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Average Jane’s Aging Car

I love my car. I really do. How can you not love a car that averages 50 miles per gallon of gas? However, it has a few quirks and I think they're starting to intensify with age.

Over the weekend I learned that my car is not really suitable for a long drive on mountainous highways in the middle of the summer. Unfortunately, I was already driving said highways before I reached that conclusion, so I had no choice but to soldier on and hope I could get where I was going and back.

The problem is the summer heat. I don't know if every hybrid is like this, but mine doesn't do well in the extreme heat. The battery doesn't want to charge up, it has almost no acceleration power (especially with the air conditioner on) and I spend a lot of time gearing down and down to get the car to reach or maintain the necessary speed.

Add a passenger and a full load of cargo and you have a recipe for getting passed by everyone on the highway. Except we were mostly on two-lane rural highways. Sorry, everyone behind me!

Before I left town I had the oil changed and was informed that it's time I had my brakes repaired. As in brake pads and rotors, all the way around. Since I'm still gathering up the $450+ that will cost, I obviously didn't get them repaired on the spot. Thus, I had the extra thrill of zipping around corners and down steep hills knowing that every tap on the brakes was shortening the lifespan of the parts just a little bit more quickly.

I hope my car manages to last for many years to come. It's already 10 years old and it looks remarkably good for its age. It still gets really good gas mileage (although it used to be somewhat better), and I like its futuristic shape and details. There's also a lot to be said for having a car that's paid off, so I'm really quite willing to pony up for maintenance and plan to take another vehicle the next time I visit the mountains.

How's your car holding up?

August 1, 2011
Average Jane Goes on Vacation

I just got back from four days in gorgeous Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I went with a group of friends and my sister—there were 17 of us in total. We spent the trip in a very leisurely fashion, gathering in smaller groups to visit various attractions and larger groups for meals.

One of the first things we noticed is that it's butterfly season there. Wherever we went there were beautiful butterflies flitting around the flowers. My sister led us in a yoga practice on Friday and Saturday mornings and we enjoyed seeing the butterflies on the plants as we exercised.

We stayed at the 1905 Basin Park Hotel in downtown Eureka Springs. Supposedly it's haunted and they offer nightly ghost tours. I didn't think it seemed haunted to me, but what do I know? The only semi-weird experience I had was one afternoon while I was taking a nap. I heard the sound of a door creaking several times and assumed that one of my roommates was coming in. However, I never heard the floor creak to indicate someone walking across it. Once I got up, I checked all the doors in the room and none of them were as noisy as what I'd heard. So if that's my ghost story, it's a pretty tame one.

On the first evening we were there, they had a little festival in Basin Park, right next to the hotel. It featured music, performers, bubble making, etc. What fun!

Every morning I went walking for an hour or so. The hotel was on Spring Street, and as with most towns with the word "springs" in their names, Eureka Springs has a history that included a tourist boom attracted to the healing waters. All along the street you can still see many of the historic springs, although several are dry and the rest are mere trickles of water.

The water isn't drinkable, but I can attest that it's ice-cold and feels great on your hands after a long, hot walk.

My sister and I had decided in advance that we wanted to visit Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, so we gathered a group of six and went on Friday afternoon. Turpentine Creek is a non-profit that rescues big cats, most of which had been bred as "pets" but were obviously not tameable. It's a much more widespread problem than you would think.

As you can imagine, it's incredibly expensive to build safe habitats and feed these animals properly for the rest of their lives. I wish I had the wherewithal to donate lots of money to their organization.

In case you've ever wondered if a liger is a real thing, here's one. This guy is still young and they expect him to double in size. Ligers are bigger than either lions or tigers once they mature.

On Saturday, my sister and I fulfilled our other sightseeing goal: to visit one of the local caves. We chose Onyx Cave, which apparently doesn't have a website.

What they DO have is self-guided walking tours complete with state-of-the-art 1970s technology including bulky radio headphones that pick up sections of a recorded message that you trigger at various points by pushing a button.

The cave is not as pristine as some I've visited. In the past it was the site of illicit activities by moonshiners and bandits, but it was most ill-used during a time when many of the stalactites were broken off for the onyx. Still, it has a lot of cool formations and it was well worth the $7 admission price.

To give you an idea of the age of the audio presentation, it ended with, "Take only photos and leave behind only flashbulbs."

I really loved the town and I am always drawn to turn-of-the-20th-century architecture and design.

If I could afford it, I'd buy this little cottage and retire there, enjoying the mountain views every morning from my back porch.

I'd walk through the hilly neighborhoods every morning keeping an eye out for deer.

I was very impressed by the number, variety and quality of shops and restaurants within walking distance of our hotel. If you were willing to drive a short distance, the options increased even more.

After my sister and I went to Onyx Cave, we stopped for a tasting at Keels Creek Winery and then chowed down on Grandma's Beans and Cornbread before heading to the 1886 Crescent Hotel to go swimming.

This morning I extended my walk all the way to the Crescent, partly to have a destination and partly because I knew I could buy a bottle of water there and pet the lobby cat. Yes, I missed my cats.

Of course, this story leaves out all the fun I had with my friends, gathering for meals and drinks at various parts of the day. I went out with the group on Friday night to see Mountain Sprout play at The Squid & Whale Pub, which is the kind of place that serves your pint of beer in a Ball canning jar and you don't blink an eye.

So what I'm saying is that I had fun, I relaxed, I stayed off the internet for days and, most important, I let 85 work emails go unread until Monday. It was exactly the kind of vacation I needed.

July 31, 2011
Average Jane Is Old Enough To Make Jelly

"Now, Ann had not forgotten when her birthday came, for that meant a party and feasting and dancing, but she had quite forgotten how many years the birthdays marked. In a land where people live always, this is not considered a cause for regret, so we may justly say that Queen Ann of Oogaboo was old enough to make jelly—and let it go at that."

— L. Frank Baum, Tik-Tok of Oz

I've been old enough to make jelly for some time. When I was growing up, I recall helping my mom make strawberry and peach jam on numerous occasions, and one year I took the initiative and made cherry preserves when we had an unusually vigorous crop from our cherry tree.

Until yesterday, the only canning I'd done as an adult was a batch of strawberry jam a couple of years ago when I belonged to a CSA. Still, the process has remained pretty much the same over time, so I was eager to help out when my friend, Christy, invited a group of us over to make jelly and jam out of wild Sand Hill plums.

They look a lot like cherries, don't they?

Four of us got together yesterday and began cooking down fruit for the first double batch of jelly around 11:00 a.m. Christy had all the necessary tools and supplies:

That 25-pound bag of sugar was empty by the end of the day.

We started out by making as much jelly as we could from the juice of almost 10 gallons of plums, and then strained the pulp from the remaining cooked fruit for a couple of batches of jam.

You may recognize Cagey there on the left. Our non-blogging friend, LuAnn, is on the right.

For the second batch of jam we added some regular plums from the grocery store because we were coming up short on pulp. Whereas the earlier jam had been almost pumpkin-colored, this batch was a brilliant ruby red.

The whole process took about six hours (not counting all of Christy's extensive prep work before we arrived). All told, we ended up with 48 half-pints and 9 full pints of jelly and jam.

It came out beautifully, don't you think?

Even if it was a rather messy process…

A big thank you to Christy for a fun afternoon and especially for providing all the supplies and letting us take home some jelly and jam. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to do some canning.

July 24, 2011
Average Jane Prefers To Type At You

Now that smartphones are taking over the world, I keep hoping that the "phone" part will be gently phased out so that I no longer have to communicate with people verbally.

There are so many other options! You can text me, email me, DM me through Twitter, @ me through Twitter, message me on Facebook. I have all that stuff on my phone and computer all day long so I'll definitely see it right away, unless it's after 9:00 p.m. when I'm a Viking.

This leads me to today's scenario in which I was forced to make a phone call despite my strong desire to use a web form instead.

The car dealership where I always get service on the Insight used to have a very simple online form for requesting a service appointment. You told it what kind of car you had, when you wanted to bring it in, what you wanted done, who you were and what your phone number was. The end.

I went to schedule an oil change today and discovered that they had "upgraded" their form. Now, I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm a web-savvy individual. However, this new form was incredibly user-unfriendly. Apparently someone in the sales department had decided that they weren't collecting enough information from people, so it started with creating an account and went downhill from there.

Once I'd finished creating my account, I tried to navigate the process of actually setting up an appointment, but it was the least intuitive user interface I'd ever encountered. I ended up accidentally scheduling my appointment on the wrong day and by the time I figured out how to cancel, I was Done. With. That. Form.

So I picked up the phone and called to make my appointment. Yes, the company managed to take someone who had efficiently scheduled all her appointments online for an entire decade and get her to call and talk to someone instead. Way to raise those overhead costs!

Obviously my dream of a telephone-free world is still in the distant future. But I'll be ready when the time comes.

July 21, 2011
Average Jane Hates Crowds

I wouldn't go so far as to call myself agoraphobic, but I have an intense dislike of standing in large crowds. That's one of the main reasons I go to rock concerts so seldom these days.

It also affects my desire to be among the first to do certain long-awaited fun things, such as go to the new Harry Potter movie or check out the new Trader Joe's locations that finally opened in the Kansas City area today.

I'm very excited about both of those things, but I am exceedingly unwilling to allow other people to invade my personal space in the pursuit of either one. The movie can wait until next week (or maybe Sunday night) and I'll probably give Trader Joe's a few weeks to calm down before I venture out there.

"But what about BlogHer?" I hear you saying.

I know, right? Three thousand people at a conference sounds kind of challenging for someone like me. And it is. Back in the days when attendance was measured in hundreds, it was much easier for me to handle. These days I need to jump in for as long as I can take it and then retreat for a while to re-energize. Sometimes a nap is involved.

I'm actually calmer about the whole crowd thing than I used to be. Age and yoga have mellowed me to the point where I no longer get agitated by crowds. Instead, they just wear me out.

What about you? Do you thrive on crowds or are you more like me?

July 15, 2011
Average Jane Is Going To BlogPaws!

I just found out last week that I'm one of the official BlogPaws Paws on the Ground bloggers. That means I'm not only going to the conference, but I'm part of the team helping to promote it from now until registration closes on August 26th. I've been wanting to go to a BlogPaws conference since they first started and I am very excited!

If you love pets and blog about them even occasionally, you'll get a lot out of the conference. There's even a full track just for veterinarians. If you can get your vet to sign up, they'll get 20% off their vet track registration and you'll get to attend the regular conference for free!

Even if your vet isn't interested, the regular conference cost is very reasonable and I can hook you up with a 20% discount (just email me or comment and I'll send you the code).

A portion of the attendee fees and sponsorship dollars goes to shelters and rescues. Also, at the end of the conference, one registered attendee will win a donation to the animal rescue group of his or her choice.

I talked to my cats about the upcoming conference to see how they felt about it, starting with Trillian:

Me: Hey Tiny, I'm going to a blogging conference August 25th through 27th that's all about pets!

Trillian: Uh, you're not taking me along, are you?

Me: No, no. I'll be flying there. You're more of a road trip kitty.

Trillian: Whew. Okay then. Well, have fun.

Me: I'll probably bring back some cool treats and toys for you guys.

Trillian: Whatever, as long as I don't have to go.

* * *

Dr. Jones was nearby and overhead my conversation with Trillian, so it made sense to talk to him next:

Me: I'm…

Jones: You said treats! What kinds of treats?

Me: Well, I don't know yet. But I'm sure they'll be good ones.

Jones: Are you bringing home any paper or cardboard? I love chewing on that stuff, too.

Me: If I bring home anything paper or cardboard, it'll probably be something I don't want you to chew up.

Jones: Can I have a treat right now?

* * *

Xena wandered into the kitchen, so I stooped down to have a little chat:

Xena: Did I hear you say you were leaving for a few days?

Me: Yes, at the end of August I'll be going to Tysons Corner, Virginia for BlogPaws.

Xena: You don't say. Well, I'll take care of my, I mean, your husband until you get back.

Me: That's very thoughtful of you.

Xena: If you want to extend your vacation, go right ahead.

Me: Well, thanks for that, but I'll need to get back and go to work after the conference.

Xena: Suit yourself.

* * *

Finally, Velvet and I had a chance to sit down for a bit:

Velvet: Can I go with you?

Me: No, it's best if you stay here.

Velvet: But won't there be lots of people there to pet me?

Me: Well, yes, I'm sure there will be lots of cat aficionados at the conference. But you'll get petted here and I won't be gone very long.

Velvet: I'm going to miss you SO much! I think I'm going to lick your hair for a while now.

Me: No! Please don't lick my hair. We've talked about that. No licking of hair. No licking of any kind.

* * *

So that went well.

But seriously, this is such a cool conference and the speaker list is, well, pretty much everyone you could hope for at a conference about pets, animal welfare, etc. There are a number of people attending and speaking that I already know and many that I've been wanting to meet for a long time.

As I mentioned before, the cost is rock-bottom and even the hotel rooms are only $119 per night; cheaper than that if you find yourself a roommate.

I hope you'll be able to attend. I'm really looking forward to going.

July 10, 2011
Average Jane’s Foodtacular Birthday Celebrations

My birthday was Thursday, which means I am by no means finished celebrating yet. However, most of the celebrations that have taken place so far have involved cake. That is a situation that definitely meets with my approval.

It started out on Wednesday when I co-hosted a taco dinner with another friend who shares my July 7th birthday. I bought two dozen giant cupcakes from Takes the Cake Bakery, six each of four different flavors, and they were all delicious. I think my current favorite is the almond cake with raspberry buttercream icing.

Don't judge the squooshed-looking red velvet cupcakes in the back. I dropped the box while I was trying to open it.

The next day I went to work even though my company lets you take a day off for your birthday. We were doing a company field trip to LIVESTRONG Sporting Park and I didn't want to miss it. It's good that I went into the office because a co-worker made me a batch of tiny chocolate cupcakes that were sitting on my desk when I arrived. Woohoo!

Later that evening, I attended a Social Media Club of Kansas City board meeting and look what the prez got me:

Hashtag, Twitter handle and everything. Yes, the underscore is missing, but I'm sure the grocery store bakers were confused enough as it was.

The pièce de résistance of my birthday celebration plans was a trip to the first annual Westport Food Truck Festival last night. I'd told my husband that I wanted to have my birthday dinner there, so I threw the invitation open to all of my friends and we ended up with a core group of seven, wandering the festival and trying the deliciousness.

I ended up having a mini meatball sub, a tamale, two limeades, two beers, half of a rootbeer cupcake and some hummus that I partly aspirated and almost choked on. As you can imagine, I was finished after that.

It was a beautiful evening and I kept running into other friends throughout the festival. We took it at a slow pace and spent the majority of the time relaxing outside and chatting. It was a very pleasant way to finish out a day that was supposed to have been my day off but ended up being a full workday after all.

Tonight my sister is having a game night at her house, so the celebration will continue. Which segues nicely into a little discussion of my birthday gifts. My aunt sent me a game called Literati Challenge, and I can't wait to play it. I treated myself to the Awkward Family Photos board game as well. I can never resist a blog tie-in.

My husband's gift to me was a bottle of Kate Spade Twirl perfume, which I'd discovered in last month's Birchbox shipment.

One of my best gifts was a blog post that Cagey wrote for my birthday. It was SO nice, even though it makes me sound way more interesting than I actually am.

So that's my birthday so far. Yes, all the cake is probably contributing to my middle-aged weight struggles, but I'd rather be happy than thin this week. I can worry about my food intake next week as I settle into my new age.

July 9, 2011
Average Jane vs. The Zucchini

Okay, the whole zucchini thing is not as adversarial as it sounds. However, considering that I planted exactly two zucchini seeds, the level of vegetable production I'm experiencing is almost alarming.

On June 23rd, I took a couple of photos of some adorable little zucchini plants that were just forming and still had yellow blossoms on their tips.

One rainstorm later and on July 1st I had a nice harvest of two good-sized squashes, two cucumbers and a handful of grape tomatoes.

Pay no attention to my filthy car upholstery. Look at the beautiful vegetables!

Three days later I stopped by my garden to water and picked another moderately-sized zucchini, two more cucumbers and a few more grape tomatoes. I took one last look at my smaller zucchini plant and discovered THE BIGGEST ZUCCHINI EVER hiding in the leaves. I can't believe I hadn't spotted it earlier.

You could seriously mess someone up if you hit them with that beast of a squash. It had to have weighed more than two pounds.

I got out my trusty Kitchen-Aid vegetable slicer attachment and shredded the monster zucchini. It produced six cups of vegetable matter.

First I made two loaves of zucchini bread. My husband had been chanting, "Zucchini bread, zucchini bread…" like a mantra ever since I'd told him I planted zucchini, so obviously I had to start there.

With the remaining three cups of shredded zucchini, I made a double batch of zucchini pancakes to accompany the grilled steaks we had for dinner last night. I followed the link in that blog post to Maangchi.com and made the dipping sauce she recommended to accompany the pancakes, using the largest of the jalapeño peppers I have growing outside my back door.

We will definitely be having those again. The dipping sauce alone was so good that I want to dip all my food in it forever.

Tonight I made a pretty pedestrian batch of spaghetti with sauce from a jar, but of course included a sliced zucchini because these things are not going to stop growing. I still have two more waiting to be used and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a new crop ready for picking before the end of the week.

So do you have any recipes for zucchini that are interesting, delicious, unusual or otherwise worth passing along? I think I'm going to need them!

July 5, 2011
Another Week in the Life of Average Jane

I swear I'm going to get back to a more regular posting schedule someday. I never intended my blog to turn into "what I did last week, in brief." Until then, here are some snapshots (literally and figuratively) of the past several days.

Our intrepid adventurer, Dr. Jones, has discovered that he can reach pretty much any high spot in the house. He's chosen the top of this cupboard as his new perch for surveilling the neighborhood. I think he got bored when the baby doves in our front bushes finally grew all their feathers and left.

My garden is looking good. We will definitely have no shortage of zucchini. The cucumber plant looks good as well, although the zucchini plants are encroaching upon it. Not sure yet about the green beans, peppers, eggplant and sugar snap peas. We'll have to see. I harvested and immediately ate the first grape tomato of the season yesterday. It was delicious.

Took this lovely shot on Friday morning from the patio at The Filling Station. Later that morning I felt something weird in my sleeve and discovered an ant-like insect that had probably crawled in there while I breakfasted outdoors. I shook it out of my sweater onto the floor near my desk and then decided I should take it outside to give it a fighting chance. It wasn't easy, but it should now be happily living in the hostas near the front door of my office.

On Friday night I made Cagey's Kai Kratiam (Garlic Pepper Chicken) recipe, served over jasmine rice. I garnished mine with thin strips of red bell pepper, cilantro leaves from my garden, and a drizzle of sriracha sauce. It was super easy and my husband loved it. I'll definitely be adding it to our rotation.

Last night my husband and I went out to dinner and decided to take a "short nap" before going to hear a band down the street. I fell deeply asleep and didn't wake up until 2:00 a.m. I took out my contacts, changed into my pajamas and went back to sleep until nearly 7:00 this morning. I don't know why I was so wiped out, but I must have needed the sleep.

This morning I learned that my photo of the chandelier superimposed over the Western Auto building was voted the winner of this year's Urban Photo Safari. I was really only participating for the fun of it, but what an honor to win! There's no prize, so I figure I need to take full advantage of my bragging rights, which means posting about it here, on Facebook and on Twitter. Okay, the bragging is over now.

So those are the highlights of the past seven days. What have you been up to? Do you have any big summer vacation plans?

June 26, 2011
Average Jane Makes Lasagna
A couple of people have asked for my lasagna recipe and although it varies from batch to batch, I figured I'd go ahead and document yesterday's preparation because it includes all of the fundamentals and a nice, light sauce that works well in a dish that can otherwise be a little heavy.

Lasagna
- 1 package lasagna noodles
- 16 oz. ricotta cheese
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup fresh spinach leaves, finely chopped
- Fresh herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, etc.), finely chopped
- 4 cups grated or shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 2 – 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup finely chopped onion
- 1/3 cup finely chopped carrot
- 1/3 cup finely chopped celery
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. sugar
1. To prepare sauce, saute onion in olive oil over medium heat until translucent.
2. Add carrot and celery and saute another minute.
3. Add tomato, salt and sugar.
4. Simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes.
5. Brown ground beef with garlic.
6. Mix cooked beef with sauce.
7. Cook noodles according to package directions; drain, rinse and set aside.
8. In a small bowl, mix ricotta with egg, spinach and herbs.
9. Spread a layer of sauce mixture in the bottom of a 13" x 9" baking dish
10. Alternate layers of noodles, sauce, ricotta mixture and mozzarella as desired, ending with mozzarella over a layer of sauce.
11. Cover with foil and bake at 350°F for 45-60 minutes, uncovering for the last 15 minutes so the cheese can lightly brown.
I have a mini Cuisinart that works great for the fine chopping. However, you can accomplish the same thing with a spring-loaded food chopper or a chef's knife.

You'll notice that this recipe contains a lot of vegetables. However, only the tomato is in evidence by the time the dish has been baked, unless you count the tiny flecks of green in the ricotta layer. So if you have picky kids or other veggie-haters in your household, this is a good recipe for sneaking some veggies in.

Photo credit: Annalisa Antonini
June 20, 2011