Posted By Cathy on February 5, 2010

Look at me, not posting for a week again.

It’s just that I’m sort of in limbo until I hear back from my doctor’s office.  Limbo such that I’m not sure how to think about it, let alone write about it. My appointment was this past Monday (Feb. 1) and it was all talk and bloodwork.  Fortunately.

We talked about what’s going on, why he thinks it’s happening, what we can do about it, and what this means for my health and childbearing future.  Some of the possibilities are good, some more troubling.

I won’t know the deal until the results of both my bloodwork and the battle with my health insurance is over.  Insurance doesn’t like to pay for things that could be even remotely related to fertility.  Even when they hurt real real bad and are causing what might be irreparable damage to your babymaking (and surrounding) parts.

At this point all I can do is wait.  I hate waiting.  Mostly because I’m an obsessive worrier.  So, the longer I wait, the longer I have to come up with worst-case scenarios.

The only distraction that has worked for me this week is cooking.  Not my books, my sci fi shows, my writing, my tarot cards (did I tell you guys I was reading cards again? Cause I am), nothing.

Anyway, here’s the recipe for the delicious soup we had for dinner last night.  Also, this recipe is pretty cheap (and filling).  I think I figured out that each serving costs around $2.

I got this recipe from Redbook magazine last year.

Red Lentil & Chorizo Soup

• 5 cups low -sodium chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 1 lb dried red lentils
• 1 chopped onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lb fresh chorizo or hot Italian sausage links
• 4 cups baby spinach

1. In a 5 quart soup pot, bring broth, water, lentils, onion, garlic, cumin, and cayenne pepper to a boil; reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 25 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add chorizo or sausage links and cook 12-15 minutes, or until fully cooked.  When cool enough to handle, cut chorizo into slices.  Add to soup, along with spinach, and cook 3-4 minutes longer, until spinach is wilted.

I used regular lentils because after two stores I was tired of looking for the red ones.  I had to cook the lentils around an hour and 15 minutes (as opposed to 25) for them to get to the consistency I wanted them to be.  I also added a little more spinach then the recipe called for.  Oh, and I used hot Italian sausage instead of chorizo.  And not just because it’s more fun to say “hot Italian sausage”.

Category: Life, Recipes | 3 Comments »
Tags: lentil and sausage soup, red lentil and chorizo soup

Posted By Cathy on January 26, 2010

UPDATE (Jan. 30, 2010): This is hands down, the laziest blogging move I have ever pulled.  I published this post on the 26th, but got distracted and forgot to pimp it on twitter.

But. I do have a reason (yes, other than laziness) for wanting to update and edit it.  The original post was about things people do on twitter to cause me to unfollow them.  But then a friend of mine, Allison, made some excellent points in the two comments she made about all these twitter/blogging/commenting rules.  (I left all the original comments in place.)

It’s some stuff that I’ve been thinking about and feeling for months, but she was the one who put it all together for me.  Especially the part about why I started blogging in the first place.

I have a bunch of crap in my head all the time and I feel better when it’s not in my head anymore.  Writing is how I work things out.  It’s why I carry a notebook around.  If don’t capture a thought on paper it’s gone forever.

My blog is my very personal journey and a long time ago I used to not be so afraid of you guys coming along for the ride.

But then I left myspace and got myself a big girl blog.  All of a sudden there were all these rules.  I’m not going to elaborate other than to say I felt pressure to fit into some sort of mold.  And to do things to get “traffic” and readers and high stats.

It wasn’t fun. It no doubt contributed to me writing some of the worst drivel of my life.

They say if you want to be inspired to write, you should read.  And read what inspires you.  So I’m going to do that. Starting right now.

I have no idea if I’m a writer or not.  But I do know that it seems to be like anything else.  You don’t know until you try.  And even if you are supposed to do something, doesn’t mean you magically know how to do it.  Sometimes you have to be taught.  You have to be ok with failing. And I’m not so much. Honestly, I’m scared to death.

I’ve decided it’s ok to be scared, too.

Oh, and here’s the original, edited post. Even though it’s a shining example of said drivel:

I started using twitter last March.  I became addicted to twitter about, oh, I don’t know…  last March, maybe?

Shockingly, it didn’t take long for me to post a rant about some things I didn’t like.  That’s also back when my husband used to comment on my blog all the time.  sigh

I still stand by pretty much everything in that post, but 9 months later my tolerance for some things has grown while my tolerance for others has become completely nonexistent.

I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t say a few words here about how I feel about online friendships.  I know some people mock the idea of truly being friends with someone you’ve never actually met, but I couldn’t disagree more.

I know some wonderful, strong writerly women who not only encourage me (me!) to write and stand up for myself, they call me on my shit when I need it.  And know when to back off when I don’t.  There’s really no other word for that then friend.

Some people say you should be really careful and cautious about online friendships.  That’s true, too.  A person can pretend to be anything they want to be online.  A blog, a tweet stream, a facebook page are easy ways to create a life that may or may not be all that it seems.

That’s where something like twitter comes in handy.  To me, it’s like a cocktail party.  You can meet someone, exchange pleasantries, and move on if you find you have nothing in common.  Or you can continue to be casual acquaintances.  Or if you do hit it off, you can add them on facebook, follow a blog, reply to them a lot on twitter, whatever.

This goes both ways.  If someone doesn’t find me particularly interesting, they can just unfollow.  I don’t even care that much anymore.  I’ll admit, it used to hurt my feelings, but then I thought about all the reasons why I unfollow people and realized it isn’t that big of a deal.  It’s the equivalent of saying, “It was nice to meet you” without adding on the “I’ll call you”.  And honestly, odds are if you unfollowed me, I wasn’t really feeling you either.

(Here’s where I did some editing – took out a little intro and the first few points, but I feel like leaving the last three unfollowing reasons up. Just because.)

3. This one is sort of awkward, so I’ll just come out and say it.  You’re a whore.  (Sadly, I’m referring to more than one person here.)  I’m tired of reading about how you’re not wearing a bra today or how big your boobs are or how much sex you’re having with random people.  I’m tired of you constantly posting pictures of your cleavage.   I’m not trying to be a prude here.  I mean, I like boobies and a good sex story as much as the next person.  But talking about sex constantly doesn’t make you sexy.  It just makes you slutty.

4. Taking a deep breath because this one is totally awkward.  But here goes. You pimp your stuff/ask for things too damn much! It’s fantastic that you wrote a book, wrote a new post, have a new giveaway, want to win an award, want to win a contest, want more followers, but I’m tired of hearing about it over and over again.  I’m all for pimping your stuff and your friend’s stuff.  Once.  Twice.  Maybe, in a very special circumstance, three times.  Anymore than that and I start feeling like doing the opposite of whatever it is you keep repeatedly telling me to do.  Or if all you ever tweet are links to your latest blog post or giveaway, well, I can get that information from my google reader, can’t I?

5. This is the only one directed at one person in particular.  Honestly, I have no idea why I didn’t unfollow you immediately after you snarked at me.  I guess at the time I didn’t want to think it was about me.  Because I’m totally fucking neurotic I tend to get my feelings hurt easily and assume things are about me when they actually aren’t.  I’m working on this issue, which means I gave you the benefit of the doubt when I really shouldn’t have.  But, yeah.  I’m pretty confident your snark was directed toward me.

I’m sarcastic.  I’m snarky.  Sometimes I’m even downright bitchy.  But one thing I don’t do, ever,  is go out of my way to hurt someone’s feelings.  Accusing someone of not taking medicine (umm that won’t help at all by the way) for a chronic condition that they have so they can then tweet about it just to get attention? You really, seriously thought that?

And personally, the way I handle it when I don’t like or I’m tired of  what someone is tweeting is to just unfollow them.  The beauty of twitter is that there’s no need to subject yourself to me when you can so easily make me go away.

And honestly? The irony of accusing someone of tweeting something for attention on a site that is designed entirely for the purpose of getting people to pay attention to what you say just kills me.

Category: Blogging, Social Media | 10 Comments »
Tags: twitter, writing

Posted By Cathy on January 24, 2010

One of the changes I’ve been wanting to make is to spend more time reading.  I’ve always been a big reader, but lately the only reading I’ve been doing has consisted almost exclusively of  tweets, facebook status updates, blogs and smutty fanfiction.

To keep this goal from being like all the other things I intend to do but never actually follow through with, I’d been thinking about joining a book club.  Not only is there a deadline to finish the book, but I have to make time to read.

Meaning, it will force me to sit in one place, relax, and lose myself in a book instead of my day to day worries.  For some reason I still struggle with giving myself permission to do this.

So as you can imagine, I was pretty excited when I read my friend Erica’s post about the Slow Readers Book Club.  She found it through one of her bloggy friends, and the best part is… everyone is welcome to join.

Here’s a description from one of the founders of the club:

“Don’t let the name fool you- it’s not for literally slow readers (although, if you are, we don’t judge) and it’s not as exclusive as a ‘club’. this is an opportunity to take part of a movement that needs a revelation to slow down and take a few minutes in our day to disconnect, reenergize and even be a part of helping our communities and environment, via The Slow Movement.”
-Diana

The first book is Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

We have until March 4th to read the book, when we’ll each post a review of the book on our blog.

I mean, does an online book club have my name all over it or what? If you want to join too, click here to go right to the source:

You can also follow the book club on twitter.  I highly recommend this because a forum has also been set up where readers can go in and discuss the book chapter by chapter, and all sorts of other good stuff.  I haven’t looked around (or joined) the forum yet because I have about 50 pages left in my current book.

I’m totally going to finish it tonight.  Swear to God.

Category: Book Club | 2 Comments »
Tags: Half Broke Horses, Jeanette Walls, slow readers book club

Posted By Cathy on January 19, 2010

Holy crap you guys.

I’m a finalist in a recipe contest.  I almost didn’t even enter, but it’s an Aiming Low thing and they are all about being lazy things being easy so I figured I could probably handle it.

One of our favorite recipes is also one of the easiest recipes to make ever.  So, it was fate.

Slow Cooker Dijon Chicken

And? It’s even easier than all that.

First of all, you don’t even need to rinse the chicken first because it actually makes it germier.  Jerrad accused me of making this up to justify being lazy.  Then I reminded him to never question me.

So, basically, you just spray the crock pot with cooking spray, dump some boneless chicken in there, squirt honey mustard on it, smoosh it around with a spoon, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dump a bag of cut fresh spinach in there, a few pats of butter, more salt and pepper, cover & cook on low for 5-6 hours.  Serve with instant brown rice.

If you like, how about voting for me?

I still can’t even believe I’m a finalist.

Category: Blogging, Recipes | 8 Comments »
Tags: aiming low, recipe contest, slow cooker dijon chicken

Posted By Cathy on January 15, 2010

I have insomnia.  It comes and goes, but I’ve been dealing with it for as long as I can remember.

Sometimes it’ll leave me alone for months at a time.

Sometimes it’ll show up for a day or two and then go away.

Sometimes, like now, it’ll show up and hang on for weeks and weeks.

For at least the last month, I’ve been sleeping about 3 hours, waking up in the middle of the night for about 2 hours, then back to sleep for an hour or two.  Every night.

Other chronic insomniacs know what this means.

This means I have the CRAZY.  I can’t think straight.  I forget the right words to use.  All the little points of flashy light and streamy colors in the corners of my eyes make it hard to concentrate.

I’m not going to lie.  It is kinda fun.  Certainly makes life more interesting. Especially since right now I don’t have a job or little ones to take care of.  I can pretty much sit here and be crazy and it’s not bothering anyone.  Except my facebook friends and twitter followers.

But on the other hand, my fuse is pretty short right now.  I’ve stumbled into a few walls because I lost my balance.  I’m just… exhausted.

The last few nights have been the worst though.  Tuesday and Wednesday night each I slept about 90 minutes.

You’re probably going, “Go get some Ambien dumbass.”  And yeah, if it’s still this bad when I have my surgery consult on Feb. 1, I will.  But generally speaking, I don’t really like to take medication.  I prefer more natural remedies.

Over the years, I’ve tried them all – valerian, melatonin, along with doing all the “sleep hygiene” stuff – limiting caffeine, working out regularly, not staying in the bed when I can’t sleep, etc.

I tried a new one last night from an article Jerrad found online.  You can read the whole thing if you’re interested, but basically 5-HTP is supposed to work in a similar way to melatonin to restore normal, healthy sleep and dreaming patterns. He picked some up at one of the plethora of hippie natural foods stores here and I tried it last night.

I would say the jury is still out.  I slept from about 2-4 am, then was up for about two hours during which I engaged in activities you don’t want to hear about.   And no, it was NOT any sort of sexy time with my husband.

But. I did fall back asleep for almost four hours after that.  FOUR HOURS PEOPLE! I was practically jumping for joy.  Even though they were four very fitful hours where I’m pretty sure I turned into a werewolf,  was part of some sort of swat team trying to rescue someone from a castle, and I think there may have been a spaceship involved somewhere.

So, that little part of the article that says you might have vivid dreams? Umm, yeah that’s one way to put it.

But I also don’t have the sleep hangover you get from taking something like benadryl or sleepy time pain relievers.

I’m definitely trying it again tonight.  Maybe I’ll find out how that rescue turned out…

Category: Life | No Comments »
Tags: 5-HTP, insomnia, insomnia remedies, sleep hygiene

Posted By Cathy on January 11, 2010

You might notice it looks a little bit different around here.

I finally wrote that About page and we cleaned things up a bit.  I say “we” because my husband did all the actual work.

I was happy with the basic design, I just wanted it to be a little simpler, cleaner, and for it to be easier to find my posts.  So now I have a widget on the side that has all my posts organized into categories.

Wait, don’t look yet.  I mean it will have them all organized.  Here in the next few days.  I swear.

See, when I moved my blog to wordpress, I never used tags and categories in any kind of way that made any sense.   Now I need to go back and assign a good portion of my posts to the right category.

I’ve been whining about it a lot, but it’s the kind of thing I actually enjoy doing.  I’m weird like that.

Anyway, I noticed that I seemed to be feeling extra pissy about my Being Catholic category.  Like, I actually wanted to get rid of it altogether.

I don’t think there’s any one reason for this exactly.  Maybe some of it stems from a desire to not have obviously political or religious things on my blog, other than a post here and there.  The internet is a strange beast when it comes to such things, and I’ve seen enough political/religious/younameit disagreements on twitter and in blog comments lately to make my head spin.

It’s not just the internet, though.  People in real life are just as likely to make judgments about what you believe or don’t believe based on affiliation only, for lack of a better word.

Just FYI, there ARE people of faith out there who don’t necessarily agree with each.little.tiny.part of our chosen belief system.  So we think and we educate ourselves and we pray and we gently push for change from the inside.

I would prefer if we didn’t have a death penalty.  Because I believe it’s up to God to take life, not humans.  Soo, umm yeah.  I toe the party line on that one, so to speak.

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure Jesus doesn’t give a shit if you love and want to marry someone who has the same parts as you.

But all that stuff was only part of it.  I’m going to tell you guys a secret.  I haven’t been to Mass in a long time.  Somehow all my Lent plans went awry somewhere, I never made it to Confession, or Easter Mass.  So it was almost a year ago.

Catholics reading this are crossing themselves and praying for me right now.  Like, they won’t finish reading the post until they finish their prayer.

The rest of you are all, that’s totally not a long time.

After sorting through all my “excuse reasons” why I wasn’t going (my Church is farther away now, I have to go to Confession first, general laziness) coupled with some things I realized on New Year’s Eve, I figured it out.  And it made me really sad.

It’s not my faith I’m disappointed in, it’s my parish.  Specifically, certain people in my parish.

I’m still hesitant to give much detail, but it all started when I took a job in my parish office.  Those who read my Parish Place blogs on myspace have an advantage in that they know the whole story, and I’m sorry that I can’t repeat it here.

In fact, I’ve abandoned all desire to ever repost them because I don’t want to relive it.  I’d like to print them all out and burn them.  Closure and all that.

But I watched what was once a close relationship with my pastor who guided me through an annulment and joining the faith completely fall to shit.  One of my crimes? Asking the other priest in the parish to be the main celebrant of our wedding and to do our marriage prep.

Why did I do that? Because having gone through one divorce I wanted to do our prep with the priest my husband related to and considered a friend.

One of the ways he showed his dissatisfaction was to schedule an appointment at the parish during my wedding so I would be sure to SEE him there, not co-celebrating my wedding.

He did, in fact, co-celebrate, but I later learned he had to be practically forced to.

Even after all that (that’s just one of many stories) there was enough good in all the other parts of my parish that I stuck around anyway, at both the job and my parish.  I eventually quit because I was offered a part-time job in my field.  They all knew about my medical issues and our problems conceiving.

Sure, some of them stayed in touch for a while, here and there.  But it seemed like more and more often, I was the one doing the initiating.  It eventually got old, so I stopped trying.

I mean, isn’t that what you do when you aren’t terribly interested in friendship with someone? You respond minimally when they contact you, and you never initiate contact with them.

Seeing as how I can read all these social cues, I was surprised when we were invited to what was basically a parish office party on New Year’s Eve.  Surprised and happy I should say.  I was looking forward to seeing everyone.

I was disappointed when I got there and my one friend wasn’t there.  It seemed odd because everyone else on the parish staff had apparently been invited.  I figured he probably had other plans.

And by friend, I mean friend friend, not just we used to work together friend.  We text, we chat, we facebook, we watch Caprica, and meet for drinks.  He’s called or texted plenty over the last year to see how I’m doing.

I felt vaguely uncomfortable for most of the party, and I couldn’t quite figure out why.  I mean, people were certainly talking to us and being friendly, but at the same time there was a subtle but definite message that I’m not in the “in crowd” anymore. Conversations trailed off or got steered in other directions when I approached.  That sort of thing.

That’s cool.  I don’t work there and I shouldn’t be privy to inner office workings anymore.  Nor do I want to be.

But.  The two or three people that I had been the closest to and had looked the most forward to seeing spent the least amount of time talking to me.  It just was… odd.

More than one person pointed out they “hadn’t seen me at Mass lately”.  So you’re paying attention enough to my life to know I’m not at Mass, but the idea of calling me to see how I’m doing completely escapes you?

After all that I probably still would have left the party just assuming I didn’t have much in common with them anymore, and that really they just invited me to be polite.

While we were thinking about leaving I got a call from my friend inviting us to the bar where he was.  Since it wasn’t even 11 pm yet, I was all over that.  He seemed surprised when I told him where I was because he didn’t know about the party.

Not that he’d have gone anyway.  That’s not the point.  The point is that he was the only office staff not invited.  The only one.

And when I said my goodbyes, mentioned where I was going, and invited an out of town guest that (I thought) we were both close to?  It was like I said I was going to go club a baby seal.  I was told in no uncertain terms that he hadn’t been invited to the party for “political” reasons and our out of town guest was not only instructed NOT to go with us, he went in a room and hid and didn’t come out until after we left.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him.  Odds are I won’t be seeing him again.

So, we got our stuff and left.

It made me sad.  I don’t know what could be so politically important that a group of Christians would purposely outcast someone who should be a member of the family from a holiday party.

I love my Church.  The thought of going somewhere else makes me sad.  But the thought of walking in with pairs of what I now know for certain to be judgey eyes on me makes me more than sad.  It breaks my heart with disappointment.

Category: Being Catholic, Friends | 13 Comments »
Tags: Being Catholic, changing churches, christian, hypocrites, judgmental, organized religion

Posted By Cathy on January 8, 2010

Like so many other people, I started working out again this week.  Not because it was a resolution, but because with the chaos of the move and then the holidays, there just wasn’t time.  Or room.

I prefer to work out in the privacy of my own home.  At one point in my life I was a gym person, but it was one specific set of circumstances that included a fantastic, cheap, and usually not crowded gym close to both home and work.

Then I moved and joined another gym.  This did NOT work out but if I tell the whole story I might get stabby and I’m in a pretty good mood right now and I’d prefer not to ruin that.

But with time (and marriage) I acquired a decent enough “home gym” for my purpose.  An elliptical, a treadmill, some girly 5 pound weights and a TV/DVD to do my  girly weight-lifting and abs workouts.

See, this is my “home gym” otherwise known as the spare room.

It’s not big – there’s a tiny floor space, and the machines are practically on top of each other, but it works.  And it’s free.

Anyway, even though we’ve been here in the new place since the end of October, it took us until last weekend to get it to look like it does in the picture.

Monday when I finally dragged my ass in there eagerly laced up my running shoes to get on the treadmill, I encountered my first problem.  My thingy wasn’t charged.  Don’t ask me to describe the thingy.  I just know it holds my playlists and like, some other stuff.

Since I also hate headphones on me when I’m working out, Jerrad has set up some elaborate thing where I plug it into the TV so the sound is better.  That whole set-up was also not working.

Fortunately Jerrad was home from work that day, and although it was a pain in the ass that required finding an extension cord and various electronic things, he got it to work.

Then when I got on the treadmill, it would run, but the display wasn’t working.  It’s basically useless to me without the display.  How will I know when it’s time to do the next interval? And more importantly, how will I know how many glasses of wine I’ve earned calories I’ve burned?

At this point, some of you may be thinking that I would be all “fuck it, fine I’m not supposed to work out.”  Umm no.  It pissed me off and made me determined to work out.

Which I forcefully relayed to my husband.  Who was basically like, “chill baby the battery just came loose” and fixed it in about 2.5 seconds and escaped the room as quickly as he could.

So I did my thing.  My thing involves laying on the floor periodically for stretches and various ab exercises.  I hate sticky sweaty bacteria collecting mats, so I use a folded over blanket.  And yes, I wash it.  Anyway the important part of this is that I layed on the floor.

Tuesday’s workout was a walk in the park compared to the Monday of Technical Difficulties.

Until the very end when I was doing an exercise that required me to lay on the floor on my side and put my arm out.  Where I immediately noticed that my hand was touching some sticky but dry mess on the carpet.  It didn’t take long to determine that it was pee.  Dried up, crusty pee.

I was immediately grossed out because 1) hello, it’s fucking gross! and 2) HOW in the world did I not notice yesterday when I layed in the same place? I mean, the stain was totally dry but had clearly been there for days.  (I’ve since learned that it is basically impossible to see a stain on brown carpet.)

Anyway, back to triumphing over adversity.  I got out a comforter, covered up the carpet, and finished my workout.  How’s that for perserverance?

When I was done, I emailed the hubby to give him the news and debate what exactly was going on here.

Of course my first instinct was to blame the former tenants and work up a pretty good fit about they didn’t have the carpets cleaned after all.  Because my dog would never pee on the floor.

No seriously, I’m going to brag on my dog for a minute.  Other than not being too socialized and a few potty accidents when she was a puppy, she is the perfect dog.  Zero behavior problems.  She can be left alone for hours and as long as we put the trash away, she’s an angel.  No biting, chewing, destroying.

But a 10 year old dog’s bladder can only be stretched so far, and we agreed that perhaps being left alone on New Year’s Eve for several hours was just too much for her.

Especially since, upon further investigation, I found about 6 more spots like that in our bedroom and in the hallway.  So basically what happened was, she peed a little tiny bit in many places so it would dry fast and we wouldn’t notice.

She’s a smart fucking dog, because it totally worked for almost a week.

And? We couldn’t even really punish her because it’s our fault for leaving her alone so long.

Fortunately it was relatively easy to fix since my mom lives here and owns a steam cleaner.  Jerrad picked it up on the way home from work and did all the carpets.  Isn’t he the best?

He was rewarded.  I don’t want to get too specific, but the second word was “job” and the first word started with a “b”.

Sadly, Jelly’s pee has some sort of superpower because the carpet still smells.  So we’re going to go over it again this weekend with special cleaner for pee stains.

I was going to work out again today, but technically I met my goal for the week.  Also, I just had an unfortunate incident with an onion while I was getting dinner in the crockpot.

So I’ve decided to finish this bottle of wine instead.

Category: Healthy Living, Jellydog | 4 Comments »
Tags: carpet stains, working out

Posted By Cathy on January 6, 2010

Or, alternately titled: “I’m Baaaaack!”

See, here’s what happened.  The more readers I got, the more… stifled I was feeling.  And the more uncomfortable I felt being myself.

It doesn’t help that my family reads.  As far as I can figure every family member except my dad is reading now.  And maybe he’s even reading now and the rest of the family is keeping me blissfully ignorant of this fact.

If that is the case, please continue to keep me blissfully ignorant.  Please.

So, yeah.  That makes all the swearing and the sexy talk sort of umm, awkward. And I really enjoy swearing and sexy talk.

It’s not only my family.  As far as I can tell, most of my friends read too.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t ever want you guys to stop reading.  I appreciate the support.  But when I read other blogs, and they’re all “so I have this one friend” or “I was at this party”, followed by some awesome story I get so jealous.  I can’t do that without someone figuring out who it is because everyone reads!

So, in “it’s not all about me” news, apparently this is an affliction suffered by most in the blogging world and what most of you seem to do is write it anyway.

I used to do this (Parish Place, anyone?) and I’m not entirely sure how I got off track, but I suspect it has to do with letting everything in my life get out of balance the last several months.  Some of my personality got buried, I think.

My friends that read know how I am.  And by “how I am” I mean sarcastic and snarky.  Ok, and sometimes bitchy. Like, God gifted me with this quick biting wit.  Am I not supposed to use it?

Hold up.  This seems like a good time for the “Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it” discussion.  Just so you know, my wit did not appear out of nowhere.  It comes from a long line of sarcasticly quick-witted paternal relatives.  Meaning I grew up eating more dishes than you can possibly imagine.

My true peeps also know that I’m not sarcastic and snarky on the inside.  I’m quite kind-hearted and sensitive actually.  Which is why I worry so much about what people think about me and whether or not they like me and I really do try to not hurt the feelings of those I care about.

Do you guys kinda write the post in your head first? I do, and when I got to that last sentence I finally figured it out.

Those I care about.  Or alternately, those I respect, trust, want to continue having in my life.  If you don’t “get” me or like what I write about or the things I tweet about, we probably shouldn’t be friends, online or IRL.  AND THAT’S OK.  I don’t have to be friends with everyone and not everyone has to like me.

Sometimes I forget this.  Ok, I always forget it.

So, to make a short story long, I stifled myself so everyone would like me and read my blog.  I think.  It’s all very confusing.

Anywho.   This blog is officially back to what it was before.  The place where I deposit all the junk that’s in my head. Enjoy! Or you know… don’t. Whatever.

PS. My advice to you if you find yourself in my blog? Sack up!

Wait.  I didn’t mean that.  Please don’t leave me.

Gah.  I have issues.

Category: Blogging, Life | 8 Comments »
Tags: family reading your blog, snarkiness, stifling yourself

Posted By Cathy on January 2, 2010

Another reason I need to stop letting half-finished posts sit in my drafts folder forever?  My terrible memory.

I was trying to get into the habit of posting recipes more frequently, especially since we’ve been trying a lot of new ones lately. But when it started getting to be mid-December and our Thanksgiving meal post was still sitting in my drafts folder I decided to just wait until after the holidays and do one long post.

Except that by “sitting in my drafts folder” I mean it was maybe a third of the way written in my head.  Which means that it just took me and Jerrad about 20 minutes to remember what we even had for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner because I didn’t keep the links to any of the recipes.  Or even write down what we had.

Thanksgiving

Pancetta-Sage Turkey This recipe was about a 7.5 out of 10 on the pain in the ass scale.  Also, the ingredients were fairly expensive.  But for a special occasion holiday meal it was totally worth it.  Hands down the best turkey I’ve ever had.

Crispy Potato Roast

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled
• 4 shallots, thickly sliced lengthwise
• coarse salt
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 8 sprigs thyme

1. Preheat oven to 375.  In a small bowl, combine butter and oil.  Brush bottom of a round 9 inch baking dish with some butter mixture. With a sharp knife or mandoline, slice potatoes very thinly crosswise.

2. Arrange potato slices vertically in a dish.  Wedge shallots throughout.  Sprinkle with salt and red-pepper flakes; brush with remaining butter mixture. Bake 1 1/4 hours.  Add thyme and bake until potatoes are cooked through with a crisp top, about 35 minutes more.

This recipe is from the December 2009 issue of Everyday Food.  It was pretty tasty, and fairly easy because we have a mandoline so the slicing wasn’t very time-consuming.

We also had Italian Wedding Soup, which is a family recipe.  So umm yeah you guys are on your own there.  Not because I don’t want to share.  But because recipes from both of my grandmothers tend to be filled with directions like “to taste” and “until it looks right” or “about a handful” and not so much with the specific measurements or even cooking times.  If you want to know how to make this, you’d pretty much just have to hang out in the kitchen with me and mom.  Or google it and use the recipe of someone who has the patience to write it all down.

We also had Mulled Wine and probably some sort of vegetable.

Christmas

Beef Tenderloin with Roasted Shallots This is another recipe that scores high on both the pain in the ass and the expense scale, but is totally worth it.

Homemade Pierogies (see Italian Wedding Soup above)

Once again, I’m sure some sort of vegetable was involved, but I can’t remember what it was.

New Year’s Day

So here I’m going to break one of my rules and pimp some recipes we haven’t tried yet.  My mom always works holidays so our actual celebrations are usually a few days off.  We’re having New Year’s Dinner tomorrow evening.  We’re going traditional with pork and black eyed peas, but no sauerkraut.  Blech.  I need good luck but not enough to eat sour pickled ass.

Spicy Black-Eyed Peas

I really wanted to make Cabbage Rolls, but I’m looking for something a little easier.  After some online searching, I found two recipes for Cabbage Roll Soup. They are kind of similar to each other and both have ingredients I like, so I plan to sort of combine them.  I’ll let you know how it goes…

Category: Recipes | No Comments »
Tags: beef tenderloin with roasted shallots, cabbage roll soup, crispy potato roast, italian wedding soup, mulled wine, pancetta-sage turkey, spicy black-eyed peas

Posted By Cathy on December 31, 2009

So, we’re supposed to do an end of the year post? Is this what I hear?

This isn’t a resolution post. For one thing, I don’t usually make them. I’m just going to keep working on the things I’ve talked about in my last few posts.

Did anyone even read those? Is anyone even reading this? Do I have any readers left?

So, yeah, maybe not a resolution, but I’m back on the blogging horse, so to speak.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve sorted out why I haven’t been devoting much energy to the blog (or reading and commenting on others’ blogs).  I’ve written and rewritten this here paragraph like three times so I’ll just cut to the chase and say I let myself get distracted and bogged down worrying about who was reading or not reading and what they thought and what I was “supposed” to be doing or not doing as a “blogger”.

I can’t say I’m over that entirely (what blogger is?) but I’ve adjusted my thinking about it and figured out how to make blogging be what it used to be for me.

The best way I can think of to get a fresh start is to clear out all my saved drafts in one post.  Some of these would have been pretty good, if I do say so myself.  But, since I did not have my shit together you get the Cliff’s Notes version.

Why I Suck at Blogging Part Two

You guys.  This has been sitting in my drafts folder since MARCH.  March.  And do you know what it was going to be about? How I get worried about what other “popular” bloggers think about me and how I get too nervous and shy to leave comments on popular blogs.  Also about how I suck at self-promotion because I hate it.

That was nine months ago! Stuck, much?

Road Trip ‘09

Our friend Allison got married in July in LA.  We decided to drive there and make it a week long road trip of attending the wedding, visiting Disneyland, and coming home by way of Reno.  How I managed to fuck this post up, I still don’t know. I was taking notes and pictures, people! I’d been planning to blog this trip from the moment we started making travel arrangements.

I mean, there was a wildfire on the way there with flames and helicopters and everything.

The bridge and groom did their first dance to Poker Face.

I got such huge blisters from wearing Teva’s to Disneyland like a fucking dumbass that I spent the last three hours of the day wearing white socks with my sandals and not giving a shit who saw it.

I had the best meatloaf of my life at some restaurant in Anaheim that I don’t remember.  It was so good that I cried when I realized I’d left my leftovers at the restaurant.  I’m not kidding. Tears and everything.

Sigh.  Yeah, that would have been a good post.

Mr. Mousey

Apparently while we were away from our house for over a week in July, some dickhead field mouse decided to move into our house.  With his family.

See, this was one of those posts that was going to be all funny.  It was going to start with the story about how I found out about the mouse by catching the little bastard red-handed in the middle of the night.  Sitting in my cupboard eating my gluten-free crackers.  Not the cheap saltines mind you, my fancy crackers.

Then there would have been some more funny about our various attempts to catch the crafty little shit.

And the story would have ended with him running off into the tall grass of the field where my husband released him.  After possibly giving him brain damage by releasing the trap on a tree branch so he could get a picture of the mouse leaving.  (Is he married to a blogger or what?) Things went a little awry and the trap fell off the branch and then he had to shake the mouse out of the trap and then the mouse kind of sat there on the grass stunned.  Like this:

Then I felt bad and worried about the poor little possibly half dead mouse wandering around.  This lasted about 4 days.  That’s about how long it took for all the baby mouses to come crawling out of various pieces of our furniture.  The more little mousey beds and piles of turds I found and the more Clorox I had to buy, the less bloggy I felt about it.

About My Uterus Part Eleventy Billion

Obviously I didn’t get pregnant this year.  I’m going to keep with my short version theme here because I do intend to fire up the Oh Baby! blogs again.

The bad news is we’re not going to get pregnant until I have another surgery.  My surgical consult is scheduled for Feb. 1, which means some more waiting.  Which I totally suck at.

But, there’s lots of good news too.  It’s finally been sorted out that this is an ob/gyn thing that needs to get taken care of first, then we start officially trying, and only if we’re unsuccessful after that do they start saying “infertility”.

I love my doctors, so I don’t want to say anything negative.  I’ll just sum it up by saying as a patient I got caught up in a bit of a labeling tug of war that I allowed to affect me more than it should have.

So after this surgery? No more infertility talk.  Just conception talk.

Yay for 2010!

Category: Blogging, Life | 3 Comments »
Tags: conception, mice, mouse traps, ob/gyn, road trips