It's My Birthday!

Okay...well not MY birthday but it's the blog's birthday.  One year already.

So I've been working and refining and trying different things while I learn how to navigate and post.  I think it's time to refresh and change things up so I'm going to try to find, or photograph, and use more pictures to illustrate my points.  I think this will be more interesting.

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I recently found a blogger who is as enamored with California, specifically NorCal, as I am!!!  The first page

i stumbled upon was her suggestions for dressing while visiting Carmel and Monterey.  I liked the looks she chose:

Ugh...My Achin' Back

When did I get old? Ever wonder about that?  One day you bend over to pick something up, or try to reach for anything, or get up from a chair and it's a real effort!?!  

There are new aches and pains every day it seems. Creaks and cracks...burps and "toots"....shuffling and scooting....all coming from your body.  Your mind thinks you are still vital and full of verve, but one day you realize it takes you longer and longer to get going each day.  Simple tasks can feel overwhelming sometimes, and there is this face staring back at me in the mirror...yikes she looks like my mother....but it's me!

I am getting tired of "coloring out the age" from my hair and have even considered just wearing a wig, but I'm afraid I might turn into one of THOSE old ladies. You know the ones...they wear a wig on their little noggins, and it just sits there, slightly askew, like a bad hair-hat.  I don't think I'm there yet.

As for any surgery or injections, I'm too cheap and too skittish to go for it.  The thought of cutting around my forehead, ears or chin and pullllliiinnngg the skin taught is so scary.  Plus what do you end up with???  Eyes, nose, cheeks, etc. that look so distorted, like the scene in the movie Brazil.

Did you ever see this film???  It is a commentary on society and has a surrealistic vibe to it, but one of the characters (actress Kathrine Helmond) is obsessed with youth and has so much surgery done to her face and body she eventually just melts, literally melts, away.  Now "the internet" is a-buzz about the recent appearance of Goldie Hawn and Kim Novak.  They were presenters at the Oscars last weekend.  All I can say is they should've left well enough alone, or they should sue their surgeons for advising and performing such botched procedures on their faces.  It was painful to see because these women were/are beautiful...they should have just let nature take its course and continuing to try and recapture their youth....it doesn't work.

Okay...so what's the point of all of this???

Well, I guess we should all just try and take good care of ourselves.  Eat well, exercise the body and mind, and for heaven sakes use moisturizer and sunscreen throughout our lives.  Accepting aging as

a normal and natural process is good.  Acceptance does not mean giving up and sitting around waiting for the grim reaper.  It means knowing that we are ALL going to get older, old, and we shouldn't be so worried about holding on to something we cannot have anymore.  Once we embrace aging we feel free to focus on living life; I mean we only get one go-around on this planet (unless you believe in reincarnation, but that's a whole 'nother story) so make it a good one.

So when your back is aching, your feet are sore, your fingers are stiff, or your vision is blurry, just take a break and catch your breath.  Eventually even Jennifer Lawrence and Justin Bieber

will be creaking along, with wrinkles and age spots...I prefer a few aches and wrinkles to the alternative after all...laying in my final resting place, if you know what I mean!

Totally Brill' Breakfast Idea!

So I'm catching up on all of my DVR'd shows the other day, y'know, mostly cooking shows that I don't get to see cause I'm at work...and a reality Housewives episode or two (this is garbage I know, I know, but don't judge).  Anyway one of my favs is Pati's Mexican Table on PBS.

The host is Pati Jinich and she is charming.

 Her food is easy to prepare and looks delicious and comforting.  Let me say that she is not a classically trained chef, but a self-taught cook.  Professionally she was a political analyst from D.C., but she always had a passion for food and cooking.  She left the "professional" world a few years ago to host a PBS show and the rest is history...for her at least.  For us it means easy to follow recipes that we can put together for our own broods.

Did I mention she also has a heavy accent?

Sometimes you have to rewind and listen again because she mispronounces things, but that is her charm.  The other day, when I was watching the latest show, she had her older sister on and they were making breakfast dishes together.  It felt like you were sitting in her kitchen, across the counter from them, as they were putting together family favorites.  Anyway one recipe that really resonated for me was their take on french toast...I had never seen anything like this before.

So they mix an egg and some milk (just like you would for any FT recipe), but here is where it went off the rails.  They flatten each piece of bread with a rolling pin (not too flat...just flattened) and spread jam or dulce de leche and roll up like a jelly roll.  Then they dipped each roll in the egg mixture, coating the whole thing.  They melted some butter in a saute pan and started to brown each roll (all sides) like FT.  When it is evenly browned they remove from pan and roll in cinnamon sugar. It looked so delicious and it got me thinking about what other ingredients you could use for this type of roll.  Maybe cream cheese and ham, shredded pepper jack and tomato, NUTELLA, peanut butter and banana or choc chips...whatever you like.  It just needs to be a thin layer; not fat or thick layers.  Dip in egg mixture and brown in butter.

Nom Nom Nom. Bon Appetit!

Postscript: She also has a cookbook...it looks great.