The Case of the Big Bad Granola

It might not look like much, but this bowl of granola, approximating eight to nine cups of wholesome goodness, cost me approximately 20 bucks, three hours, and a house that stinks of burnt oat.

How does one make such costly, time-consuming granola, you might ask.

I'll tell you:

Step One) Encounter delicious home-cooked granola, casually slid out of the oven with ease and style at the hands of one Ms. Gourmet Sujata.

Step Two) After savoring a toasted pecan straight off the baking sheet, resolve to make some home-cooked goodness of your very own.

Step Three) Because you're cheap, carefully plot the acquisition of spendy baking goods such as old fashioned rolled oats, wheat germ (nothing less than Dr. Bob will do), maple syrup, vegetable cooking oil, walnuts (because pecans are far too dear), powdered milk, and vanilla extract.

Step Four) Wait until you live in a home where operating the oven doesn't cost half your monthly paycheck.

Step Five) Make the plunge. Pull out the good ol' Joy of Cooking and look up a granola recipe.

Step Six) Come to terms with the fact that you do not have three to four of the ingredients required and intend to substitute walnuts for almonds (because your cheap). Rice bran was nowhere to be found.

Step Seven) Spread three cups of old fashioned oats on a baking sheet. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Toast, stirring frequently, for 15 minutes.

Step Eight) In the meantime, mix your other dry ingredients as follows: 1 and half cup wheat germ, half cup powdered milk, one cup walnuts, and for the heck of it, one cup peanuts (another nut for the poor man).

Step Nine) In a small saucepan over low heat, warm a half cup of vegetable oil and a half cup of maple syrup (or cheap syrup from a plastic bottle, as it may be). Add a couple dashes of vanilla extract.

Step Ten) Pour oil/syrup/vanilla mixture into bowl with dry ingredients. Mix well.

Step Eleven) Take out oats. Mix into bowl with oil/syrup/vanilla/dry ingredient mixture.

Step Twelve) Taking out an additional baking sheet, spread the mixture evenly between the two. Slide back into the oven for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Step Thirteen) Discover, 45 minutes later, that 45 minutes is far too long. Try valiantly to eat the blackened oat and walnut clusters anyway. Fail. Sadly scrape the whole mess into the compost. Stew about it for the rest of the day.

Step Fourteen) Try again the next day. Vow to shorten the baking time by 15 minutes. Follow every step the same but stupidly heat the oven to 350 instead of 300. Why? I've told you. Because you are impossibly stupid.

Step Fifteen) Take out the oats at 30 minutes, certain you have modified the recipe and created your very own sheet of home-cooked goodness.

Step Sixteen) Discover oats and walnuts in similar state of blackened, tar-like misery. Cuss. Moan. Generally stomp around the house in a foul mood, bemoaning the loss of spendy baking goods and pride.

Step Seventeen) Come to terms with the fact that you will be in a foul mood until you can make a bowl of granola that is not burnt to a crisp. Assess cupboards. Make short trip to Walgreens where nuts are sold so cheaply that they are probably not nuts at all. Perhaps they are styrofoam in nut form.

Step Eighteen) Return to the house. Repeat process, ensuring that the oven is dialed to 300 degrees and that the baking time has been reduced to 30 minutes. Read your book right next to the goddamn oven and check every three minutes or so to determine whether or not the oats and the oven are in cahoots to make you go absolutely crazy.

Step Nineteen) On your third try, pull out the baking sheet and admire the happy, golden walnut clusters, the toast oats. Add a cup of dried cranberries. Mix well. Serve up with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

Step Twenty) Send out a victorious text. You have conquered the Big Bad Granola. If you're feeling particularly proud, you may even want to post it to your blog. But that really is going a bit too far.

Gone Done Moved

I don't even know where to begin, and that's probably why I've avoided making an entry since January.

Yup. Still don't know where to begin.

The past three months have been very... Complicated. Of course, I've recorded our journey home, my infectious arrival, and the beginnings of our farm adventure, but since then, everything has changed.

After a few weeks of searching for jobs, Joshua and I both secured employment. Following in Dave's footsteps, Joshua began training as a manager for Holiday Gas Stations, and I got back into education as a Teacher's Aide with Red Wing Burnside Elementary. We continued to look for different work, but things did not look promising.

Both of us missed teaching. For my part, Burnside provided a window into a functioning school where staff and teachers supported one another and students saw success every day. I loved working with fourth graders, and I had the special opportunity to help with the Title VII program, serving students from the Prairie Island Reservation. I absolutely adored the kids.

On the other hand, it was difficult to be paid less than 10 dollars an hour, and I was frustrated by what felt like regressing professionally. Here I was, a certified teacher with two years of classroom experience, unable to gain licensure in the states of Minnesota or Wisconsin without another year and a half of course work and student teaching (which would cost me 15,000 dollars at minimum). I began to see my years of education and TFA collect dust on the shelves of my resume, and with the job market as it is in rural areas, I saw no end in sight.

As for Joshua, he realized quite quickly that although he had both hated and loved teaching, he sorely missed the feeling of purpose that teaching needy students gave him.

The Minnesota Department of Education proved as obtuse and unhelpful as ever, and when we met with Universities in the Twin Cities, we discovered just how expensive gaining our teaching license could be in terms of both time and money. To make matters even worse, the job market for teachers in Minnesota and Wisconsin is miserable. At Burnside alone, I was working with a number of certified teachers who were unable to find work and therefore were working as Education Aides.

It was incredibly difficult to begin thinking about widening our search. We have been planning on moving home and living near family for over two years, and before that, we had always assumed that, some day, we would move back to Minnesota. We love our families very much, and it was painful to think of not only leaving them, but also disappointing and hurting them by leaving them.

But in the end, it felt like there was really no choice at all. With our wages, we never would have been able to fix up the farm or have a family of our own, and without the possibility of teaching in the future, we found the prospect of working 9 to 5 jobs 50 weeks out of the year for the next how every many years truly depressing. Our money was running out, and if we were going to make a decision, we had to make one soon.

Joshua and I began to research states where our certification might be able to transfer. New Mexico straight up accepts Louisiana teaching certificates, and Arizona and Montana have alternative licensures that allow people like us to begin teaching right away while we work towards full certification. In Colorado, charters simply require teachers to be Highly Qualified under NCLB, which we are.

But before we began casting our nets, I stumbled upon the Denver coalition of charter schools and found half a dozen openings for Middle School Science teachers. We sent off our resumes, and within a week, we had received requests for phone interviews at every single place. Two weeks later, we drove down to Colorado for in-person interviews.

After a number of job offers, Joshua and I both settled on working for the same network, West Denver Prep. We were so impressed by the positive yet driven schools that we observed, and we loved Denver. By the end of the week, we found a rental with all of our requirements (two bedrooms, yard, washer/dryer, walking and biking distance to work and grocery store, under 1000 dollars a month), and paid our deposit.

Less than a month later, we were packing our U-Haul and driving back down. We got caught in a blizzard in Nebraska, but after 14 hours of driving, we arrived safe and sound in our new home. It was even better than we had remembered, and since then, we've been settling in, decorating, exploring the neighborhood, and hiking.

So. That's everything in a nutshell. Of course there are other complicated elements, but here we are and there that is. We're happy; we're where we never expected to be; and now we're about to begin an unplanned life.

Odds and Ends

The photo below is of the bathroom skylight.


Before and after photo of entry way - we haven't done anything with it :)


'Before' photo of laundry room.


'Before' photos of bathroom. Love the claw-foot tub :)




'After' photo of mudroom.


'After' photo of bathroom.


Hallway outside of bathroom and two bedrooms. Family photos :)

Bedroom

'Before' photos of our bedroom. This one looks into the hallway to the other bedroom and bathroom, as well as the dining room and front living room.




The duvet cover was a gift from mom :) We painted the walls 'Banana Split' yellow, paint we had left-over from the farm. The mini-curtain is yellow polka-dots, and the oval flower prints on either side of the window are thrift-store finds.


The door to my closet (which is organized with bins, shelves, and hanging shelves to maximize every square inch of space :) ). Our wedding-collage-window, a vintage hat, and a shadow box where I've stored bits and pieces from our wedding day.


Using the peony stencil that I purchased from esty.com, I stenciled white peonies on one wall. It was far easier than the walls I did at the farm, because I used only one color (and there is only one wall, as opposed to four :)). Vintage jewelry boxes, and my chain with hanging scarves.

TV Room/ Joshua's Office/ Oscar's Room/ Guest Bedroom

Below are 'before' photos of our second bedroom. On our first day here, Oscar quickly claimed this as his private domain. He likes carpet and a good view of the street :)




Not the most attractive wall in the house, but still, the mounted TV is worth noting, and quite possibly, Joshua's favorite feature :) Photos of the wedding to the side.


Our reclining love seat was a big hit with Eric and Sujatha's little ones :) Up above our 'spooky' photos and some encaustics that I've made. We painted the wall a pale lime green that we mixed from second-hand paint that we got from the Habitat for Humanity Restore (a small can of bright green and a large can of white).


Joshua's dresser (our room and closet is too small, so this room is Joshua's spill-over) with one of my favorite lamps and mirrors.

Half-image of Joshua's office which sit in a little alcove with a large window.

Kitchen

'Before' photos of our kitchen.




View of kitchen from hallway that feeds into our dining room. Window pane collage on the right, a salvaged piece of vintage metal cabinetry from Joshua's grandparents. We painted the walls with an orange paint we found in Eric and Sujatha's basement :)


I decorated the upper cabinets with maps and decorative blue paper. On the counter is my first (failed) attempt at home-made granola. Unfortunately, I let it cook about 10 minutes too long :(


My lovely Finland poster in its repurposed window frame :) Shelves with tins I've collected over the years from thrift stores.



A view into our mudroom (which is a highly functional but ugly place, and therefore, you shall see no further photos. Above, Joshua's tour-de-force: we replaced the ugly flourescent light fixture with a cloth-wire, vintage find from the Habitat for Humanity Restore. When Joshua called his dad for advice on how to install, Tim said, "and if you make a mistake, don't worry. It won't kill you; it will just hurt like hell."

I am happy to report that Joshua is neither dead nor hurt :)

Dining Room

The images below are of our dining room. Somehow, I figured out how to post the 'before' photos first :)


Two lovely south-facing windows. Also facing our neighbors' soon-to-be addition.


View of dining room from front living room. Oscar looks proprietary already :)


Built-in stocked with my sewing stuff on bottom, our Society Eggplant Sango collection in the middle, and my retro kitchen finds from thrift stores on top.


I can't decide which is my favorite feature in this room: Joshua recovered antique chairs with traffic-cone orange fabric that once provided the material for a dress I had never worn. We stripped, stained, and poly-acrylic-ed this wobbly table, and then Joshua reinforced it with a serious number of L-brackets. The tablecloths are another thrift store find, and yes, the one on bottom is hot orange-pink. Just behind the table sits our repainted desk with my favorite lamp of all time, and above, we've hung the gorgeous embroidered pashmina which was purchased in Leh, Ladakh, but made in Kashmir. Short, lace curtains on windows from thrift store.


Our black-and-white photo collection with my favorite Wyeth print, a picture of a toddling Mandy (from when I scoured old photo with Grandma Vivienne, and an image of the ship that Joshua's Papa BJ sailed on when he was in the navy.

The dresser is a cheapy thrift-store find which I repainted and now houses all of my crafty things, and above, our prized Grandfather clock from Joshua's grandparents.


Bookcase as art :) We salvaged these ratty bookcases and painted them blue to match our accent wall. (We purchased the paint second-hand from the Habitat for Humanity Restore - 4 bucks!)


View of it all from the kitchen hall.


View of it all from the front living room. Oscar's second favorite spot in the house :)

Front Living Room

Scroll to the bottom of this post to see our 'before' photo. These images are of our front living room which looks out onto Osceola. The fireplace, of course, steals the show.


The rocker above came from Joshua's grandparents. We wrapped it in tapestries we bought in Peru. The curtains are made from sari fabric that I purchased in Nepal. The mirror is from New Orleans.


This is a heavily weeded cross-section of the books we once owned. If you're wondering what remained, I'll admit that Stephanie Meyer makes an appearance, as does Charlaine Harris. In less humbling news, Alice Sebold, Dorothy Allison, and Barbara Kingsolver are always welcome on our shelves. Joshua's books are primarily about race, the 60s, and free lovin'.

I painted the top of the little blond nightstand to compliment our 'Gumball Red' wall. The mission lamp is a gift from our wedding (thanks JJ!), and the throw is made of yak wool from Nepal.


Joshua is master when it comes to the nail and hammer: he calls this his 'High Fantasy with a nod to South America and its Papist Residents wall.' The tapestry was a gift from Joshua from Cuzco. The empty frames are waiting for matted photos :)


Our large window and lovely wood-inlay coffee table.


For the record, it would take about five coats of 'Gumball Red' to cover this wall without any streaking coming through; we used three. Pretty poster-print from British National Art Museum. Little piggies from Ecuador. Hurricane lamp from the Andert family coal and ice business.


'Before' photo. Can of paint unopened :)