Causes for Delay

I'm in the middle of a very fun, but very busy and somewhat hectic 10 day stretch, so excuse the lack of real posting. Last weekend contained 2 very late nights, including one in AC that ended at 5:30am. This week is ultimate (twice), some longer work hours, and my final TFA interview and its accompanying prep work. Then it's a 9pm flight to Nashville on Friday for another weekend that has a high probability of very little sleep and a lot of adventures. In short, I'm about 50% nerves and 50% anticipation. Regular posting to resume next week.

Ghosts?

I'm starting to wonder if the house my babysitting family lives in is haunted. Maybe it's just the changing of the seasons and the fact that it's a little windier and that Halloween is on the brain, but today was weird.

Normally I get to the house at 2pm, take care of some laundry, and then read until it's time to pick the kids up. Today I kept hearing this weird, distant coughing sound, as if I could hear the neighbors if the neighbors lived 10 feet from me. I was a little creeped out but didn't think much more of it and returned to my book (er, As I Lay Dying).

An hour later I was outside with Daniel while Nina was inside doing homework. Suddenly Nina rushes out and she's in a total panic. She said there was something in the house and that she didn't want to be in it alone. After a little bit of prodding she told me she kept hearing heavy breathing and coughing, and that suddenly the microwave turned on by itself, at which point she ran outside. I came into the kitchen with her and tried to reassure her that no, no one else was there and that yes, of course I'd stay inside with her while she did her homework. She was still pretty freaked out despite my efforts, and I have to admit I definitely got the heeby jeebies and felt like my stomach was tied up in a knot.

Even now I'm kind of just shuddering thinking about it. I'm not sure where I stand on ghosts or haunted houses, but either way I'm hoping this was a one-time kind of thing. Seeing as how I get scared watching crappy horror movies (ugh, The Grudge) I don't think I'd cope particularly well if I had to deal with this again. Not at all.

Clean Eating, With a Side of Fries

Lately I've found myself becoming much more vegetarian-minded. Earlier in the year I made the resolution to only eat meat about once a week, and try to have it be locally/sustainably sourced. I actually managed pretty well for the most part, lasting from the beginning of January through mid-May or so. Then summer arrived and I got admittedly lazy and wound up being more careless about what I was eating. It's not that I was eating junk all the time, I just stopped eating consciously.

The past few weeks I've made the effort to eat a lot less meat and animal products and making sure that the ones I do eat are free range, grass fed, and organic whenever possible. Even more recently I've been turning down meat in general, even if the above criteria are met, in favor of beans, quinoa, nuts (tons and tons of almond butter), and as much fresh fruit and vegetables as possible. The physical effects are obvious - I have more energy and run longer and faster - and mentally I'm more alert. I'm not sure if cutting out meat is solely to thank, but I do think that it's a result of eating cleaner. Avoiding packaged foods makes a huge difference, not only because it cuts down on the chemicals I'm eating but because it also requires me to think more about what I'm hungry for and how to prepare it. Cooking and baking also calms me down, so I gain another mental and emotional benefit.

This post stems from a conversation I had last night with a friend about his new internship. He's working at a local organization that's working on an initiative to provide greater access to healthy foods in corner stores in Philadelphia. Corner stores are notorious for the ubiquity of processed food and drink, and my friend's company is working on a business model that can convince these store owners to put healthy foods in their markets. While organic/sustainable/other buzz word products are the eventual goal, the initial aim is just to actually provide healthy options like produce in the store. This way the children who buy their breakfast at the corner store now - consisting of packaged donuts or a bag of chips - can in the future pick up an apple or yogurt instead and hopefully create a habit of healthy eating.

Personally, I think it's dismissive to say that people who struggle with obesity or who eat a lot of junk food are just "asking for it" or "lazy." Far fewer people today know how to cook than 50 years ago, largely thanks to the rise of the food industry, frozen dinners, and fast food. No one markets oranges or broccoli today - instead, it's Fanta and Doritos. The basic lack in education about how to prepare fresh foods, coupled with limited access to whole foods (the concept, not the store, especially in low income communities), is one of the key drivers to why obesity and its associated diseases like diabetes is skyrocketing in America. I realize I'm not saying anything especially groundbreaking, but I think it's a morbidly fascinating issue that's really come to light recently and is receiving a lot of positive attention through figures like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters and movies like Food, Inc.

There are two things I'll leave you with. The first is a discussion and article on the chef Jamie Oliver, who is filming a new reality TV show in Huntington, West Virginia - the "unhealthiest city in America." Read the opinion piece from Jezebel here and the full NYTimes' Magazine writeup on Jamie here. The second is that my personal exception to being mostly meatless will always, always be a cheeseburger and fries - the real kind, with grilled mushrooms & onions, Swiss, and A1. And bacon, if I'm really feeling it.

There Is a Light That Shines....

The other day I had the chance to creep around my (babysitting) family's house and take pictures of the light fixtures I talked about earlier. I'm not really normally one to gush about interior design/decorating, but I thought these were too unique not to share.

Lights over the kitchen table:

Detail....

Lights over the kitchen island:

Mosaic in the hallway:

My personal favorite - fixture over the doorframe leading down into the basement:

The two re-worked chandeliers in the living room. These originally started off as classic crystal chandeliers, but the family commissioned a local artist/friend to give them quite an overhaul:

Yes, that's a whisk.

Sogno Mio

Today I started my new job working for the local family I described in a previous post. I think they're going to be totally lovely and completely hilarious.

Sogno Mio is the name of their house, and it is mind-blowing. The entire place is filled with incredible art - mostly done by my boss - and relief sculptures and amazing light fixtures. The wonderful thing is that you never feel like you're in a museum; it's all homey and warm but at the same time bursting at the seams with beauty and creativity. Everything is represented - the slightly twisted, the dream-like, the modern, the classic, and it's hard not to be inspired by the imagination and process behind each work. I'm planning on being completely creepy and doing some photo posts showing the house a bit. I promise you've never seen light fixtures like these.

Meg, the mom, is refreshingly un-suburban and un-Stepford. Well, I guess that's obvious since she's an artist, but she's so quirky, and I adore her. Today when I complimented her on the house, she replied with:

"Oh, thank you! We really tried to make it artistic. So many people's houses around here look all the same, and even people who do something trendy are still all such fucking robots!"

She called my neighbors robots. I love her.

The kids are equally delightful. I spent the better part of my day playing disc golf with Daniel, who is 5 and replaces his "r" with a "w" and who told his entire class I was a "pwofessional ultimate fwisbee" player. I really didn't have the heart to correct him. He also is totally loving ultimate and the discs I brought them, and already knows that when we throw that the "alligator chomp" is the easiest way to catch.

After some disc indoctrinating (indisctrinating?) Nina (7, applied lip gloss to her forehead and cheeks in little half-moons) and Daniel did some tree climbing while I did some majorly paranoid hovering ready to catch any small child that might lose its footing. After getting thoroughly covered in bark chips and ensuring both kids wound up feet on the ground, it was time to call it a day. If this is what work is like for the next three months, you can count me as completely satisfied.