Mama Bee's 101 Things in 1001 Days

Day Six Hundred and Eighty-Five

2011-08-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

And that's Item #8 in the bag! Well, in the tummies, if I'm going to be entirely accurate.

Last Christmas my mom gave my sister and me the two-volume hardcover anniversary edition of Julia Child's "The Art of French Cooking", which was responsible for this bit of deliciousness. The Christmas before that, though, she gave us both another lovely cookbook called "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." She was making her own bread out of dough stored in a plastic crock in her refrigerator, and it looked easy and tasted delicious.

So, naturally, I forgot about it for an entire year.

Then last year at New Year's, my sister made focaccia bread from the same recipe book, and it turned out she'd been making fabulous bread of all sorts ever since she got the book. I got inspired - I can do this! I did a little research on wheat flour and bought a big plastic container and earmarked a few interesting recipes. I was ready to go!

And forgot about it for another four months.

Finally, though, I got myself pulled together and made this focaccia bread, topped with olive oil, rosemary, and coarse kosher salt. It was beyond delicious, and I have no idea why I promptly put the recipe book back in the cupboard and forgot to ever make it again. Hmmm ... come to think of it, I've got a little time this afternoon ...

Day Six Hundred and Eighty-Four

2011-08-04T00:45:00.000-07:00

Dude, seriously? 684 days? That's a long time!

Cool.

I wasn't sure how many of these I'd already posted, so I just grabbed everything that was in my "finished to give away" basket and took a picture. Looking back through the blog, it looks like you've seen the green scarf, the brown scarf, and the stripy hat, but the blue hat and the baby booties are new. Since taking this picture, I've also made two slightly goofy-looking hats with floppy brims which you will probably NOT see modeled, unless I end up in an appropriately goofy mood some time between now and when I mail them off to the "chemo caps" organization I found online.

This brings the total up to 12/20 - I should be able to make 8 more things in a little less than a year, I think!

Day Six Hundred and Seventy-Eight

2011-07-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

See, I told you I was going to get caught up!

Here are a few more for the Windows & Doors (and occasionally Stairs) project.

Stairs leading from High Street down to Pringle Park - from a trip with the kids to downtown Salem.

Stairs near City Hall, Salem, OR.

Stairs leading from the Frank Manor House (now part of the Lewis & Clark College campus) down to the reflecting pool.

Gated doorway to a second-floor apartment in downtown Salem, OR.

Looking through facing windows in the dovecote at Lewis & Clark College.

Side view of the Frank Manor House at Lewis & Clark.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy-Seven

2011-07-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Whoops ... looks like I missed Day 600 too.

But I'm still here! I haven't forgotten about it! And if you're reading this (all three of you), then you haven't forgotten about it either.

I've done a few more things on the list since I last posted, and I'll catch up on those in the next few weeks. Here's one from back in March - not for St. Patrick's Day or anything, but because I had a lovely conversation with my grandparents and came home with a new recipe. The actual intent had been to fill in a few gaps on my grandmother's family tree, but Grandpa sat down and told me a few stories as well. He learned this recipe from his mother, whose parents had immigrated to Canada from Ireland before she was born.

Grandpa's Irish Stew

about 1 lb. stew beef (cubed lean steak or roast)
"a little bit of grease"
1 medium onion
1 lb. of carrots
salt, pepper, and powdered garlic
2 potatoes
1/4 to 1/3 c. flour, depending on how thick you like your stew

Braise beef in grease of your choice on low heat for at least one hour. Don't overcook, but braise until tender, which might take up to half a day. If you start the meat in a large pot, this is a one-dish recipe.

Chop carrots into 1" pieces, and dice onion finely.

Add carrots and onions to cooked meat, and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.

1 hour before soup is to be served, cube potatoes and add to pot. Add some water so that the potatoes can cook - Grandpa didn't say how much, just "add water as you go." Bring to a boil, and let it simmer for about an hour. Mix 1/4 to 1/3 c. flour with enough water to make a thin paste. Stir it into the stew. When it boils and thickens, it is ready to serve.

I served it with my favorite homemade buttered biscuits (which of course have no calories at all) and a glass of cold milk. I think the only way it could have felt more like childhood is if my sister was kicking me under the table!

Day Five Hundred and Fifty-One

2011-03-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

Whoops ... looks like I missed Day 500! I didn't forget about the blog, but I did get a little stalled out. Several of the items left on the list are quite large, or expensive, or not-bloody-likely (e.g., learn French). I have gotten a few more done in the last two months, though, and here is one of them for your entertainment. Item #73 (get all the paperwork off of the office floor) is finished!

Now, please understand that I could have taken the easy route through the truck-sized loophole I left for myself. I could have gotten it off the floor by putting it willy-nilly into a cardboard box and carefully balancing the box on top of a bookshelf. (I am guessing that my mother is probably remembering similar incidents in my childhood, in which a room was magically "cleaned" in five minutes, but the closet door was bulging suspiciously.) I could have "gotten it off the floor" by buying a new file cabinet and putting things into folders with helpfully ambiguous labels like "Financial Stuff - before 2000" - "Financial Stuff - after 2000" - "Insurance Papers" - "Receipts" - "Medical" - "Important Documents" - "To Be Filed" - "Miscellaneous" - "?????"

I could have done that, but for once I decided to actually buckle down and do it right, in a more permanent way. I am a little embarrassed to post this, but here is a picture of the rather dire corner that prompted me to put this item on the list in the first place:

Yes, it really looked that bad. Every day. All the time. And I just walked around it because it made me tired to even THINK about dealing with it. Not one of my finer moments.

In the process of repainting this room, a lot of the stuff in that corner got moved around, the papers were separated from the toys, and some of it was given to Goodwill. (There were candle holders under there! Who knew?!) There were still a LOT of papers, though, and I took a deep breath and decided, in for a penny, in for a pound, and grabbed the overflowing box that had 16 years' worth of tax returns in it - every receipt, every utility bill from the years when I had a home office, every pay stub, ALL of it. It was all organized, but much of it was no longer necessary. So I put this excellent article by Liz Weston of MSN Money up on my computer screen for reference, turned on season two of "Monk" on Netflix Instant Viewing in the main window, made a pot of good strong tea, and set to work:

It wasn't pretty for a while. But I did it. All of my paperwork, both business and personal (old cards and letters, recital programs, etc.) now fits into the file drawer in my desk and the two-drawer filing cabinet next to it. Everything else was recycled or shredded and will be hauled away tomorrow. I put it all in a big bag, pictured below with a soda can next to it for scale. (Also, you can see the new paint! What do you think?)

So if you ever wondered what 15 years of paperwork looks like, now you know:

It looks like a cross between Jabba the Hutt and a coconut macaroon!

Day Four Hundred and Eighty-One

2011-01-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

Item #82 is officially started!

Day Four Hundred and Sixty-Six

2010-12-28T20:36:00.000-08:00

I rarely steal from myself quite this blatantly, but my Facebook posts pretty well summed up this drama so I am going to put them here and let them speak for themselves. Every year since my children were born, I've made them a pair of Christmas pajamas, usually from matching fabrics, the same as my mother did for my sister and me when we were small. The idea is that they can open ONE present on Christmas Eve (which always, amazingly, just happens to be the pajamas), and then they can wear the present to bed and wake up on Christmas morning in their new jammies.

I forget, EVERY YEAR, that I do not in fact have until Christmas Day to finish them. They have to be finished on Christmas Eve, and for some reason this always takes me by surprise.

Last year's Christmas jammies turned into such a saga that I had people asking me in the middle of December if I was going to post running commentary about them again. I tell myself that it is because last year's posts brought so much laughter and joy into people's lives. I suspect, however, that it actually has more to do with the number of friends I have who appreciate a good dose of holiday schadenfreude, which says something about my sewing - and probably something about my friends.

December 22 at 6:52 p.m. - Christmas pajamas for the kids. Red-and-black plaid. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

December 22 at 9:22 p.m. - Christmas pajama update: When you're making two pajama tops and you notice that you have made precisely the same error not once, not twice, but FOUR times, where part of the front doesn't quiiiiiite line up with the back ... check the pattern before you just trim that bit to line up neatly. It is JUST POSSIBLE that you'll need that extra bit of material for the neck binding.

December 22 at 11:13 p.m. - Plaid. Why'd it have to be plaid?

December 23 at 12:23 a.m. - If you are a creature with one head, one arm, and two torsos, I have a pajama top for you. SIGH. I am going to bed now. (On the bright side, the plaids lined up.)

December 23 at 6:10 p.m. (This accompanied the picture that is posted below on Day 461.) - On the positive side, I now have an iron-clad excuse to watch another episode of MI-5 while I rip out the seam that made this garment suitable only for aliens! (whistling "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life")

December 23 at 10:47 p.m. - Christmas Pajama Update (since I know you were all waiting with bated breath): I narrowly avoided making pajama pants for a creature with two very skinny torsos and two (possibly four) legs. I am sure there will be some disappointed little aliens somewhere out there on Christmas morning.

December 23 at 11:53 p.m. - Good quality loose leaf tea (decaf, sadly), crackers, double Gloucester, and a bit of Cotswold cheese. It may not HELP me sew Pajama Pants For Humans, but it certainly can't hurt.

December 24 at 12:15 a.m. - Do you think that anyone will notice if the fronts of the pajamas are inside out? That frazzly-edged connecting seam between the plaid and the black accent material isn't THAT noticeable, is it? It is? I was afraid of that. (Here is me not chopping them into tiny bits with my lovely sharp scissors, hurrah me!)

December 24 at 1:54 a.m. - We will all pretend that I did not just sew the entire waistband of Peter's pajama pants using the random spool of thread I'd been using up on another section for basting thread that would be removed. PINK thread, did I mention that? Aaaaand that's my cue to go to bed.

December 24 at 7:31 p.m. (since I had forgotten that we had a 2-hour family event an hour's drive away) - I don't believe in jinxes. But I am starting to think that if I post ONE MORE WORD about these dratted pajamas on Facebook, I will discover that I have made a pair of jammie pants suitable only for a three-headed octopus.

And finally, after far too much ripping-out and sewing-back-together ...

December 24 at 9:56 p.m. - Imported British tea, crackers, Double Gloucester, Stilton, white Irish Cheddar, kids in jammies (with proper number of heads, legs, and arms), and Polar Express. Quite nice. (I mean the jammies have the proper number of appendages, not the children. Well, the children do too, I suppose, but I hoped that was a given.)

Day Four Hundred and Sixty-Four

2010-12-26T22:19:00.000-08:00

Remember Items #4 and #5, in which I will supposedly learn French?

I got the Pink Martini album "Hey Eugene!" for Christmas, and fell entirely in love with the song "Ocala". I am completely inspired all over again to learn at least minimal French, if for no other reason than to be able to sing along with this song with correct diction. (If I did it right, the name of the song is now a youtube link to it.)

If you get it stuck in your head for the next three weeks, c'est la vie. You've been given fair warning.

Day Four Hundred and Sixty-One, Part Two

2010-12-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas to me - I paid off my car! This completes Item #38. I wish I'd paid attention to when it would normally have been paid off - I'm not sure how early I paid it off, but it's at least a year ahead of schedule and maybe more. Woohoo for little bits here and there!

I was also quite pleased to get a personal note from the lady at the credit union who managed the final payment. I've never regretted switching from a big cranky bank to a credit union, and things like this are why.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I am sorry to say that I do not in fact drive a silver Transformer robot car.

Day Four Hundred and Sixty-One

2010-12-23T00:41:00.000-08:00

In pursuit of Item #78 (sewing for the kids), I stayed up past the point of grogginess working on Christmas pajamas.

I just made a pajama top for a creature with one head, one arm, and two torsos.

I think it is time for bed.

Day Four Hundred and Sixty

2010-12-22T00:40:00.000-08:00

Remember this, about music and good black boots and things not turning out the way you expect?

Here's the final product of that photo shoot. ( <== That whole sentence is actually a link to the site where I'm featured, but Blogger is being irritating and it won't let me underline it so you can tell.) You can ignore the picture where I sort of look like a surprised toad, and just look at the ones where somebody finally, finally took a picture of my hands the way they look to me when I play. I am so very pleased with those. This doesn't really fall under any of my 101 Things, but I thought you might like to see it anyway.

Day Four Hundred and Fifty-Four

2010-12-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

Here's one more for Item #33 (knit or crochet 20 items for the homeless).

I really enjoyed making this one. Some shades of brown are not so nice, but I really like many of them - the deep chocolate browns that are nearly black, rich warm browns, soft tans that look like coffee and cream, such friendly colors. I've used Buddy for my model in this picture, since I have finally, regretfully, accepted the fact that I look perfectly horrible in brown.

It's not for lack of trying, either. I had a brown silk shirt in college that went beautifully with a silk scarf my mom had given me, a watercolor-inspired blend of leafy greens, warm gold, and soft browns. Nope ... not even with a scarf. My natural hair color darkened in my late twenties from a dark ash blonde to a not-very-interesting medium brown, and I thought maybe then I could wear brown. No dice. I rebelled against the encroaching strands of silver in my mid-thirties and went back to what I consider my natural color (i.e., the shade my sister's was in her early teen years, which I coveted with a passion that probably walked the fine line between venial and mortal sin). Surely with my lovely, shiny, expensive golden hair, I could wear brown! But no. Successfully wearing brown was simply Not Gonna Happen.

It all comes back to the original brown silk shirt in college. (Don't laugh at the next bit - it was 1993 and I make no apologies.) I would get all dressed up for class in my light blue straight-leg jeans, my brown suede ankle boots, and my brown silk button-up shirt (tucked in, of course). My beautiful silk scarf would be arranged just so over my shoulders, my hair would be braided back and secured in a coordinating olive green silk scrunchie (QUIT snickering), and my treasured earrings made from some beautiful rich Eastern wood. I'd wear warmer-toned makeup in a final effort to coax my pale skin and blue eyes to get on board with this whole earth-toned experiment.

It never failed - I'd get to class and someone would take one look at my complexion and ask, "Oh my gosh, are you sick? You poor girl, you look awful!"

Hopefully someone out there in my city will be happy for a warm scarf this winter. My first goal, of course, is to do something kind for someone who needs a little extra warmth and personal effort poured into their life. But if this scarf helps them to stand up a little straighter and smile a little more because it also makes them look fabulous- mission more than accomplished.

Day Four Hundred and Fifty

2010-12-12T23:02:00.000-08:00

I should have said in Item #28 that I just wanted to go to a major museum, not specifically the Portland Art Museum! My mom, sister and I are all going to the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum over the Christmas break as our present to each other. I am very, very excited about this. Then again, if I specify the Portland Art Museum, it's another excuse to go when they have an exhibit I want to see. So, good call after all, self.

Nobody ever writes letters any more! Well, not NOBODY nobody, but not very many people. I have a few friends who occasionally write, but with the advent of Twitter (short! cute! incessant!), texting (i m 2 old 4 this), and Facebook (everything out there for all to see including your socks and your cookies and your niece's ballet recital), you're lucky to even get a decent email these days, much less anything with a stamp on it. I've been re-reading Robin McKinley's novels again, and I think when I finish Sunshine (for the fifth time, I think) I will write her a letter and take care of Item #45.

My goodness, I want to see a Shakespeare play. I haven't seen one in years! It looks like if I want to drive down to Ashland some time in 2011, I can see Measure for Measure (which is being featured at this year's Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Julius Caesar, Henry IV (Part Two), or Love's Labor's Lost. Hmmm. What do you think?

I was going to go for a walk this morning (sort of working on Item #56), but it was raining. It has been raining for three days. It is supposed to rain every day from now until December 21st, which is as far as the weather forecast goes. I love rain, but I would love it even more if we could have a half-hour sun siesta at 2:30 every afternoon.

So, did it work? Did I successfully obscure the fact that I have not in fact done much of anything at all on this project this week?

Day Four Hundred and Forty-Seven

2010-12-09T17:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure #9 on this list is going to happen. I wouldn't be too stressed out about this because there are other items on the list that probably aren't going to happen either, but this one has ramifications that make my head pound a bit.

(If you're looking for a funny blog post today, this ain't it.)

I have wanted to go to graduate school for years. I know which school, and which degree I want. I know professors there who want me to come (so I can accompany their students), I'm excited about the classes and the practicing, and it would be VERY good for my future job prospects. But every year for the last five or six years something has gotten rather seriously in the way of applying - finances, schedule, life in general, always something. I got a little more serious about the concept in the fall of 2008, and started taking private piano lessons at a local university so that I could get a program learned and memorized for my audition to get into the program. That year was the "life just got so complicated I'm doing good to get my shoes on the right feet" year, and I quit lessons and dropped the graduate school plan entirely for a while.

Even though I hadn't gotten very far into my preparations, though, I had had the nagging sensation that something wasn't quite right about my ability to memorize. I wrote it off to the fact that I've never been a strong memorizer (good sight-readers often aren't), and that as a professional accompanist, everything I play is with the music. It was a reasonable enough explanation, and I didn't think much more about it until several months later when I started noticing that music wasn't the only place my memory was slipping.

I'd had one too many conversations where I heard a piece of information for what I thought was the first time, and someone would say, "Seriously? I just told you that YESTERDAY!" I would have no memory of the conversation. Events stay in my head all right, but things I hear don't seem to be sticking very well. This was distressing, but I wrote it off to stress (also a reasonable enough conclusion over the last couple of years), until a Facebook friend started chronicling her husband's recovery from a head injury, and all of a sudden this sounded very, very familiar.

At the beginning of December 2007, I managed (with my usual grace and style) to slip on the stairs in my house, landing so hard on my backside that I gave myself a concussion. I didn't know this was even possible, but indeed it is - if you land on your butt hard enough, it jars your spinal cord which joggles your brain which smacks into your skull, and voilà! Concussion!

I felt a little dizzy and cross-eyed, but went to work that evening anyway. Work, in this case, was the senior recital of an oboe performance major at the college where I work, so that meant full concert attire, hair, makeup, high heels, and playing three major works in front of an audience. I figured I'd be fine, and it wasn't until we got backstage and were waiting for our cue when I looked across the darkened backstage area and saw this:

There is only one exit sign. It is not normally fuzzy. We had a problem.

Thankfully, the oboist's position at the end of the piano was just barely within the cut-off point where my vision went double, and we got through the performance with nothing more noticeable than a couple of trills in the Mozart concerto that weren't quite as clean as I'd have liked.

On the good side, I had a reputation for the next two years as "that one accompanist who played Katie Roberts' recital WITH A CONCUSSION!", spoken in awed tones. (Yeah, OK, I kinda liked that.) On the bad side ... it was a serious head injury, and almost exactly three years later, I am starting to realize just how serious it must have been.

I don't know what you do, when you're a musician and your memory gets slippery. My job is nice that way, in that I don't have to memorize things. But now that I've been paying more attention to this, I've started noticing that it seems like I'm sightreading a LOT these days, even on songs I thought I'd played before. I had played them before. I just forgot them. Much of my free-lance work is due to my slightly uncanny sightreading abilities, so I have managed to keep my work going and do well at it.

But learn and memorize a full audition program, when a simple Chopin Ballade won't stay in my head? I don't know.

I don't know.

On the bright side, I can read the whole Twilight series again for the first time! (Or, going by what I've heard, maybe it'd be better to pretend I never read it in the first place?)

Day Four Hundred and Forty-Four

2010-12-06T21:29:00.001-08:00

This is the view directly to the left of my office chair. I don't especially care for it, and not just because it's ugly.

I am a lot better at starting things than finishing them. I am actually quite amazed that I've accomplished as many things on this list as I have, since I have a lifelong propensity for starting projects that fizzle out, overwhelm me, or (in extreme cases) get thrown out half-sewn because I've changed dress sizes three times since cutting the darn thing out. This project, though, is going to HAVE to be finished since this is my office, and I can't leave it this way, because I would hate that even more than I hate painting.

I like the idea of painting. You know how in the movies, people buy these amazing little houses with wood floors and high ceilings and lovely wood-framed windows and fireplaces (of course they have to have a fireplace), and music plays and there's this golden-lit montage of them painting walls in rich shades of tomato red and butter yellow with their hair adorably tied up in bandanas, and the paint all comes out right and never gets spilled on the rug? THAT is what I envision.

What actually happens is that I optimistically buy supplies, get all set up with my old newspapers and paintbrushes and tape, and enthusiastically start in on a random piece of wall. I step back to admire my work. I think, "Wow. That looks a lot darker than it did in the store." I paint some more. It looks better now, and I have good music playing, and it is starting to feel vaguely like the movie version of this project - look at me with my adorable bandana! (Ignore my horrid pink T-shirt and outdated jeans, please.) Here I am, painting away! Paint, paint, paint!

An hour passes. I am still painting away, on the same wall. Paint, paint, paint. This is not quite so fun any more. This bandana is making my head too hot, so I take it off. Why do I always think a brush will be better than a roller? I go and find the roller brush and the paint pan, and immediately spill paint on my clothes. I wipe it off the best I can and have a moment of relief that at least it didn't get on the carpet. I start rolling paint onto the wall - oh YES, now I remember why I don't like roller brushes: It's because I always start out too fast and it flips tiny drops of paint into my hair.

THIS WAS NOT IN THE MOVIE.

I paint with very bad grace for another five hours, and remember why I despise painting. I mutter foul imprecations against the people in Hollywood who find it amusing to depict home remodels which apparently only take 2.5 minutes, spill no paint except for the tiny dab of green on the heroine's perfectly smooth left cheek, and NEVER, not even ONCE, end up with our bedaubed young lady swearing at the mirror while she tries to comb dried paint out of her hair.

Painting party at my house, anyone? I will give you cookies.

Day Four Hundred and Forty-Three

2010-12-05T21:06:00.000-08:00

I think I can safely say that I have started Item #15 (make a patchwork blanket for each child). This one will be for Boo - the idea was to start it when she was ten and finish it by the time she turned eleven. She had her eleven-and-a-halfth birthday last week, so unless I suddenly discover time travel, it'll be a little late.

She and I settled on a quilt pattern that comes out looking like square-edged puzzle pieces, all fitting together. It makes both of us happy - I like the way it doesn't make me do a whole bunch of curved edges (which would likely result in a blanket that's more three-dimensional than either of us have in mind), and she likes the way it will have a zillion different colors in it.

It has ninety-nine "squares", if you count each puzzle piece as a square. Each color is actually cut out in seven precisely sized rectangles and squares in order to create the final illusion of a solid interlocking puzzle. It is a lot of cutting. I'm OK with that, because part of me doesn't want to finish it too quickly (and with ninety more colors to cut out, I definitely won't be setting any speed records).

I know it just looks like a pile of colored fabric, pinned in stacks of matching pieces, and that's a completely valid way of looking at it. But I see so much more already, and it's not even sewn together yet. She loves all things sparkly and striped and speckled and spangled (I keep thinking of the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem "Pied Beauty"), and the piles of fabric saved for this project reflect her tastes over and over.

I look at this pile and see the candy-corn nightgown I made her with Halloween fabric, bought on clearance, in the spring, just for fun.

I see the red dress I made for her first day of the fourth grade, and I wonder how much longer she will tolerate a dress for the first day of school.

I see the camo-and-butterflies cargo pants her exceptionally cool Aunt Boo (Boo's named after my sister) bought and sent in the mail for her sixth birthday.

I see the purple flannel nightgown that I just washed and folded, which she has not yet put away - I probably should remind her.

I see the pale pink and white flowers of one of my favorite-ever Easter dresses - I think it had a little white straw hat with it, when she would still tolerate being put in a hat for Easter Sunday.

The white material with brilliantly-colored fruit takes me back to her pre-school years, from a mix-and-match set of shirts and shorts I made for her. They lasted for years, since she kept getting taller but stayed the same size around. (I'm not kidding. She's eleven, and she can still wear a circle skirt I made for her in the first grade.)

The blue-and-white check with daisies dates back to her toddler years - did I make a matching hat? I remember a hat. It's possible ... Buddy hadn't come along yet, and there was still time then for sewing impossible things like hats.

The navy blue with gold stars takes me back to Boo as her two-year-old self - even then, I realized that this tiny little person was bursting with so much personality that gold stars only hinted at everything inside there, all that energy bouncing around in her little body and mind, flowing and bubbling and sparking out, in words upon words upon words.

They are good memories. We've had some happy times and hard times since then, and there are surely more of each ahead, as there are in any given set of days and months and years. But the memories make me smile, and I have hope - real hope - that this blanket will keep her warm in better days and months and years ahead.

Day Four Hundred and Forty-Two

2010-12-04T22:06:00.000-08:00

And there's recipe #16 - Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls! They have no calories at all, you can tell just by looking at them.

I got the recipe 10 or 12 years ago from a Secret Santa, and since it was a secret she didn't put her name on it ... and as a result I have no freakin' clue where I got the recipe. So, Secret Santa from the late 1990's, if you recognize this candy, thanks - they were great!

Real butter, peanut butter, powdered sugar, and chocolate chips. It hardly seems difficult enough to consider it an actual recipe, but since it's a pain in the backside to dip anything more complicated than a strawberry in melted chocolate, I'm counting it.

I should have had Item #8 be "try 100 new recipes". I'm sorry to be almost finished with it! I mean, not that I can't still try new recipes ... it's just that after I finish the item, I no longer have any rational reason to post pictures of them.

Day Four Hundred and Thirty-Seven

2010-11-29T23:41:00.001-08:00

I still have two more biographies to read. The ones I find that I most want to read, though, aren't written - they are the stories of my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and their great-grandparents. The genealogical research I've been doing lately just makes me want to know more and more about these people, the Franks and Janes and Georges and Jacobs and the lone Narcissa. So much is forgotten when time passes, with only names and dates left.

I don't feel like I'm just a name and a date, but I suppose I am.

And I imagine they didn't feel like they were just names and dates, and indeed they were not.

I expected this research to be exciting and interesting, and it has been both. I guess I wasn't quite prepared for the bittersweet experience of meeting all these dead people and wondering who they were.

Day Four Hundred and Thirty-Three

2010-11-25T10:42:00.001-08:00

Or, Things For Which This Project Has Made Me Thankful.

1. Friends, old and new, who've suggested recipes as varied as Yorkshire pudding, clam chowder, borscht, and Eggs Benedict, writing in from locations as varied as (respectively) New Zealand, Minnesota, Washington State, and England.

2. Frederic Chopin. He amazes me more every year. And he's DEAD, so that's pretty impressive.

3. The fact that I am not allergic to any foods, which means I can try cooking anything I can stand the taste of.

4. I have a house to organize. Not everybody does, and I know this.

5. I have the kind of brain that thinks it's fun to do algebra. (Hey, I consider this a plus - don't laugh!)

6. I haven't gone to the Space Needle with the kids yet, but I'm really glad I still live close enough to Seattle put it on the list!

7. I am thankful for tulips. I love them, love them, love them.

8. I love it that I live in a part of the country where it's possible to go to the opera, the beach, a wonderful art museum, a 5-mile hike (or 50 if I wanted), and any number of photo-taking expeditions - all within 75 miles of my house.

9. I am thankful that my body, while it is a little tweaky and unpredictable, is generally healthy enough to at least consider swimming, cycling, running, and hiking.

10. I am thankful that I put #55 on the list. I will freely admit that I wish I could bring a bottle of good Scotch to today's festivities and spend the evening nursing along a glass of it, but not drinking was the right choice for this point in my life.

11. I am thankful that even though I haven't done too well with #59 (monthly self-exams), I am thankful that I have so far been spared the spectre of cancer that has hit my family so many times. And if I end up with it, I'll be thankful for good health care.

12. I am thankful for all the fun pictures I've gotten to take in the course of this project!

13. I'm really glad I got motivated about learning to quilt. That has been a huge amount of fun, even if I'm not very good at it yet.

14. I am very thankful that I managed not to kill my antique rose.

15. And I am thankful for you, my readers. I know who many of you are, but not all, and that makes it fun too - I like thinking that there are a few people out there I've never met who get a chuckle or a good idea out of what I write. Thank you for reading - we're almost halfway there!

Happy Thanksgiving!

- Bee

Day Four Hundred and Thirty

2010-11-22T16:30:00.000-08:00

Now, this doesn't LOOK like the toy-infested craft-swamped book-filled lair that is my family room (Item #14), since it is in fact an upstairs closet. But I'm counting it as work in the general direction of that project, since there is significant overlap between what's in this closet and what's in the family room as far as games and random decorative items. Getting this area in order makes it so (hopefully) some of the items from the family room will actually have a place to go.

I spent a few hours on this today and made good progress. I did the five shelves completely, but couldn't bring myself to address the three boxes under the shelves. They have been there, with very little taken out or put into them, since moving here in 2000. I shudder to think what might be there, or how long it will take to decide what to do with it. For now, I am calling this a good day's work:

Day Four Hundred and Twenty-One

2010-11-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I should have done this a long time ago! I hadn't planned today to sort out the folder full of several years' worth of product warranties (Item #67), but it turns out that drinking a pot of good strong black tea after 9 p.m. gives one rather more energy than is ideal for sleeping. This seemed like a manageable project, and indeed it was. This folder now only has a handful of items in it, and all of them actually need to be there. Success!

Day Four Hundred and Seventeen

2010-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

I've made a little more progress on #56 (get to a goal weight which is on a strictly need-to-know basis), and I know it's a little blurry but I think maybe-maybe-just-maybe I am starting to have actual cheekbones again. I am pretty pleased about that.

Day Four Hundred and Fifteen

2010-11-07T13:50:00.000-08:00

I ended up with a rather nasty upset tummy today. So no Eggs Benedict, and I am spending the day on the couch working on Item #93 (watch new-to-me movies made in each year from 1939 to 2012, when the project ends).

I just finished Desk Set with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Trying to decide now between Funny Girl (1968) and Woman of the Year (1942). Heck, maybe I'll just watch them both.

On the positive side, I've had enough upset-tummy days recently that I've made some rather nice progress on Item #56. Sigh.

Day Four Hundred and Fourteen

2010-11-06T18:22:00.001-07:00

Today ... nap.

Tomorrow ... Eggs Benedict!

Day Four Hundred and Thirteen

2010-11-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

See? Better already. (Faster anyway, which means less to listen to.)

Day Four Hundred and Twelve

2010-11-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

All right ... don't click on this unless your sound is turned down a little and you have something VERY nice to listen to afterwards. I am taking a risk here and allowing rather more transparency into my musical process than I normally do, as part of Item #11 (learn the Creston Sonata for Saxophone and Piano). I have already learned and performed the first two movements of this work, but I put it on the list to motivate myself to learn the fiendishly difficult third movement.

I had done some sporadic "work" on it over the last year, which translates to playing the first five pages (the easiest bit) a few times and sort of skipping the hardest parts. Then I found out last week that one of the saxophone majors where I work will be doing the third movement, and I will need to have it at performance level in six months at most, and possibly much less than that.

I will not subject you to the whole piece at this point, since I feel a little bad even practicing it in front of the cat. It is very modern and will not be your typical "happy Mozart music" even when it is completely polished and performed with the saxophonist, and this kind of music sounds pretty darn awful in the early stages. That said, I decided to post periodic updates on the final two pages of the work, which are among the most difficult in the piece and will (hopefully) improve significantly over the next few months.

So, here it is ... it probably isn't technically sight-reading since I think I may have played through the whole thing a couple of years ago, but for all practical purposes, this is my first run-through. Fasten your seatbelt, take your anti-anxiety meds, and click play if you dare.

I warned you! I promise the next one will be better.

Day Four Hundred and Ten

2010-11-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

I will probably not do much on this blog for the month of November since I'm trying to write 50,000 words - I think that's a pretty good excuse not to learn French right this minute, anyway. I'll try to keep my camera in my pocket though, in case I get a chance to add any more to Item #80, like this shot of some nearly-forgotten stairs that lead nowhere behind the building where I work.

Day Four Hundred and Eight

2010-10-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

Another essay! Yay!

-----

I am a musician. I am a writer. I am a mother. I have ADHD. I am planning to write 50,000 words in the month of November. (You can see what’s coming, can’t you.)

My personal requirements for writing usually make for a very short list: Functional computer (pen and paper will do), reasonably sturdy chair, quiet, and the urge to write. Notice, please, that there is no mention on this list of proper writing attire, time of day, glasses of water, or mood-setting procedures. It is not at all unusual for me to be hunched over the keyboard in the dark far past my bedtime, hair awry, wearing nightclothes rumpled from tossing and turning while an essay pings around inside my skull until I surrender to the inevitable and write it.

But a focused writing goal changes all of that. Suddenly I have a list of finicky little requirements that would put a pop diva to shame. I sit down at the computer, and wonder how I didn’t notice before that it gets really warm in this room. I open the window just an inch or two and decide that I should probably move the ironing board out of my line of sight so that I’m not tempted to work on the pile of wrinkled clothes waiting for my attention. I’m still too warm, so I take off my sweater, fold it neatly, and lay it on a chair instead of dropping it on the floor according to my usual habit. I sit down again, and I’m thirsty. I head down to the kitchen for a glass of water, put in an ice cube (I never use ice! Why now?) and decide I should put a few chocolate chips in a bowl in case I need extra sustenance.

I should probably use the bathroom since I’m down here anyway. I’m washing my hands, and I realize that the light in this bathroom is much better than the one upstairs. I seem to have more grey hair in this mirror. I’m not going to try to pull all of them out, but that one right at the front has got to go, and so does that one, and just a couple more … OK, that’s better, now I can write. I pick up my water and chocolate chips and walk past the piano, which I have neglected for the last few days. Oh, look – I left my book of Chopin Preludes on the music rack! I love the C-sharp minor “Cello Etude” so dearly, and maybe a quick run-through will put me in a writing frame of mind. I play through it with passion and feeling, and yes, the creative juices are flowing in earnest now – so I play the Revolutionary Etude and the Grande Valse Brilliante too.

I catch myself before I get too inspired and move on to Brahms, and trundle back upstairs to the office. I sit down yet again, and realize that I’ve left my water and snack downstairs. On the way back down, I am appalled by the state of the family basket of shoes by the front door, and take a moment to put them back in an orderly fashion. There, now my mind is at ease and I can write. I return to the office, find a spot for my water and chocolate chips, try a few (they’re just fine), take a sip of water, and spend five minutes adjusting my chair. It has been fine for months. I don’t know why it’s too high now – or too low – or maybe it was too far forward – now it’s messed up completely and I have to crawl underneath it to look at the levers to figure out how to put it back. There, much better – ahh, telephone.

Call finished, I return to my computer, and am embarrassed to recall that I never sent my sister that recipe she asked for. I open up Facebook and bravely ignore the red notification box, going straight to my sister’s wall. Oh, look – new pictures of my nephew! Is there anything cuter than a toddler who’s learning to color for the first time? I love being an aunt, and of course I comment on a few of the most recent pictures. Wait – recipe! Fortunately I know it by heart, so I fire off a message to my sister and close down my web browser, conscience eased and mind at rest. There, now I can write!

I finally open up a blank document in Word, and it regards me silently. I gaze back. Nothing happens. That really is a very large pile of ironing, now that I think about it, and – NO. No ironing, no telephone, no sandwich, and definitely no more Facebook. As a last-ditch effort at procrastination, I pin my hair up out of my face, take off my watch, and remove my socks (since I am certain that I write better when I’m barefoot), but it is no use – it is time, so I close my eyes for a moment, smile slightly, look at that lovely expanse of white on my screen, and I begin to write.

Day Four Hundred and Five

2010-10-28T22:03:00.001-07:00

What on EARTH possessed me to think I had the mental facility to learn French?!

Day Three Hundred and Ninety-Nine

2010-10-22T22:54:00.001-07:00

Here are four more pictures for Item #80, the Windows/Doors/Stairs photography project. Clicking on any picture will give you a full-screen shot in much better resolution. For reasons unfathomable to me, Blogger's largest size option for a picture within a blog post is really not very big, and when you click and drag to increase the size, it loses resolution. My next 101 Things project will not be on Blogger, so I should probably start looking for a new site in 550 days or so.

The clock tower at Willamette University, late afternoon.

Another view of the clock tower, taken at the same time.

Window into stairwell at the Chemeketa Parkade, downtown Salem, Oregon.

Gated stairway into building on Commercial Street downtown.

The beach at Manzanita, Oregon - not a window or door, I just liked it.

Day Three Hundred and Ninety-Eight

2010-10-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

Finally, another essay! (Item #41)

-----

Pride Goeth.

As I've gotten older, I've gotten increasingly less interested in the opinions of all but those who matter most to me. I don't worry as much about my hair, I spend less time fretting about my funny walk and ghostly skin, and I have even found a small measure of resigned acceptance of my post-baby figure.

That said, when I was approached with an offer to include me in a project featuring local artists doing what they do, I thought, “Oh yes, of course you can photograph me in the daily nitty-gritty of my work, as long as I can have an hour to do my hair and makeup, and I need to find that one good red lipstick, and I think maybe those REALLY flattering jeans and my good black boots, and can you not shoot me from the side because I don’t like my double chin?"

What I actually said was, “Yeah, sure!” You know, all casual-like. And then arranged for the photo shoot to take place at rehearsal (in the performance hall at the local university) instead of at my house as originally planned. I mean, sure, it’s a great idea in theory. But for a photographic feature that focuses on process (the hidden, solitary hours of solo practice) instead of the final product (the black-satin-clad, high-heeled, sparkly-jeweled performances), I was a little worried about just HOW nitty-gritty this might be.

My actual practice sessions involve stepping over an abandoned wooden train-track construction to get to the piano, clearing elaborate Lego creations off of the bench before I sit down, and making sure there are no marbles under the pedals. There's usually a cup of tea or a can of diet Coke on a coaster proclaiming "I had a mind once - now I have small children." A small pile of M&M candies (for energy, you know) is a distinct possibility. I generally have my hair in a ponytail to keep it out of my face, I rarely have makeup on when I'm at home, and I almost always practice barefoot. Pajamas and a bathrobe are not unheard of. I’m all for honesty, but this was a little more honesty than I wanted posted on the internet.

I thought this would be a good compromise – I’d be more casual than on a performance day, certainly, which is highly dependent on good makeup, hot rollers, hairspray, and a quite literally breath-taking amount of Lycra under that smooth sweep of black chiffon. On the other hand, this “casual” snapshot of my work would still include a lovely nine-foot Steinway, polished hardwood floors, and beautiful lighting. I decided on jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, my good black boots, and of course I would allow ample time for carefully understated makeup and a complete blow-dry of my waist-length hair. I’d leave my librarian-esque glasses at home in favor of contact lenses, put on a little eyeliner so you could see my eyes, maybe a touch of lipstick. As my imagination picked up pace, I envisioned (remember that thing about pride and falls?) my hands tenderly drawing music from the keys as my hair cascaded around me in a shining, smooth waterfall of blonde, eyes closed in a moment of transcendent oneness with the music.

So, at 8:45 I’m on the phone with Hannah, the soprano I’ll be working with, getting everything settled regarding the hall and the photographer. I’ve spent the last 45 minutes getting my son fed and ready for school, and I’m not as far along as I thought I’d be in my preparations. I realize I’m cutting it close, so I say my goodbyes to Hannah with a cheery “See you at ten!” Hannah says, “No, you mean 9:30!” I say, “Um, yeah! Sorry, you’re right, 9:30.”

At this point I hang up and explode into full-fledged Panic Mode. I am wearing a green nightshirt with a cartoon of a giant black bear on the front. I am barefoot, unfed, unshowered, and my sleep-tousled hair is rampaging in a highly unflattering multitude of directions. It takes twenty minutes to get to the university, and it is now 8:48.

I fly into the bathroom, barely taking the time to remove my glasses before I get into the shower. I take the fastest shower I’ve had in years, forgoing conditioner (I know I’ll regret this shortly) in favor of speed. I hop back out of the shower, scrubbing my hair with a towel as I charge back to the bedroom to get dressed. Jeans! Black sweater! Earrings! Socks, I can’t find my socks, dang it! Here, laundry basket, socks, run, run, run, back to the bathroom … auuggghhh! My HAIR!

I am faced with the inevitable result of a fast shower, no conditioner, and a mad towel-drying rampage. Helena Bonham-Carter’s rats’-nest of hair in any one of her freakier movie roles is a good point of comparison. There is no way, NO way this is going to metamorphose into a smoothly shimmering waterfall, or even a moderately ripply stream. There is no help for it. I get it just dry enough and just detangled enough that it doesn’t appear to be harboring small birds and woodland creatures, and twist it into a bun, stabbing blindly with hairpins until it feels like it will withstand the mad rush to the university.

Contacts … no time, I guess I’m Marian the Librarian today. Makeup … quick, a little powder and mascara, and let’s at least cover up that spot in case he decides that pimples add to the artist-at-work ambience. Lipstick? No time. DANG IT.

Run downstairs, gather music, grab a granola bar, no time for tea, do I have a pencil?, purse, boots! No time to go back and get them, I’m late, sneakers will have to do, but oh NO these are bootcut jeans, and I guess they’ll just have to drag on the ground, nothing to do for it now. Run to the car, run back for my cell phone, run to the car again, come on light turn GREEN, park, mad dash across campus, and I’m here.

Beautiful piano. Perfect light. Shining wood floor. Lovely Hannah. And my scuffed-up Converse sneakers, cheeks flushed from hurry, hair already trying to escape the hasty updo, and clothes disheveled from the careless dash from the car. Everything was rushed, mussed, breathless, and not at all what I had in mind. The photographer said it was perfect.

I can live with rushed, mussed, breathless and perfect.

Day Three Hundred and Ninety-Four

2010-10-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

Here are two more for Item #78 (sew 10 items of clothing for each child). These are the first-day-of-school outfits, and I got the last stitch in at around 12:30 a.m. the night before school started. And that was WITH planning ahead!

Buddy's shirt was a breeze - he picked out the material himself, and even when I suggested some nice blue material with baseballs on it, he insisted that the strange-looking striped material with olive green, mustard yellow, brown and orange was exactly what he wanted. And when I got it home and started cutting it out, I realized it was perfect. He looks great in those colors, and I was very pleased with the end result.

Boo's dress was another story entirely. After much poring over pattern books and agonized discussion over the merits of various dresses, she settled on (of all things) a little retro-inspired outfit that was done up in the pattern book in a tweedy plaid, clearly reminiscent of a classic Chanel suit. And nothing would do but we found it in plaid, and as luck would have it ... pink.

Boo is not all that into pink as a general rule (more of a lime green and orange kind of kid), but this was The Dress, and I was determined to make it.

Do you have ANY idea how many pieces there are in a lined, tailored jacket and matching flared skirt? And do you have ANY idea how long it takes to sew a stabilizing line of stitching around each and every pattern piece as soon as it's cut out, to keep it from unraveling to bits while it's sewn? (Answers: A lot, and a long time.)

Fortunately, the extended family spent a couple of days out at the Oregon coast right before school started, and there was a quiet table in the corner where I could work. I have no idea what all the rest of the relatives did, but I got quite a bit of work done on the dress. I sewed like crazy the next couple of days, and quietly tiptoed into Boo's room in the wee small hours of the first day of school to hang it up for her to see when she awoke.

And it was worth it.

Day Three Hundred and Ninety-Three

2010-10-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

I am starting to regret the "healthy, trimmed" part of Item #92 (grow healthy, trimmed hair to my waist). Every time it gets close, it's time to get it trimmed again. I took this picture earlier this week, and my hand is about waist-level - I suppose the straggliest little bits are probably waist-length, but that hardly qualifies as healthy, does it?

I got it trimmed later that day, and ... hang on, let me go measure ...

...

... it looks like I have about 2.25 inches to go. So, if I get a half inch trimmed for every inch it grows (which is about what it comes out to), it should be trimmed and healthy and waist-length in early spring. Hurrah!

The idea, of course, was that I would then lop off a bunch and donate it (Item #34). But now I'm not so sure ... I've found out that much of that hair does NOT in fact go to the sad-eyed little cancer patients on the website, but goes instead to wigs for adults who might just be in the mood for blonde hair this week. So for now, I'm going to keep wearing it, and do a little more research on donating it before I do anything involving scissors and tears.

Oh Dear ...

2010-10-05T22:43:00.001-07:00

... I keep checking my blog to see if there's anything new on it.

Day Three Hundred and Seventy-Two

2010-09-25T22:58:00.000-07:00

See how those towers look like they are very high in the air? That's because they ARE very high in the air. One hundred and ninety feet to be exact.

And see those cables hanging down from the towers? You can't see this in the picture because my camera couldn't get the whole thing in the shot at once, but they are attached to a two-person seat, and they are STRETCHY. Two hundred and fifty feet in the air, that kind of stretchy.

(And - this delights me no end - for my non-American readers, that's about 58 meters and 76 meters respectively. Hurrah for readers in Canada, England and Australia!)

I went on this in order to fulfill Item #88 at the Oregon State Fair earlier this month, and Boo got very brave all of a sudden and decided to go with me. She ended up a little shellshocked, and needed ice cream to recuperate.

I thought about it, but I really couldn't face food until later the next day. I did fine on the ride itself, with the exception of the last few feet of the first explosive upswing. As we slowed near the top of our upward trajectory but still kept going UP, there was a sick-making moment where I thought, "No, this really is far enough, thank you, down now, WAIT not around in circles AUUUGGGHHHH!!!" Other than that though, it was quite a bit of fun. We truly could see for miles, and this was a view of the city I certainly had never had before.

Now, I'm not saying I'm getting old or anything, but I think that was probably a one-time shot. I had a good time, but my equilibrium isn't quite as steel-plated as it once was, and I felt slightly cross-eyed for the entire next week. (Although that may have had something to do with going on the swings immediately afterwards. In case you were wondering - BAD IDEA.)

Fortunately, my memory's not what it used to be either, so as long as I don't re-read this post, I can go on it again next year! Wheee!

Day Three Hundred and Seventy

2010-09-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

Attempt #2 at spending 15 minutes a day outside for 100 consecutive days (Item #63):

I had a lovely picnic at the park.

I took my kids into the back yard on a nice day and insisted that we all read books! I know! Torture!

I went on many walks, in all sorts of weather.

I actually dusted off my bike and went for a ride, and remembered why I don't ride much. (It has to do with my butt muscles. Don't ask.)

I played a game of croquet with the rest of the pit orchestra (the first one I've ever played in, very fun!) for a local production of "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat." I am not very good at croquet, it turns out.

I browsed through the outdoor market in front of the health food store and bought some perfectly delicious organic Brandywine tomatoes. (With a name like Brandywine, how can a Tolkien buff resist?!)

I helped with some impromptu decorating at the park for Buddy's friend's birthday party.

I sat outside on the back porch at night, read books and enjoyed the night air.

I cleaned out my car, with a vacuum cleaner and everything!

I took Boo for a brisk morning walk, which was quite fun and I should do it more often.

I took a hike with my mom down by the Puget Sound in Washington State.

I took lots and lots of pictures at the Capitol Building in Olympia, WA.

I watched Buddy do his best at the Cub Scout Olympics.

I took Boo and Buddy all over the World Beat Festival in downtown Salem, and we ate a little too much fair food.

---

And then I forgot about it, and now I have to start over. I promise I'm not starting this over multiple times because I like having to be outside every day ... although that's tempting now that I think about it. Hmmm.

Day Three Hundred and Sixty-Six

2010-09-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

I just realized that today is the first anniversary of this blog! I'd do a progress report, but it's getting late and I am tired. So, here is another one of my road pictures, just because I like them. Thank you for coming on this long walk with me!

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Day Three Hundred and Fifty-three

2010-09-07T11:41:00.000-07:00

I have lost one of my regular readers, and my heart is aching. You'll be missed, Mike. I was thinking about having my next 101 Things project include "sign up to be an organ donor", but I think I'll go do that now instead. A donated kidney gave you a few more years to hang around and make very funny sarcastic remarks, and I'm so glad I had those years to get to know you.

Day Three Hundred and Forty-Five

2010-08-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

I have a new camera now, although it is not, alas, in fulfillment of Item #2 since that requires a few more dollars than I have in my penny jar at the moment. This one will work, I think, but it is giving me fits so I'll have to wait on posting any items that involve pictures.

In the meantime, I'll catch up on a new item I started: #7, read five biographies.

The first one I read was It Doesn't Take a Hero: The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (Bantam, 2009). I was fascinated by the story of the man, of course, but I was equally pleased to find that the book filled many hazy gaps in my understanding of the conflicts in Vietnam and the Middle East. Schwarzkopf's grasp of (and clear communication of) the cultural differences between Eastern and Western culture was incredibly helpful in allowing the reader to understand subtleties of the conflicts that don't quite fit in the World Events section of the newspaper. His dry wit sparkled through in many places, and I realize that he is probably a very entertaining man to talk to in person. More than anything, I came away from the book with a renewed appreciation for what soldiers go through on a daily basis.

Today I finished the second on my list, Helen Keller: The Story of My Life (Penguin Books, 2002). Her autobiography begins with her earliest memories and concludes at the time of writing, her second year of college. Some of the stories of her early life were familiar from the Childcraft Encyclopedia set my parents had when I was a child, but I had not realized until reading the full autobiography that Keller was in fact an amazingly educated woman. She writes of "seeing" Shakespeare plays (by having an observer spell the dialogue into her hand) after having studied them herself, reading German philosophers in the original language, her travails with learning to speak French (by putting her hands on the lips and throat of her French teacher) - can you imagine? Speak French! A woman who has never heard the language spoken and has to learn each word, each phrase, each turn of syllable with her hands. I can't fathom the determination it must have required. And I had a bad enough time with geometry without having to use bent bits of wire to "draw" the problems and remember every label of the angles and lines in my head.

Her love of learning is evident in every line of the book, and it inspired me with the desire to read more, write more, and just pay more attention to life generally. My favorite quote is an eloquent expression of the exasperation all writers must feel at some time:

"It seems to me that the great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the educated mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half thoughts, when we are little more than bundles of instinctive tendencies. Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design. But we keep on trying because we know that others have succeeded, and we are not willing to acknowledge defeat."

I am thoroughly looking forward to reading more of these - there is as much variety among autobiographies as there is among people, which is to say all the variety in the world.

Day Something

2010-08-22T21:54:00.001-07:00

Did you know it is very hard to do a photoblog if you lose your camera?

Day Three Hundred and Twelve

2010-07-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

And there goes Item #12, take a cooking class!

I signed up for the "Summer Dinner" class at Carl's Cuisine in downtown Salem, OR. Sorry, no website - Carl has opted not to have an internet presence, and since his classes fill up quite literally within minutes (due in part to lines of people waiting outside the door before the store opens) on the day registration opens, his business seems to be doing just fine without a website! After taking this class, I can see why everyone flocks to his classes, and why some of the attendees have been coming to them for decades. (Although I must say that makes it a bit tricky for us new kids to get into the classes, if the spots are taken up by people who've been coming to them for thirty years. You'd think they'd know how to cook by now, wouldn't you?!)

I get a little tangled sometimes about where my captions and pictures go, so in this post, all captions will be below the relevant picture.

The man himself, and the Amazing Wonderful Kitchen of Paradise. I seriously covet this kitchen. Lovely huge counter space, state-of-the-art stove and oven, more nifty little gadgets than you could possibly stuff in ten years' worth of Christmas stockings, copper-bottomed pots and pans hanging from the ceiling (happy sigh), marvelous cutting board which I NEEEED, sharp slicy cutty whackety knives, and I think I fell in love with the Cuisinart.

Isn't this a cute little bowl? I loved the way all the ingredients were set out ahead of time in bowls ... and I realized an hour or so into the class that that's how he can get a whole meal cooked in 2.5 hours that would take me, um, DAYS. A great deal of the prep is done ahead of time, and that makes all the difference. That, and a staff who comes and washes dishes on demand. If I had a staff on call while I cook, I'd probably weigh three hundred pounds. (But my kitchen would look AWESOME.)

Oh, also - yummy delicious basmati rice. Guess where? The bulk food section at Lifesource Natural Foods. I shop there all the time! I never knew this was there! Silly me!

This alone made it worth the price of admission. I've always wanted to learn how to roast peppers properly, but after an Unfortunate Incident regarding a green pepper and my oven which we will not discuss here, I've been afraid to try it. These jalapeños, along with some red bell peppers, hotter ancho chilies, and pepitas (toasted pumpkin seeds, also from Lifesource), went into the rice dish. I tried roasting some when I got home, and while I learned an important lesson about how LONG to roast the peppers, it did work exactly like he demonstrated. Hurrah! I can torment my children with peppers in yet another way!

Oh, and I bought one of the cutting boards. Just a little one, but I can already tell you it is QUITE wonderful. It's made, of all things, of paper. Zillions of layers of paper. And it's non-absorbent, so you don't have to boil it to death every time you make chicken, and it doesn't make your sliced strawberries taste like yesterday's onions. So that's nice.

Here, he's chopping fresh rosemary to go in the dip for the appetizer. I have GOT to get one of these knives, even if I have to cover my eyes when I sign the credit card receipt. I don't know how much they are. I don't want to know. I just want one of these knives.

The appetizer: Rosemary Green Bean Spread with Rosemary Flatbread. Really! Green beans! I never would have guessed if I hadn't seen them go into it. They're fresh, overcooked just enough to be a little bendy, then tossed into the magical Cuisinart (swoon) and alchemized into a gently flavored dip involving ricotta, rosemary, and olive oil. The end result tastes what I can only call green. It tastes green - not really like beans, or like ricotta, or like rosemary exactly, just this smooth, creamy, vegetableness. (Yes, thank you Spellcheck, I know vegetableness isn't a word any more than green is a taste. But if you tried this dip, you'd put it in the dictionary.)

Interestingly enough, the rosemary flatbread came from the Cascade Baking Company, which I gave a somewhat-less-than-favorable review here, based on their soft-palate-piercing grilled cheese sandwiches. Looks like I need to give them another try.

See how they look all slimy and gross? They taste WAY better than that.

Yeah, they still look slimy and gross. They sure smell good though...

... and holy cow do they TASTE good. Here's the finished rice dish, along with shrimp (basil jalapeño tequila(!) quick marinade) and a Parmesan basil aïoli that was so good I had to restrain myself from actually licking the plate. I had to content myself with just scraping up the last drops with my fork when nobody was looking.

Incidentally, I asked Carl at this juncture if he had ever considered a class focused on vegetarian cuisine - this seemed reasonable enough, given the health-conscious and vegetarian-friendly part of the country we live in, and the fact that this rice dish (which would have been vegetarian with a golden broth instead of chicken broth) would have been a perfectly lovely dinner all by itself. He said that he doesn't really DO vegetarian. He tried a class with a meatless meal once, but he doesn't anticipate doing it again because he just didn't enjoy it much. I confess I was a little disappointed since I'm always on the lookout for good dinners that aren't centered on meat, but when it comes right down to it, it's his kitchen - and if he can do things like that to shrimp, I can get my veggie fare elsewhere!

Here goes a little armada of almond cornmeal cakes! I know, it sounded odd to me too. Almond? Cornmeal? But oh MY. The flavors blend amazingly, and the whipped cream and fresh berries were completely perfect.

Oops ... I was going to photograph this, but I accidentally ate almost the whole thing before I remembered. Well, you get the idea.

My only real regret is that I didn't require myself to take twenty cooking classes for this item to be crossed off my list!

Day Three Hundred and One, Postscript

2010-07-16T22:41:00.003-07:00

But oh hey! I am at exactly 2500 views on my blog! So that is kind of cool, in a not-really-doing-anything kind of way.

Day Three Hundred and One

2010-07-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

Well, hmmm. This could sort of count for #48 (train for and run a 10K race) or for #49 (go on a hike of 5+ miles), but I am not going to count it for either. The reason I am blogging about this not-progress is that I have not written in two weeks, since I am in a profoundly lazy mode right now, and I'll take any topic I can get.

This is me finishing the Go Girl Trail Run 10K, picture shamelessly stolen from the event photographer's site and cropped down so you can't see just HOW little progress I have made on Item #56 (lose a bunch of weight). I am pretty cranky about that, especially since I know perfectly well that eating less and exercising more would knock that item off the list.

I am not counting it for #48 since I didn't train very well for it, nor did I run it (finish line jogging doesn't count). I am not counting it for #49 either since it was sort of a hike (much up-and-down trail walking and trees and mosquitoes and sharp pointy rocks), but not really because I didn't bring a) a nice snack, b) a journal, or c) a camera, all of which I consider essential for a REAL hike.

You can see my progress on #92 though!

(stopping to consider what I just typed)

Blah. The only thing I have done on this list in the last two weeks is Grow My Hair. That level of laziness takes real commitment, folks. Tune in next week to watch me cut my fingernails and maybe (if you're lucky) blink my eyes a few times!

(blink)

(blink)

Day Two Hundred and Eighty-Seven

2010-07-02T23:46:00.000-07:00

I am trying to finish a quilt so I can start a quilt (Item #15).

I wonder if that will still make sense in the morning ...

Day Two Hundred and Eighty-Five

2010-06-30T13:01:00.001-07:00

I am trying to figure out which would be the best list items to work on today, after a morning in which not one but TWO really great potential job offers fell through.

Learn French? I don't think I have the energy.

Try a recipe? Not hungry.

Visit a new state? Tempting.

Go to a Shakespeare play? Might be a good distraction, but I think the kids would hate it.

Put $1000 in an education fund for each child? Better not right now.

Work on a quilt? Maybe ... better for me than eating chocolate, anyway!

Day Two Hundred and Eighty-Four

2010-06-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well, there's Item #54 done. I went 30 (actually 31) days with no chocolate.

I did not magically lose five pounds. I didn't lose ANY pounds.

My skin did not magically clear up - well, it did this week, but that has more to do with an accidental sunburn, which always has that temporary effect on me.

I didn't actually even miss it all that much.

I am underwhelmed.

Day Two Hundred and Eighty-Three

2010-06-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

ROAD TRIP!!

Item #20 is now officially off the list. Buddy, Boo and I set out on Tuesday afternoon (a bit later than we intended, but oh well) and started off down I-5. Our first stop was at the McDonald's in Cottage Grove, where we drank sodas, played on the toys, and Boo learned to play checkers. (Photo compliments of Buddy)

At the recommendation of my friend Christine, we stayed in a tiny little nowhere place that's not even on the map - which is fine by us, because it meant the awesome little hotel we stayed in was cheap! Adorable little A-frame cottages with one bed on the ground floor and one in a loft, pretty view out the back, bathroom, fridge, microwave, and plenty of floor space, for $55/night = WIN.

Sunset ... ahhhh.

On Wednesday morning we headed south again. We'd never been to Roseburg and we needed a bathroom and a RiteAid, so we stopped. We parked in the little downtown area, and among other things we visited the utterly delightful Country Lady Quilt Shop. We asked for and received a tour of the back half of the store so that Buddy could see the machines - a few antique sewing machines, the machine quilting apparatus, and the huge quilt frame that was currently displaying a quilt top of a king-sized quilt in the Log Cabin pattern. Boo picked out a few fabrics of her own - that's my girl!

Wednesday's main event was a trip to the Wildlife Safari in southern Oregon - what a treat!

We stopped at a bridge over the South Fork of the Coos River. We got barked at by a very enthusiastic dog and decided that it was time to get going again.

We spent a quiet half hour on the porch and in the side yard of a country store in Bridge, Oregon. It said it was a town, but I am starting to suspect otherwise since a list of the smallest towns in Oregon (including Green Horn, OR, pop. 3) does not include it. Anyway, it was a perfect afternoon and stands out in my recollections of the trip.

We drove a little too far on Wednesday night in a frustrating search for a hotel (they all disappeared about the time we wanted to stop), but finally found one just outside North Bend. Thursday morning we walked from our hotel partway over the Coos Bay Bridge (built in 1936 and about a mile long). It was amazing!!

The rest of Thursday we drove back up the Oregon coast in no particular hurry. It was cold and windy, but beautiful as always.

My sweet girl.

There was a lighthouse somewhere under all that fog.

Look! Sea lions!

This covered bridge (built in 1926, a replacement of the original structure which was built in 1893 for the railroad) was a lovely surprise on the side of the road.

Boo snapped this of me when I was sitting on the railing of the bridge. It was such a beautiful, perfect evening that I hated to get back in the car!

And one last shot on the side of the road crossing back through western Oregon. This state never fails to amaze me!

Day Two Hundred and Seventy-Three

2010-06-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

I did another one of Item #27, the picture-taking expeditions. This time I went to the Washington State Capitol grounds in Olympia, which is just a few miles from where I grew up. I spent an hour or so walking around and taking pictures, and realized that I could easily have spent at least that much more time if I'd allowed for it! I restricted myself to the parts of the grounds that were between the fountain and the Capitol building, but I hope to come back another time and take more pictures of the rest of the grounds.

Here are a few of my favorites. (Some of these will also go into the Windows & Doors project.)

Clearly built when buildings were buildings, men were men, women were women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

half of a self-portrait?

Hello lamppost, whatcha knowin'?
I've come to watch your flowers growin'.
Ain'tcha got no rhymes for me?
Doot'n'do do, feelin' groovy.

I do love stairs.

looking up into the rotunda from as close to the center of the building as possible without standing on the State Seal, which is (needless to say) frowned upon

the floor of the rotunda as seen from the balcony in front of the Senate chambers

The pillars at the front of the Capitol, which apparently are also holding up the sky.

Day Two Hundred and Seventy-One

2010-06-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

There's one more for Item #78! Buddy picked out the gold buttons to go with the stars on the pajamas, and he would like you to know that it is NOT a skirt, those are shorts.

Day Two Hundred and Sixty-Eight

2010-06-13T22:19:00.001-07:00

Item #6 is done! Here are the books I read:

Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall
Your Heart Belongs to Me, by Dean Koontz
Holder of the Lightning, by S. L. Farrell
Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert
On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
The Power of Less, by Leo Babauta
The Remarkable Farkle McBride, by John Lithgow
The Whole Truth, by David Baldacci
Basic Black: The Essential Guide to Getting Ahead At Work (And In Life), by Cathie Black
The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, by SCOTT WILLIAM CARTER

Pay attention now, this is important!

The last one is written by Scott William Carter (in case you missed that the first time) who just happens to be a friend of mine! I've known him since ... gosh ... 1995? 1996? Something like that. He's written many, many short stories that have been published in various sci-fi magazines and collections, but this one (which is not science fiction, for those of you who aren't into that genre) is his first published novel. I'm very excited for him, needless to say!

I bought a copy because he's my friend and I would have bought it even if it was about, oh, I don't know, suspension bridges. But it's not, and I ended up carrying it around with me for three days and reading it every chance I got. The first line was - well, here, YOU read it: "If I'm going to tell you how I killed this kid, I can't start on the day it happened." See? How can you NOT keep reading?

The book is about an impromptu road trip involving two teenaged boys, a stolen classic Mustang, and some rather serious lies, bad decisions, good decisions, and consequences that follow them from Oregon to Colorado. I am neither a teenager nor a boy, but these kids resonated with me as the real thing, and I wanted to find out what happened to them. I'm glad I bought it, and I'll read it again.

So, here, go buy his book, right HERE at amazon.com.

And if you want, you can buy more of his stuff HERE on his author page at amazon.com.

Or you could go to his website right HERE!

Lots of Scott William Carter! Shameless plug! Go read his stuff, he's funny and intelligent and fun to read. And then go buy it, because authors have to pay their mortgage just like the rest of us. (Well, except people like John Grisham because he probably already paid his house off, but he doesn't exactly count.)

Scott William Carter! The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys! Hurrah!

Day Two Hundred and Sixty-Three

2010-06-08T21:06:00.001-07:00

Time for another new recipe! (Item #8 - I will be sorry when this one is finished.) This time I made quiche, real quiche, as in full-on gird-up-your-loins brandish-your-knife get-out-the-butter French-cuisine quiche.

I have to keep reminding myself that Julia Child cooked for a living, had a team of slicers and dicers and stirrers to do her bidding, and wasn't trying to plan her mealtimes around youth group (and, as it turned out, bedtime). When she says "25-30 minutes," take it with a large grain of salt.

Oh, well ... it tasted good, and besides, don't some European countries routinely eat dinner at 8 p.m. anyway? There, that's what I was doing, a real European-style dinner. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

If nothing else, at least the crust will be good - I got this recipe from the German lady who used to do the cooking for the large family next door to my childhood home, and I'll pit it against Julia's recipe any day of the week. (I mean, not that I've made hers, since it involves enough butter to float you clear to the middle of next week, but I still bet mine's just as good.)

This was a new one for me - I've never made anything with a partially baked pie crust, and apparently you're supposed to butter (of course) the underside of the tin foil and weight it down with dry beans, to keep the crust from puffing up. I didn't have dry beans, but the rice worked fine.

My word, that it is a lot of butter.

OK, so maybe the calories are worth it if it comes out looking like this.

And there you go - one slice of Quiche au Fromage de Gruyère, comin' right up.

Hmm. This dinner is very ... yellow.

Ah well ... probably had a zillion calories, but it was worth it!

Day Two Hundred and Sixty Two

2010-06-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Anonymous Commenter Whose Comment I Did Not Post:

Suggestions, advice, and constructive criticism are welcome on this blog, although of course this is an entirely personal journey and you are welcome to do it your way on your own blog. "Get a grip" is not constructive criticism, nor is the suggestion that I get an 8-to-5 job. I will sort my clothes the way I like, and you may sort yours the way you like.

Sincerely,
One Tired (But Still Cheeky) Mama

Day Two Hundred and Sixty

2010-06-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

I admit I am the teensiest bit overwhelmed.

I've started in earnest on Item #36 (sort and give away kids' old clothes). To count this item as truly finished, these things would need to happen:

The only things in their drawers and main closet areas will be clothes that are in good repair and fit them.
The only clothes in their closets that aren't currently in use will be ones they haven't grown into yet.
A few carefully selected items will be saved for sentimental value (e.g. the outfits they wore home from the hospital, the fancy baby dress given to Boo by my childhood piano teacher, etc.). These will be cleaned, folded, and stored in a permanent and safe place.
All clothes that are worn beyond salvaging will be thrown away, and any T-shirts in this category with memories associated would have the fronts cut off first to make a T-shirt quilt some day.
Some of the really cute stuff will be saved for a few younger kids we know, and given to them - the one exception will be their infant cousin, since I don't mind hanging onto some of Buddy's clothes for a while if we know they'll go to Monkey at some point.
All clothes made by me or my mom will be sorted by gender and size, cleaned, and stored neatly.
All remaining clothes which show some wear but are still usable will be given to Goodwill.
All remaining clothes which are in like-new condition will be taken to the resale shop.
A "clearing house" area will be established for clothes that are recently grown out of, but are the wrong season to donate to the resale shop. As clothes come into this area, they'll be cleaned, folded neatly, and labeled with the date that I can take them to the resale shop.

This would be a lot easier if I didn't still have bags, LARGE bags, of the clothes I always kind of meant to sort out but never exactly got around to.

The picture at the top is just part of two boxes of clothes (plus a bunch of stuff from Buddy's closet) that were partway through the sorting process but are now completely processed. The picture below is of two more boxes, which I sorted yesterday but haven't finished taking to the appropriate places.

There are still two huge bags of clothes in my closet, unknown numbers of outgrown dresses and skirts in Boo's closet, and I have no idea what lurks in the corners of the laundry room.

I need a Sorting Fairy.

Day Two Hundred and Fifty-Nine

2010-06-04T23:26:00.000-07:00

A few updates:

Today I checked out biographies of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Norman Schwarzkopf (Item #7). How's THAT for variety? ;)

I applied for a job that would make it so I can afford Item #4 (French language program), and give me a commute long enough for Item #5 (start learning French).

I'm reading my 10th book for #6 right now ... although he probably doesn't count as a new author since I have read his articles in magazines. Darn. Guess I'll need to read more books. (lol)

I tried a new recipe last week but it wasn't very good - the cheese sauce was very bland, and even the Italian sausage couldn't redeem it.

I have officially failed Item #42 already - I actually probably DID write on way more days than I recorded, but I don't actually know how many it was. This wasn't a very well-planned item, and I'll do this differently on the next project.

I've registered for a 10K, but I'm not counting it for Item #48 unless it's loosely considered "training." A dear friend who is struggling with various health issues is walking a 10K in Portland this summer, and I'm going to walk with her for moral support, cheering on, and friendly butt-kicking if necessary.

I went to a Zumba class (Item #53). I am nearly fatally uncoordinated. Sigh.

I am NOT enjoying cutting out chocolate (Item #54). Growl.

I have lost 1 and 3/4 inches off my waist (Item #57). So that's good, anyway.

Day Two Hundred and Fifty-Eight

2010-06-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

In further pursuit of Item #80:

Window and sign on a barn near Willamette Mission State Park.

Window in an abandoned shed in a field just north of Lincoln, OR.

Windows and an overseer's platform in the Mission Mill Museum - this was a functioning woolen mill up from the late 1890's until the early 1960's. In the early 1900's, 20% of the population of Salem was in some way employed by the mill, and it had a reputation for avoiding some of the nastier tactics common in mills in this era. The owner's son (who became the owner later in his life) started in the dark, cold picking rooms just like everyone else, which I was glad to hear, even nearly 100 years after the fact. This bright, airy room was used for processing the cleaned wool into thread and weaving it into cloth.

Stairs and a window in the woolen mill.

Day Two Hundred and Fifty

2010-05-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

More time outside. :) Buddy needed to be able to throw and catch a ball at ten paces to finish up the last requirement for his latest Cub Scout badge, and we played outside for quite a while after he'd accomplished that task.

And a little gratuitous cropping, just for fun ...

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Nine

2010-05-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm 17 days into another run at Item #63 - spend 15 minutes a day outside for 100 consecutive days. I've photographed this item several times, but I was quite proud of the results of yesterday's "15 minutes" (give or take an hour), and it's my blog, so I can post pictures if I want. ;)

Quite a bit of this isn't actually weeds, just the leftover greenery from the MANY grape hyacinths that bloomed last month. They're trimmed back now, but still visible above the bark dust so they can get a little more sun and rain absorbed for next year's growing. These were all here before we moved to this house - I can see a flowerbed with blue iris and blue grape hyacinth, but I probably wouldn't have put them in with pink roses, personally. I've never had the heart to pull out the irises though, so they keep sharing space.

Before and after, from the driveway:

Before and after, from the sidewalk:

Buddy helped pull weeds too, and showed surprising enthusiasm for it. I could hear him over in his little patch of garden muttering, "Bad weeds! I hate weeds! I'm bigger than you! You want a piece of me? I'll give you a piece of me!" No idea where his aggressive gardening came from, but if it gets weeds out of the flower beds, I'm all for it!

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Eight

2010-05-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

So, dear readers, whose biography do YOU think I should read?

I haven't read all that many, come to think of it. Here are the ones I can think of that weren't required reading for college:

Jen Lancaster (her autobiography is at five memoirs and counting, all of them hilarious)

Maureen McCormick - Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice

Carrie Fisher - Wishful Drinking

a recent memoir of a badly behaved young man, which I regret having read and won't link here

Dean Karnazes' running autobiography, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

Alison Weir's marvelous biographies of members of the British royal family: The Princes in the Tower; Elizabeth the Queen and The Life of Elizabeth I (both about Elizabeth I); Children of Henry VIII; and The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

Another one which escapes me entirely, and even my sophisticated Google skills can't locate it - it's the autobiography of a female FBI agent, and quite a lot of it is blacked out, which makes it that much more interesting.

I'm about a third of the way through An Army of Angels, a novel that is so exceptionally detailed and well-researched that I hesitate to call it a novel at all. I started it before the project began though, so I won't count it as one of the five.

I am hoping to read Mark Twain's long-awaited autobiography when it comes out this year. Apparently it has been locked in a vault at UC Berkeley for 100 years, and I'll at least take a look at it ... however, if the report is true that "It really is 400 pages of bile," I may give that one a pass. I enjoy autobiographies very much, but I'm fine with well-written biographies as well. Political figures, military leaders, musicians, writers, evil villains ... pretty much anybody who was personally interesting and loved what they did. I'm open to suggestions!

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Seven

2010-05-23T18:36:00.001-07:00

Today I worked a little more on Item #8, try 20 new recipes.

At first this just looked like a waste of perfectly good Double Milanos.

Then when they were all finished and chilled, I thought, "Well, OK, I can live with that."

They were OK. Next time, though, I'll mix in a little dark chocolate with the semi-sweet, use less butter (it was too greasy and not quite hard enough for my taste), and maybe put in some walnuts. They're called Hedgehogs, and I got the recipe off of a website for minimalist cooking - five ingredients or less, and minimal time in the kitchen. This is a scaled-down version of a basic recipe that is meant to include just about whatever you want to put in it, and I think a few more ingredients would make it worth the extra few minutes in the kitchen.

Definitely worth tweaking ... except for that darn Item #56.

Although I did go for a 2.3-mile walk today (building up to Item #47), so maybe that canceled out the piece(s) I ate? Or at least a few bites? At least one bite? Please?

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Five

2010-05-21T22:17:00.001-07:00

Oh, for goodness sake ... have I really not done ANYTHING on this list this week? In the immortal words of Frog and Toad, "BLAH."

Day Two Hundred and Forty

2010-05-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

(I know, the picture's blurry - this is what happens when the 11-year-old photographer and her subject get the giggles!)

Today I started sorting out a whole bunch of Buddy's old clothes (Item #36), went for a 20-minute bike ride (working toward Item #51), did not have cake at my brother-in-law's law degree graduation party (small progress toward the elusive Item #56), and finished another hat (Item #33).

I think that's enough work to merit a hot bath and a good book, don't you?

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Nine

2010-05-16T00:37:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's technically Day 240 since I stayed up past midnight sewing (Item #79), but I'm still counting it as 239 since that's the day it was when I woke up this morning.

About a year ago, I cut out the pattern pieces for matching nightgowns for Boo and for me. I made hers, along with a couple of other summer nightgowns from the same pattern, and then got sort of busy, and then it was time to make the matching Christmas jammies for Boo and Buddy, and then the pieces for mine kind of got buried under mending, and well, there went a year.

I decided it might be nice to sew mine before she grew out of hers.

The picture above is me working on the hand-sewing that makes the inside smooth and finished. If I have something to watch while I sew, I really enjoy the quiet, calm repetition of sewing by hand. In this case, a couple of particularly hair-raising episodes of Heroes kept me from getting too bored. Maybe I'll make another one for my next 101 Things project!

Day Two Hundred and Thirty

2010-05-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

New recipe this week (Item #8) - clam chowder, yum! The recipe calls for "four medium potatoes", and the friend from whom I got the recipe suggested using five not-so-medium potatoes instead. I love potatoes, so I was all for that, and came home with five large potatoes. I just didn't realize quite HOW large they were until I got them home.

You know how basketball players all look tallish when they're on the court, but since everybody's basically the same size you don't notice it all that much, and then when you stand next to one all you can think is, "Wow. Tall." (Just like that guy in "Fifth Element," where he's just met the 7-foot-tall blue alien soprano diva and ... oh, never mind.) Well, these potatoes were the pro basketball players of the vegetable world. When there were 100 of them all together, I just thought, "Oh, those are big enough, they'll work just fine." When I got them home and peeled and diced in a bowl, I thought, "Wow. That is a LOT of potato."

Here, look - this is my big soup pot, and this is THREE POTATOES. That's all that's in there, aside from some melted butter and a couple of chopped scallions. It's hard to tell, even with the spoon in there for a sense of scale, but it is more than halfway full.

I decided to make mashed potatoes with the rest, and maybe I'll look up a new lefse recipe and try that - yum, Norwegian potato pancakes with butter and cinnamon and sugar!

And before you ask, yes, I do catch the irony in the juxtaposition of this post and the previous one. Sigh. If I didn't like food, I'd probably weigh 115 pounds. But where would be the fun in that?!

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Eight

2010-05-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

Well, shoot. I guess Item #57 isn't gonna magically do itself. It was originally listed as "do core exercises every day for a month", but a little research (and practical experience) indicated that it would be wiser and healthier to stretch those thirty days out over a longer period of time. So #57 is now edited to read "Do core exercises at least 3x a week for 10 weeks." Week one, here we go.

I measured my waist and recorded the somewhat horrifying results in my Excel spreadsheet, which is (thankfully) very close-mouthed. If the numbers on the business end of that measuring tape look suspiciously blurry, it's because they are. Hurrah for photo-editing software!

If I actually do see any progress on this number, I will tell you - otherwise, this information is on a need-to-know basis, and sorry, but you don't. ;)

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Six

2010-05-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the completion of Item #13, I am posting one of my essays from the class. The teacher, much to my delight, asked if he could include it in a packet of former student essays to be given to next year's freshmen writing class as part of their required reading. I said yes, and immediately changed all the names, just in case.

You'll soon understand that changing the names and a few details really is an exercise in futility to anyone who knew this family. They could not possibly be confused with anyone else. So I beg of you, the few who know who I'm writing about, be discreet. Thank you. I won't leave this one up indefinitely for that very reason, so read quick. :)

The other two essays probably will not be posted here, but I got very good comments on both of them from the class and the professor. The first essay, which is about a dear friend of the family who passed away five years ago, is full of happy (and a few sad) memories that are deeply personal to his family and to mine, and I have opted not to make that essay public. The third essay is a ruthless rewrite of an essay from my other blog, which I have neglected shamefully since starting this one. The professor was pleased enough with it that we are looking into trying to get it published (Item #46, incidentally), so I am going to hold off before posting it here so that it's not currently available online when I'm submitting it for publication.

And yes, I am VERY excited about that possibility.

Bee

-----

(Untitled as yet - I am not very good at titles.)

A city kid would take the long way to the Potters’ house – up our gravel driveway, along the rough shoulder of a busy rural road, down the Potters’ driveway, past the apple orchard, around the little red rental house, and across the long stretch of weedy grass that served as a lawn. It was easier, though, to just go through the hole in the fence. There were cows in the pasture between our houses, but nobody’d ever seen them even think about organizing a stampede. Only one of the horses bit, and she was only dangerous if you bothered her. The shortcut across the field was worth the risk of running through a fresh, fragrant cowpie.

The Potters’ door was always open, in every sense of the word. Locking doors in our corner of the sticks still seemed like a paranoid city-dweller’s habit, but with the sheer number of people running in and out of their house, the door barely had time to even close. In the nine years I lived next to them, they opened their home to eight children, adopted from six birth families. Their van’s license plate read “8ISENUF”, but it lied. There were always extra kids hanging around, and they were easily absorbed into the mob. My sister and I were once fed dinner, tucked into bed, and not noticed until Mrs. Potter counted heads at breakfast.

The house was huge, a rambling two-story farmhouse decorated in a garish 1970’s style that was faring badly under the impact of eight childhoods occurring all at once under its roof. Four boys had bounced baseballs off of the sparkly flocked ceiling, and it showed. Their mother despaired of ever keeping little fingerprints off of the mirrored hallway walls. The white shag carpet in the living room grew increasingly dingy and flat, especially at Christmas.

For most families, it was considered bad luck to keep the tree up past New Years’. For the Potters, it was bad luck to keep it up past Easter. The number of presents dictated the size of the tree, and by the time each kid got each sibling a present, they’d have needed a tree as tall as a house. Mr. Potter’s solution was simple: Cut down a tree as tall as the house, and hack off the top half for firewood. The business end of the tree was hauled into the living room, sprayed into submission with innumerable cans of fake snow, and surrounded with well over a hundred presents. Everyone had to give everyone else at least a small gift, except for Great-Aunt Ida, who only gave presents to the kids she liked.

With that many people sharing bathroom sinks and closet space, it was inevitable that somebody was going to bug somebody else. Tattling was forbidden, and the discipline system developed a certain ruthless elegance. If a child disobeyed, Mrs. Potter would simply say “One.” The kid’s eyes would widen, and then the interested onlookers would see nothing but a panicky blond blur as he flew to the kitchen to fetch a wooden spoon. Seconds later, panting, he’d hand his mother the utensil as she said “Six” or maybe “Eight”, and he’d bend over for the requisite number of whacks. Crying children, if they showed a flair for the melodramatic, were sent to The Platform. This was a long wooden pallet in the back field, where the howling wouldn’t disrupt dinner. On a good day, we might see three or four Potter kids hunched over on the edge of The Platform, bundled up against the rain or snow and wallowing in their collective misery.

In the early years, when all eight were still living at home, their family life was a loud, loving exercise in crowd control. An enormous dining room table with all the leaves permanently installed meant they didn’t have to eat in shifts, but sleeping arrangements required some creativity. Brandy, Amy and Jessica could all fit into the pink bedroom if they didn’t all try to get ready for school at once. Kevin and Kyle shared the blue room, and when Jim came, they got bunkbeds. Since Adam was the oldest, he got his own room, although he had to share closet space with Mrs. Potter’s fabulous collection of glittery, sparkly, bell-bottomed clothes that might come back into style some day, you never know. Great-Aunt Ida spitefully kicked the bucket one Christmas morning, and after a suitable mourning period - about 24 hours - Adam took over her room, just in time for the newly adopted Debbie to move into his old room and paint it purple. Jessica eventually set up camp in the attic over the garage, and Jim quietly drifted out to a cabin in the back field next to The Platform.

The front door stayed open, and as the kids got older and the house grew more crowded, they started leaving (although in Brandy’s case, it was out the window). Jim didn’t make it very far – we never could figure out how he managed to court a gorgeous local girl without ever saying more than three words at once, but he managed it and she moved into the cabin with him. Adam escaped into the United States Army, got married, earned a Ph.D., and moved very far away. Debbie went to Seattle to be a drug dealer. Jessica fell happily into a crowd of angry lesbians, and away they all went in a cloud of contented bitterness. Kevin headed down to the local recruiting office as soon as he graduated, and promptly found out just how badly you have to behave to be thrown out of the Marines. Kyle, the youngest, moved out on a regular basis at the invitation of the Thurston County Juvenile Court. Amy shook the mud off her shoes, earned a degree in vocal performance, and never looked back.

Somewhere in all of the comings and goings, Mr. Potter’s visits to the hunting lodge got longer and longer, and he finally left too. Jim’s wife left, and after a while, so did Jim. The house felt empty and quiet, so Mrs. Potter filled it again with a home daycare. When the State of Washington decided that Debbie’s kids knew a little more about drugs than they should, Mrs. Potter won custody of them. But when Kyle left for good, Mrs. Potter finally did too, taking with her the two grandchildren, a couple of daycare kids, their newly divorced dad, and the white satin bell-bottom pants.

The hole in the fence is still there, but the little house I lived in was torn down long ago, and there is no one left to brave the barbed wire to go next door and play. The cows and the horses are gone, and the field is quickly reverting to its original state as an evergreen forest. The paths are grown over and the lawn is a jungle. And for all I know, the front door is still open.

Day Two Hundred and Nineteen, P.S.

2010-04-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post Buddy's picture! Unfortunately, posting pictures is one of the SERIOUS weak points of this blog site, and once they're all set up and in order, it's almost impossible to get a new one in. So here's Buddy in his Very Own Post:

Day Two Hundred and Nineteen

2010-04-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

tulip fields and Mt. Hood

Twelve down, eighty-nine to go! Today I took the kids to the tulip festival in Woodburn (Item #25). Our only regrets were that we ate before we came since we didn't realize they had yummy food options at the festival, and that we didn't allow about twice as much time. It was a lovely trip, and I think it would be a good annual tradition.

"Black" tulips fascinate me.

Boo blends right in. :)

Boo snapped this one of me in the most spectacular purple tulips I've ever seen. I want to buy a few hundred of these and plant them.

All I was really trying to demonstrate was that the tulips were as big as my outspread hand - I was pleased when I discovered later that the little ring I had on today was turned so you could read the word "HOPE" on it.

Day Two Hundred and Sixteen

2010-04-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

Well, THAT was fun!

Last week I finished Item #95 - try five local restaurants I've never been to, and here they are:

9/28/2010 - The Grind, reviewed very favorably here, earlier in this project. I still get hot chocolate there at least once a week, and I've gone back again for the chicken salad sandwiches.

11/27/2010 - The Sassy Onion, which I visited with my friend Terri. I really must go back, preferably with Terri because I really like talking to her. The words "cheese", "grilled" and "fresh" feature prominently in their menu, which is right up my alley. Especially the "cheese" part.

2/4/2010 - Chipotle Grill, which I visited with my friend Heather. We talked for hours, enjoyed extremely good (and surprisingly environmentally responsible) Mexican food, and solved all the problems of the world. Well, maybe not ALL of them, but we had a darn good time!

2/19/2010 - Cascade Baking Co., reviewed not quite so favorably here. I keep meaning to go back and buy just a plain loaf of bread and see if I like it better when it's not toasted to death.

4/18/2010 - The Wild Pear, which I sort of visited many years ago, but it was in a different location and looked totally different and I'm not actually sure it's the same menu, so I'm counting this as a new restaurant to me. My friend Emily and I sat at a table by the window and talked for the best part of two hours, and didn't leave until we realized that a) our parking meters were running out, and b) it might be nice of us to vacate our completely primo spot for the lunch crowd. The staff never made a peep about us staying so long, which was quite nice of them. I'll definitely be going back to this one!

Darn ... I should've said I wanted to try TEN new restaurants.

Day Two Hundred and Twelve

2010-04-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

Another one bites the dust! Literally, in this case, if you count rich black potting soil as dust.

Years ago, I bought a rose in a pot at a fair at Bush's Pasture Park, a 90-acre oasis just south of downtown. The entire property belonged to one family in the 1870's, and the original home, barn, and greenhouse are still beautifully maintained. The fair included handcrafts, live music, and food, and outside the barn (now an art gallery) the grounds staff had a selection of plants grown from cuttings of the hundreds of plants in the park. Many of the plants there are "period plants", and this one had a particularly interesting history. The original rose bush had been on the property for many decades, and it had come from a cutting of a bush in the garden of one of the royal estates in England.

I bought it for a little more than I'd intended to spend, planted it in the back yard, and really truly meant to plant other pretty things around it instead of letting the weeds bury it. Unfortunately, good intentions appear to make better diabolical paving stones than rose fertilizer.

Twelve years later, it has been mowed over twice, rescued into a pot, moved to a new house, ignored for years, frozen, scorched, eaten by bugs, and attacked by a rogue blackberry bush, and it finally sent its roots out the bottom of the pot in desperation. It persists in living, and today I decided that it needed a better home (Item #94).

Here it is, before I got it detached from the corner of the yard where I'd abandoned the poor thing:

I gently extricated it from the ground beneath the pot, detangled it from the encroaching stickery bush next to it, and carefully eased it under the low-hanging oak branch at the edge of the yard. It thanked me for my pains by attacking my head. The thorns got badly tangled in my hair, and I eventually had to take my French braids completely out and put my hair in a ponytail instead.

I hauled it to the back porch where I had the planter (rescued from a neighbor who was going to throw it out last year) and the bags of dirt needed to give it a second chance at life (purchased this afternoon from the exceptionally helpful people at Guentner's Gardens). I started out using a little shovel to get the planter prepared, but the truth is that for a project like this (i.e. one that doesn't involve pokey weeds), I just like getting my hands in there. So I ditched the gloves and shovel and played with dirt. Lovely, lovely dirt ...

There we go - all settled in, roots cared for as per instructions, and I'm holding it steady for the next round of dirt.

Oh dear ... my fingers look a little Gollum-ish. "MY rose ... it's mine, all mine ... my precioussssss..."

And there we go! All settled, watered, new dirt on top, situated so it can get some sun but have shade in the afternoon. It looks a little wilty and shell-shocked, which isn't too surprising given all the attention after years of neglect, but I'm hoping it will survive the move.

Come on, little plant, live ... you can do it!

Day Two Hundred and One

2010-04-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

Today I am 20% of the way into this project, and I had a thought that made me pause for a moment.

What would my home look like if my only possessions were things I truly needed or truly wanted?

This means there would be nothing in my house that was grown-out-of, broken and probably not fixable, or an unnecessary duplicate.

Goodbye to all the clothes that might (but probably won't) be fashionable again some day.

Goodbye to all the tapes I haven't listened to in ten years and won't buy on CD.

Speaking of which, goodbye to all the CDs I only keep because I feel I should like that music (but I really don't).

And goodbye to all the clothes that have a weird neckline, don't look the way I thought they would with those pants, need alterations I can't give them, turned out to be the wrong shade of blue, make my butt look big, or which (let's be honest here) I will never get aforementioned butt back into even if I diet and exercise religiously for the next five years.

Goodbye to all the half-burned candles that smelled funny.

Goodbye to the books I will never read again, and to all the ones I might read once but could check out from the library.

Goodbye to all the paperwork that has served its purpose and now just hogs space.

Goodbye and good riddance to all of the bottles of scented hand lotion and body wash that I never really liked, but still kept so I could use them rather than waste them. Because when I stop and think about it, is it really so much better to spend months (or years) rubbing them into my skin rather than pouring them into the garbage, recycling the containers, and having the drawer space back? My mom said once, "Life's too short to use bad soap." She's right.

Goodbye to all the clothes that need mending - if I mend them, they can GO AWAY.

Goodbye to all the papers that need sorting - if I sort them, they can GO AWAY.

Goodbye to all the baby equipment that needs cleaning - if I clean them, they can GO AWAY.

Goodbye to all the magazines I'll never read, the weird canned food I'll never eat, the movies I'll never watch, the serving dishes I'll never use, and the puzzles with pictures that I never liked in the first place and certainly wouldn't like if I had to stare at them for a week while I worked them.

Goodbye to everything I keep because somebody gave it to me and I wouldn't want to make them feel bad, even though they've never been to my house and probably forgot that they gave it to me at all. Throwing out the odd-looking heart-shaped pin my piano student gave me does not, in fact, mean that I am throwing out my student.

Goodbye to everything I keep because it might be useful some day. If I haven't used it in the last ten years, I'd rather buy a new one if I need it.

Goodbye to everything I keep that would cost an unreasonable amount of time, money, or energy to use.

Goodbye to everything that lives rent-free in my house because of my laziness, guilt, or greed.

I bet if I did that, I'd have more room for my teacups.

Day Two Hundred

2010-04-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

One of my current projects is Item #68, to reduce my teacup collection and store and/or display it properly. I never really set out to collect teacups, but I like tea and china and all things tea-related, so it wasn't terribly surprising that I ended up with quite a lot of teacups. My grandmother offered me several of her cup-and-saucer sets when she moved from the large family home to a much smaller apartment, and I was happy to take them in. The little English tea shop downtown (now closed, much to my dismay) had a few sets that begged to come home with me, a missionary friend brought back a couple from Moscow, and after twenty years of this, I discovered that I now collected teacups.

Some I'll keep forever - the lovely Dutch china in blue-and-white, the gold-accented Russian set, the pale pink rose-patterned set from my grandma (who still wears tiny pink roses in her hair whenever they're in bloom), and the set with tiny violets that I admired for five years before finally buying them. But I have far more than necessary for even a fairly serious tea habit, and it's time for some of them to find new homes. A few are displayed on a wooden shelf, the ones I use the most are in the cupboard (in stacks, I know, that's terrible), but the rest are in a cardboard box and in grave danger of being smashed all to bits if anything knocks into them.

This one was the first to go, not because I don't like it, but because Grandma gave me two:

My sister lost her home to a wildfire in 2007, and a lifetime's worth of belongings were reduced to ashes. A few teacups survived the fierce heat, their paint bubbled and scorched, and one or two were nearly untouched. Since she has nothing left of the family heirlooms that had been passed down to her, I thought some of Grandma's teacups could join the hardy survivors on the display shelf in her kitchen. I've sent one a month for the last two months, and as soon as she gets settled from the 1000-mile move she's packing for as I write, I'll send the next one to her new address.

I am finding that I like getting rid of things.

I like it even more when the things find new homes with people who will love them.

And if the person in question is somebody I love, well, that's pretty much perfect.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Eight

2010-04-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

That's one more down for Item #78 (make 20 items of clothing for the kids)! My daughter (whom I think I'll call Boo for short, which is a LONG story involving Charlie Brown and baboons) picked out the material herself, and at first I just laughed because it was one more instance of her skipping over the sweet little floral calicoes and making a beeline for the sixties-inspired geometric prints.

Then I started sewing and it was not so funny any more. I am not so good at zippers, and this one was no exception. I managed to avoid pulling it out and having to start over, but only by doing it VERY slowly and carefully, and double-checking what I was doing at every step of the way. I am also not so good at bias tape, and I was less than enthused to discover that Boo's eleventh-hour design change (two ruffles, no sleeves) would require me to finish the arm holes with bias tape. And see that little flared set of ruffles? Somewhere in the second hour of trying to sew it on correctly, I had to stop and seriously consider whether or not was a sin to say, even in my head, "I hate this #%*$! Easter dress."

It finally went on straight, disaster was averted, and some time around 10:30 p.m. the night before Easter, I sewed the last stitch and hung the finished dress in her room so she could wear it in the morning. I also was ruefully reminded once again of my long-standing tendency to procrastinate, my perennial underestimation of the amount of time it takes to sew on a ruffle, and my (once again) unfounded skepticism regarding Boo's fashion sense.

After all that, it's a #%*$! good thing she liked it.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Two

2010-03-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hello, all - I am possessed by the Evil Demon of Congestion and haunted by the Dark Shade of the Sore Throat, plus I'm so tired I can hardly move. So today's blog entry will be an event earlier in the project that I was, ironically enough, too sick to write about after it happened.

Item #29, take a ride on a train, was inspired by the two previous train trips I'd taken. I told each of my children that I would take them on the train if they could go five nights with dry diapers. For my daughter (you know, I still need a blog nickname for this kid), that happened when she was around three-and-a-half. Potty-training was the final frontier of her toddler power struggle, but I eventually prevailed and we took the long-awaited train ride. Buddy didn't get to take his trip until he was five, which is not too unusual for children with autism, but it was fun that he was big enough to really enjoy it.

I wanted to take one completely non-toilet-related ride on a train. And, for reasons I still don't fully comprehend, I decided on a whim to take this trip on a day when I had what probably was swine flu. It was sunny, I was sort of feeling better, and I needed to get out of the house - it wasn't going to be THAT much walking anyway, right? Well, that wasn't entirely correct, but we did have a nice time, and here's the evidence:

Portland's historic Union Station, which I would have taken more pictures of on the way back if my camera battery hadn't died.

Buddy stops for a drink on the way to the Pearl District.

While we were walking through the Pearl District, I saw this lady reading in a patch of sun in a small public area between shops in a reclaimed warehouse. I have no idea who she was, but it was such a quintessentially Portland moment I couldn't help snapping a picture.

The little old-fashioned diner we wanted to visit was closed ...

... so we had breadsticks and pizza instead (organic ingredients, of course, this is Portland).

This very "green" restaurant recycled just about everything - even the straws were made of some biodegradable material (kudos to them!) and could be recycled. In case there was something that you just HAD to throw out, it went into this small bin with a wry little reminder about where your trash would end up.

Urban version of tree-hugging?

Powells, of course.

And just in case we're not maxed out enough, let's have ice cream!

Wobbly camera, lovely moon, lovely city, lovely day.

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Seven

2010-03-22T16:41:00.001-07:00

Woohoo! Clean car! (Item #69) My arms and shoulders still hurt a bit (two days later), but it sure does look good. Now I have to figure out if I'm going to keep it and drive it until I'm so old they take away my license, or sell it to somebody who could restore it and make it really wonderful ...

Here we go ...

If I was going to clean it, I was going to clean it thoroughly. I don't think it's been this clean in decades!

Getting my girl trained to appreciate cool cars while she's young!

The sunny weather made this pleasant work.

Taking a well-deserved break!

I'm too short to see the top of the dashboard from the driver's seat, since it slopes down a bit - it was VERY dusty.

Will ya look at that?! (That's the real mileage.)

I suspect it has been a few years since anybody scrubbed the gas pedal on this car.

This part is more fun when it's 85 degrees out and you're not already tired.

I always kind of like cleaning the license plate.

Much better!

I couldn't figure out why I kept craving a hamburger while I was working on this project. I don't eat hamburgers very often (more likely to have chicken or a veggie burger), and I don't have that strong a connection between the idea of American muscle cars and burgers. I finally realized that it wasn't just any hamburger I wanted, it was a Rock-N-Roger's hamburger - a local restaurant with a fifties-style-diner flair and wonderful memorabilia from the 1940's to the 1960's. I figured I'd burned off enough calories to cover at least a quarter of one of those burgers, so I indulged and enjoyed it. I'd call that a good day's work!

Day One Hundred and Eighty-Five

2010-03-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

I took another run at Item #63 (spend 15 minutes outside every day for 100 consecutive days) by spending around four hours outside today in the fresh, mild, allergenic air. Ah well, two out of three is pretty good.

Buddy recently became a Cub Scout, signing up on exactly the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Boy Scout organization (February 8, 2010), thanks to a mommy who gets excited about things like that. Today we went to his first service project, and I'm not sure which of us was looking forward to it more! His pack went to the Oregon School for the Deaf to hang birdhouses which the other kids had made already. Their property borders a wetland area, and we learned quite a bit about the birds who nest in the trees near the swamp. There were enough trees there to hang up several birdhouses and still give each nesting pair enough space, and we spent a very enjoyable hour tramping around the school property with the rest of his pack.

Buddy's ready to go!

Getting some help from the wonderful gentleman who chose the trees and told us all kinds of interesting information from his years of working with birds and their habitats.

All done!

P.S. To the anonymous reader who asked how Item #70 is coming along, stay tuned 'til tomorrow!

Day One Hundred and Seventy-Seven

2010-03-12T23:35:00.000-08:00

I don't usually post about failed attempts at items on the list, but this one was a notable effort so I'll at least mention it.

It's harder than it sounds like to go outside for 15 minutes a day on 100 consecutive days! (Item #63) Rain, the flu, just plain crazy schedules - there are more than enough things to conspire against a goal like this, and a bad head cold did me in this time. I made it 32 days, and on day 34 I woke up and realized that I'd spent day 33 wrapped up in a blanket, watching Heroes on Netflix and eating chicken noodle soup and feeling generally wretched. I'll start this one over again soon, but for now, here is a short list of the ways I spent my outside time during the first real attempt on this item:

* fifteen late-night walks, three of which were in the rain

* one 3-mile jog, bright and early! (Early, anyway.)

* one long walk to and from the car for the Billy Joel & Elton John concert in Portland

* stroll around campus before and after the senior recital of one of my violinists at the college

* late-night walk with my daughter to look at a truly spectacular full moon

* walk to and from my daughter's school to see her stand on her head at her choir program

* rather stressful walk through downtown Portland on the way to a relaxing, wonderful Cappella Romana concert that touched my heart so profoundly that I sat through the first half with tears rolling down my face

* one Operation Worm Rescue

* one walk around the block with the kids on a perfectly clear night so we could look at the stars

* sitting on my mom's front porch reading a book after driving to Seattle to hear Cappella Romana do the same program again (what can I say, it was a good concert)

* hit-and-run raking at the neighbors' house

* afternoon walk to soak up sunlight after days and days of rain

* running like a madwoman around the college campus where Saturday's musical event was held, trying to get from Point A to Point B in negative numbers of minutes due to dreadful planning errors on the part of the organizers

* and my favorite, a 2.8-mile hike at Silver Falls (see below)

Ah well ... at least if I have to start over from the beginning, it's a fun project to do more than once!

South Falls, from the trail that goes behind the falls

Silver Creek, just past the pool at the bottom of the South Falls

one of my favorite shots of Silver Creek - this is at the lowest point of the hike I took, although it's possible to continue down the river to see eight more waterfalls before looping back up for a total of about 7 miles with a 700-ft. elevation gain - not quite ready for that yet!

Lower South Falls

South Falls

Day One Hundred and Sixty-Seven

2010-03-02T10:52:00.000-08:00

Whew - there's one more down for Item #41 (write 50 essays). I just finished my final edit of the first paper for my Creative Non-Fiction Writing class, and didn't remember until just before hitting "print" that it was supposed to be 1,000 words.

1,414 is sort of like 1,000, isn't it?

Day One Hundred and Sixty-Six

2010-03-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

About Item #2, the camera ... it MUST have the capability to take a halfway decent picture of the moon. Sigh. My current camera is becoming increasingly insufficient.

Day One Hundred and Sixty-Five

2010-02-28T19:48:00.000-08:00

Several days ago I tried a new restaurant for Item #95 (try five new-to-me local restaurants). I had lunch at the Cascade Baking Company on the recommendation of a friend who raved about their Farmhouse Cheese bread. I think I might have done better to just buy a loaf of it instead of having lunch. I had a cheese sandwich (one of my absolute favorite foods) with a couple of kinds of cheese on their Salem Sourdogh - it's good, crusty bread, but it was a little too crunchy for sandwiches. See?

It's just not a moist enough bread to tolerate being grilled like this instead of tossed on a pan with a little butter. I ended up gnawing on the crusts and finally had to skip the last bits, and I like breadcrusts! I could tell, though, that the bread itself was good, it just wasn't a very good way to prepare it. I plan to go back and get a loaf of the same stuff and bring it home for toast and sandwiches - we'll see how that goes.

Good cookies, though. ;)

Day One Hundred and Sixty-Two

2010-02-25T15:54:00.000-08:00

the latest for Item #33

Maria: When we entered the abbey, our worldly clothes were given to the poor.

Captain Von Trapp: What about this one?

Maria: Oh, the poor didn't want this one.

I hope the poor want lots of knitted hats ...

Day One Hundred and Sixty-One

2010-02-24T19:59:00.000-08:00

Today I rescued worms.

I've always had a tender heart toward critters. I cried when cats caught birds, conscientiously avoided touching butterfly wings, and spent hours petting and talking to our various pets. I conducted funerals for dead mice, and snuggled with a beloved cat to which I was violently allergic. I was so angry about my cousins throwing a stray dog off the dock into the lake (not realizing that the dog probably thought it was great fun) that I caught him at the shore, wrapped him in my coat, and marched the entire length of the campground in high dudgeon so I could warm him up inside. I fantasized at length about freeing the neighbor man's prized hunting dog, Chrissie, who was so valuable she had to be kept in a chain-link dog run. She was well fed, but she was not loved, and I spent a great deal of my time sitting on the concrete edge of the dog run with one arm through the gap in the fencing, petting her and making sure somebody was glad to see her every day. I even went through a brief phase of walking carefully along outdoor paths for fear of stepping on ants.

This will hopefully give some background to why I spent half an hour outside today in pursuit of Item #63 (spend at least 15 minutes outside daily for 100 consecutive days), walking up and down the street with my children, looking for worms.

I had taken pity on my daughter and picked her up from school instead of making her walk four blocks in the rain carrying a backpack and a cello, and on the way home we stopped at the mailbox. Since our home is on a hill, the street has a very slight arch so that the rain runs down the sides. During a good downpour, these temporary streams are 2-3 inches deep and over a foot wide, and even on a merely wet day like today, there is more than enough water to drown a critter who thinks grasshoppers are tall.

I stepped over the rivulet to get to the mailbox, and noticed a fat, pink, wriggling worm caught on a leaf and buffeted by the current. Naturally I plucked it out of the water and tossed it into the more hospitable dirt - it would have been horrible to leave it there. As I walked back to the car, I saw another worm, and of course it had to be rescued as well. And another ... I gave him a new home, climbed back into the warm car, and informed the kids: "Let's park the car and rescue worms!"

I am not sure whether it speaks more to my children's good natures, or to my penchant for occasional nuttiness, but they cheerfully agreed. (Buddy opted to use gardening gloves, since he didn't want to actually TOUCH the icky worms.) We left the car at the house, pulled up our hoods to keep out the light drizzle, and set out on our mission of mercy. We quickly learned to identify which tiny flood victims were beyond our aid, and Buddy helped by announcing, "THIS ONE'S DEAD" every ten feet or so. Even with the many, many worms which had fallen victim to rain, cars, and booted feet, we still saved at least 30 from the watery depths and found them new homes in the dirt.

It's silly, and perhaps more than a little weird. But I can't help but feel like I did something good today.

Day One Hundred and Sixty

2010-02-23T23:24:00.000-08:00

I am 16% of the way into my 1001 days, but I have only accomplished 8% of my list.

(pondering)

I am not going to let this bother me.

There, glad we got that settled. So here's my latest recipe, obtained (of all places) from the recipe pages of the Reader's Digest. The kids were less than impressed with the capers, but after all the trouble I went to for them, I wasn't about to surgically remove them from the finished dish just to avoid offending their delicate sensibilities. (Laughing here - I was going to edit that sentence, but it is such a perfect example of my writing professor's warnings against lack of clarity in your pronouns [see Item 13], I'm just going to leave it and let you figure out what's being surgically removed from what - or from whom.)

This caper jar ... if they really want to make cars theft-proof, all they really need to do is make it so they're airtight with doors that unscrew, and have this company manufacture them. I could not get that lid off. Not by running it under hot water, not by using the little grippy thingie that works on virtually everything, not by using The Glare, that baby was STUCK. Fortunately, deep in the dim and dark recesses of my mind where grade-school science lessons are kept, I remembered something about breaking a seal to loosen a ...

Oh.

Um.

Yeah, never mind, that was practical experience from nursing one of my children, the Human Remora.

So. Anyhoo, the caper jar. I finally realized that the problem was not the lid, but rather the tight seal. Breaking the jar (while appealing on many levels) would not improve the quality of the capers. The lid, however, turned out to be no match for a hammer, a thumbtack, and me in full-on "I Am Elastigirl And I Can Do Anything" mode.

Here are some of the ingredients:

Noodles, cherry tomatoes baked with bread crumbs and olive oil and capers and I forget what all else, and fresh-grated Parmesan with little bits of fresh Italian parsley which is NOT the same regular parsley so make sure you use it if the recipe calls for it. Then you stir all that together and let the cheese get all melty, and then you try to get your kids to eat it. I took a picture of it when it was all stirred together, but it tastes MUCH better than it looks, so I will spare you that sight. 9 recipes down, 11 to go - yum!

Elastigirl is my hero.

Day One Hundred and Fifty-Nine

2010-02-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

I flossed my teeth for thirty days in a row - see, nice clean teeth! That's one more off the list (Item #62).

Day One Hundred and Fifty-Eight

2010-02-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

The next few will be catch-up posts, since I have been DOING the 101 Things project, I just haven't been TELLING you about it. The last two weeks have been so insanely busy that today when a musical colleague asked me how yesterday had been (since he'd missed my frantic phone call asking how to reach a mutual student to tell her I needed to reschedule since my daughter was feeling sick) ... I stood there in some confusion, saying, "Yesterday ... yesterday ... I can't remember." I went to a concert a week ago that feels for all the world like it was last year. The only reason I will have the faintest idea when the next few list items actually occurred is that my camera (bless its little electronic heart) records the date each picture was taken.

So, without further ado - and what kind of word is "ado", anyway? - here is the successful completion of Item #65, sort all my sheet music and books.

I have a lot of music. This isn't too surprising, given that I have been playing the piano for 31 years and I am terrible at throwing things out in the first place. Throwing music out always seems vaguely sacrilegious, so when I started this project I still had pretty much every piece of music I'd ever been assigned, from "Toy Train Choo-Choo" (age five) right up through Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuses (college senior recital). Unfortunately, my filing system left something to be desired:

And this is the NEAT version. See that pile of papers next to the two white boxes on the desk? That is a stack of photocopied music which needed to be sorted out and filed, and I think it's pretty self-explanatory why that particular chore had not leaped to the top of my to-do list at any point in the last four years of professional accompanying.

See all those papers and books on top of the filing cabinet? Thousands of pages of music, some loose, some in books, all dusty, which included two elderly Baptist hymnals, several recital programs, the sheet music to "A Wink and a Smile" (you know, that really cute little tune in "Sleepless in Seattle"), a few Legos, large quantities of random Beethoven, countless books which promise to improve my scale technique, and an autographed program from a Carol Channing show.

See the filing cabinet? The inside wasn't TOO bad - hanging folders with my most-used books organized somewhat loosely by composer, plus a few hanging folders in the bottom drawer after Schubert and Tchaikovsky, and who KNOWS what was in those.

See the other filing cabinet? Well, no, because the camera wasn't big enough to take in the full scale of the mess, but it had music in it too. In stacks, not folders. It was all the stuff that was so disorganized I couldn't even stand to look at it, so I put it in that drawer and hid it under a stack of the kids' random baby pictures. (Well, isn't that what EVERYBODY does with their old music?)

Now turn around, and you'll see the piano itself, the entire top covered with teetering stacks of music. This is where I kept anything I was "currently working on", a definition which gradually expanded to include "any and all books containing music I'm working on, played for fun at any time in the last six months, or got out because I was looking for that one song which turned out to be one of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, plus all the accompaniments for anybody who has a performance coming up this semester." It was not pretty.

Step one was to give the cherry finish filing cabinet to my daughter, since she inherited my questionable organizational skills and hopefully a filing cabinet will help. (Also, the cherry veneer didn't match all the nice oak in my piano room, so it looked messy even when it wasn't.) I replaced it with a larger metal filing cabinet that was big enough to hold all of the books. I started with them, and don't they look lovely?

Step two: Get out every other scrap of music, even the ones in the piano bench and behind the filing cabinets and hidden under the baby pictures (where they had apparently been reproducing like rabbits). Sort by type. Get drink of cold water, sigh, and contemplate torching it all.

Step three: Make nice neat little labels for them (Pop Piano, Movie Themes, Church Music, etc.) and put them in folders. There, isn't that better?

I especially enjoyed doing the classical vocal pieces, which took up most of the bottom drawer since instrumentalists are more likely to have their own books of piano accompaniments, which they keep when the performance is done. Vocalists, for whatever reason, are more likely to disregard any and all copyright laws and hand me a stack of photocopied music with an apologetic, "I meant to hole-punch these and put them in a binder for you, but I forgot." (It's OK. I have my own system, so when you hole-punch them, I have to take it all apart and re-do it anyway.) These are now neatly organized by composer, with each piece paper-clipped together. The idea is that it will save a few sheets of paper down the road, instead of getting a new copy of "Vergebliches Ständchen" every year and using last year's for grocery lists.

And I didn't stop there! Now, instead of stacking everything randomly on top of the piano until it tips over and slides down the front of the piano and lands on my hands and falls all over the floor (not that I would ever let it go that far), I have little wire baskets for my various books. The one on the left is accompaniments belonging to high school students, the middle basket is accompaniments for my college students, and the basket on the right is anything I'm just playing for fun these days. Right now that contains Grieg's Lyric Pieces, a set of Gershwin preludes, and Chopin's Nocturnes.

Ahh. Much better.

Day One Hundred and Forty-Eight

2010-02-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

Tonight I am a tired, happy, jumbly mess of contradictions.

I am out at 11 p.m. enjoying my daily infusion of fresh air (Item #63), and I admit I am oddly attired. I am wearing those ubiquitous, ugly rubber sandals, an old pair of black yoga pants, and an oversized black windbreaker over a T-shirt proudly bearing the logo for Tillamook Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese. This ensemble is accessorized with a dressy hair clip, sparkly earrings, and a classy necklace in a double strand of tiny sparkly white rhinestones.

The rain and clouds are taking a brief hiatus, and I am taking it on faith that my feet can navigate the familiar bumps and dips in the sidewalk from memory, since my face is tilted up to the black sky and its brilliant scattering of stars. The dampness from the earlier rain is seeping into my shoes and loosening the curls from my hair, and my carefully applied makeup is forgotten as the occasional tiny droplet of rain lands on my upturned face.

The night air is cool on my skin, but I am still warm with the remembered heat of stage lights, excitement, and the glow of a concert well-played and fully enjoyed.

I hear nothing but the sound of my own breath, my soft footsteps, and the hush of the faint breeze in my ears, but my memory is alive with the laughing lilt of Beethoven and the sweet sound of my friend's violin.

I feel the rain-softened breeze and the pavement under my feet, while my hands hold the memory of the dance and whisper and crash of the piano keys under my fingers.

I stop for a moment, turning in place on a patch of wet sidewalk, awestruck at the brilliance of the nearly-forgotten constellations overhead. I breathe, and the tension begins to ease out of the muscles in shoulder and forearm and back that have served me so well tonight. My mind rests, allowing the bright tangle of thoughts and emotions to gently unravel a little, settling into easier patterns that will, in a while, allow for much-needed sleep.

I finish my walk, and I am home. I am slightly less jumbly, still happy, and still tired, and now I am going to bed.

Day One Hundred and Forty-Four

2010-02-07T22:48:00.003-08:00

How the heck am I gonna take a picture of myself flossing my teeth?!

Day One Hundred and Forty-Three

2010-02-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

Oh, I do love going for walks in the rain.

(Item #63)

Day One Hundred and Forty-Two

2010-02-05T16:19:00.000-08:00

If we're going to get all technical about it, I spent part of the afternoon outside (Item #63) engaged in trespassing, theft, and property damage. I didn't get caught though, and I will happily give all their leaves back if they ask for them, so hopefully that makes it be OK. There's not much I can do about the little pieces of grass that got ripped up by the rake, and I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping they don't notice.

I've had a long history of hit-and-run gardening with the next-door neighbors. It started years ago when I looked outside and realized that Dave had raked part of my yard when my yard bin was full. So I retaliated by raking his entire (much smaller) front yard when he wasn't home, since the leaves were all off of my oak tree anyway. He escalated things by using his leaf blower to clear the leaves off the street in front of the house, and I ripped all the weeds out of his rose beds - that'll teach HIM not to bring that contraption over here any more. He spread some leftover barkdust around my roses when he bought more than he needed for his own, so really, I had no option but to wait until he and his wife went to work, reach across the property line, and eradicate the nasty wild blackberry vine that had taken root at the base of their retaining wall.

Today I noticed that the leaves from my oak tree had drifted across to their normally pristine yard some time at the end of fall. Now that their personal yard maintenance service has grown up and gone to college, the leaves were still there, slowly decaying into their grass. I had my rake out, the yard debris bin was still under the tree from my latest attack on the Ancient Disintegrating Leaf Piles of Doom (see Day 133), and nobody was home - perfect! I snuck through the rose border, checked to make sure I didn't see their car coming up the street, and went to work as fast as I could. Twenty minutes later, I had some VERY sore muscles and an upset stomach from doing that much physical activity with no warning to my poor winter-indulged body, but they had a clear yard.

I think I got away with it, but if I come outside in the morning and find the sticks picked up off of my lawn, the leaves in their flowerbeds are GONE, BABY, GONE.

(gratuitous oak tree shot)

Day One Hundred and Forty-One

2010-02-04T22:36:00.001-08:00

After the sudden surge in visits to my blog yesterday when I posted it on my Facebook page, I realized that if more than a handful of people are going to read it, maybe I should, you know, update it a little more often. (Nothing against my first readers - you know who you are, and I know who at least some of you are, and I appreciate you very much. Just so ya know.) So today I got all inspired, and said to myself - well, I didn't say anything since I generally don't talk to myself at all, as it tends to give a bad impression. Musicians are weird enough without walking around muttering to themselves.

(Note to self: Make sure to get more than five hours of sleep before posting next blog entry.)

ANYWAY. I thought it would be fun to do Item #77, do a day-in-the-life photo essay. Since I am the only person I know who will allow me to walk around with a camera taking pictures of them all day, I figured I'd just snap pictures of everything I did today, and ta-dahh! One more item off the list!

It did not work out quite as I had planned. It turns out that the inside of a car (approximately 105 minutes in seven separate driving segments), the keyboard of a piano (120 minutes), the inside of a classroom (75 minutes), a middle-school orchestra classroom (40 minutes), a kitchen (60 minutes), and the checkbook and a calculator (25 minutes) do not make for gripping photo essays. Also, it became quickly evident that I needed to try this again in a few months, and next time I will a) use a better camera (see Item #2) and b) pick a day whose schedule is not utterly insane.

So, in the absence of a beautifully photographed and wittily captioned photo essay, I give you the latest on Item #33 (knit or crochet 20 items for the homeless). Four down, sixteen to go!

(I will probably go back at some point and photograph this spot again for Item #80 [the windows and doors photo collection]. I must have walked past this spot hundreds of times in my years as a student and on staff at the college where I work. But even with my keen eye for the hidden delights of this campus and its history dating back to the 1890's, today was the first time that I saw this remnant of a stone staircase, half-buried in the ivy by the music building. The ferns, the ivy, the moss, and the cool grey light from the overcast sky are so completely Oregon, don't you think?)

Day One Hundred and Forty

2010-02-03T21:23:00.000-08:00

Maybe this is cheating a little, but I'm counting today for Item #6 (read 10 new books by authors who are new to me), because it was so much fun I can't stand not to write about it.

My son's grade school hosts a monthly event where parents are encouraged to come to the school library with their child at 7:30 a.m., 45 minutes before school starts. Muffins and mini-donuts are served at the door, age-appropriate books are laid out on the low tables, and after that you're on your own. This month a rescheduled rehearsal allowed me to come, and it was completely delightful.

We sampled the muffins and had tiny cups of apple juice, and came into the little library, which was already busy with little wiggly bodies and the murmur of voices. Some families sat at the tables reading, others spread out on the floor. Many of the parents read to their children, but I saw one dad sharing a low bench with his two daughters, the girls leaning on him as they read, all three of them engrossed in separate books.

My son (whom I'll refer to as Buddy, since that's what we call him half the time anyway) and I opted for shared books on the floor. We made a selection from the books laid out on the table, and dutifully made our way through a brightly illustrated book that taught us all about animal camouflage in the wild. Cute enough, but definitely educational, even with Mama reading it with her best teacherly zest.

We plucked our next book from the shelf we were leaning on, and it was much more entertaining - a bee buzzes into a farmyard and passes along a bad head cold, and in the process all the animals switch voices. Now, I am a sucker for any book that lets me "do voices." I read my kids Arnold Lobel's "Frog and Toad" books for years after they'd outgrown them, simply because I like Frog's cheerful, optimistic tones and Toad's perpetual grumbling. In all of those books, the scary snake gets only one line, and my rendition of his gleeful "Helloooooo, lunch!" is now a family byword. This book wasn't quite as fun as making Frog and Toad shriek their way down the hill (being brave, of course, at the top of their lungs), but it did let me bark, meow, moo, quack, oink, and finally, at the very end,

ROAR.

Our favorite, though, was the "one more, please, Mama" that Buddy begged for in the last few minutes of the reading session. I didn't have time to look very hard, so I picked the first one that caught my eye, "The Remarkable Farkle McBride". It wasn't the art or the title that got my attention on this one - it was the author, actor John Lithgow. The book's hero, four-year-old Farkle McBride, is a musical prodigy who learns various instruments and discards them when he gets bored, a process he repeats until he works his way through the orchestra and eventually finds fulfillment on the conductor's podium at age eight. I cringed at the sight of the bashed-in violin and the bent trombone slide sticking out of the garbage can, and couldn't resist some horrified editorializing about how we do not do that to our instruments in real life. Buddy, though, was entranced by the rhythm of the language, C. F. Payne's vivid illustrations, and the admittedly funny idea of two wide-mouthed fish gazing in astonishment at a flute in the bottom of their pond.

As we read on, I found myself smiling too, but for different reasons. Having played the flute very badly for eight long years, I share Farkle's eventual displeasure with the instrument (which, amazingly, he is holding correctly in the picture), and I admit that I identify with his urge to pitch it in the lake. I had to stop the story for a minute when Farkle masters the trombone, since I was laughing too hard to keep reading. At first glance, there is nothing remarkable about the illustration of the shirt-sleeved men in orchestra rehearsal, trumpets and trombones in hand. To anyone who has spent time in a full symphony orchestra, though, the instruments propped on knees and slightly glazed expressions of the musicians are immediately identifiable as the brass players' all-too-common two hundred measures of rests. And when Farkle finally finds peace with himself and the orchestra, baton in hand, something about his relaxed stance reminds me of every really good conductor I've ever played for.

On second thought, I don't think it's cheating at all to count this book for my project. When you read mediocre books, you find a story and perhaps a character or two. When you read good books, you find characters that come alive and a story that pulls you into its reality. But the best books are the ones (not the same ones for everyone, which makes it even more fun) where you turn the pages, and against all expectation you find yourself. If I can help my little Buddy find a few of these to take with him into adulthood, I will be well pleased indeed.

Day One Hundred and Thirty-Seven

2010-01-31T23:47:00.000-08:00

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Roman statesman, philosopher, and playwright from the 1st century B.C.) said, "The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in once place and linger in his own company."

I am not sure I can attain to these heights of mental orderliness, but I have to think that successfully remembering to floss my teeth 22 days in a row (Item #62) must count for something.

On the other hand, by Seneca's definition, the interestingly attired lady on the corner downtown who was engaged in an extended and highly animated conversation with herself must have had a very orderly mind indeed. So I think perhaps I will just walk verrrrry carefully around Mr. Seneca and try not to make eye contact, and if he starts philosophizing at me, I'll just smile nicely with my sparkly clean teeth and keep walking.

Day One Hundred and Thirty-Six

2010-01-30T22:08:00.000-08:00

For Item #85 (print and frame 10 photographs), I actually painted a room for the first four pictures. Finally got it all painted and the pictures put up tonight - I'm pretty happy with it. :)

These are from a trip to the Oregon coast last summer. My daughter helped me pick out a soft shade of grey (the trim is a very clean, crisp white) to go with all four pictures, which was more challenging than we expected! Now I'm excited to take and frame some more.

Day One Hundred and Thirty-Four

2010-01-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

Talk about multi-tasking - today I worked on Item #63 (spend 15 minutes a day outside), Item #56 (lose grumblety-mumble more pounds), Item #48 (train for a 10K), and indirectly on Item #99 (wear that green dress which I love, love, love and want to fit back into at some point).

Which sounds so much more optimistic than "I went for a run and walked most of it and came home with shin splints."

I think today I'll go with optimism - the sun is out, and I don't feel like being Eeyore. (Even though I love him all to pieces, he is just a bit too glum. Sorry, little fellow!)

Day One Hundred and Thirty-Three

2010-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

I'm having another go at Item #63 (spend at least 15 minutes outside every day for 100 consecutive days). When I first chose that goal, I was envisioning myself sitting on the front porch on an autumn afternoon, the golden sunlight spilling across the pages of my classic novel. Perhaps I would go on long hikes through the beautiful woods and valleys of Oregon. Maybe I would lie in the dappled shade under my beloved oak tree, eyes closed, drinking in the sweet scents of summer.

I was not envisioning having to scrub the residue of three years' worth of half-decayed oak leaves out from under my fingernails.

I love this tree, I really do. I love its stark skeleton in winter, the tiny leaves in spring, the full glory of its green canopy in summer, and the gentle fading to brown in the fall. I don't even mind raking the thousands (millions?) of leaves that fall on the yard every October and November - it's good exercise, it smells nice, and it's a good excuse to go outside.* But I do not love the way its leaves get into my flowerbed.

I use the term "flowerbed" loosely. The previous residents adhered to the one-of-everything gardening philosophy. In the rose border, the grandiose Mr. Lincoln's deep red petals and long stems tower over humbler unnamed varieties, which surround a single inexplicable mini rosebush. There was one blue primrose, one yellow primrose, one butterfly bush, a single random red tulip, one yellow tulip on the far side of a decorative rock, one pink hyacinth, one white hyacinth, and a rhododendron. I ask you, who plants ONE tulip?! In the deep bowl-shaped flowerbed which surrounds the tree, vinca and ivy (presumably originally one of each) have taken over much of it, and they serve as excellent leaf traps. In the places I have managed to beat the vines back, the leaves have simply settled. Every year. When I say "three years", I may be flattering myself.

I meant to rake them. It was just that the leaf bin filled up so fast with the leaves on the yard, and there was no room for the ones in the flowerbed. I would intend to come back and rake them out as soon as the leaves all fell off the tree, but then it would be raining, and wet, and cold, and sometimes it even snowed, and I could hardly be expected to rake leaves in the snow, could I? Well, there were many good excuses, and I used them all. Today, though, they all expired at once, and I set to work.

I cleared approximately 12 square feet before filling the yard bin so full of rotted leaves and sticks that I could barely pull it back up the hill. At this rate, this should keep me entertained well into March. On the other hand, hauling all those leaves has to burn off at least a few calories, wouldn't you think?

* Little-known fact about me: There is one extra reason that I like raking leaves. I was on color guard for a year in the high school marching band, the ones that wore the little purple and white cheerleader outfits and twirled flags and threw them in the air and tried hard not to have them land across the bridges of our noses and knock us out. It turns out that the balance and weight of a sturdy rake is surprisingly close to that of a performance flag, and if my kids are around and the neighbors aren't watching, I can still do quite credible twirls with right and left hand, the figure-eight two-handed twirl both front and back, and the horizontal overhead twirl that looks SO cool from the stands. I can do the overhead throws from the figure-eight pattern, but I seem to have accidentally forgotten the horizontal overhead throw that could (theoretically) land on my nose. Oh well ... it's not like I'll ever really need it in my current line of work. (The overhead throw, I mean. The nose, I'd like to keep.)

Day One Hundred and Thirty-Two

2010-01-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

I am suddenly devoid of motivation, feeling lackluster, disheartened and blah.

I guess it's a good thing I have 869 days to get it back.

Day One Hundred and Twenty-Nine

2010-01-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

Today I did a whole bunch of work on Item #65, organize all sheet music and music books. I think I can safely say that the books are organized, since the only books that aren't in folders in the file cabinet are the horrible dusty things that someone gave to me years ago in a fit of philanthropy. (Or, as I suspect in my less charitable moments, in a fit of housecleaning.) I am going to give them to Goodwill and let them have a guilty conscience for throwing them into the recycle bin - hurrah, problem solved!

I also got the sheet music partially organized, but even with the work I did today, there are still many more hours of work to be done before I can cross this item off my list. I suddenly find myself fantasizing about flamethrowers...

Day One Hundred and Nineteen

2010-01-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

Item #13: Homework? There's homework? I forgot about homework. (frowny face)

Day One Hundred and Eighteen

2010-01-12T21:00:00.001-08:00

As promised, a few of my new pictures of windows, doors and stairs (Item #80).

U.S. Customs House, Portland, OR

Apartment in the Pearl District reflected in puddle on the street, Portland, OR

Spiral staircase inside the Grays Harbor Lighthouse in Westport, WA

Day One Hundred and Seventeen

2010-01-11T22:17:00.000-08:00

I finished another hat, and this time I'm going to have to try hard not to give it to ME.

Here's me (with my unfortunate resemblance to a lemur after having my eyes dilated at a visit to the ophthalmologist), my latest hat for Item #33, and my textbook for Item #13, which I started reading while I was walking out of the campus bookstore and had to stop reading when I realized that I was running the very real risk of falling straight down the stairs to the parking lot. I will try hard not to be one of those obnoxious adults who comes in to audit a course, reads the entire textbook in the first week, and has their homework done every week plus extra credit and an apple for the teacher.

Because, really, cookies are more my style than apples.

Day One Hundred and Sixteen

2010-01-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

I flossed my teeth (Item #62). I'm counting that as success for the day.

(It's been a long day.)