Announcement (but not a baby announcement)

So many blog post ideas have come into my brain and then gone out of it again that my brain is starting to feel like airport security. Only my brain is not as effective as airport security because the ideas seem to be coming and going pretty freely.

Mark and I have wanted to move back up to the Twin Cities in Minnesota for a little over a year now. The reason we’ve been so slow to actually make the move, however, is that we only kind of wanted to move. Every time we found ourselves on the verge of making the decision to move back, something would stop us. Friends. A job that I love. An impending and potentially financially stressful mission trip. A church we were excited about being involved in, where we felt that we were seeing God at work in cool ways.

But last August, kind of on a whim (but with Mark’s knowledge and blessing), I applied for a program called Teach For America. If you look at their website for about a minute, you’ll see what they’re all about: giving all children, no matter their socioeconomic background, a good education.

Teach For America (TFA) recruits members (they call them ‘corps members’) and then place the people they recruit in struggling schools around the U.S. The people they place do not need to have teaching licenses at the start of their two-year commitment to TFA but will take classes throughout the two years to get licensed. TFA also provides tons of training and resources before corps members are placed in schools and once they start teaching to help corps members succeed as teachers.

It’s a pretty sweet deal. It’s a sweet deal for the corps members because they get their teaching license and experience at the same time, so they don’t face the same dilemma that recent graduates with a teaching license face. TFA also has a very good reputation, so to be able to put TFA on a resume is pretty nice. It’s also a sweet deal for TFA. Because their reputation is so good and their corps member benefits are so good, they attract a huge crowd of applicants and then they’re free to pick and choose the cream of the crop. It’s a sweet deal for the kids in the schools too. The corps members chosen by TFA are all very driven to see their students excel in school and beat all of the horrible odds that are stacked against them because of the social injustices of our country.

Anyway, you can probably guess where I’m going with this—much to my surprise, when I applied for TFA, I was invited back for a phone interview. I was further surprised to be invited back to a final interview. And I was completely and utterly flabbergasted (how do you like that for a word?) to be offered a position with TFA in the Twin Cities teaching ESL in an elementary classroom starting this fall.

I got this news on January 7, and the next few days were full of conversation and speculation between me and Mark as to what TFA would mean for us, if I were to accept their offer. We came up with a number of effects, both positive and negative, TFA would have on us and our future plans:

1) We would have a good reason to move up to the Twin Cities where

     a. we would be closer to family (see our motivation here)

     b. Mark would hopefully have more opportunities to advance a career in music

     c. we would be closer to college friends

     d. we would be able to cross-country ski in the winter instead of being blown to death by icy gale-force winds

2) I would get my teaching license and be able to teach in a school, which is something I’ve wanted to do pretty much since I graduated from college (yeah, I know, obviously I didn’t think through my college education very clearly when I started).

3) One of our dreams has been to live in the city and minister to the people we by – TFA recommends that you live where your students live and get to know them and their families outside of school. In this case, TFA’s desires were directly in line with desire of our own.

4) I will most likely receive a $4,500 education grant both years that I am a TFA corps member. Since I’ll have to be taking classes to get my teaching license, these grants will probably not help with current loans, but they will also probably prevent us from incurring further education debt.

5) I will be very busy. TFA doesn’t hide the fact that the two years as a TFA corps member are very busy. TFA expects you to give your all to the students you serve. My personality is that of a perfectionist (sigh—not always a good thing for me), so it will be easy for me to fall into giving too much to teaching and too little to Mark. And the other people I love.

6) Because of the reason above and because we’re leaning toward domestic adoption, we will probably not be able to start an adoption until my two years are almost up. That does make me kind of sad. I’ve had my heart set on parenting for two years already and now it will be another two years before we have even the possibility of starting our family. Ouch. Ouchouchouch.

7) However, both Mark and I acknowledge that at the end of my two years with TFA, we will be more financially stable than we are right now. I will have my teaching license and a few years of experience. Mark will hopefully have been able to begin his career in music recording and production. And we will have our school loans almost all paid off, or maybe completely paid off. In my mind, that would be a much healthier environment to start an adoption anyway.

So, all things considered, we came to agreement, and I accepted the position with TFA. I’m so excited about teaching ESL and about moving back up to the Twin Cities.

BUT.

In order for me to participate in all that TFA offers, like teach, I need to take and pass the MTLE tests, the Minnesota Teacher Licensure Examinations. These are tests that those aspiring to teach in Minnesota usually take after having taken certain courses in university. TFA apparently has such a high opinion of its corps members that they assume corps members will be able to study for and pass the exams without having taken the classes.

Usually they’re right, it looks like, with I think around 80-90% of corps members passing the tests on the first try. But that doesn’t assure me, and that’s the reason I was crying over oatmeal on Saturday morning. And that’s the reason I haven’t written any blog posts in the last two weeks. I’ve been tracking down study materials and studying.

I’m sure you’ve all read enough of my blather for one day, so I won’t force you endure descriptions of the tests I need to take or the measures I’m going to studying for them. Maybe another day, but not today.

Suffice it to say, if I can pass these exams in a month, then big changes are coming for me and Mark!

Crying Over Oatmeal

A real honest-to-goodness post will be coming soon. I have not disappeared! But it has just been a crazy and busy last two weeks. And apparently my emotions have not withstood the craziness all that well because I found myself crying over oatmeal this morning. Yes, crying over oatmeal. Because I don't like it but we wanted to use up some steel cut oats in the pantry, and for goodness sake, it's healthy. I should love it! But both Mark and I realized that we probably need to take a chill pill for the craziness tonight in the form of some fun strategy games.

And I promise, when we've got a better hold on the busyness and I'm no longer crying over oatmeal, I will write an informative, worthwhile blog.

Reading Goals for 2013

I read a lot. It’s really my favorite hobby. I know I fit the stereotypical librarian mold, and I’m okay with that. When my hair was longer, I even put it up in a bun sometimes.

I’m still working on my goals for 2013 (which I was share with you sometime soon), but one of the goals I’ve decided on I’m going to share now. I decided that with as much as I read, I should really be more intentional about consuming a well-balanced diet of literature. The most fun genre for me is really young adult literature and what our library calls ‘junior’ literature. Junior literature is chapter books for kids ages 9-12. It’s stuff like Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Matilda by Roald Dahl and The Boxcar Children series and Harry Potter.

Anyway, so I like a lot of young adult and junior literature. I have so many books on my list that are adult literature or nonfiction, and I get to them so slowly. Plus, I’ve been trying to read all the books on our bookshelves at home for the past, oh, year and a half, and I’ve only been sort of disciplined about it.

I normally read about 50-75 books per year, so I set myself a list of 24. I figured that gave me plenty of wiggle room so I wouldn’t feel stifled by goals. Most of these are books that are on my shelves at home but a few are just books I’ve run across in the library.

Let me know if you’ve read any of the books listed and whether you’d recommend them!

Spiritual

Decision-making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View - Gary Friesen & J. Robin Maxson

When God Weeps – Joni Eareckson Tada & Steven Estes

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art – Madeleine L’Engle

Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity – Edward Gilbreath

The Bible Jesus Read – Philip Yancey

Financial

½ Price Living: Secrets to Living Well on One Income - Ellie Kay

Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money – Dave Ramsey

Health

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal - Eric Schlosser

Other Non-fiction

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America - Barbara Ehrenreich

The Mind’s Eye - Oliver Sacks

Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year - Anne Lamott

Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secrets of a Man's Soul - John Eldredge

The Silent Seduction of Self-Talk: Conforming Deadly Thought Patterns to the Word of God - Shelly Beach

Island of the Colorblind – Oliver Sacks

Biography

Surprised by Oxford - Carolyn Weber

Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West - Blaine Harden

Wait No More: One Family’s Amazing Adoption Journey - John Rosati & Kelly Rosati 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou

Strength in What Remains – Tracey Kidder

Fiction

Left Neglected – Lisa Genova

Saint Maybe – Anne Tyler

The Sword in the Stone – T. H. White

Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Small Town Life

Since my husband and I moved to this little town in Iowa, I’ve been reminded on occasion that we do live in a small town. It’s a bigger small town than some of the other small towns nearby, but it most definitely is a small town. Mark’s parents and his sister and her family also live in a small town, but it’s a small town right outside of a large city. Many of the people in their community work in the large city. The town that Mark and I live in is interesting because it is entirely self-sufficient.

We have all the things that very small towns typically have: hair salons, local restaurants, gas stations. We have things that small towns sometimes have: a hospital and a number of grocery stores and a Super Walmart (lucky us) library. But we also have a number of things that small towns generally do not have: a golf course, a public school and a Christian school, about 15 churches, and a college. People living in this town don’t need to leave or associate with the outside world unless they want to.

This is the kind of town in which culture can take a side path out of mainstream American culture and no one puts up a fuss and maybe no one notices unless they decided to go to a college or university away from home. For example, in this town children are regularly served hot chili soup with a side dish of cinnamon roll at school for lunch. Soup suppers at schools and churches often serve this combination as well, and the deli in the little mall has a whole day devoted to this combination once a week during the winter. I’ve actually taken to it myself—a slurp of some spicy, salty soup and then a bite of sweet cinnamon roll complement each other nicely.( Once you get past the initial skepticism and try the combination, it stops seeming so strange.) This is also the only place on earth that I’ve lived where a ‘slopping joe’ sandwich is called a ‘tavern.’

Anyway, in a small self-sufficient town like this, the network of relationships can begin to take on the look of a ball of yarn that has been bouncing around freely in the trunk of a car for weeks. Upon discovery, there’s no clear evidence of where the yarn starts or ends, and the idea of sorting it out makes you want to cry or laugh hysterically.

Earlier this week, I called the city utilities company with a question that Mark and I had about out utilities bill. I was put through to a live person in the right department immediately (a definite perk about living in a small town).

“Hello, I have a question about my utilities bill,” I said.

“Alright, what’s your question?”

“I just noticed that the bottom of my bill says ‘auto pay—do not send payment.’ My husband and I were out of the country in October and we had a one-time auto-pay set up then. Last month I sent a check to pay the utilities bill without noticing if it was supposed to be auto-pay. I’m wondering, number one, if we accidentally double-paid last month and, number two, whether the bill is supposed to be auto-pay.”

“Well, do you want auto-pay set up on your account?”

“Yes, if I can keep it as auto-pay, that would be great.”

“Well, you’re all set then. You didn’t double-pay last month and we can keep auto-pay on your account.”

“Excellent! Thank you. Um…. don’t you need my name or account number or something to answer these questions?”

“Oh, no, Hillary! I recognized your voice, and then when you said you’d been out of the country, I put two and two together.”

We both had a good chuckle over that, and then I hung up. I still don’t know who I was talking to.

This recent example of small-town life brings to mind another incident from a year or two ago.

At that time I was still working at our church. Our clothes dryer had died a few days before and we had decided that even though it was an ancient model from the second-hand appliance store in our town, it was still worth getting fixed, or at least looked at. I called our local appliance repair center and asked to have someone come look at our dryer. The girl I talked to said that someone would be along that day or the next to look at it.

A few days passed and no one came to look at the dryer. Finally, about three days later I received a call from the appliance repair store.

“Hello, this is D--- from the appliance repair store. Is this the F---- residence?”

“Oh, yes it is!” I answered.

“Sorry we didn’t send someone by a few days ago. We realized that we didn’t ask you for a phone number, and you’re not in the phone book.”

“Oh, no problem. Will someone be able to come look at our dryer soon?”

“Yeah, I’m planning to come look at it today.”

It was only after I hung up the phone that I began to wonder how the repair center got my phone number, if we weren’t listed in the phone book.

When I went to work that day at church, I told the two ladies working in the church office my puzzling story. When I got done, one of them started chuckling.

She said, “Oh, D----  at the repair center is my cousin! When I was in there yesterday I asked if he’d gotten a call from a Mark or Hillary because you said you were having trouble with your dryer. He said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I did, but I don’t have a phone number for them.’ So, I just flipped open my phone and gave him your number!”

See what I mean? Small town life. It’s sometimes strange and stifling, but sometimes it’s oddly helpful.

Pheromone Hypothesis

As I was laying in bed the other night, I was hit with an epiphany. I've wondered, ever since Million came home from Ethiopia why God blessed me with the most adorable boy for a nephew on the face of the earth. Then Shirley came along and I thought, "Wow! The two most adorable children on the face of the earth are related to me!" Then Creedence joined the family, and after meeting him this weekend, I decided it had to be more than mere coincidence that the three most adorable children in the world are my niece and nephews.

Cue the epiphany. 

As I was laying in bed, I began thinking about pheromones. I decided that children must secrete specialized pheromones. I looked up the definition of pheromone the next morning just to make sure I had it right: "A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species."

I'm pretty sure children secrete love-me pheromones. These love-me pheromones trigger a love and loyalty response in nearby adults. The pheromones act most powerfully on the parents of that child, a little less powerfully on grandparents and aunts and uncles and less powerfully on friends of the parents, and so forth. According to my observations, blood relation plays no part in the effectiveness of these pheromones. Neither my niece nor my nephews have any blood relation to me. 

So, the more closely we as adults are related to a child, the more powerfully their pheromones act on us. We love them more and are more loyal to them because of these pheromones.

You can take the quiz below to see if my pheromone hypothesis is correct.

Pheromone Hypothesis Test

1. In the picture below, you would describe the little boy as:

   a. Kind of cute.

   b. Really cute.

   c. So adorable that you would give your left arm to spend an afternoon with him.

2. In the picture below, you would describe the little girl pictured as:

   a. A little peanut.

   b. An adorable little peanut.

   c. Such an adorable peanut that peanuts are now your favorite food.

 

3. In the picture below, the infant pictured is:

   a. Your typical one-month-old.

   b. Your typical one-month-old but a little sweeter than average.

   c. Such a delightfully sweet one-month-old that you want to adopt eight one-month-olds in the next week.

To score your pheromone hypothesis quiz:
Give yourself one point for every letter (a) you circled.
Give yourself two points for every letter (b) you circled.
Give yourself three points for every letter (c) you circled.

If your score was:
7-9 - You are probably a close relation of the three children pictured.
5-6 - You probably have some connection to the children pictured but not a close connection.
3-4 - You are probably not related to the children pictured even though you do think they're pretty cute.


And here are just a few more pictures of these three little sweethearts. You'll have to forgive the overload of pictures. It's the pheromones at work:

Belated Christmas Celebration

Mark and I had a wonderful Christmas celebration with family this past week. God has been so good to us in allowing us to take enough time off to spend considerable time with both of our families in one weekend. And both families were extremely supportive of our strange no-sugar, no-fruit diet. Don't worry-- another post will be coming soon to update on this dietary adventure.

Here are just a couple of pictures from the week, minus niece and nephews for the most part... more pictures coming soon!

I love Shirley's halo.

We can finally show pictures of the snowflake ornaments
Mark and I made for family this year for Christmas!

Helen and our soon-to-be brother-in-law, Robert.

Dad with baby Creedence.

Mom with baby Creedence.

Enjoying some latte foam (not whipped cream).

Breakfast at The Good Earth, one of the few restaurants
where we felt we might be able to eat a no-sugar breakfast.

Abby and Zack at my parents' house.

Immersion blender!!

Mark's dad fixed up Mark's hammered dulcimer. Yay!

Heather and Michael with more snowflakes.

Mark, looking studly with his new sweater.

Starting a new tradition-- family picture in front of my parents' Christmas tree.
 Maybe in a year or two the picture will change??

Smelling Sourdough in the Morning

Last week Monday Mark and I ate delicious sourdough English muffins for breakfast. Mmmmmm. I started a sourdough starter last Sunday afternoon. I had wanted to for a while, but I’d been afraid that I’d mix up the flour and water and nothing would happen. But, happily, after a day or two of mixing and adding flour and water, I began to see bubbles, and now within twelve hours the little yeasty creepy-crawlies have had time to gorge themselves on the simple sugars found in the wheat and the starter has nearly doubled in size.

I’m really very excited. ‘Victorious’ is a good word to describe how I feel about the fermentation I’ve created.

From what I’ve read, a sourdough starter should be allowed to mature for a week before you use it in a recipe. Sunday was my starter’s one week birthday, so I decided to celebrate by trying this sourdough English muffin recipe.

The funny thing about using a sourdough starter that I’m not really used to is that when you want to make, say, English muffins, you have to think about it at least a day ahead of time. You need to allow time to build up your starter, by adding a little more flour and water, because you don’t want to entirely use up your starter in the baked good you make, or you’ll have to grow your starter all over again. And when you have properly built up your starter and then pulled out what you need for your muffins, you mix up your dough and then let it set, usually overnight, to allow the dough to ‘sour’ all the way through. Then, in the morning, you can form your dough into muffins and fry on the griddle.

Sourdough English muffins on the griddle.

Again, sourdough English muffins on the griddle.

Then, this is the tricky part for me, if that baked good will satisfy your family for a few days, what do you do with your starter in the meantime? If you leave it out on your counter, the yeast will continue to multiply and you’ll need to keep feeding it and making it bigger. But you don’t necessarily want a bigger starter unless you’re doing lots of baking. So, the obvious way to slow the yeasties down is to put the starter in the fridge. But I just don’t trust my starter yet. Probably an unfounded worry, but I’m afraid that if I stick my starter in the fridge it will just die. And then I will be sad, wistfully thinking about all of the delicious sourdough baked goods I could have made if I had just kept my starter alive on the counter.

Thankfully, I don’t have to address this irrational fear yet because I am planning to do some extensive baking in the next week. So instead of putting my starter away in the fridge, I’m letting it grow on the counter. See? It already needs two containers:

Starter has just been stirred.

See the bubbles! Starter is happily feeding!

See the bubbles CLOSER.

Sourdough bread, here we come!

Update: Since beginning this post, we have made sourdough bread. And I have worked up the courage to put my starter in the fridge. What I've noticed is that leaving my starter in the fridge for a week without feeding it makes it give whatever baked good I put it into a more sour flavor. (There's a scientific reason behind this, but I don't want to go into it now.) If I fed my starter and then used it immediately upon seeing bubbles throughout, the baked good would rise but it wouldn't taste much like sourdough, just like regular ol' bread. The bread pictured below had a delightfully sourdough flavor.

Happy happy loaf of sourdough bread.

Mark being artsy with the camera and making you all crave sourdough.