today i learned...

today i learned: that i shouldnt wear jeans with metal snaps or buttons on the back pockets to school. they do not go well with hard plastic chairs

That good-for-your-soul kind of day...

I was up late last night studying for an exam. I set two alarms this morning to make sure I got up on time. I actually woke up early, and was able to celebrate that glorious I-still-have-an-hour-to-sleep feeling. When my alarm went off, I enjoyed the beautimous white light beaming through my new bedroom curtains. Got dressed with a quickness, let the dog out, and ran off to 711 to fuel my morning.

At first, I was going to thank 711 for saving my rushed morning with blueberry coffee and glazed donuts and loading me with a freebie chocolate bar. On further inspection, however, I realized I was totally hustled by the lady who runs that place. As soon as I set my coffee and donuts on the counter, she plucked a chocolate bar out of a box on the counter, and said "it goes with the coffee today" as she scanned it, then took $1 off. I figured, free chocolate? Heck yeah! But when I checked my receipt I realized the chocolate bar was $1.29, and, you guessed it - with $1 off that means I paid $0.29 that I didn't intend to on a chocolate bar I didn't (really) want. Smooth, 711 lady, smooth. I wonder how many people she did that to today? And how many of them didn't notice the difference? But, you can see how much I'm upset about it - I still have the chocolate bar. And I ate part of it, too.

Anyhow, I got to class with plenty of time to review my notes and I think I did really well on my exam, including the extra credit essay question. I got home about 12:30 and decided it was finally time to plant the peach tree I bought a couple of weeks ago. I put on my big lime green rubber boots and went to it. Which is the real point of this story: I spent all afternoon in the back yard getting my hands dirty and I loved every moment of it. I got to dig up plants, re-pot said plants, plant seeds, plant a tree, hang a planter, fill a planter,  save a spider (by accident), kill a spider (not by accident), mow the lawn, pick oranges, and smell the upcoming orange blossoms.
The little bugger that started this whole afternoon a la nature was Gusty, the ultra dwarf peach tree I bought from the big orange box two weeks ago. So I named my tree. So what.

So... the bottom of tree is wrapped up in a bag full of "stuff" and has been sitting on my back porch, not watered and not visited (except by the green spider I found on it today, the one I saved, by accident), for two weeks. I was getting a little worried that it wouldn't last much longer, but upon tearing it open and digging it out I found it was healthy as can be. An independent little bugger.


 The directions on the bag are meant for planting in the ground, even though this small tree is well suited to growing in a large pot, which is great cuz mama ain't diggin a hole in her backyard. So first and foremost I cut the bag open and dumped out the "packing material" that keeps the roots moist.

Its essentially pine chips, and really just made me miss my dearly departed hamster Harvey. Hamster Houdini Harvey, aka Dog TV. No kidding. The dog was obsessed with him and terrified of him at the same time. No matter where we put Harvey's cage, the dog would sit in front of it and stare, stare, stare, and shake like a Chihuahua, which she is not. Even when he was burried under his bedding asleep, not visible in any way, she would just stare at his empty cage waiting for him to move. Thus, we called it Dog TV. Her obsession did turn out to be a great skill, as each time Harvey escaped from his cage we sent the dog to find him. She was a super hamster sniffer. She sniffed him out in closets, behind furniture, inside the couch... but, I digress.

Back to Gusty. The instructions said to let the roots soak in a bucket of water while you dig your hole. Or in our case, pour soil into the pot. It had recently rained, and an empty pot was still full of rainwater, so I dunked ole Gusty in there for about 20 minutes or so while I filled the pot with soil.

A few weeks ago, I found a great deal on Miracle Grow Organic Choice potting soil - the giant bags were only $8! I bought as many as I could fit in the shopping cart and used only one for all of my gardening projects today. What a steal.


First, pour a few inches of soil into the bottom of the pot and pack in gently. Position the tree's root bunch in the center and make sure that the trunk of the tree is straight and centered as you pour soil in to fill in the pot, leaving a couple of inches at the top.

When the pot is full and the tree is firmly in place, you're supposed to prune all of the branches that come off of the center trunk to about six inches.

The thought of hacking away at my brand new tree terrified me. But I did it anyway. I mostly did it anyway. I left the branches about 8 inches, and then watered away. The pot is on my back patio in a place where it gets almost full sun. Its on the north side of the garage, so it's shaded really only in the morning. Fingers crossed that Gusty likes it here. Perhaps in a couple of years we can make a pie :)

This spot is actually only temporary. Once hubbs comes home and we can tear up our back yard, take out the awful cat-tails and bushy things that are back there and put in our raised beds, Gusty will get a permanent home somewhere near the orange tree.

It was a good afternoon, and now I get to eat pizza and watch a whole night of Criminal Minds. What a life, eh?

Today I learned...

to always wear glasses when cooking.

mistaking ginger for garlic may or may not be a pleasant surprise.

yes, i got all gusto about cooking again (in theory), only to spend my grocery budget for two weeks in less than an hour. but that's what i get for going shopping without having eaten lunch.

is this what its come down to?

because of recent health concerns, namely feeling like i've been hit by a bus after each meal no matter how big or small, has caused me to try a new approach: eat small meals every three hours. (this was a recommendation in a book i'm reading about PCOS and insulin resistance). and in order to eat every three hours without blowing up like Violet Beauregard, i've been trying to eat 200-300 calorie meals. or less.

for the first week or so it worked out great. i was eating sandwiches a lot - well, actually, quarters of sandwiches a lot. i was feeling much better. i didnt feel as tired during the day. i wasnt feeling energetic, but not as tired as i had been before. i didnt have that "i need to sleep NOW" feeling after i ate.

but then it became a chore. i mean, eating every three hours? i'm glad i dont have a job because i wouldn't be able to maintain this schedule. even without working i find it hard to keep it up. i have no idea how to cook that small. i've had to cook regular meals (and by that i mean i've cooked twice in the last couple of weeks) and break the food up into tiny portions and refrigerate the rest. making a sandwich became making a half-sandwich and then cutting it in half to eat only a quarter-sandwich at a time, a few hours apart. i have been measuring and bagging snacks, sticking to the serving size on the labels very strictly.

do you know how long a bag of, well, anything, will last if you stick the serving size? a while. do you know how many times you eat spaghetti when you eat only 2oz at a time? i try not to be wasteful, and eat the whole package of whatever i open before it goes bad and i have to toss it out. a package of lunch meat lasted six days.

you might be thinking - that's awesome! but i say, i'm so sick of food. i'm so tired of eating the same things five times a day for five days straight. i'm soooo tired of being in the kitchen.  my hummus went bad half way through it and i had to toss it out today. me - toss out hummus? there's something wrong here.

i was really digging on cooking, baking, trying new recipes. i've been trying to talk myself into baking cupcakes since my birthday three weeks ago. i know that one package of cupcakes will last me a month.  would i get sick of eating cupcakes?! i dont want to test that theory.

while strolling through target last weekend, i noticed that they had lean cuisine on sale. i'm not a fan of frozen meals like that - i think they're awful. i hated them when i worked in the office and needed to bring my lunch every day. i hate them when i dont need to bring my lunch. but i noticed they have a new spa collection with some flavors that perked me up: butternut squash ravioli and cranberry apple chicken, both pictured with heaps of veggies in them and both under 300 calories each. the deciding factor, i admit, was that their sale included a free skinny cow ice cream when you bought 6 dinners. ok, i give. i'll give 'em a try.

photo from www.leancuisine.com

i bought two butternut squash raviolis, two cran-apple chicken, and two thai chicken noodle somthings. and ice cream cones.

the cranberry apple chicken had great flavor. rissotto. veggies. (green beans, mostly). not much chicken, but that's okay because i dont like the processed chicken chunks anyway. off to a decent start.

the thai peanut chicken noodles. good. i didnt eat the chicken. not spicy or peanutty like thai peanut sauce should be. i give it a 'meh' rating.

then i had the second cranberry apple chicken, and the chicken chunks in this package were mostly fat. i spit it out.

a few days have gone by (i've been totally turned off by the last package i ate) and i just gave in to the butternut squash ravioli. in a white sauce that has zero flavor. five raviolis and a pound of carrots and peas. the ravioli do not taste like butternut squash at all. the filling, in fact, is barely yellow colored, which means its mostly ricotta cheese. i ate less than half of it, and i'm staring at the rest.

is this what its come down to? have i become so lackluster about food that i'm settling for frozen dinners? flavorless ones, at that? i have to get out of this funk. i need to find passion for cooking again.

i stared at a new recipe for nutella cinnamon rolls from sugarcrafter.net, and i got myself excited about them. i got all jazzed about making them and went so far as to write down step-by-step instructions to take to the kitchen. i pulled out my kitchenaid stand mixer, and then made a burrito and took a nap. what an epic fail.

i have half a dozen of her recipes pulled up on my computer right this very minute and by golly i'm going to make at least one of them. tomorrow.  sigh.

Today I learned:

that i like spray paint.

its a great way to color your knees...

and awesome planters. like the ones my sister and her husband made for me for Christmas out of PVC, from a tutorial that can be found here.

and cheapy planters that came in a grow-your-own strawberry kit from Target last year (yes, i'm finally getting around to planting them.)

and concrete, apparently, because i didn't think about the slits in my cardboard.

i tried the rust-o-leum spray paint that is designed for plastic, outdoors, and the home depot guy said was sure to not flake off when wet. we'll see about that.

they should be dry tomorrow, so if i can figure out how to use our ladder, i'll install them and transplant my rosemary and oregano into them. (now before you go getting all high and mighty about the ladder thing, let me just tell you that its not your average triangular, open and climb sort of ladder. its fancy. and complicated. trust me.)

there...

was something in the air this morning that was familiar and yet made me uneasy. the feeling's still there.

Waffle Woes

Its an "Oh woe is me" sort of week in the kitchen. That's what I get for branching out, I suppose. Or, just another "learning" day here in the house of little ol' me.

I found a tempting recipe on Two Peas and Their Pod for Honey Yogurt Waffles. They sounded divine. So I decided to try them, seeing as how Santa brought me a new Belgian waffle maker for Christmas. I've been thinking about these waffles since I found the recipe last night. I was planning to make them in my sleep. Planning in my sleep, though, not making waffles in my sleep.

Usually, I can barely make it to through the morning routine of I-potty-then-dog-potty-then-coffee before I'm ready to hit the couch again for a while of zombie-ing until I wake up. This morning was different. I got out of bed with a purpose.

We all know that your first waffle is like your first boyfriend  pancake - a mistake. It was uber limp and greasy. I gave 1/4 of it to Grainne. She sniffed at in her bowl for a few minutes. As soon as she began to nibble on the corner of it, she realized I was watching her and tucked her tail and looked over her shoulder at me. I told her it was "OK" (which she understands is "ok to eat"), and she turned and gobbled it up in one hunk. So, not poison. Although I'd never truly test poison theories on my dog, I have found things she oddly refuses to eat. And that's a clue for me too.

Waffle #2: I cranked up the heat looking for that steam. Still not much of it. So I convinced myself I was smarter than the instructions that came with the waffle maker and decided that the real key to when they are done has nothing to do with steam, but rather when they stop sizzling. Right. Next!
Burned. Holey. And yet limp. Only crispy on the inside burned parts.

Waffle #3 was to be the charm. I put the heat back down on ".." (which I suppose in my waffle maker's Medium in polka-dot speak). Nicely colored, golden but not burned yet still limp. Where are the crispy waffles I've been craving? I'm starting to understand why they cost as much as a cheeseburger in a restaurant.

Waffle #4: This time I used only three scoops of batter into the center of the waffle maker. No overflow. And I put the heat down to the middle of ".." and ".". It's been almost an hour in the kitchen now. This includes opening, cleaning and seasoning the waffle maker for the first time, dividing ingredients and photographing everything that has transpired so far today. Its almost 1pm (Yes, I slept in) and I havn't eaten a thing. So what I'm trying to tell you is that as soon you get a new kitchen appliance, you should take it home, wash it and season it (or otherwise set it up for use) even if you don't intend to use it, because waiting until you wake up starving on a Saturday morning is not the time to do it. In addition, if you are going to try a new recipe (and especially if you are trying a new recipe AND a new appliance at the same time) you should eat breakfast before you begin to cook your breakfast.

So I call my mother, aka Santa, to ask if this is the same waffle maker she has at home. Does it work for her? No, its not the same as hers. Her advice? "It's not like cooking pancakes where it just takes a couple minutes on each side. Cooking waffles is kind of like baking a cake - it takes a while." Well, Santa, I don't want to bake a cake. I want to eat a waffle. A crispy one. If you wanted me to bake a wafflecake, you should have sent me a cake pan with bumps in it. I find your gift deceptive.

Waffle number four has been in the waffle maker for fifteen minutes somewhere between ".." and "." and I'm going to add some !@#$@#!$! to it in a minute. I turned up the heat a little bit, back to "..". After thirty minutes, it came worse than its predecessors. I still have more batter.

I do not blame the recipe (They smell dee-lish, which is making this process so much harder). In reality, I do not blame the waffle maker. Of course, I don't blame myself either. Circumstance? That doesn't really fit here. Nor does coincidence. I'm looking for another scapegoat.

Waffle number five is in now. I've decided to put number three in the toaster to heat it up and see if that crisps it a bit too. I have to eat or I'm going to gnaw off my arm. Since they are too big for the toaster, I'm actually cutting in half and trying it that way. Now, my toaster is also a toaster oven (basically just a toaster oven with one long trap door on top and an arm that holds bread upright, side by side) and is perfectly long enough to accommodate the diameter of the waffle. Limp waffles, however, get stuck in your toaster no matter how its organized. Just sayin'.

The toaster browned it perfectly, but it was still soft. I don't care anymore. I'm eating it. With butter and honey on top. It's f*ing beautiful. It really does have the best flavor of any waffle I've ever had. And I'm thinking that the soft consistency of it would make great "bread" for an egg and bacon sandwich. Or a good bread pudding. Oh the opportunities.

Number five came out a little better. Perhaps this waffle maker needed a few rounds to "warm up" so to speak. Number six is in now, and I think it may cook best if I just put in there and fa-ged-a-boud-et. I may just unplug it and let it sit there for a while. It will be a nice surprise come dinner time.

I know I promised pictures. But I deleted them all. I don't when, or why, but they are gone. You'll just have to imagine. Like reading a book. Its probably funnier that way anyway. Especially if you are my mom. She thinks everything is hilarious. That's why she gives people wafflecake bakers when you really wanted something else.

Total prep/cook/complain time: 2 hours.
Recipe makes 6 Belgian waffles. Sort of. But it tastes incredible.

Update: I have made this my go-to waffle recipe because they are hands-down THE BEST waffles I have ever had. They are, however, soft waffles by nature of their ingredients. So if you are expecting crunchy crispy waffles like you get in restaurants, look elsewhere. I promise you will not regret trying these. And really, once you try them you will find crunchy waffles simply offensive.

Hello, November.

This is our very first fire in our new home.

This is what crawled out of the fireplace right after hubbs lit it. 

Wait.. Let me backtrack. That was what crawled out of the fireplace and across the kitchen floor running for its life -  

after I put the glass over it to try to show it as a fine specimen of "See! This is the kind of spider I keep finding in the house!"-

 and after we realized that when hubbs thought he was opening the fireplace flue, he was really closing it and our living room was promptly filling up with smoke-

 and after I opened a few doors and windows to let the smoke out-

 and after we learned that (thankfully, in this instance) we don't have a smoke detector in the front half of our house-

 and after I tried to pick up the fan to point towards the ceiling to help push the smoke out-

and after the fan fell off its post and out of my hands and rolled across the kitchen floor and scooted the glass-of-spider over a crevice in the tile just big enough for said spider to crawl out of and free from the glass-

and after hubbs shouted from the back porch through the open kitchen window that said spider crawled under the fan lying postless on the kitchen floor-

and after i ripped the plug out of the wall so not to let said spider hit-the-fan, as it were-

and after i moved the fan away from said spider only to realize that the fan had squished its legs and it was dead-

and after I apologized to dead spider for "taking him out like that"-

and after I picked up the fan and replaced it on its post and turned it on again-

and after i looked down to notice the dead spider had moved-

and after I realized that said spider had two legs ripped off and was desperately crawling in circles with the four good legs on his left side-

and after I panicked and stomped on it.

His name was Charlie. Sorry, Charlie.

 And this is hubbs outside watching this whole thing happen.

This is also how I learned that, despite his caveman propensity to 'make fire' and his uncanny ability to grill anything over charcoal, hubbs has no clue how to make a fire in a fireplace. 

This is also how I realized that setting up a fireplace is, currently, the most useful thing I learned in adolescent weekday chores.

This is also how we managed to get rid of all of our junkmail. 

And all of this is why my life can never be dull.

the What I Learned Today starts here.

i like to share stupid things that hit me like a ton of bricks, and set off the light bulb above my head to either illuminate or explode. things like: today, i learned that there is no lawn fairy. if there were, she'd be losing an epic battle with the weed fairy.

Thursday at school, i learned that MTV has completely ruined young minds. In my cognitive neuroscience class, (yes sounds smart, doesn't it?) the professor asked "What is the best TV show out today?" as part of an example to illustrate something complex. A girl in the second row shouted "Teen Mom!" And everyone laughed. Even the professor. Rightfully so. A little while later, the professor was talking about tests being done on comatose patients to see if their brain is really responsive. The same girl raised her hand to ask a question. It was, and i quote, "Do you know anything about that guy who is supposed to be, like, our time's Einstein? He lives in a wheelchair and has a computer that reads his mind and talks for him?" as a way to infer that the computer technology already exists to "read minds"... The professor stared at her blankly while the rest of us were confused. Kindly, a guy sitting in front of her turns around and tells her that she is referring to Stephen Hawking. As we all put two and two together, the class erupts in giggles. And I just thought, "Wow. Teen mom? If you'd been watching Family Guy, you would at least have some inkling as to who Stephen Hawking is." Where was I going with this? I dont know. But did you notice that I started using capitalization as soon as I started talking about school? They're always watching, you know.

So in light of these illuminating moments i'm just going to put them here so i can keep track of them. because someday they'll be worth something. a reference for how not to mow the lawn, for example. it has a few mohawks, but all in all, its shorter than it was before. so that's the point, right?

this week i also learned that birds are breeding in my back yard. the amount of trees between us and our surrounding neighbors is impressive. and there is a hummingbird sitting on the wire above my orange tree! never seen one still before. though he's looking around in every direction each second. maybe its not a hummingbird. but it has a long narrow beak like a hummingbird. i need new glasses. see how these learnings just come right out?

i dont know what to say about this.

i was leaving. in a hurry. flopped my stuff into the back seat. opened up the car door. stuck my right leg in so i could flop my butt in the driver's seat.  in one swinging motion i had flung open the car door, raised my leg and pivoted so that i could get in the car. but as the door opened wider and i got closer to the car, the sunlight poured in and illuminated something small(er-than-a-golfball-but-bigger-than-a-nickel) racing away from the area where my foot was targeting and up toward the steering wheel. my foot was still hovering in the air, about level with the seat, and i was about to lose my balance. i jumped back and gasped for air. i'm sure an "oh my god" came out somewhere in there. it was, really, the sudden motion of the nickel-golfball that startled me. really. it was. till i realized that there was a spider web the size of a dinner plate delicately placed in the space below the steering wheel where my legs would have gone. perfectly facing the opening of the door, so the sunshine illuminated every strand. and the nickel-golfball? a giant spider. NOT a daddy long-legs, either. (i know what you're thinking. exaggeration, you say. it was probably smaller than a fly, you say. F you, I say.)

as soon as it saw my foot hurdling towards its brand new home, it skittered up to the steering wheel, and just sat there, on the steering wheel, on the lower edge closest to the door. it was fat. tan. striped. maybe spotted. fat abdomen. short fat legs. obese, really. a porker. probably ate mcdonalds for dinner last night. and breakfast. and then me for lunch.

and just to show how facebook has ruined me, i stood there for a millisecond and told myself i should take a picture of this monster in my car. but alas, i was too busy gasping for air, flapping my jazz hands and cursing. i looked around to see if there was help. a couple walking across the street. they looked as friendly as my stowaway. "'scuse me sir could you come take care of this for me? and please dont knock me out and steal my car." 


i stumbled a little bit as i talked myself into putting my big-kid pants on and killing it with my sparkly purple flip flop. i still couldn't breathe and almost died when i took my hand off my heart, like it was holding it in place. so i manned up and flicked my shoe at it. i heard a pop like a zit, and it squirted a gob of spider goo at the steering console, and as luck would have it, my wheel was turned slightly to the right, so the goo gobbed up in the big gap that was waiting to catch it. and a leg or two was left on the wheel itself.

so what now? i am NOT driving with goo on my steering wheel. it will drip onto my leg and turn me into some spiderman-reject-crossed-with-sloth-from-the-goonies. so i did what anyone would do. i got my phone out of the backseat and sent a text message to my husband explaining i would be late for lunch because i had an epic battle with a 'giant fucking spider' in my car. i gasped a little more. jazz hands-ed a little more. and then finally walked to the other side of the car.

i opened the glove box, pulled out a napkin and walked back to the driver's side, having left the driver's door wide open. i contemplated the seriousness of the task at hand. i was going to touch giant spider goo with only a napkin protecting my bare skin from spiderman-reject-crossed-with-sloth-from-the-goonies cuties. i folded the napkin a couple of times, thanking all gods that it was one of those giant hefty restaurant napkins so that i could get a good stiff edge on the fold. then i bent down and scooped the goo out of the crack of the steering console, which was glistening so goo-ily in the sunlight. not wanting to cross-contaminate, i looked at the steering wheel to assess the damage there. since it was only a leg or two, i decided it was not worth it to wipe it off with the gooey napkin.

i had to dispose of the napkin, but trash day was not today, so i had no choice but to throw the goo on the ground and shout to the neighbors that may or may not have been watching that i was "sorry to litter but its giant spider goo!" and then promptly stomped on the napkin, cuz, y'know, mazel tov, and all that. then i destroyed the web with my shoe, more jazz hands and panting and cursing, and got in the car and drove to base with my fingertips on the top of the wheel.

hubbs, dear as he is, wiped up the whole steering wheel, floor, and door with a wipey when we got to subway. i am no longer leaving my windows cracked when i park. never again. F that. I'd rather sweat. I'm only thankful that i found and killed it before i even got in the car because i would have died on the freeway if it crawled up my leg while i was driving. its the small things that save the day.