Mika's Warming Cocoa Blend Recipe

• Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Cocoa Powder (found in baking isle)
  • 1 1/2 cup Sugar (white or natural, not "golden" or brown)
  • 1 tsp Cinnamon (Powdered)
  • 1/4 tsp Clove (Powdered)
  • 1/4 tsp Chili Powder
  • 
    

• Instructions 

  1. Mix all dry ingredients and store in an air-tight container.
  2. ----------
  3. To use, put 2 Tbsp of the mix in a mug and pour in 1 cup of boiling water.
  4. Stir well.
  5. At this point add 2 Tbsp of 18% cream (or milk for the low fat folk) for extra deliciousness.

The Pursuit of Happiness

It's been brought to my attention how people often sabotage their own happiness. I don't want to be like that. I'm going to persue the people, places, and things that bring me the most joy in the long and short term. This means enjoying what I can, when I can, while making sure to attend to physical health/needs cause a hungry and homeless Shannon will not be as happy as a well fed cozy at home Shannon. 

Unfortunately this does mean seeing some people less often or in a different capacity which is a short term uncomfortableness that I feel will contribute to everyone's long term happiness. It also means encouraging some relationships with time and attention. 

I've sent out invites for the housewarming party to friends and co-workers and I'm really looking forward to the move and this new chance to do-it-right when it comes to things like eating healthy and such. 

Working out housemate stuff with mom has made me feel closer to her and the revelation that yet again we have come to the same conclusions separately and therefore wind up agreeing before a question is even asked... Well it feels like home. :) 

Premembering

Do you ever start at a new job

or go to a new restaurant

some place you've never been

and when you meet some people

for the first time

you just kinda know?

Somehow you know

that you're in the right place

and they belong in your life.

I'm not talking about love-at-first-sight

this has nothing to do with attraction

or love.

It's a connection to strangers

an unexplained familiarity with them

and you just know you'll be near these people

for years to come.

You know like you're remembering

and echo of your future.

Physical Shopping Spree

(I just realized how this looks but I'm not an affiliate and I don't get paid for anything. I'm just showing you what I got.)

Yesterday I did a lot of walking, and got quite a bit done. Megan was headed the same direction as I was so we shared a cab to the south end of town and I walked my errands and bussed home.

The route I walked.

First stop was the bank. I wanted a separate account for household expenses and I needed to switch my savings account to a TFSA. With that out of the way I walked north east to Sears and ordered our appliances for delivery. We chose these ones for several reasons including maintenance and reviews.

Kenmore 5.1 cu. Ft.

Eureka AirSpeed One Pet

Hamilton Beach 10-Cup

After sears I headed east again and by the time I hit Wellington I was starving so I stopped into a place called Dick and Jane Eggs and Fruits. The food was absolutely delicious.

Recharged, I headed south to PetSmart to get the cats Feline Pine Cat Litter and a High Sided Corner Litter Box. Unfortunately they didn't have the small bag of Feline Pine so I hauled the big litter box and the 20lb bag of litter from the southern most blue dot on the map to the bus stop marked by the red pin (about 1 km)....and then the 1.5 km(one mile) from the other bus stop to home.  My shoulders are fairly upset with me today and I don't really blame them; I haven't done any heavy lifting in more than a year.

Today? I've done very little other than poke around on the internet and a load or two of laundry. 

How's your weekend going?  :)

One More Reason to Have My Own Cow

In Canada and I believe in the US, it's illegal to sell or give unpasturized/raw milk. You can drink it from you own cows cause they can't really stop you but they don't want you spreading it around.

Of course when I have my own cow I'll not only have raw milk. I'll also have the cream from that milk. This is where it get's interesting.

I recently found an article titled The Benefits of Raw Cultured Butter and I think you'll like it.

There's Only So Many Options

A few years ago, a friend of mine was complaining that cooking fresh, healthy, dinners every night was time consuming and that he could make much better use of that time. We both knew he couldn't afford a personal chef so I didn't even bring up that option.

 

I had stumbled across a product with the unfortunate name of Soylent that claimed to contain all of the miro and macro nutrients required by human beings. It was touted as a complete replacement for normal food. You just mix up a batch once or twice a week, and drink a measured portion of the shake-like drink instead of meals. When I presented him this option he was disgusted. He said the physical pleasures inherent in eating delicious meals was important to him. I suggested that perhaps the Soylent could just be some meals and when he felt like cooking he could make whatever with the knowledge he's getting everything needed to be healthy. He still refused saying that the idea of drinking dinner was disgusting and he would only eat "real" food.

 

With this new info I suggested meal planning and a pre-cook day on the weekend so that he could have nutritious "real" food with less hassle during the week. With just an afternoon of work on the weekend he could have all the joy of his favourite dishes with little to no work during the week. You just pop the dish from the fridge to the oven at the right temp and walk away til it's done. He disliked this idea because it eliminated the spontaneity of deciding in the middle of the week that he'd really rather have a different meal. When I pointed out that pre-cooking and prep-work could be done at the basic level(just chop the veg or brown the ground beef but don't add seasonings) to simply make things quicker he still rebelled at the restrictions it placed on his creativity.

 

Why would you complain when you've chosen your favourite option ?  **shrug**  There's just no pleasing some people.

Mental Shopping Spree

I'm really excited about living with my family and it's keeping my brain busy with ideas for the housewarming party and ideas for day to day life and ideas about shopping. Now the rest are harmless planning ideas that will be gauged against my mom and sister's interest levels...  The shopping daydreaming however tends to get carried away. 

I start thinking about how we've already planned on buying a freezer and vacuum, and how I'm going to need a new bed cause my current bed won't fit in my room, and then I realize I'm going to need new sheets for the bed, and if I can get them at the KingsMills sale then I might as well get some good bath and dish towels, and then I start thinking about getting a food processor because (at the very least) my blender just doesn't cut it for making hummus, then I start looking at pressure cooker/caners, and the idea of fresh herbs crosses my mind, and I start thinking about a table for in the front window and wondering if the light from that window's going to put glare on the TV and if it does we should get a pleated divider to block the light, and omg that would look so good if we had a painted fan hanging over the TV, and I think I have one in my box of nic-nacks, and speaking of nic-nacks, maybe I should get a glass display case so they don't sit in a box the whole time I live here like every other place I've lived in London...

 

Freezer, Vacuum, Bed, Sheets, Towels, Food Processor, Pressure Cooker, Potted Herbs, Table, Pleated Divider, Display Case...

 

Okay so you can see this is getting a bit out of hand. I know the first six on the list are the most important and even the towels are kind of superfluous, so the rest will have to sit in their own list of maybe-if-theres-leftover-money.

Went To Mom's For The Weekend

I decided that I really needed to talk to mom in the same room 'cause texting sucks and we had much to discuss so after making sure she didn't already have plans, I hopped a train last Friday and went to mom's house.

Mom and lil sis are currently in a tiny little place so I knew I'd be sleeping on the futon... I didn't realize how tired that would make me for the next few days.

Anyway, we got a lot of the room-mate stuff settled. We discussed what appliances we would like to buy for the household and looked over different models together. We discussed what we all consider to be healthy for our bodies and our minds (turns out we're all introverts!)

Our electricity rates on London vary by time of day, so we discussed using electricity wisely and leaving un-needed devices off during peak hours, as well as pre-cooking on the weekend to avoid too much cooking in the electric oven during peak times.

The food thing took up a lot of talking and we settled on these ideas:

• Eating only those foods which are good to us, meaning no gluten and no pork.
• Eating beans, quinoa, chickpeas, peanuts, lentils, and other plant sources of protein more often and meats less often.
• Eating a variety of vegetables daily, including "weird" ones.
• Buying dry goods(rice, beans, toilet paper, etc) in bulk and store them carefully.
• Going to the farmers markets every Saturday (or every other Saturday depending on needs) getting deals where they can be found and storing what won't be eaten that week in the freezer or as canned foods.
• Spending Sundays together pre-cooking and doing general prep work for the week ahead. This may involve making a large batch of pasta sauce of which only one jar gets used that week and the rest put away for later, or even just cutting the veggies for snack packs.
• Doing this prep work with a glad heart knowing it will help us eat healthy foods in reasonable amounts.(avoiding traps like popcorn-for-dinner-cause-I-don't-want-to-cook, or wow-I-haven't-eaten-all-day-and-that-whole-12"-cheesecake-looks-snack-sized).

We're also going to have a house warming party the first weekend so we can have everyone over at once and then not have to deal with social calls the next week or two while unpacking. :) No that's not really the reason, but it is a nice side effect. We've found these past few years that we all think fairly similarly and we not only enjoy each other's company, but also enjoy quiet time with the others around (reading, surfing, playing a video game) so I'm certain that living together is an excellent choice for us.

~ ~ ~

We will encourage each other to stretch and grow stronger physically

We will allow each other to grow spiritually in our own ways

We will clean our home enough to be healthy

We will relax in our home enough to be sane

We will honour our commitments

We will cherish each other

We will have fun

~ ~ ~

I'm frustrated by the "wrong" things

Customers call in yelling that their product is beginning to fail after 25 years of use. They are very upset because when they bought it, they were told it had a lifetime warranty. For those who are confused as I was, they seem to think this means that nothing would ever go wrong... not that the company promises to fix it when it does.

 

The other day my housemate showed me that my stainless steel utensils have a few blemishes after years of use and dishwasher abuse. I didn't know what he was getting at and was waiting for him to continue... He was waiting for me to be upset, and we both just kind of looked at each other, waiting.

I talked to someone a few weeks ago who was furious that the snow plow came by after they had shoveled their driveway. Face beet red furious. 

For some reason people are, and expect me to be, angry/frustrated/upset about things I find so trivial... and yet they're suprised when I put my foot down against rude or unkind behaviour.  

Somehow I just don't fit in this society.

Cheap Sources of Protein

5. Canned Tuna – 36.1 grams/dollar

Anyone trying to scrape by has probably eaten canned tuna before. The meats don’t get much cheaper than this. Throw a can on top of a salad for a quick, cheap, protein rich meal.

4. Peanut Butter – 44.9 grams/dollar

Who doesn’t like peanut butter? It tastes great, but be careful not to eat too much. You could go through a jar in no time. Stick to all natural peanut butter. The ingredients should say peanuts and possibly salt, but that’s it.

3. Whey Protein – 45.7 grams/dollar

Before I made this list, I thought whey protein would take the #1 spot, but it makes sense if you consider where whey protein comes from – milk. Whey can be added to many things including smoothies.

2. Eggs – 48 grams/dollar

Eggs are one of the most nutritionally packed foods out there. Unfortunately, many people get scared off from eating them because of their cholesterol content. The good news is that dietary cholesterol intake does not directly influence blood cholesterol levels. So eat up – yolk and all.

1. Milk – 49.6 grams/dollar

Milk took the #1 spot for the cheapest protein source. It is a combination of whey and casein protein. For those on a tight budget who are not lactose intolerant, milk is a great way to get in extra protein.

 

Exhausted

Last night the cat knocked a box off my dresser and it landed with a loud BANG waking me from deep sleep with a gasp. My adrenalin must have still been churning because when I got back to sleep I dreamed a horror movie trailer.

 

- - -

 

We were working in an indoor garden/jungle type building when I noticed a huge snail. The shell was as big as a spread hand and the body was longer than an arm. It looked weird so I reached out to touch it and instead of normal slime, it was thickly slathered with butterscotch-pudding looking stuff. I remembered a previous dream telling me to "follow the Glue" because the large snails were someone's science experiment and the butterscotch looking "Glue" was the key to it all. 

 

The dream cut to a later scene where an over head speaker was announcing "catastrophic failure" in the pod/building next to ours. Looking through the adjoining glass everything looked normal. Lots of waist and shoulder high greenery and nothing moving then SPLAT! a human that was little more than Glue covered skeleton in a space suit with no helmet crashed against the glass in a last desperate attempt to escape. As they slid to the ground dead, the greenery started to give in to the Glue that had transferred from the running human and within seconds, all the greenery yellowed, and browned, and dissolved into nothing showing the walls of the pod also dissolving and letting the last of the air escape from the pod onto the alien surface of what ever planet we were on.

 

The people around me were in a panic shouting and milling around. Half wanted to try to rescue any survivors, half wanted to run away, there was a leader telling us there was no way anyone survived but that the reinforced bio-hazard barriers between pods should protect us...and the whole time I was just standing there, in shock, thinking about the snail.

 

 - - -

I woke and decided I did not want that dream again and asked my brain for something a bit less sci-fi as I fell asleep. Unfortunately it just picked a different horror and I had a dream of physical abuse at the hands of a lecherous guardian/captor with the knowledge that reporting the offender would simply get me told by the police that the red marks were no proof cause I could have done that to myself because I didn't like my father/stepfather/husband/? or simply for attention.

 

So you can see why last night's sleep wasn't very restful at all.

Not my words

I just read something that I wanted to share. It starts:

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now.

Please follow this link to read the rest as I don't wish to steal this open letter.