feeding the multitudes

These days, as my first post-college cohort of married friends and same-aged cousins is beginning to have their babies and post about it on Facebook, I find myself feeling ill-prepared to have children.

That's not quite the right way to say it; I mean, I definitely want kids at some point... And I don't even think I'd be an awful parent at this point in my life, theoretically. It's just that it feels like enough work keeping my own head above water to imagine being responsible for another tiny little life. And what if I have twins?! (It's on both sides of the family...)

I have to give my mom props here. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been taking a ceramics class with my siblings this summer. (We just started spinning on the wheel this week and I'm in love -- but that's a story for another day.) Because I live less than 10 minutes away from the studio, everybody gathers at our place on Tuesday evenings around 5:30 to eat and drive to class together.

And usually, on Tuesdays, J has bro night -- also at our place. Which means there are 6 hungry young adults hanging in my living room, hot and ravenous, half an hour after I get home from work. And four of us have to eat and wash our plates and leave the house 45 minutes later.

You probably see where I'm going with this, but let me break it down.

Week One:
I forget this is happening and text Jason before leaving the office: "Just remembered my sibs are coming for dinner tonight and we have ceramics at 6:30..."

So I rush in from work, throw together a cold quinoa salad which we eat hot because there isn't time for it to cool, and J graciously grills a few extra burgers to share with my siblings. (And by a few extra, I mean ten.) We also split three fresh ears of corn between the six of us. We are 5 minutes late to our first class, and I have a pile of dirty plates to wash when I get home three hours later.

Week Two:
I give Jason a little more warning this time, and ask nicely; so he (again, graciously) makes three extra pounds of grilled chicken, and grills up the last of our potatoes and a sad pile of waning wax beans (i.e. the only thing grillable in our crisper). I'm sure the boys are still hungry, but my hands are tied.

Week Three:
Asha texts me in the afternoon asking if we can have pizza for dinner. I breathe a sigh of relief and reply, "Done. That's exactly what I was thinking for tonight."

I order two large pizzas online before leaving work, and pick them up on my way home. (I beat most of the people back to my house that night...)

When J and I order pizza, we spend about $13 and eat it for breakfast AND lunch the next day. I spent more than twice that much on pizza that night, and it was gone within 20 minutes.

Week Four:
Monday night, 9:30 p.m. J and I are on our way home from eating dinner at my parents' house. I remember, in exhausted desperation, that we have to somehow feed 6 people in less than 24 hours, and the only thing in the fridge is Guinness and hard-boiled eggs.

I wake up early on Tuesday and -- on a whim -- take chicken thighs out of the freezer, chop up some potatoes and dump it all into a slow cooker with a can of diced tomatoes and a bunch of herbs.

I put on rice when I got home, and it all turns out pretty well. I feel like I nailed it for the first time since ceramics started -- and everyone washes their own plates.

And then when I open the tupperware of leftovers at lunch the next day, it's all potatoes. The chicken got completely polished off the night before.

* * * * *
I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining; like most of my life's struggles, I'm looking at this as an exercise. And it's such good exercise that I have to give my mom mad props for feeding us breakfast, lunch and dinner when we were little (four little kids under the age of 6) and, when we got older, coming home from work and making dinner every day and half the time eating only what was left on our plates. And not only that, but a good percent of the time, everything got ready at more or less the same time. It's not as easy as moms make it look.

I am enjoying this exercise while it lasts, and it's already made me stronger -- but I will be glad to get back to my regular struggles of worrying about what the two of us will eat every night of the week (except the two nights where our moms still feed us), plus leftovers for lunch. And for the time being, I'm happy not trying to feed a small, brand-new human (or two or three) who will probably refuse to eat and/or will throw most of the food at me. I'm sure I'll be delighted about it someday, but right now I've got enough on my plate.

This Friday evening, it's a G+T, a pickle, a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie and a PB&J. And Jason made the sandwich for me.

grown up magic craft bag

Last week I picked up our second farm share, and when I brought it home we took everything out of the bag and spread it out to see what we had to work with, and brainstorm recipes. I had a flashback from my childhood to the magic craft bag from Barney. If ever I wished something from my childhood TV shows would come to life, it was that.

I waited awhile, but I probably appreciate it more now. The CSA, I am certain, is the adult version of the magic craft bag: an unanticipated combination of items that you have to figure out how to combine to make something useful and good. It is the ultimate opportunity to exercise creativity, and in my grown-up life in particular that is a welcome opportunity indeed.


We get a new share every other week, and we barely finish it. I have been devouring articles about how to make produce last: how to keep greens from wilting and how to store fruit to keep it perky. And we have become good friends with the AllRecipes app, figuring out which search terms will turn up a recipe that uses the most of our fresh ingredients.

This week I Googled chard smoothies, looking for an inspired mix to use up the leafy greens from last Wednesday. And one of the top results, to my surprise, was a bold blog title telling me "How Green Smoothies Can Devastate Your Health"!

As a social media marketer, I am all too familiar with clickbait. It's a pet peeve of mine. On the other hand, what if one of my go-to breakfasts is slowly killing me?

So I read it, and the short version is that green leafy vegetables have something in them called oxalates that can crystallize inside the body and can cut or scratch membranes and cause kidney stones and all manner of other issues. It sounded extreme, and not entirely unbiased, so I looked at a couple of other sources and noticed something that was repeated throughout the original article: People who drink green smoothies tend to drink them often, several times a week or every day.

First of all, this is an assumption about the behavior of ALL people who drink green smoothies. Secondly, other articles made far more of a point of saying that some people are more sensitive to oxalates and more susceptible to the kind of health problems that they can cause - if you eat too many of them.

(Perfect opportunity to plug my mantra: moderation, people!)


Here's the thing: my case against this anti-green smoothie post and its brethren is by no means unbiased either. I like green smoothies and they make me feel good, so I'm going to keep drinking them. I am obviously not an expert on oxalates, kidney stones, or even green vegetables. But I have always hated when people tell me that their social diet is better than what I'm eating. It just seems so spiteful, and I can't help but think that people who spend all their time writing these blog posts about what carcinogens are found in their favorite tea bags, and what "14 foods you eat every day that cause cancer" probably don't enjoy eating very much, and probably aren't very happy in general.

Plus, there are probably as many blog posts about the benefits of green smoothies as there are about their dangers; as many posts about why raw veganism is good for you as there are about how bad it is for you; as many posts about how a paleo diet made someone into a new, happier and healthier person as there are about people who became miserable and sick when they tried paleo; and so on. Most of them - on any side of the fence - make some valid points, or are based on something true.

There are things I love to eat that other people hate, things that my friends and family devour that make me feel terribly ill. I paid attention in research class when the professor said that experiential data isn't statistically valid; I know science is based on reproducible testing and results on a large scale. But let's be real. We're human. We don't believe anything unless we have some personal, first-hand connection to it.

I like talking about what foods I like, and what foods you like, especially if we both are passionate about food. I like talking about things people are passionate about. (A friend of mine just wrote a blog post about "spreading the paleo love", which is an approach that actually got me interested in learning more about paleo.

Set that against a different friend who started eating paleo in college and told me regularly that our bodies aren't made to process the kind of food I was eating, and that my diet was going to kill me. You won't be surprised to learn that I didn't try very hard to eat with him from then on.)

When I was talking about all of this, J said, "But you actually like eating healthy." I do. I like home-cooked meals and things I don't have to excavate from their packaging. I feel better when I eat fresh things, and I like the taste of them. I try to buy from responsible sources when I can. And, yes, I do enjoy ice cream and donuts and chips and chocolate and frozen salted caramel cappuccinos every now and then!

Across the board, I like to do things that make my life better, my relationships better, my community better, and my world better. I'm human, and there are a lot of things I can't control, so I can't hope to have zero negative impact, but I am doing my best to create a net positive. I don't want to read things or be around people who leave a bad taste in my mouth or try to force their views on me, I try to exercise the Golden Rule and not be that for other people.

So, green-smoothie haters, try a gentler approach next time, and maybe you'll be one step closer to saving me from kidney stones.

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: not fish, but friends and food

All Good Things started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie.

Cassie's moving this week, so look for her list next Sunday. But don't worry - there are plenty of good things to read about right now!

1. Song of the week: Butterfly by Crazy Town. In honor of my girl's 25th birthday this week, our first karaoke song (which reminds everyone of the movie Orange County).

2. Hosting. This week we had our second book club meeting, and it was my turn to host. I actually had a lot of fun coming up with little snacks and making sure everyone had what they needed! It's been a long time since I really put some effort into having people over.

3. Sister dinner. My middle sister was home for spring break this week, so all three of us girls went out for dinner together. We are so cool.

4. Having good friends close by. Last night was the second time this month I went down to Baltimore to see Lisa, this time for her birthday. It's really nice that she is so close, so we get to spend a lot of time together.

5. Laughing. Lisa knows a lot of great people, and I spent a ton of time last night just laughing hysterically with people I didn't know very well, but really liked, and some people I know and like and haven't seen in awhile. Laughing really makes life worthwhile.

6. My friend Kristy's bridal shower was yesterday, and it was a really nice afternoon. The decorations were simple but really pretty, and it was fun to hang out with everyone and play silly games. Plus, she seemed so happy to have us all there and to be getting married. It was heartwarming.

7. TJMaxx, Marshall's and Home Goods are dangerous but delightful. I got a bunch of great gifts there this weekend, and some stuff I've been looking for but haven't found for a reasonable price. On the other hand, I always leave with a ridiculous amount of stuff, way more than I meant to. But it's all great!

8. We got our first farm share this week! I've been meaning to buy into a CSA for awhile now, but only just got around to it. It's so exciting to wait and see what will be in it, and figuring out what to make with it is like a game. This week we made roasted sweet potatoes and onions: so easy and so delicious!


9. Pizza. This week has been full of pizza. On Monday we had Barcelona Pizza for dinner, because they have a Monday night special and its still a treat to get takeout on family night. And then we had build-your-own pizza for Lisa's party and there were so many delicious creations: one big, square, Italian flag pizza with a pesto base on one third, cheese only in the middle, and red sauce on the other side; an apple, goat cheese and prosciutto pizza; a four-cheese spinach artichoke pizza; two dessert pizzas with chocolate, peanut butter, bananas and jam; and tons of other combinations. So delicious, and also super fun.

10. A friend of mine started a business that opened this week! It's called Le Macaron Nashville and basically she just bakes and sells French macaroons. She's always been a pretty stellar baker, and the photos on her Facebook page of her finished piles of different colored macarons are mouthwatering. Props and good luck to my girl!

* * * * * * *
Thank you, readers, for being with us tonight, and for giving me reasons to write, and things to write about.

And thanks for joining us every Sunday night! Join the Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for good things every day, and updates on new posts. Come back next week for another reminder of 10 more things to be thankful for!

Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile!

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: something new every day

All Good Things started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. We both contribute things to the list, so I'll tell you who said what to avoid confusion.

So get cozy and get ready for this week's batch of good things!

1. Song of the week: And We Danced by Macklemore X Ryan Lewis. My officemate has been taking care of the music for the past couple of weeks, and every time this song came on I would ask her what it was. Finally figured it out this week before I had to ask her... And when I put a name to the song I realized that it makes me feel goofy and devilish and carefree... Which is just what I need at work a lot of times.

2. Irish soda bread. This has become sort of a tradition over the past 2 years: soda bread for St. Paddy's Day. It's got a quick prep time and it's dense and delicious. - Clara

3. Accountability. The women I swim with are a source of great inspiration to me. A lot of them are older than I am, and understand the importance of fitness on a much larger scale than I do. And this one woman in particular is so perceptive and thoughtful (without being overbearing) and humble, and says something to me every week that lifts me up and leaves me thinking. Last week she said, "I watch the people in the other lanes who are faster than me, and I learn from them. I learn something new every day and I get faster and faster." - Clara

4. FROZEN CAME OUT IN STORES THIS WEEK. I didn't get it yet, but just knowing it is now available to me is a constant source of excitement. - Clara

5. Getting our families together. Family is a big thing for both J and I, and this afternoon we got both of our families together for an engagement dinner at an Indian buffet we like. It turned out greater than I could have hoped - everybody got along great, and even the baby liked the food! We laughed and talked and ate for hours until (maybe even after) they closed for lunch, and my mom brought in ladoo (traditional celebratory sweets) and shared it with the whole restaurant! Definitely a highlight. - Clara

6. About Time. From the people who did Love Actually, I should have expected nothing less. It's billed as a "romantic drama" but it's really comedic and British and beautiful and it just says a lot about life, and family, and how we use our time, and what is important. Definitely recommend. - Clara

7. Well-deserved vacations. My parents headed off to a resort in Mexico this weekend. They never go on vacations (their last one was in 2004) so this is huge! They both work so hard, and it's so great to see them finally spend some time away to relax. - Cassie

8. Picking out paint colors. Luke and I are moving into a new apartment in a week or so. Our new landlords are painting the walls for us and are letting us choose the colors! After living for 2 and a half years in an apartment with all white walls I am so excited to be surrounded by color. Being able to choose our own colors is really going to make the new place feel like home so much more quickly. - Cassie

9. Membership at the local co-op. A couple years ago I became a member at the co-op in my neighborhood. Every time I go there to buy produce or organic products I leave feeling great! The people that work there are so friendly, and it feels like I'm part of the community. They also have amazing produce so that doesn't hurt. - Cassie

10. Going with the flow. I'm a planner by nature so sometimes when things suddenly crop up I have a hard time. However, when I'm forced to be more flexible things inevitably end up going well. Though it's hard for me I'm always grateful when things pop up that force me to be more easy-going. It's never good to have everything planned out all the time - even a planner can admit to that :) - Cassie



* * * * * * *
Thank you, readers, for being with us tonight, and for giving me reasons to write, and things to write about.

And thanks for joining us every Sunday night! Join the Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for good things every day, and updates on new posts. Come back next week for another reminder of 10 more things to be thankful for!

Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile!

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: keeping cool

All Good Things started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. We both contribute things to the list, so I'll tell you who said what to avoid confusion.

So get cozy and get ready for this week's batch of good things!

1. Song of the week: Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles. This song came up a bunch of times this week, under totally different circumstances. The most important of them is in tribute to the raccoon stuffed animal that greeted us as we entered our vacation rental for the first time. We named him Rocky, of course, and he danced to his theme song at least once this weekend... (Video can be found here.) Miss you already, li'l Rocky!

2. Skipping town. Both Cassie and I have a serious case of cabin fever, and both of us got to skip town this weekend. We both just went over state lines, but even making a point to go to the next town over can make a huge difference!

Cassie was still on the road when this post was being written, so for the rest of the post, if it says "I" or "me" it means Clara!

3. America's Coolest Small Town. Also known as Lititz, Pennsylvania. Seems to fit the bill, even after just 3 days, and even in the cold when there's not much going on. Made me realize how much I miss small towns...

4. Good music. Do you ever have a week where there is good music playing everywhere you go? That was this week.

5. Trains. I went on a work trip this week and got to ride the train back from D.C. to Wilmington. It shaves at least an hour off the trip, and there's some good scenery along the train tracks. Plus, I can usually read on the train without getting motion sick.

6. Good tea! When I was in high school my mom and I used to go to this tea shop in a town twenty minutes away. The kind of place that has loose tea in jars or boxes for sniffing out your chosen brew. Since we left Amsterdam (New York), though, I haven't really found a good tea shop... And the first thing we did in Lititz on Friday was have two pots of tea in a place called Cafe Chocolate. Satisfied.

7. Speedwell Wolf Sanctuary. Wolves are incredible, majestic animals. Yesterday J and I got to see them up close when we took a tour of Pennsylvania's wolf sanctuary. This place rescues wolves that are sick or have been mistreated or confiscated, and keeps them safe in large enclosures. We learned a lot and got to meet a few inspirational wolf packs.

8. Local beer culture. When we leave DE, J and I tend to gravitate toward the food-and-beer type of attractions around our destination. We got lucky with Lititz, and enjoyed two separate brewpubs within blocks of each other and our vacation rental: Sturgis Haus and Appalachian Brewing Company.

9. Google Hangouts. You can do more with Skype, but Google Hangouts is becoming one of my favorite ways to easily chat with friends on my phone. It's a relatively light application for a video chat. This week I used it to chat with Cassie!

10. On Tuesday night, for the first time, J and I met with my dad, who is going to marry us. It feels more real now, and I for one appreciate the perspective I left with about what's really important about the whole thing and how to approach the planning - not just planning a wedding and reception, but planning our lives together as a married couple. Pretty cool.



* * * * * * *
Thank you, readers, for being with us tonight, and for giving me reasons to write, and things to write about.

And thanks for joining us every Sunday night! Join the Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for good things every day, and updates on new posts. Come back next week for another reminder of 10 more things to be thankful for!

Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile!

posted from Bloggeroid

what caf line are you?

My sister called me right as I was leaving work today. She is now a sophomore at St. Olaf and any Oles will know there are certain things that only Oles can truly understand. Like the weird J-term hangover when suddenly the caf feels more crowded than it did in December, and all the practice rooms are full, and suddenly everyone is busy catching up with each other and still somehow everyone feels lonely and left out of all the catching up.

(If we're being honest, St. Olaf has a weird knack of making people feel part of the strongest, closest, most tight-knit and esoteric community they've ever been a part of, while also feeling completely isolated - and not just after interim. Maybe that's not a universal experience, but I've talked to more than a few people who know just what I mean when I talk about it.

And yeah, I still miss it like hell.)

Anyway, we talked about identity, which is a common recurring topic for us individually and together. While I still wrestle with my own identity, and have done a lot of wrestling throughout the course of this blog, I made probably the most significant headway during college. That's where she is now. And it's fascinating because while we came from a lot of the same places, the labels we identify with most, and the way we struggle to find one the works across the board, are strikingly different.

She told me about an Indian culture class she's taking, and an assignment that asked about what the different "ethnic food" lines say about the cultures and the food they are modeled after. The next question was the eternal source of frustration for every member of our family: what culture do you most strongly identify with?

And because of the way these questions were placed next to each other, she said, "I realized that I am the Grains line!" And this is the closest she has ever gotten to being able to identify and describe her identity. (For those of you who have not eaten in the St. Olaf cafeteria, the Grains line is vegetarian and sometimes vegan, often gluten-free, often Indian-inspired. It's kind of the "hippie" option.)

"All the Indian students get so excited when they see it's Indian food, but then they taste it and it's just not quite right. It's really American food with an Indian influence." (Of course she described it better, but you get the gist of it.)

So I started thinking, what caf line do I identify with most?

The first thing that popped into my head was the Home line: your typical meat-and-potatoes option. Comfort food. But obviously, that is not true. That's the line I always wanted to identify with, but didn't quite make it.

A weirdly large number of people who knew me at St. Olaf, but didn't know me very well, would come up to me and tell me, "Did you see what's in the Grains line today? I saw it and immediately thought of you!"

True story: I rarely actually liked the food in the Grains line. It was never quite what I wanted it to be.

Then there was the Bowls line: your standard American-Chinese fare. Tortillas, or the Mexican-inspired dishes. A salad bar and a pasta bar, one or two pizzas-of-the-day, bread and toast, and the Grill: burgers and dogs and chicken breasts and fries. And, of course, dessert.

After my freshman year, when my weight changed more than it has since middle school, and since, I learned how to navigate the caf very particularly. I took one plate, and that was it. I had to take a lap right away to see what was there, and then I would pick and choose what I wanted from each line.

And I ended up with a smorgasbord masterpiece, exactly the right amount of food.

If I could choose something to be, it would be loaded baked potato or bacon cheeseburger or taco pizza. It would be white bean turkey or black bean corn or four-bean chili. In those two categories, whatever was made with leftovers from another line was always the best.

I know you can't just choose what you want to be, that there is a science to which Avenger you are or what is your spirit animal (the wealth of internet quizzes is proof). But I'll make my case.

If you take something from yesterday, the bacon from breakfast and dry baked potatoes from dinner, and chop them all up and throw them on a piece of bread with cheese and then throw some green onions on top, and bake it, you have a delicious well-rounded masterpiece.

If you take something from yesterday, something awesome that happened and something not so perfect, and throw them on a piece of bread (my unsocialized self), and bake it in the oven of time, you come up with a delicious well-rounded masterpiece.

What do you think, readers? Am I right?

If you were a caf line, who would you be?


Bonus points: this pizza is our dinner tonight and is made from leftover sauce and peppers from another meal. Bon apetit!__

posted from Bloggeroid

soul food

You might remember my life-changing service event from The Gathering in the summer of 2012, where our group was served food by members of the New Orleans cooking school. Kevin, the man in charge, said, "We love our food here, but we know what's important. It's not what's on the table that matters, but who's at the table. It's about sharing a meal together."

That quote, and the experience of being served as a service project, changed my perspective on everything. On eating, which is a way I spend a lot of my time, and on service, and on sharing gifts with other people.

This past weekend was the ELCA Delaware-Maryland Synod's annual high school youth retreat, which last year got me thinking about reformation. This year, the theme was soul food.

And if I learned anything this weekend, it is that I am hungry.

Food, and eating, has been a major source of unrest since I left college. Maybe more than any other "figuring out" I've had to do, the eating, eating affordably, eating on time, eating healthy, and eating things that don't make me feel ill has been an almost constant obstacle course in this adult life.

So I am intimately familiar with the significance of food, and how closely it is tied to emotional and mental well-being. It is an apt and long-lived metaphor for spirituality.

At the retreat we talked about the different things we can be hungry for. We talked about food shortages, food deserts, and the host of social issues that tend to accompany hunger and poverty. We talked about satisfying our hunger, about the church's response to hunger in our communities, and about the different ways we can feed our own hunger, the different ways we find spiritual fulfillment and relief.

As an anthropologist I know that church plays an important social role for individuals and communities. And so it was this weekend.


I was dreading the trip because, until Thursday night, I had been planning on driving down to Ocean City alone after work on Friday. But on Thursday night I bit the bullet and called my friend Abby to see if she wanted to carpool. We were both happy for the company, and we got to reconnect after not seeing each other in months.

She told me how she found a new church in the city whose congregation is mostly made up of young people, like us. Every single thing we talked about had to do with our social needs, fulfilled and unfulfilled - what we are hungry for.

Through the course of the weekend I realized that I have been lonely. There is something I have been missing, something I realized sharply at the Ole wedding in Kansas in December. I am missing community, and I found it at Roadtrip, kind of.


In the fall or late summer, my dad gave a sermon about our demands as a congregation, about the point of worship and the ways in which we give back. It was a tough sermon, but I liked it. It was about commitment. And the point that changed everything for me was when he said Worship is not for us. It is for God. We are saying we don't get anything out of worship, but shouldn't we be worried about what we're putting into it? About what we're giving to God? Anyone brave enough to say Amen to that?

He's right. Worship should be about God, however we go about it. Praise and prayer are about our relationship with God, and relationships are a two-way street.


But if we are hungry, how can we feed anyone else?

My friend Audrey told a story about being a camp counselor sending kids down a river and pulling them back out again. Her job was to pull them out on the other end. And, she said, if she went in too deep, she would lose her footing and both she and the campers would go sailing down the river. If she lost her footing, she couldn't rescue anyone else.

But what about when we are fed by our own feeding of others? What about at Roadtrip, when we find our spirits filled in the process of offering ourselves and our gifts to others? What about when we share a meal together, when we serve the fruits of our labor to another person and take the first bite together? This is community, and this is what I'm hungry for.

Our dinner on Saturday night was called the Agape meal, a meal of love. It was like Communion, beginning with the breaking of bread and ending with the pouring of "wine" (in this case, grape juice). There is a church in New York City that hosts this kind of sit-down Eucharist weekly. I talked with my small group (13 inspiring 10th-graders) about the difference between sitting together and talking with other people, and eating together with other people. For a multitude of reasons, it brings us closer together.

And indeed, after the meal our group found its stride, a deeper level of trust and rapport.


J and I have our routines, the order of operations for holidays (whose parents' house we go to at what point in the day, and where we eat our different meals). We usually eat dinner at his parents' house on Sunday nights, and at my parents' house on Mondays. His family dinners begin with everyone crossing themselves and reciting the same prayer: Bless us O Lord, and these our gifts which we are about to receive... My family starts by holding hands, and singing. (If I reach for my neighbors' hands at his family dinners out of habit, he puts me on the spot and makes me sing.)

In college I dated a guy for awhile who always bowed his head before he began to eat. I rarely did. By senior year I often ate with friends who began a meal with a "pause for the universe." And after graduation, I got in the habit of "clinking" or "cheersing" or "toasting" the first bite or the first sip of everything with my eating companion before we start our meal.

That's what J and I do most of the time now. But last night, as I sat down to eat the dinner he had made, he took both my hands in an almost-joke. We just looked at each other for a minute, smiling, and then I said, "So... what do we do now?"

"I don't know," he laughed, but didn't let go. Instead, he looked at the shirt I was wearing, the shirt from this year's Roadtrip, and read it out loud. "Soul food. Patience. Goodness. Love. Peace. Joy. Faithfullness."

"Seems fitting," I said.

And then, at the same time, we said Amen.

a fitting snapchat i received while at roadtrip talking about soul food!

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: winter wonderland

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots. Another reader request! Thanks to you guys, All Good Things is really getting in the Christmas spirit!


2. Girls With Slingshots. My brother gave me the print Volume 2 of this web comic, hoping to get me hooked... And it worked! I blazed through the 200 strips and wish the book was so much longer. Guess I'm on to the website now...

3. Cookie baking for Christmas. My mom, grandma and I pick a Saturday before Christmas and bake all day while listening to Christmas music. It's so fun!

For me (this is Clara now) cookie baking is also becoming a great tradition: J's sister has a bunch of people over every year to bake and package a TON of cookies in cute tins. It's a great opportunity to try out new recipes and hang out with great people. This year we made over 300 cookies (not counting the ones we ate in the process), and at least 8 different kinds!


4. My (Cassie's) wedding photos just came back and I'm having the best time going through them!

5. Law & Order SVU marathons. I could probably watch them for days :)

6. Video G-chat. It's kept me in touch with some of my favorite people who are very far away. Love it!

7. Snow days. We had two big snowstorms (by Delaware standards)this week, which closed a lot of the city including my office and J's coffee shop on Tuesday! So we got to stay home, bake, make chili, watch movies, and cuddle all day.


8. Potluck. Like the good Minnesota Lutheran girl that lives somewhere inside me, I love a good potluck. We have them every now and then at work, and there are always interesting exotic dishes like authentic homemade chicken tikka, good English shepherd's pie, chili, Caesar salad, and pierogies.

9. Longwood Gardens. This has become a bit of a tradition, since my roommate goes to great lengths to get a group of us to the gardens every spring and every Christmas. It's always beautiful, peaceful, centering.


10. On Saturday morning I finally got to chat on the phone with an old friend. We've been trying to find time for a good long talk for months now. We spent two hours (give or take) on the phone just talking about everything in our lives, and it was so easy and important. She's never sounded happier, and I've never been more comfortable in my life. These are big steps for both of us, and it's so heartwarming to be able to share our lives even over a long time and great distance.

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Thank you, readers, for being with us tonight, and for giving me reasons to write, and things to write about.

And thanks for joining us every Sunday night! Join the Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for good things every day, and updates on new posts. Come back next week for another reminder of 10 more things to be thankful for!

Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile!

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: crazy life, crazy love

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: Crazy Love by Paul Simon. I woke up with this song stuck in my head almost every day this week. It's catchy and makes me feel like I can stand up to all challenges, while staying positive.

2. NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month and I am determined to finish it this year... Despite "trying" to do it for years and years now, starting as far back as high school. I'm already farther along than I have ever been. I haven't written yet today but as of yesterday I have a solid head start. And it's still fun!

3. Kitties! My parents spent Friday night and Saturday at the beach, so I went over Saturday to feed and cuddle the kitties. I looooove them.

5. Homemade bread. Apparently J. is famous for his bread, but after almost two years I still hadn't tasted it. This week, though, I came home to a hot loaf of crusty garlic herb bread and it's all I wanted to eat all week. Plus it made the house smell toasty and yeasty and herby.

6. Yesterday was my good friend's birthday, which meant we got to eat pizza and cake and go bowling with her and her husband and family. We bought two hours of bowling for six people, which turned out to be too long to bowl; so after two games we still had almost a half hour left and decided to just do silly throws out of turn to try and "play" as much of a game as possible. Then she and her husband and J. and I just sat around 'til ALL hours of the night talking and playing card games. It's good to have good friends, and to celebrate them.

...And speaking of celebrating good friends, Cassie has rejoined the list after taking some time off to get married! So I'm pumped about that.

7. My friend Emily moved in to an apartment building only 5 minutes from me! I'm really happy we'll get to see each other more often.

8. Making dinner with friends. I love chatting while chopping and eating!

9. Bringing back an old school one: Grandmas!! My Grammy (as I call her :) ) came over yesterday to spend some time with us and brought a homemade apple pie. I'm spoiled!

10. Squash soup. One of my favorite parts of fall!



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Thanks for joining us this Sunday night! Stick with me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for updates on new posts and other stuff about new adulthood. Come back next Sunday night for a reminder of 10 good things that haven't happened yet, and on Wednesday night for a more in-depth reflection on post-grad life. Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile.

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: gold-gilded days

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

There are almost too many good things to count this week. I had a hard time choosing list items. But that's good, right?

1. Song of the week: Counting Stars by One Republic. My sister posted this song on Facebook earlier this week and it's been in and out of my head ever since. Plus, the video is beautiful and gives me the chills.

2. When worlds collide. After Monday morning power yoga, one of the regulars looked at my St. Olaf T-shirt and said with a knowing grin, "Minnesota, eh?" It took me so off guard that I accidentally yelled, "You know it!?" Way too loud and excited for the end of a yoga class. Also I wasn't quite sure even at the time whether it was a question or a cheer...

3. Leftovers (Mom cooking). I am a fine cook, but I think we all know there is nothing like a good dinner cooked by our moms and then packed up and sent home for leftover lunches.

4. Delaware, Small Blunder... Wonder! Small Wonder. This is one of J.'s and his dad's favorite jokes. Somehow it never gets old. There are plenty of jokes about Delaware. Among them, the One Degree of Separation. I went to a networking event this week hosted by the county's top radio stations - immediately ran into someone I knew, and heard a lot of familiar names throughout the night. It's a small state and I actually like that.

5. Surprises. My dad made cinnamon rolls on Monday night and forgot to send them home with me; so my mom dropped off a tupperware full of them on my porch for me to find when I got home from work.

6. Swype. I don't know how I've missed this 'til now, but I discovered a feature on my smartphone where I can just drag my finger around the keyboard and it automatically spells words for me. It's like a super-modern T9. Makes typing very speedy. I am obsessed.

7. The Five People You Meet In Heaven. Another book from Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays With Morrie. It is a quick read, or would be, if I used my free moments for reading. I polished it off this weekend, with no shortage of tears, but it is beautiful and inspiring and makes you think about your life, but not too hard. I love that Mitch Albom went from being a sports writer to easily the most recognized writer about life and death in the United States. A topic of endless fascination to me.

8. Bonfires. A bunch of us gathered in my parents' backyard on Friday night for a bonfire. Aside from the fact that I inadvertently told three separate people to bring hot dogs and rolls (we had probably a few hundred for less than 15 people), it was a lovely evening. The weather was crisp and cold, the fire was warm, the cider was spicy,

9. Dressing up. Last night was the Halloween Loop, easily one of Wilmington's most renowned events of the year. It's basically a pub crawl, at least in theory - as it turns out the best way to hit it is to go out early, pick a place and stay there. People get pretty creative with costumes. We had a bunch of people over beforehand, and some of us went all out with our costumes. We made a fun group, and there were plenty of wild and wicked costumes out in the bars and the streets to keep my eyes occupied.

10. Fall weather. I love fall, and this week has been the epitome of what's great about it. All golden slanting sunlight bouncing off golden leaves in the trees and falling from them; those crisp mornings, hot in the middle of the day but with a breeze; smells like fall in the afternoon and like winter at night. Gorgeous. I just want to walk everywhere.

I may be cheating, but I also want to say a quick congratulations to J.'s brother and his fiancee, who got engaged recently! We have been celebrating them lately, so I felt like now was the time to shout out on the blog. So much love in the air!

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Thanks for joining us this Sunday night! Stick with me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for updates on new posts and other stuff about new adulthood. Come back next Sunday night for a reminder of 10 good things that haven't happened yet, and on Wednesday night for a more in-depth reflection on post-grad life. Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile.

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: brave little toaster oven

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: The Twist by Chubby Checker. Went out with some friends this weekend (which I rarely do) and checked out the relatively new Jameson Whiskey Bar at Kelly's (the new upstairs venue at Kelly's Logan House in Trolley Square). They had a fun band playing and I finished out the night twisting like nothing else existed. Because it's important to let go every now and then and dance like nothing else exists.

2. Constant Comment. Constant Comment is a classic. Lately it's been the only tea I want to drink. It's warm with the perfect amount of spice for fall.

3. "WE STILL DEVELOP 35MM FILM." Every morning on my way to work I drive past Walgreen's, which has a huge digital sign out front about developing film that for some reason strikes me as hilarious.

4. Ciao. On Friday J. and I went for a walk/run in the park and afterward strolled around Trolley Square looking for houses for rent. We didn't find any rental signs, but we did walk past this tiny, acute-triangle-shaped pizza joint that inspired us to get slices. It was some of the best pizza I've had in awhile.

5. Much Ado About Nothing. We got Joss Whedon's latest from RedBox, mostly because Nathan Fillion is in it, but I don't always have super high expectations for film adaptations of Shakespeare. But I was pleasantly surprised at the whole thing. I had read that Whedon took the whole script as-is, only adding one scene at the very beginning that of course changed the entire tone of the plot... but I didn't hate it. It actually added an interesting spin. I didn't like the black-and-white at first, but by the end it had grown on me. Amy Acker was excellently cast as Beatrice, plus some other members of the Whedon universe. Overall I thought it was pretty great.

6. Toaster ovens. I can confidently name this as the most genius appliance ever invented. You can make toast in it, heat leftovers, bake frozen pizza, keep stuff warm, and make food from scratch (quesadillas, baked potatoes, and fish, to name a few). Just fantastic.

7. One of my Really Important People got married this weekend. I wasn't able to make it, unfortunately; but it's particularly cool because this marriage wouldn't have been legal this time last year. Thanks to Minnesota, the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriages.

8. Reunions. An old family friend from Upstate New York got a sponsorship to do some work this week at Winterthur, a beautiful facility just a few minutes up the road from us. So this week, my mom and I met up with her for dinner at Nirvana, a Fine Indian Restaurant in Independence Mall. It was so good to get to catch up with her, and have some grown-up girl time.

9. Federal Donuts. I was introduced this weekend by J.'s brother, his fiancee, and her best friend, who fondly refer to it as "Fed 'Nuts" and tout the virtues of the donuts, the coffee, the fried chicken. Really, everything was delicious. I ate three donuts total, six different flavors: some more predictable cinnamon-sugary ones, and some like vanilla lavender, blackberry anise, and mango coconut. Plus, the place itself is earthy-cute in a way that places in Minneapolis are earthy-cute, but not many places in Delaware are. I am its latest fan.


10. People like to help each other. I posted a picture of my "save the bottle caps" jar on Instagram this weekend and within a few minutes I had two offers to send bottle cap collections for my project. Pretty cool.


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Thanks for joining us this Sunday night! Stick with me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for updates on new posts and other stuff about new adulthood. Come back next Sunday night for a reminder of 10 good things that haven't happened yet, and on Wednesday night for a more in-depth reflection on post-grad life. Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile.

posted from Bloggeroid

what nobody ever says about networking

Well, dear readers, life gets in the way again. Or, life sidetracks. I have had this post about Meeting People in my Idea Bank for months, and was inspired to write it this week by a really great fleeting romantic encounter involving one of my friends... But then tonight happened and I have to switch tack. Keep an eye out for the Romantic Encounters post in the near future, though. (Also, I have been trying for years now -- plural! -- to get someone to write a guest post about online dating and for the life of me I can't get anyone to write it! So, dear readers, if any of you would like to take a stab at it I will love you forever.

...Speaking of romantic encounters.)

On to my story for this evening.

A week or two ago, I saw a Facebook post from an old family friend from the Upstate New York days, the mother of a girl I studied abroad with in high school saying she was going to be working at Winterthur for a few days. I commented that Winterthur happens to be just a few minutes up the road from where I am currently situated, and she messaged me right away and gave me her phone number and said she would love to meet up while she is in town.

So after work today she met my mom and me at Nirvana, an Indian restaurant in Independence Mall (fitting, since the circumstance of our meeting was the study abroad program in India).

Sidenote: Positive dining experience at Nirvana. We had a lovely combination of dishes: chicken madras, dal bukhara, and malai kofta with rice and raita; also the veg pakora were delicious. I would say it's on the underspiced side, especially compared to the fiery Maharaja Palace in Newark. The decor was also nice, and we got some joy out of the music. In the two hours we were there, I think there were only two other tables so it was pretty quiet on a Wednesday night. And now, back to the main event.

It was fabulous, to catch up after what has easily been seven or eight years, to share and to hear what we have all been up to, and to get a fresh perspective on things from what feels like another time and place. You know that feeling of introducing a high school friend to a college friend, like two versions of yourself are sliding together at least for a moment? Or the feeling of explaining a current situation to someone you knew very well in middle school, as if they can tell you how your middle school self would react to what is happening now, and reveal some sort of truth or wisdom you have since lost sight of? It's affirming.

Meeting up with this friend was also an opportunity to share updates on the lives of mutual friends, particularly a lot of the girls I went to school with on this program. That part was a little sad to me, because I have done a terrible job of staying in touch with most of them, and have mostly watched from afar as they all graduated together and visited each other around the world and traveled together. I will say that I am inspired now to drop a few notes to say hi and I hope you are well. Because I do. This is something I have never quite come to terms with: how can I ever express how often I think of people that have crossed my path throughout my life, and how important they are to me even if I have nothing really to say to them at this point in my life. I don't know. Staying in touch is a bit foreign to me. But I think I'm getting at least a little better at it over time.

I have, in fact, been in touch with at least one of these mutual friends in the past week or two, and I have been very happy to exchange a few words (and snapchats) with her.

Also in the last week I have exchanged messages with two really important people from my college days. And I've written some letters too. And all of these exchanges mean more to me than I can even comprehend or explain to myself.

So this all brings me to something I think about on a pretty regular basis, being a contributing member of society and spending so much of my time engaging with the working world: networking.

It's like a dirty word. It's what you have to do if you want career success. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it. The general feeling about it is reluctant and everybody has anxiety about it and to be honest I always associate the word with slimy and/or pretentious behavior and, at the very least, some fibbing and embellishment.

Which is really sort of silly, because I actually "network" all the time and I do legitimately enjoy making interesting connections with people. I like staying in touch with old friends who are doing interesting things; I like meeting new people who are doing interesting things and talking to them about it, and catching up with them later to find out what has changed and how the whole thing is going.

I met this woman on the plane coming back from MSP two weeks ago, who is an organizational change officer for her company. That means she travels around helping different branches of the company transition smoothly into using new systems and incorporating new policies into their basic operations, and making sure everybody is on board with what's going on. She talked a lot about the "people side of change."

I loved that! I wanted to ask about a billion questions, and I wanted to know how things turned out for her in the latest round of changes, and I wanted to talk to her about the impact of social media on organizational change and about the perspectives she gained from her studies in communications, in the context of what she was doing for work. I almost asked her if she had a card, or for some contact information, but I liked her so much I didn't want her to think I was being opportunistic, so I didn't ask. And I have been kicking myself ever since.

And I really think the reason I didn't ask is because that is a pretty standard "networking" technique and it seems opportunistic and not genuine and like just what I'm supposed to do. (We all know how I feel about things I'm just supposed to do.)

That may be more of a side effect of my stubborn beat-of-my-own-drum attitudes than the social stigma of networking, but I still think it's worth mentioning. Why can't I just think someone is cool and maybe want to talk to them about work, especially if we both like what we do and can inform each other's perspectives, without having it tainted by the veneer of corporate traditions? And why does something so pure, like an interesting conversation or a potential future friend or mentor or colleague, have to be cheapened by a term that carries so much weight of self-interest and personal gain?

I would love to hear other thoughts about the whole networking thing; I am pretty open to the idea that my resistance could easily be a byproduct of nervousness about putting myself out there, but I have always felt the whole "you have to do this to be successful" dialogue to cheapen connections between people that might otherwise be effortless and mutually enriching.

And to bring it back around to my original thought: I love catching up with you, classmates, friends, relatives and other readers. If I get around to sending you a personal message, it means I'm thinking about you and that I think you are probably doing something interesting and that I have respect and admiration and fond memories of you.

And if I don't get around to actually sending a message... I'm probably still thinking a lot of those same things.

Be well, readers; and be real.

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: i should be over all the butterflies

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: I'm Into You by Paramore. Great. Power frontwoman. Mushy: I should be over all the butterflies... but after all this time / I'm still / into you.

2. Monday morning Power Yoga. When I was sick last week I found out that I have a perforated ear drum, which means no swimming until it heals, or until we decide it's not going to heal and I just have to resign myself to ear plugs for the rest of my life. Anyway, that means a new Monday morning routine at least temporarily. This week started with a new class at the Y closer to my house, so I went to class and then made breakfast at home before trucking off to work. Plus, the room was so warm it was almost like hot yoga. Sweet. (Sweat...)

3. Chili. J.'s project for his day off this week was to make chili. I came home to a house smelling like peppers and beans, and a week's worth of lunches and dinners. Delicious. Plus, it's been perfect chili weather lately.

4. WDSD 94.7 - Delaware's Country Station. I've been searching for "the right" country station since I moved to Wilmington over 2 years ago, and finally found it. You may not like country; but I do, because there is a lot of humanity in it. I used to say in college, "I want to be loved like a country song" because it's all in the details. It's all about the eyes and the moonlight... You know what I'm saying.

5. Football Sundays. Our regular Sunday routine got a twist this week; instead of the usual family dinner we headed over to watch football, drink beer, play video games, eat pizza and wings with some friends. It is a great way to finish off the weekend. Great company definitely doesn't hurt either.

6. Rolling with the punches. Last night we left the house planning on a hayride and bonfire... But right as we got on the wagon the wind picked up and the rain started slicing sideways, so we rescheduled and a few of us headed to a local bar for fall beers and french fries. Not a bad replacement, if you ask me.

7. Staying in touch. This week I finally got around to writing some letters and Facebook messages to old friends, and so far I've had some really heartwarming responses. I'm hoping to be able to spend some time this week getting back to them. That is something definitely worth my time.

8. New sneakers. I bought my last pair of running shoes just after Christmas, and they have carried me through at least four 5k races and a Spartan, plus the training for those races and my regular gym schedule. It was definitely time for a new pair. Can't wait to break them in!

9. Co-host Cassie is on her honeymoon in England right now! After the mind-meltingly beautiful wedding, the bride and groom are traveling through the UK with a decidedly literary focus. Luke has appeared in recent photos with busts of Virginia Woolf -- classic for book buffs.

10. Fall weather. October is finally starting to act in character, with cooler mornings, sometimes cold rain all day and sometimes perfect golden slanting sunshine... Either way, I'm ready for it. It makes pumpkin-flavored things and sweaters feel a lot more appropriate.

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Thanks for joining us this Sunday night! Stick with me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for updates on new posts and other stuff about new adulthood. Come back next Sunday night for a reminder of 10 good things that haven't happened yet, and on Wednesday night for a more in-depth reflection on post-grad life. Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile.

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: there's a warm wind blowing the stars around

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

The government may have shut down this week, but All Good Things did not and will not! Even in times of trouble, there is beauty in the world.

1. Song of the week: I'd Really Love To See You Tonight by England Dan & John Ford Coley. I heard this song on the radio on my drive home last Sunday, and it's been the only thing I've wanted to listen to all week. Classic.

2. Care packages. Just saw my girl Liz last weekend, but I got a bulky letter from her this week with a bunch of Kona bottle caps (from Hawaii) in it. This totally counts as a care package for me... Plus I've got a project brewing, one that involves a LOT of bottle caps.

3. Dads. I was out of work sick for most of this week (not a Good Thing) and on Tuesday when I woke up with a black eye I knew just who to call. My dad immediately snapped into action, took me to the doctor and then to the pharmacy and then sat with me at home until J. got home from work. I also got to hang out with him all day yesterday; we watched Castle and got milkshakes and sat down by the creek for awhile. It's nice. Dads are the best.

4. Girls' night out. Last night I went out for dinner at the Melting Pot with J.'s sister, his brother's fiancée, and a couple of friends. A four-course meal starting with cheese fondue and ending with chocolate fondue, with salad and meat we cooked ourselves at the table in between. Delicious. Plus, I do have a thing for really participatory eating experiences. And of course the company was great. It is important to have solid, intelligent, interesting women around.

5. How I Met Your Mother Season 8. This season just came out on DVD this week, so of course J. and I went out and bought it and have been burning through the episodes. SPOILER ALERT: I have been waiting for Robin and Barney to get together since the beginning of time so this season makes me dance gleefully again and again.

6. Sweet & salty caramel dip. Better than the regular old caramel dip, and not quite as sweet. With lemon-soaked apple slices? Unstoppable.

7. Leisurely walks. Since I've been sick this week I have pretty much been lying around not moving much outside of the regular bed-kitchen-bathroom-couch circuit. Finally now that I am starting to feel better J. and I went for a walk around the Newark Reservoir. It's way too hot for October, but the breeze up there is nice and mostly it's just good to get moving again.

8. Email chains. You all have heard of the "three things I'm grateful for today" email chain. This week I also have an email chain about depression and courageous expression with a fellow Delaware writer, and an email chain about company culture, jobs or lack thereof, and other solid new adult topics with some social science research friends from college. Gives me something to look forward to among the technological overload that is my life.

9. Making progress. In the good old "three things I'm grateful for" email chain this week one theme has been making progress, on personal goals and self-improvement and taking care of ourselves. Words of wisdom from the discussion: "You cannot change what you do not measure."

10. R&R. Since I was literally ordered by a medical professional to stay home for three days this week (not my personality type) I decided to make the most of it. Part of the reason I got so sick in the first place is because I didn't get enough rest, pushed myself too hard until I didn't have anything left. So this week I caught up on sleep, watched mundane movies that no one else will watch with me (except my little sister who was also sick this week) and just generally tried to breathe (which was difficult thanks to the deep cough that knocked me out in the first place, but still made a difference). I can't tell you enough how important it is to STAY RESTED! It's fall and flu season, people. Take good care of yourselves!

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Thanks for joining us this week. I hope it made your Sunday night! Like Second Set of Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga, tune in on Wednesday for reflections on new adulthood, and come back next Sunday night for the good things that are going to happen soon! Until then, be kind to each other, and treat yourself well.

all good things: on the run

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: I Could Get Used To This by Treva Blomquist. This song came up on my Eva Cassidy Pandora station this week and gave me pause.

2. Ed Sheeran. I have liked this guy for awhile, but after seeing him live on Wednesday night I am so impressed. He's a great musician with a great stage personality. It was just him on stage and he built his songs with a looper, to this huge climax and gets the whole crowd involved... Phenomenal. Also a lot of his lyrics are really jaw-dropping.

3. The Wilmington Polish Festival. The latest on Wilmington's arts, food and culture scene, down on the Riverfront. Pierogies, kielbasa, Polish beer... Jelly donuts and chrusciki and golubki. Yum!

4. Brandywine Park. My roommate and I finished the week with a run through Brandywine Park on Friday evening, right before it got dark. The path winds along, over and around the river, surrounded by trees and old bridges and other stone structures. And with the sunset, gorgeous and peaceful.

5. The annual LCS 5k for Hunger. This is one of the first activities I did after moving to Wilmington, and every year it is one of the things I look forward to most. It's a walk/run sponsored by Lutheran Community Services, and the proceeds go to feeding the hungry. The weather is generally the kind of beautiful you almost can't believe, it's at Rockford Park which I love, and this year we raised $44,000-something for the cause! Plus, everyone has the most positive attitude. I really do love Lutherans...

6. Avocado and fried egg on rice. I've been trying to keep a few servings of cooked brown rice in the fridge lately, for emergencies, since it takes 45 minutes to cook it... Picked up a few delicious avocados last week at Trader Joe's, which is fortunate since one of my favorite quick-and-easy lunches/dinners is rice, with a tiny bit of almond milk or olive oil poured over top, a runny fried egg slapped on top and avocado slices all around. Grind some salt and pepper on top and you have one of the simplest, most satisfying meals that I eat these days.

7. Apple picking. We went apple picking yesterday, with our fams. The apples this week were golden delicious, red delicious, and jonagolds which are divine. The weather was lovely, and it started raining right when it was time to leave. (The orchard closed at 5:00 and it started raining at 5:10. Can't get timing much more perfect than that!) Apple picking is always a fun activity, and when you finish it off with fresh cider donuts it can't be beat!

8. Birthdays. Lots of September birthdays: two of J.'s uncles, his sister, his dad and a couple of his dad's friends; both of my parents; plus a bunch of other people. Makes for a lot of parties, and a number of mass parties which are an even bigger event.

9. Coffee table photo books. I discovered one of those big heavy hardcover photo books at J.'s parents' house today called Wilmington: On the Move. I don't know why it's called that, but it has a lot of lovely full-color spreads from all over the area, with mini history and culture lessons to accompany them.

10. International Day of Peace. Yesterday was World Gratitude Day and also the International Day of Peace. If you ask me, peace is something we could use a heck of a lot more of these days. Maybe I'll celebrate Peace Day all the time, even when it's not September 21.

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Like second set of baby steps on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theBabyStepsSaga! New posts show up there first, plus other articles about post-grad life, plus teasers and other important information. Thanks for reading! Tune in next Sunday for more All Good Things, and come back Wednesday for a guest blog from a friend who quit his job to "travel aimlessly" for awhile.

all good things: on the bright side of life

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and her radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: The Fox by Ylvis. Two people sent me this song this week. It's sort of weird...but upbeat, and if you actually listen to the words and/or watch the video it's also kinda cute. A dance beat about animal noises.

2. This flash mob marriage proposal. I have always had a thing for that proposal video trend online; but this latest one is on a whole 'nother level. The fact that it's a same sex couple and that they're trending gives me a ray of hope for humanity.

3. El Toro. A little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place around the corner from us. It's easy to pass by, but it's been making Delaware's Best for 13 years. We got burritos and sangria soda to go and they definitely lived up to their reputation.

4. Water ice. Today I was feeling a little down and out, so J. and I walked to a water ice shop in the neighborhood and it was sunny and I got the tropical flavor and it was perfect. Just what the doctor ordered.

5. Getting stuff done. Yesterday I had plans that fell through, which was actually fine because then I had the whole day to frame the posters I've had lying around, plan out some DIY projects, and listen to my favorite weekend radio shows. Also, today I finally cut my hair after snipping off my individual split ends for at least a month now...

6. The ReStore. Another thing I did yesterday was go to the "new" Habitat for Humanity ReStore. This is a great resource for building and household items. Plus, I feel good about spending my money there because of the work they do.

7. Beautiful weather! On the plus side of everything this weekend, the weather has been gorgeous since Thursday night: sunny, warm but breezy enough to wear long pants or a sweater in the evening, and cool enough to add a blanket to the bed at night.

8. Crocs. So comfy. I don't care if anybody thinks they're ugly, it's all I want to wear lately.

9. Pumpkin. My roommate went to the beach this weekend and left a couple pieces of delicious rich pumpkin cake. Yummm... Also, scones, muffins, lattes, beer, so on and so forth. 'Tis the season.

10. Picking up each other's slack. We all get tired and cranky and worn out and defeated... But that's why we have support networks and communities to help us out. When one of us is tired, the other one makes dinner. Somebody cooks; somebody else cleans. The best is when you just know, without a lot of worry and negotiations, that it will all come out even in the end.

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Like second set of baby steps on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theBabyStepsSaga! New posts show up there first, plus other articles about post-grad life, plus teasers and other important information. Thanks for reading! Tune in next Sunday for more All Good Things, and come back Wednesday for my latest reflections on being a young adult and "conquering the places we live."

all good things: arts and culture and local pride!

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and her radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: Glad You're Here by Macy Gray. This song has been on the BodyFlow playlist the past two weeks, and it makes me smile every time. I always feel like closing my eyes and swaying.

2. The Brandywine Festival of the Arts. This is an annual local arts festival with all manner of crafts: clothes, jewelry, home decor, gifts, yard embellishments, ceramics... Beautiful things and great culture. I went yesterday with a friend and the weather was perfect. We also discovered local duo Nalani & Sarina. Twins, my age, with voices like Joss Stone and a vibe like Andy Grammer.

3. Fresh mojitos and soul food. When J. got home in the afternoon I started cranking out mojitos with fresh mint from the backyard. So refreshing! And then we made cornbread, fried chicken and roasted okra from the CSA last week, and corn on the cob my mom got us from a local farmers' market. Yummm!

4. Triple chocolate hill. We rescheduled date night for Friday this week, and made a reservation (which we never do) at Iron Hill Brewery on the Riverfront. The food and the beer are always good there. I had a really rich, delicious triple and J. had a toasty dunkel. But then we splurged on dessert: chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and peanut butter-caramel sauce. Plus, 75 cents of it goes to NCCF and 75 cents to each location's local charity of choice: in this case, the Be Positive Foundation. Feel good dessert all around.

5. The library. They have free internet, AND books, AND movies, AND full seasons of awesome TV shows I wouldn't otherwise get to watch. For example...

6. Parks and Rec. I caught an episode of this at someone's house, and found the first season at the library, and powered through five episodes on Wednesday night while vegging out HARD. Something I never let myself do... And it's so funny! (Plus, Aubrey Plaza, who plays April, is a native Delawarean!)

7. Figuring out football...bit by bit. It was on at J.'s parents' house today and I was miraculously able to stay focused on it, and it made some sense! It's still not something I would choose to watch, but I like sort of knowing what's going on at least.

8. Going the Distance. A chick flick that J. actually likes, but I hadn't seen in full until this week. Also very funny and feel-good. And Justin Long and Drew Barrymore are a lovely unlikely pairing.

9. Cleaning up the road. My dad's church has adopted the highway in their neighborhood, and we go out once a month or once every other month, and then we have church and breakfast and it's a really nice community event. And today, I got J. up and out and all the church ladies were telling me how handsome he is and how glad they were to see him at church. Which also made me happy.

10. Cassie's bridal festivities! Sadly I missed the parties yesterday but it sounded like there was a good time in store for that girl. And she definitely deserves it!

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Like second set of baby steps on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theBabyStepsSaga! New posts show up there first, plus other articles about post-grad life, plus teasers and other important information. Thanks for reading! Tune in next Sunday for more All Good Things, and come back Wednesday for my latest reflections on being a "new adult."