Hardest Job I've Ever Had

As you know, I started a new job last September. It was a job I have worked for - went to school for, for the last several years. Some might call it my dream job. I never really expected to get it. But, I did.


However, I was also quite aware that a job as a land use planner is not something one simply studies for and it's all good. No. Planning, like engineering, law, medicine, trades, and so on, is something one must learn by both doing and through one's mentor. It is too highly technical to simply read a book or write an exam, bam! you are a planner. 


But, that is nearly what I needed to do. I spent a scant four months last summer while I finished my thesis in an amazing Planning Department at a County nearby. The County did the planning for five of the seven lower-tier municipalities in their jurisdiction. They were also a commenting agency for the other two. The department had a staff of  twelve people: one department director, two policy planners, four development planners, two GIS technicians, one Secretary-Treasurer of Land Division and two administrators. So many people to learn from. 


And learn I did. I sucked up each delicious moment like a thirsty sponge.  Très cliché . 


No matter how much I learned and how well I did my job I was not able to become an expert in one summer. It just wasn't humanly possible. I'm not a machine.


But I did thrive. It was amazing. The bonus was, I also finished my Master's Degree that summer.  The sleepless nights, the long commutes and the time away from my husband and kids - it wasn't in vain. 


The only thing was, my contract would, and did, end. By June - less than halfway through, I began to panic. What if I didn't get a permanent job? A summer contract is great, but  I would need to have a permanent job to pay off my student loan.


I began to apply to every planning job in Ontario and beyond. I was prepared to apply for jobs in Alberta if I had to. It didn't matter if  I was really qualified - they may have asked for a wealth of experience, but I applied anyway. And I even had a few interviews. 


Despite my anxiety, I did get an amazing job offer. The job was a planner for a small municipality, not too far from home. I could commute a reasonable distance and best of all (or worst of all) I was THE planner - the head of the department. Does it matter that the department only has one person? (Giggle now if you wish.)


I knew it would be hard, even when I contemplated applying in the first place. I consulted with other planners - could I actually pull it off? Who would I call if I were stuck? It appeared there were enough experts I knew out there to help in such circumstances. And I promised not to wear any one person out. I knew there was a reason I spent so much effort networking with other planners in my area.


But that was before. Little did I know that in addition to the regular, normal hard, there was a different sort of hard. The kind of hard, which occurs when an organization, person or other creature goes through a crisis of epic proportions. There is the hard one encounters learning a new and difficult skill, then there is the hard that one endures when one does so in a less-than-perfect, perhaps over-the-top, climacteric situation that does not seem to end.  Crisis after crisis.


This municipality was going through a transformation. There was everything from critical errors left over from previous poor planning decisions by consultants (who I replaced), to controversial developments, litigation, divisiveness among Council, neighbour conflict, racism and even Aboriginal land rights conflict. 


And, I shan't forget,  there is the OMB.


The Ontario Municipal Board (aka OMB) is a lands tribunal which hears disputes concerning municipal land and resources decisions. At the OMB Developers may appeal decisions of Municipal Councils on their planning applications (for example if Council refuses to grant permission for a development) or neighbours may also appeal the decision of Council relating to a development. Many in Ontario will remember hearing about OMB decisions concerning Walmart developments (they usually win).


The OMB is an unusual creature. Other provinces don't have an equivalent. It's an Ontario thing. 


Well, I know for a fact that a planner may practice for years before being involved in an OMB hearing. Not me. Only six months into the job, I was accepted as an expert witness at the OMB. After nine and a quarter hours it was over. Phew.


Two more such hearings loom in the near future.


So, it is hard. A different kind of hard for me. I was used to the kind of hard where one can start over tomorrow with a different result. Or, the kind of hard where one can leave at the end of the day, relax and renew. After all, tomorrow is another day, right?


Not this time. I have found a whole new kind of hard. I know I can do it. After all, I am a fighter. I must be; I'm still here.

What's the Point?

I have been away.

Busy working, busy living.  Frankly, I haven't felt like posting. Sometimes I am not sure what I wanted to get out of this blog. Originally, I did it for sharing little thoughts or ideas about regular things. My main topic of sharing has/had to do with sustainability. I spend time cooking, gardening, making things because I think it is a great way to de-stress and be self-reliant. If we can do a bit of that, well, we are well on our way to sustainability. You don't have to buy everything. Up until recent history, humans didn't buy a heck of a lot. And you know what? Buying things is really a poor substitute for living.

Buying too much creates garbage and other waste. It makes us complacent and lazy. It makes us poor. It makes us forget what is important.

If this world ends up going to Hell, or more specifically if much of what we rely on is doomed (cheap energy, food, civil society),  I want to at least make a go of still living.

So, I could go on with my  sermon. But lucky for you I won't. The fact is I haven't come to terms with what I want out of this blog. I am not ready for it to die like millions of others on the Web. But I am not sure my foci are the same anymore.

I may be morphing, and this blog along with me.

Totally MIA

Okay, I admit it. I have been gone for more than a while.

Of course I could rhyme off the excuses - but I won't. I have been busy, but no more so than before.

I have been working in my new job for the last while, as a planner for a small municipality. I just started my new role as economic development officer, which I will be doing part time along - splitting my time between planning and 'EDO'.

But, I still intend to post. It may take some time to get back into the swing of things. Please bare with me!

Just for fun I have uploaded a picture of our finished bathroom that took nearly 8 months to get renovated!
good thing it was only a powder room.

I just love wallpaper. So glad it is back in style.

Zucchini Pickles

Okay, I have confirmed it - I no longer need to buy copious amounts of cucumbers to make pickles.  I tried zucchini pickles - both dills as well as bread and butter and they came out great!

I am sold. The key seems to be harvesting the zucchinis while they are still small, which of course can be difficult as zucchini can grow so quickly! I picked them at 4-8" which worked out well. Some, which were too small on the Sunday before I went away to work for the week were humongous by Friday. That is okay, I froze a bunch of grated and blanched zucchini in baggies for making zucchini bread etc. at a later time.

While I did look at some specific zucchini pickle recipes, for the most part, they didn't appear to be any different than the cucumber recipes, so for the bread and butter pickles, I used my favourite recipe from bernardin.ca

At a Crossroads....

I am at a crossroads. Many, if not most of you, will have been here too. I am here late in the game.

1. My graduate degree is pretty much finished. I submitted my MRP (masters research paper/project aka major paper) If I could just get my advisor to answer my emails, probably I would have been completely finished by now. That is a long digression that I won't bore you with. The point is, I finished my courses last spring and my major paper has been written. I may post it here, not sure yet. If not, I will post a link to it as I usually use my profile on http://www.academia.edu/ to post this sort of thing -  basically an academic version of facebook. Here is a sneak-peak:

You will notice that is isn't the typical "paper" - more like a sort of monograph. There is nothing I hate more than pointless papers sitting on a shelf. Might as well make something useful. This paper's usefulness has not yet been proven, but it is a start - I attempted to make a piece of work that could be used for something.

2. I also had a short term contract working as a development review planner for the County of Wellington - that is over too. It was great, while it lasted. I learned a lot and I worked with amazing people. I couldn't have asked for a better four months. Some might think of it as an internship - low pay, lots of work.

But now, I am supposed to be a big girl. School is over; the real work now begins.

Over the summer, while I was working on my MRP and my job, AND commuting back and forth between Meaford, Guelph and Kitchener (I was staying through the week with my mom in Kitchener), I applied to a few planner jobs. I had three interviews. Well, four since I had a second interview for one of the positions.

I heard two definitive turn downs.  But I did have an offer. There is some negotiating happening right now. In a few minutes, I will be hearing how the offer played out last night at the council (the local government of elected officials, for those of you who have a different type of local government).

Wish me luck.  It is time to see if all this school stuff can pay for itself. ;-P

Cheese Bread

I really love cheese bread from the bakery and I was sure it would be easy to make at home.

More than ten years ago I had tried making cheese bread with the recipe which came with my bread maker and it was pretty disappointing. Because the bread maker requires you to add the cheese at some point while kneading, the cheese got too chopped up and incorporated - I preferred to see and taste the cheese in the centre.

Okay, this recipe is not a part two of the Trade Secrets post - while the recipe for cheese bread is really easy, it does require that you already know how to make bread or at least you know how to use a bread maker, as this bread could be made in the bread maker on the dough cycle. I have done this with other loaves with great success. It allows you to make a regular sized loaf in loaf pans, rather than the monster tall bread machine give-away loaves.

What I have done is to start bread dough in the bread maker, follow the regular instructions that come with the machine, then set to "dough" instead of the full "loaf" setting. When it is finished, treat as though it has just finished its first rise (although it is somewhat longer than it would have been by hand) and if you choose this way, you may proceed to those instructions when you take your dough out of the bread maker pan.

In this case, I used my KitchenAid and I used a modified version of the following recipes:
The KitchenAid Basic White Bread recipe - http://breadtopia.com/downloads/Basic_White_Bread.pdf
and
Robin Hood Canadian Cheddar Cheese Bread - http://robinhood.ca/recipe-details.aspx?rid=2789

My exact recipe I have listed below. For the most part, I used the KitchenAid recipe  and method but added 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, 1 beaten egg and 1 tsp Tabasco Sauce to the warm milk mixture. I proceeded in the first phase as the rest of the KitchenAid directions adding the cheese during the "shaping a loaf phase". The only other change I make is to use the larger 9 1/4 x 5 1/4 loaf pans. I had no trouble filling these babies up - the smaller ones  (8x4ish?) would have been far too small for this recipe.

After the first rise (which in this heat was 30mins but is usually more like45- 60), punch down dough. Divide in half. Roll out your dough into a 6x14" rectangle. Sprinkle with 3/4 cups of grated old or extra old (sharp) cheddar cheese. Roll up, jelly roll style,  at short end and pinch edge and ends closed. Set in greased loaf pan. Repeat for second loaf. Allow to rise until double (about 60mins).

Brush with your favourite wash - I use beaten egg and water. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup more grated cheese. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 25 mins. This works in my oven and pans, yours may prefer longer or hotter. You may wish to bake as you usually would. Bread is done when it is golden, sometimes has left sides of pan and/or sounds hollow when tapped on bottom.

RECIPE for CHEESE BREAD:

½ cup  milk

3  tablespoons sugar

2  teaspoons salt

3  tablespoons butter or margarine

1 beaten egg

1 tsp Tabasco Sauce

2   packages active dry yeast or 2 teaspoons Instant Yeast

1 ½  cup warm water (105F to 110F)

5-6  cup white unbleached flour

½ cup Parmesan Cheese

2 cups grated Old (sharp ) Cheddar Cheese - reserve ½  cup for tops of loaves

beaten egg and water for glaze

Directions:

   1. Combine milk, sugar, salt, and butter in small measuring cup. Microwave for 1 minute and then stir to dissolve sugar and incorporate; cool to lukewarm. 

   2. If using active dry yeast, dissolve yeast in warm water in warmed mixer bowl and let stand for 10 minutes.  If using Instant Yeast, just add it to the flour and mix it in before adding liquids. 

  3. Add beaten egg and Tabasco Sauce to lukewarm milk mixture. Add milk mixture to water in mixture bowl. Add 4 ½ cup flour. Attach bowl and dough hook. Turn to speed 2 and mix 1 minute. Continuing on speed 2,  add remaining flour, ½ cup at a time (slowly so it doesn’t fly out of  bowl), until dough clings to hook and cleans side of bowl. Knead on speed 2 for 2 minutes longer, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Dough will be slightly sticky to the touch.

   4. Place in a greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover; let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about an hour.

   5. Punch dough down and divide in half. Shape each half into a loaf : roll out half the dough into a 6 x 14 rectangle and sprinkle with grated cheese. Roll up and pinch to seal. Place in a greased loaf pan. Cover; let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. 

   6. Brush tops with beaten egg and water. Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes. Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire racks.

Alternatively, you may wish to simply choose your favourite bread recipe and modify it by following these steps:
After the first rise, punch down dough. If you are making two loaves (5-6 cups of flour), divide in half. If not, skip that step. Roll out your dough into a 6x14" rectangle. Sprinkle with 3/4 cups of grated old or extra old (sharp) cheddar cheese. Roll up, jelly roll style,  at short end and pinch edge and ends closed. Set in greased loaf pan. Repeat if making second loaf. Allow to rise until double (about 60mins).

Brush with your favourite wash - I use beaten egg and water. Sprinkle with more grated cheese. Bake  as you do for your other loaves.

Raised Bed Gardening

We are trying raised bed gardening this year mainly because we have no sun in the backyard due to an oversized willow tree (and a small yard). A friend suggested using the front yard and although worried at first about what our neighbours would think, we gave it a try.

Let's just say, we are LOVING it!

Our only issues where related to inexperience with this type of gardening. They are:

1. overcrowding due to inadequate trellises  - we really didn't plan that part well
2. shading caused by faster growing plants getting big before climbing plants have a chance
3. organization of where plants are - too many trellis-needy plants in the same area
4. large / fast growing plants encroaching on slower growing plants

However, things are going really well so no real worries. We will get what we get. So far we have several zucchinis, pumpkins, butternut squash and a few melons. We have eaten all our radishes and a lot of our lettuce and no new plants germinated :( We tried to plant seeds in intervals so there would be an ongoing crop but we didn't have luck with that (perhaps too hot/cold?)

here you can see our zucchini (right) taking over the whole bed (poor carrots)

somewhat full view of what is going on (with a goofy child thrown in)
Lots of sunflowers, some beans and peppers 

lettuce, pumpkins, peas and tomatoes

herbs, red cabbage, butternut squash etc...

Can you see our tiny watermelon? (lower middle)