Things that rock about my kitchen

As you can see I seem to be in a bit of a blog slump. Summer fun. High school reunions. 5 year blog anniversaries (!!). None of these seem to be inspiring a blog post. So, I have had this sitting in the wings for a while and I thought I would entertain you all (or at least my mom), with the things I most like about my kitchen. As you read you may notice a theme. Basically, the best thing about my kitchen is that there is a home for everything!  As my long time readers know, I am not a neat and tidy person. So it is nice to have a space that reduces the amount of crap I have to look at. Crap reduction, the perfect reason for a kitchen remodel!

1. Lots and lots of cupboards. In the new space everything fits in a cupboard or drawer, so I don't have shit hanging out the counters. This makes me oh so happy!  (That one thing hanging on the counter is my new crock for sauerkraut. I'll let you know in a couple weeks how it works).

2. Pantry!  My pantry, only 4 inches deep, took this tiny worthless spot of wall (there is a chimney behind it making the wall stick out about a foot) and turned it into an awesome storage space. All my extra crap goes in here. Plus daily supplements, bottles of wine, stuff I need but never use.

3. These beautiful tucked away drawers hold a. a much bigger junk drawer that can actually be opened and closed without a lot of tucking and manipulating b. the cuisinart and crock pot - so they don't live on the counter  and c. ?? the bottom drawer contains things so rarely used I don't even know what's there. Light bulbs I think. Maybe some linens.

4. Pantry x 2! Veggies in a drawer, which is awesome when you buy not so ripe avocados.

5. Baby drawers I thought I would never use, but it turns out they're perfect for sponges, plastic bags and bottles of kitchen cleansers.

6. Freezer!! The freezer in the new fridge is huge. All my meat. All my raw animal food. It all fits. Plus I have ice!

7. This is silly, but i love the grid in the sink. You can wash dishes and leave them there to dry. You can wash veggies and put them in the sink and know they aren't lying in all the dirt you just washed off them. You can own a stainless steel sink and not scratching it every two seconds.

8. Dishwasher. I had a dishwasher before but it was small and I never used it. Now I am actually using my dishwasher and it makes life so much easier!

9. This should really be #1, the compost container built into the counter is so cool - probably worth the price of the kitchen on it's own.

10. Spice rack drawer. I was hemming and hawing about what to do about spices - build something special? Buy something special?  Instead I took and idea from my friend Chris and used the drawer closest to the stove for spices. I still have way too much stuff in baggies, but it's so much easier to find everything than it was before.

11. Refrigerator. Just because it looks cool in its cabinet coat.

12. New plates and bowls. Before the remodel I owned two plates that could go in the dishwasher. (I owned more plates, but they had to be hand washed). To get in with the dishwasher program, I went to my favorite place, Posh in Chicago, and ordered this super basic restaurant china. It rocks, and looks so pretty on the black counter.

13. And finally, this RC was a present from my mom. Kitchen warmer!

A Weekend with a Champion - a story in pictures.

This weekend Penny's parents were out of town and Otto, Daisy and I got to host a blue ribbon winning bitch (see Dog Show). And what fun we had!

 Hi!  I'm Penny, My mom and dad are out of town and I'm a little concerned. Please be extra nice to me!  I'll do my best to look extra cute to help with the process.

I'd say this photo kind of sums of the weekend. Penny was a blur of motion and Otto was a little concerned by what was going on!

The weekend involved lots of events that never happen when the world is just Otto, Daisy and me. Here is an exciting trip to the dog park. It was about 100 degrees.

After the dog park we panted a lot. Well, Penny panted and drooled and panted and drooled. Otto and I wondered how the heck it was possible to pant so much!

Other fun weekend events

Meals were extra exciting as four eyes watched my every move and made sure I was performing properly (I think I see a tongue sticking out of Otto's mouth)

Penny pulled out every last one of Otto's toys. Otto has a full box of toys that he never (EVER) touches. It was nice to have them get some use. Here the green bone and zebra striped squeaky bone get their play debut!

We played!  Saturday morning the dogs were outside and I heard some strange noises. I went out side and found Otto playing!  As soon as he saw me he abruptly stopped. So I went inside and when it started up again I snuck pictures through the window!

We hiked!  We hiked 8.2 miles.

Mornings were extra fun. Everyone decided that they needed to join me on the bed (Penny actually slept with me - Otto doesn't) Penny decided that mornings on the bed needed to involve bone chewing, hmmmm.)

We went through the car wash, Penny wasn't too sure about that.

And finally, you're probably wondering what Daisy thought about all of this. Well, Daisy wasn't really pro Penny. She spent her weekend either sitting on this table (where i put her food). hissing or sleeping in the dirty clothes bin.

At one point she became super brave (or something) and decided she needed to venture out with the dogs. Penny rewarded her with her bravery by asking her to play. It didn't go over very well. (You'll notice that I decided to make sure I captured the event on film rather than making sure Daisy avoided the conflict).

That was the fun. Penny, come back any time!

New Kitchen Toy

So there is a new appliance in my kitchen. A new appliance which I will not name by name, because I don't want every fool with google access to stumble across my blog every time they want information on this particular appliance (see below for name). It's this cool hand held mini blender that is supposed to be great for making sauces, smoothies and the like.

Now, as you might notice in this picture, this appliance comes with an excess number of accessories. In fact, it comes with so many accessories, that multiple times I went to buy it and then talked myself out of it because I did (and do) not want 4 extra plastic cups and 4 extra plastic lids floating around my kitchen. But, very unfortunately, you cannot buy just the blender. You have to buy all the damn accoutrements as well!  Any, I finally bit the bullet (as it were) and bought blender plus extra plastic crap which will now float around in my cupboard for years, never used. (Yes, Goodwill would be a good option).

Anyhow, as usual, I digress. So, how is it you ask?  Well, it's actually pretty damn cool. I wanted it because every time I make some smaller amount of sauce I pull out my food processor then I have to wash a million things, just for a little sauce. This seemed like much less work.

So far I have used it twice.  Yesterday I made some magic mushroom powder.

This really just involved throwing in some dried porcini mushrooms and grinding for a bit. But it made the process super quick and saved lots of washing.

Then today I made some avo-ziki sauce. Avo-ziki sauce is a paleo/greek version of guacamole. Making it looks a bit like this.....

Again, my new little toy was awesome (though I would recommend not filling the cup completely to the top when trying to grind avocados). It's cool, because when the cup and blade are attached you can take them off the blender and shake. I don't know about you. But when I'm trying to blend thick stuff in a blender, I spend a lot of time trying to stick a spoon in and mix things up, so I'm not just blending the stuff in the bottom over and over again. With my new toy, it's easier and less messy to mix.

Anyhow, so far, aside from the excess plastic, I highly recommend this.... And, if you drink smoothies, you might even like the extra plastic accessories!

FLowers

Hello to all my devoted fans. Sorry, I don't seem to have hit upon a blog inspiration lately, but I have taken a couple pictures that I'm quite proud of and I thought I would share them until I am hit with a fit of genius for a legit post. (I am so hampered in my genius mode, that I had to look up how to ever spell genius. No it is not genious!)

Apologies to my instagram friends who had already seen these.

To come clean, this particular flower had a little photo shot help.

Love this one so much I had to like it myself on instagram (that's a lot of love).

And finally, this last picture, my mom picked a couple flowers to put on my sister birthday cake. She didn't end up using these three which at the time were buds. So I stumbled around with what the heck to do with them. I finally stuck them in this tiny mug. They were so thankful, that by today they were opened up and beautiful!

The Bounty of Nature

While we are still reveling in the glory that is my natural deodorant (can I mention that not one but TWO people want to try it out), let's take a minute and revel in some of nature's other bounties.

The biggest egg in the world from the skagit river ranch

Produced two yolks (two of the eggs in the dozen were this size and double yolked)!  Those are some extra productive chickens. The eggs were so big that the carton came rubber banded shut because it wouldn't stay closed otherwise! Why do people buy eggs from the grocery store?

I don't know if the picture fully captures it, but this blueberry bush is amazing. it belongs to a neighbor and every year it produces the most insane number of huge blackberries. Yes, that is one huge bush. I didn't even know the bushes could get so big (all my blueberry bushes die).

I too am producing bounty. This is my garden. With lots of sun, things are growing like crazy this year! (Don't judge the scraggly chard in the front, I think it's been too sunny for it.)

I have been eating kale out of my garden every day for weeks and I can't keep up with it.

And the broccoli just started up! It's extra tasty (tastier than it looks).

And everyone please note, how pretty everything is when photographed on my counter!  Whoop!

Sweet Smelling, An Internet Miracle

I'd like to say this is another of my happy paleo homemaker blogs. Unfortunately, I think this particular topic  might be drifting dangerously close to super duper hippy territory.  I am not currently wearing birkenstocks or patchouli (in fact you'll be happy to hear I could not even spell patchouli without looking it up). But, it takes a village. If you ever notice a whiff of patchouli or see me in some very unfortunate shoes - Birkenstocks or (heaven forbid) Vibrams - please hold an intervention!

In short, if my lower quarter ever looks like this and standing near me makes you want to plug your nose, call in the troops - STAT!

NOT EVER! 

Anyhoo, I am way off topic. What I want to talk about are natural ways to stop stink - or stink and the wonders of baking soda!

This started with a desire to resurrect a couple shirts. I have a few workout shirts that I love. They are cotton/poly blend, super cute and permanently stinky. I worked out in them for about 6 months (NO, not straight and not unwashed) and it was like sweat became embedded in the fibers. I would put them on clean and before even doing anything I had to take them off because I couldn't handle the smell. So I did a little google research and people suggested baking soda. So, three shirts, a pan full of baking soda and water,  24 hours and one load of wash later I was ready to test the miracle that is the internet. YES!!!  After a day of wearing the shirt in 80+ weather, still sweet smelling!

But, it gets worse, we haven't gotten to the hippy territory yet. For years I have used deodorant from the co-op (so as to remain alzheimer free). I have tried a few different brands of natural deodorants and frankly most of them suck!  There is only one brand I have found that consistently keeps me pretty fresh. Well, my co-op stopped carrying that brand!  ACK!  So, I what did I do?  I went to the internet. It turns out you can make deodorant. And not only that, but you can make it out of things I already have in my house!!!!!!!!

Coconut oil
Baking soda
Tapioca starch (the recipe actually called for corn starch, but I had tapioca)
lavender oil

that's it. And the internet raved about it.

So, this morning I whipped it all together. Put it in a old deodorant container and put it in the fridge (so the coconut oil would harden) and tried it out. AND........

5 hours, 90 degrees, painting, dog walk, changing bike tires + coconut oil deodorant + ex stinky shirt = SWEET SMELLING.

Looks just like the real thing.

I kid you not. It's an internet miracle.

(And I promise, I'm not just saying this because it's me in my own body. I know when I stink!)

Going back go my roots.

1983. That was the year I first dyed my hair. It was my freshman year in college. Over Christmas break I bleached it a bit, so it was essentially my normal color, but a little lighter. And no one noticed (but me and my freshman roommate).  I'm not sure what happened between 1983 and 1993, but then in 1993 the hair dying started in earnest. I went red (well really orange), and was orange for years. In fact, at some point I began to think of myself as a red head (still do).

Hair dye party at Megans - my sister and me! (No, I did not get her permission to use this terrible picture!)

My sister and me with orange hair (Portland marathon). Suzanne's hair flowing/glowing in the wind.

In the 20 intervening years my hair has been red, blond streaked, dark brownish/reddish and everything in between. I'm pretty sure at this point, I no longer have any idea my real hair color. And, of course, my current hair color is so different than it was then (so much grey).

Long and streaked. This was a good phase.

Well, a couple months ago I decided it was time to stop dying my hair. Well, what I really decided was that even though I really like it dark, as it's been for the last year or so, I hate the roots. And, it's so dark that two weeks after every hair dye my roots just start glow. The grey is so light and the brown so dark, that I feel like everyone is staring at my roots. I began to think of myself as one of those unfortunate old ladies with really bad hair dye job and really crazy grey/white roots.

So, I'm growing it out. My hair dresser has a plan to make it a little less painful, but I'm guessing in a couple months it will be pretty clear something is going on. The real question is what I'll think when all this is done. Will I be one of those women to looks beautiful and glamorous with grey hair?  Or will I be one of those who looks old and haggard with grey? Will I like it?  or will I immediately slap some dye back on? Every time I see a woman with grey hair I stare at her, wondering it she looks anything like I will look with grey hair. (Women in this city with grey hair are probably beginning thinking, why is that creepy woman with really bad roots staring at me?)

Feel free to let me know what you think - though wait until the process is complete as I'm pretty sure we are heading into some rough patches. In the meantime, I may have to go buy some hats!

So, this is an attempt to show the current situation.

That's the real me!