Tis' the season

kindness
we all say we have it; but as I work retail this holiday season i find that kindness is in short supply this time of year.
others of you who work in retail/customer service will probably second this.

What is it about this time of year that makes it harder for people to be kind?

J Edgar Hoover

This last month I read "J. Edgar Hoover" by Curt Gentry.

I saw it while we were visiting the Library of Congress back in Sept/Oct. There were several presidential books, and biographies. I used my Goodreads App bar code scanner to quickly file books that looked interesting. I just happened to scan this book. Its a great read!

I recently discovered that I do enjoy reading biographies. Once I realized this, I stopped and thought, back in high school I read a biography on General George McClelland, and I remember really liking it and going through it really quickly. Had I realized this back when I was in college I probably would have maybe majored in History, or taken more History classes.

A while back I also read "American Lion" a biography on Andrew Jackson we picked up on our way to DC  from Joplin when we stopped in Tennessee. We got it at the gift shop at The Hermitage, thought we couldn't bring ourselves to spend the money to take the tour of the actual house, nor did we have the three hours it takes to tour it.

So, back to the book. J Edgar Hoover lived from 1895-1972. So he is an adult during a time in history when everything is changing, and not only does he live during these years, but he has a very important job, with lots of political leverage. During his time at the FBI he sees 10 presidents come and go, and serves directly under 8 of them as director. The amount of history that he lives, and creates is honestly astounding. More importantly, the amount of corruption not only in the FBI but across all branches of government at the time is a real eye opener. There are things that the author talks about, that when you can wrap your head around the fact that they really happened, just blow your mind again. It brings into perspective our political world today.

As I was reading it, the new about NSA spying on Americans and also foreigners broke. For once, I was actually so unsurprised by this because, well, its nothing new. Really! To get all the details you will have to read the book!

One of the things I also like about these two biographies is that a bulk of the persons life is lived here in Washington DC. The places mentioned in the book are places I have rode my bike to, sat and read in, and driven by as I take Mike to Law School on rainy or snowy days.

I now am having a hard time deciding what my next biography should be. A couple of contenders are:
- Simon Bolivar
- Nelson Mandela
- Ernesto "Che" Guevara
- Abraham Lincoln
- Benito Juarez
- Thomas Jefferson

Note that Bolivar and Lincoln I have already picked out books for. The rest I have not had a recommendation for a certain book. A Mandela bio is a new one on my list.
Do you have any recommendations on my other want to read? if so, please let me know in the comments.

Getting ready for Christmas

I enjoy Christmas,
growing up I enjoyed Christmas because it was a family centered time, with great food, and lots of presents. We never had snow or even cold temperatures in Mexico, in fact, one Christmas I remember having to scavenger hunt a gift and we went outside and I was too warm in my sweatshirt and jeans.
My family lived in the US only one year of my childhood, it was my 7th grade school year. That was the first year that we actually experienced snow with our Christmas season. There is something about the snow that makes Christmas just a little more special, the coldness driving people inside and so more time is spent together. Also, though I complain about it, the shorter days, make Christmas lights a bigger show piece.
Everyone has certain things that make December actually turn into Christmas. Its the traditions that we do that make this time of the year special. For me growing up it was:
- Decorating sugar cookies, ever since we were little its something we have always done, and not just a few, my mom and grandma would bake dozens of them that we would then have to decorate, it would take several hours, and cover more than one table.
- Pie. Thanksgiving and Christmas was the ONLY time we ever had pie, pumpkin pie. This year I have made 4 pies, and I have plans to make one more before Christmas. And then at least one more for Christmas dinner.
- Decorating. When we were little my mom would decorate, once we were bigger, us girls did more of it. We would take down all of our regular wall hangings and put up Christmas themed decor. The Christmas tree would be covered in ornaments and lights. I liked trying something new each year.
- Watching mom and dad "drain" the turkey all day on Christmas to get the juices for the gravy. It was a mixture of english and spanish, some concern about it being hot or missing the receiving container, and always a bit stressful it seemed. They now have it down pat, a twice a year routine that they do flawlessly.
- Opening presents. It was always a nice and orderly affair. Everyone opening presents in turn and everyone else watching. My younger sister used to be the present distributer, and last year it was Ela, my niece, that took over that honor.
- Stocking presents. There were three girls in the family. On Christmas morning, we would wake up, get our stockings, dump all the presents on the bed, then proceed to open them according to what they were. Each year we were pretty much guaranteed to get a new tooth brush, chap stick,or a small perfume. They were all the same, and so we would say "lets open the big square one" or "lets open the tooth brush".

As a grown up there are things that I now do, that I have added to the list.
- Present shopping. I enjoy trying to think of a lovely gift for each person. Something that they need, or that I think they would like. Its a challenge, a fun challenge. Since I work now I actually have a little to spend on people, when we were kids, there was a lot of gift making to compensate for our lack of funds.
- The snow, the last Christmas I had in Mexico was in 2003, ten years ago. Since then we have celebrated this season in the US. So along with Christmas there is cold, ice, and snow.
- Time with family. There have been a few Christmases we have not all been together. One year Erica and family were in Tennessee, and Amanda was in Illinois. It was just my parents, grandmother and I that year. The Christmases since my grandmother has passed have also felt a bit incomplete. After these things, all of the Calderon's being together has been a lot more special.

These are the things that make December into Christmas for me.

Getting back to it.

Before we moved to DC I wanted to write a blog about the changes we were about to go through. I started, that was the easy part. But I was unable to motivate myself to continue writing after the first few posts. Im looking at my blog now, and in the last 4 months, I have written 10 posts. My goal was to do 2-3 a week, so I really should have more like 24-36 posts up by now.
It's a combination of things that has brought my writing to a screeching halt, and I am ok with haven taken the time to go through those things with out over analyzing them in order to be able to write about them. I'm still not sure I should, but Im going to start with the easier things.
Job hunting frustration. I enjoy working. (Correction!) I have enjoyed my last few jobs. Which makes it a lot easier to climb out of bed in the morning and go. I have been job hunting since we moved, and I had expected it to take a while for me to find a job that I would enjoy enough to motivate me most days; but not this long.
I havent found it.
Im still looking.
Its a frustrating situation.
I applied to a major retail store that I had worked for previously, because I was going crazy sitting at home trying to keep myself entertained. As I started working I put a lot of pressure on myself. In my mind I realized that this was only a part time, keep me busy while Mike is busy, don't really need it, kind of job; I wasn't treating it like that, with such easy expectation and flexibility. I became a working machine while at work, and picked up many more hours than I should have (thats a LOT of standing I was not used to). To the point that one day before work it all hit me, I didn't enjoy this job. At all.
I had put to much pressure on myself I was trying to make it something it was not. I was trying to make it more.
I was frustrated.
I had to have a talk with Mike, and then  a lot of thinking and re-arranging expectations. Since then I have limited the amount of hours I will work at once, and how many shifts.
Im looking at this job now as I should have the first few weeks.
I am much less frustrated.
I have lowered my expectation of this job, I doest not have the fulfillment level that my previous jobs had, and I'm  beginning to be ok with it.
I hadn't admitted it at first, but its a step back, a big step back in my "career".
I was trying to make it a step up from my previous jobs, and I think that is what was the most frustrating. Its not a step up, its definitely a step down.
But, I have found my motivator: to be able to quit this job, because I have a better job!
Thats what keeps me going, I cant wait to go in and quit this job.

Fantasy Football

This is the first ever time that I have participated in a Fantasy Football league. Don't judge, it had always seemed like a guy thing, and I didn't want to invade any bro-ness by asking to join. Also, Im Mexican, and it its not "futbol", didn't really seem that interesting. (unless you got to see it live)
My brother-in-law made this league for the family and a couple of close friends, so I have been very  carefully keeping track of what is going on Sunday and Monday's NFL football.

This week I had my first loss. It was tragic. I had been undefeated. Last week when I went up against my husband's team we were both undefeated, but only I came out victorious. But now that I have lost a game, I find myself re-thinking my whole strategy line up, (I really have no strategy). My WR, which ever they are, in my head I just call them my winged runners, don't ever seem to make the points they are supposed to.
Which brings me to the whole projected points thing. Its a mess, there really is no way to predict who will make points during a game, and so they change constantly.

 Beggining of the game. It was pretty even, I had a 1% advantage.

 A little further into the game, I had no player left, so my score was not going to go up. I was the underdog. I only got 81 points, I had been projected to get 114, you should know i was pretty stressed at this point.

 But here we are at the end. His remaining players didn't score the needed amounts, and I won!

In my game against my husband, which was week 4. I was projected to loose by about 15 points. I ended up winning by a margin on about 50.

This whole thing is quite entertaining, unpredictable, and fun.

Even after my loss last week, I am still in first place in the league because I have the most points, and no one is undefeated.

October

Today is the first of October, which means its been too long since Ive written a post.
Im gonna keep it short today, and just share with you my recipe for smoothies. Mike and I got a blender as a wedding gift, and I hadn't used it before these last couple of weeks. I don't know if it will crush ice, (growing up mom had a blender, and it was quite old, it couldn't handle crushing ice).
For my smoothies I don't use ice. So it doesn't really matter.
It a really easy recipe, and you can play around with it and add what ever you want to it.

Recipe:
1 cup of milk
1 cup of frozen strawberries.
1 teaspoon of sugar (or artificial sweetener)

We have also made some where we add a scoop of frozen sherbet. We have tried it with orange and raspberry. I like the raspberry better.

The Letter M

Mike and Megan

I like that both our names start with the same letter. It makes for inspiration for an easy little art project.
I found a Home Depot the other day, it was not far from the Target I go to. So I decided to stop in and look at their wood selections, because I had this project in mind. So I found this piece of wood, its was originally 4 feet long. So, I had the nice guy at the wood saw cut it into three pieces for me. He was so nice he didnt even charge me for the cuts. So now I have 3 pieces of wood for only 8 dollars. Score! (I got a soft pine, this allows me to hammer the nails in easy)

The rest of the material I already had on hand at home: hammer, nails (with heads) and some string.

I printed out a letter M on some paper, I just found one that had an outline I liked. You can probably free hand it if you are good at that. And I started putting in nails in the corners and important curves of the letter. 

Im not the straightest at hammering nails, but it doesnt matter. I just tried to make the heads all the same height.

I choose black string just to make it stand out. I started the outline of the M before I removed the paper, so that on the narrow parts I wouldn't get confused on what side the nail belonged to.

Once I had the out line done, I removed the paper. Then I when back over it, criss crossing the string. If you dont like it, its super easy to just un ravel it and try a diferent path. The hardest part is hiding the ends of the string. I left a long tail to allow me to do several knots and then cut it close so you cant see the tail.

I forgot to have my scissors on hand. So I used the hammer to keep the string in place while I went to look for some.

Here it is. A lovely M. I think Ill put it over our bed. 

I may un-do the string at some point later and stain and varnish the wood so it looks more finished. I just didn't feel like spending any more money at the time. I think it will look a lot more finished if I do that. 

Hope this inspires you to make one yourself. 

Here is a link to the original piece that inspired me. Nail feather

Groceries

Cost of living here in the DC area is a lot higher than in little Joplin MO. So one of the things we are going to try to do to stay with in budget is not eat out as much, which in turn makes grocery shopping much more important.
Having the right ingredients on hand, and getting them at the best price is the goal.
When we first got here we visited Whole Foods. Lovely shop. The problem is that its very expensive for very small portions. The few things we got where very yummy, but didn't last long at all. Needless to say we have not been back to do grocery shopping there.
The next place we tried out was Giant. Its nice and close so I can ride my bike there and pick up anything. But I did notice that food was still more expensive than I was used to paying. I got a rewards card, that enables you to get many in-store coupons, it automatically applies the coupon at the register. This is still my go to grocery store in case Im missing some ingredient or ran out of bread.
I finally gave in this week and made the drive to Walmart. Its a 30 minute drive from our house to the store. So I will not be making this trip often. But, I will be making it, probably once every other week. The reason is, that I can buy the bulk of our food, and not spend a small fortune.

50th Anniversary March on Washington

That's happening tomorrow folks. Mike has been able to get off class (the professors will provide a recording of the class for the students who choose to go to The March). So we will both venture to The Mall tomorrow morning to see President Obama, and I believe Clinton, and Carter as well.
Events like these are what make living in DC very interesting and exciting. It also brings important issues very close to home.
So, I look forward to posting tomorrow evening on how the event goes from my perspective.

Spoiler Alert!

I love reading, and with Mike doing a LOT of reading for school, I have also been reading a lot more. I started reading this book:

I enjoy reading about history, there is only one small problem. Spoilers! Since its history, people already know how its going to end. So I was reading along, and I decided to look up who had been presidents before Andrew Jackson. And that's when this happened: 

Thanks Wikipedia! Now I know that he does win the re-election!, and that he tosses out Calhoun and runs with Van Buren as vice-president!

I told Mike about my run in with this spoiler, and he told me it was my own fault. Which might be correct. 

Farmer's Market at Clarendon

Wednesday afternoon is the Clarendon's farmer's market. I took Mike lunch and on the way home I passed by the sign that said it started at 3.

We had lunch at the GW yard. Behind us is the library. 

I decided to go by and pick up some veggies. I really do notice a difference between store bought and home grown, especially after having our garden.
I didn't over do it, no use in buying a bunch and then having it go bad before we can eat it. So I got: 1 tomato, 4 zucchinis, and about a pound (which if I didn't know spanish the abbreviation for pound would make no sense, how do you get lb from pound. In spanish it libra so lb isn't completely wacko) of green beans.

Once I saw the green beans I decided to make a yummy family recipe of green beans, potatoes and ham. Mom didn't make it super often growing up, but when she did, it was very yummy. Its so easy to make, and only takes up one pot (with no dish washer, thats a score!)
Just peel the potatoes, and cut them into half or quarters. Then take the ham and cut it into the same sized pieces and add the green beans. No spices or extras. The ham flavors it all. Cover with water and boil till the potatoes and green beans are done.

I didn't get a picture of my plate at the beginning of the meal, so here it is half way eaten. 

Then pull out all your ingredients (I keep some of the water to add to the left overs, all the ham flavoring is in the water)
Mash the potatoes which are not dry and only really need a little salt.
I usually make a big pot (and the first time I made it, I had to use two big pots and we had lefts overs for ever)
I only used about half of the ham I bought. So i froze the rest. Thinking on it now, I wish I would have cut it into chunks before I froze it. Ill have to remember that next time.
Total cost is not much:
$1.50 for greens beans
$2.00 for about half a bag of potatoes
$11.00 for the ham (only used half of it, so $5.50)
$9.00 for the meal. ($4.50 per person!)

And I still have left overs for tomorrow!

With the cost of living being higher here in Washington DC, I am trying to do more meals like this, were I can really save. One big save is not eating out!

Free Chicken!

The other day, Mike was craving some sugar, so he went to the store, while he was there, he decided he wanted some chicken and rice for dinner. So he called home to see what ingredients would be missing, and I told him chicken.
He came home with free chicken!

It was free, because it didn't have a price label on it. Score!

This weekend we had a couple of adventures. One of them was riding our bikes a couple of miles to get to the river. It took us along this wilderness near the river that was not bicycle friendly, we ended up carrying our bikes to cross creeks and very rocky areas. We made it to the river, and then on the way back realized that our house sits on the top of a hill. So we had to bike up hill pretty much the whole way home.

Im amazed at how green the city is, there are so many trees, so much forested area. Its not like Houston or even Kansas City that once you get inside the highway circle its all pretty much concrete. There are several roads that go through forested areas. And all along beside the Potomac there are forested areas as well.

Jogging and Jobbing

This is my life this week. Mike has had orientation to take up his days. So job hunting has been on my to do list.
I have also started jogging again! Its been almost 3 months since I broke my ankle in Alaska, and this week I went for my first runs. The first one was a short one mile in the neighborhood to get to see a little more, found out there is a Cheesecake factory really too close to the house. And my second run was here:

 That is Roosevelt Island. Its not too far from the house, but I did drive there. How long before I don't first think about driving, and walking or biking become the established more of transportation.

I ran about 2 miles this second time. My ankle still hurts, especially at the begging, and I still favor that leg. But its getting better each time I do it.

First week in DC

I cant believe its been a week already. Last sunday we arrived at the house and started unloading boxes from the cars. 

First off, here are some pictures of the apartment before we moved anything in. 

 We live in the basement, these are our stairs down to our apartment, there is also a set inside that leads from the laundry area to the hall way up stairs. 

 Standing at the door at the bottom of the stairs you walk into the living room. Notice the brown walls and ceiling that make the dark basement even darker. 

 From the front door to the left is the kitchen area.

 The door past the fridge goes to our bedroom. 

This picture is taken from our bedroom door. The opposite wall has the fridge on it. The oven is that lovely green that was popular about 60 years ago. 

This picture is looking back to the door and the living room through the kitchen

 This is taken at the end of the kitchen, the door there goes to the bathroom. 

 And this last picture is of our bedroom. 

This week we have put a lot of energy into getting boxed unpacked, building the furniture from IKEA and also getting to know the neighborhood and the city. 

Here are some after pictures of the apartment. 

 This is the same view from walking into the apartment. 

 Looking from the living room to the kitchen again. The counters are a bit messy, but I love the cheerfulness of the blue area rugs. 

 We got a occasional table to put under the cabinets by the fridge, therefore giving use to the wasted space. We also added a bunch of lamps to the different rooms. 

 The view from the bedroom door to the kitchen. The windows are not to the outside on this side of the apartment, the owner has an addition to the upstairs, so if you look out the windows, all you see is the underside of the addition, pipes and brick. Im thinking I will get some nice fabric and make some curtains, just to make it "feel" like they are real windows. 

 This is from the kitchen to the living room. This corner is Mike's desk area. He will be needing a space to study and sit when he's not in class or at the library. 

Next to Mike's desk is the couch, and then the door to the bathroom. Completing the circle to the main area of the apartment.

Our bedroom and bathroom are still a mess, so no pictures yet. But soon, I hope. 

We have also gotten to know our neighborhood, there is a Walgreens no more than a 3 minute bike ride away. We also have a Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Pottery Barn and Apple store with in a 10  minute stroll from the front door at the Market . 

We also took a bike ride on wednesday morning. The plan was to bike to the Jefferson memorial, and as we made our way to it, we realized that there were all the other big memorials along the way. 

The first one we came across was a big tower with bells, given to the US from the people of the Netherlands. It was in the middle of this lovely park right next to the Arlington Cemetery. 

 We couldn't bike through the Arlington Cemetery, so we biked on the path around it. 

 These eagles are at the entrance to the cemetery, at the bridge that crosses from DC to Arlington. 

 Here we are in the middle of the bridge, with Arlington one the left. 

 And DC on the right. 

 These are at DC end of the bridge. A gift from the people of Italy. There are 4 of them. This one is called Valor 

 Then, we kept going and the next thing we saw was the Lincoln memorial. And at a distance at the other end of the reflecting pool the Washington memorial 

 As we biked up the reflecting pool, I decided that walking would take way to long, and was glad we had bicycles.

 At the end of the reflecting pool, before you get to the Washington Memorial, there is the WWII memorial fountain. 

 The Washington Memorial is closed off due to an earthquake that happened in 2011 that caused some structural damage. 

 And there in the distance was our destination, the Jefferson memorial. We just had to bike around the water. 

 Through the cherry trees we took the path right next to the water. 

 So beautiful, with shade and a nice breeze 

 then the path was flooded. 

 So we took the higher up path and made it to the Jefferson Memorial. 

So, if you are planning on visiting, save a couple extra dollars up so you can rent some bicycles and we can bike around town.