52 Dishes: Dishes 11 and 12

This week I made two dishes... there are no rules anymore. I started with healthy... and just a twist on something I've already been doing. Cooking meat in tin foil packets. This time the meat was chicken, and the sauce bbq. I then put this chicken on top of some rice and added some green beans and done. Dish number 11. Chicken recipe found here.

While the chicken was a cookin I was putting the pepper or rice away and found myself face to face with an oatmeal cookie recipe that did not call for raisins. Good job recipe, there's nothing I dislike more than raisins in my supposed cookies. Seriously. 

It did call for nuts though and I wasn't interested in nuts in my oatmeal cookies either so I subbed in some chocolate chips. I mean, duh. Delicious.

I have no recipe to link to for these. It was just on a Ralph's brand quick oatmeal box. They ended up pretty delicious despite the wacked out oven I use. I have to put it on convection all or it will not work. I am pretty sure that's why things don't take the time recipes say they will and my cookies always end up a little too hard after they cool. 

But I'm making due. And keeping up with the schedule. I definitely cheated one week and made like 4 new things... but like I said, NO RULES! 

What have you made lately?

xoxo

the dawn of twenty seven

Last year I did a 26 things about me post for my birthday. This year I don't have 27 new things, but I have some points to hit on. Some serious, some just random. Fitting for the mood of this new year. Maybe next year I will find 28 new things to write about, maybe I'll even have 28 experiences in my 27th year... a girl can dream. But until then, here's what's going on now.

- I have always loved to read, always will. My interests have shifted slightly over the last two years though. I can't seem to get enough self improvement in. I use to read fiction and fiction alone... but now I default to stories of people's lives and how they improved them and what I guess you could call how to manuals.

- Sometimes I like spelling out numbers.

- I shoot guns, my aim is decent, I'm getting better with every visit to the range.

- I don't ever want to have to point a gun at somebody, I do want to be an excellent shot. Yay paper targets!

- I have a hard time being bad at anything. I also have a hard time just doing something for fun, if I can improve at it, I will try to, and then if I don't improve fast enough I will default to frustration... I'm working on it.

- I have left over anxiety about things with wheels that don't also have seatbelts and/or rollbars. By this I mean rollerblades and bikes.

- I wax and wane between liking and loathing myself. I'm so grateful for the friends I have. No matter how low I am, they won't be talked out of liking me. It honestly blows my mind. And I'm learning to say thank you instead of understanding it.

- feeling a little raw around the edges due to circumstances all in a row. I will get through this, sometimes I just feel like I'm in survival mode, one foot in front of the other, one minute at a time.

- I'm often hesitant to put too much positivity into the world, it feels like when I do that lately I jinx it, and then something else not so great happens. It's very similar to how I never use to write about a guy if we were starting to talk or things seemed decent... because as soon as I did it would go south.

- I'm learning that my superstitions... like the one above... may have been coincidences, not rules. I've started writing about these interests regardless, and while the current adventure hasn't been flawless, it also hasn't hit a dead end.

- At the dawn of 27 I'm feeling a little stuck. A bit like I'm out of ideas. My previous methods of coping have been outed as unhealthy and just not helpful... like picking up and moving when things start getting tough and I start feeling sad. If I were to think of this in a positive way (which I am attempting as much as possible these days) I would say that this is going to make way for something new... a new way of handling stress, a new way of handling sadness... or maybe just a way of handling it... nothing new, because before I wasn't handling it so much as putting it off for later. But now it's later and temporary solutions are no longer what I seek.

Here, at the dawn of twenty seven, I am learning how to allow myself to dream. Big dreams, small dreams, pipe dreams even. Dreams that can turn into goals, and then be sought after. Or dreams that just need a little bit of savings to make reality.
I want to be better than I was yesterday, last month, and last year. I want to be just a little bit healthier, a little bit happier, and a little more positive.
Minute by minute, hour by hour, week by week, month by month until we see twenty eight.

xoxo

52 Dishes: Dishes 6-9 and a nice try for 10

  

It's been a while. I've slacked on posting. I've been totally unmotivated... but some cooking did happen! Despite the frustrations and some of the pity parties I threw myself, dishes still got made. If that's not an accomplishment and proof of growth for me, sheesh, I don't know what is. ;)

I'm going to start with pictures of my favorite two dishes from around the time I was cooking them. A kale salad with a homemade lemon dressing and some oatmeal "cookies." They weren't really cookies, more like a chewy bar of sorts, but they were decent. 

The chewy bumps as I am now going to call them, came from this recipe. The lemony kale, chickpea and avocado salad was mostly from this recipe. The chewy bumps didn't quite harden like cookies, not that my cookies are hard, just that they aren't chewy bar like... and so they were a little strange. Didn't stop me from eating them though. Super simple, two ingredients to start and add whatever you want after. Not too bad.

The salad was delicious. I like kale a good amount, I always forget.

  

Speaking of kale... this dish was somewhat inspired by this recipe.
The pasta is a rice pasta because I tried going gluten less for a split second. But that's not the issue with my stomach. So I went back to gluten.

And then for a second I left kale and went to arugula... it's too bitter, but this simple dish of pine nuts, arugula and pasta wasn't so bad. Even made myself a little balsamic dressing.










My nice try goes a little like this... I saw a picture of some delicious looking waffles... the blog post about these waffles can be found here. And I thought we had a waffle iron at the house I live in so I came home thinking I would make some gluten free, almond flour waffles. I wanted to be adventurous, and I was trying to be gluten less at that time. First problem... I got almond meal, not almond flour. Second problem... what I thought was a waffle iron was really a tortilla heater/maker. I was not to be complete discouraged (and even briefly thought of making tortilla iron waffles...yeah...) and decided I would just make pancakes with this mixture instead.
I think they would have turned out just fine if it had been almond flour instead of almond meal. They were just a little too... well, mealy...
Honey and maple syrup helped a bit, but unfortunately not enough. So that dish was one that just did not happen really. Am I going to count it? Yes...yes I am. I tried it and persevered through problems. It counts.


It's probably not hard to tell, I don't really stick exactly to recipes. I have been making stuff I want to learn how to make and getting a little creative along the way. Sometimes it works... sometimes it just falls a little flat. But I will say that I'm trying and learning and that's what the purpose of the project was. That and eating at home more.
So far, pretty good.

xoxo

grateful when I don't want to be

found in the vortex of lost photo credit: aka tumblr

I'm in a real funk lately. Like, staring at a wall or the ceiling or the backs of my eyelids because I can't bring myself to do anything else when I'm not working kind of funk. 

But there's only so much sleep I can get, and there are so many tumblrs to peruse for yet another saying to get me through another day. 

They don't last long for me, maybe a couple of days and then it feels like hogwash, but I guess I can revel in those couple of days and then search for new ones when the magic fades.

Todays is above. The things I take for granted are the things someone else is praying for.

The pessimistic part of me says something to the affect of, why would anyone pray for this... and then, deep down, through the pessimists gritted teeth, comes the realistic, and some days, even the optimist.

I'm trying to find her now.

So what in my life could people be praying for? What am I taking for granted?

This list is in no order of importance. 

- my health. yes, it's in the pooper right now, and everything seems to be happening at once and I can't get my intestines to work like they use to, before November, BUT I also don't have to take handfuls of pills to get through a day, pills that I know are going to bring on some awful side effects, but I have to continue to take them because the overall benefit is potentially better. I'm taking for granted the lack of need for medicine. If I'm being logical the fact of the matter is what can be realigned will be eventually and what I'm saddled with forever could be much worse.

- my family. I don't ever mean to take them for granted. And even when I'm my darkest I know that I care about them so much, and I love them and they love and believe in me. I don't know why, but they do. So I'll just say thank you. (#4) Because I decided that was one of my truths. I don't think I take them for granted as much as I use to. I think I've grown here. I hope I've grown here. Even when I want to trade my mind and my skin and just about everything else there's always that, oh wait, but then my family wouldn't be mine. And that's just not an option.

- my hair. maybe that's vain, I don't care. I appreciate it's color but sometimes I don't realize how different it is. I just think it's a thing, because I've been living with it my whole life. It just takes time to get use to anything.

- my computer, my toys, my gadgets. I spend some time worrying about what I want to get next and sometimes forget what I have. I love my cameras. Is love a strong word for an object? What about an object that helps you try to capture beautiful things? No my laptop is not the latest and greatest, but it gets the job done, she turns on, she is of necessary speed on the internet, I can make these blogs and read others, I could even start learning photoshop or indesign if I so chose. someone who did not have cameras or a sewing machine or a computer or a bed or my phone for that matter might just be praying for even just access to these things. 

- my mind. this is a hard one. I fight my own mind at every turn, or sometimes (many times) I give in and I don't like the reality I create. I feel so stuck in here, I want out. But maybe someone is praying for a mind like this. Who knows.

- my eyes. to read, to watch, to capture memories... my eyes that see things that others might not. my eyes that get to take in things that I do and don't have. my eyes that appreciate my idea of beauty.

- my education. I brush it off a lot because it's just a Communication degree but the fact of the matter is I enjoyed those classes. I enjoyed that time I spent on it. I wasn't there taking Comm because it was easy. It's not easy. Communication, actual communication, interpersonal, group or mass is not easy, it's complicated, it incorporates psychology, sociology and health. There's a lot to communication, and those who think it's easy probably aren't always doing it right. Not to say I am, ohhhh no. But at least I have a better idea of how to say things in delicate situations. 

I guess I don't really need to justify it here. But the point is, some people don't get to go to college right after high school, they don't have anybody that saved money for it. I had both. And I enjoyed my classes. I think it's fair to say that some people pray for those kinds of things.

- my bed. it's comfortable, it has blankets on it, sometimes I get too hot, but some people don't get beds to sleep on or enough blankets. so, another thing to be grateful for.

- my jobs. ugh. I don't want to be thankful for having to commute between three, but I do have three. And sometimes they even pay the bills... most of the time, especially when extra doctors bills aren't popping up. Not only do I have three jobs, but I have bosses that care about me at all three. For that I am very, very fortunate. 

- my friends. I don't know why they are my friends. But thank you. 

There's more, there will always be more. But I'm tired and I need rest.

xoxo

a question

via

I would start today, I would start today little or small. I would start so that a year from now I wouldn't wish that I had started and didn't.

My question is... what? What am I suppose to start? What am I suppose to change? I've moved back and forth when things have seemed stale, I've tried new career paths, I've read new types of books. I've held back feelings and let them fly free. I don't know what I'm suppose to start anymore. 

Am I just suppose to start anything? 

Am I suppose to start doing a cartwheel a day or writing a page a day or what? 

I've started writing 750 words a day, I started that over 55 days ago. 

Am I suppose to drink less soda and more water every day? 

I started that back in January. 

And then I know some will say it's not what I am "suppose" to start, but what I want to start and the fact of the matter is I don't have anything I want to start that I haven't started and don't know where else to go with. I've started taking more pictures, I've started learning more about my camera, I've started writing daily, sometimes more than once daily, I've started working on my breathing. 

Am I already started? Is this saying for people that haven't started anything? Or is there still something I'm missing. Because these past three months have me feeling like I've definitely been missing something I am suppose to be doing. That I've messed up somehow. 

So what am I suppose to start? Because what I've started before just isn't it.

xoxo

First Thoughts From Twenty Seven

Like most birthdays I don't feel any older or younger when the clock switches the days over. I also don't feel older when the exact time I was born rolls around. I just feel like me. If I'm in the right mindset, and usually I am on/around my birthday, that is a good thing. It means I am full of hopes and dreams and wishes and wants and possible plans for another year.

This year was different. After months of taking things on as negative events and then one last cherry on top (seriously universe, that can be the cherry on top... let's give the heavy stuff sundae a rest for a bit pretty please!) I was definitely not in the normal birthday state of mind. I didn't want to celebrate, though deep down I did, all I really felt like I was able to do was cry, or lay in bed. I didn't lay in bed, I went to two jobs and then dinner with dad's half of my family, and then we got to talking, me and him, because sometimes I really need that... even when I don't want it.

I woke up the day of feeling low, feeling overwhelmed with my life and the lack of control I felt like I had over my brain and everything else. I had spent the last few days considering the world to be a big, scary, risky place that I just didn't have the luck to navigate fully. I was quiet and honestly getting all the different happy birthdays on my phone and on the social networks made me feel sadder. How awful is that? I mean that in a sense of, what was I thinking?! I am such a big advocate of birthdays that feeling off just made me feel even more off. And goals? Ha. Nowhere to be found. I just wanted to weather the storm my brain was brewing hard and fast and then try to crawl out days later to lick my wounds.

Luckily, dad was having no part of that. He wants me to be happy, and we both remember a time when I was very happy, and we're both trying to figure out a way to get me back there. Consistently. He has the bonus of outside perspective and an even more linear mind than I do. He has also been a lot of places, seen a lot of things, had to deal with a lot of different crap, and managed to come out on top... his words have weight.

So we sat and he talked and I cried as I tried to explain my tears and a few things became clear (some to both of us and some to me):

1) I felt like I wasn't in control of my own mind... I've been feeling like this a lot lately, like my thoughts and other things happen to me and I have to then process it. My dad wasn't having too much of that. He acknowledged that yes, our thoughts can sometimes seem to come out of nowhere, but it's up to us to process those thoughts and do everything we can to rewire the negative into positive.

2) I was considering the world to be a scary place. I have let this thought run rampant in my mind for a very long time. Sometimes it holds more weight than others but it's always back there, hanging out. By the end of the conversation, as I was walking to my car to take myself home, I realized the world is not a scary place... it's just a place. Scary and bad things can happen, but that's not the world, that's just life. And because of that I stumbled upon a new personal truth... scary and bad things can and will happen in life, it's a small price we pay for the opportunities we get. It is my job to make positive things happen as well. It is my job to balance it out. I can't protect myself from everything, we can't live in perfect bubbles, we just have to make some (many) of the neutral times great so the bad holds less weight.

3) I perceive my worth as low while my friends, family and many coworkers and bosses (present and past) perceive it to be high.

4) Somewhere in thinking about 3 I fell upon 4 which is another truth/thing to incorporate in my life... instead of always asking why someone likes me or why I got hired or why they keep me around or why they think I deserve a certain amount of money or why they think I'm pretty/funny/cute/smart/etc... I should learn instead to say Thank You. Instead of asking "why" when friends/family/people think you deserve something, say "Thank You." And then feel gratitude and maybe even a sense of accomplishment.


Basically, after all was said and done, the metaphorical cake was eaten, I was given the birthday gift of thought and realization... oh yes, and a little side of power. Power to think differently and know that I do have more control than I was letting myself believe.

Just as a final word, had I been in the right mindset my birthday would have been just as wonderful as any and all before. I have very generous, loving, wonderful friends and family who care about me very much. Their affections are not going unnoticed and I appreciate it very much.

xoxo

Currently Seeking Employment

via

My time at one of my current jobs is coming to an end and I am looking for something to fill that space. In fact, I am looking for something to fill that space as well as take over at least one of my other jobs.
I'm putting the thought out to the universe, talking to my friends, sometime I'll even look at craigslist, though I usually feel a little anxious... but I am starting to make some efforts and bringing it back to the forefront of my mind.

This year my word is endeavor... I'm pretty sure the year itself chose a different word for me as well, but I'm going to keep endeavor, because, more than anything, my goal with it was to grow in my job/career area.

In the past I have gone for jobs that I could easily do, this year I want to go for, and acquire, a job that is at least slightly above the abilities I know I have. So I can grow, and learn and be challenged.

My absolute requirements are as such: challenging and thought provoking, good group of coworkers, pay about $12/hour or more, at least 35 hours per week.

My other wants for the job are: acceptance of nose ring and visible tattoos though I won't always show them. Just don't want to have to hide them.

While I'm searching for that I'm also going to work on my writing, my photography and, well I'm going to keep on reading those self improvement and interesting business books.

If you know of anything dear readers, shoot me a little link or message! If not I'm just using this as another vehicle to get my interests out into the world. New job, I'm coming for you!

xoxo

one day at a time

After giving it some thought, and receiving more tough news I've decided I'm going back to what I use to do with this space. Post randomly, when inspiration strikes, not to have a portfolio or place for people to see the things I do, just a place to put my voice out into the void, because sometimes (often) I have the compulsion to share.

It's only the third month into the year and I've been hit with several hard blows that I'm trying to sort out in my mind. Some things definitely easier than others, some that won't matter in a year from now and others that will matter forever. Some things I will share here, others I will not. I haven't been motivated to write goodbye posts to the two I lost in February... I just don't think the words have fully come to me yet.

My stomach troubles are basically gone, leaving just as mysteriously as they came... but a new health ailment took it's place. This one won't leave. I guess life really wanted me to start eating healthy, exercising and getting into things like meditation and yoga, because that's what I'm going to need to do to manage everything and stay positive. It's not cancer, my estimated lifespan hasn't been shortened, I've just lost some convenience. Life really isn't the concerned with convenient though. So I can't take it personally.

Sometime, hopefully sooner than later, projects will be back up here, photography adventures too... sharing of books and other fun things won't be far behind. I like writing here, I just don't like feeling like I HAVE to write here, or that I shouldn't write certain things.

So here's to March, my birthday month... unfortunately this is the first year I don't feel much like celebrating.

One day at a time though. this too shall pass.

xoxo