Life stuff...

The past couple of days have sucked lots. I'm bummed out and having a hard time hiding it. I feel like if I don't pretend to be happy that my dad will feel guilty. Fucking lameness. On Wednesday, I made chili. It wasn't bad, I suppose. Everyone ate it without complaint. I made homemade seitan and put it in there, they thought it was mushrooms. Whatevs.

Then, I went into town to hangout with my middle school best friend. It was awkward to say the least. She was already lit by the time I got there and I was pretty uncomfortable. The point of no return was when I decided that it would be a good idea to smoke pot with her. I got waaaaaaaaaaay too fucked up, wretched my guts up all over the toilet for a half an hour and then made up a bullshit excuse, fled the hotel and drove home. I'm so embarrassed and ashamed. I'm such an asshole to people that drink and drive and I did it anyways. Like an asshole. Fucking depressing.

Home life hasn't been much better. Dad has been seriously antsy. He can't accept that he's not completely capable and I think he's just going to have to get hurt before he understands. Whatever. I can't convince him. He was being a dick last night about the food I cooked. Like I'm so fucking happy to be eating diet food. I'm getting really sick of his snarky comments. It makes me not want to even try to cook stuff that tastes good. Tonight he wanted to get Japanese take-out. So we did. I guess once a week isn't bad and at least it was chicken, not red meat.

I bought a food processor today. I hope it's amazing. I've never had one.

Hope this weekend is better than the past couple of days. I need to focus my shitty energy into getting our stuff unpacked and rearranged. My room is so gross. I can't believe I'm living with my parents. My life is such a joke.

Banana Ice Cream

I found a recipe that looked like a lot of bullshit wherein you just blend up sliced frozen bananas and it's magically ice cream. So, I tried it. Sliced the bananas and froze them with intentions of blending them up with a spoonful of peanut butter and a couple of spoons of cocoa powder. It was good but the blender sucks and got stuck. By the time I got it to blend up it had melted again so I had to refreeze it. I REALLY need a food processor.

I'm really starting to get worried about the money situation. I need to get my license switched so that I can get Darcy enrolled in school and get a job. Too much stress =( I think it's getting to me... I was up all night writhing in pain, freezing to death and chattering my teeth. I ended up throwing up. Don't know what had me so sick. I feel okay today. I think I might take advantage of having a sick day and be lazy. Not that I've been exceptionally motivated or anything...

"Easy Wheat Bread"

So, I've always been seriously intimidated by the thought of baking bread. It just seems so complicated. Turns out that aside from being time consuming it's really pretty easy, just lots of waiting involved. I used this fantastic recipe from www.veganbaking.net I was more than impressed. I hope to conquer my fear of bread making soon! I plan to try a grainier version and also a zucchini banana version.

For dinner tonight I made spaghetti with homemade marinara and whole wheat noodles. The sauce took FOREVER! Maybe I could find a good recipe for in the future. I decided to just wing it and make up my own recipe. I boiled & skinned the tomatoes, sauteed a bunch of garlic and two big onions and simmered it for a couple of hours. I had to break down & make a run for tomato paste as it ended up being sort of a funky unappetizing looking color. The whole idea is to not scare Dad away from eating healthy. Anyhow, they loved it. Success! Unfortunately, the bread didn't get finished until after dinner (what, with the five hours of rising...) but it made a fantastic dessert. I'm going to work on a vegan butter recipe that I found next and hopefully eliminate that from the house. I was initially worried but I think as long as we take it one day at a time we'll make this transition!

We had lots of visitors today. My grandma and grandpa came by for a little visit. She's still amazing and he's still an asshole, somethings never change. After that my brother Jamie came by with his wife & youngest child. Luckily, he helped dad and I unload ALL of my stuff off the trailer tonight. Fucking astounding! I'm so happy he did because not long after it rained. Woo-hoo!

Pinterest!

If by chance, anyone is interested, my pinterest board dedicated  to healthy recipes is located here. As i go through different recipes, I plan to review them here and thus record whether or not I should ever make them again.

I spent 2-3 hours grocery shopping today. I have never spent the amount of time that I did today reading labels. It's really kind of frustrating... There is no easy way to do this, I fear. I am all about the easy way.

I came home with a few gems... Turns out that Fifty50 peanut butter is delicious. I think it was dad's favorite find of the day. He was so upset when he told me that he couldn't have peanut butter anymore and I knew there had to be an alternative. I looked at so many fucking jars. I had nearly given up and finally found this in the diabetic section. Dad says it tastes like what peanut butter should taste like, natural. Fifty50 for the win! I also picked up some sugar free grape jelly and dad said it was delish. Don't remember the brand though...

I suppose agave nectar is mainstream now. I found several varieties of it at Kroger but ended up getting the Domino brand since there was a conveniently placed coupon beside it. I assumed it was fate. I've been wanting to try this stuff for a while but I never really use sweeteners and have yet to run out of truvia packets. As those are currently packed up in a box somewhere, I decided to buy some for the hell of it. It's not bad. Kind of tastes like corn syrup when it's by itself. Not bad in coffee so far. The bottle design is fantastic, too. It conveniently squirts instead of making messes. 


Some of the other interesting things I bought were whole wheat flour to learn to bake biscuits with, soy flour to learn to make sodium free soy milk, and stuff to make my first vinaigrette dressing! The dressing wasn't bad, used maybe 4 parts olive oil to 2 parts balsamic vinegar and it was missing that ya know so I threw in a few shakes of garlic powder and a squirt of agave. Yum! Everyone loved it, even my step mom!

Just me and my Dad

I've been back in Georgia for almost an entire day. This time, it's for good. After a gypsy life, I'm finally being forced by the fates to stay put. I have to learn to help my dad maintain a healthy lifestyle and I have no idea what I'm doing.

I hope that I can adjust to being back here. I'm still in shock. My life is gone. I feel like I'm in a dream. I've been feeling this way since I found out that my dad was sick ten days ago. The past week has been a whirlwind.

I decided to start blogging my daily attempts at making healthy choices and also my internal rants. I plan to share recipes, tips on stroke recovery and lots of self indulgent whines. Probably, if I don't get this shit out of my head, I'll explode. Wish me luck.