hopelessly midwestern

An Anniversary

May 3, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

Hello, old friends. I am back again.

Today is my ten-years-dating-versary with Jarrod! This is very crazy to me, because ten years before that I would have been six years old. I don’t know. The passage of time just gets to me…a lot.

Anyway, I don’t want to say too much more about that, but it seemed like a significant thing to mention. As for me, I have been well, but a bit lazy. Today, though, I made a list, and I’m working through it! Let’s see how long I can ride this burst of productivity

Next Friday we depart for our Alaskan cruise (!!), but I’ll try and get some entries scheduled for when I’m gone. And yes, the Alaskan cruise is a part of my 30 Before 30! In all fairness, I knew I would easily accomplish it–we’re going as a celebration of my parents’ 30-year wedding anniversary. Looks like we’ve got some long-lasting relationship genes in the family!

I am feeling blah about the design of this blog, so I’m thinking I’ll overhaul it soon, but I’ve got to get around to actually doing it. But expect a few changes soon. Maybe.

Until Monday,
Em

Filed Under: Uncatagorizable

Vegan on the Road

April 5, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

So I didn’t announce this earlier because I wanted to surprise my Dad, but yesterday I woke up at 5:30AM, packed all my gear in the Fit, and took off for Indiana. That’s right, I’m home (and by “home” I mean my parents’ house, my hometown) for the rest of April!

This does throw a slight wrench into my month-long VeganXperiment. First of all, I’m not sure my parents are going to want to adapt their eating habits to my new ways. And by “not sure” I mean, I am pretty sure. My dad keeps ducks, for goodness’ sake. The fridge is currently loaded with about twelve dozen eggs. I’m just saying. One possible remedy to this dilemma would be to cook dinners for them, which I am perfectly willing–nay, excited–to do. And I’m sure they would love me to cook for them, too. Because who wouldn’t love to come home to a hot dinner after working all day? I’ll be their own personal chef this next couple of weeks, if only they’ll let me. And if only they’ll eat the food I cook. (Promise! Vegan does not necessarily equal weird!)

Dilemma #2 is that I’m home, and for more than a token week at Christmas, for that matter. I can hit up all my favorite eateries. There’s The Electric Brew, where ideally I would go for a hot latte with a bagel and cream cheese, or maybe a breakfast scone with sausage and cheese for breakfast. There’s Maple City Market, our local health-foods store that offers tons of delicious items baked in-house, many of which I’m sure are not vegan. There’s Rachel’s Bread, Goshen’s own boulangerie where the croissants–the buttery, delicious croissants–are made fresh every day. There’s my mother-in-law’s frozen yogurt shop, Honey’s, where the Greek yogurt flavors, which I haven’t had a chance to try yet, have just begun running. I could continue.

The solution here would be to give it all up, but I’m not ready to do that. Folks, if there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I can be stubborn when I resolve to do something. There’s a reason I hung on to Jarrod all seven years we dated. (Although, don’t worry, stubbornness is not the only reason I married him!) I’ve flown through the first five days fairly well, and I don’t want to quit just because I have no resolve. I just haven’t figured out what I’ll do quite yet: sample non-vegan things while still focusing on my main goal? Or be like Mark Bittman in this article (and book, coming out on the 30th) he wrote and do Vegan Before 6?

Well, I guess I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, I was going to write some tips about eating vegan while on road trips, but this entry already seems wordy. So I’ll summarize some main points.

Vegan On the Road (a few tips):

Pack lots of good food you can eat. I, for one, get very tempted by all the packaged junk at gas stations. It can be hard to return to the car without purchasing those corn nuts that are calling your name, but if you’ve got an abundance of food to eat, returning empty-handed is slightly easier.
Yes, sugar is vegan, but don’t overdo it. I needed caffeine and something small to munch on at my first stop, so I chose a Monster and Dark Side Skittles (which, by the way–don’t go there). Needless to say, it was a horrible, over-sugary combination. Sure, you can get away with buying sugary snacks, but do you really want to? Just munch on some vegetables and that vegan dip recipe I posted on Monday.
I don’t actually have any more tips. But I felt like I needed a third bullet point.

I stopped at McDonalds at one point. I just wanted something a bit more substantial, you know? So I got some fries and a coffee. Looking back now, the fries are actually not vegan, because they’ve got some sort of milk powder flavoring to make them taste fake beefy. But I didn’t know that. And I’m not going to beat myself up over it, either. I mean, come on. Some sort of weird milk powder enzyme thingy. So I beefed it. (Pun not intended, but acknowledged.)I still managed to avoid 99.9% of the temptitious things–yes, I invented that word–I was faced with.

One final word: Noodles & Co. Japanese Pan-Fried Noodles. I had already been looking forward to picking up a bowl of these on my way through Indianapolis, as I’m hopelessly addicted to them. And guess what: they’re vegan!

Filed Under: 30 Before 30 Tagged With: 30 Before 30, goshen, hometown, indiana, road trip, vegan

Thoughts on Dry Cleaning

April 3, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

This morning I drove to Dothan to pick up a silk shirt I had dry cleaned. The bill was $6.79, and the stain that I had pointed out to them was mostly gone.

All this may seem like a normal string of events, but for me, it was a big accomplishment. I hadn’t worn the blouse since the day I carried the box that left that pesky stain on my shirt inside the house, last November. I had received the blouse earlier in the month as a birthday present from Jarrod, and wore it approximately two times before staining it and thus abandoning it in my closet. I felt a wave of guilt every time I saw it hanging there, all sad and limp, and mostly wear-able except for that darn streak of dirt. Finally, last Saturday, I took it in to be cleaned.

Now, why did it take me so long just to get the thing dry cleaned? Because I had never taken anything to the dry cleaners before!

I know. It’s very silly, but sometimes I overthink unfamiliar situations and end up paralyzing myself into inaction. “It’s going to cost me twenty dollars, or more!” I told myself. “What if they ruin it? I think I’ve already ruined it anyway, when I tried to rub the stain out and made it pucker!” “I might have to make some sort of appointment to take it in!”

Occasionally, I find myself doing things that make me feel like an adult. This was one of them. I was never taught how to take a piece of clothing in to be dry cleaned. I had to figure it out myself, and in doing so–in taking care of my clothing and treating it well–I woke up from my everyday fog and realized that I had just become that much more grown up.

Surprisingly, marriage did not make me feel particularly grown up. Mostly I just felt the same, except that Jarrod and I were bonded together in holy matrimony, and we could now file our taxes jointly. And if we got sick of each other, we had just made a really, really costly mistake.

I guess the feeling comes whenever I find myself doing something that parents usually do: buy plane tickets, schedule yearly checkups and doctor’s appointments, unstop the garbage disposal. And even though I’ve mostly lived without the assistance of parents for the last four years, I still find myself running into little tasks that remind me that I’m still navigating the world of adulthood.

Anyway, the dry cleaning went without a hitch. Dry cleaning is surprisingly budget-friendly, people! And no, I didn’t need an appointment. I took my shirt in, gave them my name and pointed out the stain, and they told me to come back after 5PM on Monday. Not so scary at all.

Filed Under: Uncatagorizable Tagged With: adulthood, clothing care, growing up and liking it, laundry

The Great VeganXperiment: Day 1

April 1, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

By the way, the word is pronounced “vegan-spearmint”, just in case you were confused.

Yesterday morning, if you can call 3AM “morning”, I surrendered my husband to the Air Force for the month of April. Boo. Actually, I had been looking forward to his departure for awhile, because sometimes I like to be on my own and do my own thang–but of course, the minute I got home I realized just how lonely the 27 days of his absence were going to be. Sigh.

I know some military spouse bloggers don’t like to report when their husband has gone TDY, but the two people in my life who actually read this blog know that he’s gone. Plus, they know where to find me if they really want to rob me blind. (Just kidding, by the way. I know that a few more people besides my mother and mother-in-law read my ramblings!) For anyone else: there may or may not be a gun under our bed. Just saying.

Um, moving on! If you really love me, you’ll remember that one of my 30 Before 30 goals was to go vegan during one of Jarrod’s TDY’s or deployments. And since I’ve really been itchin’ to give up milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter, and all of my other Very Favorite Foods Ever, I decided to give it a shot this month.

I didn’t count yesterday. After all, Jarrod was technically still around that day, albeit for three hours, most of them spent sleeping. Plus, there was the fact that I indulged in a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McBiscuit Extra Value Meal (mmm…calories!) on the way to the airport, thus breaking any sort of animal product abstinence within the first hour upon waking.

So I spent all day yesterday preparing for today. Yes, I was one of those horrible people who shopped at Wal-Mart on Easter Day. Guilty. But come on, I was depressed. I just needed a little social interaction, and some ingredients to boot. One nice guy asked me, out of the blue, where he could find coconut milk, and we laughed together as I told him I didn’t know, but that it was on my list. See, that’s the kind of social interaction I needed. I returned home, spirits lifted and ready to cook. I also had a Nachos BellGrande in tow, because what’s the fun in having your husband go TDY and not eating a little bit of forbidden crap? It was my pre-vegan naughty meal, a’ight?

Here’s what all I made yesterday, with a bit of commentary:

Popcorn: No link needed. Go pop some popcorn in a kettle on your stove. It’s delicious. I’m eating it every day as a snack, with 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast for my B12 (which is a vitamin that many vegans are deficient in!)

Vegan Dip: There’s not really a name for this. Maybe you could call it Herbed Tofu Dip? Whatever. It’s pretty good, but, like some commenters on the recipe complained, a bit bland. I plan on having it for dinner with some crudites tonight, so we’ll see how that turns out.

Strawberry Ice “Cream”: Actually just berries, coconut milk fat, and maple syrup. The recipe calls for honey, which, as we all know, is not vegan. Also, I decided to use up the frozen cherries and blueberries in my freezer, turning the flavor into Cherry-Berry. It tasted pretty fantastic last night, post-blending and pre-freezing. I’m sure it will taste even more fantastic when I eat it for dessert tonight.

4-Ingredient Banana Oat Bars: A bit of a misnomer, as TheKitchn adjusted the recipe to include some spices. So it’s more like 7-Ingredient Banana Oat Bars. These are just meh. I submerged a bar in soy milk for breakfast this morning, but it was too tough and chewy to dissolve into the milk like I had hoped. Oh well. It was worth a shot; besides, they’re still edible.

Lemon Quinoa Cilantro Chickpea Salad: True story–the first time I had this was at a post-Boot Camp party held by one of my fellow Boot Campers. She made this salad, and it was so fabulous that everybody asked for the recipe. So I knew this would be a hit for lunches this week, and threw it together with glee. Did not let me down. Make this recipe as soon as you possibly can, people.

So that’s that! I was very efficient last week and prepared myself for the whole month, making lists of what to eat/cook each week–so I wouldn’t get stuck in a panicky rut and end up binging on pork or something. Not that I ever eat pork, but still.

Today’s assessment: success. I’m a vegan and I hardly even know it.

Filed Under: 30 Before 30, Foodstuffs Tagged With: 30 Before 30, air force, alligator tears, delicious, recipes, vegan

The Ghost Returns

March 29, 2013 By Emily Huffman 1 Comment

Blah. I won’t dwell too long on how I’ve neglected this blog-site of mine, because that’s just annoying. Whatever, I’ve been busy–with hubby’s graduation, and with hubby himself. (These days he is gone roughly 2 hours each day. And when he’s here, he’s a distraction!)

Anyway, guess what?

(Drumroll please.)

I got into my #1 choice for grad school! I’ma be going to Vermont College of Fine Arts!!

I would like, first and foremost, to thank my husband for pushing my butt here. In my First Annual Huffman Family Christmas Letter, I wrote that my goal for the year was to get into grad school. Wait, I even wrote it in one of the earliest entries on this very blog. The pressure was on, and honestly I didn’t think I could do it–that I would have to find a way to put a positive spin on my failure in the Second Annual Huffman Family Christmas Letter. Thankfully, Jarrod believed in me. He made me write a schedule and stick to it. He asked for updates and read over my application essays. He was a true gem throughout the process.

Secondly, I would like to thank my mother-in-law, without whom I would have turned in my applications with a single accompanying recommendation. With Kelly’s help, I was able to contact the uncontactable other two profs and turn in my needed number of recommendations.

And of course I would like to thank all three profs who provided the recommendations.

I got my acceptance phone call last Friday. Of course I missed the call–I was out running errands with Jarrod and didn’t want my phone to ring while he was getting his medical records copied, so I put my phone on silent and forgot about it. While we were at the post office, a mere twenty minutes later (!), I saw that I had missed a call from an unknown area code. Could it be…? The caller left a message. I dialed voicemail, put the phone on speaker, and grabbed Jarrod’s hand. Yahoo!

My acceptance packet came on Monday, full of all sorts of goodies: the acceptance form, of course, as well as a sample residency schedule, lecture topic overviews, the student handbook, and best of all, a CD with a lecture on it. I listened to the lecture on Tuesday night. It was amazing. It was hilarious, and so insightful. After 45 minutes I know more about middle grade fiction than I ever have in my life. I’m also positive that I’ve made the right decision.

Now: the hard work begins. I know–I thought the application was the hard part. Nerp. VCFA’s program consists of five residencies and four semesters. Each residency consists of a jam-packed 10 days of lectures, readings, critiques, and fun. The first one will take place in July, and to get ready for it I’m preparing a few works-in-progress and reading as much faculty work as I can. During the residency I’ll choose a faculty member to be my adviser for the semester, and make a rough plan of what I’d like to study. From there, I’ll exchange packets with my adviser about once a month. Then the semester ends and I head off to residency #2 in January.

I also have to find a job…which means I have to find somebody who will hire me for the 7ish months we’re in Albuquerque, and then find somebody else who will hire me while we’re in Las Vegas.

So yeah. The next 2 1/2 years will be a bit busy, but I know I can handle it just fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to making my character sketches for my work-in-progress.

Filed Under: Writing and Such Tagged With: grad school, vcfa, writing

My Husband is a Stud Pilot

March 15, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

I just wanted to share this little video with you all on the day of Jarrod’s graduation from pilot training. I came across it while I was working my way through the box of VHS home videos from Jarrod’s childhood. There’s just something about watching my husband as a two-year-old that makes my ovaries ache. I mean, look at those cheeks!

Anyway, this particular clip was taken on Jarrod’s second birthday. I guess he really was destined to be a helicopter pilot.

–Emily

Filed Under: Military Life Tagged With: helicopters, home videos, pilot training

A Few Reasons Why Living in Las Vegas Will Be Awesome

March 13, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

As I said in my last entry, I was mostly just confused when I found out we were moving to Nellis. I’ve done my research, though, and have officially decided that it will be awesome. Below, and in no particular order, I’ve listed just a few of the reasons why:

1) The airport is only a half hour away from Nellis, and Southwest flies into it. Also, I feel like people will want to visit us. Because we live in Vegas.

2) There’s a Sam’s Club, meaning that I can finally stock up on essentials that I always run out of (like flour). Actually, there’s a Sam’s Club around here, but our pantry is basically a shelf shoved into the under-stair boiler room, plus we’re here for less than a year, so the bulk food-purchasing has had to wait.

3) Whole Foods! In our town! Not to mention multiple Asian and Indian supermarkets–meaning that a lot of previously off-limits-because-of-lack-of-weird-ingredients-in-tiny-town recipes are now…on-limits.

4) No state income tax in Nevada, which is great. We’ll have to figure out the whole residency thing, but that shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

5) I’ll just be happy to be settled. I want to have a garden. And I know, the desert. But I’ll figure it out.

6) Speaking of gardens, Las Vegas has a sweet-looking community garden, as well as tons of farmers markets. Shake the hand of the farmer, anyone?

7) The obvious one: there won’t be any lack of things to do. In fact, I think we’ll have to take it easy in order to not go broke right away. Specifically: Cirque du Soleil (which I’ve never seen!), the Neon Museum, Ripleys, Madame Tussauds, Penn and Teller…And of course all the amazing places to eat…

8) Death Valley is only two hours to the west; LA is four. And I’ve never even been to California!

9) To the east is the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. And I’ve never even been to either!

10) I’m sure that we’ll find some amazing, cute coffee shops. And even if we don’t there’s always Starbucks, baby.

11) Not to mention all the other great chains I’ve been missing: Chipotle, Jack in the Box, In-N-Out Burger (actually, I’ve never been there but I’m excited to go), Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen, etc.

12) Apparently Chinese New Year is a big deal there, so that will be super fun.

So yeah. It’ll be great. Now I’m just like, “Psh…Albuquerque? Get me to Nellis!” In time, though. In time.

Filed Under: Military Life Tagged With: excitement, las vegas, nellis afb

Vegas, Baby!

March 11, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

Spoiler alert: my husband is a rockstar future HH-60 pilot, and we’re goin’ to Vegas, baby.

Indeed, after thirteen months of anticipation, Friday happened. I’m just trying to figure out how to form the narrative.

Jarrod’s checkride was Thursday night. That day, Kristen, one of the other spouses of 13-05, invited me and the third spouse, Bernice, over to her house to pass the evening together. For this, I am eternally grateful. As I may have mentioned in my previous post, all I had been able to do for the past week was watch episodes of Army Wives while the clock crawled toward 1AM.

So Bee and I drove over to Kristen’s where we ate some pretty delicious hummus and watched Pitch Perfect. Which, by the way, I can’t recommend enough! Unless you don’t like movie puking. Which I don’t. But other than that, the movie was great. We chatted for awhile after the movie ended, I drank two diet Cherry Cokes, and around midnight I drove Bee home.

Jarrod had been a bit delayed due to maintenance, so I had time to finish the season 1 finale of Army Wives before he got back around 2AM. He passed! Officially! Pilot training over, except for two ungraded night formation rides before graduation! We celebrated by splitting a tiny bottle of champagne between the two of us and then going to bed right afterward. The party could wait until the next day.

I woke up, as usual, around 7AM and saw that the commander’s wife had finally put the time of drop on Facebook. 4PM. So it was official! I surfed the web a bit and went back to bed. Later, Jarrod received a text from his squadron commander: come at 2:30PM to drop it like it’s hot. Um?

So this led to all kinds of confusion, etc, but at 2:30 we all found ourselves gathered in the squadron, decked out in some awesome St. Patty’s Day gear (which made the party about 10x better) and ready for the drop.

After showing the class video and another slightly disgusting ode to Shamrock Shakes, the choose-the-order-of-the-drop game commenced: the guys were all given a Shamrock Shake with a charm at the bottom, and were made to drink the shake, find the charm, and drop it in the magic pot. Order of completion determined order of drop. Jarrod didn’t even finish his shake, so you can figure out where we were in that order: dead last.

The first guy was the reservist (is that a word?), who knew he was flying HH-60′s in Tuscon. Then, in no particular order that I can remember, came a 60 to Lakenheath, a 60 to Okinawa (it was a darn good drop, just FYI), two Hueys to Andrews, a Huey to Minot, a Huey to Malmstrom…and then Jarrod. A 60 to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nevada.

So my first reaction was something along the lines of, “LOL, wut?” See, I’m a person who plans, and I had not planned to go to Las Vegas. Go ahead, call me crazy. It was our fourth choice of location. But I just never really imagined going there, and didn’t do the necessary research.

So it took me a bit of time to warm up to the fact that we were indeed going to Las Vegas. Jarrod, of course, was ecstatic. I think he had given up on flying 60′s, so it came as a complete surprise to him. I just wanted to go home and figure out everything about living at Nellis.

Now you’re wondering about the picture, aren’t you? As it turns out, I’ve been to Nellis AFB. I don’t really remember anything about it, except that it was kind of a horrible visit. I had just come back from three months in Germany the day before and was only in Las Vegas for 48 hours. Jarrod’s mom and I were visiting Jarrod while he was on casual to Nellis for three weeks. He was super distant the whole time; what I found out a week or so later was that he was planning on taking the year off to teach in India, and was just in a super-broody mood.

I’m not going to let those two days in Nevada color my upcoming experience, of course. I just think it’s funny that I actually have a picture and a few memories of Nellis! Now, the Monday after the drop, I’ve actually done my research about Nellis and am starting to get super excited, for reasons I’ll detail on Wednesday. Vegas, baby. Our first semi-permanent Air Force home.

–Em

Filed Under: Military Life Tagged With: air force, anxiety attack, drop night, helicopters, hh-60s, nellis afb, pavehawks

Nervous Stream-of-Consciousness

March 8, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

So I’m back. From The Motherland. Or should I call it the Adopted Motherland, because my real motherland is the US of A.

Hey, by the way, don’t expect much from this entry. In exactly (I mean, nearly exactly!) 24 hours I will be watching my husband receive his aircraft and base assignment. Oh, and that’s exactly 24 hours from when I’m writing this. Exactly 11.5 hours from the publish time of this post.

I feel ill.

I mean, okay. I’m not 100% sure that Drop is going to happen tomorrow. Jarrod’s class still has their checkrides tonight, and he’s not even certain that one guy passed yesterday’s flight. So we’ll see. But I sure hope it’s going to happen, because I just want this misery to be over.

I got home on Sunday afternoon. It’s nice to be back–as much as I loved my return to India, I missed Jarrod even more. When I’m home, I know he’s okay. I know he’s eating. Ha.

But ever since Sunday, these nerves have been intensifying. I was fine on Monday, indifferent on Tuesday. It Friday felt so distant, plus Tuesday night’s weather was possibly going to be hairy, sothings were super uncertain as to the status of the date of drop. By the grace of God the skies cleared and the helicopters flew. Since then, I haven’t been able to do anything but watch multiple episodes of Army Wives. Oh, I did clean the bathroom yesterday. That was an accomplishment.

So there’s that. But don’t forget, I’m also waiting on answers from the schools I applied to for my masters. Meaning: frequent e-mail-checking.

And, hey! I heard back from Hollins on Tuesday! (Can you tell by the exclams that it was a YES?) Hollins is my #2 (of 2, ha) school, and I’m really glad just to have been accepted there. I want to do this, I want to go back to school–and now I know that I am, whether it be to Hollins or to VCFA. Maybe I will just be a famous children’s author someday, like my mother-in-law always introduces me as.

Gah. My mouth is dry and I’m hungry. I would kill for another bowl of Pomegranate Energy frozen yogurt, like I had yesterday, but my mouth has canker sores all over it, so I think I’ll lay off on the sweets for now. Aw, heck. Maybe I’ll go into town and get some. I’m seriously addicted to the stuff, and it’s not like the yogurt shop runs Pom Energy every week.

Tonight I and the other two spouses of 13-05 are getting together to chill and watch a movie, which is what I really need. Sitting alone in this house and moving from the couch to the bed to the couch again really doesn’t make time move very quickly. Plus, it’s been excruciating trying to stay up until 1 AM waiting for Jarrod to get back. Last night I gave in at 11:30, went to sleep in my nightshirt with the lights on, and woke up at 12:30 absolutely drenched in sweat. It was almost comical, except that I was super cold for awhile.

I’ll tell you about how great India was later. For now I’m going to get up, drink me a glass of water, and then go into town to cash my free Redbox code (perfect timing, Redbox…perfect timing!) and soothe my anxiety with some frogurt goodness. And don’t even say anything about numbing my feelings with food. I think I deserve this.

–Em

P.S. News will certainly follow.

Filed Under: Military Life Tagged With: air force, anxiety attack, drop night, helicopters, waiting games

So I’m in India…

February 18, 2013 By Emily Huffman Leave a Comment

Hi people.

I’m on vacation. And while I meant to be all proactive and schedule posts for the days I’m gone, it didn’t happen. Instead, you get a nice picture from India, so you can imagine all the fun I’m having over on the other side of the globe.

Take care, dear readers. I’ll be back the first week of March, so don’t you fret!