Stress and Peach and Brie Quesadillas

Monday is my most stressful day of the week. It's deadline day. Come 5 p.m. I'm supposed to have all of my stories turned into my editor. I've been blowing that deadline up lately. The paper goes on the presses Tuesday afternoon and I've been handing stuff in Tuesday morning.

I've resolved that this is going to stop. Blown deadlines mostly result from sources not getting back to me soon enough. This problem is further complicated by the fact that when I call on Thursday and Friday for interviews and comments, most sources are so focused on their own end-of-the-week projects that they say, "I'll get back to you Monday."

To add to my stress, I had an unexpected passenger on my daily commute this morning. A little black and white house spider (the kind that jump) popped up on my dashboard as I was driving 70 mph down MoPac expressway. I'm not sure how he got there or where he came from, but he was crawling back and forth all over the dashboard. There was nothing I could do but watch him. The traffic never slowed to the point where I could grab a piece of paper and scoop him out the window.

I drove about 20 miles with my eyes cutting back and forth from the car in front of me to the spider. Car. Spider. Car. Spider.

Yes, I know that those spiders don't really bite and if they do it's not particularly painful. I just have this thing about bugs, particularly spiders. I love spiders and I know they are beneficial hunters that eat lots of foul bugs. They just can't touch me. If they touch me, they have to die. This is just the way it has to be.

So Boris (like The Who song) and I just stared at each other until I got to work and could shoo him on his merry way. I was so wired when I got into the office, I didn't even need my usual cup of coffee. Who needs caffeine when you have abject terror?

Since the day has been a little stressful, I think I'm going to make one of my favorite dishes tonight. It makes me happy just thinking about it.

Peach and Brie Quesadillas

Ingredients:
4-5 fresh firm peaches (not squishy ripe)
Flour tortillas
1 medium sized wheel of Brie cheese
1/2 cup of honey
1/4 cup lime juice

1.Slice peaches vertically in thin slices (maybe half an inch thick)

2.Place skillet on stove top and heat to medium

3.Place flour tortilla in skillet and arrange peach slices and small chunks of Brie over surface of tortilla.

4.When Brie starts to look soft, place second tortilla on top and smoosh down into cheese.

5. After a minute, flip quesadilla over and let cook two minutes. Cheese should be gooey.

6. Remove and slice in fourths. Serve warm.

7. Repeat until you have the desired number of quesadillas.

Honey lime sauce

1. Combine honey and lime juice in a small bowl and serve as a dipping sauce.

This is a serious crowd pleaser. Enjoy!

Cell Phones and Strawberry Smoothies

Cell phones are a funny thing. Some people guard their numbers like they are the launch codes for nuclear missiles. Other people (like me) hand their numbers out on their business cards and spread them around like the cold virus.

Something that can be frustrating for a reporter is finding a number to get a hold of someone. In the past we could often look them up in the phone book, especially in the community news game.

But since a lot of people (including me) have switched to using cell phones and canceling their landlines, it's much harder to get a hold of people.

It's almost become part of an introduction when I meet elected officials or important sources. "Hi." Shake hands. "It's nice to meet you...What's your cell phone number?"

Getting a hold of sources for an interview proves to get tougher every day. And here in Westlake, it seems to take longer than usual to get the people I need on the phone. Most of them are pretty high-powered and very busy. I understand this.

Some people can be reached via e-mail, but that info can be hard to get too.

So this is what I recommend: get cell numbers at every opportunity and save them. I use my gmail contacts for this. Collect e-mail addresses. Establish a network so that you can call or e-mail someone and say "Can you poke So-and-So and get them to call me?"

Use all avenues of contact early and often.

Even with that, I sometimes don't hear from people for days. I have to walk a fine line between making deadline and being a pest with multiple phone calls. But I always make deadline.

Something else that stresses me out is wasted food, so when I noticed that the strawberries we bought on Saturday were about to go off, I threw together a smoothie for breakfast this morning and it was AWESOME.

Smoothie = happy and not stressed.

Simple Strawberry Smoothie
Ingredients:
6-8 large strawberries
1/2 cup of 2% milk
1/4 fat free yogurt (can be plain or fruit flavored for a little variety and fun)
3/4 cup orange juice (I like the pulpy kind)
Double handful of ice cubes

Place in blender and use the crush ice setting. Then use the pulse setting until it looks good and blended. Pour in a travel mug and you have a great portable breakfast that's high in vitamin C, calcium and protein.

Mushroom Fajitas and Weightloss Woes

I'm thinking that something fun to do with this blog would be to post a recipe with each post. I'm liking this idea.

I've apparently got some posts backed up in my brain since I haven't been blogging for 10 months. Time to clean this brain out!

So, as I mentioned in a previous post many months ago, I went veggie. It lasted a solid six months. Until I moved back to Texas. I'm sorry veggie folks, the meat was just too much of a temptation. It tastes better than the stuff in North Carolina. And I wasn't getting the weight loss results that I wanted on the all-veggie diet.

I've gone mostly meatless. I eat meat, mostly chicken or fish, about once a day. Sometimes less. It's working. I guess I'm discovering what most people have to discover on their weight loss journey: it's about balance.

But I found lots of fun, low-calorie, low-fat, low-cholesterol recipes while doing the veggie thing, so I'm going to share them.

As for the weight loss, it's holding steady for now. I was a jaw dropping 180 when I got back from my honeymoon. In my defense, it was a 7-day Caribbean cruise. Those ships are like floating feed troughs. It was inevitable that weight would be gained (about 4 pounds). It was like vacationing on the Borg cube. Resistance is Futile! But, you know, with stunning blue water and snorkeling.

Now I'm fighting to get those pounds back off. I have about 1.5 pounds to go to get back to pre-cruise weight.

Hubby and I are back in Kung Fu classes, which we skipped the entire month of April because of the wedding and honeymoon. That is helping. And I'm trying to eat healthy. We'll see if I can pull it all together. Although, the chocolate peanut butter brownie I had for dinner last night is laughing at me and saying "Yeah, right!"

Here's what I'll be having for dinner tonight:

Portabello Fajitas:

Ingredients:
3 large portobello mushrooms
Olive oil
1 Bell pepper (any color)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Tortillas
Sour Cream
Grated cheese

1. Pre-heat oven to 400.

2. Clean portobello caps and remove stems. Slice into thin strips (about 1 inch wide) and place on a cookie sheet.

3. Brush olive oil on mushroom strips and sprinkle salt, pepper and garlic evenly over strips.

4. Place in oven and bake 10 minutes.

5. Slice bell pepper in to strips.

6. Combine bell pepper and olive oil in a skillet and bring to medium heat. Cook until peppers are flexible and soft.

7. Combine peppers, mushrooms and the desired amount of sour cream and cheese in a tortilla and enjoy this tasty substitute for fajitas. Reduced fat versions of the dairy products and even the tortillas are available.

I secretly like these fajitas better than the ones made of beef or chicken because then I don't get meat stuck in my teeth.

I have returned!

Well, I really didn't go anywhere. But I had a stressful job and I didn't feel comfortable discussing my professional life on the internet while in that job.

I have a new job now and I'm back to blogging about community news/media issues and I'm feeling better than ever.

There is something I want to talk to all the young (and not-so-young) professionals out there about: stressful jobs.

I had a stressful job. I hated it. For many reasons that I don't feel it would be fair to go into detail about on the Internet.

But here is what I learned: stressful jobs don't get better, they get worse. And stress kills. So, ask yourself, "is this job worth my life?"

If the answer is yes, then keep calm and carry on. If the answer is no, find a better situation, somewhere, anywhere.

I was able to find a wonderful new position at a great company, with better benefits, a flexible work schedule and the freedom to work on stories at my own pace. I didn't even have to move, although the commute is a bit longer.

For those keeping track, I'm the new city reporter for the Westlake Picayune. I cover the cities of Rollingwood and West Lake Hills. And I love it here. I'm so happy I could break out into song. But I won't because my singing has been compared to the sound of a drowning cat.

So for those slaving away in stressful jobs they hate: if I can get out, you can get out too. It's not too late! Just start looking and don't let anyone stop you!

The Hungry Journalist is pulling up stakes

I have accepted a position as the city government and business reporter for the Williamson County Sun in Georgetown, Texas. See their site at www.wilcosun.com.

I'm very excited about the move. I'm sad to be leaving the Charlotte Observer.

Am I crazy to pull up stakes at a 200,000 circulation, award-winning daily to move to a 15,000 circulation twice weekly? Some have said so. It doesn't feel that way to me. This is probably the best decision I've made in a long time.

I will miss all of my great co-workers at the Observer, but the opportunity at the Sun was too good to pass up. The chance to live near my hometown, my family and my fiance was icing.

Keep reading for adventures in community journalism!

What are you willing to pay for online news?

Here is a report from PriceWaterHouseCoopers that looked at what people in seven different countries would pay for online news (click the headline). The countries included were the U.S., the Netherlands, Canada, the U.K., France, Germany and Switzerland. It was presented at the World Association of Newspapers meeting in Barcelona this week.

There are a few interesting highlights from the report.

Surprises:
-Americans are willing to pay the most for their online news, 68 percent of what they pay for print.
-The Dutch are willing to spend the least at 38 percent of print price.
-Consumers say they are the most interested in general news, but are least likely to pay for that. They would much rather pay for highly specialized, focused, targeted and relevant content.

No surprise there:
-Consumers are most likely to pay for sports and financial news. In fact some are willing to pay 97 percent of print price for financial news. The Wall Street Journal has been proving consumers willingness to pay for financial news online for a while now.
-Consumers are more likely to pay for news that comes from "high value, topic-specific publications" (i.e. magazines). We know this because people are willing to plunk down $5-$8 for glossies and only $.50 to $.75 for a newspaper.
- Readers expect to be a part of the news. They not only want to comment on stories online, but they want to contribute content too. This scares me. Not only because there are thousands of people out there that would love to do my job for free, but because of the lack of training when it comes to journalistic professionalism in the armature reporting community and blogosphere. We need a well-trained corps of professional journalists to properly report the news without bias or influence. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about readers feeling like the are "a part of their paper." But there are good and bad ways to go about it. Readers should only contribute content in areas where they are experts or have some extensive knowledge. Even then, they need some training.

Bad news:
-Because general news is offered for free in so many places online, it's going to be really difficult to charge for it. Ultimately, I see this as a losing scheme. You can't keep producing content for free online. The advertising just doesn't support it. And yet this is the product that is most in demand. That's a pickle I can't work my way around yet.

Good news:
-That people are willing to pay for online news at all.


The study did not look at the impact of electronic subscription services like the Kindle or some iPhone apps on consumer willingness to pay for online news. That would be the next study I'd like to see. How much should newspaper companies be looking at devices like that and developing subscription services to deliver to them.

I want to hear thoughts from readers about this subject. What kinds of online news are you willing to pay for and what are you willing to pay for it?

Dear CNN, stop dancing on my grave

CNN sure thinks it is a lot of fun to celebrate the demise of newspapers. They've devoted several stories to it. More than most sites. But what really bothers me is the tone. There is a smugness there, an arrogance that is really grating.

Here a links to some of the stories. Decide for yourself.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/02/27/roth.econ.stop.the.press.cnn?iref=videosearch

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2007/02/08/lamonica.murdoch.newspapers.cnn.cnn?iref=videosearch

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2007/01/20/money.change.newspaper.biz.cnn?iref=videosearch

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-234926

Me, I've decided to stop reading CNN. Not because they put down the industry that feeds me, no, but because they are promoting their own self interest in celebrating the end of their competitors.

Well, guess what CNN? We're going to be a pain in your butt for a long time to come. Newspapers aren't dead yet. In fact, we're still the best source for local news online.

You may have broody Anderson Cooper, whose recent website ads look like a GQ cover. You may have your pathetic iReporters (which really get on my nerves), but let's face it, aside from covering terrorist attacks and tornadoes, what are they really good for?

Newspapers will always have the best local news, analysis and professionalism. We're not dead yet.

So you can just ruminate on that one for a while CNN. Or maybe you can send a soccer mom iReporter to find out more about it.