I've written about the deer and the bugs, but there is so much more. When we had the big snowstorms earlier this year, the snow stuck around for a while. Every morning we'd wake up to more tracks crossing and crisscrossing the yard and the driveway, highlighting just how much activity goes on out there. Hoof prints and paw prints and bird tracks weaving their way back and forth in the snow.

There's a fox who lives in our woods (we think) who I typically see crossing the driveway at night. There are squirrels galore. One day recently I was coming home and there was a squirrel sitting in the middle of the driveway, clutching something in his paws and nibbling on it. I pulled up in my car and he gave me an irritated look and moved a couple of feet farther down the drive. I inched forward and he looked at me, then moved a couple of more feet. Finally, after the third time I got near him, he glared at me and took off into the woods.

Something helped itself to tuna can out of the recycling bin. My money is on the raccoon John saw amble down the front steps, across the front walk and into the woods.

We had a full on, Winnie-the-Pooh-style bee's nest in the bushes between the house and where we park our cars. John dealt with that one. If I look out the window to the back yard, I'm almost guaranteed to see two or three butterflies dancing around. Of course there are also a lot of gnats, which aren't nearly as charming.

There are bunnies, of course. And birds. I don't know much about birds, but we have a hawk I see pretty regularly, the woodpeckers, cardinals and blue jays. Plus plenty of others I can't identify, including one that makes noise exactly like R2D2, and some bird that very insistently kept trying to build a nest on our front porch.

About a month ago I looked out into the back yard and there was a mama deer calmly nibbling on a tree at the edge of the woods while her very tiny, very young fawn raced in circles around her, zooming into the trees and then tearing back out of the woods at her.

Just on Wednesday what we think was a groundhog (it looked kind of like a squirrel on steroids) snuffled around on our front steps for a bit before disappearing off somewhere.

I think my favorite story is this one though, although technically it happened in my neighborhood but not at my house. Last fall I was driving home after dark. It was one of those dramatic, windy nights with a full moon lighting up the sky. Something flashed on the side of the road, catching my eye, and I slowed down, just in time to see a mouse run in front of my car, followed by a big, fat marmalade cat. The mouse stopped on the double yellow line, the cat swiped at it with a paw, then snatched it up and continued on his way across the road. It was like something you'd see on the Serengeti, only in miniature. And sad for the mouse, of course, but also kind of magical.

So, for the record, my annoying and stupid allergies started in 2009. I started having trouble with my earrings. I thought my ear piercings were getting infected, because they kept getting puffy, itchy and sore. This went on for a while, actually. Then one day I happened to mention it to my friend Laila, and she told me that it sounded like I was having an allergic reaction. Sure enough, as long as I stuck to plain gold earrings, my ears were fine. That kind of sucks because I don't really care for gold, but at the same time, not wearing earrings isn't that big a deal. I can wear some silver earrings, but not all.

In January I started getting weird itchy, scaly patches on the palms of my hands. I know that doesn't sound all that serious, but you'd be amazed at how much stuff you touch with your palms. They were constantly irritated to the point where my skin was cracking and bleeding, and the only thing that helped was covering my palm with a bandage. Of course it is very difficult to keep a bandage on your palm because you flex your hands so much, so I looked ridiculous.

I asked my doctor about it, and she said it was a contact dermatitis, and recommended that I start wearing gloves at the gym, when I washed dishes and did any cleaning. That helped a little, but mostly with the extra irritation. The itchy/scaly part didn't go away.

Then I got my iPhone, which I immediately tucked into a plastic case to keep it protected. And lo and behold, over the next four weeks, my palms cleared up. I consulted Dr. Google, and my symptoms seem to fit very well with a diagnosis of a nickel allergy. It usually starts with trouble with a piercing and then is exacerbated by a cell phone. Unfortunately, the treatment for a nickel allergy is pretty much "stop touching nickel, dumbass." However, I was perfectly content to wear earrings sparingly, look dorky in gloves at the gym and keep my phone in a case.

But lately it's affecting my wedding ring, and that is not ok. White gold is apparently made with nickel in it, I guess to make it less yellow, and yes, my wedding ring is made of white gold. I love my wedding ring. It wasn't terribly expensive, but it is in a Celtic knotwork pattern that suits us. I love that it matches John's ring, but is just smaller. I love that he carried it around on our wedding day and then put it on my finger and we started off on this new part of lives together. And now I can't wear it for more than five minutes at a time, which is really upsetting. If you need me, I'll just be over here trying to find a cure for nickel allergies. Or a way to coat my wedding ring so I'm not actually touching it when I wear it.

I couldn't fall back asleep though. The only thing I could think of that would cause a noise like that was an explosion, which led immediately to thoughts of "Something went wrong at Ft. Detrick (home of scary bioweapons research) and now our lives are about to become something out of The Stand, Feed, or The Passage. Fuck!" Although I suppose that we're close enough to Ft. Detrick that if something did happen there, we'd probably die pretty quickly. There's a cheery thought for you. Perhaps I should lay off the post-apocalyptic fiction for a while.

Then I considered a plane crash.

Then, well, BP has a facility here in Frederick. Maybe all of their stuff has just started spontaneously exploding.

How big a car accident would it take to make a noise like that and shake the whole house? I don't think that's actually possible.

At this point it finally occurred to me to turn on the radio. I'm not kidding when I say I'm not a morning person. My brain actually moves that slowly at 5 am. Plus, I was very busy thinking up worst case scenarios. Imagine my surprise when they said it was an earthquake. You can't really blame me for not thinking of that. This is Maryland. We don't usually get earthquakes here. Based on 1970's disaster movies, I always figured there'd be more shaking, things falling over and general drama. And George Kennedy.

Anyway, by then I was full on awake, so I just gave up and got out of bed. What a weird way to start my day.

Of course, having all those options can backfire. I went in to Moby Dick planning to maybe grab some kebab for lunch, panicked when faced with all of those choices and just ordered falafel instead. The completely unhealthy high point of this particular journey was my realization that since I am no longer a strict vegetarian, I could have rice krispie treats again. I may have gone on a small rice krispie treat related binge.

I'm learning how to cook non-vegetarian food again, which is going to take a while. But I have one old favorite recipe that I've resurrected. I give you Bad Penguin's tuna salad for people who hate mayonnaise:

1 can of tuna
1 tablespoon country style Dijon mustard (the grainy kind)
1 teaspoon capers
1 ½ teaspoons lemon pepper mix
1 rib of celery, chopped

Mix all of the ingredients together with a fork, then serve on toast with lettuce. Easy-peasey and tasty too.

I bet you weren't expecting that! We weren't either. The reason we're making the change, oddly enough, is for health reasons. We're not getting enough protein. We're not getting enough zinc. I need more iron, and there is only so much spinach and lentils one person can eat. Then there is my infertility and diabetes. It is very difficult to eat properly to manage my diabetes as a vegetarian. I'm still eating too many carbs, and my cholesterol is elevated. Not terribly, but enough that my doctor had me start taking fish oil and recommended that I add fish back in to my diet.

On top of that is the fact that the soy has got to go. Rather than go into a whole long discussion of how it is highly processed and sometimes genetically modified and not good for you, I'll just go with this - we eat too much soy. It's not healthy. It could be contributing to my infertility. It certainly isn't helping.

This is not a decision that I've made lightly. I've been turning it over and over in my mind for a while now. It is only after doing a lot of research that I concluded this is the best option for me. You won't see me in McDonalds scarfing down Big Macs. I'm still going to eat plenty of vegetarian and vegan meals. But I'm also going to add in fish a couple of times per week, and then the occasional piece of poultry or beef.

It is definitely going to take some time to get used to. I've been a vegetarian for nine years, and I'm not completely comfortable with the change yet. You should have seen me at the grocery store. The selection at the organic market was tiny, and yet I dithered around and took 30 minutes to pick one salmon fillet, one piece of beef, and a package of frozen turkey burgers. They probably thought I was going to steal some fish or something. Focusing on opportunities to try new and different recipes is my current strategy for dealing with this change. We'll see how it goes.

The original recipe, which I got from Martha Stewart's 2009 Holiday Sweets magazine:
For the tart shells
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon fleur de sel
½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3 large eggs, lightly beaten

For the filling:
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
½ cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons ruby or tawny port
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate (preferably 70% cacao), finely chopped
1 cup roasted Marcona almonds (4 ounces; or roasted salted blanched almonds) finely chopped
Fleur de sel for sprinkling

1. Make tart shells: In a food processor, pulse flour, cocoa, sugar until combined. Add butter; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. With machine running, add eggs through the feed tube, process just until dough comes together. Turn out dough onto a work surface; shape into a disk. Wrap in plastic. Chill 30 minutes, or up to overnight.

2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to about 1/8 inch thick. Using a 3 inch cookie cutter, cut 10 rounds from the dough. Transfer remaining dough to a flour dusted baking sheet, chill while you work with the tartlets.

3. Fit dough rounds into ten round tartlet pans each 2 ¼ in diameter. Trim edges of dough flush with rims. Chill shells 30 minutes.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prick bottoms of dough all over with a fork. Bake until firm, about 12 minutes. Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool completely before unmolding.

5. Working in batches of ten and using remaining dough (reroll the scraps) repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 until you have 40 shells in all (or until you run out of dough).

Caramel Filling:
6. Make caramel filling: Heat sugar and the water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Continue to cook, without stirring until syrup comes to a boil, occasionally washing down sided of pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent crystals from forming. Let boil, swirling pan to color evenly, until syrup is dark amber. Remove from heat.

7. Carefully stir in cream and port (mixture will spatter). Add butter and chocolate; stir until melted and the mixture is smooth. Let cool until slightly thickened but still pourable, about 20 minutes.

8. Sprinkle about 1 teaspoon chopped almonds over the bottom of each tart shell. Spoon the caramel mixture into shells, filling almost to the top. Sprinkle with remaining almonds and fleur de sel. Chill until ready to serve, up to 3 hours.

What I did:
For the tart shells, the only change I made was to use Maldon salt for the fleur de sel, which Martha suggests as an appropriate alternative. You can use any sea salt, but a nice flaky one will help.

What I wouldn't change: Sometimes, I deliberately use salted butter when the recipe calls for unsalted, (like with chocolate chip cookies) but I think it would be overkill here.

I also did not have the right size tartlet pans. Mine are 3 and 7/8ths inches, so they made about 20 tartlets. The cooking time was essentially the same, because it is based on the thickness of the dough, not the size of the rounds.

It helps to chill the tarts in their pans on a cookie sheet before you bake them, but you don't have to be quite as thorough about the chilling as Martha is.

I made a few changes to the filling, listed in bold
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
½ cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons ruby or tawny port (what am I, an 18th century ship captain? I have no port. Instead, I substituted 2 tablespoons vanilla extract) 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate (preferably 70% cacao), finely chopped (I went with semisweet chocolate)
1 cup roasted Marcona almonds (4 ounces; or roasted salted blanched almonds) finely chopped (I couldn't find Marcona almonds, so I bought some blanched slivered almonds, roasted them in my oven and then tossed them with a little of the Maldon salt, and then chopped them).

I get anxious about overcooking the caramel, so I used a candy thermometer to gauge when I thought the caramel was done, rather than going by color alone. I think 320 degrees is about the right temperature.

To toast the almonds, place them on an ungreased baking sheet and toast them at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes. Open the oven and shake the pan gently. Put back in the oven for another 3 to 5 minutes, but don't let them get too brown. Remove from oven, allow to cool and then chop into smaller pieces.

So there you can see what I changed and what I didn't. They weren't dramatic, but they were changes. And I assure you, the tarts were absolutely delicious.

And once I got there, the guy actually said to me "hey, the car we were going to give you needs an oil change. It should take about 20 minutes. Is that ok?" I then explained that I really had to get to work at some point that day and asked if they had anything else available. You know it would have been more than 20 minutes, and frankly I'm surprise they even had the nerve to ask me given how long they'd left me waiting at the bodyshop.

This is how I ended up driving a cute little VW Beetle. I have to say it was fun to drive a car with personality. I love my Honda Civic Hybrid, but it is reliable and practical and efficient, but it is not a fun car. The Beetle is. I'll never buy a VW again after the spectacularly bad experience I had with my Jetta, but it wasn't a bad car to drive for a few days. Plus, it had heated seats. I LOVE heated seats and have decided they are an absolute must for my next car. However, it turns out that I've gotten really used to my digital spedometer in the Honda. I felt like I was guessing at my speed in the VW. Also, I was lost without the jack to plug my iPod into the stereo. Funny how stuff you never even knew you cared about becomes indispensable after a while. So I'm happy to be back in my boring Civic. Plus the bodyshop got it so clean it's like a new car!

My dad was late, but not that late for him. It was an interesting experience being surrounded by people speaking German. The soprano and the baritone were very good but it turns out that I don't particularly like countertenors. Carmina Burana is in German and Latin so I'll admit that my attention wandered a bit at times. I watched enviously as the little boy in front of me played solitaire on his dad's phone. I had to resist the urge to peer over his shoulder and give him advice -- red three on the black four! I played a rousing game of is dad asleep or just listening with his eyes shut? Answer: I think both. The woman two seats over had on so much perfume that I practically had an asthma attack, and I don't even have asthma. And then it was over, and I sped home through a very rainy night.

At some point last year I decided that I didn't want to be infertile or diabetic anymore, and so I rebelled. It would make a more interesting story if I could say that I ran off and became a roadie for a rock band or that I joined the circus and rode the flying trapeze, but the truth is much more boring. I drank juice! Ate doughnuts! Skipped workouts! With the all too predictable result that I gained weight and didn't get any joy out of my rebellion at all.

I wasted a bunch of time hating myself for gaining weight, but eventually realized just how counterproductive that was. So instead now I'm focusing on healthy eating and exercise. It hasn't been easy. The very first day of trying to get back into my regular post work gym routine I got rear-ended on the way to the gym. It wasn't serious, but my shoulder was still and sore for a few days. Then it snowed about a million times. I like working out though, and lately I've managed to get into a sort of a groove. Now it is time to start working harder. I got in shape before, and I can do it again. And once I do, I'll quit messing around and get on with the IVF. Take that, 40.

And since I haven't been blogging, it will remain a mystery.

Let's see. Seamus hurt his paw and had to go back to the vet. They diagnosed him with a sprained paw and arthritis and he is doing splendidly now that he is on daily medication.

Oh, yeah, we got some snow. You may have heard something about that somewhere...

I could go on and on, but you've probably read it all elsewhere. Let's see. We got two feet over the weekend, and then I'm not even sure how much we got on top of that yesterday. A lot more. The winds with round 2 sculpted the snow into rippling sand dune like patterns. All this snow is a huge pain in the ass, but I will admit it is pretty cool looking.

We've been digging and digging and clearing snow off the roof and, oh yes, the furnace stopped heating the upstairs during the first storm. It took three guys with a plow truck and a front loader close to five hours to clear the driveway after Snowpocalypse, and they haven't come back yet after round 2. I made it in to the office for about three hours on Tuesday morning. Otherwise I haven't been there since last Thursday. Luckily I can do a lot of work from home.

This is what my street looks like. I won't be going in to work tomorrow either:

The unplowed driveway, featuring windblown drifts:

Hope your life is a little less snow-filled than mine.

I still have time, I thought, and aimed the car down the driveway. The top part was fine, but once I turned off on to our section, I started to slide. I got to the house, parked the car and ran inside, throwing down my purse, groceries and gym bag. I kicked off my heels and greeted John and Seamus hurriedly while I put on sneakers. Then I raced back out to the car and up to the top of the driveway, slipping and sliding all the way. And it is a good thing that I did, because if I hadn't there'd be no way I'd be getting out of here today. All it takes is the slightest coating of anything (today: Ice) and that driveway becomes impassable.

I think maybe I'm getting the hang of this country living thing. Although I'd be perfectly content if we could be done with the stupid winter weather already. We lived in our townhouse with its nice, snow clearing HOA for four years and I think it snowed three times. I move out here where we have to do all the work - and a lot of work it is - and I think this is the fifth time in a month and a half that we've had weather bad enough to affect the driveway. Not cool, mother nature.

Then the next day a huge beetle landed on me while I was in the shower. I yelled again and flicked it off, then scooped it up with the washcloth and threw the whole thing out of the shower stall. Like many of you, I shower naked, so it was particularly alarming to have a bug on my person. Plus I'm practically blind without my glasses on, so I feel even more vulnerable to sneak bug attacks. In this case, I got out of the shower - taking the time to carefully and suspiciously shake out my towel and bathrobe - and the beetle was just gone. There was no carcass in the washcloth, no trail of drops leading out of the bathroom. He had just vanished. Don't think that didn't worry me all day, knowing that there was an angry beetle lurking in my bathroom, biding his time and plotting revenge. Thankfully, the Beetle Disposal Team (while losing points for hearing me yelling about bugs and not running to the rescue) managed to locate and "transport"* the beetle later in the evening.

Dear bugs: I realize you have a role to play in the ecosystem. All I ask is that you not play that role in physical contact with my person. I think that's reasonable. Also, if you could try to limit our interactions to the hours between 10 am and 9 pm, that would allow me to a) be fully awake and/or b) not have to think about you right before bed.
*where transport=flush down the toilet

I am an excellent baker. I don't say that to brag. There are a lot areas in life in which I do not excel, but I'm pretty good with the baking. Except for when it comes to baking bread. Oh, how I suck at baking bread. I once made baguettes that could have doubled as deadly weapons - it was Professor Plum, in the conservatory, with one of Hillary's baguettes, Inspector. My focaccia (Ok, I just spent five minutes trying to figure out how to spell focaccia and getting increasingly annoyed, only to realize that I am spelling it correctly and it is Word that is wrong) was flat and boring, and my rustic Italian bread was inedible. I do ok with pizza crust and calzone dough and rolls, but for some reason, I cannot produce a decent loaf of bread.

However, I recently had a craving for cinnamon bread. Irritated beyond belief that all of the bread at the grocery store had 50 different preservatives, plus high fructose corn syrup and some sort of hydrogenated oil, I decided to give making my own cinnamon bread a try. I stomped over to the baking aisle, grabbed a couple of packets of yeast, a bottle of cinnamon, and a bag of bread flour and headed home.

Imagine my surprise when I got home and realized that most cinnamon bread recipes don't use bread flour. I poked around on the internet for a while and eventually settled on this recipe, which turned out to be delicious. I'm pretty sure I found it on Serious Eats, but I can't find it now, so I can't link to it and give them credit. It is light and fluffy and cinnamon-y and fantastic. The recipe is only supposed to make one loaf, but I got two out of it. I have no idea why. My co-workers enjoyed the second loaf though (me, anxiously setting it out in the kitchen: I hope they'll like it. What if the second loaf isn't as good as the first? No one's going to want my silly bread. Oh, look, it's all gone already.) so I have proof it is a crowd pleaser.

Cinnamon Bread recipe:
1 package active dry yeast (1/4 ounce)
1 ¼ cups warm milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted & cooled, plus more for brushing
3 large egg yolks
1 tsp salt
3 ½ cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons cinnamon

In the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook, dissolve the yeast in ¼ cup of the warm milk. Sprinkle with a pinch of the sugar and let the mixture stand until the yeast starts to foam - about five minutes.

Turn the mixer on low and add the rest of the milk, ½ cup of the sugar, the egg yolks, the butter and the salt. Add two cups of the flour and turn the speed up to medium. Continue mixing until the flour is incorporated. Gradually add the remaining 1 ½ cups flour and mix until the dough holds together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. The dough will be very soft.

Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic - about ten minutes. Put the kneaded dough into a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel (I always go with a towel. It makes me feel retro) and let rise until doubled in size. That should take about 1 ½ hours. Test the dough by pressing two fingers in it. If the indents remain, the dough has risen enough.

Combine the remaining ½ cup of sugar and the two tablespoons of cinnamon in a small bowl. Brush the bottom and sides of a 9x5 loaf pan (I think this is the standard size) with melted butter.

Roll the dough into a rectangle about the size of the loaf pan. Brush the surface of the dough with melted butter and sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar evenly across. Starting on one of the long sides, roll the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam closed. Place the roll in the loaf pan, seam side down. If you're me, then repeat this with the remaining dough. If you haven't mysteriously ended up with extra dough, cover the loaf pan and let the dough rise a second time, until the dough is just about level with the top of the pan. This takes about 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush the dough with more melted butter. Bake until bread is golden brown - 45 minutes to an hour. Cool in pan for five minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely. I wrapped my bread up very carefully in plastic wrap and then stuck it in Tupperware. It stayed good for the four days it took to eat the whole loaf, but probably would have started getting stale pretty soon after that.

Anyone have any good recipes that do call for bread flour?