Egghead

Well, except for the paleo post yesterday, it's been a while. Would you like an update? Of course you would.

Last fall after Z started kindergarten I found myself taking a lot of days off, just because I could. Which meant I was doing a lot of lying around in my pajamas watching whatever I could scare up on Hulu and Netflix. Apparently I am not good at providing my own structure. So I did what anyone would do. I applied for graduate school. That's normal, right?

No, really, I have been thinking about grad school for years. Probably since about 2007. And I've browsed online looking at programs and tried to think of how to make it work, and I've plotted a thesis in my brain. When we first moved to Montana I started looking at the different programs available within a couple of hours, and I figured I'd do one when Dr. G's faculty family half-tuition benefit kicked in. And then this fall I looked again at the program here in town and realized it was actually a good fit, and I decided to ask about the chances of starting in January with some financial aid. Then it seemed like I turned around and was starting school. Everything worked out so great and so quickly.

I'm the teaching assistant for one simple class, which is so easy it's crazy. I'll be teaching it all by myself in the fall, and that's exciting and great experience. My littles spend two afternoons a week at their friends' house while I have class, and the friends are at our house two other afternoons while their mama goes to school. How lucky can I get!? I am actually making money going to grad school. So lucky.

I have four classes including a one-credit seminar. I stay busy, but it's mostly manageable. I say that with my fingers crossed as the semester draws to a close. All the big papers and projects are ahead of me.

The program is really well designed so that almost everything - if I'm smart - feeds into my thesis. So I think I am going to be able to finish by spring 2014. After that I will probably do instructor work around here for a couple of years. Then when Dr. G has a sabbatical we might try to set it up somewhere I can do coursework for a doctorate of my very very own. Seriously! I am eating up this research stuff and I know I can do a good job at it.

So I took a Facebook break in order to try to focus better until the end of the semester. Thus you see me on my poor old neglected blog. Hi!

The post title, by the way, is from my darling enormous 13yo S.  He calls me an egghead and a square all the time when I do silly things like homework.

Paleo candy 1

When we went to Utah over Easter break I was awed as always by my beautiful and stylish sisters. They are both gorgeous and smart and thrifty, always, but this time I particularly noticed M1 was looking really slim and fit. On inquiry I learned she has been eating Paleo style. A shortcut description of this is no sugar, no wheat, no dairy. Ouch! I love all that stuff! But I've also known for a while that I need to kick a serious sugar addiction, and M1 said giving up the other stuff made it a lot easier for her to ditch the sugar.

You can guess, I decided to try it out.  I am not great at it yet. But I feel pretty good when I stick to it.

I do still have sweet cravings. Not like before. But I decided to make some sweet,  protein packed snacks to stash for those sugar addict moments. I made this recipe up, and I have to say, it's tasty. I wasn't planning to roll the finished candies in coconut, but I had to do it so they didn't look like ... you know.


Paleo candy 1
1/2 c shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 c sliced raw almonds
1/2 c sunflower seeds
1/4 c peanut butter
3 tbsp raw unprocessed honey (sister M2, maybe you could substitute maple syrup?)
1/2 c raisins or other dried fruit
2 tbsp cocoa powder
Additional coconut for coating candies

Place nuts, seeds, and coconut in blender or food processor and process until mixture resembles medium to fine breadcrumbs. Mix with remaining ingredients. Shape into 1" balls using a scoop or two teaspoons. Roll in coconut. Separate with mini muffin papers and cover tightly. Store in fridge.

Remember when I cooked?

I used to blog about food all the time. I don't know why I don't do that anymore. Maybe because it's usually not that exciting.

I did invent a little thing tonight that was a big hit, even with our friend who happened to be stopping by at dinnertime. So I thought I would write it down here and maybe try to make it again sometime. Things were a little wild and I didn't get a picture. Sorry about that.

Spicy Chicken Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Fennel

1 onion, diced
1 bulb fennel, diced
4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
4 medium waxy potatoes (red or Yukon gold), peeled and diced
3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1-2 tbsp. of your favorite flavorful hot sauce - we like Cholula or Tapatio
salt and pepper
1 can chicken broth
1 c. frozen peas
sour cream

Layer all the vegetables and chicken in a large slow cooker. Mix chicken broth, hot sauce, and salt and pepper, and pour over the top. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Break up chicken with a wooden spoon, add peas, and stir everything together.

Serve as a stew, with sour cream to temper the spice and good tortillas or bread on the side. Cilantro would also be great as a garnish. Wish I'd thought of that earlier tonight, but there are leftovers to be had tomorrow ...

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Got the picture on the leftovers. With cilantro. Lots of it. Booya!

Four on the floor

I have four kids in school as of today. Officially.

Getaway, part 2

When we first walked into the basilica of Notre Dame de Montreal it took a few moments for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once you realize what you're looking at, you still can't take it in. Neither could my rickety little point-and-shoot camera, so here's a professional image that gives you the idea.

But I don't know if the feeling of it can be captured in any photo. You feel like those enormous gothic arches actually open up to a miraculously luminous night sky. You can't quite tell whether you're indoors or out. It's such a beautiful and appropriate way for a building to give tribute to the God of Heaven. At the same time, the intricate decorative work is a gorgeous testament to human efforts and human faith.

This is the photo I took. It's too dark. I would need a tripod and an empty church and a long exposure, I guess. 

Once you adjust, the light is beautiful, all filtering in through stained glass windows at the sides and the rose windows in the top of the arches.

Rose windows with saints and fleurs de lis, as well as stars and other symbols.

Our cute tour guide, Adrienne, came from the northern part of Quebec. She studies art and architecture history at the University of Quebec at Montreal. She was fabulous. She got us all seated in the oaken pews, decorated with carved busts of the Virgin Mary and the twelve apostles, and started in on a quick summary of the history of Montreal and of the basilica.

An apostle.

It turns out the basilica as we see it is a remodel. The original was completed in an English Gothic style, with large stained glass windows behind the altar. The sun through them in the mornings blinded the congregation. The remodel was an enormous undertaking that involved adding rose windows in the ceiling, stained glass on the side walls, and the intricate and beautiful sculptures that are now behind the altar. 

Many of the side windows show scenes from the history of the city. Adrienne said that's fairly unusual. This one depicts Jeanne Mance, a pioneer nurse.

The topmost part of the altarpiece is a depiction of Christ crowning His mother with a crown of glory. Her robe is inset with real sapphires and emeralds. I found it incredibly beautiful and moving, seeing Mary not in her usual beatific pose or holding an infant, but in the ultimate interaction with her exalted son, being recognized for her vital role and her righteous life. None of my pictures of this were very good. You should look on the church's web site, above, and one of the pictures on the main page shows it quite well.

There's a pulpit at the left that was built to help everyone hear the sermons before the advent of electronic amplification. It's very ornate and beautiful with statues carved in yellow pine. 

I particularly liked these two prophets - Ezekiel and "Jeremie," or Jeremiah, as we know him.Also the sign - please don't touch!

Looking up at the pulpit

Adrienne told us that Vatican II required all masses to be conducted from the front of the cathedral, so after that the pulpit was not used. And now, with microphones and speakers, it is not so much needed. Still beautiful, though.

Next we went into the secondary chapel, located behind the main altar. It's kind of two churches in one! This presented a stunning contrast to the main basilica in so many ways. Instead of the deep blue of the night sky, this room glowed golden. Every surface in it is yellow pine or black walnut. Immediately your eye is drawn to the enormous brass relief sculpture behind the altar.

See the Trinity at the top? Sun, dove, and human face. The arches represent the human journey through life toward God. You can see Adrienne at the lower right explaining it all!

This chapel was burned by an arsonist in the late 1970s and then rebuilt. The priests made an interesting choice in its new design. Some parts of it replicate the 19th-century style, but the ceiling, walls, and altar piece are very much of the late 20th century. They wanted to acknowledge the history of the place, without building a "fake, old" church, in Adrienne's words. I really like the mixture. And I love the honesty.

Danish Modern walls, French Gothic balconies.

When the chapel was burned, there was one piece of luck, or maybe a blessing. Two pieces of the original stained glass windows from the original design of the basilica were found sandwiched between walls. These required some repair but again, this was completed in a way that does not attempt to deceive at all. The replaced pieces are easy to distinguish.

The salvaged windows remain in their original frames. They depict Louis IX of France, who built a shrine to the crown of thorns that became the inspiration for the basilica in Montreal (thus the thorns in his hands), and St. Peter holding the keys to heaven.

Next we headed upstairs to the balconies. Here we got a close-up view of the decorative painting,as well as the amazing stained glass windows. There are also a lot of modern electronics up there for the big sound-and-light show they do in the cathedral. That would be a lot of fun to see, I imagine.

Dr. G in the balcony, with amazing, colorful decorative painting and gold leaf work.

I loved seeing so many women depicted in the stained glass. Of course, lots of men were there, too. But I kind of mostly took pictures of the women.

Mary, flanked by cherubs and crimson-winged angels

St. Therese, patron saint of musicians - located beneath the magnificent organ. Her angels have blue wings.

The life of Jeanne d'Arc in three panels ... and a lady on our tour who apologized to me afterward for getting in my picture. She was very nice.

Mary as a child with her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne. 

Closer up of St. Anne. I really like her. C'mon, it's Jesus' grandma! That's rad! 

Unfortunately I have forgotten who's depicted in this window. I'm so sorry. It's lovely.

The Virgin Mary. Stunning. I love the way the radiance of her halo is expressed in the glass. Also, all these side windows actually open, which I understand is not the usual M.O. Pretty neat.

I also really enjoyed the 19th-century decorative painting on the ceiling and walls of the balconies. There is some damage from water that entered the basilica during and after massive ice storms. They are raising funds for restoration.

The final stop on our tour was the organ. It's pretty massive, with about 7000 pipes in all, some located in rooms we were not able to see. I wish we could have stayed around to hear it played.

I'm a Mormon girl. I appreciate an impressive church pipe organ!

This post was enormous, I know. But it was one of my favorite parts of my trip, and I wanted to be able to share it! It's definitely worth going to see in person if you can. 

As we toured the basilica, I thought so much of my dearly loved Catholic friends, and my Mormon feminist friends who yearn for expressions of the divine feminine, and the more-than-impressive pioneer women of Quebec and those in my own history who have given so much to preserve faith and culture and education. They are very much tied together. Notre Dame de Montreal was a privilege to be able to see.

Getaway, part 1

I can count on one hand the times G and I have left our kids overnight.

Once when S was a baby, we went all the way to beautiful Provo for an adoption conference. That was for one night.

Once when we were both at UC Merced, we needed to go to Yosemite at the same time for work.

Once we came to Montana to look for a house.

Once (last week) we went to Montreal for a few glorious days, just to be together and have fun.

Guess which trip was my favorite?

Here's a brief rundown:

Sunday morning, G flew from Bozeman to Montreal to attend a geochemistry conference. He gave his paper Tuesday afternoon. I'm sure it was brilliant.

While he was presenting, I was driving down I-15 with four kids in the van and four bikes strapped on or stuffed in in various ways. The wind blew hard and it was slightly scary. I am still amazed that we didn't lose any bikes along the way.

After a quick stop for lunch in Idaho Falls and getting to hug and say hi to my awesome friend Susanne, I dropped off my littler kids with my sister M1 in Ogden. (I love Ogden, and my sister has the most adorable, cozy, homey house in a gorgeous neighborhood!)  Although I'd worried a little bit about how K and Z would do, they seemed to settle in well and I took the older two boys down to my parents' house in Murray in time for dinner - fabulous pizza made by my mom. I still have to get her crust recipe. Best ever.

The next morning, my dear wonderful mother took me to the airport at an ungodly hour and I got on a plane. I flew to Dallas and got stuck there for a while, but was rerouted on a direct flight to Montreal and got there only half an hour later than planned. I used my airport time and flying time for some fiction writing I have been working on, so it felt productive and good. By the time I took the 747 Express Bus into town and dropped my things off in our great bargain of a sweet little old hotel, the Hotel St.-Denis, we had time for a late dinner.

The hotel desk clerk steered us to Le Saint-Bock, a pub up the street. Turns out, lucky for us, Rue St.-Denis is a dining hub of sorts (with lots of bars and partying as a side benefit). We ate salad with goat cheese, caramelized onions and a beer-honey vinaigrette, and pizza with chicken, pesto and blue cheese. I wouldn't have thought of putting pesto and blue cheese together - holy strong flavors, Batman! - but it was tasty and satisfying. I could see how it was definitely meant to go with beer, as that is what the Saint-Bock is really all about, but we did not partake. The place was crowded and hot for those not used to humidity, but the service was good and the atmosphere was kind of exciting.

So my Day 1 in Montreal was really just a plane, a bus, and dinner, but you know, not bad!

I told Dr. G I had two goals for my two full days in the city: to see old churches, and to eat some really great food. Thursday morning we dived right in with an amazing breakfast at La Brioche Lyonnaise. I had a divine ratatouille with a runny egg and fruit and some toasted baguette slices on the side. Glenny had crepes with lemon and sugar. We shared an amazing hot chocolate. It is hard to say what I found so great about this place. The food was simple but perfect. The environment was so delightful, so not-of-this-continent - exposed brick walls, an outdoor dining area, a garden room with a glass ceiling, a case of amazing-looking pastries and chocolates. Great service, of course. It was the perfect hello to my first day in Montreal.

We ambled around for a little while, taking in the experience of walking around in a busy, lively city and checking out the St. Lawrence river adjacent to the oldest part of Montreal, then landed at Notre Dame de Montreal.

That's me in the plaza.

After some debate, we purchased tickets for a guided tour so that we would be able to go up into the balconies and other parts of the basilica that are not open to the general public. It was a great choice. Tomorrow I'll pick up with the highlights of the tour.

Curriculum vitae, with tears

This article made me cry. Funny because I don't think it's meant as a tear-jerker. But for me, as I think it is for many women, work-family balance is a complicated and highly emotional topic.


The first part of my career, I wished away. I worked at a magazine on its last legs, which was emotionally difficult but actually offered me some amazing opportunities. As workers were laid off, I took on more responsibilities and ended up in charge of the whole shebang when I was only 23. So by the time we shut the doors for good, I knew not only how to write and edit the content as I was originally hired to do, but how to do the editorial budget and calendar, work with freelancers, supervise a team of editors, lay out pages in Quark XPress, and get a magazine to print.

And I was crying all the time because I wanted to be a mom. I'd been married since I was 19 and trying to get pregnant since I was 20. Yes, that might have been crazy, and I might have been partway lucky that it didn't happen. But it broke my heart.

After the magazine closed, I worked for a small software maker, subsidiary to an international mega-company. We made software for analyzing financial markets. It was used a lot by day-traders - remember that phenomenon from the late '90s? This was my entry into public relations, and I learned how to craft and distribute press releases, contact editors and reporters, plan and execute trade show displays. 


I found it mostly pretty meaningless, selling computer tools to help rich people get richer. I found some redemption doing customer profiles, getting to know individuals who found freedom and flexibility as traders that they had wanted in prior lives as nurses or truck drivers. I found a connection with my grandpa, who passed away that year. What I loved about my work as a PR person was the same thing he loved about his work as a newspaper reporter - getting to know people and their stories and helping to communicate that meaning. 


But really, I was focused on infertility treatments, then putting together an adoption file. I felt like I'd been in a long, dark tunnel, but at last the end was in sight. I was pretty sure the great quest of my life was motherhood, and there I'd find my true fulfillment.

The summer after I turned 25, my husband finished his Master's degree and we moved out of state. I quit my job without shedding a tear. Two months later, we adopted our first son. This was it: all my dreams had come true. I was a stay-at-home mom. We moved back to Utah, and I maintained some freelance work for my last employer, and for a while I went in and worked in the office one day a week. My son stayed with my mom every Friday. 


Almost in a whirlwind, our second adoption happened only 21 months after the first. We didn't think it would happen quite so fast, but it was all welcome. I did the gross parts of the job and the fun parts of the job. I stopped freelancing. And don't let this fact get lost: I loved my little boys. Crazy love. Silly love. Spoil them rotten love.


About six months after that is when things got crazy. I've talked about it before. I had a crawler and a two-year-old. It was winter. We had sickness and behavior issues. I think I got depressed. We went to a psychiatrist, me and the two cute baby boys. I cried. Because I was a mom, and it was so hard.

The psychiatrist perceived pretty quickly that I had not adjusted really well from being a professional woman to being a primary caregiver for small people. His main recommendation was that I find two or three hours a week to be away from my kids. (He entirely missed the fact that my oldest son had ADHD and several other complicated issues, but the kid was only two, and nobody diagnosed those things that early in those days.)

I stayed with those guys all the time, with the exception of those few hours here and there, until they were three and five. That's when I went to work for the university where Dr. G. was getting his Ph.D. I was conflicted about going to work, but it was a financial necessity, and when I prayed about it I knew it was the right choice. I knew my boys would be fine and I knew that we needed to get stabilized and ready for the kids we hadn't found yet.

And I loved my job. It was like my whole job was writing the customer profiles. I got to talk to interesting people all the time, about interesting things - physics and digital libraries and water systems. I was helping establish something new - the university officially opened about a year after I started work. It was a PR dream. Everybody wanted our story. We were gatekeepers rather than street hawkers. And I felt like I was doing work that meant something. Higher education was something I wouldn't have minded selling door-to-door if I'd had to, especially for the historically underserved populations for which the school was being built.


I had one run-in, exactly one, that first year, with a non-supportive work environment. My husband was out of town for a prestigious summer research internship that would advance his progress toward his doctorate. Accordingly, I left work at a reasonable hour to pick my boys up from daycare. The vice chancellor - my boss's boss - heard my heels click down the hallway and called out, "Somebody tell that girl what kind of hours we work around here."

I poked my head into his office and said, "They don't serve dinner at daycare."


That was the end of that. The guy retired later the same year. I don't think anybody really missed him.


I didn't have this blog yet when that happened. Still, it's taken me eight years to write about it. That's curious. I think there is a stigma attached to talking about clashes like that. Mostly I prided myself on being able to get all the work required of me finished in the limited amount of time I had for work. Truth: I worked like a superstar. And I still cooked and shopped, read the bedtime stories, cleaned the bathrooms. Dr. G. picked up some laundry duties (I still did lots - there was plenty to go around) and often picked up the kids after work.


Two years after I started work there, we became foster parents. What an insane thing to do for a working mother and a grad-student father! Longtime readers of this blog know the story. Z joined us as a newborn in November 2006. K came home at the end of the following June, when he was almost 3. 


Now, I know I chose to become a foster parent. If I'd cared more about my career, or maybe if I'd understood how all-consuming the foster system was going to be, or both, I could have chosen differently. And I generally try not to whine too much about having needed to give up my job. My employers tried to be supportive. There was not a clear path to follow, for them or for me.

It is pretty unusual for a working mother to have more than two kids. When we hit three, people in my workplace raised their eyebrows. When the fourth joined us - I don't really remember. I was too stressed out to care what anybody thought, I guess. I knew at that point I'd bitten off more than I could chew. There was simply nothing to do except keep chewing.

But if I hadn't chosen to become a foster parent, something else could have happened that would have made it nearly impossible to continue having a full-time job. It doesn't necessarily matter how the parenthood happens. I could have unexpectedly become pregnant with twins with special needs, for example. The demands and stresses on me would have been similar. At least there would have been a clear procedure for maternity leave, but the system likely still would have been inadequate to keep me on the same career path.

The sheer number of appointments was overwhelming. Social worker visits and birth family visits and WIC and attorney meetings and doctors' appointments and court dates; receipts and reports and classes. Imagine this with four children total, ages 1, 3, 5 and 7, and two very busy professional parents. We had a lot of chaos and a lot of drama. 


Nobody talks about how much more complicated it is if you are a working mother whose children are in any way non-typical. In my experience you may find lightning coming out of your ears at all times and start getting kinda mean. 


I hung on for more than a year. I tried to make adjustments. My employer worked with me to change my schedule (and paycheck) so that I could work 30-hour weeks for the whole last summer I was there. I took the kids on vacation by myself so that G could have some focused time to try to progress on his dissertation. We could not find the balance. After a lot of soul-searching, we made the leap: I resigned in August 2008. 


When I left this job, I cried.


For most of the time since then, I've maintained connections with my old office and written at least one story a month for the university web site or e-newsletters. Still, I miss my professional life a lot. I believe I chose correctly when I quit (the first time in 1999 and the second time in 2008) to focus on my kids and be the primary parent. But it's always on my mind - the wonderful job I had, and what I'm going to do next. 


This week, I decided not to apply for a PR job for the regional energy company. I just didn't feel excited about it. While there could be some great opportunities to talk about green energy, I felt like it also had the potential to be almost as meaningless for me as trying to promote stock market software. Maybe worse. We have some tough-to-win energy situations in Montana - a huge power line that could interfere with ag lands and wild lands but promote development of wind energy in the state, for example. If I were to go back to work, I would want to back to my old job. One of my former co-workers just did - she's single and childless. For me that's impossible. We have a two-head problem of the first order. We live in another state now, and Dr. G pretty much has his dream job. There's no going back for me. And I am pretty stinkin' happy with just about every aspect of my life. I would be a dummy to complain.


My husband spoke on the phone yesterday with an important colleague, an accomplished woman professor who was wonderful and understanding about his efforts to parent equitably and support my career. Her teenage daughter has been experiencing very serious mental and emotional issues. The parents, both professors in a small town, have moved 2+ hours away from their jobs to a major urban area in order to be near high-quality mental health services for their daughter. They're commuting. I don't know how they are managing this. I wonder how long they will be able to keep it up. Talk about sacrifices. But like Anne-Marie Slaughter's colleague told her, sometimes there really is no choice. If you didn't put your family first in these situations you'd be some kind of evil robot.


Love is important. Our partners and our kids are important. I will speak the feminist blasphemy and say sometimes they are more important than our dreams and our accomplishments. I believe that all the way. But the sacrifices we make for those things take a toll on us, too. And the system absolutely could and really must serve us better to reduce those costs.


For now, my path is not so different from what Prof. Slaughter describes in The Atlantic. My plan right now (it feels good to have a plan) is to use my time to write and pump up my freelance business until January 2014. Then my husband will have been in his faculty job for five years so that I can become a student at any Montana university at half-tuition, and I'll get a Master's degree before my oldest son finishes high school, when I'm almost 43. Then I can do instructor work, or get a higher-level communications-type job, or go on for a Ph.D. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'll have 20 years or more of good career time to figure it out. I have to thank Anne-Marie Slaughter for pointing that out, because it really is encouraging.