I’m writing this post on my phone while lying in bed. I didn’t want to have another month with no blog posts in it.
Isn’t technology grand?
I should really be asleep but I just got out of the shower and my hair always looks ridiculous after sleeping on it wet I need what little down time I can get.
If I write anymore, this is going to devolve into a “why I haven’t posted lately” post. We’re all busy so I won’t bore you with the details. I’m just hamster wheeling hard on the work-eat-parent-sleep cycle and trying to have some fun while running on that wheel.
How are you?
This little surprise was sitting on my desk when I came back from lunch yesterday.
March 29th, 1996 is when Sean and I first became a couple. We didn’t get married until June 2004, but this date still matters to me.
Seventeen years is an odd number to celebrate but it marks that I’ve been with Sean for half my life. We’ve stuck together through our late teens, our 20s, and now our mid-30s.
Here’s to another seventeen years. And to seventeen more after that. And if our health prevails, another seventeen after that. And maybe a few more to make sure we got it right.
I feel like I should introduce this post by reminding everyone that I am not the best cook. Better cooks: please proceed with caution.
I was trying to come up with a family-friendly dinner involving minimal effort on Sunday night. It was the last day of March Break and we were all feeling a little worn out and ready to go back to our usual routine. My googling led me to a Pierogies Alfredo recipe I found on Feels Like Home. It looked tasty, but I didn’t have any broccoli. Flora probably would have fought me on it anyway. I simplified the recipe even more to appeal to the pickier eaters in my household (read: Flora and Sean).
Pierogies Alfredo
Ingredients:
- 1 package of frozen pierogies (I used potato and cheddar, but use what you like.)
- 1 jar of Alfredo sauce
- fresh black pepper
- bacon bits
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray.
- Pour a package of frozen pierogies into the baking dish.
- Pour a jar of Alfredo sauce over the pierogies and mix it all together.
- Grind fresh black pepper to taste and sprinkle bacon bits over the pierogies. You can also do this step at the table if like me, you have picky eaters that will flip out if there are spices in their food. Being allowed to customize it at the table is fun too.
- Bake uncovered for 40 minutes.
I didn’t take any pictures because I’m not a food blogger or food stylist. The pierogies were delicious, but completely un-photogenic. I made the whole package, so there were leftovers for our family of three and we had the rest last night. Flora liked sprinkling the bacon bits on them, but she picked at them as four year-olds like to do. Sean and I ate them with great gusto and I will probably make them again. If I was cooking them for more adventurous eaters, I’d add some onion. If I had more time, I’d have probably fried up real bacon to put on them (I did that with my leftovers and it was a good idea.) These are a substantial side-dish so make sure your main is light. We had it with ham slices and mixed veggies and they were good companions.
This would also be a good dish to take to a potluck. I’m writing this recipe down so I remember it the next time I need something easy, quick and comforting.
While last week’s time change has made my weekday wake-up routine…challenging, the extra sunshine at the end of the day really has made a difference to my mood and energy. I’m also taking my iron and vitamin B12 pills more consistently and that might be helping too.
In the last week, I’ve signed myself up for aquafit classes (starting mid-April) and an online writing course. I’m still working through the Web Fundamentals track on Codecademy before I start on actual programming fundamentals. I’ve also been reading lots of novels – some quality, some trashy – which you can see on my Goodreads “read in 2013″ list. That’s one advantage to my longer commute – more reading time!
Sean and I also started watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix. We mainlined Season 1 last week and just started Season 2 yesterday. I love when we find a show we enjoy watching together. Sitting in the same room doing separate things is okay, but doing something together – even if it is just watching TV – is good for our relationship.
All that TV-watching seems to be slowing down the progress of my reading, writing and coding. I’m not watching a lot of other TV right now – not even my beloved Y&R. (I’m so behind!). Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to sleep. There is so much to do and learn and experience and only so much time I can devote to do all of it after work and when Flora doesn’t Need Me Right Now. Obligation trumps desire, but hard work deserves reward.
How do you find the time to fit everything in that you want to do once you’ve fulfilled the obligations and minutiae of your day? I can’t cheat myself of anymore sleep than I already do. Your tips would be welcome.
When I was in highschool, I read Microserfs by Douglas Coupland, one of my all-time favourite authors. I used it in my big English project in either grade 12 or my OAC year. (Aside: remember when you thought you’d never forget the details of your highschool existence? Well, you totally do.) I don’t remember the whole point of the project, but I remember that one of the points I was trying to make was that Internet-speak (short forms, emoticons and LOLspeak) was going to dumb down communication and make us all terrible spellers. Keep in mind that this was circa 1996-1997.
Maybe I should have gotten into futurism as a career. At least I can still spell.
The description of Microserfs from Douglas Coupland’s website is this (emphasis mine):
Microserfs first appeared in short story form as the cover article for the January 1994 issue of Wired magazine and was subsequently expanded to full novel length. Set in the early 1990s, it captures the state of the technology industry before Windows 95, and predicts the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.
The novel is presented in the form of diary entries maintained on a PowerBook by the narrator, Daniel. Because of this, as well as its formatting and usage of emoticons, this novel is similar to what emerged a decade later as the blog format.
When I was in highschool. I could have taken a basic intro to computer programming course. I think it covered Pascal and Fortran, but I’d have to confirm that with Sean who did take the course. I thought programming would be too hard so I didn’t take it. I took a word processing course instead (WordPerfect in DOS! Don’t miss that!). That course – along with my journalism class that wrote and designed the school newspaper and yearbook for that year – put me on a path to my eventual career in graphic design and document layout. But now I’m kicking myself for not taking the programming course too.
That last paragraph makes me feel like such a feminine cliché. Remind me to tell Flora not to underestimate herself when she is a teenager. I could blame the general slacker culture of the 1990s for my own hesitance, but ultimately, I know I was lazy. I could have done better in school and tried harder. I just didn’t want to.
A few weeks ago, I signed up for Codecademy, a site that teaches basic coding skills for the web, and in various programming languages. I’ve been working through the Web Fundamentals track because my HTML skills are woefully out of date. I took my first HTML course on a Saturday afternoon in 1999 back in college. I learned the basics and ran with them. I created several shitty websites. Including the one that got me an interview for my first job as I had posted my resume on it. With my full mailing address. How naive was I?
Today I saw this video from Code.org. It’s less than ten minutes so you should watch it.
I’m not so sure of what I think about little kids learning to code (they get so much screen time as it is), but now I’m finally diving in. I’m desperate to create something I’m proud of. Learning to code adds another tool to my arsenal.
Learning to code is teaching me patience and perserverance. Those are skills I need away from the computer. Being able to create something is almost a bonus.
