Dos anos de Espanol

Y todavilla, no puedo hablar muy bien.

(Two years of Spanish and I still can't speak very well.)

There's a quote from Winston Churchill about WW2 which I find fitting my life quite often:  "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

I'm one class and one final presentation away from completing the 6 terms of foreign language classes required by the graduate program I will be attending in the fall.  I can barely grasp what this means.

I've taken 29 credits of Spanish classes over the past two years!  With the exception of the summer term I took off, I've had classes two nights a week since June of 2010.  I've spent my commutes reviewing flash cards, weeknights completing seemingly endless homework assignments and weekends writing essays.  There have been skits and dialogues and group projects that make me want to tear my hair out.  There have been conjugations up the ying-yang and irregular verbs a plenty.  There have also been a few laughs and I made at least one friend in my classes.

Frankly, I'm exhausted.  

And it's not the end yet, it's not even the beginning of the end.  And in fact it's not even really the end of the beginning.  I'm just inching closer to the starting line of the marathon that will be graduate school.  I have two more per-requisites (Intro to Linguistics and a Grammar class) that I will need to complete before officially beginning classes for my Master's degree in Applied Linguistics.  

But this is the end of my Spanish classes.  After next week all of my studying, all of my homework, and all of my essays will be in my beloved native language!  Which I hope will be at least a bit easier.

Craft Storage

I've been enjoying a few discussion threads on how people store their crafting stashes, so I thought I'd share mine.

Since I live alone, I have the freedom to use the entire living room as my 'craft room' which suits me just fine.  I do like to keep things tidy so that if I wanted to have people over, I wouldn't have to spend a week hiding all my projects.

Knitting:
Knitting is really my travel-hobby so my stash is pretty small, and honestly I don't have that many projects in the works.

The top two hat boxes contain misc. quilting and sewing tools. The box on the bottom contains all my embroidery thread, hoops and patterns.  The pink striped hat boxes contain my yarn stash, the blue wine-box contains my sock yarn, and I try to limit my WIPs to what will fit in the bag.

Official 'stash' yarn... no projects in mind for any of it.

Current knitting WIPs - a mindless scarf to go with a hat I made a few years ago, Shedir cabled hat, and well, not really in progress yet, but I was going to cast on for a new pair of ankle socks.

Quilting:
I've got a lot more quilt projects in progress / in mind than knitting.... but my fabric stash is still fairly small.  It's kind of surprising because I feel like I'm forever picking stuff up at Fabric Depot... but I guess I've also made & given away quite a few quilts, so there you go.

The fabric stash is divided into the following categories: batik, non-batik, holiday, character prints.  From there I group the fabrics by dominant color - more or less.  I've also got a box of scraps that have been cut down into 2x2 or 3x3 or 1x3 pieces.  Although I have many specific ideas for what to do with these fabrics... they're not really in the 'active' phase yet.  There's sewing fabric in the purple rubbermaid bin... and I keep my batting in another bin in the closet.

These are the quilts in progress... or in some cases quilts in hibernation.  This is also where I keep my box of real scrap scraps.  On the top shelf are all my crafting books and magazines. 

Finally... my 'craft table' where all the magic happens... is just my dining room table.  But I also have a folding table (in the back) I bring out for cutting sometimes. 

Overall I'm pretty happy with my 'craft room' and stashes.  I like having everything easily accessible... but also neat enough that I can put it all away pretty quickly.  I'd love to have a ton more fabric... but realistically I know I don't have nearly enough time to make all the quilts I'd like to... so it's good to keep the stash somewhat lean. 

So how do you organize your crafts?  Do you limit your stash to materials for specific projects or do you have a 'stash of possibilities'?  I'd love to see everyone else's craft rooms. 

I-Spy once again

My friends are all on round two of the baby-making process.  I've vowed not to make any second-quilts... 'cause good lord, my friends are fertile & I'd never keep up.  But one friend had her first baby while I was abroad, so I felt like making something for her baby #2.

Over the summer I'd participated in a character-print swap on the quilting board of Ravelry.   And I found the bright bright colors in a fat quarter pack at the Fabric Depot outdoor sale.  It was 8 fat quarters for something insane like $10.  I couldn't pass that up! 

It actually took me a while to figure out the best way to put together this I-spy.  There are so many different ways to do an I-spy, but since the pieces were already cut for the swap, I was a little limited in my options.  Also - I was trying to get the quilt done on my Christmas break between Spanish classes, so I couldn't do anything too labor intensive.

Here's what I came up with.  Bright, colorful, not too fussy.

The backing is a solid piece of green fabric that I found on sale in the new Fabric Depot 'indoor sale' room.  Good lord I love that place!!!

I just love making I-spy quilts, you can use them for a matching game, or to tell a story.... it *almost* makes me want to spend some time with an actual kid.

So many cute fabrics!!

Pop Rocks Socks

I knit up another pair of ankle-socks over my recent trip to Nashville.  I finished up one of them while on the plane and kinda guessed (incorrectly) at when to start the toe decreases.... figured it out it was too short when I got home and kinda fudged it until it was long enough. 

I can't remember what kind of yarn this is... I'm sure it was a gift, but I lost the tag when I wound it up into a ball.  The black and pink remind me of a pack of strawberry pop rocks... so there you go!

Pop Rocks Socks!

Eat (some of) the vegetables

Ok - my 'Eat ALL the vegetables' vegan experiment was interesting if not especially successful.

Day one:
I hadn't actually cooked anything yet, so despite eating some nuts, fruit, veggies, and fruit juice, I was starving until about noon.  Then I wasn't so much 'full' as full of fiber, and I will spare you the details.

I also experienced a pretty intense caffeine-withdrawal headache.  God bless aspirin is what I have to say about that!

The other challenge I faced was a last minute call from a friend who was visiting from out of town.  She wanted to meet up for dinner at Red Robin.  Oh lordy!  Talk about temptation, I LOVE burgers!!!  On the one hand, I showed a lot of restraint by ordering a Gardenburger, with no cheese, and had unsweetened iced tea.  But I also took full advantage of the bottomless fries.... and in the interest of full disclosure - there was ranch dip involved.

So on the one hand, I was successfully vegetarian for a full day.  Only a few dips of ranch dressing away from being vegan in fact.  On the other hand I was gassy, bloated, tired, starving, and headachy for most of the day.  I got a lot of cooking done (and ran like three loads of dishes through the dishwasher).  But beyond that all I did was lounge on the couch all day feeling crummy.

Day two:  
I woke up starving and started the day eating a whole wheat roll with some hummus, and a bunch of veggies and veggie/fruit juice.   Again, lots of fiber had the predictable results.

By noon, I was not only simultaneously hungry and bloated, but feeling tired and weak as well.   I had made the mistake of doing some weight lifting the night before, something I do regularly, nothing especially strenuous.  But instead of my arms feeling 'post work out sore' they felt like limp noodles, trembly and weak.  I had no energy or motivation to do anything other than lay on the couch.  But this was a three day weekend and I didn't want to waste it.  I had things I needed to get done.

Forget it.  Experiment over.  I went out for sushi and felt better almost immediately.

I really can't say if it was the lack of protein or the lack of total calories that was wiping me out, but it was pretty clear that the vegan thing was just not for me.  I didn't want to completely give up, so I adjusted.  No meat or dairy for breakfast or dinner... but I could eat a normal cafeteria lunch for the rest of the week.  Friday however turned out to be all around crappy and any notion of a diet or experiment went out the window.

So what were the end results of this experiment?  I think my weight fluctuated a bit in the downward direction, but by today, I'm back exactly where I was when I started.  I certainly did NOT feel like my energy or overall health improved much... although I did notice that my skin felt really good the first two days.  And by eliminating meat and dairy from two of my meals, I did increase my overall fruit and vegetable intake from an average of 2-3 servings a day to a consistent 5 or more.  That can't be a bad thing.

Going forward I think I'm going to focus on the much more realistic goal of eating 5 fruits and vegetables a day, and eliminating most dairy from my diet.  I'll see how that goes for the rest of the month.

Mushroom Barley Bake

One of the staples of my vegan experiment was this Mushroom Barley Bake, easy to make and very hearty.

Ingredients:
1 large (or 2 small) onion chopped 
1-2 cups sliced/chopped mushrooms
1 cup barley
3 cups vegetable broth
olive oil

salt
red chili flakes

Saute the mushrooms and onions in olive oil.  Don't overdo it, just saute them until the mushrooms release a bit of water and the onions become clear.

Coat your casserole dish with olive oil, transfer the mushrooms and onions over, add the barley and mix it up a bit before adding the broth.  I add a good bit of sea salt and red chili flakes, but this is the kind of dish that you can season any way you like.  Some fresh herbs would probably work really well.


Bake at 350F for 90 minutes.  I think I had the lid on for half of the time, but I can't remember if it was at the beginning or the end.  Use your judgement.

Here it is right out of the oven.  As with virtually everything I cook - it freezes well so this is a good one to make a double batch of.  This is a great vegan/vegetarian dish, but also makes a hearty side dish to roast chicken. 

Ok - not the most beautiful dish around, probably should have thrown a sprig of parsley on it.... but I promise that it's yummy.

Eat ALL the vegetables!

In an effort to meet my resolution to lose weight I've decided to do a bit of a diet shake up.  At the moment I eat rather a lot of meat and processed food... not to mention sugar.  While intellectually, I know that 'diets don't work', I've never really been on an official diet and I can say unequivocally that THAT doesn't work either.  So it seems I should at least experiment and see if I can find something that works for me.

For comparison's sake, here's a sample of my current diet:

Breakfast:  Cheese bagel from the cafeteria.  Snapple if I'm tired... and I'm almost always tired.

Snack: Whatever's in the break room, sometimes a donut or a cookie, or a slice of pumpkin bread.  There's not always a snack in there... probably every other week or so, significantly more around the holidays.

Lunch: If I had my act together the weekend before I will have made myself a sensible lunch that involves chicken, rice & veggies, often with butter, sometimes in the form of a coconut based curry.  Generally nutritious food... but my portion sizes probably need some work.  But mostly I head to the cafeteria and have some kind of sandwich, burger, or wrap.  So we're talking bread, meat, cheese, mayo or some other kind of spread, and possibly a handful of veggies/fruits. 

Snack: More often than I care to admit, I resolve my afternoon job-related stress by heading to the cafeteria for a pastry, soda, or ice cream.  Not every day, but a few times a week. Sometimes I remember to bring fruit, but I don't always remember to eat it.

Dinner:  Again, if I've had my act together I have something like... again roast chicken, rice & veggies prepared, or possibly soup with bread and cheese.... lots of bread and cheese.  However, I live in an area rich with restaurants, so I often stop off for sushi or pizza.  And when I have class - most of the meal preparation gets sacrificed in favor of homework.

Beverages:  My beverage of choice is Dr. Pepper.  But I've made good progress over the past couple of years in replacing that with tea, either hot or iced.  Tea is a great beverage, the only problem is that I drink it with sugar.  I use far less sugar per serving than what you'd find in Dr. Pepper... but I drink GALLONS of it, so it ends up being a bit of a wash.  

Basically I eat a ton of bread, meat, cheese and added fats, with a few fruits and veggies, and lots of sweetened beverages.  Not an ideal diet, and it's led to far from an ideal weight. 

The new plan: 

 

I've decided that at least for one week I'm going to go more or less vegetarian.  No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no refined white sugar, and limited bread products the majority of what I will eat will be vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, and visibly identifiable whole grains... like barley kernels - not the stuff they're putting in Fruit Loops these days.  I'm not going to be super strict about it and inspect every ingredient of everything I eat, but I am very much going to try to stay in the spirit of it. 

Step one was to clean out the fridge & get rid of any remnants of my old diet.  Not too tough since I just got back from vacation and haven't been shopping in a while.   Step two was to spend some quality time in the produce section of the grocery store.  

Step three is to prepare a few vegetarian meals to go in the freezer, and to make up individual portions of the rest of the veggies, so that it's easy to just grab & eat.  I'm not magically going to have more free time... so I need to make this easy or it'll never fly.  

On the menu for this week:  Roasted vegetable soup with whole wheat onion rolls,  mushroom barley bake, hummus with raw veggies, oatmeal with dried fruits & nuts, and uh.... I'm going to have to take a look in my cookbook to see what else I can come up with.  

Wish me luck!