Baseball I Love You

Baseball, I love you.

You are springtime, with the excitement of opening day and warm sunshine and sweet green grass. You are summer, with long shadows over the hot field and fireworks and hotdogs and sweat. You are fall, with the chase for October and cool nights and extra innings under the brilliant lights.

You are the swing of the bat illuminated by ten-thousand anticipatory camera flashes.

You are the rare delight of stealing home under the helpless gaze of a stunned pitcher.

You are the smug satisfaction of the catcher throwing behind the batter to pick off the runner at first base.

You are the acrobatic and unapologetic leap of the left-fielder, laid out and stretching the impossible distance to snag the pop fly.

You are the double play turned by the infielder from his knees, the line drive miraculously caught by the pitcher as much in self-defense as on-purpose, the slide into second, the fielder's choice, the long throw home, the wicked curve.

I hear you, baseball, like the rumbling of applause that grows from the last few measures of the national anthem, like the wheezing strains of the organ, like the crackle of AM radio, like the solid thwack of a fastball entering the catcher's mitt, like the old guy yelling "ice cold beer."

We give you our Saturday afternoons, our weeknights, our rally caps, our foam fingers, our scorecards, the shouts and cheers for our beloved teammates, the raucous boos for our opponents and moderately more polite ones for defected former favorites.

You give us sunburnt knees and close calls with foul tips, rookies with heart and veterans with grit, exhilirating walk-off homeruns and heartbreaking September losses. You call us to our feet in hushed hopes for will-they-or-won't-they, get up get up get up long drifters back to the wall, in joined outrage for are-you-blind-you-crazy-ump calls at the plate, in deafening cheers for the comeback win.

You are the Green Monster, the hill at Minute Maid, the ivy at Wrigley, the thin air at Mile High, the nosebleed seats in every third and fourth tier, the hot metal of the bleacher seats, standing room only, and you are every old stadium breathing with history and every new stadium with all its bells and whistles.

You are Cubs versus Cardinals and Sox versus Yanks. You are subway series and crosstown rivalries, old-standing grudges and pitchers beaning batters by no accident and bench-clearing brawls and ejected red-faced managers.

You are stories and scorecards, statistics and superstitions, sheer luck and smart thinking. You are history and legend. You are my favorite sport and my favorite team, a roaring sea of fans in red and the legacy of the birds on the bats, Pujols and Molina and the constant promise of a great season. You are baseball.

Baseball, I love you.

A Tree Story: It's Planting Time

Last week after a loooong wait our trees finally arrived! We had our friends Jon and Heather come over to help with the process of getting the trees unwrapped and into the holes, then filling the holes and finishing the planting. It was an arduous process!

First step was getting the trees out of their packaging. Our big willow oak was container grown, meaning it needed some special attention. We dubbed Heather the "Root Liberator." It was her job to gently coax the roots, which had been growing around each other as they got to the edge of the container, out and to separate them so they could spread into the ground.

Ben helped:


I helped:


Scruffy supervised:

Time out for one more cute puppy picture:

Meanwhile Jon got to work on the cherry tree. The cherry tree had been "balled and burlapped" which means it was growing in the ground for a short time and then cut out and packaged up until we bought it. It was much easier to maneuver than the oak tree!


After the oak was successfully liberated, Jon and Ben manhandled it into it's waiting hole. It was very heavy.


Then we staked it so it would stay straight while we buried the roots and would grow nice and tall for its first year in the ground!

Cherry tree got the same treatment.

There she is! So happy in her new home!


It was a long and mildly difficult and expensive process, but so worth it! I can't wait to see these trees grow and branch out for as long as we live in our house, and to know that they'll be there for decades to come for the whole neighborhood to enjoy. If you have a yard and the space to do it, I would challenge YOU to plant a tree - what better time than Earth Day, which is coming up next Wednesday!

Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

Now that I've got that Eurythmics song stuck in your head, I'm free to share with you the latest in my series on yummy things I've been baking.

This is one of my all time favorites, and a family classic. Here's what we're cooking: Italian Creme Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. It makes a spectacularly beautiful triple layer cake but I wanted to send some to Ben's office and some to mine so I made it cupcake style.

So get your gear together... really basic ingredients. The only things you might not have on hand (unless you're a baker too) are buttermilk and pecans. Every thing else is common-found kitchen stuff.


This cake, like many others, asks you to separate the egg yolks and whites for two different steps in the recipe. You always want to do this first because the egg whites do best when they are allowed to get near room temperature. I always learned it was best to put them in a metal bowl, too. So here you go:


Now (and again this is the common first step in baking) cream the butter, shortening, and sugar together. I liked this action shot:


Then add the eggs and beat that together. Next you alternately add the buttermilk/vanilla and the flour/baking soda/salt mixture. You'll end up with a very pretty thick cake batter. Mmmm.


Now for the finishing touches on the batter. Time to chop those pecans. I use my sweet hand mixer attachment but a food processor would work too, or I suppose you could chop them by hand if you're feeling crazy. I mean ambitious. I like to get them into very fine pieces. Now you see them:


Now you don't!


Now stir those into the batter by hand. Next, time to beat the snot out of those egg whites. If you sort of tilt the bowl and hold it then use a hand mixer and just kind of beat them against the side of the bowl, it works well. Beat until very stiff, so that when you pull the beaters out they leave little peaks. I also think a good sign is if you sort of tilt the bowl and the whole mess moves as one blob that you could slide out in one piece. Such as:


Now gingerly fold the egg whites into the batter. I would recommend using a soft spatula. You really want to preserve the fluffiness of the egg whites as you stir it into the batter. It might take a few minutes to do it properly, but it will be worth it. It should feel like the amount of batter has increased and changed consistency to be a little lighter and fluffier and thinner. But not runny!

Off to the cupcake pan with you! Do NOT overfill the cups; this cake expands a lot and then sinks down once out of the oven, so if it spills over the edges you'll be in trouble. It will still taste good, but won't be as pretty.


They bake up to be a lovely toasted brown color, and as I mentioned they will sink a little in the middle as they cool. Fear not, we're going to cover that with frosting. Little naked cupcakes prepare for their coats:


Whip up a little cream cheese frosting, give them a healthy dose, and voila. Done. Maybe garnish with a pecan or some pecan crumbs if you feel so inclined. Look how keeeeeyoooooote!


I defy you not to like this cake. People who don't like nuts like it. People who don't like cream cheese (me) like it. People who don't like people like it. I don't know what it is about the combination of flavors but yum! Recommended for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I don't have the recipe on hand as I'm typing this up at Ben's office, but I will post it when I get home or you can always message me and I'll share it. Happy baking!

Pain

Exactly one year and one day ago I hurt my back. I remember the day because it was my friend Kali's birthday and the same day I'd decided to do a gardening blitz in my backyard. I remember thinking that evening, "Wow, my back really hurts." And then I remember the next morning, when I couldn't get out of bed because I was incapable of moving my torso.

I spent weeks in various levels of pain. For the first week or two, sitting was pretty unbearable. This made work difficult, seeing as how my job is pretty much sitting in front of my computer for eight straight hours. I'd work standing up, kneeling, and even one day (the co-workers had fun with this one), laying on the floor of my office with the laptop. By the time our big April event arrived I was still suffering but it had subsided somewhat, enough for me to make it through the week in pretty good shape. There was lots of standing and running around so that helped.

The day after GMA Music Week was over, I was running around packing up for my trip to Italy to see my sister. Right before I left for the airport, I bounced down to the floor quickly to pick up something, and as I bounced back up, BAM. Pain, every bit as bad as it had been when I first hurt myself. Ben was gone and I wasn't about to risk missing my trip so I grabbed a bottle of Advil and away I went. My flight to Italy was quite possibly the most miserable and painful ten hours of my life. I was in the middle of the middle section, so if I wanted to get up I had to annoy two people in either direction, but as I said earlier sitting was by far the most painful position. Leaning back was really bad, so I sat, straight up in my seat or with my head leaning against the seat in front of me, for the entire time. I was taking Advil four at a time, which just barely took the edge off.

My excitement for being in Italy with my sister was the only real motivator for getting through that trip. My sister and I debated debated trying to find some sort of walk-in clinic for me to go to, but I knew that the best they could probably do was give me some low-grade painkillers. We decided to tough it out instead. Every day was excruciating, and walking around on marble everywhere didn't help - but my mentality was basically, "I came all this way d@%$ it and I'm going to see and do everything and ignore the pain." On the way home, mercifully, we had aisle seats so I could (and did) get up and walk around a lot. Or as much as I could without getting a stern glance from our Lufthansa flight attendants. Those German ladies are not kidding around.

Back home I finally caved and tried to get an appointment with a general physician.

Doctor's Office: "She could get you in... let's see... sometime in June?"
Me: "Umm... okay, but I am in a lot of pain right NOW. "
Doctor's Office: "Well, you could take some aspirin or if it is really bad go to the ER."
Me: "Great, thanks for NOTHING."*

*I didn't actually say that last part. But I felt it! I think at that point I remember breaking down and crying. General sicknesses and a few childhood broken bones and busted chins aside, I've been a generally healthy person for most of my life. To be so painfully incapacitated was obnoxious and frustrating and... it hurt! I don't consider myself too big a "wuss" when it comes to pain - or if I am, I at least try to hide it. I don't like being unwell so I usually just try to push through it, take some medicine, and sleep it off. None of those things, unfortunately, were working!

I feel like God finally conked me on my stubborn head and led me to seek help in the most unlikely of places - for me, anyway. I've never been much one for "alternative medicine." Before a bunch of you homeopathic-loving people out there jump down my throat, just hear me out! It's not that I really take issue with many of the ideas and remedies, so much as I do with some of the pushy, fanatical people I've encountered hawking them. All this is for another post, I suppose. Back to the point. I broke down and went to a chiropractor.

You want to know the weirdest part? Way back on the day I hurt my back, we went out with our friends Dan & Kali for dinner - it was her birthday, if you'll remember from the beginning of my story. Half jokingly, she put her name in the little box on the counter to "win" a free massage and chiropractic evaluation. So a couple months later, they finally contacted her, and invited her to bring a friend along. Mercifully, she picked me! We were both skeptical as could be, so it was comforting to be there together. It was a little weird and I didn't then (and sometimes still don't) know exactly what or how or even IF it was working, but I didn't really care. Because SOMEONE was doing SOMETHING to help me, and that was enough.

Turns out the culprit was a little bit of scoliosis, which I'd known from childhood that I had. Your spine is supposed to curve in the correct places from front to back - which mine does - but it is not supposed to curve from side to side - which mine does. Over time this had been weakening certain parts of my back. Muscles on one side over-compensated to make up for the other, and whatever I'd tweaked or twinged or pulled when I was gardening that fateful April day had been the "final straw" of sorts, turning something I'd never really noticed into something I felt, and strongly. My month of trying to "get over it" hadn't helped either, as my self-corrections (like sitting or bending differently) to avoid pain had actually been enabling the wrong muscles to remain weak and helpless.

Since then I've been going to the chiropractor about once every two weeks. (I'm also supposed to do this wide array of stretches every day, which I don't complete as dutifully as I should.) Generally the pain has subsided. Now it's mostly a nagging discomfort which flares up into something worse if I sit funny for too long or stand on a hard floor all day. I still have hopes that it will go away completely; that I won't just feel better but BE better. It's just one thing in a long list of stuff I need to do to improve my physical health. More and more I get this feeling - don't laugh, people over 30 reading this - like, "I'm not a kid anymore." I can't just do anything, eat anything, sleep anytime... all that stuff has officially caught up with me. (Cue ominous music.)

So what's the point of all this? Honestly, I'm not sure. I wish I had some big spiritual revelation to share at this point, but I haven't been very faithful to trust God with my pain. I didn't put up a big fuss about it, but then again I rarely put up a big fuss about anything (except this and this and don't get me started on this). There was no railing at God in the storm, screaming "why me" to the heavens and beating my chest. I just kind of dealt with it. But maybe there's my first lesson - I didn't blame God for my pain or question His dealing it, but I didn't exactly ask Him for help either. I can't remember really praying earnestly for healing, which doesn't bother me nearly as much as that I didn't really pray for patience or peace or relief or any of that either.

Looking back on the year it's as if this whole issue sort of rode out the time under the radar. It was there, all along, nagging at me and bothering me and affecting my life, but I didn't take that to God? Ugh. It makes me mad at myself just thinking about it! Why do we DO that? Do I subconsciously think that I'm doing God a favor by not "bothering him" with my problems? Or that God will be impressed with how well I can handle it on my own? I don't want to keep parts of my life apart from God. Which is a silly concept anyway, as he already knows all about it.

I've spent so much time pretending I can walk just fine, grimacing with each anguished step but too proud and too stubborn to do otherwise. Maybe it's time I stopped all that nonsense. Maybe it's time I come crawling to Him on my hands and knees, ready to be scooped up and carried, desperate for the love and grace that gives purpose to pain.

They Were Scones!

That title is a play off of the "they were cones" line from Wedding Singer, thank you very much.

So this weekend I had a Pride & Prejudice Scrapbooking Slumber Party with some friends. Which is exactly what it sounds like: we sat around my living room all scrapping while we watched the complete six hour BBC miniseries version of Pride & Prejudice, broke to sleep for a few hours, then woke up and finished the movie. To make it thoroughly British, we made tea and scones for breakfast. This was my first scones making experience, and I decided to take some pictures while Jenny and I baked. Please keep in mind, the scone-making process is more legitimate if you do it with a very proper English accent.

My friend Jenny was already started by the time I woke up, so this picks up as we're mixing up the last step of the dough. The scones recipe we used can be found here.

Did I mention these were chocolate chip scones? Mmmm. See the dough?


Don't overmix! This seems to be a cardinal rule for many pastries. This dough should just barely come together, so don't overdo it on the buttermilk. Once you have your dough done, plop it on a well-floured countertop.

Now you're going to roll it into a fat round shape, and then cut it into eighths. We used a pizza cutter, which worked awesome for the process!



Once you have them placed on the parchment paper on the cookie sheet, brush w/ the egg and milk mixture. I have the coolest little silicone basting brush. Look how fun and green it is!


Sprinkle with a little cinnimon and sugar. Now off they go to the oven!

Once they have baked, it is time for the finishing touch. Dust with powdered sugar...


Then broil very briefly to melt and brown the tops. Jenny demonstrates the quick speed needed for the broiling step - just keep the oven door open and turn them quickly. A few seconds is just about all you'll need.


Now, step back and admire their beauty. Ooooooh.


Aaaaaaah.


Now consume with a cup of tea and a side of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. A delicious breakfast indeed.