Hello from the outside...

Ever feel like you are always just moments in time chasing some disconnect in your life?  Or maybe just a passenger on a train helplessly watching it all fly by because there are no stops to get off to go exactly where you need to be in time?  I feel like that a lot.  This song just reminds me of it all,  

Emojis...truly a caveman language.

A dusted off bookshelves classic rant...

So, we text, we email, we never speak on the phone anymore and if we are lucky we get words spelled out the way good old Webster's said they should be spelled.  That's why we were tortured all through primary school with spelling tests, right?  To learn to spell...then came text speak.  And now?  The dreadful emoji's.  

Yes, I am as guilty as anyone else 😈.  But I think some people...and I'm not about to start naming names like to hide behind the emoji.  You see, just like the hand written letter, a certain part of communication became lost as we began using these stranger types of written languages.  There is no inflection in writing, meaning you can't get emotion from the raise of a voice, the pitch of a voice changing, or a facial expression.  Sure, turn on all caps and suddenly it is assumed one is yelling, but that is about it. Studying a face, listening to the sound of a voice...those things can give so very much the act of communicating with someone and are just as important, and maybe arguably more important as the words one is saying.  Over the phone, you loose the facial expressions.  Over paper, written technology, you loose facial expressions and the sound of the voice.  Use emoji's and then everything is hidden behind a cutesy little cartoon character that I truly believe was developed to help define and bring emotion back into texting, but really it's just a cutesy little cartoon character that a thousand different meanings can be read into it.  Pick a happy face when you are crying, a pissed face when you really aren't.  In person, it gets more difficult to fake those things. Useless. Cartoon. Characters. 👍

Hey, here's an idea, stick to FaceTime or Skype.  Who gives a flying f*&@ what you look like, at least it is 9 times closer to the real thing, even 3000 miles away. 

Say something...

Here is another dusty draft that deserves to be heard. Music has always been my way of thinking things through, getting things out. It's also very private and emotional for me. I know, weird right? I don't often listen where others can hear me because often it just hits to deep. I guess maybe it goes along with the accusation of over analyzing, lol. Hence why I got out of counseling as a degree, just could never take that coat off. Anyway... Love the sand art, it's incredible.

~blu

Another day checked off the calendar of life...

Nothing new today except I'm getting sick.  My immune system is crap.  I have had complex regional pain syndrome as the result of a fairly common surgery done in 2008, but as surgeries can go, something went wrong and I have some nerve related pain issues.  From that I deal with a plethora of issues stacked on top...imagine a game of Jenga if you will.

Anyway, I'm going into a flare up of symptoms that I have been fighting off for over a week now, but I think I am loosing the battle.  Anything can set them off, stress, travel, nothing much at all...and I have them all too frequently and nothing to control the pain with, so I just cope, or not cope, would be the better term, I just suck it up and feel slightly sorry for myself while I'm in pain.  It's somewhat like that I have accepted being tired of going to the crap shot docs that want to stick needles in me and 'try' different techniques that I have tried in the past. I also have seen first hand from a family member what those things can do, so there is a fear factor built in.  Jump out of a plane?  Sure!  Come at my spine and hypersensitive nerves with needles, no f*ing way.  

Anyway, no food post tonight as I had no energy to deal with any of it all.  I don't even know if anyone reads these things so I don't know if it's worth posting them.  I have a few in the dust my draft box that I'll get around to polishing them, and maybe posting.  Good night world. 

My cuddle buddy when I don't feel well. Ashley.  I think she's just here for the heating pad on my bed though.  I'm not offended though, I don't blame her one bit!  

Creamy chicken burritos, yummy!

Sorry, I don't have pictures, but this was totally yummy!
So, here goes:

2 frozen boneless chicken breasts
8 oz of cream cheese
2 cups of salsa
1 package of frozen spinach
Toss it all in the slow cooker on high until the chicken is cooked through and easily shredded. I put them on tomato tortillas and folded them up like a burritos. I didn't think they needed anything else.

1/2 twin approved and two adult approved. We both though it would work well as a dip with Hawiian bread, taking a round loaf, cutting out the center and spooning the dip Into the center, then allowing people to pull apart the bread and spoon out the dip the want. Our, serve it with crackers or tortilla chips, heck, even pita chips.

You don't get a picture of the yummy food, but I can give you a pic of my in my fuzzy leg warmers since wearing them with shorts is the only way to wear them in SoCal, lol!

I have faith...

I found this blog by Anna Bashedly. I found it worthy of reposting it, it is stunningly similar to an experience that has shaped my 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, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…” ―Elizabeth Gilbert

Our hearts kept it simple.

I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once. I don’t really know when it exactly happened, but somewhere in between our intense eye contact and wiping my tears away as my walls came down that I spent years crafting, I crashed into you fully and never looked back.
My heart was unguarded, and I gave you all of me. We didn’t just hang out. We played. Our souls were alive - we were like two little kids again seeing the world for the first time - being with you multiplied all the good in life and changed me forever.

But our minds were another story.

We were complicated people, you and I. We weren’t simple. Our minds were analytical and imaginative and we thought about everything. A lot. We ended up making every situation in our life about 100x more difficult than it had to be.

We argued a lot. I fought with you at inopportune times, but my anger was fueled by my passion and emotions for you. I cared. I loved you. I loved all of you. I loved that I was the only one you showed certain parts of yourself to, you gave me all of you. I wiped your tears as you spoke about your family, there’s nothing in this world I loved more than holding your hand and whispering words of reassurance in your ear, because I knew you weren’t broken, you were just bent. And I loved all your edges, all your roughness. Your imperfections were perfect to me.

I challenged you because I loved you.

I confronted you a lot. I’m not the type of girl who nods and laughs and is always comfortable, I wasn't easy — as in, I didn't just "go with the flow.” But that’s because I craved more from you - I had opinions and big dreams for the future, I wanted the best for you. I never put up with not getting everything I deserved.

I never let you get away with slacking on your talents or putting in effort towards our relationship because I knew what we had. And you were never left uninspired or unsatisfied.

You broke my heart.

Not too long into our magic, things started to turn. The fireworks combusted, leaving us burned and confused. We wanted it so badly that we thought there was a logical solution to working out our differences. But there wasn’t.

The truth is, you just weren’t ready. Your past, your demons, whatever the reason was, you started to push me away. You loved me in a way I have never been loved but you still weren’t ready. And that was the hardest thing to accept.
I knew I had to let go. Because you never ever have to convince or inspire someone to do the work to be ready.

There are many things I never thanked you for.

I thought I couldn’t live without you, but my heart is finally starting to beat again. You broke my heart open and new light got in, you made me so desperate and out of control that I had to transform my life, and I did.
I thought I would grow old with you, but sometimes, life has other plans. That doesn’t mean I ever stopped loving you. When someone touches your heart, they will infinitely be there.

I had so much anger and pain, it was gnawing away at me, slowly destroying me. But then I realized that our love wasn’t the kind that results in the fusing of two lives into one, it was the kind of love that gave me new life, that taught me much more than a happily ever after ever could. And I don’t regret a second of it.

Now, I found that many years ago and saved it. It is as if some of the words came right out of my mouth. This is another one of my blogs that has been sitting dusty in my draft box that I thought should finally see the light of the day. Maybe, someone will read it who's heart is breaking, and will hold on with a little more patience, or maybe the person that isn't ready yet, will look at theirselves and realize that ready is something you become through love, and that life is short, so just jump already...

My two cents on Elizabeth Gibert's idea of soul mates? BS. I have faith that soul mates exist. I have faith that soul mates can co-exist.

Dinner results...

So, this is how dinner rolled out.

First of all, last night, I used a three ingredient slow cooker total cheat recipe. I used a packaged of frozen boneless chicken breasts, a can of condensed cream of chicken soup (some people use cream of mushroom) and I tossed that in the slow cooker on high. No water needed! That took only about an hour and a half to cook even with the chicken breasts frozen solid. The third ingredient was one cup of rice thrown into my awesome fuzzy logic rice cooker and the chicken was placed over the cooked rice. I was thinking I could of slipped finely chopped cauliflower in the slow cooker and no one would of been the wiser! Yummy!

So, on to tonight's dinner. This was the original recipe:

Crock-pot Ravioli Casserole

1 1/2 lbs. lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
salt/pepper
10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed
16 oz. bowtie pasta, cooked
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
1 1/2 cup mozzarella, shredded

And now for the magic...Brown ground beef with onion and garlic. Put in crock-pot and add sauce, tomatoes and seasonings. Cook for 6-7 hours on low. Add the last 4 ingredients during the last 30 minutes of cooking and turn crock-pot to high. Add the spinach, pasta, parmesan and 1 cup of the mozzarella and mix it all up really well. Then add the last 1/2 cup of mozzarella to melt on the top.

So this is what I used:
1 onion,
1 tbs. minced garlic,
2 15oz cans of tomato sauce,
1 can of petite diced tomatoes,
2 tsp. Of Italian seasoning, (it has plenty of oregano for me),
salt/pepper,
1 box of farfalle pasta,
1 cup shredded parm cheese,
2 cups of shredded mozzarella,
20 oz of extra lean turkey

I basically followed the same instructions, but shortened the crockpot time down to about 3 hours, adding all the prepared ingredients at once. I only boiled the pasta to al dente before adding it to the crockpot, so adding the little extra water softened the pasta to just the right point. I added 1/2 of the cheeses at the beginning of the crockpot cooking time and the remainder about 15 minutes prior to eating. I actually completely forgot the spinach *hitting myself in the head*, I had fallen asleep prior to preparing and was in a rush when I went to make it. So it lost the veggie aspect as so many of our meals seem to. Oh well! It was 1/2 twin approved and adult approved, which is what I expected and leftovers for tomorrow.

the beginning of the domino line...

As long as I remember as a young child, playing with dominos fascinated me.  I never knew any rules, never played with anyone, I just was enthralled with standing them up in rows and patterns and then tipping them over to have them fall.  I used our tiny kitchen and the rough linoleum floor because that was the only place the dominos would stand up, the remainder of the tiny trailer I was raised in was carpeted.  How frustrated I would get when my sleeve of my shirt would hit a domino and would collapse my row before I was ready to tumble my masterpiece.  I really had little patience, I would give it maybe one more shot and then be done until another day.  The thrill of getting them all set up to see them fall in a satisfying order of perfection was thrilling to me, even though I know it was a chaotic mess all over my mother's kitchen floor.  I didn't really enjoy the cleaning up part after, really.  That was rather anticlimactic.  The endorphins were gone and my brain had already moved onto other things, a trial of being a child with an attention span limited to specific activities.  A poor habit that has followed me throughout life.

I realize now, sadly many, many years too late that life in general has been a game of dominos, much like I played as a child.  Several years before I became a legal adult, I balanced the first domino.  I don't think my domino line has ever gotten really long without them tumbling down.  At this time of my life, it seems like I can't keep one standing.  There are so many elements that come and crash the damn things down.  I wonder if I am the only one that feels this way, or do others have circles and rows and complete designs on their kitchen floors with them continuously adding more dominos on a daily basis? Is this normal?

People say I analyze things too much. I say I am just trying to understand a world that could be less complex, less exhausting. I want simple, where 2+2 really do add up to be 4. I'm just not sure something like that exists anymore. For the record, I started this blog last year, I just couldn't bring myself to publish it. A lot of things in life have changed. I guess maybe I'm tired of feeling as if I don't have a voice anymore. Maybe I'll blog more, maybe this and tomorrow night's dinner will be it, who knows. We'll just have to see how the dominos fall.

What's cooking at my house tomorrow...

Dinner for Tomorrow:

This read like it would be super yummy, so I'll have to try it and make my own cheater modifications and take a picture...for now this is how the recipe reads from a Rival Crock-pot cookbook.

Crock-pot Ravioli Casserole

1 1/2 lbs. lean ground beef 1 onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce 1 can stewed tomatoes 1 tsp. oregano 1 tsp. Italian seasoning salt/pepper 10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed 16 oz. bowtie pasta, cooked 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, shredded 1 1/2 cup mozzarella, shredded

And now for the magic...Brown ground beef with onion and garlic. Put in crock-pot and add sauce, tomatoes and seasonings. Cook for 6-7 hours on low. Add the last 4 ingredients during the last 30 minutes of cooking and turn crock-pot to high. Add the spinach, pasta, parmesan and 1 cup of the mozzarella and mix it all up really well. Then add the last 1/2 cup of mozzarella to melt on the top.

I'll have one twin that will eat it and one twin that will turn his nose up to it, but that is normal around here. Hope someone else can enjoy this as well! Let me know!

For now, enjoy this gorgeous picture of the coast of Cali that I took on the way home from a visit with my daughter and a friend this past weekend. I just had to pull off the road and snap this shot in Goleta. It's incredibly beautiful there, just off the 101. Absolutely no photo enhancements, just pure Cali for you!