On and on

I feel sad. I feel like its graduation and we are all getting married and then going our separate ways in blog land. I feel like I'm losing a wonderful little community that I was so happy to find! But I think its time.

Now that our wedding is done, I don't feel as drawn to wedding blog land. Those pretty pictures are not enticing but merely serve as a reminder to how glad I am to be done with it. Plus, they bring up the wouldas, couldas and shouldas and who needs that? not me!

I'll try to do some more recaping - especially since we should be getting our pictures really soon! yay! But I don't want to reminisce too much about our wedding.

It happened. It was a great day. But I'm too focused looking forward to many more great days.

Since I do love blog land, I am going to try to continue blogging in some way...I just have to figure out what that way is. I liked having the focus of 'wedding' to concentrate my thinking. If left wide open, I think my brain would just produce some word splatter worth nothing.

I'll keep you posted!

Peace,
Jen

Now what?

The wedding is over and my bride brain is slowly starting to fade away (Though I still have that knee jerk reaction a lot and keep thinking "oh! I could use that for x,y,z" or "That's a cute DIY project!" But alas, no more wedding projects for me.) So now comes the inevitable question around these parts... what next? What do I do here is bloggy world when I am no longer a bride to be?

Talk about married life as Me, Myself and Wife? Go back to being my normal, neurotic self and morph this space into randomville as Me, Myself and I? Or finish my bridal bit and than fade into the interwebs?

Do you care about my everyday biz? About the explosion of thoughts that go into my head and come out as incoherent messes? Should I end every sentence in this post with a question mark?

Well, we got some more time because I do have more recaps coming, but just putting the question out there. What are you interested in hearing about?

Here are a few of the things rattling around in my mind at the moment that may be making some post appearances:

• We want to move west. Specifically to a place with a ski mountain.
• What do I want to do with my career? Which direction to go, how to become something that sort of resembles a 'professional', goals, etc.
• Health. I've been doing pretty good in the health realm and am looking at doing a lot of things. We'd like to do more climbing. I am addicted to spin class. I want to try yoga for the strength, balance, and spirituality. And I've been poking around at the possibility of a triathlon next spring/summer... (Me, Myself and the Tri?)
• Books! My brain needs some new wrinkles. It has been full of white fluffy stuff for the last eight months! I need something more substantial to sink my gray matter into! (Any good recommendations?)
  
• Making friends. This is way harder than I think it should be! But a lot of my friends have moved around or we've grown apart and I miss having those bonding times with the ladies! Where are my Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha?
• Food! I loves it and I miss it and I want more! I'm specifically interested in baking. More specifically I'm on a quest to recreate this chocolate torte thingy that we had that totally blew my mind.

Way too many things going on in my head. All of them fighting. None of them getting processed appropriately. *sigh* Back to normal life!

WTF

Hey all. I'm going to be a bit MIA around here - I'm trying to get a lot of stuff done and need to step back from blog land to help me get it done.

But I had to share this today.

I don't know what to say anymore about this damn oil disaster. It makes me so angry and so sad and really doubtful about our future. Everyone is pointing fingers and trying to shake off blame when in the end I think we are all to blame.

That's all I got today.

North

Hey! I'm back! I had a wonderful long weekend up north in the woods. My parents and grandparents and uncle all own lots on this little lake in the woods up near Grand Marais, and my grandparents built a cabin there. When I was little we were up there almost every other weekend in the summer and apparently it has had a lot to do with my development. Whenever I take people there, they go, "Oh, this explains a lot about you!" I'm not completely sure what that means...but I'll take it as a compliment.

And I'm so glad that my mister fits in with my family and can get into the cabin groove. Because its definitely a different kind of cabin. Its tucked away, there is a pretty small motor limit on the lake, no jet skis are allowed, restrictions are set so that no development is near the lake - aka on the lake you can't see any cabins, just woods. And when we go there to have a relaxing weekend we do things like build a stone wall.

Its place where we watch the squirrels during breakfast as they do acrobatics to get on the bird feeder. Then we go down to the dock to examine a pile of poop. We think it might have been an otter because there are rumors of an otter taking up residence on the lake. We are still investigating this rumor. After that, the real excitement starts - a trip to the gravel pit! Yay! And while I say that with a little bit of sarcasm, in all reality I love it. We pick out all the 'best' rocks, bring them back, and then find them homes in the forming rock wall. After dinner we go fishing and catch a bunch of the world's smallest walleye, maybe a few keepers, and then we go in to warm up and enjoy a game of dominoes.

But that is my little slice of heaven right there. I get to run around in the woods, not confined in my office, and do whatever I please. Sometimes relaxation comes in the form of reading a book on the dock and sometimes it comes through using my hands and my body and building a rock wall.

And not matter how hard I try, I just can't be stressed there. I brought some items from my 'to-do' list with over the weekend, but didn't even look at them. Didn't even think about them. And didn't even care.

Awesome.

Just wanted to share a little piece of 'real life' with ya'll. Because apparently "that explains a lot"!

*This photo is an old one, but I like it. It was the fall of 2004 and this is when I first took the mister up to the cabin. I had been wading in Lake Superior and am now concentrating on walking because I can't feel my feet. That lake is ridiculously cold.

Deep Thoughts

I miss taking baths. I haven't lived in a place with a comfy bath tub since my parents house about 6+ years ago. All these claw tubs look cool, but really, that 90 degree angle in not soothing on my neck. I want to soak in a comfy tub and read a book and play in bubbles and have battles between the ninja turtles and my little ponies again.

This is now a requirement of our honeymoon: stay at least one night in a place with a bomb ass bath tub.

Raphael is ready.


Bubble monster via deysale

Porra!

I'm sorta taking a break from wedding land and may be a bit MIA for a while. I'm not stressing about anything right now and am feeling really great about the wedding - so that means I'm gonna ride this wave for as long as I can and try not to think about anything lest I stir up something that should have been left alone. :)

So today, in honor of the ridiculous heat and humidity here in the Twin Cities and because I don't have AC and definitely don't want to do any sort of cooking or heat inducing activity, I have a lovely recipe for you. Its a cold soup that require zero (or very little, depending) cooking!

My brother is currently living abroad in Spain and has been for a few years now. He used to live in a little town called La Roda where they served a nummy soup called porra.

Its a simple tomato based soup that is surprisingly refreshing and can be garnished with tons of various things to fit your taste. Here it is shown with some hard boiled egg and tuna (yeah, not the best looking picture...but it does taste good!). A friend of my brother sent this and she notes that this is a rough recipe from her memory. The amounts can be played with a lot to fit your taste.

What you need to make porra:

• Blender
• 2-3 slices of day old bread (or I just lightly toast some bread)
• roughly 6 medium size tomatoes
  
• half a red pepper
• 1 garlic clove
  
• few glugs of olive oil
• very small dash of vinegar (optional)
  
• salt to taste

Peel the tomatoes as best you can and cut into quarters. Peeling over the blender will keep all the juices for the soup. Also peel the red pepper as much as you can and cut into chunks. (I gave up very quickly on peeling the pepper and it didn't seem to make a difference. I haven't tried it with keeping the tomato skins yet.) Cut bread into smaller chunks. Chop up garlic. Watch out for both the garlic and the vinegar in this recipe - a little bit goes a long way!

Put everything (bread, tomatoes, pepper, garlic, oil, vinegar, salt) in the blender and blend until smooth. It should be thick - not runny like tomato soup. Chill in fridge and serve with your choice of condiments; hard-boiled egg, tuna, ham, prosciutto (delicious!), pepper, avocado...play around! Also great with a nice crusty baguette.

Hope this helps on those days where any additional heat in your house is too much! Let me know if you try it, what you think, and what you chose to garnish your soup with!

Bon appetit!
Jen