Literally No Idea What I am Doing

  My dad is limes. My memory of a perfect Christmas is a recipe for key lime pie. The limes are all gone. For most of the year, I don't really need or crave limes. Sure, there are times when I think limes would be good, or I particularly miss them, but there are so many other things that fill the need for limes. On a day to day basis, a lack of limes does not affect me too much. Christmas though...Christmas was the time for limes. They are, after all, the key ingredient in a key lime pie. How can one have Christmas without them. There is nothing I can do to substitute limes and still come up with a key lime pie. I have all the ingredients in the world, except for the one that makes it work. No matter how hard I try, I will never have key lime pie again. Does that mean I still can't have something tasty? No, of course not. It just won't be key lime pie. It'll never be key lime pie.  It's kind of a hard thing to accept. Every year, without fail, the craving for key li...

Ok, so first of all, no, not all of these posts will be about my dead dad. This is just a special sort of weekend and it coincided with my idea to start blogging more, so here we are. Second of all, yes, this is supposed to be about stuff I cooked and/or baked and I did NOT make ice cream, but hey, my blog my rules. See above for special weekend. This is also a sort of filler post until my next one, as the food I am making for that takes a while and won't be ready until tomorrow at earliest. That out of the way....here is a picture of the completed cinnamon rolls from before that I didn't add to my last post because it ended kinda abruptly: They were as ugly as sin...namon. See what I did there? I will see myself out... Grief is real weird, y'all. Also kinda dumb, if I am honest. Did I say that before? Don't know, and too lazy to re-read what I wrote. But really, it is dumb and weird. Earlier this week, while at work, I became overwhelmingly sad. For no...

Recipes used: Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls from The Perfect Loaf Pumpkin Dog Treats from Spend with Pennies Here we are, one week away from the worst day of the year. Time to distract myself with baking. It's like procrasta-baking, but with more denial. With procrasta-baking (procrastinating by baking, if you didn't know), you are trying to make yourself feel like you accomplished something even though you know you have to do the other thing you are putting off. Distraction baking is all about pretending you DON'T feel what you actually feel and give yourself a false sense of happiness. In this case, I am pretending I don't feel the soul-crushing weight of my dad's death. Why cinnamon rolls and pumpkin dog treats? Well, one I have been experimenting with my lovely sourdough starter that was gifted to me from a coworker. It is from the 1800s and has been passed through her family for generations, so it is pretty fancy. So far I have tried two sourdough bread rec...

As I saw more and more of my friends joining their voices in the "me too" trend, I couldn't help but think back and wonder if I needed to join them. At first, I brushed it off. I'd never been sexually harassed or assaulted. I don't get guys leering at me or catcalling or bugging me online. Sure, I'd had some creeps when I attempted OKCupid, but nothing really that could be considered a personal attack. Just general skeeviness. It kept nagging at me. There was something. Something that I dismissed at first. It wasn't harassment. It wasn't assault. It just wasn't. It wasn't even physical. But it was abuse. It was slow. So gradual that I didn't even realize how bad it was until too late. And although it never felt "innocent," it definitely didn't feel like it was that bad. After all, it was only over text. How could it be bad if it was only in my mind? Furthermore, it was consensual. I agreed, I initiated, I kept coming bac...

It started with four songs. Over the Hills and Far Away, Wanderlust, Nemo, and Sleeping Sun, mistakenly titled “Eclipse” on the file I had. I cannot tell you exactly when I received them, or the name of the person who gave them to me. All I remember is that it was 2005 (possibly 2004), and it was a friend of a friend I met on Neopets. Wanderlust especially intrigued me because I was deeply into Dragonlance and it reminded me of kender. Over the Hills and Far Away was cool. I have always wanted to write a short story about the plot of that song. I want to say my version of Sleeping Sun was the 2005 version, but I am not sure. Either way, I adored it. I still think of it as “Eclipse” sometimes because for the longest time, that is what I thought it was called. But of course, Nemo is what won my heart. How many of us say the same? There is just something about that song that draws you in. You get lost in it, enfolded in its haunting beauty. It is easily Tarja’s best song and one ...

I can't be mad at my dad for choosing to die. My dad was diagnosed in late July with CNS lymphoma. He had a massive tumor in his frontal lobe and surgery was only able to remove part of it. It was the first day of what was supposed to be a vacation in upstate New York. We had noticed him acting a little strangely the week before, but he stubbornly refused to go to a doctor until we were in Syracuse. I remember when they said he had a brain tumor the floor fell from beneath my feet and I felt cold all over. It couldn't be happening. He had his surgery in New York and we left for home (Kansas, driving) a few days later. He was back in the hospital almost as soon as we got home. He had an infection, which necessitated more surgery. But he also had diabetes, so they had to get his blood sugar under control before they could clear the infection. He was in the ICU for almost a week I believe, mostly not responsive. After another week or so he was transferred to a different hos...