when I'm Happy my Smile feels like Sunshine on a Field of Daisies

By Tamika Whitenack

Appreciate this morning fog on a farm run!

I love reading everyone's blogs! I think this is a first, everybody else has posted since the last time I posted! Yayayay. Hearing about your adventures is awesome, but I think part of why I like reading is because I can hear your voice through the way you write. Much love to all.

There was a lot going on at campus this past week in not a good way for most students, so it was a long week. I don't really feel like talking about that right now though, because I am in a lovely mood. I don't mean for this post to be one of those "look at how great my life is" sorts of things, and I will say right now that while I am incredibly privileged to be here and do enjoy myself, it is far from perfect. However, today I feel like sharing happy things!

I had an amazing morning! I woke up around 8:45, which was probably not enough sleep considering when I went to bed last night, but I did not feel tired, I felt really ready to go! I ran in the Halloween 5K Fun Run organized by Vassar yesterday, which meant that today was going to be my long run day. (Note on the 5K: this is the 2nd 5K I've done since coming to Vassar and I've really enjoyed both that I've done. As you may or may not know, I sort of hated racing in high school XC, but I've enjoyed these past two races. I think I like racing, as long as it's not stressful, and my approach to these past two has not been to go all out so I haven't hit painful racing stage, I've been in going-decently-fast-but-not-in-pain stage. I like trying to pass guys bc my competitive feminist streak kicks in. It also probably helps that most of the other people who do these runs are chill so I can usually place pretty well which is always a nice little self-esteem booster :D Sorry, that was a long note). Anywayyyy, my run this morning was on the Rail Trail, my usual candidate for long runs, and it was raining and it was one of those great runs in the rain that feels cleansing and beautiful, not cold and miserable.

 After this run, I stopped by the Deece to pick up my meals-to-go kit for today and take some plums. For some reason, stone fruit has made a return to the dining hall, which makes limited sense given that it is almost November? I then returned to Raymond and filled two giant bags with food and kitchen stuff to prepare for some serious cooking.

noodles in the skillet!

The Raymond kitchen is not a lovely place, but I had a lovely time there this morning! I put on the Spotify "Songs to Sing in the Shower" playlist, and then went to work on food production! I discovered a moldy spot on my pumpkin yesterday, so I decided it was time to cook that.  I also made a pan of roasted vegetables: cauliflower, turnips, and carrots with rosemary, shallot, and lemon. It's quite yummy and reminds me of the vegetable dishes I sometimes make for Thanksgiving. I also made my meals-to-go to be eaten later in the week. I made lo-mein noodles stir fried with minced garlic and ginger and green onions and broccoli. The sauce they provided smelled a little like ton-katsu sauce so I was wary, but they turned out decently! Tastes a little like yaki-soba. I also cooked the gnocchi and added some chopped rosemary to that as well. Later in the week I will probably add the gnocchi to vegetable stir-fries that I make, hopefully ones that heavily feature tomatoes (I have a vision for a greens, mushroom, and tomato stir-fry topped with gnocchi, feta, and lemon juice and I think it sounds yummy).

pan of veg

chopped stuff

seeds that i did not burn!

cooked pumpkin

toast in bad lighting

Besides all this prep for food to be eaten later in the week, I also made myself something to eat whilst I was cooking. I decided to combine some of my favorite combinations and had whole wheat toast with almond butter, cinnamon, and sweet potato! Yum yum yum.
At the end of this adventure, I also got to FaceTime Emma! Yay!
I realize I basically just talked about food for a couple of paragraphs, but this was just such an ideal for morning for me and I felt very content. This is sort of how I envision Sunday mornings in future life but possibly including small children to help with food prep and contribute to kitchen dance parties/sing-alongs. Does that not sound like an amazing time?!?

meal prepped and ready to go!

gnocchi under a mountain of roast veg

pumpkin storage (what should i make with it?)

Moving back in time, I also had some pretty great times on Friday. It was a beautiful sunny day but not too hot, and I decided to go volunteer on the farm again! I think the Poughkeepsie Farm Project is super cool and want to be more involved (they were doing an event that involved cooking with vegetables with some local elementary students and community members, totally stuff that I want to do). I was helping harvest carrots, which was interesting because I was trying not to get my pants dirty which meant a lot of squatting and back-bending. However, I think chair-pose and forward-fold from yoga have helped me get better at those positions, yay! I felt very happy out in the field with some nice soil and loads of carrots.
On Friday afternoon, I went to volunteer at the nursery school as per usual, and discovered that they were having a Halloween party! It was awesome. I got to watch kiddos in costume eat cupcakes in a way that gets crumbs and frosting all over their face, and then act absolutely crazy because they have had too much sugar! I feel if I end up being one of those moms who invests a lot in Halloween costumes my kids will always be food-related stuff.

lemon poppyseed bread

My last note about this week will be Thursday. I decided to bake on Thursday so that I could bring my goodies to my ALANA staff meeting on Friday. I made vegan lemon-poppyseed bread/muffins and chocolate chip muffins (same base batter, I just did two different add-ins). I was worried because I had to take the loaf out halfway through baking in order to go to work, but I put it back in to finish baking 4 hours later and it turned out fine! Possibly because it's vegan? Also there are loads of vegan people here if you haven't made that guess already, but I personally have been very satisfied with the results of vegan quick bread type stuff, I think it's just as good as normal.

close up of muffins: lp on L, cc on R

The other thing I did on Thursday was attend a workshop put on by ASA on the model minority myth. A Vietnamese professor who is new this year was the presenter and I found the workshop interesting, familiar in some ways, but also with new thoughts that I didn't consider before.

Assuming I don't post until after Tuesday (likely but not certain), I hope everyone has a good Halloween and start of November! BOO and rabbit, rabbit.

 *Note: some concerned readers may notice that my meal preps do not contain a lot of protein. Fear not, I plan to add tofu when I eat the noodles and will add cheese + eat yogurt with seeds or nut butter for dessert when I eat gnocchi.