Millions of Peaches

"Peaches"  by:  Presidents of the USA
Movin' to the country gonna eat a lot of peaches 
I'm movin' to the country I'm gonna eat me a lot of peaches 
I'm movin' to the country I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches 
Movin' to the country I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches 
Peaches come from a can they were put there by a man 
In a factory downtown 
If I had my little way I'd eat peaches everyday 
Sun soakin bulges in the shade...

Millions of peaches peaches for me 
Millions of peaches peaches for free 
Millions of peaches peaches for me 
Millions of peaches peaches for free 


Yep, this is the song running rampant through my brain right now. Actually it's been running on a continual loop for the last couple of weeks!


My dad has 3 VERY prolific peach trees. About 2 weeks ago, we canned 28 quarts of New Haven peaches; he gave me over 100 white peaches last week; and the Albertas will be ready next week. I've got peaches coming out my ears!


Thing 1, Thing 2 and I have eaten a bunch. I made peach cobbler a couple nights ago. Then, after canning 7 quarts of beans with my sister-in-law last night, we cut up a bunch of the white peaches and made peach crisps for each of our families.


As the white peaches don't can well (they become mooshy) will be peeling and dicing and slicing and freezing the rest for future pies, cobblers, crisps, and smoothies! 

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

I am sooooo schedule reliant! Having no calendar of activities during the summer throws me for such a big loop! Now that school is back in session, I'm feeling more centered.

I've been focusing on kicking-it-up-a-notch on the school lunch situation. I LOVE the bento box lunch trend. It has become a new addiction for me. Sadly my other "addictions" of scrapbooking and knitting have been put in the back of the closet for a later date. I am cruising all the cookbooks and bento/lunch box blogs I can get my hands (or eyes) on! My newest favorite blogs are:

Easy Lunchboxes

Kelly Lester, mom & CEO of Easy Lunchboxes has created some fabulous bento-y lunch boxes for the states. Check her out on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for some great recipes and ideas.

Family Fresh Cooking

Marla has oh, so many recipes and ideas to delight the lunchbox packing senses! And her food photography is amazing! Plus, you can sign a pledge to pack healthy lunches for 30 days...can you do it?

BentOnBetterLunches

This mom of 5 has some great ideas for your little ones needing portable lunches.

Am hoping to get the hang of the food photography part of the lunchbox packing. Will have to get my friend Erika (www.calliesportraits.com) to give me a few tips. I'm thinking that my biggest issue is my lighting in my house.

Ok, I've been ignoring my family long enough on this Saturday! Off to do some laundry and poke my kids as I go by...

New Year, New Me!

So many things have happened over the past few months, I can't believe it's already the end of February 2011! There were quite a few days when I didn't think I'd make it out of my winter funk, but (supposedly) spring is on its way!

Have a perfect new walking route just out my front door! My puppykins would LOVE to go for a trot. Although, the snow and single digit temperatures that are forecasted for this coming week, may hinder my outdoor adventures for a bit.

Working on my meal planning (check out my website: pinkladiesmealplanning.com) and have a few cookbooks on the way to my front door...

Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals, by Jamie Oliver

I had checked this cookbook out from the library and fell in love with all the simple and delicious recipes! The only thing I don't like about the book is that his recipe directions are in paragraph form. But I can (and will!) easily get over that!

No Whine with Dinner, by Liz Weiss & Janice Newell Bissex

I did a test run of one of the recipes for these lovely ladies and had my professional photographer friend Erika (check out her website calliesportraits.com) take pictures while I made the recipe with her daughters. There is a photo of her oldest on the inside cover! As I haven't received the book yet, I don't know what else from our photo/cooking session (if any) is printed in the book. But will post another bloglet when I do receive it!

Well, that's all for now, as I need to go work on my resume. Bleck. Ta-ta for now!

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Yep, got excuses for starting to run this past Monday.

Shortly after my last post, I stepped in a hole in my front yard on the way to the mailbox and tore some tendons and tissue and such in my left ankle. Luckily, no fractures, but had to wear my pretty "boot" for a few days and it was painful for some more days.

Day after Thing 1 and I returned from High School camp, worked 9 hours at our church youth group's food booth. Needless to say, I slept most of Monday away!

BUT, (and that's a big "but") I did start the Couch to 5K in 9 weeks TODAY! Bought new shoes yesterday, so my feet hurt a bit (will purchase some Super Feet inserts today to help compensate); chose the wrong direction to run, as I hit a couple of small hills that didn't help with the running times; and only ran for 1  1/2 of the running times (I'm REALLY not in any kind of shape to run for anything!).

I started. That's all that counts. Although, it may take me 12 weeks to run a 5K, instead of 9. Stay with me, loyal readers!

Procrastination...

(Enter blog humming the song "Anticipation" instead, insert "Procrastination")

If you know me, you know that I'm a procrastinator. Don't get me wrong, I get things done, I just wait until the last minute to get them done!

So, this running thing I've talked about? Yeah, haven't started it YET. I've been mulling over what I should make my blog post about -- anything, except my starting to run.

I have set the date...Monday, August 9th...I will begin the Couch to 5K in 9 weeks program. It's downloaded into my iPod and now that I've made it public, I have no excuse! Wouldn't want to let my faithful blog readers down now, would I?

Why 2+ weeks away for a start date, you may ask? Thing 1 and I go to High School camp with our church in a week and I wouldn't be able to do any running as I'm a counselor that week. Excuses, excuses, excuses. What did I just say about procrastination?

Anyone wanna run a 5K with me in October?

Food Porn

Lately, I've been cruising the blogdom of bento boxes. So many fabulous pictures...all are zero calories and zero fat to consume! I just can't get enough of the stuff!
According to justbento.com (my favorite bento blog, EVAH!):

Bento (written 弁当), or obento (お弁当) to use the honorific term, is the Japanese word for a meal served in a box. Beyond that basic definition though, just about anything goes as to what kind of box or container is used, as well as what is put inside that box.

Different types of bento

(See also: Types of homemade bento.)

There are several different kinds of bento, with different purposes. Makunouchi bento are elaborate bento meals presented at formal meals, meant to be eaten at table. This is the type you will see served in restaurants, arranged in elegant lacquered boxes. Kouraku bento are picnic bento, to be shared by a group of people enjoying themselves outdoors - the most popular settings is while enjoying the cherry blossoms in spring ((o)hahanami). Ekiben (a shortened form of eki bento) are boxed meals sold at train stations for travellers (though nowadays you can buy ekiben at many other places, such as department store food halls or convenience stores).

The kind of bento that have garnered the most attention recently, especially outside of Japan are what are called ‘cute bento’ ‘art bento’ or ‘entertaining bento’ (entertain-bento), extremely elaborately decorated small works of art, as exemplified by the work presented on sites like e-obento (Japanese). These are usually made by mothers for their small children. There can be a high level of competitiveness in this arena, which I’ll talk about sometime.

Finally, there’s the plain simple bento that most people bring to work or school for lunch. It’s important to note that most Japanese people do not spend their time making elaborate ‘cute bento’ - that’s more in the realm of a hobby rather than practical everyday living. The type of bento you will see here will be in the category of practical, everyday bento. This is the type of bento that Just Bento concentrates on.

Another bento blog I like is bento zen .

This BBC website has a great blurb about the history of bento. Check it out!

What Thing 2 and I have been looking at is all the "cute bento" stuff online, but am thinking that will try for the everyday type of bento, with a bit of the cute stuff thrown in for good measure...or when the feeling strikes me.

There is A LOT of stuff out there to make bento meals more fun. Nothing like another bad "habit" to fuel.

A couple of cookbooks I own:

Kawaii Bento Boxes: Cute and Convenient Japanese Meals on the Go, by Joie Staff that has bunches of recipes and beautiful full-color pictures, along with an index of bento favorites classified by color. Although it has the word "cute" in the title, there are many ideas in the book that would fit right into a basic bento.

Hawai'i's Bento Box Cookbook: Fun Lunches for Kids, by Susan Yuen. This is definitely a "cute" bento cookbook! A great book for lunches for little ones in your house. Although, there is a large section of 'ono recipes in the 2nd half of the book that not only has the ingredients and directions for the recipe, but a picture of the finished product.

On my bento cookbook wishlist:

Hawai'i's Bento Box Cookbook: 2nd Course, also by Susan Yuen

501 Bento Box Lunches: 501 Unique Recipes for Brilliant Bento, by Korero Books

Someday, maybe, I'll post a picture of my bento attempts. Maybe not. For now, I'll concentrate on making lunches healthy and more appetizing/appealing.

Summer Fun

Summer has arrived...well, as much as it can in the Pacific Northwest! I so enjoy the warm summer days around here. Not a big fan of high heat -- or desperate cold, for that matter!

I think I've got a handle on the meal planning business...I think! Got 30+ pages of "info" (large font-filled pages) for my webpage off to my website creator Spice Girl G; tweaked the recipes to look more appealing (to read!); figured and added nutritional information to the recipes; re-did my meal plan packet; professionalized the forms and such that go into the intro packets; and generally messed up the side table with piles of papers! Next? Work with some clients!

Now, I'm ready to do some cooking of my own! My mid-life crisis has requested that I amble off into some different and fresh Asian inspired dishes...maybe it's my palate that is directing this shift from down-home comfort food?! Needless to say, I've been browsing a bazillion (yes, I do mean bazillion) food blogs and picked up a stack of cookbooks to peruse from the library and have found a couple that look promising...

Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors, by Andrea Nguyen; Quick & Easy Vietnamese: 75 Everyday Recipes, by Nancie McDermott; and Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls, Samosas, & More, also by Andrea Nguyen.

 

What else? Oh, yeah, with the slightly better weather that we've been having, I've scheduled some walks into my life. I have to start walking, before I can run, yes?

New Direction...Am I lost?

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Have been praying and mulling over what direction God has for my outside-the-home-job-life...What to do? To whom do I talk to? Do I need to update my resume (which I haven't done in 13 or so years!)?

With a simple status update on Facebook on meal planning for my own family, God gave me a new direction...meal planning for other families! I've had 10 people talk to me about meal planning for them!

With a little prayer and creativity, I've created my own personal cottage industry! And my personal "Spice Girl" has offered to be my webmaster! Thanks to my guinea pig EC, too!

God is good.

Now, let's hope I don't get lost.

Self-Organized Criticality

So, on my mid-life crisis world tour, I’ve decided that I REEEEALLLLLY need to get organized. I like to think (or bluff my way out of) that I am organized…to an extent. I know where the general location is of the form I was working on is in a PILE on my desk/coffee table/floor next to my bed/yada yada yada. In my head, I’m pretty organized. On my desk, not so much.

Thus, in my quest to find a definition of organized, I found this term “Self-Organized Criticality.” Sounds like it might apply to me. Read on for the definition:
“In physics, self-organized criticality (SOC) is a property of (classes of) dynamical systems which have a critical point as an attractor. Their macroscopic behavior thus displays the spatial and/or temporal scale-invariance characteristic of the critical point of a phase transition, but without the need to tune control parameters to precise values…SOC is typically observed in slowly-driven non-equilibrium systems with extended degrees of freedom and a high level of nonlinearity. Many individual examples have been identified…but to date there is no known set of general characteristics that guarantee a system will display SOC.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality

Huh.

Here’s MY definition:
In Rosabella’s physical [and emotional] life, self-organized criticality [SOC] is a property of her dynamic system of welfare which has a critical point [midlife crisis] as an attractor. Her macroscopic behavior thus displays the spatial [desk/coffee table/floor next to bed] AND temporal [brain function filing cabinet] scale-invariance characteristic of the critical point [again, midlife crisis] of a phase transition, but with the need to tune control parameters to precise values [based on her own sorting and understanding]…SOC is observed in her slowly-driven non-equilibrium life system with extended degrees of freedom [from daily life obstacles] and a high level of nonlinearity [that would really be easier to do if life was more linear]. Many individual examples have been identified [SHEs, Emilie Barnes, OrganizedHome.org]…but to date there has been no known set of general characteristics that GUARANTEE a well-received organizational system will display SOC in Rosabella’s life.
[Parentheses and italics and bold font are mine]

WTF?

According to wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn , organized is defined as: “methodical and efficient in arrangement or function; ‘how well organized she is’; ‘his life was almost too organized’”

Yeah, right. Like I’ve heard that before.

Procrastination

PROCRASTINATION refers to the counterproductive deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. Schraw, Wadkins, & Olafson [Who the heck these dudes are, I have no idea. But they were quoted in Wikipedia, so they must be important.] have proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, & delaying.

Procrastination may result in stress, a sense of guilt & crisis, severe loss of personal productivity, as well as social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments. These feelings combined may promote further procrastination. While it is regarded as normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination
[parentheses mine]

So, I’ve been procrastinating about my midlife crisis.

According to the above referenced Wikipedia article, it looks like I might be showing signs of an [or another, as the case may be] underlying psychological disorder.

Sheesh.