So It's Been Since Spring...

Yeah, since Spring. I've been swamped with classes - hey, I am in nursing school, after all. But I have just a little over a month to go (yay!), with my pinning ceremony being scheduled for Halloween, of all days. My favorite holiday and I'll have to spend most of the day doing rehearsal and the actual ceremony, instead of cooking and doing last minute costume edits, as usual. I am *not* complaining, however; just making observations.

Autumn is just about here, the equinox being on September 23 this year, at 09:04 to be exact. We've been so blessed here South Carolina with unusually cool weather in the last week. Well, I say unusual but what I really mean is unusually cool for the last 10 years since global warming has been worsening. By cool I mean with highs in the 70s and low 80s (even one day with a high in the mid-60s!); yes, folks, this is now considered cool weather for SC in September. All the folks up in Maine and Vermont would be sweating, wearing tank tops & shorts, and going swimming in lakes & oceans; but if it's in the 70s, many women are wearing light cotton sweaters here. I was wearing a sweatshirt the other morning when the low was 58 degrees (F). Egad, I was shivering! But I certainly was not sorry to shiver; this summer was so brutally hot and dry for our lovely upstate Piedmont (that's the foothills of the Blue Ridge & Appalachians for y'all geographically-challenged peeps) that I am more than welcoming the cool weather.

It's funny, but when I was a kid, I loved summer. I looked forward to it all year. Now that I'm in my late 30s, I find myself dreading it and begging for autumn and winter. It may be time to move a bit further north. Like Nova Scotia or something. I don't like the heat like I used to do. I blame it on hormones. Though I suspect the extra 15 lbs I'm now hauling around don't help, either. I need less insulation, in other words. And I need to eat better - more fresh veggies!

Speaking of veggies... Our garden totally pooped out this year. We had a pretty good harvest of tomatoes, cukes, squash, eggplant, and chiles going until we went on vacation for a week; our backup plan didn't work out like we'd hoped. So kerrrrrr-pluuuuunk went the garden. I really didn't relish the thought of canning this year because I've been so wrapped up in finishing up my ADN, so in a way I'm glad that it did go kerphlooey, but I really miss having lots of fresh tomatoes to make salsa and spaghetti sauce on the fly. Actually, I miss cooking the from-scratch meals that I used to whip up. Most of our meals have been very simple comfort foods, like spaghetti, meatloaf, etc. (Oh - and that's another thing - no I have not kept to my New Year's resolutions. Screw it. Too stressed to bother.) But Bob is starting spinach, Swiss chard, onions, garlic, and other various fall planting so hopefully soon I'll be back to eating yummies.

Things I am looking forward to when I am done with school: cooking more, reading (other than medical textbooks), running, yoga classes, dance classes (can't wait!) ,shopping, having money to do said shopping (mostly to buy books), having money to do anything fun at all, traveling (gee, our big trip this year was to coastal NC - can't wait for a real vacation like we used to do, i.e., Mexico, South America, et al.), and other assorted hobbies that I once had or wanted to develop and haven't had the time and/or money for the past 2 years. (Ahem, well Bob has had the money but I haven't. If that tells you anything. Let's just say that I'll remember this when he's retired, which will likely be in the next 5 years.) Oh yeah, and most of all, the things I am looking forward to: A LIFE.

Summer or Spring? May Can't Make Up Its Mind.

I know. I haven't written on this darned blog in forever. Well, since February, to be exact. As usual, my excuse is that I've been busy. Sue me.

So, last week I had on the AC. Yesterday I had to turn it off and switch to heat. My, May is a fickle lady in upstate South Carolina this year.

The good news is that it hasn't gone below 50 degrees, and we've even had a bit of rain to mitigate the deficit (we're about 2 inches under for the year). My Spanish lavender is still blooming, and the English lavender is about to pop. The false indigo has come and gone, along with the rhododendron, Veronica (speedwell), and lots of others. Bob's veggie garden is jamming along, with 55 (yes, fifty-five) tomato plants, squash, cucumbers, Swiss chard, peas, bush beans, zucchini, blueberries, etc. My herbs are doing well so far, too: cilantro, rosemary, oregano, sage, salad Burnet, thyme, tarragon. I keep meaning to snap some photos, but it's been so cloudy the last few days that they won't turn out the way I'd like, so I'm waiting.

School is going great. I've earned my practical nursing diploma and have advanced to the RN level courses; my pinning ceremony is set for October 31 this year, which I think is cool in one respect but crappy in another. Cool because I'll be done and it's an "off" time of the year for new nurses entering the field, so hopefully it'll be easier to find work. Crappy because it's my favorite holiday and I won't have time to prepare for it as I usually do. Each year I do an ancestor's dinner, light candles for my loved ones who've passed away, and I dress up in my best homemade witch, gypsy, or vampire costume for the hundreds of trick-or-treaters that frequent our historic neighborhood. I suppose I will just have to make do and prepare a little at a time over the week prior to Samhuinn (yes, you can call it Halloween all you want, but as for me, I call it what my ancestors did). This year I'm considering just wearing my dressy nurse outfit that I'll wear for my pinning ceremony. Nah! Seriously? How boring. I love nursing, but why would I give up the chance to be something fun and outlandish? Hmm, maybe I'll be a zombie nurse. LOL

Well, it's time for a well-deserved nap. I was up super early, leaving the house by 6:30 a.m. to be on the unit at 7. I want to dream about our weekly Saturday night potluck dinner when all the veggies are in and what I'll cook. What are you dreaming up this summer?

Spring is on the way...

I could feel it today in the air - a certain balminess to the breeze - and see it in the way the sun trekked across the sky: spring is coming, and it's coming quickly. After a record snowfall for my Southern hometown last month and even a white Christmas in December (the first that I can remember here), today was warm (at 69 degrees Fahrenheit), sunny, and bright. The birds were out earlier this morning, and our cats were happy to be outside all day, which is change from Willow being curled at my side constantly when I'm at home. Jude even suggested that we take Ansel for a jog, whereas normally I have to bribe him with Starbucks coffee confections to get him to walk downtown. Kids!

The best part of the beautiful weather? We are preparing the garden. We had a landscaping crew take out two Japanese cherry trees in the front today (one, sadly, died last year) and replace them, and then they cut down a few scraggly pine trees in the back and cleared a large area for...drum roll, please...more vegetable planting space! We have a goal of growing more vegetables that we eat, of having to buy less at the grocery store and farmer's market, and this space is essential to achieving that. Living in an older home, we of course have gigantic trees in the back, especially one oak, so our full sun spots are limited. So it was goodbye pine trees; hello veggies!

So guess what Bob got for Valentine's Day? Yep, in addition to some Godiva dark chocolate truffles, I bought a variety of seeds, mostly plants that like cooler weather (or what's cool for us Southerners): mesclun salad mix, cauliflower, chives, Nantes carrots, radishes (mmm, can't wait for homemade bread, butter, and radishes!), leeks (yummy, nummy leek soup!), sweet Spanish onions, etc... Oh, and I also couldn't resist some Butterfly weed, which I've wanted in the front garden for a long time to make my lepidopterous pals happy (that's butterflies for the non-science-y folks out there), and some Dame's rocket for the woodland area out back (such as sweet fragrance *and* it can take shade), as well as a packet of seed mix for birds and butterflies. We need garlic, cilantro, fennel, spinach, arugula, broccoli...and I'd like beets too. Hmm and I wonder how hard it would be to grow soybeans (edamame) here? And today at Home Depot, I longingly eyed the hollyhocks, snapdragons, dahlias, moonflowers, morning glories, and stargazer lilies. And I think I may have lost 2 lavender plants over the winter, darn it, so I may as well add lavender to the list - after all, can anyone ever have too much lavender? I think not, my friends! I wonder if my oregano, salad Burnet, and sage made it? I'm pretty sure the marjoram bit the dust... The yarrow and Shasta daisies will undoubtedly come back. The rosemary looks pretty gnarly but it seems to be pulling through.

Can you tell I have spring fever??? Who me? Naaaahhh. Yes, it's that time of year. The time of the year when gardeners get starry eyed and tend to bite off more than they can chew. Fortunately, I have the master, Bob, looking out for me. He's the gardening guru in this house in truth. I am just his "Grasshopper" (yes, this is a Kung Fu reference - if you're too young to have ever seen it, it's an old TV show and you must see it!)... Except Bob would say to me, "When you can snatch the trowel from my hand, it will be time for you to have your own space in the garden."

Happy spring dreaming everyone!

The Thankless Job

So tonight at 7:00 pm, after a relatively sleepless night and a long day, I was awakened from a nap by my 11 year old son, "Mom, what's for dinner?"

"Mmmrf. Nrrgle." I replied.

I hadn't planned anything for dinner, having cooked (1 fabu-vegetarian and 1 delish pescatarian) dinner 2 nights in a row for my meat-eating husband and carnivorous child who, whenever he is hungry seems to have lost the use of 2 perfectly good legs that have apparently become paralyzed by the fear of the kitchen and arms that magically seem to have absolutely no trouble avoiding doing homework and instead playing for hours on the PlayStation 3 but that cannot seem to microwave a simple veggie burger. Neither dinner was appreciated.

My stomach is hurting tonight (I have a chronic digestive disorder that messes with me every now and again) and I just didn't feel like cooking. So I asked my dear husband if we could just order a pizza for Jude. "Well, damn," he said, "There's gotta be somethin' in the house that he can eat."

"Um, no, not anything that he will eat, at least that doesn't need cooking. And I don't feel like cooking," I said as I slammed through the cabinets, "There's tomato soup, which he won't eat, we're out of bread so he can't have a sandwich, and he won't eat the veggie burgers."

"Well, there's gotta be somethin'," he replied.

My dear husband happens to be the breadwinner since I am in nursing school full-time, and I rely on him entirely for money. Stupid, I know. My father taught me to never rely solely on a man, and here I am doing what I'd said I would never do. So I swallow my curse words and decide to find something to put into my child's belly.

I threw together a simple spaghetti since that's about the only thing in the house that my child will eat that doesn't require at least 45 minutes of preparation. I slammed a pot onto the stove, and threw a box of angel hair onto the counter.

That's when it hit me: no one in this house, other than perhaps my loyal and loving dog, gives a shit what I feel like or what I do as long as what they want done or need done gets done. As long as I don't leave things undone, such as vacuuming the floors and cleaning the toilets and changing the sheets and cooking their food, they just don't care what I do. Neither my husband nor my son ever asks me how my day was. I ask them both every single day how their days went. I often ask how they are and how they are feeling.

No one in this house ever says thank you to me. Not for washing their clothes. Not for cooking a meal. I tell my husband thank you often for just unloading the dishwasher or for folding a load of laundry. I tell him thank you for buying dinner on the rare occasion that we go out. When I clean the house from top to bottom before friends come over on the weekends, does he ever give me a small thanks? Nope. I tell my son thank you when he deigns to pick an item of clothing off the floor (now that's an even rarer occasion!), and I tell him thank you when he lets the dog out. When I bust my ass to get to his school from my school (or from the hospital) every day, even during the weeks that it's his dad's week and his dad's responsibility to pick him up, so that he doesn't have to ride the bus that he detests riding, does he ever say thank you (or does his dad, for that matter)? Not ever.

Mothers and wives are the unsung, thankless heroes of the home. Even when we are holding down full-time jobs or going to college full-time to make a better life for our families, we are still expected to do all the sweeping, mopping, dish washing, vacuuming, dusting, toilet cleaning, sink scrubbing, child rearing, hand holding, ego stroking, tutoring, kid-taxi driving, cooking, laundry washing, snot wiping, kitty litter poop emptying, and dog walking.

How often are women compensated or thanked? I've heard it said that if women were compensated for all the jobs they do in the home, they'd be pulling down about a hundred grand a year easily. My husband would argue that he pays all the bills and he does the trash-emptying (most of the time). And he does help now and then with laundry (but for some reason it always seems that it's mostly just his clothes that get washed when he does it) and cooking (usually involving the grill). I don't want to belittle what he does. He goes to work everyday at a job that he doesn't really like anymore. And I appreciate that, and I've told him that numerous times. I've also told him that as soon as I am out in the workforce that he should quit that job and pursue a passion. We'll see how that goes.

But otherwise, how are mothers and wives thanked? Or how about stay-at-home fathers, for that matter? Are our sacrifices appreciated? Does my husband appreciate the fact that I've gone without clothing shopping for myself, other than an occasional trip to Goodwill, for a year? When I received a gift card from his parents for Christmas, I made that $100 stretch as far as it could, shopping at Goodwill and at discount sales. When I returned a coat that he bought me for Christmas (it was too tight in the chest), I spent $30 on myself and $90 on groceries. I don't want to sound like I have a martyr complex because honestly, I don't. But a thank you or even a compliment about how well I make "a dollar holler" would be nice every now and then. Or a simple, "Hey, how was your day honey?" A little hug.

And did my son thank me for the spaghetti I made for him, even though I didn't feel well? No. But he is at least doing his homework without argument tonight.

Relearning Vegetarianism and Finding the Perfect Avocado Sandwich

As you may know - or not - I've started my journey to become a vegetarian. Actually, this is the second time in my life that I am "going vegetarian," having been lured into carnivorism (yeah, I know that's not really a word, so what? If Lewis Carroll can make up words, then so can I, damn it. *Grin*) by my husband 5 years ago. But I digress. What I want to talk about is the sandwich that I've now eaten twice in 2 days because it's the "shizznay."

Entirely by accident, thanks to an avocado that was threatening over-ripeness, I've discovered what is now my favorite lunchtime meal. Let me preface this by saying that I'm an avocado fiend. Over the years, I've perfected guacamole to such a fine art that family and friends request me to make it for dinners. I frequently order avocado sandwiches at places like Atlanta Bread Company (which are usually annoying due to their tendency to fall apart, with the avocado sliding off the bread, which I've solved by using pita bread); and I've been known to just slice one in half, pour Italian dressing into the mix, and eat it by the spoonful until all gone.

So the other day, I was starving and didn't want to wait for anything to cook for lunch. Here's the recipe:

Avocado, Greens, and Balsamic Pita Sandwich

Ingredients:
1 Pita, cut in half and opened
1/2 Avocado, sliced
Handful of Salad Greens (I like the spring mix 'cause I adore arugula)
Cherry Tomatoes, a handful, sliced
1/4 Sweet Onion, sliced thinly
Splash of White Balsamic Vinegar

Directions:
1. Cut your pita and avocado in half. Gently open the pita. For the avocado, scoop out the meat with a spoon and then slice it up. To save the other half, leave the pit in that half, then cover tightly in plastic wrap and store in the fridge (it will keep overnight with minimal browning). You might want that 2nd half for this sandwich the next day because it's so yummalicious! (Oh, shut up already Merriam and Webster!)

2. Put your salad greens in the pita. Slice up the avocado and place in the pita, "smushing" the pita together afterward to distribute the avocado. Yum...

3. Strategically place your onions and tomatoes into the pita. I slip them in here and there, trying to get some toward the bottom, too.

4. Sprinkle the mix with white balsamic vinegar. I haven't tried red yet, as I don't have any on hand at the moment (I know, for shame!), but I bet it's good, too.

5. Eat. Devour. Relish.

Hmmm... Since I'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian still, I'm thinking goat cheese might really punch this sandwich up, too. I'll definitely have to try that the next time I make this. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I do; if you're an avocado addict like I am, I'm pretty sure you will. Enjoy!

Resolution Progress

So far, so good.

I've quit smoking. It has now been 3 weeks and I feel pretty good. The first three days were hell: I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. I was jumpy, irritable, anxious, and overall obnoxious; but after those first 3 days I was fine other than the occasional longing for one after meals. There are times that I still want a cigarette, but I try to occupy myself with doing other things instead of smoking. Goal number one accomplished.

As for diet, I making progress. I've cut all red meat from my diet. Chicken is pretty much gone, too. I am still eating fish, and I've added in more vegetables. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and bought plenty of fresh veggies, veggie burgers, fake "chicken" patties, tofu, hummus, and tabbouleh.

Exercise is another story. It was cold and icy all last week, so I didn't go anywhere. I realize I could have done yoga here at home, but I didn't. Today, though, I plan on taking my god Ansel for a long walk if it doesn't rain. If it does rain, I'm resolved to do an hour-long yoga session.

School starts for me tomorrow, finally. We were slated to start last Monday, but because of the snow and ice that blanketed the Upstate, school was closed all last week. Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so tomorrow is the day that we officially start at Greenville Tech. I'm so ready to get nursing school done!

Happy Monday everyone! Celebrate MLK's life, even if in a small way, today.

On Being a Capricorn

Let me tell you just a little bit about being a Capricorn Sun sign.

Many websites will expound at great length about Cappies being "serious, innovative, loyal, steadfast, high-achieving." And yadda, yadda yadda.

What they don't tell you is that Capricorns are often working off karma. Saturn is the ultimate "Taskmaster" of the astrological planets, and he has hard lessons to teach. Cappies are ruled by Saturn, therefore we often have difficult lessons to learn.

Let me offer this caveat: I am only an amateur astrologer. However, that said, I have spent my entire life being a Capricorn Sun. Granted, the rest of my chart is not so easy - Cancer Moon (opposite the Sun), Gemini rising, and a good bit of Aquarius.

But Capricorn brings some tough stuff with its placement in your chart, no matter where it is. If you have a planet placed in Capricorn, it's almost guaranteed to bring with it some karmic significance.

For instance, I know people with Moon in Cap. This seems to bring some mother issues and emotional difficulties with it.

In the Sun position, while there are positive aspects, there are also the dark side aspects - too serious, too loyal. Too a lot of stuff. Capricorn is a cardinal sign, which means we like to be movers and shakers, but as Cappies we want to be the movers and shakers. We can step on others' feelings without meaning to do so. We want to be the smarty-pants in our class, and so we are often the "nerdy" kids who are left out, feeling socially isolated. We are the kids who might be rebellious and different but who still identify with those smart kids. We are the adults who question why there are stupid rules but who follow them nonetheless.

Along with personal aspects of the sign, there seem to be karmic consequences, leftovers from past lives. We are born into this life trying to pay off debts and reaping rewards; it seems Cappies have debts abundant to pay off in this life. We seem to start off life precocious but serious. Speaking from experience, there isn't much of a childhood for the serious little Cappies, but we seem to grow younger as we grow older. As we grow, we seem to encounter more challenges and obstacles than our peers. Being goats, we do mostly climb and surmount these obstacles, though it's not easy for all of us.

While Librans and Sagittarians, for example, seem to float through life with ease, Cappies work for every little piece of rock that we climb.

So what are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from other Capricorns out there!