New(ish) job under way

Started yesterday. I'm busy. Will write more later.

iPhone App: wCalendar & Darkness-- TTC

The post also known as, "How to use your iPhone to get pregnant."

http://triplecreeks.com/womancalendariphone.aspx

What it's used for:
Tracking your cycle. But only if you're a girl.

What I like:

• Easy input of temps and recording of other events (doing it) and signs (mucus)
• Nice calendar view
• Nice chart view
• Super easy to use
• Displays the day of the cycle I'm on

What I don't like:

• Doesn't calculate when I ovulated with the option to override
• Doesn't take when I marked as ovulation into account with projections
• Doesn't tell me what day past ovulation I am

If you are charting your cycle and I recommend checking it out. I use this app in conjunction with Darkness to do my lunaception.

Fight Back Fridays: Salsa, fresh and fermented

I've been meaning to join in the Fight Back Fridays over at Food Ren's blog. Today, I will.

On my quest to rid my kitchen of processed foods that contain fake ingredients, I'm focusing on condiments. I'm going slowly, one at a time. If I try to do things quickly, I burn up like space debris in earth's atmosphere.

I followed the recipe for fermented salsa in the Nourishing Traditions book by Sally Fallon. Last Sunday, I went to our local coop (or is it co-op?) and bought some farm fresh tomatoes, lemon, garlic, jalapenos and cilantro. I already had onions. I chopped everything up. I left the skin on the tomatoes. Mostly because I'm lazy. Added some whey from homemade cheese and a lot of natural sea salt. Smooshed it into jars. Twisted the lids on and set them on the counter with a towel over them.

When I uncovered them last night, egads! it looked like a science experiment. Or something I would've previously thrown out of my fridge.

Luckily I've also recently read Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation and knew that some white mold on top of ferments is normal and not harmful. You just have to scoop it off.

Therefore I did not fear the white mold and opened the first jar. The bacteria had done their job. There were bubbles and some fizzing, like a carbonated drink, but salsa. I scooped the mold and tasted. Oh the tang! the saltiness! the spiciness! It was delightful. The jars are now in my fridge and I'm working on incorporating salsa into this week's meal plan.

I used to wonder how people ever lived before electricity and refrigerators. How did they store food? I think I'm slowly starting to learn that good, wholesome food doesn't necessarily become putrefied when it "goes bad". Food that hasn't been messed with can become something totally yummy and even good for you (probiotics!) when it ferments.

I'm looking forward to our farmer's market visit coming up tomorrow morning and am excited to find something else to ferment.

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I just had an idea! The mold appears as a result of the surface of the ferment being in contact with the air in the jar. What if I use my vacuum sealer to seal the jars? What then? I'm going to try it.

You know it's been a dry summer when...

your whole office building stops working to watch it rain.

Trucking right along

I was able to give my notice today. It was bittersweet.

I will at least get a day off in between jobs.

I would write more but, bleh.

Decision made

I think it's safe for me to post about the impending decision that is not so impending anymore. I've accepted a job offer. Yes, this is the third job change for me in less than a year. Yes, I'm going back to where I was working before. But, I'll be with a different company and I'll be doing something totally new for me. I won't be in support anymore. For those of you who have worked support jobs you know how momentous that is. For you others, I'll explain.

It means I won't work until 1am the next day trying to get servers fixed. I won't get calls at 9pm to get a server fixed. I won't have to work a whole weekend trying to upgrade servers. I won't be unofficially on-call 24/7. My life will be my own. I'll have predictable work hours.

I'll be handling financials for the contract I was on before. I'll be working with all the same crappy wonderful people, who sometimes read this blog. I may even be back in a cube in which I have worked before. I'll get to submerge myself in spreadsheets and try find ways to make numbers smaller/bigger, depending on the number.

My commute will be shorter.

The maternity leave and options for mothers are terrific. I may be able to work out a job share situation. Of course, given our inability to reproduce, that may not matter.

I will certainly miss the people here. I'll miss the learning and being in the fray.* The fray is such a double-edged sword. It's exciting. It gives you the opportunity to be the hero. But it also means you may have to put your life on hold to accomplish that. I like the adrenaline. I don't like the missed sleep and missed time with Husband.

Sooooooo. I can't give my two weeks until Monday. Until my background check comes back and I pee in a cup, I don't officially have a job. But, seriously, my background check will come back clean. Thanks to Nancy Regan, I don't do drugs. I'm dreading telling my boss. Mostly because he's been grooming me to take over a lot of his responsibilities so that he can spend more time with his babies and wife. I have a little guilt. But this wasn't planned. I wasn't even looking for a job. They contacted me. Sigh. I can't wait to get Monday over with.

I am looking forward to the weekend. But, seriously, when am I not? I have a spa appointment on Saturday morning. Saturday evening is a WAPF chapter meeting. Sunday will be church and bathroom painting. Yeah! I'll also throw in some cooking and fermenting. I'm getting ready to make some pickles and relish from produce at the farmers' market.

*fray - literally, a fight, skirmish or battle. Here I mean the times a highly visible service goes down and things are not working and we have to come up with innovative solutions to get things working and be detectives to figure out why it stopped working. I like run on sentences.

Weekend wind down

It's Sunday evening and all is well. Saturday was useless. Nothing got accomplished or done on Saturday. It was wonderful. Sunday was productive. A chicken is roasted, lunch for the week is made, chicken stock is in the fridge, milk is on the counter top in jars (to be made into cheese and whey), and the kitchen is mostly clean. I also got some minor miscellaneous outdoor chores done. It was pleasant outside today. By "pleasant" I mean that it did *not* feel as though we lived on the sun. It has been another lovely weekend.

The week ahead is looming. I may have a decision to make. I may not. The decision, if I have to make it, won't be easy. Either way I'll make a group of people I care about unhappy. I've been praying for guidance. I know it will come if needed. Perhaps it won't even be needed. I'll be more specific later.

I'm planning on culturing some vegetables next weekend. I'm thinking sliced pickles, relish of some sort and some more sauerkraut. I've started up the menu plan again as well.

Wishing y'all a happy week to come!