An UN-ode to spell check....

Hello Again All Hallow's....

(me and my sweetums 2004, regular ol' store bought costume bits)

I loved Halloween. Seriously, deep in love, will you marry me and live happily ever after in a haunted mansion type love with Halloween. I was totally committed, Halloween of course knew all about Christmas and was ok with our arrangement. BUT, October was dedicated solely to it's needs. We didn't talk about jingle bells, the man with the white beard and trees were ignored in favor of fake spiderweb. Halloween turned a blind eye to the Christmas projects that would creep up earlier and earlier in the year and I'd make the extra effort to carve a jack-o-lantern that had at least 5 spiky teeth. We got a long great.
Halloween let me dress up as a grim reaper, a jester like clown, a black scary cat, an old woman, a cow and a dead bride.....all back in the hay day of our relationship of course. Perhaps I'm actually legally married to Halloween and don't know it.....I'm not sure that spraying one's hair black with fake-o-colour in a can constitutes a binding agreement with a holiday but it damn well should.

(me and my sweetums 2005, costumes made frantically in about 2 hours as Halloween breathed down our necks)

Of course like any relationship, at least like the ones you see on tv (and you just know those are all accurate depictions of real life), Halloween and I grew apart. What with the whole "you're 19 and have been out of high school for a year and are too big to go trick-or-treating any more" attitude I was getting back then.
Now I know better, it wasn't Halloween who pulled away from us...it was me...me and my fear that a 20 something woman was more creepy than cute if she dressed up and kept trick-or-treating in to her thirties..... So I bit back the urge to keep trying, shoved aside years and years worth of feelings and Halloween faded a bit........though I know it was seeing other people. Didn't those little neighborhood brats show up anyways, dressed to the nines as ghouls and goblins, just to shove it in my face that Halloween was with them? I had to satisfy my urges to rip off their masks and just politely hand out the treat bags by pilfering candy from each one before hand. You hear that you little kids of 10 years ago??? You were supposed to get TWO mini chocolate bars plus the soda and chips in each treat bag but you only got..ONE! So ha, sweetest damn chocolate I ever stole.
The nice thing though about a soul mate is that a connection like that just doesn't disappear.

(me and my sweetums 2006, awesome handmade skull heads, wigs and sweetum's armor!)

I know what you're thinking but it's o.k. My sweetie knows all about Halloween, in fact we've come to a pretty good understanding about the whole thing. I don't do any housework during the month of October and he gets to play with my paints and clay. It's a good arrangement, a solid marriage should always be based upon letting your husband paint his own skull and make his own teeth.

( sweetums 2006, check out those teeth, I love a man who can make his own teeth!)

In the beginning, when I moved away from home and got married my sweetums and I experimented a little the during our first year. Dabbled our toes in the spookiest of seasons, bought a little candy. A few hats and some rubber masks.....Testing each other, and of course Halloween...would it have me back??? Would it have us both together? We eyed each other over the wads of fake spider web and tentatively both reached for the little plastic spiders...fingers touched, our eyes met and we both knew.....we both wanted Halloween back. We wanted to experience it together.

(me 2007, a very scary fairy!)

It doesn't happen all at once, you have to work at it but after a few years of marriage we were ready for more. We needed to take Halloween to the next level and we did...oh my we did. We embraced Halloween with open arms, fake blood and teeth bared and were met with the loving acceptance of a holiday that had waited patiently by my side when I stumbled, ready to take me back at a moment's notice. I had just been too blinded with stolen chocolate and stupidity to see this.(me and my sweetums 2007, handmade wings, helmet head pieces etc.)

A holiday that's been turned in to the celebration of costumes and candy....that's my kind of day.
We started out with a few easy costumes, store bought bits and pieces that we wore with childish glee. Then we graduated to embellishing with more custom bits...now the custom bits are embellished with just the occasional store bought bits. Now all our bits and pieces are thrilled and October seems to get bigger every year.
I'm thinking we might even...can I say it? Dare I? We might even go trick-or-treating again some time. Sure our knees will ache like a son of a gun from crouching to look like 10 year olds but...candy...free candy.
Of course I'm jumping the gun here, look at me dreaming about Halloween in February. When I really ought to be planning my latest scheme to catch that damn rabbit. He's got a lot of explaining to do, one year he leaves me a basket full of candy and the next he just ups and doesn't...ever..again. They got names for people..and rabbits like that but they aint purty and my mama reads this (she taught me most of them words, but still, you get my point)

A sweet bone to pick.....

(saigon cinnamon)

I have the loveliest memories of crunching on chicken bones.
Gawwwd, I would munch, and suck and crunch to my lil heart's delight. I would smash them bones with my teeth until all but little pink shards remained in my mouth, slurping on the dark innards, letting the whole mass melt away to sweet nothingness on my tongue. Then pop, crunch..... Start all over again.
My tongue would become incredibly sore but I ignored it's plaintive wail.
“Shaddup tongue, it's chicken bone season.”
And it was, I never lied to my tongue. I might lie to my brothers about who had the last chicken bone...but never to my tongue.
Ahhhh chicken bones.
The last time I had the intense cinnamony, chocolate filled delight was when some kind benevolent soul from the Canadian side of the family sent us a bag for Christmas.
I don't see chicken bones very often (if ever?) in California. In fact I am not even sure the American side of the family would know what I was talking about if I said I had me a hankerin for chicken bones. I might end up with a dismantled piece of poultry if I wasn't careful with my words!
In Nova Scotia, chicken bones (the candy not the skeleton of the bird) were readily available during Christmas. Light pink little round tube-ish bits that were was almost a danger to eat, between the *hot sizzling cinnamon shell that splintered like real bones and revealed the dark chocolate within* AND the addictive *can not possibly just eat 9 and leave them be* nature of them.
So I associate chicken bones with the holidays and a sore tongue. Because I seriously did eat a whole bag at a time, the texture and flavours were that addictive. My goodness I was a chicken bone addict...when Christmas passed I'd shake and shiver for a full hour, licking the pink dust from the bottom of the bag and cursing the fool who only bought enough of the good stuff to last us a few days.
Our supplier was some chicken bone pusher in Truro, Nova Scotia.
We used to sell crafts at the Zonta craft fair every November and some how...coincidentally (yeah frickin right) the chicken bone lady was always set up across from us. It was a pretty dang big fair for the area, over 70 booths, and she some how manages to almost always be across from us? I don't believe in coincidences, I believe in the fine art of stalking your customer and knowing their weakness. I mean she probably tailed me, noticed my nefarious and lustful glances at her goodies and then bribed the candle lady to mover over so she'd be in my direct line of sight!
And there I sat, as innocent as the day is long, surrounded by all our crafty goodness, looking directly across at a lady with nothing but a table piled high with candy.
Chicken bone candy.
Sometimes we'd buy a few bags, all friendly like, to keep the peace in the snooty atmosphere of sly looks and whispered words about each others booths. Better a friend then an enemy in the hot and frantic world of a Christmas craft sale put on by a charitable organization. Hoo boy it could get intense, what with the lil old men tottering up and demanding in suspicious tones if we'd actually MADE all this stuff.
“Yes sir we did!”
“You actually MADE it?? (asked suspiciously with enough derision in his voice to have me thinking I can take an old guy down right quick between chomps of my chicken bones.)
“YES!....ahem..yes sir, we made everything ourselves.”
“Hmmm, some people they buy stuff and then pass it off as their own. This here's a lot of stuff.....Yep, lot -o-stuffff.......... What sort of saw blades you use?”
Quick as a snake this old fool would try to trip me up, as if I might suddenly crack under the pressure of his intense questioning and admit that I own and run a small but tasteful sweat shop.
Luckily I was saved from saying something foul and very un-Christmas like by quickly popping a couple of chicken bones in my mouth and crunching like mad, smiling fiercely, teeth exposed in a pink speckled grin of unwavering intensity as I stared the man down and forced him with nothing but the heat of my gaze back to his own booth to whisper to his wife and glare back at me with vindictive eyes.
Good times, good times.
The closest thing to a chicken bone flavour I could replicate till recently was to eat a handful of red hot cinnamon hearts followed quickly by a chunk of chocolate. But I must admit, though that got me like ¾ of the way there, I haven't done that very often because of my deep and abiding fear of food dyes.
Seriously, the more I think about yellow number 47 and Red number 42 the more I shudder. EVEN if I didn't know they make some red dyes from insects, I'd be bothered by it.....it's just so...wrong.....so damn wrong...
But those chicken bones, those succulent, mind numbing, gots to have as many as I can get chicken bones......I have to face facts....I know cinnamon isn't pink so I'm even beginning to think my memories of chicken bones are sweeter then the actual thing....
But cinnamon...cinnamon hasn't let me down...(yet)
In fact if anything cinnamon has only gotten better or have I?
For I have discovered REAL cinnamon. I mean cinnamon that makes the stuff you buy at the grocery store taste like bitter brown nothingness. BLECCCCK! REAL cinnamon actually tastes so good you can dip your finger in and mmmmmm, straight from the jar. NOT that I do that.
Heck no, even though this saigon cinnamon we get is sooo flavorful that it has a sweetness all it's own and can make cinnamon toast with little to no sugar. EVEN though it's as spicy hot as those dastardly little red hearts...I don't stick my finger in the jar. AND if I did.....by accident several times then y'all can just bugger off it's my cinnamon and I'll slug it from a shot glass if I choose....which I did.
Oh dear, If I can pass along one bit of advice from my wise and doddering age of 30 to all the youngins out there...don't slug cinnamon from a shot glass. Even if you've just stuck a chunk of chocolate in your mouth and a wee tip of a teaspoon of cinnamon to follow so that your mouth can become the scene of a chicken bone flavour factory...even when your senses start reeling from the exquisite combination of reallllly good chocolate and reallllly good cinnamon do not, I repeat...DO NOT SLUG CINNAMON FROM A SHOT GLASS.
It may seem like a brilliant idea to just admit you're going to eat more cinnamon and more chocolate in a slightly manic, one bite after another, after another...after another moment that stretches into at least a half a dozen moments so you might think that being mature and admitting this you ought to just sit down and fully commit to your snack of chocolate chunks and cinnamon.....
But let me tell you, sitting down with a plate of chocolate chunks and a little shot glass of cinnamon you can tip back (hypothetically) and have a little taste of doesn't work. What does work is you ending up breathing cinnamon in a choking out puffs of cinnamon, coughing extravaganza, none of which resembles the desired chicken bone flavour experience you were going for.
Waving wildly at your husband in the universal “I'm ok, Im ok, I'm only breathing cinnamon powder and trying to recover from my lungs violent, albeit correct, response to said attempt at breathing something other than air” hand gestures.
I expect in the future I shall whip up some sort of melted chocolate and cinnamon type delight, something a little safer that doesn't have me coughing up a red hot spicy dust storm and causing my husband to think that any normal person knows what a shot glass is for and it's not for a snoot of cinnamon.
Can I get a “DUH” from the crowd?
But do not worry, I don't blame the cinnamon, it's not to fault. No, I blame the Truro, Nova Scotia craft sale chicken bone candy lady for instilling in me a deep and abiding affection for a treat I can't readily get my hands on.
If both my saigon cinnamon and a bag of chicken bone candies were dangling, precariously of course, over the lip of a volcano and I could only save one I think my decision has already been made. As much as I loved the chicken bones, my brain argues with my tastebuds that we don't care for dyes that much any more and hardly ever buy candy, so why not save the cinnamon? The potential in a handful of REALLY kick your ass good cinnamon is much greater than a bag of cinnamon candies.
Hmmmmmm I just had a thought....*runs to the kitchen to check something out*

(very sad but honest to goodness extremely tiny sample of cinnamon coca powder toast made with left over bread crust bits I scrounged from the bread box thingy)

Oh man...cinnamon....cocoa powder.....this is a very very very good combination. I am now in agonies because there is no bread made or else I'd be whipping up some crunchy, buttery cinnamon, coca powder toast and sitting back dreaming of chicken bones.
Instead I'm contemplating a wee tiny shot glass of cinnamon and cocoa mixed together.............
This is also one of those moments where I am severely ticked off at the bread maker for not keeping us well stocked in bread for such cinnamon, cocoa powder testing emergencies. (Never mind that I'm the bread maker, I can be mad at myself can't I?)
But wait, I'm more then just the bread maker...I'm a gull dang biscuit maker when I want to be is what I am........and biscuits can be made in like 30 minutes...I'll be right back.....
(time passes, approximately 30 some minutes if you're picky about such things........)
One batch of biscuit dough, dived in two, one half flattened on a cookie sheet and covered with a mixture of coca powder, cinnamon and brown sugar, second half of dough spread over the top. Baked, one big cinnamon chocolate biscuit sandwich. Taste test...YUM! Second taste test...mmmmm YUM!
It's not a chicken bone.....but it is warm, cinnamony, like a cinnamon roll only flat and with chocolate. A chocolate, cinnamon flat.
Hearty enough for the grownup in me, not a speck of unnatural colour added, and best of all, satisfies the incredibly overpowering chocolate/cinnamon taste I have been craving for the better part of forever now..........

Vanity Overcome...damn it.

Please note that this is indeed a before photo, the small pink blotch to the left of the line was a cold sore starting to come up. Next time I swear I'll get a better photo. Turns out the auto white balance plus the horrid bathroom lighting equals a photo that we feel doesn't do my almost cold sore justice. Also you have to trust that I do know dang well what a cold sore feels like and this was going to be one.

This is the after photo. I added the red lines for reference on my lips and also cause I heard vertical lines are slimming..... It's hard to tell but the pink blotch is gone, here it is a half hour later and no cold sore appeared and my sanity is still intact! Oh Goody!

How to find out very quickly just how vain you are. Even if you don't think you are, at all. As in not a drop of make-up, no hair product, perfumes of any kind. Not vain. Acknowledge the silver hairs popping up on your head with a nod and a wink and a promise that they'll stay silver as you've no desire to dump chemicals on your brain.
You might feel pretty damn comfortable in your own skin and it's only the occasional pair of girly socks that have stripes, or polka dots, oohhh or anything fuzzy wuzzy that captures your inner sparkly pink girl self and make you strut about with your jeans hiked up so people can admire an extra inch or two of your prettied up ankles.
Nope, not vain.
Certainly comfortable enough to have your husband take a super macro photo of your face, not even your face, just your lips....for the greater good of course. Not for anything kinky. Not that I'm saying the greater good is mutually exclusive of kinky things.
It's all because of the damn cold sores.
Evil, nasty little teenage years ruining buggers that always have popped up *coincidentally* on picture day at school, or the first day of school, or the day before school starts, or at school or any time some one so much as mentions the world school.
I do not miss being a teenager. Back then cold sores had their way with me. I didn't care if it was a tiny pink spot (relatively speaking) on my face. That a cold sore had nothing absolutely to do with who I was, they hurt, itched and drove me maddddddddddddd.
UNTIL....
(there's always a dramatic *until* and a breath of anxious silence when something amazing is about to be revealed.)
Until...Tetrasil.
I love Tetrasil. It's the most amazing, relatively inexpensive product that ACTUALLY WORKS that I have ever had the pleasure of running in to.
I have wrote about it before, but it's so good it deserves it's own damn blog. Ode to Tetrasil every day. Songs, poems and fine pieces of art should all be dedicated to Tetrasil. People should name their kids after this product it's sooooo goood.
The ONLY salve I have EVER tried that can actually STOP a cold sore. STOP one.
Hooo boy, It got a little warm in here didn't it?
It's just so dang amazing. It would be like you discovered that you could breath under water, would you not brag that up? Would you not want to redirect every conversation around to the absolute amazingnest of being able to breathe under water?
It's like that.
The only disclaimer I have is that I can not say for sure that Tetrasil would work the same for every one as it has for me. As every one, though human (er..I hope) is not the same. Some people can eat cashews, some people get rashes and a belly ache from them. So I fully admit there's a possibility if you're stalked by cold sores as I am that there's a chance Tetrasil won't work for you.
But I hope it does.
Now to clarify about Tetrasil stopping a cold sore I have learned this fact for myself through trial and error. As in the first second I feel the tell tale itch, burning, tingly, make me wanna rip my lip off feeling I TRY and run (with out error) to one of my many many tubes of Tetrasil to slather my lip up. If I do it fast enough, and keep the Tetrasil on long enough the pink swelling that is beginning to occur will go away. Fairly fast. If you've already got the blisters that appear it's probably too late to make the cold sore reverse, you need to catch it the INSTANT you feel/see it appear.
If you have had a cold sore coming on and have tried all the "put ice on it" "put a tea bag on it" "put your fist through the wall" type advice to stop one I'm betting it didn't work.
Cold sores are like this freaky little bit of evilness that resides amongst humans, preying on their stress and lips and making us think dark nasty thoughts about nuclear means of removing one...bleck. I hate them.
But I can't remember the last time I had one. I'm pretty sure when I did it was one that popped up while I was asleep, ASLEEP! Can you fricking believe it? I mean good golly what kind of war is that? Sneak up on your enemy while they're asleep and do your worst??? I learned my lesson though, I keep a tube of Tetrasil on my night stand and if I wake up in the night and so much as think the word "cold sore" I slather up. I'd rather be safe, salved up rather than sorry.
Perhaps I AM vain, that a little pink bump or sore can cause me so much unresolved anger and make me want to wear a brown paper bag, simple but stylish, not to mention recyclable, over my head when one of them gets past my defenses.
The other night I felt a cold sore coming on. Seven and a half piercing screams later I tore across the room for my handiest tube of Tetrasil.
You know how in the cartoons when a character is going so fast that when they stop they skid to a halt with smoke coming up from their heels? Well that was me, I swear I've got carpet burn oh my heels, so abruptly did I slam on my brakes and started hollering to my husband "GET THE CAMERA, GET THE CAMERA!"
The things I will do for my fellow cold sore sufferers.
I danced on the balls of my feet, hands flailing as I stood in the unforgiving bathroom light calling out as sanely as possible to my husband "HURRY HURRY HURRY, ACCK HURRRRRRRY, JUST TAKE A PICTURE ALREADY!!!!!!"
So he swooped in, camera in hand, blazing a path of point and shoot glory to my face.
(That's what's cool about my husband, I start running round like a nut screeching that he should grab the camera and take a photo of my lips as fast as he can and he does it.)
He snaps the photo, I slather up in Tetrasil until the tell tale itching and slight pain has gone away and I sigh in relief when I clean my face and see the beginnings of a cold sore has left the premises.
SWEET!!
Victory is mine once more.
Much more calmly I ask for an after photo, again super macro.
Little did I realize the tizzy that a super macro of one's own face would do to one's self.
HAIR????
I HAVE HAIR ON MY FACE????????? My pores are like the fricking craters on the moon, good God it's a wonder my husband and 2 cats haven't fallen in and been lost for ever. Perhaps I should keep some spelunking supplies near by so should there be an accident I could throw some rope in after the loved one who got too close.
SEE!
See what I mean, where in the hell did that unexpected pocket of vanity come from?????
Go ahead, take a super macro (which is closer than a regular macro) of your own face, not even the whole face. No just a nice close shot that only fits like 8 skin cells in the frame and take the photo under lovely fluorescent light and have a gander at it on your computer. Where you can see a part of your own face 17 times bigger on the screen.
17!!!! This is not a number I pulled out of my...er..head like I do sometimes for fun. This is an actual "Honey get over here and please help me figure out how much bigger the super macro photo of my lips is on my computer screen than my real life itsy bitsy lips are."
My sweetie brings his trusty measuring tape, measures my lips, then we measure the lips on the screen and I'm looking at a whopping 17 times larger image of my self.
ewwwwwww. damn it, get me a hammer so I knock some sense into the vain brain cells that have come to life upon seeing my own face that close up.
My only consolation is that I took the photos for the greater good, so I would have proof that a cold sore was coming up and that a few minutes later after an application of my bestest inanimate friend (Tetrasil not my coffee maker) all over the spot it was gone. And STAYED gone. Till what ever nice real life moment it should choose to attack me again. Most likely during an episode of StarGate Atlantis, or when I'm next in line at the DMV or am up to my elbows in glue. Because don't think for one second a cold sore will appear when...say, you have the weapon to repel it in your hand. Nope, it spies on you and waits till your kitchen timer is going off, you're about to burn supper, the phone rings and the cat checks to see if you can keep your balance after running hell bent for leather at your legs in a mini feline body slam. THAT is when a cold sore will try and get you. Which is why I have a tube beside my bed, one in the bathroom, one in the glove compartment of the car plus a spare.
Not to mention I carry one of those tubes in my pocket if we're leaving the house or the safety of our little car for any longer then it takes to pop in to Trader Joe's and buy 3 cans of French Roast Coffee beans.
My point about the vanity.... I do have a point, it may be dull and need a bit of sharpening but it's still there, trust me.
My point is I came this close *holds up thumb and pointy finger together so that a mere fraction of a molecule of space is between them* to just dumping the photos and saying to heck with it.
Silly huh, as if other humans don't have pores, nearly invisible facial hairs and the occasional cold sore. Nothing like a sit down with one's own conscience for a heart to heart about what's really important in the world to make one feel silly, childish and embarrassed about one's small bout of teenage vanity.
My bottom line, I use Tetrasil and it's done so much good for me I hope it can help some one else. You can read a zillion testimonials but a little photo evidence goes a long way. Plus my husband doesn't have vision that is super macro where he can see my skin 17 times larger then it really is so who cares if I've got an entire circus troop living below my lip. (I don't I checked.)
Yahoooooo for me for acting like a grown up and defeating yet another cold sore.

Said to person off screen after I think I'm all done though my fingers sneakily keep typing, unbeknownst to me: "Can I get my treat now? But, you said if I did this I got a treat? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF TREAT IS THAT? Alleviating my conscious? Personal growth? A PERSONAL GROWTH IS WHAT GOT ME INTO THIS MESS IN THE FIST PLACE. Fine, I said FINE...yes I would like a coffee."

p.s. I can not leave you with just the image of my lips and thoughts of coldsores. Here are some pretty flowers, see the pretty flowers. Aren't the flowers pretty? Soooo Pretty. You have experienced only sunshine and prettiness here today.
(actual photo of pretty flowers)

We Survived the Pancakes....

No seriously, these were Pancakes that didn't kill us. JOY!
I didn't get cutesy and make my valentine's day breakfast for my sweetums and I into heart shapes.
I could have, I made super hearty pancakes with batter so thick I could have formed it into balls if I wanted to.
Maybe I should have made pancake snowmen. 3 dimensional snowmen would have been a cool Valentine's breakfast but I'm thinking it would have been a little too big for one meal. I suppose I could have made just one, one nicely rounded, foot high pancake snowman and we could have shared....but digging into the soft belly of anything, even a pancake snowman isn't the way to start a Valentine's day (or any other for that matter)
I'm quite satisfied with the thick blobby pancakes that we had and that they didn't kill us.
My husband said if it was going to be our last meal that as far as last meals go it was a pretty good one. They were more than good they were delicious, perhaps it was the possibility of getting sick that made them ever the more sweeter...?
Did I not mention yet the questionable ingredient I added to my mix?
Not arsenic or cyanide as my husband guessed. He's funny that way, happily chowing down on his breakfast with thoughtful pauses while he savors a bite and finally announces in a weird little British accent "I do not detect any hints of arsenic."
When I was making breakfast I was on auto pilot, which is never a good thing when you're cooking. Thinking all the thoughts one usually thinks when performing a semi mindless task I've performed many times before. Crack an egg in to the bowl but think about whether aliens are real. Scoop up some flour and a couple of teaspoons of baking powder but the mind is reviewing the proper way to shift gears in a standard transmission. Stirring the whole mass of batter and wondering why on God's green earth they'd keep a show like Battle Star Galactica on the scifi channel BUT NOT the Dresden Files. You know, all the usual mind wanderings a person has.
So when it came time for the liquid portion of the pancakes my eyes spied the jar of raw (un-pasteurized) heavy cream that had been in the fridge longer than I could remember.
It didn't rot!
We'd already had a delightful scientific-esque moment one day a few weeks ago as we marveled at how the heavy cream had gotten heavier. Thicker and sort of cheesy smelling. Both of us bravely stuck a finger in and tried it, both of us remained in perfect health so we just put the jar back in the fridge to see what it would do.
See, that right there, that's the difference between me and the food network cooks. When I'm making something I don't just cook to fill the belly and make a pretty plate, I wanna see what something does. In this case did this elderly heavy cream kill my sweetums and I?
If you've been holding your breath waiting to see how this turns out go ahead and suck in a little oxygen, we didn't die. I made pancakes with questionable heavy cream and not only did we not die, we enjoyed them and didn't even get sick.
You can't ask for a better Valentine's than that now can you?
Oh, wait, actually we can. We toasted the evening, ourselves, and life with almond champagne at the end of the day we survived, having had killer pancakes that turned out to be un-killer!

The pancakes are my standard mix I use around here and occasionally throw something extra in to. Not always something as strange as the cream. You're probably all grossed out now and could care less about the recipe but here it is. My recipe is adapted and modified greatly from one I found on Quaker Oatmeal's website. You can go see the original if my version doesn't float your boat.

Incredibly Heart-y Pancakes
(Good for Valentine's day and the day after.)

1 cup of 100% whole wheat stone ground flour
1/4 cup of ground flax seed
1/2 cup of rolled oats (I usually use a nice heaping 1/2 cup, loves me oats!)
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of grey sea salt
1 1/4 cup of milk, water, kefir or what ever liquid blows your bubbles on the day of making (ie: antique cream thinned with water)

(Optional Add-Ins, please note for me these are not optional they're must haves and all at once)
A handful or more of salted, roasted pecans
a handful of golden raisins
and a nice amount of grated nutmeg, like a teaspoon (I never measure)
Also a sprinkling of poppy seeds until you feel you've got enough.
and one glug of dark rum, (a nice option instead of vanilla)

Mix all together, reveling in the thick hearty batter that you could probably use to spackle any holes you have or glue some bricks together. Fry in a medium heat, lightly greased cast iron skillet. Let them get good and toasty brown, flip and give the same attention to the other side. Be wary of the fact they're so thick that they may need more time then you're used to with pancakes.
Eat with a little dollop of REAL butter, homemade orange marmalade, saigon cinnamon, honey and optional molasses or maple syrup. All of which can be used one at a time or all together.

(I preferred my homemade orange marmalade and cinnamon on my pancakes)

This recipe makes one humongous massive pancake (if you're into the sort of thing and have a skillet big enough) or approximately 5 or 6 medium sized pancakes. Cripes, I hate this sort of thing. Cause what if your medium size and my medium size differ, so maybe it would make 8 medium sized for you cause your medium seized is a 3 inch in diameter pancake.....my brain hurts.
Please note these are very hearty pancakes. They stick to your ribs, fill your belly and will not leave you hungry. I usually can only finish one and a half in a siting cause they're so filling. Yummmmmmmmmm!

(honey drizzled on my husband's pancakes)

Ravishing Radishes...

This one is going to be short and sweet, if you're in the mood for long and bitter then I'll warn you now you won't get it here.
Today was a lovely day, I mean TRULY lovely. Blue sky, birds chirping like crazy, blossoms scenting the air with their perfume and long sunny patches of light sliding across the carpet all afternoon.
Sure there was the one moment of screeching when the cat stuck her paw under the screen door and some how, miraculously, poked a lizard enough to make his tail fall off.
(I did the screeching, girlie yes but do you want me to lie?)

Why the lizard was under the door and hanging out within inches of a cat breathing down it's neck through the screen...I dunno.
How long did I look for a tailless lizard to see if he needed medical assistance...I won't say. Assistance, HA! he needed a tail! Which I had.....but I'm sorry.... as much as I'm all for animal health care I can't be doing lizard surgery on a day as nice as today was...I just can't. Even if I had already picked out the right salve to use and a pretty little lizard appropriate bandage and a tiny thimble of whiskey to ease it's pain.....perhaps he didn't run from the cat but from the screeching woman with visions of Do-It-Yourself lizard repair in her eyes.
Shoot, this was going to be short and sweet.
Well maybe it isn't such a lovely day, failed at providing proper medical attention for my little reptilian friend and now I've lied about the length of this post.
*sticks tongue out*
Life carried on after the whole lizard drama in the afternoon. We petted the cat so she wouldn't be emotionally scarred, then abandoned her to run errands around town.
Later we dined on salad with all sorts of good things in it. Radishes, celery, garlic, vegenaise, red onion, cheese, carrot, broccoli, the kitchen sink, sour cream, red wine vinegar, sea salt, black pepper and rice.
It was delicious but my favorite part was the radishes...as you may have already guessed by now...and if you haven't then I bet you're one of those “long and bitter” people I mentioned earlier..hmmmm?
I wonder if there's a world record for longest radish tail...ohhhhh Gawwwd, did I say tail? I think I just had a Freudian moment here.........
Well what else do you call the long skinny part of a radish? A root? Today I'm thinking tail seems appropriate, considering I whacked them off with my knife.......much as the farmer's wife did to the 3 blind mice.....it's a day for physically challenged critters I am beginning to realize.
But these radish tails, they were marvelous, I mean each was a real work of art. I couldn't have improved upon them in any way at all....or could I?
You know how some times your own crafty nature crosses the line into just plain weirdness?
How you find yourself braiding radish tails and thinking it's just about the prettiest thing you ever saw?
You “short and sweet” people understand, I know you do.
If radish braiding becomes a sport or an art form or something I want full credit, my name in lights and a fully equipped medic response team for lizards at my disposal 24 hours a day. Plus I'd also like a shrink for my cat, cause what was she thinking trying to catch a lizard??? For fun or food? Either way it's disturbing.

Mama Marmalade....

I have been making orange marmalade.
Then eating orange marmalade.
Then rapidly realizing my eating orange marmalade to making orange marmalade ratio is way off.
The appalling facts are that if I continue at the same rate of chowing down on sweet, citrusy goodness with just the right amount of bitter and NOT producing more of this sunshine in bottle, at the current rate of speed...it means....KABOOOOOOMMMYYYYYY
Marmalade melt down.
This is allllwaaaays the problem with making something yourself that's waaaay better then what you get at the store. Once you have mastered (I can be called a master after 2 batches...right?) some new and secret technique that house wives and gourmet cooks and jam makers have already been doing for years, breaking open the barrier of silence around something as exotic as ORANGE Marmalade....you can't go back. But....unfortunately you're too lazy to get off yer ass and make some more.
Damn it, why did I have to be so awesome at making orange marmalade? Why does a recipe for it only make a pitiful few bottles that some of us, in a haze of orangey goodness, already promised out for their Mother. Damn Mom for being so good to me, for sharing homemade wild strawberry jam, if she'd been more of a bee-otch then I could hoard my precious stash of orangey delight all to myself.
But no, my Mother has to be all sweet and caring and sharing with her only daughter....damn it.
So here I sit, orange tree loaded, mocking me with it's silent but fruit filled presence. My orange Marmalade supply rapidly depleting, feeling secure in trying my hands at a new technique but oddly guilty over casting a lustful eye on the promised out bottle.
I'll crack. Oh it's no secret, I'd eat me own dear mother's orange marmalade before giving up this goodness for good.
*sigh*
It shall not come to this though as I have a plan. One that involves launching my self physically from this trap that is my computer chair and in to a frenzy of jam making that shall provide me with at LEAST a few bottles more of what is quite possibly elixir of the Gods.
You think I'm exaggerating? No jam could be that good? HA! Ha, I say! My sweetie pie says it's the BEST orange marmalade he's ever had and confirms that it is indeed elixir of the Gods, would both of us say that if it were not true? If I was going to lie I can guarantee you it would be about something a hell of a lot more useful like an alibi for when the last scrapings of homemade birthday ice cream disappeared completely with out so much as a "would you like some?" for any one...muaahhh ahhh ahhh (by the way I was out picking oranges when that happened....I swear)
I'm not looking for an excuse to keep the bottle of jam that's ear marked for my Mother though. I mean if I did need one the obvious would be that orange marmalade is the longest jam making process I have ever participated in. I mean no offense mom but what did you do? Go out and pick a few handfuls of wild strawberries that are so itsy bitsy you have to practically crawl through the grass to find them and risk getting bit by mosquitos and God knows what else and risk swelling up the way you do when you do get bit by God knows what else...ummmmm.........this isn't heading the direction I had intended which was a comparison of my extremely labor intensive marmalade making process to my Mother's easy squeezy strawberry jam making process.
On a completely unrelated note my Mother once beaned me in the head with a soup ladle, it was by accident but I think now I deserve it.
*sigh again*
O.k., O.k., you'll get your Marmalade, that you never even asked for and I'll make some more for me so I can have some too and we'll all be satisfied in a very sticky sweet way.

(please note that the spoon in the photo is one I stole from my Mom so I think I might have to send her two jars of m-m-m-y Marmalade. Damn it.)

FREE Tutorial: How to turn....

STEP ONE: the first requirement for turning 30 is that you must be at least 29 before beginning this process.
If you are unsure of your age then please, let me help you determine if you are about to knock on 30's door and actually have it answered.

• Do you scowl at clusters of teenagers and wonder if giving the finger is illegal?
• Do you find yourself backpedaling at high rates of speed away from persons who are so heavily doused in scent they smell like they own stock in a perfume/cologne factory?
• Do you reach for well aged whiskeys and tequila over sugary candy colored schnapps and gag at the idea of neon green margaritas?
• Do you avoid going to the theater when it will be full of youngin's?
• Do you know what calories are and hate them with a passion born in the fiery depths of hell over their DAMNABLE existence?
• Do you feel like you know the answers to every body else's problems and have to bite your tongue in half to avoid speaking said answers aloud?
• Do you drink water?

If you answered yes to all of the above then you are probably about to hit 30 and can proceed with the rest of the tutorial.

STEP TWO: The second requirement for turning 30 is at least two kinds of homemade ice cream. Any less is unacceptable and any more isn't fair as I myself only made two.

(salted butter caramel ice cream from a recipe by genius David Lebovitz.)

STEP THREE: Turning 30 is a big deal, it's important that you let loose and go a little wild on this most important day.
Remember that in most countries what ever you do on your 30th birthday is considered legal no matter what it is.....huh?.......WAIT!
This just in, my conscience/legal adviser has asked me to add that actually all the same laws apply to a 30 year old as they do to a 29 year old..............umm......I may have some explaining to do to the kind people at the San Diego Wild Animal Park then. BUT in our own defense we make out a little in every elevator we get on...so.....it's not like we're amateurs here.

(face to face with a lion is a truly wild experience, sure there was an inch of glass between he and I but when he roared...my skin crawled in a deliciously scaredy cat way.)

STEP FOUR: This one is a little trickier, as you need to have at the VERY least 2 strong espresso type drinks on the day celebrating your birth. Preferably iced, with a tiny touch of sweetness and a drop of raw cream. They should be had at such times as to fully experience and enjoy the wonder that is fricking good coffee. It will be up to you to decide if that is in the morning, in the afternoon...one right after the other or spaced apart? There are a lot of variables and you should really start planning this special day weeks in advance so as not to find yourself chugging coffee at any moment just to get it down so you can move on to the next item on your birthday list.

STEP FIVE: The feast. Every 30 year old gets a feast on their birthday. It's a known fact. You may choose up to 86% of what your feast will be.

(My feast consisted of fast easy home fries that I will blog about in the future, homemade tartar sauce with horseradish and pickled jalapeños, beer battered cod, GIANT crab legs, mixed lettuce salad and every sauce and condiment I could carry. Please note these TV TRAYS are the bestest things for your dinner AND a movie turning thirty celebration.)

What ever you choose, it could be anything, just be sure it's the sort of meal that makes your husband say things like "Good God, the fridge looks niiiiice." when he's digging in it for ingredients to help cook your fabulous meal extravaganza.

STEP SIX: A good movie and good company.
You will need to rest your feet anyways after a long day of running wild. (see above step three).

(my good company, best husband in the world!!)

The movie should be sufficiently scary that you gasp in shock at least 5 times but not SO scary you are a quivering ball of fear whose hands shake so bad they are nothing but a blur of 30 year old fingers.

STEP SEVEN: This is not so much something that you do as it is something that will just happen. When you turn 30 you will be endowed with special powers. The sort that makes people look at you with shock, awe and respect. It may or may not involve levitating and mind reading, every one is different. If you start shooting lasers out of your eyes though I'd be interested to know as that's the one I wanted to get and I didn't.....aw well, luck of the draw I suppose.

Congratulations, if you have followed these steps carefully and with great reverence then you too are now 30 years old! Welcome fellow Thirty-arian!

Why Some People Can't Have Nutella.....

Celebrate all that is Nutella on February 5th!

Once upon a time a young woman lost her Nutella innocence in the parking lot of a Trader Joe's.

Logically this woman knew what she was in for, logically.
That Nutella was a chocolate hazelnut type spread, it said so right on the jar did it not? Said young woman liked chocolate and coincidentally hazelnuts so she decided what the heck, I'll give this Nutella a whirl.
What was the harm? (insert ominous, foreboding music here)
She threw a jar of the Nutella into her basket this one fine shopping day and moved on towards the more mundane things on her list, candied ginger, coffee beans and tortilla chips.
Now it might come as surprise to some people exactly all the things this woman was known to get into whilst in a parked car. Whilst in a parked car in front of a Trader Joe's on a sunny day.
She'd sample cheddar cheese right off the block, who needs a knife just bite off a hunk and enjoy. She'd scoop into ice cream with her emergency ice cream spoons always kept in the glove compartment of the car. She'd nibble on bits of bread ripped from the loaf, on handfuls of nuts and occasionally a gourmet soda.
She was a car snacker.
But it's ok, so was her husband.
So they basked in sinful car snacking glory together. Sitting under the hot California sun, with the air conditioning running and harried shoppers giving them the evil eye as they'd yet to give up their parking spot.
So this one day, happily sampling the goodies they'd bought. Sitting in piles of crumbs and grinning toothily at each other over their respective snacks of choice. (He salty, she sweet) The woman glances coyly under her eyelashes at her husband, cranks the air conditioning up another notch and breathily asks her sweettie..."Care to try something........different?"
He pauses, handful of tortilla chips clutched in his hands and slides his wicked blue eyes towards her. "What did you have in mind?"
This was the moment.
The moment before everything changed.
The silence stretched out, thin and sweet in the summer heat as she drew the jar of Nutella from her bag. Triumphantly showed it to her husband, cooed over the colour, the shape of the jar and pointed out that since it was both nuts AND chocolate that it covered both of their craving preferences.
"Let's do it." her husband purred, grabbing the emergency ice cream spoons from the glove compartment, silver glinting in the bright sun, smiling contentedly they popped open the lid.
Can you see it?
The way time slowed to a crawl?
The way they dug their spoons into the Nutella, unknowing of what they were about to unleash?
The drifting laughter from a child passing by the car with their mother. The music on the cd player fades to the background of the moment. The way the light caught the dull glossy spoonful of chocolate nut spread just so, ahhhh just so, as it traveled, for what seemed like an eternity to their mouths?
Nostrils flaring as the rich scent leaps ahead of the spoon, eager to greet their noses. The fading smiles, the open mouths, eyes widening first in shock and pleasure, then narrowing. Darting towards the still open jar that one of them holds.
Which one?
Does it really matter?
There is a small moment of recollection in the woman's memories, of the intensity of flavor and lush silky texture that greeted her unsuspecting tongue. Of the unbridled lust for something she'd barely begun to taste. Of hearts beating faster, breaths quickening and suddenly the air conditioning can not keep the car cool enough.
There's an intense flash point of taste, lust and greed rolled together in one amazing Nutella sized ball.
Two spoons descend in perfect harmony towards the jar, they clash, metal rings brightly, impossibly the spoons tangle together like lovers, unable to part. Each vying for the open jar, each desperately trying to dive into the new heavenly delight that has been discovered, right here on earth.
Everything grows dark as greed takes over.
She doesn't know what happened. There are days of darkness that will never be regained, sweet chocolate scented memories that flit away into nothingness. Some how they got home.
It's as if it never happened, though the inside of the car is suspiciously clean, all but for an empty jar. It too oddly clean, as sparkly spit shined up like a new penny.
As she stands there, dizzy for a moment, memories burrowing deeper into her subconscious, as if hiding from the light, she recalls the moment of revelation.
The one conscious, full memory of glory that was Nutella on her tongue for the first time. Then nothing more till this moment.
She doesn't wonder what happened.
It's best to leave some things be.
She buries the jar in the recycling bin, and even with out memory she knows...some things are so powerful, some things are so intense that they are not for human minds, hands or tongues.
Life goes on for she and he.....
Though occasionally, when walking through Trader Joe's their footsteps falter as they pass the Nutella.
Hands unconsciously reach, in perfect synchronistic movements towards the jars at the same time, they hover, shaking over the closest one. Hers bumping his, his bumping hers. Fingers finally curling into fists, retracting....the moment passes and they get peanut butter instead. Faithful, trusty old peanutbutter.
They can be trusted with peanut butter.

(on a completely un-related to the dark, sinful Nutella ways, note.....if you think you can handle something so freaking good it will blow your mind then I invite you to partake of the rich decadent flavours of Nutella. If you're like me...er...um.....that is....I mean.....if you're like SOME people who choose to remain anonymous and can not be trusted around delicious goodies and have a will power that is so non-existent it actually registers as a negative number then...beware...beware.)

Weathering the Changes....

It's happened.
There was no bell ringing to alert me of the change. No deep toned gong that reverberated through the house, my ears and soul. Not even, if you can believe it, one little alert from any one, anything or all.
There was no hint, or forewarning that it was even ABOUT to happen. It just did. Quietly, and with out warning I have changed.
I'm a Southern Californian. Oh hell yeah I knew that part, logically, already. You can't go through the whole INS paper work love fest with out KNOWING what you're doing and becoming....at least on paper. A permanent resident of the United States, fine, sounds good, specifically a resident of Southern California. Sounds better. And I was prepared for what that all meant.....on paper.
BUT
I didn't realize how I'd be changed on a molecular level.
I am thinking it is a mixture of living in a sunny state of existence for so long now, increasing my pepper consumption by over 7839% and having only touched snow once now in the last 7 years.
And that snow was in the desert after a quickie trip to Las Vegas so I hardly think it even qualifies as snow.
I mean sure it had all the right qualities, icy, white, frozen and on the ground but....it was in the desert. Cacti, rocks and tumble weed live in the desert....so what ever this frozen white mounds of stuff was....it wasn't REAL snow.
It's more like the third cousin twice removed from snow. (so says the former resident of Nova Scotia, Canada)
All I know is today it's raining, the sky is grey and the wind is whipping about and I stare out across the neighbor's yards from behind the safety of the patio doors. At how wet the ground is. At the puddles that have formed here and there and how everything is green and shimmery, slick with rain....barely February mind you, and I am shivering.
Imagining the trek to the grocery store through such miserable dark weather as akin to tramping through 2 feet of snow down an icy driveway just to check the mail. Oh wait. I've done that.
I've lived through 20 plus Canadian winters, have oodles of family STILL experiencing the joys of knocking snow off their firewood and drying mittens out by the fire and sitting close to the wood stove and eating hot soups and sitting under the blankets with hot soup in your lap and your feet soaking in another bowl of hot soup as you sip a mug of hot soup and try to relax the slight tick under your right eye when the weather man says cheerfully "only 3 inches tomorrow" Lovely.
And it can be, there's no denying the elemental beauty of snow. But when you get away from it, out from under the hypnotic spell of winter after winter....after winter.....after yet anotttthhhhhherrr winter, the never ending cycle of nice weather followed by freezing your toes and other even more important bits off, you change. Be it for better or for worse you change.
I changed.
I didn't mean to. I didn't make any sort of conscious decision.
But I've changed.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, my husband kindly points out "it's all relative." I agree, but am only reminded once more of my Canadian relatives, big strong Canadians, who casually mention that the schools were closed today because temperatures dropped to -45 degrees Celsius. I shivered so hard at the thought that I fell off my chair and had to console myself with chocolate....
Later, I contemplate the insanity of REAL winter weather like that as I shivered some more in my t-shirt while picking oranges off the tree out back. Glaring up at the California sky that has dared to darken with much needed storm clouds. Actual drops of rain fell and splattered on my arms, IT TOUCHED MY SKIN! And I shivered, ran for the safety indoors, in to the arms of my husband and more chocolate. Oh yes I have certainly changed, she who once ran outside in a t-shirt when it was MINUS degrees out, literally in a blizzard to grab a stick of ice coated firewood with bare hands. She who stepped out on to a snow covered porch in bare feet to grab the cat who wanted in. She who now babbles incoherently, chocolate smeared face, wide eyed pointing in distress at the drops of rain on the oranges to her husband.
Once, when we were walking down the stairs one evening to the car, we paused, literally to smell the flowers. Mysterious little unnamed blooms that smell sweeter then any rose and I saw my breath puff out in distinct white clouds. YEAH, it was THAT cold.
After I awoke from my dead faint, we continued on our merry way to the grocery store, ran our errands, drove back home under the waving branches of palm trees and twinkling stars and agreed that we were both glad we wore our gloves and that we'd best light a fire in the fire place as soon as we were inside.
Yep.......I've changed.
There used to be a time when snow drifted against the side of the house and I crunched on icicles I found outside. Made snow balls with my bare hands, rolled in the snow making angels and went sledding for hours.
Now, well...now....when the skies are grey and the patio slippery with rain, when the palm trees shiver so do I. When puddles gather on the patio, rain drops splash against the windows and when the wind howls...so do I.
I've most definitely changed.

(dressed in all my fine cold weather gear to brave the elements in the out of doors.)