Top Tooth

Problems blogging, but hey. Letting you all know that Grady just lost one of his top front teeth.  His fifth tooth lost.

Best, top to bottom, once a year, Pecan Pie

For Loraine, with love,

Crust recipe
(Flaky pie crust recipe from the news paper, with a secret ingredient add in)
Makes 2 crusts, 1 double or 2 single

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1tsp salt
1cup butter, cold, cut
1/4 shortening (I use coconut oil, cold)
1 tbsp rum!
1/3 ice cold water.

Toss salt and flour, smear butter and shortening in. DO NOT mix. Break down the chunks. When pressed in sprinkle in the rum. Drizzle in ice water. It will NOT be cohesive. Pour onto counter top. Smear a bit more, minimally. Gather up and smear out again. As shaggy dough gather up and make two disks wrap in wax and refrigerate for 30 minutes. When ready, rol from the center out, do not overwork. Fold in half and half again to for loose triangle to transfer in to your pie pan. Chill or use as directed by any recipe.

Pecan pie filling.
Old fashioned pecan pie, the very best.

1cup maple syrup
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1tbsp molasses
4 tbsp butter, cubed
1/2 salt
6 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups pecans lightly toasted
1 unbaked pie shell, chilled

Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 450
Heat syrup, sugar, cream and molasses in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes.
Remover from heat and cool 5minutes
Whisk in butter and salt
Whisk in eggs yolks.
Scatter pecans in pie shell, carefully pour the filling, put into hot oven,
Immediately reduce oven to 325, bake until filling set and center jiggle slightly 45 to 60 minutes
Cool for 1 hour then refrigerate for 3 hours. Serve at room temperature.

My Onion.

Some things go unsaid for decades. Some times they stay that way a little longer. Here is what I'm ready to say:

My most recent "look at me now" picture.

     I have continued to loose some weight and my husband and I continue our 5:2 feed fast lifestyle.  In the beginning of August we will round the 1 year mark. I continue to learn a lot about hunger and craving and self control.  There is no better method to understanding for me than this route.  A dedicated effort to withstand 24 hours of hunger followed by two or three days to reflect on the hunger, craving, food quality experiences is expanding. I can not overstate this enough, I had forgotten portion and self control during my six years as a lactating mother.

     Though there is nothing at all I regret about that path, including the weight gain, I have needed to find a new direction in life. The calories I ate had no where to go anymore and post surgery I was still comfort eating my way through some of my emotional distresses. I have learned how often I ate in distress, and it was a lot.  Now I find myself thinking about how I used to eat somethings outside of mealtimes and fantasizing about eating when distressed, but I also know I will be o.k. if I don't eat in those moments, I know I can handle my feelings.  I won't drown in them and I can't cover them with food forever.

      I have also realized a deep root to a significant amount of my emotional pain.  Now that I am addressing my memories, a suddenly acute and long delayed case of PTSD is beginning to subside. With counseling and will power, I know I'll be fine. I think in a way learning to fast two days a week taught me that I had control, and inner strength. Maybe it is a strange route to self discovery but it is a way.

     Two years ago I asked the universe at large to help me conquer my demons... not even knowing what they all were. In layers the infinite onion that we are has been peeling back.  Lessons come as the previous ones have prepared me for the next phase. Kind of like ripping off a band-aid reveals a scab, and under the scab you find a scar.  That is me these last two years.

I tested for Yellow Stripe in TKD recently.

      I noticed my pallor and weight gain.  Perhaps it was and the confused, shocked looks from some at my 20 year high school reunion that helped me to realize just how toxic I had become. Certainly early last summer I wondered if my death would come prematurely. Then I thought of my kids, not just myself.  I love my kids so much, I decided I needed to learn to love myself better, for their sake and mine.

Don't be afraid to start the journey. Way down inside an onion is a fresh green core and potential.  With a little soil and care, it can sprout all over again. My husband say he sees a glow in my face that had gone missing.  I notice it too.  Truth is painful, but it doesn't kill anyone. Waiting too long kills you, even when you are still alive.

Getting Healthy Part Two.

Myself back in August at my children's Birthday Party

 A change can be seen a bit easier, though it is subtle, between the bottom three photos.  I never have really stepped on a scale during this process.

The photo of me in the green shirt was my before photo that I subsequently could not find for my original Getting Healthy post.

Sometime near August when I started to try and get healthy.

November 11th  or so

Feb 17, 2014

I've been doing a lot of baking this winter so there hasn't been a whole lot of headway.  See photo on the right.  I might actually be getting more headway with my legs and my arms a bit with light exercises.
 I am hopeful that as summer comes the baking will subside, but of course I have to be in charge of that..In the mean time my belly haunts me a bit.

CNN Riding the Fool Train

When A women is photographed breastfeeding, and if she is famous and cool with that, if she isn't famous and posted it herself, and she is cool with that... it is not a debate. It is a statement. A pretty clear statement. Not a debate. There is no need to debate anything. It is one persons statement, end of discussion. Why do all these "mom" moments and the "debate" that ensues continually picked up by CNN. Women breastfeed all the freaking time without taking a picture... No debate there either... just living.

It isn'talways photographed, but it happens everyday all the time.  If a mom can breastfeed while she works, more power to the rest of us. When women let themselves be put out there is these ways they unfortunately expect all the media overreaction.  But where is the shaming a judgement when hollywood spends decated comidically depicting birth as out of control, emergent and heavily assisted... 

Oh that's right women should be seen (the way other people want us to be seen) and not heard (at least not by our own choosing) except through publicly approved filters.  So who is this "public" of filters?  Who drank the Kool-Aid?  Land of the Free?  Really?

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/12/11/nr-gisele-bundchen-breastfeeding-instagram.cnn&hpt=hp_c3&from_homepage=yes&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F

Getting Healthy

Sometime over the early Summer I began to feel not just over weight but very unhealthy.   My stress level was very high, my hormones and moods were totally out of whack and I was very unhappy.  Emotional eating has always been a way to cope and through the year I'd always managed to manage it, some how.  But that all seemed to have changed.  I had to confess that loosing all the extra breast was a great step forward, a huge step forward but that wasn't going to fix my health.  (The first Picture is me in June and the second is me in April.)

Ever since the surgery I have experienced a lot of health problems I just didn't have before, or at least not all at once. I caught pneumonia, and digestive problems, ear aches, massive throat infections, reactions to the stitches, UTI, low energy and I was always cold. I constantly wore a sweater for about 8 months. My most recent health issue has been a massive Sty which spread to the tissues surrounding the eye and required being lanced by an ophthalmologist.

I started to get scared.  So In an effort to have a hobby together, and in a effort to live a more disease free lifestyle... to live healthier longer Mark and I embarked on a 5:2 fast lifestyle change.  We eat "whatever we want" five days a week and only 500 calories on two days of the week.

 We have discovered our food cravings, our will power and our weaknesses.  We both have learned to appreciate the caloric values of many foods.  I have personally increase some of my yoga exercises too.  I believe I am on my way to better health, I can feel it.  I weighed myself early on and was so discouraged to have only lost 3-4 pounds that I have decided to not use a scale.  I have lost 4 pants sizes and I can do 15 push-ups.  Things are looking up. 

Fox News

My response to a huge debate opened up by a friend voicing his frustration with the lack of quality news from FOX NEWS.  I know my opinion will hurt a few feelings. I'm just sharing my observations and opinions.

This education issue is big to me, Here in SC, a lot A LOT of people teach creation. If you are brainwashed by your church and family to disregard the huge body of knowledge that is science you will be forever ignorant to so many things. I see it all around me here. But If I posted this I wouldn't be just offending "friends" I have family that think this way. It drives me crazy. Evolution in education is key... because otherwise we are teaching that ignoring our body of knowledge, what ever it may be, is ok. As adults these same brainwashed kids will ignore climate change and poverty and elitism ... and they will grow up thinking that narrow opinion is fact... because someone in authority said so... ie a news media outlet like FOX. I rest my case. Cause and effect.

Furlough

I totally understand peoples anger over the closings of parks and landmarks. But look at it this way, the country is being reminded that the wild areas and monuments wouldn't be here for you to enjoy if there was no Park Service, no Department of Forestry. What if we hadn't preserved all this land in the first place. Just try to remember that when someone starts soap boxing about money wasted of National Parks budgets. These places are managed by a lot of under appreciated individuals, Federal employees at the bottom of the federal pay scale. They are furloughed too.

(first written on my facebook feed October 6th)

Flippant

flip·pant

ˈflipənt/

adjective

1. 1.

   not showing a serious or respectful attitude.

   "a flippant remark"

   synonyms:

   frivolous, facetious, tongue-in-cheek;  disrespectful, irreverent, cheeky,impudent, impertinent;  informalflip, waggish "a flippant remark"

A Shitty Way to Share Retirement Home Research.

Creekside/ Capriet	100 Burgess Hill Way Frederick , MD 21702	creekside@capreit.com
		(301)698-5700
Edenton Retirement Community	5800 Genesis Lane
	Frederick, MD 21703	866) 344-4946
		http://www.springridgesenior.com/Amenities/32425
Spring Ridge Senior Apartments	6351 Spring Ridge Parkway	(877) 508-8394
Sunrise of Frederick	990 Waterford Drive
	Frederick, MD 21702	(866) 344-4946

I'm Not Stretching Here

Really really, the more ya look at the portrait in the previous post the more you'll see it.

Here is exhibit A (About 10 years after the portrait looked exactly like me.)

Exhibit B see bottom Right Photo

A Twin

When I was about 19 I house sat for someone who had a coffee table book full of old oil paintings of Redheads.  One of the pictures just bowled me over.  I ran to the bathroom and did a double take in the mirror.

 I wrote down everything I could find in the book describing the painting. About a year later I lost the scrap of paper. I have been chanting in my head ever since I saw this painting, "Boston Museum of Art, Viola Nilson, Pink Flower".  I forgot the rest of the details.  Thanks to the internet I don't have to make a trip to Boston. After years of occasionally running internet searches I have finally found the portrait on line.

She looks Just like me... I think maybe at least she used to.  She has green eyes. Now I am "withered" with time. Certainly not a young woman anymore. When I was house sitting that Summer I found my twin in Viola Nilson.

See for yourself, The Pink Flower (Viola Nilson) by Laura Combs Hills

Finding New Music through Facebook.

I love finding new music through Acquaintances and Friends on Facebook.  It is how I found The Avette Brothers. And How I found this They Might Be Giants song my Kid love. Of Course there is Clouds by Zak Sobiech

And now this

Daft Punk (feat. Julian Casablancas) - Instant Crush [Random Access Memories]

Stop Proposed bill H3478

My letter to SC representative

 David J. Mack, III

"Option 3, Non-mandatory testing is allowing myself and so many other who are dedicated to bright engaged citizen creation to provide a rich and thorough classical education to our children, our and your most valuable resources.

We need our freedoms to provide society a rich diversity of educated peoples to help stabilize our future world.  Teaching to the test will only create a huge time suck and a barrier to the reality - life is not a test, it require inventive innovative, creative, outside the box thinking.

Where is that thinking future going to come from?"

Maybe it sounds arrogant?  Maybe it has run on sentences... I don't know if I would change a word of it. I just spent the last 4 days battling Norovirus in all it's 20-min-between-spells glory and Rushing a child to the ED for a head injury/fall.

Rumor has it the bill has already failed in committee, but I wanted my 2 cents out there.  I want to participate and be a voice.  Maybe our democracy is terribly flawed, even broken... but in our times of internet access at the ready isn't is beautiful that I can Hear about an issue, Find my representative and Write a passionate letter and Participate all in 15 minutes.

Maybe I'm farting in the wind, but somebody is bound to smell it.  I love the smell of democracy at 11 in the evening.

The Time Had Come: Six Pounds

I have had a bilateral breast reduction.

Before

One week After

Before

One week after

With a 37 inch rib cage I was a Double J, but I am not sure what size I am now.  I had 2500 grams of healthy tissue removed.  My back ache has vanished - I had not realized the daily pain I had grown very used to.  My over all weight had nothing to do with the "problem" as my tissues were less fatty than average and quite dense.

Bra-less Before

My friends for a week,  two surgical drains

The T intersection of stitches.
 They continue back all the way underneath both arms.

Maybe two days After with compression
 surgical Bra and  drains

Weary

Weary is a good word to describe me right now. Self induced weariness. I've been indulging in a series of Novels, the twilight series. Last night I read until 2:30 in the morning... then my body ached and I could not sleep until 3:30 or so.

This has been a long week of reading, but something I have mostly enjoyed. One more book to go. I have tried to for some character opinions, and I think I might just blog about that next. Better late then never, I missed most of the hype by years. I guess that is what a free copy of a book will do to you.

I have been trying to juggle a lot of big projects and I think it has been wearing me down. Of all things a kinda wish I was in Maryland so that I could finish what I started trying to help my mother with her house troubles. It amazes me just how much there can be to get done.

Moving around financial accounts and following up on tax issues, making good on promises and keeping homeschooling commitments, bills and potty training also have taken there toll. But gosh darn it I'm going to squeeze in my reading. A page turner, no matter how gimmicky or cheap is still a page turner.

Here is the blanket I made for Grady. It was about two and a quarter years in the making. There I was Pregnant with Cora, trying to get in touch with my inner creative self, trying to get in touch with creation. Grady asked me to make him one too, and I figure since the rejection would hit him too hard I started a blanket with a pattern for him. Eventually, since it didn't look like the instruction pages said it would I committed to my own crochet rhythm and and this is what we ended up with, and I love it, it is warm and it is appreciated by the boy.

Would Love to See Healthy Breastfeeding supported on Sesame Street again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFNwbc0X7GI Maria feeds Gabriella

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-L-Fg7lWgQ Buffy Feeds the Baby

Thirsties Giveaway on Economical Me.

Found a great post about crying in a pile on your bedroom floor.

I remember being broken and oddly finding the light there... it just takes time to see sometimes.