Happiness

is happy hour on a roof-top patio with my favorite, passionate, hilarious, awesome coworkers overlooking Denver's beautiful skyline.

Happiness is calling your husband to say, "Please preheat the oven to 450 and slice up some peppers and onions! I'm bring home pizza sauce, cheese, and garlic bread."

It is sitting on your couch in your PJs, eating pita pizza and that amazing, terrible-for-you garlic bread from the freezer section while watching Get Him to the Greek.

Happiness is chocolate cake (made in minutes in a mug in the microwave) topped with mint chocolate chip ice cream.

All in all, it was a good Friday night.

Small Group

Tonight James and I broke from our regular evening routine of dinner, TV watching, and blog reading/computer time, all done from the comfort of our loveseat. Tonight we had our second meeting with our small group from church. The idea behind small groups is to forge connections with other members of the congregation, and to get to know some new faces at church. Our congregation is pretty big, and after two years of regular attendance, I still know just a handful of people's names. We've enjoyed our previous small group opportunities that have given us a chance to get to know a few people a little better.

Our current group is a nice mix of folk, some single, some married, some older, some younger. Our ages range from 22-70 (or 80?) and we come from various professions and walks of life. Tonight we played Catch Phrase, which I think is a really good leveling game. There are words that the younger generations know and words that the older generations know, and sometimes you just get stuck with a tough phrase like slap shot. It was fun to see how different members of our group approached the game--some with lots of hand motions and few words, some with lots of animation, some with a cool, calm, collected attitude. It was fun to laugh and play together, to discuss opinions and ideas, to tell stories.

I have to tell on myself, as I embarrassed myself a little in front of the group tonight. On one of my turns at Catch Phrase, I gave the following clues to my team: "Oh, Hugh Hefner lives in one of these." "Mansion!" my team guessed confidently. "No," I said, "it's a place where you might entertain women." Time ran out and my team was stumped. The other team tried to guess the word, debating bachelor pad as a possibility. At this point I realized I had gotten the meaning of the word all wrong, and would have been much better off with a clue such as, "a room at the top of a hotel or condo/apartment building," and start to giggle.

The word? Penthouse.

Oops.

The thing is, though I don't know these people well, I did not feel mortified or even embarrassed for long. I didn't for an instant consider that these folks might think less of me. I giggled (until I cried, as I often do when I laugh a lot) and made fun of myself. We all had a good laugh and moved on. It's so great to feel that safe and comfortable in a group of former strangers, now friends. Intentional gatherings to get to know people in your community really work. I am glad to be a part of such a group.

What I Ate: Wednesday edition

It may not yet be apparent, but I am challenging myself to write a blog post every day in November. (It has not escaped my attention that I missed Nov. 1, so maybe I'll double-post one day to make up for it.) I used to really enjoy blogging, journaling, and other forms of writing, but I've really lost interest recently. I'd like to get back in touch with the creative writing part of my brain, so I'm hoping that posting more will get me excited.

Because I am going to need something to talk about, I'm copying Abby and toying with the idea of daily themes. One I'd definitely like to do is What I Ate, where I write (and hopefully photograph) my Wednesday night dinner. I am the kind of person who reads cookbooks for fun and thinks about food constantly. Cooking and baking are some of the things I enjoy the most, so food posts are quite common on this blog.

Tonight I made an old stand-by that we probably eat at least once a month in Casa SW: frittata. Tonight's plate included:

• Sweet Pepper Frittata: potato, onion, and tiny sweet peppers from our CSA share sauteed with garlic, basil, thyme, and red pepper flake. Tossed with a little feta cheese, topped with beaten egg & milk, sprinkled with cheddar cheese and baked until bubbly and edges are browned.
• Toast with butter
• Green beans (frozen from the peak of CSA season this summer when we got a 5 pound bag of green beans per week) steamed and tossed with black pepper, granulated garlic, and while wine vinegar.

No pictures this week because dinner was devoured before I thought of it!

School-related Musings

It seems that computer problems happen only on busy days when computer functionality is most required.

Nothing beats a fourth grader telling me to "have a good day." (totally unprompted!)

Some days you will spend 45 minutes untangling pairs of headphones.

Other days you will be surrounded by the laughter of students who are actually enjoying learning about the Dewey Decimal system.

Coffee is the best antidote to starting work at 7:30 am.

It is truly amazing to have students waving, smiling, and saying hi to you each and every day. (even if you did just lecture them for forgetting their library books. Again.)

Everyone should be able to count (at least some of ) their coworkers as friends.

I really did learn most of the things I needed to know in kindergarten: share your resources. respect others. tie your shoes or you'll trip.

I smile at least once a day, thanks to the creativity and hilarity of my students.

Rainy Day Baking

Pumpkin muffin photo shoot!



Today it is rainy and gray out, but it smells cinnamon-y and delicious inside our warm house. When I am stressed and worried, as I have been much of the time recently, there are lots of things that soothe me: journaling, warm cups of tea, hugs from friends, baking, and more. Today and yesterday, I was called to the kitchen. I'd like to share what I whipped up while listening to good music and wearing one of my favorite wedding presents: a homemade apron with my initials hand-embroidered on it!

First up, my mom's pumpkin muffins recipe. I generally make it her way, but this time I wanted to try something a little "healthier." (Only mildly healthier b/c I added chocolate chips. :)

Karen's Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 12-15 muffins

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1 3/4 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 t pumpkin pie spice
6 T canola oil
1/3 c brown sugar, packed
1/6 c sugar (I would probably leave this out next time)
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup + 2 T pumpkin
1/2 c milk
mini chocolate chips, to taste
2 t sugar + 1/4 t cinnamon, mixed

Method:
Combine all ingredients (except chocolate chips) in a bowl. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full with batter. After filling half of the muffin tins, stir chocolate chips into the batter. Fill remaining muffin tins. Sprinkle muffins with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

I have found myself tired of store-bought granola bars, but they are one of the easiest snacks for me to pack for work. I looked through my accumulated bookmarks from my extensive food blog reading, and found these breakfast bars from So I Married a Chef. I made just a few modifications: I used currants and dried cherries instead of raisins and dried cranberries. I used a combination of sunflower seeds and walnuts for the 6 T of nuts the recipe calls for. I used just one teaspoon of vanilla (I have to ration our amazing Dominican vanilla!) and 3 eggs + milk to equal the 3/4 c of liquid egg whites (per Carly's suggestion). I haven't tried them yet, but they smell and look fabulous!

The other recipe I want to share is a fun one. One of the pastors from my home church in Ohio used to always bring baked oatmeal to our Easter brunches. My mom has the recipe. I've made it many times with many combinations of dried fruits and nuts (my favorite being candied pecans and dried blueberries, or without either. Recently, I've been changing the recipe a bit so I can feel ok about eating it more often (the original recipe has a lot of sugar and oil in it). Enjoy!

Dee's Baked Oatmeal
makes a 9x13 pan, which is enough for 4 servings + leftovers

Ingredients:
2 eggs, beaten
1 c milk
1/2 c unsweeted applesauce
1/2 c brown sugar, packed
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt (the original recipe calls for 1 t--I don't like to use a lot of salt because high blood pressure runs in my family. I've found you can generally reduce the salt by half and baked goods turn out fine. If you aren't used to a reduced salt diet, use 1 t!)
1/2 t cinnamon
3 c rolled oats (the original recipe calls for quick oats--use what you have)
1/2 c dried fruit (I used dried cherries this time)
1/4 c-1/2 c chopped nuts (I used about 1/4 c of walnuts)

Method:
Whisk the ingredients from eggs to cinnamon together in a large bowl. Stir in the oatmeal, fruit, and nuts. Pour mixture into a greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Serve warm with milk. (I find it delicious cold as well.)

Hope you enjoy if you try these recipes!

Hope

This is a photo of our poor neglected tomato plant. I stopped watering the plants over a week ago...I've just gotten busy and the season is ending and my attention to the plants is waning. Today I walked out the back of the house and noticed that our little tomato plant has two new blossoms, and one red tomato. The top part of it wilted and died mid-summer. It didn't seem to phase the plant, which went on to produce quite a few tomatoes. Those little blossoms gave me hope today.

Recently I have been feeling like the brown, dead part of the plant. Without going into a lot of detail, I'm having to make a very difficult decision that I'd prefer to just not deal with. It's a decision that is challenging, because, like most, it is impossible to have all the facts. This decision will have to be based on a lot of what if's and projections, and since it involvs my health, I am hesitant to base my decision on shaky ground.

This has left me feeling dead and dry, sad about my life and sorry for myself. I am not doing a good job of just dealing with the cards I have been dealt. I am spending my energy asking 'Why me?' and wishing fervently for this whole thing to go away.

Those two, tiny yellow blossoms on the tomato plant I'd given up on give me just an inkling of hope that this might turn out ok. That my friends, family, and my faith will watch out for me and the millions of scary thoughts that run through my head just might not happen. I am a bit more hopeful today. I am striving to be ok with my fate and to continue to blossom, even though things are hard right now. Here's to hope.

Epic Lunch

For lunch today, we dined on a trio of bruschetta: traditional tomato (with farmer's market tomatoes and homegrown basil), avocado (made with James' jalepeno "pesto"...we're not sure what to call it, but it is spicy, smoky, and delicious), and eggplant (roasted eggplant with feta) all on farmer's market baguette.

Dessert was a cream cheese/chocolate swirl brownie made by a coworker's sister we brought home from their fun dinner party last night.

Have I mentioned that I love summer? Right now, everyone on the East coast is mourning the end of summer and celebrating the coming of fall. I love living in the West, where the temps are cooling and it feels more fall-like, but we're still in the full bounty of summer produce, with (hopefully) several more weeks of corn and tomatoes to come.