Filed under: Journal
Random update for no apparent reason other than I need to vent: FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE~!
*WARNING:* Relationship nearing disaster.
I am totally fucked.
Filed under: Recipes
Ahhh Beer Bread, a simple recipe that you can whip up in 5 minutes and it includes Beer, what more can you ask for? I know alot of businesses out there like Tastefully Simple have a personalized mix for Beer Bread but I prefer my Grandma’s 3 ingredient recipe that I can add my own personal flair to!
Beer Bread
3 Cups Self Rising Flour
3 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Can of Beer
You just mix these 3 ingredients together and pour them into a greased bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then you will want to pull your bread out and put a couple of pats of butter on top (I always just slice a few squares off off a stick of butter and arrange them on top.) Then put the bread back in to bake for 10 more minutes and voila! Your done.
This is pretty much a fail safe recipe for Beer Bread, you can whip it up in a jiffy with things you would most likely have in the cupboard and it goes with just about everything! I love making this bread to dip in soups or I will throw in a handful of my favorite grated cheese to make cheesy Beer Bread that goes well with a pasta and sauce. I have also used self rising cornmeal to make quick and easy cornbread that is super delicious!
When it comes to beers I am not too picky about what I put into the bread, you can use something cheap (I generally do) or you can experiment with different beers to see which ones you like best, as the flavors might vary a little.
Good luck baking!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Hey all!
I just wanted to put it out there that I am now selling Avon! I know I know, you probably associate Avon with your Grandmother but it really has evolved! Avon has amped up their testing in order to make better products, they are human in the respect that they do not condone or make use of Animal Testing as well as the fact that Avon supports women and various causes including the fight against breast cancer and domestic violence! Come check out my online store at:
www.youravon.com/epaquet
Filed under: Uncategorized
So the other night my lovely friend Katie sent me a link via facebook to givesmehope.com. I am pretty sure I spent all of my free time for the next 24 ish hours (I promise I did sleep) reading all 200+ pages of this website. Since then I have come to the conclusion that A) I am a huge softie that will cry at the drop of a hat (especially if stories about 50 years of marriage or selfless children are involved) and B) I want to be a better person. Now, I don’t think I am a bad person I just feel like there is a whole lot more that I could be doing and I want to be nicer if that makes sense.
Reading givesmehope.com really made me realize that I don’t have it that shabby and that there are people out there that have it much worse (so why do I whine?!) Silly me… I want to be a better person and give back. I want to pick up garbage around my neighborhood, donate to the local humane society, bake cookies for my neighbors, hold the door open for people (more often) tell people they look lovely today, start a branch of the NMB to promote equality, I want to adopt another needy animal, donate bags of groceries and necessary items to the local food pantry, shop at the farmers market to support local farmers and businesses, recycle (more) and encourage others to do so as well. I want to do all these things and more, I want to make a difference.
Filed under: Journal
I am pretty much in love with this spring thing…It doesn’t matter how down I feel, the birds are singing, things are turning green, there are flowers popping up and festivals in my near future. It is so refreshing to see greenery and I am so excited about starting a back porch garden! We don’t have a lot of lawn, so the garden that I have visualized creates a mini Eden on the back porch! 
We have already started grilling a little bit on the warmer evenings and I can’t wait to have my little pots full of growing things! I never used to be so into flowers and gardening, it runs in the family but I just never seemed to have a green thumb. Until last summer, we planted a big garden at my parents house and it was wonderful! Living in the city really makes me appreciate that garden…Now I feel like I notice all kinds of little springtime wonders I never would have before… the flowers are popping up so early this year and downstate is almost always a good month ahead with its greenery than up north. Everything just smells so wonderfully fresh. It makes me smile.
Filed under: Journal
I think I am in one of those shoddy life feeling slumps. I don’t like to use the term depressed because I don’t feel like I have a clinical issue. I just feel like I am in a slump. A more than mild feeling of melancholy infused with stress, feelings of uselessness and mild discontent with my current life situation make up my slump. I have a penchant to stare into space absently while thinking about nothing in particular all the while answering “fine” and “I am ok” to my slightly concerned girlfriend.
I don’t like slumps… I think I was in a slump when I wrote catch 22 and now this…this is bigger. I just FEEL shitty. For the simple reasons that I feel like a bum for not being able to finish school. These feelings lead to my complete disinterest in finishing the semester because I feel like “what is the point?!” and then this all compiles into a complete feeling of uselessness. Because: I am not important to society, I am not making a difference. I am just here… Doing nothing with my life and trying to pass it off as if things are lovely.
I feel a bit bereft…like I have no purpose in life and no idea what is coming round the bend. It is kind of frightening. Sometimes I miss being a child and all the security and lack of responsibility it included. But then I remember that that sucked too. I just wish I knew what was going on in my life… which is really our life. Ours, as in Lovers and mine… ours even though I don’t feel like I have anything to offer or any say in where we go…Ours…I just feel like I am tagging along for the ride…Much like a child. Maybe I am still a little kid. Maybe I just never grew up and grew into the knowledge of what I REALLY wanted to be or do. Sometimes I get confused as to why I made the decisions I did…(fashion school? What was the point in that? )
Even if I did grow up…am a grown up now. It does not matter. Because it seems like what one wants to be and do is not necessarily in ones hands. There are 50 million other factors out there that dictate my life. It makes me feel small and insignificant.
I need a purpose. I need a project. I need something to do with my life.
Filed under: Recipes
True story,
I think I have probably 8-10 just saved in my bookmarks. I am pretty sure it is one of my favorite pastimes… I think it should be made into a hobby. Perusing food blogs… yeah, that is totally hobby material. I have re-realized that I love to cook since we moved in and got settled here in Kzoo.
I used to love cooking as a kid and learned how to cook for a lot of people having 4 brothers, it has been a bit of a task re-learning things and scaling down to cooking for two. (Not to mention healthier) I love roaming the interwebs looking for simple yet delicious recipes to try (and some more ornate ones as well…) and then, if they get two thumbs up, into the recipe box they go.
A lot of times I will make a recipe but have to tweak it, change this or that…Or I come to the realization that if I added something said recipe would have a delicious new flavor that works like to recipes in one! That was the case when I found these cookies on ovenhaven.wordpress.com This woman is pretty much my hero (she can do the most amazing things with fondant!) *sighhhh* and I have been working at re-creating some of her recipes bit by bit. Her original recipe is for 3 ingredient Peanut Butter Sandies, after making them though I thought about how delicious they would be with Nutella. Now, Nuttella can be overwhelmingly sweet sometimes so I just mixed half peanut butter and half nutella and I think these cookies went over the best out of any that I have made. (Lover sure seemed to like them a lot, and instead of just eating one or two the first day and forgetting about them like usual she wolfed down half the batch in under 48 hrs)
So here is a revised recipe that has definitely gone into my recipe box
Peanut Butter Sandies (with Nutella)
3/4 Cup Peanut Butter
3/4 Cup Nutella (there is a lovely crunchy Nutella knockoff that you can get at world market for cheap!)
3/4 to 1 Cup Flour (I prefer all-purpose unbleached)
1 Cup Light Brown Sugar
-Blend Peanut Butter and Nutella with Sugar ( I like to use my food processor for all the mixing as it really blends it all well but a spoon will do just fine)
-Gradually add in flour (this is where the variation of the 3/4 to 1 cup can come in handy, start with 3/4 and if your dough is still really sticky add a bit more… next step you use your hands and sticky dough can be messy!)
-Roll resulting dough into 1in balls and place on un-greased cookie sheet(Honestly you can do them a bit larger but I have found that it is nice to have a smaller cookie as they are just one or two bites and really rich!)
-Flatten the rounds gently with a fork, the prong creates a more signature Sandie look
-Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Yes, that is right 8. It generally is a good idea to let them cool for about 5 minutes on the cookies sheet as they can be fragile and very warm. (The still warm ones are a must try with a tall glass of milk!)
Hope you enjoy! happy baking!
Filed under: Journal
This past weekend was decidedly eventful even though Lover and I decided to stay put and not visit the family 5 hours away. The weekend was filled with a great deal of online and on foot job hunting and some serious 1 on 1 time that seems to be necessary when things get dull.
While looking for job openings at the mall on Saturday we happened to pass by a jewelry store and though I knew I shouldn’t I went and with lover in tow… I probably tried on 10-15 different rings and now can honestly say I know what it feels like to hold 16,000 dollars. (It looked fantastic on my hand) After we were done looking and chatting with the lovely gentleman that was so gracious as to let me try things on at my leisure we walked away hand in hand and Lover said rather reverently “you are going to that someday” to which I replied what? have what? I tried on at least 10-15 I can’t even remember because some were so blindingly luminous I was in awe! “Your going to have that big one”
Apparently, she liked the way my hand looked with that ring on my finger. There, for all the world to see that I was hers. I told her that I was in no way expecting 16,000 worth of rock on my finger anytime soon. I mean, really… I think it would be totally acceptable for a thief to steal me ring and all just because it was so obnoxiously large. (But I loved the fact that she liked it 
I thought it was cute that she got that little push from me trying on rings. I feel like it made an impact on her. I told her that I would be gloriously happy with any of the other rings that I tried on and liked…more along the 300 dollar range. I assured her there would always be the ability to upgrade when we actually have expendable cash.
Later, while walking around in Kohls she mentioned something that I had been thinking. Kohls would be a perfect place to register for a wedding! So, we get to the nitty-gritty. Standing in kitchen accessory aisle at Kohls I made her finally shake on a date. WEllllllllllllllllll….not a date date, but something a whole lot more solid than “someday.” After she is done with Grad school. I considered this acceptable since that would mean we would have been together for 5 years and it would give us a while to save.
Needless to say I have been in wedding planning mode, till now. It is Tuesday evening and she totally just shot me down. I realize that this hypothetical wedding is nearly 3 years away. However, we happen to be broke college students that will most likely NOT have any parental assistance and I felt the need to put together a budget. I like plans. I really like planning. A budget is necessary for us being that we will have to save that money in order to ever get such a shindig off the ground. I wanted some sort of hard number that I could at least aim for over the next three years and so I have been going through various different expenses and was trying to make a guest list to get an idea of how many to plan for.
This did not go over well. I think I almost cried. I asked her a question and she went into a bit of a speech about how this is not on her priorities list right now. Right now she just wants to graduate and do grad school and she doesn’t understand my need to plan things. (I understand the grad school bit…duh) She said that it is just too far ahead to start planning. To which I replied, “ok, I will let it go. I know its not going to happen anyway.” She became slightly upset and wanted to know why I would say such a thing and I just told her it would never be feasible which she did not seem to understand why. After assuring her I was just fine I left to go catch some air because obviously I was not fine! I am still not fine! I am terribly irritable actually, I am irritated at the fact that she could just throw me a bone and then snap it back. Totally irritated that she doesn’t see the reason behind my planning. If I don’t have a budget I cannot really figure out a savings system now can I?! Hence, it will not happen. *sigh* My girlfriend ever the optimist whom doesn’t understand the need for a well laid plan totally shit on my excitement today and more firmly planted the seed in my brain that it will probably never happen.
Hello… to at least the next 7 years of being always a bridesmaid but never a bride.
Filed under: Journal
Everything in my life is crazy… Just crazy I tell you. Lover and I were supposed to go up North to visit the family but lately my mom is on a semi homophobic (giving her the benefit of the doubt here) rant. I wrote a post on BGB (good acronym?) about fake support. Long story short, she read it and was pissed. However she doesn’t seem to understand what I mean when I say “fake support” I mean the hypocrisy I see in her words, the holes in her view of how the world should be. She thinks I mean $$$, time etc. Tangible things, which she has tried to be generous with in her own way… She doesn’t understand that her mindset is skewered, set back in the late 50′s when she was a kid. She doesn’t understand that she thinks about things from a totally different angle. A heterosexual supremacy angle. I know this angle, chances are if you are gay you have had to live in two different worlds at one time or another. Mom does not get this, she likes to simplify gay issues. Like if you a Trans Woman she thinks you are just a man that feels like dressing up as a woman that day. <—See the flaws?—
Another part of her defense is that she says that my gf and I should have the right to a “union” not marriage but a “union” which is all fine and well. She stands by her biblical teachings staunchly in the fact that marriage is between a man and a woman. I understand the bible thumpers and am willing to relinquish a battle or two to win the war. She also says that my gf and I should have the same rights to a family as heterosexual couples…which is were it gets screwy. She wants us to have the same rights, however she is very against teaching about different orientations in schools. Does that make sense? I mean I was confused. She wants us to be able to have a family and have the same rights, but she is not ok with spreading knowledge to combat the ignorance that would lead to our hypothetical child being ostracized. Doesn’t make any sense at all.
She has gone so far as to send me obnoxious propaganda on these topics and try to guilt me into feeling remorseful for what she thinks we homosexuals are trying to do. So, the point of this post is that Lover and I were all set up to go up North when she decided to send me pages upon pages of propaganda and berate me. Being that I already get tense about going home (there is just something about that woman that is anything but relaxing) this made it worse and we decided to nix the whole idea at the last minute. I have to much at stake to risk an argument with her on gay rights.
Things at stake:
1)Monetary support till we finally get on our feet (all to be paid back of course)
2)Signature support for school (I did finally talk my parents into the massage therapy idea)
3)Simply a place to stay…(if things get too heated at home I don’t really have anywhere else up North to go…)
I just have a bad feeling about what would happen if we were to visit right now. My Mom is not happy unless she is arguing with someone and I cannot afford for that someone to be me.
Filed under: Recipes
These seriously are my favorite no-bakes in the world! I have tried other recipes but they just do not measure up! As long as I can remember this has been a family favorite. My brother made them all the time when I was little (and liked to not share to the point were I would cry) then when I was old enough I started making them myself.
I don’t know where the recipe comes from, It has been around my whole life and is pretty much ancient. (There are lots of chocolaty looking stains on it from kids So here it is, my kickoff recipe for this blog. The most memorable cookie from my childhood.
No-Bake Chocolate Cookies
2 Cups White Sugar
4 Tbls Cocoa (I just use Hershey’s unsweetened)
1/2 Cup Milk
1/2 Tsp Salt
1/4 Cup Butter or Margarine (I myself am a fan of Butter:)
Boil above ingredients 1 minute. <—-This is a real deal breaker here, if not done the chemistry tends to be off and they don’t set up right. You need to get the temperature up to a nice rolling boil and keep it there for at least 1 minute. Constant stirring is a must!—
Turn off heat. Add in:
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter (Crunchy or Smooth dependent on preference)
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
3 Cups Quick Cooking Oats
Stir well and drop by tablespoon onto waxed paper (aluminum foil works too in a pinch) Let stand until firm. If it is a hot day or your house tends to be on the warmer side I would set them in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or so to help them set up.
These are probably the easiest cookies to make (maybe a good project if you have a little helper to drop them on wax paper) and they tend to be more preferable to make during the Summer if it is too hot to use the oven.
I hope you like the recipe and they turn out well! Happy No-Baking
