School Again

(Post by Tracy)

In school again
bells ringing again
girls screaming again
pencils racing again

Break and announcements
Attendance and prayer

Ready to teach
and ready to learn
Wishing myself luck
as I start
Twenty-Second Grade

How to Celebrate Your Second Anniversary - via Food

1. Organize the menu (consult Martha Steward's Everyday Food magazine). Get excited about cooking with cherries that match your cherry apron.



2. Get excited to be able to use your new food processor for the first time! Even get excited to peel off the sticker and wash the parts. (This is all very exciting, if you didn't catch on to that yet.)

3. Get all your Mise En Places en place.

4. Get the dessert ready first. Use the new food processor (wahoo!) to mix up the "cup" portion of your Lime and Cherry Cups.

5. Look online for alternatives to pie weights. Turns out rice works fine, too. So that's how they do it... Bake the Cups.

6. Place your hand-pitted, halved cherries into the Cups. Cover with the limey-custardy mix. Avoid spilling to the best of your ability. Pop back in the oven. Bake again.

7. Admire how much they look like the photograph, and pat yourself on the back for succeeding at the most important part--dessert.

8. Reward yourself for making a great dessert by next mixing up the cocktails: sherry spritzers. (Tip: Any cocktail will likely look awesome and much fancier with a slice of citrus.)

9. Complete the rest of dinner: Skirt Steak, Warm Bean Salad, Bacon-Wrapped Corn on the Cob (with a little salt and cayenne pepper - sooooo good!).

10. Adore your hubby's look of (posed, forced?) excitement.

11. Enjoy a glass of port as your after-dessert dessert, remembering all the great port you had during your wine-country-California honeymoon. Best served chilled, in champagne glasses marked with the year you were married, purchased just after New Year's Eve of 2009, on sale for a few dollars from Pick n Save.

12. Reminisce about 2 great years and look forward to many more!

(All together now: Awwwwww...)

I'm back East.

What's the best way to welcome your daughter back home to Chicago?

A homemade iced, decaf mocha, of course! Cheers, mum! ;)

How Shakespeare told me to lay off the Facebook

I have a magnet on our refrigerator from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (Chaput Adventure – Holla!) that says:

To thine own self be true.

I believe this is a quote from Hamlet, not really sure, never read that one. But I like the quote (or at least what I am taking the quote to mean, seeing as I’ve only ever read it out of context.) Stay with me, though - I’m gonna circle back to this idea in a second - but let me veer for a moment into a discussion about a world with which Shakespeare was wholly unfamiliar: Facebook.

My peers and I were fortunate? unfortunate? enough to be in the very first wave of Facebook users. I remember our friend Katie talking about it at Northwestern and being very excited when “Marquette got Facebook!” What does this mean?? What do we do with this website that is both seemingly fascinating and yet really boring and kind of pointless?? Well, I guess let’s race to see who can get more “Friends”!! And so it began.

We were juniors in college. As Facebook roared in, we were among the last loyal users of AIM and among the first to create “groups,” “re-connect” with people from grade school, check the “profiles” of our friends at far-away colleges. Parents started to become curious, since only people with college email addresses could get an account, and soon enough it boomed again! High school kids could get accounts! Status updates were introduced! Pictures!! Tagging photos!!! Anyone can get an account!!!---

And now here we are.

We all hear the statistics of how many hours of TV an average high school student watches or how many hours of video games the average grade school student plays, but I am beginning to wonder: how many hours (days? months, probably? hopefully not years??) have I devoted to being on Facebook since that day as a junior in Milwaukee?

Here’s the thing. I know some people are very happy without or with very, very minimal Facebook (Dad, Dad-in-law, even Tom… is it guy thing?) and I know I can not use Facebook (I did all of Lent 2010). But there is reason for Facebook. My former co-worker’s babies are sooo cute! I hear about world news I wouldn’t have looked for myself! I’ve connected with distant family who I would otherwise barely know!

I’m starting to think, however, that there might be more reason for me to give Facebook a rest. Cue Shakespeare.

It’s bad as it is that I feel there is reason enough for people to be interested in my life to read our blog that seems to have very little theme beyond letting people see what I (and occasionally Tom) think about day-to-day (and I am waiting for the day when you guys say, Really? That’s what you’re spending a few hours of today thinking about? Decaf, iced mochas? That reminds me, I could really go for one right about now...)

But I’m realizing that I don’t really like knowing all this stuff about all these people on Facebook. And as I realize this, it changes what I want them to know about me. And as that changes, suddenly status updates and pictures I post start to be almost (I hate to say it) competitive.

Back in the days of AIM, when you didn’t have something clever to say, a quote would always suffice for a good “Away Message.” But a quote as a status update? Come on. Don’t waste my time!

On occasion, I have started to feel, upon logging out of Facebook, inadequate. (I admit that this is not all Facebook’s or its users’ faults. It largely stems from my own (perhaps overly-) competitive nature.) But I’ll find myself wrapping up my time on Facebook and thinking, Their wedding pictures are so much artsier than ours… I can’t believe he is able to afford a house at our age… She’s so lucky she gets to be a stay-at-home mom and take her kids to adorable places all day long, I want to do that!…

Ew... I do not like this view of myself. Maybe I should delete this blog post… But clearly if you’re reading this on the blog I didn’t delete it. And I’m typing these words out as I’m thinking them, so unless I’m starting a new diary in Microsoft Word, looks like I’m still leaning towards posting. Ok, I will, because it’s honest. And wouldn’t deleting it be the same as posting a phony Facebook status to make myself look better?

Seriously though... Really? I don’t like that I think that stuff. And before Facebook, if someone showed me their wedding pictures, I would love it! How fun to look at something so sweet and special! And it would mean something for them to share the pictures with me! And I would be really happy to hear that a friend bought a new house! Imagine if they invited me over and I could share in their excitement!! And I would love being able to spend a day off of school with a friend and her kid!!! I would certainly not resent it! Buuuutttt, throw all of these images at me in one giant lump of everyone’s personal lives put on display for everyone else to gawk at and I pretty much just end up feeling … well, like what I described above.

Ok, so. To thine own self be true. I have decided I need a break from the Ffffbook. I am no longer going to spend time out of my day looking into other people’s lives, especially because it isn’t even getting a look into their lives: it’s getting a look at what they want their lives to look like. And for a lot of people, those are not the same thing.

I did give Facebook my most recent email address so that I’ll get messages people send to me. I’ll still get an email if someone tags me in a picture, then I’ll check it out and remember how fun that was. And from time to time I might log in just to see updated pictures of the adorable babies I mentioned earlier. But mostly I’m going to avoid it, no longer “check it,” and think more about being true to myself and what kind of real life I want to be leading. Plus, maybe with my newly found free time I’ll finally have a chance to pick up Hamlet.

The Summer of the Decaf, Iced Mocha or Coffee-Flavored Sugar-Chocolate Milk

(Post by Tracy)

I had another one today. Another decaf, iced mocha. Delicious, like yesterday's. Actually, I suppose I had 2 yesterday, come to think of it.

Let me just say, I am not a coffee-drinker.

Really, I'm not. At least that is what I say... I guess, maybe, that's now not so true. I don't even recognize myself anymore.

I think coffee is gross! The only way I'll drink it is loaded up with milk and sugar so that really it's a child's version of coffee-flavored sugar-milk (or I guess what I have discovered this summer: coffee-flavored sugar-chocolate milk).

I couldn't even make coffee for myself if I was interested in trying. I was a barista for 5 years, yet I don't know how to work a regular Mr. Coffee coffee maker. I only have a vague idea of how a French press works. I am not really clear on how to brew another pot at school in the fancy industrial coffee machine. I have never had my own Keurig one-cup cup of coffee. I'm just not a coffee drinker, and the only situation in which I have ever been considered a Coffee Person at all is from behind the back of the espresso machine, foaming your milk and handing you your grande vanilla latte.

It's a little scary to think that this is changing.

And now, really, it's bad enough that the coffee drinker I'm turning into is the one who relies on the chocolate-infused version of the original. But then add to that the D-word.

Ignoring for a moment the icky bitter taste of coffee, what about its abundance of caffeine? That, I simply physically cannot handle. Ask poor Tom who has had to witness me coming down (and going up! and coming down!) from an accidental caffeine trip. 30 minutes after finishing the black iced tea or coca-cola, I start to feel very jittery inside. My heart starts to beat a little faster. I get warm, sometimes even sweaty. I'm not exaggerating this, people. And it's downhill from there! Fast forward to find an adult woman, who normally falls asleep on any movie started after 8:30 pm, bouncing off the proverbial walls at 2 in the morning, alternately feeling the rush of adrenaline and the slamming impact of sleep deprivation. It is not a pretty sight.

And yes, I am that customer who orders decaf, doesn't trust the competence of the cashier, and, as the barista hands me my cup, asks ever-so-nonchalantly, "Oh, did I remember to order decaf?" (Are you kidding? Yeah, of course I did. I know I did. But better than saying, "This better be decaf or I will physically lose it in 30 minutes!") And as long as the barista doesn't show more than 2 seconds of hesitation before saying, "Yeah, decaf!" I go on my merry way.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, somehow I got to where I am today. I have been drinking decaf, iced mochas semi-regularly for a few weeks. Kind of everywhere we go where beverages are sold. And I'm craving them, too. The worst part about the whole situation is when I most crave a decaf, iced mocha: immediately after finishing a decaf, iced mocha. I told Tom that I am officially going to limit myself to one a day, tops. (I told him that today. Yesterday doesn't count.)

And so here I am. Drinking herbal, caffeine-free iced tea, remembering the tasty mocha I had earlier today and imaging the taste of the mocha that I will likely have tomorrow.

Hope that guy is right...

(Post by Tracy)

Just got home from school. Took a "short cut" through the neighborhood behind us to avoid some traffic. Noticed a few cop cars parked along the street near our local park. Park filled with kids and people as usual. Continued driving. Noticed more cop cars - not doing much, just parked. Continued to our street. Noticed a motorcycle cop and another cop car. Turned onto our street, into our driveway. Heard a helicopter overhead, circling... Circling... Circling...

Started to become slightly concerned. Missing kid? Bomb threat? Murderer on the loose? (Hoped these were not the case because -1: they would be horrible, and 2: all the cops in the cars were kinda, just, sitting there...)

Turned on the local news. Started an online search. After a little Googling, hit a search result for "How do I find out why a helicopter is circling around my house?" Perfect. Found the phone number to call for the Air Support Division of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Man answered. Asked him my quesiton. He asked my location. Told him.

"Movie helicopter. They're filming a movie."

Tom's response via text message: "Well, I guess you can unlock the doors and unlock the windows then."

It's Time.

(Post by Tracy)

Time for what? Time for me and Tom to try out our local YMCA.

We were really great about running while we lived in Milwaukee. We were also very lucky to have a nice workout room in our apartment building, equipped with 2 treadmills that both had their own TVs. Even more, we had a beautiful, peaceful running/biking path within walking distance. We were spoiled.

Then we moved, and you'd think with the warm weather that it shouldn't have been hard to create and stick with a new running routine. But it was. The days (surprise!) still get short in the winter here, even though the weather stays warm (well, it was a surprise to me), and the sun set well before Tom got home from work. We also weren't sure exactly where to run. The list of excuses goes on, but the result was, nonetheless, that we weren't (aren't) running or working out at all, and I didn't (don't!) like that.

Exercise is important to me. I feel different when I regularly exercise. I sleep better, I eat better, I am happier with myself and my body is happier. But I had this great conversation with Morgan Thursday night and afterwards I also realized, my mind is happier when I exercise.

Morgan is reading Eat, Pray, Love, and we were talking about meditation. I've tried (and failed at) meditating before (a blog post for another day), but I still think there's something to it. Morgan expressed similar sentiments, and so we were dissecting what exactly meditation is. Morgan felt like she just couldn't do it either, but I was saying that trying to get to a meditative state is probably half the practice of meditating. I asked her if she's ever done something that feels trance-like, like reciting memorized prayers or zoning out while running or grading papers (just kidding). I said that sometimes when I'd be swimming laps, I'd be swimming, swimming, swimming and then in my mind think to myself Oh, I'm on lap 12? without even realizing I had gotten to lap 12. Not that I was asleep while I swam those laps, but just that my mind wandered until it sort of ... shut down ... until it came back, and I wondered where it had been.

Anyway, in our conversation, I kind of realized this might be my form of meditation. And then, out of nowhere, after 3 years of trying to make it as a runner because it's just so much more convenient, it hit me so hard - the desire to jump in and just swim until my muscles are sore and my body is waterlogged and my head is clear.

I'm hoping our Y has a decent pool and good enough hours so I can get this done. We'll find out this weekend - wish me luck!