Tastes like summa time

Don't you love those home cooked meals that are so good you leave it on the stove for three hours after dinner to "let it cool", then nibble it every time you pass by until your husband and dog are eyeing you like a fatty and you have to forego your evening workout because you can't move? I do. :) Especially when the ingredients are fresh, organic, local and in season, 'cause they're oh so tasty and better for you. I'm referring to summer corn chowder. Yes, I realize that my local forecast is a sunny 108 degrees, but if you can forget that minor detail you'll be good to be go! ;)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil (I used coconut oil)
• 2 tablespoons butter (I didn't use that much)
• 1 large onion
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 5 cups vegetable broth
• 2 russet potatoes
• 4 cups fresh corn kernels (approximately 8 ears of corn)
• 1/2 cup diced red bell pepper (ew)
• 1/2 cup diced green bell pepper (ew)
• salt to taste
• ground black pepper to taste
• 1 cup half & half
• 2 plum tomatoes, seeded, for garnish
• thinly slivered basil leaves, for garnish

Place the oil and butter in a pot over low heat.

Add the diced onion until its transparent.

Sprinkle in flour; cook, stirring, for about five minutes.

Add the broth and potatoes; bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium and cook partially covered for 10 minutes.

Add the corn, peppers if you like those things, and half & half; cook over low heat for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Top generously with garnishes and serve with a glass of sweet iced tea.

Summa time in the midwest at its best:)

Penpals & sacrifice

Considering I'm supposed to wake up in less than three hours, you could say it's a bit late on the home front. Two days filled with dead sleep, hopeful planning, quality time with my favorite guy & canine, impromptu naps, good reads, tacky flicks, and mint & honey sweet iced green tea has got me prepped for the workweek ahead of schedule, I guess.

All despite the fact that Friday's wedding was just short of horrendous.

Think: Friday traffic, midday summer Texas heat, a large bridal party comprised of sorority bitches I mean girls, typical dark and dank denominational ceremony venue, and rooms full of Methodists. Mmm, mm, mm. I may or may not have whispered to Roberto halfway through the first reception (yeah...first) that if I never participated in another wedding as anything more than a guest or crasher in my life, I would die a happy person. Later that night he admitted that he wholeheartedly agreed. Though, sororities do have a way of making you hate life like that. F'real though, for me the stress would be worth it if it wasn't so routine and fussy. Stress + yawn = I didn't know this combination was possible but take my name off the list. But then, upon arriving home the next morning from dropping off rental gear after waking up way too early following a late night of drowning horror stories in Applebee appetizers and bahama mamas, (deep breath) the rewards reveal themselves on your SD cards. And they take your breath away. Whether weddings per se are required conduits for said rewards is entirely up for debate.


I've acquired a foreign penpal!!! After creating a profile on three different penpal sites and enduring multiple days of emails from halfwits trying to hit on a married person halfway around the world, I was finally contacted by a 25-year-old girl in Sweden. I once had a Romanian penpal when I was in middle school and still love the idea of exchanging physical letters. Even though Roberto and I have since decided it was a bad idea, I originally put on the advertisement that I was interested in snail mail, so she included her address ....annnd I may or may not have already used it to stroll up and down the streets of her city on Google maps. (I know, I know. Creep much?) Just imagining what it would be like to live in Sweden. Zooming in on the faces of pedestrians to see what Swedish people look like. The world is so big, and despite our diversity I can't help but feel that Americans are exposed to so little of it. Certainly and apparently, I'm no exception. I haven't been to Sweden. But I can now assure you that the grass is very green, the sky is very blue, and people there drive impractical cars and speak a funny language I have no desire to learn. And that I hope to go there someday. There are so many places I've never been but love to go to that it sometimes depresses me. I will say, though, that I'm excited to get to know someone from an entirely different culture, who will hopefully expand the horizon of my little world.

In related news, this past weekend Roberto and I have more or less decided to give up my birthday trip to the Colorado Rockies in hopes to do some more international travel sometime within the next year instead. We've been promising ourselves for years, but trips home always take up what travel money we have. I'm ohhh soo tired of getting my hopes up. But I'm determined this time. Backpacking in Europe is probably what'll be on the menu. Dare I say, we've earned it.

Till tomorrow:)

Something else

From this one place, I can't see very far.

In this one moment, I'm square in the dark.

These are the things I will trust in my heart:

You can see something else...

The phone rang on the empty pillow next to my tousle-haired head. The time above the incoming call read 5:30. "Hello?" I answered in a groggy voice that tried to sound awake, as if someone were going to judge me if they caught me sleeping before 6am. Roberto's work hours during the summer time require that we set our alarms an hour earlier than usual---3:50am. Normally I would stay awake after he has left and start my day, but there's just something ungodly at sitting down at a desk at 4:15 in the morning.

"I got the orders."
"And?"
"And I'm really upset right now."

It's time for us to pick where we'll be stationed next. Naturally we would like to go back to Florida, but of course we can only take what's available. Unlike all the other 20-somethings vying for Florida orders because they think it'd be fun getting slammed on the beach every weekend, we have all of our family there. But almost more than that, my scholarship is in Florida.

I refuse to adopt the ball and chain that so many American students have laden themselves with indefinitely. My scholarship would save us $30,000-$60,000 (a small house, two top tier tickets for a World Cruise, a luxury vehicle).... It's only caveat is its statue of limitations: like an hour glass glued to the table, it starts over for no one---only grows ever closer to running out. I'm almost 23 years old. According to most universities, I have three years left on my bachelor's degree. And I'm not intentionally having kids or moving on with my life until I get it.

So if you ask me, we need to get stationed in Florida.

Jacksonville was available the month before. We missed it by a few days, but had complete confidence the opportunity would circle around again.

I was about to find out if we were right.

"Our options are Texas, Maryland, or New Orleans."

My sleepy little heart sank.
For the first, I'd rather have my fingernails removed. The second, I'll take walking into oncoming traffic. The last? Several quick, simultaneous bullets to the head would be much appreciated. Surely only God could construct such a perfect list of the last three places on the face of the earth we would choose to go.

I spent the rest of the day nursing a throbbing pain behind my left eye. Ya know, the one I get when we're camping on the beach of an uncertainty which threatens to make indelible marks on our lives.

Roberto is pulling every string he can for other options and/or an extension of time. But oh how I detest this helpless unknowing. And yet, I'm not the distraught mess I probably should be. The thing is, we'd be far better off getting stationed in New Orleans than we would in Jacksonville if New Orleans is God's will.

He withholds no good things from us (Psalm 84:11). 

His plan is so much better than anything a short-sighted, 5'7" 22-year-old can tell. He's got boxed seating while we're sitting at the baseline. I'd be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I fought for the best plan only as far as I can see. I know these things. I'm not saying it's an easy pill to swallow. But it's one that brings a peace which passes all understanding.

Worth recounting

I've decided to start blogging more!! I love writing and being able to reminisce. And since I have the memory of a goldfish, I really should have been doing this all along. Some days I won't have much to say, but some days will be worth recounting.

Like yesterday.

Roberto had six consecutive days of 12 hour shifts---which meant if he wasn't running miles or working under the sun, he was dead to the world at home. Finally Monday rolled around and we got to spend the whole day together. Sunday night we fell asleep on a tacky horror movie about a bear that attacks a minivan stranded in the mountains (my pick). I woke up early the next morning to get ready and make our breakfast. We headed to Dallas to buy a gun, which we've been meaning to do and of course which Roberto was very happy about. On the way there we stopped at the Dallas Farmer's Market.

It looked like a cute little must-see online. But now that I'm thinking about it, I realize I must have gotten it confused with something else somewhere far away because there wasn't much that was cute or must-see about it. We had a good time strolling up and down under the empty shaded rows of vendors, though. Stand after stand of farmers with loads of fresh fruit and vegetables, which they would desperately offer as samples. I feel bad for them and in fact I'm still wondering how they make a living. I think me and Roberto were the only customers there, and we weren't even there to buy! I couldn't bring myself to try anything they peeled and offered with their rough and dirty extended hands, or buy their pesticide-ridden (none of it was organic) goods, in bulk at that. (Generally I'm a quantity-over-quality kind of gal... except when it comes to my produce.) But oh, poor lil farm-farms. It made me and Roberto reminisce about Paris, and daydream about someday living in a place where food wasn't all about qauntity quantity quantity, people value fresh produce enough to shop for it on a daily basis, and there isn't a WalMart to be found. Sadly, I can't even say if there is such a place in this country. I wanted to buy something before we left though, so I picked out a little bushel of asparagus for $2.

The gun shop was SO BORING. Like, I was looking for a loaded one. I'm pretty sure we were there for eighteen hours. I stood next to Roberto for awhile as he went back and forth over whether he should get an ugly black glock or an ugly black glock. Eventually I collapsed on a grungy couch there that some bachelor must have donated. Which, I might add, was every bit as comfortable as it was an eye-sore. I have since decided that bachelor couches are where it's at.

After that, we raced faster than famished bunnies to the closest Panera Bread. Panera Bread is a mutual fave for us. We allowed ourselves to feel guilty for not branching out with restaurants for the length of time it took to park, then indulged in the incomparable goodness. I got the Mediterranean veggie sandwich + summer corn chowder and I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT IT.

Later that evening we went to the bookstore to pick out one we could read together. We would both like to work on our observational skills and becoming more aware of our surroundings, so we thought we could grab two copies of something to that effect in self-improvement. (Don't hate; self-improvement mumbo-jumbo is my fave.)

We scanned the shelves until our necks were sore. There were probably 400 books in the self-improvement section alone, 392 of which we enthusiastically stated we would read. In the end we found our own separate selections, which of course had nothing to do with what we started out looking for. After flipping through a few bogus books (is it me or are there a lot of those to be found?), I settled on one called The Last Lecture. Like most books I read, it kinda caught my attention because it had a cute cover (hey, I'm honest), but it was actually right up my alley.

It's about a professor from Carnegie Mellon who was commissioned to give the last lecture of his career---the subject of which was whatever he found most personally or professionally profound---all just before he found out he had two months to live. I'm still in the very first chapter, but the writing is good and obviously it's thought-provoking. It's hard to believe that with such meaningful books collecting dust at our fingertips, the storefront windows were still plastered with advertisments for books like "THE DIARY OF A GREEK DEMI-GOD". Ha. Ha ha..

We left the bookstore, Roberto complaining about how he was only going to get four hours of sleep. Yet as soon as we got home, he showed me everything there is to know about how to shoot a gun... Gotta love him.:)

Compassion... or selfish stupidity?

I once heard someone say that people who don't have children know best how to raise them. Of course, this was sarcasm. But I agreed. Because let's be fair: how can anyone justify telling other adults what to do while they can only empathize? 

The more we grow and the more life experience we accrue, the more we're able to differentiate the truth from the lies; the everlasting from the evanescent; and hopefully, the juxtaposition between the standards we should be setting for ourselves versus the ones society has told us are acceptable. I pride myself on my ability to be an objective and overall empathetic person, but I can't help but realize we're becoming way too tolerant. 

Where am I going with this, you ask? Let's just say that after spending considerable time among young children and their parents, I've decided to cut the latter a lot less slack. 

As a married adult, the thought of someday having kids crosses my mind... oh, about every time I see one. Never so much "eeeee I want one!" (ha. ha.), but rather mere observation of subtleties (and  not-so-subtleties) in child-parent interaction, which provoke speculation ("If that were my child, they would NEVER...") and empathization ("I wonder if that would be me"). These thoughts sometimes manifest into conversations with Roberto about how we believe children should be raised, but more often than not they're dismissed with a Well, I can't honestly know until I find out mentality. Never did I possess the gall, motivation or certainty to say I can't wait to have kids JUST SO I CAN SHOW THE WORLD how raising them should be done.

Until recently. 

I was working with five-year-olds when a parent who was running late caught up with us on our way in from the playground. "Here's your group, Johnny. Daddy will see you later!" But Johnny wouldn't let go. 

Now, this occurred every week. From what I understand, this is to be expected from a four year old during his first few days at preschool. But this dude was going on SIX. It was also clear to me from the otherwise patient dad's lack of tolerance for the situation that this little problem was not legitimate, but rather an ongoing misbehavior. Finally the dad managed to slip away, but the biggest problem remained: How the heck am I going to get this stubborn child down two halls to the classroom?

Johnny had hurled his body onto the floor and curled up like a snail in protest. In the classroom I'd spend a minute encouraging him to participate and try to make him feel welcome, and then after that failed I would leave him alone, figuring that excessive attention would only reward undesirable behavior. But in the middle of the hallway? This was a different ballgame.

"I'm going to count to five, and then I'm going to have to give you a timeout later if you're not walking back to the classroom with me."

Here was my frustration: If the only person who had the power to effectively enforce the discipline that is required for an obedient child would do so, I wouldn't have felt like a fool with my hands tied behind my back. But, that person was strutting carefree down the hall towards the parking lot. Sure, it inconveniences him for a few seconds every morning, but only before he drops it all in someone else's lap. You see, the tolls of Easy Street always start out small and far between before ending in a price much higher than the short-sighted payees ever imagined.

"1... 2... 3... 4... 5..."

Great. Now we really weren't going anywhere. I had no idea if I had the strength to throw however much a chubby five-year-old weighed over my shoulder, but I guessed I was about to find out. When all of the sudden---

 "Johnny?!?!?! WHAT'S WRONG."

The director had seen a distraught child and, throwing all discretion to the wind (and probably sensing the need to get him out of the hallway), rushed over with a lollipop. 

A LOLLIPOP.

I just promised a tantruming child a time out, and you're applauding him with sugar. I'm kinda glad his dad doesn't invest in the whole discipline thing, because that would have made what you just did the living definition of counter productivity.

Johnny's “tears” suddenly ceased. A grin spread across his face, his eyes brightened and his worries were far and away. I got my way AND a lollipop? This. is. epic. 

Until the lollipop was gone. Then it was square one all over again. Who saw THAT one coming?

By this time, a second adult made her way over to the scene. Bargaining with a five-year-old didn't work? WHAT?! What if I promised you to be the teacher's helper at story-time? That'll get this problem off all of our backs. Yes, I'll be giving the highest possible reward to the most misbehaved child and yes, it'll confuse the crap out of you and your little peers and negate any ground their parents may have gained in attempts to teach them the concept of consequences. But HEY, it's a temporary fix to a long-term problem. And if I say "awww" at least three times, that converts my laziness to maternal compassion! Yep, that’s it. COMPASSION.

The problem that I have with that is that compassion is a by-product of love. The problem with that is that love is selfless. Selflessness exhibits servanthood, which is the opposite of laziness. Which is all adults are being by not disciplining children when necessary.

Failing to discipline your child is selfish and unloving.

“Well, I wouldn’t reward a tantrum with a lollipop!” you say. You're exercising common sense, and that's great! But have you taught them to respect adults enough to not interrupt them when they’re talking? Do your children act like they’re in a restaurant when they’re in a restaurant (a place where grown adults who are to be respected have paid to be), or do they act like they’re on a playground no matter where they go? Do you follow through with threats, or is your child constantly calling your bluff?

And then there’s the excuses.

“We’ve come to realize that he’s just going to be like that.” Lady, your kid is a pain in the you-know-what and no one wants to be around him. Let’s pretend for a second that children are not the wet clay just waiting to be shaped and molded that they are. He popped right out with his choice of career, pet peeves, and the social security number of his future spouse printed on his forehead. You’re STILL doing him and the world a huge disservice by pulling the “that’s just how he is” card. Cause he’s FIVE. The ONLY thing he is is potential. That’s got to be one of the saddest excuses I’ve ever heard. Sorry, but we are SO far gone from just two generations ago that sugar-coating things is not going to bring anyone back.

If you are going to be a selfish and lazy parent, rock it out! Stop showing up to your daycare or Sunday school making authoritative threats to your child loud and clear when you think other adults are listening, because judging by the way your child acts, there’s no way in hades that anyone is going to believe you bother with that crap at home. So please, for your own sake, stop embarrassing yourself and drop the facade.

All parents love and make sacrifices for their kids, so my goal isn't to make anyone feel bad. But in a society where spanking is considered child abuse, we've lost sight of what it means to hold our children accountable. Which is sad, because they'll never hold themselves accountable or be prepared by any measure for the real world if we don't exercise tough love now.
Don't reward bad behavior. Punish your child when necessary. And if you threaten to do something? You're a joke if you don't follow through. Simple stuff, right?

If you just read all that, I'm impressed. If you have a blog I'd love to follow you! And as always, comments are appreciated.:)