Lately, I’ve been a bit of a mad scientist in the kitchen (working on new recipes, messing with old ones, and sometimes making things up on the fly).  Here’s a few tidbits to nibble on (heh heh)

A special chicken pasta dish that was such a huge hit I will be posting the recipe here soon (as well as whipping up a vegetarian version so that I can eat it!):

Rice balls – based on the recipe from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, but with slight modifications. Instead of just brown rice, I used a mixture of brown, red, and barley; the recipe also calls for chicken or turkey, which I left out, and I used crushed whole wheat garlic croutons instead of wheat breadcrumbs.

SO FLIPPING GOOD. Basically arancini, but healthier. It contains sweet potato and broccoli purees, which give an awesome flavor to the cheese.

For Valentine’s Day, I made Rice Krispy treats dipped in vanilla candy coating for my coworkers; I used food coloring to make it pink. Then I shook some candy sprinkles to make them cute. They disappeared very quickly from the break room!

I made the Rice Krispy treats with a jar Marshmallow Creme, instead of regular marshmallows, as there is no gelatin included (making it vegetarian-friendly). The texture of the bars was perfect, and even the next day were perfectly chewy. I also recently found a recipe on Pinterest for homemade marshmallow fluff, which I can’t wait to try!

I had plenty of candy dip left over, so I dipped a basket full of strawberries for Tim. We had these as our special Valentine’s dessert

We’d been hoarding a block of Bellavitano Espresso cheese, and I finally experimented with it by making a quick panini. Baguette with genovese pesto, Robusto gouda and the Bellavitano, grilled. OMG DELICIOUS. Also had mixed greens tossed with gorgonzola, tomatoes, garlic EVOO and my favorite Olivier barrel aged Balsamic Vinegar.

At the end of December, I read The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

I didn’t love this story. The main character, Madeleine, was self-absorbed, over-privileged and uninspiring. Eugenides, usually so brilliant in exposing a character’s layers over time, failed to peel back enough to make me care about her.

I can’t remember all of the thoughts I had on this novel, so I may have to come back to this one later.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

I’ve read a great deal of Margaret Atwood, and those of you that have read The Robber Bride or Cats Eye can understand my devotion to her stories. The female characters are written with a hundred facets, never fully understood but complete in their humanity. You can recognize something in them; even the most vile of characters contain something you’ve seen in the mirror.

I would not go into this novel expecting a solution to the core mystery (it is based on true events; a wealthy man and his housekeeper were murdered, possibly by the maid and her supposed lover, the stable boy). I am sure that Atwood has her own opinion of what happened, but she takes care not to share that with the reader. The story is told in flashback partially by the maid, Grace Marks (convicted of the murder), whilst she is in a psychiatric prison; the second narrator is a psychiatrist, Simon Jordan, who has become interested in the case and conducts exploratory interviews with Grace.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone that wishes to read this; but I felt it was a little too pat. I wanted a definitive explanation for the events, and instead you are left to determine for yourself – which can work for some stories;  I didn’t think it worked here. Viewed alone as Grace’s version of the story, supplied by her own truths and fictions, it is an interesting character study. Leave it at that and you can enjoy it.

After these, I zipped through three or four Agatha Christie Poirot novels (for the 100th time, LOL).  Then, I was ready for a new read, so I started The Fairy Tales of Herman Hesse edited by Jack Zipes

 I’ve read Siddartha about 20 times; it is one of my favorite novels. This collection features 22 of his most fantastical concoctions, all told with the same simple yet romantic prose.  The translation wasn’t perfect – I am willing to bet that some of the magic was lost (yet another reason to learn German!). But, the stories are interesting and some are thought-provoking; ‘If the War Continues’ and ‘Strange News from another Planet’ are especially relevant for today’s political and social climate.

From fairy tales to a novel about storytellers seemed a natural enough transistion, so now I’m reading The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine . So far…very good.

I’ve got a book post coming up, but before I delve into my literary adventures, there have been goings-on in other media. I’ll make it snappy, since I have reached critical mass in the need for sleep. It’s kind of ridiculous how little sleep I’ve had in the past two weeks (hence the eerie silence on this here blog).

Last week ‘House’ creators announced that this is the final season – and I actually teared up. What will I do without Dr House??

I’ve decided this will give Hugh more free time to play the piano (for me), eat good food (with me) and read novels aloud in his natural English accent (to me). You know, ’cause obviously he’s coming straight to the Napa Valley after his show ends.

Sunday night (19th) the Season Finale of Downton Abbey airs. GAHH! Too short! This show needs to be moved from mini-series to regular series, so there are more episodes to devour!

OH MY GOD, ANNA AND BATES. I don’t want to ruin ‘Downton Abbey’ for anyone…but last week’s episode had many awesome moments. That’s all I’ll say.

Lord Grantham is officially ‘On Notice’, and hopefully I will not have to move him to the ‘Dead to Me’ board a la Stephen Colbert.

Also, can someone please make me look like this? Lady Mary is so lovely I bet she sleeps on a cloud and bathes in milk.

On the music front, tickets to the Death Cab for Cutie concert have been purchased! I am thrilled to see them perform. I started listening with the ‘forbidden love’ EP back in high school, and I’ve NEVER been able to catch them live before;  the tickets usually sell out before I can get to them – but this time I got onto Ticketmaster on a break at work as soon as they went onsale.

Marco and I have been having dance parties in the car on the way home from work and daycare; I’ll crank out a tune and he shakes his groove-thang in his carseat. Lately, he loves The Black Keys’ “Gold on the Ceiling”.

I’m excited to finally see ‘The Artist’! It finally arrives at the Cameo this weekend. Sour Patch Kids and Milk Duds will be consumed. What? It’s dinner.

Happy Groundhog Day! Here’s to hoping Punxsutawney Phil does NOT see his shadow – I can’t bear gloomy weather for too long…

A few weekends ago, with the help of my husband, I updated our IKEA dining table chairs…

I bought this fabric by Waverly – it’s called Luminary – online at Jo-Ann’s Fabric – Tim and I liked the color and pattern (it’s also available in grey and blue shades). It reminds me a little of 1960s kitsch, but applied to the modern shape of our chairs it works.

We removed the seats from the chair base, and Tim cut the pieces of fabric into squares, leaving a few inches extra for folding around the seat (it came with thick removable slip covers, but we left them on for extra cushioning )

Then he stapled the fabric tightly to the seat board (staple guns are useful things to have around). After those were done, I applied two coats of  Scotchgard to help keep them clean.

Lo and behold, a fun chair!

The color is very vibrant, and matches the green in our kitchen – it brought more color out into the brown tiled/toffee colored walls.

We had enough fabric to do all six chairs, plus extra if we need to replace any (we purchased 4 yards, widely overestimating our need, but hey it worked out).

I haven’t made a set on Polyvore in a while, but I’ve been thinking about lemon lime combinations and colors for a few days… and so here’s this:

Pink and black polka dot silk blouse with peter pan collar: Forever21

Rhinestone and pearl bow earrings: Betsey Johnson, birthday gift 2010

Black pleated skirt: Forever21 HERE

And finally…my awesome new shoes!

Shoes: BCBGeneration Stevie HERE

Lately, my makeup routine:

Eyelash curler: e.l.f Essentials (also mentioned HERE)
Mascara: Flirt! All That Lash in black  (also mentioned HERE)
Lip stain: REVLON Just Bitten in Crave
Blush: Bobbi Brown blush in Pale Pink

and I get this effect (ghostly white, i know, but I don’t wear powder or use other face makeup unless it’s a special occasion)

I love this lip stain! If I am going for color on my lips, generally Benefit Benetint is what I reach for, but this one by REVLON is an easy to use pen – it basically feels like using a marker. One end is the stain, and the other is a lip balm that keeps your lips feeling soft. I see so many stylish ladies wearing lipstick, but I just can’t pull off the look. This is much easier for me to wear, and it still feels like I’m just wearing my Burt’s Bees peppermint lip balm.

Also purchased this lip stain in ‘Frenzy’ – anyone else try these yet?

Yesterday was my first day back at work, and though only a half day, I found myself exhausted!

So, now I’m feeling a little lazy, and figured a post of photos from my iPhone was the least tiring type of post

New Year’s Eve countdown with Marco

Marco and his aunt Chloe are silly geese

My beautiful, sweet friends Adrian and Micaela visited me last week to cheer me up, keep me company, and fatten me up a little, LOL. In addition to the Gott’s lunch we had (complete with milkshakes!), Adrian brought Timmy and I dinner – a tasty lasagna! Her recipe is HERE

Flowers from my bosses and coworkers

The best way to wake up in the morning!

I love my flats! – REPORT ‘Foley’ 

Dinner at home – black bean ‘burger’ in pita bread, with spicy hummus, yellow bell pepper,tomato and fat-free feta

My pretty girl, Roux

Creepy kitty… ha ha poor Stabler

I just have to do my annual Golden Globes post!

This year was difficult for movies – Tim and I rarely get a chance to see them, and the past month has been…interesting; so I haven’t seen all that I’ve wanted to (“The Artist”, “The Descendants”, and “Hugo”, namely).  But, I have discovered the wonderful ‘Downton Abbey’, so I was EXTREMELY thrilled when they won for Best Television Mini-Series!! Other than that, I was glad that Martin Scorsese won for Best Director – Drama, because I really like him (especially his eyebrows and teeth; something about him is just effervescent! he’s so intelligent, talented, and interesting).

It was lovely to see Morgan Freeman acknowledged for the Cecile B DeMille Lifetime Achievement award; I’ve loved him since I was a kid (mom took me to see “Driving Miss Daisy”, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and “Unforgiven” in theatres), and his performance in “The Shawshank Redemption” is AMAZING.

Ricky Gervais was less sneery than last year, which was kind of weird – I expected no holds barred. But, he’s still hilarious and I like watching him and waiting to see what he’ll do next.

NOTE: Meryl Streep smooched my man on television! I’ll have to scratch her.

Colin Firth with his lovely wife (darn it)

Anyway, on to the fashion!

Red carpet looks to die for…

Reese Witherspoon
Va-va-voom! I liked that she went a little sexier than normal! Must be the newlywed phase

 Salma Hayek

Madonna
I loved the bodice of  her dress, but the bottom was a little perplexing (and what was with the glove?)

Emma Stone
The dramatic coloring was different! I like this dress on her

Octavia Spencer
Once again, I love lavender for awards shows – and I love the neckline and sleeving – I want a dress like this.

Rooney Mara
She does look lovely in black, with her pale skin tone

Looks that confused me…

Zooey Deschanel
I adore her, and while I like the cut of the dress, the color combination didn’t feel right. And the weird sideburns! Ugh!

 

Sarah Michelle Gellar
I was glad to see this girl back in the spotlight, but couldn’t wrap my head around this one.

Lea Michele
Just awful.

Jessica Biel
Please fire your stylist, Jessica. You have a fantastic body, what is with the grandma gown?

What were your favorites? Any dress you deemed a ‘disaster’?

The saga continues.

The pain from the surgery kept getting worse and worse, and I’d already lost 5 pounds between the day of the surgery and the following Thursday. I called my doctor, and they had me come in and get a shot of antibiotics and some vitamin, to see if it helped. Friday morning I woke up and found the my incision had been weeping all night, and I felt horrible. I had my scheduled follow up that morning, and when I arrived they told me that I would need to go to the hospital for IV antibiotics, an ultrasound, bloodwork, and to be monitored for 24 hours. Have I mentioned before how much I hate hospitals?

I’ve never stayed overnight in a hospital by myself, and I was scared. It was pretty crummy – luckily, Tim was able to stay with me during the day, since Marco was at daycare. Our friend Justin was extremely kind and came up to watch Marco for a few hours, so Tim could come back to the hospital and tuck me in; I felt so much better to have Tim there before I went to sleep. He left at 9 to head home, and I tried to sleep.

HA! Total hours of sleep – 4 1/2 hours. A patient in another room on the same floor must’ve had something terrible wrong with him, because he moaned, groaned, screamed all night. I fell fully asleep sometime after midnight, when they’d given me a second round of antibiotics. I was asleep until 3:30, when a new nurse came in to check my blood pressure. At 4:30, she came back to see if I needed any more pain medication. At 5:30, a tech came in to take blood samples. At 6:30, a nurse came in to check my vitals again, and to tell me to order my breakfast. At 7:30, breakfast was delivered.  Every other person that came in would leave the door to my room open, thereby letting in all the noise from the nurses and the moaning guy.

My doctor came to check on me at around 9. He wanted me to stay another night, but I begged to be allowed to go home. He ended up letting me go home later in the afternoon, but with two antibiotics and orders to see him on Tuesday.

After he left, I slept for a little over an hour. Tim and Marco picked me up around 2:30, and I was so happy to see my boy! I hadn’t seen him since Friday morning, and I’d missed him so much! I hated not being able to kiss him goodnight! Marco gave me hugs, kisses, and huge grins. He’s been so sweet – patting my arms and asking “Mama, otay?”, trying to help me up off of the couch, and holding my hands when I walk around the house.

The pain is starting to lessen, but I’m exhausted all the time. It’s hard to eat much, and I can’t stop losing weight – trust me, this is NOT good. I look like a corpse, and I feel disgusting. All I can really stomach is cereal (Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms), candy (so healthy, right?), and occasionally, crackers or pita chips. I want to feel like myself again. It’ll come soon, I just have to be patient, right?