Not an Orgo blog, trust

Don't get it twisted. Kendraspondence persists in recounting the journey of this hot mess express CHOO CHOO on its way to disasterland. But along the way, I do enjoy stopping temporarily at organization blogs and walking around inside of their smartly shelved closets. The things they do with washi tape and label makers truly confounds this amateur. My home is always messy due to the fact that I am only one woman living with three others who are not fans of the neatly stacked pile. I can only wage so many battles, said every mother, everywhere, for all of history. I do so enjoy organizing, though. I love the categorizing and stacking and busting out of pretty papers and tabs for sorting. All of life is utterly too-too, as my friend Lisa says, when it is pleasingly organized. Here's my latest, which is unimpressive but such an easy breezy beautiful little project.

Messipes Pouch.

My friend Megan shared with me this idea and I must give her proper salutes. I have a number of cookbooks and I regularly surf the world wide interweb for recipes. But I've been wanting a better place for the clip n' save recipes that I see in the newspaper. I know photo albums are a winning system but this works well for me right now.

I simply took an empty cereal box. Snip snip. Covered in pretty paper and slapped a label on it.

Taped it to the cupboard for easy access. Would probably be smarter to tuck inside the cupboard but I didn't have the luxury of space nor the luxury of height ;)

Slapped a label on that baby and voila! A place for all my recipe clippings for the making of messipes.

Party Train

'Scuse me. Party train comin' throuuuuuugh. But, Kendra? You don't throw birthday parties? Especially for children. It's like...against your constitution. Or so you said.

Oh? Who said anything about a birthday party?

Oh, well I just thought, you know, since your firstborn turned five last week and you were talking about party trains that it had something to do with a --

Ahhh. Ah, yes, quite right. Well, I am still the same woman who is not a huge birthday party buff. Or a fan of baby showers. Or bridal showers. Or anything that involves sitting for long periods of time or that feels forced or requires me to wear nylons on a non-work day or that doesn't involve pinatas. I spend 5-6 days a week in company I don't get to choose. I need at least one day with a posse of my choosing.

I'm sorry, were you saying something about a party train?

Bah! Yes. Indeed. So, I did use the occasion of Baby Girl's turning five to invite some of my friends who just happen to have children who are in Baby Girl's sabbath school class to come for brunch. I may or may not have made a garland with Baby Girl's name on it as a rouse -- causing the partygoers to think it was all about Baby Girl when it was only 90% about her and a solid 10% dedicated to making the Smitten Kitchen french toast and baked eggs ranchero.

Well, that sounds selfish. And decadent.

Summarily selfish and decadent.

Do you have pictures?

Do I have pictures?

***

You can't play a princess video game without a princess ensemble. You just can't.

Review: 3 Day Juice Fast

Due to the manner in which I Pac-Man ate my way through the holidays and due to the number on the scale that manifested as a result, I put my new juicer from Santa to work upon our return to TN. I elected to do the 3 day juice fast that the fellow who is no longer fat, sick and nearly dead touts as "jumpstarting" a healthier lifestyle. As my personality tends to Overdo Everything, I thought a 3 day juice fast was right up my alley. It's just part of my contract that I must Overdose on Everything I Enjoy so much that I develop a deep and abiding repulsion for things like Aunt Annie's pretzels of which I once ate 3 in one sitting. GOT CARBS? I can juice myself silly and then I'll be so excited to go back to chewing real food that I'll have a visceral reaction every time I eat a cupcake, triggering the ominous threat of going back to juicing if I dare.

So, the juicing. It was fun to make the juice. That new Breville machine could probably grind a Redwood tree trunk pretty gamely into a nice bark-juice. Lovey Loverpants bought me a bounty of kale, carrots, onions, peppers, and we had loads of grapefruits and oranges. I had a good time with the prep.

Day 1 of the juice fast was...you know. Cleansing in a way where no one can get near you (see also: hazards of eliminating fiber from your diet). By noon I was getting hypoglycemic and I needed to think clearly to finish my semester syllabi. So I ate a bowl of almonds. Otherwise, I was good with the fruit and veggie juice for the rest of the day. Which is to say I didn't eat anything else and by 8 p.m. was begging the man who was hitting my head with a meat tenderizer to stop (see also: the worst headache of my entire life). So I went to sleep and woke up ravaging for food.

Day 2 I woke up hating everyone. The thought of juice made me gag. I ate some oatmeal and felt no guilt. For lunch I had some juice. A couple hours later, I had some more juice. By late afternoon I was so cranky and my head was hurting so bad that I just started speaking blather. Who knows what I was doing. Probably shouting out all of my banking passwords to the people at the express check-out who had the nerve to be buying Little Debbie Snack Cakes at a time like this. By dinner I was feeling faint so I begged Loverpants to make me some rice. By 10p I still had a dull ache in my head. I went and grabbed a piece of chocolate and within 20 minutes my headache was gone. I slept the sleep of a milk-drunk newborn baby.

Day 3 I woke up and stepped on the scale. I was already down 3 lbs., probably from the stress and water loss alone. I decided to leave the juice cleansing to Gwyneth Paltrow. Later we went to Waffle House and I shoved the buttery waffle into my wide-gaping maw and praised the God of the Universe for giving us the ability to chew.

I still enjoy the occasional veggie juice, especially with the assistance of my deputy juicer.