Since you asked so nicely....

I had several requests for the recipe for the cake I took the the Staff/Council BBQ last night... I'd love to just be able to point you to one website where I swiped the whole thing, but it's really a combination of three different things I've read about on the glorious timewaster (aka Pinterest). I'll try to combine them all into something that may or may not be able to be followed. (Give me a break, it's 4:30 am)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake

Cake: 

1 Pilsbury White Cake Mix (and the stuff it says on the back of the box to make it into a real cake) 

I made two 8-inch round cakes... 9" probably would've worked a little better. 

Bake, let cool, remove from pans and freeze for a bit so they're easier to work with. 

Filling: 

3/4 cup + 1 Tbsp. butter, softened

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar4 tablespoons milk (lactose free if you can't handle that 'spicy milk')
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (I chopped up regular semi-sweet chips)


In your mixer (apple green Kitchen Aid - if you have a mom that loves you as much as mine does), cream together the butter and both sugars until smooth.  Mix in the milk and vanilla.  Mix in the flour until just combined. Add more milk if it's too thick - you want it to still have the texture of cookie dough, but be able to spread it on your cake). Then stir in the chocolate chips. 


Frosting: 
(not EXACTLY what I used, but I was doing it from memory - this would probably be better than what I concocted)
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
3½ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. salt
3 tbsp. milk
2½ tsp. vanilla extract

Cream butter, vanilla and sugars until fluffy. Add the flour and salt, beat. Add the milk and beat again until creamy. 

Putting the whole thing together: 

Pull your cakes out of the freezer, level them if needed. Spread the "dough" between the layers and freeze again for about 20 minutes. When your frosting is done (and chilled for about 20 mintues as well, Frost away! I topped mine with some semisweet chocolate crumbles that I thought were too small/powdery to put into the "dough". 

I apologize to you all for this cake. It was referred to as sinful about 20 times last night. There's a reason I was determined to NOT bring any home. :) 

Premature Birth Plan

Let me start with the disclaimer that I am not pregnant. I am not in a place where I am desperate to be pregnant (anymore... that's an entirely different post that I should've written in December after the death of my father). We aren't planning to start actively trying to expand our family for a few months. Also, I believe that a woman's birth process is her very own choice and nothing I say here is meant to criticize what anyone and their partner has done or  will choose to do for their own body and own child.

I have been extremely interested in pregnancy and birth since I was in high school. I find pregnancy and child-bearing to be the ultimate DIY. I learned as much as I could, and veraciously, during my time working for and with my beloved Isagani Villanueva, MD, OB/GYN. That man was a WEALTH of knowledge, and while he didn't have a vagina or uterus, he sure as heck understood what they were made to do. I guess you'd learn that being in practice as long as he was - while I was working there, he was helping to deliver babies out of women he had once helped deliver. When I told him I was leaving the medical field to enter the corporate world ($$$ & paid insurance), he threw a holy fit. Ten years later, I look back at that moment where he yelled, "You have no future in answering phones! You have such a bright future ahead of you in medicine!" and think, you were absolutely right, Dr. V. I am into my practicums in my medical transcription course and know that I will be extremely happy with my career, my work, and my ability to stay home with our (future) children.

In the above-mentioned practicum, I just finished a group of transcriptions focused on OB/GYN. I have been watching some documentaries on birth in the United States (Pregnant In America & The Business of Being Born - both available on DVD and on Netflix Instant, both have things I agree with and others I am still thinking about and researching), and I have noticed that pregnant women are "following me" wherever I go (even Corey will point them out when he's with me). I have a friend who had a beautiful home birth four months ago, (her birth story is incredible) and is planning on becoming a doula when she's done having baies herself (Paula, I'm really sad you don't live closer to me!) and has a "birthy board" on Pinterest that I stalk daily.

With all of that said, it has me thinking about when we DO get pregnant. I know this is WAY more than most women in the U.S. think about even when they ARE pregnant, but it's one of my passions in life. I know I was created to be a mother and to take care of any children God blesses me with. Most people who know me know that I am a bit "crunchy" or "hippie" and me saying these things about my preferences wont really surprise them, but I need to get it out.

Epidural
Almost 29 years ago, my mother gave birth to me with no pain medication. I have long been terrified of this type of anesthesia.  My first concern is that ANY kind of pain medication makes me violently ill. Any time I've been in the Emergency Room, they give me a steady drip of anti-nausea medication simultaneously (making me groggy and sleepy), and as soon as they take that anti-nausea med away, I'm vomiting like a sorority girl at rush. I don't want my vomiting to be the first thing our baby hears, nor do I want to be passed out for the first few hours of our child's life (missing crutial bonding time and figuring out how to do the whole breastfeeding thing).

Not to mention the benefits of moving around for the best positioning of the baby in my body and the natural pain relief that provides. The lack of epidural also helps the mama's body to do what it was created to do - birth that child.

You can read about the benefits and some side effects here. For me,  my current research, and my gut feeling point to not having an epidural. The only time I will say allow one to be placed would be if there is a severe medical reason for me to have one, AFTER all other methods had failed.

Pitocin
One thing I LOVED about Dr. V was that he was "old school". He knew that babies would come when they were good and ready. He very rarely scheduled vacations, always had his pager with him on the golf course and would often come into the office in the morning directly from the hospital across the street, where he had been up all night with a laboring mother. He was the first person to tell me that if there was no major medical issue with the mama or the baby, there was no reason to administer a synthetic hormone (Pitocin) instead of letting their body produce it (oxytoicn) naturally.

I recognize that there are times when Pitocin is necessary - when labor is stalled and Mom and her uterus are tired, when there is a uterine hemmorhage and the uterus needs to contract quickly to save the mother's life and uterus, and the list goes on. Personally, I am just anti-scheduled-induction. There are several side effects of the drug, the most terrifying to me would be the fact that it intensifies the uterine contractions to a point where most women find them unbearable and therefore cave to the pressure of pain meds and epidurals. You can read more about the side effects here. There are MANY more sites with great info on "Pit", but this one was an easy read and had good citations.

Cytotec (misoprostol)
Where in the world do I begin? Induction is very rarely needed. When it is, Pitocin is a great drug. Cytotec, however, is NOT. It has NOT been approved by the FDA for use in pregnant women and has been linked to MANY uterine ruptures, and maternal and fetal deaths. DO NOT LET A PRACTICIONER COME NEAR YOU AND YOUR CHILD WITH THIS DRUG! If your practitioner talks to you about using a pharmaceutical  product to ripen your cervix, please make sure it is not Cytotec or the generic name, Misoprostol.

Other things I will make sure Corey and my doula or birth coach know to help me be heard about:

• Episiotomy - don't come near my perineum with that scalpel. 
• Augmentation - I want to be allowed to labor as long as by body needs with augmentation only when emergently necessary. My body is not on your hospital's schedule.
• Hold my baby immediately following the birth and breastfeed as soon as possible, postponing procedures that aren't necessary.
• Vitamin K injection for baby - DO NOT inject that into my child. 
• Eye "drops" ointment in baby's eyes - No go. My husband and I don't have the clap, neither will the baby's eyes.
• Supplemental feeding - Not going to happen. 

It's not easy being green. Wait! Yes it is. RePurposing containers.

In my effort to decrease our garbage and recycling load, I decided to turn to my trusty pal, Pinterest (seriously, what did we do before this little gem?!) and put a few more things into the "Pinterest: Accomplished" board. 

Started with the parmesan cheese shaker container that I finally emptied. I don't use a lot of it, (mostly because I prefer the grated or wedge of parmesan or romano cheese to the powdered stuff) but it was here when I moved in, and I'm not one usually to let things go to waste. There were several different ideas for this style of container: yarn/twine dispenser, baking soda or borax shaker and what I ended up doing - Dusting flour

I LOVE baking. Especially pies and roll-out sugar cookies. This little contraption is going to greatly aid in the elimination of what our buddy Alton Brown has coined "club hand". You know, when your hand is a little greasy or moist from working with your pie crust dough, cookie dough, bread dough ("Any kind of dough." Movie: Zoolander) and you stick your hand in the flour only for it to become coated and caked well enough to consider how it might look fried to a crispy, golden brown. With my new little flour buddy, all I will need to do is shake, shake, shake, señora. 

While cleaning out my spice cupboard, I realized I had two containers of "Italian Seasoning" and since one of said containers was nearly empty, I decided the tiny bit left in the plastic bottle could be combined into the nice glass shaker in the twirly spice rack on the counter. I could've just thrown the plastic into the recycle bin, but I took pause. One of the suggestions for the ginormous Costco-sized parmesan shaker was powdered sugar. I don't use THAT much of the stuff (despite having a lifetime-supply due to our blended pantry) so the smaller shaker would do just fine for shaking the lovely "snow" onto waffles, pancakes, muffins, cookies, etc. A wash and dry later, we have a new shaker for the confectioner in all of us. 

Heck of a lot better than spending $1 on one at the dollar store. Now I can spend that G.Washington on something I really need.... like more ribbon from the discount ribbon bin. Because who DOESN'T need more ribbon? 

My Daily Bread... and the night of the sanitized pantry

With the hubs on night shift and me "home making", I've been keeping his schedule. It makes it a lot easier to function as a newly-married couple when we're not on opposite schedules, only seeing each other for a few hours a day. Yesterday was a bit of a different story. I had a girlie day planned with my mom and my 11-week-old niece. Since dear mama lives about an hour and a half away from me and is on a daytime schedule, I kind-of tried to adjust mine to get down there by 9am. BACKFIRE! I ended up getting to sleep two hours early, but that still put my eyelids shutting at 2am and getting up at 7. Whoops! But I digress.

While passing the baby back and forth, talking about Pinterest (Mom got her invite recently), I asked if she still had her bread machine and if she ever used it. She knew what I was getting at - "Would you like to.... borrow it?" Such a smart lady, that mom of mine! Not only did she donate her hunk of Oster-carb-making wonder, but she also threw in a Bread Machine cookbook and 10 pounds each of King Arthur Whole Wheat and Bread Flours. SCORE! On my way out of town, I stopped at my favorite grocery store (Winco... I just sang that. It's that awesome - don't worry, I'll write a post solely about the wonders of Winco soon) and raided their bulk section for pantry items I was out of or running low on (also thanks to Pinterest). 

After throwing a quick pesto sauce together, tossing it with some chicken and whole wheat pasta to fuel the hubs and sending him out on his night of crime fighting, I started in on my kitchen. I set up the bread machine on the end of our breakfast bar and started my loaf of Honey Wheat (recipe below). Despite the startling noises at the begining of the different cycles making me pee a little, all was going wonderfully. 

Then, I found them. While sweeping the floor of my gloriously stocked pantry, I saw the Cosco-sized box of large dog biscuits was completely infested with weevils. I froke (froke - [frəːk] verb. Past-tense of freak. "She froke out when she saw the bugs in her pantry") so hard that when I jumped back, my broom handle broke one of the light bulbs in the light fixture (pictured below). Cue removing EVERYTHING from the floor of the pantry, cleaning furiously with my bottle of vinegar, and checking every grain/wheat product for any sign of those filthy little crap-heads. At least I now have an in depth knowledge of everything in our pantry, it's re-organized and it sparkles.

The dangling bulb after being hit with my swift ninja moves

When I was just about done cleaning the pantry, the Oster signaled it's carb delivery was ready to be removed. OH and she was lovely. After letting the loaf cool for a few minutes (and pulling out the stove to clean around and behind it) I cut into it and tasted my first bread machine win. Behold, the power of freshly baked yumminess. 

Honey Wheat Bread

Yeild: 1 Pound Loaf

Ingredients: 

1/2 c. milk (non-fat, lactose-free at this house)

1/4 c. water

2 tbsp. butter

2 tbsp. honey (excited to try it with local, raw honey this spring)

1 tbsp. sugar

3/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. whole-wheat flour

1/2 c. bread flour

2 tsp. yeast

Directions: 

Place room-temp ingredients in the pan of your bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer's directions. Set for whole-wheat bread with a medium crust. 

Life without my Father

I always wondered how I would react to the news my birth father had passed away. I'm not sure if that is because I grew up around the funeral industry, because my father was a bit older than most other fathers I know or because we had such a roller coaster of a relationship. Any way you want to look at it, I really didn't think I'd have to face that reality at the age of 28.


The morning of Friday, November 18, 2011 is one I will never forget, no matter how hard I try. It was Corey's day off and we had stayed up late the night before watching TV or something, so we had planned on sleeping in. His cell phone rang around 7:20ish - it was his Sergeant who asked if we were home and said he needed to talk to him in private. We feared it was something about the job Corey was about to interview for or God Forbid; one of the other troopers had been killed the night before on duty. Corey went outside when he saw “Sarge” pull into the driveway.


I figured we were up for the day, so I decided to get the bath mat out of the dryer. I got it into the bathroom, stepped on it and realized it was still wet, so I hauled it back to the laundry room and started it tumbling again. I heard the door open and close and was surprised to see "Sarge" had come inside with Corey. My first thought was that Corey had lost his job, but the look on their faces said something was much worse than that. I looked at Corey - his eyes were a shade of sad I had never seen - "Oh no, did something happen to his parents? His sister and her family? Please, Dear God let our nephew be OK." It felt like an hour passed in the seconds it took Corey to say, "Merrick, your dad died last night."


I looked over to Jeff and back to Corey and swear to Buddha I asked the question, "Which one?" out loud, but I think my eyes must have just said it. I'm fairly sure it was Corey who said, "Rick." and that Jeff followed that with, "His fiancée found him on the bathroom floor this morning." That moment of realization hit fast and hard. I cried out for the only thing I knew could help or understand with the only words I could muster, "Oh, God! Oh, God!" Corey took me into his arms as my knees gave out. Eventually they moved me the few feet to the couch and Jeff let us know that if we needed anything, not to hesitate to ask, he again said how sorry he was, that he would be praying for us and he left. The rest of the day was a whirlwind. We talked to the Deputy who had been in charge of the scene, the funeral home who had his body, packed up the car and drove down to Portland to make the arrangements for the eye and tissue donation and cremation. We went to his house and got a few things of his that had been mine and the guitar my grandfather had given him over 40 years ago and spent the night with one of my best friends. We made the trip home the next day.


I wrote on his facebook wall in the wee small hours of that morning how much I missed him, how much I wished all of this was a nightmare and I'd wake up and could call him, but how selfish I knew that would be to rip him away from Jesus just as he'd heard the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" So, if he could, when I'm having bad days, just send a creepy bird through the sky to remind me that he's with me. (I think all birds are creepy, the bigger the bird, the creepier) We saw more hawks and falcons on that ride home than I'd ever seen in one road trip.


His service was two weeks later in what he had considered his hometown, where my grandmother and uncle live. I held the Kermit the Frog he had bungeed to his motorcycle through the whole thing. It was wonderful to get to meet so many people who he helped through his work as a Chemical Dependency Counselor and through AA. The stories of him throwing his back out doing the splits as a college cheerleader and organizing a benefit concert starring the Beach Boys were cool to hear, too. His urn is buried about 500 feet from my grandfather's in a beautiful cremation garden.


At first, I had a lot of guilt for not missing him more when he was alive. I could always pick up the phone and call him, text him, leave a message, email, something. When those options were gone, I started to kick myself. Corey gently reminded me that my father and I did the best we could - he didn't know how to be the kind of dad he really wanted to be, and I never knew how to be the kind of daughter I really wanted to be, but our relationship worked for us. The past year had shown that much for sure. 


I hear his voice sometimes. I notice songs he loved when they come on in a store or a restaurant. I've taken to playing "The Rainbow Connection" (which we played at his service) on my piano and I've gotten quite good at it. It helps, especially since his guitar is hanging on the wall right next to me when I play. It gets a little easier to live a "normal" life every day, but I still have breakdowns here and there. I suppose I always will, but have been assured by a cousin who lost her father almost 10 years ago that it does get better. A few of my friends have a hard time understanding why, after fighting with him for so long, I'm still so torn up about this. I think the fact is, no matter who your "dad" is, there is a bond with DNA that can't be broken. He was my father. Was he ever "Father of the year"? No. Did he make some really bad choices in his life? Yes. But, did he love me? Absolutely and with his whole heart. And I loved him the same. 

Frugal Christmas - Part 1

With the expenses of my father's death that we encurred in early December, our Christmas gift budget became pretty lean, especially since we had just finished paying off the bulk of our debt. I know everyone would've completely understood only getting Christmas cards from us this year, but after how amazing and generous everyone was with our wedding either in travel and time off, donations to our Honeyfund, gifts or all of the above, I couldn't do NOTHING.

Enter Pinterest. Honestly, the best newish thing on the interwebs. I blame my dear friend Molly for my addiction and time wasted as well as all of the stinkin awesome stuff I've made or been inspired to make. I saw a few homemade natural beauty and bath products and figured it was a sign from the Baby Jesus that I was to have a home-crafted Christmas. I decided I'd make some natural hand and body soap, bath salts and a sugar scrub and "wrap" them all in reusable tote bags made from pillowcases. Let me tell you, I had so much fun making all of this stuff that I just had to share it. Plus, these things are super simple to make and would be great for any occasion - in fact, with some of the extras, I gave some away as hostess gifts for the different Christmas parties we went to.

Let's start with containers and wrapping. I hit a local thrift store during a big sale weekend, armed with a 25% off coupon, a great friend and her 2-year-old daughter (who put on ALL of the necklaces hanging on the accessory wall - I may or may not have encouraged it and helped her with a few that she couldn't pull over her head). I'm all about the glass containers. They're reusable, BPA-free and they just look cool. I found a ton of jars (with lids even), lots of different sizes and shapes for $0.29 or $0.49 each. Also came home from that trip with an arm-full of gently-used pillowcases in lots of fun prints and colors. I spent less than $20 on that stuff. That great friend also hooked me up with a case of PERFECT glass bottles with tops to put the soap in. You'll see them in the part 2 and understand why I did a happy dance when she gave them to me.

A few days later, I was at my local supercenter and happened upon a whole shelf of clearance oils. It was like there was a beam of light from Heaven shining down on the four bottles of safflower oil. OK, so it was probably a strange glare from the neon lighting, but still, four bottles of cold-pressed organic safflower oil - on clearance for just a couple of dollars a bottle. I snatched that up like it was the last cupcake at a birthday party. I also picked up a couple of bags of light brown sugar, knowing I had some essential oils at home. The concoction wasn't a science by any means, just threw some brown sugar into the short, squat half-pint jars, covered it with the safflower oil and added a few drops of Lavendar, Sage and Chamomile oils. Hopped on my trusty laptop and designed sme quick labels and, Voila!

Here's a picture of the teeny jar I made for myself. I keep it by my kitchen sink and wash my hands with it after I do dishes and my hands are all dry and icky. It leaves them soft, exfoliated and smelling all pretty!

It begins... Again?

Well, here it is - my foray back into blogging. This time, instead of writing about hockey and the single life (aka trying to find my husband), I'm hoping to publish posts of substance. Possibly even inspire a person or two... or at least leave them wondering how the clock got to 1:18am while following a trail of interesting articles.

I'll start with a small auto-biography. I am extremely blessed to live in Washington (no, not D.C. or Seattle, I live in the Central part of the state) with my WONDERFUL husband of 4 months and one day, two dogs (8 y/o boxer, Max and 18 month-old lab-shepherd mix, Minnie) and a cat (Edouard). I moved here from the Southeastern side of the state in October of 2010 after being ill to the point of having to quit my career of being a corporate/government Admin Assistant (that's a post in itself). Since moving, I have started a direct selling business and worked as a nanny for a few months. For the most part, I'm a home maker and feel very blessed to be one (though I'm hoping to complete a professional certificate program soon to have a work-at-home business).

We are part of three incredible families, our blood families, church family and the law enforcement family. The last of those three has been such an incredible addition to my life, especially having little to no knowledge of what I was stepping into, marrying and living with a police officer. He and I are both in leadership at our church in several ministries and he is the assistant coach of a local Christian High School Baseball team.

I was raised by a single mom until I was 13 and we were blessed with my step-dad and had a somewhat strained relationship with my birth father that thankfully had been on a great road to reconciliation until his untimely death just a month and a half ago.

Now that I'm at home and not bringing much income in at the moment, I've been trying to help us be as frugal as possible. We have both always been big Reduce-Reuse-Recyclers. And, since we've been praying about when to expand our family, I've also been trying to help us live more healthfully and cutting the unnecessary and toxic chemicals out of our life. Reading more and more on the toxicity of things that we are putting in and on our bodies daily is alarming. I have started the switch to glass food storage containers, I've been cutting all petroleum based products out of my life for the past 5 years, I'm slowly weaning myself from white flour products to whole wheat, I have all but cut beef out of my diet (I'm intolerant - so just a nibble here and there of quality red meat), and I have recently started cutting back on our sugar intake. I believe that officially makes me semi-crunchy.

Hope that gives you a little insight into me and our life. Welcome to the journey!