Pseudo-Thanksgiving Dinner

AKA: What Thanksgiving looked like at my house.


Dennis went to Chile on Thanksgiving to visit with his daughters, (his oldest graduated from high school *tear*). So we had a thanksgiving-y dinner the night before. I didn't want to tackle a turkey, because that is toomuchfood but I wanted to do something unusual. I found this recipe for a Ginger Sweet Potato Chicken Bake and decided it was fallish enough to work.


I started by making some gingerbread cookies. This is special because I never make gingerbread cookies (or cookies at all), but they make ready-made dough for this now! So even people like me who can't flip a pancake can make a gingerbread cookie! I have ONE cookie cutter in my kitchen, conveniently a snowman. An old Chilean Pisco bottle served as my rolling pin.


I made 12 angry (snow)men! hahahahahaaaaa!!! (and I ate 10 of them!)


Then I followed the recipe. I had to shred the chicken because I didn't have boneless chicken, so I had to boil chicken, shred it, and then bake it. It was understandably dry. But the sweet potato made up for it. If I did this again, I would add more sweet potato and make sure I had some boneless chicken. Also, my sweet potatoes are clearly sweet potatoes and not YAMS. (Because I hate yams).


I rolled out the good dishes for this one. Also served: asparagus with lemon juice, pillsbury crescent rolls, and a white wine that was like $2.

So I decided to make some chili.

My version of Blonde Mom's chili. It took FOREVER to make.



1. Onions, garlic, bell pepper and ground beef browned in my favorite Wolfgang Puck pot.


2. I used less onions than the recipe asked for and I STILL used 1 more onion than I usually do.

3. My eyes. After chopping onion. I learned that my blender doesn't chop onion and cutting an onion underwater is as impossible as it sounds unless you are Ariel. Oh, they burned.


4. Canned tomatoes, kidney beans, and tomato paste. I used less tomatoes and beans than the recipe called because Dennis hates beans but I think 1 can more would have worked ok. I also learned that tomato paste does expire. (We had 3 cans in the back of the cupboard that were about 6 years old. Which shows you how much I cook.)


5. I did follow the suggestion to add 2 cups of beer in place of water. Except that by this time, I didn't want to bother with measuring two cups. So I poured the whole bottle.


6. Dennis came to my rescue when I cried with the onions and he also helped me open cans. This is the can opener that we had to borrow from a neighbor because our can opener died. (Our can opener is older than those cans of tomato paste).


7. This was supposed to be Tex-Mex. So I added cilantro to make it California-y. Not a lot though, because I don't know how to cook with cilantro and my kitchen was smelling very cilantro-y (like soap).



8. The end result was so good. It was a little bit more sweet than spicy but like every other mexican dish I make (tortilla soup, enchiladas, taco lasagna...) I know it will end up being better tomorrow. I will definitely make this again.

I can cook Yakisoba

After spending two weeks this year and two weeks last year in the company of Japanese women who know how to make a feast out of noodles, a couple of hot dogs, a tomato and some soy sauce (this is a slight exaggeration...) I decided to add Japanese cooking to my very limited menu of things I can cook besides frozen pizza. Tonight was an adventure in making Yakisoba (actually not very hard but definitely Japanese...)

It helps that I found soba noodles and yaki sauce mix (it's pretty much a powder), in my grocery store (look near the tofu!). Soba noodles are cooked yellow noodles that are fat in the beginning and then get thin at the end of the recipe.


First:
I cut up some bell pepper, green onion, and this handy mix of cabbage and sprouts that I found in the bagged salad section. I think it's for things like cole slaw. And now, it's for things like yakisoba! Anyway, I added just a little oil and started stirring in a regular pot. I don't have a fancy wok and I didn't see one in the church I stayed at in Japan so I'm wondering if a wok is even necessary.
















A photo of the fancy cooking chop sticks I used to stir the meal. I was pretty proud of this.















And then I remembered the beef that I was supposed to cut up and add to the veggie mix! My mentor, Chieko, who taught me how to make this in a different way than the instructions on the soba package, said stir the veggies and meat until the meat is cooked. I think I should add that I did this on medium heat so as not to burn anything.
















Next I added the soba noodles. The package said to remove the veggies. Chieko said just put the noodles on top. I watched and took notes and decided to do it her way.















The package of noodles looks like this by the way:















The package said to add the sauce to the noodles with some water. Chieko said to add the mix at the very end. I got excited and added the mix right away.

















So, I added 1/2 cup of water, the noodles and the sauce mix. And then I covered and simmered for 5 minutes before stirring to make sure the mix was evenly spread over the noodles and veggies. Note that my pot doesn't have a lid. I used our pizza tray.















And then I plated it! Dennis said it was pretty good, it was what I expected! (Kind of like a chinese noodle/broccoli beef type flavor except not as greasy as the chinese restaurant noodles and no broccoli.
















So I count this one as a success!!

High School Reunion

I just got a notice about my ten year high school reunion. Already?? Has ten years already gone by? Were did those years go? (most of them were spent married and all were spent in school, actually). I don't know if I will be able to go to my reunion- I don't think I will be in town.

I'm not against going, in theory. I have a pretty good marriage and I'm pretty impressed with my scholastic endeavors.

I think any reservations I have about attending are because I don't want to see certain people I've spent ten years forgetting about. More than people, there are feelings (like feelings of inadequacy) that I want to forget about. High school sucked. Maybe in ten more years... (Plus, hello, they have facebook and myspace so if anyone wants to know what I've been doing all they have to do is google me.)

Some news!

We are moving to Florida at the end of the year!!!

Dennis is accepting a job at a university in Fort Lauderdale, so we are planning a move to Florida in December/early January after I finish classes! So we are moving from one coast to the other! (Hallelujah, he's got a job!!)

I need to get rid of almost all that we have, because apparently it is ridiculously expensive to move things and we don't have a whole lot that's worth anything so I think I may be having adventures in craigslisting soon. (Seriously, it's like $4000 to move a two bedroom apartment from one side of the country to the other. Ridiculous).

When I first found out that we were moving, I was more afraid of the alligators and bugs than the hurricanes. I'm still worried about the wildlife but I'm glad we are moving to a warm climate. And it's cheaper to get flights to/from Chile to Miami then to Los Angeles so hopefully this means we can invite the girls out and even Dennis's mom.

Surreality via googling my name.

So I googled my name. This is a legit activity because I realize that other people (i.e. future employers) might also google my name.

I was relieved to find that there isn't much aside from links to my twitter account. But I did think it was strange to find this article about my sister. I don't even know how they got quotes from me about my sister's death but I am glad that they noted how important it was to me that she died because of a drunk driver. I guess the bizarre-factor is that an article was written and I was quoted without my knowledge. In 2007!

Anticipating Summer Photos...

check out Be Funky for some fun ways to mess with photos and
This page to make photos look old (Japanese site with an english-translation option).

It's about cheese.

I love being a hostess and having guests over, but I have learned that I am territorial and immature the longer I have guests over. The last time that we had guests, I secretly freaked out when one of our guests used one of my brand new glasses for soda (one of two novelty glasses purchased at the Coca Cola store in Las Vegas). She had lipstick on and the glasses were brand new. I nearly wigged out because I wanted to be the first one to use the stupid glass.

It's like this: I say "Make yourself at home" and I think "no, but not really..."

So we have this guy visiting from Chile. It's important to me to be a good hostess, because I do care. But Dennis and I are both busy and our guest knows that we aren't going to be cleaning/cooking/entertaining much. Which is cool as our guest is not as much here for tourism as much as he is looking for prospects for when he moves to So Cal.


He's a guest. But he is making himself at home. And Dennis and I are slowly turning into Angie Tempura.

It's about cheese. We bought some expensive cheese tonight because we had an awesome coupon for it. And after I put it in the fridge, I realized I would have to share it. Because we are not going to hide cheese from our guest. But at the realization that I must share, I nearly lost my sh#t.


It's not just about cheese. I mean, last night he delighted in telling me that Jimmy Fallon is doing cocaine because he has bags under his eyes and he can't tell jokes without laughing. Because those are 100% tell-tale signs. I don't even care about the celebrity part, just the smug "you know you are a loser for laughing at the jokes of a drug addict" tossing of information my way. I prefer to be ignorant, thanks.

Or it's about how he asked me if he could help me cook dinner as I loaded three baked potatoes into the oven and then told Dennis "I can't eat potatoes. I have a glandular problem". Dude, why couldn't you have said that before you watched me load three potatoes in the oven? There are only three of us in my apartment. And why are you eating french fries in the biggest possible size at every restaurant we've taken you to then?

Or it's about how you made my husband drive around to fix our other car so you'd have a car to drive around and then you called yesterday from Hollywood and said you took a cab. You drove the car to Hollywood. And then hailed a cab to some place. And then drove home. I don't know why you needed a cab if you have our car, but I'm annoyed.






I really like certain aspects of having guests. I really do. And this guy, now that he has one of our cars, has made himself scarce. I cannot be the only one who regresses to a 2 year old when people come over.

Jon Bovi. Best Band Ever.

(I will try to get Dennis singing Karaoke of "Living on a Prayer"- he's pretty good!)


Anyway, I am blogging. Just not really well. Because I have some mega papers to write. But they are do very soon. And then I want to blog regularly again! And hilarity will ensue!!

Ode to bad wine...

It's from Argentina, which is good. In my opinion, South American wines are not as spicy as Californian wines. I should have read the label.

It has a hint of tobacco and chocolate. TOBACCO. I tasted this hint last, in the back of my throat and it lingers with you. So the wine tastes like your regular notspicy red wine with an interesting woodsy-definite berry flavor. And a bit of tobacco. I'm not a fan.

What you missed in the photo that I so artfully took with my camera phone, is the can of Pringles and the bottle of diet Dr. Pepper.

The good news is that I've kept to my lent about no sweets. Tomorrow (or today?) is a church potluck day so that will be my real test. Wine doesn't count as a sweet.

I can haz your cheetos?

It's Lent time again. Last year, some may recall, I gave up Perez Hilton and celebrity gossip. It worked marvelously and by Easter, I was so over it!

This year, I've given up sweets. It's hell. I am hungry for snacks and there is nothing in our house except for a can of tuna and ginger snaps. Dennis bought a box of ginger snaps to celebrate the fact that I'm not eating sweets. This is clearly going to be way harder than giving up celebrity gossip. I have already started reminding myself that sweets are nothing compared to the cross.

(It was either sweets or facebook. I love facebook more than I love chocolate.)


(How much do I love facebook? As much as Dana-->


Have I been just as guilty as her? yes, absolutely.)

Milestones...

I belong to a forum for diabetics who are women and who are mothers or who want to be mothers. I'm not planning anything right now but it has been motivational for getting my health under control. Anyway, when your diabetes is under control, you tell everyone in the forum and they give you a dancing frog (so under 7.0 A1C). My A1C two weeks ago was a 7.8, which is the best I've ever had. It's a milestone and the forum members awarded me with a tadpole. I've been keeping it on my computer harddrive but I haven't been really keeping up with trying to do better. But posting it here might help me to stay focused (I've caved twice in the past week and had some french fries and I've decided to give up candy and cake, except for Mar.11 bday cake, for lent). I just feel like I have so many goals and things I have to do this year, and I think I've been putting the goal of being healthy on the backburner.

I got this email when I was wasting time on facebook (which very well might steal my soul). I'm going back to Japan so I've been raising money. I've reached my half way point, but I don't know how because I can think of 10 people that I know I need to talk to but that I have put off writing letters too. It's another goal.

I'm also taking Japanese, kind of. I'm sitting in on a class but I'm not really auditing it because I'm not paying for it, because the professor and his department have been really ridiculously graceful and generous. But tomorrow morning, there is an exam. I haven't studied and now I feel like I should talk to the professor and just ask him if I can not worry about this exam? I feel really bad, like I'm already wasting his time and like him grading my exam would be just worse. I feel like a flake.

Which brings me to my 10am midterm tomorrow morning. It's something else I haven't satisfactorily studied for. But I'm paying for this class, and I think I might be smarter if I studied and did well for it. But this is like the story of who I am as a student right now- I'm flaking on my studies and putting things off and hoping that I can just get by. It's not how I want to do things, and I'm probably being too hard on myself. I'm just really tired and stressed out.

Which brings me to my whole life right now. I finish school finally in December. My husband doesn't have a job and the US economy is not providing him with anything. We are talking about moving back to Chile or to another country, in general. Which freaks me out. The thought of moving to another country and changing my life so dramatically all by myself (with Dennis), so freaks me out that I feel like I'm almost paralyzed. It's like I'm sabotaging myself physically, spiritually, and scholastically because I'm terrified of the real world, of moving away, of the very very unknown. It's not that I don't have faith in God or in Dennis or in myself. It's that I'm just so anxious about this that I can't even concentrate properly. Me, who has to two hours early for a flight when they say be one hour early. Me, who has to show up 15-30min. early for a movie just because I want to pick the best seats possible. I turn into Godzilla if we miss one preview. Not knowing, not having a clue, not having any control.

I realize, as I type this, that this is what I'm doing. I'm so freaking out that I'm sabotaging myself. Which is absurd because I, of all people, know how amazing God is and how much things can change in one year. In less!

The Invasion...

Of the Cold/Flu Bug. Our whole apartment complex/church/community bubble has it. Dennis has been sick for about a week and I'm full of mocos myself. I promise I am trying to wash my hands more and I washed our sheets today to get rid of any germs. Alas, this is a tough bug to beat.
My dear husband, bless him, is consequently unable to sleep at night. He refuses to take benedryl because they make him sleepy. But last night for example, he was on his blackberry or channel surfing or touching my face all night. It was cute, endearing, pathetic, and annoying.
My cure for the cold: cup o' noodles (ramen), liquids (not always good ones but nonetheless we try), and lots of wasting time on the internets (aka facebook games instead of studying).


this is my reason for post- Dennis citizenship ceremony blog hiatus:




*common cold plush doll via Cool Stuff Express
*Passive Aggressive Note about coughing via Passive Aggressive Notes

Dennis became a US Citizen today!!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We are officially done with immigration now!! Woohoo!!

I am a banana in pajamas.

Let me rejoice in this glorious time, when I can be in pajamas for most of the week and blame it on my status as a graduate student. I had a big retreat on Friday and Saturday for Japan and now I have nothing until Thursday morning. Which means I celebrated Martin Luther King in my pajamas perusing facebook. And while I did indeed watch the presidential ceremonies today and I did tear up and fall in love with the Obama daughters, etc., I did also return to bed after I saw George W. board the helicopter.

I do have more important things to do. I can get dressed, go for a walk, do the dishes, clean our apartment or do the laundry, or take out the trash... Or really more importantly, I could do my homework. I have some reading to do, especially for all of the many book reviews that are due at the end of the semester AKA in two months. And if I did do my homework, it would certainly lend credence to any of my arguments when they do happen, with Dennis about just how busy I am as a graduate student. (As in "hey, I work really hard! I'm a full-time graduate student!")

I think that this is my last year to use this excuse. I am finishing classes in December and while I expect for the comprehensive exams to be really tough (the ones I must pass in order to get my degree in April of 2010...), I know that a year from now I am going to be worrying more about my resume (which I still need to write...) and all of the real grown up stuff that comes along with GROWING UP.

I'm rejoicing. And freaking out.

With one minute to spare...

On an unrelated note, I have discovered that there is a problem with my body clock. One week ago, I was able to without a clock, wake up at 6 or 7am. Now, because I have to be in class at 8am, I am automatically exhausted and cannot wake up on time. I woke up at 7:59 for my 8am class today. I did not wear my pajamas. Exactly. (I wore jeans and a sweater).


And here is a blog post you should read as it had me thinking about our daughters (our collectively as a people, but also Dennis's daughters and the girls that I teach in Sunday school and see around at church): Real Girls, Real Pressure. Let's not reinforce old and bad habits, mmkay?

AKA my Dad

Seriously. Crazy Lady= Female version of my dad. Except that one of his two cats just died in a car accident. But the crazy cat part totally describes him, bless his hippy soul. My dad calls me to tell me when he hears a Grateful Dead songfest on the radio.

Chew your food.

I'm not "trying to lose weight" as a New Year's Resolution. As I am always trying to fix myself, my method of attack is to just keep trying to do whatever I can to be healthy. Not gonna make promises to go to the gym every day or even every week because I know myself. That ship has sailed.

But in the past two days, I've been experimenting. One of my problems is that I tend to scarf my food down. I don't taste my food. And then it's pretty predictable that I end am still hungry later. How do you eat a ridiculously huge meal and still feel hungry five minutes later? By eating your food so fast that you have to remind yourself that you need to stop and breathe or else you are going to choke.

So as I was eating pizza the other night, I had a lightbulb moment and realized that I'm not chewing my food. I'm not even tasting it. By my second piece, I'm still hungry. So I have started chewing my food. I know this is the most obvious dieting advice ever but for anyone else out there, chew your food. Put down the fork or whatever you are eating with and let your food break down. Swallow it completely. Maybe take a drink in between. And you shall enjoy fullness in thy tummy. Amen.

vacation is ending :(

Winter break always goes by so fast! And this is probably my last one as a student! I've spent most of the break blissfully doing nothing and school starts back up this Wednesday. I have a few tasks to do before things get crazy (i have to write some fundraising letters and there are like 3 greeting cards that need to be composed and sent to Japan and Chile).

As mentioned, I was sick for most of the past few days (since Christmas). But today i felt pretty good (pretty normal) and I really don't have any excuses. I'm still in pajamas and all but I really don't have any excuses for not going out. It's a good thing that I didn't resolve to go to the gym (I make resolutions I know I can do).

But yeah, I've been getting out of bed in stages.

mental housekeeping...

there are some things I need to get down in words.

First, the facebook photo situation has been resolved: My nephew complained that he hates this photo. I can relate. People have photos of me tagged where I look like a fat cow. But maybe I was looking at this from the most selfish of all angles. My nephew is a young college kid who needs as many facebook photos of himself where he looks cool as he can get, because he is a young kid in college. It all makes perfect sense. So, I have conceded. I removed his name from the photo and he is no longer tagged. But I keep my photo online. Those are my terms and we are no longer in negotiations. (At least, I'm no longer negotiating).

Second, my brain is mush. I have finals this upcoming week and while these are mainly papers, this is where my focus of attention is resting. I need this week, at least until after Tuesday at midnight, to focus on school. Hence, the following open letter is necessary:
Dear husband,
Apologies, because I cannot be bothered until I finish my assignments. I have, literally five brain cells and they are all on school. So this means I am not going to have time to clean out the spare bedroom so my brother is at home when he visits on Friday. It will get done but maybe not to your satisfaction. Oh well. My brother is quite possibly the messiest bachelor ever so I'm sure he will not mind.

I'm also not in a position to care about cooking. I'm eating a salad and that alone deserves applause. Do NOT give me "that" look when I eat a few oreos. I'm stressing out majorly and a few oreos are not going to kill me. Yes, I know I had a panic attack last week about how I was feeling fat and I'm such an idiot for not caring better about what I eat. And I fully expect you to react as you did last week, by being supportive and helpful. Do not act like the food police when I decide to binge and have 3 oreo cookies as a reaction to my body's natural cortisol production as a response to stress.

Also, don't freak out because I am also coincidentally very absentminded right now. As I said, I have FIVE brain cells functioning right now. So if I mess up dates and times or forget words, lay off.

Finally, keep on with the supportive hugs and such. You are the best ever and the source of my sanity.

Much love,
your wife, who wishes she was really always right.