Green Smoothies

It's no secret that I'm easily addicted. 

Can you say OCD, anyone?

I find something I like and I eat, breathe, live it... until my ADD distracts me with something else...

Ummm... what was I talking about?

But seriously, the green smoothie is one habit I haven't forgotten about, I can't do without, and I'm becoming quite a pusher on.

I've had a lot of people asking me about these lately so here it is.

My personal craving quencher.

There are a ton of green smoothie recipes out there. I've experiment with many of my own and haven't met many that I don't like. Fruits, veggies, avocados... I've even put almond meal in them for added protein and calcium before I started making them with almond milk. 

It's almost anything-goes with these things, in my opinion.

But this is my day to day quick and easy for my crazy mornings favorite...

10-12 ounces of almond milk (vanilla or plain I use whatever I have)
One banana broken into the bottom
And a great big handful of fresh baby spinach

And I do mean a BIG handful of spinach.

A high powered blender is best to smooth it out. I've heard a lot of chatter about the Vita Mix... but I just throw it in the margarita maker... et voila!

It's a mystery to me how mixing spinach and a banana can produce a vanilla shake flavor... but I'm just going to chalk that up there with the fascination of sisal rugs and the appeal of black marker scent.

It's not just the surprisingly delicious taste of these smoothies that has me hooked, but how good I feel when I'm drinking them regularly.

 So crazy good that my body misses them when I go without.

All right, maybe not as crazy good as say...

Damon Salvatore might feel. But good none the less.

My god, he's beautiful, isn't he?

Now... 

what was I talking about?

Snowpocalypse 2013

I know. It sounds a bit extreme for 14 1/2 inches of snow...
But I guess that's the most we've seen in this area of Kansas for over fifty years. The record back then was 15 inches. That's right. A whole half inch more.
Growing up in Vermont, 15 inches was not a Snowpocalypse. It was Halloween.




But around here I guess it's pretty impressive.
Of course it came with the typical Kansas wind.




And apparently yard gremlins.
How do things like that even happen?




It was more snow than my son has ever seen in his life.
And enough to even tempt my finicky twelve year old to go out and play.




The game she made up was called climb over the fence and jump into to the snow bank.




Notice the broken picket? I did. But I will just worry about that later. Today - we play.

One Step Closer To Simple

All right, so in my latest quest for peace and simplicity, I decided this little cesspool we call a junk drawer had to go. 

I mean good god, I don't even know what half those things are! Seriously, what is that big orange thing in the center and why is something I can't name living in my kitchen? I've been eyeing this drawer for a awhile now. Muttering threats and warnings at it every time I catch it open. But one thing was holding me back.  No, not the fear of that orange stick. My perfectionism.  It so happens, I bought a kit of drawer organizers for this project nearly a year ago. Really, I did. But look how they fit... Not enough space there. Too much space there... and there. For the love of all things holy... why can't they make things in standard sizes??? That just wasn't going to do. And so I lived with this hideous orange monstrosity staring me in the face for another year. 
That might seem extreme, but such is perfectionism. I took to keeping pencils in my magazine basket and stashing sharpies behind the coffee mugs just so I wouldn't have to face the horror every time I needed to jot something down. Until the other day when I walked into Target, collecting my Shopkicks, and spied these little gems in the dollar bins. They looked at me, and I looked at them, and I said,  "Hey cutie, I like your sections."
I just knew they'd be perfect for something. I had no idea just how perfect they'd be when combined with those obnoxiously imperfect, non-standardized drawer organizers. I lined the drawer first with some wrapping paper I found in Target's dollar bin last Christmas.  And holy heck - look what happened! Perfection! I mean, these people know how to size a box.
It was almost too pretty to fill, but all that junk was quite the eyesore on my counter so eventually I relented.
And guess what? Even filled they don't look half bad.
A place for everything and, you know the rest...
There were enough little squares to leave some empty for the next wave of random crap and granola bar wrapper pieces. Pretty slick for a dollar bin find. From this...
To this...
Now that's an evening well spent.  (for this old, married girl, anyway) Oh, and in the process, I learned that big orange stick is actually some sort of ball pump.  It now lives in the garage where I can find it the next time I need to pump my balls. Um... yeah, never mind.

Organizing Obsessed

With three kids I live in perpetual chaos.
And by chaos, I mean clutter.
I don't think there is a surface in my house that  doesn't have a Lego on it or under it. Not a room that doesn't contain a pair of shoes and at least three child or man sized socks at any given time.
And as the chaos, aka children, grow around me, my stifled little need for order writhes and screams inside me. Melodramatic? Maybe. But true?
Yes.
I am one of those terminally routine challenged. My A.D.D. has seen to that. Throw in a good dollop of lazy, a few time consuming hobbies, a full time job, and a writing addiction, and honestly I'm surprised we're not wading through a thigh-high pile of life to get to the fridge every day. I say "life" instead of a few other choice words of what we could be wading in. I'm trying to clean up my recently discovered sailor's mouth.
The fact is, I can't stand mess. I can't stand when two or more things are sitting next to each other and they aren't lined up. I crave order and beauty the way some people crave tobacco. The difference is... I can't buy order for $4.79 a pack.
If I could, I would be broke.
On the upside... order and beauty don't cause cancer, as far as I know. Not even in the state of California.
So I'm free to pursue my addiction without any guilt. And I don't feel bad trying to push it on my children either. The problem is, they don't want it.
Maybe I need a better campaign... one with subliminal messages and age-specific targeting.

Clean your room.
 All the cool kids are doing it.

Hmmm... or maybe something more specific like,

Putting your backpack away will grow long shiny hair.

Alas, I doubt One Direction would agree to posing for my posters.
So where does that leave me?
Alone in my struggle for clear floors and a couch you don't have to shovel before sitting on.
And so I get my fixes online. Perusing pictures in magazines and reading blogs like I Heart Organizing at night after everyone's in bed. Clean closets... and perfectly lined up shoes... my own little form of internet porn.
And then there are my secret stashes.
Little areas like drawers and cabinets that I maintain as long as I can for my own sanity, until at some point the hordes infiltrate my space and turn it into this...



That was once a kitchen drawer.
And, no, I am not the one who uses scissors to cut open a granola bar and leaves the little portion of the wrapper laying there in the drawer each day. In fact, I've decided this year that habit shall stop.
I've decided 2013 is the year I will enable myself to take back a little more of my house each week, with One Direction's help or not.
Starting with that drawer.
We'll see how this works out. Can the hordes be tamed? Will I be able to live out my fantasy openly in the light of day? Will California discover that order and beauty really do cause cancer?  Or will my A.D.D. make me forget my goal, distracting me with a sudden new passion for finding the perfect popcorn bowl...


Ooooh, pretty popcorn bowls.... wait... what was I talking about?
Oh right, my goal.
I guess only time will.tell.  

Where have you bin all my life?

It's a story as old as time. A girl's weekend... five women... all alone... in a foreign city... ok maybe it's just a little town a few hours away from home...

Women with easy souls and hanging hearts walking down an overcast street when one of them turns into a little art gallery, and stumbles upon an unexpected love. Her breath catches between parted lips and she whispers softly, "Where have you bin all my life?"

Yes, I have a thing for puns and cheesy romance novels. I'm sorry to expose you to both at once, but take a look at these things...

Hmmm... ok they might have been a little more impressive in real life.

But just look at how they hold those gourds! Ahem...

This may not be a well known fact, but along with my weakness for puns and romance, I have a thing for farmers' markets.

(I'm quite a catch, I know.)

It just so happened this little art gallery, I really wish I could remember the name of the place, had one set up in the front corner. But honestly, it wasn't the gourds that got me.

I mean check out the softly worn wood on those, um... what would you call those... racks?... stands?

That's like storage porn, right there in the middle of a small town gallery.

I immediately thought of a dozen ways to use them in the house I wish I had. Maybe more than a dozen.

But in the house that I have in real life? Well...

There's a reason this love is unrequited.

I still think of those bins and their beautiful rack/stand/things often. I try to find a place in my tiny home, but sadly, living small has its disadvantages.

I hold hope that someday I will discover an unknown empty space in my little house... at which moment I will jump into my car to drive furiously through the night and rescue my bins before they fall in love with another woman.

One can dream. Don't pick on me.

This is another little beauty I found there...

It was much larger in person, but is something I think I could DIY the day an empty square of usable space mysteriously appears on these walls that bind me.

All right, all right, I'll stop now.