One Year Married

We did it! We made it through the first year.

And so here we are, starting year 2. We're excited to see what year 2 could bring. Pursuing parenthood is definitely a big part of this.

One of the big things I've thought about from the past year is how different everything feels with inviting someone else into my own emotions. I think this will be even more true with inviting another little someone or someones or someones plus their family plus their social worker in. It reminds me of the idea of God as a rock. Sometimes this is a funny image, but other times it makes so much sense. Sometimes the characteristic of God that is most comforting to me is this "rock"ness, this unchanging nature.

Random rambles today, so here are a few more pictures.

Waiting

I don't know about you, but I do not wait well. It's a lesson the Lord has been working on in my life since...maybe since I was born. I had good and bad seasons of waiting while single, and I think now I draw on some of that experience as we wait.

Ok, waiting to hear back about our background checks isn't that hard. Due to our roles in education which have required recent checks (and knowing we've both never committed a crime), no concerns there. And, sadly, the bar for being a foster parent is pretty low, so I'm not really worried about our application. There is a little sense of urgency in getting stuff back so we can get a spot in the April class, but it's not taking up a lot of mental space.

The harder waiting right now is that we are also trying to have biological children at the same time. It's not going well. We actually knew, through weird circumstances, that this would be the case after just a month of trying. In other words, we don't actually meet the criteria for the "I" word (infertility), but have started testing and treatment anyway. We level up, so to speak, in our treatment plan in April/May. The waiting without knowing is hard, not knowing if we'll eventually get pregnant, not knowing when, not knowing what treatment might work. It's not all consuming, but it is distracting.

Then there's the work waiting. I'm in a tenure track faculty position which means my job description is something along the lines of "be a productive scholar with a trajectory towards national recognition"...so, go make a name for yourself. Uhm, ok. I'm finishing up my fourth of five years before the evaluation year begins. So many things feel like they are waiting on a tenure decision...will we move to a bigger house in Ames (now we are very limited in the number/arrangement of foster children we can take)? Or will we need to move to a new university? Or will I need to pick a new career? Or will we just move to a backpacker island in Thailand and open a taco stand that caters to expats (actual dream job)?

When I get freaked out about all the waiting, I go back to this verse: "But I have trusted in Your steadfast love; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation." Psalm 13:5

And so we wait. At least there are only three more days to wait for spring break!

We applied to be parents!

We did it. We applied to be parents. That statement seems super weird, like we applied for a fishing license, but we did it. Sunday was our initial info meeting/orientation, and we got finger prints done and handed in paper work. Now we wait a couple of weeks for all of that to get processed. If all goes well, we may get to start our ten weeks of classes in April.

Guys, I am a total commitment-phobe. Seriously, the whole drive home from picking up my dog, when he was just a cute little helpless furball puppy, I cried. All I could think about was how I had just made a 10-15 year commitment, and I was so overwhelmed by that. Every commitment to move (East Asia, back from EA, North Carolina, Iowa) has been accompanied by a total freak out, as was buying my car and my house. I spent a solid six months totally convinced I wanted to marry Jason and just waiting for him to figure it out, only to hit mild panic a couple of days after he proposed. Fortunately, by then, I knew my pattern!

So, you can imagine my thoughts Sunday afternoon shortly after turning in our paperwork. But, I've learned to trust myself. I think through decisions extensively and perhaps obsessively, so once a decision is made, I can trust it and know that I will return to confident and excited after the panic subsides.

I was also reminded that Sunday was just an initial insight into the system we are jumping into: a little loud and chaotic, not enough workers, nobody has time to be delicate with your feelings, and nothing gets done in a hurry or on a dependable time line. As much as I want to start painting our kids room and soliciting donations of hand-me-downs from friends, it's not time. Right now, it's just time to practice waiting.

And to organize the garage. Seriously, this seems to be the linchpin in the whole organizing/purging/make room process for the entire house.

Not Much Time In The Kitchen

I'm really bad at keeping blogs going. Like, really really bad. So we'll see how this goes. But, we're starting the foster care/adoption adventure and it seems almost a requirement to blog about that.

Wait, what? We?

Yep, my kitchen is now our kitchen. And the Ph.D. is done. And I've moved to the middle of the Midwest to a little college town. It's great and life is rolling along. And we'd hate for it to get boring, so just shy of a year into marriage, we are starting the growing-our-family adventure.

This weekend we'll go to an information/orientation meeting, get fingerprinted, and submit paperwork. Then we'll wait to see if we get to enroll in the required parenting classes.

It's exciting. It's terrifying. Honestly, it seems super normal like this was always the plan and super-distant since we aren't able to do much more right now than talk about how to re-arrange my office and fill out paperwork.

On that note, I'm off to make Sticky Honey Sriracha Chicken, though using chicken breast instead of drumsticks and some sort of something with yummy little yellow potatoes.  The tough decision is whether to chop them up and roast them with a little olive oil and spices or to boil and smash them...

stovetop peach crisp...sort of

Every once in a while one of my experiments turns out yummy enough that I want to be sure to write it down. while I'm still eating it. between bites. so good.

In an attempt to ease out of my sugar addiction I have let me supply of chocolate chips, peanut butter, and marshmallows all run out.  In an attempt to make sure my super cute interview clothes fit when I get around to needing them, I have started counting WW points plus again. Between the points I had left and the stuff I had in the kitchen, stove top peach crisp is where I landed.

Have I mentioned that peach season is one of my favorite times in NC?  They are finally getting good, like fall apart good, and cheap. I will be eating them A LOT for the few weeks that they are really good.

What I used: (1 serving)
1 very ripe peach (it was actually a little bruised, they are so delicate, but that didn't hurt anything)
a few shakes of cinnamon
a few drops of vanilla
1 1/2 tsp. butter
1 tbsp. packed brown sugar
1/3 cup quick oats

What I did:
1. Peel the peach, then slice it thinly.  Put on the stove top in a small pan, sprinkle with cinnamon, and cook until they start to get a little juicy and sizzly (before all that juice cooks away). Dump these into a bowl.

2. Melt butter in the pan (don't bother to rinse it between), stir in sugar just until all the sugar is "wet", then throw in the oats.  Stir/crop/mash this all together. I was using a wood spatula and kept sort of chopping and flipping everything around.  Continue until everything is toasty.  I ended up with lots of loose oats and lots of very small butter/sugar/oat clumps.  Sprinkle with some more cinnamon and give it another good stir or two.  Feel free to taste this and adjust or continue cooking as needed.

3. Pour/shake topping over the warm, juicy peaches. Enjoy!

I'm telling you folks, I don't do sophisticated food but I do try to keep it both delicious and simple to make!  I would imagine a little low fat ice cream would have been good with this, if I was the low fat ice cream eating type ;)

uhm...hello?

So maybe I haven't cooked in 7 months...or maybe I just abandoned my blog as usual.

But it's summer and all semblance of structure has gone out the window.  In an attempt to produce something other than my own thoughts and words (that's actually my job, I'm not completely self-absorved) I hit the kitchen.

Yes, I find sanity in the kitchen, in producing and creating and even cleaning up.

But I also have a love-hate relationship with the kitchen. I recognize that I can use it for good or evil, to produce fuel or crap.  And I don't want to produce crap.  I want to make good things that fuel my body well so I can do good things and feel good (and wear good things!).

Did I mention that since the last post I've discovered a little gluten sensitivity (read: takes 3 days to not feel like crap after eating a piece of bread).  So that's thrown a wrench in my love of cooking/baking as well.

But I'm getting all of this figured out and hoping to keep getting it figured out and maybe I'll share it here. Though if my track record is any indication then this will last about 7 weeks, and then the Fall semester (and my dissertation, oh jeez, my dissertation) will take over.

Oh yeah, did I mention that pinterest sort of killed this blog as well! I mean, I never was one for creating things, just finding good stuff and putting a twist on it.  I can do that on pinterest and so I have actually been in the kitchen some, I just pin about it.

I do have one new recipe to share and it is perfect right now, but only if you are reading this when tomatoes are in season and super good. As per my usual, everything below is an estimation.

Fresh Tomato Soup
1/2 yellow onion
2-3 garlic cloves
olive oil (about 2 TBSPs?)
1 red pepper (or 1/2, they are kinda expensive)
3-4 Roma tomatoes
3 big heirloom tomatoes
1/3-1/2 cup half and half (though honestly its delicious w/o this)
salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes

This is pretty easy.  Dice the garlic and onions. Chop red pepper and tomatoes (obviously throw away the gross parts). Heat the olive oil in a big pot (you know the stock/chili/mashed potato pot), add onions and garlic stirring occasionally.  Let cook for a few minutes until onions are becoming clearish.  Add red peppers and cook until soft, like the vegetables in really yummy fajitas.  Add tomatoes, stir, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat, cool enough to be safe in your blender/food processor, and blend in small batches to desired smoothness.  I don't really like it chunky, so I blend a lot.  Poor all the blended yumminess back into the pot and bring to a light simmer. Stir in cream.  Add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste.  Be careful, red pepper flakes will spice it up fast!  Let simmer to desired thickness and enjoy!  Reheats super well! I love this for left overs and even add pasta or rice, occasionally some left over chicken.

Fluffy Pumpkin Cake

Ok, so just a quick post from a quick experiment before I get back to the less-than-sane amount of work I have right now. Since this is my blog, can I gripe for like two seconds? I have no idea how I am going to get a dissertation grant proposal, a manuscript, all my finals/final projects, and all of my grading done by Dec. 9th...and all that only to start my competency exam reading which I have not been able to touch...oh Jan. 11th, you will be a good day! Ok, ok...#firstworldproblems for sure! I love what I am doing, I actually want to spend time on all the work I listed above, I just am useless after about 12-14 hours of work and I need about 30 hours a day!

So, now that you are stressed for me, go make this and don't even feel guilty for cutting yourself a large slice!

What I used:

1 box of angel food cake mix

1 can pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

about 1/2 cup of water

splash of vanilla (literally, I just splashed some in, maybe about a TBSP)

pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon to taste (I tasted the raw batter until I liked it)

Optional (choose 1 or 2)- chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, pecans, cool whip

What I did:

Preheat the oven to 325 and spray a 13x9 pan with non-stick spray. Note that the batter puffs up and would likely boil over a smaller pan! Dump angel food cake mix and pumpkin in a large bowl (it will puff up). Add water, vanilla, and about 1 tsp. of each pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon. Stir until combined, then taste test the batter. Because this is an angel food cake it will have that slight sour taste, so you can add more spices if you want to down play that. The pumpkin flavor did not come through much for me when I tasted the batter, but did once it was baked. Pour this in the 13x9 pan and bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until the center is set and slightly firm to the touch.

Optionals: Chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, or pecans- approximately half-way through the baking time sprinkle 1/2 cup on the top of the cake...by not stirring them in you make the cake look prettier and get a hint of the flavor with less calories!

Cool whip- allow cake to cool and then top with cool whip as you would icing. Sprinkle with cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice. If you serve the cake warm you could top individual pieces with the cool whip.

This was great- fluffy and light and probably perfect for ending a Thanksgiving Dinner! It did seem to get gooey as time went on, so unfortunately this is probably one to make the day you plan to serve it. Enjoy!