a moment of vanity and panic

Not a very clear picture, but this is documentation of my very first grey hair, found a few days ago. Which I promptly pulled, and taped to my chalkboard. And I'm sure you can understand my need to write "wtf" next to it.

Just after the pulling and taping happened, I immediately called my sister and left a freaked out message on her machine that included lots of swears.

Seriously???? Grey???? I'm 28. My mom didn't have a single grey hair until she was 40. I thought I had at least another good 10 years of enjoying my natural color. Now I feel like I need to prolificly document the color my hair is now so when Julian is older he can see that I actually did have very pretty hair at one point.


Until it all turned grey and I looked like Big Edie from Grey Gardens.

butter me up

I mentioned on here a while ago that I bought some mason jars and used one to make vanilla extract. And then I was left with 11 empty jars. What to do with them? Make butter, of course! These pictures are actually several weeks old, but you don't care about that, do you?


To do this, you will need:
- 1 mason jar (we used 2 because I wanted Julian to have his own jar)
- some heavy cream that has been sitting unrefrigerated for 12 hours*
- arms
- a cute helper

*I know you're freaking out about the unrefrigerated cream. Don't. It doesn't get disgusting, and I can promise you that none of our butter recipients died or suffered any intestinal distress. Just make sure to keep it out of the sun. I put mine out at 10 p.m. the night before we did this so there wouldn't be any chance of the cream getting too warm in the sun. Since there's no sunlight at night. Yeah.



Put the cream in your mason jar(s) and shake what your mama gave you. Julian is doing exactly that, since I gave him the jar of cream. Heh. Also, he was instructed to "look crazy for this picture" when he was shaking his jar. He thought this project was cool, but not nearly as much as this photo would lead you to believe.



After a few minutes of shaking, you'll see the cream separate into butter and buttermilk. At that point, you can strain off the buttermilk and save it for cooking. I made a loaf of bread immediately after this with the fresh buttermilk and it was delish.



Doooood, look at all that buttermilk. Almost an entire cup!



The last step after straining is to put the butterlump into a bowl and squish the extra little pockets of buttermilk out, because the whole thing will get rancid quickly if there's any buttermilk left. I just kneaded the butter for a few minutes with a spatula until all the liquids were out and then it was done! If you want, you can add salt, fresh herbs, or honey. And really, this whole project could be done in a food processor in about two minutes. I just wanted to have a cool project that Julian could be involved in.

So easy. And if you've never had super fresh butter, you're missing out (unless you're vegan and you think dairy is just disgusting). This stuff was amazing.

it's all about meme

I was just tagged for this meme by Noelle from Baby In Broad
and thought, why not? My life consists of talking a lot to myself due to being a stay at home mom, so at this point in my life, I accept any chance at narcissism. And while I'm at the narcissistic behavior, wanna see a chocolate cake I made? Of course you do! Here it is:

Sharing the photo with the cake I made is the child I made, Julian. He's the best kid ever and I'm so lucky to have him. He's actually kind of a miracle, did you know that? I wasn't a diagnosed celiac before he was born, and miscarriage is pretty common in undiagnosed celiac women. I feel so lucky to be his mom, and he made Mother's Day so wonderful for me just by being the cool kid that he is.

I hope you all had a nice Mother's Day, and all the moms in our lives are appreciated. While we're talking about moms, let me take a second to blow your effing mind. So, we know that females are born with all their eggs. This means that while your grandmother was pregnant with your mom, a part of you was inside your grandmother's body at that time. Now pick up the pieces of your exploded head and read this meme:

1. What are your current obsessions?
Opening a gluten-free bakery in my little town, making stencils with freezer paper, and the idea of picking up my guitar after a few years of feeling defeated as a musician and rocking out like I used to. Now that I have the tattoo to remind me that in my soul I'm a songbird, I don't have any excuses. It's constantly staring at me and asking when I'll start writing again.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Lucky Brand jeans and some kind of girl tee. I just bought a bunch of skirts though because when I get pregnant again, I want to wear long skirts and wife beaters all day. I prefer saying "wife beater" to the classier "ribbed tank" simply because it makes me laugh.

3. Last dream you had?
It was about Benjamin Button, because I watched that movie last night and it made me so very sad. I woke up feeling kind of heartbroken.

4. Last thing you bought?
Thai food for my Mother's Day lunch yesterday. I don't even know what the dish was really called, but it was a bowl of coconut milk and red curry with a ton of vegetables in it, and a pile of rice on the side. One of the spiciest things I've ever eaten but I seriously couldn't stop.

5. What are you listening to?
The new Indigo Girls album, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug. Their songwriting continues to amaze me, and I'm pretty sure that they invented the concept of harmony because they effing rock it.

6. If you could possess any super power, what would it be?
Probably flying, but invisibility comes in as a close second.

7. Favorite holiday spots?
I have some sweet memories of camping at Jalama Beach in California with Wade and a very tiny Julian. And our other favorites are to be discovered in the future.

8. Reading right now?
Strangely enough, I'm not reading any books now. I'm usually reading about four at a time. But right now, I'm taking a hiatus. There are a few magazines that I've gotten lately though, and they've been addressed to the fake name I give out, Chlamydia Latrine. Seriously. Chlamydia Latrine gets a ton of mail, and I laugh every single time I see it. Everyone should make up a fake name that they use to subscribe to magazines.

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Greatest Mother Trucker Alive

10. Guilty pleasure?
This phrase always bothers me. If I haven't done anything wrong, I have no reason to feel guilty. And the things I find pleasure in cause me no guilt. In fact, I'm striving to live a guilt-free life in general because guilt does me no good at all as a person. And now that I don't subscribe to any religion, I definitely don't have anything to feel guilty about since most religions are guilt and fear based anyway.

I'm sure you wish I had just said "chocolate" for that question and been done with it. Meh.

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you're weak?
My favorite people: Julian, Wade, my sister Tracy, and my handful of best girlfriends. Also, people like Sarah Silverman and Ellen Degeneres. And while I'm at it, I regularly make myself chuckle, which is so nice. Wouldn't it suck if I bored myself?

12. Favorite spring thing to do?
Just being outside with my peeps. I've grown fond of tending to our vegetable garden too, which is full of our prolific arugula.


13. When you die, what would you like people to say about you at your funeral?
I haven't given that any thought, really. I guess because I'd like them to say what they really felt about me, not what I want them to say. I have thought that I'd like people to not spend money on flowers, but instead throw a big party and celebrate life and loving each other.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
I can't stop talking about it and I'm sure it's getting boring to everyone, but this dang Thai restaurant in town is turning me into a crazy person. Late last night, after eating an enormous lunch of the above mentioned red curry coconut stuff, I told Wade that I wanted more of it.

15. When did you last go for a night out?
Oh jeez. I don't even know. Maybe when Maggie visited and we went to the gallery hop? I don't get out much at night.

16. Favorite ever film?
I'm probably going to go with Grey Gardens, but I adore Almost Famous and could watch it a million times and not get sick of it.

17. Care to share some wisdom?
coffee makes you poo.

18. Song you can't get out of your head?
True Romantic by Indigo Girls

19. Something you don't know how to do, but wish you did?
Anything involving math. It intimidates the hell out of me, and I have huge admiration for people who can solve math problems in their heads with Rain Man kinds of skill.

20. Which disease or condition would you most like to see eradicated?
Poverty. It's entirely possible too, but the few who possess the most have to be willing to get over their egos and facade of power so they can help the many who are suffering.

21. Last thing you said to someone?
"Bye, I love you! Have a nice day at work!" to Wade as he left this morning.

22. Have you ever confronted a litterer?
Yes. In L.A. when I would regularly see people let their dogs drop a steamy one on someone's lawn and just walk off, I would get really nasty and yell at them. Probably not the nicest thing to do, but if you're too high maintenance to pick up your dog's poo, you shouldn't be allowed to have a dog.

23. Pet peeves?
Poor grammar, like saying "could of" when it's really "could have". I have little patience for people who don't know how to properly speak their primary language.
Also, rudeness. It's really difficult to raise a polite child in a rude society. I'm also very aware of my yelling at dog poo people and how hypocritical it is for me to say I dislike rudeness.
I sound like such a bitch now.

24. Name 3 words that gross you out, and 3 you love:
gross: moist, quiche, panties
love: troubadour, bungalow, fuck

***
Rules of the game. Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your own blog. Replace one question. Add one question. Tag 6 people.

I tag:
28 Peppermint Grove
Expanding the Albertsons
Momcapades
mondeintact
Sonnet of the Moon
Daughter Of Agnes

thai food so good you'd phuket

My family doesn't go out to eat very often. Mostly because it's such a gamble every time we do, and hoping I don't end up getting glutened. Another reason is that we love cooking and have gotten pretty good at it. So why bother going out to eat when you can make the same thing at home for way less money? And not get glutened in the process! But there are things that I don't know how to make, and probably will not really ever learn the fine art of. Like making Thai food. I love it, but seriously, I have no idea how to make a tamarind sauce. Maybe one day.

But for now, there's Thai Sawatdee right here in Winston-Salem. In a Harris Teeter grocery store. I first found out about this from Emily's blog, Celiac Underground. To be honest, if she hadn't written such an amazing review of the place, I would have passed it by entirely. I mean, it's in a grocery store. Have you ever had good luck in that situation? Not me. But jeez. I'm so glad Emily raved about this place. It's become one of my new cravings and is one of the best Thai restaurants I've ever been to.

Most of their menu is gluten-free. The noodles are rice, and the owner will tell you which dishes have soy sauce in them, and is happy to leave that out. Spring rolls are not safe for celiac peeps, I've heard, so I don't even bother. But for realz, go and try their Pad Thai. I would kill for some of their Pad Thai right now. And the other day, I stopped a man to ask him what he was eating because it looked so good. I don't know if he was bothered by that or not, but he told me it was some kind of red curry coconut dish. That's probably what I'm getting next time. You were probably dying to know that piece o' minutia.

Here are some pics of us eating the soup while we waited for our main course. Are these posed, or do we really eat our soup like this? I'll never tell. What I will say is that I can't believe I put such an unflattering photo of myself up. You know what though? I don't even care. Pretty much all our pictures are nutty like this, because I think perfect and pretty is boring. Wouldn't you rather look at this crazy shit instead of a nice Sears portrait? I would.





Soup eatin' crazies.