Quick Update

I finished reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan last night. It was a good story, but I just found it kind of boring. Plus, I didn’t like the texture and the thinness of the pages. I guess that made it feel more “asian” in a way and fit the character of the book, but I’m weird about stuff like that.

I think I’m going to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte next. I also ordered The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan from Amazon.com last night. I have updated my Amazon wish list to reflect all of the new books I want to pick up, most of which are about food. I can’t wait until the book sale starts up again in September because I really hate paying full price for books.

Farm Stand Finds

In an effort to eat healthier and to eat more local foods, the kids and I scoured the counrty for some farm stands today. I saw online that there was one between Clinton and Tecumseh, but when we drove down the road, we didn’t see anything. I knew of one in Ridgeway, so we headed out there and got a cantaloupe and 2 big zucchini, spending a total of $4. We then headed toward Kapnick Orchards to get some fruit and when we passed Pocklington Rd. we saw someone who was growing a HUGE garden. Just by chance we decided to drive by their house to see if they had anything by the road for sale and they did. We got 4 cucumbers, a big bag of green leaf lettuce, and a big bag of broccoli spending a whopping $2 for everything. We left there and headed to Kapnick’s and got some blueberries and peaches that were grown on their farm, spending $6 while we were there.

Everyone thinks buying local produce will be more expensive than just picking it up from the store, but I have to argue. I could have bought 12 ears of home grown sweet corn for $1, but I didn’t need corn. If I went to Kroger, I could get 12 ears of sweet corn trucked all the way from Colorado for $4. That corn would have lost some of it’s appeal in transit and also some of it’s nutritional value. I paid 50 cents for a huge bag of green leaf lettuce. I could buy a bag of green leaf lettuce at the grocery store for about $2.99. I got a huge bag of broccoli for 50 cents and the same thing would have cost me $3.98 at Busch’s.

I cut the cantaloupe into chunks to snack on and plan on shredding the zucchini and freezing it to make zucchini bread later. The peaches and blueberries I’m turning into freezer jam. The lettuce, broccoli, and one of the cucumbers will be part of dinner tonight.

Food and stuff

I’m thinking about joining a CSA to get all of my produce next sring/summer/fall. The CSA I’ve been thinking of using is a local farm called Needle-Lane Farms.

For $580 for a family share, you get a box of produce consisting of whatever is in season. It works out to 20 weeks worth of produce. This should be enough to feed 2 adults and 2 children and I plan to supplement with my own garden too. Everything from the farm is fresh, organic, and local.

I’m still trying to sell Jason on the idea. I know he looks at it like $580 is a lot of money for vegetables, but over the 20 weeks it is less than $30 a week for really fresh, quality produce. We could stand to eat a few more veggies anyways and I know he will find that he actually likes them when they are fresh. Fresh is WAY different than what you get going to Walmart. Plus, anything that is left over can be dried, frozen, or canned. It is cheaper than what you’d spend in the grocery store for the same kind of vegetables, only those ones have traveled thousands of miles and have been through middlemen and distributors before reaching the store. You lose a lot of freshenss and nutritional value through the middleman.

We’re also looking into getting a 1/4 steer and maybe 1/2 pork and some chicken from a local farmer. We just need to get a bigger freezer for that.

To find a CSA in your area, you can check out www.localharvest.org

Our veggies that we’re growing in containers on the deck are doing well. I’ve picked about 4 zucchini, 1 purple bell pepper (turned green when I cooked it), and 1 jalapeno pepper. The roma tomatoes still need to turn red, but we have a ton of them, probably close to 30 on the plant so far. The yellow stuffer tomatoes are growing nicely. I think there are about 15 of them on the plant so far. Looks like lots of salsa for us in a few weeks.

I finished reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte today. It was such a good book. I had seen the old black and white movie a few times, but the book, as usual, did a much better job telling the story.

well…

The bread is done. It rose nicely and had decent texture, it just didn’t have a lot of flavor. I put a little honey on it and it was OK. Jason can dip it in his coffee, I guess.

I finished reading Green Grass Grace: A Novel by Shawn McBride earlier today. It was a good book, but if you can’t get used to the F bomb and slang for a certain part of the anatomy of a woman, this book may not be for you.

It’s written from the perspective of Henry Toohey, a 13 year old Irish Catholic kid from Philly. The year is 1983 and he’s obsessed with tits, boners, love, music, and a girl named Grace. So, imagine a kid like that and the language that would come out of his mouth and that will justify the potty mouth he has. It totally fits the book.

I laughed out loud a lot in this book.

I finally ordered the Barbara Kingsolver book that I’ve been meaning to order and also The Dangerous Book for Boys for Austin. Oh, and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel by Lisa See for me. I also signed up for Amazon Prime which will give me free 2 day shipping. For some reason they have decided to give us another 30 day trial of it for free!

Adventures in zucchini bread

I have a really good recipe for zucchini bread that is from a cookbook that was popular in the 1970’s. Back in the 70’s people didn’t care so much about how much fat and sugar was in food. The recipe I have makes 2 loaves and takes 1 cup of oil, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of nuts, and 2 cups of sugar, among the regular ingredients. Yikes. Just with the eggs and oil, the 2 loaves would have over 250 grams of fat!

So I’ve decided to improve on the original recipe making it low fat and about 60% less sugar. I’ve substituted egg whites for whole eggs, applesauce for oil, honey in addition to 75% less regular sugar, whole wheat flour along with the regular flour, and I’ve added cherries since I have them. I’m still including the nuts since they are a healthy source of fat.

It’s in the oven now and if it turns out, I’ll post the recipe. It smells really good and the batter was awesome. Yes, I licked the spoons, raw egg and all!

I know how Harry Potter ends!

I finished the book today. I thought it was very good and didn’t have the ending I thought it would, but that’s all I’m going to say about it.

I’m just sad that the books are done. I know I’m such a geek for getting caught up in all of the hype, but I really do love these books. I just wish Jason or Austin would start reading them.

Yet another update

I still don’t have the Barbara Kingsolver book. Target had it on their website but neither Target in Ann Arbor had it in store. Barnes and Noble had it but at regular price. I can get it off of Amazon for $16.99 and even with shipping it wouldn’t be as much as Barnes and Noble. Plus, since I preordered the Harry Potter book from Amazon, I get $5 to use in August. So it would be even cheaper if I ordered it then.

So I decided to read Cane River by Lalita Tademy. It’s a great book and again, one that I’ve had sitting around for a while. I’ve always been interested in geneaology and I love historical fiction so this book was perfect for me. I loved the fact that there were pictures of the family and old copies of wills and letters, etc that helped tell the story.

I’m not sure if I’m going to read anything before Harry Potter gets here. I’m still holding out hope that the mail and Amazon somehow screw up and I get it today. I can’t wait to read it.

The older boys are still in Tennessee and won’t be back until tomorrow or Sunday. It’s pretty lonely here without them. I can’t wait for them to come home. We’re leaving Wednesday to go up north. Hopefully we can make the trip to Traverse City since Jason has never been there. The kids are set on going to Mackinaw City too. I’m just wondering how I will survive without internet access.

More reading.

I finished Running with Scissors: A Memoir on Monday night. It was good and pretty funny. It’s a wonder that he survived his childhood and actually made something of himself. What a messed up life!

Yesterday I read Mysteries of Pittsburgh: A Novel (P.S.) by Michael Chabon. I have a lot of his books and I really enjoyed this one. I have also read the following books by him: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which I loved and I started to read Summerland: A Novel, which I liked but put down to start something else and never picked back up. I think we have about 3 or 4 more of his books that I haven’t read yet, but I can’t read two books by the same author in a row.

In other news, Gracie rolled over for the first time last night. I had laid her on a blanket on the floor and went to do something else. When I turned around, she was no longer on her back, but on her belly. I flipped her back over and she did it again, so at least I got to see that.

I also still have shingles but it’s getting a little better.

It’s supposed to storm today and tomorrow. It finally rained a little yesterday for the first time in weeks.

I’m kind of bummed that we couldn’t go to the farmer’s market in Ann Arbor today because of the Art Fair. I think I may drive to Ridgeway to see if the farm stand there is selling anything. I’d like to get a bunch of onions and peppers to try out my dehydrator. I also wouldn’t mind finding some strawberries, raspberries, or cherries to make some jam. I also read that you can dehydrate cucumbers and then mix them with sour cream or yogurt and spices to make dips. I am definitely going to try that one. Oh, and I have to make some banana oatmeal muffins today before the bananas get any softer…

Shingles…

So, 8 days ago I was in the back yard playing with Jacob. We had filled up his little pool and he was playing in that and I was even wading too. We came in the house about 15 minutes later. It was too hot and sunny for him to be out very long and even though he had sunscreen on, I’m paranoid that he’ll get burned. I was standing in the dining room and felt a bug crawling on my back between my shoulders. I tried to get it off by shaking my shirt but that didn’t work. I hate bugs and started freaking out and pulled my shirt off and told Jason to get it off me. He said there wasn’t anything there.

Later that day, my back and chest starting itching like crazy. Whatever was on my back bit me. I went and looked in the mirror but there were no red marks, no bumps, no evidence of a bite anywhere. I continued to itch for 5 more days. It was an unrelentless itch and a couple of times I thought I was going to draw blood. Then, it started to hurt when I would itch and I noticed my chest and back broke out in a rash.

It was like little blisters on my chest, almost like chicken pox, except I already had chicken pox when I was a kid. The rash on my back was red, swollen, hot to the touch and extremely painful. My lymph node in my right armpit was also swollen and hurt – bad. It got to the point that it wasn’t worth it to scratch anymore because it hurt too bad. Cortizone cream and calamine lotion did little to help.

I wonder why it took 5 days for whatever bit me to develop a rash and bumps?

Well, last night the pain was horrible so when I got up this morning, I made an appointment for the doctor. It’s not an insect bite – It’s shingles. It’s caused by the Herpes Zoster virus, which is the same virus that causes chicken pox. It’s been sitting dormant in my nerves since I had chicken pox and physical and/or emotional stress can bring it out.

I’m not under any emotional stress at all. I can only imagine having 2 babies in such a short period of time is what did it. It’s otherwise known as fourkiditis.

Summer reading, continued…

I finished Saturday by Ian McEwan. I didn’t love it and found it quite boring. Not enough dialogue for my taste and too much about Iraq and too much medical jargon. Honestly, the only reason I finished it was because it was such a short book.

I still haven’t picked up Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. I’ll order it off of Amazon tonight and since we’re going to do the Amazon Prime thing, it will be here the day after tomorrow. I just want to make sure I get it and am able to finish it before Harry Potter arrives.

I finished Saturday on Friday night and then started The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I think my sister gave it to me for Christmas one year and then it got packed up when we moved and was in the basement in a box for a while. When we finally got the book shelves for the living room, I unpacked it and for some reason, never read it.

I loved it. I finished it earlier today (Sunday) and cried like a baby at the end. It’s an interesting story and at first, I found it a little confusing with all of the back and forth stuff going on. I read online that they are making a movie and filming is supposed to start in August 2007. I can’t wait until it comes out!

So now, to pass the time before the Barbara Kingsolver book gets here, I’m going to read Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs. I’m a couple of chapters in and so far, so good.