Soggy Poop Days

Today I didn't want to be married. Today I didn't want to be in Houston. Today I didn't want my life. 

These days are a real drag. Feelings can be a wrecking ball. And today, I am it's target. Feelings are NOT reality. Feelings are thoughts turning into physical response in the body. They are neurons violently spitting up and misfiring a bad day inside of me. 

Lets face it. This is spiritual. Jesus spoke of it best when He said the "Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
I understand my spirit wants and needs to be married. It's the Lord's will for my life and the greatest blessing I've ever received.
He called me to be here in Houston. That point was made clear by Him as well - and a good story for another blog entry.
And, most importantly, my life is precious. It's the only one I have. Jesus, the Master Craftsman, designed me to be exactly as I am. to exist here with feelings. In this very moment. Deliberately. With great purpose. Fearfully and wonderfully made. But my body wants to scream. And defy those very statements. Where is the wonderful in me right now? Where is my righteousness that is in Christ? Why do I feel gutted like a Thanksgiving Turkey that will never get stuffed?

Lord, Help! Ahhh...and there we have found the reason. There is a Savior that wants relationship with me. And when I am feeling the weakest is when His Power goes into operation in my life. The caveat: I have to be willing. Lord, help me be willing.

I have found myself in many settings in life. Psych wards, C-level buildings with filled with big money and fast cars and smart suits, smokey bars, churches big and small, action isles of grocery stores for hours days on end, airports and airplanes. The same rang clear in every backdrop. The world is full of lonely people. We know the platitude that you can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely. It's the void of love that causes this.
It's hard to love people. That's what loneliness boils down to. Why is it so hard to love people? I sometimes struggle with loving people. Don't even get me started on loving people that tick me off, hurt my feelings, make me feel like the 2 day old but still soggy poop in our backyard - courtesy of Liko. 

I am a world full of lonely people today. I will never be the 2 day old soggy poop. Nope. 

Speaking of which, I made a yummy dinner this evening. Perfect for the cool Fall weather. Pumpkin Soup!
...yeah yeah. awkward transition. what can I say? I'm awkward.

Pumpkin Soup
courtesy of GE recipes

2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons curry powder
3 cups chicken broth
1 can pureed pumpkin
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1-1/2 cups milk (you can substitute a few steamed and pulsed potatoes for milk, if you'd like!)

Preparation

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan and cook onion and mushrooms until tender, stirring often. Add flour and curry and stir well.
2. Slowly stir in chicken broth and cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly
3. Stir in pumpkin, sugar, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add milk and cook until thoroughly heated.
4. Serve garnished with parsley or chives. 

Mud Dust. Hold the Kale and Ginger.

The Lord increased my faith this morning. This was the beginning of my day.

Me: Lord, where are my roomie's keys?
Holy Spirit: Check the trash.
Off I go to check and good night, there they were!
Me: Thank you, Lord!
Holy Spirit: nod. and fist bump.

Great start to the day.
Then I slowly spiraled into a deep depression. Our house can do this to a person if you spend too much unattended time there. It's a construction site. It's a neat freak's worst nightmare. But it is an exciting opportunity to uproot the old and start fresh with the new. It's a gift from God. It's a work in progress. It's a blessing.

I realize there are many positives attachments to this home. But standing in the midst of the drywall mud-dust wondering why it has to take three washing to wipe that stuff off our floors makes me want to go back to bed and stay there indefinitely. I can't keep wiping the same filmy space. I'm getting drywall mud-dust elbow. my head is spinning.

A good Christian girl would find peace and joy in the situation by praying and thanking God and singing praise music and..ESPECIALLY after a morning like I had. Prayer request? Boom! Answered. How'd you like that, sister?

But no. Instead. Israelites in the desert. Complaining about the locust. What do I decide to do? I turn to Ginger.  No, Ginger is not the neighbor's cat. Or my friend's redheaded daughter's nickname. Ginger the Rhizome. I heart you sweet sweet crystallized rhizome.

When my Editor in Chief came home. I asked him to hide the crystallized ginger. Good start to the day. Bad ending. Keep in mind I was productive during the moments in between. Scraping old caulking off the ceiling of our shower. wiping a few square feet of floor. preparing fried wontons. wiping the same square footage of floor. Spraying off the deck and attending to the plants. Wiping off the same square footage of floor. visiting my sister-in-law. wiping the same stinking area of floor....
But lets not bore you with the details.

I should give you some history of the said ginger product. Cue harpist.

I am a Kale Lady, Kale Queen, Kale Peddler for Brad's Raw Foods. Here comes the bummer: Raw Kale makes my body want to hibernate for three days for the winter while it's 70 degrees and there's 90 percent humidity outside. Raw Kale causes my head to turn into a flotation device. My thinking becomes buoyant much like that of a drug induced haze - but with side effects less likely to contaminate a new hire urine sample.
....yes I ATE it...for heaven's sake. I ingested it and followed the instructions on the box. Same results every time.

So I have to put down the raw vintage veggie and put up a white flag of defeat. I schlepp and sell the very thing I can't eat. Sad irony.
Anywho, I won a few contests by convincing a large number of Houstonians to sign up for our social media list. As a reward - I inherit large sums of Amazonian money...eh-hem....a $30 gift card from amazon.com. Same difference.

Here comes the embarrassing stuff. Those of you prone to blushing. censor your eyes as you read the rest. 

So I like to buy condoms online in bulk. If you don't recall from previous posts. I am cheap. And this is what some call 'economy of scale'. Please refrain from injecting twisted sexual innuendos into any followup sentences. The more I type, the more it appears I am opening up doors for those of the deviant nature. Let's pray it out of you.
Well, in order to get free shipping, I had to spend $25 more. So what to buy, what to buy, what to buy. I waited another day to search my heart for things that were truly important. Things we needed desperately in the house. Important. Very important things are the only ones I will purchase. What to buy, what to buy...mulling it over..praying fervently...Crystallized Ginger! 5 pounds of it! Brilliant!

What came over me? As soon as I ordered and finalized the order. I became giddy like a 7 year old that just got away with sneaking a cookie when no one was looking. Indulgence! I earned it with all of those leafy kale stained emails! I won the right to be gratuitous with my money! ME and Ginger baby! There's no stopping us now....

So in my spiral of depression. My need to fill a void that only God can fill. Ginger came beckoning with it's sweet sweet spicy whisper. "I can make you happy....Just a few will do the trick. right?"

I gorge on it. It reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode I watched as a child that traumatized me (were there any episodes that weren't designed to traumatize a 9 year old?). This man walks into a room a buffet style table and the most elaborate spreads and dishes. Food galore. And he can't stop eating. He just can't stop himself. Freaked me out.

Oh - before I go! I have to note the curiosity that must have come over Amazon.com's shipping fulfillment center. Hm. 100 condoms. check. 5 lbs of dried crystallized ginger. check. a good time had by said recipient. check.
And to boot. The brand of my ginger was plainly in large print on the bag 'Oh Nuts!' ....you couldn't make this stuff up.

Thievery

Have you ever heard a phrase or watched someone do something and you thought to yourself 'I'm going to take that idea and make it my own.' (I guess that's the whole point of pinterest?) Well, something inside of me always convinced me I should have thought of that idea first, or made that witty comment first. That I should be original and impressive at all times. But sometimes I am just not - correction: always I am just not.

What I am?

I am an intellectual thief. I am a sinner who needs a Savior. I am the author of this blog. And I get recipe envy.

I am also very cheap.

If I can forgo spending (a sarcastically whopping!) $3 on Organic Soy Ginger sauce from Whole Foods and make my own at home. I'm all in. I took a photo of the ingredients as an act of plagiarism....eh-hem...I mean...inspiration. Yes - I was seeking to be inspired.

So here's a cost break-down to make from scratch. Please keep in mind I'm lazy and only did conversions that Google readily provided (like how many Tablespoons are in a pound of sugar. God bless those offbeat souls like myself that actually care about this stuff). Lets see the ingredients list.


Water (I omitted this to keep a thicker consistency)
Soy Sauce .50
Cane Sugar .15
White Vinegar .03
Ginger .05
Garlic .03
Soybean Oil (I omitted this)
Molasses (I used Honey from local bee farm) .15
Sesame Seed Oil .20
Red Pepper .02

I'm having an attention-span-of-a-gnat moment: I had to look up what percentage of organic ingredients were required to label a product 'Organic'. It turns out according to the USDA's National Organic Program that regulated labeling it reads:

Food products labeled "organic" must contain at least 95% organic ingredients with no synthetic growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, biotechnology, synthetic ingredients or irradiation used in production or processing.

Let me add a little tidbit of information, if my dewy, youthful and attractive blog audience will so kindly oblige (no I am NOT trying to butter you up. geesh people).

95% organic is overbearing and unnecessary in terms of health benefits. I am less concerned about white vinegar being organic than I am GMO soy beans and hybridized wheat.
Some interesting information I found on the interweb about wheat:

Wheat is also another major culprit of creating poorly functioning digestive system. Most of the wheat consumed today is hybridized and contains sodium azide (a known toxin). It also gets irradiated during the manufacturing process which means a lovely infusion of gamma rays with a side of peanut butter & jam. Wheat also contains gluten, and our bodies are physically incapable of breaking it down due to lack of the proper enzymes. Wheat also contains gliadin & glutenin, immunogenic anti-nutrients which can lead to an array of autoimmune diseases like celiac, rheumatoid arthritis, IBS, and much more. These little molecules increase intestinal permeability, resulting in systemic inflammation by the immune system.

There are some ingredients where conventional USDA standards will do just fine.
And now you can rest peaceful tonight,  dreaming of dancing inorganic bananas and floating conventionally grown avocado clouds. Your dream not mine. Weirdo.

Back to the task at hand. Let's tally it up. $1.13 to make homemade (25% organic). The quantity is about half the liquid of the store bought. Not a huge cost benefit. But I subtract $2 from the cost for the value added from a new experience, challenge -and bestly- one-upping Whole Foods by adding local honey (great if you have seasonal allergies!). So there we have it folks, I just made 87 cents.  Oh wait - I have to deduct for the trouble it took to calculate my cost more than three times.
I made 57 cents. Still Genius.

My Editor, My Love

"My wrist pops at a firm handshake. I sing Christmas songs all year long. And have one elfin ear. I enjoy standing at a 65 degree angle. And my favorite treat is clam dip (NOT crab dip)."

Who am I?

I almost sent that blurb in a cover letter for one of the online job applications. I figured if my editor didn't get the job, maybe a good laugh instead?
Life is too short to stop at serious. I keep treading through goofy, on to dorky and then wading in the wacky pool. I'm starting to prune so I should get out now.

Eh..hem. Someone explain to me the difference between clam dip and crab dip. I've been corrected by my editor on the overwhelming difference but without said specifics. I am patiently awaiting said specifics....starting to prune again. I will get out now.

I digress...So back to the question I introduced our blog with. Who am I?

"I" - is actually my editor, who plays the role of husband, carpenter, household facility engineer (fancy maintenance moniker), and love of my life. He is a gift from the Creator above who designed him just for my liking. Quirks and all.

I immersion blend his chili because it's too chunky.  This must be love.