The strangest salad

Quickly, here's a noodle salad I tossed together to accompany some slow-roasted salmon, salad, and rice... I'm recording this for posterity because I know I'll forget exactly what went into it within a week. (Yeah, I'm tired. The IQ is dropping.)

About 4 ounces of rice noodles, boiled until soft, drained and tossed with two teaspoons of sesame oil
One avocado, finely chopped
About one tablespoon of chopped mint leaves
About one tablespoon of chopped cilantro (leaves and stems)
5 large white mushrooms, sliced
The beet greens and stems that came with three large beets
A lot of finely chopped fresh ginger
2 Tablespoons canola oil

Saute the ginger root and beet stems in the oil until fragrant. Add mushrooms and stir for a couple of minutes. Add beet greens and toss until cooked.

Combine stir-fry with noodles and freshly chopped herbs. Top with diced avocado. Serve immediately.

Resolutions

Well, I got sick on the 2nd, so this year is off to a blasting start. Damn colds.

I hereby resolve to

1) Pay more attention to what I eat. Whether this resolves into full vegetarianism, or becoming a loca-vore, or something else... will be determined later.
2) Become more fit. (Note that I am fairly flexible and active for my age group, but I do almost nothing organized.)
3) Knit more. I'm aiming for 500 to 1000 stitches a day, although some days nothing will happen (like today - no sneezing on the yarn!) and I will make up for it on subsequent days.
4) Don't stab anybody.
5) Read at least 100 books.
6) Listen to more current music.
8) Snarl less.
9) Floss regularly.
10) Be less obsessed with making my lists end on round numbers.

Decade in Review (2002 and 2003)

I can't remember a blasted thing about 2002 except that we got pregnant in May. I was sick all the time, and then I went to a very prestigious and exhausting conference at the end of June, which is where I officially determined that I was preggers... and well, it just didn't go well. I was widely known as The Fat One who Keeps Throwing Up and Belching (in the nicest possible way, of course.)

February 17, 2003: horrible ice storm. Multiple neighbors call to offer their snowmobiles or 4-wheel drive trucks to convey me to the hospital, if necessary. I try to be reassured that a midwife lives in the apartment underneath mine. Fortunately, I make it until the 19th (the official due date) and am safely conveyed to the hospital to have my labor induced. Sometime after dinner, Son #1 is born! I immediately chow down a vanilla milkshake and a large burger to celebrate.

I don't sleep much for the next few years. This might have something to do with why I don't remember most of the details.

Mittens, Mitts, and Scarves

Continuing the round-up of photos: here is some knitting from the summer. The '08 Summer Olympics made a great backdrop for simple knitting. I still haven't found time (or pattern) to make the matching hat, but I made a super-long scarf and warm mittens from some discontinued Noro Kureyon that I bought at Webs.





Last winter I made myself some fingerless mitts to help keep my fingers warm during tennis season. They worked out so well that everyone else in the family keeps borrowing them. I've promised a set to DH and plan to make some for other members of the family for next Xmas.

The decade in review (2001)

The year started off badly, with a lot of stress surrounding our wedding plans and fights over guest lists and flowers for the altar and so on. DH's grandmother was also doing very badly, health-wise, so we ended up punting our Big Wedding Plans and having a small family ceremony in her living room on March 23rd. Ironically, his grandmother ended up hanging on for another 3+ years, but this was one of the last moments she was really mentally alert and taking things in.

We didn't live together immediately. DH was still working on his PhD and I had to teach, so we continued our commuter relationship for another 10 weeks. Then I moved up to NH for the summer and we lived in a crazy huge old house for three months, interrupted only by...

Our honeymoon! Three weeks in the Phillipines and Hong Kong. Pure magic.

Then DH moved south with me in late August. He would continue working on his PhD while I supported us. September 11th was the first day of classes... I will always remember that we thought Jason was pulling our leg when he came down after first period and said that a second plane had hit the WTC. While none of my students lost parents in the attacks, several lost relatives or neighbors.

I don't have any specific memories of that fall or winter.

The decade in review (2000)

In 2000, I was about four months into my first "real job" - as a math and physics teacher at Mercersburg Academy. Mercersburg is a small rural town in south-central Pennsylvania. I had moved there partially to please a boyfriend, who then promptly broke up with me. (He thought he might be in DC but ended up in Boston.) My favorite uncle died just a month after I started my job. I did have my beloved pooch, Penny, to keep me sane and prevent me from being too lonely.

I remember that I taught four classes: Conceptual Physics, Honors Algebra II, and two sections of PreCalculus. I had some wonderful students and some terrible ones. I coached tennis and played the carillon, and lived in Swank Hall with about forty 10th, 11th, and 12th grade girls.

That summer, I returned to Dartmouth to try to finish my PhD in experimental physics. What a joke! My advisor had washed his hands of me and was actually getting ready to quit, although we didn't know it yet. My mother was moving and trying to sell the house. I had a terrible time between dealing with my melt-down in my academic life and not knowing where I'd be living from week to week. And yet... it was also the most important summer of my life, because the DH and I started dating! We'd been friends for the previous four years but somehow never got the timing right, romantically. By the end of the summer we were unofficially engaged; we got the ring at Thanksgiving and finished meeting each other's extended families at Christmas.

I don't think I have any photos from that era; if I do, they're on paper in a box somewhere.

Good pasta sauce

My husband rocks the creative pasta sauce. Me? Not so much. I tend to be overly traditional. In this case, I used some old ideas from him to make up something pretty tasty and healthy, too.

1/2 large eggplant, diced, salted, sat, drained, dried, and fried in a couple tablespoons of oil
one 28-ounce can of tomatoes with basil
one large onion, diced
two cloves garlic, minced
one 16-ounce can Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons capers
3 tablespoons currants
1/4 cup applesauce

Saute onions in a little oil until mostly caramelized. Add garlic and stir until just starting to turn golden. Add tomatoes and beans. Simmer about 20 minutes. Add eggplant, capers, currents and applesauce and stir until heated through; serve over chunky pasta.