Not my Grandma Struck's Carrot Cake

I love desserts. I love sweets. This is not something that is new. But, for as long as I can remember, I have been haunted by the idea of carrot cake. Just hearing the words "carrot cake" conjured up awful memories of my Grandma Struck's version of the dessert. (Before I continue with the story, I need to make a disclaimer. My Grandma Struck made a ton of delicious things that I absolutely loved, but these were not one of them.) My Grandma Struck's carrot cake was full of giant, huge chunks of carrots and an overabundance of nutmeg and cloves. I thought it was the most disgusting dessert ever, and because of that, I have not eaten anyin my 20 years upon this earth. However, while talking to my mom one day (how we got to talking about carrot cake is beyond me,) she mentioned that my Grandma Graham used to make carrot cake with baby food carrots, so the chunks of real carrots would not present an issue to me. I am awful when it comes to textures of food, and the reason for me not liking a lot of foods is because of the texture. I decided to try making carrot cake with baby food and see if my problem with carrot cake was indeed the texture of Grandma Struck's, or if I just thought they were plain disgusting. Upon tasting the batter before pouring it into the pan to bake (I am extremely guilty of doing this before baking, but if I was going to die of salmonella I would be dead by now so I don't think it's as big of a deal as people try to make it seem) things were not looking good for this carrot cake. The taste was overwhelmingly carrot-y (not sure that is a word, but it's my blog so I do what I want.) I figured that my mom and sister would eat them, and I could find some friends that would take them off of my hands if I ended up not liking them. We baked them and frosted them with cream cheese frosting, and Mom loved them. I stole a corner of hers because I did not want to take a whole bar if I was going to find them utterly disgusting, but they were actually pretty good. The only spice I put in was cinnamon, and I think it could have been a little bit more. The carrot taste baked out overall, and it is a more subtle carrot flavor that works well with the cinnamon. So the verdict is in: it was indeed the unpleasant texture of my Grandma Struck's carrot cake that had turned me off on this dessert for most of my life. One Pinterest recipe down for the summer, a lot more to go.
Recipe Link: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/carrot-cake-bars

Stay classy!

Crocheting Update

As I am sitting here reading through my blogs from last summer, I ran across the entry where I told you all I was starting my first afghan project. This is an extremely overdue update, but I have since FINISHED that afghan! I finished my Mile a Minute afghan on New Year's Day. For me, it was more like a Mile a Month, but I digress. Making that afghan has corrupted me for the better, because now all I want to do is crochet afghans. I am working on 2 other afghans currently, a shell afghan that is a similar pattern to an afghan my Grandma Inez made me before she passed away, and the other is a Granny Square afghan that I hope will fit a queen sized bed when I am done. My goal for the summer is to finish my Granny Square afghan. The other one is worked as one piece and it gets really hot and humid in Iowa in the summer, so I will not work on that as much. Granny squares also take about 20 minutes to make a piece, so I can get a lot more of them done when I sit down to watch an hour long TV program or a movie. So, without further ado, my very first afghan!

Here is the picture my mom posted of me after I finished my afghan. No doubt she was pretty proud that I finally figured out to make something besides Hipster hats and scarves.

This is my afghan all laid out. The panels were done in four  steps: the inside shells, the first green border, a white border, and a final green border. After completing that with all nine panels, I whip-stitched them together

This is the book my afghan pattern came from (I never post photos of my projects without a link to the pattern it came from.) Mom bought this book at Walmart a few years back, and I have taken it hostage from her. There are several other patterns in this book I would like to try, but some of them are still a little difficult for someone who has only been crocheting about a year and a half. I also need to finish my other two before I embark on another one!

I plan on doing lots of crocheting and other crafting projects this summer, so stay tuned to see what I am making. I also plan on baking a lot of the recipes that are sitting on my Pinterest boards, so I will blog about those as well (the good ones AND  the bad ones.) 

Stay classy readers!

Get mad if you want, I really don't care.

This one is going out to all  the family members and anyone else in the world who thinks I'm a little bitch for posting mean things about my dad on Facebook. Let me give you a glance into my life the last year and then you can determine that I'm not being bitchy, I'm just being realistic.
Background: My senior year of high school, my dad developed epilepsy. We aren't sure what  caused it or why it started to develop then, but all it has done is take my family's life and put it on a downward slope towards hell.
He has not worked in close to a year (I've honestly lost track but it's been a damn long time), and due to his lack of a job right now, he sits. At home every day, all day in front of the TV, doing nothing to contribute to the welfare of the house or the family for that matter.
My mom works full time, and I work two jobs plus go to school, yet it is up to us to figure out the bills, buy the groceries, cook the meals, clean the house, and do the laundry. My sister will do things when she is told what to do, but my dad continues to just sit. Notice a theme here?
Then when my dad did win a bid for a job, and it didn't work out, he lied to my uncles about working, and now they don't even talk to me. I went from seeing my aunt and uncle in town almost every weekend to never even hearing from  them because of something my dad did. Not very fair to my mom, sister, and I huh? But does he care, no. Because if he did care, he would do something about it. He would apologize to my uncles, or tell them not to stop seeing my sister, my mom, and I because he chose to lie to them.
Is it his fault he got epilepsy? No. Is it his fault Tyson is being screwy about finding him a job? No. But, he has all the capabilities to do things to help around this house and not sit 24/7 watching crappy TV shows. My mom, sister, and I bust our butts to make sure things are done right, and while we are running around sweating and working hard, it wouldn't take you very long to find my dad, sitting in his chair not helping.

Judgement

Matthew 7:1-3
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged."
Judgement is an inevitable part of life. We will judge others, others will judge us, end of story. I get so pissed off when I put something on my Facebook or Twitter account and immediately get barraged with comments from friends and family about how "hurtful" I am being and telling me that I am a selfish, smart-ass bitch (although not usually in those words.) I get so mad that I slam doors, cry for hours, then go on a rampage that results in me having about 70 less Facebook friends. My comeback is always "Do not judge me until you live in my life." But the kicker is, I do the exact same thing to people. I am no better than the people that comment on my stuff, heck I might even be worse. Today I finished a J-term class entitled 'Group and Team Communication,' and at one of our first meetings I was the only one who appeared to show up with her speech ready, cue cards written, expecting that were going to run the full presentation a few times and call it a night. Instead, I was met with people who knew what they were going to talk about, but didn't have any idea of how they were going to talk about it. We were only able to run our presentation once in our 2 hour meeting, and it was sub-par at that. Of course, me being the idiot I am, the first thing I do is post on Facebook about being frustrated that I was the only one with anything done. I had no room to judge my group for not having things ready, because I ASSUMED that they had just chosen not to be ready. There could be a million reasons why they came to that meeting being "unprepared" in my mind, but I didn't bother to find out. I just got ticked and posted on Facebook. My group members weren't mad about my post, they merely told me that when I'm frustrated, I should just talk to them, because they care a lot more and they don't want me to be frustrated. I have ruined relationships because of the things I post on Facebook when I am sad, angry, frustrated, whatever the emotion may be. Half of my family won't talk to me because I frequently post about how angry I get at my Dad for sitting at home all day and leaving the housework and everything for my Mom and I who are gone for most of the day (and now they will probably read this blog post and hate me even more.) My first instinct is always to retort back and say "If you lived a day in this house, you would understand my frustration," but I always fail to forget that they have been through tough shit too, a lot tougher than my Dad not contributing to the household in monetary or other ways.  I put myself out there to be judged everytime I post something on those damn websites, and I get so mad when people do in fact judge me, but I do the same thing, both in real life and on social media. Talk about me being a hypocrite.
A new semester is dawning next week, and I am making a vow. When I am sad, angry, frustrated, whether it's with someone in my household or someone from school, the last thing I am going to do is rant all over some god damn social media website about it. So far it's done nothing but make people think I am a selfish, snotty, smart-ass bitch, and I can't blame them for making that judgement. I guess now comes the time for proving to people that I am not what I seem, and the first step is a social media attitude adjustment.

Attempts at Pinterest perfection

So, it's summer. I have no job, and nothing to do, so I sit on Pinterest. For hours on end. I'm almost ashamed of the fact (emphasis on the almost.) In all reality though, Pinterest can be really useful. I have gotten tons of free crochet patterns, and recipes that I think about trying and never actually do. Then, I have those days where I pin pictures of cats or videos of old Whose Line is it Anyway sketches, but I digress. I stumbled upon something the other day that I thought I could actually use in my life. One of the things I despise most about being a woman during warm weather seasons is shaving my legs. I just hate it. I shave, and then the next day I've already got prickly legs again, and my dark leg hairs are extremely noticeable so I absolutely CANNOT go without shaving. I think one of the biggest downsides of shaving is the fact that something so seemingly simple is EXPENSIVE. I mean, razors are not cheap, and I cannot use the cheap 2 blade razors, so I pay at least $5.00 for 3 or 4 disposable razors, and the ones with the replaceable blades seem like the better alternative, but they charge you upwards of $12.00 for 3 blades. I can think of better ways to spend that kind of money thank you very much. And then there is shaving cream. First of all, I always feel like I waste more shaving cream than I actually use, and it doesn't moisturize my legs at all, which left me with gross razor bumps and super dry and itchy, sore legs after shaving. But on Pinterest, I found this recipe for DIY shave lotion stuff, so I decided to give it a whirl. I used it tonight for the FIRST time, and I can honestly tell you I will never buy a bottle of shaving cream again in my life. First of all, I have never gotten a closer shave than I have using this homemade stuff, and my legs are super smooth and shiny. This stuff rocks. I only made a half of a batch tonight because I wasn't sure if I would like it, but when this batch is gone I am going to make a big batch. [The measurements in my post are the FULL batch, so the pictures will seem misleading because I only made a full batch, but you get the drift.) The best part of this stuff is IT'S SUPER CHEAP TO MAKE. Recipes follows (with pictures, I am turning into a blogging pro :P)

Start with conditioner. 1 cup. I used 94 cent Walmart brand conditioner. Any scent you choose will do
.

Then you add 1 cup of shampoo. Again, I used 94 cent Walmart brand shampoo that was the same scent as my conditioner. (In my case it was Juicy Green Apple)

Then you add 5 tablespoons each of lotion and baby oil. You can use any lotion you like. I used baby lotion because it is what I happened to have. This would be a great way to use up any  lotion you have left over from your last spree at Bath and Body Works. If baby oil is not something you keep on hand, you can buy a travel sized bottle for $1.97 that has just the right amount in it.

Then you mix your goo together, and let it sit for one hour before using.

Now, this stuff is EXTREMELY RUNNY. Do not let it fool you! I was concerned that I had not added enough of something, but when you put it on your skin, it coats and stays on your skin, and gets a nice lather type thing, so the fact that it has a consistency of water is nothing to be alarmed about.

So yeah, this stuff absolutely rocks. If you despise shaving as much as I do, I think making this shave lotion stuff will make you despise it a little less, even if it's just because you won't have gross razor  bump covered dry legs after using regular shaving cream.

Happy Shaving! And score one for Pinterest for a project that actually turned out and was useful!! :D

Summer hookin'

Anyone who knows my mother knows that she has been crocheting for probably as long as she's been alive (well maybe not quite that long but pretty close.) She taught me how to crochet when I was home over winter break, and ever since then I haven't really been able to stop. I'm nowhere near as good as her by any means, but the ability to finally read a pattern helps when it comes to actually making things. I've made simple things to start with, a scarf, headbands, a couple of slouchy hats, easy stuff. So far this summer, I have completed two more complex projects that I will share with you all. Lucky ducks you are!

Here's the first project, I think I started it on a Saturday or Sunday evening and had it finished by the Thursday or Friday of that same week, so not too complex.

The pattern for this scarf can be found at: http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/crocheting/accessory/alana-lacy-scarf-free-crochet-pattern/54402?_ct=fhevybu-fqjjuhdbyrhqho-jyjbu&_ctp=54402

It calls for cotton yarn, but you would probably be fine with a finer yarn. You could also make it without the tassels if that's what makes you HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY (had to throw a Duck Dynasty reference in here somewhere)

When making this pattern, I found it helpful to write out the instructions for each row so I could cross them out when I finished them. That helps me, and I think part of that has to do with the fact that I am still a beginner. It's a simple pattern however, because it repeats a lot.

Okay, enough about the scarf. Here's the next project. This one took me probably about a week or so when all was said and done.

The pattern for this hat is available at: http://cre8tioncrochet.com/2013/03/crochet-hipster-hat/

I honestly only picked this pattern because it was called a hipster hat, and I thought it looked sweet. I'm a fan of hats for when I'm having a bad hair, or when I'm just too lazy to straighten my hair. 

This pattern is somewhat difficult if you are not careful. I actually had to rip this out and start again because I got mixed up. It is crucial that you COUNT after you complete every round to make sure that you have the correct number of stitches in each row, otherwise your next rows will not work out. 

I actually printed this pattern out and used scrapbook sleeves and a dry erase marker to cross out the rows I had already completed. It was especially helpful for the decreasing rows. Again, that is just how I like to do it. There is a pattern for a little bow that you could attach to the hat if you desire, but I think I will omit that on this hat.

I've started on a larger crochet project endeavor: the "Mile a Minute" afghan. We'll see how that goes....

So, for all you crochet people out there, happy hooking, and for those who don't crochet, thanks for reading anyway :)

Weird looks from the librarian

I've always loved to read, and summer is the time I love the most because I have bountiful amounts of time to lay down and read a book cover to cover. I have a varied taste in books, I read a little bit of everything (except super fantasy stuff or science fiction, ain't nobody got time for that!) I recently decided (as in about 3:00 this afternoon) that I was going to dig a trench in my personal reading quest and read a bunch of classic novels by great authors. I'm talking Steinbeck. Dickens. Austen. The Bronte sisters. The whole shebang. Of course, to counteract these heavy classic novels, I also need some fun, young adult novels. I cannot explain why, but I have recently gotten hooked into a young adult series entitled "Private" by Kate Brian. Set in a posh New England academy type high school with rich girls, one scholarship student pushing her way to the top, and sex, booze, and rock and roll (okay, I was kidding about the rock and roll, but there is drug use, so in an indirect way I guess it could be rock and roll, but I digress), this book literally SCREAMS teeny bopper thirteen year old who is trying to pretend she is a lot older than she really is. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I have the first 6 books in less than a week, just like I'm ashamed to admit that I've read all the Gossip Girl novels and the Twilight novels multiple times. I mean, I am supposed to be a SMART girl who thrives for literature, and last time I checked, Stephanie Meyer or Gossip Girl were not on the lists of Great American novels, but again I digress. But whatever the circumstances are, I cannot stop reading these books. So today, I went to the library after getting home from babysitting to check out some new books since I had finished all the other ones I checked out late last week. I ran (figuratively) to check out the next 6 books in the Private series (just reading this is pathetic :P), perused the young adult section and found a few books, and then went for the classics. Let me tell you, I have never gotten a look as weird as I did today from the library when she saw my pile that contained 6 of those teeny bopper novels, East of Eden by Steinbeck, Oliver Twist by Dickens, Dr. Zhivago, and two pathetic young adult books.