Daily Photo: Coming full circle

Chie and I took a trip out to Portland Nurseries today to pick up our spring herbs. What a beautiful place! Their plants were really well cared for and they had a fabulous selection.

After she went down for her nap, I got to dig around in the dirt a little. The smell of soil makes me feel so connected to life. The largest pot has lilac starts that we obtained last year at Gus' family's homestead. I'm pleased to say that all three seem to have weathered through and will give us some viable starts so that the rest of the family can share in this little connection to the past.

Daily Photo: Moving is hard to do

I spent the morning and early afternoon helping Rosalea move the contents of her life into a moving van, en route to Hermiston. The move will provide many wonderful things, including a much larger living space, more access to teaching jobs, and her parents close by. But it was sad to see her go, even though it's only a three hour drive. This bear looked a little forlorn, too, but then it was safely ensconced with the rest of Jaden's things.

Daily Photo: A little slice of Salumi

We became addicted to Iron Chef America and one of its chefs, Mario Batali, several months ago. I guess that it was at least a year ago because Gus' last b'day present, among other things, consisted of one of his cookbooks and a grill brush from his cooking line.

Somewhere along the way, we found out that Mario's father, Armondino, has a shop in Seattle that sells cured meats. We've been wanting to try his products for some time but thought that we would have to do it on a trip to Seattle. Imagine our surprise when tonight, on a jaunt to Elephant's Delicatessen to celebrate our friend Rosalea's last night in town, we discovered a selection of his salami. We procured a small amount of the Winter sausage and savored a few slices at the park with dinner. We'll see how long it lasts.

Grad school, here I come

The more that I think about this, the more that I feel compelled to seek a masters degree in counseling psychology. It offers me a much wider range of treatment options, it's much more convenient in terms of proximity to our family and care for Chie, and my top choice-- Lewis and Clark-- is only 52 credit hours. But the most important deciding factor is the way that I feel when I think about spending years of my life pursuing this goal. I get excited about dietetics in terms of the end goal, of being a dietician. But while the idea of some of the science classes does interest me-- I'm a geek at the core and anatomy sounds fun-- it doesn't have the draw that psych does. And if I'm going to spend three years of my life, and significant effort including a commute of hundreds of miles, I want to have what I call the Sur La Table response. The first time that I walked into Sur La Table, I was so excited that I raised my hands up and moved my fingers rapidly. Think Spirit Fingers. I got that same feeling today while I scanned through the syllabi of L&C's program. I could picture myself in those classrooms (and they are beautiful; the campus is like a little piece of Ivy League in P-town), discussing those theories and feeling so alive. That's what I want to feel. And I will. I told Gus about my research and he concurred wholeheartedly with my decision. It will be a lot of work but it will be so, so worth it.

Earnestly seeking answers

A brief recap: I started college in 1999. I attended part-time and full-time, as finances and health allowed, for the better part of three years. Then we moved to Utah, and when we returned, things were put on hold again so that we could focus on getting Gus through school. He graduated this past summer and more and more, my thoughts have been on finally getting back and finishing my degree.

What that degree will be has been up in the air for a while. I have toyed with the idea of being an LPC (licenced professional counselor), specifically treating eating disorders, since my first semester of college. I battled with bulimia through my teenage years and was finally able to get a handle on it with the help of a dietician and eating disorder therapist. That experience, and the expertise of both of those professionals, has informed much of my desire to go into that field. It was their help that enabled my own efforts to finally take shape towards healing. As I went through my psychology coursework, that experience came back to me again and again and I would think, "Wow. I could be that for someone else." I planned for a long time to go to graduate school and get my masters degree in counseling psychology. But that plan sounded so long and complicated that for a time, I wondered if it might be a smarter option to do something shorter, more practical. Being a dietician seemed to fit the bill. It only requires a bachelor's degree and I thought, "Yay. Best of both worlds-- a meaningful career AND something I can finish quickly."

After much thought and research, I decided to check out the dietetics program at OSU (the only program in our state). I drove down to Corvallis early this week and met with an advisor for the program. And though I'm still interested in the idea, it's less practical than I had thought. Only 20 of my 72 amassed credits will transfer into their program. And I'd have at least three years of coursework ahead of me-- a year or so of general science courses, like biochem and anatomy, and then two years of concentrated dietetics courses. And those two years have to be on campus, in Corvallis. The day that I drove down wasn't too bad. But two years of 160 miles round trip three or four days a week? That might be another situation entirely.

That night when I came home, my mind was having a hard time wrapping around all of the obstacles that had been raised that afternoon. As I sat trying to dialogue it with Gus, he said, "Well, what about grad school?" "Oh yeah," I thought. "What about grad school?" I have about a year and a half left to finish my bachelor's degree if I go back to the path I'd been on. A grad program would be two or three years past that, so the time lines would be fairly equivalent, and in the end, I'd have a graduate degree.

So now I'm back to square one to some extent. I'm exploring grad programs, setting up appointments with some of my psych professors and others who might have insight, making sure that I have all of the information that I need to make a decision that will affect my life, and our life, for years to come. It feels a bit overwhelming but it's also very, very exciting. I'll be writing about this more for sure.

Oh Bob, how I love thee

I'm always pleased when I find well written instructions with a little wit added in. A friend wrote recently about her Method wipes container, which featured phrases like, " Now don't go all crazy and flush more than one wipe at a time." Brilliant. (For the full description, you can go here) Anyway, I was just registering our new Bob stroller and found one more reason to love this company:

Ask questions, get advice on which BOB would be best for you, submit suggestions, send us cookie recipes. We’re just a phone call or email away.

Easy-to-access, printable versions of the manuals that come with your trailer or stroller, just in case the baby throws up on yours or you lose it on one of your cross-country bike trips.

Register your stroller or trailer with BOB to activate your warranty and receive new product notices. From us, just us. BOB doesn’t share with the other kids on the playground.

Maybe I'll send them our pizza dough recipe...

Daily Photo: Crusty goodness

My husband is a pizza god.

Daily Photo: It's your love

I'm sending this out to my love. I know that sometimes I take you for granted but at the end of the day, it's your love that keeps me going.

(For record's sake: The balloon was an impromtu gift to Chie from a friend, whose husband had given it to her for V'day. Chie was so entranced by it that it ended up coming home with it and she played with it constantly for days. She'd even hold on to it while nursing. That got... complicated.)

Daily Photo: Reaching

This was taken in the sand pit of the Science Playground at OMSI.

Daily Photo: Spring has sprung

While I sat for A the other day, we went out to play in the sun.

Daily Photo: Back at last

I started doing a daily photo back in January on my personal journal. It sounded like a great way to capture a slice of our life that was just that: our life, un-filtered. After the Sick Baby Hiatus from Daily Photo, we're back in the game. This was taken when I went to Esther's for a respite from The Sickness That Took Over Our House for the better part of two weeks.

La Boum

We threw a killer party last night for Gus' b'day. All told, I think that we had about twenty people. We worked really hard to get most of the prep done before people got here and so we were putting the first pizza in when the James and Kristina popped over. And then, it was a steady stream of friends and hot, cheesy goodness. We did a slight variation of our wildly popular sausage and fresh pineapple pizza by substituting a hard salami for the sausage. Oh, was it tasty. We also did a lot of veggie pies, too, but the meat seemed to win out because between the pesto base and the salami, the crust got supersaturated with olive oil. That made it incredibly soft and yet perfectly crusty at the same time. No one seemed to mind slamming either type down, though; the pies disappeared as fast as they'd come out of the oven. There was lots of animated conversation, and in an apartment the size of ours, that led to a volume level that nearly sent me into the bedroom for a while to de-stimulate my senses. But I just holed up in the corner of the living room and watched and then I was ok. Gus reveled in it all and seemed very satisfied by the end of the night. I think that having people fete you is always a good thing, right?