Home Girl Blog

30 Before 30 #7: Become a bonafide bakerist

Baking. I'm taking it up. Since I got married, I've learned how to cook a handful of decent dishes. I have yet to fry chicken right, roast a perfectly moist turkey, make edible cornbread or bake a great anything. I figure as long as there's a Popeye's chicken house nearby and Billy maintains his awesome meat roasting skills, there's no need for me to pick up those skills anytime soon. Baking is the one form of cooking that I universally suck at. I've tried, and my efforts have rarely resulted in anything awesome--until yesterday!  I made Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars. Y'all, there's a WHOLE jar of Skippy up in there. I ended up with a gimongous batch of these rich, dense, chewy, sweet and salty, intensely peanut buttery delights. Next time I'll cut the recipe in half.

We have out of town guests coming to visit today and tomorrow, so hopefully they like peanut butter.  After our guests are gone I'll send the leftovers to work with Billy...these bars are high in protein...good brain food for engineers.

Next up: Cheesecake!

Technorati Profile

Technorati Profile

It's alive!

I was beginning to worry that none of the four butterfly irises I planted were going to flower, but we went outside to start our yard work this morning and this was the beautiful sight I beheld:

And so far, all the other plants and the tree I planted are still alive. I'm feeling right greenthumbish about now.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I LOVE YOU!

YOU'RE ONE AWESOME LADY!

Dick rules for the day.

Apparently President Bush is taking a sick day today. I really don't care about the sick day. I am, however, intrigued by our Vice President's first name--that people actually name their sons Dick. Is his name really Dick, or is it Richard, for which Dick is the nickname? I wonder if people are still naming their boys Dick--the famous ones are all pretty old (Cheney, Van Dyke, Butkis).

Personally, I'd steer clear of giving a boy a name that's also a penis euphemism--Richard, Dick, Willie (cute name for a girl though), Peter (that's what my auntie calls "it"), Johnson (although Jackson is a cute boy name), and Charlie (Caribbean creole for "it"...my kids will spend a lot of time in the Islands with their dad's people so none of my boys would ever get that name...it's a cute name for a girl though, but still...) just to name a few.

Interestingly (and quite possibly another example of how men/penises in many societies are viewed as more important in general), there aren't any (?) first names that universally allude to women's privates, nor are there women (other than strippers and prostitutes maybe) who go by the common term for vagina (starts with P), which I find too vulgar to write...or even say for that matter. Interesting indeed.

I promise I haven't been drinking or smoking anything, but my mind just goes off on random things sometimes.

One more random note:
The President will be under anesthesia for his procedure. I bet the staff at the doctors office, especially the anesthesiologist, all have FBI or CIA files. I bet they are spied on 24/7/365 by the government to make sure they wouldn't make attempts on the president's life when he's in their hands.

I'm just sayin'.

It's Friday! James Taylor's Music Makes Me Happy.

Growing up, it was nothing for my brother, sister and me to break out and sing together for no reason at any given moment or place. It was awesome on the awesome days, but it got us through some of the tough days as well. We still break out like that whenever we're all back home in Memphis together. My husband, Billy, has witnessed our musical outbreaks. It helps that he plays instruments and loves to break out singing and dancing whenever wherever too, so making music with our kids will come naturally. We sing and dance around with our dogs, Okie & Stella, all the time, so doing it with our real children seems like a natural progression. I can't wait.

Sesame Street and James Taylor have a lot to do with my musical childhood and present tendency to be a singing dancing goof ball at home and sometimes in public, depending on my mood. Here's the show/man/song that started it all:

Happy Birthday, Paula!

Just Felt This Flick: Eagle vs Shark

A friend of mine invited me to a pre-release screening last night. Eagle vs Shark is a bit of a screwball love story and we loved it. It's full of laugh-out-loud moments. It's like Napoleon Dynamite 10 years after high school. I didn't know anything about the film before seeing it, but the moment I saw Jemaine Clement from HBO's Flight of The Conchords on screen, I said "Oh shit" out loud because I knew we were in for some serious laughs. I think it's in theaters in August. This film is going to be huge.

I get excited about food sometimes.

Austin now has an Ethiopian restaurant. This excites me.  Apparently they've been around Austin for a while, showing up at street fairs and are regulars at the Farmer's Market downtown. They recently opened the restaurant and this makes me very happy. It's called Aster's Ethiopian Restaurant and it.is.awesome. We had lunch there last week and were thoroughly satisfied.

One of my dear friends introduced me to Ethiopian culture...especially the dancing...during our college days. The first time she exposed me to their food was at a graduation party for a friend of hers from another local college. The party was at a family member's house and all the food was homemade and all of it was awesome. The first time I tasted injera...that stretchy, tangy bread, which also serves as the eating utensil? Love.

It's in the city right near the UT campus, a spot I never have a reason to be, so making it there will take deliberate time and effort. Since I've been camped out in the suburbs for the past 3 weeks, I've decided to spend more time out of the house and in the city over the next few weeks as my work hiatus comes to a close. I figure I'll get out there to see what Austinites do during the daytime while everybody else is deskjokying. If my trips catch me in the city around lunch time, I give you one guess where I'll be getting my grub.   

Somewhat related:
There use to be a Caribbean Restaurant in town called Calabash Caribbean Restaurant, but it didn't do too well. The food and the atmosphere got Billy's West Indian stamp of approval, so it was a disappointment to see the place leave. I'm not at a loss because Billy usually cooks dinner a few nights a week  and he only cooks in his home style. Still I think Austin lost out when Calabash closed. I read that this is Aster's second opening in Austin since the 1990's, so maybe there's hope yet for a Calabash resurgence.

Just Felt This Flick: Shopgirl

I'm glad I finally saw this film. It's been on my list forever and I got it from netflix a few days ago. I was in the mood for a slow Sunday morning, so when I woke up, I popped it in. I thought this was a romantic comedy, but it's actually more drama. Steve Martin was very impressive, and I was surprised that I actually took him seriously...he's such a goofball usually. I didn't know he was a writer. I bet his novella is a great read. I'm guessing since he wrote the book and the screenplay that there's probably not much difference between them, but this story must be just as enjoyable in black and white. The characters are sad and lonely and interesting. For whatever reason Steve Martin's character was closed off, crippled in a way, and lonely, not knowing how to have relationships outside of sexual ones. And nobody plays a sad, melancholy, lonely girl better than Claire Danes. I think she's really beautiful. This is definitely my kind of film. I'd watch it again, I'm sure.

Just Felt This Flick: Transformers

I remember the cartoons. I wasn't crazy about the cartoon, but my brother, sister and I watched it growing up. I'm not one of those thirtysomethings (like Billy and my sister) who remember the theme song to the cartoon and the characters. When I went in to see the movie, I expected to be entertained...it's a theatrical comic book throwback, of course it was going to be good. My expectations were FAR surpassed. Transformers is AWEsome! I started to feel nostalgic as I was reintroduced to The Autobots and The Decepticons and Optimus Prime (the Mac truck) and Megatron. Although the old theme song didn't make it into the film, the line "more than meets the eye" was cleverly written into the script. And Bumble Bee got a sexy upgrade from the old yellow VW bug ...which was also cleverly revealed in the film. Great throwback.

Every once in a while I would squeeze Billy's hand (we always hold hands during movies) and say, "Man, this movie is good!" I haven't been as entertained in a long time. There was good drama and just the right amount of cheese. It was funny (a couple of awesome black comic actors showed up in this film unexpectedly) and even the robots had jokes. The action was great and none of it looked fake. The two females in the film are ridiculously gorgeous and smart and cool and Shia LaBeouf (the little Disney kid from Even Stevens and Holes?) ain't a baby no more, y'all. He's well on his way to beefcakedom. Oh, and consider GMC vehicles officially plugged.

This film is 144 minutes of PURE EN.TER.TAIN.MENT. Please, let this be a trilogy! *fingers crossed*

7 Weeks 2 Days and counting

Ok. So we're pregnant. Again. The first time, unfortunately...actually, fortunately, we didn't make it to 7 weeks. We saw the baby and heard the heartbeat today.

We're both really stoked. I knew I was pregnant two weeks before it registered on the pregnancy tests. I didn't have any symptoms, but I paid close attention to my body and let nature do what it do. My friends said it was freaky how I knew like that, but I say I just paid close attention.

Anyway, the baby's alive and growing this time, and we're excited to be experiencing this together for the first time. When we were leaving the hospital, I told Billy that I couldn't believe I'm actually growing a person inside me. It's so surreal knowing.

Here is the sonogram. You can hear the heartbeat, complete with closing credits and comentary by Billy. It's about 3 minutes long. Enjoy!

VIDEO REMOVED

7 weeks 2 days down, manty manty more to go. :)

Give 2 Shitz

I think all this business with President Bush and his handling of his office is so far out of my control that I actually don't give 2 shitz. The last presidential election was such a joke...there were so many "technical difficulties" at polls across the country...only at Democratic strongholds? And this electronic voting machine crap, and illegal aliens registering to vote crap. Whatever.

Anywho, these guys (and my awesome sister, who emailed this to me...and possibly some of you) still believe that "We The People" actually have a voice, which is awesome...and necessary.

Shaq's Big Challenge

This new show starts tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to watching. At first I didn't want to, because I knew I'd be signing up for an hour of crying.  I just never want to see little kids with low self-esteems or with their feelings hurt...gets me every time. I think it's great that Shaq is working with these overweight kids to get them on a healthier life track. He said in one of his interviews that this is the first generation where, in overwhelming numbers,  the parents would outlive their children due to childhood obesity...not awesome. I really like Shaq's personality too, so it's going to be great to see him with these kids every week.