Wednesday tidbits

For starters, this post was inspired by my brain reading things incorrectly...

Arizona Herbal Tonic. I was expecting more tea.

See the pic? Totally read it as Xanax ginseng.

Then I doubted they canned the right product when I poured it into a glass; I always feel so odd trying to drink from an 23 ounce sized can. Guess this tonic is more about citrus and less about tea. Still yummy, and was BOGO free at CVS, so that's 46 ounce for 99 cents.

I made a new Pandora station based on Modest Mouse. I blame this post. I would share the station link, but it is currently just Pandora doing its thing and giving me fun stuff, except the 'outrun my gun' song; I find that to be catchy yet disturbing. I also highly recommend making a station based on Cake. It makes a GREAT mix all on its own. Try it! ...wow I feel like I am recommending a drink mix; "try it you'll like it!" No wait, cake-flavored vodka is weird, definitely a try-it-somewhere-before you-invest-in-a-bottle kind of flavoring. Totally different Cake we're talking about here.

I changed the title from 'Wednesday sillies' to 'Wednesday niblets.' That sounds kinda gross to me. Lets go with 'Wednesday tidbits' instead. Giblets, riblets, niblets. Yup.

No. 278, without a crazy glowing base.

IT IS BEAUTIFUL OUTSIDE. So I have the deck door open, and finally got to retake pics for no. 278, which has Red Heart's Shocking Pink as a base, which I can't seem to capture well in artificial light. Looks like Red Heart also had the issue as well with the closeup shot. Look for it soon in the Etsy shop soon. Like right after I post this post soon. The cupcake, not the yarn. The yarn you can get anywhere.

Picked up M&Ms coconut eggs on clearnace on the CVS stop mentioned above; much less oily than their smaller counterpart. Good to not eat a TON of candy at a shot.

Well then, I swear when I sat down to type this there were AT LEAST three funny-assed things that happened in like the past hour that I was all 'OMG I TO BLOG ABOUT THIS' kind of funny. YAY absent-mind-oh-mine. Hopefully I'll be back to add to this!

Have you ever tried tadpoles?

We were at our friends' place the other week; they have a Breville juicer and are enjoying juicing green smoothies for weight loss and overall health factors. I tried some of one - all I tasted was the cucumber...and I like cucumber! It was a mix of kale, celery, cucumber, green apple, ginger and lemon (in case I want to remember the recipe someday).

We're not ready to invest in one or in the veggies required, but definitely a great inspiration. They were also saving the veggie pulp and making their own crackers; all I tasted was the kale (aka GRASS FLAVOR) so I wasn't into them, but I was told they are great with hummus!

Other things I managed to try that night included squash soup (Too much curry! Arg! I'm such a wuss with spice!) and what turned out to be my favorite, chia seeds!

But they have a little story (doesn't everything with me?)...our friend asked me if I had ever had chia seeds, and then took out a giant jar from the fridge. I'm still mentally stuck on the seed idea, and thinking of a dry good - then he asked if I had ever had tadpoles... WHAT. He poured a small glass, but after the tadpole comment, I was laughing and disgusted all at the same time and almost couldn't even try them. I managed to have a sip, and HEY THIS IS LIKE A FUN DESSERT. They had added some home-grown ground stevia (!!) so it was a slightly-sweet drink, just only palatable in small sips for me (OH NOES THE TEXTURE). I'm odd with textures of some foods like that.

Now I want to get my own chia seeds and add them to my diet as something to hold me over while at the office in liquid-y form and trying to graze ALL THE TIME. I know it is a stress and boredom reaction; I am usually fine when we are busy or at home with watching what volume of calories I consume. I read up on them and you can add them as a crunchy topping, or hydrate them into a slurry-like drink; they form a gel around the seed that makes it possible to 'drink' them, in the same way one 'drinks' jell-o - it isn't a pure liquid but your ingest it like it is one. You know, the gel you make when you apply the weeds to the terra cotta surface of a chia pet...yes I ate your chia pet seeds.

We are golden AND delicious. 

I also made bread! This was before the chia adventure but along the same lines... English Muffin Bread! The original recipe makes four loaves but was fine to be cut in half to make two. I used yeast-in-a-jar that I apparently bought thinking I would be THE BREAD MASTER OF MAKING BREAD but only used once; I had to follow the manufacturer's directions on the container to make sure it was alive. I did this BEFORE adding any of the flour, just in case it was dead; dead-yeast-sugar-water is easier to throw out than 5.5-cups-of-flour-plus-dead-yeast-sugar-water.

How did it taste? Great! It was a success. The taste this recipe emulates isn't the Thomas' muffins we are used to - it is a fresh muffin taste; have you ever gotten English Muffins from the refrigerated section? This makes bread that tastes like those, only much easier on your wallet (5 ingredients!)

I tried freezing some pre-cut slices, but they don't reheat to their original glory easily. I found they need to be microwaved AND toasted. It doesn't mean I'm not eating the frozen pieces though, and I would definitely use this recipe again.

10 Random Thoughts

Inspired by two bloggers that I admire (and follow through Google Reader!), Julie and Melanie, who made “random list” posts... I made a “10 Random Thoughts” post to share, maybe it will inspire you to do the same?

1. I don’t remember the last time I ironed something that wasn’t a craft project.
2. I hate the phrase ‘It is what it is.” You’re full of it. There are much better ways to accept life in a positive manner; please choose another phrase!
3. I have a huge list of things on my mind I want to complete; making a list of all this stuff is part of that list, but it might take too much time to write down a list when I could be doing the things I keep forgetting to do. ;)
4. I am still successfully avoiding joining Pinterest – too many other internet distractions that I use currently. I said that about Facebook for a long time too.
5. I think the exclamation point is an indicator of a positive thought online. I haven’t learned a better way to push-positivity into my words without them. I am hesitating not adding any to these particular thoughts.
6. I love cooking and baking. I took a moment to type this line from some soup experimentation in the kitchen. I wanted to include it since I caught myself smiling and happy.
7. If I had an opportunity to design a bathroom, I would include a urinal. Just think of the water savings! That’s thousands of gallons a year, even compared to a dual-flush traditional toilet.
8. Hold the onions, tomatoes, and peppers, please. I’ll cook with onions, but raw ones don’t agree with my taste buds - OMG ONION OIL BURNING WHY WON’T YOU GO AWAY THAT WAS FOUR HOURS AGO I ATE THAT.
9. No Splenda please; sucralose hates me, or my stomach hates surcalose; same difference!
10. I love animals. If you have a pet I will talk to it. Given enough time I will take pictures of it too. 

This is not my cat, but I think she is awesome enough to share her picture with you.

BLOG!

Hiya there! So I keep wanting to blog, but then get stuck at the part of actually compiling my thoughts into the keyboard; I have to learn to just got for it!

So my plan for the immediate future to share... some fun food stories, a new Recipe Roundup group of links, lots of crochet projects (from the holidays even!), and even a funny Blogger story!

Here, we can start with the last one since it was the most recent, just happening yesterday...and here is a picture of a daffodil I took earlier this month to add some Springy inspiration to this rainy day!

So I had noticed the other week that my cute little Flickr gadget to the right was no longer working; I assumed it was temporary and gave it a few days to fix itself. It didn't! I took some time last night to research and it seems it isn't my blog, but the gadget itself! Blogger has a cute little interface for choosing what you want on your side/top and bottom bars, but the particular one I had been choosing no longer functions. I love Flickr, but finding what I needed in regards to HELP was giving me some trouble; was I just being silly and not seeing where to type your question? Probably, so I simply pasted the error message into Google; "Flickr Error: Invalid API Key (Key has expired)". After digging a bunch it seemed the answer was clear, yet not simple to find? Maybe I was tired, maybe I wasn't paying the best attention, but the answer is to make a Flickr Badge, and not use the gadget Blogger lists by Blogger Buster.

Fixed the problem, but I did like the style and layout of the old one better. The flash Flickr Badge is cute, but too small for my current blog layout (or am I lucky and have a nice big screen and it looks awesome on a non-widescreen?) I chose with the html badge, but I do wish there was a size between the thumbnail and mid-sizes graphics. After what seemed like hours of fussing, I went back to the thumbnail since I couldn't get the mid-sized graphics to line up within the right column without sticking out.

That's what happens when you aren't writing your own layout in notepad with basic html! Haha that was me in the late 90s with my silly Angelfire sites. With all the lovely css' out there for free today, it is so easy to use a pre-made layout; but difficult knowing that every little thing is customizeable, and you don't have the knowledge to do so!

In other frustrating blog things, I thought my Etsy-mini bar at the bottom wasn't working. Finding the answer to that ws much simpler; Ad-Blocker Plus was blocking me from viewing it - so nothing was actually wrong! It was an easy fix to not block ads from my own blog. Can't be annoyed with that one, it is an ad after all. :)