Wordless Wednesday

Projects!

So today I kicked in and started one of my "Unfinished Projects o' 2010, 2009, 2008...etc." As per my blog entry:

Twelve Weeks

I am not going to share this week's work, until it is completed. Yes! The key word: completed.

So, stay tuned.

And, here's a hint: I am sneezing and sound like I am hacking up a furball.

Eat Your Vegetables!

I really, REALLY like vegetables. A vegetarian, no, as proven by the side of beef and two lambs in our basement freezer. But boy, I do love them vegetables.

On NPR today there was an article (an article on radio? There must be a better noun that escapes me...) telling about a group of farmers who were spending $25 million on an ad campaign aimed at making packaged baby carrots more appealing to teenagers. (Or people in general, I would suppose.) The ad described on radio is a lady in the desert shooting baby carrots at a guy...oh...ok,...it lost me about there. Something about his vehicle blowing up? I dunno. I got lost on the shooting part. (Hey, I am not keen on guns: carrot, potato, or assault rifles.)

The part I DO like about this way-too-expensive-to-be-affordable-for-farming-folks-around-here campaign is that the group put baby carrot vending machines in schools. That is a big Yippee in my books. FINALLY. Something besides sugared, caramel-colored water in cans to be sold to teenagers. (We are shocked and amazed at the percentage of childhood obesity? Come on.)

Our kids ate a lot of vegetables growing up. If there was an absolute refusal, we didn't push it. (The Grad Student noticed her throat itched after eating eggplant; best not to go there, Dearie.) We love all the standards: potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, corn, spinach, green beans, peas, (I am taking a mental tour of my vegetable bin.), spinach, cabbage, and more. We also like fennel, (the seed is a spice, the bulb can be found in your produce department.), pumpkin, sweet potatoes, kale...there is no shortage of vegetables in this world.

Hmmm...if I had $25 million to spend on a vegetable marketing ploy, I think I would go the health and nutrition route. Yeah, I know - not at all glamorous, and certainly a crapshoot, and not a carrot-shoot. What kid is going to be interested in physical and mental health? Good eyesight? A happy GI tract? Healthy anti-oxidants?

As we cooked for our kids, we always explained the benefits of the food we were preparing. Meat: protein. Pasta: carbs. Fruits & vegetables: vitamins, beta-carotene, iron, fiber...the list could go on ad infinitum. But to further it, their nutrition lessons explained WHY our bodies needed protein. Carbs. Fiber. Vitamins (not in pill form, better from nature). Iron. HOW did our bodies process these nutrients? What makes a better animal, vegetable, mineral?

Well, I started out this entry to tout the opinion that baby carrots are not as flavorful (my opinion) as a full-sized carrot. Why? "Baby carrots" are not "baby", as one might go for a young lamb instead of ewe meat, veal instead of beef, or a young chicken instead of the old chook for whom the Coq au Vin recipe was developed. Baby carrots are simply regular carrots, shaved down to appear as young carrots. In my opinion, somewhere in the shaving and sizing, the flavor was shaved as well.

Try it: roast some regular carrots in your next roast whatever, and alongside, some "baby carrots". I guarantee, the regular carrots will be more flavorful.

So, I did digress in this entry. Sorry. Time to pull the chicken/spinach and noodles out of the oven, along with the roasted tomatoes and carrots.

Love them vegetables.

Testing Positive

This morning a friend and I were discussing positive attitudes. I am a positive person. My friend is equally positive in her outlook on things. She and I can laugh and chat and laugh some more, encourage each other, gig each other, pat each other on the back, and even point out some humor in each other's daily trials and tribulations. That's one reason we are such good friends.

My Mom and Dad are the ultimate positive thinkers and believers:
"You can do it."
"Yes, you can!"
"We knew you could do it!"
"That's just great!"
"Tell her/him/them that we're proud of them!"
(I think Mom & Dad raised us on Norman Vincent Peale: The Power of Positive Thinking)

Today I manned a SAG station for a local cycling fundraiser: We enjoyed glorious cool weather in the early morning:
55º and sunny. No wind.

Uh-oh. Kansas being Kansas, by the time these cyclists hit their halfway point (32 miles), the wind had reared its ugly NNE headwind. All in time for the erstwhile happy cyclists to head home, back to the bike barn.

By the time they returned to my SAG station, with 11 miles of 25-mph headwind to go, these guys and gals were not smiling. Not even poker-faced. The cyclists arrived off the road grimacing. They would drop their beloved bikes and fall into the grass to stretch out their aching leg and back muscles.

As each stumbled off his/her bike, I would amble over and say, "How're y'all doing?" This, to ascertain whether I should call 911 and begin triage, or simply chitchat till the cyclist in question regained composure, and could limp over to the food/rehydration table.

For the most part, I left each cyclist with at least a glimmer of a smile on his/her face. I regaled some with my tale of ending a Century, being the last one off the White Sands Missile Range after 104 miles. And some, with descriptions of our weekly Pancake Rides. Others, I cheered on with "momilies" about my kids, all three fun athletes, where they were, what they do. Somehow the thought of a 50 year old cyclist, and groups of cyclists, and tales of teen-age and twenty-something cyclists, seem to allay the present pain of more miles and wind...and more miles.

At some point in my busy day, a local fellow pulled up in his white pick-up. He hopped out, seeming to have a mission. Something did not set right with this. He called out to anyone who would listen, "Who is in charge here?" I walked over to him, and he proceeded to question me whether our cycling organization had paid for the community facilities. I noticed his tremendously bloodshot eyes, his pale stare, his unkempt appearance. I smiled and began a friendly and positive chat that we, the cyclist community, had indeed paid for the use of those grounds for the day. Then he mentioned the dangers of cyclists riding on the roads which semi-trucks gravel trucks share, and I continued on, sharing an anecdote that a cyclist earlier in the morning had shared, that she intended to deliver home-baked brownies to this mentioned quarry, since the truck drivers were attentive and safe when it came to sharing the road.

Well! That fellow, having lost ammunition, walked back to his pick-up. I smiled and waved like we were best friends, and walked back to the 15-or-more cyclists who had been watching (or guarding). They asked if everything was OK, and I replied that he just needed information about cyclists. That's all...

Back to my friend and our chat? She cheers me when I am overwhelmed. I cheer her when she is disgusted and irritated. She has a husband, two kids, I have a husband, three kids, and we share stories. Some of what we two share is our power of positive thinking.

Can we ALL attempt to grasp the power of positive thinking?

Because That's What You Do

Community has several definitions in Wikipedia, depending on whether one is looking at biology, sociology, anthropology, or any other of the myriad of disciplines.

Psychologists McMillan & Chavis (1986) define sense of community as "a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together."

I like that definition, academic though it may be. We live in a tiny community. Although I doubt anyone else around here does, I refer to it as a village. We even have our own community well! Ranchers and farmers can stop by and fill the tanks on their trucks, to be used for whatever it is that needs watering. The well comes complete with an American flag and a plaque commemorating the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony:

(learn about it here it here)

A semi-retired resident of our community mows the area. I don't know if he is reimbursed for his services or not.

Our community has a volunteer fire department. If it weren't for the men who volunteer their time for training and emergency runs, I do know many people would have lost their property in fires, for we live too far out in the country for a county fire department to make timely arrivals during a blaze. Ditto the ambulance service here. We have first responders who arrive before the county ambulance does, who can set up a triage system and begin First Aid till the emergency vehicles arrive.

I am part of a group of women who provide funeral dinners at our church. It is a valuable community service, one which we women can coordinate in a matter of a day or two, to serve a small family after graveside services, or a hundred mourners after the funeral. Sometimes it's for a stranger, and sometimes it's for "one of ours". And we do it because that's what you do. The same as the firemen and the mowers and the people who stop and get out of their cars to get errant cattle off the road and back into their pasture.

Tomorrow is a large community bike ride that comes through our parts. There are so many volunteers that it should run very smoothly. And the weather looks to be great! So in the early morning I will go down to the local community center in the next town/village over (because my little village may have a well, but no community center to speak of.) and set up the aid station for the cyclists. I have some "wrench guys" working there with me. I am in charge of food and rehydration, and the wrench guys are in charge of mechanicals. We are all volunteering, and it looks to be a fun time. And we do it, because we cyclists are a pretty close-knit, and fun, community.

That Spouse o' Mine and his Aussie nephew, John

Here's a great story about some farmers in Montana banding together to help out "one of their own" - because...

Because That's What You Do