Previous Fridays

Five reasons I love my husband this Friday!

1. I love how you got rid of the empty boxes in the guest room for me.

2. I love that you offered to help me with some of the things on my to-do list.

3. I love when you compliment my cooking.

4. I love your photography.

5. I love it when you rub my back.

Previous Fridays

For the second week in a row, I give you my Friday’s Five (things I love about my husband)!

1. I love how hard you’re working to reach your goals in the Army.

2. I love how you try to talk to me in your sleep.

3. I love your strong arms.

4. I love how you helped us start our little garden (sure made it easy on me)!

5. I love when you help me cook meals.

Are any of you cooks? I’m a fairly amateur cook, myself. I enjoy it, and I succeed pretty regularly, but I’m not very skilled. I’ve learned how to follow recipes and sometimes improvise a little, but that’s all.

I’ve been wondering recently about peppers and the differences between them. I keep two main peppers in the kitchen: ground black pepper and ground red pepper. Black pepper is common and used in many recipes. I use one of them in almost anything I make. If I am cooking from a recipe, I usually use black pepper because that is what is called for. On the other hand, ground red pepper is, I think, misunderstood. From what I can tell, the red pepper in my kitchen is not paprika or cayenne because those are sold labeled as what they are. What I have is a generic Ground Red Pepper.

Sometimes I wonder how other people use them. Do you use them interchangeably, or does each have a specific flavoring purpose? Do you ever use both of them in the same recipe? I find the red pepper a bit easier to handle if slightly more spicy, and I frequently use it for flavor on my sandwiches or in Ramen. For my hubby, I use a dash of black pepper so that the spice doesn’t kill him. If I’m just going for a tiny bit of spice and extra flavor, I have a hard time choosing between them because to me, in small quantities, they taste very similar. In larger quantities, however, I can tell a difference even though I can’t define it. It’s kind of like the black pepper is more harsh, maybe more acidic, and the red is a bit smoother.

I really want to know how other cooks treat peppers! Do you use these peppers at all? How do you use them or choose between them? Do you have any advice for me, an amateur?

I read last week that the FDA may change nutritional labeling on our favorite foods. They want Americans to be confronted with calories and fat content right on the front of the packaging of the junk we eat almost every day. More, they want to change serving sizes.

At first, I thought the idea of changing serving sizes was a pretty darn bad one. The serving sizes on our nutritional labels currently are supposed to reflect suggested rations, but typically we eat double or triple whatever that suggestion happens to be. I thought that by changing the serving sizes to reflect what we actually eat, the FDA would be giving in and encouraging us to gorge ourselves. But apparently the intentions are much better than I initially thought.

What they want to do is give us accurate information about what we’re putting in our bodies. I figured out on my own, as a pre-teen, that the packages of Ramen I was eating were actually intended to be two servings, and so I doubled the calories on the package to see what I was really eating. But I was a pretty smart kid, and you probably were too. Unfortunately, some other people might not realize that they may be taking in a whole day’s worth of calories with a couple slices of pizza and a “serving” of chips and soda.

“Consider the humble chip: most potato or corn chip bags today show a one-ounce serving size, containing a tolerable 150 calories, or thereabouts. But only the most disciplined snacker will stop at an ounce. For some brands, like Tostitos Hint of Lime, that can be just six chips.” –NY Times

My personal suggestion is that we stop eating pre-made, pre-packaged foods and get back to cooking our own. Cooking our food makes for way tastier, way healthier meals. Even my favorite (and expensive) canned soups are lacking something in flavor if I don’t add my own spices to them, but how much better were my mom’s homemade soups? And how much healthier…? I will probably always use cans of tomato paste in my homemade spaghetti sauce; I just don’t have time to start with fresh tomatoes to make enough sauce for a meal! So I suppose we can’t get away from it entirely. That being said, I think the more accurate-to-life serving size information is a good idea. The next best thing would be publishing a book: Reading Nutrition Labels for Dummies.

What do you think? Is it a good idea or not? Do you think the FDA can actually enforce it and make companies change their packaging?

Inspired by a xanga post I read earlier yesterday, I wanted to talk a little bit about being a housewife. I love being able to take care of our home. It’s a big job, and I know that if my husband and I both worked full-time outside jobs the house would suffer for it. But being a house-wife or a house-husband is about more than just housekeeping. (Let’s see, there’s budgeting, cooking, decorating, and some other things…  )

When I first read the above-mentioned post, I was really impressed by the author’s insight into things we might take for granted. I am still impressed. I am a pretty big fan of The Sims, starting from the first version of the PC game, which my best friend and I would stay up all night playing, at times (and go to bed dreaming of smoke alarms and green diamond things over everyone’s heads). I never really thought about all the ridiculous things in the game quite as in-depth as this before:

“If I don’t want to be with you anymore,
I simply don’t call you or invite you over,
and our relationship fades without the
drama of breakups.”

“I don’t have laundry and wearing the
same outfit everyday isn’t gross at all.”

Easy Peasy…

Sounds great! It would certainly make housekeeping much easier. I mean, sure there are some puddles to mop up when the sink breaks – or you could just leave them for a day and they’ll dry up on their own. And, of course, you still have to load the dishwasher even if unloading is magically automatic. I like the sound of that. Every meal take the same amount of time to make and creates very little mess and literally no clean-up aside from the dishes from which you eat. Dust is non-existent, as is mud – due to the lack of rain.

But Not So Different…

But that’s just the housekeeping side. What else is involved in being a housewife? In another post, I mentioned that I liked selling Avon because I could make my own hours. One of the important parts of being a housewife is for me to be able to be good company and a good helper for my spouse. I do that by trying to do most my my work while he is doing his work. That way, when he comes home, we can have a meal together, watch TV, play a video game, or just hang out. This applies even if when he comes home he wants to spend some time alone, doing his thing.

This is an area where I find real life to be very similar to The Sims. When I play The Sims, I find that I have to put quite a bit of concentrated effort into initially growing the relationship of the two Sims who I want to marry. After that, I sometimes forget that they still need to spend time together until one of them suddenly pops up with a wish to kiss his spouse or hug her, or woo-hoo with her. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind, even in a game like that, and forget that relationships require time and effort. Actually, they require much more time and effort than taking care of the house.

So To Wrap Up

Are there other similarities you see between The Sims and real housewiving? I didn’t want to include too much in one post, but feel free to bring up other aspects of being a housewife that you find equally important! What do you do to take care of your home and your family?

I am beyond excited about this website. I’m thrilled because for me, my day job is now my passion as well. It wasn’t always the case. I’ve spent many years working at things about which I’m not passionate. It’s not a fun place to be, and I hated that time in my life with, dare I say, a passion.

I hate how it seems that we’re forced to work without passion. Yes, we’re told we should find a job we love, but if all else fails, find something that pays well. In the end, that’s what we’re pushed to go for. By society. And we have to, because we have to have that well paying job to live, really.

Not everyone can give up their day job for their passion. I was lucky, in a way. But then again, most things that seem like luck are just God working in my life. He has guided me and opened up the doors, putting me where I now stand: at the threshold of my passion.

One thing I know… Even if I’m doing what I’m passionate about every day, it’s still going to be work. My day job is no less of a job now than when I went to Dr. Chiang’s office five days a week to sit at a desk. Despite people thinking that homemaker and self-employed are the same as has it easy, I’m finding that my passion requires real work. I have to set goals, make lists, put in effort. It’s definitely more enjoyable than my old day job. It’s definitely fruitful. It’s definitely worth the effort. Why? Because I love writing, I love sharing what’s on my mind, and I love meeting similar-minded people and making friends!

I wanted to share some of my goals, or, in other words, my passions. I’m in a new phase of life: a new army wife, new to “homemaking,” newly self-employed, new problogger. How I got here is amazing; where I plan to go is exciting!

I want Ocipura.com to reflect me in more ways than it does now, in ways beyond just being decorated in my favorite colors. I want my thoughts and opinions to be easily understandable when my current and future friends read them. I want the site to mean something. I want to reach other military families who “get” me, other homemakers (be they wives or husbands), other animal- and art-lovers. I want to help people understand why I love my God! I want to share my thoughts on marriage and military and the work I do. I want to see more traffic coming to this site and also to my Avon store as I give my honest opinions about products. I even want to welcome those who disagree with me and want to argue their points.

When you come back, you can expect to find a place where you and your friends can hear about opinions and experiences of some one who may be going through the same things you are going through. I plan to include posts about what I’ve learned about home business, homemaking, art (I enjoy casual scrapbooking, drawing, crochet), being an army wife, marriage, and cooking (including recipes)!

I’m excited about the future of Ocipura.com! What do you do as a day job? Are you passionate about it? What would your dream job be??