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Thursday Ten: Grateful Cancellations Edition

August 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

1. My book club was cancelled last night. I had, uh, actually decided to skip it before they cancelled it but then someone’s kid(s) got sick and so the whole shebang was off and so I was no longer an antisocial canceler and instead just like everyone else. If, by chance, you’re in my book club and you’re reading this – it wasn’t y’all. I just didn’t feel like being social. Or making a dish to pass. I’ll be better next time around. Probably.

2. So instead of book club, I went to Sephora because I had a gift card. Now that was fun. It also only took five minutes.

3. I am officially burned out on Olympics.

4. On Saturday, I had the opportunity to assist shooting a wedding. The experience deserves its own post, surely. As someone who doesn’t usually shoot weddings, it was definitely a learning experience and one that was a tremendous shake to my confidence, and since I’ve returned from it, I’ve been slower to pick up my camera. And maybe that’s okay – because the thing is, it’s okay to realize I have things to learn. I’ll learn them. And that is kind of a scary realization. I’d like to get a bit of my faith back, though.
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5. Lately, I stay up too late. Good thing I bought concealer at Sephora. If you can’t sleep, you can buy sleep in a bottle. A little under-eye concealer and suddenly, voila, well rested.

6. In new music, I downloaded Missy Higgins’s new album and iTunes promptly ate half of it. Because iTunes is broken in stupid ways. And none of their remedies have fixed it. SOOOOO I will be doing my music buying from Amazon (and then I’ll be a jerk and link everything here with affiliate links because I can and if you’re going to buy it anyway, might as well use an affiliate link, right?) Anyway, Missy is especially moody lately and it’s all fine.

7. I am having a ridiculous amount of fun with my Kitchen through the Lens project. Mission accomplished. I have many weeks to go, but it’s nice knowing that once a week, I’m trying something new and often  delicious and I’m kind of glad I started it. I will try not to strain my arm patting myself on the back.

8. My house feels empty when my daughters aren’t in it.

9. This is the time of year when Facebook fills up with people sending their kids off to school and here in Michigan we have nearly another month until kids go back to school. It’s the law, y’all. No school until after Labor Day.

10. Sometimes you need, for no good reason, to end a post with baby piggies. You’re welcome.
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Filed Under: Books and Stuff, Photography, Thursday Ten

Kitchen Through the Lens: Caipirinha

August 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

caipirinha

The first rule of caipirinha is that nearly everything involved with this beverage is difficult to pronounce. The name itself is a little funky and the liquor that goes in (cachaça) isn’t much easier. So – first – a little lesson for ya:

caipirinha –> kai-pee-reen-ya
cachaça –> ka-shah-suh

cachaca. the biggest pain to find.

Second rule of caipirinhas is that you will walk into a liquor store looking for cachaça, and the pregnant lady behind the counter will get up on a ladder in front of all the rums trying to figure out what you mean and she will repeatedly try to get you to buy Rumchata but that’s not what you need. Cachaça is a Brazilian rum that’s made from sugar cane, versus the typical rum that is made of molasses. I guess. I don’t know a lot about rum. Or Brazil. Or sugar cane. So, y’know, you may want to hit the Googles if you need more information about what you’re drinking.

Or, you can just disregard all that stuff and make it anyway.

(That’s probably the better bet)

Once you’ve actually found cachaça, you can rest easy: The hard part is done. Seriously.

limes, pre-muddle

Caipirinhas are actually easy to make – quarter half a lime and add the limes and two teaspoons of sugar (raw or turbinado) to your glass. Muddle ’em. If you don’t have a muddler, and I don’t, you can improvise with random kitchen utensils, like a rolling pin or a wooden spoon. Muddle them good. Trust me. Add two ounces of cachaça. Add ice. Stir a bit. Cheers.

See? Easy.

Sigh. Here’s the thing. I don’t drink a lot of rum. This may have been better for me had I used a simple syrup (the recipe said you could sub 1/2 an ounce of simple syrup for the raw sugar), or, as a coworker suggested, agave nectar. And because I’m a bit of a lightweight, I may have further wanted to destroy the authenticity of my cocktail and diluted it with club soda (Whatever. I’m not a purist when it comes to following recipes anyway.).

Will I make these again? Well, sure. I have a whole lotta cachaça left. But, I’m thinking I’m more likely to try the strawberry-basil-cachaça recipe that was included with the bottle of cachaça, and give that a whirl. Something tells me that that might be really tasty because… BASIL. And prettier because…strawberries.

Cheers, y’all.

 

Filed Under: Eats, Kitchen Lens Tagged With: ,

we’re all just caterpillars waiting for our wings

August 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

But he was still hungry

Or something.

One of the definitions of metamorphosis reads:

any complete change in appearance, character,circumstances, etc.

The thing is, this is true for most of us, most of the time. The world is not still and life constantly evolves and changes, as do we. Your hair is short and then it’s long. You live in California and then you live in Michigan. You are right handed and then you trip and fall over a tree root and break your hand and must learn to use your left*. You have no children and are on your own, then you are a parent with babies to care for. You hate vegetables and then one day you decide they’re not so bad and wonder what you were thinking. You speak only your native language and then you learn a new one, sort of, kind of. You are scared of bees and then overcome your fear. You drink your coffee with milk and then decide you prefer it black. You replace your silver jewelry with gold and back to silver again. Your hair is long and then it’s cut short. You say you’ll never get a dog and then you get one and you love it. You get wrinkles where you once had none. You are surrounded by people and then you are alone. You are violently opposed to skinny jeans and then you buy four pair. Your children are babies and then they are out of diapers. You go from worrying about Friday night plans to worrying about property taxes.

And that’s just a piece of it.

Nothing stays the same. Ever. Not really.

And sometimes that’s okay.

 

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*This hasn’t actually happened to me. I know I’m clumsy, and you know I’m clumsy. That’s why I’m pointing it out. I have not ever broken a bone (knock wood), though I may or may not have tripped over some tree roots in my day.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Thursday Ten: Let the rain fall edition

August 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

1. New music in my iPod is Joshua Radin’s “Tomorrow is Gonna Be Better” and the video is below. Also, my iTunes is showing Haddaway’s “What is Love” as “recently added” and I’m PRETTY SURE I didn’t do that.

2. Today is my one year anniversary at my job – they’ve put up with me for a year, and that makes them pretty special. I felt like I should bake my coworkers a cake or something but then I got lazy last night and didn’t. Maybe I’ll high five them all. That is almost as good as cake.

3. Last night, a friend and I went for a long walk. It was nice to talk and walk and decompress and sweat and spend time with friends. When we finished, I grabbed some dinner and she grabbed some frozen yogurt and we chatted for a few minutes before heading our separate ways. We’ll be making that a habit, I think… the getting together weekly. I look forward to it.

4. I overslept yesterday. Weeks of an erratic sleep schedule finally caught up with me. I turned off my alarm at 6:15 and promptly fell right back to sleep until after 7. WHOOOOPS.

5. {This is where I’m not posting about Chick-Fil-A}

6. I took my girls to a wedding on Saturday. A family member (my mom’s cousin’s daughter – what is that to me? Second cousin? Second cousin once removed? Relatives are tricky) got married in a lovely ceremony with super fun reception – all of the little details made me smile, but my favorite things were the little touches that made it fun for my kids. And frankly, my kids were the most awesome dates I could ask for. Even if they drove the dj a little crazy with song requests (and bless him, he played them).
a flicker of light

7. I’m gonna have to call around about physical therapy for The Princess’s shoulder. Gymnastics injury. She’s ten.

8. There’s a lot of whining about the “spoiling” of the Olympic coverage with the delay, but I have to say, even knowing the US Women’s team was gonna get that gold didn’t lessen that moment when I saw it on my television. It was still incredibly moving and amazing. People: you just can’t whine about this stuff. These are world events and lots of people are watching. It’s not the plot of a major summer blockbuster – it’s the freaking Olympics. Unclench and deal.

9. Speaking of the Olympics – do you have a favorite event or are you just pretty much over it all?

10. Even though it’s not 100 degrees anymore, I’m so over warm weather. Seventy and sunny, where are you?

Filed Under: Thursday Ten
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