I know, I have not blogged in a long time....

I want to give a shout out to two of my dear friends who are also fellow bloggers. Enjoy!

Links below:

http://open.salon.com/blog/patiencep

http://rantingunderthestars.tumblr.com/

Eat, Pray, Love

Favorite Quotes: (By the way, I am picking up this book again, It's time to read it for Balance)

Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth- Sheryl Louise Moller

This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.

Go back to bed...because you don't need to know the final answer right now, at three o'clock in the morning on a Thursday in November. Go back to bed because the only thing you need to do right now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer. Go back to bed so that when the tempest comes you'll be strong enough to deal with it.

I was actually feeling kind of delighted about all the compartments of time and space that were appearing in my days, during which I could ask myself the radical new question, “What do you want to do today Liz?”

When I realized that the only question at hand was how do I define pleasure? and that I was truly in a country where people would permit me to explore that question freely, everything changed. Everything became delicious. All I had to do was ask myself every day for the first time in my life, “What would you enjoy doing today Liz? What would bring you pleasure right now?” With nobody else's agenda to consider and no other obligations to worry about, this question finally became distilled and absolutely self specific.

When I get lonely these days I think, so be lonely Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life, welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.
Moreover, I have boundary issues with men...to have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place right? But I disappear into the person I love....if I love you, you can have everything. you can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dogs money, my dogs time- everything......I will give you all this and more until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else. I do not relay these facts about myself with pride but this is how its always been.
There's a constant level of closeness that I really need from the person I love...but it just destroys me to not be able to count on that affection when I need it.

What are my choices to be? What do I believe that I deserve in this life? where can I accept sacrifice and where can I not?

It's for the best. I know it is. I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet to come surprises.
Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion we are only robots.
When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt. This is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life. It is your duty and also your entitlement as a human being to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
When I ask my mind to rest in stillness it is astonishing how quickly it will turn 1. bored 2. angry 3. depressed 4. anxious or 5. all of the above.

I was full of a hot powerful sadness and would have loved to burst into the comfort of tears but tried hard not to remembering something my guru once said- that you should never give yourself the chance to fall apart because when you do it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. you must practice staying strong instead.

Your problem is that you don't understand what the word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you then they leave. They tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so an new light could get in make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life...

That's your problem. You're wishing too much baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone outta be.

You've got some serious control issues...You're a powerful woman and you're used to getting what you want out of life and you didn't get what you wanted in your last few relationships and its got you all jammed up. Your husband didn't behave the way you wanted and David didn't either. Life didn't go your way for once. And nothing pisses off a control freak more than life not goin' her way.

You gotta learn how to let go, Groceries. Otherwise you're gonna make yourself sick. Never gonna have a good night's sleep again. You'll just toss and turn forever beatin' yourself for being such a fiasco in life. “Whats wrong with me? How come i screw up all my relationships? Why am i such a failure?”

At some point...you gotta let go, sit silt, and allow contentment to come to you.
What I'm alarmed to find in meditation is that my mind is actually not that interesting a place after all. In actuality I really only think about a few things and I think about them constantly. I believe the official term is "brooding."

In our real lives we are constantly hopping around to adjust ourselves around discomfort- physical emotional and psychological- in order to evade the reality of grief and nuisance. Vipassana Meditation teaches that grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough you will in time experience the truth that everything both uncomfortable and love does eventually pass. I wondered whether it might serve me and those who are burdened with the task of loving me if I could learn to stay still and endure a bit more without always getting dragged along on the potholed road of circumstance.

Faith is a way of saying, “Yes i pre-accept the terms of the universe and i embrace in advance what i am presently incapable of understanding”...If faith were rational it wouldn't be, by definition, faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face first and full speed into the dark.

Take the time to heal but don't forget to eventually share your hear with someone.
To meditate only you must smile. Smile with your face smile, with your mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile with your liver.

He says, “Dude- why is life and crazy like this?”

I keep remembering one of my guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck something that will descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.....And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it.

Wayan ticked off on her fingers the six elements of her fail-proof broken heart curing treatment: Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel to a place far away from the person you loved, meditate and teach your hear that this is destiny.
What is this life? Do you understand? I don't.

Do you think any of us know what were doing? Do you think there's any ways humans can love each other without complication?...It's still two human beings trying to get along so its going to become complicated. And love is always complicated. But still humans must try to love each other, darling. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we tried for something.

It is strange and true that sometimes intense emotion can cause us to respond to cataclysmic news in exactly the opposite manner logic might dictate. This is absolute value of human emotion- joyful events can sometimes register on the Richter scale as pure trauma and dreadful grief makes us sometimes burst out laughing.

I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential....many times in romance I have been the victim of my own optimism.

To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.

Why am I worrying about this, by the way? What have I not yet learned about the futility of worry?

Prayer for my daughter as well....

Tina Fey's Prayer For Her Daughter

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.Guide her, protect herWhen crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short - a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day - And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.Amen.

-An excerpt from Tina Fey's new book -Bossypants, 2011

Halloween done!

So, it is all a crazed landslide now...after Halloween, it always happens. Next, is Thanksgiving, Christmas and in my family Birthdays in my household, for everyone except me. The kids, had a blast this week-end they looked so cute in their costumes, we hit every festival known to man in our subdivision. After, gorging themselves on candy they managed to pass out before 10 PM, dreaming of Candy wonderlands and a world in which it is Halloween everyday.

I realized this week-end, how much I missed being home. My kids are goofballs and I have to admit, I love that about them. Silly, random-ness that, I see so much of myself in them. The good stuff, innocence, and just the Hello, world! It's me and nothing can stop me, I can do anything! The best version of ourselves is in our kids, I do believe that.

That window of opportunity (before they are jaded byt the world, as they get older) is great, this age is getting in some respects, easier! (I dare say it) Where, mom and dad are the coolest things since sliced bread and the notion that we are, in-fact funny. We had a lot of fun as a family, which I am grateful and lucky to have.

I Also, found out today, that it is going to cost an arm and a leg to start my small business. Of course, I specialize in food and you need a million licenses, certifications and money to get started. Nice. I put in a call to SCORE to see if they can help me navigate through all of this. I told my husband, let's just get a divorce and live together, that way we have a million tax breaks, insurance for the kids, help with school, financial grants to start new businesses etc... He said yeah, right, it would just give you an excuse to really leave...lol All, joking as side, I can't work three jobs for much longer and need to really focus on the cake business.

Another day, at government. Not, a too bad day, tonight, dinner? I have no idea...But, here is a re-cap of dinner Saturday night....

Homemade Pot Roast:

1 Chuck or Bottom roast
Emerald Seasoning (to taste)
No Salt added Garlic & Herb Seasoning (to taste)
Kosher Salt
Cracked Black Pepper
1 packet of Onion Soup Mix
1 box of beef broth
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 small can of tomato sauce
1/4 stick of butter
Canola oil
Celery
Carrots
Onion
3 cloves of Garlic


Dry the roast, by patting it down with a paper towel. Season roast and melt Butter with canola oil in a shallow skillet. Sear all sides of roast, place in crock pot. Add veggies, soup mix, tomato sauce, mushroom soup and beef broth to crock pot. Set on low for 6-8 hours.


Gravy:

1/4 stick of butter
3 tablespoons of all purpose flour
Drippings from crock pot

Melt butter into a saucepan add flour and cook for one-minute. add dripping bring to a boil. Take roast out and separate with fork, pour over gravy and serve.


Roasted yellow and red potatoes:

1 lb of yellow and red petite potatoes quartered
1/2 of stick of butter cubed
House seasoning to taste
3 tablespoons of oil

In a shallow roasting pan coat quartered potatoes in oil and sprinkle seasoning. Add cubed butter around pan. Roast in the at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Serve, with sour cream and chopped fresh parsley.


Make a green salad or Vegetable and serve....

Long week and Dexter....

So, I know it has been a while. But, here I am again. It's been a hell of a week, busy, shitty, that sort of thing. (I always feel like, I am a downer on here) Oh, well it's my blog and I think I get inspired to write when I am not in a cheery mood.

Anyway, my house? Busy. Why? I work too much and we are getting ready for Halloween. The kids are going to look so cute though and Gabe is going to be my little monster. After a crappy week of course food is my comfort. I think, I am going to start posting recipes and would like to get your responses or reviews, if you try them (all four of you). Since, I started my cookbook again (thanks Sue for this idea) I am going to start posting my recipes.

Here it goes. So, Wednesday night during our season catch up of Dexter (which I love by the way, thanks Dena for getting me hooked!) I was craving something comforting since, lunches have consisted of PB&J because of lake of money to eat out.

Here was the menu:

Honey Glazed Pork Chops, Grits, Sweet Potato Casserole & Country Green beans:

Sweet Potato Casserole:

• 2 cans of sweet potatoes in syrup
• 2 tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice
• Cinnamon to taste
• Nutmeg to taste
• 3 table spoons of brown sugar
• Pinch of kosher salt
• Half and half
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• Marshmallow cream
• Pecans (Crushed)
  

Empty sweet potatoes with liquid into a medium saucepan. Boil, uncovered until heated through and strain. Add half & half, butter and spices to the pot and beat with an electic mixer until creamy. Place in a medium casserole dish, top with pecans and marshmallow cream. Bake in the oven at 375 until top is golden brown.

Country Green beans:

• Two cans of cut green beans
• Ham (cubed) 1/4 pound
• Half of a small sweet onion minced
• Salt and cracked pepper to taste
  

Empty all ingredients in a sauce pan, over medium high heat for 15-20 min. Serve.

Honey Glazed Pork:

• 4 to 5 Bone-in Pork chops
  Emerald Essence Seasoning (to taste)
• Salt/Pepper (to taste)
• Garlic Salt with parsley (to taste)
• Garlic herb rub no salt added (to taste)
• Honey for Glazing
• 2 Table spoons of butter
• 2 Table Spoons of Canola Oil

Pre-heat indoor grill/grill pan on medium high, add butter and oil. Season Pork chops and grill for 4 minutes per side or until Brown and crispy. Flip only once (you know when it is ready to flip when, you see blood from the bone, starts to surface.) Take off grill place on platter to rest. While hot, drizzle with honey over the top.

Honey Grits:

• 1 cup Quick Cooking Grits
• 3 cups of Milk (Yes, I make mine with milk, it's creamier)
• Pinch of salt (kosher)
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• Honey (to taste)
• 3 tablespoons of sugar
  

Bring liquid including butter to a slow boil, reduce heat to med-low. Add grits, sugar, salt and honey, until thick. Bring to slow boil, adjust grit consistency, by adding dry grits or more milk for desired thickness. Serve .

Let me know, what you think and leave a comment or two. Bon Appetit!

Back from Vacation...

So, we are back from vacation. Back to the old grind so to speak. We took one of those “stay-cations”, seems like in this economy, everyone is taking those instead of going away. I was thankful for the break, needed it very much so. But, could very well take another week off; we did the stay at home thing, while venturing off on the week-end to the beach and over to Busch Gardens with the kids. I had a taste of what it would be like to be a stay at home mom for once. The shear joy of dropping ones kids off to school and picking them up while having the day to get stuff done that normally sits around the house not done because I NEVER, EVER have time for, was in fact, very refreshing.

There I was in line among the sea of SUV’s and Mini-vans. I felt like, I was in high school all over again. Awkward and not in “the club” amongst the stay at home mom click. I really feel that way even more so now, since I signed up for the PTA newsletter. Don’t get me wrong, very informative, but, ladies let’s get together and volunteer for this or that. Seems to me it’s another upper west side Ladies’ luncheon or my kids are in this something or another. I do care about my kids just really not into the whole Volvo driving soccer mom-ish thing. Where you are so engulfed with your kids you don’t have your own identity. Or, you try to live vicariously through them that you push them into everything you may or may not have failed at? Is that a bad thing to say? Anyway, it was nice for the time being to slow down and get to do the things with my kids that I clearly miss out on. I think it was nice for them to have me home as well. House was clean all the time dinner was cooked and ready we had a schedule down without rushing around in the morning because I was too exhausted to prepare the night before.

I am really thinking about this whole stay at home bit and going back to school thing. If only I could afford to do something about it. Being the planner that I am, with always a timeline on hand; I did manage to get a tad organized on the subject while, on my down time. We will see I imagine I cannot go on like this forever.

Busch Gardens was fun, Michael and I went on Thursday so we could get our roller coaster fix and then took the kids back again on Saturday. I think I am getting old or like my parents, which I was kind of bummed about. I can’t take roller coasters like I used to. I felt dizzy and sick which sucked ass! It could be because I was sick with a cold the first half of the vacation, I am just going to safely assume, in all outing denial that it was because of the cold and not because I am approaching a down hill turn into adulthood.

Busch Gardens with the kids was actually not too bad. Aside, from the mishap of not bringing their Birth Certificates, for the free passes (which I personally thought was ridiculous, who brings a certified birth certificate to a theme park?) It’s not like my son is growing a beard or anything. Disney is better at that sort of thing, if they are in a stroller, off you go. But, they were nice and let us in the park. Jaden my youngest could not get on a ride because of being the tiniest amount shorter than her twin sister.

Let me tell you about my girls, Madison looks like me but, Jaden is me. She argued with the park attendant saying that she and her sister are twins and that they are the same age…etc… She called the guy stupid and crazy and pointed out to him that he smashed her ponytail down while measuring her! I know she was upset but, I couldn’t stop laughing, clear as day, I tell you. We later got some cotton candy and she got over it. But, it was Hilarious! I have my work cut out for me, I can see that already…….

Cute....

Got his little thing from a friend at work and thought it was funny…..true and funny….Thanks Tracie!


When I stand up for myself and my beliefs, they call me a BITCH. When I stand up for those I love, they call me a BITCH, when I speak my mind, think my own thoughts , or do things my own way, they call me a BITCH, when I refuse to tolerate injustice and speak against it, I am defined as a BITCH. I means I have the courage and strength to allow myself to be who I truly am and won’t become anyone else’s idea of what they think I should be…….if that makes me a BITCH, so be it; I embrace the title and am proud to bear it!

B=Babe
I= In
T= Total
C= Control of
H= Herself

B= Beautiful
I= Intelligent
T= Talented
C= Charming
H= Hell of a Woman!