Worm Day

I wore two items of clothing purchased from Anthropologie today, not a very interesting fact to share at first read. However, once you know that just a few short months ago I received boxes from Anthropologie on what seemed a daily basis until I realized it was often blog induced frenzy that was driving my spending. Christmas brought clarity and since then I have purchased exactly four items from Anthropologie, half of which I wore today.

Anthropologie was my drug of choice and there is much about it I still love, including some blogs, but, I had to back away in recent months when I realized that I was letting community popularity impact personal style. I let the sway of mass community love and possible insanity convince me that cut trumped pattern and I found myself buying clothes with cats, teacups, apples, stars, birds, deer, seahorses, raccoons (yes, raccoons), turtles, dogs, etc, it was my Jim Jones purple drink phase.

Look, to each their own, but animals or items you find dotting the walls of a kindergarten classroom also finding a home on my clothes, no matter how gorgeous the cut, I'm looking at you Sing Sweetly Dress, just isn't my thing, never has been, never will be and I hope someone benefited from my mass return. When I'm at the park with my baby friend and an older couple exclaims, “so cute, they match,” I am not pleased, in fact, I'm miffed and wonder when the hell I starting letting perceived popularity sway my personal aesthetic.

I'm not the girl with the belted cardigan, truthfully, I don't even understand why you would belt a cardigan but I've seen people pull it off wonderfully and beautifully, but it isn't me, and to manipulate your style to emulate the agreed upon aesthetic of a clothing store just isn't what I want. So, I've spent the last few months purging and rediscovering who I am.

Who am I? I'm the one with the massive corduroy collection, the 22 pair of jeans, the girl with the boot collection, the girl with the tee collection, the girl that loves well-worn and well loved cashmere, the girl that loves grey, green and white, simply and alone. If I have to put on more than six pieces of clothing, including undergarments and shoes but not my coat, I'm sad. If I have to put on seven I reconsider what the hell I'm wearing. If I have to put on eight or more then it is officially a bad bad day. So, that's that and what that was, was a long explanation leading up to me declaring that it was WORM DAY at school and here's what I wore.

Worm Day by CrazyQuirkyCool featuring joes jeans

The coat was a gift and I know the cost was absurd because the giver, as he always does, left the tag attached, so I wear it for inappropriate activities, such as, digging trenches in search of worms, scooping my hands through the mud while on my knees to send the worms back from whence they came, collecting owl pellets, you get the idea.

Today's song is by one of my favorite artists, Kate Earl. Kate Earl's Fate is a Lonely Hunter is in constant rotation on my iPod. Now, I'll admit her natural growth as an artist threw me for a little loop and I didn't embrace her second release quite as quickly but eventually I came around and her acoustic version of Nobody is my current favorite song.

Little Bit of Sweetness

I went back to work yesterday after a much needed mental health break. Testing season puts a large burden upon teachers and students, so being a Reading Specialist I'm left overwhelmed by the importance the school board places on these standardized tests and heartbroken to see the terrified faces on test day. As an educator, I'm grateful to work in public schools, it's a privilege, but as a parent, I'm relieved we decided private school is what's best for our family and I'll never have to look into the face of a 4, 8, 11 or 12-year-old and see them worried about something I find overemphasized and often arbitrary in its results. That talk is for another day. The important point here is that after a week of popping up to pack lunches and loving it, I struggled this morning. I wondered if I could get away with water, an orange and a hardboiled egg as lunch.

I knew the answer was no, so I did the right thing and composed sandwiches of roasted chicken, balsamic syrup, mozzarella, tomato, lettuce and red onion on ciabatta bread. I left the chicken off of mine, since I gave up meat long ago, but it was still so good. I did keep the orange and the water but added some slices of yellow pepper for color, kidding, I added them because they were on hand, nutritious and a quick slice. Still, I wasn't satisfied, there wasn't anything sweet and everyone needs a little kiss of sweetness in the middle of their day, so it was Martha Stewart to the rescue (as always). Sunday, I found a yummy yummy recipe, in the April 2011 issue of Everyday Food, for Fudgy Rocky Road Bars.

The recipe isn't on the site yet, but I'll link to it when it arrives. I didn't stop at one batch and I didn't do it the same way the second time. The first time I made the recipe as printed but for the second batch, I substituted cashews for the almonds and caramel for the marshmallow crème., my version is below. Delicious and simple, what's not to love, luckily there were just enough pieces left for all the lunches and one for me to eat while I drove to work. I'll make another batch tonight, not sure if I'll change it up or stay true to the original.

8 graham crackers

1 ½ cups of cashews, toasted and roughly chopped

1 cup of caramel

1 bag (12 ounces) of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 can (14 ounces) condensed milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line bottom of a 9-by-13-inch pan with graham crackers, breaking to fit, if necessary. Bake until crackers are lightly toasted, about 8 minutes. Sprinkle with cashews and dollop with caramel.
2. Set a heatproof bowl over but not in a pot of simmering water, combine chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk. Cook, stirring occasionally, until chocolate melts and mixture is thick and smooth. Pour chocolate mixture over caramel and cashews; working quickly swirl together chocolate mixture and caramel using a thin knife.
3. Refrigerate until set, about an hour or so then cut into squares, about 18

Have a great day.

First

Hello.

Keep it simple stupid, K.I.S.S., is a lesson I have never forgotten. How could I? When it comes to me the phrase isn't a mantra, it's a lifestyle. I keep everything simple, open, free, easy, breezy and honest. My cooking, my fashion, my hobbies, my craft fails (I can't recall my last success), even my furniture (less is better). I think people are amazed because the chaotic swirl that is my crazy crazy mind always finds a way, fights a way back to simple. When I see a Polyvore with 832 things all collaged together I get a sudden urge to scratch. It's like my mind can't process what the hell all of that could possibly be and where it's going on a single body. When I see a cake recipe with 9467 steps (I'm looking at you Warren Brown) I immediately shut down, shut the book and have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or a Mike's Hard Lemonade while I ponder what the hell just happened and why I feel so very dirty. A few hours later, I call my sister and invite her over so she can make the cake while I offer guidance and witty conversation from a kitchen stool. When I flip through the pages of Dwell and see the rooms in homes with every inch of space covered by furniture, more furniture and the crap masquerading as furniture I think, what about the children and then I want to curl up in a ball and rock myself until the picture in my mind goes away. When the people in my life (I'm talking about you Lover Man) want to create daily agendas for our vacations I just remind him that it's time to take his medication but then he reminds me that he isn't taking any, so I suggest perhaps he should and then walk away shouting over my shoulder that we're going to walk and wander the streets like the town drunk. When all of the little people start touching me and talking to me simultaneously and the sound begins the reverberate in my brain and my body starts to feel the way it did at a party on Rugby Road in Charlottesville, I just start throwing around packs of organic fake Goldfish crackers and run. When the Assistant Principal walks up to me and begins asking about reading assessments and completion percentages, I . . . well, actually, that never happens because I utilize an avoid and evade strategy when it comes to him. So simple.

Blogs are supposed to have features and all I could come up with is – Random iTunes of the Day. I currently have 5347 songs in my iTunes library, so each day with Random.org I'm going to feature a song not of my choosing – the good, the embarrassing, the nostalgic, the embarrassing, etc. First up, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” by Sophie B. Hawkins. Might I suggest that we start as just friends and see what happens. Welcome to my blog.