A Sappy Preview

This is one of my favorite shots from our day.

Update: Almost End of Year

So, its nearly that time again for looking back and perspective and new ideas and new commitments. I'm not a new years resolution gal, but I am a nostalgic gal and always on the hunt for ways to make my life, my world a little better. More on that later.

Right now:

Mister and I are headed on our honeymoon this coming Saturday. Two wonderful weeks in the islands. The first week at an exclusive resort (a wedding gift). We invited my brother and Mister's sister and their respective significant others to join us. It will be fantastic. A huge house, everyone practically gets a master suite to themselves, private pool, views, sunshine, diving, snorkeling, hiking, kayaking, reading, eating and lots of relaxation. The second week, Mister and I will be alone and doing just about all the same as above, but in a more intimate fashion. Very much looking forward to it.

When we get back, there's one week, the off to the parents for Christmas, then New Years and school which I only have until March to complete. Darned engagement and wedding derailed my best laid plans to have this over and done with by the end of the year. That's ok, I'm a prorastinator by nature, so this may just be what I would have done anyway. That's a positive outlook right?

There's just tons more, as you all know, life is full of 'stuff'.

In that light, after this week, I'll be signed off until after the 18th. I'll miss ya'll, keep on blogging and have a fantastic early December. I should have wedding pics on Flickr when I get back too. For those interested that is.

Just Watched: A Mighty Heart

Difficult: I can't say I liked this movie because, well, I don't think its the type of movie you like or not. The subject matter is difficult, its difficult to watch because you know how it ends and that its a real story. The story of Danny Pearl as told by his widow.

Interesting: In a very odd way it was interesting to watch the process that we as humans go through on an emotional level and how logic and reason and the need to "go on" takes over no matter how stressful life can get. It was interesting to pay attention to how I felt while watching this woman lose her mate. I could not have imagined how my view has changed since getting married just a few weeks ago. I'm such an independent person and now that we've made our vows, my take is quite different. The intricacies of world politics and how views are so different in other countries, heck, within each country, each neighborhood. Its political, so there's just so many sides and view and slants and ideas and well, I've got to end this now before I ramble on too much.

Good Morning

Happy Wednesday and Happy Thanksgiving and have a fabulous weekend.

And Good Afternoon!

Salty and Sweet

I was inspired this weekend.

For our wedding, we received a bag of really wonderful bath salts. I don't all that often even think of taking a bath (more of a shower girl) but when I do, I don't always have anything sweet or soothing to put in that bath. I now have this bag of sea salts and I took a hot, relaxing, salty bath and thought to myself, "Self, its salt and scent and the internet knows all. What a wonderful homemade gift that would make if only I can figure it out." Well, it turns out the internet pretty much does know it all. Type in bath salt or whatever into Google and there are just tons of recipes for homemade relaxation. So, that's what I did this last weekend.

I used THIS recipe. I found some seasonal fabric, glued to the tops of cute little squatty mason jars filled with assorted salts and scents. I used essential oils, tangerine, lavendar, cucumber, apple, plumeria and coconut/lime. (Not all in the same jar.)

Altogether, it was easier than I thought it would have been. Inexpensive, yet lovely (I think) holiday gifts. I have two separate girls' Chik-mas parties to attend and whatever is left over will make really wonderful, already made up and hand made to boot hostess gifts. So inexpensive, I hope I remember this little trick always. I mean, change the color of fabric on the lids and you can have literally any season of gifts at the ready. If you were really on top of your game, you could have the little lids already made up in a zip-loc bag or something and whenever an event precluded a cute little gift, choose the flavor of the day and Voila! You are done and impressive. Well, I hope impressive since I'm giving these out this Christmas season.

The first photos by Mister (and, he helped with the final outcome of the design and eventual fabric glueing).

New Old Favorite - Vegan Green Bean Casserole

I'm going to try THIS green bean recipe for Thanksgiving. (Photo from the Fat Free Vegan website.)

I don't know about you, but for my family, holiday gatherings involving food always includes the dreaded green bean /french fried onion casserole. Truth be told, I loved that dish. My mom always used frozen onion rings instead of the canned fried variety. I would volunteer to make it each year and I would layer in several layers of onion rings, it was almost more onion than green beans, but I digress. I've since stopped eating that recipe because I don't really do dairy and neither does Mister. Have to avoid the lovely cream of mushroom soup because of it. So, I found THIS recipe on a vegan food site that I rave about all the time and am going to make it for a Thanksgiving gathering. Let's hope it turns out as fantastic as the old standby.

Happy Thanksgiving All.

Just Watched: Shrek the Third

Yes, yes, I'm a Shrek fan. Great sound tracks, fun characters, fabulous one liners and Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots! Seriously, that's good casting. Plus, I'm always a fan of cute little orange kitties. I also think Mike Meyers is one of the funniest people out there today, and Cameron Diaz and Eddie I-lost-my-shoe Murphy too. I guess for me its an all star cast.

Then, like most movies for me, you get to the third movie and, well, they are out of ideas, but can't stop themselves. Even if someone had told me the movie wasn't that great (which by the way, it wasn't that great) I would have watched it. There's very little to make you want to know what going to happen next in their adventure, the laughs are for the most part forced and, if I can say this about an animated film, its a little too touchy feely.

That's my take on it. That said, I'll most likely watch it again Thursday with the family.

18

So, its not the best number ever, but it is better than the national average which is encouraging. You may or may not have seen/done this ecological footprint quiz before. I thought it interesting and its something that can be revisited on occasion, you know, sort of a little check up on ourselves. So, check out THIS LINK. Its the Earthday Network website where you can calculate your personal ecological impact on our lovely planet.

My number was 18.

What is yours?

Series: Bridge ~ Fremont

The Fremont Bridge

The photo doesn't do it justice, but, I'm not really a professional photographer and when you consider this was taken whilst driving down the highway, its a fine photograph. You can see a much better pic and the Wiki link above.

Sunrise ~ Northwest Style

I love all the colors and layers, the purples and pinks and I hope this comes through on Blogger. Sometimes I find the beauty of pics gets lost in the translation and the reflection in the building and the automobile lights and street lights and people are up and going somewhere with purpose and a lot of them won't even realize the sunrise is amazing and right there for the taking. But a lot of us do take in the morning. Morning is great!

Mt. Hood

Just Read: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini

A really great book. Duh! The reviewers have raved about this book since it came out, quite a while ago. I avoided it because it seemed so depressing - the whole Afghanistan and middle east issues. I have a tendency to be so outraged and confused and under-informed (thank you American media - why are you so confusing!?! - well, I guess that's an entire other can of worms).

So, I avoided it. I am so glad that I recently decided I would try to be more informed politically and to take my head out of the sand for longer than a quick peak now and again. I picked up the Kite Runner and I am so very glad I did. An amazing story of a man and his struggle to grow up all set with a nasty backdrop of the Afghanistan turmoil. I winced, I teared up, I was outraged, I was angry and in the end, I was so relieved to realize I live in this wonderful country with all its excesses. Its a sad, sad thing all our excesses, but when you get right down to it, I'd rather live in a land of excess and complain about it and try to personally live more simply than to live in a land where there is literally nothing and no one to help you in any way. Its so much easier to be in my clean and safe home than to try to survive day to day not knowing who you might accidentally glance at who will shoot you and your family for doing nothing more than that.

I'm sure I'll complain more about our cornucopious land at some later date, but for now, thank God that I live here and actually have the option to complain. I don't think I have the mettle to survive in the middle east - I like my open toed heels way too much.

Seasonal Eats - Cranberry Relish

I'm always looking for new holiday recipes. I get bored with the same old fare. I mean, I do love the regulars, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (even from the can I like it) WOW, that's a lot of carbs. I want to find something new to shake things up and I usually fail miserably. This year, I've been reading some fun recipe and food blogs (VeganYumYum, Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, both links are also on the sidebar) on a regular basis. I know there are just tons of them out there, but these couple have caught my attention and kept it. So, when I ran across this recipe for Cranberry Relish, I thought I'd check it out. I did substitute Agave Syrup for the sugar.

Cranberry Relish

I thought it was fantastic. I served it with turkey pot pie and, well, I was very happy with the combination. No photos, no energy for that. Sad but true. Maybe tonight when I pull it out of the fridge, I'll snap a pic and update this post.

Crappy pics, but, lighting isn't the best at night in an old house.

Peace

Just Watched: Ratatouille

I like Pixar and Brad Bird. Fun premise, cute rats and a feel good movie. I liked it, but it may have to be one of those movies that the more you watch it, the funnier it gets. Not Pixar's finest moment in my opinion, but watchable.

Dazed and Confused

I walk to the grocery store because gas prices are atrocious. (Yes, yes, for other reasons too, its a beautiful walk and I try to be earth-friendly etc.) But for this post, I do it to save money. I had a seriously low-key wedding because Mister and I didn't want to incur tons of debt for a 3 hour event. I make my coffe at the office in the morning because while purchasing coffee at a coffee bar is fun and tasty and you get to try all sorts of new and crazy flavors, well, its more cost effective to drink the office coffe rather than spending $4 each morning. I make my lunch nearly every day instead of buying it, I make dinner for Mister and I most nights 'cause yes, its less expensive. I don't go shopping for clothing very often. Mainly when all the things in my closet have too many holes in them to wear in public. (You think I'm kidding and I sort of am, but that's happened to me! Ok that was scary to write. Anyway...) We use coupons and buy in bulk and don't go out drinking with friends every weekend and I just can't even think of all the things we try to do to make our dollars go just a little further. Then.... then I see THIS on the web. Check it out. Its very nearly disgusting. Well, to me anyway. Mister and I are solidly placed in the middle of the middle class. We could go to Disneyland if we wanted, but it starts with saving. It's never a whim to go on a vacation. Its a planned event with much scrimping and saving and not having and then there's usually a little debt. How could there not be. Hello! Have you been anywhere lately, its expensive to live here in the land of the free. So anyway, back to the disgust. I see that $25,000 dessert and I read the article and I am flabergasted. How is it the Britney Spears, a fine model of womanhood and humanity (ahem) can have in her pocket each month something like $747,000 of disposable income? She's just an example, but she's a train wreck, whether she's got talent or not is irrelevant when she conducts herself like she does in her personal time. There are sports icons and movie stars and so many other people who YES, entertain us, but, but, but,.... I don't even know what my point is. I'm just so appalled for some reason. It doesn't effect me directly, but it does indirectly.

Life's not fair. I'm not asking it to be. I just don't understand the logic behind creating a dessert or a bagel or a whatever that costs that much money. Is it a fund raiser? I think the $1,000 bagel was, but I didn't see anything about that in the $25k item.

I guess I should be glad I live in the land of opportunity. Only in America could one restauranteur create a $25,000 dessert and actually have a clientelle that would purchase it. Only in America would we have such huge egos that we would drop that kind of cash for three bites of gold and chocolate. Only in America would we devise a chocolate vehicle to clean out the wallets of Arabian princes.

I could go on and on. I'd love to know what you think. Am I just too middle class and stuck in my own head to see that this is a really good thing and if I had won the lottery I would probably be one of those who made these types of purchases? Well, no, I wouldn't be that person. I know at least that much about myself.

Ok, dismounted from the high-horse and moving on with my day.

Weekend Adventure

I love hiking and I love the forest and I really like a challenge. I can be just as easily challenged by the sofa and a good movie too. The weather was crisp and clear and not even a hint of a breeze. Just nearly perfect hiking weather.

Almost at the top.

View at the top. Two lakes, East and West Paulina.

We hiked from the shores of the closest lake in the pic (above) to the peak (pic below). I guess technically that's the one on the left. Its difficult to see, now that I try to describe it. Anyway...

My bro and his girlfriend having lunch. Good friends and family and I'm happy.

Beginnings and Endings

Some simple beauty to end the week and begin the weekend.

xo

Lucy

Evil Chocolate Cake

So you might think I call it evil because, well its chocolate and it could be a play on 'devils' food'. Well, thats not the case with this cake of evils.

Its an amazing chocolate cake that has coffee in the batter and brown sugar in the frosting. Ooh yeah baby, its delicious. But, this is the second time in the three times I've made this cake that terrible things have happened. The last time I made it, and you have to know that its meant to be a three layer cake so lots of batter and lots of ingredients, so the last time I made this cake, I have two pans in the oven with 1/3 waiting on the counter to go into the oven after the first come out, 'cause you know three 9 inch rounds just don't fit into my sized oven, yes a personal problem, but there you go and when the timer buzzes and I open the oven to toothpick test the cakes, well, they haven't risen - at all. The are two seriously thick, dense about 1/3 of an inch high cake rounds. Nasty! Seems I'd forgotten the baking soda. Oops! I start over and eventually, there's a superfantastic cake but only after much toil. Sooooo, I frost the cake and I may have been in a little bit of a hurry, but I really still believe the cake was cool enough to frost and its three layers tall, remember, and its all frosted and quite pretty 'cause I'm taking it to a gathering and in the morning I open the fridge for something and I see that the top layer of the cake has split in three pieces and are all slowly sliding away from each other. You can't imagine the horror. So, I take some really gorgeous 4-inch wide w/gold stitching or something amazing ribbon and wrap it around the cake like a corset and cinch the cake up until the three misbehaving pieces come back together. What else are you going to do? I tie the ribbon into this huge amazing bow with long trailing ends which I decoratively wrapped/draped around the cake sides. It turned out pretty cool and fancy. Well, why didn't I take a picture? Good question, but I'll never forget how cool it was. I've since ribboned up cakes that I had to take places just for the fun of it. Anyway, I get to the event and its time to cut cake... hmmm.... just exactly how do you cut the beautiful cake when there is ribbon surrounding it! Well, you take the ribbon off and the frosting which is between the ribbon and the cake sticks to the ribbon and the most beautiful cake becomes an, albeit really tasty cake, a rather hideous one. My point, evil cake! Made the cake tonight for the weekend, my bro's birthday. I put all the ingredients in, including homemade vegan buttermilk (1 cup soy milk and 1 Tbsp vinegar let sit for 10 minutes)

and coffee and much flour and sugar and just over a cup of dutch cocoa and when I pour the oil in, it smells just a little odd, but I thought to myself.... its oil, it isn't going to smell like roses. I think nothing more of it. I take out the batter beaters and do my usual little taste AND ITS HORRIBLE! The oil was rancid!!! Can't tell you the annoyance. I had Mister come and verify and yes, RANCID. I started over... I would share the recipe with you, but I was sworn to secrecy when it was given to me and seriously, do you want the evil cake recipe? I don't think you do! My ordeal in photographic form.

Ok, so its not all that pretty. It was my first time trying out my new pastry thing-a-ma-jig that you put frosting in and magically you have professionally decorated cakes. Well, not so much. It was very difficult at best. Oh well, it will still taste good.

No rest for the wicked...

.. now why did that just pop into my head?

Time Flies and Flies and do we know where it goes so we can catch it later?

Well, obviously the answer is no, but wouldn't it be great to be able to corral the time that seems to just fly by. Like the time when we are sleeping could be put into a time-safe and later in the day when we have eleventy-million things to do and no time to get them done, we could just go over to the time-safe and take out a few hours and insert them into our day. Imagine all the time that could be banked away for the future. You could be on vacation and have had the foresight to have packed some time in your carry-on and then actually extend your vacation a few hours or heck, even days.

Live in fantasy land much? Again, obviously rhetorical.

My point being, whoa! where does time go? I have my house to clear of furniture - only after Mister has completed the room he is building to house it at our current home. Then the aforementioned house to be cleaned thoroughly, you know the carpet cleaning, oven cleaning, deep clean and the entire interior painted all so we can figure out how to photograph it then come up with a rental agreement and find some comps and then place an ad and then hope to find a decent renter who won't trash the place. Thank you notes to write, disposable camera's to have developed, professional photos to go through and critique so we can send out pics to peoples who may want them. A cake to make for this weekend and packing for a weekend in Bend for some rest and relaxation at which time I will make a, hopefully, nice dinner for my bro's birthday. And getting back into the real estate studying mode. That got dropped like a hot potato when Mister proposed and all time was spent planning that event. And the quilt that was started 10 years ago that I promised myself I'd finish last winter and somehow getting in a workout each day and seeing friends on some sort of half-regular schedule. And finding time to take photos and to blog, 'cause that's like therapy to me. (check back later, I may have time LATER to add some photos and or links etc to this post - no time now though) Oh, Thanksgiving and then the honeymoon (somehow we are supposed to study to take our advanced diving class while we are there) and then Christmas and seriously, I know its not just happening to me, but how do ya'll deal with this? Not rhetorical here folks.

I keep waiting for a time period when I will have some down time and it just doesn't show up. I finish one project and another pops up. This is just life, isn't it? Again, not rhetorical, help.

Maybe I sleep too much? I could just give that up thus creating more time. Alas, not gonna happen.