As I've mentioned before, this summer has been the summer of smoothies. With the heat, I haven't felt much like cooking, and it's hard to get E to eat nearly enough fruit and veggies. So a lot of our fruit intake has been smoothies.
But recipes for smoothies sort of amuse me. I never use a recipe. I keep a big bag of frozen berries, mangoes (when they are just edging on too ripe) and other fruit in the freezer, oj, homemade yogurt or store bought kefir in the fridge and just grab and go.
I need to get some kefir cultures and make it from scratch at some point soon. But Helios Organic Vanilla Kefir is a favorite of mine. Straight from the bottle it's thick, like a not quite set right yogurt, and satisfies my sweet tooth nicely. Blended with frozen milk cubes it's sort of milkshake-y. I've heard you can culture kefir from coconut milk, and I'm curious about that for virgin pina coladas.
So.. this is probably the only time this will happen. I'm going to write down a recipe for a kefir version of a childhood favorite. I think I've mentioned before my mother was anti-sweets for my brother and I. Really not fair with a dad who thinks chocolate is a food group, but we got all those old health food store snacks. Yogurt covered raisins, rock hard candies made with sesame seeds and honey, carob (which I STILL hate).
But when my face still had all the stitches in it, I couldn't eat, so mom made me smoothies until I got the stitches out of my mouth. My favorite was her creamsicle smoothies that she made with honey, orange juice concentrate, ice cubes, vanilla and plain yogurt. Now occasionally I make them for my family.

Orange Vanilla Smoothie-
1 tray of ice cubes
3/4 cup frozen oj concentrate- undiluted
1 cup water
2 cups vanilla yogurt or vanilla kefir, for the yogurt, just add vanilla and sweetener to plain yogurt to taste. In my case, it's enough vanilla to tint my yogurt tan. I LOVE vanilla. (and the homemade vanilla in homemade yogurt.. YUM!)

Blend until smooth. Makes 3 servings.
Soft set yogurt rocks for smoothies, so if it didn't set up quite as thick as you like for yogurt, use it for smoothies.
If you mix prepared oj and vanilla yogurt half and half and pour it into an ice pop mold, you have homemade orange vanilla pops that are low-fat (if you used low-fat milk for your yogurt) and full of vitamin c and happy beneficial bacteria goodness.

But I do let my kids have chocolate and have never tried to convince them that carob was the same thing but better.

Saturday, the first day of Mike's vacation, we went to the Bear Paw Festival. I bought a bunch of ride tickets for the kids, gave them the tickets, then Mike and I went and found a nice patch of grass to sit in under a tree while they used up the tickets. They had a blast. I got seriously too warm. The first time we walked by the fire truck spraying water for the kids to play in, I didn't follow E in, I just held her purse for her. On the way back though.. I needed it too much. So I limped in with my cane and all the kids and just stood under the downpour of water while Mike held my purse and E's so we could do that. Thank goodness he had his hands too full to take a picture!

A Tale of Two Snails with music by one of my daughter's favorite artists. This is notable because until she got hooked on Auriplane's music, mostly she just put up with my classical and instrumental.
Today is Mike's last day of work before his vacation starts. We plan to go gold panning next week for sure, and head out to Thunderbird Falls. The nice thing about living Alaska during the summer is that even though we really don't feel like messing up our savings by taking a "real" vacation, there is a lot to do here.

Kindle 2 for 299.00 Yes. This is an associate link. But that doesn't change how much I love love love my kindle. I currently have 75 books on it and another 30 archived, and the long battery life is no lie. I've had mine going for 10 hours without an issue. I haven't let it run down yet, but I think it would work well for a weekend camping trip without recharging.
I admit it, I could give up my phone easily enough, or even my television but my Kindle and iPod are my two most used toys. I actually wasn't sure how much I'd use my Kindle when I got it, but really.. my only complaint with it is that I can't take it into the bath with me. S'okay. I have a ton of dead tree books.
I think it might be the right time for me to get one for my dad and William. :) William will love all the classics available for free, and Dad will enjoy a newspaper he can increase the font on while reading it.

Currently reading- Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks. Fun fun books, the first is Evil Genius, which is about a boy named Cadel who is raised by a perfectly awful foster family and finds out he's the son of an evil mastermind who has created a school of world domination especially for him. It could be corny, but it does a good job of portraying a boy who is raised nearly morally bankrupt and socially estranged learning the difference between right and wrong and changing his life. There is a lot of violence, math and spy type action. For the 12-16 set I think. I know I'm encouraging E to read it just for the fun of it. It's a hefty 500 pages with enough action to keep a kid interested. If you or your kids liked Artemis Fowl, you'll probably like this as a step up. No fairies, but the same sort of character.

Currently working on- Nothing at all except staying cool. This is revenge time for all the people I mocked when they complained it was so cool at 40°F during the winter. You can all mock me now. It's been in the high 70s-mid 80s with a ton of haze from forest fires. So pretty much I've been sitting by a fan and reading, taking regular walks, and NOT COOKING. Nope. Uh uh. Not turning on the oven.

I posted a couple peace symbol stencils here if anyone is interested.

Yesterday was another 80 degree day, for a bunch of people who break out shorts at 50 (or 10C), 80 is just too warm. I whined considerably, but did manage to make it the gym. Where the air conditioning wasn't working properly. Gym with a swimming pool, so the whole building was damp and humid. Soo hard to work up any motivation that way.
There are forest fires near enough the sky is white with haze and has been for the last couple of days, and today I'm sniffly sneezy. *whine whine*

So if I don't post much this week, it's because with the heat, I'm not doing much. Just reading and whining.

Well.. another 80 degree day in Anchorage. Which is like 110 for anyone living down south. We were all pretty miserable. More so because I gave one of our fans to my dad so he could be less miserable with the heat yesterday. But we made it. Complaining the entire time in my case.
(what happened to the last fan I gave him? Easy. He lent it to Lamar last year and hasn't gotten it back. So as soon as summer is over and they hit rock bottom again, I'm buying a few for next year.)

Tonight for dinner, because I wasn't starting the oven for anything, we had a nice light meal of hummus wraps with tomatoes, cukes and feta. Yum yum. I made enough hummus I have extra for lunch tomorrow. I can dip carrot sticks into it.
After dinner, we had smoothies. So I'm all full of vitamin C.

As promised, here's the picture of my Uncle Lamar.
( click here if you're curious )
He's 66. I keep thinking, looking at him and dad.. 66 looks a lot different then it did when I was a kid. I don't think I knew any senior citizens who rode motorcycles. Now I know a bunch of them. His laugh sounds like he looks. It's a happy belly laugh that's completely infectious and not mocking or hurtful. Well.. that's pretty much him. He's so good. He doesn't really know how good he is which is a shame, but I love him so much. He's the biggest reason I work so hard on tasty sugar free treats like the chocolate cream pie with a cookie crust and the banana bread.
Today we did nothing. I had vague plans of walking up to the gym or just walking, but in the end, the heat and humidity beat me. Too Alaskan for our gorgeous summers I guess.

By which I mean, the quite real physical pain I'm in after entirely too much walking over the last couple of days.
Yesterday, Mike spontaneously decided we should go to the valley. It's a pretty drive, but unfortunately, no turnout spots where I could stop and get a picture. Lots of mountains.
We go out to Sarah's hometown of Wasilla and it sort of broke my heart. What was a charming community I occasionally thought about moving out to quite honestly looks like a California suburb now. It's developed with big box stores. Heck.. it has a Walgreens. ANCHORAGE doesn't have Walgreens. But there it is. The charm of this tiny town has been obliterated by turning into just another 'burb. I know it's not Sarah's fault, but.. well.. it's just too easy to blame her for everything. Some of my favorite stores were still there though, so we went to a thrift store I love out there. It's one of those quintessential type thrift stores, the sort you never know what you'll find there. I found a kit for making a lamp using a plastic doll for the base. I resisted the urge, but it was so hard. I want a tacky little goffy doll lamp and didn't know it until I saw the kit there. They had a rack of 10¢ "slightly blemished" clothes. E and I went through the rack and found her a bunch of shirts and one pair of men's pants that fit her. She was thrilled. William won my heart again by finding a Arthur Conan Doyle book and a collected works of Shakespeare he wanted. Yay!
We had lunch and wandered a bit more, then came back into town.
Today of course, Mike grilled. I made a bbq sauce tomato based with molasses for him to use on the chicken and ribs he made. Usually he doesn't do hunk of meat type grilling but this turned out wonderful. He also grilled asparagus, peppers, mushrooms and zucchini. All of that was amazing of course, and the asparagus was just flat out sinful. Yum yum! Wm and I walked up to get some ice cream, and at midnight we walked up to see the fireworks.
See, ours are always at midnight, after a double header baseball game. Which usually winds up going into extra innings so figure about 0015-0030 usually. It's never really dark then, just twilighty, but today was cloudy enough it was a decent show.
Too much walking for me though. Really.

One of the nicest parts of today was talking to Lamar. He stopped by on his motorcycle (yes, he was able to order the parts I tracked down for him) and he gushed some more about the sugar free chocolate banana bread I made him. He offered one of his new neighbors a slice and the neighbor loved it and asked where he got it. Lamar said "My daughter made it, but she's kind of funny. If I ask her to make it, she won't, so I have to enjoy this and wait for the next time she feels like it."
Two things. First, yes. I am actually that contrary with family too. Everyone got a good laugh off that, because it's completely true. If you ask me to make banana bread, I might make you a vegetarian lasagna instead. I probably won't make banana bread. But flattery will get you something sweet.
Second.. more importantly. He called me his daughter. See, I've NEVER doubted I was one of Lamar's kids, even if I don't call him Poppy like a lot of them do. He's been an active part of my life since I can remember and was the ONLY person outside of our immediate family allowed to punish me and my brother. That said, he's never called me daughter before. I felt so loved and appreciated. Special.
Oh, and I got a picture of him in his motorcycle leathers. I'll pull it off my camera later to show you all. It was cute. I was worried about my batteries, and he saw me messing with my camera and asked if I needed to advance the film. You can imagine the look on my face. Of course, it was a very retro-tech day in some ways. Dad's next door neighbor was listening to The Boss on an old suitcase style turntable. My mind broke a bit. Her gf brought the turntable over, and with her gf standing right there, she explained she always liked him and showed me the cover of the album, remember that album cover? Or bum cover? Yeah. She pointed out what a nice butt he had back in the 80s. Funny thing is.. Mike and I were talking about bums earlier and I told him I could appreciate them in some ways, but mostly.. I preferred hands. What was a guy's butt going to do for me? Hands though...
Lovely day.
I have a pattern to write up for the headband I made.

Today while I was at the supermarket, I decided to look for the recently released newest installment in Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series. If you haven't read it, it's a lot of fun. Ms. Pettersson creates a shadow world of superheroes and supervillains based on the signs of the zodiac and carrying the appropriate weaponry for each sign who are at war with each other in major US cities. Her story tracks the Sagittarius of the group in Las Vegas who is on the side of light, but who is born of both sides. It's a comic book world that would be neat to see in comic book format and one of my favorite guilty pleasures. However, for some odd reason, Amazon has the dead tree format for 7.99 and the Kindle version for 9.99. Not helpful.
So I checked the supermarket. They've had the other 3 and I was hopeful. I ran into a normal problem now looking for certain books.
Vampires have messed up the genres.
You see the equivalent of vampire bodice rippers in the fantasy section or horror section, Charlaine Harris seems to confuse everyone and I've seen her Southern Vampire books in horror, romance, fantasy and this week.. mystery. Some pretty good fantasy reads with hardly a wet kiss in them wind up next to Harlequin's newest, and while sometimes this is a good thing, I've found a lot of new books I'm interested in trying to figure out how things are categorized this time, it's still annoying. And all because of vampires.

But I did see one thing that made me laugh. A newly covered and released version of Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire in the romance section with the words "The book that started it all" blazoned across the cover. Apparently, they are trying hard to find that one vampire fan out there who hasn't read Anne Rice's first three vampire books.
To be honest, my favorite books by her remain Cry to Heaven and Feast of All Saints with Belinda probably in third.
Anne Rice on her worst day though is better than an awful lot of the stuff out there now. The most recent Laurell K. Hamilton book made me nostalgic and wistful for Pandora.

They didn't have the Vicki Pettersson book. Well, tomorrow we are going out for pork schnitzel at Cafe Amsterdam which is a couple blocks from B&N. So I'll check there.

Mike needed a pink shirt for work tomorrow. He's always been bothered by the amount of leeway women have in business dress but men don't have much at all, essentially the same outfit for a century for business dress. One day earlier this month, a woman he worked with made comments about how men shouldn't wear pink shirts. That just rubbed that annoyance all wrong. So tonight we went out looking for a pink shirt in his size. He and a few of his male co-workers are planning to wear pink shirts. Love that man. Not only did he decide then and there to get a pink shirt and wear it to work, but he convinced some of his co-workers to do the same.
After we went out to eat at Cafe Amsterdam. Cafe Amsterdam has decent food and truly impressive beer list with a lot of good local brews on tap. I had the same thing I usually have, an avocado melt, which is entirely too much of a very good thing. Mike had a salad. For an appetizer we had a really garlicky hummus served with pita triangles, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and feta. Yum yum! I decided I was in the mood for beer, and look at their tap list (really, who would drink bottled when you're someplace that has tap at perfect drink temperature?) I opted for Midnight Sun Brewing Company's Fallen Angel. I admit it, I asked the waitress what kind of beer it was like it wasn't just the name that convinced me. She didn't know, and I ordered it anyway.
Oh my.. it was so good. Crisp and yeasty which usually don't go hand in hand in a beer. The bubbles were very fine and the head was dense and solid. The fruity flavors were reminiscent of some white wines I've had, but all backed with that nice yeasty bready flavor. I took a sip, and then a swallow and offered the glass to Mike. He asked "How is it?" and I said "I like it!". He took a sip and said "This is good!". Mike started drinking wines in Italy as a teenager, and at 18, he was in Germany. His palate for beers is pickier then mine. So it was nice to have my first taste validated. We shared the beer and got just a tiny bit buzzed since we don't really ever drink. Turns out that nice crisp flavor and mid-light amber color hid an 8% alcohol content. We are SO going to the brewery to pick some up. Yep yep. YUM! Plus, I've GOT to try baking with it.
Other then that, I spent the day restringing a pearl necklace, and working on a couple projects in between playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. So very E.H.'s fault. I was curious to see what she'd play and got hooked. If you play Mafia Wars on Facebook, please look me up and add me as a friend so I can increase my Mafia size!
After I finish knotting the pearl strand, I've got a couple book reviews to write, then I'm working on a printable box for cupcakes. Well.. it should all be done in the next few days, and I have a new bread recipe to finish up typing up. But Friday we are heading out to Eagle River to pick up some stuff Mike saw on Craigslist he wants. In theory, we will hit a couple shops out that way I love too.

Oh? The title? At Cafe Amsterdam, the clock on the wall is stopped at 4:20.

A few from Not Martha.
Homemade Maraschino Cherries, I must do this soon. Really soon. Yum yum!
3D Sheep Crackers at Design*Sponge
A No-Knead Bread Recipe at Kiss My Spatula that looks fantastic

A current favorite of mine:
Food for the Boiler: A Steampunk Cookbook

A couple mochi recipes
Welsh Cakes, perfect for the guy in your life who's decided he's Welsh and wants to replace your shed with a police call box. Unless of course that only happens to me.
You can also download a pdf scanned version of Brown Bag's new idea book with lots of recipes here, you'll want to go to view-rotate clockwise to read it.
On that note.. I really really want the British Isles shortbread pan

Fairy wand project I was working on today, that's actually my second one.
Poor Mike. There is so much ambient glitter in the house it's pretty scary, but I can flit around the house and go abracadabra. Which was really the point.
Other then that, it was a nicely laid back weekend. The only semi-exciting thing there was.. we went to go see Transformers, which I loved. I'm easy. Effects, stuff goes boom, Shala is happy.

Plus Emily H. hooked me into Mafia Wars and recommended a couple authors to me which was wonderful too.

You see, since I got the bag of ties at the thrift store, she's been wearing them. With teeshirts, with turtle necks, not so much with button down shirts. So at some point I need to go through her brother's old shirts for her, but yesterday we bussed up to the thrift store to get her a couple shirts to wear with her ties. The SA right next to Value Village as usual had dress shirts terribly overpriced, but were having a 10 books for a 1 sale, any books. Hardcover whatever. Well, it was actually hard to find 10 books I wanted, but I did. One of them being a Dr. Who book for E which made her super happy.
We stopped by Terra Bella for a snack. Terra Bella has locally roasted organic coffee and organic treats. E had a green tea cupcake and I had pumpkin/chocolate chip bread. We decided we needed to come up with a pumpkin cupcake recipe soonish.
Mike came to get us and took us out to dinner where we discussed E's current wardrobe choices. See.. almost everything she wears these days is inspired by one doctor or another. She's a little obsessive about them.
Since her b-day is coming up, I ordered her a sonic screwdriver pen with a psychic paper wallet.
In other news, I'm starting to like Facebook more and more as I get back in touch with people I've missed. It's nice in a way talking to people I haven't seen in 15 or so years, but as close as I was to those people at that point in my life, it's really nice getting in touch with people I've "met" in the last 12 years on the net who have come to mean something to me, who have been inspirations to me in this part of my life, who have encourage me to grow as a person, and who are just amazing people themselves.
I tried to make a list of the people who have changed my life in a lot of ways since way back when.. I can't really, not and be really fair to each of them and the influence and encouragement they gave me. So I'm just going to say thank you.
And!! Miss Teri found me a pterodactyl for my Torchwood bag! Yay!!!
On the subject of yesterday's losses...
The first time I ever danced on a stage in front of an audience of hundreds, it was to Beat It. I remember my costume, I remember most of the choreography. It's a treasured memory because of the feeling of rightness, that was what all the training and practice was about, that moment on the stage. So yes, I had the Thriller album. I remember practicing for hours to make sure every move I made was on count. In the mid-80s, on some level, I realized the tragedy of his life, and after that, every time I saw him in a video or interview, it struck me again. That all those normal moments in my life that were set to a soundtrack that he was a part of, were things he'd never know. I felt sorry for him, and never quite got over that. Mike and I have talked about it a lot through the years and the scandals. A lot of celebrities made the choice at some point, I'm not sure he knew the choice was there to be made until he was far too famous to make it, to make a choice for a normal life. Rest in peace. You deserve some rest and peace.
Farrah wasn't a big thing in my life. I enjoyed Charlie's Angels, but I was just a kid and she wasn't my favorite Angel, but I do admire how she kept fighting, and my prayers are with her family and most especially with Ryan today. I may not have cared for her films, but love.. I do care about love and lovers, and he loved her so very much.

Yesterday, when I asked E what she wanted for dinner, she wasn't sure. So I gave her a list of options and she decided on homemade mac and cheese.
Now, here's the thing, like most kids, it used to be that anything other then the stuff that comes in boxes with either a packet of cheese powder or a foil packet of cheese paste was disgusting to her. I wanted to give her mac and cheese that actually.. you know, had cheese in it. So I found clone recipe for the boxed stuff with the cheese paste, and made that. Every time I make mac and cheese, I change one more thing until I can make mac and cheese like mom used to make, well.. sort of. In as much as I follow any recipe.
Last night was the first time I tried baking it so it go all nice and crusty on top. IIRC, mom used to use Ritz cracker crumbs and french fried onions on top. I used a mix of sharp cheddar and seasoned cereal crumbs. I use seasoned cereal crumbs instead of panko for most panko uses. They bake up nice and crispy, usually are fortified with vitamins that don't completely cook out, and they keep as long as need them once I crush up the cereal and season it.
I also let her try a piece of the turkey I was cutting up to mix into Mike's and my mac and cheese and asked if she wanted some. She said yes, so I mixed in some turkey. It was a hit. I'm getting closer step by step.
She still thinks cooked veggies are nasty, so I made two separate casserole dishes with mac and cheese in them. The bigger one for Mike and I had frozen peas in it, and she just ate raw carrots with hers.
( on vegetables and kids )
Well.. today I'm going to crochet myself a headband using some of Paton's silk/bamboo blend.
And try really hard to get rid of my current earworm. Mike's had What's New Pussycat? stuck in his head. I've had UFO Phil's Listening Coast to Coast and his Aliens Really Stink stuck in my head.

Cupcake decorated box, this week I think I'll work on a box to hold cupcakes. Assuming I can find my cupcake tins. *grumbles a bit*

and I'm thinking about making a glittered fairy wand, because I think I need a glittered fairy wand.

Today I finally added a section to my A-store I meant to add for a while, a bunch of "If you like Harry Dresden you might like.." now I need to add reviews and such.

Nothing here fell or anything when the earthquake hit, we are all fine.

Gah. I'm moody. Rainy weather makes me ache, makes me cranky. I think I'm going to work on my knitting too. And watch sci-fi with Mike.

Make vinegar from homemade wine. I should probably start with a bottle of store bought wine though first.

Bead these patterns

Write a song about glitter. Because I love glitter so much.

What I'll probably do today? Read. I have a couple books I want to get finished before new books come out tomorrow.

2 new pattern submissions, you can use your Threadless login to score them if you'd like.

Yesterday we did nothing much at all. I baked some bread, and thought about what I wanted to crochet. Nice laid back father's day. Mike just relaxed so much at one point he was snoring.
I did graph some bead patterns I'll post later.

Today was the Pride parade and festival. It was a record breaking year for it as far as number of participants in the parade and number of vendors at the festival.
( more about it back here )
After that, we went to Bosco's because today was free RPG day. Like free comic book day, it's a day for RPG makers to offer freebies. And there was much rejoicing.

Well.. Mike keeps asking "What do you want to do for dinner?" then a few minutes later "Have you figured out dinner yet?" so I'd better decide if I want to cook or go out or what I want I want to do for dinner. Which.. sounds kind of sexist, but it's not. Mike is pretty happy with whatever I pick, but on days my pain levels are really high, my tummy gets upset and there are a lot of things I can't eat.

I've been using my Captain Hammer bag forever, and today was the first day people recognized the logo. Ironically, today was also the day I finally found a purse that fit my needs. Big enough for the electronics I carry regularly and my glasses case for my sunglasses, made in the USA, and made out of post consumer waste. It's made out of truck tire inner tubes, reclaimed water hose, and reclaimed wood. It's even fairly grown up looking. I have a grown up purse! I told Mike grown up shoes are next.
( our day at the Solstice fair )
And the day ended with herring. It was really kind of a perfect day even if my pain levels were really high for most of it.

A tiny beaded rose made out of size 15/0 seed beads
( showing off behind the cut )

Solstice fair today. Yay!!

Well, it's been about 8 hours. The package said it would be set in 4, but I had my doubts and it wasn't. That's fine, generally working from plain yogurt for the culturing it can take 8-12 hours to set.
It's set up nicely, and it smells wonderful. I didn't follow the package instructions exactly because well.. generally I won't. So here's how I did it. (my notes follow, part of this is going up as a review)
( cut for the people who really don't care )