A few people have wondered how the blog fast has been going.  In a word, great.  In another word, not so great. It’s been great because I have stuck to it, and easily.  What I thought was going to be a challenge has actually been rather painless, with the exception of missing out on the comings and goings of my friends.  What hasn’t been great is that I now have time for things like Twitter and responding to emails.  I had to quickly curb that last week because I was starting to replace one with the other.  It kind of defeats the point of the blog fast, wouldn’t you agree?

Even with the lure of social media, I’ve still been able to do a few things since Lent started besides make deodorant. On top of a few weekend adventures that included feeding the ducks and visiting one of the largest tackle supply stores in the United States (don’t ask), we celebrated two birthdays.

I made crackers.

I’ve been eating very clean and enjoying my GNOWFGLINS ecourse. [Side note--every time I post what I eat I am reminded of the blogging book, No One Cares What You Had For Lunch.]

My life wouldn’t be complete without testing paint.

I’m still participating in Souvenir Photo, which has been good at forcing me to leave the house. I made the mistake of choosing a magnolia tree in my parent’s front yard as my 6-week subject. That means once a week I have to, like, leave the house. Get in the car. Time things so that lighting is good, but different from the week before.

And, finally, I have been enjoying God’s grace, as my niece is home safe and sound (with antibiotics) from the hospital.  On Thursday I received a call from my sister-in-law telling me that my five month old niece was on the way to the hospital via ambulance.  From what little we knew from her exceptionally negligent daycare, she was 70 degrees, blue, and non responsive.  They couldn’t tell us if she was alive, and the twenty-forty minutes (it’s a blur) that went by without any of us knowing were the worst moments of my life.  I always imagined that praying on my knees would hurt given my weight, but it turns out that the fear and pain of the unknown TOTALLY outweigh the pain of suddenly dropping to your knees in prayer (and tears) from a standing position.  Who knew?

I haven’t done anything terribly exciting, and sometimes I feel like I don’t have much interesting to say (I made crackers! Wh00t!) but it’s a nice feeling to know I have been so busy living my life that I don’t always have time to blog about my life, you know?

I couldn’t decide at first what is was that bothered me most about the three girls who passed me on my way back to my dorm. They were barefoot and lithe as they pranced across the asphalt, their callused, dark feet the hooves of Training Level dressage horses.  The bells along the hems of their gypsy skirts tinkled with each step and reached a crescendo when they bumped into each other, laughing.  Then there was the smell.  The musky scent of flesh and pot layered thick with patchouli made the air around them heavier, warmer.  The hooves, the bells, the smell of cedar and dank earth all came together in a cacophony of contempt, but it didn’t take long to ferret out the largest pebble in my shoe.  It was definitely the patchouli.

Fifteen years later and the smell of patchouli still reminds me of college and wannabe hippies with trust funds and J. Crew jeans tattered and torn just so.  It’s a smell I never become accustomed to, one that never fades into the background.  So, really, I have no idea why I bought the Kiss My Face deodorant in Peaceful Patchouli.  That’s a lie.  It was on sale and I thought it would grow on me.

I saved a dollar, give or take.

Two weeks later, the fog of scent-induced nausea was the only thing thicker than the stench of rotten dirt I smelled every time I moved my arms more than 10 degrees in any direction.  I saved a dollar only to lose my stomach every morning I swiped that malodorous stick under my arms.  I thought about the homemade deodorant Amy Karol of Angry Chicken scented with essential oils that didn’t make her stomach turn and promised myself to make some once I finished with the devil’s deodorant.

I decided to throw in the towel when I started using an old stick of Old Spice I found underneath the sink.  I was too impatient to buy everything online so I went to my local health food store and paid triple the price, walking away with almost $20 in ingredients and supplies.  I bought a deodorant I don’t like to save a dollar and spent $18 to replace it.  Just to be clear, lawyers are lawyers because they aren’t good at math.

I know at least 300 of you are wondering why I didn’t just go and buy some powder-fresh Lady Mitchum.  Here is where I divulge a little known facet of my personality.  I love to make things from scratch, and the more obscure and random the better.  I get immense satisfaction from making things like deodorant and cleaning supplies, especially when I am too lazy to go to the store.  They are mad-cap science experiments that prove useful, and I love it.

As for the deodorant?  Second to none.  (I’ve made many before, and this one is definitely the best.)  This isn’t an anti-perspirant so you won’t stop sweating, but I still carry the nice smell of the pea-sized amount I applied over 12 hours ago.  My only goof was in the amount of Rose Absolute essential oil I added (I should have added more).  I’ll remember that next time I need to make another batch, which should be in the year 2015 judging by how little I need to apply.

Now that I am smelling fresh like a rose garden (as opposed to the manure that fertilizes it), I think I will go try a new cracker recipe I just found.

I am not even kidding.

They were supposed to be cookies, a quick and dirty way for me to use up an overripe banana while the chicken finished roasting in the oven.  They were also my key to ten minutes of quite.  Nicholas had been begging me for another cookie, gummy or “ga-rola” bar.  He didn’t care which, really, so long as it was sweet and filled his stomach before dinner.

“If you go play with Mikey for ten minutes, I will make you both cookies.”  He went and played with Mikey, but for no more than three minutes.

I decided on the Banana-Maple Oatmeal Cookies by Susan of Fat Free Vegan and adapted the recipe to accommodate my bare cupboards.  The chia seeds I replaced with one egg, the lemon juice with apple cider vinegar, and the white wheat flour with whole wheat pastry flower.  I didn’t have enough maple syrup.

The pastry flour was the death knell.  I remember reading somewhere that you should decrease the amount of regular flour by a tablespoon or two when you substitute it for pastry flour.  Working in reverse, I decided to increase the amount of pastry flour in the recipe by two tablespoons, which somehow turned into 1/2 cup.  The recipe said to avoid overworking the dough, but I beat it with the strength of a thousand men.  I never did make up for that missing maple syrup.  Oops.

Before we sat down to dinner I dropped the cookies on the silpat and tossed them into the oven.  They emerged 10 minutes later looking the same only darker, as if they had just returned from a week-long vacation in Cancun.    I touched one gingerly and found it very, very hard.

They were supposed to be cookies, but these weren’t cookies.  Doorstops, sandbags, pucks, bricks, discs, patties, heels, blocks, ingots, and maybe even stones.  But not cookies.

Stones.

“Maaaamaaa!  Is it time for cookies now?”

Stones.

“We ate all our dinner!”

Stones.  Stones?  Stones!

“Uh, I changed my mind about the cookies.”  This I said while I slathered them in butter and drizzled honey over the top.

I returned to the table with two plates of scones.

“Mama, what are scones?”

“Granola bars.”

Ten seconds later, Nicholas pronounced them delicious ga-rola bars.  He choked and threw up the second one, but I took it as a compliment.

You should always substitute your ingredients precisely.  If you don’t have enough of a wet ingredient, be sure to add moisture any way you can.  Don’t ever overwork your dough and add enough maple syrup.  But even if you don’t heed this advice it’s okay.  There isn’t a poorly baked item a solid marketing plan can’t repair.

{8th grade graduation “portrait,” circa 1986}

There are two things you should know about Harvey: he wasn’t always so tall and he is a side hugger.  Since we went to different high schools, I have no idea when he surpassed the 5′2 inches of space we shared in 1986.  He claims it happened between his sophomore and junior year.  Suddenly, like a magic trick, he grew 12 inches.  He now stands over six feet.  As for when he adopted side hugging, that good-natured, shoulder squeezing embrace normally accompanied by a knuckle to the crown and a hearty This guy!, I remain in the dark.

I wore flats to mass on Ash Wednesday.  I figured comfort and stability were key if I was going to carry a three year old afraid of strangers down a long aisle so that a stranger could rub him with a foreign substance.  Nicholas screamed, kicked, and, when that failed, played possum.  As I hoisted a limp Nicholas over my shoulder, I caught sight of Harvey sitting across the church, smirking with the satisfaction known only to parents with all their children in school.  We gave each other the universal eyebrow raise that says, Hey, what are you doing here?  I’ll meet you outside when mass is finished. Of course I am paraphrasing.

We met outside, me in my flats and he with his height.  I looked up, he looked down, and we chit-chatted about our respective spouses and a future couple’s date.  We cut the conversation short once Nicholas started pulling wooden crosses out of the grass.  Harvey leaned down for a side-hug and I, still talking about our parent’s night out, noticed that my diminutive stature would land me nose-first in Harvey’s arm pit with one hearty squeeze.  No, thank you.

I adjusted.  I lifted my chin as high as it would go and stood in my flats on my tippy-tip toes.  And as my mouth formed a circle to say the words “so give us a call,” that is when Harvey gave a me a mighty side-squeeze that landed me and my open mouth at the base of his neck.

Time stopped.

Harvey, no doubt recalling skills learned during his six years in the Marine Corps, froze in an instant, carefully assessing the situation for conflict.  I was likewise immobilized, and not just because I had both shoulders pinned to my sides and my chin lodged deep in his clavicle.  Stuck as I was, there was nowhere to go.  Were I to move my head or mouth, well, that is a nuzzle.  Closing my  mouth would have been even worse because, girls, there is only one way to define an open mouth that closes on a neck.  That there’s a nibble.

Two years or two seconds later, Harvey released me from his side-hug like a carnival crane dropping a stuffed bear.

Time restarted.

I looked down, he looked down, and we continued to chit-chat about our respective spouses and a future’s couple’s date until Harvey cleared his throat and offered to walk me to my car.

He could have at least bought me dinner and told me he loved me.

Oh yes, I did.  I signed up at FormSpring a week or so ago.  I haven’t said much about it (you know how I am about these things) but I am doing that whole “be bold” thing.  So, ask away!  I promise I won’t bite, but I may talk your ear off.  You can ask me anything here.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season.  I’m going to give up reading blogs for forty days.  It will be like fasting, only without the weight loss and stinky breath.

For an avid reader short on time, blogs can be the most beautiful siren song.  At any given moment, you can read touching and funny and cute and pretty all from the comfort of your home or car or desk at work.  Inspiration is at your fingertips anytime, anywhere, at a price anyone who can get to a library can afford.

In the three years since I clicked a link and landed on the very first blog I ever loved enough to keep reading, I have been inspired to sew, knit, craft, and cook.  I haven’t done very much of that because those who sew, knit, craft, and cook will often link to other people who, in turn, inspire me to photograph, write, and decorate after I mother from the heart, refashion my wardrobe, and organize the cans in my pantry according to color and size.

The links!  My God, the links.  Well the links that keep linking and the clicks that keep clicking and the clock that keeps ticking never will stop for a mom with a husband, two boys, two dogs, and a house.  I’m positive; I checked.  (At least two times.)

Poof.  Three hours.  Gone.  Every time.

Occasionally I will glitter a dinosaur.  More often, I don’t.  There isn’t enough time to emasculate ferocious beasts, not when you can read about vintage corningware or Charlie Sheen and his wily ways.  And, on the off chance someone hasn’t thrifted an Eames shell rocker for $3 in North Hollywood or knit mufflers for the street lamps in their town or announced they are a near-sighted recovering kleptomaniac with synysthesia, I sit back in my chair and think, well now what do I do?  Surely I can’t sew, knit, craft, or cook.  Or photograph, write, or decorate.  Mothering, fashioning, and organizing (definitely organizing) are also out of the question.  There are far too many people who do it all better than I ever could.  And even if they don’t, they actually get up and do it.

That is why I am giving up blog reading for lent.  As inspiring as blog reading can be in small doses, it can be downright debilitating when I act like it’s my mission to visit every last blog worth reading.  There is just too much great content out there and after a while I start to feel to the left of zero.  Everyone is more creative, more talented, and more skinny.  Also, I think I  just felt another aftershock from Saturday’s 3.9 earthquake.  It made the ice clink in my glass and moved my straw.  Or, maybe my ice is just melting.  Whatever.  My shoulders are bowed under the weight of the tragedy of it all.  Woe is me.

I’m a well fed, well educated, stay at home mom who should worry more about being grateful than being creative.  Pray more than she covets.  Encourage more than she gossips and live more than she reads.  With a few extra hours a day, I just might do that.

At least for the next forty days.

I am having fun taking these color themed pictures of the Inland Empire. February is, surprise-surprise, all about the pink and red. I’m going to take this opportunity to pat myself on the back for not including any pictures of the Valentine’s Day decorations I saw around town. Of course, that’s probably why I have eight pictures this month as opposed to January’s ten pictures.  You can see the expanded pictures at the Inland Empire Family blog.

My goal is to show those who don’t live in the Inland Empire that we are more than the browns and beiges normally associated with this almost-desert locale.  I’m still deciding what colors to photograph in March and April.  That’s the best part of this project–I only allow myself to photograph certain colors for the month, and once I commit to a color, there is no turning back.

This year-long project was inspired by Nicole Robertson of Little Brown Pen and her series of color-themed pictures of Paris.  Please do go check out her pictures.  They are far better than mine, and for several reasons.  One, they are of Paris, not Perris.  Two, she is a (much, much, much) better photographer.  Three, she did it first.  And better.  And it’s always nice to give the originator of an idea the high-five they deserve.