I must try to keep these words in my heart, must try to live them to the fullest. Sometimes, your fairy godmother is late, or lost. It appears I shall have to take matters into my own hands until she shows up.

Go now, and live.

Experience. Dream. Risk. Close your eyes and jump. Enjoy the freefall. Choose exhilaration over comfort. Choose magic over predictability. Choose potential over safety. Wake up to the magic of everyday life. Make friends with your intuition. Trust your gut. Discover the beauty of uncertainty. Know yourself fully before you make promises to another. Make millions of mistakes so that you will know how to choose what you really need. Know when to hold on and when to let go. Love hard and often and without reservation. Seek knowledge. Open yourself to possibility. Keep your heart open, your head high and your spirit free. Embrace your darkness along with your light. Be wrong every once and a while, and don’t be afraid to admit it. Awaken to the brilliance in ordinary moments. Tell the truth about yourself no matter what the cost. Own your reality without apology. See goodness in the world. Be Bold. Be Fierce. Be Grateful. Be Wild, Crazy and Gloriously Free. Be You.

Go now, and live.

♥ Kashi Honey Sunshine – It tastes like Captain Crunch, but is way better for you. I have a rabid sweet tooth, especially for breakfast cereal. Adult breakfast cereal is just so…blah. Kashi has been hit or miss with me. Either I really love something from them, or I don’t like it. But this? This is ♥LOVE♥

♥ Handmade soap – My skin is crazy sensitive, and there are many things that do not make it happy. Thankfully, handmade soap makes it happy! It’s amazing the variety of scents you can get, from knock-offs of famous perfumes to soaps scented with simple essential oils. I have a drawer full of soaps scented with lavender + x essential oil. The bar in my shower is lavender and lemon, and it smells delightful. A bar of soap will last me longer than bottles of showergel would, and I even use the soap to shave with, and to wash my hair. If you are going to use soap to wash your hair, however, you need to do an acidic rinse. My current fave is 2 tbs Bragg’s apple cider vinegar, 2 tbs honey (though I prefer to eat raw, I use regular honey from the store for this), 20 drops lavender essential oil (why yes, I am a lavender fiend!), and just under 4 cups water. The big bottles of Bragg’s will hold this mixture perfectly, so I use an empty one. One bottle will last me about 3 washing. I wash my hair about every other day and only if I’m going out on the weekends, so it’s also very cost effective. I highly recommend S. M. Fildes! I ordered two bars of soap, both containing lavender, and she sent along two half-size samples in two different lavender combinations. They lather beautifully and have a great scent.

♥ Baking bread – I made my first loaf of bread ever, today. I had some buttermilk left over from a ranch dressing I made, and this recipe was one of the top results when I googled something involving leftover buttermilk. I haven’t had a slice yet, as it is cooling, but man oh man, I love the smell of fresh bread. I want to eventually get a local sourdough starter going, and our bread instead of buying it at the store.

♥ Bees – I just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. The Feb/March 09 issue of MaryJane’s Farm was all about bees and honey. Bees are fascinating! I want to have a beehive in my backyard when Husbean and I get a house. Not only would we have all the honey we could ever want, but we’d also have great pollinators for the garden I want to have as well.

The wonderful, beautiful Debbie tagged me in a Flickr meme. Pretty much, you go to your 6th page and look at your 6th picture and make a post about it. So here we go!

January of this year, my brother in law got married to his awesome girlfriend, now wife. Since they live in Las Vegas, they had a Las Vegas wedding, complete with Elvis. The reception was held at Star Trek the Experience. When I was growing up, one of the few things my father and I could agree on was a love of science fiction. Our big Thing was watching Star Trek together. When news of Star Trek the Experience was released, my father said he would take me. Unfortunately, that never happened, as he passed away. However, since we were staying at the Hilton, Husbean took me to see it.

It. Was. Amazing. I kept tearing up the entire time, but not from sadness. It was everything I had hoped it would be. I only wish my father had been there to see it with me.

♥ Vicks vaporub – When I’m all congested, like I am today, it’s the only thing that makes me able to breathe through my nose. Or even feel like I don’t have ten pounds of cotton inside my head. The inhalers are great too, because it’s like a tiny little tube of mentholated goodness that is portable!

♥ Atkins Roll from Sushi Eye – As quoted from the menu – tuna, salmon, yellowtail, crab meat & avocado rolled w/ a thin layer of cucumber. Despite my longing for winter and hearty soups, this is my favorite roll to get when I want something light and fresh tasting.

This little girl tells the most amazingly wonderful story en français. I love hearing her say “le hippopotamus”. Watching it not only makes me miss taking French, but also makes me miss hearing all the whimsical stories children I knew would tell. I miss interacting with children. Maybe when my nephew is old enough, he will tell such fantastical tales.

Once upon a time… from Capucha on Vimeo.

I discovered this game called The Endless Forest. It’s a combination screensaver and MMO. You start out as a fawn in this beautiful forest. All your interaction is done by body language. It’s a simply amazing game. It’s so relaxing and peaceful. There’s nothing to fight, no quests to do. You just simply explore and see what happens, and maybe gather some flowers on your antlers. A perfect way to wind down!

When I cook, I pretend I’m hosting a cooking show. I only do it when I’m cooking something that takes more than a few steps. Oatmeal, cowboy eggs and the like don’t qualify for “Dans ma cuisine avec Mlle Eliza Sea.” Yes, my faux cooking show has a pretentious French name. Most of the time, I don’t narrate out loud, however I will do gestures and wink at the camera.

I’ve always wanted to host my own cooking show. It wouldn’t be your typical cooking show. There’d be a lot more cursing, a lot less measuring, and a lot more “Let’s see what I have in the kitchen to throw together to make food!” I’ve noticed that when cooking, I’ll only use a specific recipe once. After that I tend to wing it, adding and subtracting whatever I like. It seems more fun that way, and much more organic. I even end up with something yummy at the end of it, most of the time!

For example, I decided I wanted some Spanish rice one day. I looked up a recipe, followed it exactly, and it was good. Last night, I decided to make Spanish rice again. I don’t think I left out anything, but I did throw in a bunch of frozen vegetables, and a lot more garlic. And this time, I actually wore gloves while slicing the jalapeno! Burning eyeball is no fun, let me tell you.

Maybe one of these days I will have a cooking show! And it will be based on random things people generally have in their kitchens. It’s a thought.

Stella Marie was bikenapped this past Monday evening from my apartment. A police report was filed, but she has not been seen since. I was angry and upset when it first happened, especially since it happened while I was home, but I’ve settled down a bit. I’ll miss the great times we had. However, I have a matching bike on layaway at the same bike shop. I love my local bike shop. They’ve all been so very helpful in getting me information that I need to give to the police, and just helpful in general. I hope to support them for a very long time.

Last night was my bellydance troupe’s biggest performance of the year at the Arizona Witches’ Ball. I must be honest, I was getting a little nervouse as it approached. Not to mention the stage fright at the actual event! I left my glasses on the table. I normally wear my glasses so I can see what’s going on, but the audience of nearly 300 intimidated me just a tad. As soon as we got to the stage, I realized my mistake. Without my glasses, I wouldn’t be able to see in case I got lost during choreography! The butterflies living in my stomach decided that this would be a great time to flitter about. My shimmy sister assured me I’d be okay, and I was! I have to say that there is something addicting about the sound of applause. Nothing gets the blood pumping quite like it.

I’ve missed you. Did you miss me? I know you did. I do have to be honest, though. I’m cheating on you. Her name is Stella Marie, and she’s the lovliest thing ever. This is real, pure, true love. When I’m with her, I feel like I can go anywhere, that I can do anything!

See? Isn’t she beautiful? Yes, that’s the image up as my header. You’re jealous, aren’t you? It’s okay, though. We’ll always have Paris. I’m sure you understand. I mean, how can you argue when you get to see this just about whenever you want? And yes, I am aware that my purse is a very ugly shade of green. That’s why I bought it, honestly.

Admittedly, I haven’t been biking to and from work as much as I should, but I’m working my way up to every day. With the weather as beautiful as it’s been, I have no reason not to! Except for the helmet hair, but I’d much rather keep my brain inside my head than have perfect hair at work. I seem to have some sort of invisibility ray on Stella Marie, as drivers rarely see me, but I’ll get that looked at.

Outside my lovely apartment is a park. The park is owned by the rather tall bank building, and the office complex right there, but it’s an amazing view. In this park are two ponds. One of the ponds is in the back, so most mornings I have a stellar view from my front porch of ducks swimming. The past few weeks, they’ve been flooding the park to grow winter grass. I’m not sure why they grow winter grass in Arizona, but they do. However, flooding the park leads to new and exciting ponds for the ducks to discover! They spend all their time at the new pond just a few feet away because it is NEW and SHINY.

The ducks also like to have parades, where they waddle all in a single file line and one by one hop into the old and not as shiny pond, and then chase each other. I wish we could go feed them, as there are koi and turtles in the big, permanent ponds, but since the park is private, that would constitute tresspassing. So we take a loaf of white bread to Kiwanis to feed the multitude ofWhy yes, the ducks were one of the main reasons why we chose this apartment, why do you ask?

I’ve decided that I’m going to simplify my life. Not that my life is very complicated as it is, but I feel like I own too much, that I’m too connected to people, that I’m too busy seeing what’s going on with others that I don’t take time out for me. There’s so much to distract me that I’m too busy trying to keep up with those things instead of taking my time to not only smell the roses, but grow them in the first place. This may not make sense to you, but it makes sense to me.

I’ve had Twitter turned off (both to my phone, and Twitterific) for about a day and a half now, and frankly, it’s been wonderful. I’ve started knitting again. I’ve got a date tomorrow with a beautiful girl named Stella Marie.

There would be a picture with this entry, but my laptop’s SD reader isn’t working right now. Hopefully, I’ll have some to share tomorrow!

I don’t think I was meant to live in the South. Now, I’m not saying that I hate it, mind you. There’s nothing like a good slow drawl with a “Well, bless her heart!”, and going to get your hair did and fried chicken and corn on the cob and orange Nehi and microwaved moonpies. Ahem. The reason I am saying that I don’t think I was meant to live in the South? Here it is, the beginning of September, and I am dreaming of cold. Slow cooked food, hot lattes, cardigans, and clouds of warm breath float through my head. I step outside and the 100-degree, cloudless-sky, moisture-sucking Arizona day banishes any hope that I can finally don a hand-knit scarf.

That said, I’ve been wanting soup. Lots and lots and lots of soup. The only thing to do, is to cook it myself! Since I made my first pot of soup, soup from a can just can’t compare. Soon, I’ll have an immersion blender and can start making all sorts of creamy soups, but for now, the broth-based ones are just as good. And they’re so stupidly simple to make! Here, let me show you! If you need to, you can click on the pictures to get to the big version.

First, we need to gather up our ingredients. In this instance, I used mustard greens, rainbow chard, carrots, low sodium chicken broth, Great Northern Beans, tomatoes, frozen vegetable mix, quinoa, and left over baked chicken breast from the night before. Not pictured are salt, pepper, and rosemary.

Next we need to cook the quinoa! I’ve you’ve never had quinoa, it’s this pseudo cereal grain-esque thing that’s chock full of protein. It’s great in curries, and soups, and as a side dish. It’s really really good. For this soup, we are going to measure out 1 cup of uncooked quinoa in our new Pyrex measuring cup. Any old measuring cup will do, if you don’t happen to have a new Pyrex one.

Add the quinoa to two cups of water. Once the water starts boiling, put a lid on that pot and turn the burner down to low. Let it simmer, and stir it when you have time.

Chop up your greens. They don’t need to be teeny tiny. They’ll shrink down a lot. While you chop up the greens, heat some olive oil in a pot, preferably the pot you’re going to be using to cook the soup. I said we’re doing this the easy way, remember? Oh yeah, chop up the carrots too.

Once the olive oil is hot, toss the greens in. Little bit of salt and pepper and saute the greens. I promise you, they shrink down. See? Here is before.

And here is after! See the difference?

Oh, hey! It’s time to check the quinoa. Why yes, I do have a Hello Kitty oven mitt. I also have a pot holder, a toaster, a waffle iron…ahem. Anyway. When the water’s all absorbed, and the quinoa’s all fluffy. Take a bite and make sure it’s tender. Isn’t it yummy?

Add the quinoa to the big pot with the greens. Throw in your left over chicken, carrots, bag of frozen vegetables, salt, pepper, rosemary and the whole carton of chicken broth. Cut the ends off your tomatoes, and toss them in. Yes, whole. Yes, with skins on. Crank that burner to high and hang out for a few minutes. Once the broth’s kind of steamy and hot, pull the tomatoes out and rinse them under cold water. Just trust me!

After you’ve rinsed the tomatoes, the skins should peel off nice and easy. This is exactly what you want. See that nice pile of skins just behind the naked tomatoes? Much much easier to do it this way than to try to peel them without this trick.

Throw those tomato harlots back into the soup. The hussies, hanging out in the kitchen with no skins! Break them up a little with your spoon or whatever. Then, slap a lid on and go do something fun for about 10 minutes. I internetted. Remember that can of beans? No? Lucky for you I did! Beans are awesome. Full of protein and fiber. Fiber is great because it helps you poop. Yay fiber! This soup is fiberiffic with the beans and quinoa and veggies. Open up that can of beans and pour it into the soup. Yes, including the bean juice. Trust me. Have I ever let you down before? Didn’t think so.

Stir those bad boys in, put the lid on, and go run away for about fifteen minutes. Internet, or do dishes, or just chillax. Just leave the soup be! I promise you that in about fifteen minutes, you will be treated to mass deliciousness, as the husbean says.

Awwwww yeah. Check out that soup. Isn’t it the yummiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life? Now put it in a bowl and eat it, preferably with some nine grain bread to dip in it. Congratulations! You’ve made yummy soup from scratch. To hell with Campbell’s! Screw you, Progresso! I can make my own damn soup, and it’s far more amazing. And I know exactly what’s in it. How’s that for awesome?