King of the World

keep thinking about writing a post about bike-riding. In it, I would include beautiful pictures of my bike in a field of clover or my bike leaning against a moss-covered tree or a picturesque view of the city from my bike or me looking lovely (and not sweaty) on a bike. I would attempt to show you through photographs how amazing it feels to be on a bike.

Alas, I have not yet been brave enough to take my $500 camera on a bicycle, so this is the best I can do for you:

"I'm king of the world!"

It's true. When I'm on a bike, this is how I feel every time, every single time.

A friend emailed me the other day to say that she'd heard I'd gotten into running. "Don't you love it?" she wrote.

Well, no, actually. For the past nine months, I've been trying to go running two or three mornings a week. I run about 3 miles. It takes me much longer than it should, and ever time, every single time, I think to myself, When is this going to get easier?

I leave my house, walk about a quarter of a mile, and then start running, and as soon as I switch from walking pace to jogging pace, every time, every single time, I start thinking, Can I stop yet? And then I spend the next 35 minutes cheerleading: Just make it to that stoplight. Just make it down that hill. Just make it across that street. You can do it, you can do it.

When I'm on a bike, I hit my first hill and my legs are pumping and I'm inching, inching, at a snail's pace up, up, up, but the thought that runs through my mind is almost never, Can I stop yet?

Instead, I'm thinking, I can do this. Look how strong I am. With just the power of my legs, I am pushing me, and a 40 pound bike, and a 35 pound child up a hill. I am awesome.

And then I get to the top of the hill and begin to coast down, and I feel like I'm soaring. I think, "Wheeeee!!!!!" And if Rylan is with me, we say it outloud. "Wheeee!!!!" People walking past give us concerned looks, questioning our ear-to-ear grins.

I think some people feel that way when they run, but not me. I am not a runner, but when I'm on a bike, I'm king of the world.

Music Lessons: Of Monsters and Men

Normally, I do these music posts on Fridays, but I wanted to make sure you didn't miss this:

NPR is streaming Of Monsters and Men's debut album this week.

New to this band? Here's their most popular song:


This is good stuff, people.

OF MONSTERS AND MEN OFFICIAL
website
facebook
myspace

(P.S. NPR also did a story this week with Dry the River. Apparently, NPR and I have the same taste in music.)

A Day with Rylan

his morning, Rylan said to me, "Your hair looks really bad today. Have you taken a shower yet?" I told him that I had already taken a shower, and he said, "Well, did you forget to comb your hair?"

**********

After we dropped the boys off at school, I reminded Rylan that he would be playing at Seth and James' house that morning while I went grocery shopping. Seth and James are cousins, and James spends most days at Seth's house. Rylan corrected, "I wish you would stop calling it Seth and James' house. James doesn't live there. It's only Seth's house."

**********

When I picked Rylan up from Seth's house, he asked what I'd bought at the grocery store. I started listing, "Milk, eggs, zucchini-"

He cut me off. "I want zucchini for lunch."

I said, "It's not for lunch. It's for dinner."

He insisted, "I want it for lunch!!!!" Then he threw a half hour long temper tantrum because I wouldn't let him have the zucchini for lunch.

**********

In the afternoon, we rode my bike to pick up Cole and Eli from school. When we got to the school, I took Rylan out of his bike seat, and he started panting. "Phew! My legs are tired," he declared.

**********

At dinner, he asked, "Why are there only four tomatoes on my salad?"

I said, "You can have as many tomatoes as you want. Go get yourself some more."

He brought back the whole container. "Can I have them all?" he asked, and then proceeded to eat an entire thing of cherry tomatoes.

**********

Good thing he's cute.

Meal Plan Week 4

Cole is currently obsessed with soup.

eek 4 of the Peters Family Band 15-Week Meal Plan

Breakfast Options:

• oatmeal, granola, toast, grits, english muffins
• yogurt, smoothies, or milk
• cold cereal on the weekend

Lunch Options:

• cheese sandwich, tuna sandwich, egg salad sandwich, peanut butter sandwich, or quesadilla
• apple, banana, clementine, peaches, or applesauce
• water or watered down juice

Dinner

Monday:

• deep dish pizza
• salad

Tuesday:

• vegetable chimichangas

Wednesday:

• eggs on english muffins
• asparagus

Thursday:

• black bean soup

Friday:

• fried rice

Saturday:

• I don't cook on Saturdays. We typically eat leftovers, pancakes, or order take-out.

Sunday:

• spaghetti with sausage
• salad

Rylan Says

On Sunday (the one day of the week that I wear make-up), Rylan said, "Momma has on her pretty earrings and her pretty necklace and her pretty eyes."

Meal Plan Week 3

eek 3 of the Peters Family Band 15-Week Meal Plan

Breakfast Options:

• oatmeal, granola, toast, grits, applesauce muffins
• yogurt, smoothies, or milk
• cold cereal on the weekend

Lunch Options:

• cheese sandwich, tuna sandwich, egg salad sandwich, peanut butter sandwich, or quesadilla
• apple, banana, clementine, peaches, or applesauce
• water or watered down juice

Dinner

Monday:

• pizza (pizza tips)
• salad

Tuesday:

• seven-layer bean dip

Wednesday:

• omelets
• toast
• cabbage soup

Thursday:

• multi-mushroom stroganoff
• salad

Friday

• vegetable soup
• biscuits

Saturday:

• I don't cook on Saturdays. We typically eat leftovers, pancakes, or order take-out.

Sunday:

• kadu with beef

Music Lessons: Top 5 Desert Island Rock

I just finished re-reading High Fidelity, so Michael and I have been discussing our Top 5 Desert Island Rock Bands.

His
(in no particular order)

1. REM
2. Sunny Day Real Estate
3. Hum
4. Jimmy Eat World
5. Jawbox

Hers
(in no particular order)

1. Jimmy Eat World
2. Eisley
3. Death Cab for Cutie
4. Stars
5. Skipping Mad

Skipping Mad was Michael's band in college (when we met). I had to include them on my list because (a) they really were an awesome band and I still listen to their songs all the time, (b) the fact that Michael was in a band was pretty influential on my interest in him, and (c) if I were trapped on a desert island, it would be nice to have Michael there with me.

What are your Top 5 Desert Island Rock Bands?

Post Pi(e) Day

ast night, I logged on to Facebook thirty minutes before bedtime and was bombarded with messages about pie. I wrote:

Instead of getting up early in the morning to go running, I think I will stay up late and make a pie. Darnit all you people and your Pi Day postings...

As soon as I hit enter, Michael came into our bedroom and flopped onto the bed. Of course the one time in our entire marriage that he decides to go to bed on time is the night I'm thinking about pie.

I considered my options and decided that I didn't want to stay up all by myself to make/eat pie because that's weird. So I went to bed.

And it's a good thing I did because it turned out that today was the day I really needed pie.

This morning, I noticed Michael standing next to the bed with one arm over his eyes. I said, "Head rush?" He nodded, and then

T
I
M
B
E
R

down he went, flat as a board, smack on his back, passed out.

Miraculously Michael managed to fall at exactly the right angle and land in exactly the right spot so that he avoided hitting his head on anything. And when I say miraculously, I literally mean miracle. The man is six feet tall, and some type of furniture or pile of junk covers every single inch of space lining the walls of our room except the one spot where his head managed to land.

Now this is the part of the story where I take you on a little detour to say that I've been in this situation once before. When we were in high school, my sister Kellie stood up too fast one morning, passed out, hit her head against the wall, and had a seizure. Then she got up, said she felt fine, and we went to seminary. As I remember it, that experience was mildly scary but mostly kind of funny. We laughed about it all day, all month, for years afterward.

This was completely different.

Michael's eyes were wide open, staring straight up at the ceiling, and he was making a weird, throaty, monotone, moaning noise. He wasn't having a seizure, but he was making that weird noise that made me think maybe his tongue was blocking his windpipe, and anyway, I needed to do something, so I moved his head a little bit and opened his mouth and started shouting, "Michael! Michael! Michael!"

And then he came to. "What happened?" he asked, noticing that he was lying on the floor.

I started laughing. "You fainted." And then I started crying. Hysterical crying. Like half-laughing, half-I-can't-stop-the-tears crying. And all morning, every time I thought about it again, I'd start crying again.

So I made a pie.


Plus, I enjoyed this awesomeness today:


When I picked Michael up from work today, he started talking about that "really funny thing that happened this morning." I was like, "Yeah, it might have been funny. If it wasn't the single most terrifying experience of my life!"

But at least I got to eat pie.

Meal Plan Week 2

eek 2 of the Peters Family Band 15-Week Meal Plan

Breakfast Options:

• oatmeal, granola, toast, grits, bagels
• yogurt, smoothies, or milk
  
• cold cereal on the weekend

Lunch Options:

• cheese sandwich, tuna sandwich, egg salad sandwich, peanut butter sandwich, or quesadilla
• apple, banana, clementine, peaches, or applesauce
• water or watered down juice

Dinner

Monday:

• pizza without the red sauce
• salad
  

Tuesday:

• quesadillas
• black bean and salsa soup
  

Wednesday:

• scrambled eggs
  
• toast
• spring asparagus and new potato salad
  

Thursday:

• fried rice

Friday

• Moroccan chickpea salad
• pitas
• asparagus
  

Saturday:

• I don't cook on Saturdays. We typically eat leftovers, pancakes, or order take-out.
  

Sunday: (Michael cooks)

• "sausage" and cheese grits casserole (our recipe is similar to this)
  
• vegetarian-style collard greens
  

Happiness is a well-stocked pantry...

My friends over at the Green Phone Booth have started a monthly themed Wordless Wednesday. Hop on over to join the fun!

Thrift Score: New Plates

few Saturdays ago, as we were heading home from the library, I said, "You know what would be really fun? If we hit the Goodwill on the way home!"

The rest of my family does not have my sense of fun, so they sat in the car and perused their new haul of library books while I headed off to prowl the thrift store. Fifteen minutes later, I came back out with a great big box of plates. Our old ones were a gift on our wedding day and were chipped to the point of embarrassment.

"Aren't these beautiful?" I said to Michael. "Eight of each kind - that's a lucky find. And the yellow ones are so cheery - they'll make me smile every time I eat off of them."

Michael said, "I like our old plates."

How to Be Frugal Lesson #1: Marry a man who would rather eat off of chipped plates than get used to something new.

Meal Plan Week 1

have had several questions recently about what our mostly vegetarian family eats, so I thought I'd share our meal plans for a few weeks.

I wrote a post once at The Conscious Shopper about my meal planning system. What I didn't include in that post is that I'm an obsessively organized person and actually have our meals planned out for 15 weeks at a time, along with a shopping list for each week. I know. It's crazy. Early in our marriage, when I still shopped at Walmart, I also had the shopping list organized by Walmart's shopping aisles. That's really crazy. I used to keep this fact about myself a secret until I knew a person well, but at this point in my life, I'm owning it. I'm a little bit crazy.

This is not to say that we've been eating the same meals for the past ten years. Periodically, I switch up the meals with new recipes or alter the list to fit the needs of particular picky children. Right now, for instance, we're going back to a more vegetarian diet because of budgetary restraints, so many of the meaty meals that I had on the menu are being cut out and replaced.

So this will be a 15-week long peek into the eating habits of the Peters Family Band. Hope you enjoy!

Breakfast Options:

• oatmeal, granola, toast, grits, or eggs
• yogurt, smoothies, or milk
• cold cereal on the weekend

Lunch Options:

• cheese sandwich, tuna sandwich, egg salad sandwich, peanut butter sandwich, or quesadilla
• apple, banana, clementine, peaches, or applesauce
• water or watered down juice

Dinner

Monday:

• mexican pizza
• salad

Tuesday:

• chili chimichangas
• corn

Wednesday:

• frittata with peppers, mushrooms, onions, basil, and cheese
• toast
• collard greens

Thursday:

• stroganoff with "beef" crumbles
• salad

Friday

• walnut oatmeal burgers
• mashed potatoes

Saturday:

• We're having guests over, so I'm not sure yet what we're having. On Saturdays, we often eat leftovers, pancakes, or order take-out.

Sunday:

• chicken enchiladas
• salad

Music Lessons: Dry The River

hese music posts were not supposed to be all me, me, me, but dang that Michael and never remembering to do things I ask him to do. Good thing he's so good at helping me make those weekly life-or-death decisions at the grocery store (like which brand of peanut butter to buy and whether or not tuna fish is going to give us mercury poisoning - the really important questions, people). But seriously, the man sits at a computer all day and can't embed one lousy video into a blog post? Michael, you are on notice!

So here's another one from me. I discovered this band about the time I found my true music love, Johnny Flynn. Back then, Dry the River barely had a website, no album, and all of their youtube videos were live. Last night, I checked back in, and look who's got 700,000 views on one of their videos. I've embedded that video here for your viewing pleasure, but this other song is my favorite of theirs.

DRY THE RIVER OFFICIAL
website
facebook
youtube

I Made a Cake

week and a half! I could have sworn that the last time I posted was like, yesterday. Apparently not...The problem is that instead of blogging lately, I've felt like spending my freetime working on that Novel That No One But Me Will Ever Read But That I'm Determined to Finish (it's on my list), or else trying to catch up on my 50 Books Challenge, which I'm already way behind on because Michael keeps making me read 900 page books. If I get to the end of the year and haven't caught up, I might decide to bend the rules (that I made up) and make each of those books count for three. It's like the reading version of Calvin Ball.

In between those two very time-consuming activities, I made a cake for Michael's birthday. (recipe here) As I finished it up, I thought, "People who make boxed cakes just do not understand. I made caramel today. Freaking caramel!"


This cake was so good that it became a source of contention in our home. Long story made cryptic, I yelled at Michael, stomped off to the bedroom, and heard this conversation taking place in the livingroom:

Rylan: You need to say sorry to Momma.
Michael: I need to say sorry? When Mommy was the one yelling?
Rylan: Yes.

Then Rylan came into the bedroom and gave me a hug.

(Later, Michael did apologize, even though I was the one who'd been yelling, because he's awesome like that.)

I've also slowly but surely been scratching things off my Intentions list.

• I was able to scratch off "paint and hang the front porch swing" after realizing that I can't actually hang a swing on my front porch without cutting gigantic holes in the ceiling. I didn't think my landlord would approve of that plan, so the swing that I'd saved from the dumpster, ended up in the dumpster.

• I've also decided that my sewing skills are not up to sewing my own couch/chair covers afterall (and also that the idea to do white slipcovers was a bad idea from the start), so that item has been moved to the When I Have Enough Money list.

• I figured out what I need to buy to get our food storage in order.
  

• And Michael fixed the laundry room door. But then it broke again. Two steps forward, one step back...

Last but not least, I do believe this is one of the best ideas I've ever had: