Polenta is the same thing as grits

It's happened: I'm playing Christmas music in my cubicle.  I officially don't give a shit about it anymore.  I've barely slept, I brought tomato sauce for lunch (more on that later), and someone left me a passive aggressive note about my coffee mug.  Monday, I'm over it.

This weekend was bizarre.  There was snow!  In October!  In Maryland!  What?  Yeah.  So to tally it up, it snowed in Jacksonville last year before we moved, it snowed here in late March after turning to spring, we had an earthquake the same week we had a hurricane, and now it snowed for hours (seriously...like six hours) in October.  I don't really know what's happening anymore, but I want out.

Me in the snow

Snow in our complex

At least none of it stuck.

Christmas Presents

This is one of those times I'm really glad I don't get a whole lot of traffic, because I can post Christmas presents and people will never find out before they're unwrapped.

I decided to put my talents to good use this year and sew some presents for my family.  Not everything's getting something handmade--Jake and Nick aren't, for example, because they'd probably hate whatever I made--but I thought it'd be a nice way to hone my skills and still get some presents done.  I've been working on them for about a month (and planning much longer) at a turtle's pace--I'll cut something out and won't sew it for three weeks.  Terrible.

But before I get into gifts, here's something I did for Nick a week ago that made me want to kill myself:

Elbow patches!  What a pain in the ass, let me tell you.  I had to go to two stores to find the ones he wanted, and then I looked into the process: because he tore a hole in the elbow, I had to darn the hole and then sew the patch over it.  Ugh.  And he has another one waiting for mending.  Someone's learning how to sew next time!

Okay, okay.  Here are the presents:

An iPad case for my dad.  He loves motorcycles, but I felt super weird about making him something with half-naked girls posing on motorcycles--pretty much the only fabric I found.  So the Michael Miller wheels seemed to convey the message, and the black and orange theme is Harley-Davidson-centric.  This also has a pocket and closes with Velcro.  I got the pattern on etsy.

A matching MacBook case for my dad.  The inside is also orange and this closes with Velcro, as well.

A MacBook case for Kali, using Michael Miller fabrics that I originally bought for an Amy Butler Lotus tank, then gave to my mom so she could make a Birdie sling for my cousin Maddie (confused yet?  Me too).  Kali loved the fabric when she saw it at my mom's house and wanted the Birdie sling, but it wasn't meant to be.  I'm making her a Birdie sling, but not out of this.  This pattern is also from Etsy.

Oh, and if things ever get too bad for you, remember: it snowed here Saturday.  That's the scene from Joann's.  I know I mentioned this yesterday, but it bears repeating.

I'm hoping to get the Birdie sling done this weekend, though I've been working on my hand embroidery in the process.  I feel like Holly Hobby over here.  Whatever happened to feminism in the Sposetta household?!

Macaroni and Cheese

I'm a day late on this one because I was too busy being depressed over dinner last night to do anything but watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  Also, Sally is my new role model, I've decided.  She knows what she wants and she may mess up some things along the way but that doesn't stop her.  Also she has fun hair.

Anyway, last night I got home from work and started on my roasted garlic and fennel.  I bought a pork tenderloin on Tuesday from Trader Joe's and decided to make it Thursday.  I found the recipe on Martha Stewart and decided, what the hell, I might as well do it.

So the garlic and fennel are roasting, and I decided to start with the rub on the pork.  One problem: I open the package and I'm hit with the smell of hard-boiled eggs.  Hmm.  I've never made pork tenderloin before; is this typical?  A call to my mother confirms that no, this meat is rotten, and I need to get rid of it.  I wrap it in two bags and take it downstairs.

Nick didn't feel like picking up anything on the way home (when it comes to stuff like this, I think he just expects me to take care of anything, meaning he doesn't need to actually think about what he's eating for dinner), so I sat on the couch and pouted for a while and then heated up the leftovers from the following macaroni and cheese decadence.

Roasted Chicken Success

Is it normal to be tired every second of every day?  I don't think so.  I have a physical scheduled for next week and I feel like my doctor should be able to tell me why I'm always tired.  I know that's over-simplifying things, but that's just how I feel.  I've been exhausted for ten months, and it's time to move on.

Anyway, last night was another successful dinner.  Tuesday was a better night and I didn't let that stupid raw chicken get the best of me (again).  I've never roasted a chicken before, so this was all new territory.  Actually, all of the dinner was all new territory.  There were three new foods included in dinner, and two new recipes.  Can you believe it?

I'm Back, With Dinner

I know, I know.  It's been forever.  I was busy, then I wasn't, and all through it, I really didn't feel like talking.  I think that's when you're supposed to talk the most, because if you don't, you might blow up, but I just felt like everything I would say would end up being nonsense or just emotional words strung together without the makings of sentences.  So I took some time away.

In the last month, I've worked and sewn.  I've gotten my car back and enjoyed driving every second.  I picked apples, used my camera (haven't done that in months), and bought saddle shoes.  It's been a month, pretty much.

Lately, food has been on my mind a lot.  Granted, it's always on my mind: I make our dinners, and some of our breakfasts and lunches, so I tend to be always either planning a meal, making a meal, or cleaning up after a meal.  This makes me sound too domesticated, right?  Remember the days when I couldn't afford rice?  Yeah, I do too, and those days were awful.  I'd walk around Publix and think about what my $10 could buy me--would I get graham crackers or black beans?  What could last longer?  Looking back, I really appreciate that I went through those times, because it taught me that food wouldn't always be there.  I grew up in a family that didn't have to worry about food.  My parents struggled before they had us, and after that, we always had a full pantry.  Living on my own made me realize that sacrifices need to be made sometimes--which led to eating one Pop-Tart for lunch and the other for dinner some days.

Now that I'm in a relationship and we both make enough money to afford both rent and food (and occasionally fabric, beer, magazines and shoes), I'm able to look through my cookbooks and actually take action instead of dream or ask my mom to make it for me when I come home next.  This is home now, and if I want something made, I need to make it myself.

I'm not saying this is going to become a food blog.  I'm not writing this to become the next Smitten Kitchen or Orangette or one of the other millions of food blogs.  This is just on my mind now.  I need to feed my (small) family.  Sewing will still creep in.  Love will still creep in.  I will most certainly have another mini breakdown before the year is over.  But right now, this is what's in my head.