All I Want is You.

The Facebook Hammer.

I heard it again today: someone saying how much they hate Facebook. And by hate, they actually mean love so much it's unhealthy. I've heard the same thing about blogging: "I've got to quit blogging," like they're giving up a hard drug.

I totally get it. It's so easy to spend way too much time on it. It's so easy to get sucked in. It's so easy to turn into a major creeper and try to find out way more than you need to know about someone else's life. It's so easy to get majorly self-absorbed and assume that every facet of your life is worth sharing with EVERYONE you know. And seriously: sometimes you leave people behind in your life for a reason. No need to keep in touch. No need to get depressed about how their choosing to live their life when they were so much better than that! Argh!

Seriously. I get it.

But I know that when those thoughts start running through my mind, it's time to plug into my internet mantra:

Use it. Don't let it use you.

So zen, right? 

Because, really, saying I hate social media sites is like saying I hate hammers. They're tools. That's it.  And like the hammer, it can only hurt me if I'm mis-using it or I'm not careful. 

Maybe a better example is a credit card: Facebook is like a box of chocolates credit card. It can do so much good (do you know how much free gas we've gotten by using credit cards right? It's awesome.) but it can also do so SO much baaaad. If I use them right, they're my tool, I control them for wise purposes. Don't let them control me, and we've got a working, healthy relationship going on here. No need for all-out get-out-of-my-life banishment.

Though, again, I get it. I get how sometimes, when you're having a hard time, cold turkey is the best way to go. Like how sometimes, a cash-only budget is a necessity for someone who really struggles with using a credit card wisely. Or how you have to swear off cutting up carrots for a while because you cut your finger every. single. time. Gah!

When I feel like I'm starting to drown in social media, I have to stop and take inventory of why it's getting so chronically appealing. For me, it's usually because I haven't made time to connect with others outside the walls of my home...and am feeling socially starved. A quick fix is a phone call to a friend or long-distance family member. Or to sit down and write an old fashioned email...or (gasp!) paper and pen letter. (Those are so fun, p.s.) Or call a friend that second and invite them over for lunch the next day. But it's different at different times for me...and it's different for everyone else, I think....as far as what makes it tempting to misuse and what fixes the prob.

But if you'll excuse me, I have a Facebook status to update. About how I just blogged about Facebook.

Kidding!

I laugh at all my own jokes around here.

The Millet Militia.

Okay, confession:

I love food.

Weird? I know. Who loves food? I mean, really.

What I love most about food, though, is when it's real. And clean. And nutritious. AND, most importantly, tastes good. I love tasty, real food. I actually get really excited about it. And spend inordinate amounts of time learning about my food: where it comes from, how to grow it (for when my dreams of a garden become concrete. Boo to renting on that count for now), what makes it nutritious, what it can do for the health of my body, AND...most importantly....how to make it, and make it delicious...and keep it nutritious.
Oh, baby, I love my food.

My hubby loves food, too, but it's a different kind. It's the pretend kind. The kind that fizzes. And coats your tongue with sugar. And tastes good. But that's okay, because I like it sometimes, too. More than sometimes, even. And it keeps my feet on the ground when I start floating away into my spaghetti-squash dreams. And although it really is important to me to enjoy the taste of my food, sometimes his definition and my definition of "tastes good" differs. SOooo it also challenges me to find ways to prepare my favorite, deliciously real foods in ways that are yummy to me, but also appealing to him. And when I say challenge...I mean it. I'll get something to a point where I can't-get-enough-of-it-it's-so-scrumptious and hand it to him with high hopes....and get a wrinkled nose with "well...it's okaaay but..." And I'll make a mental note to try something different with it next time....while gladly keeping this round aaaallll to myself. Yumyumyum. Oh, and Baby-Rae. She's usually a good sport when it comes to food.

Anyways.

I've been really curious about different grains lately. Curious enough to buy some to experiment with.

Like millet, for example.

Photo Credit

Last night, I cooked up a tidy little amount in my rice cooker (with the same water to grain ratio I would use if making rice) and hopped on the Millet Train with both feet. Here goes nothing, thought I.

This morning, I had it for brekky. I just warmed it up and prepared it like I would a bowl of oatmeal for myself: some maple syrup, milk, and a spoonful of peanut butter on the side. It worked! The texture is grainier than oatmeal, but I liked the change. Star for millet as breakfast.

For dinner this evening, I was inspired by this recipe. But the head of cauliflower I had on hand got burnt to shame in the oven a few nights earlier, thanks to my psycho appliance (No, really, it was totally my oven. Not me even a little bit. At all.). That is a different story altogether. So I was cauliflower-less. Therefore: I improvised. And soon a bunch of millet, a can of lima (butter) beans, some chicken broth, a few cloves of garlic and an onion (both sauteed) all got blended together into a mashy pile of mashed-potato-looking stuff. And it was goooood: Mild enough to cheer on my gravy, and nutritious enough to do my body good, but tasty enough on its own to repeat again. And again. You'd really have to blend it like crazy in order for it to have the same consistency as potatoes, but if you just expect it to be--again--a little grainier, than you're set. Checkmark for millet as dinner.

Go, millet!
I'm still curious as to how else I can use the stuff, but for now, I think I'll just eat the rest for breakfast tomorrow. My next curiosity to satisfy is what-the-heck spelt berries taste like all cooked up. And I'll spend too long when I should be going to bed looking for recipes to try out with them. (Sigh!)

Oh, the burdens of a food addict.

Finally Finished.

The quilt for Baby-Rae is FINALLY FINISHED.
I really had no idea how to make a quilt before I set out to make this one. I still don't really know how. I just know that it's basically batting between two pieces of material, held together with thread or yarn.
Ta-daaa! I know, you're impressed with my vast quilting knowledge, it's okay to say it.
Anyways. My ma-in-law and I found these pieces of fabric (I think one was actually a tablecloth...) at the thrift store that matched her room exactly. A good wash later, they were ready to go.
I wanted the actual quilt-pattern-part to be free-form and swirly. That's it.

And three months after starting it, it's now finished. Three quarters of it were finished in the first 24 hours after getting the stuff, thanks to said Ma-in-Law. The last quarter was finished yesterday. Three months later.

I plead new baby.

At least it's finished...and we're fans, Baby-Rae and I.