My excuse

I know I haven’t updated for a very long time, but I’ve been dreadfully busy planning to marry and adjusting to being married to my amazing husband.

Can You Spot a Good Day?

 

I was traveling recently with my parents on an extensive road trip. My parents pretty much need constant noise on road trips. My dad has this habit where he turns on the radio or an audio book or motivational speaker as soon as there is silence for more than 20 seconds.  My mom has this habit where she doesn’t mind silence so much, but as soon as the radio, book or motivation begins, she feels motivated to discuss something. So basically we heard 30 second to 5 minute clips of radio/book/speaker interspersed with 30 second to 5 minute clips of conversation about topics ranging from the Thanksgiving menu to Grandma’s current infection to who died in Iowa last week.  I say all this to say that right before I drifted off to sleep on top of the suitcase with a toy four-wheeler threatening to fall on my head, I heard John Maxwell speaking. I’m going to assume he was coming from the speaker system, and not from my head, but he was talking about Good Days, which made me think–what does it take for me to have a good day? As Mr. Maxwell pointed out, most people don’t even know what a good day looks like, so how can they plan for something they can’t even recognize? I realized then if that is normal behavior, I was normal. This must be remedied quickly!

So, a dissection: what rates a good day in the life of Anita?

Health: while I’ve had plenty of good days when I didn’t feel well, it definitely factors into my Good Day Rating scale.  If I feel energetic, and am not hurting too much, the day automatically goes up a few points.

People and Laughter:  I’m an extrovert, and while I do like occasional times of aloneness, as a general rule, a good day involves people. Happy people. Not depressing people.  Spending quality time with good friends is one of the best ways to guarantee day goodness for me. Especially if we laugh.

Food:  Food is kind of a big deal to me. I know to feel well, I have to eat nutritious food, and honestly, I just really enjoy eating. I love food. I like cooking it, looking at it, smelling it, and eating it.  A day that I get to spend time cooking a new dish, like Pumpkin Pork Curry, definitely gets rated higher than a day I eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger.

God:  Yes, God should be on top of my list, and if I were rating by importance, He would be, but I’m rating by a non-importance-rating method. But either way, a really good day would definitely involve spending time with Him, whether that comes with a steaming mug of coffee and my Bible and journal, an active time of praise jamming out to some praise music on my ipod while I cook, or 40 minutes of prayer time on my way to work, a Good Day involves personal time with the One who loves me most.

Something New:  I love to create, and experience, and on days when I get to write something, cook something new, draw a new ink design for my collection, or just try a new coffee shop—something that feels like it is expanding my horizons just a big further than they were yesterday makes my day better.

Something productive: I don’t know that this was always a big deal for me, but after being sick for so long, and feeling so useless, I like to know that I do something every day that either helps someone else, blesses someone, or needs to be done. Laundry counts. Or dishes.  Or working at a clinic.

Being appreciated: Okay, perhaps this is selfish, but appreciation sure makes my day better! Whether this is someone thanking me for something I did, having a tweet re-tweeted, getting clever comments on my blog, or just hearing someone say that they like me,  or they think I’m funny, verbal appreciation can elevate even a bad day to good status in a hurry.

Something beautiful: beauty makes me happy.  This can come in many forms, a sunset, a perfect tree, a cute apron, or a unique piece of art. A cute child, a swishy skirt, dangly earrings that look like another country…any of these can fill this need.

So tell me–what does your good day rating scale look like? Join me in planning for good days ahead!

Soups I Want to Eat

I’m not a huge soup fan because most soups taste to me like someone just added water to real food. I’m also not a fan of most flavored or herbal teas, because most of them taste like water added to a scented candle, then served in a pretty cup. (The key difference here being that I love real food, while I don’t consume scented candles on a regular or irregular basis.) But on chilly winter days in Mississippi, when the rain is falling from an overcast sky, and my furnace can’t quite keep the cold from my toes, I crave a bowl of warm soup, a fuzzy blanket with no sleeves, and some good mindless tv–maybe a Gilmore Girls marathon.

And these are some soups I crave:

Oyster Stew

I modify this recipe a bit by dropping the cream for soymilk and either mashed potato flakes or actual mashed potatoes for extra thickness. Any oyster soup says Christmas season to me, and while I abstain from pre-thanksgiving Christmas music and decorations, I fully believe in multi-season Christmas foods.

Sweet Potato Peanut Bisque

This one is a yummy, African soup I made on the first day of Kwanzaa last year. I knew this not because I celebrate Kwanzaa regularly, but because an article came out that day that very few people were  celebrating Kwanzaa and the retailers who sold Kwanzaa stuff were very sad. So I call it Kwanzaa Soup, as my tribute to Africa during this holiday season. I like it better without the tomato juice.

Japanese Chicken-Scallion Rice Bowl

This one is just good. I use a little palm sugar rather than the regular sugar, but it’s just good food. I’m hungry.

What are your winter day foods?

Tags: cold, food, rain, soup, winter

Sleeping With Socks

When I was a kid, I lived in the jungle. I seldom wore shoes and socks were my enemy. I could not bear their fuzzy prison enclosing my poor little toes. It wasn’t until I moved to the land where toes stayed froze all winter (yes, that would be China, not Mississippi), that I realized that warm feet are happy feet, and I’ve worn socks to bed ever since. Unless it’s not cold.

I borrowed these from Susie tonight. I can’t wait to see how she plans to teach her children colors…

Do you sleep in socks?

A Recipe!

Okay, so I said I’d be doing some food stuff on here as well as my other posts, and since there have just been SO MANY other posts, I figured it was time to live up to my word. So here’s a recipe for some amazing noodles I made the other night. They were so amazing, in fact, that my brother-in-law (Dave–yeah, I’m still not used to having so many brothers-in-law that I have to specify which one I’m speaking of) asked for the recipe.  When I wrote it down for him, he read over it, nodded his appreciation, and then, being the brave fire-fighter that he is, he laid it on the table next to him, right over a candle, and went back to his stock trading/vacation restfulness.  You can guess what happened next.  Well, maybe you can’t, but anyway, I thought I would share the recipe in a slightly less flammable fashion, so:

Noodles Inspired by Some Country in Asia

Ingredients:

Soy sauce

Oyster sauce–you can get it in the Asian section of your grocery store

Hot chili oil–also Asian section of the store

Noodles–enough for about 8 servings (I used gluten free rice spirals, but wide egg noodles would be great. Or other pasta. I’m not demanding)

Pork loin, cut into little strips (you can also substitute tofu for a tasty meat-free option) –I used about 1.5 pounds for 8 servings. It really doesn’t matter how much you use.

Sliced button mushrooms–1 cup–completely optional

Pre-cut broccoli slaw (you can also use broccoli pieces, or some other vegetable that you think would taste better. Again–I’m not picky)

Scallions–sliced, for garnish

Cilantro–1/4 cup chopped. more or less.

Garlic–several cloves, peeled and sliced

Ginger–6-10 slices fresh, peeled

 

I usually don’t measure things when I cook…I’ll try to do that next time. But seriously, who cares if you have 1 cup of broccoli or 4 cups? It’s still good!

Mix equal parts soy sauce and oyster sauce and chili oil, about 1/4 cup each. If you’re a little wimpy, don’t use as much chili oil. It is pretty hot.  Cook your pasta according to directions on bag, box, or in your head.  When it’s cooked, drain off the water. Reserve the pasta for eating purposes.

While this is cooking, heat up a little oil in a pan and stir fry the pork strips in a little oil and a splash of soy sauce until cooked through (If using tofu, skip this step).  Empty the pork into a bowl, add a little more oil to the pan and add garlic and ginger slices. Fry this just a few seconds, then add mushrooms, broccoli slaw, and, if not doing pork, add tofu now.  When this is partially cooked, add about half of the sauce and continue to stir-fry until cooked through. Add cooked pork slices back to vegetable mixture, stir well, then mix cooked pasta with vegetables and meat.  Add the rest of the sauce (more or less depending on your personal taste), and continue to heat while stirring in the cilantro.  Garnish with sliced scallions and serve.

 

Enjoy!

Tags: Asian food, Pork, Recipe

Bad Time to Blog

All of my friends are getting married this year. If you’re reading this and you’re not getting married, you know where you stand in my friends category.  Okay, so I do have some good friends who haven’t fallen in love and/or pronounced themselves husbands and wives this year, but it seems like the number who have is overwhelming.  So I was going to blog regularly, but I’m at another wedding this weekend, and will be out of town again next weekend, so my computer time is pretty much only enough for work stuff and making sure my friends realize I’m still in existence and value relationships with my friends.

So because my life was this hectic, I decided it’s a great time to add a new blog to my life.  I think it may have been bad timing on my part, but I needed something to get me to write a little more than status updates and tweets, and I’m hoping to have a few minutes to expound upon amazing thoughts and stuff.  So…yeah…it’ll happen soon enough. I’m sure you’re all breathless with anticipation.

 

Opportunity Awaits Me This Tuesday

Last week I was eating at a Chinese restaurant with some friends when I received a notice that my life was about to be forever changed.  Yes, I opened a fortune cookie.  I believe these crispy little citrus and vanilla flavored wafers hold the key to our collective destinies.  Tap your chopsticks on the table if you agree with me.  Tap! Tap? Anyone? Okay, never mind, I still believe.  I bet you all kill fairies too.  Skeptics.

“Opportunity Awaits You Next Tuesday”

That’s what the fortune cookie said.  Next Tuesday. I immediately entered the date into my smartphone reminder system for Tuesday, October 19th.  Since then my phone has been intelligently reminding me of my waiting opportunity.  I wanted to do a little guesswork as to what this opportunity could involve so I could adequately prepare for the most likely scenario.  Here are my top five guesses:

1–Of course, being single, I always think “perhaps I’ll have an opportunity meet my man!” so let’s just get that one out of the way and move on to more likely possibilities.

2–I will be offered a job with the CIA.  This would be reasonable, seeing as how I am super intelligent, I already own three passports, I look like a 16-year-old, and I’ve had a lot of practice appearing to be something I’m not  (“But you look so healthy! I just don’t believe you could really be sick!”).  I’ve really been thinking this through, and my decision is classified.

3–I will meet the prime minister of some South American country in a coffee shop, where he will be choking on a scone, and after I save his life he will ask me to move to his tropical mansion to act as a private duty nurse to his five-year-old son, who occasionally has asthma attacks, which worry the doting father to no end.  My duties would include constantly being on call for breathing difficulties, accidents, tragedies, etc, while lounging in a hammock slung between two palm trees where I can be quickly located in case of emergency.

4–I will buy a lottery ticket for the first time in my life, using as my numbers the lucky numbers found on the back of this very fortunate fortune cookie fortune.  I will win the lottery.  Though I’m not sure that’ll be enough…because I wanna’ be a billionaire…etc etc.

5–I will see a small box turtle crossing the highway, stop and remove it to safety in the long grass beside the road, like the tender soul that I am.  While moving the turtle, I notice a carving on his or her shell (never having studied turtle anatomy, I still haven’t figured this out) and realize it is a treasure map, leading to a cache of diamonds hidden by an eccentric and very wealthy recluse.  He’s dead now, so I get to keep them.  I only keep one, which I have made into a fabulous necklace, and I sell the rest and invest my money wisely, retire from nursing and start taking in foster children.

So those are my top five guesses.  Can we vote to see which you think is the most likely scenario? Or do you have a better idea?

Tags: fairies, Fortune cookie, humor, opportunity