Staying Home and Making Bread

When I was in graduate school, I told someone once that if the whole academic career thing didn't work out, I would like to just stay home and make bread.  And while I am not saying the academic career hasn't worked out--it has just taken a different route--I am currently staying home and making bread (Strawberry Banana Bread, to be specific).  And I am sewing.  And planting a garden.  And watching a sweet baby grow each day.  My house is filled with trays of seedlings, fabric scraps, and stacks of burp cloths.  While this new life has its challenges, I am reveling in the activities that I love, but haven't previously been able to tackle as passionately as I would like.  

And, lucky, blessed girl that I am, I still get to pursue that academic life as well.  I know that the role of adjunct is absolutely fraught in the academic community, but I am thankful for the flexibility that it provides.  I I am lucky to have a husband with whom I have planned our budget and expenses to allow me to work like this.  I am lucky to have a department chair willing to work my schedule around Jordan's.  I'll be teaching online this summer, and then going back for a main campus class in August.

In the meantime, I am happy to have grading disappear from my to-do list.  I have a new planner/notebook that I am loving and have spent way too much time making customized planner pages and meal-planning/grocery shopping lists.

Friends coming for dinner tonight.  Homemade pizza and apple crisp on the menu.

Morning Routine: How I Start My Day

Now that classes have started again, I have tweaked my morning routine.  Although I am a morning person, getting going can be a challenge (I prefer to piddle about aimlessly, instead of diving in).  However, I know that my day will go much better if I get off to a good start, so I have been rather ruthlessly disciplined about making this routine work.  I have found that the best way to get things done in the morning is to not give yourself options.  Don't decide, don't think about it.  Automatically get up and do it.  When something becomes a habit, you can circumvent the deciding process, during which you might talk yourself out of doing something that you know you need to do.  (I read a rather interesting book a while back that talked about this very process: The Power of Habit)

In order to achieve this, I do a bit of prep work the night before.  I lay out the clothes I will need first thing (on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, this means running gear).  I have my alarm set on my phone (I know, I know, an ancient flip-phone, but it works) and I leave the phone with my clothes on the bathroom counter.  When it goes off in the morning, I have no choice but to get up and walk over to turn it off, and there are my clothes, ready and waiting.  I don't even think about it--I just put them on.  I also have my nook out, and I do a quick check of email, Facebook, and the weather.  Even a couple of minutes of the bright screen time helps to wake me up, then I am out the door.  I love this.  The early morning run is something I savor.  No one except other runners and walkers are out at the park, and the sun slowly comes up as mist burns off the pond.  Fantastic.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, I have an 8am class, so I get up, turn off my alarm, and head straight for the shower (after a quick check of the internets!).  When I get out, there are my clothes waiting for me.  I get dressed and fix my hair and makeup.

Once I am finished getting ready, or once I get back from my run, I eat breakfast and have my quiet time.  Bible study and prayer are habits that can be difficult to form, but I know they are crucial.  The best trick I have found is to tie them to something I know I will do without fail--which is eating breakfast.  Recently I found a resource offering different daily Bible-reading plans that could be sent to your email.  I chose the "Every Day in the Word" plan, which sends passages from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs.  This works well for me as a daily supplement for my more intense Bible studies that involve commentaries and lots of note-taking.

For breakfast, I try to eat a combination of complex carbohydrates (high-fiber cereal, oatmeal, or whole-grain waffle) and protein (scrambled or hard-boiled eggs, peanut butter, yogurt, or kefir), with some fruit or veggies as well.  I also almost always have a cup of decaf Earl Grey tea.

I love my morning routine, and it works for me.  I know that this is subject to change.  Recently I have been thinking about how different things will be once the baby gets here--he'll have his own ideas about when things will be done.  But, for now, I am enjoying my peaceful (if predictable!) mornings.

Packing Cubes

I mentioned in a previous post that I had abandoned the "stack-fold-roll" method of packing in favor of using packing cubes.  Here's a closer look at what they are and why they work.

First, here are the clothes I packed for a week at the beach: not really a ton of stuff, but not hyper-minimalist either.  Normally, I would have rolled these up to go in my bag.  While this can be a good use of space, it has a few problems: first, it is hard to keep them nicely rolled/folded in the bottom of a bag.  When you get where you are going, you have to dig around for what you need, and things inevitably come undone, and I end up with basically a pile of laundry in my bag.

Here are the clothes folded and placed in a packing cube.  Note: it is not actually cube-shaped; more of a rectangular prism, really.  (I didn't come up with the name.)  They are soft-sided nylon, with mesh panels on top, and a double-zipper on three sides.  The more you put in them, the better, because things slide around less and they hold their shape.

Here are all the clothes packed into the cubes.  These are made by ebags, and I ordered my set of small, medium, and large off Amazon when they were on sale.

The thing I really like is that they make my bag so neat.  For my valise bag, they are especially useful because I turn them on their sides and file them.  They have handles, which makes pulling out the one you need even easier.

For the beach trip, I packed everything in a large duffel bag.  When we got to the condo, I took out the cubes, unzipped them, flipped the top under, and placed them directly into the drawers in my room.  Unpacking: done.

I am thinking that these have several further applications: keeping gym clothes organized, separating diaper bag essentials, etc.  We shall see!

Vacation Meal Planning: Making the Most of Your Vacation Rental's Kitchen

Last week, I spent a week at the beach with my family.  We stayed in an ocean-front condo with a kitchen.  Since the group included 10 people, including a toddler and an infant, eating out every night would have been nightmarish.  So, my sister and I planned meals for five nights and divvied up the grocery-buying and equipment-packing.  The results were pretty great, and we were greeted each evening with exclamations of "oh, yeah!" from my teenage cousin and his buddy.  It's nice to have an appreciative audience!

The backbone of our meal plan was the crock-pot.  My sister and I each brought one, and one night we actually ended up also using the one that came in the kitchen.  Only two nights were non-crock-pot meals.  Here's what we made:

Night One: Taco Salad

This is a family favorite and very easy: ground beef browned with taco seasoning, served on tortilla chips with lettuce, tomato, sour cream, salsa, cheese, onions, olives.  Doesn't get more simple than that.

Night Two: Barbecue

I think many people are surprised to find that you can make barbecue in a crock-pot, and I am sometimes hesitant to release that detail.  We come from a barbecue-cooking state, and regional lines are thickly drawn--everyone has an opinion on how barbecue should taste and how it should be prepared, and I am sure that many would be horrified at the thought of calling something that came out of a crock-pot "barbecue," but my family sure enjoys it!

It is ridiculously easy: pork tenderloin in the crock with about a cup of water and a drizzle of barbecue sauce (there's not much point in using a lot at this point).  Cook on low for about 8 hours or high for 4-6 hours, depending on the size.  Once it's done, it shreds easily with a fork, and then I pour the sauce on.  We like Sweet Baby Ray's, but again, to each their own!

We eat it on a bun with slaw: homemade also, and we like it simple--chopped cabbage, maybe a bit of carrot, mayonnaise (Duke's, if you please!) and salt and pepper.  We ate it that night with corn that my parents had picked up at a produce stand on their way down to the beach.

Night Three: Hawaiian Chicken with Fried Rice

This was a bit of a mash-up: I brought the Hawaiian Chicken recipe; my sister brought the fried rice recipe.  Both originally came from Pinterest.  The Hawaiian Chicken is a fantastic crock-pot recipe, and the only one that I prepped before we left home--it involves combining the ingredients (chicken breasts, pineapple chunks and juice, vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and garlic) in a ziploc bag and freezing.  I doubled the recipe, dividing into two gallon-size bags, and freezing--the next morning they went into the bottom of the cooler.  The whole frozen thing is dumped out of the bag and into the crock-pot, and then shredded, similar to the barbecue.  My sister made the fried rice, a recipe that I hadn't tried before, but it was particularly tasty, and went well with the Hawaiian Chicken, despite the regional differences (not that either are particularly authentic to begin with!)

Recipe for Hawaiian Chicken
Recipe for Fried Rice

Night Four: Ham and Sweet Potatoes

This was my sister's recipe: sweet potatoes are placed in the bottom of the crock pot, topped with sliced ham, and covered with a brown sugar/ dry mustard mix.  We finished the meal off with squash from the produce stand.

Night Five: Spaghetti and Salad

Simple, easy, everyone can make spaghetti--noodles, sauce, and ground beef.  However, this one didn't actually work out for us.  We found out that the meat had been recalled, so we decided to forgo the meal and eat up the leftovers instead.

Although we enjoyed the nights we ate out, cooking in was pretty special.  My sister and I live several hours apart, so it was great getting to do something like cooking together.  We are very much in sync and the whole process of preparing meals in that little kitchen flowed seamlessly, and almost without the need to discuss it--we just did it.  There aren't many people with which that can happen!

Bathroom Closet Organization; or, Novel Uses for Shoe Organizers

I like for things to be organized.  It makes me feel good, and it calms some vaguely panicky nerve in the back of my mind that whispers, "something is unsettled."  Clearly abnormal, I know.  However, for the last few months, every closet in our house has been is a state of unsettled disarray.  I finally got around to tackling the bathroom/linen closet. (Pantry, you are next!)

I can't believe that I am showing the messy contents of my closet, but, you have to see the "before" to get the big picture.  Since I have organizational inclinations, I own things like fabric bins.  I also have some genetic impulse to save things that I don't necessarily need, like old shoe boxes and college-era shower caddies.  So, a fairly cobbled-together organizational system that isn't really working.  I especially like that the shoe box holding our meds is sitting askew on top of toothpaste and contact lenses.  Nice.

First, I pulled everything out.  Here, you really get the full effect.  Lots of stuff.  In random collections.  Although I love having the closet where it is, it can be a bit annoying because it is both deep and narrow.  I got the idea for using a pocket shoe organizer from a YouTube channel called HomeOrganizing.  The woman in the video uses hers on the back of a bifold door, but, of course, it works just as well on a regular door.  The only problem I had with mine is that it was wider than the door, so I had to fold one column of pockets back.  It is still functional, it just doesn't look as nice as it would on a wider door.  

I sorted everything into various categories by row and then by pocket.  So now, I have a pocket that just holds headache meds; one pocket just for sunscreen; etc.  I would like to find a way to label the pockets, but I haven't quite figured that out yet.  The two fabric bins went back on the shelf: the larger one has oversized items, like the packages of cotton balls and cotton swabs.  The smaller bin contains beauty products that I consider "seasonal"--I'm not wearing bright pink nail polish in winter, so there is no point in keeping it with my regular makeup.  Overall, I really like the outcome.  Now, our sheets are on a shelf all by themselves (by the way, placing your folded set of sheets into one of the pillowcases keeps everything neat and together).  I can access everything and know exactly where it is.

Here is a little bonus shot of my vanity drawer.  It is really shallow, but it works for this type of stuff.  The white bins came from Wal-Mart and the clear ones came from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

So, it seems a bit strange to be showing off my closets and drawers, but I thought the shoe organizer was a really useful tip, so I wanted to pass it along.  Anyone have any special tricks for organizing bathroom items?

Disney World: Planning

Our family went on vacation to Disney World this summer.  The last time we went was about 19 years ago, so this trip was much anticipated, and excitement was high.  Disney World is amazing and really like a whole other planet.  And so, we put about as much time into planning this trip as would be necessary for a mission to Mars.  There are a couple of reasons that I think careful planning is important for a Disney trip:

1)  It is big.  Disney World covers more acreage than the island of Manhattan.  So clutching your map on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom with the seven other members of your party and saying, "I don't know, what do you want to do?" is burning time.
2) It is busy.  You can spend hours standing in line behind the 300 other people who also want to ride Space Mountain.  Restaurants are booked months in advance.

My mom masterminded the whole plan: she booked our rooms (we stayed at the Pop Century Resort) and dinners about six months in advance, and rented a fifteen passenger van.  With eight of us going, it was easier to ride together than to caravan it in three separate vehicles.  Staying in the resort has some great advantages: the bus service picks you up at the hotel and drops you off at the various parks; your room key is also your admission ticket which is also your Fast-Pass ticket (more on that later); and, you get to take advantage of early (or late) park hours (called Extra Magic Hours).

I took over planning the itinerary.  I found a copy of The Unofficial Guide Walt Disney World by Bob Sehlinger and Len Testa, which is a Type-A planner's dream come true.  The book has detailed itineraries for each park; descriptions of every ride, show, and event; a chart showing travel time between each park and hotel; a fright-potential rating for everything; and a lot more.  I devoured the book and used it to plan our itineraries.  The trouble with using their itineraries as they were was that our group was very diverse.  It included my parents (who don't do roller coasters); my sister (no coasters) and her husband (who would do roller coasters) and their two-year old (height restrictions); my 14 year old cousin (he's a roller coaster nut); Jordan (ditto), and myself (I ride baby coasters).  So basically, we had a group that wanted to hit the thrill rides and a group that wanted to watch the toddler.  But, a lot of the rides actually appeal to both groups.  So, what I did was create an itinerary that split the two groups and then brought them back together.  This is an example from our first day, at Animal Kingdom:

Monday: Animal Kingdom (Extra Magic Hours am)

Catch bus around 7:00 am; arrive around 7:20
Ride Kilimanjaro Safaris
Walk the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail in Africa	Get Fastpasses for Expedition Everest, then ride DINOSAUR
See It’s Tough to be a Bug! And exhibits at The Tree of Life on Discovery Island	Ride Expedition Everest
After the rest of the park opens:
Ride TriceraTop Spin	Ride Primeval Whirl
Play at The Boneyard	Ride Kali River Rapids
Watch Flights of Wonder (if wait more than 20 minutes, switch with Maharajah Jungle Trek)
Walk the Maharajah Jungle Trek
Take Wildlife Express Train from Africa to Conservation Station and Rafiki’s Planet Watch.  Tour the areas and take the train back to Africa.
Meet characters along the way to Camp Minnie-Mickey
See Festival of the Lion King
See Finding Nemo—The Musical in DinoLand
Anything else we want to do or see.
Return to hotel to swim, nap, refresh, as time permits
At 5:50, catch bus to Magic Kingdom and transfer to monorail or walk; Dinner at Chef Mickey (Contemporary Resort) 6:50

Yellow was the thrill group, blue was the chill group, and green was for the combined groups.  I also included our travel times and dinner times on the itinerary.  I should make clear that the itinerary represented an ideal: not absolutely everything on the list got done, but we made quick decisions in the moment, and really, we got to do and see everything we wanted.  And, here's the thing: we spent almost no time waiting in line.  We more or less walked onto everything, but our absolute longest waits were maybe 15-20 minutes.  And this was in peak season when the parks were filling up each day.  We were usually done a little after lunch and could leave about the time the park was getting crazy.  There are a few things that allowed us to do this:

1)  The order of the rides: I based this primarily on the suggestions from The Unofficial Guide.  They have done extensive research on crowd flow and movement at the parks and know which rides get busy quickest.  We followed their suggestions with some changes based on our preferences.
2)  We got there early.  Very early.  Like, a half hour before the park opens, even when we had Extra Magic Hours.  This was absolutely worth it.  And, at Magic Kingdom and Epcot they have cute "opening ceremonies."  We also ate lunch early, usually around 11am.
3)  We took advantage of Fast Passes.  For many popular rides, there are kiosks in which you insert your park admission card and you are given ticket with a time to return.  You come back and walk onto the ride.  Amazing.

I am including our full week's itinerary:

Domestic Scholar's Disney World Itinerary

Any tips on how you planned your Disney World trip?  Any questions you would like to see answered here?--I am not an expert (and there are definitely Disney experts out there), but I'll tell you what I know!

Work Referenced: Sehlinger, Bob and Len Testa. The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World  2011.  Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley, 2011.

Housekeeping Routines

I considered starting here with a little philosophical musing about housekeeping--I do, after all, specialize in domestic fiction and wrote my master's thesis on a novel called Recollections of a Housekeeper.  But, if you indicate that you are interested in housekeeping, people often suppose that you are very strange (I may be) and have a freakishly clean house (I don't).  So, I will dispense with (most of) the musing and get to the basics.  Most people do some housekeeping.  I am generally interested in how people do it. I think those manuals and descriptions from the 19th century on housekeeping practices (or domestic economy, as it was sometimes called) are fascinating.

My favorite modern-day housekeeping tome is Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (Scriber, 1999).  The book is a wonderful reference guide, nearly 900 pages long with answers for nearly every conceivable quandary on laundering, polishing, laying out, and making up that you could imagine.  My favorite chapter is the first, in which Mendelson writes of her "secret life."  She writes, "An off-and-on lawyer and professor in public, in private I launder and clean, cook from the hip, and devote serious time and energy to a domestic routine not so different from the one that defined my grandmothers as 'housewives'" (3).  She goes on to describe those grandmothers, one of Italian ancestry and the other of British Isles descent who are equal in their passion for domestic arts, though they often conflicted on ideas of airing beds or ironing shirts.  Ultimately, housekeeping seems to be part of identity--how we do things tells us something about who we are and where we come from; but the purpose is unifying--we all seem to clean house because we enjoy having a comfortable, welcoming space in which to live.

So domestic routines both create comfort, and to some (myself included) are comforting in themselves.  When I was younger, I learned the nineteenth-century housekeeping litany from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books: Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, Churn on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday.  While some of these activities are obsolete (or have become hobbies, rather than chores), the idea of having a list of daily tasks makes sense.  I have tried the other method--clean when it gets dirty--but have found it to be far more exhausting than a pre-emptive routine.  After much experimentation, this is now my weekly routine:

Monday: Clean the Kitchen, Buy Groceries
Tuesday: Laundry (Clothes)
Wednesday: Dust and Vacuum
Thursday: Laundry (Sheets and Towels)
Friday: Clean Bathrooms, Buy Groceries

These activities are, of course, supplements to the daily "neatening" tasks of putting away items and making beds and so on. This list is specific to my needs, as it's just my husband and myself in a small apartment.  I put the lighter tasks (laundry) on Tuesdays and Thursdays because those are usually teaching days for me.  My very least favorite task is planning meals--for some reason, my brain freezes up and I look with dread at the refrigerator and drag my feet on the way to the grocery store.  It has become somewhat easier since I go to the store twice a week now.  Instead of having to plan seven meals, I plan meals for Monday through Thursday, and then Friday through Sunday.

I don't always get through the week perfectly, but it is easy enough to catch up and Saturday morning is a good time to pick up any tasks that were missed during the week, but your whole day isn't spent in drudgery.

So, what are your domestic routines?  Any tips on making meal planning less painful?  Any thoughts on housekeeping as identity? 

Why Sewing is Not Relaxing...

I like sewing, but it is not relaxing like knitting or crocheting. With knitting or crocheting, you generally have a lap-size project that you only have to give minimal attention to - I frequently knit and watch a movie (I've even tried knitting and reading with some success). When you are done knitting for the day, you roll up the project and stick it in a basket. No mess.

Sewing, on the other hand, consumes your life and apartment. Instead of sitting primly, watching TV, you are crouched on the floor (see above) or hunched over a sewing machine, biting your lips. Scraps of fabric and pattern pieces litter the floor and my husband was afraid to sit on any of the furniture because I had pins stuck everywhere. I made that dress in record time because I couldn't wait to get my apartment clean again.

Sewing is exciting, but an all-consuming task. Or maybe I'm just messy!