P&PS

I've always had this fascination with the Golden Gate Bridge.  Part of it is the fog's fault, the rest of it is inexplicable.  It's a bridge, there are lots of other bridges, but there's something about this one.  Even as a kid, pictures of the bridge enthralled me.  I'm not one for documentaries or shows on architecture or modern marvels but I distinctly remember watching several on the construction of the bridge during my high school years.  Maybe it's the red, maybe it really is just the fog, or the fact that for whatever reason the Golden Gate Bridge is a big deal, but I love this bridge. However, I never thought I would get this close to it, nor did I ever think I would walk it.  I have a fear of heights.  It's not paralyzing, but it's been enough to keep me off bridges for most of my life.  Walking bridges up until a couple of years ago was something I found, at best, mildly distressing.  Thankfully that's changed and I've real...

I'm running a little behind but, wow, I can't believe I'm sitting here typing up my third installment in this series already. Time has been flying and the food just keeps disappearing ;) Before I get started on what I'm cooking up next, here's a couple of notes from last time. The pumpkin curry from last week didn't work out as well as I had hoped, but it seems to be more my fault than the recipe's so I'm keeping it on the list of recipes to try again. Everything else turned out really well, although the vegetable stew ended up making twice as much as I had anticipated. I had to use two crockpots to cook all of the vegetables and I've been eating them nonstop ever since.  Brownies, which are great, had the opposite problem; the recipe needs to be doubled to get a decent sized servings if it's going to take the place of a muffin or two. These next two weeks are going to be a bit up in the air food wise since I'm going to be sharing quite...

While I still have to finish a post on my favorite audiobook narrators, I thought I would share a couple of my favorite audiobooks from last year. I’ve listed these in the order that I listened to them in to avoid the agony of having to rank them. Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje narrated by Alan Cumming The combination of Ondaatje’s writing and Cumming’s narration is some sort of cosmic fate. Ok, I know that sounds a little bit dramatic, but I love this audiobook so much. It’s the second audiobook in my life that’s solidified by faith in the medium. I’m picky, I know, but when you stumble upon something as awesome as this, the hours of slogging through audio samples is totally worth it. Aside from my possibly overenthusiastic love there’s also the fact that this is the first audiobook that made me realize I might be on to something in terms of translated or foreign books. While the novel wasn’t translated, the story is almost entirely contained in Sri Lanka. Unfamiliar nam...

REFLECTIONS I picked through a bunch of the 2014 in review questions posted by into-mind and answered a bunch of them below, you can check out the full list here if you’re interested. 1. What one event, big or small, are you going to tell your grandchildren about? / 26.What experience would you love to do all over again? / 6.What was your favourite place that you visited in 2014? Traveling. There’s so many great stories I have from the people and places I visited this year. New York City was beautiful and thrilling, Vancouver was amazing and heartwarming and as inspiring as always. Portland was cozy and intriguing. San Fransisco was quirky and amusing. Boston was changeable and familiar. 2.If you had to describe your 2014 in 3 words, what would they be? Progress, rediscovery, and solitude 3.What new things did you discover about yourself? / 28.How did your overall outlook on life evolve? I can’t say there’s a whole lot I discovered about myself this y...

Since I’ve been going over my list of goals for 2014 I thought now would be a good time to re-evaluate some of my 101 in 1,001 goals. Most of the overarching goals have stayed the same but the timelines for the 101 goals have changed. This along with life's usual unexpected surprises (hello summer travel) has necessitated a change in the wording for quite a few of the project goals. GOALS I’VE CHANGED Read 290 books => read 274 books (fixed the math. 100 books a year average) Read all of the books on a “best of” list => finish a reading challenge Join a CSA => shop at farmers markets buying as much produce as possible Spend one day a week unplugged for six months => spend one weeknight reading, knitting, or crafting for six months Vlog once a week for a year => journal once a week for a year Can/preserve 25% of my winter food => make a reference guide on canning and preservation Plant an herb garden => plan an herb garden (make reference gu...

It’s the end of 2014 which means it’s once again time for stats and charts! Reading wise 2014 wasn’t a bad year. I read 113 books (I’m back on track for my 101 in 1,001 goal!). I averaged 9.42 books per month, with an average rating of 3.93 stars and 289 pages per book (34,036 pages total). The Fiery Cross was my longest read with 1,443 pages. My shortest read, a book on minimalism, had 32 pages. 68 books had female authors but only 11 books were written by people of color, something I’m planning on working on in 2015. Along with this I’m also planning on reading more books written and set outside of the United States. In 2014, 71 (65%) of the books I read were written by US authors and 52 (47%) were set in the U.S. Of the books I read, less than one percent were set in each of the following, Africa, Australia, and the Caribbean. I reread 12 books in 2014. I read 5 literary fiction books, 12 classics (including modern classics), 17 nonfiction books, 2 books of poetry, 5 graph...

Now that I’m back to work full time, I’m hoping to spend even less time in the kitchen, as such this week I’m breaking out the crockpots and hopefully cooking two weeks worth of food. Because of limited time, space, and crockpots, there’s not a whole lot of variety here, but I do have some meals still stashed in the freezer I can swap out. Also, I know I won’t be making any of these recipes within the next month or two which helps to space things out and spice them up. Most of the time I find I don’t mind consistently eating the same thing for a week or so. I tend to cook at least one one-off meal over the weekend and I do add spices or sauces to the dishes during the week if I’m not particularly interested in something. Adding eggs to soup is a particularly easy favorite of mine, also coconut frosting on baked goods. Though as I was saying, I went with one dish a week for each of the two larger meals, lunch and dinner, and stuck with my usual breakfast variations. For breakfast I...

I'm a sucker for challenges, particularly those involving lists or books. Generally they end up half finished at the end of the year, but I have a lot of fun trying, so I thought this year I would go ahead and pledge my commitment to the Book Riot Read Harder challenge. This challenge in particular caught my eye since it's focused on encouraging diversity in reading. The challenge itself is pretty open ended, so I'm setting a couple of additional rules for myself. To start I'm counting one book for one task, unless the book is over 500 pages and fits in two different subcategories (e.g. genre and author, i.e. a scifi novel written by an African author). I've also added a couple of extra tasks: a book by a disabled author or about a disabled character, a nonfiction book, a book from my TBR bookshelf, and a TBR ebook. I've also divided up the National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade task into three separate tasks which...

MOST INFLUENCIAL BOOKS A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje City of Thieves by David Benioff February by Lisa Moore Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver Rise and Shine by Anna Quidlen Syndrome E by Franck Thilliez The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson The Man Under My Skin by Julianna Gray FAVORITE AUTHORS Anthony Bourdain Barbara Kingsolver Diana Gabaldon Gail Carriger Jasper Fforde Michael Ondaatje Rainbow Rowell Stephanie Pearl McPhee Stieg Larsson NEW (TO ME) FILMS Catching Fire (2013) Dark Girls (2011) Entre Nos (2009) House of Pleasures (2011) In a World (2013) La Chambre des Morts [aka Melody’s Smile] (2007) Norwegian Wood (2010) Sons of Clouds (2014) The Man and the Hole in the Roof [Short] (2014) ...