Refreshing Summer Dinner

After the questionable insanity of completing a 3 mile run and 20 mile bike ride in 105 degree heat index, I needed a few essentials centralizing around re-hydration. A cool shower and a cold beer were the first two staples. After those were completed, I was able to think a little more clearly as to what was for dinner. I wanted to conjure up the most refreshing and replenishing light summer dish I could think of.

And I will say for myself that I holistically succeeded in the task at hand. 

Shrimp and Tilapia Salad

 

For this salad I basically scoured the fridge for every fresh veggie and herb I could find which included tomato, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, jalapeno, mango, cilantro, and basil. Then I added some lime juice, a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, along with some cooked shrimp and tilapia (and kicked myself for not having any avocado on hand, but still delicious).

 I need to admit that I have had a bit of an obsession with strawberry shortcake lately. I mean, fresh strawberries, cake, and ice cream? If any of those things are wrong then I don't ever want to be right!

This was my dessert to top off the warm summer evening. Very simple. Just store bought shortcake, fresh strawberries and no sugar added blue bunny strawberry ice cream. Pretty perfect for about 200 calories!

 

The evening was concluded by me sitting on the deck, finishing my beer, and listening to some Jimmy Buffett while watching the sun set. All and all a pretty perfect ending to a hot summer day.

Dolly Lama

Traditionally, the Dalai Lama is thought of as the latest reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have been chosen to be reborn in order to enlighten others.

Like the traditional, my Dolly Lama (a.k.a. my 11 year old basset hound, Dolly) has unquestionably been born to enlighten others. 

From one dog lover to the next, most would agree that their canine companions are such enlightening creatures that it is almost as if they live on a different, more peaceful, spiritual level than humans.

My belief is that the human brain has allowed us to become far more focused on the things that don't matter in this material focused world such as anger, fear, and fret, that we are incapable to have the simplistic ability of most canine pets to love, honor, and have unconditional companionship.

I believe they are here to remind us of what is really important. At least that is what my little precious Dolly Lama strives to teach me; to live in the moment, appreciate the little things, and to love unconditionally.

You Stay Classy, 30 year old broke girl: With Red Velvet Cake Balls and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

For my 30th Birthday (and to trick the co-workers at my new job into thinking I'm classy before they've gotten a chance to really know me) I wanted to bring something special for a treat to work. I love red velvet cake and knew I wanted to purchase some cake balls from a bakery to bring in. But, that plan was quickly halted when I checked at several bakeries and found the delicious red and white bites of heaven to be $2 each! Since I needed about 20 balls and my budget was $20, that wasn't going to work so I went with plan B, making them.
I searched a recipe and found that they were exactly as simple as I thought: Bake a red velvet cake, crumble it and mix with 3/4 can of cream cheese frosting, roll into balls and coat with white almond bark.
I also wanted to bring chocolate dipped strawberries because I love making somewhat healthy treats as an option and you can never go wrong with strawberries or chocolate!

Red velvet cake mix: $1.49
Cream cheese frosting: $2.19
White Chocolate Almond Bark: $2.69

Strawberries: $4.19
Chocolate Almond Bark: $2.69

Not only did I stay far under my budget but I got to eat red velvet cake balls (possibly several but who's counting) for my birthday! Yes, the process was somewhat time consuming, but the end result was worth every ounce of the work when a lady said "Did you try those little white cake things the new girl brought? They are absolutely to die for! Isn't she adorable!!" ...I may have just added the last part but she did say they were to die for!

Walmartified

I'm not one of those unflavored individuals who decides they don't like something and that is the end of it... I'd like to consider myself more open-minded, or flavorful, than that. So when I decide I don't like something, its not the final say but more of an opening in the doors of opportunity for me to try to like it... I mean,  I can't just be 100% sure I don't like it... I need to be 600-800% sure!

For example: Grits. They seem like something I need to like. They're a southern thing which I think is cool and you can eat them with either honey and sugar or hotsauce and salt (not many foods that deverse), and though I've tried them several times, several different ways, I just don't like them. I don't know if it the texture, that speaks for itself through the name, or the slight vomit flavor to them or the fact that you have to force feed them to yourself.  I just don't like them. Don't get me wrong though, I really want to like them! And you can bet your money that anytime I'm at a restaurant that serves them, that they're the first thing I order! And you can also bet your money that I will complain about them with every forceful bite!

So I also have an issue while grocery shopping. I call it being Walmartified.

Walmartified - (1) Pointlessly bumbling around aimlessly looking for nothing in particular, but obnoxiously fascinated by everything.
(2) Without brain function
-word's point of origin; me and everyone else while at Walmart

So now when I go grocery shopping without a list or a specific point of focus I quickly become completely walmartified and can bumble around the store unknowingly for hours. And if I see something I've never seen before such as "Grapples"(Grape flavors apples) then I might as well cancel the rest of my plans for the entire day because I will sit and stare at it for God only knows how long trying to decide if it is worth my $2. Then, of course, tossing it into the cart with the Diet Orange Cream soda and almond butter which I had spent the previous few hours blankly staring at before tossing them in.
So long story short; almonds are good, peanut butter is good, almond butter is not so good. Grapes are good, apples are good, Grapples (or Crapples, as I like to call them) are not so good. Although I don't like them, I've been choking them down together as a snack everyday for the past week, because they seem like something I should like and I aint no quitter! Regardless, next time I'm at Walmart I'm stocking up on both!

Beating the Birthday Blues

A half empty bottle of wine, sweatpants and slippers, a blank computer screen, a sleepless mind, and the countdown to my 29th birthday in T-minus 2 hours. For some reason, but no reason in particular, I always seem to get a little down right before my birthday each year. I've heard of it referred to as the birthday blues. I suppose it is a bit of the feeling sorry for yourself kind of thing. (Forewarning, I'm 29 and I'm about to whine.) I mean it is your one day especially set aside to celebrate you. The birth of your life. The day of your first breath in this world. The anniversary of the day that every experience up until right now has unfolded and made you the person you are. Is that worth celebrating? Is that something other people should be excited about? In my case, I feel that it is! But do they? I think once after acknowledging and letting go of the 'feeling sorry for myself' factor such as (with a pouty, whiny voice) "Gosh, I hope people remember my birthday because if they don't that means no one cares, so boohoo." Luckily I learned a long time ago that if I want to have a special birthday, then I have to make it special, and if other people want to help, then that is just icing on the cake! I'm 29 and this is my time!

So now getting to the being 29 part... One official year away from turning 30. That's when I start thinking back. “What have I done with the last 29 years? How much time have I wasted? Why aren't I further along with my career or family? What do I want out of life?”

I told my best friend I was having the birthday blues and she said "You're 29, this is your prime!" Is it my prime? Man, I hope so! God only knows that the way to 29 was not my prime. Though I can gratefully say that I've learned a LOT during my journey, and mostly learning from mistakes. My mom always says "You spend the first 30 years learning how to live, and you spend the next 30 years unlearning what you learned the first 30 years." Well, I'm thinking that I learned the first 28 how I thought I should live and that ‘the next 30 unlearning’ is condensed down into the last year for me because I had a LOT of unlearning to learn, and I did! So in that case this is a new start! The beginning of the rest of my life, from scratch, a clean slate. Knowing what not to do and having an idea of what I think I want to do?

Or maybe I’m 29 and waiting for a sign? A sign of what I'm doing here and what I'm supposed to do with this life. 29 and feeling fine? I did run my first half marathon last summer, and plan to run it again this year so, yes, I feel good. 29 and looking fine. Well that goes without saying ;) I joke to my twin brother that 29 years ago on the 20th of January, God decided that he wanted to create perfection, and so he did.  But then he had to figure out what to do with all of the imperfect leftovers, so a minute later, he was born.

I do think this will be a great year of my life. As I mentioned, I've screwed up a lot but learned a great deal from it. I’ve learned and grown more spiritually and emotionally in the past year, than I have in the rest of the years of my life combined. So I can honestly say I can only get better from here. So whether it's my time, my prime, a sign, or looking and feeling fine, or all, or none, or maybe just my obnoxious ability to rhyme...

I will say 29 is my year to shine! And could also safely say, I’m 29 and had half a bottle too much of wine...;) Regardless, its my year to shine!

War Hammer

"What in the hell happened to your head!?" I heard my cousin/roommate say as he walked through the front door, home from work. My uncle, my mom's sister's husband, formally know as Ateff, had come up for the night to do some sort of woodworking in the garage which evolved out of him and my cousin investing thousands of dollars into topnotch equipment and tools to transform the entire garage into a fully functional woodsmith workshop. With promising plans of making beautifully crafted cedar furniture from the cedar trees cut down on the country farm my uncle had spent his childhood. Two years of planning and countlessly rearranging the garage, hundreds of cases of Natural Light drank, thousands of hours of my uncle bumbling around the shop, all resulting in the workmanship of a small cedar judge's gavel (with sticky fingerprints covering the glossy finish), a "war hammer"(a large judge's gavel), and a small round coaster.

My uncle, God bless his soul, with a golden heart and a pickled brain, is nothing short of your classic balding, beer bellied, slobbering drunk, vulgar, racist, ignorant, outspoken, redneck with an amazing large vocabulary if you can understand a single hillbilly word of his slurred belligerent language known as Ateffenese. Ateff, not being his real name, resulted from him somehow maneuvering his way to yahoo's mail page to create his own account, the email address he wanted was unavailable so yahoo suggested others in alphabetical order, the first choice being Ateff, which he picked, and the name was made.

My uncle's visits are never uneventful, from the time he passed out drunk while standing straight up in the kitchen for 40 minutes before falling flat on his face, to the time he passed out drunk while standing up on the the second story deck and fell head first down a flight a wooden stairs, head injuries didn't seem to phase him like they did other people. It was just another Tuesday night for him. If his belligerent mishaps weren't entertaining enough, there was always the gallons of spilled beer tied into the, oh so lovely, default conversation of him publicly bellowing out his ungodly longing for me and my brother's wife. When we all cringed at the thought he would squawk out in a wet slur "We aint blood related you sick f@#kers!"

When I heard my cousin shriek, I ran upstairs from my room to see what my he was talking about. Ateff stood at the top of the steps and the entrance from the garage covered in sawdust, a beer in one hand and some carving tool in the other. At first I didn't see anything but a little blood on his shirt. Then my eyes led up to his head where I didn't notice much except for a big piece up his receding hair sticking up on the top back of his head. It looked a little awkward but then the realization set in that his hair was not nearly long enough to stand that high. It was a chunk of scalp the size of a jelly jar lid that was sticking up!
"Oh my God!" I cried from the stairwell.
"What? It aint that bad." Ateff leisurely said as he lifted his sawdust covered hand and blushed the flap over, meaning to brush it down but brushing it in the opposite direction exposing a graveyard of where hair follicles go to die.
"AHHHH" My cousin and I cried out simultaneously gagging in disgust.
"You need to go to the hospital right now!" I demanded.
"Naaaaaf, its fine." He said walking to the kitchen and opening another beer.
After my cousin and I drank a beer to calm the anguish, we had another to help us better interpret and decipher, through a newfound dialect of Ateffenese, what exactly had happened. No one can ever know for sure, but after an hour of listening, it sounded as if he was using some electric tool and didn't have his wood clamped down well enough and the vibration of the tool loosened the wood sending it shooting out of the clamp, smacking against the ceiling and then hammering directly onto his head.
My cousin was dying laughing "You're the only person in the world dumb enough to scalp themselves with a piece of wood!"
"I seriously think you need to go to the hospital, you probably have a concussion! Seriously!" I begged. But with no affect.
"Ahll I nee es amendid!"Ateff slurred.
I looked at my cousin questionably. "I think he wants a band-aid" he said. We searched the house and found nothing but an eye patch so after I forced him to clean the wound, Ateff, happy for the attention, stuck the eye patch on the top back part of his head. As he got up to get another beer from the fridge he said in a quirky slur with his back to us "I mothin'oo."
I looked at my cousin again with no clue. "I think he said, 'I'm watching you.'" My cousin could barely get it out before busting up laughing.

Prozac, Jesus, or Just Don't Give a Sh*t!

"Whatever meds you're on, I want some," a disgruntled coworker told me after griping about their day. I let out a small laugh and told them I was on no medication. "Bullsh*t!" They exclaimed. Then I confirmed that I seriously wasn't on any medication.
Looking at me unconvinced they said in a condescending tone, "What is it then? Did you find Jesus or something?"

I suppose it was true that my previously pessimistic attitude had noticeably changed over the past few months. But definitely not due to any medication. I could barely stay conscious after taking a Tylenol 3 let alone anything else. Something was definitely different though. Things, the little irritating everyday things that used to drive me crazy, just didn't seem to bother me anymore. I was genuinely in a good mood everyday! Never waking up and dreading the day like always before; instead, I was excited to wake up and face a new day's challenges. Even if they were the same challenges that I used to dread, my attitude toward them and toward everything had changed.
The person had a point, who was I?

Though I felt I knew and liked who I was now more than ever! I guess what it came down to was getting tired of being depressed and irritated for so long. After spending a lot of my energy being angry and negative for years, I finally realized that the only thing I had the power to change was my own attitude and thinking and not anyone else's. And that wasting my time being angry about the way other people act was, exactly that, a waste of time. So I made the decision to change. It didn't happen overnight, but eventually it did, after much practice of forcing myself to be positive, and changing my thinking if I didn't like something. I came to realize that people were not trying to purposely make me irritated but they were just doing the best they could with what they knew. I also learned to accept them for who they were, not expect anything different, and not take their actions personally. Also, mostly, if I could help it, I would take myself out of any negative situation that I didn't have to be in.  All of these changes effected everything about my life positively.

"So what is it?" They harped. "Prozac, Jesus, or you just don't give a sh*t?"
 "I'm not exactly sure," I said. "But I think Prozac told Jesus to tell me to stop giving a sh*t about things that don't matter!... Like this conversation." I winked, and left the room.