, well, I guess the whole point in this novel is that the Lord asks us to trust Him, and when we do, he opens our ears and hearts to hear and feel his truth.  Loudly.  

My day with pink eye

This was my day, plus or minus some work/play on the computer:

1. wake up

2. discover i still have pink eye

--rub eye and wash hands

3. confirm with supervisors i will NOT be at work as pink eye is very contagious

4. make coffee

--rub eye and wash hands

5. drink coffee while reading Bible

--rub eye and wash hands

6. put herbs on balcony in sunlight to make them happy

--wash hands, rub eye, and wash hands

7. go to store

--rub eye, use hand sanitizer

8. try not to touch anything in store that i'm not going to to buy

--rub eye, use hand sanitizer

9. buy on-sale tillamook products, produce, calloidal silver, and pink-eye relief eye drops

--eye drops and wash hands

10. put groceries away

11. make fudge

11a. wash dishes

--eye drops and wash hands

12. make granola

12a. wash dishes

--eye drops and wash hands

13. play piano

14. talk to mac ... listen to him tell me i've baked enough for the day

--eye drops and wash hands

15. make biscotti

16. make scones

16a. wash dishes

--eye drops and wash hands

17. talk to mac

--eye drops and wash hands

**GET PRETTY GERBER DAISIES FROM MAC

18. play volleyball with mac before sun sets

19. watch mac watch sports on tv

--eye drops and wash hands

20. eat left over spaghetti, meatballs, and homemade bread for dinner

21. make green smoothies or eat ice cream...

--eye drops and wash hands

22. go to sleep without pink eye

the end.

Herbs!!

I bought some herbs to grow on our apartment balcony! I'm SOO excited... .fresh herbs add wonders of flavor, color, and spark to any dinner recipe, and now I don't have to buy the expensive ones from the store!

 Parsley   Sweet Basil

RosemaryCilantro

Decorating simply

I discovered a very simple way to decorate our bland apartment, thanks to the suggestion and guidance of Michelle! :) It's easy... all you have to do is set the table! We don't have a wide range of styles of plates, napkins, or anything, so I used what I had to add a little more color to the dining room.  

Oh, and I also bought a little foliage to add some color and life to the living room... filled up some empty space, and for cheap! This ti plant was on sale for $7.98, the pot was $4.00, and the potting soil (which I also used for my herbs and had some left over) was $1.50.  I like!

Dehydrating

Today marks the rise of my home-making attempts! I recently remembered that my mom dried fruit when I was growing up.  So, I called her up and asked if she still had her old dehydrator.  Lucky for me, she still had it, knew where it was, and didn't use it anymore!  So, I inherited the old thing, and today I began the adventure of dehydrating...

There are many things you can dehydrate to make into tasty snacks:  fruits, veggies, nuts, meat, etc.  I hadn't made a special grocery list for things to dehydrate, so I just used some blueberries, a banana, and then pureed some strawberries and blueberries (separately) to make fruit leather.  I'm pretty excited to see how everything turns out! The only downside to using a dehydrator is that it's like a slow-cooker... takes WAY too long! So, unfortunate for me, I didn't start the process until about 4 pm today and therefore will not be able to analyze the results until at least 10 tonight.  

Oh, and I also made crackers today! This was my second time making them, and they turned out well.. I definitely think that using a pizza stone makes a difference; I made a couple of the batches on cookie sheets, and they just were not as crisp.  I also took Michelle's suggestion to season them with rosemary, garlic salt, and parmesan cheese (all separately) and they are delicious!! 

This post has little value besides a brief insight into my attempts at being a simplistic home-maker. :)