Dinners: week of May 26

Grilled pork chops, potato salad and carrots

Grilled chicken kabobs with zucchini

Swiss chard frittata

Chipotle chicken sausage and pepper fajita

Spaghetti

Baked sweet potatoes with black beans

Chicken sausages with spaghetti salad with feta and asparagus 

Dinners: week of May 19

This week I'm headed to Greencastle, Indiana, for a committee meeting at DePauw University.  I'm not super excited.  Last year I went to Wabash College, which is about 30 minutes away.  Aside from the amazing fitness center, I was not impressed.  I'm so grateful to work for a college in a thriving community.  I suspect that Greencastle will offer much of the same (which is to say, not much at all).  No offense to my colleagues who work for and are passionate about said institutions.

Anyways, I'll be gone Monday and Tuesday evenings, so meals will be a bit sparse. Today I made a bigger meal so that Jeff will have leftovers.  Roasted Veggie Mac and Cheese.  It was DELICIOUS.  Seriously.  And it made enough for dinner tonight (along with some grilled Chicken and Apple sausages), dinner for Jeff another night, and another meal's worth in the freezer.  The smoky roasted veggies and the hint of heat from the cayenne and Frank's Red Hot were a welcome addition to an otherwise classic Mac and Cheese recipe.

This week's menu also includes:

• BLT's
• Fried Eggs and Broccoli Fritters

And something else which I can't remember because it's probably an old stand by.

Quick Dog Update

For those wondering about my sad bassett.  He's no longer sad and injured bassett, just a regular old sad bassett.  Also, after a trip to the vet which required 4 stitches, I decided I needed to confront the neighbors.  I was literally losing sleep over the situation.  Luckily they were very gracious and nice and even offered to pay the bill.  Despite it being a very high bill, I declined.  I don't need money to get in the way of the situation.    If it happens again, they can pay.  I was just proud of myself for initiating the conversation and making my concerns known, and extremely relieved that it didn't end poorly.

Sad Bassett

My dog was bit by another dog on Saturday.  Cooper ventured into a neighbor's yard when he caught whiff of some new scent.  To give some context, our yard borders, along with several other houses, a quad (for lack of a better word).  None of the yards are fenced and the other neighbors with dogs let their dogs roam free.  Cooper decided he also wanted to be an untethered dog.

This one house has 2 dogs: a lab and a boxer mix.  We were in their yard when the owner came out to say hello and meet Cooper.  His wife let their dogs out and he said that his lab is sometimes aggressive around new dogs.  Sure enough - she came charging out and grabbed Cooper by the ear.  We separated the dogs and thought all was well.

Later on we discovered the inside of Cooper's ear was punctured and was causing him pain.  We've spent the last couple days keeping the wounds clean with hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin.  The one is healing.  The other wound - an inch long scrape - looked pretty gross this morning.  I'm taking him to the vet this afternoon and hoping that it hasn't gotten terribly worse today.

So I lied in a previous post about not being anxious.  This whole situation is causing me great anxiety.  Obviously the neighbors know their dog is aggressive and yet they let her outside unattended.  What if she decides to come into our yard while Cooper is helplessly tethered?  I haven't told the neighbors about the wounds because I don't want to start something.  But I'm worried about my helpless, submissive dog.

As much as I profess to believe that it's best to just be up front with people, I've become fairly sensitive about saying much of anything that will cause conflict.  I'm tired of people thinking I'm mean or inflexible or judgmental or blunt or whatever else I've been criticized for in recent years, nor do I want to be the new neighbor who comes in guns blazing. 

I need to find a way to let this go, but I'm having a hard time...

Anxiety Dreams

I have nothing to be anxious about really, and yet I was having my classic anxiety dream this morning.  My anxiety dreams manifest themselves in 1 of 3 ways (or sometimes all 3):

• I can't find something I need and I'm late
• I can't finish something I need to do and I'm late
• I can't move (or I walk like I'm walking in water) and I'm late

And so I was cranky this morning, which meant I yelled at Graham when he was crying because I put the ice ring away that he asked me to put away.

I still have this feeling of anxiety coupled with feeling guilty because I've found myself getting irritable again with Graham.  And so I've consulted my little book.

Pearl 480
Head-to-knee Pose Janu Sirsasana To nourish your mind, sit on the floor, left leg straight and right leg bent, knee point out, heel to groin.  Exhaling, fold over your left leg and reach to your feet for 2-3 minutes.  Repeat on the other side, then relax.   

Breathing a sigh of relief

May Day.  For many it's a traditional spring holiday.  For those of us in the college admission and counseling game, it's the day by which college bound students must make their college decision.  Us Admission Counselors bust our butts recruiting students, reading applications, working late nights and weekends, answering endless questions (or wondering why in the world these students aren't asking us questions), texting, emailing, coordinating programs, bending over backwards to make students feel connected to and informed about the benefits of our particular institution.  The last couple weeks of April are fraught with anxiety: students anxious about choosing the "right" college, parents anxious about their students choosing the "best" college (or the cheapest college!), high school counselors anxious about students choosing any college, and admission counselors anxious about students choosing THEIR college.  Those of of on the admission side of things stalk the mail daily or hover in the records room to hear how many deposits we received on a given day, hoping that on May 1 we can say definitively that we "made our class" (meaning that we have achieved the numerical goal given to us by our President and Board of Trustees that allows us to meet our operating costs for the following year).

Last year, May 1 arrived at my institution with a whimper.  The weary Admission Staff felt battered and bruised as we fell short of our goal - by a fairly substantial amount.  We were sad, depressed, and anxious; worrying that we (or others on our campus) would lose our jobs due to a budget shortfall related to lack of tuition revenue.  It was not a banner year.

This year.  Ohhhh this year.  This year was different.  This year we seriously pulled out all the stops: answering phone calls at all hours of the evening, sending texts until our hands were cramped, doubling the number of program days (and therefore weekends and evenings worked), and helping kids navigate flight cancellations, so that on May 1 we were sitting pretty with shit-eating grins on our faces.  And boy were we, because blew our goal OUT OF THE WATER!

And so here it is: May 3.  No one is panicking.  No one is scrambling.  It is FINALLY spring in Michigan.  And no one has the ability to focus on anything other than feeling relieved and accomplished, and wishing we were outside enjoying big ball of sun we see through our windows.  Coupled with the fact that I had time in my schedule to attend yoga today (rather than getting up at 5:15 to do it by myself), this lack of focus has me consulting my little book for a Pearl of Wisdom.

Number 255
"'Who looks outside, dreams.  Who looks inside, awakens.'" -Carl Jung

Family Photos

It finally turned spring in Michigan, so I decided it was time to take some family photos to celebrate our new house, the sunshine, and Graham's first haircut.

The haircut itself did NOT go well.  So there are no pictures of it while it happened.  He was VERY unhappy and angry about the whole thing, but once we got started, there was no turning back. It's not perfect, but he still looks cute.  I hadn't realized how straggly it had gotten.

Luckily, he was quite cooperative during the photos.  I got some good ones of the three of us and a couple GREAT photos of Graham.