sequestered

hello from sometimes sunny northern ohio! 

I’m at orientation right now, meeting a crap ton of new people and praying a lot and being busy though feeling like I accomplished very little.  some things have been challenging, especially coming off my last year of service so very quickly.  but many things have been very good, like my new community.  all 12 of us get along really well, which is weird and very nice.  we find out our house assignments this coming weekend, so I’ll be interested to see which 4-6 guys/girls I’ll be living with out of the 12.  I’m to the point where I just want to get down to ecuador already and start making mistakes.  even though I’ve only been at orientation three days….11 more days to go! 

(don’t worry, I still miss people.  it’s not all fun and games.  I may be having a good time most of the time but that doesn’t mean that I totally forget about everyone.  remember that all this year, please)

serious eek

Friday my family, paul, and I leave for Cleveland.  I turn off my cellphone.  I return my laptop to my employer.  I stay in on a college campus with little to no internet access for two weeks.  I am basically incommunicado.  after that day, it is quite possible you will not hear from me until I am in freaking SOUTH AMERICA.  how completely crazy is that?  (ok I will have a phone card to call people during orientation but I won’t be able to call everyone as it’s public phones so really don’t feel bad if I don’t call you).

really, this is a pretty difficult week.  I mean, I’m excited and pumped and ready to go in many ways.  but I’m also fully aware that this means that I will not see almost everyone I love (minus people who will visit, my parents and paul) for a year.  this is a long time.  a looooong time.  I think that I am allowed to be totally freaked out by that.

I’ve been talking to Tracy, the one of my future community members who lives here in cincy that I met a few weeks ago.  it’s been actually really nice, since we get along really well and we’re both personable and we’re both freaking out about the same things.  it’s good to have someone to say “holy crap I’m totally concerned about this!” and have them say “me too!” so at least you know you’re not the only one.

but I thought my eyes were sunken in!

I bought new sunglasses.

they’re not very stylish, considering I bought the cheapest polarized sunglasses they sell (I actually bought two pair, partly because I couldn’t decide which one looked less…utilitarian).  paul said “they look like something I would buy” but he meant it as a compliment.  he buys clothes for use, not looks.  and they will work just fine for south america!

I’ve started wearing them whenever I’m outside, to try and get myself in the habit.  and I’ve realized why I’ve never been able to get in the habit of wearing sunglasses.  they just don’t fit me right.  my eyelashes hit the lens and it feels weird.  it’s not just this pair.  I’ve had this issue before.  when glasses are all the way on my head, they bump my eyelashes and make me blink a lot.  maybe I should try bugeye glasses that bulge out in the middle.  those also would not be stylish, but perhaps more comfortable.  I try angling the top out a bit or wearing them slightly down my nose, but so far I haven’t found a position that maximizes eye coverage and minimizes looking stupid.  hopefully I will have this mastered in the next couple of weeks, before I get to orientation and have to meet a bunch of new people.  I think there are outdoors activities that first day, and I don’t want my future community members to think “why did they accept her, she doesn’t even know how to wear sunglasses.”

fundraising = success!

I just got my fundraising update from rostro, and with the donations I got from my home parish, I am actually $100-200 OVER my goal amount.  isn’t that crazy?  I mean, it’s really because those Immaculate Conceptioners gave me a surprising amount.  thank you Fr Mike!  thank you friends and family that gave me money!  thank you rostro de cristo for not having me raise very much money!

how I cook

so I’m onto this whole “using up all the food in the freezer before I move” thing.  I realized that this year I’ve really developed my cooking methods…which is to say there’s not much of a method at all.

usually during the day at work I think about what I’m going to make for dinner and I look up recipes online (usually right before lunch or right before I go home…I get hungry).  I write the basics of the recipe down, like cooking techniques and temperatures and such.  then I go home and do whatever I want and throw it into the oven/skillet/soup pot and cook it for a while.

last night, I made meatballs.  I had pasta sauce and ground beef but I didn’t want to make a meat sauce cause that’s boring.  I looked at a few recipes online, but I already had an idea in my head of what I wanted to do, so I didn’t actually use a recipe really except to get an idea of how much breadcrumbs and cheese to add.  and how to cook them.  I was planning on broiling them but my broiler pan is so difficult to clean and one of the recipes recommended olive oil in a skillet, and my skillet is way easy to clean so I went that route.  so, I mixed ground beef, roasted garlic bread crumbs (about 1/2 cup), parmesan cheese (about 1/4 cup), an egg, salt, pepper, basil, and chervil (I wanted parsley but I didn’t have any and chervil smelled good) and then cooked them in the skillet in olive oil until dark and crusty.  they were actually pretty good (paul ate them right up, he’s so helpful with the fridge cleaning).  the cooking method made them all crusty on the outside and soft (yet fully cooked, don’t worry) on the inside.  though broiling is probably better for the fat.  maybe if I had a dishwasher and I didn’t have to scrub every pan by hand.