Everyday Life

Categories Everyday Life

A Free Day

4 Comments by

Today is a chilly day, a curl up under the covers and read day. It’s a perfect brew a cuppa tea and watch a movie with a sister day.

And thankfully, today I have the luxury of doing so.

I spent my first day of UNL’s fall break at my other job, tying up loose ends from last week, getting things in place for this week–but today I made no such plans. Today is a day that is completely free.

Since I didn’t have labs yesterday and today, I don’t have the quizzes and questions I usually give to be graded. I didn’t have a lecture to prepare or labs to attend, so I was able to spend that time doing other things.

Now I have a luxurious morning alone around home, a fantastic afternoon date to watch a movie with my sister (who I haven’t had opportunity to spend time with one-on-one for at least a month), and another stimulating book club discussion this evening (yes, we decided to keep reading).

What will I do with my free day, I wonder? Will I curl up with a book and let time slip away? Will I clean my house (which desperately needs it)? Will I work on that huge pile of clothes I want to alter, or the other pile of household type items I want to work up? Will I take a walk in the crisp autumn air? Will I finally type up that Christmas list my siblings are anxiously waiting for?

I don’t know. I don’t really have plans for today.

It’s my free day–and I’m not going to make plans. I’m just going to do whatever I want to do today, even if I don’t get anything done.

It’ll be a nice respite from the craziness that has been my life (and that will resume again tomorrow!)

Categories Everyday Life

Sunday Snapshot: BET

1 Comment by

Today we’re heading to the lake to have a BET party.

If you’re unfamiliar with the BET concept, it stands for “Burn Evil Things”.

BET parties are a perfect way to close out one season of one’s life (particularly the school season) and to burn anything associated with that season (particularly old school papers.)

Beyond that, it’s an excuse to get together with a few dozen of your closest friends (Hah!) and play with fire.

BET party

This is a shot from last year’s party–perhaps I’ll have shots from this year to share next week :-)

Categories Family & Friends

When Johnny comes marching…

8 Comments by

home again, “Hurrah, Hurrah!”

Or so the song goes.

Except our Johnny won’t be marching home again for quite a while.

Today, as this posts, my brother John is on his way to Omaha. From there, he will fly to San Diego, where he will be trained as a United States Marine.

John kissing Dad

He’s the first of our family to leave Nebraska. The first (of the immediate family) to join the military. The first to miss Christmas.

He’ll be gone for thirteen weeks at boot camp–and after that? No one knows.

It’ll be a big change for our family. Pray for us all, please.

And we will be praying for John.

Praying that he will grow in the strength and knowledge of Jesus Christ even as he’s trained in the strength and knowledge of the United States Marine Corps. Praying that he’ll fix his eyes on his Supreme Commander, Jesus Christ, and walk in step with HIM; even as he barks out “Yes, sir” to an earthly commander. Praying that even as he takes an oath of fealty to this country, to uphold its constitution, he will remain strong in a much higher oath–to do homage to the King above all kings, to faithfully serve Him, to die if necessary for His name and His glory.

And I pray that when Johnny comes marching home again, he’ll come marching not as a warrior of this world, but as a faithful warrior of Christ who can say

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
~2 Timothy 4:7-8

Categories Everyday Life

Sunday Snapshot: Meat

1 Comment by

Curious shoppers cast quizzical glances towards me as I raced through the grocery store–but this time their odd looks were not because of my rapid pace.

This time, it was the contents of my shopping cart that drew their gaze and furrowed their brows.

Meat

After all, how often do you see a young woman in the grocery store buying 25 lbs of meat and little else?

It’s the lab my meat-squeamish students hate–and the lab I absolutely love.

They gingerly use a fork to pick up a steak, handling it as if it were a live rattlesnake. They’re terrified that they might actually touch raw meat.

I show them how it’s done, as I grasp a steak and slap it on the board, as I squish my hands into hamburger for meatloaf.

I love working with meat–especially with raw meat. It’s cold, visceral, and bloody. It demands hands-on action for best results. I can’t really explain why I like working with raw meat–but I do, almost like how I enjoy squishing my toes in freshly turned earth. It’s a reminder of life and death, of reality, of where our food actually comes from.

So I apologize to my gagging students as I encourage them also to plunge their hands into the meat.

Categories Family & Friends

Sunday Snapshot: Bread Pudding

1 Comment by

I dropped into my folk’s house and saw that my mom had leftover bread pudding sitting out waiting to be eaten.

I grabbed a bowl and spoon and, as I dished myself up, I saw the recipe–my recipe for French Toast Casserole.

Bread Pudding

Thanks, Mom, for reading my blog, for perusing my recipes, and for trying them out for yourself. (She tried a variation, adding apples and raisins. It was scrum-diddly-umptious!)

Categories Everyday Life

Unlabeled

4 Comments by

For most of my life, I have resisted labeling.

I purchase most of my clothing from used stores, modifying articles as necessary for fit and fashion.

I choose unlabeled clothing–no conspicuous brand names can be found lurking in my closet. It doesn’t matter whether the brand is low-end or high-end. I don’t wear it.

Then I went to get a new lab coat.

My coat from my dietetics internship has gotten pretty ratty and I needed a new one to wear for my new clinical position.

Now, finding a lab coat for me can be tricky: I’m a tall but slender woman. I need a coat with sleeves long enough to cover my arms, and a fitted-ish waist in order to keep me from looking like I’m positively swimming.

The problem is, most men’s coats don’t have fitted waists (I wonder why?) and most women’s coats don’t have long enough sleeves. And even if they do have long enough sleeves, the waist often ends up somewhere around my chest. Which is totally not cool.

After trying on every coat in the store, I found one that I liked.

Me in lab coat

I purchased it despite one huge misgiving.

Lab coat tag: Grey's Anatomy

Yeah.

Oh well. There goes my good intention of living life unlabeled.

Categories Family & Friends

A Smile on my face and a load off my back

3 Comments by

This last weekend was hard for me. Really hard.

I had a lot on my heart, a lot on my mind. The burden was too much for me to bear.

I went throughout my days. I did what needed to be done. But the burden weighed me down.

I couldn’t just shrug the melancholy away. Couldn’t pretend that I was happy. Couldn’t conjure a smile, even though I tried.

Monday morning, I wrote on my Facebook wall: “Rebekah Menter has misplaced her smile. If you’ve seen it, please let me know. I’d really like to reclaim it.” (Kinda a whiney post, wasn’t it? I’m sorry.)

It wasn’t the easiest day–but the end put a smile on my face and took a load off my back.

I was walking to my car from the class I teach when I received a text from a friend I hadn’t seen for (literally) years. She said she saw me walking and wanted to say hello–and that she missed me.

I had to wait for the tears to subside before I could drive home.

I’d asked my dad earlier if he had some time available that evening to talk–he didn’t, but he took off work early so we could chat. We holed ourselves away in his office and I shared my burden with him. He offered to take some of it–the hardest part–upon himself.

It still isn’t easy, but knowing that my dad is acting on my behalf makes it much easier.

Then I got home and went up to my room to drop my bags from the day–and found this waiting on my desk.

Stuff to put a smile on my face

Au Gratin Potato Chips. Sardines in Mustard Sauce. Smiley Face Gummy Snacks. Some Stickers from Walmart. Three Yellow Flowers in a Vase. And a note from my roommate.

“Hope these small things help you relocate your smile!”

Yes, indeed, they have.

I am so blessed to once again have a smile on my face and a load off my back.

Categories Family & Friends

Sunday Snapshot: Engine Check

1 Comment by

Last Sunday, on my way to church, my car’s “check engine” light flashed on.

Since I’m doing a fair bit of traveling these days with my new job in another town, I knew I wanted to get things checked out quickly.

So I asked my brother Timothy, who works at a car lot, to recommend a place to go.

He said he could read the error if I’d just take my car up to the lot.

I complied, of course.

Timothy reading my engine

We wrote down the error code, returned home to look up what it meant, and quickly did some troubleshooting by the side of the car.

Turns out my gas cap was not fully screwed on and that was causing a pressure reading to “flag” the check engine light.

We screwed the cap on tightly and I drove away.

15 minutes, no money, no problems.

Having family in the “car business” works for me!

Categories Everyday Life

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

3 Comments by

Five Man Electrical Band had a song:

Sign, Sign
Everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery
Breaking my mind
Do this, don’t do that
Can’t you read the sign?

The lyricist dislikes the signs he sees all about.

I agree–sometimes.

But then there are the signs like the ones I’ve seen at various times at my parents’ house:

SignSign

Or the ones at my grandparent’s house:

SignSign

Good-natured signs put up by good-natured people in order to inform or instruct on the basic mechanisms of how a house works.

Do you have any signs in your house?

Categories Family & Friends, Homemaking

Eating RED meat

1 Comment by

Many in my family are of the mistaken notion that I only consume “fully dead” meat products.

They complain that I like my steak so dead that it has no flavor left.

I tell them that it’s not that I like my meat overcooked–it’s that I like to make sure that my meat is safe. Then I urge them to buy a instant-read food thermometer.

Why?

Because with an instant-read food thermometer, you can tell within moments that your meat is safe to eat and don’t have to rely on remarkably unreliable data about doneness–data like how pink a piece of meat is.

Last night, after my dad purchased an instant-read food thermometer, I ate a delicious steak that was cooked to an appropriate internal temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit (Whole cuts of beef and pork are considered safe if they reach an internal temperature of 145 degrees for at least 15 seconds.)

Steak cooked to 150

See that?

Note the blood pooling on my plate?

That’s a safely cooked steak. I know because I temped it personally.

I also know that my dad pulled another steak off the grill, even though my internal temperature readings were only 140 degrees. He was sure the steak was done, that the thermometer was wrong.

Once he got inside and cut that steak open, he decided differently. The thermometer was right, the steak wasn’t fully cooked.

His options now? Eat it in its potentially dangerous present state or nuke the life out of it.

He chose to eat it as it was. I would have nuked the life out of it.

But that decision could have been avoided if he’d just trusted his thermometer.

Food thermometers–making RED meat safe for everyone!

For those who are interested in how to use an instant-read food thermometer, you’ll want to insert the probe at least an inch into the side of your piece of meat at the thickest point. Wait until the temperature on the dial stops increasing.

While many thermometers have temperature recommendations listed on them, these recommendations are not safety recommendations but preference-based recommendations. Often, the temperature listed on the thermometer is higher than the safe temperature. Instead of going with these recommendations, I prefer to know the safe numbers and to cook my meats to my own preferred level of doneness once I know they’ve reached a safe temperature.

So, without further ado, I offer you a handy table of safe meat temperatures.

Beef or pork steaks or chops 145 for 15 seconds
Beef or pork roasts 145 for 3 minutes
Ground beef or pork 155 for 15 seconds
Poultry, whether whole or ground 165 for 15 seconds
Leftovers or other reheated foods 165 for 15 seconds