Hi, I'm here to pick up the copies of the National Enquirer that I special ordered.

This afternoon I went to the PX down the road to pick up a Western Union and as I was waiting for everything to go through a man who strongly resembled Bill Cosby , came to the counter holding a National Enquirer and his wallet. I chuckled in my head thinking, "You came to the PX just to get a National Enquirer?" No judgement here, it just struck me as odd. I mean, I understand people purchasing just the New York Times or something like that but running to the store to only pick up The National Enquire without anything else seems....wasteful? I don't know. National Enquirer and popcorn would make way more sense to me.

Anyway, the cashier asks him if that's all he's purchasing (probably also wondering why he's not getting popcorn) and he says no and that he's there to pick up his special order that's come in. She asks him what  his name is and what he ordered and he gave her his name and told her 3 copies of The National Enquirer. In response she said, "3 copies of National Geographic????" <---Now wouldn't that make sense? But no, he told her again, The National Enquirer.




This is super cereals. I'm here to pick up my special order.


So, as I'm standing there waiting for my Western Union to be processed I start wondering why on earth, Bill Cosby needs, in addition to the one in his hand, 3 more copies. Maybe his nephew or grandson is the half alligator, half Bat Boy, half Man-Bear-Pig (am I using fractions correctly?) on the cover and he needs copies for all of the family!!!! How amazing would that be?!?!



That's my nephew!





I start thinking about being nosey and asking him why he needs so many copies but what if his reason isn't as interesting as what I've imagined it to be? What if he just buys it to line the bottom of his pet cockatoos bird cage because it absorbs the smell of poop really well?

I can't have the strangest thing of my day be made only averagely interesting with a perfectly reasonable explanation so I choose to forgo the questions and stick with my imagination. It's the only way I can adventure these days as a stay at home Mom ya know?

a bad cookie habit

I have a bad habit that I know I'm not alone in. That habit is coming down with cookie making fever and eating the dough before the cookies are done which can end 3 different ways.

1. Code Red Sugar Coma: I have eaten so much dough that I don't even cook one cookie. I just put the dough in the fridge for later.

2. Code Orange Sugar Coma: I have eaten too much dough but I'm still able to muster up the energy to  bake a couple of cookie sheets worth and put the rest of the dough in the fridge for later.

3. Code Yellow Sugar Coma: I ate just one spoon full of cookie dough so I feel fine and I'm cooking all of the cookies but I've satisfied my cookie craving so now I'm uninterested in baking and the cookies that started out the size of a silver dollar are now as big as a dinner plate because I just want to get everything baked and over with.

However, today's baking experience has been a bit different. A couple of weeks ago on Pintrest I found this lovely recipe for pudding cookies and I've been using some self control to abstain from making them.

Well, that and I've been on a toffee-popcorn kick so my sweet tooth was being fulfilled. So I lied, it had nothing to do with self control.

Anyway, today I finally decided to make the cookies. I softened the butter, put the eggs in warm water to get them to room temperature, had to borrow a half cup of flour from my neighbor and then, finally got all the ingredients mixed together nicely. During this whole process I remember thinking, "That's a lot of flour!" (4 1/2 cups) and "That's a lot of eggs!" (4 eggs) but I just shrugged it off because I was trying a new cookie recipe and my cookie making has never really gone beyond the back of a Nestle Toulouse package. <---That was said in my best Phoebe Buffay voice BTW.

As I'm staring down at this gigantic bowl of finished cookie dough I realize that it's...well.... a lot of freakin cookie dough, just like I was thinking as I was putting the ingredients together. So I go to the blog page I'm reading from and in teensy letters, below the recipe it says, "this makes about 8 dozen cookies".

After I put my eyeballs back into my head I thought. "Challenge accepted."

 I hadn't over done it on the dough, I was feeling only a little sugared out so I threw a few fist pumps in the air and started dishing out the dough on to those cookie sheets like a maniac. After the first three batches I started getting a little edgy though. I only have 2 cookie sheets and one only fits 6 cookies on at a time. Every time I put a new batch in the oven I went back to the gigantic bowl of cookie dough and contemplated "The Giant Cookie".

 Then I started feeling more than a little edgy.

"Why does it look like that giant wad of raw dough is growing? It looks bigger than it did 2 dozen baked cookies ago."

I really just wanted one damn cookie. Or three......

I just wanted to satisfy my cookie craving!

Now, almost 3 hours later the last batch is in the oven and I'm ready to sit down and put my feet up but my son has been napping this whole time and as soon as I put my feet up he will wake up. As soon as he wakes up I will have to leap across the living room and hide all evidence of cookie making because if he sees even one crumb than he wont eat anything but a cookie. And since I'm tired from baking I don't have the energy to chase around a toddler who is flying on a sugar high. Do you see what an ugly cycle this is?

I'm never baking stupid cookies again.

PS. in case you are wondering how the cookies turned out. They are the prettiest, most deliciously textured chocolate chip cookies I've ever made.

But they're still stupid and I still hate them.

Updated for pictures:



Do you see that sneaky little hand?

 


He approves!



let's celebrate at Mundaka

Andrew and I are going out tonight to celebrate 10 years together (5 years married September 22nd) and while I suggested Lalla Grill, AGAIN, he suggested Mundaka and I'm not going to argue with him! We went to Mundaka last year for our anniversary and I've gone once or twice before that with my friends and we've never been disappointed. Mundaka is a teeny, tiny, eensy, weensy resturant in Carmel, California,(46 seats to be exact) just 20 minutes south of where we live, and it serves authentic Spanish tapas.

I've tried several things from their menu but my favorites are the goat cheese and almond stuffed- bacon wrapped dates, the Patatas Bravas which are potatoes cooked in duck fat served with aioli, and the lamb slider that is tiny and yet so rich that I can only eat half of it.

Mundaka, like my other favorite restaurant (Lalla Grill) serves foods that are made from all locally grown and organic produce and livestock. Or to be more specific:

 "we believe in serving “real” food only. YES: fresh, local, organic, biodynamic, free-range, line-caught, sustainable, fair-trade, home made, from scratch. NO: antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, high fructose corn syrup, artificial anything"

Not only is the food as pure as it can get but it's beautifully plated and the ambiance of the restaurant is wonderful and cozy and personal. It is decorated with recycled and salvaged items from buildings that were torn down in San Francisco and houses that burnt down in Big Sur.

The prices are very reasonable in my opinion. You are paying for the purest, freshest foods cooked by professionally trained chefs. You can get tapas or a large plate and it ranges from $2.00 single tapas to a $42.00 plate (steak). Most plates are in the $5.50 -9.50 range.

If you are looking to have the experience of Mundaka without spending too much, than  I recommend eating a light meal before going to the restaurant and choosing some of the smaller plates they have to offer. They will serve you a delicious plate of complementary toasted baguette with tomato and garlic butter with your meal as well. It's heavenly.

If you are eating on a weekend night call for reservations. And if you are having a romantic dinner for two you might get lucky and be seated in the most intimate spot in the restaurant. A tall cubby under the stairs with a curtain that they welcome you to pull together for more privacy.

How can a dining experience get any better than that?


*pictures came from the Mundaka web page photo gallery.

Darlyn Jeanne

Starting as early as grade school I remember kids having to leave school  for a few days to attend the funerals of their grandparents. The older I got the more frequently it happened and I told my friends, "I'm sorry for your loss" but had trouble feeling empathetic since it had become such a common thing. Even though I watched Nini, (my Moms, Mother) struggle with Leukemia practically my whole life, and even when the prognosis was at its worse and I worried, I never truly accepted that she was going to die. And she didn't. At least not from the Leukemia.

No, the years went by and even when the doctors gave her 6 months or a year she still pressed forward. She never complained, she was always on her feet, working hard, meeting new people, making new friends, calling and writing her friends and family, sending out care packages, reading book after book, and finishing her crossword puzzles. She was truly taking advantage of ever precious minute she had and I think that for every minute she cherished, God gave her another minute to live.

 When she passed away I didn't really confide in my friends and the amount of grief I showed in front of my family has been limited. Because of this I feel like I have yet to come to accept that my Nini is gone.

Since she passed in early April of this year (from a sudden onset of congenital heart failure) I've written my Grandfather several letters, never thinking much about addressing only him in the letters. But today I wrote only his name on the envelope and the emotion flooded over me.  Henry drew some great pictures today and I took the one specifically for his Great Grandfather, wrote a letter from Henry and put it in the envelope and then the thought of how much joy Nini would have gotten upon opening the letter came to me. She would have outwardly exclaimed how brilliant Henry is! She would have looked at it and been able to see all of the possibilities for Henry. She would have written him back with a picture that she drew herself. Something wonderful.

Anyone who knew my Nini would know that her loss was not hard just for her family but for every individual that she had come across. I like to believe that every person that Nini met was influenced in some way by her, whether it was a big or small way, and I know that those that were have passed something of her along to each person they have come across. Her kindness and generosity was infectious.

Nini was special to me. She was more than my Grandmother. She was my friend. I told her about my worries and my struggles because she would promise me that despite the mistakes I made, I was still a person that was worthy of wonderful things. She never let me leave her presence without re affirming my self worth. "You are beautiful inside and out.", she would say. And there was nothing patronizing or obligatory about the way she said it. I could see in her face and feel in her gentle touch that she thought the world of me.

I am sad that my son will not know her the way that I did but I am hoping that if I can be, even just a little like who she was, that he will know her through me.

negative calorie foods and the pros and cons of juicing.

I've been seeing a lot of talk about negative calorie foods lately. I've known for a while that celery was one but didn't realize how many wonderful tasty negative calorie foods there are. Negative calorie foods are foods that burn more calories when digest than they contain.
Check out these yummy negative calorie foods:

I like green smoothies/juice because it allows me to get my daily intake of fruits and veggies quickly. Most of the time I make my own green smoothies, but lately I've been drinking this stuff:

However,1 serving (8oz), has  27 grams of sugar!!! This is all natural sugar but after I saw that I decided to look up the pros and cons to juicing and came across this article from Food Republic. In it they say, " because juicing removes the fiber from fruit and veggies, your body absorbs fructose sugar from fruit juice more easily and this can upset blood sugar levels." so this leads me to believe that if you juice all of those lovely negative calorie foods listed above that they will cease to be negative calorie foods as your body wont need to work as hard to digest them. No wonder I feel so lethargic after drinking it.

Since I eat other fruits in addition to my green smoothie during the day I have to be careful about my sugar intake. Most people can pretty much ignore what they take in as far as natural sugars go but I shouldn't. I am insulin resistant so not over doing it is important. I try to keep my added sugar intake at about half of the daily recommended intake (40grams) and be reasonable about the amount of natural sugar I ingest. I don't want my insulin resistance to turn in to "diabeetus" ya know?

After spending a reasonable amount of time researching all of this I think I'm going to stick with eating all my fruits and veggies whole and just stay with my daily dose of Chlorophyll in liquid form.

Let them adventure, let them discover and then, if need be, take them to the doctor.

I love visiting with my friend Desiree. I dont' know if she will remember this but I first met her at a photo shoot that my other friend, Margaret, arranged for a bunch of girls. Desiree introduced herself to me in a way that would make me love her pretty much instantly. She said with her thick Mississippi accent, "Hi my name is Desiree, spelt like desire but with and extra E, last name Cantu like, "You can too" but with a T U".

Over the last year or so our friendship has really grown. The other day while we were visiting with each other we were talking about how as children we were often dirty, barefoot, climbing trees and well, just all out adventuring. We both had swampy areas by our houses and were cringing about how we used to adventure into them barefoot, touching squirmy reptilian things. Ignorance is bliss, we agreed. If we had thought about the leeches, malaria(?), salmonella, etc., we probably would have been terrified. My grandparents used to live in Monroe Louisiana and next to their house was a pond that they took my brother and I to swim in. Years later when my brother and I were older we were both horrified to learn that that pond had snapping turtles in it. My toes curled up inside of my feet just thinking about it. Again, ignorance is bliss.

But back to Desiree and I. We laughed about a woman who was concerned that Desiree was letting her daughter climb so high on one of the jungle gyms and asked Des, "What if she falls?" To which Des replied, "She will probably get hurt and then I will take her to the doctor." I laughed because it's exactly what I would have said. I let Henry climb play and learn to discover what his body is capable of. What I'm having problems with is him picking things off of the ground. I need to get over it. Obviously, I can be reasonable. Cigarette butts, needles, etc. are off limits but feathers, mud, rocks, bugs and all that fun stuff should be discovered. I have to remember that just because I don't like having dirty hands now doesn't mean that he shouldn't be able to play in the dirt. I loved to play in the dirt as a kid! I remember it well. If he catches something icky like lice, or a cold or whatever it may be than we will make a trip to the doctors. I would rather have a child with an adventures spirit than a child that is terrified of germs and of getting hurt.




it was hard for me to let him play in this stinky mud but he loved it.

If I can't catch him then he falls. I let him get scrapes and bruises and bumps on the head and then I kiss him and if need be take him to the doctor. He will learn to be careful but confident. He will learn his limits and hopefully with a little encouragement stretch those limits and do amazing things. Desiree and I care about our children's safety. Absolutely. And anyone questioning that will swiftly meet a knuckle sandwich, but we also care about our children's sense of self. We want them to challenge themselves and discover new things on their own so they can feel the sense of pride and confidence that comes with it.

Here is a picture of me at 2 years old. I'm the little one on the left with a cast on my leg. I just asked my Mom how it happened so that I could get the story right as I tend to mix up memories or make them up entirely. I remember wanting to do a cartwheel on the deck railing like a gymnast would on a balance beam, and falling off. My Mom came out to find me crying and took me to the doctors. My leg wasn't actually broken although that's the easiest way to explain the cast. Apparently when I fell the skin that surrounds the bone separated and filled with fluid and blood and a cast was needed to help it heal.

While my Mom never encouraged me to get on the railing and I'm sure she was hurting and worried for me and I know I was hurting, I'm glad that she still allowed me to be adventurous. I still went on to do gymnastics, climb trees, jungles gyms and more,(climb on top of refrigerators to eat cakes reserved for bakes sales), and when I got hurt, never once did I question whether my Mom cared about me. I still trusted her and felt safe with her even after my fall. I need to remember that Henry will get hurt but he wont blame me. He will seek me out to comfort him and if I do it correctly he will get up and carry on.

after sliding face first down a cement side walk.

The proof is in his smile.

iSpy bag redo and a day of relaxation and movies

Last night I re-did Henry's iSpy bag, (transferred everything to this completely clear pencil pouch) and today he's played with it several times and really understands how the game works which is very pleasing.

Today has been a laid back movie day. I woke up easily, feeling great, drank my green smoothie, ready to take on the day and then threw up. I have no idea why. I feel fine now and even ate a large brunch two hours later. But I have been feeling a little tired and lethargic so I'm chalking it up to some kind of bug and taking it easy. The weather here has been dreary the last two days after one day that actually felt like summer around here. Monday was beautiful and warm and I'm hoping to have a few more days like it before we move. The movers are coming to pack our things on the 22nd of September, just over 5 weeks away and I'm starting to feel a little weepy over it. As much as I love Washington and miss it and all of my family there, I've never been happier than I have living here.

I got out of my shell and made several friends just one month after getting here, who I have come to love like family. And though the weather is often cloudy I appreciate the very moderate weather and the beautiful ocean and mountains. There isn't much to complain about living here. The grocery prices are a little high but that has been my biggest complaint really.

However, I prayed hard for Andrew's next station to be Georgia and in 5 months we will be settling in and I am excited for a new adventure! I'm thankful too. I just need to remember that when I start complaining about the heat and humidity.