Pizza Party

Mike is away in Ecuador for work with Johns Hopkins University, so we have been helping Jess take care of Charlie. In return, she has been providing us with some very tasty dinners. Last week she made us pizza and ever since then I've wanted pretty much nothing but homemade pizza for dinner.

Here are two examples of my work. The first is a cheese pizza with tomato sauce and zucchini, and the second is a margherita pizza. Both of these were made with a multi-grain crust. Yum. Since these photos were taken last week, I've also made two pizzas with whole wheat crusts-- one with tomato, cheese, and mushrooms, and the other with pesto, goat cheese, spinach, and tomato. I prefer the multi-grain crust to the whole grain, so I think I'll stick with that one from here on out. I also bought a pizza peel via Amazon, which should arrive this afternoon. I got tired of burning myself while trying to lift the pizzas off the stone in the oven. Next I will try grilled pizza.

This behavior is pretty typical of me. I get hooked on a certain food and want nothing but that food for weeks or months. Apparently I've always had this quirk. My Dad used to tell me that when I was younger he packed me the same lunch every day for an entire year because I refused to eat anything else. One year it was peanut butter and celery, another year it was baked beans, and so forth. I'm a strange squirrel.

Buddies

Last weekend we went camping in Assateague with Jess and Mike (and their dog, Charlie!).

The ponies did not disappoint! We saw many, from afar, and up close. One piggy bugger even came up to the trunk of our car and rooted through it looking for food.

Our site was right on the dunes by the ocean and gorgeous. We definitely came at the right time-- it wasn't too hot and we had no issue with mosquitoes. We never even needed to put on bug repellent. Next time we'll bring a shade canopy with us though. There is no natural shade and during the day the sun was pretty brutal. I got a nasty sunburn that is now peeling.

Charlie ate a bunch of sand and got sick, but he enjoyed the ride in the canoe when we all went canoeing on Saturday afternoon.

More photos from the trip are posted on my Flickr stream.

Back in the game...

It's kind of insane how much I relate to the author of this article.

So yeah, I've decided to resurrect my blog. Because I can. Because I feel like it. Because it makes me feel good to write a little bit and to document my life in photographs. Because I'm starting to have an icky feeling about Facebook and I don't want them to "link" me, my interests, my past, present, or future to any advertisements. Because summer is around the corner and that means lots of time spent inside avoiding the sweltering heat and humidity of Baltimore. Because I want to. And there you have it.

Anyway, this article. It made me feel like less of an alien. I remember being a young kid, in the back seat of my parents' car on the drive to school, and just fawning over houses. Big houses, little houses. Cape cods, Colonials, Bungalows. I would think about gardens, windows, kitchens, bedrooms. I would decorate the spaces in my mind. I would think to myself, "When I grow up, I want to live there". I secretly believe all that time spent thinking about which house I would end up in, in Baltimore, is why the trajectory of my life, no matter how hard I fight it, always lands me back in Baltimore. Maybe I've been feeling this way, all slobbery over fate, because I've gotten in watching Lost in the past few months. My typical answer for why we live here, for why we returned here from Nashville, is that Steph loves Hopkins so much. But surely there is a greater reason? Maybe not.

HOME is a very important concept for me. My home represents who I am, what I care most about. I can't understand people who live out of boxes in their houses or apartments for years and years, or people who have no art of their walls. It baffles me when I go to someone's house and the walls are just a stark white. I tend to not get along with people like that. Some people are obsessed with their kids, their career, traveling, their car, their gadgets-- I am obsessed with my home. Most of the money we spend goes towards home goods and art. I could spend days pouring over shelter magazines. I don't care to go out too much. I like spending time with people, but I always feel slightly anxious, slightly off. I go home, put on my pjs, and breathe a sigh of relief. I love my bed, my sheets, my blanket, my pillows. I like to travel on occasion, but if I'm gone for more than a few days, I start to get cranky. I miss my bed, the cats, my stuff-- I miss the comfort of feeling at home.

I think I'm going to buy that book. I've been considering getting a Kindle. I love to read, but libraries and I don't get along (I get possessive of books once I read them), and we don't have space in the house for thousands of books. We've converted all our CDs over to the computer, so maybe the next step is to virtually store all our books as well.