And So It Goes

It took me a while to get to this post, a lot has happened over the past two months to set me into some sort of tailspin that for the first time made me bedridden for a few days. The problem is I was not sick, my depression was kicked into overdrive and I let it consume me to the point that my head felt like a lead balloon and my body felt like engine sludge. I was at a point so low I barely can describe what I was even thinking about. 

My Director of Marketing gig ended, under circumstances that I’d rather not display, but circumstances that put me in a place I have never been before. There I lay, unemployed, and for the first time having no plan. I had no plan, nowhere to even look, and looking at myself hurt. I failed myself. There are so many details that daunted me, and I was drained, dormant and dumbfounded that after 4 years of college I had no clue what I wanted to do with myself. 

Upon further examination, I looked into my past aspirations. I sent an e-mail to myself from 'dear future me' a year after I graduated from college from a week before graduation. I told myself that the reason why I wasn't a teacher was because there was so much I wanted to experience, so many places I wanted to work and see and maybe make something of myself out of something totally unexpected. I told myself not to be afraid, and that it will work itself out - and even if I was working a crappy job to keep writing, keep creating, keep being. I broke down. I totally turned my back on myself all because of a series of unfortunate events that led me to a place I saw as a big break, only to find out it would be a big break-up. 

You see, with me, my heart is broken by life more than it is by love. My husband has been by my side for 10 years, and for the first time he did not even know how to be there for me. No matter what life threw at me I'd find a silver lining, keep going, and shake it out. This one flattened me like nothing ever had before. The Titanic sunk, Jack was dead, Rose was heartbroken and I was to blame for not anticipating the iceberg fully. 

After a week I started to stretch every morning, since my neck stopped turning and I had enough of myself. I starting pacing, hooping, staring, still nothing productive. 

Blank. Vacant. Bare. Vapid. 

It was an even plain. Nothing to see, just streamlined space as far as I could see. No breeze, no sign of life or productivity. I was stuck. 

I do not know when this will end. At every turn, I have something else to beat myself up over - like the fact I haven’t taken nearly the amount of weight I wanted to take off this year. Or the fact I did not read as much as I wanted, and I never finished a single damn short story in my series of Moleskins. The more I thought about this year the more devastated I became. The route I always took to get myself out before isn’t working. I can’t get out of bed before 10am. I start a Zumba tape and stop halfway through because I get so angry with myself. These self inflicted injuries are piling up and I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror. 

I guess writing this is my first step to moving on. I guess it is also coincidence that the new year is approaching. 2013 has to be different for me. I don’t always have the best look on odd years, but on odd years I turn an even number - and maybe that will be a great thing. Come March I will be 24 and it will be my last year of my ‘early twenties’. Is this the first time I reveled my true age? Not just ‘twenty something’? Is every twenty something in this same haze of ‘What on Earth Am I Doing With Myself’? Or am I just the only fuck up? 

I am sorry this entry isn’t going anywhere - it represents how I feel about where I am and what is going on for me. It seriously is a crossroads in my life, and thank you to everyone who is reading this - I have been brainstorming for you bloggy blog and honestly I think it may be time for me to become more of a regular writer on here. I seriously enjoyed writing about Jack White and my Aunt Mary. I will be purchasing photoshop in the near future and this Christmas I am getting a new camera and I will start exploring, sharing and becoming more confident on the ground my feet are standing upon. I think 2013 may be the first year that I will be completely open to the new things presented to me - because well, I don’t have much to stand in my way. 

Music Monday: Trampled by Turtles

I do not have a playlist for you today because I have actually been obsessed with a certain album in particular. Trampled by Turtles has an album called Palomino that was released in 2010. 

This album has been on a constant loop, the music and the vocals just match the changing fall leaves and brings a smile to my face. It also broke me out of my Jack White-around-the-clock week. 

Please enjoy. 

My first Gluten Free Baking Adventure: Banana Oat Muffins

As per my 4 simple goals before 2013, I have really looked into going Gluten Free. While I may not be ready to 100% commit I make sure that 75% of my diet is gluten free. 

I posted a Facebook status about having a GF recipe swap and my Sister-in-law's friend Mindy directed me to Amy Green's website and I immediately bought her cookbook. You can check her out at Simply Sugar & Gluten Free for the cookbook and some of her recipes. 

Well, I decided that the best place to start for me was breakfast, because I make better choices when I start with a good breakfast! Luckily Amy Green has a ton of amazing muffin recipes that seem simple enough. So as my first Gluten & Sugar Free Project I chose the Banana Oat Muffins. 

Before I go into the recipe, I will share Amy's 'basic flour blend' which shows up for most of the 

Gluten Free Baking. 

To substitute white flour, the Basic Flour Blend is: 

4 cups garbanzo-flava bean flour 

4 cups sorghum flour 

2 cups potato starch 

1 1/3 cups tapioca starch 

Mix well, store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. 

(you will find out most of these ingredients & leftovers will have to be refrigerated, so clean out the fridge before going forward). A lot of these can be found at the local health food and specialty stores as well as the supermarket. I did discover VitaCost which has a lot of these specialty ingredients at a discounted price - which is super helpful!

Now: Banana Oat Muffins 

Ingredients for 12 Muffins:

3/4 cups low fat milk

1 cup gluten-free rolled oats

1 large ripe banana 

1/2 cup agave nectar 

2 large eggs (lightly beaten)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1 1/4 cups basic flour blend 

2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum 

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, or canola oil 

(it is not all there, but I have limited counter space)

So, turn on that oven to 400 degrees while you set up the counter to make it nice and warm for you. The best part of baking in the fall is your kitchen gets nice and toasty! I chose to line my muffin tin with pretty cupcake liners and I got started. 

Place the oats into a medium size bowl and mix in the milk. 

In a smaller bowl mash your banana with a fork and leave some chunks. 

Whisk the Agave, eggs & vanilla into the mashed banana 

and then combine with the oats and set aside to soak 

In a large bowel whisk together all of the dry ingredients (this will be the bowl everything gets combined, so if you have a Kitchen Aid like me, use the Kitchen Aid bowl) 

Add the butter or oil to the wet ingredients and put the soaking oats into the dry ingredients 

Mix on low for about a minuet until just blended 

You will know it is combined when this is the texture: 

Then, evenly distribute the batter into your muffin tin 

Then bake for 12-15 minuets 

If you are like me there is a huge mess in your path, like while making these one of my glass contained spices fell from the cabinet shattering leaving me to clean it up while the oats were soaking. I cannot tell you if this was a good thing, but the muffins are super moist so I would suggest letting them soak for 5 minuets. I actually cleaned the whole counter, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher all in the time this was baking, and they were just about ready when I was finished setting up the cooling rack lined with paper towels. 

When you can insert a toothpick and it comes out clean into any of the muffins, they are finished! Mine took 13 minuets. Let cool in the tin for 5 minuets before moving them to the cooling rack

What made me happy was the muffins smelt like my famous Hummingbird cake. The Hummingbird cake is a heavy, flavorful cake that I love to make. But is is dreadfully not gluten or sugar free, and when the batter (yes I tasted!) and the aroma mirrored the cake I got extremely excited. 

After cooled, enjoy!

I made these muffins for breakfast purposed, so to store them, I wrapped each individual one and put them in the freezer, I have breakfast for the whole week!

My husband and I really enjoyed them, you do not really miss the sugar and the oats make the muffins very filling. Our dog Annie also really loved them, she took our wrappers out of the garbage right in front of us! I think I will make Amy Green's Blueberry Muffins next - I will let you know how that goes!

-Stephanie

Throwback Thursday

I bring you 16 year old me, and my 18 year old husband, at his Senior Prom in 2005

Taken with the always reliable disposable camera at Majestic Gardens this was one of my favorite photos for a very long time. Yes, I am extremely skinny and part of the reason for this post is to be my own 'thinspiration' but also this was my favorite prom dress. 

Yesterday marked 4 years since we got engaged. Here we were 2 years into our relationship. The day after prom we went to Adventureland. That night, we went to the beach that three years later he would pop the question and now we are married. 

We have albums filled with embarrassing prom photos, and because of nostalgic romantic me I wanted to take the time this #tbt to share. 

More essays coming soon. 

-Stephanie

GPOY Wednesday

I feel pretty today 

That's all. 

-Stephanie ;)

Music Monday

Since my previous post about White and Fuse's showing of It Might Get Loud last night I have been on an 'all things Jack' kick. But, I do Music Mondays (when I do Music Mondays) a tad differently than the rest - well actually I do not know how most people do it, but I like to create playlists. So, my Music Monday Playlist is as follows: 

"Death Letter" - The White Stripes

"Phenomena" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

"Song About an Angel" - Sunny Day Real Estate 

"Gold Dust Woman" - Fleetwood Mac

"She Talks to Angels" - The Black Crows 

"Apple Blossom" - The White Stripes 

"Psycho" - Imelda May

"Queen of Apology" - The Sounds

"Lipstick" - The Buzzcocks 

"Ask" - The Smiths 

"I'm Sailin'" - Mazzy Star 

"Jolene" - Dolly Patron 

"Angie" - The Rolling Stones

"The Boxer" - Simon & Garfunkel 

"Truth Doesn't Make a Noise" - The White Stripes 

"Litte Black Sandals" - Sia 

"Yellow Sun" - The Raconteurs 

"Kentish Town Waltz" - Imelda May 

As a rule my playlists always run on even numbers and have a flow to them that goes from up to down in a pleasant way for when you are listening. I actually obsess over song orders if making a mix CD or short playlists. Long playlists I design to shuffle. But anyway here are my Music Monday selections. As a rule also, I put She Talks to Angels and Angie always on the same list together. She Talks to Angels is one of my all time favorite songs to sing, and Angie has to follow at some point. I don't know when I married to two, but I did. Also, I am obviously obsessing over The White Stripe's 2000 album De Stijl. It is my favorite one, and I just cannot get enough of it. Fall is when I bust out a lot of moody favorites. I feel like adding these to Autumn's soundtrack make the leaves turn a little slower, and the colors a little brighter. But that is just me. 

And oh, have you heard of Imelda May yet? Well buy her CDs and add them to your catalog because her rockabilly style and bluesy vocals will make you swoon. This love song is one of my favorite's to belt out:

Matters of Life & Death

When you are a part of a large family it is rare if you are not introduced to death early on in life. You realize that life is on a cycle, and will end one day, and normally this realization is held on the tails of losing someone you love. It is not fair or explained, but it happens and you just learn how to deal with it. As a child, dealing with it came to me in forms of anger, mistrust, communication and confusion. After gaining more experience this settled into the normal dose of sadness but also a lot of gratitude. You see, I found that when faced with the devastation of losing a loved one there is no right or wrong way to go about your feelings. For the most part you will put walls up, swallow a lot of sorrow out of pride but you are still faced with the harsh reality that the person you have lost is not going to physically be a part of your life any longer. When you add a healthy dose of gratitude to these motions, for one reason or another, the rest of the emotions you will experience are warmer than they would be without them. Through the initial tears of loss, I say to myself ‘I am so lucky to have had this person in my life, not everybody got to have them in their lives, and I will celebrate them though I will miss them’. This when coupled with cherished memories and jokes dulls the hot sting of the vicious and relentless cycle.  

These thoughts were inspired today by my Great Aunt Mary who we lost on September 30th of this year. Aunt Mary was everybody’s Aunt, and she was 90 years young when she was taken from us. The long bountiful life she lead was an example that I have reflected a lot upon through the hours since her service. Aunt Mary made us all family, and this is true. My Elementary School Principal (her nephew) delivered the Eulogy. Through Aunt Mary, we were all family, and this was important. When you treat everyone in your life like a family member you will gain so much more in your lifetime than you lose. There were a lot of wonderful things said about her today, which made the hollowness of her loss a little fuller. 

Sitting in the pew behind my parents with my cousins I listened as Father Sean delivered the most beautiful Homily that was inspired by Aunt Mary. Most of it reflected upon Kings Park, my home town, the tiny dot on Long Island and how Aunt Mary was Kings Park, she was what it is all about. Now many of you reading this may not understand how Kings Park is different than most towns out there. Kings Park is a true community, it is one of the only places left that operates as a true community within a town. When push comes to shove, differences are put aside and we take care of our own. Aunt Mary was a pioneer of Kings Park. She was a town staple. Everyone knew who she was - and she knew who you were too. You also knew never to refuse the spot next to her in Church, because during ‘Peace’ she would slip you a 5 dollar bill while she kissed you on the cheek. Aunt Mary was everything good in this world, and we should all learn a few things from her that I will share on here today. 

1. Age is only a number: People who get caught up in age, get old. Aunt Mary was a young 90 years and she refused any help in her final years. She wanted to live on her own, take care of herself, and she was going to have it that way. You never once heard her utter how hold she was, that she was tired, that she was aging or ‘too old for that’. She marched in town parades, relished in positive attention and made jokes that sometimes could make you blush. She never once let the years slow her down. Because of this, her 90 years were lived exactly how she wanted them to be lived. When you start focusing on the time that has passed instead of the time ahead, you age yourself and limit yourself. Limitations based on age are meaningless. 
   
   
   2. Remember the good things. Aunt Mary had a memory like mine, where she knows you and what happened to you 10 years ago up to today. Any story you shared she knew, and could one up you with another. Something that Aunt Mary didn’t do was pass along bad stories. Maybe the stories would be silly and funny but never cruel or hurtful. If she knew an unflattering thing about you, she took it to her grave with her. She may have been a stubborn woman, but she was never a spiteful one. 
   
   
   3. Traditions matter. You go through life learning little things from those who came before you, and while you will pave your own way, their example matters. Holding onto traditions like having a pot of soup on the stove at all times may seem silly to an outsider, but all that matters is that your Grandchildren know and understand where you are coming from. When you lose sight of such things you lose sight of who you are. 
   
   
   4. It does not matter what your reward is, always do the right thing. Aunt Mary was a staple in Kings Park History. She was there as the town was made. She went to daily mass, she was good to everyone and never expected anything in return. She went to the wakes of the people who would pass, she made sure Saint Joseph’s Church offered mass for every one of her fallen friends. She never let a day go by that she was not looking out for other people, even in small ways. The words said about her today proved to me that living your life this way is the only way to go. 

It is discouraging sometimes, growing up in this selfish generation that has really lost the meaning of community. But, listening to the words said about Aunt Mary today while the sun shone through the stained glass windows of St. Joseph’s Church in Kings Park made it all make sense. We should all strive to have those things said about us. She had the ability to walk into a room and catapult your mood from bad to good with her just being in your field of vision. Not many people have that quality, and she was one of the greats. 

It hit me that Aunt Mary was gone when I walked into Clayton’s Funeral Home and did not see her. Like I said, Aunt Mary always paid her respects, and always went to make you feel better. At my Uncle Tom’s wake back in 2002, she walked in and saw me sitting alone by the door. She immediately exclaimed ‘Stephanie! You beautiful little thing you, let me introduce you to my seniors.’ Her Seniors were in fact her friends who were all 5-10 years younger than her that she drove to Clayton’s that evening. She held my hand. She knew I was sad, and sitting alone and she held my hand and comforted me without calling attention to the pain I was in. She was magic. At her wake, she was not there to hold any hands, we had to old each others the way she taught so gracefully, and I would say we did her proud. 

It may sound strange, but Aunt Mary was an icon. Professors and Key Food knew who she was based on her daily visits. She was a part of a growing town and survived her whole high school graduating class. It is the end of an era for a community and for a family for sure. Death is just a matter of life, and I am so thankful to have had Aunt Mary - but it does not mean I will miss her any less. 

The words that were spoken in her honor were incredible - we all should strive to have those things said about us when we pass. If I know her, she is in a new shiny red car with Uncle Andy watching over Kings Park as I type. God Bless You Aunt Mary, you were a shining example for us all.