Lap cat

Never adopt a cat thinking you want an independent animal.

These were all taken on different days/evenings. She has it rough.

Funny that on Insta-gram, when you look at #roughlife, it is mostly animal pictures.

A couple of easy meals

This weekend, I think I have made enough food to get me through the whole week - benefit of cooking for one!

When I have vegetable scraps, I stick them in a gallon freezer bag in the freezer. The bag was getting pretty full, so I made vegetable broth in my crock pot yesterday. Some garlic cloves, some pepper corns, some rosemary, a bag full of scraps (carrot ends, celery that wasn't crunchy, kale stems, etc.), cover with water and cook on low for 8 hours. I got about 12 cups of delicious broth.

 Then I used a lot of it to make home-made hot and sour soup. I forget that I actually like tofu, as in when I was cubing it for the soup I ate some plain and liked it. This is probably the result of a year of eating in China. The soup is actually pretty close to what a restaurant's hot and sour soup tastes like! I could probably increase the flavorings to get it closer, and I used black pepper because I do not have white pepper.

 THEN, I finally made quinoa "mac" n' cheese. It always sounded like a good alternative to using pasta. I ate the soup for dinner, but I tasted the corner of this to make sure it tasted okay. It tastes amazing. I followed the recipe I linked to, but just grated a bunch of cheese without measuring and added some veggies: chopped collard greens, grated zucchini I had in the freezer (just added it to the quinoa while it cooked and counted it as a liquid...because that is what happens when you freeze zucchini), some carrot (I used the peeler to "cut" it into thin strips).

I am looking forward to eating this week. I keep avoiding the lettuce in my fridge, though, so maybe some tuna salad wraps will be added to the above menu.

Crisis averted

I am currently eating the remains of a pizza I bought for my romantic Valentine's day with my cat. I had planned to eat only a couple of pieces so it would last a few days, but unfortunately it was too delicious. This is not the crisis about which I write.

I spilled my beer on my laptop last night. A waste of beer, right? While I pick up my drink when I move my standing computer lap desk, there is no preventing general clumsiness that causes you to just knock a drink over for no particular reason. My reaction was to blow the beer out of the keyboard...but then it went down the back and seeped into the battery connections. I shut it down to let everything dry overnight, and it all started up fine this morning. But with the battery in the laptop, the battery light just flashes orange at me. At least my hard drive is fine!

Now I need to speedily get all the things done that I planned to do last night, like submit an alumni interview report that is due today. Ooops!

Sacrifice

I am not Catholic. I was not raised to give something up for Lent. But I think many Protestants do make a commitment to a specific sacrifice or reflection this time of year.

A couple of years ago I gave up Facebook for lent, and that was good.

Two years ago I wasn't feeling it.

Last year I certainly was not, and from what I can tell I did not reflect on it at all here on my blog. Although on Easter I volunteered for the first time at a local soup kitchen and that has spiraled into being pretty involved in my church's outreach efforts. So although life seemed sucky at the time, it led to good things.

This year, I feel the urge/desire/call to give something up again. My life has enough good to even out the less good. I feel pretty blessed and grateful in general. Lent of 2013 will be observed by the absence of this in my diet:

Bread.

I thought about giving up sweets or wine, but quite honestly I do not consume them with the same enjoyment as a good piece of bread. Or toast with an omelet. Or some delicious cheese, oregano, and garlic salt on toast (as seen above...also a favorite weekend breakfast or lunch treat growing up). Yesterday I thought that I would allow myself to finish the bread I have in the freezer. Today, on Fat Tuesday, I decided a couple of pieces of cheese on toast at the end of the night would have to hold me over until Easter.

Sausage tortellini soup

I have done it again. I went and made soup on a Sunday. And it is good.

 My old neighbor was supposed to come over for lunch today. She never showed up and did not answer my call when I tried to get in touch with her. I went ahead and ate some of this soup by myself. Hopefully she will get back to me so we can reschedule. I am not going to lie though, I am a little happy I get this all to myself for a few days.

Sausage Tortellini Soup
Inspired by a Kroger coupon/recipe mailing

1 pkg chicken sausage
garlic, chopped
onion, chopped
red pepper, chopped
~2 cups canned chopped tomatoes
~3 cups chicken broth
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp oregano
Several leaves of kale, chopped
1 pkg refrigerated tortellini

Brown the chicken sausage in a couple tablespoons of oil in the pot in which you will assemble the soup. Remove the sausage and slice. Saute the garlic, onion, and red pepper in the pot for ~10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, broth, basil, oregano, and sliced sausage. Simmer for however long you want. Add the kale and tortellini. Serve when the tortellini is cooked.

My soup simmered for long enough that the tomatoes were all broken down and the onion was pretty translucent. The original recipe called for 1/2 c of white wine, which I would have added if I had some in the house. This would be easy to make vegetarian, too!


Some previous soups I have made.

Act small

I like to think I am usually a nice person. I like to do things for people and be helpful. I can also be judgmental and say things that I wish I had not said. When I say "things I wish I had not said", I am not referring to profanities or saying my mind, but rather saying things that could be hurtful to another person. This is difficult working with a grad student of Mexican descent who likes to make jokes about Mexicans. We do not make the jokes out in public though.

Anyway. I do enjoy doing things for people when it is not expected. I like to think if everyone did small things, then the world really would shift somehow. For example, when I parallel park on the street after 6:00 in a spot that is not metered, I make sure to leave as much room as possible so three cars can fit where three cars should be able to fit. It is annoying when someone with a regular sized car takes up two spots! But who notices when you do something like that?

I have been trying to take the opportunity to do things that people will notice.

I have cleaned the snow off other cars off when I get to the parking lot at the end of the day...and I hope that they are pleasantly surprised and not mad someone touched their car.

I went and sought out a man who was hanging new bulletin boards in my building because he moved things the lab had hanging to the new board. He did not have to do that. When I thanked him he was very humble and said he was not sure if he put them in the right order.

I like to shovel the whole parking area at home, and my downstairs neighbor cleaned my car off this morning.

There are two owned homes I walk by every morning in a neighborhood of college rentals. I have seen one of the women clearing snow before, and she plants lovely flowers, and decorates for the holidays. She always shovels and salts the sidewalks early. Last week I sent her flowers with a note thanking her for that and complimenting her on the Christmas decorations.

I do not do these things purely out of the goodness of my heart. They make me feel happier after I do them! While sending flowers is not inexpensive, all the other things are free. When was the last time you sincerely thanked someone for a job well done? Or took an extra few minutes to try to make someone's day?