in the spirit of halloween

a post about chocolate.

apparently, most chocolate is made with child slave labor. did not know this.

read this blog post yesterday. "we can lick the chocolate off, but the blood is still there."

yuck.

tonight, the international justice mission is showing the documentary "the dark side of chocolate" on the UM campus. link here for info. i encourage you to see it if you live in this area.

coincidence? probably not. i love it when God just kind of sets things down in my lap like that. so, now i'm totally convicted about my chocolate purchasing habits. i found this list of fair trade chocolate, but it's over a year old, so you may want to research more.

4 links in one post. i'm helpful like that.

so, now you know. read, be educated, pray, and then DO.

costumes of halloween past

a list, with pictures if possible. enjoy.

note: i have had considerable trouble a) finding time to try to finish this post, b) uploading pictures with our non-awesome scanner and c) locating pictures of all mentioned costumes. please accept my apologies as i make do with what the facebook offers.

2001 - dixie chicks with kristi and laura. really just an excuse to wear a small shirt. we did make it into the 2001 - 2002 revellie though. i believe we were dancing on a pool table, not that this was anything unusual. at all.

2002 - avril lavigne. someone, somewhere, has a video of me singing "sk8ter boi" while likely very tipsy and hopelessly out of tune. i have tried to upload this picture, because i was wicked accurate in my portrayal of miss lavigne, but our scanner blows goats.

2003 - fairy. yet another excuse to wear a ridiculously small costume. jessica, this was our best idea ever, i'm sure of it.

2004 - a road sign. yellow t-shirt reading "dangerous curves ahead" with my black dance pants. comfy. ben & aaron were black eyed Ps in ellay. i have this picture as well. somewhere.

2005 and 2006 - i have no idea. probably nothing. feel free to correct me.

2007 - thing 1 and thing 2. we were super cute.

2008 - nothing. someone forgot to tell me about the annual law school costume party.

2009 - please see 2008.

2010 - i had hopes of being the cutest-ever sophia petrillo, but have all but abandoned them when i realized it would probably cost me upwards of $50. i'm cheap. i may be thing 2 again, or maybe thing 1 to change it up, but if i happen upon an iconic bamboo purse, it's on.

domestic goddess

so, last night, i cleaned out my cabinets (well, the ones that store food). this little adventure started out with me just wanting to get some glass out of the cabinets to give to my grandmother. i've told you i inexplicably save glass jars, right? well, i do, and until last night i had a whole shelf full. but i digress.

my grandmother makes jelly for fun. she really has no one to cook for, and can't possibly consume or give away all the jelly she makes, but make it she does. and it is gooooooood. i currently have multiples of muscadine, strawberry, apple, and blueberry peach in my fridge, along with 2 jars of sweet pickles and some jarred figs. bad thing is, i don't often eat breakfast, so all that jelly just sits there in the top shelf of my fridge, being lonely and looking yummy. don't tell my grandmother this.

well, i tend to get carried away. my grandmother told me that if i had any glass, i could give it to her. so i started collecting the forgotten jars from my cabinets last night to clean and de-label to give to her. that turned into me cleaning out and re-organizing the entire upper north face of my kitchen cabinets (next, the lower levels). the law student kept coming into the kitchen periodically to ask me when i was making dinner and found me standing on the oven, with our entire non-perishable food supply crammed onto any available counter space. he did get dinner, but not until after i made him look at my handy-work and make the obligatory compliments to my awesome domestic skills.

i didn't give all my glass away, though. i saved some out of principle. tonight, we shall drink from mason jars.

next on my list: mom's pecan pie and grandma's dream cookies.

car wash

i grew up washing my own car. we had (and still have, i imagine) a big white bucket and large handled brush with green bristles, shimmy cloths, tire foam and whitewall cleaner, and a big heavy shop-vac.

dad would help us wash, or supervise, or sometimes just be in the general vicinity and timeframe of a car wash. every time we thought we were done, he'd ask us, "well, if you're proud of it and satisfied that you did the best you could, then you're done." that usually instigated a more thorough re-wash and once-over.

these years of training and guilt produced some mad car-washing skills. every time i've taken my car to get it cleaned, they've still never done as good a job as i would have. but, i'm lazy. i haven't washed my car myself in probably 2 years or more. it's been cleaned since then, but not much. my car is usually pretty filthy with grime and bug guts on the outside and littered on the inside. it's not sticky or anything gross on the inside, but there are usually dusty paw prints and lots of dog hair and general dirt in the floorboards. plus, we didn't get a hose until a random neighbor left one outside our door.

so, while my skills may often lie dormant, they are still wicked good. last weekend, i washed my car. i washed the spilled coffee off my car. i foamed the tires and scrubbed the wheels. i armor-alled the interior AND the leather. i cleaned the inside and outside of the glass. i waxed the bugs off the front end of my car. i vacuumed the mats, floor and under the seat cushions. i cleaned out the trash. it took me two days to finish it all. and it sparkled.

the other day at work, my coworker asked me if i had gotten a new car.

mission accomplished.

thanks, dad.

these boots are made for

...me.

i have the hardest time shopping for boots (and pants, if you must know) for several reasons: 1) short short legs and 2) extremely large and long calf muscles. i feel like i'm a physical anomaly whenever i shop.

but every now and then i happen upon an awesome, seemingly made-for-me item (joe's jeans plug here). and these boots below are just that.

diba cute intent in black

diba calico in tan

i love these boots.
the problem is, i find something i love and then proceed to wear it incessantly, which has happened with the tan calico boots. this is probably going to be their last season. and i'm desperate to replace them.

desperate.

i've given my email address out to more online websites these past few weeks than i have in the past few years. i've looked everywhere for another pair of these tan boots in a size 6.5, and there. aren't. any.

(tear, sniff)

so, friends, if you see these,

or these...

please buy them for me in a size 6.5 and i will giddily reimburse you for
price and shipping and be eternally grateful.

thanks ever so much. y'all are the best.

THE etouffee recipe

the law student (the esquire, the law graduate, et cetera, et al) is quite the little sous chef. i came home to a huge crockpot of black beans and chopped veggies for my dish of the week: crawfish etouffee. etouffee means "smothered," and i'm thinking it must also mean delish. i never make this stuff the same way every time, because i can never find the same etouffee base or sauce or mix or whathaveyou. ever. mom always made it with a jarred sauce - how convenient. must be one of those magical grocery store items only she can find.

so, per amanda's request, here is last night's recipe. not only was it scrumptious, it was also pretty.

you'll need: butter, 1 chopped red pepper, 1 chopped green pepper, 1 stalk chopped celery, garlic, black beans (canned or homemade), onion, crawfish tails (i use bernard's, in the frozen section at the kroger), tony's seasoning and tony's instant roux, and 1 can of rotel tomatoes.

canned black beans are convenient. whole beans are not, but they are infinitely more tasty. giving a grocery list to a man is almost always a crapshoot, which is how we ended up making our own (awesome) black beans. i will learn this one day. be explicit, or you will come home to a plastic bag full of dried black beans. to avoid having to soak the beans, we threw them in the crockpot. recipe follows.

1. pour boiling water over 1 cup of dry beans in water into crockpot--cover beans, plus about 1 inch. *note - 1 cup of dry beans yields way more than 1 cup of cooked beans.
2. throw in garlic (a few cloves, to taste) and chopped white or yellow onion.
3. 3-4 hours on low (we will probably eat around 7:30 like normal)
4. check every few hours to make sure 1) water level is good (add more BOILING if needed) and 2) to stir. taste test for consistency.
5. congratulate yourself by doing a solo happy dance in the kitchen in your socks.

next, the roux. here's last night's recipe. boil the rice while you are making this.

1. melt 3/4 stick of butter in large pan.
2. throw in chopped veggies - peppers, onion, celery, whatever
3. pour in one can of rotel tomatoes, juice included.
4. sprinkle generous amounts of tony's roux mix into pan. stir. bring to boil. add more as needed to thicken. lower heat when to desired consistency.
5. dump in crawfish tails. stir.
6. spoon in black beans, making sure to get a little of the bean water. stir to mix.
7. you can smother your rice with the etouffee to be super literal, or you can just stir in the rice, like i did. season to taste.

and voila, you now have the prettiest, tastiest crawfish etouffee ever! the colors in this dish look fabulous.

amanda, you're welcome.

youth in revolt

getting old sucks. and as daddy always says, when i complain about it, "hang on, it'll get worse."

awesome.

complaint #1: wonky hip. i do not remember this being a problem until college, when i realized it felt weird to sit indian style. my right leg does not turn out all the way and sometimes feels like it's going to pop out of place when i run more than half a mile. but i hate running, so this sometimes works in my hip's favor.

complaint #2: mybackaches. mybackaches when i stand up washing dishes. mybackaches when i do pilates too much. mybackaches when i lean over to bathe the roxy. mybackaches when i stay in one position too long and then move to another. i am in constant need of a chiropractor and/or a good massage.

complaint #3: my inability to stop inexplicably saving glass jars. i'm turning into my mother.

complaint #4: gray. hair. s. they're multiplying. oh, and random other hairs in socially inappropriate places, like the end of my chin. oddly enough, my hair is getting darker, on its own. everyone keeps asking me if i've colored it - not since july 4th. think it may have to do with the vitamins? does iron turn your hair darker? i have no idea.

complaint #5: adult acne. this sucks. at this moment, i not only have multiple small pimples on my face, but also a big mean monster zit inside my ear. it hurts. a lot. it hurts to smile. and i have to grit my teeth every time i try to pop it because 1) it is impossible and 2) it will throb for 30 minutes afterwards. an ear pimple reduces me to tears, and i'm supposed to be able to give birth?

also, what are these light brown spots on my face?

complaint #6: metabolism = FAIL. i can still fit in my clothes, but don't always feel great in them. it's like russian roulette every morning. ice cream is my biggest enemy, and i really hate running. it seems like working out is set on devouring what little personal time i have every day. and you'd think at this point, i'd have learned that eating like crap all weekend and not working out doesn't make a happy monday.

complaint #7: i can have informed conversations with my grandmother about the efficacy of different laxatives.

complaint #8: i can no longer drink whiskey. not sure that this really counts as a complaint, per se, but i don't like being told what to do.