Over Christmas, I had the joy of cooking with my parents for our Christmas celebration with my mom's side of the family. My mom was head chef, my dad was sous chef, and I was the assistant to the sous chef and scribe of the Sous Chef's Manual. This manual was created with great laughter and love and of course, my dad and I's shared sense of humor. This humor can, at times, drive my mom a little batty, and for very good reason, as our jokes are typically less than funny and always punny. So without further adieu from the First in Class from Sous Chef School of Eldorado Township A Sous Chef's Manual to Live By.

Be so careful.Provide the chef with reassurance and support.Always have a big knife.Comedic relief is invaluable.Make loud noises when doing physical labor tasks of chopping or cutting to let the chef know you are hard at work. If the chef does not see you, you can lick the spatula and use it again. For an aromatic kitchen, musical fruit is not allowed.Very important: know the difference between tbsp and tsp. Powdered sugar can be used as a substitute for baking powder if no one sees you. Daisies do not equal flour. Cutting in butter does not involve a knife.Set out ingredients and measuring implements to be right ready for the chef. Know the difference between aus jus and juice.A good sous chef must not add salt to his cured, smoked ham. Remember to say “two for his heels” especially when discussing bread.Be flexible and adapt timelines according to cooking times.Wisely determine where to borrow missing ingredients. Use the neighbor’s oven when the chef’s is too small."A good sous chef needs to have a chef keeping him in line…and that’s the truth." Says chef Pearl.Have superior math skills for scaling recipes.A sous chef must be capable of being bossed.Balk at one out of ten directions/instructions issued by the chef.Have an active audience when writing your sous chef memoirs.

> Here is a beautiful tribute by the sun to celebrate Christmas! Merry Christmas!

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I love listening to Joshua Radin and one of his most simple songs is positively my favorite. This rendition is to say thank you to all my beautiful friends and family who helped me through my transition to school and the big city! Thank you!

A series of events and adventures led me to the decision that it would be wise to take a sabbatical this summer prior to the start of school next week. So in June, I packed my bags (and a lot of boxes) and moved most of my stuff into storage. I then stuffed the rest of my things and myself into my Elegant Driver and headed home to the farm. While I've spent a considerable amount of the past two months fluttering about camping, hiking, visiting family and friends, learning at a Summer Institute on the Resilience of Adolescence (it was fascinating, in case you were curious), I also spent a considerable amount of time on the farm.

After working in the field of public health, a field that I absolutely love, I find the one draw back is results of public health work often are measurable in the long term and are not always immediately observed. Thus, I find there is something perfectly wonderful about manual labor, as it is complete with an instant gratification of seeing a job well-done through to completion. This summer, my brother Matt married Monica, my dearest, new, sister-in-law, on the family farm. Prior to this wonderful occasion, the farm required a bit of prep work. Consistent with most large events/parties/celebrations, whether held in your office, home, garage, or shed, these events provide a very helpful impetus for cleaning up, organizing, neatening, etc.

While, I did a lot more than just work around the farm this summer, the sabbatical provided me with the opportunity to help out with a variety of projects that in some way helped the farm get ready for the big day. Likewise, these projects also are great to just have done for the whole health of the farm.

For example: weeding the wildflowers will allow them to have a better chance to lay down great roots to be able to come back and flourish next year. Helping my dad, my great uncle Ted, and Monica load over 6,000 pounds of scrap metal from the shed (the shed that was transformed into the wedding hall) allowed that much metal to be recycled and to no longer be cluttering up the machine shed. Collecting a large quantity of old rusty nails from the cattle lot cement with a magnet and pounding in sharp metal poles, will decrease the likelihood of a rusty metal injury. Shoveling gravel and rock, will mean landscaping is COMPLETE, forever (hopefully?)!

Clearly the tasks varied, but most all had a long term purpose and gave visible results of the considerable effort by my every muscle. These tasks all meant I got to spend tons of time outside and spend tons of time with my parents and family, which are fabulous things.

Now, my sabbatical is coming to a close. I've moved to the big city, am settling in, and have orientation under my belt. I still have not missed a bus yet, but I've calculated routes quite poorly tripling the time to get home and did not realize how to get out the back door of the bus and missed my stop. These bus errors helped me learn how to avoid these errors in the future, but both made me wonder if I was ridiculous to think I could take on a PhD program in nursing. However, a few more bus trips later, I'm feeling much more confident in both my bus riding skills, and my ability to begin the PhD program! I'm growing my ability to ride my bike where there is traffic. Even still, there is still much to discover and learn about living in the city, but I will always be a country girl!

My sister, Michelle, and her husband, Adam, have a beautiful and somehow wild German Short Hair puppy, about 6 months of age. Miss Lucy, the dog, is not overly well trained at this point. She knows how to sit, how to fetch, sometimes how to drop the fetched item to allow it to be thrown again, and at times, comes when she is called. She has more energy than she knows what to do with and loves to swim, chase birds, and run. As my dad says, she plays hard and then she sleeps hard.

For the last week and some days during the last month, I have had the great pleasure and torture of watching Lucy. This is quite the responsibility on the farm, as Lucy is known to find and eat most anything, like an old piece of tubing, a glass rain gauge from my mom's perennial flower bed, the bird feeder, an aluminum pie plate, my mud-garden shoes, the front door mat, the wood frame on the front door, the picnic table, wild flowers, and dead birds.

Yet, Lucy is very much attached to the people in her life. Thankfully, as Auntie M (how Michelle refers to me), Lucy knows me as a beloved friend. She greets me in the happiest 'wag the butt and tail' dance you can imagine in the mornings. And when she is lonely, she will whine and bark for attention. Once we've taken off her perimeter collar, she adventures about the farm on her own and I go to work.

This past week, I was busy weeding in our giant 16 row sweet corn patch (mind you, each row is 190 feet long). Lucy would check in on me every 15 minutes or so by tearing through the patch at breakneck speed and then slowing to a halt causing dirt to fly with her paw-brakes. Then, she became a lap dog, as she sat her 50 pound-self on my lap, while dripping wet from a swim in the creek. I'd give her some good scratches and push her off my lap getting back to my delightful task of weeding. Still unsatisfied, Lucy then would sit beside me, begging for attention. At times she would dig holes in the dirt, bite off and chew on what was a nicely growing sweet corn stalk, or steam roll whole sections of corn stalks--green snapping them in the process. Then losing focus, she'd sprint away on another adventure. When I would even think about calling her back to the patch to make sure she wasn't getting into trouble or going up on the road, by which the occasional vehicle zooms, she would appear panting and ready for more attention.

Lucy caused me to have to chase her down while it was 100 degrees outside, when my dad's crop consultant drove into the yard, as she was chasing the truck and attempting to jump up on it. Quite unfortunately, this required me to greet this man while I was sweaty and gross, wearing a nasty old sports bra and an old pair of gym shorts. Lucy required me to sneak out the back door of the garage with my bike to prevent her from tagging along on my longer trips in the mornings. Lucy has even puked a giant pile while sitting on my lap.

Still, I can't help but love the puppy -- she's too sweet!

All the miles.

All the blisters.

All the less than perfect weather. Snow. Wind. Rain. Cold. Hot.

All the less than perfect runs.

All the sore muscles and the sore knee during training.

All the times miles seemed to be too long.

All the times I could have given up.

All the hills.

All the gnats I ended up eating.

All the sunshine.

All the great runs.

All the beautiful days.

All the times when miles flew by.

All the times I went running, despite inclement weather, because I had a goal to reach.

The race was a celebration of perseverance, commitment, and reaching goals.

Back in February, I had started running again, here and there, as my friend Ann from work convinced me it was not too cold to run, if one was dressed properly. Shortly thereafter, I was talking with my brother Matt on the phone, and he asked if I was going to register to run Grandma's Half. I had thought about it before he had mentioned it but hadn't made any decisions; I had come to the conclusion, maybe I'd try to run a 10k. But with his encouragement, I decided to put my name in the lottery. And, I won the lottery and training began.

As my brother Matt and I were busing out to the start line, I felt like 13.1 miles seemed like a really long distance. Matt filled me in on the "ins and outs of races," as I had never ran a race before that day, not even a 5k. While Matt ran the race much faster than I, we had a good time chilling together before the race. Literally, we were "chilling," as the 50 degree weather, wind, and rain made for a balmy start. We were packed in like penguins with all the other thousands of runners trying to stay warm; steam was rolling off the crowd. My cold allergy did not flare up that morning, for which I'm grateful, and once we got running, the temp was just fine.

By mile nine, I was beginning to wonder why people run 1/2 marathons, as I couldn't believe I still had 4.1 miles to go; my energy was fine, and I knew I could continue, but morale was a bit low at that moment. Thankfully, it was shortly-there-after, my friend, Emily, was at the top of Lemon Drop Hill, and her encouragement gave me an energy boost. In my last mile, I kicked it up a notch; I still felt pretty good. As an additional boost, my parents were cheering for me, as I rounded my final corner. Upon reaching this point, I was actually feeling quite emotional, as I was drawing so close to my goal of completion!! I'm proud to say that all my long days of training paid off, as I very happily crossed the finish line in Duluth, in 2:16:21.

Matt met me at the finish line, we found the parents, and we all walked two miles back to Matt and Monica's place. On our way there, we got to see the elite marathoners sprint by us, which was pretty cool, considering they ran 26.2 miles in literally minutes more than I ran 1/2 their distance! It was GREAT day and a good reminder that hard work pays off.

And, I actually love running more now, even more than I did before the race.

Sunshine. Blue skies. Indigo buntings. Gold finches. Cardinals. A good 8 mile run. Bread rising. Hummus. Church. Bare feet. Coffee on the front step. Tulips. A flowered lawn. What more could a girl ask for?

After two springs of watching the daffodils come up without any blooms, this year they are shining in all their glory. This was a great day!

3 good friends + 1 kitchen = crackers

I learned at an early age that time in the kitchen is priceless. Lo and behold fire cracker jokes circulated freely as we mixed up and rolled our crackers to perfection. Such examples include: why did cyclops have to give up his teaching job? Because he only had one pupil. Groan.

Really, we mostly discussed world events, politics, life updates, where our food comes from, composting and silly things. The outcome: quality time with friends, home baked goodness to rival any cracker from a box, and a goal from my to do list checked off!!!

When making ricotta cheese, naturally the next step is to figure out which glorious way to consume it.

Not that plain ricotta isn't wonderful - look at how beautiful this was!

With lasagna was on my mind, I decided to be extreme and make the noodles and the sauce too. Baking it together made for a scrumptious feast.

In the truly fabulous book, Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, she talked eloquently about their local organic food experience for one year. My favorite chapter, Zucchini Larceny, literally had me laughing so hard that I cried. Barbara also talked about making cheese and how easy it was to make fresh mozzarella.

So my friend Jenny and I decided we too should make cheese and for Christmas (she's probably one of the most thoughtful gift givers I know) she got me a cheese-making kit.

So around New Years, for lack of time during my visit in mid-December, we took a try at making cheese, which of course, spurred clever puns like "say cheese!" and "whey cool!" Ha.

To start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start (and yes, we sung that), we had to heat the milk and citric acid. We could hardly wait to reach the right temperature. Upon reaching that temp, we followed the directions, added the rennet and let it sit. At this point, I was certain we were going to have a failure. Closely observing the pot of milk for the appropriate length of time I was certain the milk looked exactly the same and we were going to be horribly disappointed.

To the doubter's surprise, we had formed a beautiful curd, which had to be cut into many small curds to allow more whey to start separating. In case you are curious, we absolutely recited: "Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, who sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away."

Eventually, after a few more stove steps, we had to scoop the curds into a microwave dish, we prepared for the next step of the process: microwave the curds until temperature is met to stretch the cheese.

And finally the cheese was ready to stretch. Whey Awesome! After a good stretching session, the cheese's cool down was in a cold water bath.

It looked like cheese and melted like cheese, but in all honesty, it tasted a little bland and was sort of rubbery, despite following the directions very specifically. So we learned the hard way that you cannot add the salt until after you've gotten most of the whey out or you loose the salt to the whey. And for the rubbery part, this helped us to know how to time the ranges given in the recipe a bit better next time.

Our adventure was an overall success, as despite it's taste, we had made cheese and had a great time doing it.

Since then, I've made mozzarella again, knowing the above tips, and it turned out fantastically! It was so amazing. And then I tried my hand at ricotta, and it was spectacular.

Each time my yoga class ends with the word namaste, I truly feel at peace. Namaste has many variations of meaning but this is my favorite "I honor the divinity within me and honor the divinity within you." Beautiful right? Yoga always leaves my spirit renewed and feeling grateful for the family, friends, and simple joys (good conversations, the little victories, coffee, tea, being a nurse, running, cooking, turning the compost pile, gardening, spending time outside, sunshine, heaters, music, games, opportunities, challenges...) that make my life meaningful.

Tonight this yoga bliss lasted until I arrived home to find I have boxelder bugs all over my kitchen yet again! While my typical response to household bugs, is to live and let live, as long as they are not poisonous or ants (I really do not like ants), these bugs are getting into everything - my bed, my lunch, my hair, my journal, my coat, my teapot, my water glass... So this past weekend, I decided their lifestyle in my home must change for the dead, as I am unable to find and block their entry point. You'd think that they would be boxyounger bugs now considering how many of their elder's I've already had to dispose! I hold daily mass funerals prior to the procession to their final resting place.

But bugs aside, from mocha chocolate muffins for my second breakfast this morning, to having good neighbors, to the burgeoning opportunities, life is wonderful these days. Two years ago at my parent's house, I was pondering why I got med sep'd from the Peace Corps. I still don't know the answer to that question, but I know that I would not be the person I am today without all of the experiences I have had collectively thus far. And this renews my spirit of gratitude and peace.

Namaste.

Well, until I find more boxelder bugs!?

The recipe very clearly stated I needed to feed the starter for at least three full days prior to making bread, which puts baking day as tomorrow. I cheated. I baked today.

I knew the strength of the starter was already pretty incredible, as it had already blew the tightly fitting lid off, multiple times. So after much scientific reasoning, I figured the worst that could happen is that it would flop, and I would try again tomorrow. Lord knows I have plenty of starter.

My recipe called for a stiff sourdough starter and I have been given and feeding a liquid sourdough starter. I had two options: turn my liquid into a stiff starter or convert my recipe to the liquid starter ratio. I chose the latter, as I really did not want to alter the beautiful starter. I spent considerable time completing the conversions. Yet, while my math skills have improved significantly since eighth grade when I struggled with math, my calculations clearly were not amazing and my bread baking took off for a sloppy start; truthfully, it was a horrifically sloppy start.

But since I have baked bread faithfully for quite some time, I did not panic, begin to sob or throw the glop away. Rather, I turned the mess into bread dough. Then, I recalculated the recipe and made the bread a second time for comparison’s sake.

Now the only problem is I cannot remember, which loaves were the sloppy mess and which ones were the refined calculations. I can assure you this fault in my memory is unimportant, as all the bread turned out beautifully.

Ok, so I recognize that some of the loaves look better than others, but who judges on appearance only?

While I’m typically a rule follower, this is the perfect example of why it is ok to break the rules once in a while! Not only is the taste incredible, I did not have to add any starter to the bucket in the fridge.

Good bye, swimming pool. Hello, bread.

Neighbors and friends, be warned, get your bread faces ready!

Tomorrow, I’m going to experiment with different flours, wheat and rye. Wish me luck.

I realized how much sourdough bread starter is like a pet.

It requires regular feeding and watering.It wakes you up the in the middle of the night for attention.It makes you feel guilty for not taking your work break to go home and check on it.It becomes conversation starter at work. (Pun intended)It reproduces faster than rabbits or mice.It basks in the warmest place in the kitchen.It creates minor paranoia from the fear of killing it off.I feel like I should give it a name…any suggestions?Thankfully, I fought the guilt and did not feel it necessary to make pancakes for a peaceful army and I did make the soup I was craving yesterday. I still couldn’t throw the remainder starter away though - the bucket in the fridge is getting fuller and fuller. What am I going to do? I'm so ready to to start baking bread! One more day.

I was recently given sourdough bread starter by an avid and expert bread baker in central Minnesota, along with recipes and tips, of which I am still extremely grateful. Happily knowing I was much closer to meeting one of my goals of making “sourdough bread,” I brought the starter home to my abode, where it dormantly (and yes, I know that dormantly is not typically used as an adverb) sat in my fridge awaiting the time when I would have a chance to revive it. The actually process is termed 'reactivation' by my recipe but ‘revive’ seemed slightly more descript.

Finally after several weeks/weekends of running around spending time with family and friends, I recognized that I was going to have the time to invest into the starter and the resulting bread. You see, after having the starter sit in my fridge for so long, it requires at least three good days of feeding (four times a day, mind you) prior to being able to be used for baking.

Day 1: After studying the directions for several minutes, I felt slightly intimidated by the process and wondered what exactly I had gotten myself into, especially when I read the warning: “but each day, before you begin, pour off all but 1 pound 2 ounces (about two cups) of starter. (If you kept doubling the amount of starter during each feeding, you’d eventually have enough starter to fill a swimming pool.” Yikes. So I followed the directions explicitly, but I was nervous that I would somehow wreck my starter and/or have a disastrous mess.

Yet, onward I continued. Brief capping of events:1) Flour, water, starter, stir, set aside. 2) 6 hours later: flour, water, starter, stir, set aside. 3) 6 hours later: flour, water, starter, stir, set aside. 4) 8 hours later: keep only two cups of starter. Repeat step one.

With the left over starter, I immediately felt utter guilt with the thought of throwing it out. So I pushed aside my dreams of soup on this bitterly cold night and made sourdough pancakes (a recipe that had been wisely given to me with the starter). The pancakes were pretty spectacular. However, I couldn’t just make a single batch of pancakes, as I had so much starter to rescue from the fate of the trash or toilet. Instead, I made about 1108 pancakes. (Well, not really, but it seemed like that many, as I was cooking them.) Then, even after making all those pancakes (which are currently living in my freezer), I still had a significant amount of starter left.

I had been warned by my mom and some friends that sourdough starter becomes a lot like “friendship bread starter,” which my dear friend Emily and I made until we were crazy, a couple years ago. At that crazy point, she and I got wise and just threw it away, but we kept our crazy. However, I was not prepared for the volume the starter. Not at all.

Yet, I could not bring myself to throw the starter away, and instead, I loaded the remaining starter into a bucket for fridge dormancy, just in case my worst fears come to light, and I need to start over. But, I’m guessing I will not need to start over, as less than 50 minutes after completing step four, the starter was so happy, it blew the lid off (behold, the power of yeast), and made me jump a square kitchen tile. Still, I just could not bring myself to throwing the other starter away.

At the rate I’m currently going, I will have a swimming pool of starter; the only thing lacking is, well, a swimming pool. Will there be another million pancakes tomorrow?

A mere fraction of my plate sized pancakes...

So I decided to have a pasta adventure. I've experimented with pasta sauces of many varieties over the years but had never yet tried my hand at making pasta. I had been encouraged by a sweet farmer's market lady to attempt the feat. I found a whole wheat recipe online, which I am always hesitant to do, as I like tried and true recipes successfully made by people I know. But most people I know do not make pasta regularly, so to the internet it was. The recipe I settled on was simple to follow and required no crazy anythings. However, most know that I full of 'crazy anythings,' so even if the recipe would have called for those, I probably would have been ok. I started off with a ball of dough that looked similar to pie crust. However, they do not roll the same whatsoever! Pasta rollers have been invented to use the mechanics of simple machines to make an ordinary and terrific strength requiring process simpler. For lack of said machine, I used brute force, my smooth inherited great-grandmother's table surface, and my grandma's rolling pin.

Then I successfully, cut the pasta into strips using my pizza cutter. A boiling time later, they were done and I added them to a delicious creamy cheese sauce with fresh basil and garlic that I likely could not ever replicate (as I used no recipe). It was mostly fantastic!

I did learn that rolling pin pasta can create some uneven noodles, which cook at very different paces. I learned this the hard way, as the noodle I tested for doneness was a thin one, and some thicker ones added an interesting chewiness to the dish. Lessons learned...

An addition to the posting below...I posted the actual song initially but only left it up for less than a day before taking it down. I simply felt like I was sharing my vulnerabilities with the world. But I have decided to post it again, as my vulnerabilities are part of what make me who I am. We'll see how long it lasts this time!

I am certainly not an amazing musician by any stretch of the imagination, nor a skilled lyricist, however, the Donnelly Threshing Bee prompted me to attempt broaden my abilities. It's taken me this long to take the time to sit down, write, compose, and post. It's not a perfect recording and there are some "whoops" moments, so forgive me for those. It is hard to listen to yourself sing, it always seems to sound not right, but it is what it is.

Somehow, posting an audio file seemed to be impossible at the moment without doing a very fancy work around. So I'm beating the system by posting the song as a video (with the visual effects only being a blank black screen). Laughter is an acceptable reaction to my ridiculous attempt at song writing. Don't worry--I won't quit my day job!

But here's where the inspiration for this ditty came from: Donnelly was my mom’s home town, similarly tiny like my home town, and is not too far from my parent’s farm. The Donnelly Threshing Bee is always the big town celebration of the year. I remember intently disliking the Threshing Bee when I was little. I did not find the old machines, tractors, or ways of life very interesting. I remember only liking to play bingo with my grandparents, and I remember the year my brother Matt bought ‘fart spray’ at one of the flea market stalls.

Now, I have a whole new appreciation for the bee – watching old time threshing of grain, pitching straw into the baler, and winnowing of wheat is fascinating. Older farmers donned their pinstriped blue and white bib overalls and their crooked hats. They proudly showed off their old time skills, which have by and large, been replaced by fully automated machines. I felt like I was witnessing a piece of history and was unsettled about the current course farms are on. It was a beautifully windy and sunny day.

After a great meal at the Konsvinger Kitchen, my parents and I were about to head home when a gentleman tapped my window. I rolled my window down, and he said, “Do you have a moment, miss?” I didn’t know him and my parents did not either. But, I responded that I did have time and he told me this story: "When I was in seventh grade, just a few years ago (his face gave away he was 75 or so), I played baseball with a team of 8th graders from north of Alberta. One evening, we were up against a team of really big 8th grade farm boys from the southern part of the county. They were the team to beat that year. We both played tight games; I was third baseman, and I did well. But they had a little 5th grade girl with fiery red hair on third base and she was good. She got me out twice, in fact. My team lost that game because of her. I never forgot that game and I never forgot that girl. When I met her a few years later, we started to date and she became my wife. We’ve been married for 52 years now and your red hair brought all of those memories flooding back, and I wanted you to know."

When a person composts, it is amazing how little garbage accumulates and how infrequently one actually needs to take it "out," as the stink factor from the garbage has been entirely removed. Ideal composting would, of course, offer a convenient location to facilitate the disposal of said compostables.

However, for me the current compost location is my parent's farm about three hours away. This means I have an elaborate system of storing and keeping compost cool to keep my house from being fumigated by the compost collection in lieu of the garbage. So my elaborate system, involves plastic bags made to compost and the bottom shelf of my fridge, which had seemed to work relatively well, until the last trip home.

You see, I discovered upon putting the compost into a box to bring home in my trunk, I found that one of my compost bags had sprung a leak, which allowed compost sludgey juice to ooze throughout the shelf and begin to drip to the bottom of my fridge. Anyway you would slice this story, it results in GROSS. These moments are the ones that make you want to give up composting. But, a frantic cleaning later, this thought passes and a vow occurs to avoid future such incidents...from now on the compost bags will be stored in ice cream pails to contain their ooze.

When in search of zucchini, you never know what you might find. So Michelle and I felt we had an enormous find.

When life grows

G i a n t Z u c c h i n i

go BAKE cake!

At the farmer's market a few weeks ago picking up my CSA share, I delightfully found eggplant. The week before I had lovely turned my eggplant (and various other vegetables) into ratatouille. I did not have a red pepper like the recipe called for, so I had substituted a green pepper and hot orange pepper. Even seeded, the hot orange pepper was a bit 'blow your head off hot' and added quite the spicy zest to the ratatouille. I probably won't add the hot orange pepper next time, but these are the lessons you learn when you veer off the cookbook page. However, all in all, I would still say it was a smashing delight.

Either way, the I had been plotting that if eggplant was included for the week that I would try my hand at baba ghanoush. But I needed another eggplant to attempt the dip, so I was picking out a second, when this sweet older woman came up to me and asked, "How do you fix eggplant? I know that it is healthy and good for me, but I hate it battered and sautéed. What will make it good?" After a lengthy discussion on eggplant and various ways to fix it, she decided that being 72 years of age meant that she did not have to learn to like it anymore and she chose some onions and green beans instead. This encounter made me giggle. For me at age 26 though, egg plants are fabulous. Baba ghanoush, a roasted eggplant spread, somehow similar to hummus minus the chick peas, is really good.

Lastly, I could not help the following photo. It was too hilarious to not share.

Beets are simply elegant in appearance – concentric circles of subtle purple hues with a deep burgundy flesh that turns everything it touches red - nothing beats a good beet. The fork pictured in this photo, however, is less than than my favorite for many reasons, but it gets the job done.

For the first several weeks of my garden share, I was the lucky recipient of beautifully, locally grown scallions, and loads of them! So in putting them in all the dishes that typically require onions, I was able to use my fair share; however, they seemed to be related to rabbits and multiplied faster than I could possibly consume in my day to day cooking, which is why I created the delicious and fabulous scallion and garlic hummus sandwich on homemade ten-grain toast garnished with, yes you guessed it, sauteed scallions.

Hummus is a staple in my house, so the base was the same as always - to this I added lots of finely chopped scallions.

It is amazing and even better it's a terrific way to use a TON of scallions!

A half-share of a CSA allotment is designed with at least two stomachs in mind and while I am a queen of vegetables, there are times when simply, I should learn to use moderation.

Peas for two people, meant a giant bellyache for this girl. Seriously, I felt like Cookie Monster felt after eating the entire type-writer while attempting to write Santa Claus a letter in the Sesame Street Christmas. You see, shelling peas in the pod look deceiving - in the bag they bulky - so I justified devouring the entire bag in a sitting, as I was not going to be eating the pod. While this bowl appears somehow empty of pods, please keep in mind that I started saving my pea pods for this picture after I had eaten two-thirds of my share!

Homemade yogurt, black raspberries drizzled with Minnesota honey!

A lovely fresh pasta!

The only pitfalls of fresh broccoli, although these little guys are worth being locally grown and organic!

Strawberry Shortcake!

Who doesn't love fresh baked bread? Well...aside from the temperature of my kitchen!Chicken Wild Rice Soup with dill, parsley and green onion!

Storms rolled through. I'm doing just fine folks.

A gargoyle formed on my wall.

And was raining in the basement!

I could hear it hailing from the depths of my creepy basement. I hoped for the best.

Sadly the hail won the fight.

A friend from work actually got a good picture of the hail.

But it could be WORSE and I have some wonderful neighbors who helped me weather- proof my car!

When I found radishes in my first spring share, I cringed. I did not grow up eating them and despite how I've tried to like them in the past, I cannot seem to like them. I will eat them if they are served because I am adult and I know they are vegetable, but secretly, I protest.

Again I put forth the effort to appreciate the little red veggies, but I do not like them in the raw - they simply have a spicy flaw.

So it was recommended I put them in a salad. They looked lovely and my taste buds did appreciate the fact that their aura was overwhelmed by the other fresh veggies in my salad. However, the radishes remained one of those few foods I could not appreciate.

Next up on the "ways to try to like radishes list" involved a radish sandwich - a favorite of my Grandpa Anderson. I was certain that the sandwich was going to be a sacrilegious waste of the beautiful bread I had just baked, BUT I was shocked to find out that if one has a thick enough piece of good bread with a little butter, the radishes seem more less disgusting and somehow edible.

My CSA Tidbits for the week had pointed me to the fact radishes have been reported to be delightful if steamed and then smothered in butter. So lastly, I gave them a try steamed. They again did not taste much like radishes and I found them somewhat pleasant. I'm not sure what steamed veggie with butter does not end up as somewhat pleasant though.

So the moral of my radish story, I have grown up in my past three weeks of radish experimentation. I can say I eat radishes. I can say I do not hate them. I can say I prefer them on a sandwich or steamed, but in all reality, I will eat them any which way. I feel sort of like the character in Green Eggs and Ham, I just had to give radishes a few chances.

Excitedly while it was still winter, I filled out my CSA (Community Share Agriculture) registration form. I began dreaming of warmer days and the delicious produce that would be gracing my kitchen from a local farm starting late May to early June.

Not too long after, spring came and was here to stay. My tulips and dandelions (which I claim as my own, while indeed they are not, as they came along with my place) went into a full frenzy and greeted me cheerfully each morning.

Also greeting me one morning with a fright, was our friendly house centipede. He's less charming than the tulips, but have no fear, he's harmless. So while, he's startling to find, I refuse to kill these guys when I find them, as they eat undesirable bugs, like ants. However, rescuing him from this location proved to be much more tricky than from the sink where I normally find them. Sneakily, I scooped him with a spoon without dropping him into the water reservoir. Then I proceeded to sterilize my coffee maker and the day proceeded as normally as any of my days can.

Tulips and bugs aside though, the dreams of local fresh produce became a reality with my first pick-up at the end of May. I was delighted to find salad greens, rhubarb, scallions, and asparagus. (I was not so delighted to find radishes, as they are not my favorites. However, I'll devote a later post to my experiences with radishes.)

I snitched some asparagus before I could even get it cooked and then promptly devoured the rest when it reached it's perfect state of deliciousness. The rhubarb was whipped into my grandma's delicious rhubarb cake.

My scallions became a wonderful garnish in a scrumptious egg meal.

Joining this CSA is already a fabulous addition to my summer.

Not to mention, I'm really going to become a vegetable once my family's garden at home starts producing. Yikes. It is a good thing veggies are my very good friends! Am I crazy for looking forward to the weeding that awaits me next weekend?

Well folks, the show is over, temporarily, that is. We are on a mini hiatus until we begin to ramp up for the September shows in Mankato. My weeknights are now suddenly barren from a multitude of rehearsals, I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad!

The cast and crew were a great group of which to be part, and while, I'm no dancer, even my two left feet seemed to do ok, likely, only because they were in the most amazing pair of boots loaned to me by my dear friend Ingrid.

So on Monday, I had a long day at work. I was somehow tired that day, likely because I had spent the weekend in the cities bopping around with good friends and family. Then, when I finally arrived home, the sunshine and weather was so lovely, that I decided to go for a run. I kept it to two miles because shortly after the run, I was going to be headed to musical rehearsal, which was supposed to mimic the rehearsal from the past week -- which was not that taxing and would be the perfect compliment to my two mile run. The run indeed was glorious. However, musical rehearsal, which was mostly fun, kicked my butt, big time, for 2.5 HOURS!!! So when I woke up on Monday, every part of my body was complaining before I even rolled out of bed.

This is probably not the best way to start a Monday, but work was work and mostly good, but when it came time to come back home, I was thrilled. I dreamed of yoga and making a great supper. The sunshine of the day had warmed my elegant driver [car] to a delightful temperature and everyone I saw on my way home was happy. I arrived here in good spirits. My house smelled fresh like spring, the children were playing and I could hear them nicely, and the daffodils on my counter were shining their cheer.

But the kids seemed louder today. Yet, I continued reading the local paper until I realized there was draft blowing my paper around, which was odd considering only two windows in my house open and neither of them were open. So I actually looked up, and to my dismay - a two foot by five foot window had smashed into my place! The storm window on this particular window had decided to leave the world last year and thus, this with the other window in millions of pieces on my floor, I had a perfect opening for a creeper.

I stared in disbelief. Incredulous. All I could think of was burglar!!! It took me a minute or two to realize that my laptop, digital camera, and guitar were all still in the very room in which now had no window. Instantly, I think my thief was not very smart, since he or she left my only things of monetary value. But then I realistically evaluate that there was likely no intruder, so I call the landlords to alert them of my now bird and bug friendly habitat; they say they will come in a while to take care of the problem.

But then my overactive imagination chimed in: What if the robber tapped into my computer or placed cameras about my place to record my movements? Naturally, I go into CSI mode. Who created this mess?

Who had it in for Frosty?

Was someone irritated that the ornate glass from the early 1900's was outshining their normal window glass?

Was my vandal threatened by my amazing cribbage skills?

Or was it my domino opponent's fear?

While sleuthing [the word sleuthing reminds me of Nancy Drew] around, I noticed a suspect brick that could have been the window wrecking item. Also out of place on the scene was a Powerade bottle on the ground outside near the said window.

However, because I failed to photograph this bottle, and was not able to correct my error because it was not there when I went to do so, I was fired from my CSI duties. The landies [landlords] believe the window frame rotted, after all it is over 100 years old - the dead give away was that when poked with a hammer, the wood on the remaining window frame squished and buckled.

Windows in the early 1900's were probably all custom made, so it was not a hassle to have odd shaped windows back then. But now, it means that I'll have some new windows in 6-8 weeks that had to be special ordered due to their unique size and shape. For the mean time, I get to enjoy a lovely old ply board that looks like it belonged in someone's bathroom. I'm a lucky girl.

Really, I'm super glad that the window didn't smash to smithereens while I was home or I would have likely poo'd my pants, freaked out, and called 911. And beings how I was fired from my own CSI investigation, I can look forward to no further home mishaps right? I mean, after all, I've only had sewer water, carbon monoxide, and now window problems... :)

Here's a list of beautiful things of my day:

daffodils greeting me in the morningice that scrapes easily off the car in the morning good friends and coworkers beans, beans, more beans turtle caramel browniessunshinelots of people outside enjoying springa car full of teenage boys blowing bubbles out the car windows a three mile runyoga poses a hot shower hummus on ten grain breadmemorizing the first two stanza's of the poem for the musicalreturning one finished book and picking up two more that I've been waiting for

In looking through the World Section of the New York Times, there were many tragedies published today:

Haitian earthquake. Hundreds of thousands dead. 1.2 million displaced.

Chilean earthquake. Hundreds dead. 1.5 million displaced.

Nigerian ethnic and religious violence this past week: 500 dead.

Ugandan mudslides: 300 dead. Thousands displaced.

Mozambique cholera: 42 dead.

Mexico drug trade gang shootings: 24 dead.

Pakistan suicide bomber: 13 dead.

Another Pakistan suicide bomber:

Drone strike Pakistan: 21 dead.

Suicide attackers in Afghanistan: at least 30 dead.

As we know, there are still too many atrocities that do not make the headlines much; they are too common place, to tragic to think about on a daily basis. Easy ones to think of: DRC, Sudan, Zimbabwe, infectious disease, HIV, malnutrition, infant and maternal mortality, homelessness.

Knowing about these injustices does not cause anything to change. Yet, I feel it is important to be aware. And through awareness, we are called to act. For me, working as a Public Health Nurse allows me to do some good works. I still wonder if I am doing enough. But, I take comfort in the fact I am not alone, as there are many good people out there doing their piece to make a difference.

With all of the world's troubles in mind, it still is important to celebrate what is right in the world.

A couple of weekends ago, a dear friend came to visit. We had a lovely evening of baking and cooking; the pizza was simply phenomenal.

While the milk tart was less than a true success in terms of consistency and appearance, it's flavor was true to my memory, and prior to baking, it looked perfect.

After much convincing on Emily's part, I agreed to again attempt the caramel rolls that flopped the first time. We followed the same procedure and recipe combination, as I did the first time. However, lo and behold, with her as my sous chef, this time they were the beautiful, delicious rolls. (Please note hilarious potato.)

To be perfectly honest though, the first time I made the rolls, they likely failed because I was doing too many things at once. When I posted the caramel roll failure, I could not play back the memory of their creation without some deleted scenes due to the multi-tasking. But, after a week or so of pondering the mishap, that was eaten without difficulty or complaint by my colleagues, I had stitched the scenes together enough to realize that had possibly made two fatal errors.

The first was I substituted the required cornstarch with flour. I had followed Betty Crocker's advice on the substitution and never thought twice about it. This time I thought twice about it and purchased corn starch. The other was that I may not have put brown sugar into the caramel sauce. Had I omitted the brown sugar, the results would have been likely similar to what my initial results were. I'm not certain I left out the brown sugar, but it is a real possibility.

So with these possible errors avoided, the results were indeed what we hoped for. HOORAY!

I've had some other wonderful culinary feats in the kitchen as of late, some of which, I'll show you. Here's to Moroccan stew over brown rice!

And to baked quinoa with spinach and cheese! This recipe can be found on the New York Times - it was my first experience with quinoa and I'm sold!

I was sitting in my living room the other night, satiated after a good meal, reading a book, when I heard "dit-dit-dit-dit--dit-dit-dit-dit-dit--dit-dit:" the pitter-patter of small feet on the ceiling panels of my kitchen. Yes, it is true, my amazing foods have lured a new found "friend." Sadly, he or she is a mouse that is living in my ceiling panels. I had one mouse over Christmas that was living up there, which I had to trap. I despise killing things, however, I cannot live with a mouse pooping in my silverware drawer. The traps have been set since then to prevent future mice from taking up residence. Currently, they have seen no action. I am hoping the mouse goes away on his/her own.

Oh, the adventures in my kitchen!!

As the snow melts and making way for spring, two memories involving my neighbors in New Ulm come to mind, both of which, occurred during the winter that is now drawing to a close.

Memory 1:

There was an exceptionally blistery cold day with windchills reaching minus 40 degrees. I happened to not be well that day and stayed home from work, ailing, but nice and warm inside my little place. By about three in the afternoon, I was feeling quite a bit better and decided to venture to get my mail. I had two options: take the short route to the mailbox and step one foot outside the door or take the long route and walk 40 feet to the mailbox out the door I always use. I, of course, opted for the short path. I put on my snowboots, opened the deadbolt on the door of the shared house entrance, which I never use and shut the door behind me to conserve heat and energy. I popped out to the front step, found I had no mail, and quickly headed inside. I turned the knob of the door I had just shut moments before.

It was at that very moment, I realized that when I pulled the door shut, the deadbolt automatically locked. I had effectively just deadbolted myself out of that door. In a moment, I come to my senses that I have access to a key for my main door and venture out into the elements to fetch it. Blasted by the wind, I run all the faster. I find the key and scurry to turn it in the lock of my main door with my frozen mittenless fingers and enter into my outermost that is not heated. I think I'm home free and have avoided the catastrophe of the year, but when I go to open my kitchen door, Irealize that luck is not on my side after all - you see, I have another deadbolt between my kitchen and my outer room, which cannot be opened with a key - it can only be opened from inside the kitchen. Since I had not left for the day, I had never unlocked the deadbolt.

I am frantic because I have no phone, no coat, no mittens, no hat, am in my pajama’s and am now not only locked out, but DEADBOLTED out!! Visions of freezing to death appear in my overactive imagination until I come to my senses and gather my wits about myself. I ended up running to the neighbor I met a while back who does daycare. She took me in and graciously allowed me to use her phone and phone book. I called my landlord's place of employment because of course, his cell number was safely stored in my cellphone which was locked into my house. I request to be transferred to him, and the lady who answered the phone said he was out. I explained my predicament and that I did have his cell number, but it was locked in my house. She would not give me his number. So I requested that she call him and tell him, that he needs to call me at the neighbors and that it is urgent. Eventually, he called me back and was soon on his way.

The kind neighbor-lady tried to feed me cake, which I declined, but did loan me mittens, a coat, and hat for when it was time to work with the landlord on breaking into my house. He managed to get into the window that is above my shower/tub in the bathroom from my steps that lead to the basement (which are accessible from that outer room). My landlord initially contemplated jumping across to the window ledge but with my encouragement did not. Instead, I went back to the neighbor and borrowed a step ladder, which the landlord used to balance precariously between the bathroom window ledge and the flight of stairs. He used the ladder as a bridge, crawled inside my bathroom, and unlocked the deadbolt from the inside. I then returned all of my neighbor lady's things along with a squash and loaf of home baked baguette bread - a paltry repayment for her saving my life.

Memory 2:

Part of my lease states that I am required to shovel snow off 1/2 of the sidewalk. The upstairs tenant shovels the other half. I certainly don't mind the shoveling too much, as it is nice to be active and outside, so pretty promptly, if the snow has finished, I will go out to shovel. So one morning, I'm out scooping the fluffy three inches that had fallen the night before (I was still in the honeymoon phase of shoveling for the winter) when an older neighbor dressed for the arctic comes around the corner with a snowblower. He leave the machine running and walks toward me. I greet him warmly and his response is, "If you wouldn't be so goll darn fast, I'd blow you out." Later that day, I called my neighbor lady who saved my life and asked who he was. She told me, along with a great ten minute story of neighborhood news. She informed me he would not take money. I had baked bread that day, so I decided if he wouldn't take money, I would try to force feed him homemade bread. He accepted the bread, because while he doesn't take money, he informed me that, "I can never turn down home-baked bread, as it reminds him of the fresh bread growing up." So each time the snow would fall and he would blow me out, I would bring over a loaf of bread.

It was a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. But then Christmas came round, and I left for home a day early because the forecasters were predicting a huge storm. All my coworkers at work made me paranoid that I was not going to make it home and I even bugged out a day earlier than I had planned. And oh did it snow that week/weekend!!! When I finally was venturing home, the roads were still ridiculously horrendous and travel that typically takes me 2.75 hours took me closer to 5.5 hours. You see, the TWO feet of snow had been weighed down significantly with rain and ice, so naturally it would take a while for the roads to get better. Many people had also been reporting that the snow was unable to be blown, as it was too heavy and wet. So all the way back, I had the same thought replaying in my head: If the snow was too heavy and wet to be blown, that means a) my kind older neighbor shoveled all of the snow by hand because he felt obligated based on my influx of bread or b) all two feet of it are waiting for me to shovel. I dreaded both options, but if having to choose one, I hoped for option b and planned to shovel all night.

Yet, to my delight upon safe arrival home, the snow had all been blown out -- my neighbor really is an angel or I would likely still be shoveling that load now! I had taken pictures because I knew my dad would not believe the volumes of snow that I would verbally report without visual confirmation. This picture is looking from the street to my main door. The snow in the foreground was level with my armpits!

Aren't neighbors wonderful??

First, I made the bread dough. When it was ready, I rolled it out flat and then rolled it up with a cinnamon brown sugar swirl, according to my bread cookbook. I, then, sliced that into 13 rolls and placed into pan and drenched with caramel sauce, somewhat according to Horning's Frozen Bread Caramel Roll recipe and somewhat according to the bread cookbook.

They sure looked good enough to eat! But because I do not like raw bread dough, I let them rise.



Still beautiful right?

So, I continued to let them rise until they almost reached the top of the pan and baked them until done. But it is always hard to tell when something baked in my oven is done, especially when you consider my oven's temperament of being a super-cooker. I used the skewer technique that is typically failproof; insert a clean skewer into the baked good, if it comes out clean said baked good is finished. After a few more checks and several minutes, the skewer came out clean!

I forgot to take a picture of them prior to the flip out onto the lid because I was so excited to see what they looked like. My mom's caramel rolls (from the Horning's recipe book) always look amazing. So, I patiently waited the 10 minutes before flipping per the instructions (while eating one of the rolls that I stole from the corner of the pan). Finally, it was time to flip them. They stuck to the pan and did not want to come down on to the lid!

I pounded on the pan bottom and eventually they dropped, as did my hopes for my caramel rolls. The first one I snitched tasted ok, but they looked so pathetic that I tried to resurrect them by scraping the caramel off the pan and onto the rolls. This made them look worse, so I ate another to try to feel better about them. But that did not change the fact that they still look pretty pathetic.

They actually looked better before I flipped them! See here is what the bottom looks like:



I was going to take them to work to celebrate a new nurse starting, but I'm not sure now. I'll likely bring them anyway and have to label them: An experiment - consume at your own risk.

Hopefully my cinnamon swirl and 10-grain loaves turn out better.

The verdict is in: 10 grain and cinnamon swirl were successful.

Overall day in the kitchen: productive.

The three round loaves on the lower left are rye. The braided and rectangular loaves on the lower right are heart of wheat bread. The upper left loaves are cinnamon swirl.

In November, I happened to be reading the local newspaper and found that there were auditions for a musical with the community theater coming in December. I was intrigued but was not sure it was something I wanted to commit to. But over the next couple of weeks, I continued to think about it and went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to audition. Plays and singing were a part of what I loved in high school and music remains a huge part of my life, but my high school never had enough people or money for a musical, so I no practical experience to offer (or build my confidence) and I knew the time commitment would be enormous.

However, I ended up deciding the time to audition for a musical was now or never, especially because the the newspaper invitation was very welcoming. It basically said, "for auditions: if you sing, come and sing 30 seconds, even if you don’t dance or act. If you dance, but don’t sing, come anyway..." I knew that I could sing for 30 seconds without a problem, and since they said I wouldn't have to dance, I figured I might as well give it a shot because my serious lack of rhythm and coordination would not be a issue.

So I prepared to sing a small part of the Munchkin Sequence from the Wizard of Oz, starting with Glenda the Good Witch, and showed up about 15 minutes early. The door swung open for me, opened by Gerry, one of the play's writers and music directors. Having never met me before, he made an extra effort to welcome me and let me know that they are so happy I have come. We make the obligatory small talk and then he hands me a large packet of papers to fill out.

He states when I'm done with the paperwork, I can go ahead to the theater. "Do you know where the theater is?" he asks. I respond, "I actually do not, so if you would be so kind to point me in the right direction, I'm sure I can find my way." I soon found that the theater was 40 feet ahead and to the left, however, I was not told this. True to the phrase 'Minnesota Nice', he escorts me the whole way, despite my protest.

He, then, introduces me to his wife, Carol, and I begin the second round of small talk. We talk about musicals, plays, and how I thought auditioning for the musical might help me get more involved in the community. She assures me that I am in the right place and then she inquires if I know the director, Judy. I do not know Judy, but I tell her that one of my colleagues had informed me she used to work above me at Family Services.

Carol takes one look at me and says, "Do you work in public health?" I practically fell over, as most people do not know what public health is. Quickly, I managed to regain my stunned composure, and I tell her that I'm a public health nurse. She is a public health nurse, too, and taught public health nursing at the collegiate level for many years at MSU until she became dean, which she was until she retired. A delightful conversation about public health and its importance in the world followed this discovery.

At this point, I realized I just met someone who has lived the life I think I want to lead sometimes, so I knew, despite the daunting stack of paperwork in my hands that made me want to run the opposite direction towards my car on the street, I must stay to audition.

Paperwork was soon completed and was not as difficult as I had made it out to be in my head, so I took a seat in the auditorium with the 9 other people who had come to try out. (They were having auditions the following weekend as well, so the small number made sense.) We started with a formal welcome by Carol and then dived into learning the musical's main numbers. Shortly thereafter, we were ushered out into the hallway where we would all practice the dances until it was our turn to sing. I do not know what came of the "if you sing and don't dance" line in the paper. But there I was with my two left feet and no choice but to attempt to learn the dances.

I danced for a hour trying to learn the steps to a few of the numbers with this professional dance choreographer who counted at the rapid fire pace of a machine gun. In a few short moments, I was dripping with sweat and occasionally running into the wall with a misstep. He continued to count relentlessly and I kept wishing that I would have known about this dancing bit prior to the audition, as I would not have chosen to wear long underwear, snow boots, blue jeans, and a sweater that day and may not have chosen to audition at all. But the experience made for a lot of good laughs and I got the biggest cardio workout for my week in.

Then my time came to sing my 30 second number, but I had just been dancing for an hour and was a little out of breath to sing at my best. But as my sister can attest, I sang the Munchkin Sequence every day on our way to high school for about two years, so I was well trained and the singing was no problem. But then, it was a simple test of vocal range when I really was completely spent; it was a pathetic showing of my range. Pushing on though, I took a few moments to breathe prior to reading the small snippet from the play they requested of me. It was poem about ooey, gooey, gluey, goo and a tongue twister to say the least. This was all video taped, as the director was home sick; the thought that someone would have to watch this on tape, made me sick. So when I left the auditorium, I again plotted in my head how to make a beeline for the exit, but my heart said to stay, and I continued on dancing for another 30 minutes.

Once everyone was done with the individual part of the audition, they brought us all on stage to perform the dances for the camera, so director Judy could see our dancing abilities. I chose a beautiful spot in the back row, in the middle, so as to hide my inability to dance as much as possible. Yet, Gary was out to get me, he made switch from back to front about 3 minutes into the tape and I stayed in the front center for the remainder of the dancing nightmare. Finally we read through lines, as a cast and I was free.

I was not even sure if I wanted them to offer me a part after the crazy experience of that day, but the people were very nice. So when the director called at 9:45 p.m. and woke me from a dead sleep (I had gone to bed early because I was tired) and she said they had 18 people for 19 parts. She went on to tell me that she would like to offer me a small part (in fact, it was the poem we had to read for auditions about the ooey, gooey, gluey, goo). Being partially asleep, I thought she offered part out of pity for the new girl who needed friends. Yet she assured me they needed me to be the reader of the Dr. Seuss poem, to be in the dancing numbers, and the chorus numbers. I started laughing about the dancing. I really cannot dance well, but they didn't seem to think this would be a problem. After a day of thought, I called her back and accepted the part, pity part or not, it was a part.

So the musical is called "Minnesota 'N'ice." It will be a little cheesy and a little crazy, but it will likely be quite fun. Judy, Carol, and Gerry winter in the south, so practices will begin after Easter. I think I'm in for a great adventure.

As I was with a friend last weekend, we were speaking of the wonders of yoga and how we often sound like cheesy commercials when we talk about what yoga does and is for us. Yoga teaches you to "lead with your heart." As a person who often is a constant thinker, its sometimes good to have a reminder to take a step back, and in true yoga form, to lead with my heart.

Unsure and uncertain, Sophia came into the office for a pregnancy test well into her second trimester. She hesitantly and briefly discussed her life with the PHN who gave her the test and was reluctant to have a MCH PHN call her for home visits. After ignoring the first few calls to offer visits, the PHN finally reached her and persuaded her to have just one visit to see what a PHN was all about. One visit quickly turned into visits every two to four weeks.

Her thick accent and quiet demeanor slowly revealed her story. Sophia had just recently moved to New Ulm after running away from home at the age of 18. She was living with a boy she had met once when she was little and had just reconnected with after leaving home. She honestly did not know that sex lead to babies, as that was not covered in her schooling that ended at the 9th grade.

Her culture was never quick to go to the doctor for prenatal care, and she followed that tradition. She had finally come to PH for the pregnancy test because she needed verification for her medical assistance application. However, the MA application was daunting, so PHN helped her navigate the foreign system of county paperwork for assistance and connected her to the community resources that would help her on her journey.

She sought regular medical care after learning from PHN why it was so important, even though she would occasionally still ask if it was really necessary to go to the doctor so often. Sophia always had many questions about pregnancy, parenting, and nutrition and was an eager and motivated learner. She rapidly learned the warning signs and symptoms to watch for during pregnancy. PHN supported and encouraged her to go back to school and she attended class for her GED. Sophia picked up a second job to help prepare for baby’s arrival.

Yet Sophia was burdened by the pregnancy, as in her culture, an out-of-wedlock baby was a scandalous embarrassment for the whole family. She had not yet told her parents; she wanted to tell them but lacked the confidence and support in this new town. Over the course of the next few months, together Sophia and PHN worked on building her confidence, her self-esteem, and her bond with the baby through Maternal Mental Health activities. PHN was a source of support and Sophia finally wrote a letter to her parents to explain the news. They were not happy, but Sophia blossomed and was finally able to be excited and prepare for baby’s arrival.

Sophia would not take prenatal classes at the hospital, as father-of-the-baby would not accompany her and she would not go alone, so PHN brought prenatal classes to her in her home.

Sophia delivered a full-term healthy baby whom she exclusively breastfed. On visits after his birth, PHN assessed health of mom and baby, answered questions and offered breastfeeding support. Since Sophia decided to delay the next child for a few years, PHN helped her find and utilize an appropriate family planning method. Baby was meeting developmental milestones and going to the doctor for well-child check-ups. When they moved out of county and back to her parent’s home, Sophia and baby were happily bonded for life and were off to a healthy beginning together.

*Name and identifying information have been removed/changed to maintain confidentiality.

It is hard to believe that it has been a year already since I arrived home after an unexpected turn of events in Uganda. My heart is still there and part of it probably always will be. Despite the return of wonderful health and support from my gastroenterologist (and family and friends of course), Peace Corps did not allow me to return back to Uganda to finish my service, as “who is to say you will not get sick again and then be in a roll-over car accident requiring post-exposure prophylaxis?” Of course, the future is unpredictable, and thus, while a repeat of that sequence of events is extremely improbable, I suppose, it is not impossible. But every day, we each encounter many circumstances in which the outcome could be less than desirable, so I think this is quite the far-fetched what-if situation.

As I have written before: if you are too afraid, you will never truly live; thus, I refuse to let this be the end – I will find a way to volunteer in a developing country, at the moment, I’m researching Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, the International Red Cross, and the United Nations Volunteers. The UN sums up why this is so important to me:

“Volunteering:Brings people together Develops skills and opportunitiesBuilds solidarityEmpowers individuals and communitiesEncourages active citizenship and initiativeProvides assistance for the poor and marginalizedActs locally and thinks globally""Volunteering for development and peace:

Mobilizes communities to play an active part in developmentHelps achieving the Millennium Development Goals Increases opportunities for diverse social groups to participateBuilds partnership and facilitates dialogueContributes to information and knowledge sharing Promotes peace, relief and development initiativesEncourages people to be the first actors of change""My greatest interest in becoming a volunteer is to:

Discover new culturesLearn from othersGain work experience in the fieldGive and help othersShare my skillsSupport world peace and developmentEnhance my personal development”

Yet, I also know that my heart has been contemplating teaching at the collegiate level for years now – it was because of incredible professors that I ended up finding and following my love for public health. Teaching would be a great and welcome challenge; it would allow me to work with and ignite the spark for future public health professionals, while allowing me the opportunity to contribute to the public health arenas of research, ethics, and international and systems level/policy work. This, however, means I need to commit to getting my PhD at some point, which is a giant commitment and will change my life forever. Carie and Rachelle were extremely encouraging and gave me some great advice. My current to do list for grad school:

Take GRE. Research grad schools/programs/advisors in area of interest.Decide area of interest. Apply to grad schools.

It has been quite the past year and I'm truly grateful for all the support I have been given. Right now, I’m working for a small county’s public health program. One thing that I know for certain, wherever in the world you find yourself, there is a need for public health – a great need for public health. If I focus in my job and my clients, I really do love what I do.

Work aside though, reading books, writing letters, spending time with family and friends, yoga, and baking homemade bread and cooking are my favorite past times these days.

Since being in this small town for 10 months now, I have had several amusing adventures, which I plan to share in the near future. Also, I recently auditioned for the community theater’s musical and somehow managed to land a small part – stay tuned for stories about this experience.

• Work today was great minus the last half hour.

• I miss South Africa. I miss Andile, Ayanda, Anathi, Chwayita, Lucretia, Luvo, Martin, Mzukisi, Sello, Sipokazi, and Zimkitha.

• (From work) It is not a good idea for any person to use meth, crack cocaine, oxycontin, morphine, and alcohol in one night.

• (From work) Do you have an alcohol problem if you blow a 0.4 and are walking and talking and feel fine?

• Glasses are new fixture on my face. It is scary how well I could not see.

• Halloween is coming. I have a fake plastic pumpkin in my room courtesy of my ma and pa.

• My computer crashed yesterday and then would not restart for twenty minutes. A near heart attack occurred.

• My sister got me a sandwich for supper. It was delicious.

• Rooibos tea is one of my favorites. My mug is empty.

• I picked up my guitar today. The top E string was broken. It no longer wanted to be part of the world.

• My Perkin’s loan cancellation form is finally complete. It now requires only a stamped envelope.

• I work at the jail on Halloween, too bad my costume is a security/safety problem. However, big hair cannot be such a problem, so my hair will have to be a costume in itself.

• Simple things make my heart smile: warm heaters, stuffed animals, a great family, good friends.

I recount my experiences of this past weekend now, as it helps me see with more clarity… You see, I just had a weekend full of experiences that resulted by multiple complicated strings of events occurring at just the right times; had any one of the events not occurred, one tends to wonder if the weekend would have resulted drastically differently. I like to believe that we have some control over our lives, our destiny, our fate, by the decisions we make. Yet, there are times when I wonder. I do not know if I will ever know for sure either way, and I don’t know if I am supposed to.

I got off work early on Friday afternoon, as my hours had ran out for the week. Lynn called to tell me that she had a job offer, one of her good friends from home was actually home, and that she and Kait would not be coming until the next night. I was bummed; I had been planning for a week that they would be here. I really wanted to spend time with just them versus them and the tons of other people I would see on Saturday.

Although still pretty crushed, I was bound and determined to not have a bad night because my plans had fallen through. I found my brain and my heart competing for a nap or the healing power of nature. My alarm clock rang this morning at 5:25, so my body screamed for a nap, but the grace of fall won. I changed from my dressy work clothes into some scrubby jeans and warm clothes and set out on my trek into the woods. There is something about being in nature that invites a sense of peace to enter one’s soul. My mind, commonly going mach four until sleep finally comes, was quiet. An hour and fifteen minutes later, I returned to my home with renewed spirits.

As I opened the front door, one of my roommates, Steve was napping on the rug in the kitchen. I giggled, as he rolled over grumbling something about just being a little tired. I padded up the stairs and went out to the porch and ate several bunches of grapes, now finally sweet, delightfully staining my tongue and one splotch on my pants purple.

Eventually I found myself in the kitchen, heating up the leftovers from my supper the previous night. Brian (the other roommate) had decided to quit the world, Steve told jokes, Beth Dingman joined in the fun, and happy hour began.

Later, we hopped a ride to campus and went in to happy hour at Brother Willies Pub. Usually, I do avoid campus like the plague, as I feel too old to be a student, but not old enough to feel like an alumna, but tonight decided it was silly to stay home by myself when I had friends headed to the Pub.

I got to see some folks I had not yet seen in a while and it wasn’t quite as awkward as I thought it might have been. I will blame this lack of awkwardness on the fact that this is the weekend of homecoming, where alums are scattered all over campus reliving the glory days.

Then, we went to Sexton and hung out for a while and then headed back to the pub. A happy hour for alum’s started at 8:00. We drank and visited for a while, and discussed how we felt slightly underdressed. I was still in my grubbies from my walk and most of our friends were also in their jeans. Every other alum, it seemed was wearing a suit and tie or a dress with fancy shoes, we figured these were probably the alums who donate tons of money to the colleges. However, despite this, Beth and I got the nerve to go talk with some alums and see what exactly they did do for a living.

We had a brilliant conversation for a time, with an alum, Nathan, who is now living in Berlin, Germany working with the art scene. Somehow, the subject turned to Africa, and we talked about Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa. At that moment, I had decided that students who attend St. John’s and St. Ben’s really are pretty phenomenal people.

However, then the conversation turned to the side, and lapel pins given for donating money to the school caused my thoughts on the previous conversation to be tainted with the thought that money is all that matters to some people.

Beth and I had become friends in that time. She had been to my house on numerous occasions previously, for the poetry group Brian had started. I had been invited but was too shy to share my poetry with a group, so wrote the poetry based on the assigned topic and never went to the group. I either wasn’t home or was conveniently up in my room, so I never met the group members. She was a part of the group because she had been working in the area and had been one of the Mary two girls in 2002-2003 when Brian was a RA.

Beth wanted to go next to the Midi where all of our friends had previously gone. I was tipsy and too the point of tiredness where I was ready to go home, but I did not want to walk there alone. So to the Midi together, we went.

Upon making our way to our friends, I saw someone I knew I knew, but wasn’t expecting to see. Jesse Honsky was there, the assistant to my South Africa study abroad trip – we both squealed and jumped around and gave each other a huge hug. She lives in Cleveland and happened to be in town for a wedding. She had no idea it was homecoming until after she had arrived. We talked of life as we both know it currently and South Africa – for quite some time. It was not one of those conversations that is over and done in one point two minutes. It was awesome!!! She really is a phenomenal.

Eventually, I joined the table with my friends and began getting sleepy again. This time, Dan Royer, the first year roommate of my friend Dan Dooher, ran up to me with his cell phone saying, it’s Dan Dooher, you have to talk with him!

Would I have taken that walk had Lynn and Kaitlin not cancelled? Would I have decided I needed grapes upon return? Would I have been around for both happy hours? Would I have been with Beth for the random adventure of talking with alums and riding the Link to the Midi? Would I have seen Jesse Honsky? Would I have talked with Dan Dooher? Would I have experienced the Midi that night?

Saturday

Today was an interesting day to say the least. It began with the sun blazing in my window waking me up earlier than I had intended to get up. Yet, despite the early hour, I pulled myself out of bed and hauled myself down to the kitchen. My sinuses wanted to explode – I had a pretty nasty cold and my nose had decided over the last 24 hours to become exceptionally mean. I took some ibuprofen, my antihistamine and made some coffee. Oatmeal was the breakfast of choice. I sat and chilled with the random assortment of people in my house.

Eventually, these people started filtering on to their next events for the day and I was the only one left. I sat on my porch swing and called my brother to wish him a happy birthday. In the midst of talking with him, I had to let him go, as two of my friends had arrived. Lynn and Kaitlin loved my brick house and we soon left for the strangeness of Sexton via the beautiful trail over Watab Island. While there, I ran into tons of people I used to know and talk with on a regular basis. Yet, it felt like it wasn’t really happening, as if I wasn’t there. I felt claustrophobic and needed to get outside.

Soon, I flashed my old student ID and got into the game for free. I proceeded to head down the steps in following my friends, when I became separated from them by a slow mover who had just merged. At that moment, I began seeing familiar faces everywhere. The strangeness of being in Sexton had followed me to the football game. I sat down and had a chat with Brandon Thomas, one of my oldest brother’s best friends, and I remember being a little out of it, not making a whole lot of sense. Although somewhat dazed, the conversation was what I had needed though, it was a more than most of the conversations that flooded the afternoon: the hello, how are you, what are you doing these days, it was nice to see you conversations.

I moved slowly around the track, moving from one person to the next. In some instances, I was pulled away from the person I was talking with to say hello to the next. I hardly even knew there was a football game being played. From Brandon Thomas, I saw a collage of people, my first year roommate, Catie Anderson, former fellow Clemens Library employees, Darius Morley, Mike Wazniak, Ben Johnson, Nicole Goeden, Nicole Lieser, Leah Boyer to nursing classmates Anne Karkela, Cara Kragseth, Cassie Fliecek, Shelly Boser, Angie Gerold, Jodie Tappella, Michele Miller, Paul Haas, Kelley Warner, to my fall orientation leader Allison Holewa of 2002, to the masses of people staying at my house Tom Steingraber, Gina Yeager, John Kamman, Sean Leary, Emily Axtmann, Brent Peterson, to my sister darling dear, Michelle, to Mark’s friends, Elizabeth and Dieter, a South African connection, to Tonia and Amanda first year floormates, to my awesome summer roommate and friend Beth Reisdorf, my latest new friend, Elizabeth Dingman, and various friends who have been in my life for random amounts of time, Christiaan Johnson, Gillian Korpi, Kristen Nowak, Becca Gillis, Megan McMurray, Danny Yeager, to the plenty of others that I most assuredly talked with. Towards the end of the fourth quarter, I felt stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, and could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I needed to get away from there. I just felt shell-shocked; it was de ja vu culture shock.

I arrived at my home and flailed onto my bed. I stayed there for nearly two hours, just in my own little world. Finally, I decided that my shell-shocked, pity party state must end and decided to trek to campus where Lynn, Kaitlin and their company were at. I reached Watab Island with renewed spirits. As I began on the trail, I see a kid talking on his cell-phone. My initial reaction was, is this kid ok? Is he hurt, is he needing help? Then he gets off his phone, stands up and says, I cannot let you through here. He had a red jacket that had CSB/SJU on it and proceeded to tell me that he couldn’t let me over Watab Island because fireworks were going to go off that night and this was where they were launching them from. I just thought my day couldn’t get any worse. Well, it did anyway. I knew it wasn’t this poor student’s fault that I couldn’t pass over the island, but the conversation resulted in creating a new cascade of tears down my cheeks. I returned to my overstuffed home and closed myself into the safety of my room. Clearly, I had not been as emotionally stable as I had thought.

But, my friends soon came and found me and picked me up. Pizza and beer was in order. Fireworks boomed, and the bar followed. But to get to the bar, we had to ride the bus and a guy kept looking at me funny. I was certain I didn’t know him, but finally, although two seats ahead of me, asked me if I was the one he wouldn’t let across Watab – the one he had made cry. What nerve. I really didn’t want to be there at that moment.

I wished I was as far from college as possible. Thankfully, he asked as he was exiting the bus at the El Paso stop and I didn’t have to talk with him any longer. Yet, I ran into him again later that night out by Sal’s. He just wanted me to forgive him. He actually seemed sincere. I told him it was no big deal, and I knew that he was just doing his job. Secretly, I wished he wouldn’t have talked to me at all. Now, a full day later, I wish I wouldn’t have been so impossible and could ask for forgiveness for asking him to make an exception in the rules for me and then blaming him for wrecking my night.

Dancing the night away, dancing the night away, I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never going to keep me down…blared from the speakers of the dance floor. I found friends after friends on the dance floor. I danced with all of them at one time or another and found myself to be pleasantly buzzed trying not to think of that afternoon that had me in such a withdrawn state. Thankfully, when I thought I was going to dissolve in a puddle of tears, Brandon Thomas, rescued me once again and dragged me back to the dance floor.

Piano Man began playing and boys dropped their pants in tradition (for those who have never been to Sal’s bar, the tradition is that boys will stand in their boxers swaying to this song). I was never so glad, not that the boys were dropping their pants, but rather because Piano Man signals the end of the night. I was ready to go home. I was ready to sleep. So eventually there were five girls crammed into my room. This was the best part of my entire night. Exhausted we all desperately wanted to sleep but were consumed by giggling and funny stories.

Then silence fell as the clock turned to 3:30, and I could not yet drift off into the healing abyss of sleep. I found myself flying back to feeling of disconnectedness from the world I was in.

Yet, I was comforted that the entire night, I was literally surrounded by people who really cared about me. I have some amazing friends (which I most likely neglect too much) who kept me away from the dazed shock that had paralyzed me only hours before. In persuading me back to the dance floor, talking a walk outside, tousling my short curly hair, or simply my sitting next to me, while I was sobering up and regretting the decision to wearing long underwear to the bar, my friends loved me for exactly who I was at that very moment.

Written September 22, 2006.

Today, I sat on the porch swing rocking gently back and forth. The air crisp, cool, and smelling of fall. Leaves have begun to turn into hues of golden, red, and brown, peppering the ground with their presence. Pondering the day’s events, the most pivotal moment of my day replayed in my head.

I had walked down to one of the units to deliver an inmate his medication. Earlier that morning, the sergeant had told me, this particular inmate had come into jail feeling quite sad. At that time, I walked down and visited him on his unit; we talked of his well-being. Truth be told, he was a little sad, but had a positive outlook on the day before him and readily contracted for his safety.

Now, a few hours later, after I had explained the med, which he was to take, we began talking again. He finished relaying the day’s events, but continued on. Then he trailed off, mumbling something in a whisper and looking away. I gently asked him to repeat himself. I strained my ears to hear. “What if I have been thinking of suicide?” Tears formed in his eyes, and I listened – I was completely present.

I sat with him for a while after he had finished. He looked over at me and asked me my name again. I replied and he whispered, “Melissa, thank you, thank you so much for listening. You really do not know what it meant to me.”

I did not magically cure him. He is still suicidal, but it is in moments like those, when I feel as though I have chosen the right profession. Nursing is more than the physical ailments. It is more than following doctor’s orders. Nursing is about the heart. As I was once told, “the heart is everything – it always has been and always will be.”

The sun cast a radiant glow on the trees in view, as it fell through the leaves waltzing above, my thoughts shifted. Today was insanely busy, but it was glorious.

Last weekend my dad was chosen from the audience of a Tonic Sol Fa concert to come on stage. The group didn’t need another singer, but they did need a dancer. My dad retold the story later of dancing the move, wipe on, wipe off. The band members made fun of him about where he was from and were about to make fun of his last name but then decided not to go there. According to my mom, my dad, of course, hammed it up. Tonic Sol Fa asked if he was married, and my dad said happily, yes and for thirty-one years. He then made my mother stand in the audience and wave.

Contrastingly, today, I helped pack box after box of one of my coworkers. It was a good day all in all, as she’s great. But, she is moving because she is getting divorced. Lots had been leading up to the divorce, but they had been married 19 years. Their wedding picture was still up on the wall. Her wedding dress in the closet. Sifting, sorting, and packing her things apart from his. They were no more. At times, bickering ceased only when I was present as a buffer. Rolls of tape sealed the boxes shut - it was over.

What is love? How does it begin? How does it last?

written September 16, 2006

before

after ---I have gotten multiple reactions to cutting my hair. My coworkers were shocked but loved it. Gale, the PHN I share my office with, said that it was sassy and cute.---One gentleman I work with, stated very abruptly, "I hate your hair."---Another stood with a jaw dropped. He couldn't say anything. Shari, my colleauge, told him, "She cut her hair and donated it." He responded, "But, just yesterday it was so long..."---My sister was worried that it would be too short, but thought it was adorable.---I hadn't cut my hair in 1.5 years and it was the longest it had ever been. I had grown quite attached to the length, but the friz and the time required to dry were too ridiculous. ---Thus, as of late, I had wore it up and out of the way in some fashion for multiple weeks in a row.---I felt that someone else migth be able to enjoy it more. I was ready for the change. ---I donated it to Locks for Love on Thursday.---I think it is fun. Sassy might be a good word for it.---