Boris' Christmas Adventures

My dog hates snow, ice and anything involving the cold. His usual reaction to being outside between October and April is to hobble around on three legs, while holding the other one up as high as possible to convince us that his leg is broken and we need to carry him in. This starts when the weather hits around 45 degrees and continues until it's back up to 70.

Being the sympathetic dog owner that I am, my response this Christmas was to take him to my parents' house, where there is an extra few feet of snow and a whole family full of people who think it's funny to watch his dramatic show. Imagine my surprise, then, to see my drama queen of a dog take off after a squirrel and suddenly realize that snow is fun.

So congratulations to Boris on his Christmas adventure...and becoming a little bit less of a wimp. Next, we'll try to conquer water!

A tribute for Christmas

This Christmas Eve I went back to Christ Lutheran Church in Faribault, MN--the first church I voluntarily went to and the only church that I have ever felt a connection to. Each time I go back to Christ Lutheran, I realize once again what it is that holds me to it. Christ Lutheran is the only church I've been to that hasn't held an attitude of trying to rescue all those people who aren't good enough to belong and that still holds tolerance and understanding for other people as a virtue. Every service I have ever been to has ended with announcements of opportunities to help people in need--no strings attached--solely for the purpose of helping others and bringing light to their life, no matter their beliefs or choices.

This attitude and focus begins and is continually upheld by Pastor Craig Breimhorst. He is one of the only men who I can say (without irony) seems to strive in every aspect of his life to be Christ-like; he has dedicated his life towards helping people find a genuine relationship with God in whatever way is most meaningful to them and to helping those who are in need and trying to bring hope to those who don't have any. He doesn't restrict his help to those who belong to his parish or even to Christianity, and his help doesn't come with lectures or proselytizing. Instead, Pastor Craig spends his life trying to show the love that he knows for and from God, and that love is shown in every word and action within his church.

I don't generally like to talk about religion and faith; it's something that I feel is intensely personal and for many people my age has more negative connotations than positive. It's used far too often as a box to restrict people and a platform for judging other people. There are very few people who I would feel comfortable describing as Christ-like, but Pastor Craig's continual efforts to improve people's lives was and still is an inspiration for my own faith. After attending Christ Lutheran this week, I want to give tribute to a man who dedicates so much of his time and energy to improving the lives of others.

Adventures and hills

I learned yesterday that while cross country skiing is actually a lot of fun, it's going to be a long time before I'm ready for any kind of downhill skiing--in cross country or any other skis. After a lot of deliberation, I finally decided to take the plunge and take a lesson in cross country skiing.

I went to Theodore Wirth Winter Recreation area, and I have to say I was absolutely impressed. The park was beautiful and well kept up, the staff in the rental and check-in area were extremely helpful and friendly, and the instructor (Brian) was one of the most patient people I have ever studied under. He loved his job of teaching people, and that showed in every aspect of the lesson. The hour and a half lesson ended after two hours and fifteen minutes of him coaching us through every aspect of skiing, from the actual mechanics to drills we could do to strengthen ourselves, to equipment, good places to go and the passes we might need.

The experience was also definitely an adventure! The last time I went cross country skiing was in middle school, when we went in circles around the snow-covered running track. In this lesson, we were on a practical cross country skiing track, including snow that wasn't groomed, hills and a little bit of ice.

I fell down a lot. As near as I can estimate, I ended up sitting, laying or kneeling on the ground unexpectedly at least eleven times. Going straight across the flat ground wasn't bad--it started to get me used to the idea of gliding across the snow when my feet weren't moving. Hills, however, made me discover my inner control freak. As soon as my skis started moving without my feet actually moving them, I wasn't happy. I don't like moving when I'm not making me move, and my immediate reaction is to stop it and get back into control. Unfortunately I wasn't very good at stopping, so nearly every time I ended up stopping by falling on my butt. With the very patient instruction of Brian, I progressed from falling five times on the way down this hill to only falling once. (This hill that terrified me wasn't really what you'd picture as a bunny hill at a downhill skiing place. Think of it more along the lines of about an eighth of that bunny hill in height, and a little less steep. Sliding down it probably would have taken a grand total of five seconds and wouldn't have been worth the walk back up the hill.)

Finishing the class and heading back to the clubhouse to drop off my equipment, I was feeling pretty good about my adventure. I had learned some new tricks, tried something totally different, and had a lot of fun. And I was now on my way to the gym to warm back up in the hot tub! Brian took us back on one of the regular trails so we could get some more realistic experience, without all the starting and stopping for more instruction. At the end, he pulled us up and told us that there was one more hill on the way back to the clubhouse. It was a little steeper and more slippery than the one we had practiced on, but certainly not much bigger. (True--it still wouldn't have been worth sledding down!) I let the rest of the class go before me, assuming I would take the longest, and started down. I got a little further than usual before falling on my butt (maybe 10 whole feet!) but this time landed a little funny...getting back up, I noticed that my hand was numb. I took the chicken way down the hill (side stepping very, very slowly and repeatedly losing my balance), thanked my instructor for patiently following my snail's pace down the hill, and went in. I took off my equipment and mittens and noticed that my left wrist wasn't bending very well...as I went to climb in my car, it twinged and I realized that I had sprained my wrist. Not downhill skiing but cross country skiing...after the lesson was over. It's getting a little better this morning, but still gives me a little twinge now and then as a reminder of my adventure. I'll add it to my list of embarrassing injuries, just after the sprained ankle from playing Duck Duck Grey Duck and the strained foot from trying to run up the wall in martial arts class.

But on the good side, I woke up this morning trying to figure out when I could go try it out again. And yesterday, for a change, I was not bored. We'll call this experiment a success!

The Mushroom-less Vegetarian Food Challenge

My sister and brother-in-law (let's call them Christine and Tim) will be coming in for Christmas on Saturday, and for the last week or so it sounds like my family has been puzzling over the conundrum that they face every time Christine and Tim come to visit--what to feed them? The majority of my family is made up of dedicated carnivores; a meal without at least three of the four of their holy quartet of food (meat, garlic, onions and mushrooms) is a case for hightened suspicion. Too many vegetables are dangerous; my dad once attacked my broccoli with a hammer to "protect" me. In sharp contrast and to the complete bewilderment of my parents for many years, Christine and Tim are vegetarians, who don't like onions or mushrooms.

And so, each year, there's a mini scramble to try to find fun, interesting new foods. This year, we've been further requested to try for healthy foods--we can't supplement every meal with cheese curds, french fries, chips and other fried foods.

My mom made her first trip to Trader Joe's last weekend and came home with quite a variety of tofu meat products; I volunteered to help her find some extra recipes to add a little bit of variety. Growing up in the family I did, I still had a hard time finding recipes completely without onions and mushrooms--however, like any other recipe, I firmly believe in cutting out any food you really dislike. For the benefit of all you out there who have any interest in vegetarian food or even just fast, healthy food, here's a few of the more interesting sounding recipes I found. Each one of these is from Paulette Mitchell's The 15 Minute Gourmet, which is one of the most indispensable cookbooks in my library.

Smoky Chipotle, Mango and Avacado Wraps

Ingredients:
For the mango sauce:
2 cups coarsely chopped jarred mango
1/2 cup fresh orange juice

For the chipotle spread:
1- 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh chives
2 T fresh orange juice
1 T chipotle chili powder

To complete the recipe:
4- 10 inch flour tortillas, sun-dried tomato or spinach flavor
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1 cup jarred mango in 1/2 inch strips
1 avacado, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 cup jarred roasted red bell peppers, drained and cut into 1/4 inch slices

Directions:
Combine all the sauce ingredients in a blender; puree until smooth.

Stir together all the spread ingredients in a small bowl until smooth.

To assemble each wrap, spread a tortilla with a generous 1/4 cup of the spread. Sprinkle with cilantro leaves. Starting about 1 inch up from the bottom of the tortilla, arrange 1 horizontal row of the mango strips, another row of the avacado slices and another of the red pepper slices, keeping the ingredients in the bottom third of the tortilla. Fold 1 inch of the sides of the tortilla over the filling, fold the bottom of the tortilla over the filling and then firmly roll it away from you.

To serve, cut diagonally in half. Serve with mango sauce.

Vegetables in Herbed Tomato Sauce on Polenta

Ingredients:
For the polenta:
1- 16 oz. package cooked polenta, cut into 12- 1/2 inch slices
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

For the vegetables and sauce:
3 T olive oil
1- 8 oz. package sliced cremini mushrooms (optional)
1 medium zucchini, cut into 2 x 1/4 inch strips
1 cup finely chopped onion (optional)
1 1/2 t minced garlic
1- 14 oz. can crushed tomatoes
2 t finely chopped fresh oregano or 1/2 t dried oregano
2 t chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 t dried thyme
1/8 t red pepper flakes, or to taste
2 T coarsely chopped fresh basil
1/4 t salt, or to taste
1/4 t pepper, or to taste
Toasted pine nuts for garnish

Directions:
Arrange the polenta on a foil-lined baking sheet. Spring each slice with 1 T parmesan cheese. Bake for 12 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the polenta is heated through.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saute pan over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms, zucchini, onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until tender.

Stir in the crushed tomatoes, oregano, thyme and red pepper flakes. Reduce the heat to medium; cover and cook, stirring occasiojnally, for 5 minutes to allow the flavors to blend. Stir in the basil and season with salt and pepper.

For each serving, place 3 polenta slices on a plate. Top with the tomato-vegetable sauce and garnish with pine nuts

Taking up an old hobby: Making Jewelry

From the time I was in late elementary school until I went to college, I spent a lot of my time making jewelry. I did a lot of work with just basic beads on a string, eventually moved up to lampworking my own beads and occasionally tried my hand at metalsmithing classes. When I moved to college, that stopped--there wasn't room for most of my supplies, and besides--most places frown on you setting up a blowtorch on their premises, even for art's sake.


I've been thinking about taking up jewelry again on and off since I graduated, but never really taken a step towards it untgil last Saturday. When I was on a hunt for a present for my secret santa at work, I stumbled across the bead shop that I used to love when I was a kid, and decided to stop in with the last 5 minutes I had of shopping time.


Forety-five minutes and $25 later, I left with a bunch of beads, silver findings and a plan to make both my secret santa present and a few presents for myself. Yep. What a great, no-pressure way to get back into an old hobby--making a gift for someone that needs to be finished in less than a week, with a box of tools and supplies that I haven't even seen for 6 years.


Poor decisions.


And today (2 days before I need to have a nicely wrapped secret santa present), I finally decided to sit down and put something together. I forgot how hard it was to wrap coils and make perfect wire circles. I also forgot that I only used to buy terrible quality wire, sticky clasps and funny-looking chains. My earrings, luckily for me, were simple enough to turn out beautifully:



Her present....well, we'll just leave that for your imagination and make an emergency trip to the craft store tomorrow. And just in case, I'll make sure to look up how late the liquor store is open!

A cold experiment?

I love Minnesota. I can genuinely say that from about April until October, and for the rest of the year I keep repeating it like a mantra, hoping eventually it will be true in the winter, too. Since I grew a little too old to spend all my afternoons in the sun sledding or making snowmen, it's become a lot less true. There are plenty of adult sports that you need to be outside for, but I'm absolutely terrified of downhill skiing or snowboarding (I would give myself T-30 seconds before I landed in a tree--probably the top branches where they couldn't figure out how to get me down) and I can't skate more than a foot or so before I fall down. For all that, I would still love to find something that would get me outside during the winter and make me hate the snow less.

Enter my next idea for a project--cross country skiing? I haven't tried it since the 2 week unit we had in the middle school, and I can't remember if I was good at it or not. I don't remember it being particularly hard...but we were just going in circles around a perfectly flat track. We'll see if this manages to be one of my ideas that sticks around for more than a week, but I've found a few places within an hour drive or so that offer classes and equipment rental. That and my mother said she's always thought about cross country skiing but never done it, so maybe I can hold myself to it by making it a mother-daughter outing.

Right now this seems like a fabulously fun idea for tolerating winter, getting a little bit of exercise that I actually enjoy, and learning something new (FINALLY!). Cross my fingers it's an experiment that works!

Undertaking an Adventure

When I graduated college, one of my professors told me that the hardest part about adapting to life after college was learning how to live with a life that wasn't divided into semesters. At that point, I was thinking about how I was going to miss summer vacation, winter break and spring break. Since then, I've figured out the real problem; my life is no longer automatically refreshed with new interests, people and schedules every four months. I spend eight hours of the day doing the same thing and, while I do learn new things most days, there's almost never a complete shift in focus.

I'm bored.

Through the first twenty three years of my life, everything was focused towards the single goal of learning more, doing more and becoming more. When I graduated, everything I had lived my life for so far was achieved, and I'm still floundering around, trying to find something new with as much meaning, interest and change. In short, I'm looking for the adventure that's going to be my life. Whether it's through achieving the goals on my "bucket list," trying new experiments or just chasing change, I'm here to write my adventure book. I hope for the sake of everyone involved that it's a great story!