Finished: Lacy Sleeveless Top

From a pattern by Valerie Kurita, published in the first crochet magazine I ever bought (back in 2006), I have made this pretty white top.

I used some shaping techniques learned from articles and books by the marvelous Doris Chan, and it fits really well. It will have to wait for warmer weather to be worn, but I can wait.

I have still to finish (again) the baby-doll dress designed by Amy O'Neill Houck; I am reworking the sleeves to be shorter and puffier. I really love the dress and am eager to finish it so I can wear it again.

This month, I had an unusual amount of bills to pay, with more expenses to come in the next couple of weeks, so buying the beautiful yarn I intend to use for Jennifer Hansen's Cecilia chemise (both lengths!) will have to wait a while. Right now, my money needs to go towards caring for myself; buying pretty yarn is a great way to do that, but the care I need right now is of the inner sort. I am not afraid of heavy emotional and psychological work, but I am afraid to pry this particular monster out into the light where I can work on befriending it. Or slaying it. I'm not sure which it will be.

In the meantime, I will continue to live my happy life...there is so very much to love and to savor.

Being Beautiful

Though I am told that I don't really qualify as "fat" or even "chubby," I support the size-acceptance movement. I believe that it is possible to be healthy at any size, skinny, fat, or in between, and that we owe it to ourselves to love, accept, and care for our bodies. Too often, though, women are told that our bodies are wrong. Hearing a message often enough (and o, how bombarded we are with this particular message!) can make even the hardiest among us doubt herself. The question for myself was not, "Can I be beautiful?" (i.e., lose or gain weight or otherwise change my body to fit some ideal), but "May I be beautiful?"

Since the beginning of treatment for hyperthyroidism in 2005, I have gained about twenty pounds. During the fag-end of the Bad Old Days, when I had not learned that loving myself was not only OK, but of utmost necessity, I cried when I could no longer zip my size 12 jeans (my "skinny" jeans) or button up my sleek, genuine U.S. Navy pants. The emotional choppiness born of a sudden relocation under bad circumstances and stormy hormones seeking a new equilibrium made it harder to bear my weight gain. In my head, I knew it was a sign of health. In my heart, in my feelings, I cowered before the blaring, jeering voice of internalized body-hatred.

Eventually, with help from my doctor, my therapist, my mother and my friends, I realized that what I had had before, as a thinner person, wasn't anything like a real, healthy life. Still, in my saddest moments, when I forgot I didn't really hate myself anymore, I wished my sickness back so that I could be thinner. A few minutes spent skimming the diaries I had kept in Tennessee were enough to snap me out of it.

One day, in the bathroom at my mother's house, where I was living after moving back to Michigan, dressed in jeans and a bra, I found myself admiring the curve of my hip and how it flowed inwards to form my waist. I ran my hands up and down my sides, from ribs to thighs. I liked the way my body felt; it was larger, yes, but it filled my size 14 jeans and my new, larger bra beautifully. It was soft and sleek and beautifully shaped. I laid my hands gently on my now-rounder belly and closed my eyes against grateful tears. I gave myself permission to see my beauty, to marvel at it, to love it, and revel in it.

Do you have permission? What would it take for you to grant it to yourself?

No-Bake Drop Cookies

My mother made these often. They never lasted long, especially once Daddy found them. He loved these. I still do, too. We just called them "drop cookies," so I was surprised while reading Mom's cookbooks, as a little girl, to see recipe after recipe for baked drop cookies. This recipe is nice for summer because it cooks on top of the stove. I don't know if these cookies are, like Big Boy restaurants, "a Michigan thing," but I've never encountered them outside my beautiful mother state.

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1 stick butter or margarine
1/2 cup milk (or evaporated milk; my friend Heather's mother used it)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups "quick oats" oatmeal

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa, butter or margarine, and milk. Bring to a boil and cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla, stirring until the mixture is no longer glossy. Stir in the oatmeal. Drop by spoonfuls (whatever size you like) onto a cookie sheet or waxed paper. Let cool until firm, and enjoy!

You might like less oatmeal, or you might like part oats and part chopped walnuts, or flaked unsweetened coconut. You could also use chunky/crunchy peanut butter.

Sometimes, when we were short of cocoa, my mother simply omitted it and we had peanut-butter fudge cookies. Mmmmmm!

Good stuff from Stephanie Tourles

For the last few weeks, I have been reading Naturally Healthy Skin by Stephanie Tourles. I bought the book a number of years ago, hoping to find something to help my poor ravaged skin. Of course, I didn't know that I had Graves' disease; once I had my thyroid out, my hormone levels balanced themselves and my skin improved dramatically. Since beginning each day with a full recipe of Ms. Tourles' "Skin-So-Smoothie" recipe (I make it with unsweetened almond milk), my skin has felt softer and looks smoother than I can ever remember. My forehead is less oily, and I believe the faint vertical line on the inside of my left eyebrow has diminished. I've also tried her snack mix recipe, modifying it for what I have on hand. It's delicious. My attempt at her chewy apricot "cookie" recipe was less successful; they taste good, but they're awfully gooey, so I think I must have added too much juice.

I can't, of course, reproduce any of her recipes here, but I encourage you to visit Ms. Tourles' website and to take a look at her books at your local bookstore or library. Seriously good stuff!

Spring has come

Photo by staffahouse.co.uk

Daffadowndilly

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor,
"Winter is dead."

A. A. Milne

Black Forest Brownies

Whether you start with a family recipe or a boxed mix, brownies are always wonderful -- at least, I've never met one I didn't like. My favorite way to serve and eat brownies, especially for "occasions," is a kind of rearranged (or disarranged) Black Forest gâteau.

Black Forest Brownies

Your favorite brownie recipe
OR: a "family-size" (9"x13") box of brownie mix
1 can of cherry pie filling
1 oz. Kirschwasser
1 half-gallon vanilla ice cream
whipped cream

Pour the cherries into a small bowl and stir in the Kirschwasser. Let stand at room temperature while brownies are baking.

Mix and bake brownies in a 9"x13" pan. Cool to lukewarm. Slice the brownies into your favorite size squares.

For each serving:
Place one brownie on a dessert plate. Top with a scoop of ice cream and a generous spoonful (or however much you like) of cherries. Place another brownie on top of the ice cream and cherries, pressing it down so that it sits securely (or not, as you like!). Pour another generous spoonful of cherries over the second brownie and top with a big fluff of whipped cream.

Now dig in and enjoy!

As with all my recipes (the ones not given to me by Kristina, that is), there's a lot of room to improvise with this one. Warm the cherry-kirsch mixture before serving. Try mint-chocolate chip ice cream and substitute hot fudge for the cherries. I've made this with chocolate cake, too; I baked a 9"x13" cake, cut it into squares, and split each square into two layers before proceeding as above. Mix it up and make it your own, but most of all, enjoy it!

Prayers for the Neesons

The beautiful and talented Natasha Richardson has died from her head injury.  She was 45 years old.

"Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha. They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."

Please think of and pray for her family, especially her husband and her young sons.

If you bump your head, please go to the hospital. Please. Better to feel silly afterwards for having made a fuss over nothing than to take such a chance. So much can happen in so little time.

Take care of yourself; we need you.

xoxo