Delirity

I’m not sure how we’re already halfway through 2010, but I’m loving the beautiful summer weather we’re having in Portland!

Jesse is currently battling allergies and a business plan in order to open up a chiropractic practice of his very own, hopefully by the end of summer. I’m juggling work, helping Jesse with business stuff, family stuff, and trying to maintain a somewhat clean apartment. Can’t wait to share more exciting news about the business once we get to that point!

To celebrate the release of Android Karenina, Quirk Classics is sponsoring a contest. Click here and mention my blog to be entered to win 1 of 25 Quirk Prize packs which has a whole bunch of awesome stuff in it, including several of their books!

I have to admit that I’m sort of in love with Quirk Classics. It’s brilliant – take a classic novel and modify it in a way that causes a resurgence of interest. I’m all for anything that encourages reading!

Somehow I’ve never managed to read Anna Karenina. Android Karenina actually got me fairly excited because I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to read a “revised” version of the story without having knowledge of the original (I had read Pride and Prejudice many times before embarking on the Zombiefied version).

I’m really loving the book. There’s the romance aspect that is requisite for all (or at least most) classics, though it explores different types of romances including adulterous relationships. There is definitely quite a bit of social commentary which is particularly interesting since I don’t have much background in Russian history. And then there’s the technology.

The technology throughout the book is really fun and inventive – a dance turns into a “float” where couples dance on puffs of air, going abroad means getting sent into outer space, and everyone in the highest social class receives their own humanoid robot upon coming of age.

I have to laugh at how appropriate this technology is given my own current work. I was just at a conference for work (International Society for Gerontechnology in Vancouver, BC) and one of the most entertaining things we saw was a humanoid robot that’s currently being used for all sorts of research. I’d love to have my own robot that would help me out throughout the day!

Jesse and I have been playing tag around the house. Sometimes he’s here. Sometimes I’m here. Occasionally we’re both here… but not too much (18 days in May and only 6 days during the first 3 weeks of June). Definitely an improvement from when he was working in Bellingham, but still not a full time thing yet (that should happen after the 3rd week of June).

When we are together, and even when we aren’t, a lot of time is currently being taken up by figuring out the startup of Jesse’s chiropractic office. We’re checking out locations, trying to get realtors to call us back (you’d think that in an economy where there are lots of vacant spots it wouldn’t be that hard to get a return call!), getting in touch with banks, trying to choose the perfect table, checking out other practices (to help us figure out what to do and what not to do), and Jesse is doing a lot of reading.

It’s exciting. And if all goes well, we’ll be in business by August 1st (or some point shortly thereafter). So much to do and so little time! Sometimes I wish I could help more, but sadly there are other things in my life to be dealt with at a higher priority (since Jesse really should take the lead on his own business). Wish us luck! It’s a super exciting, though very busy and stressful time.

Our local farm share started up this past week. For 24 weeks this year, we’ll be loaded up with fresh veggies and 2 dozen free range eggs. Fruit and honey will be coming from the local farmer’s market on Saturdays. I’m hoping that this means we can decrease our grocery store trips to every 2 weeks or so (for meat and bananas and whatever other random essentials we need).

We’re really hoping that embracing our farm share will help us to clean up our eating (there’s been just a little too much sugar involved recently!). When we did this 2 years ago we frequently had food that we never got to. Our goal this year is to consume everything (except fava beans)… we’ve learned a lot in the past 2 years and have a plan of attack:

1. I “process” all the fresh food immediately upon getting home. This goes something like: empty produce from awesome organic cotton bags, wash with veggie wash and filtered water, and put into the many vented containers we have. That means it’s really easy to eat stuff when we want it.
2. Anything we have a large quantity gets made into smoothies made by the vitamix we received last year for Christmas. This should really help with the huge amounts of greens we get – particularly during the first half of the season!

This week’s share (“small” since it’s the first week) contains mixed lettuces, spinach, mild mustard greens, pea greens, kale, radishes, chives, and a cherry tomato plant (which I’m attempting to grow on our back patio in a pot – cross your fingers for enough sun!). Since Jesse is out of town this week, it’s up to me to eat it all! So far I’m actually making fairly good progress on it. I’ve been making smoothies (with lots of greens mixed in!) and kale crispies (in fact, all the kale is gone now!). And, the radishes are actually mild enough to eat like a carrot!

We’re gonna be so healthy

I’d like to thank the LA traffic for a spontaneous reunion that will be occurring tomorrow. You see, Jesse was supposed to be getting back tonight from a trip to LA and I was supposed to be leaving for LA in the morning (different purposes and he booked his tickets before I booked mine). However, due to the wonder that is LA traffic, we’re now on the same flight home on Tuesday!

I’d like to thank our awesome friends Jenni and Dave for rescuing Jesse from the Ontario airport and giving him a place to sleep tonight… the best part is that I had been planning to visit them tomorrow anyway and the visit will be that much better since Jesse will be there too! It’s been far too long since we’ve all been together (maybe since their wedding almost 4 years ago? or at least a few Christmases ago).

Now if only our flights get delayed for a few more days due to weather or something we’d be in town for my college reunion…