Unexpected Gratitude

Sometimes the best thank yous are the ones we don't expect or feel entitled to receiving. Recently a woman I work with had to make an extremely unexpected trip to England to help her husband arrange funeral services for his mother. I assumed some of her responsibilities while she was away and, as a thank you, she brought me these. I didn't help her out expecting any grand gestures but it was nice being appreciated and having her acknowledge that my help made it easier for her to be away with family. Looking at the flowers on my desk makes me realize how often I let the opportunity to say thank you slip through my fingers because I'm just "too busy" to stop and make it happen. That's something I'm going to work on...remembering to say thank you for the small, human gestures I so often take for granted.

Halloween Pictures

My sister Debbi (aka Peace) and me (aka Quiet).
Jarae and her friend Cameron
Secret Service Agent Tanner Bean

Happy Halloween!

May the Great Pumpkin be with you.

Halloween is serious business

I was talking to my four-year-old nephew, Keaton, last night about Halloween. Having talked to my sister earlier, I knew she was trying to talk him into being something other than his first choice, Batman, because the costume doesn’t fit him and she’s not jazzed about buying another one. So we’re talking and I ask if he’s sure he wants to be Batman. I even start suggesting other things.

Keaton interrupts me. “Jen, Batman flies.” End of discussion. How do you argue with that?

Am I The Only One?

I feel conflicted when a book I love is adapted into a movie. As I’m reading, it’s relatively easy for me to imagine the characters in my mind and create my own visual rendering of what is happening on the pages. And if a book really moves me and stays with me, it’s as though I have a personal relationship with it - one that I wish to protect. I know it’s a natural consequence but I worry that in the translation from book to screen, the fabric of the story will be lost and Hollywood-ized and the story will be compromised and cheapened and hollow. This morning I discovered they’ve made an adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. I thought this was a beautiful book, one of the best I’ve read in the last few years. It’s entirely possible the movie will be true to the story and faithful to the plot, but how can they possibly fit it all into a two-hour movie? I could maybe support a mini-series, but a feature-length film…I don’t know. Of course I’m sure I’ll end up seeing it, but with some amount of trepidation. On a positive note, though, maybe the movie will spark interest in the book for that handful of people who haven’t yet read it. It’s been a best-seller for ages, quite popular with book clubs and the like. We shall see…

Banana Crumb Muffins

I had some ripe bananas to use and found a fantastic banana muffin recipe.

Banana Crumb Muffins

1 1/2 c. flour

1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 bananas, mashed

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 c. butter, melted

1/3 c. packed brown sugar

2 T flour

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

1 T butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease 10-12 muffin cups or line with paper liners

In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 c. flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture until just moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 T. flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 T butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

The only variations I made were to substitute oil for the 1/3 c. melted butter and to add some chopped nuts and a splash of vanilla to the batter. Bon apetit!

If it's not one thing...

Last night I realized - again - that my couch really isn't that conducive to providing a good night's sleep. Why, you ask, was I sleeping on my couch when I have a perfectly comfortable bed? Well, the water heater in the apartment above me sprung a leak over the weekend and I now have a dehumidifier sitting in my bedroom, sucking all of the moisture out of the room. Reasons it does not make a good roommate:

1) It is really quite noisy.

2) I'm asthmatic and with no moisture in the air, I'm unable to breathe. Not ideal.

3) It puts off a surprising amount of heat. The room is like a car that's been sitting in the sun on a hot day with all the windows tightly shut.

4) Window! I'm unable to have the window open, making the air stale stale stale. And did I mention dry?

5) The bedroom door has to be shut and I'm too accustomed to sleeping with it open.

I really think management should have to pay my electricity bill this month or at least make a contribution. I had an industrial fan running for two days and now this dehumidifier. What's next?

This reminds me of the time on my mission when, as a joke, my companion and I brought home a discarded water heater and put it in our roommates bedroom as a practical joke. Ahh, the memories!

Success!!

Forgive me for being excited about this, but I don't have kids so when my dog makes me happy, it's a big deal. I met a couple friends for dinner tonight and decided to leave Abby out of her kennel, free to roam the apartment. I've been slowly experimenting with this, with the end goal of being able to leave her out whenever I have to leave her home instead of crating her for long periods of time. I feel like a terrible owner everytime I put her in. But such is city, apartment life. Anyway, this is the first time I've left her at night by herself and she didn't cause any damage! That I can see at least. When she first came home from the humane society there were some disastrous trials in which it was quickly determined she couldn't be trusted to be out. Now that she's older and 100% adapted to me and our home she seems better suited to staying home alone! As long as she doesn't start inviting her canine pals to come over and play when I'm at work we should be fine...

More Oregon Scenery....

Oregon Coast

How lucky am I that such natural beauty is just 90 minutes away??