What I am and am not eating

Somewhere along the way, I gradually stopped eating eggs along with meat.  Along with gluten (mostly).  Along with dairy (mostly).

This weekend while camping and struggling to find something I had on hand to eat and wanted to eat and could eat (an intersection I am increasingly struggling to find), I almost came to the decision I needed to relax my egg restriction and maybe gluten too if I was going to really commit to the meat restriction for the long haul.  Monday morning rolled around and I get in my email a post notification from one of my favorite bloggers, Marc Gunther, which just happened to be about eggs.  Yep, still not going to eat eggs.  Or meat.  I was familiar with most of the information in the post already but push it to the back of my mind because I get depressed if I think about it too much.  Instead I'll just try to not eat eggs. 

So if I'm going to maintain these dietary restrictions, I think I better start following blogs like Wolf and Willow and getting more cookbooks like Chloe's Kitchen, which I'm already quite impressed by.  This recipe for potato, rosemary, and blackberry pizza from Wolf and Willow looks really tasty and I'm going to try and make it tonight.  And then someday, I might accept that somehow, I became a vegan.

5/1/13 update - I actually made this pizza last night.  And I didn't sabotage it by messing with the recipe.  And Pretty Boy and my father ate it and we all liked it!  I used real Parmesan cheese instead of making the vegan stuff and spinach leaves instead of rocket and dried rosemary instead of fresh because we already had those.  And I didn't add any lemon. 

The dough ended up being really sticky and I stretched the first pizza too much so as a result, it would not slide off the board onto the pizza stone.  We ended up shoving it onto the stone, but the damage was done.  The whole pizza turned out lumpy and the crust was crispy and dry in places.  The second one turned out much better.  The flavor of the berries and crust are what really came through on this.  I was skeptical about the berries but really, they were the best part.  The cheese and potato flavors were really mild.  Pretty Boy would have liked a lot more cheese.  My father would have liked a lot more meat.  But all in all it was a success.  I had a few marinated potato sliced left over that I fried up in a pan that everyone like so much that I cut up another potato to fry in the infused oil that didn't go on the pizzas.  Carbs with a side of carbs, right?  Anyway, while it wasn't a vegan or gluten-free or dairy-free success, it was a vegetarian, low-gluten, low-impact, economic, popular success and that's what I'm aiming for the most. 

What are questionably the weirdest donuts

MSN's Delish has a slideshow of what they call "The Weirdest and Greatest Doughnut Flavors."  Some are weird, yes.  But some are definitely not the weirdest.  I think it's pretty much a requirement now for any "artisan" or "hip" or whatever donut place to have a maple bacon offering.  And greatest?  Don't even get me started on that.

Poi, rosemary olive oil, lemon Szechuan, and pineapple pow (pineapple, wasabi, and ginger) are the flavors on the list I'd want to try the most.  And I think someone should let the author know about Glam Doll Donuts. 

What makes me want to paint

Everything!  In super bright colors!  Which is saying something because I am slowly working through the finishing work on the almost finished half of my basement remodel project which is mostly painting and completely frustrating me. 

MyColor paints by Pantone.  Smaller, self-priming containers of brightly colored perfect for smaller painting projects.  I want to paint smaller, bright colored objects for my soon-to-be finished half a basement remodel!  I want to live out loud!

What Bettie and I need in every color

Speaking of skulls... these!

In every color!

What I need on my wall

This amazing design, Pushing Daisies by Katie Campbell:

Its available from the Threadless website on shirts, phone cases, and prints.  I want a print!

Pretty Boy has a great love of skulls, but in the creepy, haunted, and scary or hyper-realistic ways.  I wouldn't say I love skulls, but I do like them in abstract, artsy, interpretive renditions.  So I get very excited about anything that is a compromise between our style and which we both love.  Like Katie Campbell's Pushing Daisies.  Or this engraving of a human skull from Surface View in the UK:

So cool!  There will definitely be a place on our walls for some skull art.  Maybe some sugar skulls too...

What quote I need to embrace

By Louisa May Alcott from Little Women: 

(made pretty on Etsy)

I'm trying to embrace the storms, but sometimes, its just so exhausting to continually sail a ship through them.

What decorating I love

This place that was featured on Etsy long ago but that I just recently found:

Ugh, just beautiful. 

I am easily seduced by the hippy, boho, barn-chic, DIY, artistically photographed, every corner filled with stuff home decor and wedding theme trends that seem rampant around the internet right now.  And have to stop and remember that my personal style that I am slowly developing is actually quite modern and more monochromatic than sometimes I even like and sparse.  If I ever get to decorating my own space or planning my own wedding, I will have to remind myself to stick to what I like and not what is trendy and pretty in blog pictures. 

What I did: Quit my soul sucking job

I don't have a lot to say on the topic other than I quit my job.  I put in my notice and they said I could leave right then.  I got to take a box of personal items and leave.  Most of the personal items ended up in the trash, including plants as who wants the shit they had on their desks to distract themselves from the terrible job they worked at?  Not this gal.  


I went out to lunch with my extended family during the weeks I was deciding what to do about my hellish situation.  The discussion included my young cousins, three girls who are 11, 9, and 5.  For some reason, I felt it was important for them to hear an adultish person speaking honestly about emotions and the decision making process.  I recounted to them that I often got so overwhelmed at work I would go to the bathroom and cry and that recently, this was happening multiple times a day due to stress and the generally abusive environment.  My 9 year old cousin, who I have a total soft spot for anyway, as the lone other curly haired cousin and a very talented dancer in her own right, gave me the advice that tipped the scales.  She looked at me with an extremely supportive face and said, "NO.  No.  Don't waste any more tears.  No more for that job.  You need to save your tears for happy things.  Tears of joy!"  She got more animated and excited as she spoke of the good tears.  I don't know how I managed to not completely break down right then as she saw the situation far more clearly than any of my potty mouthed friends telling me to eff that place or don't be so effing stupid to leave a job now, but I made it through lunch and at least to my car before crying some of those happy tears in gratitude for her wisdom.  Kids can be the bomb sometimes.
And now I never have to go to that place again.
What sucks about working?  A lot of things.  Most of them are covered in this brilliant article.  
We are often verbally abused on the job and we take it because we think it's normal that people would yell at us.
We are deluded into thinking our job-friends are  our real-friends. With our job friends we talk about pens and cubicles.  We stop having real-friends.
From 7am to 7pm you are either going to  work, at work, or coming back from work. The times when you can be most  creative are garbage-compacted into your cubicle.
When you are paranoid  at a job, you are probably correct. THEY are, in fact, talking about you  and backstabbing you right now.
More to come on this development.  I'm not going to lie, it's stressful and a struggle, but instead of the struggle being for the respect and admiration of people I neither respect nor admire it's a struggle for ME.  And that is something I'm willing to punch and fight and claw and think positively and campaign and uncover my most delicate and bruised bits to achieve.  Take that, Universe!

What photographs I love

This whole, award-winning collection by Fong Qi Wei:

Stunning.

What things I want

This amazing, dahlia-esque, huge, paper flower:



And one (or multiple) of these organizing "Wall Manager" systems by Martha Stewart:



I love me some paper crafts and organizing systems and all things Martha Stewart!

What I cooked this weekend

 

Vanilla Chia Pudding.

K, the stuff I made looks no where near as appetizing as the picture.  What I made looks like a giant bowl of weirdness.  I used raisins instead of dates and butter instead of coconut butter, but otherwise I followed the recipe pretty exactly.  Taste-wise, its also pretty weird, and I even like chia seeds.  I like to add a tablespoon to my juice and crunchy, chewy on the seeds as I drink it. 

The pudding is bland with an almost musky aftertaste that I think comes from the seeds, but the texture is remarkably similar to creamy, dairy filled, tapioca pudding.  The pudding's a little plain on its own; with the little bit of maple syrup and fruit that the recipe calls for, its decent.  I prefer to slop some big spoonfuls of coconut yogurt over the pudding and then a ton of fruit on top (blueberries were pretty good, pineapple was great!).  Made up that way, I like it a lot.  Probably not enough to make it again unless it was for someone vegan, but enough to finish the bowl.  The recipe makes a large batch and no one else at home is hippy enough to want to eat any of it. 

What sign I needed this weekend

In big, bold, loud letters:

The only comments I will be accepting are compliments or things that make my life easier.  Keep all criticisms, judgements, and opinions to yourself.

I was working on the remodeling project all weekend.  We got a lot down this weekend, and there is an end in sight!  (Though that is discounting the fact that I ran out of money and got so impatient and upset that I fired our contractor, and therefore cannot finish the kitchen part of the remodel.) 

The things we are working on now are finishing details: installing the last light fixtures, cleaning and sanding the windows (so I can paint them once it gets nicer out and I can leave them open long enough to dry), getting outlet and light switch covers, and painting the unfinished doors and molding.  But its still a load of work, and there is nothing harder to clean than super fine sanding dust that gets everywhere. 

There are so many things not quite right about the project which is one of the biggest reasons we fired our contractor.  What it came down to was: I got what I paid for.  And I am well aware of the numerous corners I had to cut because we just couldn't afford to do anything else.  So when a string of people comes to visit and all of them want to interject their comments and opinions about the remodel, I can't handle it!  I don't need to hear any more judgement about my choices or work or anything!  I'm just trying to live both with the compromises I had to make and the crappy work the contractor did, and get things finished enough that we can unpack the storage pod and move down there. 

So I'm going make this sign and post it at the bottom of the stairs and make sure everyone reads it before they come find me scooting across the floor, sweeping dust with my butt, and running painting tape along the molding. 

Which TMNT designs are the coolest

Threadless is asking community members which potential Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt designs they like the most.  These are some my favorites:

 

How I used my Facebook stalking skills

Pretty Boy and I were looking to buy an enclosed trailer to use to haul his dirtbikes and related gear and equipment around this summer, so naturally, I took to craigslist to search for a good deals.  We initially weren't too thrilled with what we found: mostly new trailers from dealerships or overpriced pieces of crap or trailers that would be too small until after four days of search... I found the perfect trailer!  The listing didn't have much information in it or a contact phone number but just from the picture, we could tell it was a motocross trailer and the perfect size.  And it was a great price.  And we wanted it.  Seriously wanted it. 

So I sent an email saying we were really interested, and we waited to hear back.  But it was such a good deal we convinced ourselves someone had contacted them first or offered more money or something!  But I wasn't going to let that happen.  We wanted that trailer, and we were ready to take action. 

Like most motocross trailers, this one had motocross related decals and stickers on in, including ones with the rider's name and racing number.  Pretty Boy was unfamiliar with the name or number, so we took to Facebook looking for the rider.  While I've been abstaining from the Facebooks for the most part of late, I still know how to use it to do some quality online stalking.  We were able to find him without much trouble and were lucky enough to see that he was Facebook friends with another rider who Pretty Boy used to coach!  The rider's Facebook page also told us his parents' names.  So Pretty Boy got on the phone to get the number of the father whose son he used to coach.  He got a hold of the father who said he knew the family selling the trailer and would call them and let them knew we wanted to buy his trailer.  Half an hour later, Pretty Boy was on the phone with the guy selling the trailer who was about to sell it to someone who offer $200 more than he listed it for, but the guy said he would much rather sell it to another motocross racer so if we agreed to match the higher offer, it was ours.  We agreed and now its ours! 

Had I not taken to Facebooks to find out about the rider and his family, had Pretty Boy not known a family that knew the family selling the trailer, had we not gotten on the phone right when we had and gotten a hold of the guy before he sold, we would have missed the opportunity to get our perfect trailer for a great (abet $200 higher) price.  Morals of the story: you never know when Facebook stalking skills will actually be useful and be careful about putting your personal information on the internet.  You never know whose going to use it to Facebook stalk you.

What crafts I wish I was doing

On Easter Sunday I was dragged around all day to Pretty Boy's family gatherings.  At the first, I happened upon a box of K'NEXs, and Pretty Boy and I proceeded to build most of a egg beater ride.  At the next, we found two boxes of LEGOs.  I built a bridge over a stream for the horses to use to cross.  Pretty Boy built a snowmobile with a working suspension.  It was fun to see all the younger kids put down their cell phone and start picking through the LEGO box and building whatever they wanted to. 

It also made me want to build all the things.  Including these things:

Its a cat condo made out of cardboard and felt.  I would thoroughly enjoy making it, and my cats would love it for a week and then refuse to ever look at it again, and we would be happy. 

These are technically pieces of children's furniture.  Wonderfully detailed instructions on how to make the furniture are available for free from foldschool.  I don't know what exactly I would do with them, but I would love crafting them.  There is always an abundance of cardboard waiting to be recycled at my house.  I wish I had the time to put it to good use.