top secret!

I think I've figured out what I want to be when I grow up!

Now let's our cross our fingers & hold our collective breath to see if I can make it happen in the next year & a half.

veggies: week 4 (or so)

Today!!!

- lettuce

- spinach

- broccoli

- arugula

- parsley

- collard greens

- kale

- Hakurei Japanese turnips, which, according to the CSA are "fruity-sweet...[and] great raw or lightly cooked. Even if you're not crazy about traditional turnips, give these a try...you'll be surprised."

Tonight is Russell J's turn for dinner & he is cooking up a shepherd's pie with chicken, carrots, celery, broccoli, & a potato/turnip mutant topping (However, he is prohibited from using my fruity-sweet turnips, in case they really do outshine "traditional" turnips).

P.S. NO RADISHES!!!

P.P.S. Russell likes to listen to NPR while he's cooking. Nerdy adorable!

confessions

Confession: I have yet to start my taxes. I mean, how hard can they be, right? Hard enough for me to avoid them like the plague. Or the plaque, which I am also attempting to avoid after not seeing the dentist since who knows when.

But here is what I am doing. Making veggie gumbo.

I am not cleaning, I am not applying for jobs, & I am nowhere near accepting that Kaylee is gone, but I am making some killer (bad choice of words?) comfort foods.

Confession again: I bought Jillian Michaels: 6 Week Six-Pack well over six weeks ago & have yet to start. But I did do some yoga tonight. Clearing my head is not at all easy right now.

Confession the third: I didn't even take a tiny little taste of the Sweet Pickled Onion Watermelon Radish Salad that I made last night. When I took it out of the fridge, it smelled like mildew, so I decided to pass. Russell J took a bite and also decided against eating it. We also lit an orange blossom candle in the kitchen to exorcise the smell. So that's how it's going with the radishes.

"radish recipes that don't suck"

Also, "how the hell to eat kohlrabi".

This is the way that I talk to Google.

I spent most of today flipping through cookbooks and have decided that a) my cookbooks have left me ill-equipped to cook these CSA veggies and b) I hate cookbooks without indices.

Tonight, dinner was wok sauteed mizuna with leftover orange roasted chicken, roasted broccoli & kohlrabi with green garlic (that I burned nearly to a crisp), & arugula salad with beets, walnuts, & goat cheese (I hate hate hate arugula). Well, one out of three.

Tomorrow, I once again attempt to conquer radishes.

quarter life crisis

True to form, I've hit it about two years early. Or maybe I'm not making it to 100.

After 12 years of school, five (or four and a half, not counting my stint as a foreign exchange student) years of college, and almost a year as a real, live nurse, I am burnt out. I'm blaming most of it on two exhausting years of nursing school and a year at a job that makes me want to crawl back into bed every morning as soon as I get there. Somewhere between seventeen and now, I lost a whole lot of my spark and I miss it dreadfully.

So someone, somewhere, please tell me what I enjoy, what I'm good at, & how in the world do I make either one of those into a career?

it's a sweet, sweet life

Literally.

Russell J made me the most amazing cherry clafoutis with a shortbread crust as a late Valentine's Day present. I'm not saying I could eat it every day for the rest of my life, but I have eaten it multiple times a day for the past two days. He's definitely a keeper.

And....drumroll please...after two years of paying interest on trains that I took across Europe and clothes I shouldn't have bought....I finally paid off my credit card. Unfortunately, this kind of feels like a birthday: I don't feel any older (or more financially secure), but I guess I am.

We got veggies yesterday! Spinach (always a hit), kohlrabi (looks like an alien), green garlic (hope it's a good as regular garlic), broccoli raab (also always a hit), watermelon radishes (the fact that they are named after my favorite summer fruit gives me the teensiest glimmer of hope), turnips (old news), lettuce (bummer), carrots (yum), & broccoli (double yum. This broccoli is far superior to any broccoli I ever bought at the store). And, even better, Russell J is making PIZZA tonight!

Life is hard & unexpected & crazy all day long, but damn, sometimes it's so, so sweet.

helllllllp meeeeee

So. In news that won't make you all want to cry, I got a killer summer job as a camp nurse. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! No, seriously. Yay. I'm so excited.

However, I have to fill out one of those horrible "getting to know you" forms. And they stress me out. So if you feel like helping me out, below are the questions I'm totally stuck on. Please help. Most of my current answers center around things like the movie Titanic, Grey's Anatomy, & the Oakland A's. Helllllllllllp!

Who is your hero?

If you could have a superpower, what would it be, and why?

What camp activity are you most looking forward to?

What are you most looking forward to about summer 2011?

And finally, what is something that you are willing to share, but may make you stand out from the crowd?