Beef with Snow Peas--YUM

Last night I made the Pioneer Woman's Beef with Snow Peas, and all I can say is YUM.

I've been trying to make a new recipe each week, and this recipe is definitely one I will make again.

Also, I had never used real ginger before. In the recipe, Pioneer Woman talks about how wonderful it smells, and I have to agree. It has such a crisp, clean smell. (Perhaps I kept a small piece of it to the side and smelled it about every fifteen minutes while I was cooking. Is that weird?)

(Also, the photo above is from her website because my food photography skills are severely lacking.)

Realizing Life

Monday night, I went to see my school's excellent production of Our Town.

I love this play. It isn't full of action; instead, it is about the day-to-day routine of the small town of Grovers Corners in the early 1900s. The women gossip after choir practice. The milkman delivers the milk at the same time each day. Momma makes every meal for the family. Marriages take place. Babies are born. People die -- some young, some old.

It's a play about the extraordinary in the ordinary.

My favorite line occurs in the last act, when a now-dead Emily attempts to return to a "normal" day from her youth, and she is caught up in the beauty she never realized in what was a seemingly ordinary life. She says to the Stage Manager (who functions as a sort of narrator in the play):

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?"

Even though I have a long way to go, "realizing life" is something that I think I have gotten a little better at in the past few years. I take tons and TONS of photos, but my favorites are the little everyday moments. Here are a few:

Some Thoughts about Movies

When I was in grad school, I learned that English majors could be very pretentious about their movie tastes. I became very close with a small group of grad students who worked in the university's writing lab, and our conversations often wandered to what were considered "good" movies, and I learned terms like "noir."

The movies were always ones that were heralded by film critics and were often movies I hadn't even heard of or seen. And because I was in my early 20s and hadn't quite reached the state of confidence that, I believe, comes with the 30s, I believed I needed to brush up on my knowledge of "good" movies rather than boldly proclaim, "Hey, y'all. I just LOVED Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion!"

So I joined the girls who met once a week to watch foreign films and pretended I liked them.

I dragged Darryl to movies he and I didn't really care for. It got to the point that Darryl would actually groan when he saw the "Miramax" logo at the beginning of the film because he knew he was in for a real treat. Not.

But I have evolved since then. I'm (much) older, and as cheesy as it sounds, life has taught me that real friends accept you for who you are, not the movies that you watch. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, my friend Tim posted on FB that he had seen the much-lauded Oscar nominee Tree of Life. I responded with, "I just saw The Vow." (For the record, after hearing the talk about Tree of Life, I'm a bit scared to see it. I think I could be lost for the entire movie.)

Now, I'm not opposed to the critically acclaimed, "good" movies. I rather enjoyed The English Patient. I absolutely ADORED The King's Speech and would probably put it in my Top 10. (Also, I would put Colin Firth in my Top 10. Along with Ryan Gosling, who has nothing to do with The King's Speech.)

Last weekend, I went to see The Artist, not because it was the big winner at the Academy Awards, but mainly because a couple of people told me they thought I would like it. And they were right. I really didn't know anything about the movie other than the fact that it was a silent, black-and-white movie. And honestly, my original thoughts were, "What's the big deal about that? That's just a gimmick." I was so, so wrong. It is such a delightful movie about a silent film star who realizes his irrelevance in an industry that is moving forward with "talkies" and leaving him behind. It is smart, funny, touching, and beautiful. I highly recommend it.

And afterward, go see The Vow. Life's about balance, right?

What a Week! "My Life '12" and Other Craziness

Whew, people. This has been a week. A CRAZY WEEK.

(And this is going to be a longer post than usual. I'm just warning you.)

Last weekend, our high school ministry (called "Inside Out") had a special event weekend called "My Life." Unlike our other annual events that take place out of town, this one took place right here. Twenty-one (yes, 21!!) girls from our group registered for this weekend, so we had to find a parent willing to host 21 girls for the whole weekend (thank goodness a parent did that rather quickly) and transportation for all of us to get from one place to the other. (Just to give you some context...we were the biggest group out of all the "small" groups, and most groups had 6-12 students.) Without a doubt, this event was the most stressful for the leaders because we had to coordinate all of this AND find a free-time activity for us to do Saturday afternoon.

Even though the event was stressful to prepare for, I have to say that is was, without a doubt, the best event for our group. The girls all seems to bond more closely with one another and with me and Jen (my co-leader), and it was overall a huge success. Here's a pic of us at a chocolate factory, where we spent part of our free time:


Also, I learned two useful pieces of information from these girls:

1--There is a bra called "The Bombshell," and apparently some girls wear two at once. (I don't think that any of these girls wear The Bombshell, but apparently many high school girls do. And I don't want to link to The Bombshell, but you can Google it. And be amazed.)
2--I learned what YOLO means: "You Only Live Once." I might have been awakened at 4 am one morning to a group of girls saying, "YOLO! YOLO!" (I'm not sure what they were doing as they were saying this, but since they were contained in the house and nothing seemed to be on fire, I let them continue on with their "YOLO" escapades.)

Now, let's move on to the rest of the week...

So Sunday afternoon, I was more sleep deprived than I had been since Amelia's newborn days. And then Darryl had to leave Sunday evening to go out of town for the week.

Monday and Wednesday, I had to get up at 4:30 and get both Amelia and me ready so I could get to school for my part-time gig.

Tuesday, I had scheduled a check-up bright and early for Amelia (originally, this was so Darryl could go with us before going to work that day), so Amelia and I had to get up and get us dressed and over to the doc for her way past due annual check-up. Which included 4 shots. She was not a happy camper when that was over.

Friday, I had to judge an essay competition for a Literary event in Gainesville. This wasn't too bad, but it did take a few essays for me to get back into the "grading groove." And then it was like riding a bicycle. Once an essay grader, always an essay grader.

BUT in the "background" of all these little goings on was that we were negotiating with a couple who wanted to buy our house. Lots of emails back and forth, lots of phone calls with Darryl about what our next offer would be, lots of stress made a little more stressful because Darryl and I were a couple of time zones apart.

And on Friday, we finally reached an agreement. And then there were papers to sign, email, fax, and so forth.

(So YES, we sold our house. More on that later.)

Whew.

The tornado warnings last night seemed a fitting ending to this crazy week. I had the weather on, waiting for a sign to get in our hallway bathroom, and Darryl was flying in to Atlanta in this crazy weather. To provide extra assurance for me, he would text me to tell me about all the turbulence.

Thanks, Hon.

I'm crossing my fingers for a peaceful weekend.