who is bacher?

A few posts ago I was angst-ing about my married name...but having (1) had a primary relative put my maiden name on a gift certificate and (2) having been greatly irritated by it has made me feel a bit more connected to my name. So that's good, right? :-) It has been over a year, after all.

I love you!

Katie Scovell

An old friend of mine from high school.

Katie Scovell. Hailing from a family of musicians, she is of the most talented people I've ever met and I'm so glad to see she's making music and sharing it with the world. Check her out!Right now!

Who are you?

Time for another poll, guys. What makes up your identity? How do you define yourself? Are there parts of your life that your reject as present in your identity? Parts you consider essential that only exhibit minimal influence? Parts that don't exist but you wish did?

or:

5 words to describe yourself. go!

Just an okay day

Today was an okay day. Woke up, drank weak coffee made with my broken french press (i.e. pouring loose coffee through the wrong end of a french press filter directly into my mug). Watered my sister in law's plant that did not take a trip across the state well. Logged onto facebook for the first time in months. Let my husband feel me up before work. Contemplated calling in sick to enjoy said feeling-up. Went to work instead. Got a bunch of shit done. (Despite feeling lousy. I'm looking at you, shiraz.) Got a cookie jar from my secret santa that is adorable. Skimped on the $3.00 donation for the taco bar (only gave $2.00. fuck, I donated extra last time. And yes, I'm copping attitude at a charity potluck). Appreciated my new boss for a few minutes when she made me laugh. Wrote yet another letter I know will be ignored to some fuck who bounced a check. Ate a christmas cookie. Stole some tortillas from work (not really stealing, but everyone acts like potluck leftovers are beneath them, so I take things home in stealth). Was grateful that not snowing today = not shoveling today. Acknowledged that my carnival squash is rotting, but neglected to throw it out. Wondered how long it will sit on the table before it starts to smell. Wrote some kind of stream-of-consciousness prose in my blog but was careful to tend to grammar and punctuation, as is my compulsion. Except for the sentence fragments. I happen to be fond of them. And as Lindsay likes to say: Bacher out.

Who the fuck is Bacher? Seriously. That's not my name. It's just what I go by now because I'm married.

Yearning.

I'm having one of my yearnings. I miss the Twin Cities. Every so often I get like this. I half-heartedly try to convince Erich to move out there and try to think about what it'd be like if I went back to school or even just got a job there doing something similar to what I am now. Only it'd be there instead of here.

It's funny. I have this job that I'm fairly good at. At least I hit the ground running in this new position. I'll probably become better at it in the next year. I take pride in it, but I have somehow managed to mentally compartmentalize it into simply something I'm doing right now. I mentally commit each day, but somehow, it still feels like I'm just filling in until I figure out what I'm really going to do. Even though I could also see myself working for this company for many many years. I suppose I probably will. We have a mutually respectful relationship, I'm treated well, valued, and I work hard to do a good job. Most people only dream of a job like that.

But there's still always that something.

On the other hand, I couldn't ask for a better situation for when I want to have kids. I know that I can go back full or part-time without a problem. I know that my superiors genuinely care about me, not just what I can do for them. And there aren't any stairs (stairs fuck with my knees). I know, I'm an old lady.

I think it's time for a visit.

My favorite kind of sunday

Today was one of my favorite kind of sundays, mostly. After waking up around 8:30 we threw on some clothes (sans shower) and ran to target to get some christmas shopping done. We did pretty well, despite my grumpiness at shopping without an adequate supply of coffee. After making a pretty good haul we got some groceries and then headed home. The rest of the afternoon was spent wrapping presents, baking cookies (ginger snaps! yum!), and drinking wine. I couldn't convince Erich to go to yoga and I couldn't convince myself to leave such a cozy living room, so here we stayed. My favorite presents this year were a dinosaur for baby Ethan and two little dino finger puppets I couldn't resist for our tree. And the charmed finger puppets:
I would like to admit right here and now that Erich was trying to pick out some very dignified, classy white christmas bulbs to decorate our little tree when I discovered the baby dinosaurs. I take full responsibility for their places on our tree.

However, Erich shares responsibiility for these:

Scrubbing Bubbles!

What's inside?

Geek Trivia!

Keep your fucking hands of my Nobel Prize, Hitler.

Brilliance won for once, if only in a small thing. Read it!

Poached eggs

I wanted some eggs today, but I was sick of fried eggs and wanted something warm, so hardboiling was out. I decided it was time to try poaching! It was delicious!

Here's what you need:

eggs
large pot water
vinegar (We didn't have white vinegar on hand, but brown rice vinegar worked just fine.)
pinch of salt
large slotted spoon
small soup or other small bowl

1.) Fill a large pot of water 2/3 full, and bring to a boil.

2.) Arrange all your items the counter near your pot of water. Crack an egg into the small bowl. Be careful not to break the yolk.

3.) Once your water has reached boiling, add a pinch of salt and a drizzle of vinegar. (Maybe 1-2 tbsp.)

4.) Turn your heat down so the boiling slows. You want your water just below boiling.

5.) With your spoon, stir the water along the edge of the pot until you have a good swirling vortex. Be sure the water isn't boiling-if it is just turn it down a bit more.

6.) Carefully pour your egg into the center of the pot- the swirling vortex helps keep the egg white in one piece. It may look funny at first but let it be. Cook for ~ 2 minutes and then gently scoop out with slotted spoon.

7.) Shake gently to remove excess water. If your slots are completely covered with egg (this happened to me!) gently blot with a paper towl.

Serve immediately on wheat toast with a pat of butter! We addded grilled portabella mushrooms, avocado slices and some shredded Parmesan cheese to ours. I apologize for the lack of pictures-they disappeared too fast!

Don't be discouraged if the first few attempts end up a big shredded mess in your water. Just scoop out the offending egg, discard, and try again. It'll be worth it. :-)

Other tips:

* I used a metal tea filter to scoop up stray strands of egg whites in the water in between eggs. They don't hurt anything, but it's nice to be able to see how your egg is doing.

*Also feel free to cook the egg a bit longer if you are concerned about the runny egg yolks- it may make the egg a bit tougher but I couldn't tell the difference when I did. I even put one of the eggs back in the water when the whites didn't look quite done, despite having been over 2 minutes.

*Be sure to have any other food prepared before starting the eggs so you can give them your full attention. (I put my husband to work.) Watch the water and adjust the heat incrementally as needed to either keep the temp up (just below boiling) or to settle some sneaky bubbles.

Finally, if these directions aren't working for you, you can also do what I did- just google it and look for a video demonstration. There are plenty out there.

Good luck! Enjoy!

Right now...

I thought I'd take a page out of Soule Mama this morning. Right now, I am...


drinking my coffee and remembering I need to buy some more milk


appreciating that the furnace kicked on, because my feet are cold


looking at my very messy kitchen and laughing at it


thinking about work


wondering how I'm going to finish everything I need to today


remembering that I had a dream about work last night...never a good sign!


cheering (silently) because it's friday!


planning when I should start my vermi-composter (Erich finally agreed to it! Yay!)


and


listening to Erich snore

Product Review: New Glarus Fat Squirrel

Product Review: Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle

Copping Out!

Product Reviews!

I've started doing some product reviews! Just because...I like talking about food and whatnot. So we'll see how this goes. Let me know if you have a product you think I should try!

My rating factors: (And keep in mind this is developing as we go):

taste
quality of ingredients
locality (where is it made?)
cost
Overall happiness factor

I realize the first couple don't address all these, I'm working on developing something more consistent. Give me some suggestions!

Calling for all suggestions!

How do you get yourself hepped up for the day? Drink a boatload of coffee? Positive self-talk? Tape happy sayings to your mirror? Go in early to get done early? Chain smoke?

I'm at an interesting place right now career-wise. I have a decent job that I neither love nor hate with a good company I'm glad to work for. Lately I've been getting up an hour earlier than necessary to have some time to drink coffee and browse the web and get myself otherwise awake. I can't seem to get myself enthused, though. Not the end of the world, but it would help if I were.

So, I can't complain. But I am curious to know what you guys do in the morning, if anything.

And now I'm off. Have a great day everyone!

Day 3

Alright, yesterday was a bust. We ended up having roast for dinner and popcorn and cookies and all kinds of S.A.D. food, but it was delicious! Back on the wagon today- have no idea what I'm going to do for lunch, I may just come home and make myself another smoothie...we'll see. The bananas are ripening but only about halfway where they need to be to eat.

Erich called me a bad name when he saw yesterday's video. Haha! :-P

Adventures in Babysitting

We had our adorable cousins over for the night last weekend. It was a blast! 3 kids in all, a baby (the boy) and the girls (age 4 and 6). We made pizza, drew pictures, played games, made mini snowmen (because the snow was not pack-y) and even went to church and perkins.
And my absolute favorite:

Day 2

Breakfast: green smoothie (1 orange, 1 nana, 1 large handful spinach)

Lunch: apple, orange, carrots, green beans, almonds, walnuts, cashews

snack: granola bar and papaya juice (not raw, yes, I was hungry and needed more food than I'd brought to work. this isn't about starving, after all)

dinner: 2 beers, shit ton of cashews, and who knows what else. Waiting for E to get home so we can go to a lil' christmas party.

So, nothing is ripe. I put some horribly green bananas in a brown paper bag with an apple that I cut into (the apple hormones are supposed to help speed ripening) and I did see a noticeable difference today. However, it will still be several days before these are edible so I may have to buy more or have a super apple smoothie tomorrow.

Have a mango and some avocados too that I'm waiting on. And the whole time I feel guilty about not being satisfied with local goods. (potatoes, onion, carrots, oh my!). That's ok. Globalization continues whether or not I buy a few foreign fruits this week or not, right?

I did make some bitchin' pasties last week, if I do say so myself. Mmm, flaked butter and flour. Why did I start this again?
Oh how I miss thee. I'm not very good at this, am I? :)

Hey guys,

Erich and I have started to post some videos to you-tube that we're going to link back here. To start, I convinced Erich to do a 1 week raw vegan challenge with me. We'll be blogging about some of the recipes and whatnot. Erich's only doing dinners and I'm going to attempt 100% for the week. (I can already see I'm not going to succeed but hey, 80 or 90% is still not bad!)