Please Plow Your Sidewalks!!!

I need to vent for just a few lines to start off with.  I'm sure many of you experienced the ridiculous amounts of snow that we had this week.  Grand Rapids did a fine job of plowing the roads.  They were nice and clear today.  But as for the sidewalks on my way to work:  NONE OF THEM WERE PLOWED!  I take that back.  About ten feet had been plowed, and then the plowing abruptly stopped.  Before I left for work this morning, Eric told me to please walk on the sidewalk, even if it hadn't been plowed, because it makes him nervous to have me walking in the road.  I agreed.  It's a pretty busy street, and the cars often don't move over for pedestrians, so I had every intention of slogging through the snow.  When I got there, however, I plunged into snow up to my thighs.  I had worn boots and tucked my jeans into them, but it didn't matter anymore.  As my boots sank to the bottom of the drift, snow poured in around my cold feet.  Yuck.  I waded through the snow drifts for, eh, maybe 50 meters or so, until I was winded, and nearly stuck.  I knew I would never make it to work on time if I kept going like that... so I fought my way out onto the road.  When I finally got to work, I took my boots off to change into the shoes I had stashed in my purse.  Snow that had been packed in between my jeans and the boots rained down onto the floor and swiftly turned into a puddly mess.  I scooped up what snow I could and molded it into a snowball that I deposited in the toilet to melt.  Then I mopped up the rest of the water with toilet paper.  The walk back home was only slightly worse.  The snow in the road was turning to slush... so as cars whizzed past me, I was repeatedly sprayed in the face.  One kind lady pulled over and asked if I would like a ride.  I declined.  She insisted.  I declined again.  Getting in cars with strangers makes me nervous.  Another car honked at me.  That made me mad.  I would GLADLY have been on the sidewalk instead of in the road... but no one seems to think it necessary to plow the sidewalk for pedestrians.  And since pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way... I don't think people should be honking....  Oh, and, I almost forgot to mention, while I was at work, snow that had been caked on the insides of my boots melted... so the boots that I walked home in were soaking wet :(

We might look into borrowing a car from a friend for a few days, at least when the drifts are this high.  The walk itself isn't bad... but seriously Grand Rapids!  Plow the sidewalks!

Alright :)  Now that I got that out of my system, I will write about more pleasant things :)  Like... food!!!  So... this week I made a nice dish called Artichoke and Feta Fettuccine.  The recipe was really simple to make, and it tasted quite good too!  It's basically as though you mix a few ingredients together and make your own flavor of Ragu :)  You should give it a try too!  Here's the recipe:

Artichoke and Feta Fettucine

2 6-oz. jars marinated artichoke hearts
1 (14 1/2-oz.) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes
2 garlic cloves (or more to taste)
1/4 C. sliced black olives
1 lb. fettuccine, or angel hair pasta
6 oz. feta cheese
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Put artichoke hearts, tomatoes, garlic and olives in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped.  (Can be done by hand in large bowl.)  Put in saucepan and simmer.  Add the pasta to boiling water and cook until tender but still slightly firm.  Drain and put in large bowl.  Top with artichoke-tomato sauce and 1/2 the feta which has been cubed or crumbled. Mix well.  Top with remaining feta and a few grinds of pepper, if desired, and serve immediately.

I had never tried an artichoke before, so I ate one straight out of the can.  Not so yummy really.  I've had artichoke dips and things... and those are good.  But as for just a plain artichoke all on its lonesome... really kind of gross.  That worried me since it was going to be one of the main ingredients.  But once it was mixed in with the tomatoes it tasted great :)  I wasn't sure whether or not to pour the vegetables and their liquid into the food processor.  The recipe doesn't indicate whether or not you use the liquid from the food cans.  I did.  It worked fine.  But you might get less watery sauce if you threw the liquid away.  Does anyone else have issues with their fingers stinking like garlic for a long time after cutting up garlic?  Sometimes the smell seems to last for days, and sometimes it goes away really quickly.  I do wash my hands and shower, lol!  Any suggestions for how to get rid of the smell?  Once again, the food processor was quite a success.  I really like it, even though I had never used one before I bought it.  It really speeds things up in the kitchen.

Our largest pot is currently in the refrigerator holding chicken soup... so I only had two other pots to work with.  One was needed for the pasta and one for the sauce.  The sauce went in the small one and the pasta in the larger.  Both pots were rather too small for what they needed to hold.  The sauce kept boiling over even though it was barely simmering, and before the pasta was done cooking, the water had almost all disappeared (I couldn't fit enough water in the pot to begin with).  But everything was cooked eventually. 

Poor Eric didn't get home that night till 7:45PM, which meant that the sauce simmered on the stove for a loooooong time.  The pasta I tried to preserve by coating it with butter and placing a lid over the pot to keep it warm.  It worked alright :)

As for exercise... well, in addition to walking, lol, I've been doing lunges.  You've probably all done them before.  It's basically slow walking where you drop into a kneeling position with each step, but never actually touch your knee to the ground.  It KILLS your butt and thighs to do lunges.  (I do mean kills in a good way ;P )  I also read online that if you do these while holding one weight up above your shoulder on one side (then switch to the other shoulder after a bit) it's supposed to work your ab muscles too.  I'm not sure about that.  They said that you are making your body unbalanced by holding the weight there, and so your abs will have to work to maintain balance.  I don't know.  I could feel the exercise in my butt and thighs... but not in my abs.

That's all for now folks :)  Good night!

And I would walk 500 miles...

Hello folks!  Hope you have all been well and healthy :)  Time for me to provide some updates on my resolutions so far (well... a little past time... but better late than never?) 

Let's start with the walking.  OK, I'll be honest.  There have been quite a few days since my last post when I didn't actually get up enough gumption to walk out in the cold.  But... some nights, after dinner, Eric and I would walk down our driveway, across the street, and around Calvin's campus for awhile.  Except for the relative frigidity of the air, this is a pretty enjoyable way to get exercise :)  The road that our apartment is on has a pond with a bridge and a gazebo.  For Christmas, they strung white lights up all over the gazebo and the bridge, so walking outside at night can actually feel quite magical.  Not to mention that it is all reminiscent of a thing called "Calvin walks."  While in college, it can be hard for couples to actually find a time or place where they can be alone.  So, after dark, it was quite common to see couples strolling hand in hand all over campus, sometimes stopping in some darker shadows to make out for a bit.  Going for a "Calvin walk" meant that, indeed, your relationship was progressing to an official level.  So, now that we're married and Calvin alumni (of a few months), it's fun to walk around the campus and pretend like we're still going for a Calvin walk :)

That was the enjoyable part of walking.  The rest of my walking experiences have been somewhat less romantic and mostly performed out of necessity.  I am trying to find a job.  Since we don't have a car, whenever I see a potentially interesting job posting, I check the bus route to see if I could access the location.  No sense in applying otherwise!  There's a handy little tool called the trip planner on the bus's website.  Here, you type in your starting address and ending address, and they suggest routes for you to take, how long it will take, and how far you will have to walk.  Last week I applied at a cute children's clothing boutique.  I typed the address into the trip planner, but the result puzzled me slightly.  I couldn't find the bus number anywhere.  It simply said:  number of transfers 0, total walking distance: 1.3 miles.  It took me a minute, but then I got it.  It was suggesting that I simply walk the 1.3 miles on foot.  Lovely.  Well, walking is good for you, so I decided to to make the trek to the store for an application.  I pulled on my tallest boots, put on my warmest coat and gloves, and plunged out into the cold.  The route I take leads me through Calvin's campus and back through its soccer fields and cross country trails.  This road had not been plowed.  The whole ordeal felt very much like trying to run through loose sand.  Every step was sinking and uneven.  My knees actually started to ache from all the twisting that my legs had to do in order for me to maintain my balance.  I was, shall we say, not amused.  I did find it slightly funny, though, to see a man standing in the road, watching his dog trot around beyond the fence, barking happily as he circled the sign that clearly read:  "No Dogs, Bikes, or Golf Balls."  Perhaps the man had also missed the several earlier signs that read:  "Dogs must be leashed and kept on the road."  Oh well, at least Mr. Puppy enjoyed a good romp. 

I thought that after wallowing my way through Calvin's snowy back roads I would emerge more or less directly across from the clothing store.  That was an incorrect supposition.  I came out at a four lane road marked 50 miles an hour with cars whizzing past me and no sidewalk to be seen.  The snow was piled high on the side of the road, probably at least knee-deep, so I walked, very sullenly, along the edge of the road itself.  Cars rushed past me.  I was honked at.  I was miserable.  I could have reached out a hand and touched any of the cars as they drove by.  If this was what it was going to be like to walk to work each day....  Eventually I came to a stop-light that had a pedestrian crossing light.  Lo and behold, there appeared to be a sidewalk on the other side of the street after all!  It just hadn't been shoveled so it was impossible to see before.  Now why would the city of Grand Rapids go to the trouble of creating a sidewalk if they weren't going to keep it shoveled?!  After crossing over, I could see that there was a narrow line of footprints outlined in the deep snow.  The shoveling had taken place about 20 yards into the block, and then stopped altogether.  Lovely. 

Well, I interviewed at the store yesterday, and will find out sometime early next week if that long walk is to become a more frequent occurrence!  By the time I got home that first day, I had worn a hole in my brand new pair of socks, as well as a hole in the skin on the back of my heels :(  Guess I'll just have to toughen up!  More to come... !