The Mysterious Case of the Missing Socks

Seven clean socks without mates? What? That's not possible. Check again.

Nope, none of these socks match. One has a hole it in, too. Figures. What is going on here?

I took all of the laundry off the clothesline and put the clothespins away. I tumbled them on fluff (no heat), cleaned the lint trap and got everything out of the dryer.

Where are the socks? This is impossible. I didn’t drop anything on my way to the living room to fold the laundry.

What could have happened to the socks? Okay, think.

I brought in the shirts hanging on the fence last night just in case some midnight bum decided to swipe them. But the socks were inside the yard.

Do you think the neighborhood brats took them just to mess with me? No, wait, there weren’t any extra clothespins on the line.

They could have taken those, too. No, they really aren’t that clever. And I hung the laundry in my own particular way. There were no weird gaps when I took the laundry off the line.

So, where are the missing socks?!

Alright, alright, I’ll go check the dryer. Nope, empty.

Peek in the spin dryer. No, it’s empty, too. There’s no way they could be in the washing machine. I mean, yeah, it’s easy to miss one sock all smashed up against the side but seven? No way.

Way. And not just socks but underwear and a few towels. What the heck?

Ooooohhhh. When I was putting everything in the spin dryer, there wasn’t enough room for these. I must have closed the washer door and forgotten about them.

Phew, they stink! Now I have to rewash them. Oh well, my shoulder can handle manually washing a small load. There’s another sock with a hole. Darn it!

Reunited …. and it feels so good!

Risk-taking in the Kitchen

Do you practice safe cooking? Always follow a cookbook or professional's recipe to ensure good results, even if it means a special trip to the store to get all the ingredients?

Or are you willing to risk a little? Omit the ingredients you don't like? Make substitutions for ingredients with whatever you have on hand? Personalize a recipe for your tastes?

Locavores - people who strive to only eat foods grown within a certain distance of their home - are well-accustomed to using what they have locally. This often means substituting for ingredients in recipes. Minced jalapeno peppers can spice up a dish instead of ground black pepper. Chopped tender broccoli stems can stand in for asparagus in a cooked dish, while shredded raw broccoli stems can take the place of cabbage in slaw. Most winter squashes are interchangeable and yams can substitute in a pinch.

As a vegan, I've had lots of practice substituting for meat, dairy, and eggs. I also use very little added fat, which means many recipes also need to be altered for that. I've tried a couple of times to make a very lowfat pumpkin bread but had gooey results. My pumpkin muffins are tasty but a bit overly moist and quite high in sugar. The last time I made banana bread for my sweetie, I wondered if I might be able to make the recipe with pumpkin puree instead.

This morning, I decided to give it a whirl. I knew this was risky because pumpkin puree, after all, is not the same as mashed bananas. Besides not having the same amount of natural sweetness, I really wasn't sure how they would behave in this recipe. To cut the risk, I decided to use a very small amount of vegan margarine. Call it my safety net. I also changed up the spices and altered a few other things in the recipe.

When the timer dinged, I tentatively peeked in the oven and tested the bread. It was done. Not gooey, not burned. So far, so good. I impatiently waited 10 minutes while it cooled slightly. This is the perfect amount of time to wait before turning fatfree or very lowfat baked goods out of their pans. Muffins are baked in silicone muffin pans while all other baked goods are cooked in a plain glass pan with a silicone mat cut to fit. (You can see the red silicone mat at the bottom of the pan in the photo above if you click on it to enlarge the photo.)


Although it is better to let a quick bread cool completely before slicing, I wanted needed to know if it was edible. At first bite, I thought it might need more sugar. As I continued eating, though, I realized it is just fine the way it is. This is not your usual oily or buttery, very sweet pumpkin bread. Instead, this recipe yields a dense bread with a subtle understated flavor. It would be just as fitting on a lunch plate as the breakfast plate.

If you are looking to reduce the amount of fat or sugar that you eat, give this recipe a whirl.

Pumpkin Tea Loaf
2 1/4 cups whole white wheat flour (such as King Arthur's brand)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/16 tsp ground nutmeg
1/16 tsp ginger
2 tbs vegan margarine, softened
3 tbs sugar
1 1/2 cups + 2 tbs pureed cooked pumpkin (or other winter squash)
3 tbs maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line a large loaf pan with parchment paper or silicone mat cut to fit.
Mix together dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
Cream margarine and sugar together in another bowl.
Add pumpkin, syrup, and vanilla to the margarine.
Add wet ingredients to dry mix and stir. The batter will be very thick.
Spoon into the prepared pan.
Bake 50 minute on center rack in oven.
Let cool for 10 minutes and then remove from pan.
Allow to cool completely on rack before slicing.

The Homeowner Itch

As I read about other bloggers finding their new homes - Daharja, Shasha, Christy, and now Ruthie - it makes me anxious to find a home for us. Part of this longing is the desire to finally be settled but, I realized this morning, another part is the desire to make a place our own again. We've now been renters for almost five years.

Five years of living with someone else's landscaping choices. Five years of seeing someone else's paint colors. Five years of cleaning the wide grout lines on the kitchen counters. Five years of hating the front curtains.

I can hear some of you asking why we did not paint in our color choices or replace the front curtains. Simple. Money. We don't want to invest our time and money into someone else's property. But surely, you say, you could have at least done something about the curtains! Well, it's not as easy as that. The ceiling slopes down too low and standard curtains drag on the ground. I don't sew well enough to make new ones or alter someone else's curtains, and my sweetie has been too busy with work, garden, and other projects. So, we've just lived with it, although I did finally use safety pins last year to lift the darn things off the ground.

My point is that we want our very own place where we can invest our time and effort into making it suit our needs. In the past, this would have meant aesthetic choices as well as practical ones. In the future, when we do get a place, practical will have to take precedence over aesthetics for financial reasons. Luckily, we've had lots of practice with doing our own remodeling and won't mind doing the work ourselves. We're also good at salvaging materials so hopefully we can keep the costs down.

Reading Ruthie's dreams about what she wants to do with their new home, after a thorough cleaning, reminds me of an early 1900s small house we purchased a number of years ago. Although it was occupied by an alcoholic old lady when we looked at it, we could see the potential. It took us three and a half days to clean out the empty whisky bottles, the filthy refrigerator with moldy food in it, steam clean the carpets, and make it habitable, but we grew to love the house.

Room by room, we took up the disgusting old carpet with crumbly padding underneath it, always surprised at what we discovered beneath it. In our bedroom, for instance, we decided we needed some color on the walls. This was a radical step for me; I grew up in a house with white walls and white trim, and the furniture never budged after we moved in. Boring!

For my first foray into color, we chose a pale chiffon yellow for the walls with a dusky rose for the trim. It turned out very nice. At this point, it was obvious the worn carpet had to go. Imagine our surprise when we uncovered early 1930s aqua linoleum in a paisley pattern featuring flowers in the exact yellow and rose colors on our walls. I learned how to strip and wax the old linoleum, and the result was gorgeous and durable.

The living room yielded a similar linoleum, in yellow, but it was in such bad shape we could not salvage it. Underneath it was hiding the original wood floor: tongue-in-groove pine planks measuring the full length of the room - 25 feet. It had been painted at some point, but some time with a floor sander revealed a gorgeous old floor. Some paint remained, giving it a nice antiqued look.

We could read the story of the house in the scars on the floor, coming up with theories on its history. A handmade copper plate nestled in the floorboards in the middle of the room. It had a hold in the center of it and there were nail holes going towards the wall in both directions. It appeared that there were French doors installed at some point with the bottom bolt securing into the copper plate. Perhaps the front of the room served as the living room while the back served as the kitchen. That would explain the burn marks and stove holes in the back portion of the floor. The sash windows still had their original wavy glass. In an effort to keep with the old look of the house, I carved out potato stamps to paint tulips on the window frames.

We made many other interesting discoveries in that house as we fixed it up over several years. Someone turned an outside porch into a second bathroom without bothering to replace the dry-rotted porch decking. They just tiled right over the old wood. They also put Sheetrock right over the exterior door rather than remove it. In the other bathroom, we removed the medicine cabinet to give it a fresh coat of paint and discovered gaping holes between the wood slats letting in outside air. No wonder that bathroom was always cold in the winter! The outside shed was originally a horse barn and had six inches of old compressed horse manure hidden under the dirt floor. The dead rose on the side of the house still had its tag on it - a climbing Queen Elizabeth with a 6" diameter base. A patch of succulents in a pot outside served as the host plant for a type of butterfly never before recorded in that town.

I want to form new memories in a new home. I want to build up soil for a big garden. I want to learn to make window quilts. I want a permanent pedal-powered work station for the kitchen. I want my own place. Of course, I'll be more than happy to share it with my sweetie and the dog, although there may need to be a special room where she is banished when she has bad gas.

Biking to Physical Therapy

It strikes me as somewhat ironic that I'm biking to my physical therapy appointments. Somehow the words physical therapy make it sound like I should be barely mobile. But, short rides don't affect my shoulder and my ankle does better with biking than walking. I'm lucky that both the physical therapy and the vestibular rehab offices are only about a mile from home. It's an easy ride to and from either place, and I suspect that getting my blood pumping doesn't hurt when it comes to then stretching out and exercising muscles and ligaments.

There is one drawback, however, which became glaringly obvious this morning. Last week, as I meandered home on the back streets from vestibular rehab, the thought crossed my mind that a flat tire sure would be inconvenient. All the offices have costly cancellation policies and I have not factored in much wiggle room in my schedule.

Today, I biked up to the Post Office as soon as it opened to ship Rob's book off and then stopped to visit with a friend nearby. From there, I headed straight to physical therapy. The appointment ran long, giving me just enough time to bike to a dental appointment. However, when I unlocked my bike, I discovered the front tire was totally flat. I have not had to change a flat tire for about three years, so the prospect of having to do it under time pressure was enough to get me all flustered. I do not retain mechanical skills well; the only way I remember this sort of thing is to do it frequently or write out step-by-step instructions.

So, I pulled out my step-by-step instructions and was doing okay until I tried to pump air into the new tube. Nothin'. After a few more tries, I called my sweetie in a panic. He confirmed I had everything set the way it should be but couldn't really help more than that. I hung up and tried one last time. Yay, air went in! I got enough air in the tube to place it on the rim when a gentleman asked me if I needed some help. He kindly took over but he, too, had trouble with the pump. It absolutely would not pump up the tire.

I noticed a voicemail from my sweetie and called to let him know I was walking home (in bike shoes). I'd called the dentist's office and told them I would be half an hour late. Luckily, he was able to borrow a vehicle and give me a ride home while my bike stayed locked up at the grocery store. I did make it to my dentist's office, only slightly late, but the message has been driven home.

1. I need to practice changing my bike tires occasionally.
2. I need to leave at least 15 minutes earlier for all appointments (and remember to take a book to read while waiting at the office).
3. I need to put the phone numbers of all the offices in my cell phone in case I need to call at the last minute (and need to make sure my phone is charges).

I'd tell you more about life at Chile's Casita lately but I'm overdue to do another set of physical therapy exercises.

Don't Panic!

The following Public Service Announcement is brought to you by Chile Chews. Learn more about tasty food and living a low impact life at her blog.

As more people embrace eating a wholesome, natural diet filled with produce from their own garden, the farmer’s market, or a CSA, they may try vegetables they’ve never eaten before. Perhaps growing up, you never encountered a beet on your dinner plate and thought they only came in cans on the supermarket shelf. One day, your CSA share contains a bundle of 6 small beets and the volunteers encourage you to give them a try.

So, you take them home, cut off the leaves – remembering the volunteers also told you to braise those with some garlic and lemon juice - and start cleaning the roots. You have a momentary panic when you trim the stems down too far and this vegetable starts bleeding all over you. Your crisp, clean apron will forever remember this day. You decide not to trim the long root, suspecting that it, too, would cause profuse bleeding.

Your oven is already heated to 400 degrees. You put your beets in a roasting pan and slide them in, hoping for the best. An hour to an hour and a half later, you pull out nice tender beets. They look awful, though, with dry skin. After letting them cool enough to handle, you find the skin slips right off, even up by the stems. You carefully peel all the skin off the entire root, but then discover the strong white root down the middle of it is tough and inedible.

Your family balks when you bring the plate of sliced bloody red beets to the table with a side of horseradish sauce. You pointedly look at the messy children and insist they wear bibs to prevent stains. You gently recommend your sweetie pie change out of his nice white work shirt. Everyone is shocked and surprised to discover these beets are pretty darn good.

The next morning, however, you are awakened out of your early morning dreams by a scream down the hall. Your children drag you to the toilet to show you one of them must be bleeding. Laughing, you recall the volunteers at the CSA warned you about this. The pigment in beets goes through your entire digestive tract and still comes out red in the end. The kids think it’s cool and ask for more beets. From the other bathroom, you hear your spouse gasp and go off to reassure him that he doesn’t need to schedule a colonoscopy this afternoon.

Frozen roasted beet puree can be very messy, too.

Next adventure: Spicy roasted chile peppers. Hot going in, hot coming out!

Organizing the Data

As I feared, I'm already getting a little overwhelmed with all the exercises and stretches I'm to do every day. There is the set of stretches to do six times per day for the TMJ, mostly involving shoulders and neck. There are a few stretches and exercises recommended by my chiropractor for various problem spots. Stretches from the ankle/foot physical therapy session this week, as well as a couple of balance exercises from the vestibular rehab. This week, I'll go to my first physical therapy for my shoulder and first actual rehab session for the dizziness, so I'm sure to bring home more homework. And, of course, there are the core strengthening exercises I'm supposed to be doing regularly, along with back stretches.

Right now, I have various printouts and pieces of paper with notes, scribbles, and stick figure diagrams scattered about the house. I have old notes on exercises for the foot and back in my files...somewhere. This is not going to work. If I don't have clear instructions on how, when, and how frequently to do exercises or stretches, I won't do them. All that data will just slip out of my mind, despite my current thinking that the scribbled notes are clear enough to jog my memory. I know that won't be true in a few weeks' or months' time.

I have a tendency to want to organize everything in files so that I can find it later but I am finding this does not really work for this sort of information. For tasks I need to do on a regular basis, I think a notebook will meet my needs better.

My project for today is pulling all of this information together into a notebook. Scribbles will be written up clearly, accented by hand-drawn pictures as best as I can do, and organized into sections in the notebook. My tentative plan is divide it up by ankle/foot, shoulder, neck, balance, and core. This may be expanded as needed, and will be easy to add to or amend.

How do you keep track of projects and other things? This could include your pantry inventory, garden and harvest, daily tasks or reminders, and whatever else you need to remember.

Playing with Your Food

Beans are not the only musical food in the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. Here are some fun links to follow: a performance with vegetable instruments, spend a day with them, and learn about the acoustics of veggies.

And when you're finished playing with your food, don't forget to eat your veggies. From their website:

What do you do with the vegetables when you're done with them?

Part of the vegetables which are left over after preparing the instruments go into the vegetable soup which is served to the audience after the concert.

Part of the instruments and other remaining vegetables we give to the audience after the concert.

And another part goes into the organic waste.

Far Less Extravagant Valentine's

Long time readers here may recall that I went a little nuts over homemade truffles last Valentine's Day. Months ago, I decided there was no way I was going to make four different kinds of truffles plus chocolate dipped strawberries this year. One truffle recipe would be plenty.

Then the whole vertigo thing happened and I began eliminating chocolate from my diet due to the caffeine. Yes, Daharja, I can finally join you on the chocolate-free challenge! Were my Valentine's truffles now a dream of the past?

I reviewed my recipes from last year and keyed in on what I'd written about the Chocolate Espresso Truffles.


Excerpt from Last Year's Post

The Chocolate Espresso Truffles are great for the coffee fan in your life. I’d read a couple different ways to infuse coffee flavor into the truffles, ranging from instant espresso powder to Kahlua, but I have to admit I cheated. I had several Newman’s Own Sweet Dark Espresso Bars in the freezer so I used those instead of other chocolate. Where I really got clever, though, was in the topping. Using my spice grinder again (I had to clean that sucker so many times yesterday!), I ground up some chocolate-covered espresso beans with a few cacao nibs and some sugar. Yummy! Okay, okay, calm down. I’m going to give you my recipe.

Chocolate Espresso Truffles

5 1/2 oz dark espresso chocolate, chopped
2 tbs Earth Balance
2 tbs reduced soymilk
2 tbs vanilla extract
Crushed chocolate-covered espresso beans

In double boiler, melt chocolate with Earth Balance.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and soymilk.
Chill 2 hours until firm, covered.
Roll into balls and roll in crushed chocolate covered espresso beans.

These were more difficult to work with. The ganache was very firm, would not roll into a ball, and melted very quickly in my palms. Basically I ended up scooping out a small amount, rolling it in my hands to melt it enough to soften the edges, and pretending that it was a nice little truffle shape. I had to wash my hands after rolling two balls because the melted chocolate in my hands made rolling the next one even harder. I’m not sure what the solution to this problem would be. Maybe adding some powdered sugar? Or powdered chocolate-covered espresso beans?

The final result, though, was very tasty. Newman’s Own is a good quality chocolate and I definitely like the espresso coating on the outside. My sweetie and I both liked this one a lot.


Let's Try Carob

Since there were still some carob chips in my freezer, I decided to give this recipe a try. I also substituted Kahlua for half the vanilla. Unfortunately, I ran into the same problem I had last year. The balls were too soft. I made them anyway and rolled them in powdered sugar and ground roasted cacao nibs (the last bit of my chocolate left in the house). On the tray, they flattened out so I really couldn't call them truffles. They were more like Carob Plops. (Sorry, but my camera battery was dead at the time. Just visualize cow plops and you'll have the general idea.)

I put the tray of plops in the freezer and proceeded to scrape the bowl clean. Since I also had some of the powdered sugar mixture left, I thought I'd mix a little in with the tiny bit of ganache left. By the time I'd stirred it together, the mixture firmed up enough for me to roll it into a nice truffle shape. Aha!

I put all the Carob Plops back in the bowl and added all of the sifted powdered sugar and cacao nibs. Then I added more powdered sugar. It finally seemed thick enough to roll, but first I chilled it for half an hour to make sure it was quite firm. They rolled up just fine and are holding their shape. The taste is quite acceptable, even to an involuntarily reformed chocoholic. I think it would work just as well with powdered sugar only.

So, here is the approximate recipe. I didn't measure the powdered sugar, so I can't guarantee the amount is correct. Use your own judgment.



Carob Truffles

5 1/2 oz carob chips
2 tbs Earth Balance
2 tbs reduced soymilk (1/4 cup soymilk cooked down to half the volume)
2 tbs vanilla extract
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
Sifted powdered sugar (or carob powder) for rolling

In double boiler, melt carob chips with Earth Balance.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and soymilk.
Chill 2 hours, covered.
Stir in up to 1/2 cup powdered sugar until ganache holds its shape when rolled into small balls.
Roll into balls and roll in powdered sugar or carob powder.

Making Time For Me

I think all of us like to think that we take good care of ourselves, but I wonder if it is really true. Are there things you know you should be doing but you just never make the time to actually do them? Things like:

• flossing - consistently, not just for two weeks before that annual dental check-up. Or is it a check-up every couple of years when you get around to it?


• biking or walking for errands to exercise your body and reduce your driving


• stretching after exercise, even if it's work like gardening, chopping wood, or manually washing the laundry rather than traditional exercise


• eating healthy home-made food rather than overly processed quick and easy food from the store shelves and freezer, or a restaurant


• reading a book that engages your brain instead of vegging in front of the TV or computer on the weekends

I tend to be hit and miss with doing those things that I know I should be doing. Probably more miss than hit. And right now, that fact is coming home to roost.

Over a decade ago, I went through years of problems with my feet due to plantar fasciitis. The last podiatrist I saw gave me a set of exercises and stretches to do regularly. I did them while I was his patient but eventually dropped the program over the years. My foot and ankle muscles have gradually weakened on the side where I had surgery on my foot. This has probably contributed to the weakness in the hip on the same side. Could I have prevented this by simply continuing the exercise and stretch regimen prescribed years ago? I wonder.

Many years ago, two different chiropractors gave me printouts of stretches and exercises for the back. Periodically, I'd commit to doing them regularly and strengthen these muscles, reducing my need to see the chiropractors. Then, as I felt good, I'd start skipping the daily workouts until my back started hurting again. Is it any wonder my core muscles are weak now?

I took yoga regularly for a couple of years quite a while back and my body started loosening up. When we moved, I let this practice go and my body is back to being inflexible and stiff. I have yoga books, CDs, DVDs, a mat, and blocks at home. I rarely do yoga.

The chiropractor I have now is very good about recommending exercises and stretches to do at home to resolve problems. She, like most chiropractors, doesn't want to just keep fixing the same thing over and over again if the patient can get better with a little homework. She's shown me a number of exercises I could do to improve my balance. Do I remember to do these? No, I forget or I feel too rushed to make time to take care of myself.

When I started seeing my TMJ dentist, he gave me one easy exercise to do at the first appointment. I was to do it six times per day. It took about 30 seconds each time. No sweat. I aced that one. At the next appointment, he gave me five more stretches to do. This set takes over 5 minutes to do and somehow I thought I was only supposed to do it once a day. A few months later, I found out it was supposed to be done six times per day, too. Geez, I thought, that's going to suck up a lot of time! I tried to remember and managed twice a day usually.

I am paying a big price now for my negligence towards myself. As a result of the various doctors' visits and testing done to deal with the vertigo issue, we've decided to treat a number of problems. Next week, I'm starting physical therapy to increase the strength, flexibility, and stability of my foot and ankle, and deal with a painful shoulder and neck problem that stems from postural issues. I will be forking out the insurance copay for every visit and will not progress if I don't do my "homework." I'll also be starting vestibular rehab to help me deal with the dizziness. As I understand it, this will basically be exercises to improve my balance and, again, will mostly consist of homework.

In other words, I have to make time for me. It does not matter if these exercises and stretches take several hours out of my day. It does not matter if I have to do them for the rest of my life. If this is what it takes for me to be healthy and fit enough to live my life without discomfort or pain, then it is simply the way it has to be.

I've already started by putting a schedule on my refrigerator of the six times I should stop and do the TMJ exercises and some from my chiropractor. I don't know how much more will be added with the physical therapy and vestibular rehab, but it doesn't matter. I will do what I have to do, and I'll do my best to not resent that I have to take this time out for me. It's easy to get caught up in thinking that my time would be better spent "saving the world" but I can't save anything if I don't take care of myself first.

Oh, and I have a dental appointment in two weeks. I've started flossing again.

Does Apple Juice Spoil? (Read to the end for the answer...)

I found this apple juice in my refrigerator last night, behind a big gallon jug of water. I vaguely remember buying this, oh, a few months ago at the Farmer's Market. It's, obviously, fresh and unpasteurized. It's also straining the limits of the plastic jug.

So, my question is whether this is spoiled or usable in a new form. Has it possibly become hard cider? Apple cider vinegar? Or a poisonous brew that will kill me if I even take a whiff?

Help! Please advise before it explodes all over my refrigerator.

UPDATE: Based on the first few comments, I opened the jug outside and sniffed it. Smelled okay. It was carbonated so I thought maybe it'd be a tasty hard cider. After sipping a bit, my conclusion is that it doesn't taste very good. It's not sweet at all but not acidic like vinegar either. There's a component to the flavor that I can't nail down or describe. All I can say is that it lays on the very back of the tongue heavily.

Based on Sara's comment, I'm going to err on the side of caution and give my compost bin a nice drink. Sorry for the food waste, Crunchy Chicken!

PS: See the next post about how to delete that annoying spam comment on your blog.

Deleting Comment Spam

For those of you unsure what to do about spam in your comments, here is the step by step guide for Blogspot. First of all, make sure you set up your blog to email you a copy of any comments left on your blog posts. This option is under the Comments tab in the Settings section. You'll see a line near the bottom for Comment Email Notification. Enter your bloggie email address. When a spam comment comes to your email, you'll know it's on your blog.

To get rid of it, follow these steps.

1. Log into your blog.


2. Scroll through the pages to the post which has the offending comment. (Unfortunately, I've found that you cannot go directly to the blog by clicking on the post name (from a search, the email, or the edit page). That brings up comments associated with that post but not the trashcan option. Easiest way to do this when you get a spam on a months-old post is to figure out what month you wrote the post and click on that month in the archives. Then you only have to scroll through a page or two to find it.)


3. Click on Comments at the bottom to see the comments.


4. As an author of the blog, you will see a trashcan under each comment. Click on the trashcan for the offending comment.


5. This brings up a page asking if you want to delete the comment.


6. Before clicking on "Delete it", be sure to select the box to "Remove forever". This makes the comment completely disappear instead of leaving an annoying message in your comments that "This comment was removed by a blog administrator" or something like that. You want it gone completely.


7. Voila! All done.

One way to avoid this hassle is to moderate your comments. That option is, again, in the Comments Settings. I personally prefer not to moderate comments because I think it disrupts the flow of comments depending on how quickly the blog owner moderates. I like the discussion that happens in comments with other commenters as well as with myself. If no comments are visible, then some will be less likely to leave one. Just my opinion.

And I should note that right now I've got comment moderation turned on due to a persistent spammer that's hit me twice today, as well as almost every other green blog I've looked at. Ahem.

Lettuce: It's What's For Dinner

When people tell others that they are vegetarian, they are often asked, "What do you eat then? Lettuce?" Last night, my answer would have been, "Yes. I eat lettuce. I eat it raw and I eat it cooked. And it is gooood."

The last vegetable left in my freezer, not counting some edamame and pureed Cushaw squash, was a half-package of green peas. The vegetables in my refrigerator, from last week's trip to the Farmer's Market and Friday's CSA share, included half a head of Romaine lettuce, two heads of red leaf lettuce, half a cucumber, two bags of mixed baby greens that could be eaten raw or cooked, two bunches of Easter egg radishes, and some local green (I'itoi) onions.

I ended up with duplicates of some CSA share items by trading out the items I didn't want. I still have a monster pumpkin waiting to be cooked so I certainly didn't need another acorn squash. I have grapefruit on my own tree so I traded the CSA grapefruit. And I've still got a ristra of my own dried red chiles so those were traded as well.

What this means, though, is that my produce choices this week are heavy on the greens. One of the lettuces was actually from last Tuesday's surplus and it was definitely past its prime. Even though I'm not officially participating in Crunchy Chicken's Food Waste Reduction Challenge, I always strive to minimize waste in the kitchen. So, I wanted to salvage what I could from the head of lettuce. I trimmed off the really wilted parts and used the rest.

An easy recipe that will use the tough outer leaves of Romaine lettuce, limp leaves, and even lettuce ribs is my Lettuce & Pea Chiffonade. For dinner last night, I cleaned up the remaining Romaine lettuce, the limp red leaf lettuce, and one bag of mixed baby greens. Crisp fresh leaves went into the salad bowl. Limp leaves, ribs, and stems from the baby greens were cooked.

The salad was fleshed out with some beautiful Easter Egg radishes and cucumber. Leftover vegan Ranch dressing topped it off, with some pickled Jerusalem artichokes tucked in on the side. (For some additional color, I had a couple of pieces of Japanese pumpkin in soy sauce.)



Here is the recipe for cooking lettuce. As I showed in the post about making sauerkraut, a "chiffonade" is when you stack and roll leaves together and thinly slice them crossways into fine even shreds. That is how the lettuce leaves are prepared in this recipe, although the stems and ribs were just sliced and diced.

Lettuce & Pea Chiffonade
Outer leaves and ribs of lettuce, enough to equal about 2 cups when cut
1 onion, diced, or 1 bunch green onions, sliced
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1/2 tsp sugar, optional
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs soy milk

Heat a small amount of water in a skillet over medium-high heat.
Saute lettuce and onions in water until lettuce is limp and onion is translucent.
Add peas and cook for 30 seconds.
Season with sugar, salt and pepper. Stir and cook for another minute.
Add soy milk. Stir and cook for 30 seconds.
Serve hot.

Still Wasting Time, an Update

So, I posted earlier about how playing an online word game can waste your time away. Not only that, it invades your thinking. I listed words that could be made with these letters: W A R N E D. It was a respectable list. I'll repeat it here.

RAW
DRAW
WAR
WAN
WANE
WANED
WAND
AWE
AWED
WED
RED
READ
ARE
ERA
EAR
END
REND
DEN
DEW
NEW
EARN
DARN
NEAR
DEAR
DARE
WEAR
WARE
WARN
WARNED

There's just one problem. As I'm going through my day, more and more words keep popping into my head that I missed. This is what I've come up with so far:

ANEW
WEAN
DEAN
ADE
WADE
WADER (don't know for sure if the game would take this one)
DREW
AND
NERD
WARD
WARDEN

Playing the game online is easier than making this up because it has spaces for all the words, including how many letters they should have. So, can you find any more 3-6 letter words I've missed above?

Wasting Time

Alternative post title:

How to pass the time when you feel like crap.

When I’m feeling dizzy, movement exacerbates the feeling so I try to sit and relax for a while. Sometimes reading is okay, but other times I want to do something a little more engaging. Thanks to Peak Oil Hausfrau, I’m now addicted to an Internet word game.

I’ve always liked words and word games. During vacation drives, I remember doing the word seek puzzles or playing the alphabet game with the family. The alphabet game can even be played alone on long boring drives. Starting with “A”, one must make it through the alphabet by finding words, or license plates, that begin with each letter. Sounds easy enough and it is, until you reach “Q” and “X”. When we’d play this as a family, only the first person to shout out “Q” for Queen from the Dairy Queen sign would get credit for the letter. This meant you had to get all the other letters before reaching that Dairy Queen on the drive. Not a bad way to keep the kiddies engaged.

The online game Hausfrau brought to my attention is somewhat like Boggle. You have to find as many words with 3 or more letters as you can out of a group of 6 letters. You can only advance to the next round if you find the 6 letter word. You only have 2 ½ minutes to do this.

Sounds easy? Well, let me give you an example but we’ll start easy with just 4 letters:

S A L E

Quick, how many words can you find?

SALE
SEAL
SEA
ALE
ALES
LEA
LEAS

Did I miss any?


Now, see what happens when we add one more letter:

S A L E S

This adds just a few more words.

SALES
SEALS
SEAS
ASS
LASS
LESS

Can you find any more?


Finally, here are all 6 letters:

S A L E S T

When just one more letter is added, the number of additional possible words explodes.

LAST
LEST
SAT
SATE
SATES
SET
SETS
STALE
STEAL
STEALS
TALE
TALES
TEA
TEAS

Chances are I missed some words in this example. (Yep: SET, SETS, LET, LETS...) Chances are you'll miss some in the game because of the time limit and the necessity to find that 6 letter word within each game.

This isn't a total time waster as it can increase your vocabulary. The online version has thrown in a few words I’ve never heard of before:

TED – to spread newly mown grass or cut hay to dry
TAM - a Scottish wool cap
RIVE – to wrench open or tear apart (as in lightning rived the tree)
HOVE – past tense of heave
EWER - vase-shaped jug

It also seems to have a limited dictionary because we've put in words that it doesn't recognize. Here are just a few of those:

BOT – larva of a botfly
LEK – a display courtship area for animals, particularly birds
ERNE - sea eagle, often used as a clue in crossword puzzles
CERE - fleshy area at the base of an eagle or hawk's beak
ANTSY – what I am right now
REPO – what’s happening to lots of car owners nowadays
BUTS – no ifs, ands, OR buts
SLUT – evidently it’s a moral game
MORES – but it doesn’t know it is
SHIT – let’s keep it clean, shall we?


If you barely made it to the end of this post because it was so uninteresting to you, then check the game out. You’ll soon grow bored and it won’t suck up all your time. If, on the other hand, you think this post has been fun, then you do not want to go play this game. You will get addicted. You will lie in bed at night thinking of six letter words and all the possible words within them.

You have been W A R N E D!

RAW
DRAW
WAR
WAN
WANE
WANED
WAND
AWE
AWED
WED
RED
READ
ARE
ERA
EAR
END
REND
DEN
DEW
NEW
EARN
DARN
NEAR
DEAR
DARE
WEAR
WARE
WARN
WARNED

ACK, make it stop. Make it stop!!!!

Resource Use Climbs with Bad Health

I've posted an update on the vertigo and dizziness situation on my other blog. I don't want my blogging to turn into a "poor me, I'm so sick" whine that bores the socks off you but I do want to share that being somewhat incapacitated is having a direct impact on my ability to maintain a green lifestyle. It is frustrating to see my 'footprint' increase as we try to track down the problem.

Going to different doctors and labs has increased our driving. I say "our" because my sweetie has had to act as my chauffeur lately. Dizzy people are dangerous drivers! On a couple of my better days, I managed short bike trips but this was not possible on some days. Some of those trips were to pick up frozen or restaurant meals requiring little effort from me.

In the doctors' offices, the paper trail is enormous, the exam table is covered with disposable paper, and exam tools are disposable, overly packaged, or require cleaning between patients. Machines and testing equipment hum their electric tunes, and, of course, their production required many resources to make and ship. Large medical staffs are driving to and from their jobs every day.

Don't get me wrong. Right now, I am very grateful to have access to these resources. I am grateful to have insurance and enough money to afford the copays. I am also grateful that I was exposed to information that guides me to generally eat a healthy diet which will hopefully help me avoid many common American diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis. I am grateful my sweetie is willing to help me through this.

I am, however, frustrated that I am contributing to more resource use with this mysterious condition. It is also impacting my resource use at home. When I'm dizzy, I can't garden, do much food prep, concentrate on reading sustainable living blogs or books, do laundry manually, or bike for many of my errands. I hope this is all a temporary setback and not a permanent situation. As I told my chiropractor a couple of weeks ago, dealing with vertigo all the time does not fit into my vision of the future!

Operation Clean-Out Ends

My decluttering efforts in Operation Clean-Out have been slow and scattered. The logo's been up on the sidebar for months and I've really not posted much about it. I don't feel there's much to add after the intense month from the Cut the Crap challenge where I posted every single day. Three months is long enough so I'm pulling the plug on this operation.

Thank you to the folks who've hung in there all this time! There's a ton of information in the index, so please check there for continued help and motivation.

I am making definite progress on cold food clean-out. Due to being dizzy, I didn't make it to the CSA last week so I had less fresh food on hand. By the end of the week, I had to raid the freezer a few times. I made a nice stir fry with frozen green beans plus a few leftover fresh greens, carrots, and celery.

This soup used up produce I picked up from the Farmer's Market and grocery store: onion, garlic, carrots, and celery. From the freezer, I added green peas, dehydrated sweet potato slices, and black-eyed peas. There are also a few vegan "hamish bits" in there, too, from my sampler dehydrated food order. It tastes great and I'm starting to see some open space in the freezer.

My goal this week, between doctors' appointments for the dizziness, is to tackle my filing cabinets. I'd like to eliminate one of them before we move. Right now we have a total of 8 file drawers. Seven are in use, although one of those is for notebooks rather than files. If we can pick up a laptop before the final move, we might sell our computer hutch which has a file drawer in it, and I'd like to ditch the two-drawer file cabinet. So, I need to pare down the files from seven in use to five. Wish me luck!

In other news, Angel expressed her displeasure at being left behind when we went on a bike ride this morning. She doesn't care when we leave by car. She's okay when we leave by foot. But, she hates it when we both leave by bike. After breaking a couple of slats in other blinds in the front of the house, we started leaving one of them open and blocking access to the other one. This doesn't always work as she wants to see out both of them and will climb anything to do so. She really scared us the day she tipped over the heavy treadle sewing machine table. (I don't know how she avoided injury!)

Today, though, took the cake. She shredded the blind on the door. My sweetie is replacing it right now but we're not sure how to keep her from doing this the next time. Since this primarily happens when we both leave, we may have to take her with us. We can't always do back roads where it's safe to bike with her and she can't keep up with us for long, so we'll be scouring craigslist for a kennel that can fit on the back of our homemade trailer. We can't kennel or crate her at home; she freaks out about that, too. (As a rescue dog, we don't know her history but the wear on her teeth indicate chewing on kennel bars...) Anybody want a rotten dog?

How to Do Less Laundry

How can you do less laundry? By lowering your standards.

Some people overdo the "cleanliness is next to godliness" thing and use far more water, energy, and cleaning agents than necessary. You can seriously reduce your laundry burden by relaxing your standards of cleanliness. You'll save money on the utility bills and cleaners. You'll save time spent doing the laundry, whether by machine or by hand. You'll save energy you can spend working on the garden or putting up produce. You'll even save your clothes; less washing means less wear and tear.

Clothes

Despite what your mother told you, your clothes do not need to be washed after a single day's wearing. Last year, Crunchy Chicken admitted she wore her clothes more than once and surveyed her readers to find out their secret habits. Turns out many people wore portions of their wardrobe a few times, although nobody 'fessed up to donning a dirty pair of underwear when the next day dawned.

Unless you are mucking out a stable, kneeling in the garden mud, or working on an engine, chances are your clothes aren't really all that dirty at the end of the day. They may have acquired some dust from the air and your office, dead skin cells that sloughed off your body, and a little perspiration dampness. Why wash clothes that aren't dirty?

Freshen up

If the idea of wearing that top, sweater, skirt, or pair of pants again makes you squeamish, try these tips.

• Shake the clothes outside to remove the dust and dead skin cells.


• Hang them up overnight to air out. I think this works better if they're put outside.


• Place the clothes outside on a sunny day to let ultraviolet light help disinfect them. (Tip from Cody Lundin's book, When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes)


• Spritz the pits with vodka. Let dry.

Obviously, you won't want to wear the same outfit two days in a row to the office, which is perfect. It gives you enough time to hang, sun, and go boozin' with your clothes.

Cover up

Covering up your clothes before you do something dirty is another way to save them from the laundry basket for another day. Find or sew yourself a nice apron for the kitchen and remember to wear it. Don a pair of coveralls when degreasing your bike chain. Throw on a lab coat before painting the hallway.

In Arizona, hikers are always advised to "wear layers." This is due to rapidly changing weather conditions. It's very easy to remove layers when it gets too hot and add layers when the temperature drops. For everyday clothing, keep in mind that the top layer of your clothes is not getting as dirty as the bottom layer. You might only get two days' of wear out of a blouse but a week's worth out of the sweater or vest. An easy way for women to maintain the odor-free condition of slacks and jeans is to use cloth pads for any days of their cycle when bodily smells are naturally a little more, um, potent.


Linens

A nice side effect of showering less often has been that our towels don't need laundering as much. Most days, we simply take a sponge bath using a washcloth and some hot water in the sink. With the arid climate here, I'm practically dry when done. We each shower approximately twice a week, mostly to wash hair. The towels can easily go up to three weeks without developing a ripe smell, especially since we always let them dry out completely between uses. The number of washcloths used does not increase laundry substantially.

Some people feel sheets must be washed weekly but, unless one is going to bed completely filthy or sweaty, I'm not sure why such frequent washing would be needed. It's easy enough to sponge off if dirty and keep the sheets in nice shape. Of course, night time activities for couples may have an impact here so use your own judgment. If the sheets are ready to walk to the washer themselves, perhaps you waited just a little too long.

Blankets, on the other hand, should need laundering far less often than the sheets since they are not coming in contact with your body at night. If your animals like to get on the bed, consider laying a sheet over the blankets or bedspread. A lightweight sheet is easier to clean than a heavy blanket or bedspread.


Give it a try

While writing this up today, I tried the vodka spritz method for the first time on three of my sweetie's work shirts (using a 50% vodka/50% water spray). I hung them out in the sunny breeze and they came out just fine. When he got home, I told him, "I'm tired of doing laundry so I'm not going to wash your shirts every time any more." I made him sniff the pits and he agreed they passed the test. To make sure they do get washed within another wearing or two, we're going to keep them separated from the laundered shirts, though.

If you are accustomed to a regular schedule of frequent laundering, try cutting back a little at a time until you reach your limits. Use your eyes and your nose to let you know when something really does need to be washed.

Do you have any tips for cutting back on laundry?

The Earth Keeps Spinning

I struggle with vertigo again, despairing at my lack of productivity. I hate being so dizzy that walking across the bridge along a crowded street makes me grip the railing tightly lest I stumble into traffic. I worry that I won't adapt to a powered down future if unable to even do simple chores now.


The earth keeps spinning.


In desperation, I seek help from a chiropractor, Ear/Nose/Throat specialist, doctor, and physical therapist, and undergo adjustments, hearing and balance tests, physical examination, exercises, and stretches. I watch our budget implode under the weight of copays and uncovered services.


But, the earth keeps spinning.


I neglect my blog and blogging friends, let the paperwork pile up, ignore my taxes, and lament my current condition. My head pounds and thinking is difficult.


And, the earth keeps spinning.


In the bigger picture, good homes get harder to find and keep, the job market tightens, the economy crumbles, and most people live in a fantasy of hope and quick recovery.


Still, the earth keeps spinning.


I despair that humans seem determined to overpopulate, overconsume, and pollute their way out of existence with little regard for the other denizens of the planet.


Yet, the earth keeps spinning.


The earth doesn't care who we are or what we do. It is a speck in space, albeit one with a complex life support system that's developed over the eons. An evolving, changing system that responds to small and large inputs. It doesn't care about humans. It just is.


The earth keeps spinning.


Most humans care about their own survival. Some humans care about human survival. Less humans care about other species' survival. A few humans care about not leaving a bare rock in space behind us. What do you care about?