In This World Full of People Only Some Want to Fly

. . . isn't that crazy?

I know, right? This morning at the gym at 0500 God's Hour, Seal's version of this song was playing on the radio. For years I passively listened to it and didn't really pay it any attention. But really, this is a pretty intense point, to me, anyway: Out of this whole world, only some of us give a damn about actualizing what we are capable of. (Poor grammar and all). But really. I once told my friend Eve, a fabulous B-grade movie producer in Kauai, that I firmly believe most people are afraid of hearing or seeing what they are worth. That goes in hand with actualizing potential. We can do so much good. I do not mean to say we all must call to arms and become the Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Lance Armstrong, or Bill Gates. I do mean to say that if most of us tried, even just a little more than we might think possible, every now and then, we could be pretty damn amazing. We may not fly, but we can certainly get some sweet air.

Elie Wiesel spoke to Congress some time ago about indifference. This speech moved me to tears when I read it and it rings true to me constantly. There is no worse thing, I believe, than indifference. Apathy. It's a passion sucker and a life killer. Strength is in commitment and action. Or at least awareness. When we choose not to be aware, it's akin, to me (again, just to me) to arrogance. It's the ability to separate oneself from others. It's an us and them attitude. And when we actively choose to be unaware, guess who we see as at the disadvantage? Everyone else. There's my schpeil on giving a damn. (By the way, that is not to say that every now and then I'm just tired and don't have my mojo to give as much of a damn. I think that's human. But to make the effort to at least be aware of life around you, of what you are capable, is desperately important). Moving on!


MEH and I went to Cooper Landing with Crazy Cooking Mama and her hubby for the long weekend. Dogs came with, of course. And, of course, despite my and CCM's best attempts, we took no pictures :( Not a one. A quick rundown: rained lightly most of the time, fishers caught no fish, dogs got wet, burned lots of driftwood. We all came back on Sunday, of course, in picturesque weather. However, before we all took off to the beautiful Kenai Peninsula, I decided to be proactive and get all of our stuff together. In the process, I got isopropyl alcohol underneath my pinky nail.


(Aside: MEH left eggs in the cooler after our last camping venture on his birthday, which, well, was over a month ago. He cleaned said nasty cooler out with the isopropyl alcohol and when I washed it out, I got the nastiness pictured below).

Let me say this: DON'T EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER GET ISOPROPYL (RUBBING) ALCOHOL UNDER YOUR FINGERNAIL. It hurts, alot! I swear, if this is what childbirth feels like, I am never having children. I was curled up on the couch in the fetal position for about 20 minutes. And I thought I wasn't a world class wienie. MEH came home to the image of a sappy woman and this:

It spread. This, clearly, was my own fault. Thinking that applying pressure would help relieve the pain was quite correct, until applying said pressure helped the germ-killing, mind-numbing stuff spread throughout my nail bed, causing further pain and world class wienieness. I was out of commission for at least another 15 minutes. Again: Don't get rubbing alcohol under your nail. If you do, I'll do my best not to say "I warned you!"

So my nail recovered and we packed and drove and camped. Much fun! We got home on Sunday just in time to be pooped. I took a nice cozy 3 hour nap and then we both fell asleep not long after, on the couch, after watching some comedy show. Thank goodness we both had Monday off!

Yesterday we decided was a Deep Clean Day. This necessitated moving furniture, pulling out the bleach and scrub brushes, and cleaning the house with the vigor only a Virgo knows. MEH cleaned out the whole garage. We were both pooped when it came to dinner time.

I decided to channel Sheri with Green and Crunchy and declutter our downstairs. That meant cleaning out a small portion of my beloved wine bottle collection (I KNOW!) and making use of some very surprising finds in our pantry: PORTION CONTAINERS! I took down an entire shelf of clutter with these bad boys. All my beans went in one, oats in another, and cereal in the last one. While it wasn't a complete finish (I still need more of those things), here was the final product yesterday:

I love my pantry. There is so much space!. And now I have even more for more fun food. After it was all said and done, my kitchen got a good cleaning too

Now, in true fashion, I couldn't expect that my kitchen would stay pristine for long. I decided to make some Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread. We bought a huge 6lb bag of chocolate chips at Costco last week, so I figured this would help put a dent in the bag. I also had a whole bunch of bananas about to take a nosedive into wasteland if I didn't do something quick. I am not a clean cook. I am working on this. I make a huge mess. And of course, I really don't like cleaning it up, either. But here is my bread baking lovingly in the oven:

I took a nice reprieve from moving out about and took to a glass of wine and our Bad-Ass Girls Book Club book, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach.

I'm in love with this book. Mary Roach is hilarious and has had me laughing loudly in public more than once since cracking open the cover. The wine wasn't too bad either.

Interjection of my second favorite semi-room of the house: My Wine Table

This little table sees quite a lot of action, as can be attested by the full bowl of corks sitting off to the right there. . .

Do you have a favorite room of your house?

And then my bread was done!

Nom Nom Nom!

Today is Baked Good Tuesday. You can bet I've been gobbling up my slice over the course of the morning! Baked Good Tuesday is a creation of mine to aid in getting through the Work/Healthy Eating Week. Mondays are the start of the week, depending on who you are, you either love or hate them. Wednesdays are the hump, Thursdays are almost the weekend, Fridays are always welcome, and Saturdays and Sundays are pure freedom. Tuesdays? Tuesdays suck. So I decided to make Tuesday into Baked Good Tuesday. Celebrate baked deliciousness! I bring in baked goods every Tuesday and it seriously helps morale on a lagging morning. Unfortunately I'm alone in the office this week, so I celebrate alone with my loaf o choco banana bread. I nom to myself. :)

Do you have any secrets to getting through the work week?

The Cooking Kitchen Disaster of July 5th did not end at the bread baking. It continued with my Peanut Pad Stir Thai (harharhar) fiasco. This spawned my second place decision for a title (desire colon here), PS, Pad Thai Noodles are a Pain in the Ass. Ugh ugh ugh. I'd never cooked Pad Thai noodles. But I found some in the corner of my pantry and decided to be adventurous. Word to the wise: Don't decide to become adventurous in your cooking at 8pm on a work night. You will be mad at yourself halfway through. Or at least tired. It started out innocent enough, with vegetables of white onion, broccoli (not pictured), carrots, and cauliflower

And continued as such with the saute'age of the veggies:

But when it came to cooking the pad thai noodles, everything went so, so wrong. Apparently these babies don't cook like good, normal noodles (by boiling), but instead by frying in very, very high heat. Frying? I don't fry. But I was told by CCM that if I add lots of coconut oil (mmmm) and heat it enough, the noodles will immediately plump up. So, she also said, don't put a lot into one pan. They plump up a long and you won't have space for a lot of them. If they don't have space to plump, they burn. Burn = bad. So I did that

You can see the start of plumpage down in the bottom part of the photo. I added, apparently, too many noodles. And I stopped taking pictures of the noodle fryage because with such high heat and so many noodles, I made a big, big mess. I also got really, really frustrated. The noodles did plump up quickly, and they did sizzle and pop with tasty sounds, but the cooked so quickly that it was hard to keep up with them. Immediately after cooking, I added them to the veggie mix to get soft. Put in a few tablespoons of extra crunchy peanut butter and I was a goin'

Mmmm it smelled heavenly. MEH even said so. And he's, as we've established, not the biggest veg eater. Overall, it was a success. But my kitchen was(is still) a huge mess after this cooking wonder.

Have you ever had any cooking disasters that turned out for the best? Are you a clean cook? Do you experiment much in the kitchen, or stick to your tried and true recipes?

This was not my worst cooking venture: MEH's birthday cake last year was horrible. I try to experiment so I don't get in food ruts of making the same stuff over again, but I have been on a peanut kick lately. And I do get in the habit of making some of the same stuff for a couple of weeks in a row, at least once a week. I chalk it up to lack of time, but really, I just love some flavors (like curry and peanut butter and tomato . . . ) MEH doesn't cook so much, so he is my guinea pig.

Mantra of the Day: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." - Julian of Norwich. According to Wikipedia, this lovely lady was a famous English Mystic from the 15th century. Ms. Julian apparently believed God told her the words in the above mantra. I like the idea of repeating these words. It's such an optimistic look on the world. Keep your chin up. Smile. Muscle through it. All shall be well. (To those who say "well that's just kind of silly, things are not always well, I have a mantra for tomorrow)! Go go optimism.

Quick Interjection: Am I the only one who didn't know that "It's My Life" by No Doubt was originally by some band called "Talk Talk?" Because it just came on the radio and this is rather a shock . . .

Question of Gratitude Who, or what, are you grateful for today? I am grateful for my health today. What a cliche, right? But seriously, there are a lot of people who don't have the same benefit of abundant food and well-functioning bodies. This ol' girl gets around pretty well, isn't too fussy, and lets me know when she needs a little less go go go . Thanks, health, for working out (harharhar, pun) in my favor!