My kids started school yesterday. Somehow, I am the mother of a first grader and a fourth grader. The first grader wanted me to wait next to her in line until the teacher led them off to their class, but she ignored me and talked to her friends. The fourth grader started ignoring me as soon as she kissed me good-bye and ran off to talk to her friends. They are both so big and grown up looking these days. The first grader still likes to snuggle, though, and the fourth grader still wants to tell me everything.
I am happy that they are happy to be in school. We still have a lot of summer left here, and I'm looking forward to some future beach trips.
I'm still struggling with focus. Maybe it is because it is still a bit too warm in my office most afternoons? I'm starting to suspect we'll need to install air conditioning in order for me to get through the hot flashes that are in my future. I hate this, but maybe we can also install solar panels and that will make me feel better about it.
But probably the heat isn't the cause of my lack of focus. I've started to think that I am in the period of entrepreneurship that is similar to the 3rd year slump I experienced in graduate school. I describe that slump as having been caused by being far enough into the tunnel that I couldn't see the light of where I'd come from but not far enough through the tunnel to see the light at the end. It isn't quite the same now, but maybe my problem is that I'm far enough into this little entrepreneurship experiment to know that I really, really want to make it work in the long term, but not far enough in yet to have solid evidence that it will work in the long term.
If this is correct, then I need to remind myself of how much I've figured out already, and maybe review and perhaps update my medium term plans for growing my business.
Or maybe I'm just tired. I've had some time off from parts of my responsibilities recently, but haven't taken a day to just do whatever I please for a long, long time. I used to at least take a half day to myself every few months. I'd thought that since my kids are older and less obviously demanding of my energy and since my work is less emotionally draining these days that I didn't need those half days. But maybe I do.
If this is correct, then I just need to take a day off work and not spend it with my kids.
Or maybe the tired goes deeper than that. The last few years have involved working through a lot of things. How I view myself and my goals and my place in this world have all changed, but maybe I haven't really gotten comfortable with where I am now. I'm acknowledging the way my career didn't go as planned, and acknowledging some of the varied reasons for that, and that is really uncomfortable, and is leaving some raw edges that I keep accidentally bumping up against, which then causes trivial little things to bother me more than they should. And that has made it hard to relax and enjoy where I'm at now.
If this is correct, I should probably figure out my insurance and find a therapist to help me get through this work as fast as I can. Or maybe I just need to take more long walks on the beach. Those help a lot, too.
Probably, I should do all of these things. But right now, I have to go make dinner. Surely, I can at least focus on that.
Tell me what you think I should do in the comments, if you want. I don't promise to take your advice, but I always like reading it.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Mixed Feelings
Clearly, I'm not posting my weekend links this week. They should be back next week. If you're suffering link reading withdrawl, I recommend Nicoleandmaggie's list. The McMansion one made me feel so much better about my small 1950s house with tiny closets and small bathrooms. Although, to be honest, I've been feeling a lot better about it since we added on an office and expanded the living room, making it not seem so small. It still has tiny closets and small bathrooms, though.
Anyhow, the main reason the links post didn't happen is time. I spent all day Friday hanging out with my kids. They'd gone to Sea World camp earlier in the summer, and that left them with "fun passes"- passes to return anytime for the rest of this year. So I bought one, too, and we spent the day at Sea World. It is not my favorite of our local attractions, and I have mixed feelings about it. But we went, and we had a lot of fun. Petunia loves the bat rays, and both kids love the water ride (Shipwreck Rapids). We started the day at the rays, and then rode the ride three times in a row, because it wasn't actually sunny yet so there was no line. We got soaked, of course, but the kids were happy to have shown me their favorite ride, and the sun was out by the time we'd finished our rides, so being soaked felt good. I let them mostly make the choices about what we did for the rest of the day, and it was a very good day.
But, when we got home a little after six, I was exhausted. I'd started some pizza dough (the Smitten Kitchen lazy option- thanks for the recommendation, Today Wendy!) so I had to make pizza. The crust was really good, but Pumpkin says she prefers Bobolis. She doesn't like change. I'll probably try the homemade dough one more time at least to see if she comes around. Or maybe I'll try one of the other recommendations I got for making dough.
By the time dinner was made and eaten it was time to get the kids' bedtime routines started, and by the time they were in bed I was done with the day.
Yesterday was almost as busy. We had gymnastics, back to school shopping, and then a birthday party at a roller skating rink. That lasted all afternoon, and in the end both of my kids really liked skating. Petunia, in particular, wants to go back ASAP. However, we got to Petunia loving skating by having me spend three solid hours skating slowly next to her and as you might guess, that is pretty tiring. Then we had dinner at some friends' house, and stopped to see the Sea World fireworks over the bay on the way home. We got home late and put the kids directly to bed and then I went to bed, too.
So, there wasn't a lot of time for blog post writing. Still, on other busy weekends, I have made some space to put up a quick links post. If I'm honest with myself, I was avoiding the internet Friday. Thursday night, someone I like to follow retweeted someone else who I usually like making a joke that implied blonde women are too stupid to do science.
And that took me back to being 14 and listening to blonde jokes and other put downs from the boys in my classes. It was amazing how deflated I felt. I logged off and didn't really want to get back online the next day.
I know that blonde jokes do a tiny fraction of the damage that is done by the racist crap people of color get online. I don't consider blonde jokes to be on par with racism at all, and please do not interpret anything in this post as me equating blonde jokes with the structural racism that people of color must navigate in order to succeed in their careers. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it when I saw the tweet (I didn't reply) and I don't really want to now (this is why I'm not giving details). But I find it interesting how one offhand joke can essentially strip away all of my hard-earned confidence and turn me back into that awkward girl, unsure of her place in the world, wanting to be taken seriously but getting message after message that embracing the "dumb blonde" personna would be an easier and quicker way to feeling like I belonged. And I want to explore that a little bit.
I've been hearing dumb blonde jokes since I was in elementary school. I heard them all through my school years, from classmates and adults. Our local newspaper once printed a list and invited readers to send in their favorites. I heard them at college, and also was told by multiple people that I was only accepted because my picture was atttached to my application (an accusation that I've never felt attractive enough to warrant, and a "joke" that erased my high test scores, good grades, and other application materials). I heard them when I was visiting graduate schools. I heard them in grad school, both about me and and about one of the other blonde students in our program. She looked even more like the stereotypical SoCal blonde than I did, and our fellow students made a lot of jokes about how she didn't really belong in science. I don't know how many of those she heard, and how many were just things people would say behind her back. From what I could tell, she was a good scientist. She is no longer working in science. I didn't know her well enough to know why.
I heard blonde jokes through my early career days. Often, people would tell me a blonde joke within minutes of meeting me, even in professional situations. I don't hear them so often now, perhaps because my hair has darkened with age and while still blonde isn't strikingly so. Or perhaps people don't tell them as often now. I don't know, but I think I'll find out soon, because Pumpkin is almost the age when I started hearing those jokes, and she has blonde hair.
At some point, I decided the best option was to laugh along, and for awhile would reply to any blonde joke with a barrage of additional jokes. I never felt comfortable in the role those jokes ascribed to women like me, so I kept working to be taken seriously for my accomplishments. I kept working to learn to take myself seriously, too, something that I really struggled to do in college and in graduate school. I learned not to try to talk to other students about my feelings of inadequacy. If I did, I'd often get something like a blonde joke in return. I shouldn't worry about whether I would fit in when I went to grad school, a college acquaintance told me. I'd be popular because I had blonde hair. The guys I befriended when I first got to grad school didn't really like me, a classmate said. They just wanted to go out with me and—here she picked up the braid hanging down my back—my blonde hair. (Agonizingly, I eventually realized that this classmate was at least partly right.)
I am fairly certain that most people telling me blonde jokes just thought they were being funny. Obviously, they didn't really think blondes were stupid. I am fairly certain that the people telling me I got into college based on my looks thought they were paying me a compliment. I am fairly certain that the people telling me that the male scientists just wanted to talk to me because I was blonde thought they were doing me a favor. Maybe they were, given that experience eventually taught me not to trust that a man coming up to talk science with me at networking events was truly interested in my work. But Thursday night, I was reminded that all those years of jokes and off hand comments did some damage, and that I haven't really fixed that damage, just papered over it. I should work to really fix it before my daughter starts getting the same jokes and comments. Maybe I can help her figure out how to avoid being damaged by them. I now ironically joke about the blonde jokes with friends, so that's progress! I don't know how to help her skip to that stage, though. Perhaps it isn't possible.
(And yes, I've seen the recent study about the disproportionate number of blonde women in positions of power. I'll direct you to this article that looks at why that might be.)
So anyway, sorry for the lack of links. I was busy working through personal baggage I thought long since stored away.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Slump
The kids are back and settled back into their usual summer routine. I, on the other hand, am in a productivity slump. I'm meeting my deadlines and goals for my client work, but am struggling to motivate myself to do the other work I have planned. I'm not sure what is going on: none of the work is unpleasant, and I'm not over-clocked. Maybe it is just an end of summer slump?
Regardless, I've been using my "stay somewhat productive through a slump" tricks: breaking goals down into smaller tasks on my daily to do list (yesterday's list actually had specific emails I needed to send, not just the usual "catch up on email" item), setting myself short term goals and giving myself small rewards when I hit them (sort of a modified pomodoro method), and trying to pick tasks most appropriate for my mood. One of my goals for the week is to pick the stories for my next taster flight. It is going to be released in October, and has a spooky theme—ghost stories with kids in them. I have five stories picked, but a couple of them are quite short, so I'd like to find at least one more. Last night my time log told me I needed to do some more work, but the other items on the list didn't appeal. So I downloaded an old book from Project Gutenberg and started reading stories. I didn't find any that will work, but it was a nice way to spend the evening. And it lead me to read this wikipedia biography of Lafcadio Hearn, who had an interesting life, to say the least.
So, my productivity tricks are working, to an extent, but it still feels like a struggle. I don't like it when work feels like a struggle.
I'm taking tomorrow off for a long-promised end of summer play day with my kids. They go back to school on Monday. Maybe a day off to play will help!
Regardless, I've been using my "stay somewhat productive through a slump" tricks: breaking goals down into smaller tasks on my daily to do list (yesterday's list actually had specific emails I needed to send, not just the usual "catch up on email" item), setting myself short term goals and giving myself small rewards when I hit them (sort of a modified pomodoro method), and trying to pick tasks most appropriate for my mood. One of my goals for the week is to pick the stories for my next taster flight. It is going to be released in October, and has a spooky theme—ghost stories with kids in them. I have five stories picked, but a couple of them are quite short, so I'd like to find at least one more. Last night my time log told me I needed to do some more work, but the other items on the list didn't appeal. So I downloaded an old book from Project Gutenberg and started reading stories. I didn't find any that will work, but it was a nice way to spend the evening. And it lead me to read this wikipedia biography of Lafcadio Hearn, who had an interesting life, to say the least.
So, my productivity tricks are working, to an extent, but it still feels like a struggle. I don't like it when work feels like a struggle.
I'm taking tomorrow off for a long-promised end of summer play day with my kids. They go back to school on Monday. Maybe a day off to play will help!
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Sunday Morning Thoughts on Imperfection and Impatience
My kids are on their way home now. They should get here within the next couple of hours. I had thought I'd have my weekly grocery shopping done before they got here, so that we could spend the rest of the day just goofing off. That probably won't happen, because I'm stuck on the menu planning step.
This is unusual. I have a meal schedule I follow that usually makes menu planning pretty quick. The schedule is still essentially the same as the one I posted in 2013, except leftovers night has switched with pasta night, and sometimes I make something on leftovers night, either because I don't like the sound of any of the leftovers in our freezer or because we're out of leftovers.
But I've been trying to get back in shape, and part of living the healthiest life I'll enjoy is cooking with a little more care towards calories. So, I'm trying to figure out what to do for pasta night, and contemplating a salad with a little meat instead of the cheese and sausage laden leftover pasta dish we have in our freezer. (That dish started out as a Cooking Light dish, but my husband tends to double the cheese and meat in recipes, which then makes them not quite so light.) Also, I wonder if homemade pizza dough would be healthier than the Boboli crusts we usually use. It would definitely taste better. So I'm searching for a make-ahead dough recipe, while debating whether or not to use it.
Meanwhile, one of the things we did this week was take the opportunity provided by a long evening uninterrupted by kid bedtimes to do a full audit of our finances and talk about what we should perhaps do differently. We ran some "what if" calculations on our mortgage and debated whether we should put a little extra pre-payment on that so that our house might be paid off before we retire or whether we should focus on increasing my retirement savings again. We settled on the mushy middle, as we often do when we're not really sure which financial option is the best. I got a retirement plan set up for my company and have a plan for a schedule of contributions, and we'll increase our pre-payment a bit.
But... I can't help but think that maybe I should be a little more cost-conscious in my grocery shopping. A recent post over at the Grumpies made me realize that I no longer think about cost at all when I do the menu plan and grocery shopping and that maybe I should change that, both to help our bottom line right now and to start teaching my kids how to do that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, we want to get moving on a plan to do up our backyard. The home remodel finished more than nine months ago, and we miss having a backyard that makes us feel relaxed. So we've been talking about our long term plans, and how we might start in on them, and how much we should do ourselves vs. pay someone to do... and there's a lot to do there. Mr. Snarky is working on the first step in the plan (getting our retractable clothesline back up) right this minute, in fact.
Meanwhile, school starts a week from tomorrow, and I have no idea what, if anything, we need to buy for the kids. They'll probably want at least one new outfit whether they actually need it or not, and I remember the back to school jitters so I'm inclined to make that happen. When will we go shopping? I don't know.
So, there's a lot that I want to do, and the usual amount of time in which to do it. Plus, we're coming up on one of my favorite times of year here: September and early October, when it is still beach weather but the tourists have mostly gone home. I am looking forward to a less crowded sidewalk for my rollerblading excursions, and I want to get a least a couple of good beach trips in with the kids.
One of the things I'm really good at is making a realistic plan based on the available time. Perhaps it is my personality, perhaps it is the years of being a project manager. Probably, it is a combination of both. Either way, I can look at that list I typed above and recognize that something is going to have to give.
I keep coming back to the ideas in the Brene Brown book I read about imperfection. I am not a perfectionist, but I do tend to expect myself to do anything I set out to do as well as I possibly can. I am starting to think, though, that the secret to making this phase of my life work is to allow myself to aim for "good enough" instead of my best. I think that the "take the fuzzy middle" road we settled on in our financial discussion might be the best answer for the larger question, too. Do it all, but aim a little lower on all of it.
But I'm impatient. I want the yard done now, and I want to lose ten pounds now, and I want to see more progress toward our long term financial (and life!) goals now.
So really, I need to work on being patient as well as embracing imperfection. But first, I need to finish this damn menu plan.
This is unusual. I have a meal schedule I follow that usually makes menu planning pretty quick. The schedule is still essentially the same as the one I posted in 2013, except leftovers night has switched with pasta night, and sometimes I make something on leftovers night, either because I don't like the sound of any of the leftovers in our freezer or because we're out of leftovers.
But I've been trying to get back in shape, and part of living the healthiest life I'll enjoy is cooking with a little more care towards calories. So, I'm trying to figure out what to do for pasta night, and contemplating a salad with a little meat instead of the cheese and sausage laden leftover pasta dish we have in our freezer. (That dish started out as a Cooking Light dish, but my husband tends to double the cheese and meat in recipes, which then makes them not quite so light.) Also, I wonder if homemade pizza dough would be healthier than the Boboli crusts we usually use. It would definitely taste better. So I'm searching for a make-ahead dough recipe, while debating whether or not to use it.
Meanwhile, one of the things we did this week was take the opportunity provided by a long evening uninterrupted by kid bedtimes to do a full audit of our finances and talk about what we should perhaps do differently. We ran some "what if" calculations on our mortgage and debated whether we should put a little extra pre-payment on that so that our house might be paid off before we retire or whether we should focus on increasing my retirement savings again. We settled on the mushy middle, as we often do when we're not really sure which financial option is the best. I got a retirement plan set up for my company and have a plan for a schedule of contributions, and we'll increase our pre-payment a bit.
But... I can't help but think that maybe I should be a little more cost-conscious in my grocery shopping. A recent post over at the Grumpies made me realize that I no longer think about cost at all when I do the menu plan and grocery shopping and that maybe I should change that, both to help our bottom line right now and to start teaching my kids how to do that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, we want to get moving on a plan to do up our backyard. The home remodel finished more than nine months ago, and we miss having a backyard that makes us feel relaxed. So we've been talking about our long term plans, and how we might start in on them, and how much we should do ourselves vs. pay someone to do... and there's a lot to do there. Mr. Snarky is working on the first step in the plan (getting our retractable clothesline back up) right this minute, in fact.
Meanwhile, school starts a week from tomorrow, and I have no idea what, if anything, we need to buy for the kids. They'll probably want at least one new outfit whether they actually need it or not, and I remember the back to school jitters so I'm inclined to make that happen. When will we go shopping? I don't know.
So, there's a lot that I want to do, and the usual amount of time in which to do it. Plus, we're coming up on one of my favorite times of year here: September and early October, when it is still beach weather but the tourists have mostly gone home. I am looking forward to a less crowded sidewalk for my rollerblading excursions, and I want to get a least a couple of good beach trips in with the kids.
One of the things I'm really good at is making a realistic plan based on the available time. Perhaps it is my personality, perhaps it is the years of being a project manager. Probably, it is a combination of both. Either way, I can look at that list I typed above and recognize that something is going to have to give.
I keep coming back to the ideas in the Brene Brown book I read about imperfection. I am not a perfectionist, but I do tend to expect myself to do anything I set out to do as well as I possibly can. I am starting to think, though, that the secret to making this phase of my life work is to allow myself to aim for "good enough" instead of my best. I think that the "take the fuzzy middle" road we settled on in our financial discussion might be the best answer for the larger question, too. Do it all, but aim a little lower on all of it.
But I'm impatient. I want the yard done now, and I want to lose ten pounds now, and I want to see more progress toward our long term financial (and life!) goals now.
 |
| Life goal: more sunsets like this. |
Friday, August 19, 2016
Weekend Reading: The Week Goes Fast Edition
Our week without kids is almost over. It has been really nice, but I am looking forward to seeing my kids on Sunday. There have been many meals out without a single thought as to whether or not the restaurant has any menu items my children will eat, and that alone has been great. There was also some kayaking time and some lazy around the house time, and those were both great, too.
What was not so great was the visual migraine I got yesterday that screwed up my plans for the day, and made us decide to cancel the planned rollerblade today. Probably, the rollerblade would have been fine. Oh well.
Between the visual migraine (which makes it essentially impossible to look at a screen) and a general focus on spending time with Mr. Snarky, I don't have all that many links this week. But, as always, I think what I do have is good.
Here's an interesting but somewhat superficial piece about racism and mental health. I guess superficial is a bit unfair. It is good for what it is, but I wanted it to go deeper. I've long been curious about the impact of experiencing bias on mental health. I've also wondered if there are mental health providers out there who specialize in helping professionals who have cracked or are starting to crack under the pressure of bias.
Speaking of bias... this open letter to managers of women hits very, very close to home.
Think about bias as pollution... that will destroy your company.
I'm late to this one, but Michelle A'Court's open letter to Saatchi's Kevin Roberts is really good.
Sara Benincasa's answer to a reader who wrote to ask why she is fat is also really good. I think I should perhaps read her book.
This article from Emily Deruy about racism on campus is unusually good. Here's the take home quote, which appears to be a paraphrase of something Tressie McMillan Cottom said when interviewed for the piece: "being safely uncomfortable in class is entirely different from being safely uncomfortable on campus."
I think that quote speaks to a lot of contexts away from higher ed, too.
Josh Marshall's thoughts on the ads and the demise of Gawker and the importance of independent media are really worth your time.
Timothy Lee manages to make the roomba vs. dog poo story about something more than schadenfreude.
Could we make affordable housing vouchers more like food stamps? And here's a look at the failure of Section 8 in San Diego.
This conversation between Dan Pink and Amy Herman about the art of observation was really interesting. Plus there are pictures of some cool art.
Ann Friedman on female olympians is very good. I have noticed that all of the people who are snarking about the story of the two runners who fell are men, and this is making me think that perhaps some men don't realize that there is more to sport than pure competition, or at least that there can be. It has also given me some ideas about how to frame events that involve an aspect of competition for competition-adverse Pumpkin. If it is about something more than winning and losing, maybe that will help. My thoughts are still coalescing on this one.
I am absolutely going to try Smitten Kitchen's quick zucchini saute.
I don't have a funny to end on! But I do have this:
What was not so great was the visual migraine I got yesterday that screwed up my plans for the day, and made us decide to cancel the planned rollerblade today. Probably, the rollerblade would have been fine. Oh well.
Between the visual migraine (which makes it essentially impossible to look at a screen) and a general focus on spending time with Mr. Snarky, I don't have all that many links this week. But, as always, I think what I do have is good.
Here's an interesting but somewhat superficial piece about racism and mental health. I guess superficial is a bit unfair. It is good for what it is, but I wanted it to go deeper. I've long been curious about the impact of experiencing bias on mental health. I've also wondered if there are mental health providers out there who specialize in helping professionals who have cracked or are starting to crack under the pressure of bias.
Speaking of bias... this open letter to managers of women hits very, very close to home.
Think about bias as pollution... that will destroy your company.
I'm late to this one, but Michelle A'Court's open letter to Saatchi's Kevin Roberts is really good.
Sara Benincasa's answer to a reader who wrote to ask why she is fat is also really good. I think I should perhaps read her book.
This article from Emily Deruy about racism on campus is unusually good. Here's the take home quote, which appears to be a paraphrase of something Tressie McMillan Cottom said when interviewed for the piece: "being safely uncomfortable in class is entirely different from being safely uncomfortable on campus."
I think that quote speaks to a lot of contexts away from higher ed, too.
Josh Marshall's thoughts on the ads and the demise of Gawker and the importance of independent media are really worth your time.
Timothy Lee manages to make the roomba vs. dog poo story about something more than schadenfreude.
Could we make affordable housing vouchers more like food stamps? And here's a look at the failure of Section 8 in San Diego.
This conversation between Dan Pink and Amy Herman about the art of observation was really interesting. Plus there are pictures of some cool art.
Ann Friedman on female olympians is very good. I have noticed that all of the people who are snarking about the story of the two runners who fell are men, and this is making me think that perhaps some men don't realize that there is more to sport than pure competition, or at least that there can be. It has also given me some ideas about how to frame events that involve an aspect of competition for competition-adverse Pumpkin. If it is about something more than winning and losing, maybe that will help. My thoughts are still coalescing on this one.
I am absolutely going to try Smitten Kitchen's quick zucchini saute.
I don't have a funny to end on! But I do have this:
Favourite #Bristol street name. pic.twitter.com/EOeOH1dkVs— Gareth L Powell (@garethlpowell) August 15, 2016
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Thinking Long Term
My kids are visting my parents this week, and are no doubt have a blast. They always do. Mr. Snarky and I are having fun, too. Last night, we went and bought curtains! Woo hoo!
Seriously, we miss our kids but really enjoy a week of adult time. One of the nice things that having an entire week of adult time gives us is time to slow down and really talk about things other than what we need to do this weekend or who is going to take the kids to the next birthday party. We try to do this with occasional nights out and our Friday night beers tradition, but life gets busy and the immediate squeezes out time for the long term.
And yet, we both know that good things come from making space to have long, rambling conversations. It was on a long, rambling conversation as we walked down the beach one day that we hatched our plan to take time off and make what we still call our "big trip," which is one of our favorite things we have ever done. We both wanted to do some serious travel but had never thought we could... until we talked about it that day.
So Saturday, over beers at our nearest brewery tasting room, we talked long term. We talked about crazy ideas for what our life might look like, and decided we liked it just the way it is... for now. San Diego is a pretty great place to live. But we are both drawn to the idea of splitting time between the US, New Zealand, and travel when we retire, and we talked about what we'd need to do financially to make that happen.
This is not news, but it is the most specific we've gotten about that idea.
And we talked about how we might take longer vacations again. I miss three week vacations, and it seems like we should be able to make them come back.
We also talked a lot about what we want to do with our backyard. So, you know, our transformation into boring middle age is now complete.
But eventually, we're going to have a really awesome backyard.
Seriously, we miss our kids but really enjoy a week of adult time. One of the nice things that having an entire week of adult time gives us is time to slow down and really talk about things other than what we need to do this weekend or who is going to take the kids to the next birthday party. We try to do this with occasional nights out and our Friday night beers tradition, but life gets busy and the immediate squeezes out time for the long term.
And yet, we both know that good things come from making space to have long, rambling conversations. It was on a long, rambling conversation as we walked down the beach one day that we hatched our plan to take time off and make what we still call our "big trip," which is one of our favorite things we have ever done. We both wanted to do some serious travel but had never thought we could... until we talked about it that day.
So Saturday, over beers at our nearest brewery tasting room, we talked long term. We talked about crazy ideas for what our life might look like, and decided we liked it just the way it is... for now. San Diego is a pretty great place to live. But we are both drawn to the idea of splitting time between the US, New Zealand, and travel when we retire, and we talked about what we'd need to do financially to make that happen.
This is not news, but it is the most specific we've gotten about that idea.
And we talked about how we might take longer vacations again. I miss three week vacations, and it seems like we should be able to make them come back.
We also talked a lot about what we want to do with our backyard. So, you know, our transformation into boring middle age is now complete.
But eventually, we're going to have a really awesome backyard.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Weekend Reading: The More Than a Bit Verbose Edition
Alternative title for this post: I'm tired of talking about literal headaches, so let's talk about some figurative headaches instead! But that seemed too verbose even for a links post that is more verbose than most, so I decided against it.
I've got a couple of sets of links that I want to talk a bit about, and then the usual garden variety links... so let's just get to it.
First up, I forgot to link to Jess Zimmerman's wonderful essay Hunger Makes Me earlier. In a way, that's fortuitous, because I think that reading it in conjunction with Kristi Coulter's essay Enjoli is particularly useful. The common thread I noticed in these two essays is how much this world makes us women learn to hide our desires and even our own identities, and how much damage that does. I've written before about how unmooring I found it to realize that I'd changed myself so much to fit in to my male-dominated work environment that I didn't even really know who the real me was anymore. One of the things I've been doing since going out on my own is trying to reconnect with who I am and what I want. This has been surprisingly hard.
I'm not sure what, if anything, I'd do differently from my earlier career. I was just doing what I needed to do to build a career in my chosen field. One thing I would perhaps try to differently, though, would be to be more aware of the compromises I was making. I think those compromises were worth making, but I wish I'd noticed them more at the time. Maybe that would have helped me build a stronger core, that could have carried me through the tough times better, and left me still feeling like "me."
The more I think about it, the more I think I'd have to go back earlier, though. I'd need to go back to the little girl who first starting getting the messages that our culture sends about what is worthy of respect, what makes you smart, what makes you "cool," and all that. I can see some of those messages more clearly now, and I see my own daughters receiving them. I am starting to think that the most important, useful thing I can do for them is to teach them how to recognize their own wishes, and help them learn to be aware of when they're compromising one of those wishes. I want to help them see the obstacles they face more clearly both so that they can develop strategies for overcoming them and so that perhaps the process of overcoming them won't come with such a high cost.
Also, it would be nice to spare them some of the angst I went through.
I think that figuring out what you really want from life and who you really are is work everyone has to do. But I also think that our culture teaches girls from a very early age that these aren't even questions they have a right to ask themselves, and that this makes it harder for women to eventually find their answers. THAT is what I want to help my girls avoid. I don't know how to go about doing that, but I'm going to try.
OK, moving on....
Next, we have politics. This Brian Beutler piece about the structural issues the GOP would be facing in this election, regardless of who they had nominated, is a good.
But my Twitter feed was mostly full of people talking about this story from the Washington Post about what a new poll says about Trump voters.
Ross Douthat makes a good case for why this doesn't mean that there is economic uncertainty involved in the rise of Trump. Start with this tweet and read his whole thread:
BUT... he doesn't address why not all working class white people feeling this uncertainty are going for Trump. Even the relative he mentions is probably voting Democrat.
And here is a thread from Matt Yglesias expressing the counterpoint:
I don't think we should ignore the economic stress a lot of Trump voters are experiencing. But I also don't think that gives them a pass for the ugly, racist way in which they are expressing that stress, or at least are comfortable with other people expressing it.
To argue that the Trump phenomenon is solely down to economics is to do a huge disservice to the many economically stressed people who have looked at the hatred and racism Trump is spewing and decided that is NOT the answer.
It feels like this election is setting us up to finally reckon with the fall out from the Civil Rights era. The Republican's "Southern strategy" has been faltering for awhile, but Republicans continued to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) use race-based scaremongering to get the votes they needed to win. Trump has gone all in on this approach. As Josh Marshall points out, "mainstream" Republicans' unwillingness to distance themselves from him indicates that at a minimum, they believe that maintaining the support of these racially motivated voters is essential to win.
If this is true, then I'm afraid we're about to start having a lot of elections about white nationalism, and I'm afraid it is going to get even uglier than it already has.
This country does not have a good track record of being able to make progress on racial equality peacefully. Whether or not we break that bad record is going to be determined by what all of us do next. Do the Republicans finally learn that they need to build a different sort of coalition if they want to win? Or do the double down on the racial scaremongering? And how do the rest of us respond?
I've tried several times to express my thoughts on what the rest of us can do, and I don't think I have succeeded. Luckily for me, Anand Giridharadas put together a series of tweets that captures a lot of what I have been trying to say.
In the end, it doesn't matter how much I think that our current mess is the result of a narrow-minded, short-sighted political strategy used by the Republicans after the Civil Rights Act. I could be right, I could be wrong. Either way, I've got to live with what is happening now. This country isn't some trinket in a shop with a "you break it, you bought it" sign. It doesn't matter who broke it, we all own it now.
Sometimes, being an adult is cleaning up a mess you didn't make. I think we all benefit from cleaning up this mess. I'll be a lot happier if the Republican party decides to help clean up this mess. Hell, I'd be happy if they'd just stop making more of the damn mess. But I'm not going to sit here and stew in the mess just to prove a point. There is too much to lose from letting this fester, and too much to gain from cleaning it up. So I say, let's all get to work.
I think Giridharadas is right that those of us who are happy with the diversity in our country need to try to help the people made anxious by it see that there will be a place for them in the more diverse America. I think that white people who are happy with the diversity in our country in particular need to work on this. We take on less risk in doing so, and we've benefited from the privilege whose decline is making our fellow white people anxious.
How do we go about showing the anxious people that they'll be OK in future America? I don't really know. It probably starts by not referring derisively to "flyover country" and not sneering at "red states." It would help to visit some of those states and try to really understand how life there differs from life in our coastal cities. Here's one small example: I have exactly zero desire to own a gun living where I live now, but when we drove across southern Colorado on our vacation two years ago, I found myself thinking that I'd want a gun if I lived out there. It is empty, empty country, and that sort of country forces a certain self-reliance on you.
We could question why the "good jobs" have to cluster so fiercely. Why can't companies whose product is a bunch of code open some offices in places outside of the usual locales? Why can't venture capital fund a software start up in West Virginia? The honest answers to those questions would not reflect well on us.
I certainly don't have the answers. But I want to try to find them. I want to try to bring more white people over to my way of viewing our future.
OK, so that's the verbose part. Here are the garden variety links:
Another judge worried more about the effect of punishment on a rapist than the effect of the rape on the victim, and another powerful victim statement.
Palo Alto has an affordable housing problem. And here's some more analysis of it, which is relevant to all of us who live in expensive places.
Here's some really good news about peanut allergies in children.
Programs that provide cash to people facing imminent homelessness are very effective.
I meant to link to this NYT piece about the history of home pregnancy tests last week, but forgot because: MIGRAINE. (h/t to Bad Mom Good Mom for that one)
Reminder! I'm running a GoodReads giveaway for The Lilies of Dawn and it ends TODAY.
And here's your funny thing at the end (click through and read the full thread and don't miss the pictures):
Happy weekend, everyone!
I've got a couple of sets of links that I want to talk a bit about, and then the usual garden variety links... so let's just get to it.
First up, I forgot to link to Jess Zimmerman's wonderful essay Hunger Makes Me earlier. In a way, that's fortuitous, because I think that reading it in conjunction with Kristi Coulter's essay Enjoli is particularly useful. The common thread I noticed in these two essays is how much this world makes us women learn to hide our desires and even our own identities, and how much damage that does. I've written before about how unmooring I found it to realize that I'd changed myself so much to fit in to my male-dominated work environment that I didn't even really know who the real me was anymore. One of the things I've been doing since going out on my own is trying to reconnect with who I am and what I want. This has been surprisingly hard.
I'm not sure what, if anything, I'd do differently from my earlier career. I was just doing what I needed to do to build a career in my chosen field. One thing I would perhaps try to differently, though, would be to be more aware of the compromises I was making. I think those compromises were worth making, but I wish I'd noticed them more at the time. Maybe that would have helped me build a stronger core, that could have carried me through the tough times better, and left me still feeling like "me."
The more I think about it, the more I think I'd have to go back earlier, though. I'd need to go back to the little girl who first starting getting the messages that our culture sends about what is worthy of respect, what makes you smart, what makes you "cool," and all that. I can see some of those messages more clearly now, and I see my own daughters receiving them. I am starting to think that the most important, useful thing I can do for them is to teach them how to recognize their own wishes, and help them learn to be aware of when they're compromising one of those wishes. I want to help them see the obstacles they face more clearly both so that they can develop strategies for overcoming them and so that perhaps the process of overcoming them won't come with such a high cost.
Also, it would be nice to spare them some of the angst I went through.
I think that figuring out what you really want from life and who you really are is work everyone has to do. But I also think that our culture teaches girls from a very early age that these aren't even questions they have a right to ask themselves, and that this makes it harder for women to eventually find their answers. THAT is what I want to help my girls avoid. I don't know how to go about doing that, but I'm going to try.
OK, moving on....
Next, we have politics. This Brian Beutler piece about the structural issues the GOP would be facing in this election, regardless of who they had nominated, is a good.
But my Twitter feed was mostly full of people talking about this story from the Washington Post about what a new poll says about Trump voters.
Ross Douthat makes a good case for why this doesn't mean that there is economic uncertainty involved in the rise of Trump. Start with this tweet and read his whole thread:
1. New study shows Trump voters concentrated in distressed blue collar areas but better off than their neighbors:https://t.co/f3nLyjwd06— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) August 12, 2016
BUT... he doesn't address why not all working class white people feeling this uncertainty are going for Trump. Even the relative he mentions is probably voting Democrat.
And here is a thread from Matt Yglesias expressing the counterpoint:
1. One reason I mock "economic anxiety" theories of Trumpism is I think we should interpret voter behavior as making some kind of sense.— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 12, 2016
I don't think we should ignore the economic stress a lot of Trump voters are experiencing. But I also don't think that gives them a pass for the ugly, racist way in which they are expressing that stress, or at least are comfortable with other people expressing it.
To argue that the Trump phenomenon is solely down to economics is to do a huge disservice to the many economically stressed people who have looked at the hatred and racism Trump is spewing and decided that is NOT the answer.
It feels like this election is setting us up to finally reckon with the fall out from the Civil Rights era. The Republican's "Southern strategy" has been faltering for awhile, but Republicans continued to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) use race-based scaremongering to get the votes they needed to win. Trump has gone all in on this approach. As Josh Marshall points out, "mainstream" Republicans' unwillingness to distance themselves from him indicates that at a minimum, they believe that maintaining the support of these racially motivated voters is essential to win.
If this is true, then I'm afraid we're about to start having a lot of elections about white nationalism, and I'm afraid it is going to get even uglier than it already has.
This country does not have a good track record of being able to make progress on racial equality peacefully. Whether or not we break that bad record is going to be determined by what all of us do next. Do the Republicans finally learn that they need to build a different sort of coalition if they want to win? Or do the double down on the racial scaremongering? And how do the rest of us respond?
I've tried several times to express my thoughts on what the rest of us can do, and I don't think I have succeeded. Luckily for me, Anand Giridharadas put together a series of tweets that captures a lot of what I have been trying to say.
In the end, it doesn't matter how much I think that our current mess is the result of a narrow-minded, short-sighted political strategy used by the Republicans after the Civil Rights Act. I could be right, I could be wrong. Either way, I've got to live with what is happening now. This country isn't some trinket in a shop with a "you break it, you bought it" sign. It doesn't matter who broke it, we all own it now.
Sometimes, being an adult is cleaning up a mess you didn't make. I think we all benefit from cleaning up this mess. I'll be a lot happier if the Republican party decides to help clean up this mess. Hell, I'd be happy if they'd just stop making more of the damn mess. But I'm not going to sit here and stew in the mess just to prove a point. There is too much to lose from letting this fester, and too much to gain from cleaning it up. So I say, let's all get to work.
I think Giridharadas is right that those of us who are happy with the diversity in our country need to try to help the people made anxious by it see that there will be a place for them in the more diverse America. I think that white people who are happy with the diversity in our country in particular need to work on this. We take on less risk in doing so, and we've benefited from the privilege whose decline is making our fellow white people anxious.
How do we go about showing the anxious people that they'll be OK in future America? I don't really know. It probably starts by not referring derisively to "flyover country" and not sneering at "red states." It would help to visit some of those states and try to really understand how life there differs from life in our coastal cities. Here's one small example: I have exactly zero desire to own a gun living where I live now, but when we drove across southern Colorado on our vacation two years ago, I found myself thinking that I'd want a gun if I lived out there. It is empty, empty country, and that sort of country forces a certain self-reliance on you.
We could question why the "good jobs" have to cluster so fiercely. Why can't companies whose product is a bunch of code open some offices in places outside of the usual locales? Why can't venture capital fund a software start up in West Virginia? The honest answers to those questions would not reflect well on us.
I certainly don't have the answers. But I want to try to find them. I want to try to bring more white people over to my way of viewing our future.
OK, so that's the verbose part. Here are the garden variety links:
Another judge worried more about the effect of punishment on a rapist than the effect of the rape on the victim, and another powerful victim statement.
Palo Alto has an affordable housing problem. And here's some more analysis of it, which is relevant to all of us who live in expensive places.
Here's some really good news about peanut allergies in children.
Programs that provide cash to people facing imminent homelessness are very effective.
I meant to link to this NYT piece about the history of home pregnancy tests last week, but forgot because: MIGRAINE. (h/t to Bad Mom Good Mom for that one)
Reminder! I'm running a GoodReads giveaway for The Lilies of Dawn and it ends TODAY.
And here's your funny thing at the end (click through and read the full thread and don't miss the pictures):
Having a good laugh at Eugene Spreicher, who went to art school with Georgia O'Keeffe. He kept bugging her to pose for him.— Captain Awkward (@CAwkward) August 11, 2016
Happy weekend, everyone!
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
A Trying to Get Back to Normal Hodge-Podge
Last week, I had a full migraine for the first time in years. I think the last time I had a migraine with all of the symptoms was in graduate school, which was more than 15 years ago. I think it was early in graduate school, so honestly, it has probably been close to 20 years since I had a full migraine. A couple of years ago, I had a cluster of visual migraines, but those didn't come with the headache and didn't last long.
So, I had no idea what to expect, and when I found that a combination of ibuprofen and caffeine made it possible for me to function after the first day, I took ibuprofen and increased my usual caffeine intake. I got through Thursday and Friday, not feeling great, but functioning. I got through Saturday and Sunday, still not feeling great, but thinking I was basically better because the headache was mostly gone. I went off to my main client site on Monday thinking I was back to normal.
Boy, was I wrong. I felt like I was in a fog. I couldn't really think straight and I was exhausted. A little Google searching told me I was likely experiencing a postdromal phase to my migraine. So I cut my day short and came home. And I took a 2.5 hour nap. I got up and made dinner (Monday is swimming night, so Mr. Snarky was with the kids at the pool) and then I collapsed on the sofa until it was a reasonable hour to go to bed, and went to bed early.
I felt better Tuesday, but not quite 100%. I got through my work day and dinner... and hit a wall around the kids' bedtime.
Today I'm better still, but not back to normal. And I'm left wondering if I would have gotten better faster if I'd allowed myself more rest time in the early phases. I hope I don't get a chance to find out, because that would mean another migraine. But still, this is yet another reminder that I need to learn to allow myself to rest when I'm feeling a little under the weather but am not completely incapacitated. I really do.
-----------------
Pumpkin was excited to watch the women's gymnastics at the Olympics, but the NBC coverage has made that next to impossible. Luckily for her, she's going to visit my parents next week, and they have recorded some gymnastics for her to watch. But I'm really frustrated with NBC. The have made it so that the only way to have even a decent Olympic-watching experience is to have cable, so that you can access the event replays on streaming. We don't have cable, but we added NBC to our Sling channels thinking we could catch enough on broadcast. But no, they've tape delayed all the "big" events such that the majority of them are well past my kids' bedtime. Heck, a lot of it is past MY bedtime.
This is frustrating because I know that it is possible to provide a better experience. We bought access to the Rugby World Cup that allowed us to watch all of the games on demand, whenever we wanted. NBC could easily have done something similar with the Olympics, perhaps providing different streaming packages with different groups of events. Instead, it feels like they're trying to bully us all back to cable. That isn't going to work. Nothing NBC can do will make us go back to cable. Cable is just not a good fit for us anymore. They would be better served to recognize that the way people access entertainment is changing, and work to figure out how to adapt their business model to the new reality.
Oh well.
-----------------
Speaking of annoying things... why do stores insist on acting like the seasons are the same here in Southern California as they are on the East Coast? We want a patio umbrella to tide us over until we can figure out what to do with our patio (the old pergola went down with the remodel, and now we have a larger patio). We were finally going to buy one last weekend, but apparently it is now time for autumn things at Home Depot and they've taken all their umbrellas away.
This is silly. September and October are two of the nicest, sunniest months here. (May and June are called May Grey and June Gloom....) We can sit outside on our patio almost year round, really. We should be able to buy a patio umbrella in August.
Of course, we CAN buy a patio umbrella in August. We ordered one from Amazon. It should be here tomorrow.
There's a lesson there for Home Depot, too, I think, along similar lines to the lesson I wish NBC would learn. The world has changed. Best change with it.
-----------------
I think I hit the "I should really go rest" wall about an hour ago. So I'm going to go rest. I'm still working on the "listen to my body when it says I should rest" thing, I guess.
So, I had no idea what to expect, and when I found that a combination of ibuprofen and caffeine made it possible for me to function after the first day, I took ibuprofen and increased my usual caffeine intake. I got through Thursday and Friday, not feeling great, but functioning. I got through Saturday and Sunday, still not feeling great, but thinking I was basically better because the headache was mostly gone. I went off to my main client site on Monday thinking I was back to normal.
Boy, was I wrong. I felt like I was in a fog. I couldn't really think straight and I was exhausted. A little Google searching told me I was likely experiencing a postdromal phase to my migraine. So I cut my day short and came home. And I took a 2.5 hour nap. I got up and made dinner (Monday is swimming night, so Mr. Snarky was with the kids at the pool) and then I collapsed on the sofa until it was a reasonable hour to go to bed, and went to bed early.
I felt better Tuesday, but not quite 100%. I got through my work day and dinner... and hit a wall around the kids' bedtime.
Today I'm better still, but not back to normal. And I'm left wondering if I would have gotten better faster if I'd allowed myself more rest time in the early phases. I hope I don't get a chance to find out, because that would mean another migraine. But still, this is yet another reminder that I need to learn to allow myself to rest when I'm feeling a little under the weather but am not completely incapacitated. I really do.
-----------------
Pumpkin was excited to watch the women's gymnastics at the Olympics, but the NBC coverage has made that next to impossible. Luckily for her, she's going to visit my parents next week, and they have recorded some gymnastics for her to watch. But I'm really frustrated with NBC. The have made it so that the only way to have even a decent Olympic-watching experience is to have cable, so that you can access the event replays on streaming. We don't have cable, but we added NBC to our Sling channels thinking we could catch enough on broadcast. But no, they've tape delayed all the "big" events such that the majority of them are well past my kids' bedtime. Heck, a lot of it is past MY bedtime.
This is frustrating because I know that it is possible to provide a better experience. We bought access to the Rugby World Cup that allowed us to watch all of the games on demand, whenever we wanted. NBC could easily have done something similar with the Olympics, perhaps providing different streaming packages with different groups of events. Instead, it feels like they're trying to bully us all back to cable. That isn't going to work. Nothing NBC can do will make us go back to cable. Cable is just not a good fit for us anymore. They would be better served to recognize that the way people access entertainment is changing, and work to figure out how to adapt their business model to the new reality.
Oh well.
-----------------
Speaking of annoying things... why do stores insist on acting like the seasons are the same here in Southern California as they are on the East Coast? We want a patio umbrella to tide us over until we can figure out what to do with our patio (the old pergola went down with the remodel, and now we have a larger patio). We were finally going to buy one last weekend, but apparently it is now time for autumn things at Home Depot and they've taken all their umbrellas away.
This is silly. September and October are two of the nicest, sunniest months here. (May and June are called May Grey and June Gloom....) We can sit outside on our patio almost year round, really. We should be able to buy a patio umbrella in August.
Of course, we CAN buy a patio umbrella in August. We ordered one from Amazon. It should be here tomorrow.
There's a lesson there for Home Depot, too, I think, along similar lines to the lesson I wish NBC would learn. The world has changed. Best change with it.
-----------------
I think I hit the "I should really go rest" wall about an hour ago. So I'm going to go rest. I'm still working on the "listen to my body when it says I should rest" thing, I guess.
Friday, August 05, 2016
Weekend Reading: The Migraines Suck Edition
I've spent half of this week struggling with a migraine. It really knocked me flat Wednesday afternoon and evening. Since then, I've been able to keep it at bay with ibuprofen and caffeine, but it is still there. I don't usually get a lot of migraines, so I'm a bit puzzled by what brought this on. I hope I'm not about to start getting migraines more regularly!
Anyway, I did still gather a few links for you. Here they are:
First of all, I'm running a GoodReads giveaway for The Lilies of Dawn. Enter if you're into that sort of thing. Or, you can enter into the ebook giveaway associated with this lovely review of Vanessa Fogg, the author of The Lilies of Dawn. And here's a really nice review of the book from Rope and Tire.
Now, on to the other stuff.
I really liked this piece about how political idealism is not the best way to improve society.
This is an interesting piece of cold war history.
Here's an article about humpback whales protecting other mammals from orcas, which may be the coolest thing I read all week.
And this is a great piece from Andie Fox (who blogs at Blue Milk) about hiking with kids.
An explanation in Slate for why the courts are suddenly striking down all those voter ID laws (beyond the obvious that they are unconstitutional, of course).
If you're white and you've been looking for how to get involved in the fight for racial justice, here's an article about an organization that can help you.
Apparently, Hillary's secret to remaining calm admist all the BS is meditation. Another nudge for me to try to restart my practice....
I shared this link out on my Annorlunda Books accounts, but I like it so much I'm going to make it my happy thing to end on: 24 Unusual Travel Words.
Also, this thread will make you smile:
And if you're a Hamilton fan, this is fun:
OK, this really is the last thing... some Kiwi pride.
Anyway, I did still gather a few links for you. Here they are:
First of all, I'm running a GoodReads giveaway for The Lilies of Dawn. Enter if you're into that sort of thing. Or, you can enter into the ebook giveaway associated with this lovely review of Vanessa Fogg, the author of The Lilies of Dawn. And here's a really nice review of the book from Rope and Tire.
Now, on to the other stuff.
I really liked this piece about how political idealism is not the best way to improve society.
This is an interesting piece of cold war history.
Here's an article about humpback whales protecting other mammals from orcas, which may be the coolest thing I read all week.
And this is a great piece from Andie Fox (who blogs at Blue Milk) about hiking with kids.
An explanation in Slate for why the courts are suddenly striking down all those voter ID laws (beyond the obvious that they are unconstitutional, of course).
If you're white and you've been looking for how to get involved in the fight for racial justice, here's an article about an organization that can help you.
Apparently, Hillary's secret to remaining calm admist all the BS is meditation. Another nudge for me to try to restart my practice....
I shared this link out on my Annorlunda Books accounts, but I like it so much I'm going to make it my happy thing to end on: 24 Unusual Travel Words.
Also, this thread will make you smile:
In a Twitter feed filled with distressing news, this thread brought me a lot of joy today. https://t.co/Jhmd1MgLXK— Lakshmi Gandhi (@LakshmiGandhi) August 4, 2016
And if you're a Hamilton fan, this is fun:
W. Shakes (@WillChaseMe) joined King George III (@RoryOMalley) to urge @Lin_Manuel to "take a break." #Ham4Ham https://t.co/bgvYDcWPOx— Hamilton (@HamiltonMusical) August 3, 2016
OK, this really is the last thing... some Kiwi pride.
Tuesday, August 02, 2016
Dinner during Dora: Tequila Pasta
I don't want to write about politics right now. I can't promise not to write anything more about politics until after the election, but I can promise I probably won't write much about politics. I don't think I have anything particularly insightful to say, and at this point, we probably already all know what we plan to do in the ballot booth, and in the time until election day.
So, let's talk about other things! For instance, I decided to tweak the design of this blog. I'd like to migrate to WordPress someday, but that would take more time than I want to invest right now, so I settled for decluttering a bit. If there's something that you really liked that has gone missing, let me know. Otherwise, enjoy the less crowded layout.
Also, I continue to cook weeknight dinners. And I continue to not want to spend a lot of time on that, even though my kids are now old enough to wait a bit longer for dinner. So, I continue to find recipes that fit my "Dinner during Dora" theme, even though no one watches Dora here anymore.
I realized as I made this dish last Tuesday (Tuesday night is pasta night....) that I had never posted the recipe. It is one I invented. I was trying to make a cheese-free pasta, although I'm not really sure why. So, this recipe doesn't call for any cheese. If you want to sprinkle some on, I guess a cotija would be most appropriate, but I tried some of the pseudo-cheese in a green can that my kids like and honestly, that was pretty good.
So, anyway, here's the recipe for Tequila Pasta:
1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 carrot, cut into discs and then halved
1 small zucchini, cut into discs then halved
3/4 cup frozen corn
~1/2 package rotini (or bowtie pasta, or your favorite shape)
~1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 tbs olive oil
3 tbs tequila
Dried chopped onions, salt, and pepper (to taste)
Cook the pasta. While the water's coming to a boil and the pasta is cooking, make the rest of the recipe.
Toast pepitas in a skillet. No added oil is necessary, but watch they don't burn. When they're toasted, set them aside.
Add the olive oil to the skillet and then saute the carrots and zucchini in it. Sprinkle dried choped onions (from the spice aisle), salt and pepper on the veggies while they cook.
About 3 minutes before the pasta is done, add the corn.
Cook ~2 minutes, then add the tequila and let it boil off.
When the pasta is done, reserve ~1/4 cup of the cooking water and then drain it.
Add the reserved water and veggies to the pasta. Stir to mix.
Add the pepitas and cilantro, and stir to mix.
Serve!
Source: I invented this one. It was probably inspired by something, but I can't remember what at this point.
Who eats it: Just me and Mr. Snarky. The kids eat plain pasta that I set aside before I add the disgusting veggies.
So, let's talk about other things! For instance, I decided to tweak the design of this blog. I'd like to migrate to WordPress someday, but that would take more time than I want to invest right now, so I settled for decluttering a bit. If there's something that you really liked that has gone missing, let me know. Otherwise, enjoy the less crowded layout.
Also, I continue to cook weeknight dinners. And I continue to not want to spend a lot of time on that, even though my kids are now old enough to wait a bit longer for dinner. So, I continue to find recipes that fit my "Dinner during Dora" theme, even though no one watches Dora here anymore.
I realized as I made this dish last Tuesday (Tuesday night is pasta night....) that I had never posted the recipe. It is one I invented. I was trying to make a cheese-free pasta, although I'm not really sure why. So, this recipe doesn't call for any cheese. If you want to sprinkle some on, I guess a cotija would be most appropriate, but I tried some of the pseudo-cheese in a green can that my kids like and honestly, that was pretty good.
So, anyway, here's the recipe for Tequila Pasta:
1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 carrot, cut into discs and then halved
1 small zucchini, cut into discs then halved
3/4 cup frozen corn
~1/2 package rotini (or bowtie pasta, or your favorite shape)
~1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 tbs olive oil
3 tbs tequila
Dried chopped onions, salt, and pepper (to taste)
Cook the pasta. While the water's coming to a boil and the pasta is cooking, make the rest of the recipe.
Toast pepitas in a skillet. No added oil is necessary, but watch they don't burn. When they're toasted, set them aside.
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| Yummy toasted pepitas |
Add the olive oil to the skillet and then saute the carrots and zucchini in it. Sprinkle dried choped onions (from the spice aisle), salt and pepper on the veggies while they cook.
About 3 minutes before the pasta is done, add the corn.
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| Sauted veggies |
When the pasta is done, reserve ~1/4 cup of the cooking water and then drain it.
Add the reserved water and veggies to the pasta. Stir to mix.
Add the pepitas and cilantro, and stir to mix.
Serve!
Source: I invented this one. It was probably inspired by something, but I can't remember what at this point.
Who eats it: Just me and Mr. Snarky. The kids eat plain pasta that I set aside before I add the disgusting veggies.
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