Reader's Block

This is what I call my reading ailment. I have about a 20 or so books in my nightstand drawers, lined up on shelves, or tucked away in boxes. I'm about three quarters of the way through each one, then I either find another book that I want to read and start reading that or just decide that I don't want to finish the other book. It's quite a bizarre habit I have found myself in!

I don't know if it's because I don't want a book to end, I'm scared to find out what will happen to the protagonist in the story, or if it's just not that great of a story, but there is something that compells me to put the book down and walk away.

A perfect example of this is currently I have two books that I am reading. I was almost finished with The Bookseller of Kabul and decided to take a trip to the library. Knowing that I am almost done with this book, I decided to see if another book I was interested in reading was available to be checked out. This book, of course, is The Book Thief. Wouldn't you know, Sunset Public Library had two of them ready for me to choose from.

The "back-up" book on the nightstand.

I immediately kicked The Bookseller of Kabul to the side and started in on the new goods. My new book has over 500 pages and is roughly 2 1/2 inches thick. I have about 1/16 of an inch left of the book (or 20 pages) and immediately put it down. I just can't finish it. There is no other new book waiting in the wings. The Book Thief is an awesome story and I have stayed up until 1 in the morning 3 times this week to keep reading it. I have given myself reader's elbow (like tennis elbow, but a little smarter) and my eyes are a bit bloodshot from flashlight reading so I don't wake up Casey. I have learned so much from the characters, I have cried about 3 times, and now want to go visit Germany. But I don't want to finish the book. This would mean it's over. This beautiful book will end and I have no hope that I'll find another book just as good as this one.

I felt the same way with A Thousand Splendid Suns. I didn't want it to end, either. I was completely swept off my feet with the story, it was so despairing. I had roughly 20 pages left and didn't touch the book for 2 weeks until I could separate myself from the story and not have that feeling of anguish when it ended. Sometimes, during really good movies, when I'm weeping my eyes out, I have to remind myself that it's only a movie because I am empathizing way too much with the characters. I am a producer's dream!

This "hyper-sensitivity" is not always why I can't finish a book. Sometimes the book is just not that interesting. I read most of it and feel Yawn-fest 2009 coming on, so I chuck it to the side and say it will be my "can't fall asleep" book. I will only read it when I need to fall asleep fast. Three pages, (flash)lights out.

I really like The Bookseller of Kabul. It's an interesting story. I've learned a lot about the Afghani culture, but my empathy has turned into anger with how people in war torn countries must live and of course the way women are treated. I often shut the book because it's almost too much too handle. It was the same feeling I had with Three Cups of Tea. It was a hard read, but very empowering. I always need a book to read and if I finished these books, then what would I read? I'm like the very hungry catepillar, eating through everything! It's comforting to have these books waiting for me when I finish the others.

I do have an update to report! In the middle of writing this post, I made myself go finish The Book Thief. It was so good and my eyes hurt from crying. I knew that would happen! I kind of did it selfishly because tomorrow I want to go to the library and get a new one and again, chuck my "other book" to the side!

The finished book is ready to be returned!

A Mistake and Something New!

I realized that I accidently left out the first part of the first paragraph on the previous post. As a teacher, I ram into the children's brains that they need to have a good "hook" to keep their audience interested. It probably seemed as though I dropped the ball, however, it was a technical error by yours truly. I have since then corrected the error and added new photos to better accompany my story. I love my new camera and it sure does help illustrate my point!

Anyway, on the topic of taking pictures, being home during the day I got to witness something really cool! Back in October when we were home for a wedding and my fall break, Casey's mother gave us a little pod. It was the size of a walnut and was filled with little seeds inside. We were to put it in the windowsill and let it dry out. Then we were supposed to plant it in a pot until it started to sprout and soon plant it in the soil of our yard.

I was quite skeptical that we would actually be able to do this, but Casey must have his mother's green thumb (she is an amazing gardener!) because that little pod sprouted quite quickly in the pot. Soon after, we put in new curbing, grass seed and baby plants in the backyard. Casey also took the little plant and dug a hole for it to hopefully continue to grow.

At first it got a little brown, but Casey kept feeding and watering that little plant. He made that little plant thrive! Yesterday,we noticed that the plant had a huge bud on it. We had no idea that it was going to sprout flowers and were curious as to what it would look like. Today, while I was outside with the cat, that bud opened up into this:

Good job, Casey! Unfortunately, when he came home from work, it was already closed up. I definitely appreciated it and now you can, too!

Girl Meets Grill

Lovely! It's summer outside and in many parts of the country people are making the most of the warmer temperatures. One of the lovely activities of a normal American summer is that people start grilling. They dust off their old Webers and begin to grill burgers, chicken, hot dogs and other lovely grill-able meats.

I am a hater. I hate the grill.

No, I'm not anti-American. The grill and I are very sick of each other. Perhaps I should explain. Roughly two months ago, we were entertaining Casey's parents at our house for a couple days during Easter break. I wanted to show off my newfound domestic skills, because just recently I had learned to cook. Please don't laugh, it's a really big deal.

I decided that I was going to make my favorite vegetarian chili. It was a stove top type of recipe, but does call for a head of roasted garlic. (If you've never had roasted garlic, you are missing out on the best addition to any meal!) The garlic does need to be cooked in the oven for about 40 minutes until it's cooked through and soft, then I squirt the little garlic cloves into the chili, the very best part of the dish!

While waiting for my garlic to finish cooking and for my in-laws to arrive, a loud BOOM! came from the oven. Casey's parents were right on time as I was pulling out the garlic, checking for damages, and cursing the oven to you-know-where. After a few attempts to heat the oven back up, we concluded that the oven was indeed not working and the little raw Pillsbury croissants would need to be tossed.

Our oven is fairly new, we just bought it last Christmas of 2007. It was my little buddy. It was there when I made my blessed sweet potato fries for the first time and when I made soggy Panko-flaked chicken (it wasn't its fault, I had made it wrong). I love the oven and the memories we have shared in my cooking journey.

Casey was quite positive that he would be able to fix the oven himself. He ordered the part from Sears and spent a Saturday afternoon trying to put it in. When I came home later that day, he was angry at the oven and said that it was such a tedious process and he couldn't figure it out. I can't blame him, I would have no idea how to fix/replace any part of an oven.

I have now had to go to our second form of cooking: the grill. We have a really nice grill that Casey's parents gave us as a Christmas gift last year. It is stainless steel and has a big propane tank. We love our grill and use it often throughout the year. Since the oven incident, I have now grilled chicken, turkey burgers, turkey sausage, steak, and portabella mushrooms. I have roasted vegetables, garlic, and sweet potatoes. I have warmed quesadillas and bread on that grill. There is nothing that I wouldn't try at least once.

And frankly, I'm getting sick of it. As I said before, many areas of the country would absolutely love grilling all these things because they would have the opportunity to be outside. In Phoenix, it is 5 degrees shy of hell in June. I don't want to go out on the patio anymore, I don't want to continuously burn things because I can't smell the food with the all doors shut, and I don't want a dusty trail of footprints from the sliding glass door to the kitchen!

Today...today...today...this was the last straw. I almost met Jesus today and I think he would have been just as surprised to see me as I would to see him. I went outside on my usual jaunt to the grill, with Ruby hot on my heels. I turned the crank on the propane and twisted two of the knobs to let the gas flow in, I bent down to pet the cat for about a minute and realized that I had not ignited the grill. Without even thinking, I pressed the rubber button and BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Fortunately, the grill cover was down and shielded the majority of a huge blast of fire. The force of the explosion pushed me back and sent Ruby running for the door. I quickly turned off the propane and turned the knobs. I opened the cover to let it air out. I was so scared! Many thoughts went racing through my head. I could have burned myself badly or burned the house down! I couldn't believe how dumb I was and what a crazy lesson I just learned.

Most people would have been a little leery to start the grill back up again. I chose to face my fear head on and kept my little lesson in the front of my brain. Besides that, I was hungry, Casey was going to be home soon and my food wasn't going to cook itself. After today, I put my foot down and said that we needed to get the oven fixed because I wanted to live to see 2010. It was agreed upon and I'm so excited to call a repairman to fix my little oven. Besides that, I think we just ran out of propane today.

Cereal Killers

In this tight economy, I can imagine many households having discussions about their financial situations. Tension usually arises when couples have to come to the tough reality of a budget. In fact, many marriages dissipate because of the disagreements about how to spend money. Casey and I have both kept our jobs and are very thankful that we do not have that extra stress of figuring out how we are going to pay our mortgage each month. This does not mean that I'm not immune to the weekly interrogation of "What Did You Buy at Target?" or any other odd fill-in-the-blank store. These conversations can get me pretty heated, because of course I needed the newest lash enhancing, super pumping mascara from Maybelline and also, tank tops were $7. I don't make any huge purchases, but enough where a $30 bill soon turns to $50 one and enough where Casey is a bit frustrated with me and I hear the old, "Just take it easy with your spending this week."

However, my trips to Target don't ruffle feathers like this one other thing in our household does. We have this bone that we pick each week, same issue, roughly same time of week. One opens the cupboard excited and hoping to find the Crunchy Raisin Bran box for a morning bowl or a late night snack, but soon discovers that the box has been killed. What?? We just bought the box not even a day ago and all the cereal is gone! How can two people eat an entire box of cereal in a matter of 24 hours?

Accusations start being hurled between the two of us: How many bowls did you eat? Not nearly as much as you do when you sit with the entire box while you watch TV! Oh, well, that's funny, your so-called-bowls are about 3 serving sizes when you fill the entire thing up! I can't believe you ate the whole box! I can't believe that YOU ate the whole box! Great, now we're stuck with plain Cheerios until we go shopping next week, because I'm not buying any more. Awesome. Yeah, real awesome. Don't talk to me right now, I'm still really mad about not having good cereal.

Many of you may be wondering what the big deal is about Crunchy Raisin Bran. Isn't raisin bran in general gross? Yes, you would be correct. This is why I buy plain Cheerios and plain raisin bran each time I go to the store. We will not gorge ourselves on those cereals because they are boring, healthy and have no taste. As your may or may not know, I don't buy treats anymore because I will eat an entire half gallon of ice cream in one sitting if given the opportunity (see previous post) and certain cereals have proven to be a little bit of a problem in our household.

It started when I bought Kashi Go Lean! cereals in many different flavors because they were tasty as well as healthy and high in fiber. Did I mention that they were REALLY high in fiber? As in, I thought my stomach was going to explode from the inside out after one week of eating it. I couldn't pin point why my belly was turning itself over and I was in the most extreme pain of my life from the hours of 2-9 at night. After finally putting 10 grams of fiber + one already regular digestive system together, I subtracted the culprit and I finally could return to yoga or any other public place.

With the exit of this awesome cereal, I needed something to fill the void--healthy and tasty. I've always been a lover of cereal from the time I was a child. However, we had some rules when it came to picking out our cereal in the aisles of Pete's County Market. We could never choose a cereal that was over 10 grams of sugar, which terribly limited our selection of the cereals that we really wanted to eat. Cinnamon Toast Crunch was an all-time favorite, Frosted Mini-Wheats was always right up there, too. I would always beg my mom to buy Frosted Flakes or Count Chocula but I would get the inevitable "No." It seemed like everyone else was enjoying the likes of Cap'n Crunch and Fruity Pebbles, and the closest thing that we came to sugar cereals was Froot Loops at my grandparent's house. Finally in high school as the only child left at home, my mom let me choose whichever cereal I wanted and I went directly for the most sacred cow of cereals...Lucky Charms. It was my morning breakfast and late night snack from September of 1998 until April of 1999. I stopped eating it in April because one morning I accidentally poured orange juice on my cereal without realizing it and totally ruined my love and affection for Lucky Charms.

However, I did not lose this love and affection for other cereals throughout the years. As pretty health-conscious adult, I can't bring myself to buy those untouchable sugar cereals now, it's very Freudian and psychological. So, Casey and I have tried to fool ourselves into thinking, if it has a healthy sounding title, then really, how bad can it be for you? I would never dream of touching the Sugar Smacks, but Crunchy Raisin Bran sounds soooo much healthier. If we were to compare the nutrition labels on the aforementioned cereals, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they have an equal amount of sugar and both really have no nutritional value.

Since I do the majority of the shopping, I will get to pick the coveted "Special Cereal" for us. For a while it was Crunchy Raisin Brain, sometimes Frosted Mini-Wheats, and a couple of times Honey Bunches of Oats. See? They all sound really healthy, however, they have something that our boring cereals do not: a light coating of sweetener somewhere. This is enough for me and Casey. This would be the one and only item in our house with an artificial sweetener, besides the peanut butter, which is a whole other blog in itself. It has become the most desired product in our kitchen. A person needs to strike while the iron is hot! If it's in there, you better eat it, because you have roughly 24 hours before the goods are gone.

Yesterday, while at the grocery store, Albertson's was running a special where their generic Cheerios, which are actually way better than the original, were a dollar per box! So, of course I bought 2 boxes, but to top that off, the generic apple cinnamon Cheerios were also a dollar. Oooh, a healthy sounding name, but I know that this is very deceiving and will become THE cereal to eat in our house. Surprisingly, it's been 24 hours since I bought it and more than half of it is left. A miracle! Casey told me today that he felt sick this morning and could barely stomach toast. I think that's the only reason I was able to sit in front of the TV tonight for my late night snack! I give it until tomorrow night until we have the next victim of the Cereal Killers!

Mean Jeans

Trying to find a good pair of jeans is one of the hardest tasks that I have put myself through in the past few weeks. I don't know what it is about jeans and why it so hard to find a pair that does exactly what it is supposed to do.

The perfect pair of jeans for me needs to be dark, because Stacy and Clinton from "What Not to Wear" say frequently that dark denim camouflages a wide thigh and I definitely do not need my thighs to look any wider. They also need to have a straight leg, nothing flared and definitely no tapering which is very self-explanatory.

There can be no rhinestones or random buckles and chains. There should be no sign of glitter anywhere, although my second grade little girls make it look so cute!

They need to come up high enough so my "pencil holder" won't show when I bend over, but not too high to make the dreaded muffin top. They need to be long enough to skim over the tops of my shoes, but not too long where they drag on the floor. The pockets need to be normal and a classy stitched design is always welcomed.

They need to make my legs look long and my derriere look small, yet round. They need to go with every shirt in my closet, too.

They can't stretch out too much when I wear them 8 times in a row without a wash. And they need to bounce right back when I do finally break down and do it.

Is this too much to ask of a pair of jeans? The poor sales clerk at the Gap took out 12 pairs of jeans from my dressing room until I finally found a pair that met most of my needs. They were a little long, but following the advice of my dear TV friends, I took them in to my tailor and they are getting altered as I write this.

I wonder if I will ever find the PERFECT pair of jeans right from the rack. I don't wish for world peace; I wish for a lovely pair of jeans for all women to enjoy each time they put them on! Amen!

The dishwasher drives me absolutely nuts! I love it, because it is a temporary place to put my dirty dishes so I don't have to think about them for a couple of days. And when I have rearranged the top and bottom rack to fit as many dishes as possible, it is awfully convenient to put in some Cascade and turn the dial and go to bed.

The next morning when it's time for work, Casey needs his bowl of cereal and toast. I need multiple pieces of tupperware and spoons for my breakfast and lunch. We open the dishwasher, take what we need and move on with our days.

However, getting home after being gone for 12 hours we transport our dirty dishes from lunches and breakfasts and place them in the sink, as the clean dishes are still sitting in the dishwasher. We cook dinner and one of us has the daunting task of doing the dishes.

Casey dislikes taking the dishes out of the dishwasher so much that he will wash all dishes by hand to avoid having to unload. But at some point we NEED to get that thing unloaded and I silently think that I was the last one to do it and Casey really needs to start carrying his weight around here.

I wander into the kitchen later on at night, wanting to get my spoonful of peanut butter, no spoons, so I open the dishwasher, grab the spoon and of course nothing else. I come back a little later to pack my lunch, no tupperware the right size, go into the dishwasher, grab what I need and carry on.

Finally, one of us breaks down and decides to be the martyr and unloads the darn thing. All the while non-verbally displaying our discontent to the other by loud bangs of the plates, throwing of the silverware, and shuffling of the tupperware cupboard. You can't unload a dishwasher without another person there to feel sorry for you, right?

So it's Saturday, the dishes are sitting nice and clean in their little racks, ready to be put back home in their special spots in the cupboards or drawers. A sink full of breakfast dishes is waiting patiently to be placed in the dishwasher. Casey has gone to play softball, so what is a girl to do??

Friday!

I have been on a hiatus from my blog for a few months...as my brother told me, he can tell when I am back at school. I think I was putting too much pressure to write amazing tales. So now I'll keep them short and sweet and more like a journal of things that are happening!

I'm so glad it's Friday. This was the first week back from vacation. I had a great week with my students. They were lovely and wonderful. I love my new reading class, so bright and eager to please. I get to give out awards this afternoon to students who worked extra hard for good grades and I can't wait to make their weekends. But I am looking forward to MY weekend. It makes the hard work I put in this week balance with the time I get to see Casey, friends and family. I also love my yoga class on Saturday mornings and the five dollar footlong from Subway that I split with Casey for lunch.


I wish to you all great and balancing weekends! What makes your weekend good? Is there something that you look forward to? I would love to hear your thoughts!