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Almost Wordless Wednesday

What happened to October? It’s Nov 9 and I feel like October just swooshed past me like a semi on the freeway and left me rocking in it’s wake. And, because I’m still reeling from that blow, here are some pictures in lieu of a REAL post:

Mid-October we went to Tahoe. Beautiful, gorgeous, OMG-I-want-to-live-here-forever, Lake Tahoe.

We all contemplated the crystal blue waters in speculative silence.

We also went to a creek and saw a Kokanee salmon run. This is a spawning bed. After they spawn, they die. So it was both happy and sad. My oldest counted 56 dead fish. We made sure to illustrate the life cycle and how the dead fish are needed to feed other animals and provide more nutrients into the stream bed.

I also saw a Beyonce look alike. No, not THAT Beyonce, the Beyonce of the giant metal chicken variety. Naturally I had to take a picture with it.

And we took the kids horseback riding:

Then we left Lake Tahoe. I spent half the drive home in denial and curled into a fetal position whimpering. Very difficult position to drive in, I must say.

And then there was Halloween. Poof! Just like that. And we had fun decorating:

And we even had a pumpkin carving party with the neighborhood girls:

And I made ghosts on a stick for work and the girls helped me with the faces:

And my hubby taught them how to make pumpkin origami. At the end of the party they were stuffed with sweets and everybody went home with a carved pumpkin and a bunch of origami pumpkins:

And now it’s Nov 9. How in the world did that happen? Well, at least we’ve been having fun.

Side note – I do have blog post on my mind. Something I’ve been thinking about, mulling over, and I just need to marshal my thoughts and let them flow. Stay tuned.

Mwah!

Stef

Posted on by Wise Sass

Influence & Persuasion

As do all things in life, the subject I’m about to discuss traces right back to Jane Austen. Jane was the master of the slight nuances and the big, painful realities. She knew that perception was key in relationships – men, women, friends, lovers, families. How we feel with people, our histories, our feuds, our friendships. It’s all perception.

Jane Austen said: What wild imagination one forms, where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!

A few assumptions, partially overheard conversations and, voila, someone’s pride is hurt, their previous warm feelings are questioned and they want to know – was it all a lie? Is this relationship contrived? A fake? A phony? Have I just been given lip service all this time, or was this real?

Don’t we all want to love and be loved in return? By family, friends and lovers alike. If I was a Beatle I would say, “All We Need is Love.”  See? It’s universal. If a Beatle said it, and writers have written about it for ages, and songs are sung about it ad nauseum, then it simply must be true.

It’s amazing how much human nature just absolutely DOES NOT CHANGE. Read Jane Austen now, in the present, and you’ll see the same interpersonal interactions that still occur today in similar circumstances.

We don’t change.

We don’t evolve our emotions. Daughters feel the same about their mothers and fathers. Parents feel the same about their children. Siblings bicker and love just the same. Jealously, spite, love, passion – the consistency of interpersonal relationships are one of the few constants in our society.

That includes irrational fears and insecurities. We all want to feel superior to some people and quite often we feel inferior to others. We all want to be well thought of and deemed worthy of love and praise. Remember the Bennet girls? Their value based on how they were rated by men and women alike. We’re the same. We judge. We gossip. We struggle to survive with our fragile, delicate little egos intact EVERY SINGLE BLEEPIN’ DAY.

To that end, we allow outside influences to infiltrate our minds. It settles in – reclines the la-z-boy and cracks a beer – and says, hey, this is my home, I’ve been here all along – didn’t you notice? And I’m going to stay. Pretty soon we don’t know which idea was ours and which was born from another place, another influence.

Is this idea me? Is it mine? Does it matter? If someone thought of it, and I like it and want to emulate it, does it matter that it wasn’t MINE first? I like it. It’s a good thought. It’s a good idea. I want to share it.

But at the end of the day the most important question should be – is this the genuine me? Would I naturally do this or am I being persuaded to do so by my own need to feel loved and wanted and admired? Sometimes I think that’s the hardest question of all.

Where do I end and my influences begin? And is there such a thing as plagiarizing a thought?

I just don’t know. We are all such strangely complex creatures yet our overall needs appear to be quite simplistic.

Alas, it’s 1 am and these riddles won’t be resolved tonight. I should have gone to bed an hour ago but I felt absolutely compelled to put my fingers to the keyboard and just throw out these rambling, unanswerable questions. Chalk it up to late-night soul-searching.

Good night, dear friends. Be genuine.

Posted on by Wise Sass · 2 Comments

Stress, baby – it’s a killer

I had planned to post about books next (today or otherwise soon-ish). There’s a books post coming – because I really do need some ideas for what to read next – but before I could write that post I got sick and I’m pretty sure the major culprit is stress.

I’m not a doctor or a nurse, but I can tell you that I firmly believe that overall emotional health can affect physical health. Obviously, when someone is stressed they can do things that negatively affect their health – binge eating, drinking, drugs, and other unhealthy decisions. But I also think stress can just slowly eat away at your overall health like a gigantic, parasitic leech.

Nom nom nom = die die die.

According to the American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America” report (2010) the common effects of stress are:

Body: headache, muscle tension or pain, chest pain, fatigue, change in sex drive, stomach upset, sleep problems.

Mood: anxiety, restlessness, lack of motivation or focus, irritability or anger, sadness or depression.

Behavior: Overeating or undereating, angry outbursts, drug or alcohol abuse, tobacco use, social withdrawal.

So let me see here – headache: check, muscle tension or pain: check, fatigue: check, stomach upset: check, anxiety: check, lack of motivation: check, irritability, sadness, anger: check, check, check.

Under behavior I would say social withdrawal simply because I’ve been less than social lately- less FB, less Twitter, less blog, and less social, in-person chitchat – but that could be due to time constraints more than anything. Or not. What do I know?

So what is the freaking dealio here?

Well, in a word, WORK. The entire month of September I worked some crazy long hours due to a staffing shortage (freaking people and their honeymoons) and, at the same time, an increase in workload. Then I was given even more work. Then I went on a short vacation last week in an effort to take a FREAKING BREAK but my first day back I worked a 12 hour day because I’m so behind from the 2 DAYS I took off. So how does that help? NOT AT ALL.

Now I could really go into quite the violent rant right now about my job, but this isn’t the place for it and if I did it could potentially get me fired (hmmm) so I won’t do that. Suffice it to say – I’m perpetually short-staffed and I do the job of about 3 different positions so I’m always pulled in 15 different directions at one time.

Monday – first day back from vacation and a 12 hour work day. Seriously didn’t get up from my desk to pee and grab some lunch until 3 pm.  Ridiculous. Came home at 8 pm, made dinner, promptly developed a headache – a headache that has not abated since Monday night.

Tuesday – headache all day. General feeling of malaise. Slammed at work, but determined to not work a 12 hour day again so I worked a typical day – 9-6. Felt marginally better at home when I was making dinner, but after dinner I sad down for bit and began to feel an overall ick. A little achy and shaky but not full-on FLU ick. WTF?

Wednesday morning – woke up with the headache, still have the ick. Stayed home with the intention of working just a little and then resting but, instead, I can’t catch a break and I’ve been working ALL DAMN DAY. At least I’m in my yoga pants, yo. (On a conference call as I type this).

Allergies are an issue, for sure. But this is MORE, and I’m pretty sure it’s stress.

So what’s the answer? I don’t know, but I think working more towards a healthy work/life balance is the best first step. I try to do this a lot but sometimes I execute it better than others. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a lot of control over it.

I can’t slack off on my job otherwise I’ll lose it. I can’t request to do the “mommy schedule” without it negatively impacting perception of my work ethic/goals. (I know this. Just trust me on this one. LAME.)

I’m the primary breadwinner at my house (my husband works freelance and is the primary at-home parent) but I have to be mommy too. I sacrifice going on the field trips, being room mom, working on most of the homework, etc., but I try to be there for them when they need me and I take time off as needed. But as my work demands it I’m there for them LESS than I wish I could be. Yesterday my little dude called me when he got home from school and asked if I was going to work late again. I hate that.

Guilt and stress? Check.

My husband put his arms around me this morning and said, “I just want you to be healthy.” Me too, dear, me too.

Does it come down to working less and possibly sacrificing the security of my job at the same time?  Is there a happy medium?  Sometimes I think I find it and then it all goes woefully wrong.

I’m trying to get my work/life balance figured out so that I don’t have more health issues. I’ve been putting off going to the doc knowing that I’ll have to face that reality of a few things I need to change or start on some meds. I started working-out this summer to get healthier – but with the increase in work that has fallen by the wayside as well.

Sometimes the idea of working on my health just seems like so much WORK and it’s easier to just push it to the back of my mind. Please tell me I’m not alone in this feeling.

The whirlwind of life at it’s finest.

So do you all have any bright insight into how to manage life and stress more effectively? I would love to hear it. What do you do to keep yourself healthy? How do you deal with stress?

Yours,

Stef

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The Daily Dichotomy

It’s a very strange, modern world we live in these days.

I was scrolling through my Twitter timeline early this morning and, as one does, absentmindedly noted the prevailing themes. They were:

  • Steve Jobs death & his legacy.
  • Politics – Obama’s pending press conference focused on the jobs bill (employment – not to be confused with Steve Jobs).
  • A little boy name Harry who has an inoperable brain tumor and is fighting for his life.  http://www.helpharryhelpothers.com/ What an angel.
  • Kim Kardashian’s wedding cake

Let me ask you – which one of these things do not belong?

I am all for reading some inspiring and light-hearted news on occasion to brighten my day, or my otherwise dreary news feed – but, honestly, who really gives a rat’s ass about Kim Kardashian’s wedding cake? That family is the pinnacle of all that is wrong in this overly materialistic and value-based-on-appearance society that we seem to find ourselves living in these days.

Some days I ignore it – that odd dichotomy we modern people tend to effortlessly follow, balancing the truly frivolous with the overwhelmingly important.

Other days, like today, the blatant frivolity – in the presence of pain and suffering and so much unmet need – is a slap in the face.

The worst things in my life today are:

1. My kids are out of school and I’m not home with them. I’m not making their meals, baking something special and pulling out the Fall/Halloween decor for them.

2. It’s dress-day numero dos at work this week and I’m wearing Spanx. I just can’t wait for the bathroom gymnastics THAT will entail.

3. There’s a little boy named Harry in the UK fighting for his life and his momma is sitting there begging for a miracle.

The best things in my life today are:

1. My husband is home with my children today. Even if I can’t be there, HE can be. I’m so thankful for that.

2. My home, and all that is in it. It has rained for the past 24 hours but I woke up warm and dry in my soft bed, my down comforter and my personal space heater, my husband, beside me. I had an early meeting from home (using my iPhone – thank you, Steve Jobs). Then I crawled back into my warm bed, in my warm home, with my husband and my two snuggle-bunnies. My two happy, healthy sons – bounding with the energy and excitement of a 4 day weekend and planning what fun they will have with their days.

3. There’s a little boy named Harry who decided to raise money for brain tumor research when he realized how sick he was and when he met another boy like him. He decided he wasn’t going to die without doing something first. Something that will help others. He makes my world a better place.

Kim Kardashian’s wedding cake can suck it.

Posted on by Wise Sass · 1 Comment

Eureka!

I’ve become obsessed with Eureka. If you don’t know, it’s a quirky SyFy show. It’s about a town of scientists and all the merry, entertaining things that can go wrong. And right.

I don’t actually watch the Syfy channel and I had never heard of this show until recently. On Twitter, in fact, when it got cancelled. Sad face.

So one day I was working late – my office was deserted and I was working through a backlog of reporting that required very little brain power – so I turned the first episode on my iPhone through Netflix streaming and gave it a try. Then I watched the next one. Then I went home and made my husband watch the next one.

And I was hooked.

So now I’m in Season 3. I love it. Give it a try, if you haven’t.

(WARNING:  beware of Season 3, Episode 4. I wasn’t prepared for that shocker. That’s the problem with watching old(er) shows – you don’t get the never-ending spoilers from commercials in-between shows.)

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I’m so ready for fall

Pumpkins. The color palette of red, yellow & orange as the backdrop of our days.

The falling leaves, and leaf piles for diving into and driving through.

Crispness in the air. Baked apple crisp. Wood-burning fireplace smoke.

Halloween. Decorating. Fun, themed festivities.

I took this picture yesterday evening. The colors are so gorgeous. It may have been 80 degrees at the time, but I  looked at this tree and I imagined Fall arriving and settling in all around me.

The tree is indicative of Summer at the top and Fall at the bottom; blue skies & greenery evolving to rich golds & reds. We’re in transition and so is this tree.

Pretty soon we’ll have to close our windows. We haven’t run the A/C in weeks. It’s been so nice. Such a confusing time of year for dressing. Hoodies or sweaters in the morning and shorts and t-shirts in the afternoon.

We need to start preparing for winter. We need to buy some firewood for our outdoor firepit and our indoor wood-burning stove. My car needs new tires so I’ll have good grip on the slippery, icy, snowy roads this winter.

We should pull out the winter coats and see who needs a new one.

Last Saturday was my birthday and every year it heralds the beginning of my favorite time of year.

My birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Love, merriment, gaiety, joy, thankfulness and gift-giving.

Yes.

Welcome to Fall.

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A dinner inspired by Feta

Have I mentioned that I love cheese? LOVE it.

Sometimes I want a certain kind of cheese and it inspires the entire meal. One night last week it was feta cheese.

I HEART FETA CHEESE.

I try to keep feta on-hand for feta emergencies. (What? It could totally happen.)

I like it plain. I like it in salads. I like it in pasta dishes. Now I even like it with sauteed chicken.

This is not my picture. I borrowed it. I promise I will give it back. Eventually.

Sometimes I buy it in blocks like this pic – often from the Ballard Cheese people (No, I don’t know them – I just love their cheese). Other times I just buy whatever is convenient – like the pre-crumbled Athenos brand that most grocery stores carry.

So last week I decided to make chicken with feta and basil from our garden. So stinkin’ simple.

Here’s the quick & dirty:

I simply sauteed frozen, unbreaded chicken tenders (we always keep a bag of  unbreaded chicken tenders in our freezer. They are much more versatile than frozen breasts!)  in butter & olive oil and added some garlic, salt & pepper, and minced up basil leaves.

I sauteed at medium heat with a covered lid – to keep it juicy – and then for the last 10 minutes or so left the lid off and added some Greek vinaigrette marinade/dressing to the pan. Once it was cooked I crumbled feta over the top and then put the lid back on and let it rest a bit while we finished the rest of the food prep.

My husband, Eric, has been on a white bean dip streak. He made hummus the previous week but felt the consistency was very thick and the garbanzo beans are harder to work through the food processor. This time he tried plain white beans called Cannellini beans. He mixed the beans, olive oil, minced garlic (real garlic cloves he cut up. Gotta keep fresh garlic on hand.), lemon juice and minced basil to a yummy deliciousness in the food processor. (Try to get most of the lumps out!) Eric thought the consistency was a little too runny, but I thought it was fine and the taste was fab.

Then he warmed some pita bread on the stove and cut it into triangles for dipping.

But we also wanted more. Just . . .  more.

And we realized that our little bubba, our pickiest eater, wouldn’t eat either of the things we made. So we whipped up a boxed Parmesan couscous. He loves couscous more than I can possibly explain to you and it couldn’t be easier to make. (Especially out of the box, but I’m sure on it’s own it would be just as delish and easy too. And maybe better than the boxed variety. Hmm, I should try that.)

Then we realized we had a baguette we needed to use. It was the crusty, thin kind – just the absolute best for making crostini. So I sliced a bunch of thin ovals and covered them with butter. Generally speaking, I like to use a spray bottle of olive oil for this purpose – but our bottle is on the fritz and, honestly, the butter gives a better flavor than the olive oil. Maybe the olive oil is better health-wise than the butter, but in flavor YOU CAN’T BEAT BUTTER. Then I arranged the bread rounds on a cookie sheet and threw them under the broiler until they were a golden brown.

Tastefully Simple Spinach & Herb Dip Mix

I had pulled out some cream cheese to soften so I just took this Spinach & Herb dip mix I had on hand and mixed a whole bunch of it into the cream cheese to top the Crostini.

NOTE:  In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I just signed up to be a consultant for Tastefully Simple  – where I got this Spinach & Herb dip mix – but I also want to be clear that I’ve been using this stuff for about a year so this is not a fly by night, promoting my new product, kind of thing. My bottle of the Spinach & Herb mix is almost empty due to repeated use. I use it in cream cheese for Crostini (as I’m discussing here), on/in scrambled eggs, in dip mixes with sour cream, or mayo and sour cream, or mayo and Greek plain yogurt, or in seasoning steamed, buttered veggies. It’s one of the more versatile seasonings in my spice cupboard.

Then I spread the spinach herb cream cheese mix on the golden brown Crostini and DONE. Incidentally, I also served this exact same Crostini as an appetizer for a dinner we hosted a couple weeks ago and everyone just loved it.

So here was the end result of our meal. In hindsight, a salad or some steamed zucchini or broccoli would have been fabulous to offset the starchiness –  but at the time we didn’t have those on hand.  It was soooooo good though. Yummy. I had never made chicken with feta before but I see us doing that again sometime soon.

Happy cooking!

Posted on by Wise Sass · 1 Comment

The Bloggess makes me pee my pants

Be forewarned: All the links contained in this post lead to a site that is rife with cussing, dark humor and lovely sarcastic wit.

I have a confession: I’m in love with The Bloggess.

No, I’m not in love love (I’m curious but not THAT curious) but I’m definitely into some hardcore admiration. She’s so delightfully witty and clever and random and oddball and naughty. Yes. All those things.

And she’s still called a mom blogger? She’s more of an antidote to the stereotypical mom blogger.  She is a mom, and she is a blogger, and I guess she does post some parenting type stuff . . . but I like it best when she’s just posting about random crap. Like giant metal chickens named Beyonce. HELLO.

I don’t want to turn this into a post about a blogger I’m jealous of because that’s NOT the case here. (I was, and am, jealous of Joni still – that girl has mad skills that I totally envy). But with The Bloggess I’m not jealous, per se. Or maybe jealous isn’t the right word. Admiration is all I can think of that fits. The girl’s got balls, man. Her mind twists and turns more than a corn maze.

Okay, I may be a tad bit jealous of her ability to turn a completely inane subject into something inexplicably, gut-wrenchingly, I’m-going-to-get-fired-for-laughing-too-much-at-my-desk-funny. Or maybe her ability to delight in and enlighten the masses on any morbid subject she has a fascination with and make it all seem palatable.

The Bloggess: “Well, now I’m all curious. I can’t smell my own eyeballs, dude. This exactly is why I got married.”

But really, most of all, I love the way she takes some random prose and slices and dices it to her bidding. The way she can say something so simple but so uber-effective. She’s succinct and goes straight for the jugular. She has a dry, sarcastic humor that really resonates with me.

Side note: My husband says my humor is really dry as well – which is why he gets mad at me sometimes and I have to yell, “DUDE I WAS KIDDING. HAVE YOU MET ME?”

So I read about Beyonce (the chicken, not the singer) a couple months ago and nearly had an asthma attack getting through the post. Later that night I read it out loud to my husband. I had to stop multiple times to take a breath, or potty break (and panty change), from all the laughing. He just looked at me like my my laughter was a foreign language. Though, at parts, he did smirk a little, but mostly he was like, “huh?”

The Bloggess: “Then I yelled through his door, “It’s an anniversary gift for you, a-hole.  Two whole weeks early.  15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS.””

I’ve been sharing more of her posts with him recently and I think he’s really starting to appreciate her humor. Like last week, for example, I sent him this little convo between The Bloggess and her husband, Victor.  He (my husband, not Victor) wrote me back fairly quickly (SEE? He actually read it without me having to nag – that’s something right there.) and his response was, “oh dear god.”

So I totally think he’s getting it.

Then when I got home he leaned in and sniffed my eyeballs. He determined they were odorless. That’s a win for me on both counts.

I think we all work a lot and life is hard and if The Bloggess can write about random crap and make me laugh then I’ll take it. Levity? Yes, please.

But, deeper than the humor, she reflects a relationship with her husband that I think a lot of wives (and husbands, judging by the comments) can really understand. Marriage is really freaking hard sometimes and spouses are not meant to be clones of each other. Two people, one mind? No, thank you.

I like my husband the best when he’s doing something I can’t do. I also like it a lot when he admires a trait I have that he doesn’t. The Bloggess’s husband is the straight man to her schtick.  I counter-balance my husband’s act all the time – HELLO, he’s an actor – but at home we can switch those roles pretty easily. Being able to counter-balance each other is what makes it all work together.

Excerpt from The Bloggess:

Victor:  What?  I’ve never wanted a monkey.

EVERYONE WANTS A MONKEY.

Victor:  Not me.

 Well…that’s what’s wrong with you.

Victor:  I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU PAID $7 FOR THAT.

 I KNOW, RIGHT?!

(We were both yelling, but for two entirely different reasons.)

If you’ve never read The Bloggess I would start with Beyonce. Then go change your pants and come back and read some more. You won’t believe it until you read it.

Oh, and this:

IS GENIUS.

-Stef