Today is the youngest you will ever be; Introducing 365.

“Today is the youngest you will ever be” used to be my mantra. I would use it to motivate me to get out, see the world, express myself, live life. Now it just sounds depressing. This is the youngest I will be? Today? When I take the elevator and skip the stairs and huff and puff up a pretty small huge hill everyday? Then what will it be like five years from now? What about ten years?

I make excuses. I start a million projects and only complete five. It used to be adorable but now it sort of gets in the way of being an adult. Especially when your house is the size of your pinky toe and bringing home all the materials to make your own pottery, because hey, you just might one day, coupled with that decision to build a shelf right in the middle of your bedroom, just no longer seems to fit. Shit is starting to get real and I need to rise to the challenge.
What if I figured out a way to take excuses away? What if I could do something that turned the years back instead of forward? What if I could actually finish one damn thing that I start?
Then an idea started to form. I have to admit I had exercise, in the form of running, on the brain as I was only a week away from my third half marathon. I thought, could I just train for another race?Another schedule tapped on the fridge? Another set of expectations I will most likely not live up to?

No. NO MORE EXCUSES. That’s when I thought of doing a 365 day program. 365 days to turn 360 degrees and move towards a healthier me instead of a 365 day older me. A way to erase excuses and hold myself to a new standard. I would run every day, rain or shine, for 365 consecutive days.
Doing this would turn something that has become a chore into a habit. Then I thought through it. Would I run when on vacation? Yes. What about the day of my brother’s weeding? I’ll get up early. What about when I’m sick? I’ll only run a mile. I’ve chosen a start date: March 30. I will blog about it to keep myself accountable and sane. Welcome to the 365 Project!

2011 Can Bite Me

There are a lot of reasons that bloggers close their computers and disappear for a while. A move. A big life change. Apathy. All of these things happened to me. Not that I was a barrel of sunshine and happiness in the first few months of 2011, but after my holding pattern came to an end and I was preparing to move and start a new job 2011 actually got worse. A couple weeks after moving I went through a major family tragedy. My beloved grandmother died after a long struggle with heart failure. I had taken care of her for the past ten years and with her passing my life shifted in a major way. During this time my entire family leaned on me for support and I found myself withdrawing from certain things, like this project and my husband and eating well and brushing my hair and wearing pants when I didn't need to.

Baby Girl and I  (her Godmother) at her baptism

I won't dwell, although I'm sure it will come up in the future. I started hating 2011. This year brought me unemployment, death, and near death of loved ones, funerals, and financial strain. I tried to focus on the one great thing from 2011, my niece (Baby Girl,) who I started to call our angel and our blessing. She was born two weeks before the roller coaster started going up and down and holding on to her during a lot of the darker times made life seem worth it all. (Yes, this is a pretty heavy post for a welcome back!)

I would sit with my computer open searching for way to update this community or to fake happiness and blog about cooking (which I had stopped doing) or activities (which I had also stopped doing.) But I couldn't quite bring myself to do it and I explained before, once you stop something it is harder each day to pick it back up again.

Now for the light at the end of the tunnel! 2011 ended. It was a very symbolic New Years Eve for me. I jumped into the shower at 11:50pm on the last day of 2011 and stepped out into 2012, clean and ready to turn it all around. My grief had attributed to an extra 30 pounds on my short frame and I was determined to take care of that. The Professor and I signed up for a half marathon. We trained hard each week. I started cooking again, and cooking healthy. I unpacked our apartment (something I had avoided due to having to clean out my Grandmother's home and constantly finding her letters among my things.) We started actually exploring our new city. I adopted a puppy, Lil' Bit. My marriage became stronger. I was ready to hit the ground running.

Hello. Is it me you're looking for?

Long time, no blog. And I mean looooooong time. After a few weeks had turned into a few months it became harder and harder to explain my absence from this great community and return. Isn't that how it is with everything? Getting back on the wagon can be hard even for the most un-chore-like activities, like keeping connected with all of you!

There are lots of updates to be updating, and I'll get to all that in due time. Now that I'm back, there will be a facelift to this project, so expect some new and exciting things as well as a new look to the blog. As Little Miss Can't Be Wrong from HIMYF recently told me, I'm not in a holding pattern any longer! We have thrown ourselves fully into our new city, Washington, DC.

I can't wait to say hello to old friends and meet some new ones as well!

Cooking a Whole Chicken

I've been threatening to blog about our whole-chicken cooking experience for quite some time. But there never seemed to be enough hours in each day. And although this week is a stressful one (read: we are moving MONDAY) I seem to not care as much about my work anymore as I only have three days left. Therefore I bring you: Cooking a Whole Chicken.

Back in March, Jaime at Fried Pink Tomato posted that Earthfare, a Whole-Foods-type local grocery, was giving out free dinner coupons for a whole chicken. If I like anything more than entertaining myself through learning how to cook (i.e. a whole freaking chicken) it's when materials for such activities are free. All one had to do was print out the coupon and spend $10 in the store. And that was not hard to do.

After work we explored Earthfare and found our coupon items: one whole chicken, one side of rustic mashed potatoes, and one bag of baby carrots. After our lovely 1.5 hour commute, we were ready to attempt to cook a whole chicken.

Having never cooked a whole chicken before (in my mind beer-can-chicken made in a frat kitchen in college and one made 1845-style over an open fire for a museum experiment somehow do not count) I googled and consulted with two websites: No Fear Entertaining and Lubbock Online. I decided to use a dutch oven, rustic-style. Meaning: I have no idea what I was doing. After reading both websites carefully, I combined the instructions as many of their points were contradictory. I did not rinse the chicken, as I've heard the splashing water will spray disease-ridden-chicken-juices everywhere. I did pat it dry, and season it with minced garlic and butter.

The Professor's job was simple. Put your hand up its butt and retrieved whatever ye may find. He did thus. Then we stuffed the poor, assaulted chicken with garlic and lemons. Following the Lubbock instructions, sort of, I cut up onions, potatoes, and turnips. I placed some oil and the onions in the dutch oven and cooked over the stove, adding the chicken, turning it and browning it a touch. Removing the chicken, I added all the veggies (save the carrots) to the dutch oven and placed the chicken on top. This way it won't stick to the bottom of the dutch oven.

Then came the fun part. I had to decide which way to cook the chicken and for how long. One website states breast up, another breast down (legs tucked under.) I started with the later, as this is how I'd been instructed by women far more competent than I in the past. Without really clear instructions as to cooking times and temperatures (more disagreement) I decided on 275-300 degrees until the internal temperature of the chicken reached 175-185. Half way though I added the carrots. This seemed to take hours, but the result was amazingly juicy and delicious. Also I got to stick a large wooden spoon up its butt every half hour to turn it, which enhanced the experience greatly.

Pulled out of the oven to be flipped over spoon-in-butt-style once more.

Let me tell you what it's like to marry and live with an animal bone specialist. It makes any meal involving bones into an educational experience. Asking The Professor to please cut the chicken, I did not realize what I was getting myself in to. I should have remembered he sits in a lab all day studying ancient versions of these same bones. As he cut opened the chicken and carved pieces for our dinner he remarked on this bone, and that bone, and butcher marks, ect. I smiled and added flour to the dutch oven (after removing all the veggies) to thicken it for gravy. All in all a very fun, educational, and successful cooking of a whole chicken.

The finished product.

Making gravy.

Finally time to eat!

Trees

Reading Sundresses and Smiles today, I saw a new opportunity of linking up and sharing photos. Two of my favorite things! Outside Voice is starting a photo-link each month with a different theme. Currently, the theme is trees, so please enjoy my attempt to find some of my tree photographs while technically at work.

While possibly not the more traditional tree photograph, this is one of my favorites, of a tree and of my time spent in London.

Here is your more traditional tree photograph. Taken on a rainy day on the island of Skye in Scotland.

From a botanical gardens in Northern England, I believe this was a fairy statue's foot gracing the gardens.

Finally, The Defunct Curator, complete with awkwardly-painted paintbrush mask (there is no photoshop here at work!) climbing a tree with the spires of Oxford in the background.

Let's Talk About My Hat

Lately there has been a lot of chat concerning hats, and for good reason. There has been a royal British wedding and then came the Kentucky Derby. Hats are everywhere. I'm glad. I've been saying for a while we should bring hats back into fashion in this country. Maybe I say this because I look awesome in hats and I wish to accomplish my own selfish goals of wearing more hats? Maybe.

I inherited a large collection of vintage hats, which I grew up wearing and still wear to this day. Only when I moved to England did I start appreciating contemporary hats and all they have to offer. They are, in their own right, throw-backs with a modern twist. And naturally I bought too many.

One such lovely is depicted above, on yours truly. I stumbled across it while perusing M&S and had to have it. Unfortunately it was very close timing to our big cross-Atlantic move and I was a bit worried about how it would emigrate to America. But, like always, I ignored these worries and bought the hat, enjoying it (and a pimms!) on the one remaining day of sun in Britain that I can remember.

Far too soon my new hat was boxed up, with the best of care, and shipped to New York to live in said box for a couple months until we could be reunited. And it felt good.

Another fantastic hat

However when packing for the 7 month temporary move to rural Georgia, I did not pack the hat. We would only be there a couple months. I would find a job in no time. Then the hat would be moved to our new location. It was coming up on winter anyway. All of these reasons failed me when, in early March, it became very warm in Georgia and for this northerner, very very sunny. I missed my hat. But, I was convinced I would soon be employed.

Very similar to my lovely British hat

 I then gave in and cheated on my hat. It had been months and no job. It was sunny. I was in San Antonio, it was 95 degrees of Texas heat and I needed a hat. Luckily I was in Texas where the hat still reigns and found a fantastic sun hat (photos to come). I thought surely my job search is hopeless and I will be lucky if I ever see my British hat again. While my new hat was a comfort, it was not my long lost colorful English hat and when the opportunity came last weekend for my mother to bring me some clothing to my sister's baby shower, I jumped on the opportunity to have the hat back in my life. This of course meant my mother had to wear my floppy love on the plane. The images in my mind from this adventure were just an added bonus.

So hat and head are reunited once again, hopefully never to part.

Punting at Oxford

Punting instructions

The Professor and The Defunct Curator enjoying an afternoon of punting-watching in Oxford.

Speaking of hats... Since our trip to Oxford last summer I've been in search of a woman's Oxford punting hat. It's similar to the man's hat but with a more feminine ribbon. While watching the punters (we did not ourselves punt) I fell, once again, in love with these straw, historic hats. Are you in search of a new summer hat?

Man's punting hat

Let's Talk About My Bag

There is a lot of excitement and news and moving and packing and things to tell. But for just one moment, let's talk about my bag. My new bag. My beautiful handbag given to me by my sister, The HPP, over the weekend as a thank you.

While two people technically hosted this shower, myself and my sister's sister-in-law (say that ten times fast) one was really in name only, and that was not me. It appears my sister noticed this unbalanced hosting and provided me with an extra thank you gift. I was completely shocked, as well as happy she did so in private.

The Love of Sisters

Before revealing my beautiful bag, back-stories are necessary. I have yet to discuss Easter and the fabulous time The Professor and I had with the beautiful, 8-month pregnant HPP and her husband. During this time we went into small town Georgia (and when I say small town, I sincerely mean it is a village) and ducked into a cute shop featuring many, many Vera Bradley items.

Java Blue

 Up until last year I was not so much a Miss Bradley fan. However, my mother-in-law gave me the large duffel in Java Blue. I fell in love with Java Blue and received many more items at my three, (yes, count 'em) three bridal showers. So when we came across the Vera Bradley collections I did not turn away as in the past. And I fell in love, as many do I'm sure, with a new bag. I swooned and I'm awwww'ed and I sadly explained that we simply could not afford for me to frivolously purchase this bag, even though it was me personified into a handbag (don't judge.) So I walked away.

Fast forward to that evening when my sister put a plan in place. She called my mother-in-law and asked her the name of the store. Not knowing, my mother-in-law then drove to the shop and picked up a business card, telling my sister this info. The HPP then called the proprietor of said shop, described to her where this bag was (picture this, she had the woman stand at the front of the shop by the doors and told her about how many paces to go in which direction!) and send it to her, so she could wrap it and give it to me as a gift. What a fantastic sister this blessed little Defunct Curator has!

I opened it and could not believe it, there was the Boardwalk Handheld in the Sittin' in a Tree pattern! The photos do not do it justice. It glimmers and displays love birds, one of my FAVORITE design elements in anything. The silver pattern is taken from the original Sittin' in a Tree:

I'll admit, this pattern in its original colors is also quite amazing. Upon further searching I found this tea for two set, and MUST.HAVE.IT.

Unfortunately, I'm on a bit of a spending freeze until we get settled in D.C. But then, this beauty shall be mine!