In preparing for meeting up with Ryan next Monday to start our CO vacation together where we’ll most likely be hiking 6-7 days in the Weminuche Wilderness I’ve been trying some cooking of tasty treats.  Qualities required are that they hold up for a week without spoiling, are tasty, portable and nutritious.

One such experiment was close to those qualities and maybe good for a shorter trip so I may make some anyway but keep them for the beginning.  They come from a recipe that seems to be making circles in the internet with a lot of people adding their 2-pinches-of-a-tweak to spice it up and make it their own.  The recipe I used came from here.  Hulk muffins….delicous!

Her dreamy pictures of green muffins came out much better than mine so I’ll just give you this little piece of eye candy…muffins in process…

Next on the Tour Du Verde, I was the lucky recipient of two free tickets to the last pre-season Packer’s game.

As Ryan is out of town I took a good friend of ours, Alicia.  They were out door club seats and it was a super fun experience.  Not that I have any other NFL experiences to compare it to but Packer fans are fabulous!  As were Alicia and I…

Not entirely surprisingly, about 1/3 of the folks left while 15 minutes still ticked away on the clock and they missed out because in the last 5 minutes of the game that is where the most exciting action occurred.  A real battle for the field and for the win.  GB won, of course.

Charlie and Dave are coming up in December to enjoy an in-season game with Ryan and me.  It’ll be interesting to not only experience the cold but being in the “bleachers”. Who knew it would only take me 30 years to become an American Football fan?

In case you weren’t aware, I’ve spent the better portion of the last year preparing to apply to graduate programs…specifically CRNA programs.  CRNAs are nurse anesthetists and if I get into a program it means another 2.5 years of school.  Slightly frightening.  They are also terribly competitive to get into.

But there is some humor in the whole drawn out process!  Not only did I take a series of chemistry courses…on line…with a virtual lab… but I earned a couple of certifications and took…dum, dum, dum, dum…the dreaded GRE.  The format of the whole test changed quite dramatically on August 1st which is why, in part I took it in July.  I wanted to pound that pesky checkbox out before it went all rogue.  I’m glad I did.  Not only because the test is supposed to be “so much harder” but I’m thinking a lot of arcane vocabulary I shoved into my brain can be applicable to everyday life and J. K. Rowlings proved this to me.

Prime example, the word ‘probity’.  Just sounding it out you’d probably associate it with an inquisition, a probe, ‘feeling something out’ but in actuality it is a noun that means something more along the lines of “adherence to the highest moral standards” or “uprightness”.  Apparently, according to the internet, it is derived from Latin for “honest”.  I remember it from JKR’s 7th novel, “the probity probe”, or a secrecy sensor. Which really made that word stick in my mind.

Lo-and-behold the word probity made a grand appearance on my exam AND as the correct answer to select.  (At least I think it was the correct answer…it was the only one that made sense.)

So hey, yeah!  Rock that out!  This little tirade goes to show a couple of points, 1. YA literature can be “smart” reading 2. a good vocab makes texts so much richer, 3. never let a good word or opportunity for alliteration die and 4.  I may have been able to avoid most of this if I had just studied Latin in high school like my brother did instead of Spanish.

I leave for SLC in 8 days!  Yikes, better make sure I have all the stuff I need. Which is what I’ll be doing with the rest of my Saturday.  Enjoy yours!

So here’s his newest addition to the eardrums, Revival.

Perhaps it is because I know him and his wife and we’ve had many a discussion about lifestyle choices that have influenced me but when I listen to his music I get filled with a nostalgia for hiking in the woods.  In my mind I see a mist over the ground and there is evidence of wildlife in the corners of my eyes but always quicker to disappear than how quickly I can turn my head. There’s contemplation in the rhythmic cadence of one foot in front of the other.

In a different beat I give you two examples from the British musician Ben Howard accompanied with the appropriate videos.  The first is from a biking related video, Industrial Revolutions starring Danny MacAskill who has done numerous videos and each is quite the mind flip.  Some people are more home on their feet than on anything else, DM is more at home on a bike than on his feet as you will see in this video.

You couldn’t even buy Ben Howard music in the US until our anniversary this year.  Currently there is one album with 4 songs on iTunes if you so desire, else YouTube is a wealth of additionals.

And last but certainly not least, the other video I’d like to share by Ben Howard has an unexpected twist in the middle.  I liked the song before I heard the video for its positive productive tone but after the video I love it even more.  Hope you enjoy it too and have a melodious day.

We’ve been reading a couple  of books to prep for our backpacking trip this year.  One of which is Ultralight Backpacking.  The cover may look goofy, but it is full of all sorts of food for thought.  One such morsel may not be much of a weight saver but “sure is fun” and what’s a day without a little fun?

Toothpaste dots: little dehydrated gummy bits of toothpaste.

First you get a tube of toothpaste that isn’t a gel.

And you dehydrate it or if you live in a properly arid area apparently you can just put them on a plate and let them desiccate all on their ownsome.  As this was unfamiliar territory I think I let the initial dehydration go a bit long.  The dots will feel tacky until the very last step so although it took a total of four days for me I probably really only needed two.

Next step, you cut the snakes of toothpaste into chewable segments and dehydrate them a little longer.

I was a little generous on the size of the dots and next time will cut a more pea-sized proportion.

The last step is just to count out how many you need, bag them up and put in a teaspoon or less of baking soda which keeps them from sticking together.

We both tried them yesterday.  For use you just pop one into your mouth, chew the heck out of it and then brush your teeth.  It really is like chewing on Dots.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  The ones that get stuck in the crevices of your teeth.  Added bonus, your mouth salivates all crazy-like to the point that you start to wonder if you are in fact a rabid dog.  Even at the end of it you may/may not have little bits of toothpaste stuck to your teeth.  I think that smaller dots would fix that problem and maybe a longer chew time on the front end could prevent the possible need for a toothpick for your toothpaste.

You can’t wait to try this yourself, can you?

Your house will smell like tooth paste.

You will laugh hysterically as you try not to drool all over your own chin.  Decorum I’m sure will be easier to maintain with a little practice.

Ryan’s still asleep, else he’d be the first with whom I’d share this information.  He was the first to spot the beginnings of the color change yesterday, it was just a little halo of yellow around the stem and then this morning ka-zam: “I’m a yellow habanero!”  This little guy was our very first pepper to come out of the flowers and hiding.  If it took him this long to turn yellow I wonder how much longer till he turns orange and edible?

Ryan’s hoping to make some really good salsa (To be shared with the grand dame of the plant shop? Only if we don’t eat it all first.  We have to prove our experiment to her somehow and fittingly.)

-Our jalapeno plant has become the mass producer with around 7 delightful peppers popping.

-The sweet red had to be staked…ie I tied a string around the drooping branch and then to the blinds that are in the perpetual up position for the duration.

-The serrano is the tallest, curling itself up by the ceiling like an NBA player entering a hobbit’s house.

And that’s our plant log for now.  Absolutely riveting stuff for you, I know!

Tonight is a free play, Minnesota Moon, by the theatre troupe Youngbloods.  If it is even a dash as fun as the last production we went and saw I think we are in for a really good time.

Bucking up and moving on, there has been some quick crafting and some slogging crafting going on around these parts.  Part one is a gift for friends that have moved to New Mexico.  They both graduated from med school this year past and are starting the brutal years of residency.  Wanting to commemorate the beginning of that journey, the fact that they are in a new house (and who doesn’t need a house warming gift) and that they are going to get married this year it seemed that something was in order.  I wanted gift them something that they’d use but make it personal. Being that they both love a good meal, the environment and (found out after the fact a certain bright shade of blue), embroidered napkins were shipped.

Don’t you just love moody shots of embroidery? The stitch work may not be that straight but the symbolism is rampant and slightly personal so I won’t share it here.  The short and obvious bit is the k2k (for Karen and Kate together).

Onto the slogging on the kneedles, next time I say I’m going to knit a linen dishtowel on size 3 kneedles feel free to take said kneedles and poke me in the eye.

Unbeknownst to me, I may be in a bit of a love with a certain bright shade of blue myself.  This project is good therapy knitting because it a simple design (seed stitch border) and the only other thing I need to pay attention to is when the yarn runs out.  Knitting with linen is harsh on the hands as the yarn is quite scratchy.  Also, it doesn’t slide past the kneedles but at the same time it does like to slide off my finger, making tension holding difficult.  Theoretically it should be super absorbant and soft after a couple of washes, fingers crossed it serves its household function well.  It is just plain nice to have a house of things handmade, functional and pretty.  Not that my house is full of said things but I’m working on it.

And finally, great news on the experiment front….ALL four plants now have peppers.  It has been a giddy few days for us. We think that we can officially label each plant by their proper name and now are just waiting and wondering when we can harvest.  I see a future of mouth burning dishes coming.  If anyone has a good recipe for habaneros or jalapenos, shoot them my way, please and thank you.

I honestly find the flowers of the pepper plants equally amazing to watch bloom.  Each plant has similarities: 5 petals, white, facing downward; but with differences too: petals cup downward, flatten straight out, hyperextend themselves, bloom in clusters or solitary.

And we’ve since learned that cross pollination affects the seeds of the plants, not the fruit of the parental generation.  If we label this experiment a success I see a possible future experimentation.  Seed harvesting anyone?

Trying to minimize the variables I went to my store of pre-made cookie dough balls in the freezer.  (Side bar, although I think I’ve said this before: Yes, I make cookie dough and freeze most of it.  It is a pretty nice treat to fresh bake cookies through out the month and is helpful at maintaining moderation.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the quantity decreases without me baking leading me to conclude that either Ryan has taken up the Dan S. mantra, “She may freeze the cookie dough, but it won’t keep me out of it.” or we have a cookie theif in the home.)

I baked four cookies on an ungreased, unlined baking sheet for a prescribed time.  Let the baking sheet cool and then baked four more cookies on a sheet lined with parchment paper.  See the results yourself:

The four on the left are parchment paper cookies.  They have spread out more and although the picture doesn’t do it justice, they came out more golden.  Additionally:

(Again, parchment on the left.)  The parchment cookies were flatter.  Both sets were frozen from the start, no change was made to the oven temperature, they were both cooked the same amount of time, and neither set stuck to anything.

Letting them cool to room temperature before eating we found the taste test between them to be slightly different.  The parchment cookies came out more cake-like and just this side of better textured.  Worth the extra cost, resources and effort?  Maybe but maybe not.  Preferable, yes, but let’s face it, a good cookie is a good cookie and who the heck is going say no to a cookie?

My guess is that the parchment paper helps distribute heat in the sense that air sheets allow for better flow underneath the cookies.  The parchment cookies were slightly less dark on the undersides. And, I’m thinking they actually absorb some of the extra grease in these ever-so-tasty-but-ever-so-buttery cookies.

Anyone else out there have thoughts on this?

That was in the early stages, the fruit is now nearly 2 inches long and as wide.  It also has about 4 siblings.  We sincerely thought this would be the plant least likely to make it because it requires a lot to grow large fruit. We consulted with our green thumb friends and they thought that too.  I’m heading to the infamous store of wizened skeptical gardener for some fertilizer for the plants.  We’ll see what her reaction is to our experiment.  Joyful, I’m sure.

But, have we really reached success?  Or do we need to be eating our vegetables before we put a stamp of approval to this endeavor?

And like any parent I have oodles of photos of the little buds growing in varying light levels but we’ll spare you.  If you feel like you are missing out, don’t worry, I’m contemplating a whole photo book, “Our first plant” that I’ll be happy to share.

This is how our living room looks most days:

The mastermind is at work.  He’s heading to a NOLS course in September and I’ll be meeting up with him afterwards.  We are simultaneously planning a 5-6 day backpacking trip in CO with a back up plan for Canyonlands in UT if the weather is too cold.  It takes a lot of plotting that I tell Ryan is perfect future job preparation.  Classic to our team we have contingencies upon contingencies for whatever shenanigans might throw wrenches our way.  Snow early?–UT.  Ryan needs civilization after 17 days on trail?–Albuquerque!

And fingers crossed, we’ll climb Devil’s Tower this time around too.

Yes, yes, YES! We have something that resembles a pepper! Ryan thinks it looks like a jalepeno but it could still be a serrano. It is one little pepper but we are documenting it’s existence. Even if it is the only pepper we get, we can still call this experiment a success. Right?

I mean, according to the kind and exasperated experience gardener, growing peppers indoors isn’t like growing basil:

Why yes, our basil seems to be doing quite well too, thank you.

To celebrate our success with the pepper that isn’t ready to pluck and eat I chose to bake cup cakes.

Sweet sweet success. Protected under a glass bowl because all the other storage containers were in use to take the extras into work. Why to work? Well, while there is a need to celebrate we don’t need to gorge on cake. Little tastes are good. (You may also be asking where my lovely glass cake stand is as this would be a perfect opportunity to use it, but as with most answers to that question, it is in Annie’s basement.)

Cheers to experiments, endeavors and adventures. Hope you are surviving the heat wave where’ere you may be.

So, crawling back out from the rock that was a combo of chemistry, ATNC (advanced trauma nursing course) and the ever present “yob” here’s a lot of updating in no particular order.

ONE: I cut my hair

For someone who has to make a lot of quick decisions at work it takes me forever to make decisions on the home front.

We’ve lived northbound for >2 years and in all that time I’ve been talking a big talk about chopping off my golden locks.  They’ve remained firmly rooted mainly because I had not yet found someone I’d trust with the process.  I sincerely prefer my hair long but have felt that I really should donate some of that hair.  I love my hair long.  But it was beginning to feel a twinch-bit selfish to not share such a renewable resource.

Approximately 9 1/2 inches later we are left with:

TWO: VISTORS!!!

We’ve had quite the plethora of visitors.  Friends from down south have been marching through and I don’t know what we did to be honored with such great people who are willing to call us friends but man am I glad we did it.  It’s a hike to get out here, we understand and appreciate that fact.  So after my folks, and the lovely Karen, we had the dynamic duo of jb and JB and then the bionic Paul and Kate.

My camera went on classic “camnesia” with the jb/JB visit but we ate lots of good food and found great new music.  Ryan was cruisin’ for something to do on a Sunday night and went to the AV club site of our hometown to find a band playing that none of us knew.  We checked out some of their online stuff and jb declared, “We shall be going.”  Granted, it ended up being on the not as nice side of town and the crowd was only 20 strong but Elephant Revival was AMAZING!  If you can see them live, GO DO IT!  You won’t regret it.  They are one of those bands that perform live so amazingly.

I guess I do have one photo from jb/JB visit sent to me from the phone of said jb^2, so please excuse the pixelated quality and as it was late at night, the moody lighting.

Nice kitty, nice kitty.  We be sultry sirens, don’tcha think?

Paul, Kate, Ryan and I hiked in 30-50mph winds to catch a ball game.

And the home team won!  Obviously Paul and Kate are our good luck charms so really guys, y’gotta come back.  My logic is irrefutable (especially if I put my fingers in my ears and shout, “nananannana”, to any counter argument).

They got something out of it too.  Kate received not-so-high-quality but definitely great scenery instruction in the fine madness that is knitting.  Paul, if you find that all your book shelf space is overtaken with a yarn stash…it is not my fault.

And you may eventually find yourself saying these words, “Do we really need ANOTHER washrag?” To which the honest answer is, “Yes, you can never have enough washrags.”  But Ryan’s answer may be, “No for the love of all things sane in the universe, stop the madness.  We just don’t have that many dishes that need washing!”

THREE: Biking to the ends of the Earth

We’ve kicked our bikes around town.  We had some really great weather a few weeks back and explored until the land ran into the lake.

I think that maybe if we had fatter tires would could have gone all the way to the opening in the bay. But as it was we kept our feet and wheels on dry land.

This summer is proving to be a wet one. We haven’t gotten out to the trails much but have been trying to keep to the road. When we do get to the trails I’m afraid of what swarms of mosquitos may be awaiting us.  We’ll be sure to have firm tires this time around….or full body mosquito netting.

FOUR: Babypalooza + a graduation

We did a quick visit through the South.  Good friends in KY and OH had new babies within 3 weeks of each other.  Originally we had planned on a great trip to Devil’s Tower/Badlands/Mt. Rushmore, but there are somethings you just can’t miss out on.  Hopefully those amazing landscapes of wilderness exploration will still be there when we next can enjoy them.

I wish I had pictures of the little babies, but as it turns out, my hands stayed pretty full with said babies and few pictures were taken.  It is amazing the difference a bit of time makes and doesn’t make.  Kona who was three days old was bigger than Sofia who was three weeks old and don’t even let me get started on Rhetter-man who is a whopping seven months old but about as big as three year old brother.

Annie, the smart woman that she is, put Ryan straight to work to keep the men out of our hair so we could gab and gossip and what not.  Seeing that Annie and Craig have been storing a lot of our stuff in their basement for nearly three years…I think we can be put to good use.  We…er, Ryan, er….we, yes I think I did something worthwhile there too.  Just give me a moment to think on it.

Ryan can now add taking down and putting up a new garage door to his handyman resume.  The instructions for installation were priceless.  Included in their lines of wisdom were something to the effect of “Once you start putting the garage door together, if the garage door is the only exit, make sure you have everything you are going to need for the 8 hours it takes to install.”

The only kiddo picture I did get was of the older ones playing in the front yard.  You can see the neighbor girl running to join in from across the street.  There is such a care-free joy in child’s play.  Try to remember that enthusiasm and “in the moment” joy next time you are up to some shenanigans.

That joy in the moment was certainly shared when we surprised Karen and Kate at their med school graduation.  They have since moved west to start their first year of residency.  To say there were tears of shock, sadness and joy all rolled into one evening would be an understatement.  Kate’s parents kindly invited us party crashers to a very nice dinner at a very nice French restaurant in Dayton, OH.  Kate’s stepdad enjoys a good bottle of wine.  Meaning that I got to enjoy several different good bottles of wine.  Over top of all that though was the joy of sharing such a moment culminating the accomplishment that is the torture of med school with two people we love but never get to see often enough.  My heart is in my throat for the different role they will be taking on this year, their new responsibilities and the weight those new responsibilities can put on the mind and soul.  I know that if I were a patient out there, I would not hesitate to put my care in their hands knowing that they would utilize all their own resources to see that the best possible outcomes were achieved.  Good luck you two.  I’m glad you have each other to rely upon through this year.  We are just a phone call or keyboard clack away, if you need us.

FIVE: An experiment in greenery

We are lucky to have a very nice farmer’s market every Saturday a five minute walk down the road.  One sunny Saturday morning we went for a stroll and came home with four pepper plants.  Sadly we didn’t think to mark them immediately upon return to our house so they are currently unidentifiable without some sleuthing of the leaf morphology kind.

As they came home in little grown-from-seed containers and I had to go to work, Ryan was left with task of going to the nearest supply store for pots and soil.  Unsure of what size pot to get he asked the friendly 80-year-old lady for some advice.  She was quite shocked to hear that we were trying to grow fruiting plants INDOORS!  They require quite a lot of SUNLIGHT! It isn’t like trying to grow HERBS, don’t we know.?! (Our basil is doing quite well, thank you very much, and the pesto from it has been quite tasty.)

So, unable to persuade Ryan to break the lock to the roof and grow our plants up there, she sighed and said, “Well, we’ll just call this an experiment.”

This is a close up of the progress for the plant second from the left:

And here is one from the plant on the right:

Maybe we’ll get flowers and if we are lucky enough to get flowers maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get fruit.

They are self pollinating but their proximity might make them cross pollinate.  It’ll be interesting to see how a habanero, jalepeno, serrano and sweet red, come out and play nice.

PHEW.  That’s all for now.  Are you still reading?  If so, kudos to you!  Now that summer is no longer hiding behind the corner we can eagerly say, enjoy summer!