wagon-hopping

I have to be honest here, so I have a confession to make: I fell off the carb-wagon. Ok, so maybe I didn't fall off so much as I willingly, and with great passion, hurled myself off the wagon...and into a huge vat of my mom's homemade pies. I mean, she spent two whole days baking 6 beautiful pies (including pumpkin, apple, chocolate, french coconut, and pecan), so how could I say no? Well, I couldn't. So, for the holidays, I have decided to throw all carb-caution to the wind and just enjoy myself. And all I can say is...YUM. I'll be hopping back on the wagon after New Year's brunch...I promise. :)

merry everything

Well, it's about time to wrap things up and head to Chattanooga for the weekend...and I promise to return with some fun pics of Christmas with my adorable nieces.

Meanwhile, I hope that everyone has the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of holidays. May the joy of the season fill your hearts and warm your spirits.

a crash course

Lessons I have learned so far on my low-carb journey (all 3 days of it, at this point):

1. Everything has carbs. Seriously. Even things you wouldn't think have carbs, well, they do. It's scary when you really start reading those nutrition labels. I have decided that carbs are like dust mites--you may not see them, but they are lurking everywhere...
2. I hate cottage cheese. I am really trying to like it, because it's one of the few things I can eat, but ick. Curd freaks me out.
3. Without high carb foods, I am hungry all the time. It's like I have a carb-hole in my stomach that is no longer being filled...and it is lonely and scared and angry. No really, it growls at me.
4. Don't try to buy low-carb versions of things that should naturally be high carb. I was starving yesterday afternoon (see #3), so I thought I would swing by the local smoothie purveyor and see if they might happen to sell low-carb smoothies, and lo and behold, they did. My stomach did a little leap for joy, and I ordered the strawberry variety. I took a big sip and...Oh dear God, who put chalk in my drink?!? Seriously, if Milk of Magnesia made a smoothie, that's what it would taste like. Let's just call it milkshake of magnesia and be done. Double ick.

But, despite all of those things, I feel like I'm doing pretty well so far. According to my research, though, I will probably experience a "carb crash" somewhere between days 3 and 5, so yay! Something to look forward to...

bye, bye sweet carbs

So I have decided to attempt the low-carb approach to life, which is sure to be a difficult challenge for this carb-loving girl. Yes, my name is Tiffany, and I am a carb-oholic. I admit it. I love all kinds of breads, pastas, yummy things with sugar in them, you name it. And you know how Bubba Gump is about shrimp? That's how I am about potatoes. I like them mashed, baked, stuffed, roasted, fried, julienned, au gratin...ok, I'm going to have to stop now because I'm starting to drool.

But, I read this article in Ladies Home Journal the other day (side note: my grandmother always buys us subscriptions to random magazines at Christmas--I think I am the only 30 year-old I know who has subscriptions to Reader's Digest and Ladies Home Journal), and it basically said that carbs are the primary reason people get fat. Low-fat diets don't make you skinny and exercising doesn't make you lose a lot of weight--it's all about the carbs. So, I decided to put this to the test.

Welcome to day one. Since I have not yet made a trip to the grocery store to buy all of the resources to support a low-carb diet, breakfast was a challenge. Normally, I opt for a bowl of cereal or a bagel...both big no-no's here. So what did I end up with? A handful of almonds and a salmon patty. Yep, that was breakfast...mmmm.

I just finished lunch, which was my pretty typical salad, just sans the usual baked potato on the side. They even had french fries on the lunch line today--their perfectly golden crinkles taunting me--but I resisted. Yay!

Of course, I picked a perfectly horrible time to begin such a dietary challenge...today alone, someone dropped off a big bag of caramel corn for the office, and the lunch ladies put chocolate chip cookies in everyone's boxes as a holiday treat. A note to my secret santa...do not, whatever you do, do not gift me with a box of Whitman's Samplers, or I will have to hit you over the head with it. A can of toasted pecans will be just fine...

Dress-Up

There is something that pretty much everyone in my family can agree upon--my mother was born in the wrong era. Mom has a love affair with all things antique. And when I say love, I mean she LOVES them. On road trips, she will make sure to plan enough drive-time to incorporate stops at any antique store she might come across. If Mapquest offered an option of choosing "route that includes all antique malls in the vicinity", my mom would be in heaven.

Our home was a haven for all of the treasures she discovered--we probably could have taken about 3/4 of our household goods on "Antiques Roadshow" and made a fortune. One of her particular loves has always been antique linens, clothing, textiles, etc. I think I knew what "battenburg" was before I turned 5. There were always lots of great resources for us to play dress-up (especially if we were going for the Laura Ingalls Wilder/Little House on the Prairie look). She even had mannequins in some of our bedrooms to display the clothing--just ask me about the Great Mannequin Wars of the 1990's.

So, it came as no surprise to any of us when, soon after retiring, my mom opened up her own vintage clothing booth in a local antique mall. And when she decided to host a fashion show at the antique mall to display her wares, guess who got recruited to be models? Well, I'll show you...

Here is mom with little Sienna, my youngest niece:


Me and Kaelyn (she's the cuter one in the picture):


My sister and her girls together:


Don't you feel like you just stepped back in time??

Bumpers needed

Most people who know me well are quite aware that I am a Grade-A, certified, card-carrying klutz. If there is a puddle, I will step in it, if there is a curb, I will trip over it, if there is a sharp object around, I will hurt myself on it. If I go to a party at someone's house, I would much rather drink my wine out of a plastic cup instead of one of their nice wine glasses, because, hey, it's just safer.

Most of my friends are also aware that, earlier this year, a simple trip to the bathroom almost ended in a concussion when--in my half-asleep stupor--I leaned over to make sure that the toilet seat was in the correct position and inadvertently crammed my head on the windowsill. And I mean HARD. Hard enough to see so many stars that I could point out recognizable constellations. I also think my eyes were slightly crossed for a few days.

And just when I began thinking that the bathroom was safe again, I discovered I was wrong. Last night, I was giving myself a pedicure, perched on the edge of the toilet seat with my foot propped up, when I dropped one of the little filing tools. I bent over to pick it up, and WHAM! Hello, head, meet sink. Yes, I crammed my head again, this time on the edge of the porcelain sink. I am surprised I didn't crack it (and by "it" I really mean both my head and the sink).

So, now I have a nice little pump-knot on my head that will probably be a lovely shade of blue and green just in time for our faculty/staff Christmas party. Woo-hoo!

I seriously need to put bumpers on everything in my house.

At the risk of being a little crude...

...I just have to say that it cracks me up when my dog toots. It doesn't really happen that often, but when it does, Tucker will whip his head around and stare at his behind, kind of like he's thinking, "What the heck was that?"

Todd does the same thing, but, you know, it's funnier when Tucker does it...

A Green Wedding

"Green Living" is a pretty popular buzzword these days (or buzz phrase, perhaps?). In the past couple of years, it has become hip to be eco-conscious. Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not downing its popularity--I'm always glad when positive things become in-fashion. I only hope that it becomes an established mindset, not just a passing fad (the skinny jeans fad, on the other hand, can't be gone too soon!)

Todd and I try to do our part:
- We have two recycling bins to one garbage can-- we attempt to recycle twice as much as we throw away
- We try to keep lights off unless we really need them, and set the thermostat at 65 in the winter (blankets are very popular at our house).
- We stopped buying bottled water, and now just fill up our Nalgenes.
- I buy most of my produce from local farmers (or we grow our own in the summer).
- I bought a Honda Fit--yay for fuel economy! :)

But, I know that there is still a lot more we could be doing...so I thought to myself, what about having a "green" wedding? We want to do a destination wedding and have been looking around at resorts in the Caribbean...and we recently stumbled upon Maho Bay, an eco-resort in St. John (www.maho.org)--a little rustic, but gorgeous!

So I started thinking--what are other ways we could make this a green wedding? Here are some of the things I came up with:
- Create a pdf of the wedding invite, and send them out via email instead of regular mail (saving paper and gas used to deliver the mail)
- Set up a website to keep everyone up on the details, etc. Maybe even offer a webcam of the actual ceremony, so people don't have to travel to "be" there.
- Buy wedding attire through thrift or consignment stores
- Try to carpool where possible--check into chartering a smaller plane, so that everyone could fly down together.

Those are a few ideas that I came up with...although I would love to hear suggestions that others might have. Please share your thoughts in the comments section...and I just might "recycle" your ideas!

Avuncular

avuncular adj. Of or having to do with an uncle. Regarded as characteristic of an uncle, especially in benevolence or tolerance.

This post is in memory of George Kile, my dad's cousin, who passed away suddenly last night of a heart attack. He was close in age to my parents, and since we are a pretty tight-knit family, I always just thought of him as my uncle George.

Rest in peace, dear uncle George, we will miss you. You left this world far too soon.

T-Day pictures

Thanksgiving Day, as told in pictures:

There's nothing quite like a big, raw bird...mmmmmm:

(please excuse the extremely unflattering angle/pose, which makes it look more like I am the butterball in the picture)

Todd pitched in, too--here he is chopping potatoes:


Ta-da! the completed buffet:


What it looked like on my plate:

(it may not look as good as the pictures in the cookbooks, but it was mighty tasty!)

Oh, and in the midst of it all, we re-arranged the kitchen:

--and we also decided that we need a bigger kitchen!

The biggest miracle of the holiday, though, was not the fact that my first turkey turned out juicy and perfectly cooked, or that the only thing I forgot to put out on the table was the cranberry sauce. No, the biggest miracle was that, even though I spent two full days around a hot stove and sharp cooking utensils, I managed to only cut myself once (on the plastic trash can lid, no less) and burn myself once (please note, the handle of a cast-iron skillet will stay hot for awhile, especially if it has spent 20 minutes in a 350-degree oven). That, my friends, is what I call success.

Now, who's ready for Christmas dinner??

menu for success

Before I give a full report on the Thanksgiving dinner project, I wanted to give a shout out to one of my favorite websites, allrecipes.com. Every single recipe that I used for Thanksgiving dinner was new, never-tried-before in my kitchen, which I admit is a pretty big risk when cooking a special occasion dinner for guests. But, I felt pretty confident since I garnered 90% of my recipes from the allrecipes site, where people who have tried the recipes can rate them and offer suggestions on tweaking the recipe to make it even better.

The final menu:
Winter Salad
Deviled Eggs*
Herb Roasted Turkey
Grandma's Cornbread Dressing (which I tweaked to make vegetarian)
Garlic Mashed Red Potatoes
Parmesan Asparagus
Green Bean Casserole
Roasted Vegetable Medley
Broccoli Cauliflower Bake*
Corn Pudding*
Fresh Cranberry Sauce
Yeast Rolls
Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake
Spiced Apple Cake
Coconut Pecan Pie*
(*in fairness, I can't take credit for these items--they were brought by guests)

My favorites of the bunch were the Winter Salad, Roasted Vegetable Medley (who knew I would enjoy turnips so much?), and the Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Cooking everything was a 2-day enterprise, but it was worth it. My least favorite part was, yes, preparing the turkey-especially dealing with the innards. At one point, in removing the bag of junk from the body cavity, one of the reddish-purple body parts slipped from the sack and fell into the sink. Ugh. And I thought to myself, this is one of the reasons that I am a vegetarian, because I don't like having organs fall out of my food while I am preparing it. Although, I have to say that it felt like quite an accomplishment when I finished it. And, according to my guests, it was quite good. I think I'll just take their word for it.

I will post pictures soon...I hope everyone had a wonderful and delicious Thanksgiving (and if you're still hungry, feel free to drop by--we've got plenty of leftovers!)

**new editor's note: I goofed in this post...I gave a lot of credit to allrecipes for the success of my dinner, but I failed to recognize the woman who actually taught me how to cook. So, thank you, Mom, for helping me learn my way around a kitchen. Next time I bake a cake, I'll save the batter bowl for you...

thanksgiving

So for the first time in my life, I am hosting the Thanksgiving Gluttony Extravanganza at my house. This should be extremely interesting because:

1) I am a vegetarian and have never cooked a turkey in my life, but I now have a 12 pound butterball sitting in my fridge, just waiting for the basting to begin.
2) There are 7 people coming for dinner. I only own 6 plates that match, 6 forks (total), and a table that seats, you guessed it, 6.
3) About 80% of my recipes require cooking in the oven. My oven is small, and will mostly be inhabited by the aforementioned 12-lb turkey. This is where being an engineer might come in handy.
4) The entire time I am running around my tiny kitchen cooking, I will be followed around by this monster, just waiting for me to drop something:


(please note the remnants of whatever-he-chewed-up-last still dangling from his lip)

Yes, it is going to be an interesting day. I will try to remember to take pictures to document and share.

stink

Apparently, I stink at blogging. I started two blogs a year or so ago, and they have both been stagnant for quite some time now. I tried to psycho-analyze myself based on this blogging-failure...do I lack commitment? am I the type who has grand ideas but no follow-through? is my life so un-interesting that I have too little to blog about? But when I thought long and hard about it, I realized that the great blogging drought of 2007 was primarily due to two things:
1) I don't have a computer with internet at home (Hi, my name is Tiffany, and I live in the Dark Ages), and
2) I have been far, far too busy at work to even think about writing.

So, life isn't exactly less hectic now, especially with holidays quickly approaching, but I am going to try, try, try to be better about this whole blogging thing.

Here are a couple of pictures from the year-in-review:
We took Tucker camping and canoeing for the first time (that was interesting)


The family went to South Carolina for a beach trip, and the women got a little wild:


We took part in the Tomato Art Festival...one of my favorite events in East Nashville:


Ok, so that's all for now, because I don't really have that many pictures stored on my work computer (unless you want to see pictures of the alumni golf tournament...probably not).