Solar Power

I run on solar power. I spend spring and summer storing up Vitamin D and fresh air, hoping to reserve enough to survive Missouri winters, yet every February I find my stores depleted. The grey skies feel looming, the cold has set into my bones, and the harsh winds have cracked my skin. Ugh!

It seems God knows when I need a respite - that's when 50 degree days come around.

Miss Sumatra and I take our standard walk around the neighborhood, sniffing the air and observing the neighbors. My internal solar panels recharge and I have just enough to make it through the inevitable return to winter.

Daylight Savings Time arrives in 12 days - I've never looked forward to it more.

Adoption Day

Two years ago today I adopted Miss Sumatra Mandheling - and have since turned into quite the mushy pet owner. I waited until I was well settled in my home before adding a pup, and I knew the perfect girl would come along at the right time. Miss Sumatra certainly fits that bill. From the get go she fit quite easily into my home and has added much, much joy to my life. She's helped me put into action many lessons - perhaps the art of resting is the most important of those! She loves going for walks, exploring our garden, and is highly protective of her space. Hmm - I guess owners and their pups really do mirror one another!

Oh, and in case you miss you're curious - Sumatra Mandheling is my favorite blend at my local coffee shop (Benettis). Below are a few of my fav photos - here's to many more years with my unique little pup!

Keeping an eye on the neighborhood

Why do I have to keep posing? I need to explore...

Birdwatching

Howdy, cuz

A pile of leaves makes me happy

The Manhattan Project

I was quite excited to see The Manhattan Project appear as a Netflix instant watch selection. It was definitely one of my favorite movies growing up - yeah, I was an odd kid. The central character is a high school student - a genius that decides to check out his mom's new boyfriend by breaking into his facility. When he discovers they are secretly making plutonium, he steals some and builds a nuclear bomb for the local science fair.

Seriously.

His goal isn't to blow anything or anyone up - its simply to expose what the company is really doing. Having a girlfriend (a young Cynthia Nixon) that is a budding reporter with a lawyer for a father certainly helps. Naturally he gets in over his head, not realizing the power of the chemical he's stolen.John Lithgow is wonderful as the mom's boyfriend that runs the facility. He genuinely cares about Paul and wants to ease things to a peaceful resolution. There's even a young Robert Sean Leonard as a high school student.

I love this movie because it takes a honest look at how things can be hidden in plain sight, and the responsibility of citizens to know what is happening around them. I may not be a huge conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that there are things like this that happen every day in our cities/country/world that we are completely unaware of. This movie asks viewers to consider what they would do, how far they would go, if such a facility were to be built in their backyard. Still just as engrossing for me today as it was twenty years ago.

Cloak and Dagger

As a member of Gen-X, I lived through the age where computers and video games became part of daily life - and our homes. In true form, movies in the early 1980's explored the pros and cons of our technological age. Cloak and Dagger, starring Dabney Coleman and Henry Thomas was one such movie.

Henry Thomas is a young boy whose mother recently died; his imaginary friend is Jack Black - a video game super spy. As he plays spygames around San Antonio with his neighbor he witnesses a murder and receives a video game cartridge with government secrets from the victim.

Sure its a fairly cheesy movie (it was the early 1980s remember), but it does explore some intriguing ideas. Spies using electronics to smuggle secrets isn't a new idea, nor is hiding secrets in plain sight. Its fun to consider what I would do if the fantasy life provided by a video game became real. Could I really handle the hiding, seeking, exploring with the same level of aplomb?

Short, super cheesy - but a fun blast into the past. Just seeing these two kids travel all over the city (sans adults) is a great way to remember when times were simpler.

Budgets - the bane of my existence

I like the idea of budget - its fun to play with spreadsheets - but a budget feels like I can't really enjoy my life. One of my goals for 2011 is to be debt free by the end of the year, however, which means I not only need to work on a usable/practical budget I have to actually stick with it.

When I began the number crunching last night I was surprised to see I hadn't made nearly as much progress as I'd thought in 2010. When it comes to money I'm the queen of denial - denial of reality that is. I'll happily borrow from my savings to go see a movie, try a new recipe with fantastic ingredients, purchase some item I've wanted for ages that now happens to be on sale - you get the drift.

This go-around I approached my budget a bit differently. After estimating my annual income I worked up an annual budget - which I then broke down into monthly allotments by paycheck. I even went so far as to think through the grocery and household items I purchase each month (and with which paycheck) to make sure I had accurate estimates.

The key for me will be two-fold. 1 - Religiously track how much I spend on what item. 2 - Use the coupons I clip and put the saved money into savings/debt repayment immediately. Even if its puny little amounts. This should help deter my tendency to spend the "saved" money on free items.

So I've got it all worked out if I stick with what I'll be debt-free by November. Which is much later than I'd thought (I had May in my head), but just seeing that its doable gives me hope. This is one monster I've been battling for quite a while and I'm confident that I'll see victory in 2011.

My RPG Obsession

Yes, I confess, I love a good RPG (role playing game). Every since the Legend of Zelda first arrived to the video game console I've been hooked. Terribly excited when we received that shiny gold tape (or cartridge if you prefer), I'd sit absorbed for hours of my pre-teen life in our dark basement either watching my elder brother play or working to defeat the next dungeon myself.

How quickly I learned that we should take turns based on real time, not "when I die next" (dratted fairy pools!).

If you've never played an RPG or find the draw of a 50+ hour game hard to believe, let me attempt to explain. These types of games are less about conquering levels and defeating big bosses. They revolve around a central story, use experience points to strengthen the character, and encompass a vast world. They are a natural fit for those of us that love lengthy novels (eg. The Wheel of Time series). As game systems have evolved so have the stories, characters, graphics, and overall enjoyment of the game experience.

Thanks in large part to the Zelda franchise, I will forever be a Nintendo gal. The Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, GameBoy, and Wii have been given me many hours of escapist pleasure. Along the way I also learned that its best for me to buy games when I can devote large amounts of time to them - I tend to think about how to locate the next key item or defeat a tough critter when I should be focused on church, conversations with live people, working, that sort of thing. Ha!

Since the latest release of my beloved Zelda was postponed (which could mean trouble for me come springtime), I picked up Final Fantasy The Crystal Bearers as my Christmas treat. When it comes to the RPG world FF is a great followup for Zelda - filled with the long form story I love, lots of magic action, but an intriguing mix of technology blended in as well.

While I found it hard to get into at first (lengthy story-movies when I'd rather be moving on already), I've clocked an embarrassing number of hours thus far and set a curfew of 10pm on work nights for myself. Ah for the days when I could play until 4am and no one would notice the next day. If you try to ring me and I don't pick up, rest assure all is well. Just helping Layle and his friends battle the forces of evil and bring about tribal unification.

Povitica - a Radke family tradition

One of my absolute favorite memories of Christmas (and Easter) as a child was the povitica we'd enjoy for breakfast that morning. It's a Croatian nut bread that's rich, flaky, and chock-a-bock full of walnuts. Don't ask for the recipe - family secrets, right? - but here's a general overview of the process.

The bread is similar to what you'd use to make cinnamon rolls - eggs, milk, butter, and sugar combine to make a heavy dough that's a gorgeous yellow color. While its doing the first rise you mix up the filling - walnuts, sugar, milk, butter (I mentioned this is a richly flavored special occasion treat, right?).

Stretching the dough as thin as you can is the tough part. My gran (mom's mom, the Radke side of my family tree) is so great at getting it paper thin. I'll never understand how. She literally stretched it the size of her kitchen table. Seriously. Stop reading for a second and think about the size of your table. One loaf of dough, that large, is thin enough to see through. Will I ever have the patience (or a warm enough home?!?) to accomplish that feat?

Spread on some filling, roll it up, then loop the two ends around the middle (creating a three sided mass of oozy goodness). Quickly slide into a buttered loaf pan and let rise a second time. Bake for about an hour, let cool in the pans about 5 minutes, then gently slip them out to cool on racks.

To serve, slice as gently as possible, toast in the oven just until warm, then put a sliver of butter on top. Seriously - more butter. A cup of coffee or a glass of milk makes this a wonderful holiday treat - and well worth the two-a-day workouts I'll be enjoying this weekend!

Side note - when I was in Croatia last year I was pleased to see that their povitica was as thin (ie thick!) as mine.