comforting.

I learned tonight that I love homemade chicken noodle soup. I recommend you finding somebody that loves you enough to make it for you.

It was like eating a bowl of cozy.

I'm now curled up on the sofa, under a homemade quilt (thank you grandma), nursing a mug of tea. It's like a whole night of the cozy. I'm a lucky lady.

I used to have a serious habit of night time tea drinking. (it replaced a less-healthier habit). I like this habit. (It's much cheaper and less-lung-killing than the last one.) I've missed this tea thing. For now I'm hooked on this delicious sleepytime vanilla flavor, but one day if I'm fancy I'd like to try this fancy Martha idea. I have the fancy french press -- I just need to the herbs and such to stick in there.

Right now, based on the contents of my pantry, I'd come up with day old celery and bbq potato chip tea and that's just, well, not cozy. or fancy.

next up: five servings of fruit.

The other night, K came home from class late and asked me what I ate for dinner.


I realized that answering honestly (string cheese, juice, a stale graham cracker) made me sound like a second grader.

Hm. You know, on second thought, a second grader probably has a more grownup diet than I do. So, out of sheer embarrassment, I decided to start cooking well balanced, nutritional meals. At least......two times a week.

I thought for sure it would another commitment I would quickly forget about (like exercising or plucking my eyebrows), but lo and behold -- I made a whole dinner! With a vegetable and a starch and hell, I even drank a glass of milk. (I probably shouldn't brag about that last part).

And like things tend to work out like they do - I got a wonderful package from my mom last week that included the perfect vintage recipe book. It came from a yard sale -- my mom wrote a little note on it that she bought it from a lovely older lady who was having a hard time admitting that she couldn't live alone any longer. My mother is the type of person that would obtain this kind of information from someone she was simply handing two dollars.


So, for now, I am going to give the cooking thing a try. And, if the recipe doesn't make us sick or burn down the house or better yet, we actually enjoy eating it, I'll write it down in my recipe book.

A few of the pages are already written on -- with things like the caloric content of apples and a vinaigrette recipe. It could be that the first owner of this cookbook had the same intention to fill it up with her recipes that I have.

Maybe I'm just finishing it for her.

whip it good.

Do you know you can make whipped cream?

And I'm not talking about pushing the white thing down on top of that can and wham! whipped cream on pie! I'm talking about honest to goodness homemade whipped cream.

OK, so maybe I didn't do it -- but I saw it, with my own eyes, happen this weekend.

This is what the lovely whipped cream making lady did:

Freeze a stainless steel bowl (just stick it in the freezer for at least 15 minutes or so). Then, using a mixer -- throw in a few tablespoons of sugar (yum). Pour in a good amount (about a half pint) of heavy whipping cream (good for the heart) and start mixing - on high. After a minute - throw in a capful or so of vanilla. Mix for a few more minutes - enough that it starts to have some form, but not so that it gets too thick.

Then, put a spoon in your mixture and eat. a. giant. spoonful.

Or, you could do what most people do and put it on your pie or your pudding, but I highly recommend the spoon thing. Yum. Even better than the can. Can you believe that?

We've had a nice weekend away from home, with lots of eating, a little hiking, a little shopping, more eating, a lot of sitting in front of the nice, cozy fire and then, a little more eating.

I remembered how much I love nature + the noise of walking on the leaves. I also remembered that as a general rule, I should stay away from scrabble. I feel like that game exists only to out my limited vocabulary under pressure.

Weekends away are so lovely.

i grow herbs.

I always feel a little guilty for taking credit for plants that are grown outside. Inside the house, yes, I feel completely responsible for my thriving, so very green houseplants. After all, I'm controlling their water intake and deciding on a daily basis if I should be kind enough to open the blinds for some of that sunlight they like so much.

And, when they die (which, um, a few have), I feel completely at fault, mourning their little brown curled up leaves that I stuff into the trash can.

But the ones outside, I mean, I feel like I should acknowledge things like the rain. And the dirt. And the sun. You know, the big players. So, I still don't know if I should take any credit for this cilantro, but I did highly enjoy using it last night to make some fantastic pica de gallo, which I've learned is so easy and so summery and just delicious.

I'm generally very nervous to do anything without a recipe and measuring cups, but this is just something that you can throw together and taste until you get it right. If I haven't messed up, chances are, you'll have a hard time even if you wanted to screw it up.

The things I use:
chopped tomato
chopped (red) onion
(a little) diced jalepeno
(a lot) crushed garlic
(a bunch) of cilantro
(dash) salt
(a squeeze) of lime

Mmm. Mix it all up and let it sit awhile. I used one part onion to two part tomato, which I found worked well, but to each their own. Fresher than your standard salsa. Mmm.


Last night, after I scarfed down that pica de gallo (see above), we went to a friend's first concert. Look at her, being in a band and having fun and following her dreams and being awesome. In front of people.

How amazing is that?