rantings.....

Trade Day, How I Love You

2010-12-01T09:10:00.004-06:00

Cars line the roads as far as you can see in any direction. Vendors begin setting up long before sunrise (so they can sit and watch the crowds while they hold their double barrell shotguns; see above photo). You can smell the livestock area from the street. Oh, Collinsville Trade Day. An event that Mark and his family have been going to since he was a kid. I was initiated long ago, but with this last visit, I just had to share. Should you ever find yourself in Collinsville, Alabama on a Saturday morning, c'mon by. Here are just a smattering of the treasures you can find:

A man named Daryl (I know that's his name because it was airbrushed on his shirt)
A Peacock (that I was told "needed me as much as I needed him")
A Horse with blue eyes
1 million roosters
Used makeup
Opened pill bottles and boxes
22-caliber rifle
Children selling puppies out of a fish tank
Army camo gortex jackets
A baby pig the size of a wallet
Tomatillos
Justin Bieber tshirt
Diamond Alabama earrings
Corndogs dipped in mustard
Turquoise snakeskin cowboy boots
Cajun boiled peanuts
A sign advertising creamed oppossum
A billy goat
A reindeer made out of firewood
A Bootleg copy of Jillian Michaels work out video
People lighting their cigarettes from a burn barrell
Funeral flower arrangements
Pleather Auburn purses
A house flag with a giant picture of Bear Bryant's hat

Brussels?

2010-01-18T07:59:00.002-06:00

This (last) week: Pan-Seared Tilapia with Citrus Vinaigrette, Almond Couscous, and Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Delish! Fish was great (Mark even cleaned his plate, which NEVER happens with fish. He's usually taking too long to uber-chew every little bite to ensure that he doesn't swallow a bone.) Found the key to the best Brussels sprouts ever...way more olive oil than I had been using. They were great. Also just found out that they are "Brussels sprouts" rather than "brussel spouts"...who knew? First time for pan-roasting nuts, too, and Rachael Ray is right! Your nose DOES let you know when they're done!

Triple Play

2010-01-09T08:35:00.003-06:00

This week's new recipe(s): Potage Parmentier, Mini Hamburger Sliders, and Cuban Braised Beef with Peppers

A week full of new firsts...the year's first snow in Nashville, 3 recipes tried for the first time, and the first Alabama National Championship of my fan-hood. After watching Julie & Julia (which my husband surprisingly liked), I made Potage Parmentier (leek and potato soup; thanks, Andrea!) in honor of Julia Child (NOT Julie Powell) with French bread, a Romaine salad, and Chardonnay. I've decided that, for the new year, I would like to try to be more like Julia Child and less like Julie Powell (watch the movie and you'll see why; Julia is much more likeable). Oh-and we're just talking atittude-wise, not cooking-wise! The soup was simple and delicious. For the Alabama-Texas game, my husband insisted we eat some type of cow (to push the Tide toward beating the Longhorns), so we made my mom's recipe for White Castle sliders. Mark bought 80-20 ground beef, thinking that it would be better for burgers. He's right, but not if the meat is being cooked on a cookie sheet. Let's just say that there was a lot of grease-blotting after the meat came out of the oven! Next time we'll go leaner. But they were fantastic, and the whole lot of them were gone in a flash, despite us throwing away some of the beef because we just couldn't imagine how all of those sliders would get eaten. And lastly, while the snow fell, my lovely crockpot cooked braised beef for me. It was delicious!!!! Once again, the crockpot reigns supreme. Shredded lean beef in a sauce of red peppers, diced tomatoes, and spices, served over white rice with fresh cilantro and avocado slices (which really made the dish for me). And it was so pretty that I couldn't help taking a picture, which Mark laughed at for a good 10 minutes. Will definitely be enlisting my crock again for this one! Let It Snow, and ROLL TIDE!!

Lemony Goodness

2009-12-31T12:51:00.002-06:00

This week's new recipe: Lemon Penne with Ham and Escarole

Yummo (and I'm not just saying that because I think the recipe came from Rachael Ray)! This may be one of the best pasta dishes I've ever made, and that's saying a lot considering how much I love pasta. The sauce was made with eggs, parmesan cheese, and lemon juice/rind. So creamy and lemony. And even though the escarole was pretty much just wilted lettuce, it was great. Next time I might try it with broccoli or spinach instead. But there will definitely be a next time!

The Root of the Matter

2009-12-14T08:19:00.003-06:00

This (last) week's new recipe: Roasted Root Vegetables

Never before have I had to buy fresh beets or a rutabaga. Never again will I buy a rutabaga. Overall, it was OK. I roasted carrots, turnips, beets, potatoes, rutabaga, and onion with garlic, olive oil, and rosemary from our garden. Turnips were my favorite, beets were delicious (but seriously staining), and the rutabaga just didn't cook. If you're a vegetable and you can't cook in 45 minutes in a blazing hot oven even when you're cut into small pieces, you do not have a place in my kitchen. (Maybe this is why everyone I talked to has always had boiled rutabaga?) In sum, it was a heck of a lot of chopping, a heck of a lot of trying to change my hand color from fuchsia to skin-colored again, a seriously delicious smell, and a so-so dish. I think next time will involve more olive oil and salt and less weird hard-to-spell vegetables in the mix.

Squashtastic

2009-12-04T13:23:00.003-06:00

This Week's New Recipe: Whipped Butternut Squash

From: All Recipes (with some tweaking)

Result: This was great. It's basically mashed potatoes but with squash (so better for you, right?). I just roasted the squash and then mashed it and whipped it with butter, sour cream, and salt and pepper. Delish! We ate it with roasted brussel sprouts and chicken tenders. Right...chicken tenders. They said "chicken cutlets" on the package, but the package lied. So I just dusted them with a little flour and seasoning and cooked them in a skillet with a little olive oil and butter, then squeezed a lemon over them at the last minute. Yum!!

Dessert-o-rama

2009-11-29T09:28:00.002-06:00

This Week's New Recipe: Peanut Butter Cup Pie

From: Kraft Food & Family

Result: As Mark's grandmother said, "It's sinful." Kraft, you may have redeemed yourself. The pie was fantastic! And it looked professional, too...always a plus. The pie certainly claimed it's place next to my chocolate trifle, pumpkin bread, and spiced cider, and Mark's mini pumpkin cheesecakes. Yea, Thanksgiving!

Another Crock Pot Dish

2009-11-21T10:12:00.003-06:00

This week's new recipe: Slow Cooked Tex-Mex Chicken & Beans

From: MarthaStewart.com

Result: Delish. I know I've said before how much I love crock pots, but I totally love crock pots. It deserves saying at least twice. And, a new fave...chipotle peppers in adobo sauce..sooooo good. Although the recipe called for chicken thighs, I don't cook with chicken thighs as a rule (bad experience in the past), so I made it with chicken breasts. And actually, used yellow onion and green pepper rather than red onion and red pepper. (Why are red/yellow peppers like twice the cost of green peppers anyway???) So it turned out like a thick stew of shredded chicken and pinto beans in a spicy sauce. Really good. And today we'll be eating the leftovers wrapped in tortillas while we watch Alabama win!

Garlic Overload

2009-11-13T10:47:00.003-06:00

This week's new recipe: Pasta Primavera Alfredo and Garlic Bread

From: Kraft Food & Family

Result: There is a reason that pasta alfredo is good. And there is a reason that pasta alfredo-ish is not as good. This recipe was mostly light cream cheese and skim milk, rather than mostly cream and real cheese. As a side note, I don't remember ever eating so much garlic in a meal that the next morning, all I can taste in my mouth when I wake up is garlic, even after brushing my teeth twice and downing a bunch of water and iced tea. (But this was due mainly to my homemade garlic bread rather than the extra garlic I added to the recipe.) Anyway, decent pasta with good vegetables, but didn't quite live up to it's promising title. No thanks, Kraft.

Slow Cooking Saturday

2009-11-08T09:07:00.002-06:00

This week's new recipe: Italian Sausage and Zucchini Soup

From: All Recipes

Result: Delicious! Mark actually drank the broth in his bowl...and he never drinks soup (as a personal rule for himself)! I think there are 2 kinds of crock pot dishes...the kind that you can do on a work day (where you just toss everything in the pot in the morning) and the kind that are best on weekends (where you actually have to do stuff to the ingredients before you toss it in). This one was the latter kind, but perfect to make before kickoff and eat after Alabama clinches the division! I totally heart crock pots (and husbands who clean them).

And so it begins.

2009-10-30T08:16:00.003-05:00

This week's first new recipe: Beef & Bok Choy Stir Fry
From: Real Simple
Result: Pretty good, but I've figured out that the whole stir-fry technique isn't my cup of tea. The combination of super high heat and quick timing of everything stresses me out a little too much. But I do love bok choy!

The start of something small

2009-10-25T08:31:00.004-05:00

I just finished reading "Julie & Julia" by Julie Powell. Steering clear of how I felt about the book (since I haven't completely made up my mind yet), I want to jump right to my latest inspiration. If nothing else (the jury is still out), Powell made me see the power of the blog, in particular, the power of accountability, which I decided to harness.

In our house, I usually make dinner every night, or at least every night during the week. (OK, so maybe sometimes me "making" dinner is actually me dumping canned soup in bowls, or me turning to the lovely blue box of dried pasta and yellow cheese powder, or at my worst, me running by Krystals...) One of the things I've been wanting to do for a long time is try to make something new every week. But like most of my endeavors, this attempt has, in the past, joined the ranks of learning to knit, adopting a grandmother, and quitting smoking (these three are yet to be completed). So, I'm hoping this blog will help me out. I mean, let's face it...I only blog once in a blue moon anyway, and it just makes me frustrated to see the same tired blog entry title facing me day after day on my iGoogle homepage.

From now on (what a ridiculously hopeful open-ended phrase), I will post at least once a week. The post may be short and sweet, with a quick recipe title and a 5-star rating, or it may go on for days if the culinary result is good enough. Like Powell, I'm using this blog to motivate me. Unlike Powell, I will try not to bore my 3 readers with unneeded/unwanted stories about my husband's friend whose wife can't stand to be around us, or about how many Republicans exist in my office. I'm not setting any time limits or goals of any sort other than to try new things. And if the accountability factor works, I might extend this to other aspects of my life, and finally get that scarf knitted. But I doubt it.

Vacation...Had To Get Away

2009-08-17T19:16:00.010-05:00

Prebeach Day: Berry, sweet Berry, how I have missed you. So beautiful and so memory-filled! But, really, with all the construction?? And then meeting perfect little 5 pound 6 ounce Callie…how can anything be so small and so precious?! Topping it all off: Happy Birthday dinner to Dad with the Birthday Boy, Mom, and brothers…which Dad paid for because all of his children
are broke. Still. Found out Mark has always thought crepe paper was cray paper. Yep.

Day 1, “Arrival”: Oh, so nice to get to the beach when there is still some daylight left (we usually arrive late at night). You gotta love a man that will make you pull over just before the bay bridge so he can drive and you can hang your head out of the car like a dog and ooh and aah and scream with delight while he just laughs at you. Lovely walk down to the beach with my hubs and some pina coladas.

Day 2, “Mistakes”: Thought I lost a finger. Jammed it while putting up my brand new pop-up tent (a birthday present from Mark). Couldn’t speak for several minutes. Really disliked the tent for a while. Turns out I may just lose the finger nail. Also, learned that apparently spray-sunscreen doesn’t work at ALL on a windy beach…burned the crap out of myself the very first day. Laughed HYSTERICALLY at my husband when he thought he’d get smart with the wagon containing ALL of our beach supplies (2 chairs, the tent, a camping table, a cooler, beach towels, football, etc.) and just roll it down the stairs rather than picking it up. Not only did half of our stuff fall out along the ride down the stairs, but towards the bottom step, the sides of the wagon itself fell off.

Day 3, “Achoo!”: Woke up with a head cold/sinus infection. Fantastic for the beach. Luckily, it rained, so we went to a movie. FYI: “Transformers” is awesome, no matter how lame it actually is, if you are an 80’s baby. Woke up in the middle of the night with cramps. Yippee.

Days 4 – 6, “Beachy”: I love the ocean! Despite the lack of dolphins coming to greet me, we had a great time at the beach. Sandy, sunny, beery,deliciously awesome. Found out that 1 pound of crab legs is just about my limit. Finished reading “Wicked” in 3 days…can’t wait for the musical

(thanks, babe, for the birthday book!). Hung out with Scottie T. Scottie fell out of his chair at the restaurant. Mark tried to take a picture of Scottie throwing a pack of crackers at him...over and over and over. Not successful. Had a fishbowl-sized drink at Harry T’s while laughing at my husband who apparently has wanted to go to this restaurant since all the “cool kids” he grew up with had Harry T’s t-shirts…picture a 5-year-old on Christmas morning and you may get an idea of how excited he was. Maybe. We were so close to the ocean that I thought we could probably spit in it (hypothetically). To Mark, it wasn't a hypothetical...and yes, you (he) could spit in the water from our table. Ended our stay with a romantic night beach walk, during which we convinced ourselves that if a shark were to just walk up out of the ocean onto the shore and attack us, we could get really rich from selling it to a museum.

Day 7, “Departure”: As I blow good-bye kisses to the ocean (and the dolphins who must’ve gotten the days that I was visiting mixed up on their calendar, or else they surely would’ve shown up), I look forward to 8 hilarious hours in the car with Mark and a certain perfectly perfect black puppy waiting for me at the end of the drive.

Lessons from Green Meadows

2008-09-15T10:32:00.001-05:00

What I Have Learned So Far From Our New House:
* DO let your husband surprise you with a Johnny Depp poster hung behind all of your clothes in the closet so that, whenever you pull a shirt from the hanger, a gorgeous pirate smiles back at you.
* DO clean your tiny master bathroom mirrors with Barbisol shaving cream so that they don’t fog up in the morning when you can’t open the bathroom door to let the steam out because your sleeping husband’s face will catch the brunt of the light.
* DON’T decide to clip the irises around your mailbox after you get home from the bar at 1 in the morning, only to wake up the next day and see a plant massacre on the front lawn.
* DO get a label maker and label everything you own so that there is no question as to where the king sheets go in the linen closet any longer.
* DO get a Swiffer to magically attract all of the dog hair on the wood floors.
* DON’T wait to use the Swiffer until there is so much amassed dog hair on the baseboards that you burn through 6 duster sheets and still don’t get it all.
* DO buy a lawn mower so that your husband dances around the yard while he mows the grass because he’s so excited to mow his own grass for the very first time. (Added bonus=the song and jig that he made up while we were at Lowe's buying the mower and he got to get a cart because we had so much big stuff!).
* DON’T buy your first lawn mower 1 hour before you have to be somewhere, because your husband will not be able to stop himself from immediately cutting the grass, front yard AND back, appointments or not.
* DO throw things away that you hate, regardless of the emotional attachment. It's much better to apologize to the person that gave you that antique lunchpail than to look at it every day with disgust in your heart and a not-often-enough-used duster in your hand.
* DON’T assume that the kitchen faucet isn’t leaking just because your home inspector told you it wasn’t.
* DO force your husband to give you one of his dresser drawers even if he needs it because you are so over your stupid collegey plastic closet drawers and need a place for your underthings.
* DON’T make fun of your husband for all of the ridiculous mementos he keeps in his top dresser drawer…(OK, you should absolutely make fun of the “keepsake socks” from Boy Scouts and the blinking LED belt buckle and the beer bottle caps from Colorado that he has every intention of making into refrigerator magnets…).

More lessons to come…

Tennessee's Hold

2008-06-01T07:58:00.004-05:00

For the last 7 years, I've had dreams of getting out of Tennessee. My Tennessee life has always come in spurts...2 years here, another 3 years there. It started with 1.5 years of grad school in Chattanooga, then moved to a 2-year job there, then unexpectedly transitioned into 3.5 years of grad school in Nashville. And now, just when we finally thought we were free, Tennessee has exerted its pull on us, yet again. It looks like our family will stay in Nashville for another length-to-be-determined section of our lives that we will never get back! I realize I'm making it sound a little bleak...those who know me well know of my feelings about this odd, yet beautiful, state. But I should point out the many upsides to staying here for a while...my job is perfect for me; Mark can keep his job that he likes; we have plans of buying our first house (which, Cami, does NOT mean we will be here forever) which we can furnish with great furniture at a great price, thanks to Mark's job; and best of all, it's closer to Georgia than most of the other positions I looked at. After all, we could've ended up in Dubai, seriously. So, for another several years, we will continue to proudly sport our Alabama car stickers all over this horribly orange-stained town. We will continue to cheer Vandy on whenever the Big Orange (no fruit sucks like it) comes to town. We will continue to avoid the downtown honkey tonks at all costs until out-of-town guests visit. We will continue to be amazed at how everyone in Tennessee thinks that the lack of a state income tax is a great idea while important things like roads, air quality, and a little thing called education continue to go down the tubes. But, we will continue to frequent our most favorite of biker bars sans bike, we will continue to attend the most awesome church we've ever been to, I will continue to look for Willie Nelson around every corner, I will continue to find new favorite roads every day that wind through incredible farms and valleys, and we will continue to enjoy traffic that, although Nashvillians complain about, true Atlantians know is pretty close to rush hour heaven. We will continue to root for any team BUT the Titans (thanks to people like you, Albert Haynesworth), we will continue to look forward to Trader Joe's arrival, and we will enjoy finally having some money to spend at the great restaurants Nashville has to offer. So even though sometimes I want to cry when I think about not being in the city that I love, a city that houses both of my brothers, most of my best friends, and my in-laws, and is oh so much closer to my parents, I think Mark and I will try to look at this time as yet another boost to our future...I just can't help but wonder occasionally when this "future" we keep talking about will start!

It's a Twista!

2008-04-11T14:22:00.003-05:00

i should never go to walmart. i just should never go. something crazy always happens. but i had to buy diapers!! i had a diaper cake to make!! first, i didn't know where the diapers were and had to ask. i felt like such a dumbass. but i've never had to buy them before! and by the way, for those who don't know, diapers are expensive!! i told mark we need to come up with a way to potty train our kids before they turn 1. and, for those of you who don't know, diapers are not (as i thought) in the toiletries area where the adult diapers are. no, they are in the baby clothes section. diapers look a whole lot cuter when they're next to onesies and baby socks than they would if they were next to some Depends (i think it's a marketing ploy). so i spend a zillion hours trying to decide which diapers to buy...i decided to just go with one of the 3 names i've heard of (huggies, luvs, pampers) and ignore the fact that no diapers exist without baby pooh on them...huggies, it is. just as i was finishing up, the walmart head honcho came over the loudspeaker and said "attention walmart customers and shoppers (and here i thought those were the same thing) and walmart attendants (are these like mixes of stewardesses and grocery store clerks?), we need everyone to move to the center of the store. there is a tornado headed this way"...so we kind of all just start moving toward the center. when we're relatively close to the "center of the store", we can see old women who apparently can't hear the announcements wandering back and forth in front of the cash registers, not able to figure out why there are no cashiers. several old women try to leave and one employee says "look, i can't stop you from leaving, but i can't check you out." old women who want to go home are not very open to the idea of standing around like a bunch of cows with 200 other idiots in the middle of walmart while witches fly by the windows singing "dun-da-dun-da-dun-da, dun-da-dun-da-dun-da, dun-da-dun-da-dun-da DAAAAA". i happened to be standing in the pet aisle. one of the employees was next to me and resolutely informed me that when the tornado came, she was going to get some of the dog beds and put them over her head. the boss woman comes back on the speaker like 10 minutes later and tells us that we ALL need to move near the ladies' dressing area. if you've ever been in the ladies' dressing area at walmart, you'd know that it only has like 3 dressing rooms in a closet-like, no-roof area in the middle of the store. needless to say, all 200 or so people that were in walmart at that time were in no way going to fit anywhere near the ladies' dressing area. she then comes back on the speaker and tells us that the warning isn't over until 11:30 (it's now 11:05), so we just better stay put until then. then, 5 minutes later, she comes back on the speaker and tells us we can go home. then i went to publix and laughed with the cashiers at all the idiots at walmart who are afraid of a little rain :)

PHinisheD!

2008-03-23T22:17:00.002-05:00

i'm done! i'm done! dissertation has been written and successfully defended!
here are the stats without appendices:
175 pages
46,080 words
1,235 paragraphs
1,000,000,000 pounds of stress relieved

if anyone would like to read about measuring the quality of prekindergarten classrooms and assessing the early childhood environment rating scale, you are welcome to it. and, thanks to the $60 fee that i am required to pay, it will also be available on microfilm which, as we all know, is the wave of the future...or at least it probably was 50 years ago.
i, on the other hand, will be searching for employment.
yippee!

Where's my rainbow?

2008-03-04T21:38:00.004-06:00

When God flooded the earth, He sent a rainbow to remind His people of His covenant. When God flooded my bathroom, I got nothing! Last night at 4 a.m., I woke up to my dog barking her fool head off. Mark is out in Colorado having the time of his life snowboarding while I try to get my dissertation finished and simultaneously attempt to mop up what can only be described as 20 toilets worth of water spilled all over my guest bathroom that is about the size of 1 toilet. Trinity's bark wasn't the "I need to go pee" bark or the "I hear a noise outside" bark, but it was more like the "There is something seriously wrong going in this house and my goal is to make my mom as scared as I am" bark. I was really out of it, being woken from a deep sleep, and I'm pretty sure I thought there was someone in the house and I put the covers over my head in the hopes that the intruder wouldn't see me. Then I realized that I was hearing a weird hissing noise coming from the bathroom in the hallway. I considered getting Mark's hatchet from beside the bed before venturing out of the bedroom, but I decided against it (probably a smart move, because I may have tried to hack the toilet to pieces). The bathroom looked like a volcano, the toilet spewing great spouts of water from two spots. The floor was already covered with a layer of water. Apparently I really don't think well at 4 in the morning and my first thought was to open the top of the commode and see what I could do. After moving random things around inside the toilet, I remembered (duh) that I could shut the water off at the wall. So with the water gushing right in my face like a scene from Tom & Jerry, I pushed my way to the wall to turn the water off. With Trinity hiding in her bed, I called the apartment emergency number and left a message. The guy called me back a minute later and I told him what had happened. His advice? "Do you have towels?" Well yeah, I have towels. Apparently he lives 40 minutes away and wouldn't be getting to my flooded bathroom until the next morning. So I used every towel in the house trying to sop up gallons upon gallons of toilet water from my floor. In the process, I discovered how dirty my floors are because dog hair was floating by me from spots that the mop hadn't reached, ever. After moving everything out of the bathroom and laundry room (where the water had flowed underneath the washing machine...which is a much dirtier place than the bathroom floor), I sopped up enough water to be confident that the apartment below me wouldn't be flooded, as well. Trin and I got back in bed around 4:45. All I was thinking as I sopped and soaked and squeeged was how Mark would probably have a much better solution to this mess if he were here. So where's my rainbow? I guess the rainbow is hidden in the fact that if it had happened 12 hours earlier, I would've been in South Carolina and I'm fairly sure that much more than a few magazines, a couple rolls of toilet paper, and part of our wedding guest book/wall hanging would've been ruined! Plus, I get to go pick up my hubby in about an hour and a half...what better rainbow is there?

Dissertation Deadline

2008-02-11T11:21:00.001-06:00

This is exactly how I feel right now. I just set my defense date for March 19, which seems so far away, but then when I remember that I have to send my paper to my committee 2 weeks before that and give it to my advisor for revisions like 2 weeks before that, I'm pretty sure that means I have to be finished with it sometime last year. Couple that with the fact that I'm still waiting for some data to come in from people who promised it to me last month, and you get a recipe for a time bomb. Tick...tick...tick...

One man's trash...

2007-12-21T15:21:00.001-06:00

Ever since I can remember, I've had virtually no money to buy people gifts, at Christmas or otherwise. Comes with the territory of assuming a career as a student, I suppose. So I've had to get creative with presents, and often those presents have come out of some sort of junk-ish item. For instance, there was the clock made out of an old record; the end table made from an old cable spool, a gallon of grout, and a few bagfulls of glass scrap from a nice stained glass maker; the $5 garage sale dresser decopauged with free rave flyers from Little 5 Points. (Actually, it's starting to sound like I only give this crap to my husband, who was the recipient of the three gifts mentioned above...should he be concerned?) Anyway, this Christmas is no exception to my trash-to-treasure (well, I can call it treasure, anyway) gifts. But I'm sooo proud of this one! My littlest brother is a huge car nut, and clearly, I can't buy him a lamborghini. He's getting ready to graduate and move out on his own, so I decided to make him a wall clock out of an old hubcap. My husband and I went to the car junkyard the other day and spent 2 hours walking around in the rain to find the "perfect" (meaning: intact, not too heavy, not from a minivan, and not too shiny) hubcap from which to make this clock. By the way, this is a pretty fun and cheap date...it's amazing what things people leave in their cars, and it's equally amazing what other people will pry off of those cars to take home with them. Anyway, I'm so stoked about this clock; almost as stoked as I am that I get to go home for Christmas (cue Michael Buble singing in the background) and give it to my bro. In fact, when I told him his gift was coming from a junkyard, he told me that was just like telling a woman her gift was coming from Tiffany's. Man, I love that boy. Hopefully this "treasure" will last longer than Mark's did (the record clock and the end table never made it out of his hell hole of a bachelor pad, but the dresser...drumroll...now has a happy home in our closet).

Christmas Surprises

2007-12-21T09:39:00.000-06:00

Christmas never fails to bring surprises, but this year may top them all. my boyfriend's back. javier lopez has returned to the braves, and i couldn't be happier. i know that he's just been given a chance in spring training, but believe you me, javy will perform. and with any luck, he'll be given his old number so that i can once again wear my javy shirt to the games and little kids won't wonder who this "lopez" guy is. who knows what awesome changes are in store for the bravos now that my javy has returned? the glory days are back, baby! they're back!!

How to Shmooze

2007-11-19T21:24:00.000-06:00

I recently asked a good friend what the most influential books in his life had been, and he responded with Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." As I know this guy pretty well and respect his opinions, I completely thought he was joking. He wasn't. I had always thought of this book as a way that salesmen, politicians, and those hokey televangelists with the big pink hair could put some more notches in their belts and fifties in their pockets, a kind of brown-nosers' guide to life at the top. Having never read the book myself, though, I'm pretty sure that my perception was based entirely on the title alone. And by the way--I still do hold to the fact that it is an abysmal title. But, because my friend doesn't fit in any of the fake, money-grubbing, despicable categories I've mentioned here, I've decided that I should read the book for myself. I see this thing ending in one of three ways. One, I realize my friend for what he truly is: a sad, false little man with such little regard for himself that he relies on the number of "friends" on his myspace page for his only source of self worth. (As I created the page for him because he refused to resign himself to cyber-relations, I think this outcome is highly unlikely). Two, the book changes my life, as well, and consequently my relationships become much healthier and much more fulfilling for all involved. And three, I realize that the sway I have held over people in the past has been a drop in the bucket compared to the influence I could have, and I end up ruling the universe and "persuading" everyone to do the things that I think are necessary for life (eating ice cream at every opportunity; bringing home Christmas trees the day after Thanksgiving, no earlier, no later; refusing to wear orange no matter the cost, etc.). If only I had more friends to give me their opinion on the book...oh, wait...that's outcome number four! Stay tuned...

Blessings from Heaven

2007-11-08T10:50:00.000-06:00

"Consider the sparrows of the field, they neither sow nor reap, but God takes care of them.”
I'm not sure about how much reaping and sowing go on in our lives, but God sure does take care of us. Lately I've tried to be aware of all of the ways God blesses us. There are the little ways, like how we'll just oddly decide to take an alternate driving route to our friends' house, only to miss an incredible wreck that we would've been stuck in for hours if we had gone the other way. Or how I often get e-mails or phone calls from friends/family just when I need them most. Or how it seemed that we would be alone for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year because of Mark's work but, without any doing on our part, it turns out that both holidays will bring family closer to us so that we can spend them with the people we love most. But just this past week, 2 huge blessings fell upon us and I feel like I'll burst if I don't tell everyone! Mark and I, as everyone knows, are pretty low on funds right now. Even though we are really strict in how we spend our money, it's a challenge every month to stay in the black (or is it in the red? in the white? I really shouldn't use phrases like this if I'm not sure how to use them correctly. I mean to say: in the whatever color means no debt). This is especially hard as the holidays approach because our friends and family are so giving and we really love to reciprocate that sentiment. So Mark comes home on Monday night and says that the people at work love him so much that they are giving him a promotion and a raise...to start at the beginning of December. Perfect timing or what? And then to top the blessing cup right off, this week we are down to the bare bones in our pantry and I can't go to the grocery until this weekend when I get paid. So I'm getting pretty creative in our meals this week, but even creativity runs out. Just as I was wondering what Mark could eat for lunch since all of our bread was gone, and wondering what we could eat for dinner since all of our everything else was gone, Mark gets a free lunch at work that was brought in for a meeting he wasn't a part of. And then, best of the best, our friend calls and invites us to celebrate his 30th birthday at one of the fanciest restaurants I've ever been to, courtesy of his father-in-law, who wanted to treat him to a birthday dinner and asked him to invite 2 friends. It was fabulous (although I think 5 choices of water is overdoing it a little bit)! All this to say, God is so good to us and we are so undeserving. I think the verse "Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself" is such an awesome encouragement and always proves to be so true. Thanks, God!

Wish List: Chi and Dragons

2007-11-05T09:22:00.001-06:00

This past weekend brought two new items into my life that were immediately moved to the very top of my wish list: a Chi hair straightener and a dragon.
I'll start with the Chi. My sister-in-law came up to visit. We were getting ready to go out and she asked me if I wanted to use her hair straightener (a "Chi"). As anybody knows, because I had my hair up in a ponytail all day (from straight-out-of-the-shower-wet), I told her that no straightener could tame my hair well enough to wear it down that night. But she convinced me to try it, so I released my hair from its rubberbanded knot, revealing cascades of all kinds of wonky waves, and set to straighten. It was as if I had a magic wand in my hand and was secretly issuing some kind of ancient spell from my mind as I passed the wand over my hair. It was incredible. I have fairly crazy hair, so rarely do I ever talk about how pretty it is. Not this night. I couldn't STOP talking about it, touching it, brushing it, swooshing it back and forth. Glorious. It could've been angel hair, but it was MY hair. So now I just have to save up $85 to purchase it. Eighty-five dollars, you say, for a styling tool? Honestly, I would've been willing to pay five times that amount. It's that good.
Yesterday Mark and I watched Eragon and I fell in love. I want a dragon. I really want a dragon. In fact, I want a specific dragon, Saphira. But if I can't have her (which, clearly, I can't, because she has chosen another rider), I'll settle for whichever one chooses me. I wonder how long one must wait? I've heard that some dragons wait thousands of years to hatch until they feel the presence of their rider. That means that somewhere, maybe on a ranch in Nashville, maybe in a bar in Stockholm, maybe in a fune in Okinawa (where Mr. Miagi also waits for me), my dragon sits in his/her egg just hoping to soon fulfill her destiny with me, her rider. How exciting! Plus, how much more awesome of a dragon rider will I look like when I'm fighting evil from the tail of my beast with gorgeous, shiny, stick-straight hair?

Volume: 12

2007-10-16T09:59:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been thinking about people's quirks, specifically those of my close friends and family...I think I have way more than people realize. Actually, I'm pretty sure that my friends could come up with a much worse list, but I'm giving it a go...

I have to keep my car radio volume level on an even number.

I can't stand for people to scrape their plates with their silverware, but I could listen to nails on a chalkboard all day with no effect.

I love the words: fantastic, shimmer, dessert, deep, grace

I hate the words: unpack, leakage, zeitgeist, parse, merge

I have to wear matching bras and panties every day as much as laundry allows, and I get a bonus if I can match them to my clothes.

When I make a to-do list and then I do something that isn’t on the list, I will often write it on the list anyway and immediately cross it off.

If I use the bathroom during a football game and my team has a bad play while I’m gone, I can’t use that bathroom again until after the game.

After I put chapstick on, I rub my lips together so often that the chapstick only lasts for like 30 minutes.

I refuse to eat brussel sprouts.

I have to sleep on my husband’s left side from now on because that’s the side I slept on when we were first married.

I have to do all my shower processes in the same order or I forget what I’ve washed and what I haven’t.

When my husband jumps on the couch with the dog and it moves a quarter of an inch, I freak out. How will I ever find the exact indentation in the carpet again, and what travesty will occur if I can't?

If I’m reading a good book, I have to cover up every word on the current page and the next page except for the sentence I am on, because I don’t want to accidentally read something that hasn’t happened yet.

I believe that if I wish upon a star, as long as I say in my head “Starlight, starbright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight” first, my wish will eventually come true.

I have to have turkey at Thanksgiving.

I have to have ham at Easter.

Every morning I leave the house, I have to say to my dog, “OK, girl. I love you. See you this afternoon” and then make a kiss sound twice, or else I am sure that she will be upset and do something destructive while I’m gone, despite the fact that she hasn’t done anything bad in like 4 years. Probably because I’ve been saying my morning routine to her every day.

I worry about letting a car with a UT license plate out in front of me…does that mean that they will beat us because we’re suckers, or that we will beat them because we’re nicer?

I wonder what my dog’s voice sounds like inside her head. And oh yeah, I’m sure she has one.

So much more to come…

Waxing Alabama...by me

2007-09-14T15:14:00.000-05:00

tyrone prothro, brodie croyle,
juwan, kenneth, and tim,
every time i think of you,
a tear also falls for him.
he, the coach, the lamb of a man,
the tender-hearted doll.
oh what i wouldn't give for him
to come back to bama ball.
but alas, the bama fans are nuts
and demand a higher rank,
and rest assured, coach nick saban
laughs all the way to the bank.
but this season does offer us
a glint of shining hope,
that saban, wilson, grant, and hall,
and tiffin (he's no dope),
can ride the wave of crimson tide
right to old auburn's door,
shut down the farmer battle cry
and add to bama lore.
could this be it, number 13?
i think it's a little fast,
but God willing, our redneck rivals
will feel the BAMA BLAST!

Lament to a Nose Ring

2007-09-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

I had it for 6 years and now it's gone. There were no long goodbyes, no tearful partings. It was there, and then it wasn't. And I miss it and I don't. I miss the feeling it gave me, the sense of badassishness that it provided in a world where so often I'm not so badassish. I do not, however, miss worrying about losing it every time I blew my nose. In our time together, we became virtually inseparable. It never left my side (er, nose). In the end I suppose it decided it was time for a different path, as so many of life's pairings inevitably separate. Either that, or it was the constant wiping of sweat off of my face in our last game of 110-degree-weather golf. Either way, it's gone and I've decided that I will let it go. Actually, I decided that after several failed attempts to replace it. Apparently my nose had grown so accustomed to that particular stud that it had no eyes for any other. So, as my mother whispers silent prayers of thanks, I will go on, sans facial piercing. I wonder who this new person will be. I wonder where my need for the occasional feeling of badassishness will be satiated. Perhaps it is time for my first tattoo (sorry, Mom)?

WTF?

2007-08-08T20:06:00.001-05:00

They say that you learn something new every day. Today I learned a new fact about one of my favorite American clans...sorority girls. I had heard (and seen movies with wonderful depictions) of the trials of sorority rush; about how you must wear the right clothes, ask the right questions, respond like a Miss America finalist, sit with your legs crossed just-so, party just the right amount (not so much that you're a drunk, but enough to make you fun at a House party), be adequately promiscuous (not so much that you're a raging slut, but enough to make you sufficiently wanted by the frat boys), etc. What I hadn't heard, however, is that some girls actually take classes (it was referred to as rush school) to learn how to be in the A-list sorority echelon. Such classes train you to shine during rush with your most brilliant Kappa Delta-ish sparkle. They polish you until you can rush with the best of them, and be accepted into your top pick. Not directly exposed to the Greek system myself, thankfully, I can only hope that some glimmer of your original personality will still lie latent somewhere inside yourself after the process is over. It's astonishing how much people, especially girls, will try their damndest to become a person wanted by the throng of mostly blonde, mostly white, mostly there on their parents dollar with plenty of dough to spare, sorority girl. Thank God for Berry College.

Wherefore ART thou?

2007-08-06T16:54:00.000-05:00

We went to several art galleries this past weekend, and I am struck with the question of when a piece of art really shouldn't be considered art. I understand that people have their own unique interpretations and tastes and visions and blah blah blah. I fail to see how a photograph of a fuse box, regardless of the incredible lighting or the nouveaux angle, can not only be called art but be sold for $500. I don't expect everybody, or really anybody, to necessarily like the "art" that I own, and I certainly don't expect one single person besides my husband to appreciate the hideous oil-mounded-on-canvas "painting" of a dungeon hallway that looks like it belongs in The Haunted Mansion that he so cherishes. But I think some people just so strongly feel the need to be creative but so deeply lack the talent that such adjectives demand that they just throw whatever they can on a canvas or photo paper and call it art. And it isn't. I'll just warn you that if I walk into your house and you have "art" covering the walls that consists of paintings of decapitated babydolls, two-headed roosters, skeleton heads on Dali-knock off drawer bodies, and/or oversized plain white mailing envelopes, I will promptly leave, whether you have guacamole or not.

Anticipation

2006-05-31T03:48:00.000-05:00

My husband's coming tomorrow! My husband's coming tomorrow! My husband's coming tomorrow!!!!!!!!

As a side note...

2006-05-30T08:30:00.000-05:00

Deciding what window to look out of to check the weather here is like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book. Each window offers a completely different weather picture. And, just like many of those old books, somehow, no matter which window you choose, you still wind up in the end with rain anyway. Ha, and to illustrate this...I just came down from getting coffee when I started to write this. I wanted coffee because of the cold rain outside. And I just turned to take a picture of the rain to post with this message, but the window shows me blue skies and sunlight. Seriously. It's all a freaking illusion.

Unforcasted Weekend

2006-05-29T06:36:00.000-05:00

What a weekend. Friday night I met a girl from school and a friend of hers at an Irish pub downtown and found out that they had Hoegaarden on tap...funny how I have to come all the way to Sweden to find that. So happy. Turns out that 3 big beers that are all different and all heavy, even when you've eaten, can make you walk pretty funny, but the sunset was beautiful and I got yelled at by a Swedish man on his bike when I was taking pictures. I couldn't stop laughing. Saturday I went on a boat ride with Eva, Mats, their daughter Cajsa, and a friend of hers to an island in Lake Malaren. It was like we stepped off the shore of civilized world and into a 1,000-year-old time warp, and it was awesome. Only a handful of people still live on the island, but we hiked and picnicked for several hours without seeing very many of them. The flowers are starting to come out and, despite the unforcasted cold and clouds, it was beautiful. I've been on more picnics here in the last month than I have in the entire last year in the States. Picnics are soooo underrated. Speaking of unforcasted cold, apparently Sweden is famous for that, too. Everyday the past week has been a mix of t-shirt warmth, clear blue skies, thunder, lightning, rain storms, hail, and bitter cold. Dressing for the weather is more of a challenge here than I've ever encountered before and, honestly, I've never been all that good at it anyway. Saturday night Mats's 18-year-old daughter Sara and her friends made dinner for us, and we talked about how Swedish sheets make more sense than American sheets and Americans can't pronounce Swedish words correctly. However, I am the apparent exception, thank you very much. Sunday I went with Martina and her girls to the fair (really similar to US county fairs with dinky rides and overpriced crap for sale). Then we went to Anundshog, one of the biggest and oldest burial mounds in Sweden with rock formations that look, from above, like boats. We climbed to the top of this huge hill and then the Swedish unforcast kicked in and we had to picnic under the roof of a nearby building instead. After lunch, the rain stopped, and we walked around the hills and watched the girls play. And then the hail started and all 4 of us ran across the field to the car holding the picnic blanket over our heads. Martina and I left the girls at home playing the coolest Playstation game ever and went to see her husband, Christer, at their sailboat in the marina. If I had a sailbot, you know that I'd wear an eyepatch, hair beads, and lots of eyeliner all the time. I had to spend the night last night at Mats and Eva's house to take care of their cats while they were away. No, I have not developed a liking, per se, for cats, but these were pretty cute. I watched Anna & the King and Tomb Raider 2, interspersed, with Swedish subtitles. Funny, because both of those movies have a lot of other-language speak, and without English subtitles for those parts, it's impossible to understand. I slept like crap because of the 2 skylights in the room I slept in. The sky didn't get completely dark until around midnight or 12:30, and the sun came up again around 3:30 in the morning. I kept waking up and looking at my watch and wondering if I had slept until 3:30 in the afternoon, but no, it was fake afternoon. This morning I walked home in BEAUTIFUL weather and was so warm when I got home that I opened all the windows in my apartment. I got into the shower and when I got out, it was freezing and getting ready to pour rain. Ah, well. It's my last week in Sweden (and I just now learned how to pronounce goodbye in Swedish correctly...sigh).

Fizzing Whizzbies

2006-05-23T07:45:00.000-05:00

Friday night I went out with some girls to an Irish pub (where I had the biggest Hoegaarden I've ever had in my life) and then to the Skybar at the top of the only skyscraper in Vasteras. Great view, although it hardly justified the $10 for a small gin and tonic with LEMON instead of LIME. On Saturday I went to Stockholm with Eva, Mats, their daughter Cajsa, and her friend. We took them to the teddy bear factory (which, when spoken by a Swede in English, sounds a lot like "beer" factory). Then we walked around the old part of the town where the king's castle is. We went to the best market with tons of small counters with the best cheese, freshest meats, and hugest vegetables ever. I dream about living close to a place like that!! Stopped by the candy store on the way home and went crazy getting candies in little bags. Most of them were good, but every once in a while you bit into something that Fred and George Weasley must have come up with. Ugh. Getting homesick...I would LOVE a philly cheese steak right now. I have bought 3 different kinds of yogurt on 3 different trips to the grocery store, only to find that none of them were actually yogurt but were instead a drink, rice pudding, and a gelatin dessert, in that order. No more yogurt for me...I'll stick to my breakfast of orange juice and cookies. My mom was going to come over but the flights aren't working out, so I'm a little bummed, by Mark gets here in a little over a week! Can't wait!

Crazy Europeans

2006-05-21T11:52:00.000-05:00

And Finland won. I'm out.

Pancakes and Eurovision

2006-05-19T04:23:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to Martina's house and she taught me how to make pea soup and pancakes, the traditional Swedish meal for Thursday nights in memory of the poisoned king. The soup was incredible and the pancakes were like the crepes that my Mom makes (girls--do you remember?), only a little thicker, and we ate them with homemade rasberry puree and fresh whipped cream. We also drank the traditional punch with the meal, which is a shot of super-sweet liquor. Yum. And watching Martina's youngest daughter eat the pancakes like an animal and then lick the plate was great. So after dinner, Martina's husband made me stay to watch Eurovision. If you've never heard of this (like I hadn't), you really wouldn't believe it. The whole time I thought I was watching a bad episode of Saturday Night Live, only it wasn't a joke. Charles---did you ever watch this?? Apparently the show has been going on for 50 years or so. The show is an annual contest for the best song in Europe, and at least a couple of people have been made famous (ABBA in 1974 and Celine Dion in 1988). Each country in Europe votes on the song they want to represent their country, and then they get someone entertaining to sing it in the competition. There are several stages, and last night was a semi-final. One of the final competitions is Saturday. So I'll just say that if I were from, say, Iceland, I would be mortified that I was being represented by such insane crap. Each band/singer puts on this 2.5 minute performance and you get a range of everything from Ricky Martin wannabes (a popular choice this year) to chicks in go-go boots and garter belts beating on drums to this crazy girl from Iceland who acted like a blonde American bimbo (like from the Barbie Girl song) and ran around sliding down enormous candy canes and saying "Oh My God" like a complete ditz. And, my personal favorite, Finland. A bunch of guys and girls dressed up like demons (complete with unfolding bat wings on the lead singer) who sang their song "Hard Rock Hallelujiah"...I couldn't keep my jaw from hanging open. Without a doubt, one of the most bizarre things I've EVER seen in my life. And in case you're wondering, yes, Finland made it to the finals. This definitely needs to be on American TV, although I'm not sure it would lead to a very positive view of Europe. And if anyone has known about this and hasn't shared with the group, you should be strung up by your toenails and sung to by Finland.

Love in the Mine

2006-05-19T04:07:00.000-05:00

95% of all of the houses in Sweden are either yellow or red, and here's why. I'll start with my trip to Falun. On Wednesday I had to take a train (for the only time in my life, as far as I can remember) to a city called Falun about 2 hours northwest of Vasteras. I had to change trains twice and all announce- ments were in Swedish, so it was definitely an adventure. But the countryside was really beautiful... through the forests and across lakes. I got to Falun and Gunnel (a PhD student who does research on time-assisted devices for children and adults with special needs) took me to the Kopparberget, the old copper mine that the town is famous for. Falun, and the surrounding region, is really considered to be the heart of Sweden. There is a true story about a young man and woman who had fallen in love and were engaged to be married, several hundred years ago or something. The man worked in the mine and disappeared on the day before his wedding. Most people thought he got cold feet and ran away, but whatever the reason, he was never seen again. Forty years later, some miners were working in the mine and ran into an old abandoned mine shaft. At the bottom of the shaft they found a man who had died from falling down the shaft, breaking both of his legs, and not being able to climb back out. They didn't know how long he had been down there, but he looked like he was in his 20's and hadn't yet begun to decompose. They pulled him out and put him on display in the town square in a glass coffin. The woman who had lost her love so many years before immediately recognized him as her fiancee because he still looked the same, although she and everyone else had aged 40 years. The townspeople paraded the man around the country as proof of the preservative powers of the mine's minerals. Now those minerals are used in house paint, and the houses only need repainting every 20 years or so. Because of the paint, you almost never see a house in Sweden that looks faded; all the houses are bright colors. Long story but cool ending, yeah? Then Gunnel took me to a hill above the city where there are 2 HUGE ski jumps that run in the winter time, and I really cannot imagine how freaking nuts you have to be to do that. I stayed at Gunnel's house after visiting the hospital that she worked at. Her 21-year-old son is in a medieval band and he played his hurdy-gurdy for me. Really cool. Then his friends told me how stupid they thought American football was. I ate pickled herring for dinner...don't ever try it. It's nothing like sushi. But the homemade Schnapps that we drank with it made the meal fantastic. Moonshine will do wonders for a slimy salty fish.

Wilbur

2006-05-15T09:08:00.000-05:00

Today I saw the biggest pig I've ever seen in my life! I went with two friends to this place, Vallby, that they call a kind of outdoor museum. We took their children (3 all together). I had to walk a ways to meet them at the museum, but the walk was beautiful, alongside the river here. And yet another beautiful day! Vallby is sort of a collection of things; many of the oldest houses and buildings in the city have been transported here. There are also several areas with farm animals: goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, roosters, rabbits, etc. And then Vallby has a lot of beautiful, small stores that sell hand-made crafts (silver, textiles, brushes, etc.), flowers, candy, and coffee. Vallby is free for anybody to come, and lots of school children take field trips here. Lovely. So, now for some weird/funny things about Sweden:

Philip-you're right. Very Godless country. And just to illustrate the difference with one point, instead of celebrating Halloween, a holiday typically thought of as pagan to many, they have turned Easter into Easterween (that's what I call it, anyway), where kids dress up like witches with aprons and fly on brooms (although they are good witches).
Many of the cafes have outdoor seating for people that want to smoke. And, because it can be pretty chilly on many nights, they offer blue blankets for people to sit around outside all wrapped up like mummies. Looks pretty funny.
60% of Swedes have summer homes. Like my mom says, Swedes sure know how to live right. Except for the Godless part.
The company that makes most of the toilets here puts its name on the button on the top of the commode that flushes the toilet. It says "IDo", so everytime I flush a toilet, I think to myself, and sometimes say aloud, "I DO flush the toilet."
Entrances and Exits are called farts. Infart and Utfart. The signs are everywhere. Wonder what an in-fart would be in English?
Once there was a Swedish king who was killed from poison put into his soup. So now, every Thursday, many Swedes eat pea soup and pancakes, in memory of him. This was like hundreds of years ago or something, but the pea soup continues.
Today I observed a class of 5th graders during their PE, math and english lessons. There are some CRAZY good 11-year-old football (soccer) players here, by the way. For english, they read a story called Red Stains and then sang a song about it. The majority of the song was a repetition of this: "Trousers, shoes, and underpants, panties, socks and shirts--they all have red stains. Jim-where are you?" I almost peed my pants.

Moria

2006-05-13T11:33:00.000-05:00

Miner fourty-niner. Nina, who is from Russia, and her Swedish boyfriend Pontis took me to these 12th century silver mines just outside the city today. It was crazy...we all had to put helmets, boots, and ponchos on. We went about 65 meters down into the earth and through the old mine shafts where workers had mined dirty silver from the ground for hundreds of years. Pretty cool. It was really cold, though, and really quiet and really wet. And dark---especially when the guide made us turn off all of our flashlights. The walls were sparkly with all of the silver and other minerals in them still. You can clearly see from the picture what the mine looked like. Ha. But it completely reminded me of Lord of the Rings when they go to the mines...you could see down shafts that looked like bottomless pits. There were tons of dead ends where they had mined in but hadn't found any silver so they went to another spot. Let's all be thankful that we aren't mine workers...it's tough stuff. Even crazier...in one of the shafts on a ledge, there were little candles in the shape of a heart. The guide told us that they had a WEDDING that day in the mine. Who would get married in a mine? Swedes are crazy. Now, a wedding in an X-Wing Fighter, THAT, I could see.

Mulle Mulle

2006-05-10T07:15:00.000-05:00

This morning I got to observe in a special preschool, called I Ur och Skur (you really don't want to hear me try to pronounce this). Martina took me there (see pic)...she used to be a teacher there and really was one of 8 who started the school. It was AWESOME and so weird at the same time. It's referred to, basically, as an outdoor school. The kids spend their entire day outside. When we got there in the morning, they were getting ready to walk into the forest. (In Sweden, most land doesn't belong to anybody...it's open space that anyone can use, which is awesome awesome awesome.) We walked quite a ways (while kids held the hand of their buddy) into the forest and stopped in a clearing where each kid had a small mat that the teacher put out to sit on. They had a sort of lesson about trees (in Swedish, of course), and then we had snack. Each kid pulled out their own backpack, their own thermos of drink, and their own brought-from-home snack in tupperware, and ate independently. Martina had brought coffee and danish for both of us. Then the kids just ran around and played in the woods for like an hour, playing games in the trees, building "forts" that they designed...whatever they wanted to do. The only rules were that you had to stay in seeing distance of the group and nobody would help you up on rocks or trees (the idea being that if you could climb up on your own, you could get down on your own without getting hurt). This would NEVER happen in America...teachers would feel too out of control and parents would sue. When sombody had to go to the bathroom, they either peed on trees or in a small portable toilet seat placed behind a rock. At one point, like 7 boys were all peeing on different trees at the same time...hilarious. Then we went back to the school and everybody ate outside sitting on little benches in circles. The younger kids even slept outside in sleeping bags. They whole emphasis was on play, respect and knowledge of the outdoors, and independence. It was awesome. (The other pictures are from the other night when Martina, her daughter Lena, who is 7, and myself sat in their garden and played barbie dolls until like 9:30 when it got dark. Lena is great.) The picture of the cartoon are the four symbols from legend that represent nature and environment: Skosmulle was born in the forst, Laxe was born in the sea, Fjallfina was born in the mountains, and Nova was born in outerspace. Their message to children is:

Enjoy outdoor life!
Learn from the nature, play, sing and dream!
Love and take care of the nature!

I'm getting ready to read theses from master's students who are from Ghana and Belarus...it's crazy how everybody speaks at least some English. Aren't the English snotty to make everyone learn our own language??

I Would Walk 500 Miles

2006-05-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

And I did. I probably walked close to 500 miles today, or at least it seemed that way. I decided to walk down to Lake Malaren today (Sweden's 3rd largest inland lake), and then I ended up getting lost a couple times after that, but eventually made it home without having to ask anyone. And I ran into some cool things on the way. The picture of the treehouse is a hotel room called Woodpecker Inn or something, and this crazy designer built it. He also built a hotel room under the water in the lake and apparently has designed a Swedish house for the moon that the Swedish space organization is considering. I had to buy some t-shirts (because my husband told me to pack some and I didn't listen but instead went with my mom's advice and left them at home...a lesson for next time) because of the unseasonably warm temperatures here. Today it was 70 degrees and is supposed to be around that for most of this week. I also bought one of the best candybars I've ever had, and some hazlenut ice cream I'm excited about munching on later. I found about four McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, and a sports bar called O'Leary's that had signs of American baseball teams in the windows. About halfway through my walk, I realized I was trekking around with camera in hand and a Crimson Tide shirt on...what a stupid American tourist I must've looked like. On the way home, I saw the only Corvette I've seen in Sweden drive down the road immediately followed by an old lemon-yellow 1950's Cadillac and then a red dune buggy. And then 8 million Volos. I tried to take some pictures of hot Swedish chicks for my guy friends (and, sadly, my husband), but they didn't really look like they'd appreciate a stranger snapping the camera in their face. Another day, perhaps.

Office space

2006-05-06T09:45:00.000-05:00

Here's my office. I share it with a girl named Nina from Russia, very sweet. She is pregnant, along with every third girl that I meet here. Apparently, during the winter when it's dark so much, people just stay in their house and get pregnant. And then they come out in the spring time and surprise everyone with their news. It's almost like bears hibernating. Funny.

What if God was one of us

2006-05-06T09:24:00.000-05:00

The MOST bizarre afternoon...today I went to a confirmation ceremony at a church in Sweden. Martina's sister's sister's son was being confirmed (I think), Simon. The weather was beautiful, and I walked to the church. It was built somewhere around the 12th century. The inside of the church is huge and ornate, very old Europe. The ceremony started out normally, with all of the preteens and teenagers being confirmed walking up the aisle dressed in white gowns. They were mostly all girls, to go with the all-female church staff. A hymn or two was sung in Swedish. The reverend said something I didn't understand. And then the weirdness began. All of the kids stood up at the front and began a series of songs, skits, and talks about symbols and stuff (all in Swedish). So I sat and listened, assuming I wouldn't understand any of it. And then, all the kids starting singing Joan Osbourne's "One of Us" in English. That's right, complete with the lines about the pope in Rome and a holy rolling stone. And more weird (or maybe not) were the 3 women trying to hide behind the kids and sing into microphones because the kids weren't really into the singing all that much, and I suppose it would look bad if no sound came out when the music started. Then they did some kind of skit where, at one point, one of the girls put on a black cape and played chess with another girl in white...I think it may have been the devil represented or something, but the devil was Swedish and so not very understandable and much less scary. A Swedish song followed and then a talk (in Swedish) about symbols in the church (including a skull with angel wings, which I still can't figure out...). And then, another English song. Get ready...my Mom's personal favorite, "Tears in Heaven" by Clapton. And all of this inside this super old, super ornate, super quiet, super Swedish cathedral. Then, more talking, the Nicene crede and Lord's prayer in Swedish, although nobody ever bowed their heads, and then we filed out of the church. Seriously, one of the must surreal experiences I've ever had.

Hej

2006-05-04T07:25:00.000-05:00

So when I got here, I heard people saying "hey" to each other and thought they were speaking English. Stupid American. "Hej", pronounced "hey," is hello in Swedish. You'd think I would have known that before coming to this country. One more thing I forgot to do before I left was learn some of the langauge. Last night I went to eat dinner at my hosts' house (who are 2 married professors) with them and their 11-year-old daughter, Cajsa, who is insanely beautiful and smart. Their home was awesome...very modern, clean lines...and they LOVE IKEA here...I thought it'd be like American products that we don't care for but that foreigners love, but it's not. They really do have IKEA stuff all over their homes. For dinner, Eva made cod and shrimp in a white sauce (the Cod, interestingly enough, was from Alaska...apparently the cod around Sweden is all fished up at the moment) with asparagus, new potatoes, and salad (which we ate without dressing). For dessert, we had strawberries and Swedish ice cream with truffle bits in it...everything was delicious. Mats walked me home and we crossed a river that I recognized from a picture I had on my computer...so pretty. By the way, Sweden is amazing for so many reasons...as an example, when you have a baby, you get 1.5 years off with 60% salary, and you get to decide whether the wife, the husband, or the grandparents (if they are not retired) will take the time off!! Maybe we'll have our children here.......Today after a few meetings, Martina took me on a walk through the city and to lunch at this park on a high hill overlooking the city (see the pictures, along with a picture of a Mallard for Mark). I had Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes with lingonberry sauce...awesome. We walked home through one of the oldest parts of Vasteras, complete with cobblestone streets and really small doors. I'll have to take some pictures later. Right now, I'm just happy because I'm full of meatballs and I got to talk to my husband and my puppy for the first time earlier today. Mmmmmm, lingonberries......

Getting there...this is a long one

2006-05-03T05:07:00.000-05:00

so I’m sitting in the airport in france waiting for my plane to Stockholm that leaves in 2 hours, and I have some observations. First of all, I can handle being tired. But what I can’t handle is when I’m so tired that I get restless body syndrome. Sucks. And I still have 1 plane ride and 1 long bus ride to go. And then, I guess, a walk to my apartment. This is the most messed up airport…all circular and circles within circles. The weather is really pretty. OH, I forgot to tell about the bus ride here. So when we land, we have to get on this bus to take us to the main terminal because they are doing a butload of construction. So we taxi in the airplane all this way and then all pile into this bus (standing room only). The bus has all of its heaters on full-blast and the bus is already overfilled with people. Then we went through an obstacle course, I think. We would be riding along next to the runway and then duck to the right to go on the side of a divider, and then under something big and glass, and then around another building which looked like it got us back to where we started. Anyway, I thought I might die of being hot and motion sick, but we at last got to the main terminal. And then I just gave up trying to figure out where I was going on my own and started asking anybody who looked like they might try to help me even though I was only speaking English and nixed the French 101-trying to get information out of a French guy-bullcrap. So anyway, I’m still waiting now for my next flight. I miss Mark. We watched King Kong on the plane on the way here…does anyone know that he DIES at the end of the movie? Am I the only one who didn’t know that? Sucky movie, cute gorilla, sad ending. And then I got all teary and I couldn’t tell if it was because the bad guys shot Kong or I just left my husband a zillion miles away. I wonder why my body refuses to sleep on airplanes? Really an annoying trait. Maybe I should try hypnosis? I will say that the people here LOOK weird, and it SMELLS REALLY bad. I’m pretty sure I’m going to look like a big American ball of ugly by the time I meet the chick who is supposed to pick me up at the bus station. I hope she lets me take a nap when I get there. If you haven’t flown Delta in a while, let me tell you, there have been some changes, my friend. For instance, instead of serving your food on trays that are meant to look like nice plates, they serve your food in what can only be described as plastic troughs…kind of like bread pans. Instead of serving alcohol for free on international flights, they charge $5.00 PER DRINK. Instead of nice flight attendants, they just respond to your questions with “I don’t know.”But right now there is this little 2-year-old boy crying in the airport walking next to his parents, and his 4-year old sister is walking next to him, making a heart with her hands and trying to show it to him to make him feel better. It doesn’t make him feel better, but it makes me smile!! These Europeans sure love to wear cowboy boots…not the best look for them.

The Apartment

2006-05-03T04:52:00.000-05:00

This is my apartment...really big but not really clean...I'll have to work on it. 2 bedrooms, big living room, big kitchen with table, fridge and small freezer and stove, small bathroom, and a small back patio. Going to buy a pillow tonight, hopefully...sleeping on my sweatshirt is no fun. Last night my neighbors above me decided to have a dance-off or something...stomping around and yelling and playing loud music from 1-3 in the morning. Swedes must hate thick ceilings and walls. If they do it again tonight, I may turn into that guy who lived below Monica and Rachel on Friends that would poke their floor with a broom handle.