erica on life

The whirlwind winds down

2009-03-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in the past couple weeks, and I finally feel like things are winding down. First thing to note is that last Sunday, Bill and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Our marriage had a (surprising to naive me) rocky start. One year together by no means makes us experts, but I am glad to say that I think we are getting better at this whole marriage thing. I really do love being Bill's wife. To celebrate, we had Sunday brunch at Zencha Tea Salon, which I highly recommend. They make beautiful tea inspired pancakes and waffles. And I always love the tea there, favoring their Indian Chais. For dinner we went to Marcella's, which was pretty nice. The food was good, although they didn't have a ton of vegetarian options. What we had was made with very delicious ingredients though. I enjoyed our experience there.
I am also happy to report that last week I started a new job. I am working part time as an administrative assistant at a funeral home, and I am really liking it. The people I work with are great, the hours are perfect (9-2, M-F), and the field is interesting to say the least. People have been asking me if I am weirded out by working around dead people, but I am not. I view death as a part of life. I do feel compassion for those who have lost loved ones, but I don't feel personally sad. I did often feel sad working at my previous job where many troubled youth and broken families came in. That was really hard for me.
Starting my new job (and also shopping around for professional and color conservative clothes to add to my mostly colorful wardrobe) , and also dog sitting last week left me in a bit of a tizzy. But things have settled down now and I feel like this week I can start working at a routine that balances work and home life again, this time with the priviledge of working only part time.
I feel like my life, in general, has been going in a really good direction. I praise God for His blessing, for answering prayers, and for challenging me continually in my thoughts and actions. I am thankful for my lovely family, my amazing friends, my new job, and the great community that I live in. I am ready to fully engage in all of it.

Bialys- the bread adventures continue

2009-03-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

Last week, I baked my first successful loaf of yeasted bread. It was a simple recipe for Hearth Bread from The Bread Bible. I had tried making bread several times, but had never had a successful loaf before. I believe that I rushed all of my previous attempts, never letting the bread fully rise. The loaf I made last week took all day to go from flour bin to oven, but almost all of that was inactive time, letting the sponge ferment and the dough rise. But it turned out quite delicious.
High off of my victory, the taste memory of home-baked bread still lingering in my mind, I turned down Bill's request for bagels while we were at the grocery store. No. I can make bagels at home. For Christmas, I received the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, but had been hesitant to use it because of the books unique technique of making large quantities of dough and storing it in your fridge to make several loaves over the course of a week or two. I had failed all previous bread baking attempts, what would i do if I mixed together all that dough and it went to waste making loaf after loaf of sunken, underdone, cakey bread? Well, last week's success gave me the confidence to proceed with the 5 minutes a day technique (which is a bit hyperbolic, techinically you might only take 5 minutes to form the loaf, but it must still rest for a while before you put it in the oven). Instead of following the authors' advice and starting with a simple boule, I went in head first with bagels.
And I failed.
I followed the instructions to the tee, and things looked promising at the start, but somewhere between boiling and baking the dough, something went amiss. I ended up with flat, doughy, inedible rings. And a lot of dough left in the fridge. Exactly what I feared.
But! The dough was also good for making bialys, and so make bialys I did. And they turned out wonderfully, as can be seen in the picture below. I still have some of the dough left, which I will probably use to make more bialys. I think I will wait until I have a bit more experience before I attempt bagels again.

more time, less money, less waste

2009-03-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I am now officially unemployed (although I have not been working for over a month), and will receive my last paycheck next week. For the past month that I have been home I have been working over our budget and trying to figure out how we can get our costs of living down. It's amazing how much Bill and I have taken for granted, and how wasteful we have been merely due to not giving enough time to combing over our finances. For example, I never really look over our utility bills, I just see how much we owe and write a check. But after spending a little bit of time researching, I was able to see that we were spending too much money on our cell phones, and get that cost reduced.
Having the luxury of more time has also inspired me to implement some of the more environmentally friendly changes that I have been wanting to make for quite some time, but haven't seen as practical time wise. Mostly, we are going to try to live a less disposable life. I have decided not to purchase anymore paper towels or napkins. I have time now to sew the cloth napkins I have been wanting to make for a while, and will cut up some old towels that we have laying around to use for the potty accidents the small dog still has sometimes. I am also resolving to learn how to make the perfect sandwich bread. All previous attempts at bread have produced lackluster results, but I am tired of paying an arm and a leg at the market to get the tasty healthy bread we like, and hate the accumulation of plastic bread bags in our closet.
These measures, and others like them, will hopefully help me to trim down our grocery budget, which is our largest flexible cost. The other costs that I am trying desperately to cut are our gas and electric bills, which have both been out of control lately. I have been keeping the thermostat set at 62 for the most part, which leaves it quite chilly in here. I've never kept it that cold before, and I am glad that winter is almost over. However, I am finding that the space heater we purchased in hopes to cut the gas bill is driving up our electric bill quite a bit. That and the fact that I live with a man whom I affectionately refer to as the King of Lights, because he is incapable of passing a light without turning it on.
All in all, this journey of frugality and environmental stewardship is ever changing, but it certainly has been fun to learn new ways of thinking and looking at the world, and I love challenging myself to do things differently.

Vegan MoFo: One Last Hurrah

2008-10-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

So, I utterly failed at keeping up with Vegan MoFo. Meh. At least I found a whole slew of new blogs visit.

Posting everyday was a bit much for me. The change in the weather has been a drag. This time of year is always difficult emotionally, and I just haven't felt up to doing much of anything. In the passed few weeks, I've barely cooked at all, which is definitely out of the norm for me.

As my final post in VeganMoFo, I decided to tell the story of my first time with tofu.

Having been a vegetarian for 4 years now, I feel like I can consider tofu to be a dear friend. But our relationship was not always a good one, and it had a very rocky beginning. I would also like to declare the following statement for anyone who was unsure: It is perfectly easy and acceptable to be a vegetarian or vegan and not like or use tofu. It's interested how many people remark "I don't like tofu" whenever I mention that I am a vegetarian. For the longest time, neither did I. I would also like to note that tofu is not just for vegetarians. It's its own food, not always a subsititute for meat. Anyway, I digress.

When I first started thinking about where my food came from, and toying with the idea of vegetarian/veganism, I spent a lot of time researching on the internet how I could make animal-free versions of some of my favorite foods. Being that my pre-veg signature dish was lasagna, I didn't know how I'd ever make a delicious vegetarian lasagna, much less a vegan one. How would I ever replace ricotta?!

The internet informed me that vegans used tofu in place of a ricotta filling in a lot of recipes. Unfortunatly, I never read any of those recipes. At that point in my cooking career, I didn't own any cookbooks, and never really cooked from recipes. I just made things up as I went along, and the results were always delightful. Why, then, would I need someone else's recipe? (Sidenote: I still love experiementing on my own, but reading cookbooks has done so much to mature me in the kitchen) Still not sure what to do about all the meat I used to use in lasagna, I opted instead to make stuffed shells for my first time with tofu. And I made the 2 typical first timer mistakes. First off, I used silken tofu. It was the only kind I had ever seen. I didnt even know regular tofu existed. Secondly, I stuffed the shells with only crumbled up silken tofu. No seasonings. No nutritional yeast. No lemon juice. Just plain silken tofu.

Overcooked pasta shells stuffed with plain tofu, covered with the cheapest jarred spaghetti sauce. As you can imagine, they tasted terrible. I was so disappointed. I told my then vegan roomate that I had made vegan stuffed shells with tofu, that I didnt like them, and that they were in the fridge if she wanted them. She seemed excited when I told her, but several days later the large pan was still pretty much full. Pehaps she didnt want to hurt my feelings, but oh I wish she would've told me what I had done wrong!

I did try tofu again a few months after that, in a restaurant, and I really liked it. I am now well versesd in the different varieties of tofu and their appropriate uses. And according to Bill, I make a mean tofu scramble. Tofu has definitley been the most challenging ingredient in my kitchen, but I am definitely comfortable with it now, and am able to enjoy it in many different ways.

Vegan MoFo: Product Review- Oat Dream

2008-10-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

I love trying new products. I didn't always though. I used to be very set in my ways and turn my nose up at food items I as unfamiliar with. That all changed when I became a vegetarian. I started trying new things out of necessity, and now I purposely seek new things out when I am at the grocery store.
Last time I was at Whole Foods stocking up on soy milks, this product caught my eye, Oat Dream. Now, I have had Oat Milk before. I tried Pacific brand oat milk, and while i did enjoy the flavor, the texture was grainy. Pacific also makes a very grainy almond milk that i don't particularly care for, not when I could have smooth, creamy Almond Breeze. Anyway, from my previous experience with Dream* brand products, I suspected that their oat milk would not be grainy like the Pacific brand. And I was right. The texture was wonderfully smooth and creamy.
As for the taste, it was delicious. However, I did opt for the Maple Brown Sugar flavor instead of plain (or maybe vanilla was the other option, I cannot remember). The first time I tried this was on a lazy morning, poured over a bowl of cereal. As I was being lazy, I ate my cereal on the couch, and then sat my bowl down beside me. I kept thinking I smelled cookies baking, but then I would remember that there was some oat milk left in the bowl beside me. It smelled like burnt sugar (in the good way). The taste was sweet and kind of caramelly. Definitely a decadent addition to my boring bowl of high fiber cereal.

While this product certainly will not replace my normal cheap, unflavored, unsweetened soy milk, it will definitely go o my list of occasional treats. I recommend trying it, even just for fun. I also really appreciate the increasing number of alternatives to soy milk on the market.

*unfortunately, there is no information on their website about this product.

VeganMoFo: Soy and Seitan "Turkey" Roast

2008-10-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I made this roast by Bryanna Clark Grogan (scroll down the page a bit to find the recipe). I am one of the few who really really love Tofurky. Around Thanksgiving time, when Trader Joe's sells them for a decent price, I usually stock my freezer with a couple extra, plus one to cook on thanksgiving. Because these things aren't cheap, and because I take a lot of pride in serving up dishes I made with my own hands, I decided to give Bryanna's roast a try. This recipe makes two of the roasts pictured above, and by my estimation, cost me about $6 to make with ingredients I already had on hand. It did take several hours to make, but most of that time is inactive.
This roast was delicious. I mean, really good. I highly recommend trying this out some weekend while you are just putting around the house. I was very skeptical while I was making this. I was afraid it would end up too doughy, or that it wouldn't have enough flavor, but it was great. The recipe suggests letting them cool completely before serving, for a better texture. Take that suggestion! It was my intention all along to eat this roast the next day, but I did take a nibble as soon as I pulled them out of the oven. At that point, the taste was good, but the texture had me worried. But when I ate it again the next day, it was perfect. Bill enjoyed having thin slices on sandwiches for lunch. We ate one roast over the course of a week, and I froze the other one for later use. I am definitely going to take this dish to the Christmas gathering with my friends.
After making this, I don't feel the need to ever buy a Tofurkey roast again, except maybe if I needed the time convenience.

VeganMoFo: Where the magic happens

2008-10-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to update for a few days, unfortunately. Well, today will be mostly pictures for a kitchen tour!

We are currently renting our place, and the kitchen is quite far from my dream kitchen. While small, it is bigger than most of the kitchen's I've had since moving away from my family.

This is what you see from the doorway from the dining room.This is what you see to the right. To the left is a door to the back "yard". It's boring, so no photo. This stove is pretty old, but it's gas, which is hard to come by in rentals around here.
Here's a peak inside the fridge. The fridge is smaller than average, so it's always jammed full. For perspective, I am 5'4" and it's about the same height as me.

Condiment city

Here's my bakers rack against the half wall. Spices and vinegars live here, as well as all of my cookbooks.

Here is a close-up of my faithful assistant, Beatrix.
This is the cupboard where the grains and tea live. I have a similar cupboard where the baking supplies live. I also took a photo of the cupboard where all the dishes live, but that photo mysteriously disappeared.
This isn't actually in the kitchen. We ran out of cupboard space in the kitchen, so we have an armoire in the dining room where I keep snacks, canned goods, miscellaneous food items, lesser used appliances, and the serving dishes.
Looking over these photos makes me feel so privileged. Thank God that I have never have to go hungry.

VeganMoFo: A Survey!

2008-10-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

I found this survey over at Food Snobbery is M y Hobbery Check it out.

1. Name a song that involves food in some way.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard...

2. What criteria do you use when choosing a new cookbook to buy?
Usually amazon reviews, or interesting looking recipes. Pictures help, but are not a requirement.

3. What did you eat today?
Everything bread, leftover potato soup, grapes.

4. Name a vegan food that you know exists but you have never tried.
A palatable vegan cheese

5. The Food Network just called and needs you to start your new show tomorrow. What will the title of the show be?
Erica BAKES!

6. Favorite hot sauce or other spicy condiment?
Sriracha

7. How old were you when you became vegetarian/vegan?
vegetarian:21, vegan: not quite yet

8. Favorite vegan cheeze?

Follow your heart is ok, but i'd rather just skip it.

9. Cutest baby animal?
pandas

10. Favorite type of jam/jelly/marmalade/preserves?
i don't like most, but apple butter is pretty good.

11. Do you take any vitamins/supplements?
nope. they make me nauseous

12. What food/dish most embodies the Fall season?
pumpkin in all forms.

13. What food would you have a hard time living without?
pasta

14. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?
herbal tea

15. It's 10PM and you're starving. What do you eat?
maybe a bowl of cereal, or whatever random snacks we have around

16. If you have an animal companion, what is his/her favorite food?
my babies go crazy over chickpeas. the just stand at the kitchen and cry anytime i open a can

17. Worst injury you've gotten in the kitchen?
one time i grated some skin off of my thumb. that was pretty nasty.

18. When you have a food-related question, who do you call?
the Internet

19. Summer is ending- What food will you miss most?
tomatoes

20. What snacks do you keep in your purse/backpack/desk at work?
i have a couple fruit leathers in my desk at work. sometimes i have tea bags in my purse.

21. Favorite soup to make on a rainy day?
lentil soup, or minestrone

22. What's your favorite combination of fresh vegetable and/or fruit juices?
orange and papaya

23. Favorite brand of root beer?
I like whole food's 365 brand, because its the cheapest nonHFCS brand. I'm not really a root beer connoisseur.

24. Make up your own question!
what's your favorite bean?
black beans!

VeganMoFo: Pumpkin Oatmeal

2008-10-05T14:35:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I made some pumpkin cookies, using a can of pureed pumpkin. I had a little bit of pumpkin left over, so I saved it in the fridge for later use. Well, I didn't really have much vision for such a small amount of pumpkin, so this morning I used it to make pumpkin oatmeal.

I cooked some oatmeal on the stove using oatmilk. When it was just about finished, I stirred in the pumpkin, some cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg and a drizzle of maple syrup. I thought it was almost perfect but needed a touch of something else, so I added a dash of allspice. That did the trick for me. It was warm and earthy and just slightly sweet. The embodiment of autumn. Unfortunately, from this breakfast I found out that Bill despises allspice. The poor man is quite particular about certain strong spices. While I loved my bowl, he was unable to tolerate it, so the dogs ate the rest of his. That's brown sugar sprinkled on top in the picture.

Lucky me, I have just enough pumpkin left for a single serving tomorrow morning.

VeganMoFo: This week's meal plan

2008-10-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

We did a big grocery shop today, so I thought I'd draft a meal plan. I usually start the week with a meal plan, but never adhere to it completely. But it helps to have a plan.

Today: Potato soup, salad, bread (not homemade as planned, because i bought 2 different bread product at the store)
Sunday: Moussaka from Vcon
Monday: Breakfast for dinner: Crepes!
Tuesday:Beanball subs with sweet potato fries and salad
Wednesday: Out to eat, location TBD
Thursday: Dinner with small group
Friday:Tomato soup with homemade croutons and salad

I also plan to make those Egg McVegans that were popular for a little while. Bill sometimes reminisces of his McDonald days, so I'm sure he'll love it. I will probably make a cheesecake this week too.

VeganMoFo: Soup's on!

2008-10-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is a great week to begin VeganMoFo. Why, you ask? Well, because this week, fall officially hit Ohio. On Monday, the temperature was in the mid 70's, but now we are in the 50's and 60's, and it feels good!

There are many reasons that Fall is my favorite season, not least of which are all of the amazing foods that I associate with this time of years. All things apple and pumpkin. Warm beverages like tea, cocoa and cider. And of course, after a season long hiatus, I am ready again to start making soup.

I could sing the praises of soup all day long. It's warm, it's filling, it's a classic comfort food item, it's a great way to get a hearty dose of veggies, and it is easily made healthy. Not to mention that one pot meals are a snap to clean up! Most soups also freeze well. Frozen soup can be awfully handy to have around when you are sick and craving the comfort of soup, but unable to gather the energy to chop veggies and stir the pot.

Despite all the wondrous virtues of soup, my husband still gets a disappointed look on his face when I say we are having soup for dinner. I don't fully understand how he could be disappointed, but I will chalk it up to a lifetime of canned soups. I also know that the soups that he does like are the creamy ones. I prefer a broth based soup. In an effort to make a soup lover out of dear Bill, I am going to try veganizing a couple of his favorite kinds of soup over the next few weeks. It will be an interesting task, because I have always hated all things creamy (i attribute that of the few signature dishes my mother makes, most have a base of canned condensed cream of something soups). We will see if a little creative veganizing can bring Bill and I to a soup happy medium.

For now, I leave you with a photo of the delicious Chipotle, Corn and Black Bean Stew from Vegan With a Vengeance. This was delightful and spicy. It was my first time cooking with chipotle peppers. Chopping hot peppers always makes me a little nervous, but I'm beginning to get over that. The chipotles here lend a nice, subtle smoky flavor to the soup.

This weekend, I am going to try my hand at potato soup and homemade bread. Should be fun!

VeganMoFo: already a day late!

2008-10-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

I have decided to participate in VeganMoFo, which is basically a challenge to write about food on your blog for the entire month of October, aiming to blog daily. The name is a clever play off of NaNoWriMo. So please, sit back and enjoy while I spend the rest of the month of October writing about delicious vegan food.

I've written about food here before, and as is evidenced by my last post, my husband and I are vegetarians. We do, however, love vegan food and eat vegan at home about 95% of the time.
For today's topic, I am going to recommend a book to you all. Do yourself a favor and purchase Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton.

I'm writing this post coming off of a hummus high. This lovely book has an entire chapter dedicated to the stuff. Last night I made the Black Bean and Orange Hummus and the Peanut Sesame Hummus for my small group. Both were well received, but the Peanut Sesame was the real crowd winner.

I've tried a few other recipes in this book as well, and they have all been gems. The Chocolate Pumpkin Pie is the stuff of chocolate lover's dreams. Dreena writes recipes with her family's health in mind, so I always feel good about using her recipes. One caveat to this is that some of her recipes call for ingredients that must be purchased at the health food store. But that's only in some recipes. The rest are based on fresh veggies, whole grains and delicious legumes for yummy and cost effective meals.

See a sampling of recipes from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan here.

Jumble pasta, salad, yummy cookies

2008-09-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of tonights dinner:
Jumble pasta:

I started out by caramelizing some onions in olive oil and a dribble of maple syrup. Then I added a couple cloves of garlic, and some leftover sundried tomatoes that needed to be used up. After all of that softened, I tossed in the remains of a bag of frozen broccoli and some frozen navy beans. I poured in some white wine, sprinkled some italian seasoning, salt and pepper and cooked until everything was hot. Then I tossed in some sprouted wheat noodles fro Trader Joes and let it cook a few minutes longer. Topped with fresh grated parmesan and red pepper flakes. Very yummy use of leftover ingredients.

Served with a salad of spinach, onion, parmesan, capers and garden tomatoes.

For dessert, Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies from Vive Le Vegan by Dreena Burton.

This recipe is perfect. Supper quick to whip together and only made 9 cookies, perfect for Bill and I to share for a couple of days.

Two Week Meal Plan

2008-09-23T09:44:00.001-07:00

I usually try to stick to a budget when I go food shopping. However, for the past few weeks, need for convenience took over my need for frugality. I also recently purchased a carpet steamcleaner and some cool weather clothing for work. To balance this off, I have decided to do 2 really frugal weeks of meals. Yesterday I spent $37 at Trader Joe's, and I anticipate needing to buy more salad fixin's within the next 2 weeks, but that should still put me under $50 for 2 weeks worth of meals. The entirety of this menu probably costs more than $50, when I through in pantry staples and frozen things I already have on hand. These are just my dinner ideas. For breakfast I will probably have cereal or a smoothie. I also still have some breakfast bars I bought a few weeks ago to share at a retreat. Bill doesn't eat breakfast, but might have a smoothie if I hand one to him while he's on his way out the door in the morning. Lunch for us usually consists of leftovers from last night (or a pbj or hummus and pita), accompanied by fruit, maybe a small snack like pretzels or fruit leathers, and yogurt for Bill. Ok, without further adieu, here is my frugal 2 week dinner plan.

Tonight!: caramelized onions, broccoli and white beans sauteed with pasta, topped with fresh Parmesan, salad of spinach and (God willing) garden tomatoes.

Wednesday: going out to eat. Opps! this will go outside of the frugal plan, but we already made plans to go out with friends. We probably will not spend very much money though.

Thursday: on Thursdays, the lovely woman who hosts our small group cooks a big (vegetarian!) dinner for the entire group. It has been a huge blessing to be served a home cooked, vegetarian meal once a week.

Friday: soft tacos with refried pinto beans, soy chorizo, and vegan cheezy sauce, green salad

Saturday: one of Bryanna Clark Grogan' turkey roasts, brown gravy, sauteed green beans, and corn

Sunday: Leftover roast on homemade bread, green salad

Monday: 3 bean chili, homemade bread, green salad

Tuesday: chickpeas romesco, garlic bread, green salad

Wednesday: either ginger tofu soup, or potato soup

Thursday: small group dinner again!

Friday: veggie stir fry with frozen chicken style pieces, over brown rice

Saturday: spaghetti and bean balls, green salad

Sunday: cajun style red beans and rice

Of course, this is all subject to change. I just wanted to reassure myself that I could make it 2 more weeks without a big grocery shopping trip, using up what we already have on hand. I'll probably throw some desserts in there and some fancy weekend breakfasts. I'll also try to post pics, as well as recipes or recipe sources.

Also view your reading pleasure, here is my list of cheap pantry staples that I always have on hand, helping me to make cheap, mostly balanced vegetarian (usually vegan) meals:
-bulk grains (rice, quinoa, and pasta are standbys, with other less common grains making the occasional appearance).
-herbs and spices
-beans, dried and canned. dried beans can be made in large quantities in the crockpot with minimal effort, and frozen for later use
-canned tomatoes, in many varieties. Can be used in soup, chilli, pasta sauces, etc.
-bulk grains
-frozen veggies, which are often cheaper than fresh, but still retain most of the nutrients. this is especially helpful to me in cutting down waste. with only 2 of us, sometimes frsh veggies go bad before we get a chance to use them all up (we do still, however incorporate fresh veggies often).
-bulk olive oil. its much cheaper to buy quality oil in large quantities, and i go through it enough for that to make sense.

Most Popular Books on LibraryThing

2008-09-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

Here are the Top 100 Most Popular Books on LibraryThing. Bold what you've read, color what you own. Star what you liked. Star multiple times what you loved!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling (32,484) **

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling (29,939)**

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J.K. Rowling (28,728)**

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling (27,926) **

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling (27,643) **

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling (27,641) **

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (23,266)

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (21,325)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling (20,485) *

1984 by George Orwell (19,735) *

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (19,583)

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (19,082)**

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (17,586)**

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (16,210)**

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (15,483)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (14,566)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (14,449)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (13,946)

Life of Pi by Yann Martel (13,272) *

Animal Farm by George Orwell (13,091)

Angels & demons by Dan Brown (13,089)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (13,005)**

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (12,777)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (12,634)

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien (12,276)

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (12,147)

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (11,976)**

The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, Part 2) by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,512)

The Odyssey by Homer (11,483)*

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (11,392)

Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut (11,360) *

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (11,257)

The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, Part 3) by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,082)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (10,979) **

American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman (10,823)

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (10,603)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (10,537)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (10,435)

The Lovely Bones : a novel by Alice Sebold (10,125)

Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card (10,092)

The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman (9,827)

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman (9,745)Dune by Frank Herbert (9,671)

Emma by Jane Austen (9,610)

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (9,598)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (9,593)

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (9,433)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (9,413)

Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (9,343)

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (9,336)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (9,274)

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (9,246)

The Iliad by Homer (9,153)*

The Stranger by Albert Camus (9,084)

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (9,080)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (9,027)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (8,960)

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (8,904)

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (8,813)

The Little Prince by saintexupryantoinede - 75k - (8,764)

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (8,421)*

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (8,417)

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (8,368)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (8,255)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (8,214)*

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (8,191)

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (8,169)

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (8,129)

The Complete Works by William Shakespeare (8,096)

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (7,843)

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (7,834)

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (7,829)

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (7,808)*

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (7,807)

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (7,793)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (7,710)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (7,648)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (7,598)

The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk (7,569)

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (7,557)

The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman (7,534)

Atonement by Ian McEwan (7,530)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (7,512)

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (7,436)

Dracula by Bram Stoker (7,238)

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (7,153)

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (7,055) *

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (7,052)

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (7,043)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (6,933)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (6,901)

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (6,899)

Neuromancer by William Gibson (6,890)

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (6,868)

Persuasion by Jane Austen (6,862)

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (6,841)

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (6,794)

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (6,715)

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (6,708)

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (6,697)

Weekend Eats

2008-07-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

I dont have much today, so I am just going to post pictures of the food i cooked this weekend.

Chickpea cutlets (made with navy beans instead, adapted from Veganomicon) and sauteed cabbage with onions.

Soft pretzels (from Joy of Vegan Baking) with mustard and Warm and Cheezy White Bean Dip (from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan).

Blueberry pancakes

Oatmeal Cookies (from Joy of Vegan Baking).

Nachos. Healthier than they look.

Veggie Stir Fry over soba noodles

Summer

2008-07-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

This past several days have been extremely hot around here. The weekend was just unbearable! Our house, charming as it is, is not equipped with cental air. We have window air conditioners in the bedroom and in the dogs' room, but the rest of the house is without. I have no desire to turn on the even, or even heat anything on the stove top. I swear my crockpot even made it get hot in the kitchen! It seems to be cooler today, which is nice. Yesterday I think I broke a sweat just turning the pages in my book!

A few months ago, Bill and I decided to try our hands at gardening. We went to Lowe'snd purchased a few seed packets and a couple of cheap pots. We weren't sure if anything would happen, but sure enough green stuff started to sprout. Bill has really taken to gardening. He does pretty much all of the maintaining. We dont have much of a yard, so we just have some sunflowers and tomatoes planted in front of the porch, and several potted plants (most given to us by Bill's grandpa) lining the porch. The greenery is a little overwhelming.
The sunflowers have grown pretty tall, although not all of the flowers have blumed yet. One of them is taller than me, which I think is pretty cool. We planted 4 different varieties, but it seems only 2 have bloomed.
We don't really know anything about gardening, and we don't really have a ton of free time. I think our garden suffers a bit, but it's just neat to see that we were successful in having anything sprout at all. It wasnt too long ago that in place of the sunflowers there was just a bare patch of dirt where Bill has dug up all the grass.

We have a couple other flowers (none bloomed), as wells as some tomatoes and several thriving kinds of herbs. We did lose our cilantro though. I guess it was too delicate for our newly greened thumbs.
The tomatoes seem to be growing very slowly and a little behind schedule. I hope that they survive. I really cant wait to bite into the first one! It would be great some day to have a big yard and grow a lot of our own food. If we ever have the space, I would love to plant a ton of strawberries.

Life, it just keeps happening

2008-07-16T05:50:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start including photos in my posts, since i found a working camera in my husband's miscellaneous electronics box. I know that photos make blogs much more interesting. The photo you see here (courtesy of my cell phone, not the camera) is of one of our dogs. His name is Elliot and he is full of personality. He's a 3 year old mini dachshund, weighing in at about 11 lbs. I love this cutie.

Well, life has been a journey lately, that's for sure. There are a lot of new things happening all around, and while it's all been very exciting, it does wear a woman down to keep up with it all! I've been a Mrs. for 4 months now, and I am beginning to feel settled in to this new role. I still have so much to learn, and so does my husband, but in just 4 months, it's amazing how normal it feels now. There are some big changes happening at my job, and I've only been back with this company since May. I have also decided to start attending a different church, which has been more of a process than one might expect. I was at my previous church for almost 7 years, and so leaving it hasn't been exactly cut and dry. But I definitely felt the Lord moving me in another direction. There have been other changes and possibilities in my life too, but none concrete enough yet for me to talk about.

The big thing on my mind lately is finances. My husband and I decided before we were married to use this first year (and maybe the next) of our marriage to concentrate on eliminating debt. This means not buying a house, and not making any huge purchases. This means being more conscious of what we spend on groceries, making less trips out of town to visit our extended family, and keeping eating out to a minimum. This means keeping small purchases, well, small. and infrequent.

I have tried a few different budgeting tactics over the past few months, and think I have finally arrived at one that will work for us in the long term. Before Bill and I were married, we spent our money however we wanted to, living in the present. Now that we are married and have a direction and goals for our future together, our money need purpose. I tried a very strict budget and found it too difficult for us to keep, and found myself discouraged when we "failed". But what I have arrived are a couple of ideas that will work for us. The first is that, aside from bills and fueling our cars (cost that we can't really negotiate or change), will will only pay for purchases with cash. If I take out our allotted amount for groceries every week and put it in an envelope, I know that when the envelope is empty, I am done buying groceries. That makes me consider my purchases at the store just a little more carefully. When I was paying with my debit card, I didn't really fret about the possibility of going over the budget a couple of dollars. This new tactic should keep me on track. I have also decided to give Bill and I each a small allowance every week to spend at our leisure. If he wants to go out to lunch with his colleagues, fine, he can use his allowance. If we want to go on a date, great, we can use our allowance. If I want to get a new dress, fine. Just use my allowance, and maybe even have to delay my gratification by saving up my allowance to purchase it. This all might sound very primitive or elementary, but I think it will really work for us. I think it will allow us to have some fun without feeling guilty (unlike my old budget plan), but it will also keep us in check and make us think a little harder about how we spend our money.

Whew. That's all I've got for now. I am going to try to keep my posts more regular from now on. I think this is a good outlet for me.

What’s in a name?

2008-04-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

I have been a married woman for about 4 weeks now, and it has been quite the adventure. Even in a short time I can see that marriage is a huge blessing, but that there are also challenges that need to be worked through. Being very much newlyweds, the challenge at hand is quite simply getting used to being married. One component of that, for me at least, is getting used to being called a different name.
First of all, a gripe. I am not yet officially Mrs. Newlastname. I am legally still Mrs. Oldlastname. The legal process of changing your last name is not quick, nor easy. I have begun the process (delayed slightly due to the fact that government offices are only open during the hours that I have to be at work), but its not official yet.
Lagality aside, I have taken to calling myself Mrs. Newlastname. It is fun to hear friends refer to me as this new name. It is also fun to be referred to as Bill’s wife and ot refer to him in conversation as my husband. But I am still getting used to it.
Being called by a new name is so strange. The first obvious reason is that I have been Erica Oldlastname for 24 years. Another reason that is strange is that even though I am referring to myself with my new last name, I am still signing my old one on any official documents or anytime I am shopping and need to sign my receipts.
The other challenge is that my husbands last name is quite unique. My old last name is very common. While using my new last name, I am learning that I now have to spell it out every time I say it, and that people mispronounce it constantly. That is just completely different form my past experience.

So why go through all the trouble? Why even bother changing my name? I didn’t have to. And things would certainly be easier if I didn’t (I have a very long list of notifications I need to make once its official).
I chose to take my husbands last name because I feel that it unifies us. Logically, I know that we are husband and wife no matter what we are called. And I know that we are unified by more that words or names. But sharing the same names is very symbolic to sharing our lives. It symbolizes that we are a family now, and our family is called by one name. It also signifies that I have changed my life. I like the statement that it makes.

How to have a nice wedding for under $6000

2008-02-27T10:20:00.001-08:00

Yesterday over at Anna’s blog, she asked the ladies to give their input on wedding expenses. There were so many varied and interesting responses! I decided I wanted to put a little bit of our story on here, in hopes that it might help another couple someday.

I read on some wedding website that the average wedding in the United States costs about $24,000. That is approximately how much money I make at my job in a year (talk about perspective! No way am I going to spend a year’s salary on one day!). In the very beginning stages of our engagement, my fiancé and I decided we would set a budget for our wedding of $6000. I wasn’t even sure how we would come up with that much. But the first thing that had to happen is we had to get realistic with our expectations. I have been to a couple of very extravagant weddings. We had to know that that was not what we were going to have. I have also been to a few wedding that were done very inexpensively. These weddings were still beautiful, they were still fun, and at the end of the day, the couple was still married. If you want to do an inexpensive wedding, you have to adjust your expectations, and also realize that though your Wedding day will be a marvelous day, it will still only be one day, and you don’t want to spend the next couple of years (or a year’s salary) paying for one day.

Before I go into details, I want to preface this by saying that it is by the grace of God that we will have this wedding with pretty much no debt. One reason, which won’t work for every couple, is that my fiancé has been doing a lot of freelance work in addition to working his regular hours. The Lord really opened up a lot of doors for him to take on several projects over the past few months. Almost all of the wedding/honeymoon is getting paid for from his freelance jobs.

The company that my fiancé works for designed our wedding invitations and all other paper collateral. We only had to pay for the printing. This saved us so much money! We paid less than half of what couples normally pay for these things, and the invitations, etc were extremely unique and of high quality. They were fun and colorful and non-traditional, which fits our personalities pretty well.

We have also been blessed by a lot of talented friends. One friend is going to do our photos for free. He does photography as a hobby, not professionally, so we do not have to jump through all of the business hoops. He takes nice photos, and has experience doing weddings. Photography is often the largest cost of weddings, and we are having ours done (including the photo files) for free! We will have to have them printed though, but that is a much smaller cost. A different friend is going to shoot video for the wedding, which he is doing in exchange for my fiancé shooting video at a different occasion. With the help of my laptop, a friend is going to DJ the reception for us, with a PA system borrowed from a different friend. And as part of the ceremony, 2 other friends are going to sing and play guitar for us. We have a group of friends who will decorate the reception site and make sure things are running smoothly during the reception as well. All of our friends are doing these things as favors to us! When you are a planning a wedding, scout out the talent of your friends! By calling in favors from friends, we have been able to spend more money elsewhere.

We are having our wedding ceremony in the chapel at our church. We are paying a very small fee for this. If you are a member of a church, you can usually have your wedding there for free or for very cheap. Our church also has a lot of decorative items that they are letting us borrow. Perhaps your church does too. To save money, we decided to forgo costly flowers. The only flowers involved will be my bouquet, my bridesmaid’s bouquets, and boutonnières/ corsages for the groom, groomsman, parents and grandparents. All of the flowers will be fakes, which are cheaper than real, and means that I can keep my bouquet forever if I want to. We are going to use a lot of candles and ribbons to decorate the ceremony site instead, and it will all be very simple. Here is another great tip: see if any recently married friends have decorations just taking up space in their closets and basements that you can borrow. A good friend of mine is letting us use tons of candles, some ribbons, and an aisle runner. She also gave us all of her leftover bubbles for blowing after the ceremony. Think about it, after your wedding, what else are you going to do with all of those decorations?!

We are going to have our reception at a local community center. The one near our church actually has a lovely banquet room, just as nice as any fancy banquet hall. Definitely consider community centers when looking for an inexpensive reception site. Another option is to have the reception at your church if they allow that. Our church does, but because we are getting married the week before Easter, there are too many events going on at our church, so we are only able to use the chapel. To save money on cakes and decorations, we decided to order individual 8” round cakes for each table to serve as centerpieces. We are getting the cakes at Wal-Mart, and it works out to cost around $2/person for cakes. When I (briefly) shopped wedding cakes, the lowest cost I found was $4/ person. Our cake centerpieces are cheaper, doing double duty as dessert, and will be a nice unique touch that I think the guests will enjoy. We will also use confetti and candles to decorate the tables. We aren’t doing much else to decorate for the reception, because I don’t think it’s really very necessary, and I couldn’t come up with any other ideas that I liked.

The bulk of the money we are spending is on food. I read many books and websites about how to save money on food, and a couple great ideas are to have just a cake or punch reception, or to just serve light hor’ dourves. However, almost all of our guests will be driving from 2-3 hours away, and so we thought it only right to serve them a full meal. We are vegetarians, and are not going to be serving meat at our reception. This is a really good option to save money. I could not imagine how much it would cost to serve chicken to 180 people! Now I know many people turn their nose up to the idea of a vegetarian reception, but we are serving several styles of pasta, that are typically meatless anyway! People will not even miss the meat when they are eating fresh pesto pasta or spaghetti. This is an idea to consider if you are trying to save money. We also decided to serve the meal buffet style, so that we do not have to pay a wait staff. The pasta we are serving is quite delicious and I think that everyone will be very satisfied. The place that we are having our reception does not allow alcohol to be served. Our parents were very upset that we weren’t going to be able to serve alcohol, but it is actually a huge blessing that it is not allowed. For one, alcohol is very expensive! It definitely didn’t fit into our budget. Nor did hiring a bartender. And we also won’t have to worry about people drinking too much and trying to drive home.

One area that I saved a ton of money was on my dress. My dress was about $160. I did not buy a bridal gown, I instead bought a very lovely ivory evening gown that looks really beautiful on me. Some women may want to splurge a little more in this area. I preferred to splurge on the food instead, because the dress didn’t mean as much too me. I encourage bride to think outside of the box on this one. For one, a dress doesn’t have to be white. I honestly never wanted to wear a large white dress. I tried several dresses on at David bridal, and as I suspected, my short, high waisted, wide hipped, stature was significantly overwhelmed by the large, poufy white dresses. In my past dreamings of my wedding, I always dreamed of a small, more casual, less traditional wedding, in which I wore a pale pink gown. This dream didn’t match up with my fiancés dream however and we had to compromise a little bit in some areas. One was that he really wanted me to wear a white or ivory gown, and so I chose an ivory dress. I realize however that for many brides, the white dress is very important. Some good alternatives are to wear a white bridesmaid dress, a white prom dress, or a white or ivory evening gown instead. Hundreds of dollars can be saved in this way. Perhaps you could even borrow a dress. Maybe you could wear your mother or your sister’s dress. Some of the nicer secondhand shops in your town might also have bridal gowns in very good condition. Saving money is about being creative.

We also really lucked out on our honeymoon, although it is still going to be a little pricey. At some point I got my hands on a catalog for the Sandals resorts. These resorts are very expensive, and I didn’t think for even a second that we could afford it. But the idea of an all inclusive resort was really appealing to us. We searched around and couldn’t find anything we really liked. Then one day we went to the Sandals website and saw that they were having a 50% off sale! We couldn’t pass it up! It was only slightly more than we wanted to spend, but we think it would be well worth the little splurge.

My last tip is to beware of anything the with word “wedding” in the title. It means there has been an automatic mark-up in the price. One example is with our cakes. “Wedding” cakes are expensive, but the same amount of cake and frosting in any other form will cost significantly less. Here is one that really got me. I saw unity candle sets selling for around $30. These did not include candle stands/holder, just the 3 candles. That’s 2 tapers and 1 pillar candle. I will be getting my 2 tapers and 1 pillar candle at the dollar store for less than $5, thank you very much! Shop around, think outside of the box, do your research! You can also get a lot of wedding books and magazines at the library instead of buying them, and the internet has been an invaluable resource.

That about wraps it up for us. One thing that I want to note is that the $6000 we are spending on the wedding/reception/honeymoon does not include our rings. Those would add a good bit more to the total we have spent, but we have already paid for those in full as well. Rings do not have to be expensive though. It’s a good idea to shop around a lot.

On Cooking

2008-02-13T08:17:00.001-08:00

One of my greatest passions is for cooking. I love food. I love eating food, and preparing food, and food presentation as a form of art. I even love shopping for food, searching out new ingredients, learning how to select the best produce, filling my cart with new and exciting possibilities. For me, food is more than just a vehicle to get nutrients into my body. It’s one of my hobbies.

I did not always like to cook. Growing up, I never learned to cook, and also never learned appreciation for a home cooked meal. As a child and a teenager, I would much rather get fast food or frozen snacks. I started learning to cook when I was 19, but my eyes were really opened up to the world of food when I went vegetarian at age 21. I started reading websites and books about vegetarianism, and started leaning about vegetables I never knew existed. My family doesn’t eat many veggies, so I didn’t know much about them. Growing up, my grandma was out primary cook, and she does not like to season her food very much at all. She also hates garlic (tragedy!). I had no context for the vast array of flavors and spices out there! As I began experimenting with spices and vegetables and cooking techniques, my taste preferences changed dramatically. I always hated onions as a kid, but now I use them in everything! I now love veggies, and I also love ethnic dishes. I also learned how to bake from scratch instead of from a box, and there really is no other way! Muffins from scratch only take a couple minutes longer to whip up than muffins from a box, and use fresher and healthier ingredients than boxed mixes.

I am blessed to be marrying a man who has adventurous tastes! When we met he was not a vegetarian, but he had no reservations about trying tofu or bean burgers or anything else. He loves my cooking so much that he now eats almost exclusively vegetarian too. The only challenge is scaling meals down to fit just the 2 of us. I really do find it easier to cook for a crowd. This is part of the reason that I love having dinner guests and throwing parties.

I will probably talk about food a lot on this blog. I will probably include pictures from time to time. Right now I have a crappy camera, but hopefully we will be getting a new one soon. I also intend to do some product reviews and kitchen tips.

crazy times

2008-02-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

With my wedding just 33 days away (!!!), I have been super busy. I moved into our new place a couple weeks ago, and have been working hard to make it into a "home". This can be tricky at times, considering that DF will still need to move his stuff in as well. We want to gradually move his stuff in over the next 2 weeks, and after that, he will be staying with a friend for the last couple weeks before the wedding.

There are still so many small details to be worked out for our wedding day, it makes my brain spin. I wish I had more vacation days at work, but I am using them all for the honeymoon! Otherwise, it would be great to take a day or two off to really work the details out. Or just to catch my breath! It's clear to me that the honeymoon became a tradition because after all of that planning, the couple needs a vacation!

Anyway, I have a few good ideas that I plan to write about here in the future, but I just have not had time to wrap my head around them and get anything written that makes sense. Soon enough, life will settle down, and I can get into a better writting routine!

So this is the new year

2008-01-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

For me, there has never been anything very magical about the day we mark as the beginning of a new year. I don’t really remember ever making any resolutions, having always heard the jokes about how people cannot keep them. But 2007 ended up being a very chaotic year for me, and would like to take this time to symbolize a new beginning. So I’ve come up with some goals that I want to keep in my mind as I am living my life. I don’t want this to be a list of to-dos that looms over me, making me feel weighed down. Instead, I want it to be a list of ideas that may improve my daily life. So, here goes:

I want to be more consistent with my devotional times. Somehow several months ago, I got really off track and off schedule, and have since had irregular devotional times and not really had a focus in how I am studying the bible. I want to get back into the habit of making devotional time a high priority daily, and currently I am going to bring my focus back into doing Beth Moore’s bible study The Patriarchs.
I want to do a much better job at using time efficiently. A major part of this will be waking up at the same time every morning and having a morning routine. I have much more energy for things like cleaning the house and reading the bible in the morning, before the work day has drained me. So it would be wise for me to do these things in the morning. This also means going to bed at a decent time, so that I can be well-rested.
I want to read more books. I love reading, but do not do it often enough. After the chaos of the wedding and adjusting to married life, I am going to start my book club up again. I will also try to read more I my own. I feel like reading is a good way to keep your mind sharp
I want to pray more for my job. My job can be emotionally draining, and I am often frustrated by it or just worn down. I want to lift my work up to God daily, so that he might be glorified by how I spend my day.
I want to take the dogs for more walks. We are moving to a safer neighborhood than the one I live in now, so I will feel more comfortable taking the dogs for their walks in the early morning and at dusk.
I want to become an expert at spending less money. I want to be a better bargain shopper, and I want to put more consideration into the purchase I make.
I want to become a great wife.

So those are my goals. They are very attainable. I am interested in other people's goals as well.

Finding a new home

2007-12-28T11:29:00.000-08:00

With the wedding fast approaching (2 and 1/2 months to go!), my fiance and I beginning to get into the deeper details of planning the wedding, while also trying to find a place to live.

I have lived in this city for a little over 6 years, and have lived in 7 different spaces in that time. Needless to say, I am no stranger to moving. DF and I have done quite a bit of "scouting", trying to figure out what kinds of places are available and what features are most important to us. We are definitly going to be renting. We just are not ready to buy a house yet, and are not certain how much longer we want to live in Ohio. So rent we will.

The saying goes "home is where the heart is", and I thoroughly believe that. I am, however, excited about what will become the "space where our stuff is". I have been arranging our furniture in my head, and thinking about decorating schemes. Of course, I have also been examining the stuff in my apartment, and the stuff in my fiance's apartment to figure out what we need to keep and what we need to let go. We are hoping to be able to sell some stuff in order to help us pay for the hefty deposits that come from renting with pets.

Maybe this sounds superficial, but planning our space together has been a fun reminder that we are beginning our life together. Last night we bought an artifical Christmas tree (on clearance!), in preperation for our Christmases together to come. We were given a very nice television for Christmas, i think the first thing that has ever been "ours" and not mine or his. And my mother was generous enough to offer to purchase a new bed for us when we move into our new place. I am very excited about that, and even though I will be living in our new place for a couple weeks before the wedding, I don't want to sleep in our bed until after the wedding, when we are both there. We've looked at art, considering what to hang on our walls, figuring out how our tastes compliment each other. And over the past year, I've been slowing building my supply of nice kitchenware.

I know this kind of stuff isn't nearly as important as our faith, values, love, dreams and goals, which really hold our relationship together. But it's still so much fun! As a little girl, I loved playing house, and now it's becoming real. I've got the man of my dreams, 2 great dogs, and now we are forming our home together.