happinesses :)

Good evening!
Some enjoyable things from today, in no particular order :) :

1. Going to Petty's Fine Foods (small, independent...um overpriced...grocery store in town. super fun) and buying an impulse "truffle pig" chocolate at the check-out--only to find, on getting home, that it was hazelnut-flavored and SHAPED LIKE A PIG!!! so cute and yummy! get yourself a truffle pig :)
2. Also at Petty's: perusing the fish; salmon-stuffed flounder catch Daniel's eye, but there are only 4 fillets left--and he wants three. worries about leaving a lonely flounder--only to be given the fourth for free because, the fish-man said, it was "falling apart." fine food and great value! :) so looking forward to this!
3. home-cooked lunch from Daniel: mushroom/potato/asparagus in a wine/balsamic vinegar reduction, served with a tomato-and-asiago cheese topped wheat english muffin. AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am pretty much dating a professional chef, and so spoiled :) <3 <3
4. feltie-ing Blue-Footed Boobys! per Mums' suggestion
5. running 4.5 miles on turkey mountain!! owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :( but HARD CORE!!!!!!!!!! ;)
6. finishing erin morgenstern's The Night Circus...which was very enjoyable! read it :)

Dreams of Stars

Hello--
After a wonderful anniversary (the REAL one--one year!) dinner with Daniel at The Palace Cafe (lobster ravioli <3 and a shared two glasses of totally different, deliciously interesting red wines)--i went home, to sleep, and had this dream:

After a high-speed (for some reason, in the dream context, 'high speed' was anything over 45 mph. oh wait, that's true in my real brain, too.) car chase from California to Seattle, I signed up for a cooking class, not realizing the teacher was Angelina Jolie. Someone had to tell me. *blush* Anyway, Daniel gave her some food that he had cooked, and she just LOVED it, and wanted to hire him right away as her personal chef. at some point, Brad Pitt walked up, but left pretty quickly. A few minutes later, i had whipped up some GF vanilla cupcakes. Some cranky girl in the class took a bite and said, blandly, "they're pretty good." but then Angelina tried them and gushed, "They're DELICIOUS!" and wanted to hire me as her personal baker. Hooray!! so, daniel and i clearly have some new career paths laid out. :)

There was more, but that was the best part.
Everyone have a wonderful day!

p.s. i wanted to point out: there is nothing like a combination of 1) an impending move 2) reading about missions in the 3rd world and 3) learning how to make your own pottery--that gives you the power to overcome a pointless love for and desire to hoard 'cute' mugs. and other assorted items. Goodwill, I am COMING TO YOU with a car-full!!!

Halloween and Toffee Bars!!

Hello! It's Tuesday, and Daniel had the day off, which meant...a post-Sam's run to Target, where i zealously squealed over (and consequently purchased) much of their Halloweenie items :) eeeeeks! so cute!! in preparation for our Daria/Fall/Halloween/Birthday party coming up in a couple weeks! (do i feel guilty for purchasing fall-colored funfetti cupcake mix, instead of baking my own? NO!!!!! because EVERYONE LOVES FUNFETTI!)

after which, we ran to the neighboring liquor store (MidTown) and bought "Frozen Ghost" vodka (spooky and delicious! and...burn-y) as well as a bag of EcoVino wine, a company based in oklahoma. people swear it does not give you hangovers, thanks to the organic grapes/no preservatives. and the bag has an adorable old-timey photo of a man on a pedalcopter.

i wanted to share a recipe from Patricia Helding's cookbook Fat Witch Brownies (a collection of recipes from her Fat Witch Bakery in Manhattan. This is a wonderful book, because everything is made in a 9x9 pan, which means...fewer ingredients=cheaper/easier! very rush-and-budget friendly. and yummy! toffee happens to be one of my FAVORITE foods, so i made these Toffee Bars the other day:

1. Oven at 350. Grease and flour 9x9 pan.
2. To make crust, cream together 1 stick butter and 1/2 c brown sugar. Add and mix in 1 c flour. Add, 1 T at a time, 3 T sweetened condensed milk, and mix until blended. Press dough into baking pan and bake 14 min.
3. After the crust is finished, Cream together 1 c brown sugar, 2 eggs, and 1 tsp vanilla.. Add and stir in 2 T flour, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Pour on top of crust, and bake 25 min or until done. Remove and let cool. Enjoy. YAY!

More pots! (or rather, mugs and bowls)

Hello!
Picture one is what i come home to, most days: a cat butt sticking out from my curtains :) sleepy trouble loves lying in the window!
Picture two: you have my Mums to thank for these Lowly Worm felties :) you can't tell, but they are smiling. cute little guy!
Picture 3-5: yay i have more finished pottery!! lots of mistakes, both in glazing and forming, but i'm still a proud ceramics-mama :) so fun!

no poem today, got a podcast playing and wouldn't be able to concentrate. in other news, christi and i are giving up all "fluffy" books and television for the next month. *gasp* *cough* *moan* ;) wish us luck!

Blackmail Bad!

Happy Tuesday afternoon...whoops, still morning, never mind!
Anyway.
One thing that i've been thinking about posting for the past week or so is this:
Don't Give In To Blackmail.
Why? probably because of veronica mars, in which one nasty man is able to blackmail another man into doing his dirty work because the second guy had a huge gambling debt to the nasty. and because of madeline l'engle's Dragons in the Water, in which one man makes a clean breast of his past gambling problems, because he is determined to Not be blackmailed by someone who would sully his reputation. yay! just be honest! it can't be worse than allowing someone to have that kind of control over you, right?!
you should read any madeline l'engle book you get your hands on (a possible exception being one of her earliest titled, if i remember correctly, "Small Rain". I just didn't enjoy it enough to finish or keep it.) she is amazing! i'm including a photo of the ones i have--note the cheesy covers? ignore them, learn to love them, whatever you do, DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER! just read 'em! alot of them are about young children growing up, and learning about the 'darker side' of life--and how to process that.
in other news, my computer tried to off itself last week...erased All my pictures and documents...thankfully, christi's friend Bobby was able to do IT magic and they are all recovered/saved on an external source.
and, today's poem, about coming home after a long absence, prodigal-son style:

Hesitant
Heading
Home-
Shame
Prolonging
Loss-
Run
Prodigal!
Run
How could you think
He'd turn his back
Reject
Repentance?
He
Your Father
Loves.

A Hen named...Henrietta, duh!

OOOOOHHHHH i love this weather! then why am i inside?!? time for a cross-breeze, at least!
today, i am trying out a new bread recipe, courtesy of the SoNo baking company (thanks to D for giving me their cookbook!)...just waiting for the oven to heat up, then in the ol' loaf goes, and then in an hour or so, into my stomach she goes! interestingly, it uses all-purpose flour rather than bread flour. for some reason i didn't know that was possible, but apparently it is!

today's chicken poem is inspired by both those long-legged chicken felties and the pumpkin felties (fall! autumn! go! rock!) :) the other pictures are of: colleen's incredible ginger-bird-men, and a cake by whole foods. i keep looking for really awful cakes whenever i go into reasors or sams (or w.f.), in order to send photos to cakewrecks.com, one of the websites i check daily. but i haven't found anything truly memorably hideous yet. getting closer, though, i can tell.

alright, enjoy the weather, and here's the poem:

Chicken-scratch and chicken-feed
And chicken-by-the-pound
"It tastes like chick..." "Don't call me chicken!"
Chicken all-around.
So that's why Henrietta's head
Swelled thrice its natural size--
And now she wears a pumpkin shell
To keep herself disguised.
Oh, vanity! It saved her life
When Butcher came to call--
Cause he just saw a vegetable,
And no white meat at all.

sasparilla floats!

Happy September!! YAY!!!!!!
this is admiral ackbar (sp?) drinking a sasparilla float with homemade amaretto ice cream!! he is lovin' it. he told me so :) i know i sure did!

whenever i sit down to pray lately, it all turns into poetry or a song...is that wrong, think you? or just a different way to worship? i have trouble concentrating if i'm just trying to write out a prayer...but that could be because i keep putting it off--or getting distracted--and feel guilty. hmmm...

Here is what my prayer turned into today:

Unravelling is tough--
What went before,
And why,
How,
Who am I?

A child on periphery,
A portrait of insanity,
An image of an ancestry,
A Mirror
Mocking
Mimicry...

Powered by
A broken, healing heart
That leaves itself
To dwell on

Who you are.