I'm writing half of this before my mom goes in to get her heart shocked and half after.  But if everything goes well, it won't seem disjointed.

I'm not worried. Honestly, I'm not.  My mom is fine, and even her doctor says that afib is something that most people don't even ,now they have, and you can live for years and years and not even know something is amis.  They are even taking Bubby with them to the hospital.  Thats how not worried I am. 

But I can tell you that even five years ago I would have been a nervous wreck. I would have been pacing the halls wondering what was going on, what I could do.  But you know what? There's not a damn thing I can do.  At all.  I'm no way can I accomplish any change in outcome for what is going to happen.  So why would I devote that much energy to bashing my head against the ground if it won't change the path?  Its futility.

And it makes me tired.

I have spent so much time in my life imagining worst case scenarios that never come true.   Car accidents, burglars, post apocalyptic radioactive zombies...  OK the last one I actually enjoy, but you get my meaning.   I'm not sure if its because I have a toddler, because I've started meditating, or I've just grown as a person, but I just don't have the inclination or the energy to do that to myself anymore. 

So what's going to happen is going to happen.  Its not within my power to change it.  So I'm not going to worry. 

4 hours later

They didn't shock her heart.  Instead they are going to give her an experimental medicine that will do the same thing but less invasive.  See, nothing to worry about.

Frustration

I'm at a very weird place in the sculpture I'm working on.  Weird as in I've got this perfect but hazy picture in my mind, but I keep changing it up.  I'm making a soft sculpture from wool (mostly) and I'm having a hard time marrying the picture in my head with the picture I'm creating. And I'm only in the very very beginning.

I think a lot of it is that this is my first sculpture like this. Its new territory for me.  So with that comes self doubt. Doubting my abilities. Doubting my skills.  My vision. I'm sure that every artist goes through  the same thing.  Especially when using a new medium.

Or maybe that's what I'm telling myself.

Adventures in Dressing

To keep up with the real food (and totally not because I forgot the bottle of dressing at work), I made salad dressing last night to go with the organic greens we were having. I shopped around on the interwebs and found a couple of recipes that looked good, but i never seemed to have all the ingredients called for.  So I decided to wing it.  I used this recipe as a jumping off point, and came up with this:

Creamy Avocado Garlic Dressing

2 avocados
1/2 c mayo
1/2 c (ish, I just dumped the almost full 8oz carton of) sour cream
2tbl butter milk (I made my own with milk and lemon juice)
3tbl apple cider vinegar (deluded, it was way strong)
1/4tsp basil
1/4tsp oregino
1/2tsp garlic powder

Plop the avocados, mayo, sour cream in the mixer and start her up.  When it starts to combine add the buttermilk and ACV.  When its all smooth, add the herbs and spices.  Put in the fridge till you're ready to use. 

Now I just need to learn to make my own mayo...

Cleaning up my act

I ran out of regular coffee the other day. So I substituted the decaf that Hubby had bought me by mistake. It was good. I had my usual three cups. What I didnt have was my usual icepick headaches. Or a migraine.

It was blissful.

So I'm thinking in addition to the 'real food' thing, I'll be doing a little detoxification.  Not the drink-only-wheatgrass or lemonaid-and-maple-syrup detoxes. (While those do sound......horrifying) I'm going to start by cutting out my main caffeine source.  Then all caffeine, refined sugar, and if I'm up to it, wheat and glutens. Thought I'm not so sure I'm ever going to be ready to give up pasta and bread.  Because I love pasta and bread.  A horrible, soul crushing love.  But if it will help me feel wonderful and be healthy.... worth it.   

You can have my cheese when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

Real food chicken enchiladas

I love chicken enchiladas. Make them all the time.  Here's my recipe for real food enchiladas that taste amazing. And since I found the recipe for my own sauce from Gimme Some Oven, there even better. 

Real food Chicken Enchilada

Here is the link for the sauce. http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/red-enchilada-sauce/

For the enchiladas proper you'll need:
3lb bag of chicken breasts or a rotisserie chicken (I've used both)
large block of cheese
3 cups cooked brown rice
cup sour cream
8 tortillas

If you're using frozen chicken breasts cook them at 350 for about 20-30 or till there done. While you're doing that, shrewd the cheese (don't use per shredded cheese. They add totally gross stuff to it to keep it from clumping. An extra 5minutes of work, and less chemical grossness in your body) Either way, with the cooked chicken shrewd it up (debone first if you are using rotisserie).

Mix up the shredded chicken, rice, sour cream, a handful of cheese, and a quarter cup of the sauce.  Evenly spoon a bit of the mix into a tortilla and wrap it up, put it into a baking dish.  Once there all wrapped, pour the sauce over the enchiladas and top with cheese.  Bake for 20 at 350. 

The depth of my geek

I miss my RPG crew.  It was my weekly escape from the everyday. We played Star Wars, D&D, but the best game was DragonAge. And I got into it, man.  I was Ruby. Dwarven warrior princess. I was Xena, but not a lesbian. I loved Ruby. Still do truth be told. I sometimes replay her awesomeness in my head on long car drives to and from work.  I expressed this on Facebook the other day and was asked to share her origin story. So here you go, and yes on considering writing it again, but bigger. 

(And I got tired of deleting stuff out halfway through. Sorry.)

You can call me Ruby.

A month ago I would have never thought of camping outdoors, under the stars. I didn't know what out doors was. Nor camping. Or stars. I was born in the rock and thought I would die in the rock. This surface life was  never part of my plan. A lot of things that happened weren't in my plan.

I was on the path to be a paragon. The first child of one of the most powerful families in Orzamar, second only to the royal family. Two campaigns in the Deep Roads under my belt. I was planing a new campaign to unite us again with our lost cousins. If i was successful I would rise to a paragon. If i wasn't I would die in the rock a warriors death and my ancestors would welcome me home.

Everything was planned. All supplies were purchased. We would leave after the proving. The proving would be strange for me. This was the first time in years that I would not be fighting, but in my private box watching, hoping to find new talent to take with me into the Deep Roads. I never made it to that box.

>> > The arena is always alive. The air thick with the smoke from cooking fires,
>> > the music of vendors selling their wares. If you know where to look, you can
>> > find anything. I wanted a new sword, something special.
>> >
>> > It needed to be perfect. There should be heft to it, but light enough to be
>> > shielded with one hand. There should be runes inscribed for both fire and
>> > ice. I needed a sword that would inspire victory in my troops and fear in
>> > the Darkspawn. I found the booth with little difficulty, even though
>> > someone of my caste should have no reason to. But this was no errand for a
>> > servant. This had to be done by me.
>> >
>> > The sword was perfect. The price exorbinant, but worth it. I left that
>> > squalid little booth feeling happier than I ever had before. Which is
>> > possibly why i never saw them coming.
>> >
>> > The were seven or eight of them. There may have been more, I'm not sure. I
>> > now four of them were dead when I was finished. Three of them were
>> > castless, but the third was a favored son of a rival house. A note found in
>> > his pocket detailed a plan to kill me to stop the campaign.
>> >
>> > I was devastated to say the least, not because someone wanted me dead, but
>> > because they wanted to stop my plans. I assumed as all people of privledge
>> > do, that my actions would be universally accepted, loved, and lauded as an
>> > advancement for all. If this... truth... was in true what else in my world
>> > was wrong?
>> >
>> > I wandered, bloody, through the arena, my appearance like this, raised not
>> > even one eyebrow. All around me I witnessed, for the first time, the
>> > atrocities that dwarves did to one another. Mostly with little or no
>> > provocation. To my right dwarves sold one another for a few bits of
>> > copper. To my left drunken masses fought to the death. Directly in front
>> > of me members of the royal house were descending upon a castless wretch, set
>> > upon killing her for daring to look upon them.
>> >
>> > To be honest, I dont remember my sword striking the royal son. Its all a
>> > bit hazy. I do remember standing over his body as the life left his eyes. My
>> > new sword was now stained with more blood in one hour than might have
>> > happened in weeks of the Deep Roads. This new, beautiful, sword had no more
>> > meaning for me. I gave it to the castless wretch telling her to learn to
>> > protect herself.
>> >
>> > Without another word I walked out of the arena and through the streets of my
>> > home, liming ever higher until I was at the surface gates of Orzamar. I
>> > had left my people, my family, and my given name.
>> >
>> > And I will never look back.

What do you think?

Using up the fabric stash

I have way too much fabric and no set projects. I can't justify buying more fabric for the projects I have lined up until I use some of the stuff I have on hand.  Its a bit of a catch 22 situation.

So I'm trying to come up with interesting things to do with odd bits of fabric.  So far ive made a marble maze and a bunch of infinity scarves.  Oh how I love the infinity scarf.  I would wear one all the time if I thought I could get away with it.  Love em.  And there very easy to make.

1) start out with 2 yards of light knit fabric. I'm sure you could use any light fabric, but you will have to take a couple extra steps and hem it up. 
2) cut the fabric up the middle long ways. So you now have 2 pieces of 2 yard long fabric
3) sew up the two short ends.

Done.

Seriously, that is how easy an infinity scarf is to make. The one you see in the picture has been drip dyed a charcoal gray to white.  The other three I made went to friends at work.  I'm thinking that ill be making a bunch more in different colors and fabrics.  Because I love them. 

The next project will probably be a weekender bag.  I have a  bunch of fabric that has bright red palm trees all over that would be perfect.