A Pictorial - 2011

Baby Boy Dancing in his Kilt at the Highland Games

Baby Girl Dancing to Albannach

Little Drummer getting down with his bad self

Is it fall or still summer?

October Evening at Buckhorn Lake

Valley View Ferry, Madison County Side

Madison County Morning Mist

My Star Wars Bobblehead Collection - Photoshopped

The Crazy New Birthday Puupy

Crazy Older Christmas Puppy

The Old Man of the House

Evil Kitty

Teach a boy to cook and he might make some lucky girl a great husband

I am the cooking merit badge counselor for my son's Boy Scout Troop.  While you might wonder what a Boy Scout needs to know about cooking other than how to start a fire and cook a hot dog, think about the number one advice women have for their single guy friends - cook her a meal.  Every man should have two or three go-to meals he can cook to impress.  This does not include ramen noodles unless he has some twist where he seasons it with fish sauce and seaweed, adds some veggies and shrimp or prawns and pairs it with a light and airy white wine. 

Outside of being able to impress a girl and catch himself a worthy woman, a boy should want to be able to feed himself something edible and not just utilitarian.  I have never believed in the old adage of eating to live and not living to eat.  Food is fundamental to our happiness...our evolution...our desire to live.  Food brings people together.  Food gives the most tame of us a medium in which to be creative and exciting.  Food facilitates communication.  Food, in and of itself, is not evil.  Do not blame the food, blame the bad eaters.  It's not the food that kills you.  It's the over eating.  It's the lack of balance.  It's the dearth of appreciation for complex and robust flavors.

Teach your son to enjoy the texture and richness of whole wheat bread and why would he ever turn to plain, tasteless white bread?  (Unless he's eating a BLT or a cucumber sandwich.)  Teach him to season his food with a modicum of salt, herbs, spices, etc. and he won't feel compelled to salt a wonderful, brie-stuffed hamburger before even tasting it and raising the ire of his wife who had presented the meal with a great deal of pride.  (It still gets under my skin every time he picks up a salt shaker.)  Teach him to understand the science of cooking and maybe he'll surprise his wife by cooking her a meal instead of always asking what she will cook in between working, cleaning, running around, and going to school.  - Not that this is ever done to me.

And so, I have been teaching my son (and my daughter) to appreciate their food since they were little bitty bugs.  They have always eaten and enjoyed their vegetables, grains, meats, fruits, etc.  My son used to ask me at every meal what his broccoli would do for him.  Or his milk.  Or his grilled chicken.  He knows protein helps his muscles grow and keeps his energy up.  He is aware that his milk makes his bones strong and his smile beautiful.  He loves that his whole wheat bread helps him poop.

In the last few months, he has entered into the realm of learning to cook.  On Mardi Gras, to fulfill his requirement 7d for his Cooking Merit Badge and to get a chance to play with knives and fire (another good reason to learn how to cook), he and I made a chicken and andouille etoufee from scratch.  I think he enjoys eating it even more because of his pride in his accomplishment.  And, I kow some lucky girl will get a great husband...in thirty years or so.

Here he is demonstrating his mad knife skills

And playing with his chicken

Learning his weights and measures

Stirring his roux - yes, he's making a roux

Cutting his butter for the browning of the chicken

And, the browning of the chicken

His etoufee pre-chicken and andouille

Our dinner spread

DINNER!

Money and Emotion

I am an accountant.  I know how to budget.  I know how to manipulate the numbers until the situation looks decent if not great.  But, no matter what I know, no matter how I plan, my numbers acumen does not parlay into control of my finances. 

Every once in a while I get bored at work and start playing around, creating budgets on Excel.  Each time it excites and depresses me.  I am excited to see that I can save money.  That it is still possible.  But I am so depressed at the state I have allowed to get myself to.  I will be forty in four years and I have no savings.  I do not own a house.  My first child will be going to school in a couple of years and I have no idea how I will pay for it.  I have no security. 

Now, I am faced with having to buy a new car after mine was totalled in an accident.  I still owe $1,000 after the insurance payment.  My husband and I have been driving to work together for the last week in a attempt to save up a down payment, but that vehicle has stopped running.  Something about the neutral safety switch not working.  I applied fo ra loan with my credit union and am awaiting the decision.  I have only a niggling doubt htat it will be declined, but I am certain the interest rate will be exorbitant.  My credit rating is not great.  Not because I pay late or default.  But because my debt-to-income ratio is way too high. 

So, I have my new plan for the year.  It makes Greece and Italy's austerity measures look like a spending spree.  It's a good plan.  The question is whether I'll be able to stick to it.  My husband is no help.  Although he doesn't really spend our household money without checking with me first (he has an allowance for personal expenses), I don't often say no.  And when I start thinking about going out to eat or going on a small trip, I get no objections from him.  Neither one of us works well as a deterrent to excessive spending.

Even worse, I hate feeling so constricted.  And I have become adept at swiftly and subconsciously pushing aside the nay-saying voices in my head.  In fact, it is entirely possible that those voices are indeed mute.  And I am blind to their sign language.  When I want to buy something, I don't take the time to think about it unless the price is so high even I can't ignore the expense.  But, all those $50 dinners and $30 store purchases and $3 iTunes buys add up quickly. 

I have my plan.  My resolution this year is to control myself.  Stick to my budget.  Remember I have one.  Dig my family and myself out of this hole.

The Perpetual NonRunner is Going to Run a 5K

I have spent a great portion of my life avoiding this very simple exercise.  It was my dad's drug of choice when PT time came around and he needed to drop weight.  There's even a picture of him running from a local newspaper back when I was itty bitty.  It's never really appealled to me, though.  That doesn't mean I shun all exercise.  I like to swim, hike, play sports, etc.  But I really did not like running.  I could blame it on my asthma, but that's not the real reason.  I didn't like to run in PE class when I was a kid and my asthma was never an issue.  Even if I did use it as an excuse to get out of running for class.  Hey!  I had the inhaler.  I only used it a couple of times a year, but the teacher didn't know that.  And, to soothe the sensibilities of any I have offended by using it as an excuse, karma has kicked my ass.  My asthma now is pretty bad.  I probably should go to the doctor to get more than a rescue inhaler, but that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. To be absolutely honest, I don't know why I don't like running.  Maybe it's that I've never needed to be anywhere fast enough a walk wasn't sufficient or late enough a car wasn't needed.  So, what was the point.  Get sweaty to run in a circle?  Stir up my asthma just to get back to where I was quickly?  I could exercise in other ways.

Only, I haven't been lately.  Exercising that is.  And it's showing.  So, I decided to run.  Now, because I have such a an aversion to running for no reason, I was forced to find a reason.  After pouring over the possibilities, I ruled out a few.  For one, I'd rather not have to run for my life because a pack of wild dogs is chasing me due to the tantalizing aroma of raw, bloody meat tied to my ankles.  Nor do I want to run in order to catch the ever present carrot on a stick.  I mean seriously.  I'm a little too evolved not to untie the carrot from the stick if I want it that badly.  There was a thought that I could run to catch my son before he fell over a cliff's edge, but since I can't guarantee I'll be fast enough to grab him in time, that one was nixed.  So, I decided to find a 5K.  I know what you're thinking.  That's still running to get from one point to another for no reason.  Aha!  You are correct!  Unless I find a 5K that would allow me to raise funds for a worthy cause.  Since I was not able to find a 5K to benefit lung disease research (which would be so apropos and fitting for my maternal grandparents), I chose to go with one that honored my paternal grandmother.  I am running in the Lexington, Ky Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  So, in approximately nine weeks, my expansive rear will have to run over 3 miles. 

I have decided to not entirely disgrace myself.  As a result, i have been training.  I chose the Couch to 5K, also known as C25K, program that's all over the web.  For the time being I am running on a treadmill.  The plan is to get my lungs and legs into some kind of shape in 9 weeks.  I am on week 4, so I have another 5 to go.  And then I take it out to the street.  To prepare me for the street, I also walk at lunch time.  Since I work right down the street from where the race will start, my feet are getting familiar with the terrain over which I will be running.  Right not, I'm still at 2 miles in 30 minutes.  Yes, it's slow.  But today, I ran 16 minutes. That's a big deal for me.  So, I am progressing.  And best of all, I have kept it up for 5 weeks (I had to repeat a week because I wasn't quite ready to run for 5 minutes straight).  I am on my way to making this a habit.  Of course, I may have to resort to tying meat to my ankles so I have a reason to keep running after the race.

Now, for my shameless plug.  It's is all for a good cause.  Anybody that would like to sponsor my team, Hobbit Feet Running, please click this link.  Give me a great reason to keep on running and help save some boobies and lives at the same time.  Click on "Find a Participant to Sponsor" and search for our team.
Thanks for your help in my continuing journey in a circle.
Susan G Komen Lexington Race for the Cure

The Food I Eat

I love to eat.  I love to cook.  I love to eat the food I cook.  I love to eat the food other people cook.  And, I often take pictures of that food.  I thought I'd put some of those pictures here in one blog.

St. Patrick's Day Breakfast

Pasta with Chicken and Baked Potato and Salad

Hugh Jass #4

Stuffed Peppers and Roasted Cabbage

Jambalaya

I Been Robbed

What does one do when some of the very things that helped to define her as unique became so mainstream that they're no longer weird or geeky?  Do you insist to new friends that you liked this stuff way back before it was cool and in fact caused you to be labelled "geek" or "nerd" by your own family?  Do you find new interests - casually discarding those very things you loved and you stood by for years even though they subjected you to social pariahism?  Or do you embrace what mainstream culture can do for your favorite genre and ride the wave until this all becomes uncool again?

I remember in second grade meeting a young man named Greg in the Gifted and Talented class at my elementary school in Okinawa.  While Greg was a typical mean seven year old, in my secret thoughts, Greg was supremely awesome!  This was due to the fact that Greg played Dungeons and Dragons.  This early exposure to the penultimate role-playing game only served to shape the coming years.  While I was never able to convince Greg to let me play with him nor anyone else, I had been bitten by the bug of alternate realities, expanding creative horizons, fantastical beasties, and magic.  Almost thirty years later and this love has only expanded, although I still have never found anyone to play D&D with.

For this love I endured years of name calling by my siblings, acceptance but lack of complete understanding by my family, and difficulty making friends that understood me compounded by the fact I never lived anywhere long enough to find those with interests similar to mine coupled with a desire to fit in quickly since I would be gone soon anyway.  There were positives such as developing a love for the slightly off beat.  When you have to search a bookstore for the fantasy section and ultimately find it in some darkened corner tucked away so we weirdos will not offend the "normal" clientele, you learn to love being the skeleton in the closet.  The secret being that there were obviously enough of us that loved these books and spent real money on them that there were sections devoted to our beloved genre and we were not lumped in with fiction.

It also taught me to love who I was and that the opinions of people I don't know don't matter and that of those I love should only matter as far as it affects them.  And my love of sci-fi did not affect them.  I learned to appreciate my perceived quirkiness.

What a great many people do not realize is that some very highly intelligent people write in this genre.  There's a reason the genre has always been associated with science geeks.  It expands the realm of accepted reality.  It teaches you to think outside the box.  It introduces young minds to concepts that are difficult to explain in real world terms, but make total sense in the world of Isaac Asimov or Orson Scott Card or...  These authors never told you what to think.  They simply told you to think.  Think about the possibilities.  Accept the impossible and decide on your own what you will believe.

The Next Generation

With all these positive points, the social stigma has always in the past crippled those of us who wish to shout aloud our preference for these other world.  We were labeled Trekkies, or comic book geeks, or those weirdos that like to dress up.  Combine this stigma with the social retardation experienced by a young girl who was not given the opportunity to find like-minded individuals in a pre-internet era and you get my childhood.  Alone even within a family of five.  Loved, but with no one to share my dismay over the death of Superman or with whom to discuss the possibility of time travel and whether or not it has been done before in the manner presented in Pastwatch.  As a result, I became proud of my differences.  I chose to revel in them and use them to explain away beliefs that my siblings thought odd.  As a an adult, after learning my lesson with the first husband (a young and foolish transgression) I decided to wait for companionship until I was able to find a man who could at the very least appreciate my nerdiness if not completely immerse himself within it.  In the meantime, I taught my children to love fairies and dragons.  I taught them to read as much as they could of whatever they wanted (it took a while as neither has been the voracious reader I was in my youth, but we're slowly getting there).  I taught them to embrace their own weirdness - whatever it may be - and to shout it out to the world in defiance of established social mores.

But now, in thanks to the likes of J.K Rowling, who I cannot lambast no matter how mainstream she has made wizards, Peter Jackson, who I have to adore, Stephanie Meyer, and George Lucas, who really never should have made the SW I-III as he had fallen too much in love with enhanced special effects and lost sight of the effectiveness of good writing, my beloved genre has become mainstream.  The very thing that made me different and  I believe led to me finding the love of my life, has been co-opted by the children of the John Hughes generation and, as a result, embraced by those same people who used to shun us "weirdos".

How do I feel about this?  In some ways, it's nice to see what happens when funds are released by those with the wherewithal to create or distribute the movies, television shows, comic books, novels, and sundry accessories that help to define what we're all about.  We get some mind-bending results as Inception jaw dropping spectacles like LOR.   The drawback to all this money is a loss in the ideals and inherent principles of the genre.  Now creators, especially of the movies, must produce results that have mass appeal.  It must draw in the crowds.  It must fly off the shelves.  Drastically reduced is the culture that encouraged cult classics like Rocky Horror Picture Show, Star Trek before the Next Generation, Clash of the Titans before remakes.  And the remakes.  THey may be technologically better, but they will never compare to the originals.  The cheese factor aside, these were the stories that boldly went where no man had been before.

And finally, I have been robbed.  It is now cool to like wizards and witches.  It is now cool to believe in alternate realities.  TV shows are made about loveable nerds and they do well (Big Bang Theory).  I and my ilk are accepted because of our quirkiness.  The things that made me interesting have been usurped and turned into fodder for the masses.  My sci-fi section at the bookstore has expanded and spilled over into the bodice-ripper genre (of which I have also been a fan since teenage-hood and I also blame for this turn of events as the heroines have been traveling in time for at least 15 years).  There is actually a teen paranormal genre now.  It all just seems to be the paint thinner that sloughs away the gild from the lily.  I only hope to  retain my membership in the world of the offbeat and ride the train of expanded possibilities now available until we nerds are able to take it back, along with the worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, DC, Marvel, Asimov...

Spring arrives

Forsythia

I had the camera out today and decided to take some
 pictures around the yard of signs of spring.

Lilac

Burning Bush

Just about everything has started to bud.

My babies and what a great stepdaddy can do

I have two beautiful, wonderful, amazing children.  My darling daughter, Jessica, is newly 16.  And my precocious son, Liam, is 10.  I have been divorced from their father for 8 years now.  The marriage was not a good one.  And while I will be the first to say that most marriages probably end with no one person at fault, I don't think that was the case in mine.  I don't say this because I think I am perfect.  But, I tried.  I tried so very hard to make it better.  I simply made a bad choice at the tender age of 19 and had to pay for it.  I stayed for two main reasons - I have a very strong aversion to admitting to failure and I knew divorce would mean giving my kids to a man who had done nothing to deserve them every other weekend.  As it was, he was never around.  He spent every free moment at some friends' houses drinking or smoking pot.  He was an alcoholic and a pot head.  Now, I am not a saint.  I have drank before.  I rarely did while I was married to him, but there were times I indulged.  I have no problem with drinking - in moderation.  But the idiot to which I was married had been charged with multiple DUI's and had an extreme lack of self regulation when it came to drinking.  As far as the pot goes, I've never done it.  Never saw the need.  Never was offered.  Never wanted to.  Add to that, it's illegal and it's the reason he was kicked from the Marine Corps whilst I was 7 months pregnant, and I had very little reason to believe it was a substance he needed to use.  He knew my thoughts on all this before we married and lied to me.  He covered things up and hid them from me.  My babies and I were never his first thought.  Every evening after work was spent watching tv and telling the kids to "go bother your mother" or staying "late at work" smoking a joint.  Weekends, the kiddos and I spent with my parents or my sister.  So, see.  He had very little interaction with the kids while we were married.  But, when it all finally came to a head and he found a woman that would allow him to drink and smoke at home, divorce was inevitable.  And now, I had to deal with a fool that wanted his kids only because of how he would look to others if he didn't take them.  And to take some control from me.

With a dad like that, the kiddos could have become little hellions.  Hateful little snots who he turned against me with his vitriol of abuse spewed to them but never to me since he is a coward.  But, no.  My babies are grounded.  They love me as deeply as I love them.  They know I will not lie to them as their father has.  I didn't tell them he was lying.  They learned it through his actions.  They trust me.  And so, when I met and married the love of my life, they accepted him and have learned to love him as well.  Now they have a stepdaddy that thinks of them before himself.  A stepdaddy that wants them to be happy and healthy and most of all good.  A stepdaddy that has shown my baby girl what a good father is like and my munchkin boy what a good man does.  I want to thank the universe in its inevitable wisdom for bringing me this man who accepts me and my screwiness and loves our babies as if they had always been his.  My Michael.  My Husband.

The NCAA Championship to a non follower in Bleed Blue Nation

The NCAA tournament started yesterday, which brought about the inevitable office pools and bracketology.  It is of course a full time job here in Wildcat Country where if you don't bleed blue, then you must be a traitor from Da 'Ville.  I am neither, but that is hard for many to understand.  Oh, I have a soft spot for UK.  It was almost my Alma mater and I love Kentucky.  But, I do not follow the team - basketball or football - during the regular season.  And when I have something better to do, I do not sit glued to my TV watching the silly team almost lose the game before finally winning or losing spectacularly.  And it seems that no matter who the coach, that is what the Wildcats do.  I have seen games coached by Pitino, Tubby, the most recent disappointment Billy, and now Coach Cal.  No matter who it is, if you watch, the game will send you into fits of apoplexy.  While I enjoy the games when I watch them, I do not follow them.  I do not paint my naked body blue and run around screaming C-A-T-S!  And I do not put them on my bracket as the winners of the NCAA championship unless the coin tells me to.  That's right, I said the coin.  Whilst the inevitable bracket is passed out each March, I am patiently flipping a coin to determine who will win each game.  I have found that the coin is as accurate a predictor as the most avid basketball follower.  This year, the coin predicted the triumph of Morehead (another KY team) over Louisville.  I see this as proof that the universe has a sense of humor and all we lonely earthlings can do is laugh along.

Green Eggs and Ham

I had some great green eggs and ham for brunch today.  My first thought when I saw this on the menu at Doodles was "Basil in eggs?  Doesn't usually work, but what the hell."  And, it did in this dish in the form of pesto.  Add a little spinach and mozzarella and the eggs were the best scrambled eggs I've ever had at a restaurant.  It helped that they were moist and flavorful.  Not dry like I usually get them when eating out. 
And the ham!  I have eaten many a slices of country ham.  (For those who don't know, country ham is what we call the salt cured ham that is offered as an alternative to that sweet city ham junk.) I love the stuff.  I have it every Thanksgiving and Christmas and eat it for months after.  But, what I have had in the past was thickly sliced.  It was the only way I thought you could slice country ham.   This ham was sliced so thin it was like picking it up at a deli and it changed the taste and texture of the ham in such an amazing way.  It nearly melted in my mouth.  Slicing it so thinly seemed to dilute some of the saltiness without taking away the wonderful flavors of country ham.
Finally, the biscuits.  Every time I eat at Doodles, I get the biscuits.  They ask if I want toast or biscuits and I never hesitate.  I don't even want to try the toast.  Those biscuits crumble while melting.  They quench my thirst instead of giving me dry mouth.  Slather some of the local blackberry jam on the biscuit and you experience heaven. 
To top it all off, I washed my wonderful brunch down with my very first bellini.  This meal was so much of enough, I haven't eaten anything else for fear I might erase the flavors from my memory.