God might not want me to blog

I was all pumped up and ready to go when I made my last post.  I told myself "I'm going to post every day like I used to!  I still have so much to talk about!  I have so many stories saved up!"  But one fateful day soon after I made my comeback post, I fell ill. 

So I've been laying around, listening to Sarah's Key on audiobook...which it turns out is very, very depressing so far.  And then I told myself that of course it's going to be depressing, it's about the Holocaust.  But then I found myself angry with the author:  it's not a true story, so why be so brutal?  Why can't anything actually go right in this story?  Will there be some sort of happy ending?  I like happy endings.  And then I told myself to shut up because most real life Holocaust victims didn't have happy endings.

When I'm not listening to the book, I'm ordering from a pizza place just so that I can get milk delivered since I am too sick to pack everybody into the car and go get it myself.  "I have a really weird question for you," I said to the thick-accented Italian man on the other end of the phone, "would it be possible for you to send me, like, just a gigantic cup of milk?"  Of course I asked this after I ordered some actual food.  For a reason I still don't understand, he handed off the phone to an equally accented woman who asked if I would mind if the driver picked up a gallon from CVS Pharmacy.  I said of course not and that I would be eternally grateful.

The delivery man showed up here about 20 minutes later and handed me my sandwich and "mac n cheese bites".  I said "where my mo'fo milk, man?"  and he said "I don't know dawg, they wrote milk here on the receipt but never told me to pick any up, but I can go get some if you want, homez" and I said "Fo real man, I'd 'preciate it."

So he came back another 10 minutes later with my milk and I gave him a $10 tip for his time.  Though $4 of it was to cover the milk. 

FYI!

I just ordered my first food dehydrator.  Watch out world, I'm about to start drying shit to eat. 

Orlistat = Butt Grease = Skinny!

A few years back, I stopped eating chips that were made with Olestra, because I discovered that they make your bowel movements greasy.  I never experienced it personally, because I never had the notion to eat an entire bag of chips in one sitting, but I had read an excellent (and hilarious) experiment about it by a Zug contributer named John Hargrave.

Recently I've been more careful about what I eat, not dieting, just not going to Taco Bell and eating five 5 layer burritos every day.  I thought I was getting away with all of the burritos for awhile.  "HA!"  I yelled while shaking my fist at a pile of empty burrito wrappers, "you got nothin on this!"  Then I gave my booty a smack.

The burritos finally caught up with me.

So lately I've been trying to do some last-minute damage control so that I can actually wear my bikini without shame to the beach this summer. 

Anyway, I find it ironic that I once tried to avoid excess fat being expelled from my body in a way that is too graphic to discuss in such a public forum.  And now I take these pills called Alli that do just that.  And let me tell you, it's amazing, people.  The drugs prevent your body from absorbing all of the fat that you eat.  While I haven't been eating anything extremely fattening anyway, you're supposed to take one anytime you eat anything that has fat in it.  Grilled chicken?  Little blue pill on the side.  Whole grain spagetti with lean turkey burger meatballs?  Little blue pill please.   Yep, there are now two "little blue pills" that I am aware of.  Though I only have use for one of them.

I've already shed some of that excess pudge after a week of avoiding Taco Bell, and cheese in general.  I really have a problem with cheese.  Most people have food vices that involve junk foods:  chips, cake, ice cream, candy...I've never been somebody who has to cram plain crap down my neck, I never really had taste buds for those foods anyway unless it's that special time of the month.  But if I could throw a few cups of cheese on everything without consequence, I would be one happy lady.

Technically I guess I shouldn't really be using these pills, seeing as the indications instruct their usage is only for overweight people...which I am not.  But after reading reviews it appears as though plenty of non-overweight people take them, and hey, sometimes you must follow the flock of bikini-ready bodies.  

Never have I touched diet pills before.  To be honest, I'm afraid of most of them.  I don't even like the jittery feeling drinking too much coffee can give you...I can't imagine taking something that strains your heart like that and gives you the shakes and sends your heart racing.  But this Alli, I can fully stand behind.  It's gross, interesting, and effective all at once.

Beefy

I don't have anything useful to say at the moment (I probably will later...maybe.) but I felt like I should update since it's been a few days.

I've been lying around in my pj's all day...resting, and spending too much time on the Internet. I'm getting ready to be productive: I need to do the dishes, sweep the floors, and vacuum. But first, I am going to Taco Bell and ordering 10 of their beefy five layer burritos. Those babies are so good that they've lead me to hoarding. I've decided to start buying them and freezing what we don't eat right away. Or I might just stuff 10 of them down my neck today.

Tonight's Supper Theme Was "Things That Make You Fat"

I love to cook. These days though, with my children running amok and destroying my house, I'm often too tired to make anything that takes longer than 15 minutes.

This afternoon I got a sudden craving for the clam cakes my mother-in-law makes occasionally, but didn't feel like driving half an hour to force/blackmail/bribe her into making them for me. I've never needed a deep fryer...when I fry things I normally do it in a deep set pan. But clam cakes definitely require a real deep frying appliance, so I headed over to Walmart and picked one up for $19. Score!

Then I decided that I couldn't just make clam cakes, I needed something to go with it. So I picked up the ingredients to make New England style (aka the best) clam chowder. And then I decided that I needed to serve it in a bread bowl, so I found some small French boules in the bakery.

When my husband came home I was in the kitchen frying up a storm with my new appliance while being abused by stray hot oil splatters. Which made me wonder what you're supposed to do about that. You can't cover the fryer while it's in use, so what do you do? Stand there and take it? You can't step away from it because those suckers brown in seconds and will literally burn black if left in for 5 seconds longer than they need. Next time I deep fry I'll wear some safety gear: goggles, a ski mask, and rubber dishwashing gloves.

The cakes were done way before the chowda, so by the time I had the soup in the bread bowl and ready to go, my husband and I only had enough room in our stomachs to share a bowl. And damn was it good. (Toot toot - that's the sound of my own horn).

I found this fat dancing starfish clam cake. I think it's an omen of what's to come when they're all gone.

Share Stuff Saturday & I need to learn how to launder money

I've been super busy today. I woke up bright and early, around 10AM. I laid around and did some reading (Eats, Shoots and Leaves)...then I went and bought milk at the gas station around the corner (it's cheapest there!). I made my daughter some of her favorite special pizza, and then I spent several hours on the Internet while drinking wine. I also stole a couple of my husband's Samuel Adams...I can get away with it since he's away for the weekend for his Air Force Reserve drills. And I didn't clean a thing. Because I don't have to today.

I have some websites to share with you all, but first I'm going to talk a little bit about this pizza.
It doesn't look like much, hell, it doesn't even look appetizing whatsoever. It reminds me of those videos I saw when I was 6 of brains splattered on highways. My mom used to own a driving school, and before graduation there was the traditional viewing of Red Asphalt for the teenaged drivers ed students. This pizza reminds me of those videos...except these brains are rectangular. And baked. And delicious. Anyway.

My seven year old daughter Teagan is allergic to EVERYTHING. She's got a life-threatening peanut allergy. She's allergic to all other nuts too. Oh, and also: eggs, soy, dairy, oranges, rice...and so on. Which, if you're not accustomed to routinely reading the list of ingredients on food labels, you probably don't realize that those substances are in 99% of things that "normal" people eat. And so I make everything that she shoves down her throat from scratch at home. Which I don't mind, since I LOVE to cook.

This pizza is one her favorites. I made the dough with flour, yeast, olive oil, salt, & sugar, and topped it off with freshly made sauce, tomatoes, and turkey burger. Then I popped the sucker in the oven for 20 minutes. My daughter and I managed to eat all but one piece! It was that good.

I've been on a fabric buying kick lately. I just ordered a bunch of stuff on eBay, and since my thirst is insatiable I went on a search for more. I remembered that awhile back I had read about fabric co-ops, and decided this evening that I needed to find and join some. As a result, I ended up finding many craft related co-ops (I even shared a monster list at CraftForum.com) and I ordered several ridiculously cute prints for great prices.

Some Things I Recommend That You Check Out
I found this adorable Etsy store tonight that makes delicious looking jewelry. Literally. This brownie ring made my stomach growl.

Fab Fanatic is a co-op with a hip looking website and ridiculously cute fabrics. I ordered a couple yards from here tonight, including "Hedgehogs" by Michael Miller (pictured to the right). Would you be able to say no to that print? I didn't think so. I also picked up a yard of the mushrooms...and briefly considered grabbing a yard of each of the owl prints, but considering I just "bought" (okay, reserved via co-op) a jelly roll and a charm pack of owls elsewhere tonight, I'm thinking I'm all owled out for now. Plus I suspect if I buy any more fabric in the immediate future my husband really might kill me. Can any of you tell me how to launder fabric supply money??? I just need to know how to hide where it goes...

The co-op is open until February 22nd, so if you want to grab some of these guys head on over!

My talented new blog friend and fellow CraftForum member Elizabeth Gwen Originals sews very beautiful clothing as well as bright, colorful handbags and more! She also has an Etsy store HERE, check it out!

Another new friend and CF member, Lanie, runs a blog called Life in the Pitts that is really a hoot (curse you, owl fabric!). I've added her to my regular blog roll in Google Reader. She's talented and funny! Make sure you stop by!