Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

Thanksgiving Point has Family Night activities every Monday night. This week the Gardens did a Pirate night, and given Ryan's current obsession, we thought it was a great idea to go. They're allowing picnics for their FHE activities, so I packed a dinner of curried chicken salad sandwiches, Sun Chips, watermelon, cantaloupe, and lemonade. It was so refreshing, and we ate in the shade in a little bend of the stream.

Immediately after, Ryan wanted to get started. You can see the pirate boats they constructed. You could throw soaked sponges at the other ship or try to attack other pirates with water pistols. With the amazing heat, it felt really good, and it was Ryan's favorite part by far. By the look on my face, I apparently got into it a little too much!
They had storytelling, mapmaking (complete with a little gold coin), and a range of birds. We got to pet one, and then we just admired the blue macaw, the peregrine falcon, and the golden eagle below.

Afterward, they gave us popsicles! Arrh, what a fun evening!

First harvest

Well, here are the first fruits (or vegetables) of my labor. Now, those of you who garden already know there is a problem with this story. I should have pulled my radishes three weeks ago (or more), and you could tell. As my dad put it, there was a lot of texture to them . . . And I should have left a lot more room between the seedlings because a lot of them were way too skinny to be any good.

However, I'm still pleased. They looked and smelled like radishes. :D And next year, I know what to do to make them actually edible.

I'm grateful for . . .

S'mores made with Nutella (yum!). Sofia's dandelion-leaf goatee. Warming up around hot coals under the stars. Ryan telling me that I'm his best friend! Ryan and Sofia loving and playing with their cousins. Hiking, no matter how brief the trip. Flavored honey from the Trappist monastery. Having a good backbone, breastbone, and funny bone. Nate the Great. Reading books with the kids. Sofia happy that she can finally crawl. Corn on the cob. Anything Nate barbecues. Friends who let me be myself without having to worry about causing permanent damage if I screw up. Ryan singing the pirate song (Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!). The Utah Shakespeare Festival (we're going in less than a week :D). Getting to see where Nate works (and seeing stuff he's never seen). Ryan's IMFT badge. Snow cones on superhot days. Finding one raspberry alive! Satchmo. Having Mike and Megan over for dinner and entertaining discussion. Being able to keep to a budget. Being the Laurel advisor. Preparing lessons that help me at least as much as they help the girls. Bike rides that are starting to get easier.

Happy Father's Day!

I just wanted to give Nate a public shoutout for being such a great dad! Here are some of the reasons that you are so wonderful:

• You're willing to get up at 3 a.m. to get Ryan some ice.
• You sing Bulgarian lullabies to the kids when they're sad.
• You can always make Ryan laugh, even when he's crying.
• You cleaned Ryan up the night he threw up all over the place.
• You are the king of the BBQ and breakfast grill.
• You do the dishes!
• You're patient with me, even when I'm being difficult.
• You're willing to help me, my family, and your family, even when you're feeling miserable.
• You are able to find the best in a situation, no matter how bad.
• You love us!!

Thanks for being my best friend . . . Our children are so lucky to have you as a dad!

Lemon-Lovers' Ricotta Pancakes

I found this recipe in the Herald before Mother's Day. We have made it a couple of times since then. They have great lemon flavor and are light and tender. However, I have found that we had to turn the heat up a little bit and cook them slightly longer on our oven. Experiment with it a little bit.

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1 large egg
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tsp. (or more) grated lemon zest
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. canola oil (divided)

Preheat the oven to 200 F.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, and 1 tablespoon oil. Using a rubber spatula or wooden sppon, fold this mixture into the dry ingredients to make a thick batter.

Brush a nonstick skillet with 1/2-teaspoon oil, then heat over medium-low. With a 1/4-cup measure, droop the batter onto the skillet, spreading it slightly. Multiple pancakes may be cooked at once. Cook the pancakes until browned on the underside and beginning to set, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook until browned on the second side and cooked at the center, about 2 minutes longer.

Transfer the cooked pancakes to a baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm. Brush the skillet with the remaining oil and repeat with the remaining batter.

Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling. --James E. Starrs

I love biking. Especially when I was in junior high and high school, I rode my bike everywhere. I started up again when we moved back to Utah a couple of years ago, buying a bike trailer to carry Ryan around in. I rode quite a lot last year until pregnancy really slowed me down in July. However, I've started biking again this year, and I'm in heaven!

I've decided to ride my bike as much as possible as long as I'm running errands, etc., around Provo and Orem. Between the health benefits, saving a lot on gas, and helping out the environment, I'm one happy camper. (Now that Sofia is getting used to the trailer--and a helmet twice as big as her head--the kids are enjoying it too!)

I don't mind that things take a little longer because it means that I have to plan when and where I go and I enjoy the chance to think. However, I am finding that, especially with an extra passenger in the trailer, I'm running out of cargo room. Plus I can't put too much weight in it for fear of having the bottom drop out (although you'd be surprised how much the little thing can carry).

Anyway, to make my bicycle truly capable of carrying everything that I need it to, I am going to extend it with an xtracycle attachment (see the picture above). The basic unit comes with a board that can support up to 200 pounds (which means carrying not just children, but adults as well) and bags that attach to it. Eventually, I will also get platforms to support wider loads (like multiple Costco boxes). And when Ryan is too tall for the trailer (at the rate he's growing, that will be next year), he can sit on the platform behind me.

I'm still saving up, but I'm getting really excited! I can't wait have my own Sport Utility Bicycle (as they say).

The ideal pet?

Nate finally went to go see an allergist a week ago, and he found out that he's allergic to everything (well, except cedar). He's not as allergic to cats as he is to dogs, and he's nowhere near as allergic to dogs as he is to horses (sorry, kids, no pony!). So when the cats shuffle off this mortal coil, we won't be getting any more furries.

That's got me thinking about what we might get later. I love the idea of the kids having a pet because it teaches them to treat animals well and to take an interest in something outside of themselves. (As they get older, they might even learn a bit of responsibility.)

My aunt and uncle have 3 desert tortoises in their back yard. Every time we go visit them, Ryan gets really excited about feeding them. They're low maintenance; they eat the grass in the back yard (and sometimes a little zucchini or lettuce that Ted and Arlene leave out), they hibernate for six months of the year, they don't need to be cleaned, etc. However, they live in Las Vegas. It might be a little more complicated here because you have to prepare a place for them to hibernate (like a box in the basement). . . .

Hopefully, we'll have plenty of time to figure out our next pet, but I'd love to hear if anyone has a great non-furry pet idea. :D

Microlending

When I was at BYU, I remember hearing about microlending revolutionizing the way we help people. The basic principle is giving small loans to individuals or small groups to help them establish or further their businesses by buying essential equipment (e.g., sewing machine or fridge) or inventory. Warren introduced me to Kiva.org, which accepts $25 donations. When the loans are paid back, donors can choose to either withdraw their money or reloan it to someone else. I like that they provide profiles of the people and their businesses, so you can choose a specific person to support.


Another organization that I really like is Heifer International (heifer.org), which allows you to purchase an animal or a share of an animal to give to a family in a developing country to help feed them and provide them a way to support their income (selling eggs, milk, etc.). The recipients also agree to share young with those in need to pay it forward.

I like that these organizations fill a real need while empowering those who are being helped to in turn help others. :D

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

This is Michael Pollan's whole argument from In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto condensed into 8 words. This is one of those books that has made me think a lot. In the book, he shows how the way humans eat has dramatically shifted in the last 150 years, but especially in the last 30+, although it has not made us healthier. Those who eat a Western diet, high in shelf-stable, processed, and convenience food, are getting sicker and sicker; we have seen a sharp increase in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, called Western diseases because they are rarely present in cultures that follow traditional diets.

He establishes what we know about our current diet: we have moved from whole grains to highly refined ones (which we're now finding out is detrimental to our health), from a complex diet and a complex way of caring for the soil to a diet mostly based on corn and soy and treating soils with fix-all fertilizers, from producing quality food to producing lower quality in great abundance, and from eating based on culture to eating based on science (in which scientists spend their time trying to isolate the benefits of individual compounds when foods are generally greater than the sum of their parts).

He also corrective steps that we can take; I'll just include a few, so as not to completely bore you.

• Don't eat anything that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food (no imitations or food products with unfamiliar and unpronounceable ingredients or high-fructose corn syrup).
• Avoid food products that make health claims (if they have to tell you it's good for you, it's probably not; there is no magic bullet for health).
• Shop mostly the peripheries of the supermarket (where you'll find dairy, meat, fresh produce) and stay out of the middle as much as possible (where you'll find highly refined and processed foods). However, the middle does provide beans, rice, spices, etc. So I won't completely avoid it. :D
  
• Get out of the supermarket when possible (farmers markets and individual growers are often more committed to producing high quality foods that are more nutritious and using healthy soils). If you have room, buy a freezer to preserve more from these sources and from those who sell pasture-fed meats (animals fed on a mostly corn/grain diet will not be as nutritious for you as those who have eaten grasses).
• Wild foods are good for you. These animals and plants have had to fend for themselves, so they have more antioxidants and other good compounds in them.
• Eat meals (instead of constant snacks), eat with other people, try to eat at a table, take your time eating. All of these foster us listening to our body, so we stop eating when full or close to full instead of just eating until the package is gone.
• Pay more for your food, and eat less of it (but eat more plants, especially leaves). To eat food from farmers markets, etc., is more expensive, but the food is more nutritious. Those who typically eat a Western diet are overfed but undernourished.
• Spend time in the kitchen and the garden, if possible. Taking more time to prepare food means that more is made using whole ingredients instead of convenience foods. Gardening gives you some control over the quality of your food or at least a greater appreciation for what some foods might be like.

I can't go into all his arguments here--but I highly recommend the book.

Note: After a day of watching what I am eating, I am realizing that this will be a lot harder than I thought. . . . But I figure I can try to do a little here or there and keep working at it: planting a garden, going to farmers markets more often, trying to buy less processed food, and cooking from scratch more.

"Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise." --Michael P. Garafalo

So I've been working on the garden for the last month, and I am trying to let my few triumphs outweigh my larger failures. I am terrible with plants and kill things with regularity, and so far the tally is not in my favor. Despite my best efforts, I killed all the raspberries and boysenberries and mint (I'll have to try replanting them next year, but as someone said, every time one of my plants dies, I die a little inside too), but I have managed to keep the tomatoes and pepper plants alive and got radishes, squash, and zucchini to sprout.

I'm having a hard time because there are so many unknown variables, and I really don't know what I am doing. Honestly, the unpredictability is killing me. They say that anticipation is one of the best rewards of a garden. I'm merely hoping that this year I can eat something from the garden that tastes approximately like a vegetable.

As I've read about gardening, some people wax rapturously about the serenity, the glory of it. I keep tiptoeing around trying not to crush what might be a seedling (or possibly a weed--I'm still working on figuring it all out; and yes, next year I'll make visible hills and label them, so I actually can figure out where I've planted things). However, some have also written that gardens bestow humility, that they can be unpredictable. The variables are killing me, but I think it's really valuable for me to learn to let go some, to try something that I don't feel comfortable with and learn as much as I can this year so I can try it again next year.

Some day I hope to feel like Douglas William Jerrold, who said "Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest." Until then, I'm hoping for patience with both the garden and myself and maybe a little unexpected joy when I finally get to eat something out of it!

If it's too loud, you're too old.

I saw this strip on Saturday, and I couldn't stop laughing. I know I'm turning 30 this year, but I didn't think that I'd already crossed the generational divide! Thankfully, I can still blame Sofia for having to get up in the middle of the night, but there are too many times lately where I'll wake up and then can't get back to sleep . . . or can't go to sleep to begin with.

Sad thing is my brother is only four years younger than I am, but he's not on the same side of the divide. (Of course, he'd say that is blatantly obvious from my resistance to new technology too--I have yet to use an iPod, and I don't even have a texting plan!)