A science lesson

Last weekend, as Matt and I were driving through the neighborhood, he asked me if I knew why some roofs had snow on top of them and some didn't.

I've always assumed it had something to do with the angle of the sun. That sounds about right, wouldn't you think?

Wrong.

Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't know this, but the real reason has everything to do with the second law of thermodynamics, which states that energy goes from high to low.

Or, in other words, your house doesn't get cold because you "let the cold air in." It gets cold because heat leaves it whenever it has the opportunity to do so.

The homes in this picture were primarily built in the 1940s and weren't insulated very well. Therefore, the parts of the roofs in this picture without any snow are over small attic bedrooms with poor insulation, and the heat escapes and melts the snow. The parts of the roofs that do have snow are over unused and unheated portions of the upstairs, maybe even storage nooks or closets.

Now I'll never look at snowcovered roofs in the same way again. I'm glad I know the real reason for the phenomenon, although there is a part of me that still wants to believe it has a little something to do with the angle of the sun.

He remembered!

As if Matt hadn't already done enough for our first anniversary, on Sunday morning, he walked in from a run with a newspaper in hand.

"Look what I found!" he said. "The New York Times!"

I said something to the effect of oh that's great, thinking maybe there was some mixup, or perhaps some promotion was going on.

But he kept standing there, paper in hand and a big smile on his face. And then I realized that he had found it on our doorstep because he had ordered it! He had gotten us a subscription to the Sunday Times for our anniversary!

Now this scored big points with me for a few reasons. First, my dad subscribes to numerous newspapers for work, and since he works at home, I always had about five or more newspapers to choose from on a Sunday morning. So the fact that I now have even one, and one of my favorites, is a wonderful treat.

Second, I work in public relations and daily am reminded that traditional media is dying. So I feel gratified that we're doing our part to keep it alive.

But finally, and perhaps most importantly, it delighted me that Matt remembered that the traditional first anniversary gift is paper. I told him about this after one of our friends bought his wife a counting book for their first anniversary, "because the first gift is paper!" our friend said.

It seemed so sweet and appropriate and I think I told Matt once or twice, ok maybe three times, about this tradition.

And to my delight, he remembered!

I suppose at some point I need to fill him in on next year's cotton requirement ... but for now I'll enjoy my paper.

A Berkley surprise

I'm a sucker for those free, weekly community newspapers that come in the mail. You know the kind, the ones with fourteen pages of ads and four pages of news about the high school basketball team, the parks & recreation's summer art camp, and the police beat. Ours is called "Woodward Talk."

Well, from now on I will always read the Woodward Talk because on Friday, while I was eating my cereal, I noticed an announcement in the paper that Greg Mortenson, author of the New York Times bestseller "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time," was speaking at Berkley High School, which is three blocks from our house.

Now you have to understand Berkley and the surrounding area to understand my shock. Not that there isn't an appreciative audience for Greg here. It's just that there are far more literary, "lecturey," peace-promoting types in nearby towns. Towns like Ann Arbor. The last big event in Berkley was probably the Berkley/Ferndale football game.

So this was major.

Plus, I had read the book this fall with my book club and completely loved it. I won't go into great detail about it, but to summarize, it's about how an ordinary man made a promise to a village in Pakistan to build them a school, and how this one school has now turned into 78 schools, and how education, especially the education of women, is furthering peace and thwarting terrorism.

So today Matt and I went to hear Greg speak. It was standing room only, so perhaps there's more of an audience for him here than I realized, and as expected, he was inspiring.

After the talk, Matt and I went across the street for lunch. As we munched on our fries, Matt said, "So what did his talk make you want to do?"

I thought about it for a bit, and while I really wanted to say it made me want to be with the poor, I can't say that was my first instinct. It did make me want to have more faith in the impossible and believe God for more. It did tap that special place in my heart for reading, reminding me of how urgent my desire was to learn to read when I was young, and how tragic it is that some people never get that gift.

So I mentioned those things, but then, pessimist that I can be, I started to think about the all ordinary people who make promises to build schools, clothe the poor, heal the sick ... and don't meet their goal. I mean, not everyone succeeds or accomplishes the impossible, right? You never read books about those people!

Matt just shook his head and admonished me lightly for my pessimism.

So in the spirit of optimism, I'll end on an upbeat note. In 2000, at the height of the Taliban, there were 800,000 kids in school. Today, there are 7 million, 2 million of which are female.

We're nowhere close to spring

However, daffodils help. I remember my high school English teacher telling us how daffodils signify hope, since they are the first flowers of spring.

Well, I know spring is definitely NOT just around the corner here, as it was 6 degrees when I woke up this morning and never make it past the 20's.

But I saw these daffodils at Trader Joe's on Monday and I don't even think they cost more than $2.00. So I treated myself. Even though I had just returned from South Carolina and didn't really need one more treat, I sort of did, because our furnace had shut off while we were gone. So we walked into a, shall I say chilly, house when we returned, which took a solid six hours to reheat.

So I think I deserved the treat.

And if the weather stays this cold, well, I think I might keep buying them!

Charleston pictures

As I mentioned, these aren't the greatest, but I thought I'd post a few. Seems like we never had the motivation to take a picture when the lighting was just right, the sky was blue and we were standing in front of a gracious Southern mansion flanked by palm trees and magnolias. But when it was foggy and rainy, well, that's when we wanted to take pictures!

(Also, for anyone who tried clicking on the links to yesterday's post, my apologies! They are fixed now.)


This bakeshop was absolutely something out of a movie ... sinful chocolate brownies, pink cupcakes, almond tarts, butterscotch cookies ...

The one "blue sky" photo we snapped.

The entryway to our loft condo on King St.


My dream kitchen that I never cooked in because we were always eating out!

Not quite as pretty in the fog, but you get the idea.
Our running clothes aired out nicely up there.


Matt liked this tree by the College of Charleston.

Thawed out

Well, as I was falling to sleep on Thursday night, I was beginning to believe we were headed to Portland, Ore. Not for any particular reason, other than that I couldn't think of any other place in the country that might be experiencing a high of 50 degrees, and I was forcing myself to think out of the box, since Matt said I would NEVER figure out where we were headed.

When we jumped in the car on Friday morning, though, we began heading in exactly the opposite direction of the airport. So that eliminated Oregon. Matt pulled over at the Donut Cutter up the street from our house, because "we need snacks for the trip." How could I protest? I'll have a honey-dipped chocolate donut, please.

As we continued on our way, Matt asked me to pull out the U.S. atlas, as apparently he needed help navigating. His home state? That sounds suspicious. Then he said "What's that piece of paper," which lay on top of the state of South Carolina. Well, it happened to be my boarding pass for a flight to Charleston, SC.

Interestingly, over the past few weeks, Matt had listened to me moan over these photos of Charleston. I tried to not want to go, tried to be content with all the wonderful trips and things I have gotten to do this year, but that didn't get me very far. So I just tried to forget about what I had seen. After all, I had been to Charleston when I was young. I didn't need to go again, right?

Wrong! It was most certainly where we needed to go. Despite the fact that Charleston was experiencing record cold temperatures, we turned on the optimism switch and declared that we were quite fortunate to be skipping out on record cold temperatures in metro Detroit, where the weekend low was -15 degrees.

Plus, record cold temperatures in Charleston affords visitors like us plenty of time to walk a little, eat, eat, run, eat, eat, drive a little, eat, eat, run ... eat. That basically how the weekend played out. Oh, and we shopped.

Matt's coworkers told him he was setting the bar high when he planned a first anniversary trip to one of America's most romantic cities. They're right. But is that really such a bad thing?

(We didn't get too many good pictures, but I'll try posting a few more this week.)

From zero to 50

This is what I woke up to: 0.9 degrees. And that wasn't the worst of it. A few moments later it was 0.7, then 0.3. Finally, I had to look away, lest it get any worse!

But there is better news at hand. Tomorrow Matt is taking me on a surprise anniversary trip. All I know is the following - we are leaving at 7:00 a.m., we will be gone three nights, the high will be 50 degrees, the low 20 (that sounds absolutely balmy at this point), and I am to bring my computer and sunglasses, and mainly casual clothes.

That's all I know! I've played the guessing game to no avail. I'm not getting much information out of him. However, a 50 degree increase sounds like a LOT right about now, so I have a feeling I'll be a happy clam no matter where we end up.

Nocturnal lucidity

I have a tendency to worry. But while a lot of worriers can be kept up at night by their ruminations, I've found that, once I get to sleep, the night can shed a lot of "light" on my concerns.

This is how it works. I generally wake up once or maybe even twice in the middle of the night. And if there's been something that day that has really been nagging me, I'll bring it to mind.

Whenever I start to think about the issue that's been on my mind, well, my desire to go back to sleep is so strong that I can immediately convince myself of the truth. This isn't as easy to do during the day, because I don't have to stop whatever I'm doing to worry. I can continue to drive, run, cook, clean, work, etc. and worry at the same time.

I first learned this trick when I was single and wondering/worrying if I would get married. One night I woke up and thought about my situation. It came to me so obviously and immediately that God would not have forgotten to find me a husband if he wanted me to be married. If it was going to happen, well, it would just happen! Simple as that and I went right to sleep.

I've recently been using this tactic with my concerns. I decide to give my worry the nighttime test, and if I can get back to sleep, well, I determine that it's not worth worrying about.

Now I know the real test is to not worry during the day, too, and I'm definitely working on that. I'm just glad I have this little trick up my sleeve for the time being.

Never say never

I never thought I would get a crockpot. We never had one growing up, so I've never really felt a need for one. Nothing that's ever come out of one has ever seemed appetizing to me. Maybe that's because the only place I ever see them is when they're all lined up in a row at potluck lunches at work. No matter how good the kitchen smells, I just can't entrust myself to my coworkers' clever combinations of "only three ingredients!!" - i.e. beef, beans and something out of a can.

However, I've heard my brother and sister-in-law talk a lot over the past year or so about how much they love their crockpot. About how they can put just a few things in it in the morning, not worry about it all day, and then have a delicious dinner ready for them eight hours later.

This kind of arrangement was starting to sound pretty good to me. Especially when I've been running out of ideas for wholesome meals (that hopefully will provide leftovers for lunch) that can be made and consumed in the span of about 37 minutes between work and an evening activity.

Austin and Jackie might have figured, though, that I never would bring myself to by one (I might not have), which might be why they bought me one for Christmas, along with most of the ingredients for some of their favorite crockpot creations.

So this morning I spent about three or four minutes putting ingredients in the crockpot, worried for about five minutes when a strange electrical smell emanated from the device, right as we were leaving for church ... and then eight hours later, spent about 90 seconds ladling mushroom beef barley soup into bowls for our dinner.

I think I'm a fan (just as long as there's more than three ingredients).

The good things about winter

I was having dinner with a friend last night and I mentioned I had gone to the store between work and meeting her for dinner. She said, "That's the one good thing about winter - you can go to the grocery store and not have to go straight home to put your groceries in the refrigerator/freezer."

I'd have to agree. I do love that about winter. But I hope that's not literally the one good thing about winter, because I need more than a handful of good things to counter this:

Wednesday Night: A chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 1.

Did you see that? A low around 1.

I'd better get a list together fast! Here goes:

• You have a very good excuse to frequently drink hot chocolate, lattes, hot cider, etc.
• The snow makes it bright outside, even when it's cloudy, at night and on early morning runs in the dark.
• It's a perfect time to get caught up on projects inside the house that you don't feel like tackling when it's 70 degrees and sunny.
• It's easier to sleep in on the weekends because the sun rises later. (a lot later here)
• Winter accessorizing can be fun - hats, scarves and gloves are available in all kinds of colors and textures.
• Since you're wearing lots of sweaters, jeans, corduroys, there's less ironing to do.
  
• You can bring cans of soup to work for lunch for days on end - this is good because they are affordable and no prep or tupperware is involved.
• You don't have to mow the lawn. But you do have to shovel snow. Maybe these two cancel each other out.
  
• There's always summer to look forward to.
  

A confession

Ok, since I already made the confession to Jackie, my sister-in-law, I can go ahead and let everyone know - I'm competing with her blog. Not for quality's sake, mind you, but for quantity.

It was working out pretty well over Christmas break, since I had gobs of time at home on my hands. I was able to post once a day, no problem. And everytime I hit "publish post," I'd feel a special sense of satisfaction and relief, knowing that I could keep up with my prolific sister-in-law.

I don't know how I got to be so competitive, since nothing was really a competition in our household growing up. In fact, one of our favorite board games was the "Ungame," where everyone wins! But, I do remember dragging my feet to play Sorry or Othello with my brother, knowing that my chances of winning were slim.

In the past several years, whenever I have gotten into some type of game or contest situation with friends, they will more often than not exclaim, "I had no IDEA you were so competitive, Liz!"

It really comes through at work, since we are so metrics-driven. I cannot stand when we aren't driving the results expected of us and I hate just meeting expectations. I want to exceed them. Always.

So it's probably good for me that I am conceding the victory to Jackie tonight, even though there was never really a contest in the first place. I'm not going to be blogging at work, that's for sure, (it might keep me from exceeding expectations!) and I'm beginning to accept the fact that there are many evenings when I just won't find the time.

Consequently, I encourage you to visit www.midwayfarm.blogspot.com during my dry spells. I'm sure there will be a new post ready for you to enjoy!

Dorothy, you're not in Annapolis anymore

This very special offer greeted me when I came home from work tonight. I, a newly minted Midwesterner, have been specially selected to participate in a marketing test for the magazine "Midwest Living." The promotional materials boldly proclaim "The Midwest! It's where you are ... and where you love to be!" and "Come home to the one magazine that takes you where you love to be!" And I have been promised a 3-year subscription for the price of one year

I appreciate the offer, but I'm not sure if the marketing team at Midwest Living knows my real story. First of all, I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I could be living in the Midwest. Because I've heard many Michiganders argue that we live in the Great Lakes, not the Midwest.

Second, even if I am living in the Midwest, it's where I'm learning to love to be! I moved here to get married and yes, I'm growing to enjoy my surroundings. However, if I had remained single, well, I don't think I'd be eligible for Midwest Living subscription offers.

I usually throw away offers like this, as they always seem to dupe you into paying for something you didn't agree to purchase. Yet, since "There's never been a better time to uncover the wonders of the Midwest," perhaps I should give this one a second thought.

I haven't felt like this since high school

Last night marked the end of the longest vacation I have had since I started my current job in September, 2007. I haven't felt a sense of dread like I did last night since high school, when Christmas vacation was coming to an end. In college, returning to classes after winter break was always a little hard, but there was definitely a spirit of optimism and anticipation with the start of a new semester. And in my previous job, well, I just didn't have to get up as early! And the mornings certainly weren't as dark and frigid - factors that make my a.m. runs less enticing.

Really the only thing that got me out of bed this morning was iron will. I don't know how else I crawled from under the covers and into the cold and wind. I just tried not to think about what I was doing, I guess.

And the work day proved to be much as I expected - long.

However, since my mother always likes it when I end things on a positive note, I'll say this - I am so grateful to have a good job, a warm home to retreat to after a long day at work or a predawn run, and a fantastic and loving husband who, when I told him we were having steam burgers for dinner, said "Oh good!!" Maybe things aren't so tough after all.

Oh I hope it's not an InkStop

Over the past six months or so, we've been watching the destruction of the Burger King up the street from our house. And for a while, there was a sign in front of the wreckage that read "Closed for remodeling." But I think it was just giving BK broiler addicts some false hope, because the construction that has recently developed looks like the beginnings of a miniature strip mall and not a renovated fast food joint.

Whenever Matt and I drive by the construction zone, we speculate on what might be in store for our neighborhood. In our most pessimistic moments, we envision an InkStop. And if you've been paying any attention to the placement of InkStops throughout the country, you'll know that they are usually accompanied by a Pet Supplies "Plus." Both would be very unuseful for us, seeing as how we rarely purchase ink and have no pets. There would probably also be a tanning salon. Oh, and perhaps a small Burger King to appease the Whopper fans.

However, when I'm feeling optimistic, I imagine that we're getting a Chipotle, a Starbucks and Dryclean Depot, which cleans most garments for $1.99. If there's room left over, I guess they can bring back the Burger King. I do like french fries and a milkshake from time to time.

Green goes blue

An article ran in today's issue of the Detroit Free Press, recognizing a new eatery in Waterford, MI called Pekoe & Joe (don't you love the name? tea and coffee!), an environmentally friendly drive-through restaurant.

It turns out that Pekoe & Joe is one of only three certified green restaurants in the state of Michigan. One of the other three happens to be right up the street from my house in Berkley, MI -- Amici's Pizza and Living Room.

What I like most about these two eateries is their unassuming locations. Going green is rather trendy these days, and I can think of plenty of towns in metro Detroit that are far hipper than rather blue-collar Waterford or Berkley.

Not that there's anything wrong with these towns! They are both charming in their own right. It's just that an organic, LEED-certified restaurant sort of seems out of place when it's surrounded by a drive-through A&W and other lard-dependent family restaurants, a doll and toy soldier hospital, a stamp shop, and increasingly obsolete print and copy shops.

I'm not sure what makes Waterford and Berkley desirable locations for green eateries. Maybe it's lower tax rates? Maybe we're on the verge of gentrification, and this is just the beginning? In any case, I'm not going to complain!

You can read more about Pekoe & Joe here, on the Free Press' Web site.

Siriusly stressed out

I spent about 2 1/2 hours today running errands and spent a large part of that time in the car. (mainly because I was willing to drive an extra 15 minutes to shop at the brand-new Walmart. And it was worth it.)

As soon as I got about a block away from home, I realized I should have brought a CD I'd been meaning to listen to. Instead of turning around, though, I turned on Sirius Radio. I've had it for more than a year now and even though I enjoy the variety of music and programming available to me, it mainly just stresses me out.

Over 170 channels is just too much for me. I can't listen in contentment to any one song or program, because something better must be playing on another station, right? Or maybe I should be listening to local radio; I don't want it to die the way local newspapers are. And then there's always my 6 CD changer. I should be making use of that, especially when there was a time I had to plug in my Discman to the cigarette lighter and carefully balance it on the cup holders to listen to a CD.

Today I decided to stick with Sirius and learned about the toxins found in anti-perspirant, decor changes made to the White House, Levitical law, the rally today on Wall Street, how breathalizer laws are reducing drunk driving accidents in New Mexico, and couples who are hesitant to marry, but not reluctant to have children. I didn't even make it to the music stations!

In the spirit of cutting back during tough economic times, I'm all for reevaluating our need for satellite radio. But I don't think I'm going to make it past Matt on this one.

Goodbye Chauncey, hello Rodney

I've never been a real fan of NBA basketball. I'd rather watch college hoops.

However, it's difficult not to be slightly endeared to "Dee-troit BASKETBALL!" There's a lot of enthusiasm here for the team and you can't help getting excited with everyone else about some good news coming out the city - a competitive basketball team.

I enjoy learning the personalities of the Piston players and was particularly biased to Chauncey Billups. I think he was the most good-natured guy and personable guy on the team. When he got traded to the Denver Nuggets this November for Allen Iverson, I briefly considered throwing in the towel on Pistons basketball. Not a fair trade in my arguably uneducated opinion.

But, hindsight is always 20-20. If Billups hadn't left for the Nuggets, I might never have realized the merits of up-and-coming star Rodney Stuckey. Only 25 years old and in his second year in the NBA, Stuckey is dazzling Pistons fans with his talent (recently scoring a career high of 40 points in a game) and strong work ethic.

I like that he's young, humble and driven. I'll admit I'm no expert on professional basketball and am only going on first impressions here. But, I have a novice's hunch that I've got my eye on an All-Star.