The Diaries of a Fat Chick

I made hummus tonight for the first time ever.  It is delicious.  I found the simplest and easiest recipe on the internet, pulled out my blender and made the hummus in 10 minutes.

For your reading/eating pleasure:

1 can of 19oz chickpeas

3 tablespoons of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 cloves of garlic - minced

The recipe also called for tahini but since I a) didn’t have any in my house and b) don’t even know what the hell tahini is I chose not to add it in.

I added the ingredients to the blender and started blending.  As I was going along I had to add some water as the mixture was quite thick and wouldn’t blend very well.  I finally added enough water that it blended smoothly and became nice and creamy.  Pair it with some raw vegetables and ta-da - a low fat delicious snack.

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how to get to Sesame Street!

Today was our miniature group meeting for the month of January and we made these:

How freaking adorable are they?  The best part - they were easy enough to make that I finished them at the meeting.  Nine times out of ten I can’t finish the project at the meeting and if I take it home - it doesn’t always get finished.

After the meeting Ben and I went to see the movie Avatar.  It was a good movie, it didn’t change my life like a few people told me it would and I actually thought the 3D wasn’t as spectacular as it had been hyped to be.  Regardless, glad I went to see it and thought it was the kind of movie that needed to be seen in a theatre.

A friendship has ended.  It was an important friendship to me once but as time passes and lives change so, unfortunately, can friendships.   The end of this friendship has been slowly approaching for a while now and in a small way today was almost a relief in that I am sure now that the decision I had been struggling with is the right one. 

Being the one who always had to initiate the friendship, who always had to make that phone call or reach out to inquire about what was happening in their life can, after a few years, grow tiresome.  But is that alone enough to end a friendship?  Not necessarily.  However, when your friend turns into the type of person that your mutual disdain for is what initially brought about your friendship and strengthened it over the years… it’s a tough pill to swallow.  And truthfully, there have been other things over the last year and a half that have left me questioning the friendship.

It’s painful of course.  Ending a friendship always is.  And when one person in the relationship isn’t aware of the subtle changes or the widening distance (whether because they are too wrapped up in their own lives or because they purposely choose not to see it), it’s bound to be even more painful.  But painful doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do nor does it mean that while the original friendship is over, we can’t or won’t have a different type of relationship. 

What happened today guaranteed that the mutual trust and respect in our friendship is gone and while it is sad and hurtful and not what I wanted, I am adult enough to realize that friendships will change. 

And sometimes?  Sometimes those changes mean an ending.

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I’ve become rather peevish over the last month or so.  I’m not entirely sure why but there you have it.  I am peevish.

On the outside I am still the happy and funny and possibly slightly insane Kelly that everyone knows and loves/tolerates (for the most part anyway - poor Ben would probably disagree as he has been receiving the brunt of my peevishness) but on the inside I am knotted full of anger and anxiety and irritation and general angst.

I have my theories on the reasons behind the sudden peevishness - dissatisfaction with my job, unhappiness about my current weight (although I did lose 2.6lbs last week at WW - yay me), financial concerns, too busy all the time and feelings of being trapped in a house that’s messy and cluttered and too full of stuff. 

In the last couple of months I’ve had a reoccuring daydream where I sell everything we own, grab Ben and hightail it to Paris where we will pay too much rent for a tiny apartment in the heart of Paris and if you stand on your tiptoes on our tiny balcony and crane your neck you will be able to catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.  We will drink coffee and eat baguettes every day and learn French so that our neighbours stop giggling at our silly Canadian speaking.  Ben will shine shoes, I will work at a small cafe, and we’ll make just enough money to cover our rent and buy us baguettes and we won’t own a phone, a tv or a computer and will communicate with loved ones by postcard.

Sounds completely unrealistic and disgustingly romantic doesn’t it?   Which, and trust me on this, is utterly unlike me.  I am more buried in realism than anyone I know, I have our financial budget spreadsheeted out for the next three years for fuck’s sake. 

Truthfully the romance part worries me the most.  I am not romantic.  My idea of romance is coming home to a house that I didn’t have to clean.  And seriously ladies, am I wrong in that?  Imagine coming home to a house that has a dog hair free carpet you didn’t have to vaccum or a clean bathroom that wasn’t scrubbed by you. 

A word of advice for the men - you wanna get lucky?  Forget the fucking flowers and the going out for dinner and scrub the toilet and tub for your lady.  Trust me - you’ll get laid.  Possibly twice.

While I am sure there are more serious underlying issues to my sudden peevishness the one I have focused on is the “too full” house (watching Hoarders every Monday night only fuels the “my house is too cluttered” fire) and I am quite certain that if I could only get rid of 75% of the stuff currently occupying my house my peevishness will disappear.  Hence the great decluttering of 2010 has begun. 

In conclusion, I am nearly 35 years old, I am suddenly peevish and I am on a mission to completely rid my house of clutter in the hopes this will ease my peevishness.  Good bye books that I’ve held on to for years and years and will never read again, good bye yarn that I will never knit with, good bye knick knacks that I never dust, good bye shoes and clothes that I will never ever wear again, good bye dvd’s I will never watch, good bye games I will never play and good bye Ben’s extensive record collection that he never listens to (what ?  You didn’t think I was the only one who was going to fall under the axe of declutter did you?).

What does all of this have to do with “Soy delicious” you ask?  Nothing really.  I started this post and wrote the title with the intention of writing something completely different then what came out.  But in the interest of tying it all together:

I have come to the conclusion that I am lactose intolerant.  In regards to both weight loss and financial matters I have cut out the “extra’s” such as Starbucks and Tim Horton’s for the last week or so.  The last few days the debilitating stomach issues that plague me daily have been better.  Yesterday, we treated ourselves at work and did a Timmie’s run where I purchased a large hot chocolate.  I drank half of it and almost immediately regretted it (spending the next few hours with terrible stomach pain and running to the bathroom every 20 minutes or so can often cause regret in a person).  I had a moment of sudden clarity and realized that the milk in the Timmie’s hot chocolate and the milk in the Starbucks mocha (which is about the only way I drink milk) was contributing to the stomach issues.  I googled lactose intolerance and immediately self-diagnosed myself as lactose intolerant.

Again, not that big of a deal.  Milk equals bad for the most part in my books anyway.  But I can’t go the rest of my life without a Starbucks mocha.  I can’t and you can’t make me dammit.  So I will be experimenting with soy milk… any thoughts on that?  Anyone drink soy instead of regular milk?  If so…what do you think of it?

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Ben with Holly.  I was babysitting Holly but not surprisingly, she preferred him.

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I am 34 years old and have never made rice krispie squares.  I’ve eaten other people’s homemade rice krispie squares and I’ve bought rice krispie squares at Walmart but I’ve never made them.

I rarely cook and when I do it usually puts me in a foul mood; however I love to bake.   Sounds weird I know but while cooking is hot and frustrating and on a time limit and rarely turns out the way you want it to, baking is soothing and relaxing.  There’s something so appealing about measuring out a cup of flour and half a cup of sugar, an egg and some vanilla extract, mixing them together and creating something not just edible but delicious!!  I get the same feeling when I’m knitting.  To create something from some string and two sticks?  Who doesn’t get a thrill from that?!?  Crazy people, that’s who!!

Yikes, I’m a loser.

But I digress.  So, 34 years old, never made rice krispie squares, last night was the night. 

One Slight Problem  - I had no idea how to make rice krispie squares. 

I realize that it’s basically rice krispies and marshmallows but is there a trick to putting them together other than melting the marshmallows and mixing them?  Who knew?  It was too late to call the mumsi entity, I had called her two hours earlier and she was already in bed (at like 8pm people, 8pm!!).  Thinking on my feet, I grabbed the box of rice krispies and scanned the back of the box.  As a kid there was always a recipe for the squares sandwiched in between the “hey kids, find your way out of the rice krispie maze” illustration and the advertisement for the rice krispie water gun. (”Send in four box vouchers kids and receive your free water gun!  Shipping and handling costs apply.”)

There was a recipe for crispy chicken (apparently you coat chicken in rice krispies…interesting) but oddly enough nothing on how to make one of their damn squares.  I muttered darkly to myself, threw the cereal box on the counter and turned on my new Christmas gift, the HP Mini (thanks mumsi!).  Using my unparalleled googling skills I quickly found the original rice krispies squares recipe and rolled up my sleeves. 

For the record, to make rice krispie squares you:

Melt a 1/4 cup of butter in a large sauce pan over low heat

Add a large bag of marshmallows and stirring constantly, heat until all of the marshmallows are melted.

Remove from heat, stir in 1/2 teaspooon of vanilla extract (optional) and add 6 cups of rice krispie squares.  Mix together well and using a lightly buttered spatula press into a lightly buttered 9×13 pan.

Sounds easy right?  Trust me, it’s not.  Melted marshmallows are extremely sticky and difficult to stir.  I’ve been thinking about buying some small dumbbells to work my arm muscles but stirring melted marshmallows would probably equal the work-out.

And trying to get them from the pot to the 9×13 pan?  Good grief.  It’s sticking to the spoon, it’s sticking to me, I’ve got marshmallows and rice krispies on my shirt, in my hair, my eyebrows, and on my chihuahua.  That shit is sticky!!

Then, once I had it all in the pan trying to mush it down relatively square and even?  Forget it.  Even with the lightly buttered spatula it would either stick to the spatula or slide around in the greased up pan.

As I was attempting to spread the mass of marshmallows and rice krispies into the pan, a long forgotten memory of watching my mother make krispie squares popped into my head.  I cursed loudly, grabbed the box of waxed paper from the cupboard, tore off a large sheet of it, greased it up with some butter, wrapped it around my hand and proceeded to mash and push the wad of marshmallows and krispies into the pan.  While it worked much better then my current efforts (thanks mumsi!), I think the last 10 minutes of fierce mashing, grunting and picking marshmallows out of my eyebrows had worn me out.  I called it a day and ended up with an extremely lumpy and uneven pan of squares.  

And no matter how much my husband loves them, with God as my witness I will never (EVER!) make rice krispie squares again.

PS:  I also made a low fat loaf of banana bread and it was both easy to make and delicious.

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Last night I was practicing with the aperture setting on my camera by taking random pictures.  Kaneyko was sitting on the couch beside me and as I aimed my camera at her and snapped the shot she moved closer.  The resulting picture was, in my opinion, terrific.  I love how green her eyes are and that a tiny image of me with my camera is reflected them.  I love how pink her nose is and how wavery her whiskers appear.  I sincerely love this picture and plan to print it, frame it and hang it in my living room.

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I’ve done something a little different this year.  I have resolved not to make any New Year resolutions….other then, you know, resolving not to make any resolutions.

Also, we’ve decided we will spend Christmas 2010 in the warm grasp of Mexico.  Ben and I have never traveled outside of Canada and we’re thinking it’s about time we did.  And to make it even better, my curly headed little friend Jess and her sexy hunk of a man TZ will be joining us.   The four of us have never been in a room simultaneously.  Mostly because the powerful awesomeness of the four of us together will be enough to crash the moon into the ocean.

Mexico will never be the same.

In other news, Dexter the wonder humper was stopped in his tracks on Tuesday when he met the awesome laser power of Dr.  Kathy.  One dose of anesthetic, one Dr. Kathy with a laser, 20 minutes later and he was ball-less.   He’s recovering well from his lack of testicles, although he showed a remarkable amount of determination by spending his first evening at home after the neutering humping his new pink poodle.  Turns out he also had remarkably large testicles for a chihuahua.  That’s our boy.

His big beautiful ears were also marred forever by a tattoo.  It seems remarkably hyprocritical of me considering the amount of tattoo’s I myself have but I can slightly understand how a parent feels when their child comes home forever marked with a tattoo.   Although the tattoo is completely necessary in terms of identification in case he ever gets lost (and knowing how much he hates wearing a collar, it’s entirely plausible that the tattoo would be his only form of identification if he ever decided to leave home) I still frown a little whenever I see the tattoo embedded in his lovely ear.  And in an unfortunate term of events, Dexter happened to be the second dog of the year that they tattooed, hence his tattoo has the number 2 in it, leading Ben to call him “Number Two” whenever he speaks to him.

After the Great Death Year of 2009 (do you know that we lost 10 animals this year either through natural death or euthanasia?) I am determined to make 2010 the Year of Kelly.  2009 kicked my ass and I refuse to let 2010 do the same.

It started out strong too - I spent New Year’s Day reorganizing my kitchen, tossing stuff I no longer used, giving a bunch of stuff to Value Village and cleaning the microwave.  Since then it’s gone a bit downhill but I am positive that any day now it’ll turn the hell around.  It is the Year of Kelly afterall. 

Last weekend Ben built a staircase to our bed for the coolest feline on the planet - Smokey.  His arthritis has been getting steadily worse and the combination of that and our extremely high bed has been very difficult for my poor boy.  And since (stop me if you’ve heard this already) I love Smokey more than anything else in the world I immediately demanded that Ben build him a staircase.  Ben, ever so accommodating, generously donated an entire day of his Christmas break to building the stairs.  Smokey?  Loves it.

He started using it almost immediately and I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that he’s no longer leaping from the bed to the floor with a bone jarring thump.  Yay Smokey!  Yay Ben!

And now?  Now I’m going to bed.  Night y’all.

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