I spent all of yesterday working on a set of scenes for a nonfiction project I'm working on. I always disliked the idea of writing a memoir. It seemed to me rather self-absorbed and indulgent. But my writing, after Harper and June came, just sort of tailored itself from fiction to nonfiction and I've come to the realization that there is value in memoir and writing about oneself, insomuch as it can be related to, and learned from, by others.
Adair Lara has a nice little book on the craft of creative nonfiction. Where there are lots of things in it that I've had to skip over (your very basic "how to write well" sections) There is a lot of great information as well. Coming primarily from a background of writing fiction, there are a lot of things that I've missed out on, having concentrated most of my advanced class work in fiction. But what grabbed me from the beginning was in the introduction. Adair talks about Carl Jung and his idea of the collective versus the personal unconscious. This resonated with me, as my first few years in an undergraduate program were as a Psychology major. I liked the philosophy and the theoretical parts of the field, although I knew straight away that practice would not be for me. But I gained a lot of interesting knowledge in areas like Personality and Abnormal theory.
In any case, what Adair says is that creative nonfiction - memoir - is justified when what one contributes to the world (Jung's collective unconscious) through one's own writing (one's personal unconscious) is relatable and instructive. When we can write our stories and at the same time interpret them, teach what we've learned through our own mistakes, memoir can be a powerful tool not only for personal growth and healing, but for that of others as well.
I like that! And it makes me feel far less like a navel-gazer when I write from my own life. It can be difficult, not relying on the safety that fiction provides, but it has been liberating as well.
Anyone have a favorite memoir? One that has influenced them in a personal way? Leave a comment!
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Slummin' it for Supper: The Idea
So one of the things that I like to try to do is to eat as many whole foods as possible. I make my own baby food, so that I know that the girls aren't being exposed to a lot of chemicals (although they're now starting to eat off of our plates, so they are getting more processed foods these days), and I try to use whole food grown or raised in as organic a way as possible.
It's not easy on a budget. When I was 16 I took a trip to Great Britain and Paris, France, with my aunt. While at a garden cafe behind the Louvre I realized that a carafe of wine was around two dollars (probably more now - this was over 10 years ago), while a bottle of Coke about 2/3 of the size was being sold for around four dollars. Highly processed, unhealthy, sugary or generally bad-for-you foods are often taxed heavily in other countries. Here, you can buy a bag of processed frozen chicken breast often for less than the cost of a whole, unprocessed chicken.
There are ways to get around this, of course. I like to substitute beans and legumes for as many meats as I can, meaning that we may have bean burritos instead of beef burritos. But, every now and then, I'll pick up a pack of meat and use it. We tend to eat mostly chicken in our house, both because of the good-for-you factor and because my husband likes chicken. A lot. And he could take or leave pretty much any other meat. Except bacon. But that's another story.
So, beans or other proteins in place of meat can cut down on costs, especially when buying them in bulk and soaking them overnight as opposed to buying canned. For fruits and vegetables I often buy frozen simply because I can get more for the money, and there again is an example of paying less for a processed food than one would for a whole food from the produce section. Most of the time you can find frozen fruits and veggies, though, with little to no preservatives or added ingredients - and I am FOREVER checking the ingredients list.
This isn't to say that we never eat hamburger, boxed macaroni and cheese, canned soup, or other processed foods. The fact is that they are quick, easy, and easy to keep on hand. I'm a realist when it comes to my "whole foods" lifestyle. When I can make it work I would prefer to. But I'm not going to drive myself crazy over having to eat some ramen one or two nights a month. As I try to do with everything, I try to keep my cooking as simple as possible. That being said, I have two infants. Getting to the store can be a huge chore when we're only going for one or two things. There are many nights our dinners are less whole than I'd like. But it's not a perfect world, and it actually doesn't bother me all that much.
On nights that I'm making a full on processed meal with little to no whole foods, I call it "slumming it." I don't mean anything offensive by it. We live behind a bar near an oil refinery. I often joke with my husband and the girls that we're going "back to the slums" when we come home from one of our wonderful grandma's houses, two of the three being out in the country (where my heart belongs and where I hope to return one day). So I thought, to start off my regular posts, why not do a weekly recipe that can be made quickly, cheaply, and, with some improvisation (which I highly encourage in the kitchen), possibly with things you've already got on hand?
Last night, I improvised some Hamburg Gravy with Whole Wheat Rotini and Cheddar Biscuits (made from pancake mix). You can find the post here.
What's your favorite quick-to-whip up weeknight meal? Leave a comment letting me know!
It's not easy on a budget. When I was 16 I took a trip to Great Britain and Paris, France, with my aunt. While at a garden cafe behind the Louvre I realized that a carafe of wine was around two dollars (probably more now - this was over 10 years ago), while a bottle of Coke about 2/3 of the size was being sold for around four dollars. Highly processed, unhealthy, sugary or generally bad-for-you foods are often taxed heavily in other countries. Here, you can buy a bag of processed frozen chicken breast often for less than the cost of a whole, unprocessed chicken.
There are ways to get around this, of course. I like to substitute beans and legumes for as many meats as I can, meaning that we may have bean burritos instead of beef burritos. But, every now and then, I'll pick up a pack of meat and use it. We tend to eat mostly chicken in our house, both because of the good-for-you factor and because my husband likes chicken. A lot. And he could take or leave pretty much any other meat. Except bacon. But that's another story.
So, beans or other proteins in place of meat can cut down on costs, especially when buying them in bulk and soaking them overnight as opposed to buying canned. For fruits and vegetables I often buy frozen simply because I can get more for the money, and there again is an example of paying less for a processed food than one would for a whole food from the produce section. Most of the time you can find frozen fruits and veggies, though, with little to no preservatives or added ingredients - and I am FOREVER checking the ingredients list.
This isn't to say that we never eat hamburger, boxed macaroni and cheese, canned soup, or other processed foods. The fact is that they are quick, easy, and easy to keep on hand. I'm a realist when it comes to my "whole foods" lifestyle. When I can make it work I would prefer to. But I'm not going to drive myself crazy over having to eat some ramen one or two nights a month. As I try to do with everything, I try to keep my cooking as simple as possible. That being said, I have two infants. Getting to the store can be a huge chore when we're only going for one or two things. There are many nights our dinners are less whole than I'd like. But it's not a perfect world, and it actually doesn't bother me all that much.
On nights that I'm making a full on processed meal with little to no whole foods, I call it "slumming it." I don't mean anything offensive by it. We live behind a bar near an oil refinery. I often joke with my husband and the girls that we're going "back to the slums" when we come home from one of our wonderful grandma's houses, two of the three being out in the country (where my heart belongs and where I hope to return one day). So I thought, to start off my regular posts, why not do a weekly recipe that can be made quickly, cheaply, and, with some improvisation (which I highly encourage in the kitchen), possibly with things you've already got on hand?
Last night, I improvised some Hamburg Gravy with Whole Wheat Rotini and Cheddar Biscuits (made from pancake mix). You can find the post here.
What's your favorite quick-to-whip up weeknight meal? Leave a comment letting me know!
Slummin' it for Supper: Hamburg Gravy & Cheddar Biscuits
 |
| Digital Scrapbook Images created by Andrea Boyer: www.scrapartstudio.com |
So as I said in the introductory post for the Slummin' it for Supper series, I will sometimes pick up a pack of meat for a particular dinner that I'm planning. Either that, or I'll have a hankering for something (usually, for me, it's hamburger) and get some when I see a good sale price. I would prefer to buy my meat locally, from a "hippie" farm, but we use so little meat that I'm really just waiting until we can work out our budget for the year before I decide whether to do that or just go with my sporadic supermarket purchases.
In any case, I found a 2 1/2 pound pack of hamburger on sale for an alarmingly good price at my supermarket the other day and couldn't resist - I'd been craving it for a couple of days. So yesterday afternoon I brought the girls into the kitchen with me, set them up with some plastic bowls and wooden spoons, and browned it down with an onion I'd had for about a week that was needing to be used up. I had no idea what I planned to do with it. I originally had thought about tacos, but I didn't have all the spices I needed for taco seasoning, my husband would have had to stop for shells on the way home, and when I discovered I was out of black beans I decided to sit on it for a while.
Eventually, I came up with the idea of hamburg gravy. You can't get much more good old fashioned hillbilly eatin' than this without adding some sort of woodland creature to the pot (and there's nothing wrong with that - no judgement here). Anyone who grew up in a rural area may remember it from the lunch room of their school, or it may have been a staple comfort food at home, served over mashed potatoes or rice.
I'm a huge fan of comfort foods. As bad as they can be for our bodies, they do my soul and state of mind a world of good, particularly on these long, dark, cold winter days. So once the idea for hamburg gravy popped into my head that was it. There was no other option.
I don't have a recipe for hamburg gravy, really. I mean, I have one written down in case of an emergency, but as with many of the things I cook, I just winged it. My "recipe" called for two packets of french onion soup mix, which of course I didn't have. A quick scan of my "savory" cupboard, however, revealed an unopened can of French's fried onions leftover from a green been casserole who knows how long ago. But hey, if it's not expired and it doesn't smell, it's fair game in my kitchen. So instead of the soup mix I poured the fried onions into a bowl, crushed them up with the bottom of a juice cup, and poured the crumbs into my ground beef mixture. I added four cups of water, stirred it all together, brought it to a boil, and let it simmer for about two hours, stirring fairly often.
I'm comfortable admitting that, at first, it looked a little like cat sick. But as it reduced it developed a nice, thick, smooth consistency (as I knew it would). If you don't have onion soup mix or fried onions, you could make a roux ahead of time. Then add it to your ground beef and water. It will act as a thickening agent during the simmer. Same idea. Just a different way of getting there.
Now, I'm not afraid to admit that I love any sort of bread, pasta, or anything of the sort. Last night's dinner was an indulgence for me. The hamburg gravy was mixed with whole wheat rotini, to make a sort of homemade hamburger helper, and on the side I made cheddar biscuits.
I ran across this tutorial a while ago while searching for a knockoff of the Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits. It was so, so amazing, and it was the garlic parsley butter that really made them. This is the easiest side dish to make in the world, it always comes out just right, and it goes with anything. Seriously. If you have pancake mix you can whip these up in ten minutes and I can't imagine anyone not liking them.
So there you have it. My slummed out, improvised meal hamburg gravy and biscuits.
Do you have a favorite winter comfort meal, or a super easy to throw together dinner? Leave a comment. Also, how does Tuesday sound for a regular Slummin' it for Supper post? Let me know in the comments section!
Monday, January 28, 2013
Scheduling Our Lives
It's not something I've done as of yet. It's difficult, when your brain isn't set up to naturally create and maintain order, to have a schedule for your day. I'll admit, most days that I'm home with the girls are spent in my pajamas and more than likely without even the undergarment most people would consider mandatory for answering the door for anyone other than one's mother.
When I was working, I was certain that stay-at-home moms had it made. Seriously? Stay home all day, watch whatever you want on television, go shopping if you feel like it. If you don't feel like it, hey, that's cool too. Throw something together for dinner a few nights a week. The housework would get done so much easier, I believed, if I were home all day.
Right. What I failed to consider were two very important factors:
1) The girls demanding attention, even if only to be entertained, most of the time. Even when they're not crying for me to crawl into the cage with them, I worry that they're developing an attachment disorder. "The fact that she is upset with it," a Psychology professor turned Facebook friend once advised me, "is better than her being complacent, regardless of what it is that's bothering her." Whether she was crying because she wanted me or because she wanted out of her cage was irrelevant. The fact that she hadn't resigned herself to being left alone indefinitely was, apparently, healthy. While that eased my mind in one way, it got me started freaking out in the opposite direction. How on earth was I supposed to get anything done if these two little monkeys were going to scream the second I stepped away from them, or if I were feeling too guilty to step away from them?
2) Yes, I can stay in my pajamas all day if I like. No, there is no need to do my hair, put on makeup (which I didn't do before either), dress nice, or even take care of myself. But the physical ease of my days at home, it quickly became apparent, was a trade off for the mental exhaustion I felt by 5:00. Or, if we want to time our day by a mommy unit of measure, by the fourth bottle, by the one millionth strand of hair ripped from my scalp, by the hundredth time I've had to push my glasses back onto my face or pry them from someone's tiny hand, by the third installment of Cat in the Hat, or - my personal favorite - by the time daddy walks in the door. Being alone all day with only two infants to keep you company will drain your batteries faster than you'll even realize it. Before you know it you'll be crash landing in bed 10 minutes after they go down if you're not careful. Being a loner and having a pretty intense case of social anxiety, I never thought I really needed a lot of interaction with other adults. I always disliked it so much I just assumed that I'd at least be able to maintain my buoyancy without it. Hell, I thought I might even get a bit more chipper if I didn't have to deal with people and all of their stupid crap throughout the day. All I can say is that I was either embarrassingly naive, or I was deluding myself. Because it's like the Twilight Zone up in here between the hours of 6 am to 5 pm. And you don't just walk out of 11 hours of the Twilight Zone without it leaving some impact on your mental state.
What has struck me about being a stay-at-home mom with no real schedule is that the times they are a-changing. Or, more accurately, they have changed already. Drastically, and not entirely for the better.
Now, my inner bra burner is seething as I begin to explain my theory here, but hear me out. My grandmother was a mom in the 60s and 70's. Just about the time that things were starting to change and women were spending more and more time outside the home by default. Not that they weren't working outside the home before then. Certainly not. We all know how women supported the war effort by filling the empty positions the men left behind. Of course. But it was still customary, when not being Rosie the Riveters, for women to stay at home with the children. My grandmother, who raised the majority of her brothers and sisters as a girl and young woman, must have had such a support network. In those days there must have been at least a neighbor or two who was home with a child. Even on days when nothing was planned there was probably always someone to go visit. Someone to interact with. Someone to prop her up with a little conversation and a cup of coffee.
For stay-at-home moms today, at least I would imagine, there are probably far fewer outlets for good, solid interaction with other stay-at-home moms. I know that in my neighborhood there is no one at home with babies in our age range wishing someone would come over for a cup of coffee. Or wishing that she could go to someone else's house for a little moral support.
So what's a mom to do? Really all we're left with is to go shopping, run an errand, go to Grandma's (if she's home and feeling like company). But, to be quite frank, packing up both girls to go on an errand in the winter can take upwards of 40 minutes if they both need changed, fed, and put in their snowsuits. It can involve crying if they don't feel like being bundled up. Then we get where we're going, have to find a cart, get one strapped into the seat, the other strapped into the carrier on my chest, get inside before frostbite sets in, get all of our shopping done and hurry home before they're overtired and refusing to take their next nap. It's an inordinate amount of work to go to the store for 1 or 2 things, or just for something to do. And we can't go to Grandma's every day.
While thinking about a blogging schedule this afteroon I came to the realization that I have no schedule for my life, which was why putting together a blogging schedule was blowing my mind. I realized that not having a plan for a day or two was okay, but the reason my days feel so long and tedious is because I don't have a plan for any day, ever. Whether we're going somewhere or doing something or not, it seems only logical that a day with at least a loose plan will go faster and feel much smoother than one without. And so, as I work on putting together a blogging schedule, I'm going to be thinking about a life schedule as well.
Wish me luck!
When I was working, I was certain that stay-at-home moms had it made. Seriously? Stay home all day, watch whatever you want on television, go shopping if you feel like it. If you don't feel like it, hey, that's cool too. Throw something together for dinner a few nights a week. The housework would get done so much easier, I believed, if I were home all day.
Right. What I failed to consider were two very important factors:
1) The girls demanding attention, even if only to be entertained, most of the time. Even when they're not crying for me to crawl into the cage with them, I worry that they're developing an attachment disorder. "The fact that she is upset with it," a Psychology professor turned Facebook friend once advised me, "is better than her being complacent, regardless of what it is that's bothering her." Whether she was crying because she wanted me or because she wanted out of her cage was irrelevant. The fact that she hadn't resigned herself to being left alone indefinitely was, apparently, healthy. While that eased my mind in one way, it got me started freaking out in the opposite direction. How on earth was I supposed to get anything done if these two little monkeys were going to scream the second I stepped away from them, or if I were feeling too guilty to step away from them?
2) Yes, I can stay in my pajamas all day if I like. No, there is no need to do my hair, put on makeup (which I didn't do before either), dress nice, or even take care of myself. But the physical ease of my days at home, it quickly became apparent, was a trade off for the mental exhaustion I felt by 5:00. Or, if we want to time our day by a mommy unit of measure, by the fourth bottle, by the one millionth strand of hair ripped from my scalp, by the hundredth time I've had to push my glasses back onto my face or pry them from someone's tiny hand, by the third installment of Cat in the Hat, or - my personal favorite - by the time daddy walks in the door. Being alone all day with only two infants to keep you company will drain your batteries faster than you'll even realize it. Before you know it you'll be crash landing in bed 10 minutes after they go down if you're not careful. Being a loner and having a pretty intense case of social anxiety, I never thought I really needed a lot of interaction with other adults. I always disliked it so much I just assumed that I'd at least be able to maintain my buoyancy without it. Hell, I thought I might even get a bit more chipper if I didn't have to deal with people and all of their stupid crap throughout the day. All I can say is that I was either embarrassingly naive, or I was deluding myself. Because it's like the Twilight Zone up in here between the hours of 6 am to 5 pm. And you don't just walk out of 11 hours of the Twilight Zone without it leaving some impact on your mental state.
What has struck me about being a stay-at-home mom with no real schedule is that the times they are a-changing. Or, more accurately, they have changed already. Drastically, and not entirely for the better.
Now, my inner bra burner is seething as I begin to explain my theory here, but hear me out. My grandmother was a mom in the 60s and 70's. Just about the time that things were starting to change and women were spending more and more time outside the home by default. Not that they weren't working outside the home before then. Certainly not. We all know how women supported the war effort by filling the empty positions the men left behind. Of course. But it was still customary, when not being Rosie the Riveters, for women to stay at home with the children. My grandmother, who raised the majority of her brothers and sisters as a girl and young woman, must have had such a support network. In those days there must have been at least a neighbor or two who was home with a child. Even on days when nothing was planned there was probably always someone to go visit. Someone to interact with. Someone to prop her up with a little conversation and a cup of coffee.
For stay-at-home moms today, at least I would imagine, there are probably far fewer outlets for good, solid interaction with other stay-at-home moms. I know that in my neighborhood there is no one at home with babies in our age range wishing someone would come over for a cup of coffee. Or wishing that she could go to someone else's house for a little moral support.
So what's a mom to do? Really all we're left with is to go shopping, run an errand, go to Grandma's (if she's home and feeling like company). But, to be quite frank, packing up both girls to go on an errand in the winter can take upwards of 40 minutes if they both need changed, fed, and put in their snowsuits. It can involve crying if they don't feel like being bundled up. Then we get where we're going, have to find a cart, get one strapped into the seat, the other strapped into the carrier on my chest, get inside before frostbite sets in, get all of our shopping done and hurry home before they're overtired and refusing to take their next nap. It's an inordinate amount of work to go to the store for 1 or 2 things, or just for something to do. And we can't go to Grandma's every day.
While thinking about a blogging schedule this afteroon I came to the realization that I have no schedule for my life, which was why putting together a blogging schedule was blowing my mind. I realized that not having a plan for a day or two was okay, but the reason my days feel so long and tedious is because I don't have a plan for any day, ever. Whether we're going somewhere or doing something or not, it seems only logical that a day with at least a loose plan will go faster and feel much smoother than one without. And so, as I work on putting together a blogging schedule, I'm going to be thinking about a life schedule as well.
Wish me luck!
Let's Begin
The girls are starting to wake up from their morning nap. I need to wash bottles and make formula. Get ready for them. Prepare myself mentally. We're going to the store, you see. It's a lot of work. But first I wanted to have a post so that I could work more with formatting later on, but also so I can get the first post out of the way and move on. The first post is always the hardest.
So, some things I want to promise as this blog owner. It's not a lot - I just can't promise much right now. But I can promise you some things, at least. So here we go with my Shifting Geers Manifesto:
1) I will write one quality post at least once a week. I can't guarantee more. But I will at least do that.
2) I will work on some sort of schedule for special posts. I'd like to cover lots of topics, from crafts to cooking to sleep training, to the simple physics of handling two babies at once. Maybe Mondays could be food days? Thursdays could be a physics lesson? I don't know yet. But I'll figure it out. Say, by Sunday? Sound good? Now the caveat here is that I work best when I feel that not completing my task would be shameful. I'd be ashamed, for example, if I didn't finish a post that I thought someone was looking forward to. So I need my readers to keep me accountable by posting comments and/or otherwise interacting with me. Could you do that for me please? Particularly if you have a topic that you think would make a great recurring topic. I would love to hear about that in the comments.
3) I will read your comments. Not only that but I will respond to them and, where suggestions are left, I will do my best to incorporate those suggestions, or at least address them in a post. I would really love to have input from readers as to what they'd like to see me write about. Then I don't feel so much like I'm navel gazing.
One quick thing that I want to address:
I registered the domain name shiftingeers.com under Wordpress.com. Being new to the whole blogging thing, I wanted the most professional look I could get without investing too much money until I was sure it would be something that would be well received, as well as something that I would stick with. Unfortunately, much as I love Wordpress, I simply did not have as much control over my blog's appearance as I would like. I am a creative person and I really need to be able to customize and tweak things extensively. I couldn't do that on WP.com for free as I could here on Blogger. So that's why I'm here. As soon as the domain becomes available for transfer (another 54 days, I'm led to believe), I will do my best to transfer it to this blog so that it has a more professional address and looks a little less like the free hosted I-made-this-in-ten-minutes type of deal. Eventually I would like to put it on my own domain but, quite frankly, I'm just not techie enough to pull that off. I think just getting the domain transferred when that option becomes available will test my to my techie limits. So...as far as the whole "professional" thing, just know that I'm working on it as time, knowledge, and money allows. =)
Okie doke. I hear the cues being given from upstairs and it's time to go get them up, wash bottles, make breakfast, and hit the store! Wish me luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)