We trying for a lot more homemade in our lives

I guess that I've been pickier about my food for awhile now. Ever since China where I was eating fresh, yummy food every day. I'm trying really hard to know where my food comes from and what stuff has been put in it. Many will argue that the advancements we've made in agriculture make things easier and better for both us, the consumers and the farmers but I would have to disagree. I'm scared when I look at a label and don't know what half the ingredients are. No, high fructose corn syrup isn't bad for you in moderation but man, do they ever sneak it into things that you don't expect. So, I'm trying to be as self-sufficient as possible considering I'm living in an apartment. There are the window boxes full of herbs, the garden that was just planted, and now my desire to make tortillas from scratch. It really wasn't that difficult, probably because Sister has a Kitchenaid mixer and though, I didn't get the recipe quite right (the tortillas were more like pie crust.... too much shortening) I'm very much encouraged to try again.


Also, I've been wanting to try my hand at canning too. I remember having a lot of fun canning mountains of produce as a child. I'm sure that my mother has rather different memories but it was fun for me and that's all that matters ;-) I really do prefer homemade jams but buying at the Farmer's Market just isn't possible on my $50 a week budget. So Sister advertised for free berries, rhubarb and produce in Freecycle.com and now we have rhubarb! I picked it yesterday, bought some strawberries that were on sale and voila! We now have lots of strawberry-rhubarb jam! Haven't tasted it yet but I'm sure that it's fantastical :-)

Onions and peppers and beans, oh my!

Been thinking about it for awhile but now it is finally done. I have a (small) garden!!! Doing a little happy dance as we speak :-)) It's not big and the plants are really tiny but I have big hopes for it, come late July and August. As of right now, we've planted two different bean varieties, sugar snap peas, jalapenos, two different bell pepper varieties, an EGGPLANT, green onions and lots of carrots. All very useful vegetables and with the exception of the eggplant, should all can pretty well.

The garden is at the place where I work and I only got it because I schmoozed the guy who the garden was tilled for. I asked really nicely and will happily share with him some of the produce because I'm nice like that. The only thing that I worry about with the garden, is whether or not it will produce before I potentially move. I don't know whether or not I'll go somewhere else for grad school yet but if I do, I'll have to move by mid-August at the latest. That gives me roughly 75 days to get everything harvested or all the money that I just invested will go poof. Oh well, it was fun to plant and shouldn't be too hard to maintain.

Another happy dance

Got my acceptance letter for Vermont today :-) I've now been accepted into two of the four programs and I should hear from those schools in a couple of weeks. I think that the hardest part will be choosing which school to go to. It will probably end up being based on how rich I feel at the moment of decision or how much I hate Mankato at that moment. It's a highly scientific method. 

Memorial Day weekend

Having the weekend off and a desire to see my family meant that Kristi and I trekked down to the Des Moines this past weekend. The fact that it was Memorial Day weekend didn't really mean much since I had to be back by Monday so that I could work. C'est la vie but it would have been nice if I had had the Monday off as well. It's only about 200 miles from here to there but if you drive there and back in a short span of time, you tend to be really sick of the car by the end of it. Especially since mumsy decided that she wanted to go down a bit sooner than Daddy was able to. This meant picking her up in Worthington, MN which is only about a 30 minutes drive for them but it added 1.5 hours of driving time for us. Whatever, since she did give birth to me and I'm vaguely remembering all those times that somebody had to drive my butt to/from college, airport, train station.... Did I mention that I really love my family sometimes? The added time also meant that we rolled into Des Moines at about 11pm, which is about an hour after my usual bedtime. Sad, but true. We reached the outskirts and asked mumsy where our hotel was and this is how the conversation went:

Us: Where's the hotel? We're in Ankeny.

Mumsy: It's the Day's Inn in Urbandale.

Us: Where in Urbandale (Urbandale is a part of the Des Moines metro area and isn't exactly small)?

Mumsy: I don't know. Start naming off some streets.

Us: Uh..... 86th? Merle Hay? Um..... (I've been to Urbandale many times but am more familiar with the landmarks than I am the street names)

Mumsy: Yeah, Merle Hay! I think it's Merle Hay or the street that comes in diagonally from the west.

Us: Those roads are nowhere near each other. Didn't you write down the driving directions?

Mumsy: I did but the paper fell out of my purse.

Us: Aargh!!!

Mumsy: Fine, I'll call but I don't want to. I can't understand him. Hello? Yes, where are you? Huh? What? Pardon? I'm sorry, I can't understand you, here's my daughter.

Me: Hello?

Hotelier: Yes, we are the America's Best Value Inn on ------- Street.

Me: Which street? (he did have a bit of a thick accent, not his fault but it made things more difficult)

Hotelier: ------- Street, you take exit 126, turn left and it's the ----- stop light

Me: exit 126, turn right, then what?

Hotelier: first, second, tird stop light

Me: Tanks, I mean thanks

End converstation and thanks to his directions, we made it to the hotel without any more problems. Mumsy, note the fact that it wasn't the Day's Inn NEITHER was it on Merle Hay. It was on Douglas which is basically in the opposite corner of Urbandale.

On Saturday, we spent as much of it as we could out and about doing fun things. Much of the morning was spent at the downtown farmer's market which is FREAKING AWESOME. I encourage anyone who lives within an hour of Des Moines to go. There wasn't much by way of vegetables there but they had plenty of cheese, honey, clothes, food stand and artisans. I was in heaven and it was very hard not to buy everything in sight. You'll be very happy to hear that I only picked up some flax seed and some El Salvadorian dish that ended up being my lunch. Brother and his family then headed back to their place for nap time while Mumsy, sister and I did a bit of shopping. Sister found the deal of the day when she purchased a 12 piece All-Clad pot set for $300, about $400 lower than the original price. I bow down to her superior bargin hunting powers. We then went to the used bookstore in Urbandale, always a favorite place for both Kristi and myself (Mumsy parked her butt and happily looked at house decorating books). I sold some more books (tear) for $35 and Kristi bought a couple of history books. Lastly, we went to Penzy's Spices to pick up black pepper and curry. It's always a treat to go to Penzy's. I spend a lot of time smelling the various spices and wishing that I had more money to buy them all.

Later on that evening, I picked up a 6 pack of beer for brother and I to share. It was sitting on the floor and my 22-month old nephew happened to pick up a bottle.

Will: Pop?

Me: No, it's not pop.

Will: Daddy's beer (said with certanty)

Needless to say, we bust out laughing and I'm still in awe of how smart he is since he's not even 2 years old yet.

On Sunday, sister and I elected not to go to church and instead went wandering around the Terrace Hill district of Des Moines. Terrace Hill is the historic residence of the governers of Iowa and is pretty nice to look at. We wanted a closer look but sadly, were run off the grounds by a highly protective, puppy of a State patrol man aka cop. Sheesh, I didn't know that the governer still lived there. In retaliation for the indignity, sister and I picked some dandelion puff balls and blew the seeds on the edge of the perfectly manicured lawn.

That's about it for my weekend. All in all, it was a fun time and I greatly enjoyed it. Sorry about the lack of photos but I forgot my camera in Mankato. Oops! My bad :-)

Riding the woes away

I had a really horrible day. Everything seemed to bother me at work and that made for a nice depressive funk. First of all, my co-worker really is an idiot. She doesn't have a brain in her head and proves it constantly. I spent a good portion of my morning cleaning windows that she had already cleaned. She has neither the brain cells nor the work ethic to clean windows well. And to make matters worse, my boss blamed me for her crappy job. I explained to him that it wasn't my fault and that he should take it up with Shirley. I really hope he did and oh, to be a fly on that wall. That would make my day.

Then, I get in trouble with the assistant administrator for doing something that my boss told me to do. The carpet was dirty, so I took out the carpet steamer and cleaned it. Apparently, it was too noisy for those who spend their works days jabbering way on the telephones. APPARENTLY, I should come in a 2:00am so that I don't disturb them at their work. At least I was working. Go yell at Shirley for wasting the precious company time and money. She's very good at that.

Anyway, bad mood meant that I didn't feel like cooking for once so my sister suggested that we ride our bikes to the Taco John's in North Mankato. I suppose that it's about 4.5 miles from where we live but there is a really, really, REALLY big and long hill that we had to go up. Needless to say, I ended up walking about 2/3 of it but the way down. Oh the way down. Now that was a lot of fun. It was the best 4 minutes that I've had in a long time. I'd guess that I was clocking around 35 mph. It was fast enough to make my eyes water so that means it was pretty freaking fast. It put a smile on my face. I hope that it stays there.

Home Improvement version 1.0

    The chaos
    The slave
  The cat
 Yay!! For the 1st time in 4 months, I sleep on a bed!!!

About a month ago, my sister and I were on the subject of my sleeping arrangements. I had been sleeping on her couch, which was all fine and dandy when it was cold out but now that it was going to get warmer..... sleeping on synthetic fabric from the 1970s was just not going to be a comfortable option. She suggested that we buy a bunk and bed. I hemmed and hawed until she said that she would buy it :-) Score!!! So up to the IKEA in Minneapolis we traipse to purchase a bunk bed. 

I love IKEA. It was my first time there and I greatly enjoyed it. I really wanted to get peel and stick wall art but somehow, I think it would have ended up in the digestive tracks of certain cats, who shall remain nameless <<>><<>> Anyway, I fell in love with their simple, modern yet very clever furniture. I see why they have become a success story and will continue to get stuff from them in the furniture. IKEA also sends Kristi's organizational heart into palpitations. 

We got back from Minneapolis too late to get started but the next day..... oh boy, was that fun. We live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building and getting that thing up the stairs was interesting. We got it up about halfway, lots of cursing involved before we decided to screw it, rip open the box and carry it up in more manageable pieces. Then it was onto the assembly and Kristi did a marvelous job of it, I only helped when she needed an extra set of hands. It took a couple of hours but was worth every minutes and I have greatly enjoyed sleeping in a real bed this last month or so. 

Wow, two sisters sharing a 500 square foot apartment, sleeping in bunk beds. If I wasn't living it, I wouldn't believe it either. Especially since I know how much we fought when we were younger. 

Attention whore

Queen of the Dance

A 5 cent reward for the capture of the poo bandit

We at work are trying to figure out the mystery of the poo bandit. This bandit uses the public toilets and proceeds to mess it up in nasty ways at least once a day. Nobody has actually seen the poo bandit leaving the premises after a fresh dirty but there are several key suspects. All of the suspects are old and have absolutely no control over their bodily functions. As witnessed by the poo smear on the door that was a full four feet away from the actual toilet. The poo bandit has struck the same bathroom once a day for the past 1.5 weeks but tragically, today he or she struck twice within 5 hours. Any information would be greatly appreciated and for the poo bandit to have their bowels permanently removed from their body would be even more appreciated.

To make matters even worse, I happen to live with two other poo bandits who leave their little dingle-berries on the floor for us to step on in the middle of the night. Sometimes, these same poo bandits do a funny dance while trying to deposit their dingle-berries on the floor. It goes like this: wiggle to the left, lick, lick, lick. Wiggle to the right, lick lick lick. Lather, rinse and repeat.

contentment is a stomach full of tasty food

As most of you well know, my life revolves around food. Buying food, finding recipes for food, cooking food and most importantly, eating food. I do indeed find great enjoyment of a meal well-cooked or a delicious meal digesting in my not-skinny belly. It doesn't bother me at all to spend hours creating one meal.

Over the weekend, my sister picked up a new book for me about herbs and the book also includes some recipes that feature herbs. While leafing though the book I was intrigued by a recipe for rosemary bread. Intrigued enough that I had to try it basically right that minute. Now, I have not made bread too many times and the results haven't been that good but I know that it's something you have to practice and mess up a few times before you really get the hang of it. Still not sure if I have got the hang of it but luckily, this recipe is tasty enough to make up for my lack of knowledge. Nice, crusty outside. Soft in the middle and with plenty of taste besides. I ate about half a loaf in one sitting and that's along with a steaming bowl of potato and leek soup. Homemade of course :-) This success in the kitchen spurs me into attempting to make more breads in the future. It's not something that I'll do every day but perhaps once a week.

I really delight in the idea that I am eating something that I know exactly what the ingredients are. I have no idea what many of the ingredients are in the prepared foods that fill the supermarket and I'm pretty sure that even science majors would have a tough time knowing them all. So many weird chemicals and preservatives all designed to make you believe that you're eating beef when actually, you're eating leftover chicken bits. I'd much rather take the time to make something from scratch than eat that crap.

Of course, eating fresh is a bit more expensive than eating boxed foods. Meal planning will be more difficult now that I've imposed a $50 a week budget for myself. This includes everything and I know that it will be difficult. I get my allowance every Friday. It's Tuesday and I have $4.37 to last me 2.5 more days. Do you think that I can make it and continue to limit myself in this way? Opinions would be much appreciated.

Perdone moi

Sorry about the Pella post. I know that the layout is all wonky but I don't have time to try to fix it because I am not computer savvy and I know that it will take ages to get it looking normal. 

Revisiting the Past

Yum! extremely sweet treats. A cinnamon snail and a cinnamon crispy :-) I ate them both while taking pictures of tulips.

You too can proudly display your Dutch heritage!

More Dutch stuff.

If you didn't know any better, you'd swear you were across the pond in Amsterdam. Minus the prostitutes of course.

Tulips!!!!

I'm sitting in the Smokey Row Cafe in Pella, Iowa where I spent four years of my life during college (minus the three semesters that I studied abroad) and it's a bit of a weird experience at the moment. I knew very early on that I had selected the wrong college, not because the education was bad but just based on the conservative tendencies of the

town. You could escape it somewhat by staying on campus (college campuses tend to be a bit more liberal and open-minded) but not really. Every year at Central we had some sort of drama relating to some people hating on another individual or group based on race, religion or belief system. The president of both the study body and the campus ministries came out of the college. He could no longer be the president of the religious organization of the student body. The theatre did a (historical Greek) play that depicted phallic images. The house of the director had pumpkins thrown at it. A lot of verbal discrimination went on towards the minorities (especially the hispanics). Some of them left and the campus became a less diverse and interesting place. Little things like that really bothered me in college because I try really hard not to judge people based silly little things like race, religion or belief. As long as you don't bother me, I will leave you alone and let you have your opinion.

So I come back and the town is so idyllic that it's hard to believe that things like that would ever happen. For those of you who don't know, Pella is a place that takes great pride in its Dutch heritage and this is visible all throughout the town. The public buildings and businesses have to be built with a Dutch storefront, there are Dutch bakeries with tasty treats, Dutch lace is on display in windows and there are tulips EVERYWHERE. And it's weird. I don't hate it any more. I almost wish that I were still back in college. Everything seemed so easy in college. Life sure is a funny roller-coaster.