Summer Activities

Posted on October 3, 2021 by Janette

Considering that things over the summer had not opened to a completely safe degree, I continued to look for any ways to experience adventure on a local scale. Truthfully, I have known quite a few people who have traveled internationally this year, but with all the different practices, regulations, requirements, and various people ignoring all safety protocol all-together, I did not want to risk crossing a boarder, testing positive (even though I am fully vaccinated) and then needing to quarantine, which could be very expensive if abroad. My health is of utmost importance to me and there are still too many unknowns for my taste.

So, how did I spend my time this summer? Experiencing adventure in other ways.

These books have been a great way to get lost in other worlds. For anyone needing to fulfill some wanderlust, I highly recommend this selection. My soul is always nourished by experiencing adventure, even if it is through someone else’s eyes.

In other forms of entertainment, I’ve come across a few cinematic adventures that were worth mentioning. Requiring less time than a novel, these movies offered a nice getaway as well.

Thanks to one of my best friends, who is a native of Indonesia, I have a large box of Indonesian recipe mixes, spices, and treats to try and make at home. These two examples did not disappoint! I also cooked with leeks for the first time, so that in itself was an adventure. These flavor mixes really took me back to my time living in Southeast Asia and momentarily satisfied a longing for the Orient. I’ll have to dig through that box to see what else I can try next!

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Gettysburg National Military Park

Posted on September 6, 2021 by Janette

The last time I visited the Gettysburg battlefield, I was in elementary school…many years ago. Considering that I have been back in Pennsylvania for a few years and the pandemic is still causing travel challenges, I thought it was time to visit something nearby.

On a perfect Saturday morning in August, I entered the beautiful visitor center. This building has a cafe counter, restaurant, gift shop, and museum. I do recommend arriving early, when the building opens so your experience is not as crowded. It was easier to socially distance in the morning.

Right after opening, I entered the building, purchased tickets for one of the first bus tours, killed about 20 minutes in the gift shop, met the bus just outside the main walkway, and headed off. The guide was extremely knowledgeable and recounted in amazing detail the short-lived, yet single bloodiest battle from the American Civil War. The highlight of the tour was the stop at Big Round Top. There are many monuments to see in that area, including the statue of General Warren. The only drawback was that the bus only made a few short stops.

After getting back to the visitor center, I used my ticket to view the short film, and then made my way through the museum. After getting a delicious snack, I hopped in the car and retraced the route the bus took. There are markers along the one-way route, so it was easy to see where to go, unless you wanted to turn off to see one of the hundreds of markers, monuments, and tributes to the soldiers that came from all over the nation to aid the battle. There are plenty of places to park, walk around, and take pictures, so one could easily spend all day on the grounds.

I also found it a bit alarming how much history I forgot about this battle! The recap I received was a true eye-opener and a good analogy for current times. As Lincoln stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln knew that when we are at odds (or war) with each ourselves, we are more vulnerable as a country. Coming together is how we move forward, and prove our strength.

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Arlington National Cemetery

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Janette

It had been a number of years since I last visited the cemetery, so I wanted to stop by. As this is on federal property, visitors still needed to wear masks, but the weather was nice and it was comfortable being outside where everyone could socially distance relatively easily.

Using the tram, we made the usual stops. First up was the JFK eternal flame.

The Amphitheatre was undergoing a renovation, but the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was available to view next door, so witnessing the changing of the guard was a must.

With the cemetery being so large, and the weather being so hot, not many people were just walking around to the countless smaller memorials. I would have liked to see more of the “off the beaten path” markers, but it would have been too much walking in extreme heat, so sticking to the tram was best. Nearby the Tomb is a nice selection of notable items, so it was good to see a few items without walking too far. One of those was the mast from the USS Maine.

The last stop brings you to Arlington House. This area is nice because it sits upon a hill, there are restrooms and a gift shop, the garden area is beautiful, trees provide some shade, and there is a great view of the eternal flame and Washington, DC beyond.

I suggest arriving at the visitor center right as they open, with tickets purchased online ahead of time. They do provide military discounts on tickets and going in the morning beats the summer heat and large crowds. It is easy to spend hours here (or even an entire day), so bring sunscreen or a hat as the tram stops don’t offer much shade. Also, there is no where to grab food nearby, so bring some protein bars!

Maps are available online so you can pinpoint items you may want to walk to on foot, and the tram makes continual pickups on a one-way loop, so you can always wait for 15-20 minutes for the next lift if you want to just take the scenic view.

Although this is a solemn location, especially with funerals occurring every day, it is also full of history, it is meticulously well-kept, and very peaceful. The tram guides also provide you a wealth of knowledge as you travel from stop to stop so visit at least once if you are in the area!

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Nearby Explorations

Posted on May 16, 2021 by Janette

With the weather getting nicer and society entering into our second year of uncertainty, it is more important than ever to explore local areas.  Little hidden gems that may never have been taken advantage of before should be tried out, experienced, and enjoyed.

Not far from my town is a sign for the Henninger Farm Covered Bridge.  I’ve passed this sign numerous times, but on a nice day with nothing to do, it was time to check it out.

Who knew this was the last covered bridge in its original location in the county? Who knew it caught fire and was reconstructed? 

This was a beautiful little spot, away from the public, where I could learn a little local history, enjoy nature, and not be near a crowd.

I am an introvert by nature, so I don’t mind teleworking and keeping to my house most of the time.  However, after a prolonged reason to purposely go out only as needed, avoid crowds, and stay away from others who don’t seem to care about the public health crisis…I will happily look to do things that are safe, quiet, and out of the way for the next year.  Luckily, I am fully vaccinated, but we still need to do our part to diligently rid the world of this public health crisis.  Until then, I will gladly look for small getaways, scenic drives, and activities that can be enjoyed without a germy crowd.  I can’t wait to see what I uncover next to keep spirits up!

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Good weather, good deeds

Posted on May 2, 2021 by Janette

The Pennsylvania Veterans’ Memorial and surrounding park/national cemetery have to be one of the most beautiful places around PA. Growing up in PA as a kid…I didn’t get out much. Then I was out of the state for over a decade. So now…being back in this area feels very…new.

I was lucky enough to know someone who volunteers much of his time to the upkeep of the grounds. There are some caretakers, but much of the upkeep and annual maintenance of this area is done with the help of volunteers. The memorial itself was designed to look like a bombed-out church. The structure is elegant, somber, striking, eerie, and beautiful, all at the same time. The problem with the structure being designed for a mostly outside feel is that after every winter, there is much power washing, cleaning, and painting that needs to be done prior to Memorial Day when there are usually scheduled events and loads of visitors. Exposure to the elements creates for a large amount of tidying up!

At the end of April, on an amazingly beautiful day, I had the privilege of volunteering a few hours to chip in for this clean-up effort. We didn’t get every detail done, but we chipped away at the overall goal, interacted with a few visitors that were walking the amazing grounds, and enjoyed the sun. It was the perfect social distancing volunteer activity in a place you can’t help but feel peaceful and proud.

If you are ever in the Central/Eastern portion of Pennsylvania, you simply must look this place up and drive around. If you have experienced and enjoyed the Arlington National Cemetery, you should visit these grounds. The caretaking and professionalism is beyond measure.

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A Year of COVID: Cooking and Baking – A Throwback to Indonesia

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Janette

So, I may have found some cooking products from Indonesia when I cleaned out a few kitchen cabinets. And…they may have been really old…so I felt that I either needed to use them immediately or just throw them away.

I will say that I think a few of the products should have been thrown away years earlier, as they did not come out as I intended, but I did have some success. It also pays to still have local Indonesian friends who I could call for advice. That was a big help!

The first item that came out amazing was a Pandan Cake. After conversing with one of my Indonesian friends, I found that the best translation for Pandan is “Screwpine Leaf”. I used to have Pandan Cake quite often in Indonesia, and they even serve a version of this treat at the Indonesian Starbucks locations. This leaf is used a lot in local baking because it has a mildly sweet flavor, almost like a hint of coconut, and a good Indonesian bakery will have many varieties of traditional sweet treats that use this particular ingredient.

Luckily for me, the directions on the mix were listed in both languages and the cake turned out great! Keep in mind that Pandan Cake is always green, so I didn’t add any food coloring. The times I’ve had this in Jakarta I’ve always experienced two different kinds of frosting. The middle was a little thicker and the outside coating was more like whipped topping, so that is what I tried to replicate. I thought my combination of vanilla buttercream (inside) and light whipped topping (outside) worked very well together. And since I had green decorative gel that also needed to get used up, I though, why not?

Ask anyone visiting Indonesia about one of their favorite dishes they’ve experienced, and most times you’ll hear the word Rendang. This dish can be pricy in Indonesia because it calls for beef. Of course, I had a seasoning packet that I was attempting to use until I made a call to a local friend who explained that I would need SO MANY MORE ingredients to make an authentic meal. I was super excited to get an authentic recipe, but there were a few items that were non-existent in my area of the US…so I went shopping for as many ingredients as I could find, and made the best of it.

Luckily, most of the recipe was made up of things that I tend to have on hand, as I love food from other cultures. (However, Candle Nuts, Keffir Lime Leaves, and Galangal were the three illusive items that I had to do without.) After slow cooking the beef until very tender, most of the ingredient list was put into a food processor to make a paste. Then the paste is sautéed in a pan for a few minutes, the beef is added and then the beef stock so the mixture can simmer for quite a while. Most of the liquid will cook off and the beef and seasoning paste turns darker (almost black) in color. You can control how spicy you want the dish to become, so I only added one small spicy pepper to the mixture, so there was a hint of heat, but our mouths didn’t catch on fire. The beef is then served on a bed of rice and sometimes with vegetables. For my attempt, I used a few chopped potatoes to cook with the mixture.

I will say that my attempt did not taste exactly like I remember, and the color never turned black, but it was SO DELICIOUS!!!! Similar to what I remember and the seasoning turning dark brown was good enough for me, considering I didn’t have all the ingredients! For attempting to make an authentic dish, I think my first try was successful, and I will absolutely be making this again in the future. (I’ll even see if I can get the missing items online next time!)

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A Year of COVID: Decluttering (of the mind and body) Like There’s No Tomorrow!

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Janette

REDUCING THE STUFFS

As a minimalist by nature, most people think I don’t have enough “stuff” to necessitate getting rid of anything…but we can all fall victim to accumulation. Not-to-mention I have a fiance who comes with many years of living at the same property.

We did have some large successes cleaning, clearing out and organizing our basement storage area, our outdoor garden shed, and our garage. It’s funny how you initially dread these activities (well, some of us actually LOVE donating things or throwing crap away!), but once you start to see a little progress, it’s easy to keep the momentum going. After we completed those areas, we moved on to clean out our office closet and the storage area in our guest room. That led me to “find” some items I hadn’t seen in a while, which then led me to reorganize our spaces much more efficiently.

Next, I moved on to my bathroom and kitchen, as I didn’t feel they were working as well as they could have. I used the trick of asking myself when I’ve used various products and anything untouched in over a year went into a pile.

 

I’m also a sucker for travel sizes of personal care products. Every so often I’ll pass on products to others who may want to try something new, or I’ll commit to using my mini shampoos, soaps and various other beauty products until I’ve thinned out the herd. This also means that I don’t have to buy any large-scale products for a few weeks (saving us money) and I get to make room in my “travel” drawer at the same time.

ONLINE SELLING

Through our efforts with decluttering, reorganizing and prioritizing, we identified a few items with a fair amount of value that we decided to sell on Craig’s List. Considering that many people are looking to shop online (now more than ever), we were able to sell our items pretty quickly. It’s worth a try, considering that just donating items don’t bring in any compensation.

GROOMING

Since working from home, I’ve been getting used to spending more time on health and beauty aspects. I know that sounds counter-intuitive in a way, considering that I’ve been teleworking in yoga pants every day and only washing my hair as needed, but the lack of wearing makeup, fixing my hair, combined with getting more sleep, has made my skin and hair look amazing!

These days, I’ve been painting my own nails, deep conditioning my hair regularly, flossing my teeth daily (which I usually forget when I’m in a hurry to get to bed), deep cleaning my face before applying face masks, and exfoliating from head to toe. I even learned to use an electric trimmer to cut my fiance’s hair. None of this costs much money…just a little extra time during the day…that I now have. Plus, at $20 a cut, we are set to save about $340 for the year if I permanently cut my fiance’s hair!

It has definitely been a year of purging…but with not much to do but stay inside for months, I’m not upset with the results. We have managed to do a few years of projects in 6 months, and it feels amazing. And with all the uncertainty surrounding us, I was very happy to make money selling some things that no longer served us, and saving money in various ways! Always looking for the bright side of the situation…

 

 

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A Year of COVID: Keeping Yourself Entertained

Posted on August 30, 2020 by Janette

For some reason, even though we are enjoying a beautiful Summer season, I am still looking forward to doing quiet indoor activities in my spare time.  Maybe it’s because I’ve had a substantial amount of practice being indoors this year, but I’m looking and reaching for things to occupy my time that I normally reach for in the Winter months.

I can honestly say that I’ve watched the most amount of TV in my life this year alone.  That’s not necessarily something I like to admit, considering that I lived without TV for almost 15 years prior to moving back to Pennsylvania.  But under the current circumstances, it has been a nice getaway, and I’ve enjoyed so many awesome programs that make me laugh out loud, or teach me something amazing.

I’ve also been enjoying my Netflix account.  The internet connection isn’t the best, so I still get DVDs sent to me…and there are so many in my queue now!  Here are some of my recent watches:

movie titles

I’ve also been keeping busy reading the books that I have on my shelf that need to leave the house once I’m finished.   Here are a few recent reads that I need to decide how to pass on.

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Lots of people love to have a large book collection and fill their walls with shelves of books.  Not me!  I always have a small pile of books to read in the house that I pass on or sell after I’m finished.  I also have a few books on my Kindle at all times, in case I take a trip and the Kindle will pack better…and offer me the option of playing a game if I’m in the mood.  In the same fashion, after I’m finished with an e-book, I remove it from my devise.  I guess removing the books from their resting places provides me the sense of accomplishment that I always seek.  I’m happy that I’ve been reading more this year, but I still wish I could read faster.  My collection in the house has grown and it’s time to start thinning out again!

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A Year of COVID: Invest in Yourself

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Janette

A few years ago I dedicated an entire year to education, finding all the free courses I could online, and signing up for inexpensive mini courses in my community where I could develop a skill or learn something, anything, new.

I feel like this year will be no different.  With more time at home to let my wheels turn, I thought that it was time to tackle a few things.

First, I updated my resume.

Templates

With so many great templates out there now, I found one that suited my style and forced me to creatively highlight my interesting background of experience in order to keep everything to one page.  I’ve learned to keep the verbose job descriptions to myself in the event I need to explain the details, while keeping the main copy as short and sweet as possible.

FYI, I did make the mistake of initially using ZIPJOB to write a resume for me.  I paid $100+ for the basic package and all my “writer” did was cut and paste the various pieces of information I gave her into a Word document, and didn’t even ensure the older work history was in the past tense, or that any of the dates or cities matched the correct jobs.  She did add four sentences…but $100 for four sentences didn’t seem fair considering I had to make my own corrections multiple times.  (To date, I have emailed the company three times in six months and STILL no response…so don’t believe the message that they “will work with you until you are satisfied.”)  Save your money!

After the disappointment of losing $100, I found that it was actually just easier to do it myself.  I wish I would have looked for available templates before contacting a company because my new resume looks awesome now!

I’ve also been catching up on some Great Courses.

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If you’ve never experienced a Great Course, you may want to look into the options…there are many!  And please don’t freak out regarding the price.  We get The Great Courses catalog and even though the “regular” prices are a few hundred dollars for a set of 24-36 30-minute lectures, they are almost always running crazy sales.  (Especially around the major holidays).  All the courses that we’ve purchased so far have been around $30…each!  That’s an awesome value for a lecture series on a topic you already love, or want to learn more about.

Exercise!!

Well…I have been exercising more than before, so that is a start.  I completely understand that remaining at home most of the time is not good for the body, mind or soul, so it’s very important to stay moving any way you can.  However, I don’t have the motivation that I did when I was younger, so I’m considering it a personal win that my short workout sessions are actually occurring three days a week.  I could certainly do more, and I could certainly work out for longer periods of time…but at least it’s a start.

I haven’t dabbled in the virtual museum tours yet, but I feel like that is the next thing I may want to try!  I love going to any type of museum, and if we still need to be cautious at the moment, I will gladly take advantage of what is currently accessible from my house.

Anyone out there taken the time to put energy into bettering yourself in some way?  I’d love some more ideas!

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A Year of COVID: Keeping your hands busy

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Janette

Oh WordPress…it has been so long.

Like many of you, COVID-19 has thrown me for a loop, requiring me to find a new normal under current circumstances.  For so many months now, I’ve felt suspended in a strange limbo.  As an introvert by nature, I’ve truly loved teleworking, with brief visits to the office only as needed, and basically removing my commute time per week has allowed me to catch up on watching late-night shows while still getting a glorious amount of sleep!

However, the drastically diminished social interaction does hit me every so often.  My destination wedding has been postponed for a year, which means I will not be traveling at all in 2020….  It’s the first time in 10 years that I haven’t taken a trip to a new country or state during a calendar year.  With plenty of time for self-reflection, I do think the current situation has allowed me to truly appreciate others more than I already had, and any experience more than I previously did.  The brief times I have gotten to see others felt much more important than before, which is a positive byproduct of our situation.

So what have I been up to for the first half of the year?

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Since we had a mild winter, we have been keeping our hands busy with our yard.  We’ve completely re-edged our four large planters with stones from our yard, while greatly reducing the square footage we need to maintain and mulch! Plus, with all the hot temperatures recently, I’ve had great luck with the few flowers that are planted on the property.  And we have visitors sometimes!

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I’ve also started new creative projects inside the house.  After years of not picking up a Counted Cross Stitch kit, I decided to order a few for myself.  Currently, I’m working on a beautiful lighthouse.  If I can’t travel to any beach I want, I can at least imagine myself inside this picture.  (Thank God for Etsy and Amazon!)

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Also, I snatched up a few luxurious curtain panels at a thrift shop a while ago.  Each one was $5.00 (insanely cheap) so I’ll be making a table cloth out of the plain white satiny material, fun throw pillows out of the embroidered palm tree material, and a new set of mini curtains for our guest room out of the fancy white-on-white patterned material.

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I like keeping my hands busy anyway, and I always need a creative outlet as a standard, but I think these projects are more important now than ever before.  Even for an introvert, the itch to have things “back to normal” is ever-present, so I especially need creative distractions to keep my spirits high, my hands busy and my heart at peace until we all push through this pandemic.

I hope everyone out there finds something positive to focus on during this time, and help inspire others who may be struggling.  With parents and friends in the high-risk category, I’m taking our situation very seriously, doing my part to stay at home, and hopefully inspiring others to care for each other.  It is the only way the world can heal.

Stay safe everyone!

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