Continual State of Becoming

Despite all my claims of being a Purger and striving for a more minimalist lifestyle, I recently learned that I am guilty of both of the above. Hoarding and a collection. How did that happen, and why wasn't I aware of it until recently? Well, here's the story... When I was in high school and middle school I started saving all kinds of paper mementos, cards from friends, notes passed around in class, ticket stubs from movies, paper place mats from restaurants, etc. if it was paper and smallish, it was fair game for being saved. This habit continued on into college and beyond. I managed to keep all these trinkets in a series of shoe boxes stored at the top of our closet, so they really didn't look like clutter at all. And for the most part I had completely forgotten all about them until I cleaned out my closet a few weeks ago. When I came across all these boxes I initially thought "oh, here are my memories, I can't let go of this stuff." but then I realiz

So in honor of our Thanksgiving Day dinner at Pawtomack Farm this year, i was intending to write a blog post about some of the best meals Matt and I have had at various restaurants over the years.  While we were at dinner I asked Matt for his input on the list and it didn't take very long to realize that this post wasn't going to go the way I wanted it to.. Why not?  Well, i think the first 5 or 6 things we mentioned were all dishes we got from the same restaurant.  The restaurant--   Morimoto in Philadelphia.  For Food Network junkies, yes, that is Morimoto of Iron Chef fame.  I don't know what they do to their food, but it is exceptional.  Matt and i have been 3 times, and each time we've made the trip up to Phillie specifically for this restaurant.  That's how good it is.  I know I've blogged about some of the food before ( here ), so I won't rehash it again, but I will list our favorites real quick:  definitely the best thing I've ever eaten in my l

This year we are breaking from tradition.  Instead of spending the holiday with our extended family, we decided to do something, just the three of us.  Don't get me wrong, i love our big family thanksgivings.  I love cooking with my mom and sisters and chatting at the table with everyone.  But Matt, Dylan, and I haven't had a holiday dedicated to just the three of us yet, so we are carving out a little time to do just that this year.  I think it's going to be a great day.  Dylan and i just made chocolate chip pancakes with cranberry syrup for breakfast, which is as much cooking as i plan on doing today.  We're now just chilling out waiting for the parade to start.  In a little while we're all going to decorate some ceramic ornaments i picked up at Michaels for gifts this year.  Then Dylan will go down for a nap while Matt watches the football game and i do some reading.  And when Dylan wakes up we're heading to the Restaurant at Patowmack Farm in Lovettseville f

Ingredients: Leftover white rice A small pat of butter a teaspoon or two of curry powder half a teaspoon (or so) of low sodium soy sauce Directions: Add the pat of butter to a saute pan. Turn on to medium heat. As butter melts, add leftover rice. Break up rice with a wooden spoon. As rice warms sprinkle on curry powder. Cook for a few minutes, stirring rice occasionally, but not too often so you get some crispy rice spots. Just before turning off the heat, add a bit of soy sauce and stir. Pour into bowl, eat as lunch. This is my favorite leftovers recipe. I eat it all the time. I came up with the concoction while in high school. We grew up sprinkling curry powder or soy sauce on our white rice at dinner, so it seemed a natural combination to me, even though it probably isn't. I made it for Matt for the first time the other night and he said it was good, so I feel brave enough to share it with the rest of the world (or at least the 3 people who read my blog). I'm not

While going through a lot of our possessions lately, I'll occasionally come across something of value that we had forgotten about. For example, while cleaning out our closet, I found our fire extinguisher... still in the box and buried in the back of the hall closet, not really helpful in that condition. But I took it out of the box and put it in a more accessible location... something very valuable to have, should I ever catch the kitchen on fire. Next on the the list, a supplemental health care card that Matt had totally forgotten about, but which we need to spend very soon... prescription sunglasses are coming both our ways in the next few weeks. Another valuable item I came across are some books that I really like but had put away, mostly so Dylan wouldn't destroy them. These include my Agnes Martin books. Agnes Martin is my favorite artist. I was first introduced to her artwork while in a college English class. When I first saw her work I was really struck

On Saturday I had a bridal shower in the early afternoon. My morning was wide open though, so I decided to make the most of it and get started on cleaning out the hall closet and turning it into more of a hobby closet for us (arts and crafts, as well as games and wii stuff). I figured I'd start off by getting everything out of the closet in the morning, and then when I got home from the shower, I would have to put it all away... And then a mere 1 hour later, it was all done. All of it. I emptied out the closet, moved stuff that we wanted to keep to other parts of the house, emptied a bookshelf from the basement to move into the hall closet, reorganized all that was left and put it all back. For some reason, i had it in my head that this process could take a few days, and it only took an hour! So with that great success behind me, I decided to spend a little extra time getting ready for my shower by curling the ends of my hair to look a little extra special. :). Oh and Dylan

I just cleaned out the kitchen for the fourth time this year (third in less than a month.). I'm down to a few pots, a few pans, and only the mixing and tupperware type items that are used on a regular basis. It's nice to have so much space in my drawers and cabinets, especially since i have no plan on filling them up with anything else. The only thing I feel a need to aquire in the future is a cake pedestal. I actually have needed to use one quite a few times in the past year, but I just dont know if I want to buy more kitchen stuff right now. Perhaps I'll try to make space for it before I get one. But I had to stop myself today when I got a strong urge to ditch the microwave. Even as I type this I keep telling myself that I could get by without it. That may be true, but I think Dylan and Matt would have a different opinion. I don't want to take this too far, the idea behind this decluttering craze is to make our lives simpler by only having that which we need,

Several years ago, 2005 to be exact, I started this blog.  I had recently graduated from college, was starting my teaching career, had gotten married, moved out of my parent's home (for good).  It was at a time when I felt like my adult life was really beginning.  I was figuring out the working world, running a business, being a wife, taking care of a household, and attempting to stay in touch with the academic world that I loved so much.  So I started blogging about it.  When I first opened my blogger account I had to come up with a title for my blog...  I haven't ever changed it, it has always been "Continual State of Becoming." I took the name from a passage in the Aaron Copland book I was reading at the time "Music and Imagination." This is a very loose adaptation of what he was saying, but basically he talked about how music is a very transient thing...  You listen to it in a moment of time and you can't take in the whole work at once (like you can

I already mentioned that Matt and Dylan got me an iPad for my birthday this year. I was really surprised by this, since I had been telling Matt that i didn't think I wanted one. And I even thought about returning it for a split second, but considering how crappy my little net book was, I decided to keep the iPad in hopes that it would at least be better than that (we have since sold the net book). I knew that it was a cute little gadget, but I never really expected it to be as amazing as it is. In fact I feel like it was the catalyst to some major changes I've been making lately. First of all, i have completely organized my life on my iPad. I got this AMAZING app called Things that is basically a sophisticated version of my old notebook To-Do list. I can schedule things for certain days and they will appear when they are due (or a few days before if I need a reminder ahead of time). I can organize my lists into projects, keep track of a variety of areas tha