Road Trip to Bethlehem

Follow the Star....

Last weekend my co-worker and friend Sarah got hitched in PA. Let me tell you, I have never been impressed with the old state of PA, outside of Philadelphia and arguably Pittsburgh there is really nothing to see. A whole lot of NOTHING. But for Sarah I decided I would brave the drive and visit Bethlehem.

Now, asking Mark to go along seemed to be out of the question as he hates car trips, being bored and PEOPLE. So, I hitched a ride with Amy, another co-worker and friend and promptly asked her to drive as the old 1994 Cavalier might not make it. Especially since the Cavalier got into a wee bit of an accident was was still nursing a broken driver side door. Now, Amy loves road trips and PA so she decided to plan a whopper and this trip became the stuff of legends. Seriously, everyone at the reception was asking us how the trip went since it was going to be EPIC. We had big plans to visit the Yuengling factory, the Roadside America miniature village and a winery or two. My focus was on finding a drink since I heard the reception would be sans alcohol and while I am not a big drinker I am also not good in social situations where I know almost no one without a drink in my hand. At least drinking before the wedding seemed like a good compromise.

Plans were dashed as we got to a late start and the drive took forever and the tolls cost like a million bucks (srsly people, the value of entering PA is certainly not equal to the actual cost). No beer factory tour only gawking at road side signs like the

Balloon Artist

(these balloons were pure artistry, wish the pics were better!). We pulled into Bethlehem with only 30 minutes to spare and lunch on our minds. The only place we saw and therefore ate was the local McDonald gussied up like a real 1960's MickeyD

and very popular with the locals. I NEVER eat at McDonald's or fast food in general really so the apple and walnut salad with a side of fries was a new experience for me. I probably won't be back.

The wedding was in a chapel on the Lehigh University campus which is beautiful and we got lots of pictures of the church. Being a historic preservation major I tend to be interested in and take lots of pictures of buildings. Usually, after a vacation I have random shots of building interiors and have forgotten what they are AND nobody cares. The priest was very funny in a peculiar, crazy uncle kind of way which I was not expecting but did seem to spice things up. It was over quickly for a catholic ceremony and I did very much appreciate it.

We spent the hour between in historic downtown Bethlehem, founded by the Moravians. I learned about the Moravians from a trip Mark and I took to a museum conference in Winston-Salem several years ago. We got a lot of comedy material from our tour of the historic Moravian settlement at Old Salem Museums. On the tour we found out that Moravians used to decide everything by drawing lots so if you had a question you would ask the council and they would draw lots to see the answer. One poor man wanted to get married and the drawing turned him down 7 TIMES. Moravians no longer draw lots. They do still have a special star and some tasty cookies. The best thing I saw in Historic Bethlehem was the Brew Works. That is where we spent the hour; trying the beer sampler and taking shots of beer in order to finish in time to get to the reception. It was really good beer, even the porter, not usually my favorite.

The reception was beautiful and Sarah even made the favors; ribbon embroidered bags with CHOCOLATE inside. We danced to some Jackson 5 and ate some cake from a real NJ Italian bakery. We didn't get out of there until later than expected and asked the bride for directions home to avoid tolls. Winding through the back roads of PA as the sun was setting we saw 2 wineries, lots of farm land and several Amish people riding strange looking bikes. The overall effect was surreal and we weren't sure if we were looking at the Amish on bikes or a group of Brooklyn hipsters with the plaid and the beards and the strange hand-made bikes. I didn't get a picture because my camera had already run out of battery life but if I did, this is what it would look like. All of the scenic distractions caused us to get lost twice and resort to a small stretch of toll road to get back on track. Got home late Saturday night and Mark and Gimp were glad to see me. Mark was especially glad to see the cookies I brought home from the reception in the paper bags printed with Sarah and Thomas' wedding date. MMMM... cookies. Gimp was less excited about the bubbles from the wedding, apparently the world's most fierce Gimp Cat is afraid of bubbles. Who knew?

Earth Day

Happy Earth day from Sesame Street and Paul Rudd.....and me!

Like most things in life, if you think about ALL the things you maybe should be doing it becomes overwhelming. I prefer to slowly incorporate small steps to change my ways and try not to feel guilty about what I am not doing. This year I have some new ideas for small changes.

Like this knitted reusable Swiffer pad because I love my Swiffer but need to cut down on my disposables.

While my attempts at knitting plastic bags did not go so well, I have new inspiration thanks to Modish but I probably won't attempt anything as ambitious as the world's first plastic bag billboard.

If you are anything like me you have about a million t-shirts around the house. Luckily there are about a million ideas for what to do with them. I am working on turning one into a skirt for summer weekends but I also like the idea of weaving them or even making a cool quilt.

Last but not least, I love the idea of using an Altoids tin to make a travel candle.

One last idea you might want to try, Meatless Monday!

Just remember one thing - Earth Rocks!

Happy Spring!

cherry blossom branches, originally uploaded by bethjc.

I'm not much for Easter but I do think it's important to mark the seasons and I especially love spring! We decided to celebrate spring by visiting the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. The weather was perfect and the trees were so pretty. It was such a great way to to welcome the season.

Now I need to change out my closet and go to the fabric store because I need some new spring skirts. I already have my spring shoes - new ivory ballet flats I got on clearance and have been saving for months.

Happy Women's History Month!

A little late, I know. I might not have referenced this month at all but I just finished a great biography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett by the Rutgers University history professor, Mia Bay titled To Tell the Truth Freely .

Biographies are some of my favorite kinds of books to read. I love history because it is the culmination of stories of people's lives. Famous people, every day people and extraordinary people. I devoured the biography section of my elementary school library and my favorite at that time was a book about Nellie Bly . It was the first time I really thought about being a girl and understood the challenges that have historically come with that. I also just love stories about people that fight, fight back, change the world and don't take no for an answer. Those are the people I admire and those people give me hope for human kind. Nellie Bly was that kind of chick.

The Progressive Era gave us many such women including Ida B. Wells-Barnett who was also a journalist. Ida was a trouble maker of the highest order, she was so "difficult" that she was never really given credit for all that she did accomplish. She wasn't difficult as much as uncompromising, unwilling to back down in order to make peace or scratch backs. She was never good at politics. My favorite story involves the suffrage movement . As much as I am grateful for the work of Susan B. Anthony and other suffrage leaders, the great shame of the movement is that they allowed segregation and outright racism in order to appease some critics. In the National American Woman Suffrage Association's suffrage parade on March 3, 1913
in Washington DC, Ida refused to march in the back of the parade where they had segregated the African-American suffragettes. Instead, she hid in the crowd until her state delegation, Illinois, passed and then she jumped in and marched under her state flag, integrating the parade single-handedly!

Another Progressive Era hero has been my favorite since I read her biography in college; Margaret Sanger spent her life working with poor women and came to believe that if they had honest information and access to birth control they could improve their lives and the lives of their children. She fought for that cause the rest of her life and founded the American Birth Control League which became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Her story is fascinating and worth a read.

Some women lead by example and Madam CJ Walker certainly did. Becoming the first self-made American woman millionaire the early 1900's she created a beauty empire. Her life story is worth the read and even the story of her daughter's life during the Harlem Renaissance is fascinating. For more on this amazing women I recommend the book On Her Own Ground : the Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker.

Just because it's almost April doesn't mean you can't pick up a biography of one of these amazing women, or let me know of a biography I need to read!

Treats! (or - Probably Why My Pants are Tight)

That's what we call sugary goodness in my house, treats. As in - "we don't have any treats in this house" followed by "why don't you go get us some treats?". I have already professed my love for Ben & Jerry's or any kind of ice cream really. My other love is chocolate, of course.

When we first got together my husband informed me that he does not like chocolate and in addition to that, sweets are not "his thing" . WHAT? or more accurately, WTF? This cannot be possible. So I set out to change his mind because I couldn't go through life eating treats all by myself. It took several years but I finally broke him and I can proudly proclaim that he especially loves Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. He also loves any kind of fruity treat and when I do have to "go get us some treats" I ask what he wants and he says, "something fruity and tasty".

I usually buy cookie dough, frozen cake or mixes if we want baked goods. I do sometimes make homemade treats but not often. If we have no treats and don't want to go to the store I make something I learned from my grandma, my Mom's Mom. She would take leftover pie crust and spread it with butter, sugar and cinnamon, cut it into strips and roll it. Bake up and eat; nom nom nom. Pie crust is easy to make fast and I can whip it up in no time.

Since reading In Defense of Food We have decided to do better eating real food. Our CSA was a good start but we can still cut processed food, white flour, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and the like. Real food takes more time and effort. Real food is sometime hard to find. Try going to the grocery store and not purchasing anything with HFCS . It's hard. We are learning so much. While organic crackers seem more expensive than 100 calorie snack packs they are actually not when portioned into 100 calorie packs of their own and they have less packaging. Also, organic ketchup is soooo much better than the regular kind.

This brings me back to our treats problem. Unfortunately we cannot at this time live without treats but we no longer want processed crap. So, I decided to learn to bake more. Baking is a challenge because I can't use real butter or milk (for Mark) and we are trying to use whole wheat flour which has a very particular taste and density. It requires some experimentation as to creating good recipes. I take my work seriously and have done the required research. I began with cake.



RESULTS: Worst cake ever: peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting - the peanut flavor highlighted the wheat flavor and the cake was too dry and heavy. Best non-chocolate cake: carrot cake from Betty Crocker with vegan vanilla
sour cream frosting from somewhere on the Internets - the spices covered the wheat flavor and the density worked well with the carrots and nuts. Best chocolate cake: this vegan chocolate cake with cocoa frosting from Betty Crocker. The recipe was for 12 cupcakes so I doubled it and made a cake. It is the perfect chocolate flavor and it is the lightest, melt-in-your-mouth texture ever, even with whole wheat flour. It is almost too dangerous to have in the house. And the frosting is definitely the best I have made; better than using baking chocolate or even vegan cream cheese frosting.

Monday is Mark's B-day so this weekend I am making his B-day cake. When I asked him he immediately requested the carrot cake but then he saw this recipe from Fat Free Vegan and has decided he wants that. It looks fruity and tasty. I hope its not also wheat-y.

On another note, have you heard of this thing they call "March Madness"? It annoys me and ruins perfectly good television. But Fug Madness is awesome!

Flower Power

I know I haven't posted much in the last 2 months and I have no excuse. I have spent the winter doing some crafting and recovering from various illnesses. I swear this winter has been the worst for catching bad stuff. It could also be the hundreds of kids I guided through the museum in these last months; all the sniffling and coughing hordes of them.

I have begun knitting again after a six month break. I started with a scarf for a xmas gift. While knitting the octopus scarf I joined a new craft group that meets at the library and stays in touch on Ravelry. These ladies are very nice and I forgot how helpful it is to have someone available to answer questions and help with problems. These ladies have even given me the courage to perhaps try a sweater! Amazing after 3 years of knitting to finally work up to a sweater. I also taught a friend to knit and made her go with me to the knitting group so we are now becoming obsessed with patterns and yarn.


After the holiday I decided to make myself some winter hats because its very cold and I didn't have hats and scarves that matched. My first hat was a beret that I first knit in chunky pink yarn and hated it so I frogged the hat and knit it in a medium weight purple-ish yarn. I really like it. I used the pink yarn for a matching scarf.


I decided I liked knitting hats so I tried a cap in 3 colors using yarn I got for xmas from cousin Briana. The hat turned out ok but I decided it wasn't girly enough so I experimented with some decoration and came up with this:

Pretty cool, huh? I really like it and I get compliments every time I wear it.

So it got me thinking that I really need a cool hat to go with my blue scarf. It was the first thing I ever knit and still my favorite scarf when its really cold. I had a very small amount of that same yarn left so I decided to build a hat around it. I used some black wool sport weight yarn to do the hat and then combined the blue yarn with some cream yarn and a red button to create this:
and my new favorite hat is made. I am afraid I can't stop making flowers because they help to use up leftover yarn and can be made in an endless combination of colors. also because, thanks to the furloughs, I don't have extra money for new yarn so I use what I have.

Miss Gimp Doesn't Want to Talk About it....

But she is now middle aged and has the spread to prove it.

Poor Miss Gimpy doesn't really eat more but she has become a bit lazy, and it shows. She used to love to play fetch (really) and especially loved to chase after ponytail holders but lately she will only do it once or twice before deciding she would rather just lay down.

Mark is worried about her so he tries to wrestle with her more but she usually just gets annoyed and walks away.

Maybe our bad habits have rubbed off on her. You think she would join us on the Wii Fit?