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Monday, June 27, 2011

A little birthday celebration

It's really nice to be able to spend the day out with friends, tiring but really nice for my head! Last weekend it was Lindsey's birthday and we all went and got our makeup done before dinner.  It was nice to get made up!




Sunday, June 26, 2011

Glittery Polish

I've been really experimenting with glittery nail polish lately, where I actually buy it and paint it myself.  I was recenetly introductedt to Deborah Lippman nail polish and seriously BALKED at the 18 dollar price tag.  Really? But one day somehow, well I know how, I was suckered into buying two colors.  One is a really light bluish with subdued pink and blue circular glitter.  I had to have it.  I finally tried it out over the weekend and I fell in love.  Not only did it come out so lovely, but it went on so smoothly and hasn't even come close to chipping.  It just painted on so easily, I now totally fully support the high price tag!






Friday, June 24, 2011

A check up week...

This week I had a check up in nyc.  I had a check up with my surgeon from my abscess drainage and all things are a-okay there! And my usual pulmonary function tests, x ray, blood work, chat with my transplant doc...My lung function is holding stable at 22%, which is good news, but also bad news since it keeps me hanging at the same place on the list (aka, I'm not getting sicker fast enough to move up) but it's also good I'm not sicker.  My weight is at 83 lbs which is super! But the visit was a discouraging to me, because well the two people that are my size and my blood type are still ahead of me, and they have been there for months and months and months, so that likely means lungs aren't coming this summer, and that really crushed me.  They will more likely come in the fall or even winter (unless something miraculous happens and those two girls get lungs or more donors come -- my doctor says there has been a donor drought, sadly.)  I'm just so tired of being tired and sleeping half the day away and missing out on things, and I have a time line in my head -- lungs in summer means vacation in fall (I need one more than you know) singing up for that metal smith class in the fall, buying fall clothes in normal adult sizes, etc etc.  So my time line keeps getting moved further and further out.  Wednesday I had a little pity party for myself, but got a very nice email from my friend Judy (who went with my Tuesday) that lungs will come when they are meant to come.  And I got really good advice from my friend Jess who said: let yourself be sad, you can! And it's true I'm allowed to be discouraged and sad, so I cried a lot on Wednesday and then by Thursday I was over it.  I didn't confide in many people that I was sad, Laura was in Vegas and I didn't want to bother her, and Lindsey is coming off a great birthday week and I didn't want to be a downer, well at least not until we went to the movies next week and then I could cry to her in person, hahaha.  But I know lungs will come when they are supposed to, and I know that plans will happen when they are meant to, vacations aren't going anywhere, metal smith classes will come again in January, clothes will always be there waiting for me to buy them, and my friends I know will wait for me to be the healthy Natasha again, I know they aren't going anywhere and hopefully they aren't tired of me yet being 112 years old when I hang out with them...

I needed some retail therapy after Tuesday and I found the perfect thing, this weekend it will be two years that Michael Jackson has passed and a huge auction of his stuff is happening -- I am eying a pair of sunglasses of his that I can wear!  

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Making Whoopie Pies

Remember I told you guys the story about how my acupuncturist's husband cleaned out the orange juice explosion that happened in my trunk? Well I heard he liked chocolate, so I decided to make him whoopie pies as thank you.  I have a special pan for whoopie pies that I got from Williams Sonoma and it's great (Laura also pointed out you could make muffin tops with it)


The recipe I use is what came with the pan:
 
Whoopie Pies William Sonoma Style
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup dutch process cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
6 TBS unsalted butter, room temp
34 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, room tep
1 cup buttermilk, room temp

Filling
2 1/4 cups confectioners sugar
5 TBS unsalted butter, room temp
3 TBS milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
 
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Grease the pan. 
 
I'm just going to be really honest here and say I basically put all the ingredients together in my mixer and let it go.  I'm not a baker so it's hard for me to do it step by step - and well it came out totally great so....You can do however you choose!
The filling is super easy.  But it's SUPER SUPER SUPER sweet, so cut back on the sugar or something if you don't like stuff that is really sweet!

Here they are all packed up to go to their new home.


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A kitchen trick for buttermilk

Have you ever been in the middle of making a recipe that calls for buttermilk and you don't have any? ell there is an easy kitchen trick where you can make your own substitute really easily!

Take 1 cup of milk and either one tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice
Place the vinegar or lemon juice in the bottle of a measuring cup and add the milk up to the one cup line and let stand for five minutes.  And there you go -- you have a perfect buttermilk substitute and it really works!

There is also another way to actually make buttermilk if you have heavy cream.  Fill a jar halfway with heavy cream (like a canning jar)  Start shaking back and forth until the cream thickens and eventually turn into whipped cream.  Keep shaking untilthe whipped cream turns into a yellow glob (butter) and seperate liiquid (butter milk)

Pour the butter milk out of the jar and use it anytime you need buttermilk!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tea

Laura got me these really awesome blooming teas.  Have you guys ever heard of them? I know some of you are into tea too! They are little balls of tea to brew.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Weekend Cuteness

Things I ate

Yesterday:
An everything bagel with cream cheese with a small iced tea with extra sugar
A popsicle
A fudgesicle
An entire turkey grinder
A handful of pringles
A entire hamburger from five guys (two patties here folks)
An entire piece of Apple pie from Burger King (immediately following my double burger)

Friday, June 10, 2011

Tryday Friday

This is not an everyday drink, it's pretty heavy and pretty sweet -- but for a once in awhile treat it's really yummy and really super chocolaty.  It seriously tastes just like frozen hot chocolate! Try it and report back to me!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Better pictures of a pizza cup

The first time I made pizza cups they didn't come out so easily...so....
I used Pam tonight when I made my pizza cups, so they came out of the tins so easily!





Movie Review - Bridesmaids

Linds and I went to our usual weekly matinee last week where we saw Bridesmaids. We had high hopes for it, Laura had previously told me it was very funny and so did Lin's grandma! I got my usual popcorn and icee and we had Five Guys before we went for lunch...

First of all I just have to say we got carded for this movie, hahaha! And like if we hadn't had our ID's they were not going to let us in!

I enjoyed the movie a lot.  It had more of a plot than I was expecting it to have and at some points I found the main characters to be kind of annoying, but there were LOL moments for sure.  I find poop humor extremely funny, so there is this one scene in the movie that literally had me crying, and just for this scene alone it's worth going to see.  The movie also has a nice little you know message of friendship and love, I think I actually may have fought back one tear even...

I give it a B!

Memorial Day Weekend...

Yeah clearly this post is late! But I didn't want to forget to post about how my friends made it a great weekend!

I got to hang out with Lindsey all day Friday, and it was great -- this included porch time, crab cakes, and ice cream!

And Laura and Abe came over and spent the night Sunday.  Literally all we did was eat.  First we started with cheeseburgers, which Abe so nicely grilled for us.  And chicken wings, oh and baked beans! (Guys Bush' baked beans are really really good and like no work involved just a note.)  After we ate they noticed one of the jetskis floating away so they hopped in the lake and saved it! They proceeded to go for a ride, but little did we know the jetskis needed new spark plugs...I think they had fun sitting on it though.  Next time they might graduate to going for a ride...

I think we even might have taken some kind of quasi nap before it became time for lobsters and Korean style BBQ! (A treat, I've never had it!) I cooked the lobsters myself which always makes me a little sad.  I gave them a little back rub before they went in the pot. 



Abe graciously cooked the pork belly and short ribs which were delicioussssss! With rice and lots of little sides that go with Korean BBQ! Somehow even after we were in a food coma with BBQ and butter we ate some of Laura's homemade cupcakes.  I just remember somehow being in bed, I was in a food coma!

The next day I had a real surprise for them and I brought them to Carl's in Oxord, MA where when you order a side of sausage you get 7 links of sausage! I had a GIANT stack of blueberry pancakes! Abe had an omelet the size of my head and finished it all, like he should have gotten a free shirt or something seriously! It was an amazing feat! And Laura had 



It was a very enjoyable weekend of friends and food! Food = love.   Next time they come, not only will food be flowing, but the scorpion bowl experience happens...

The Little Things...

So last week I made a trip to Whole Foods and came home with four bags and a gallon of fresh squeezed orange juice (my fav) so I carried in 2 bags at a time and then got really tired (hard carrying heavy bags and oxygen) and didn't have time to run out again before the weather man on TV told me we were having a tornado and I needed to get in the basement.  Needless to say I forgot about the OJ till the next day, when it had already exploded in my truck! Ugh! Worse than that the sticky-ness caused my trunk to get stuck shut. So this meant I really had to have a pro clean it because I couldn't get the trunk open! So with the heat the OJ started molding, seriously it was a tragic scene.  I had mentioned this to my acupuncturist yesterday and she proceeded to say "Oh my husband will take a look at it!" and wouldn't you know he got the trunk open and cleaned my carpets out and everything, and the OJ had gotten into the wheel well and he cleaned that out too! I couldn't believe someone was just so nice that they would do all that for me.  It really made my week, just to know all they wanted to do was help.  I mean really HOW NICE.  It's nice to feel loved.   

Another one of my friends got me this notebook (little presents make me so happy.) Isn't it awesome? Also some bacon flavored popcorn which I need to try and review!


So I suggest doing something nice for someone just because....you never know how much it will change their day!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Olive Oil

I cook literally everything in extra virgin olive oil.  I came across this sale on Rue La La a few months ago from the company O -- which makes all sorts of oils and ordered 9 bottles of different variations of olive oil, vinegars and balsamic.  I've now had the opportunity to try most of the flavors and want to spread to you guys how great they are (you can get them at places like Whole Foods -- probably not all the kinds they offer -- but you can also get them on their website ooliveoil.  I use the extra virgin practically every day for anything I saute and have found great recipes for the vinegars, and I use the balsamic on tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. They are all so yummy!






MIA

Sorry for being MIA.  Still here! Sleeping a ton....I always fantasize about the new clothes I'll get when I regain all the weight I've lost....and no longer have to shop in the kids section....

For you Fashionistas I have found a great new product line called Velvet Tees
Check out there stuff here

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Just Tomatoes

I know a lot of people that love and eat dried fruit, but I also know it's not really good for you because most dried fruit is LOADED with sugar -- like you might as well just eat candy, that's how much sugar most of it has.  I really love peaches and you know it's hard to find a good peach in the winter, so I came across this dried fruit at Whole Foods awhile ago and ate a 5 oz container of dried peaches in like 60 seconds they were so good.  They tasted just like a real peach with nothing else to it, and they were chewy in a different way.  I have been buying them ever since.  They are called justtomatoes and to make it even easier you can buy their products online. My favorite are the peach, banana, and mango and none of them have ANYTHING added to them!