Adventures in Whole Wheat

When I graduated from (homeschool) high school, my parents wanted to give me a graduation present. At the time, I was 17 or 18 and planning with great anticipation a bright future of homemaking and childraising, and I knew exactly what I needed to achieve instant success in all my homemaking and childraising tasks: a Kitchenaid stand mixer. So that's what I received. Probably one of the best gifts ever.

A few years later, once I learned that the wheat flour you buy in grocery stores is as nutritionally dead as white flour, I decided I wanted the wheat grinder attachment for my mixer. That's what Joe gave me for my twenty-first birthday.

Now, I have the ability to make my own supremely healthy, none-of-the-nutrients-have-evaporated-yet whole-wheat flour, a prerogative which I ignore approximately 10 months out of the year.

This month is one of my Yay Let's Eat Healthy and Have Good Bread months, or maybe just Wow, I Sure Do Consume A Lot of Peanut-Butter-and-Banana Sandwiches, So I Should Probably Ditch the White Bread month. To celebrate, here are some pictures.

Action!

Fresh whole-wheat bread that would be delicious if it weren't slightly burnt

By the middle of last week, I was doing awesome at bread and wanted to try something more challenging. And I decided...what could be more challenging than figuring out how to create edible sugar-free honey-sweetened whole wheat pancakes?

 

The scrumptious-looking strawberries 'n cream pancakes are Joe's. The pancakes with the weird black lumps are mine. Those are actually bluish-purple lumps, and they're blueberries, and they were the best part. 

Maybe it was just the recipe, but sugar-free honey-sweetened whole wheat pancakes aren't as good as they sound. They weren't fluffy, and they had the texture of a foam mousepad.

But we did find a use for them.

The Most Humiliating Moment in my Entire Marriage

It was a gorgeous un-February Friday, so warm and sunny that all the windows were open, including the front-porch window right next to my desk. I was sitting at my desk, and I watched the guy walk up to our front door. So, even if we had a thing for ignoring people who knock on the front door, which we don't, we couldn't have ignored him.

He knocked on the door, triggering Jack's foaming-at-the-mouth kill mode. One of us had to answer the door and one of us had to hold the dog, and, since Joe was in the middle of a video game and I wasn't, it was my turn to answer.

"Hi. Are you the lady of the house?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, wonderful. I'm Pastor Lying Jerkface* from A Fake Made-Up Ministry**. Here's a booklet."

*Name changed for privacy

**Name changed for privacy 

I took the booklet. It was home-printed and spiral-bound. He pulled out a Georgia driver's license and presented it, arm held straight out, like a movie policeman flashing his badge.

"This is my ID. I have to show you my ID if I come knocking on your door."

I glanced at it because it was in my face, but felt no need to verify his identity. He was polite, older, well-dressed, wearing a tie. And also it didn't really matter who he was because I still had to stand on my porch and talk to him. But, since no other solicitors had bothered to show ID, I was impressed.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yep, have to show you my ID. It's the law in Georgia. So, I'm with this ministry, and I'm collecting donations for a shelter, a battered women and children's shelter. We have thirty-two kids there right now."

A women and children's shelter? NO WAY! That's exactly the kind of place I wanted to volunteer for when I lived in Fredericksburg!

"Oh, okay," I said politely, trying to remember if there was any cash in the house.

"I have someone who'll match every donation I collect today, up until 7:00 P.M."

"Wow, really? That's great!

"Yep. Have you ever seen the commercials on TV for Milton Ruben Chevrolet?"

"No, we don't have cable."

"Don't have cable! Well, me neither. I have one of those boxes, you know, the fifty-nine dollar boxes, and you can watch TV with them?"

"Yep, we have one of those, it's just not hooked up."

"Oh, well, it's fifty-nine dollars, and I watch TV with it, you know, the free channels."

"Yeah...we don't really watch TV."

"Well, anyway, there's commercials on there for Milton Ruben Chevrolet."

"Oh, okay," I said.

"So where are you from?" He asked.

"Virginia, originally."

"What are you doing all the way down here?"

"He got stationed at Fort Gordon," I said, pointing with my thumb back towards the house.

"Oh, I see. Do you have children?"

"Not yet."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

"The Lord, at this point," I said. He laughed.

"Just wait on the Lord, that's right. He'll provide everything you need."

Awkward? No, not at all. Not in the least. Nnnope.

The small talk continued for a few more minutes. At one point he said something like, "Whatever you can donate, all thirty-two of those children thank you."

"Well, I'm not sure I have anything, but let me go inside and check my purse," I said. I went inside and talked very quietly to Joe, who was at his desk a few feet away from the window.

"Hey Joe...you heard all that?"

 "Yeah."

There were two chunks of money in my purse: Two ones, and a twenty. I held the ones in one hand and the twenty in another. "Which one?"

"Whatever you feel you gotta do, baby."

Hooray! Joe overheard the conversation on the porch and is agreeing that this guy is legit! (Even though - take note - "Whatever you feel you gotta do, baby" is NOT "yes," and I knew it.) So I ran out there with the twenty, thinking how it was really forty with the matching donation and how awesome that was and trying to remember why I had a twenty in my purse at all, 'cause I usually don't have cash. The man reached out like he wanted to shake my hand. I gave him the $20 and tried to shake his hand at the same time, which didn't work very well and created another awkward moment.

"God bless you!" He said. 

"Who was it you said was going to match donations, by the way?" I asked, just curious.

"I told you earlier! Milton Ruben Chevrolet!"

"Oh," I said. Somehow, I hadn't interpreted the babbling about commercials as information about his sponsor. "That's just so cool for them to be doing that!" I said.

"Yes, ma'am. So, what do you do for a living?"

"I don't really have a job right now. I mean, I used to be a court reporter, and I still get some work from my office in Virginia, but that's it."

"Oh. Well, you have to focus on your career, too!"

"Doing his laundry and cooking his dinners is my career!" I said, "And that's how I like it."

He laughed. "Well, as long as that's how you like it."

I nodded and smiled a lot, and he thanked me again and left.

I went back inside and sat down at my desk, embarrassed that Joe & his friend had heard that conversation...but also really happy that I got to help. I was wondering what $40 would buy the shelter. Dishsoap? Peanut butter? Toilet paper? So many possibilities!

But then the warm fuzzies began to wear off and I started wondering. I Googled the name of the church written in the booklet he'd given me. The church was real, and just down the road. The name he introduced himself by actually was the name of the church's pastor.

It was also the name of a guy who was written up in the local news six months ago for going door-to-door asking for donations for a women's shelter, falsely claiming that the Columbia County Commissioner would match every donation he collected.

I could have panicked, but instead I just went straight for a sinking feeling of resignation.

I called the Milton Ruben Chevy dealer. Three times, actually, after being put on hold and finding the right number. I eventually spoke to a manager, who told me they weren't taking part in any such fundraiser. The manager suggested that I not give money to any person making these claims.

That's how I found out that I got scammed. I gave $20 to a liar who came to my house, wasted my time, and earned my trust.

Maddening. Infuriating. But not the worst part.

Ephesians 5:22 (like other verses) tells wives to submit to their own husbands as they do the Lord. "Submit," in this verse, is the Greek "hupotasso," for which there are many shades of meaning; one Greek lexicon uses the definition "to yield to one's admonition or advice." (NOTE: There are also, of course, verses pertaining to a husband's duties to his wife. Also, I know the whole submission thing is generally a touchy subject, but I'm staying away from that discussion. I believe it's my duty and privilege to be second-in-command, and I know it's a good plan.) 

Well, only a few days before this incident, we'd had a rather painful...DISCUSSION about a topic we've always DISCUSSED: charitable giving. I'm of the opinion that we should give away a large percentage of our income. Joe thinks it's weird and kind of stupid to give hard-earned money to strangers.

So there I was, $2 in one hand, $20 in the other, and an expectant look on my face. "Whatever you feel you gotta do, baby," Joe said. While this can mean many things, in this situation, it meant "Haven't we always talked about this? You know EXACTLY what I think. But I don't feel like defending myself against your silent self-righteous wrath for the next hour, so do whatever you want." And there went the $20.

And so the few minutes after I spoke to the Milton Ruben man were the most humiliating moments in the entire 3.5 years of our marriage. "Hey, Joe...you know how you say I shouldn't give money to people I don't know, and I get so angry, and then you get ripped to shreds and can't really defend yourself because I'm JUST TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING...and you know how I'm always like 'Teehee, I always do what you say!'.....but I didn't (and often don't,) and that's why this happened........uhh, yeah.........I'm not even going to try 'sorry.'"

It. was. horrible.

Joe didn't say "I told you so." He didn't have to. He did say, "From now on, I'm answering the door." He also said, "It was $20 well spent if you learned a lesson." And I did: Even when you think you know what's right, obey your husband. The rule's there for a reason.

Also, the next time someone comes a-knocking, kick them in the shin, slam the door, and call the police.

Yoga Class the Fifth

On Tuesday, I learned that my yoga teacher can fold in half.

After she folded in half, she just effortlessly kicked up her feet and VOILA, headstand.

Then it was my turn. Technically, you're supposed to extensively practice Dolphin Pose to work on shoulder strength before attempting headstand, but with the help of a wall and Ms. Yoga Teacher, I was able to make a really shaky attempt.

 

After my best attempt at Dolphin Pose, I brought my legs up one at a time. Then, for maybe three seconds (with Ms. Yoga Teacher's hands on my shins, I think,) I held my very first headstand. And then I fell! It was exhilarating. Every week brings new and exciting ways to fall over. I love it.

It's starting to feel like summer outside. For some reason, this has caused the gym staff to turn the yoga room into their own little box of winter. I thought my toes would probably freeze off and prevent me from further perfecting my Downward Dog, but once we got started, I was completely distracted from noticing that the room temperature hovered just above twenty degrees Fahrenheit.

Yoga Class the Fourth

Even though part of yesterday's yoga class had me jumping around on one foot so I wouldn't fall over, I really enjoyed the class (as usual.) Again - for the second time of the four times I've attended - I was the only student there, so I got another one-on-one lesson. That's the best type, of course, but I worry about how much longer the gym will keep scheduling a class which has had a maximum attendance of three people.

Coolest thing yet: we did the BIRD OF PARADISE! asana. I felt so pro! 

Also, I learned that the best time to practice stretching is after a good workout. Ms. Yoga Teacher likened the human body to a spaghetti noodle: once it's been warmed up, it can bend a lot farther. Bending farther = results.

Along with my increasing flexibility, I've noticed another benefit to the classes. In day-to-day life, I have a tendency to run into things. Kitchen counters, grocery carts, walls, Joe...nothing is safe from my lack of spatial intelligence. But, for a few days after a class, the frequency of these collisions goes down. Yoga actually makes me more aware of the way I move and the space around me.

You may have noticed that in all my yoga drawings, I'm wearing the same clothing. It's not for the sake of simplicity. It's because that one outfit is actually all I have to wear to yoga every week. I'm like a cartoon character!

So, yeah...no idea how much longer these classes will go on...but at least they'll always have me.

Chocolatey Love

Ah, Valentine's Day...the holiday Joe & I don't really make a big deal out of. Every year, I do try to think of something special to do, but I just sit there feeling kind of confused because wasn't it just yesterday that I was trying to think of something special to do for today? When you spend every waking moment showering each other with affection, trying to outdo one another in little kindnesses, and generally being disgustingly happy together, Show-Your-Partner-How-Much-You-Care Day is kind of pointless.

(How long have we been married? Three and a half years. Yeah, I know this mushy madly-in-love stuff will wear off soon. A few people have already warned me. Four years ago. And three years ago. And two. I'm sure it'll happen soon. Yep. Aaaany day now.)

Anyway, we actually do have V-Day traditions, because it just doesn't make sense to ignore a holiday where I get candy. So what we do is: Joe, instead of buying candy for me, makes it, usually while I'm still in bed. For Joe, I make a special dinner (something that goes on a plate and that you actually eat with a fork,) then I serve a dessert I've never made before. If you're thinking the dessert experimentation thing sounds like a recipe for failure, you're right: the year Joe liked blood oranges, I thought it'd be awesome to make an egg-yolk-based custard which included freshly squeezed blood orange juice.

You can't win 'em all.

We had our Valentine's Day thing on Sunday this year, since V-Day's Monday. Joe made peanut butter cups, white chocolate and milk chocolate candy filled with homemade raspberry glaze, chocolate-covered strawberries, and chocolate-drizzled raspberries. I made molten chocolate cake.

Eye candy:

Everything turned out splendidly, even the experimental cakes.

And the special, elaborate, fancy dinner (which, actually, Joe made,) was exactly what I wanted. It took me a while to decide on the perfect meal, but once I decided, nothing else would've been as good.

Cheeseburgers.

Yeah. Valentine's Day rocked.

Why is this blog completely pointless?

Sewing. Duct tape. Tablecloths. Ice cream. "Technically, I deserve to be dead right now." Yoga. Why is this blog completely pointless? Or, why do I feel compelled to spend hours writing about the most inane topics, posting these writings on the internet, and using them to draw as much attention to myself as possible?

There are three answers: I need to write, I need attention, and this is what I'm supposed to do.

Allow me to elaborate.

Answer one: I need to write.
For as long as I can remember, I've written for fun and for self-expression. Here's a condensed illustrated history:

First Grade: Hooray! I can read, write, and almost spell big words
Fourth Grade: The Unicorn-In-An-Elementary-School-At-Night story
Fifth Grade: Nature-related non-rhyming poetry
Ages Fourteen to Fifteen: Terrible angsty poetry resulting from a rather disturbing unrequited-love obsession with a guy eight years older than me
Ages Fifteen to Sixteen: A terrible vampire story masquerading as fiction but actually resulting from a rather disturbing unrequited-love obsession with a guy six years older than me*
Ages Seventeen to Twenty-One: I keep trying to write fiction, but all I end up with is a pile of fragments of dead stories
Ages Twenty-One to Present: I write to keep a record of day-to-day life

*Thankfully, once I hit seventeen or so, I grew out of what was starting to become a creepy pattern. The guy I'm now obsessed with is only a year and a half older than me.

So, writing's "my thing." Problem was, I wasn't writing very often. I wasn't getting enough practice. So I blackmailed myself. It went like this: "You're going to start a blog and tell everyone about it. If you don't post regularly, they'll be like, 'Oh, look, something else she started and then didn't have the discipline to keep up with,' and everyone will see what a failure you are. Deal?"

Deal. 

Reason Two: I need attention.
I'll admit it. I'm in constant need of approval, praise, and validation. 

Answer Three: This autobiographical stuff is what I'm supposed to do.

There's no more poetry, terrible or otherwise, because these days I don't have patience for that kind of pretentious drama. There's no more fiction because I wasn't good at it and because I couldn't make it relevant to my faith (considering my preferred topics involved dead guys and the women who loved them.)

No poetry, no dark undead romances. That left nonfiction. As my last attempts at fantasy floundered, my journals began to flourish. Notebooks I really only used for recording sadness, anger, and other mental imbalances began to include records of good days I wanted to remember.

Then came the project that cemented my commitment to autobiographical stuff. I was grimly trying to resuscitate my last fiction story when I first felt the need to make a written record of the beginning of my relationship with Joe. I wanted to protect memories that time had already begun to erase. It was a scary concept; I had no idea how to put together a thorough factual record of a period I didn't completely remember. I didn't have all the memories, I didn't have all the details, and I dreaded trying to work it all out (especially since it was kind of a difficult subject. Don't ask.) But the idea stayed in the back of my mind, no matter how many paragraphs of fantasy drivel my labors produced.

Then, a few months after that last fiction story was officially dead and I had nothing else to do, I started working on the record...and, for the first time in years, completed a writing project. Our beginning was saved from any more forgetting. It was a huge relief to have it written down like that. The uneasy feeling I'd had for months was replaced by quiet.

That's when I started to understand why I was given the ability to write. For some reason, it's my job to record our good (and not-so-good-but-important) times the way the family videographer records their kids' birthdays.

I don't know whether my own children (or anyone else) will ever care about what I'm keeping...but I do know that I'll care. Already, I care. I've preserved memories that would've been lost. My words create snapshots of details I never would've seen again.

So, there you have it. This blog has been really good for me. In spite of my discomfort with the level of narcissism I exhibit by starting and maintaining a website completely devoted to talking about myself, I'll keep practicing and posting to avoid public humiliation. (Well, for now. We'll see how long it lasts, won't we?)

Yoga Class the Third

If the first class was "Wow, this is fun, productive, and peaceful," the second class was "This is hard, but I seem to be getting the hang of it!" then the third class was "I think I hate yoga now." Yesterday, I could barely keep up with the rest of the class (two other people this time,) and I was getting things wrong the whole time. It wasn't that the teacher had to constantly correct me or anything; I could just feel the misalignment of my body.

I can't even describe the horrors of the poses I tried to twist myself into yesterday. Just the instructions overloaded my brain. My body had no idea how to interpret the instructions and couldn't figure out what the first step was. 

I'd describe one of the poses, but because words fail me, I'll just draw.

How do you stick your left elbow on the other side of your right knee? I don't think my spine moves like that. Everyone else was like, "Okay!" and just went into the pose. I kinda flapped my arms a little bit and, with panic-stricken eyes, implored my teacher to please save me.

...and this was only a step toward a more advanced pose.

Yesterday, I mentioned at the beginning of the class that yoga seemed to me like a foreign language: something you can't really learn on your own, that it's best to be taught by someone who's there to show you the proper way of doing things so you don't learn the wrong way. At the gym, I'm surrounded by mirrors and can try to correct any weirdness in my posture when I'm doing an asana. At home, I can't see what I'm doing, and if I do it wrong, I won't have a clue. So I haven't really practiced at home (except for one twenty-minute session where I spent 15 minutes setting up a space and wandering around the house, then 5 minutes practicing.) Hopefully, the excellently illustrated book the teacher let me borrow for the week will inspire me to try again.

Little Blue Dress

I know what you're thinking.

"Wow, that dress is weird and baggy on one side, and you can tell it's too tight because of the way the buttons are pulling."

"Why aren't her feet in the picture?"

To answer you, yeah, I know it doesn't fit. That's my latest sewing project. I bought a few dresses at the thrift store so I could practice sewing on them, and this is the first one I finished. I'm not super good at making things fit yet.

Two, my feet aren't in the picture because I was wearing tennis shoes.

Back to the dress.

 Good:
1. I like the fabric.
2. I like the seam down the back. (I seem to have a thing for seams down the back: see?)
3. I like the length, though it could have been a bit longer.
4. I turned the dress into something better than what it originally was.
5. With this project, I made my very first sewing-machine buttonholes. 

Bad:
1. It doesn't fit, and never will.
2. The buttonholes are horrible.

Overall, despite the fact that this dress is totally unwearable, I consider it a victory. Every one of my projects brings me closer to the glorious day when I'll be able to make a sewing post without a Bad section.

Before:

Yoga Class the Second

I went to yoga class again yesterday. This time I had proper clothing instead of jeans and I felt a lot less awkward. There was one other student, but mostly I was so focused on what I was doing that I wasn't worried about looking stupid.

Since I learned some of the basics of yoga in the first class (and, of course, since there was another, more experienced student,) the teacher sped things up a bit. She didn't have to take as long explaining things and took less time between repetitions. Also, we used straps to help pull ourselves deeper into some of the poses. 

I was pretty excited when, at the end of the hour-long lesson, she said we were going to do a shoulder stand. While every asana we had done was challenging and interesting, I thought this would be the most advanced pose yet. I had to laugh when I realized it was exactly like what we did in the living room when we were kids.

Credit: http://www.holisticonline.com/

After the shoulder stand was Corpse Pose, the second-to-last part of every yoga class. Corpse Pose = lay on your back, arms at your sides, face and palms toward the ceiling, legs stretched out, eyes closed, no tension anywhere in the body. You can hear the bass of the rock music playing in the gym and the clanky sounds of exercise equipment while the world goes on out there, but in the classroom, the noise is distant. Quiet music is still playing. I just lie there feeling how stretched and warm my body is and not really thinking about anything. We stay that way for maybe three to five minutes (any longer, and people would probably start falling asleep.) Then we sit up and tell each other "namaste," which is a word the teacher explained to mean, roughly, "The light in me sees and recognizes the light in you." It's the good-bye of the yoga class, and the closest we've come to any sort of deeper meaning or obvious crossing of cultures in any of the exercises.

Last week, I learned that a huge part of the philosophy of yoga is respecting your body's limitations and not forcing it to do things it doesn't want to do or can't do yet; you're even encouraged to rest on your knees with your forehead on the floor if you need a break during a class. I thought that respecting your body's limitations was such a cool idea. This week, I ignored that concept. I pushed myself for progress. Still, the class was relaxing and fun, and I can tell I'm getting better.