Scatterday Night's Alright

When the going gets tough, the tough get procrastinating...er, I mean, cooking. Today's theme was stress control, and there are few things better for that than cooking, for this girl. Let's start with bacon drippings, butter, onions, jalapenos and garlic on simmer.




Now, let's throw in cumin, chili powder, and salt.
After that, let's pour in the cooking water from the black beans made earlier, and bring it to a boil and reduce it to a nice thick sauce. Then let's add it back in to the pot of beans.
















Later on, it's time to make banana bread before the bananas become too overripe to use. My great grandmother's recipe is the one I use, with my updates. I'll add it later. For now, I will let you know it involves dark chocolate chips, walnuts, mace, vanilla, whole wheat and white flour, eggs, butter, salt, baking soda, bananas, and ground flax.

Self: learn to manipulate the photo layout!

This is Wisconsin, after all. We like a little banana bread with our butter.

Found a place to use the decoupage box I made a few years ago...cookbook holder. I took the doors off the cabinets over the stove, in an effort to open up and brighten up the space. This is a work in progress. I also added several of the cookbooks to the St. Vincent's donation bag o' the day. I organized a few kitchen cabinets and pared down the contents to the essentials. How the heck do I always end up with ten thousand plastic container lids, and only three containers?

I also finally found a place to use the lazy susan I bought at IKEA last spring. It's too big to fit into any of the cupboards, but this works. Behind the coffee and tea and honey are all my vitamins, easily at hand but out of sight. Win. This is my grandma's breadbox, by the way.

Last but not least, I started some seeds soaking to have sprouts. On the right are mung beans, and on the left a combination of radish, broccoli and clover. So yummy! It's the first time I've grown them since moving into this place...I used to grow them all the time, "back home". Yes, I do miss my old town and my old apartment there at times. But that's a topic for another day. Sweet dreams, everyone, and thanks for hanging out with me on my Saturday tiny kitchen adventure. Peace.

Hibernation, aka Hiding Out.

So, I didn't go anywhere today. No real reason to venture out into the bitter cold and fight the rocky ice floes cemented to the streets unless I had a need, and I really didn't. I watched a little TV, cleaned a little, thought and worried way too much, and tried to stay positive. My job ended between Christmas and New Years. I had been planning to leave anyway after the new year, but it would have been nice to have time to get something else in place first. I'm existing in that limbo place where I have no choice but to make peace and be comfortable with uncertainty. When my son was little, I found it a bit aggravating that he always needed to know the "next and next and next", as I called it. He was uncomfortable with times just spent meandering from destination to destination with no timeline or specific outcome. Right now, I wish there were someone to tell me what's "next and next and next". My horoscope (I'm an Aquarius) says that these early weeks of January are a time for me to spend time alone, be private, lay low, regenerate, ponder, heal, rest. It seems to fit my mood to do just that, so I am going with it. Things always happen when and how they are meant to, and I know that something will happen to re-energize and interest me in time.

Segue! Here's a picture of my jasmine plant, Jazzy. She's been blooming with fragrant blossoms ever since I brought her in from the late fall cold, just before the freeze. She thinks it's summer in here. I am not going to tell her any different. Smelling these beautiful white blossoms each morning is pure bliss, transporting me back to morning walks in New Orleans in the spring. Yes, I do talk to this plant, and sometimes even give her a gentle hug. She doesn't seem to mind. We're old and best friends.

Ok, so the other important development you need to know about concerns my fingernails. I have never been able to grow my nails, ever. They are thin and bendy and peely, like a baby's nails. When shellac manicures came along, they were like a dream come true. Not damaging and fake looking like acrylics, but adding a tough coat of shiny gorgeous color for two weeks. Since my job involved a lot of public meet and greets, I always wanted to look my best, so I was willing to plunk down $35 twice a month to have attractive nails. The problem would occur when they would remove the old coat to apply the new one, and they would always comment on the sad condition of my nails. I really didn't see what the point was in even discussing that. It's my genetics, that's just how they grow, just slap on the new coat and I will be on my way, 'k? They always told me I should buy this nail product they sold for $17 a bottle, promising that it would make my nails completely awesome. After a few months, they finally said, look, we want you to take a break from shellac, and use this product. SERIOUSLY. Well, that made no sense for them financially to tell me that, but these people actually care about their clients and their nails. So I agreed to try it. I had no faith in it whatsoever. I have tried a million nail strengtheners and hardeners over the past 35 years or so of my life. Nothing worked. Ok, so enough of the buildup and back story...this stuff actually WORKS. It takes about a month, and you have to follow the directions, but now I have ten long, strong, amazing nails that are totally mine. No shellac. No acrylic. My own. They don't peel. They don't bend. They don't tear. They are so hard and strong that they will at most get a tiny chip if I accidentally bang one on something really hard, but that's easily evened out with a nail file. They don't even stain if I wear dark polish! So amazing. For me, this is like a bald man suddenly finding a shampoo that gives him a head full of thick gorgeous hair. So behold, here they are. MY NAILS!

So there you go. That's my day, that's what's on my mind, nothing fascinating. Final thought before I go: I wish I had ice cream. Peace.

Of Nice and Men

I'd like to start my post with a huge shout out to my son for this, today. 

I hope you'll do like almost 2,000 others have already done (maybe many more by the time you read this), and "like" this wonderful thought he posted on facebook. He is a phenomenal person in every way, inside and out, and I am so, so proud to be his mom.

Today I dragged the Christmas tree out to the curb. Not such an easy task when the tree is 7' tall and 4.5' wide, and the curb is under about 3' of dense snow. I snapped a few pics of the snow as I ran errands tonight. It's not going to warm up enough to melt any of it anytime soon. I don't mind it a bit. This is a sidewalk near my place at about 6 pm tonight.

To the right is what I saw out

my passenger side window as

I sat at the stop sign. Most lots have snow piled up to 8 - 10' or more. Just another day

in a Wisconsin winter. NBD.

This is the only star that would show
  up when I snapped the sky with my
 phone camera (admittedly not the best). City lights don't make for the greatest star viewing either. This star was pretty bright, though, and the three stars of Orion's Belt were pointing at it. Is it the North Star? I'll have to Google that later. :-) I wish I knew someone who could tell me exactly what I'm seeing when I look at the sky at night.











As I've mentioned before, my apartment is old, and pretty janky in many ways. Tonight the closet door handle came off, and when I tried to fix it, it wouldn't work because the cheap plastic threads were broken. I went to the hardware store across the street and got this very, very pretty antiqued gold metal one to replace it for $1.29. I had to go back again and get the right length of screw, adding a whopping 15 cents to the total, but it's done now. My home improvement projects may be small, but they make me happy. One less janky thing to look at each day!



One of my favorite things about long, dark, cold winter nights is burning candles. I have a motley assortment, and I like to light a whole bunch at once for the warmth and the glow and the fragrance. I found a new favorite Yankee Candle scent this past weekend at Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee -- Pink Sands. Light, soft, warm, a little bit floral. So here are my harbingers of heat and light, all in a row.

That about wraps up today's post. I hope everyone stays warm, and well, and has much love in the new year, more than enough to share. Peace.