Say no more mon amour

If anything goes wrong today, we mustn't dwell. Not on Rex Manning Day!

Enjoy:

Rex Manning Day Supercut

Happy Rex Manning Day & Happy Friday!

Thursday Thoughts - day after day it reappears

Thrifted. I love my shore thrift store. I was going to drag my big ass iced tea maker down but I got this baby one for there and two round cake pans because I only have those at the shore and have to bring them back to Philly when I need them. 

Monday was a lovely weather day. The rest of this week, not so much. 

Show Us Your Books is Tuesday. I've had at least two long, out loud laughs at lines in this book. That's rare for me, and appreciated. 

This week is National Library Week. My love letter to libraries went on Instagram but I wanted to make sure to acknowledge it here. 

Abortion on demand, without apology. The laws close in, more and more anti-woman legislation. Zero legislation or provisions to care for children already here or coming. Pro-birth is fucked up. Oklahoma, you are the latest in the demonic and disappointing behavior of falsely moral legislators. Fuck all of you. 

Office day. I'm in the office today, which I had to mentally prepare for all day yesterday even though this was my standard routine for almost 12 years prior to Covid. My, how we've changed. My brain will never be the same. If the commute didn't suck so hard, I'd be in more.

Greed is destroying us. It's wild out there. 

This is from this day in history, but for tomorrow. 79 years ago on April 8.

Forward, always. No matter what.

This cat acts like it came from an alley instead of a bougie kittery. He is in everyone's business, is scrappy AF, hunts birds and squirrels, eats bugs alive, and helps himself to dog food and people food.

My wish for all people is to be willing to take a swing and live life off-recipe. This week I made trash can tacos (should I trademark?) in which everything immediately expired, about to expire, or taking up room in the fridge with 1/4 left in the container went into the mix and they were amazing. I also made some concoction with similar - a week expired pasta, a jar of DiBruno cheese spread, the end of an everything goat cheese log, some spinach, green onions about to go, the last 1/4 of the broccoli slaw bag, olive oil, and I forget what else - and that turned out fine. Two cheers for being resourceful and no food waste. With the price of food right now, it makes the idea of food waste even more repugnant to me. 

Recommend. 

Last food item. I ordered Jeni's for the strawberry pretzel but am head over heels for the pineapple upside down cake. 

Ukraine. What next. What next. It reminds me of that Men at Work Overkill lyric, "I can't get to sleep. I think about the implications..." 

Do one small thing. When I am sluggish or unmotivated, I do one small thing. Likewise, when the world feels heavy or overwhelming, I do one small thing. I cannot stop war, but I can advocate for peace. I cannot help all refugees, but I can sign up to host or donate to fund one. I cannot battle the government zealots intent on outlawing abortion everywhere, but I can provide resources and support for other women. I cannot cure childhood hunger but I can find mutual aid groups in neighborhoods near me and donate food, time, money. I cannot eradicate racism, but I can be loud about anti-racism.

Happy 8th Birthday to Eva, it was Tuesday.

The week in dogs. Bruce doesn't act the same in Philly, it takes him a few days to settle back in here and relax. Ben is comfortable destroying shit everywhere. And no one cares if humans need pillows.

Happy Friday eve!

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Overkill by Men at Work

Fun meals you can make with the whole family

Image sourced from Pexels. CC0 License

Fun Meals You Can Make With the Whole Family

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Cooking dinner can be an event for the whole family. It can be a time in the day when everyone is together and bonding and making memories. Cooking is an amazing skill to pass on to your children so they can have full control over their nutrition and the nutrition of generations to come. Here are some fun meals you can make with the entire family to create good food and good times. 

Crockpot Meals

Crockpot meals are a great start when it comes to showing your children how to eat well and how to cook. Crockpot meals are all about the preparation. This is where you can demonstrate how to properly cut vegetables, how to properly use a knife, how to prepare meat, and how to make broths. 

Easy and fun recipes like crockpot chicken fajitas are great to make because not only is there a lot of prep, but when the meal is done cooking, they are fun to assemble and a great way to try out different flavors and food combinations. 

Breakfast Meals 

Breakfast is another great opportunity to show your child the importance of nutrition. With breakfast, you can start their day off right with meals that are always fun to make. Teaching your kids how to make pancakes and flip them, or how to make fluffy waffles in a waffle iron are all fun activities. These are also meals kids love right next to French toast. 

You can teach your child to flip eggs, all the different ways to make eggs, and how to use the toaster and make breakfast salads with fruits. Building your own yogurt bowl is fun and healthy. Children will have a lot of fun with these recipes and they will learn how to start their day off healthy. 

Sandwich Making

Making sandwiches with your kids is another way to learn about flavor and expanding your palate. There are vegetarian options, vegan options, and options for the meat lovers. You can introduce your family to pastrami, roast beef, cheeses, and sauces. What makes it so much fun for kids is that they get to be artists and build their perfect sandwich. 

You can lay out the ingredients before them and they can get to work making what they like. You can lay out a variety of different breads as well so that your child can find out what they like and what they don’t like. All the while you will all be having family fun. 

Pizzas

Nothing is more fun than making pizzas. Your child can learn how to make the dough and roll it out. You can even show them how to flip it up in the air like they do at pizza parlors. From there, kids get to spread the sauce and pick all of their favorite toppings. They can get a quick lesson on how to use the over safely, and use a timer to know when their masterpiece is complete. When they are done making the pizza, it’s also really fun to eat it.

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This post was written with the Life According to Steph audience in mind

TWTW - first in April 2022

Friday was a wow day at work, and that's an oh shit wow not a great! wow. I was sick of the wind all week, so no beach. Instead I took to the kitchen throwing shit in a pot and mixing like a mad scientist, which we ate all weekend - ground chicken, half a bag of coleslaw, half a bag of broccoli slaw, baby corn, water chestnuts, soy sauce, sesame sauce, garlic, green onions, eggs scrambled in same pot, topped with some cooked ramen and mixed. After that I worked more until 7:40, then put my zit creams on and lay on the couch to read half of a book, where I fell asleep with all the lights on and left them like that until 6 am. 

Saturday After an early dog walk, I lay back down to finish the book. Up to shower, eat breakfast, and putz around. MFD and Billy cat arrived around 12:30. We took Bruce & Ben to the beach for a long walk and crept on other people's flowers. A relaxing night with leftovers and I read another book.

Sunday was the most balanced day I've had in a while, where I felt things that needed to get done got done, there was relaxing and rest, and there was enjoyment and they were all in equal parts, which is hard to get right. I think I could get it right more often if the work week wasn't five days. Who's with me? 

We did a little relaxing in the morning and afternoon. 

Relaxing was broken up by some solid hours working in the house to ready it for spring personal guests, which means pulling all under bed storage out and inventorying, sorting, organizing, purging, moving, cleaning, restocking, list making, and all that jazz. Lots of work to do before paying guests start to come but a really good start. 

I zipped through a book and painted my nails (China Glaze Planted & Enchanted and OPI Princesses Rule!, the China Glaze color is beautiful), had a salad for lunch, MFD got a massage, we relaxed and watched old episodes of The Office, then we took all the dogs up to Corson's Inlet for a very brisk walk. Damn winds. I started another book at night as MFD was watching historical documentaries on YouTube. No thank you.

Happy Monday!

Tips for Anyone Switching to a Vegan Diet

There are lots of different reasons why you might want to switch to a vegan diet. Some people do it for health reasons, other for environmental or animal welfare reasons. Whether you’re trying it short-term or looking to make a more permanent kind of switch, it’s important to consider how this might work for you and how you can stick to the switch you’re looking to make. So read on and find out more about doing that.

Take the Time to Learn from Others Who’ve Been Vegans for Longer

First of all, you should talk to anyone you know who has already been a vegan for a long time. They’ll be able to teach you a lot about the process of making this transition and the challenges you’re likely to face along the way. Make the most of those people as they’ll save you a lot of mistakes.

Find Recipes for Inspiration

Finding inspiration from recipe books is one of the easiest ways to get acquainted with your new lifestyle and new ways of eating. Don’t try to force yourself to come up with new ways of cooking and new recipes on your own; there are so many recipes already out there that you can enjoy and that have been prepared by professional vegan chefs.

Find Out Which Vegan Replacements You Like and Which You Don’t

There are lots of vegan replacements and alternatives that you can try out if there are certain foods that you think you’re going to miss. There are obviously all kinds of meat replacement options that you might want to try. But one thing that lots of vegans miss is cheese. There are plenty of good alternatives out there these days, so try them out. You can even get cheesy vegan pizza.

Image Source - CC0 License

Eat Plenty of Whole Foods

It makes sense to focus first and foremost on eating whole foods because that’s what matters most when it comes to staying healthy. Don’t fall into the trap of buying lots of processed foods that are branded as vegan. It’s much easier and cleaner to eat whole foods that you can cook from scratch in your own time.

Take it a Day at a Time

Finally, it makes sense to take things a step at a time and a day at a time when you’re looking to make big lifestyle changes. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself or make your life more difficult than it needs to be. Focus on improving your cooking and if you do have a few slip-ups from time to time, just accept that as part of the wider process and not something that you need to worry about too much.

Be sure to make the most of the ideas above if you want to make a switch to a vegan diet and ensure you make the change a sustainable one. Making these changes only makes sense if you’re willing to stick to the changes you implement and make a real success of things.

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This post was written with the Life According to Steph audience in mind