hip /hip/ adjective hipper, comparative; hippest, superlative

Or, according to Wikipedia, “Hip is a slang term meaning fashionably current and in the know. Hip is the opposite of square or prude. Hip, like cool, does not refer to one specific quality. What is considered hip is continuously changing.”

I am rather an old soul. Always have been. I credit that to the fact that I am an only child and grew up spending a lot of time either alone or with my parents and their adult friends. I would say I had more than the average childlike flights of imaginary fancy, but as far as “playing” went…I was a bit hopeless. I was serious about everything I did. And now, I’d choose a coffee shop over a bar and a thrift store over a fancy boutique. I always struggle when A. and I go on dates or on the few occasions I’ve gone out with the girls because most of my nice clothes are more suitable for church than the club. I don’t think these are necessarily bad things, but it occasionally strikes me that I am unlike many my age. I enjoy a good cocktail as much as the next person, but I somehow missed out on the party gene.

However, the neighborhood that A. and I moved into is what one might be able to call “hip” (see above). We were attracted to the area for its plethora of walkable destinations, its extensive green space and walking path, and its mix of urban bustle with residential charm. Plus, it is close to A’s work, and since he HATES to drive, it was desirable to not have much of a commute. It’s probably un-hip that we’ve even wondered, but we’ve been trying to decide if we are “worthy” of our new neighborhood. In other words, are we hip?!

On the surface, I’d say we’re not. My shorts are too long, my hair too staid, and my body too un-tatooed. But in a truly un-hip manner, we began a mental list of the things we do that ARE hip, at least in our minds. Here are a few of the reasons we came up with.

And now, I suppose we can add our location to the list! But some of those are a stretch, and I draw a blank after those seven. For the most part, I think “hip” is over-rated, and I definitely don’t worry about it. In fifth grade, probably the lowest point of my life on the cool scale, one of the cute, popular girls told me that if you were cool you just didn’t have to try. (I definitely wasn’t, and I definitely did.) It’s kind of fun to be an observer of people and culture and weigh how you measure up, but in the end what really matters is being true to yourself and enjoying life.

So what do you think? What does being hip mean to you?

Sometimes since we've moved I've felt like I am learning to fly an airplane and I don't yet know what all of the buttons do. A friend of ours has a flight simulator in his lab at work, which I've seen a few times, and I've been duly awed by its sheer number of control panels, switches, and levers. I feel like life is that cockpit and I'm looking around incredulously and then realize I actually have to fly this thing. And every once in a while, I feel like I've figured out what one button does, so I excitedly move on to conquering the next. But unfortunately, the next time I come back to that first button, thinking it'll surely do what I expect, I push it and something else entirely happens. And I'm left back at square one, at which point I usually cry. I'm not cut out for the Air Force, that's for sure.

I know this is normal. I know moving is a Big Deal and I'm adjusting to a lot of changes. I know it's supposed to be hard. I'm reading this great book right now called Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way by Shauna Niequist (it might warrant a post of its own at some point), and it's really helping me keep things in perspective. It's beautifully written. And sometimes it makes me cry, too.

Apparently that's the constant in my life right now.

But I guess what I'm trying to say is that as much as I'm tired of this, as much as it stinks and is no fun, I know it's okay, and I know it will be even more okay down the road. I just have to be patient. So I'm going to leave you with this passage from Zephaniah that I find comforting. May it be true for all of us.

Sing, O Daughter of Zion;
shout aloud, O Israel
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
O Daughter of Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
On that day they will say to Jerusalem,
"Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The Lord your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."

"The sorrows for the appointed feasts I will remove from you;
they are a burden and a reproach to you.
At that time I will deal
with all who oppressed you;
I will rescue the lame
and gather those who have been scattered.
I will give them praise and honor
in every land where they were put to shame.
At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortunes
before your very eyes,"
says the Lord.

Zephaniah 3:14-20 (NIV)

Amen and amen.

Last week we had some leftover pork tenderloin and I decided to experiment with it. I made something like this once when A. was out of town, but I just tossed it with olive oil and cheese rather than trying to go all out and make a cream sauce. As you can see from the title, I call this "fettucine al-fakeo." Get it? Like fettucine alfredo? Yeah. That could maybe use some work. But the recipe itself was mmm mmm good! So, without further ado:

I started with some mushrooms, which I sauteed in hot olive oil. Usually it's good to do mushrooms first because they release a lot of water as they cook. I also sprinkled these with some miscellaneous herbs, including a bit of crushed red pepper flakes.

Next I added in the chopped up pork tenderloin. This was already cooked, but I wanted it to get a little crispy (sort of like pancetta? if you feel like stretching your imagination) and pick up some of the yummy flavors. Plus, it had a bread crumb coating which came off and mixed with the mushrooms, so it was win-win for both ingredients to spend a little time in the skillet. You could use any sort of leftover meat for this, or non-leftover meat, or more vegetables. HAVE FUN. GO CRAZY.

This is an utterly superfluous picture of the pot in which I boiled the fettuccine. However, this is an important step! Whatever pasta you're using, make sure it gets cooked. You'll need it very soon.

I set aside the mushrooms and pork and added some butter into the pan. I didn't wash it; I just left all the delicious brown bits in there to become a part of the sauce.

Then I added some milk. I unhelpfully can't tell you how much I added--I just eyeballed the consistency of the sauce. And I kept the milk handy, because the longer the sauce cooked, and especially when I added the pasta, it needed some thinning down.

With the help of a few tablespoons of flour and some vigorous stirring, the sauce starting looking something like this. Mmm, delicious brown bits.

I threw the cooked pasta into the pan with the sauce. (This is Ronzoni Garden Delight, which purportedly has a full serving of vegetables in every portion. Can't hurt, right?) I added back in the mushrooms and pork I had set aside, tossed it all together, and grated some all-important parmesan cheese on top. These are the steps during which I splashed in a few more dollops of milk.

The final product looked a little something like this:

Yes, those are frozen peas that I cooked in the microwave. And some sort of Chilean wine that we got at Your Dekalb Farmers Market for $3.99. And yes, we were eating in front of the TV. Jeopardy provides for some great competitive bonding time. Don't hate on any of the above statements.

All in all I'd say this "recipe" was a winner that I would try again. It wasn't necessarily the consistency of alfredo sauce at all, but it was flavorful and yummy and made use of some things we had around the kitchen. There's so much room to play with this and customize it...what spins might you want to put on this basic concept?

Linked up at Beauty and Bedlam in the Tasty Tuesday Parade of foods

I don’t remember the first time a tiny hand slipped into mine and melted my heart forever. Maybe it was the summer I taught swimming lessons at a day camp for low-income kids and helped many shaking-like-a-leaf kindergartners float for the first time. Or maybe it was when I started helping with worship care at church and “taught” a class of three-year-olds, which really meant we played with dolls, read books, ate snacks, and colored pictures. Either way, the innocent, unwavering devotion of children has fundamentally changed the way I view affection.

I posit that certain stereotypes about children are true: they are often sticky, their noses always seem to be runny, and they always need help tying their shoes. And, they exhibit the proverbial childlike faith in the goodness of people. When you are a teacher, or a babysitter, or a nursery caregiver, you become their world in whatever place they associate with you. I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing this. There is almost no greater joy to me than having a wriggling mass of preschool bodies enter my church classroom and swarm at me, worming into my lap, grabbing at my hands, and hugging my shin, the only part of me they can reach. I think a child who is not your own may just be the best medicine for stress relief.

I don’t have any children, nor do I want them yet, but I think there’s something magical about having the privilege of loving other people’s children. The one who, shyly, from behind his mother’s knees, sees you at a community event and incredulously exclaims, “Hey! You’re from church!”—amazed that you can exist outside of the place he knows you, not knowing how validated you feel that he recognizes you. The one who comes in every Wednesday and beelines it for your lap, unaware that the weight of her small body has you beaming inside. The ones who, only a day after being chastised for not paying attention, collectively launch themselves at you in a group apology hug that nearly knocks you over, oblivious to the smile on your face and the lump in your throat. This is affection in its purest form.

I don't offer physical affection easily in most circumstances. I've always had anxiety about holding hands because of how much my palms tend to sweat. I start to get fidgety if my husband wraps an arm around my shoulders while watching TV. And ask him about how awkward our first kiss was—awkward enough that I apologized and claimed I had “forgotten how.” I've fruitlessly poured out words onto sobbing friends who likely needed nothing more than a reassuring hand rubbing their backs. But the children I have come to love take me out of my discomfort and force me to give in to touch wholeheartedly. How can you resist an uninhibited tiny-toothed grin? I think it’s impossible. And I think if I can remember this lesson the next time a friend is suffering, the next time I encounter someone feeling lonely, or the next time I experience either great joy or great loss; if I can remember their ardor and offer freely of my touch; if I can reach out, sweaty palms and all, I will be a better person indeed.

Inspired by a prompt from:

Have you ever played the drugstore game? I’m so entrenched in the couponing/frugal living blog world that I sometimes forget that many people don’t know my terminology. I’ve had an old friend visiting this week who is also into coupons and saving money, and it’s been SO FUN being able to bounce scenarios off of each and share past coupon triumphs. It’s inspired me to Google around and see if I can’t find a couponing community here in the ATL so I can have that fun more often!

But let me back up a little bit.

Drugstores, namely CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid, all have shopper’s cards that can offer you some type of reward at the register. It works a little bit differently at each one, but I have a CVS card, so that’s usually my go-to. Each week, the store puts out its sales circular, and certain items are on sale and include an “Extra Care Bucks” component at CVS, “UP Rewards” at Rite Aid, or “Register Rewards” at Walgreens. This means that, when you buy the item or the specified multiples of the item, you’ll receive these rewards that are effectively equivalent to cash, but only at that particular drugstore (or any location of the national chain). Thus, the “game” is to use coupons to get the sale items for free or close to free, earn the rewards, and then process a separate transaction in which you use rewards to get MORE items for free. This is what couponers refer to as a “scenario.”

I’m not yet very good at the game because I haven’t gotten much for free yet, but I also haven’t tried particularly hard. And I’ve definitely used it to my advantage to save a lot when I had certain things I knew I needed that I was able to find on sale. The problem I run into is that I don’t get the newspaper, so if I want to paper coupons I have to remember to buy one each Sunday, which is more expensive. I also tend to only print coupons I think I will readily use, so sometimes for one of these two reasons I don’t have the coupon that would allow me to take full advantage of the Extra Care Bucks deal. That said, I want to try to get better at this, and I think the first step I’ll take is to jump at deals for something I might need in the future, rather than waiting to buy it when I need it and risk it not being on sale then. For example, I could stock up on shampoo if there were a good deal on it, even though I currently have an almost full bottle. I wouldn’t take the stocking up to extremes, but I definitely have some room in my bathroom cupboards and closet to play the game and get a little ahead.

That said, this morning my friend and I decided to walk to the CVS up the street from my apartment and see what fun we could have. Since the week is almost over, we found that some of the deal items were sold out. If you really want to snap up deals, and especially if you want to buy multiples, you really have to do it the day the ad is publicized. She had 3 Extra Care Bucks left from a previous transaction but ended up being rational and deciding to save them to get her ahead on next week’s sale game. I purchased a bottle of Crest Pro-Health Rinse (which A. uses but is not currently out of) which was on sale and for which I had a coupon. It rang up as $3.50 plus tax but printed me 2.50 Extra Care Bucks. In my second transaction, I purchased a CVS green bag tag (which you put on your reusable bag to scan each time you use it at CVS, and every 4th time you receive 1 Extra Care Buck), a pack of gum, and a Diet Coke, for which I had a $1 off coupon. I also had a 20% off coupon that my CVS card had supplied me via email. (It randomly seems to do that sometimes.) After the coupons and the Extra Care Bucks from my first transaction, I paid only $0.18 for those three things. Pretty okay for a novice and for the end of the week, I think!

The game takes patience, both on your own part and on the part of the cashier. I actually did my second transaction several minutes after my first because I noticed a line forming behind me and didn’t want to be “that girl” that tied up the cash register with something complicated. But it can definitely be fruitful and, with some planning ahead, you could be coming away with free products that you’ve willingly paid full price for in the past.

I’m anxious to see what comes out in this week’s ad, especially since I’ve discovered it’s not a bad walk to my CVS. It could be a fun morning’s activity to go play the game a little bit. We’ll need some soap soon, so maybe it will be my lucky week.

(P.S. I normally buy 12-packs of cans of Diet Coke, but I bought the bottle today so that we can try out this tip from Real Simple. I’ll let you know how it goes!)