Pizza for Wimps and Newfound Fame

My bread has not been turning out well. I'm not sure whether it is the fact that I'm no longer in a climate conducive to bread or that I am no longer dependent on my bread in order to finish my thesis, but it has not been working. Even when the bread was working, I was never particularly good at making pizza dough. Tonight I cheated. I made pizza with my mom but we bought a pre-made whole-wheat dough from Trader Joe's. The pizza was great. I used my pizza stone which I've never used with pre-made dough and I was shocked at how well the dough cooked and cooked with the proper timing as the cheese, so right at the point where the cheese had melted sufficiently, the dough was soft and fluffy on the inside and clumsy on the outside. I also had fresh basil from the garden.

The other odd thing that has happened recently is new-found fame. I have been a member of sparkpeople.com for two years now. I have lost 50lbs and gone from being a size 14/16 to a size 2/3/4. My life has changed a lot. Recently, I wrote a blogpost about walking which was one of my primary weight loss tools. Chris Downie, the founder of sparkpeople.com commented on my piece and the next thing I knew, I had been catapulted into the spotlight because my blog-post was emailed out to everyone on the site. Suddenly, people were commenting on my page, emailing me for advice, and finding me all sorts of ways. It was really gratifying. The best part was that a number of people commented on how much they liked my writing. It reminded me that, although I am teaching part time right now, in my real life I want to be an academic and a researcher and will publish books that people will actually read (even if that readership is limited to the classical/philological community).

Speaking of sparkpeople, one of the books I've read this summer was Chris Downie's book. I thought that it was a quick read and extremely enjoyable. He began his site as a way to connect and inspire people. I felt that I was fulfilling that dream when so many people were inspired by what I had written about my walks around the neighborhood. It was fabulous.