Little Beans

A few random little beans to share with you.

1. It's Friday!

2. I had $13 in my tip jar this morning by 9am. I'd only been open for two hours. That's crazy!

3. Ivy is at summer camp. Sort of. She's with my mom at the farm until Monday, and she's been there since Wednesday morning. I miss her a lot! But I do NOT miss walking her in this heat. How nice it is to wake up in the morning and not have to walk her first thing - or first thing when I get home from work. But seriously, I miss her! I hear she's having a good time running all over the place, swimming in the pool, farting up a storm. Seriously. From an email my mom sent me:

"By the way, your precious darling just cut the loudest fart I've ever heard out of a dog! She looked behind her to see what the noise was!"

4. I've now seen Inception twice. It was an interesting experience. I still loved the movie, but Corbin came out with a lot more questions than he did the first time. Trying to answer them troubled me, even though it all still made sense for me. I think we've gotten most of them worked out, but just to be sure, we're going to see it again on Saturday night in an IMAX theater. Nothing like amazing sound and a giant picture to answer your questions.

5. BidFire.com is my new best friend. It's an auction website where they auction off crazy things like iPads and $500 Visa gift cards and KitchenAid mixers and other cool things for barely any money. Sounds like there's a catch, right? Well, there can be if you're not smart about it. In order to bid on anything you have to purchase bids at $1 per bid - which can seriously add up if you're not smart about your bidding. Sure, you may have gotten that $50 Target gift card for $1.56 (which I did!) but you also paid $20 for each of the bids you spent trying to get it (which I did not). Each bid sends the price up in either $.01 increments or $.05 increments, but here's the thing: there's no swooping in at the last second to snag the item because every bid in the last 30 seconds resets the clock to :30. So you won't win until other people give up or run out of bids or don't hit the button when they mean to.

It can be a long process, depending on the item - the auction for a 16GB iPad yesterday went for 3 hours after closing time and sold for $23.93. Set at $.01 increments, that was a LONG auction, and who knows how many bids the winner spent trying to get it, but added together, it was probably still far less than $500, which is the retail price of the iPad.

So how do they make money, you ask? How can they possibly sell items for so little? It is ridiculously simple and one of the smartest ideas I've ever heard of. I've even already told you: they charge you $1 per bid. Do you realize that 2,393 bids were placed to get that iPad up to $23.93? BidFire made nearly five times the retail price of the iPad. They made $2,393 on a $500 iPad! Ridiculous! They also auction off their own bids. An auction for 250 bids, which would normally cost a user $250, got up to about $54 before it ended, in bidding increments of $.05. Awesome deal for the buyer, and BidFire made over $1000 on something that doesn't even cost them money - that's four times how much they would make if somebody just bought 250 bids.

Here's the other thing: you're not a complete loser if you don't win the auction. Based on your bidding pattern (how often & when you bid on an item) they will award you Fireballs at the end of a lost auction. This is basically virtual currency that you can use to purchase almost any of the items that they auction in their Fireball Store. 

Anyway, I'm kind of obsessed with this website now. I've won two $50 Target gift cards and paid a total (including bids & shipping) of $25.60. So basically I'm getting about $75 free money at Target. Yesterday they were auctioning off a KitchenAid mixer that I desperately wanted, and the only thing that kept me from getting it for $.35 was the internet at the hospital where I work. It didn't get my bed in, so instead of resetting the clock, the auction ended. Bah. But I took a look at Target's website and found the mixer in a thousand different amazing colors, which was silver on BidFire (boring). My new plan is to win a bunch of gift cards - Target, Visa, whatever - and buy it in the color I want. OR! Win something awesome that I don't need and sell it. Do you know how much money I could make if I'd won the MacBook Pro they auctioned off last night? I was so close.

If you think you might want to try it out... let me know first, I'll have them send you an email, and then I'll get 5 free bids for referring you. That would be super awesome! 

I'm off to finish up my shift and head home - I've gotta say, leaving at noon on a Friday is not a bad deal.

What!?

First of all, you have to go see inception. You have to.

a) I have a big crush on Joseph Gordon Levitt now. Big. I'm pretty sure those were the first words out of my mouth after the movie.
c) It is so much better than you even think it will be.
d) I don't like building up a movie before someone's seen it, because usually it's a let down. I have confidence that this time it won't be.

I am afraid.

I am afraid.

Recently my sisters and I figured out what our roles in the family have always been while growing up. Ginna was the flake; Lizzie was the princess; Catey was the bitch; I was the know-it-all. I don't know how many people read this blog, but I guarantee you 70% are currently nodding their heads in agreement, and the other 30% probably just followed this link from Facebook and don't know me well enough to agree or disagree.

I am the know-it-all. I'm always right. I will correct you. If I don't outright correct you, I'll find a round-about way to do it. I always know the best way to do things. I'm judgmental. I get irritated with people I don't know on a daily basis because I think they're dumb. I'm a verbally aggressive driver. I'm right, and you're wrong. I'll make sure you know it. I do this because I have fear. Pride. I project. The way that I see the world is the way that I see myself. Everything for which I judge other people is something I see in myself.

Last night Corbin and I had a pretty confrontational argument about it. It was not a relationship-on-the-rocks argument by any means, but it was an I-think-you're-reacting-this-way-because-internally-you're-doing-this sort of argument, and I was throwing up any punch I could, grasping for anything I could hold onto that would make me feel like I wasn't completely and totally wrong in this situation. At first I felt justified in my original reaction and gave a poorly-formed apology. I was sorry, but not for the reasons I should have been. Obviously Corbin knew this and tried to tell me what I was doing. I moved on to the argument that if he wanted to point out what I was doing wrong, he was doing it the wrong way. I was desperate for anything that would justify my feeling of being so right.

I was wrong. And even when my head figured that out, I could not convince my heart. There was -- and is -- a physical knot in my chest that is loving the anger and resentment. It is kicking against the relief that would come if the knot could only loosen. I need humility but my fear makes me think that being wrong, being broken, is humiliating.

There's a long journey ahead.



I'm afraid of major change.
I'm afraid of getting a new job.
I'm afraid of not being liked.
I'm afraid of ordering Chinese food.
I'm afraid of being judged.
I'm afraid of being late.
I'm afraid of being wrong.
I'm afraid of making telephone calls.
I'm afraid of being reprimanded.
I'm afraid of making change in my life.
I'm afraid of running into people I used to know.
I'm afraid of not knowing myself.
I'm afraid of awkward silences.
I'm afraid of so many more things.

Lazy Pasta

When I was younger, I was a very picky eater. There were more things I didn't like than things that I liked. This pickiness - which made my mom's life ridiculously difficult - stretched on into high school, to the point where if my family wanted to go out for dinner, I would get moody if they chose to go somewhere new because I wouldn't know if I'd be able to find something on the menu.

One of the things that I wouldn't eat was pasta with any kind of red sauce, which my family loved to make loaded with sausage and vegetables. Usually my parents would have to make me something completely different for dinner, but pasta had an easier fix - leave some pasta out for me before tossing it with the sauce and I'll fix it up with some olive oil, salt, and dried basil. This was a dish that my mom's friend Carolyn had made for me when she babysat, and it stuck with me as a favorite for my whole life.

When I got to college, I didn't know how to cook much, so I'd usually stick with a few easy favorites, and this pasta was one of them. I can't even tell you how much pasta I ate sophomore year when I cooked dinner for myself, but gradually I learned too cook with more variety and flavor. Additionally, and this is even more important, my tastes have opened up monumentally in the past three years. This pasta has fallen pretty low on the list of dinner options as there are many more flavorful and adventurous possibilities, but I still love to pull it out on a night when Corbin's at work because it's simple and doesn't require thought. It was, in fact, the first food that was prepared in our new apartment!

This evening, I shared it for the first time with Corbin (I know, you'd think we'd have done this sooner, right?), and we agreed that this dish, lovingly named "Lazy Pasta," is perfect when you have absolutely no idea what to eat for dinner, or when it's really late and you've already eaten but you're hungry again, or when you're too busy to think about eating dinner but you're hungry. I think that's even part of what I love about it - saving it for random, lazy nights, not allowing it to enter into the realm of "actual dinner."

To make lazy pasta, pull out whatever unfinished box of pasta you have sitting in your pantry. I forbid you to go out and buy yourself a new box of pasta unless you don't have a single piece of pasta anywhere in your house. Personally, I prefer short pasta - penne, gemelli, ziti as opposed to spaghetti or capellini - and this evening we used the rest of a box of elbow macaroni that I bought to use in my spicy tomato soup (believe me, you want that recipe - keep your eye out, I'll write about it). Once your big pot of water is boiling - and this is a step you don't want to skip - heavily salt the water. It will blow your mind how this will bring out the natural flavor of the pasta. Cook the pasta according to the package directions, cooking it as long as the lower end of the time range. If it says to cook the pasta for 9-11 minutes, cook it for 9 to get that delicious al dente texture. Once it's done cooking and you've strained it and served it into bowls, drizzle olive oil over it and add some salt and whatever italian blend seasoning you have that you like. The dish originated with dried basil, but I like to add a little more flavor with a rosemary blend we have. It's as simple as that! Quick and lazy.

If you want to make your pasta a little less lazy, do what Corbin suggested we do this evening - shave a little parmesan on top (fresh only! I forbid you to use those green cans of powdered parmesan). Last week I splurged on a small piece of Parmigiano Reggiano, so we grated a bit on top of our pasta and wow, did it taste good!

What's your go-to dinner on a lazy night?

It's been a basil night.

At the beginning of June, our friends Mary and Hans bought a basil plant for us. It was a while before we finally got it from them, and when we did, it was huge. Huge, I tell you! I was afraid of killing it, as I usually do any living plant, but we stuck it in the window of the kitchen and kept watering it when needed.

Tonight, I decided to make use of the basil plant. It had nearly doubled in size so I cut off a sizable portion to make Basil Lemonade (duh). It's been too long. Interestingly enough, tonight is also the night Corbin and I decided to make our chicken quinoa stir fry, which is delicious and the recipe for which can be found on the back of the Trader Joe's quinoa box. The last thing you do for the dish is stir in fresh basil, so I hacked a little more off the plant and julienned it to add to our dish. Delicious, but it seems that I had some extra.

I've had a Sam's Club-size box of strawberries sitting in my fridge for about a week now, which I've been neglecting for grapes and junk food. I pulled them out and they looked a little squirrely, but I couldn't bear to throw them away, so I started cutting them up and thinking about what I could do with them. What would mask the mushy parts? What would mask the parts that were frozen from sitting in the back of the fridge? I decided to macerate them. For those of you who don't know, that means drawing the juices out of the fruit with sugar. I tossed them in a bowl with a  tablespoon of sugar, a few squeezes of lemon juice, and.... gasp! The leftover basil. This could either be the best idea ever or the worst idea ever.

It was the best. It's delicious. All you need to do is put a strawberry and a basil leaf in your hand to smell that it is a fantastic combination. Believe me, I know the combination may sound strange, but try it! Basil is my herb, fo' real.

In fact, add basil to the list.



p.s. Should you choose to macerate some berries tonight, let the berries sit in the sugar-lemon juice mixture for about thirty minutes at room temperature to give the sugar time to draw out the juice. Wonderful.

The Essence of Summer

You know that song that you heard a few days ago that you hadn't heard in a really long time that reminded you of that road trip when you listened to it over and over again? Do you remember when you tasted grape soda and were immediately flooded with memories of summers at your grandparents' beach house? What about the smell of spices that reminds you of steamy days when the odor of the spice factory behind your parents house filled the air with heavenly goodness?

Usually you don't realize that these things will bring back memories until they do. You overload on it, then you're deprived of it, and when you get it again, you think, "Ahhh, yes, I remember." Just as I'm writing this, Anthony Bourdain is eating clams that bring back memories of his childhood. 

This summer, I'm ahead of the game. I'm slowly developing a list of things that I believe will eventually remind me of this summer. I realize this requires distance at some point in the future, but I'm willing to bet that will happen because I'm a sucker for overdosing on something and not wanting it anymore. I'm hoping that since we're not even halfway through the summer, this list will grow, but I wanted to both document it and share it with you. Perhaps you can try making these things part of your summer list, too.

First off, basil lemonade. At first this didn't even make the list because I started early with this one: Easter weekend. I almost forgot about it! But I have a basil plant in my kitchen, a giant one, and every once in a while I lean over to smell the leaves and am filled with the taste of basil lemonade. It's fresh, it's refreshing, and it's a twist on a classic that I think you'll find better than the original. Here's the recipe:

1 cup of fresh-squeezed lemon juice
3 cups of water
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup fresh sweet basil, lightly torn
1 vanilla bean, split
lemon wedges and extra basil for garnish

In a large saucepan, combine the water, sugar, vanilla bean, and basil. Heat on the stove until the water begins to simmer; remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 15 minutes. Strain the mixture; combine with lemon juice and chill. Add lemon wedges and extra basil for garnish if desired.

Next on the list: these songs. 

Next up: coconut popsicles. I know that to some, this might not sound appetizing. Coconut doesn't even sound like it should be a popsicle flavor, but I guarantee you, it is. They're part of the Edy's Real Fruit popsicle line. They make lime and strawberry on a regular basis, and the other flavors vary based on the season. I've always loved tangerine and lemonade, which you usually see in the summer, but they've also come out with a sub-line of "antioxidant" popsicles which look tasty. "Creamy Coconut" is the flavor that I've always seen, but never tried. As a testament to the changing tastes of my tongue, I suddenly one day thought that creamy coconut popsicles sounded really refreshing and delicious. It was the smartest craving I've had in a while. 

Some of you may remember this from a previous post: "I'm kind of pissed at sunscreen. I used to think that sunscreen smelled like coconut; now I think that coconut smells like sunscreen. Coconut has been ruined for me." I assure you, this is not the case regarding the creamy coconut popsicles. It doesn't taste like fake coconut, it tastes like real coconut, and it's packed with coconut pieces. It's milky and soft and thirst-quenching. It's very difficult for me not to have two.

So this is my list so far. It's short, I understand; but it's growing. What I like about this particular list and being reminded of this summer is that I will also be reminded of moving into what feels like my first real apartment. It's coming together, and I feel like an adult. I even enjoy perusing antique malls for some retro finds. It feels good!