Roasted Chicken Drumsticks

Recipe 9: It's been a few weeks since I've cooked these, but I wanted to report on them. I grabbed this recipe here, and it was simple enough to make.

I had to make a few adjustments because we didn't have all the ingredients. So, I did store bought lime juice and I added some honey into the mix because I like a little sweetness.

The flavor was a little underwhelming though. It needed some more seasoning or to marinate I suppose, but it was a tasty meal with macaroni and cheese and garlic toast.

I need to eat more vegetables though, so my next recipe may have to be a veggie recipe. 

An Unquiet Mind

Photo: Amazon.com

Book 9: An Unquiet Mind by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison is a memoir about her journey from diagnosis to treatment of manic-depressive illness or bipolar disorder. When the book was published Jamison was a professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and she writes about how she came to the decision to go public with her disease and about how some people reacted with kindness and understanding and others not so much. Of course, there are concerns about her ability to treat patients while she herself suffers from mental illness, which is a lot like the premise of the television show Black Box, except that on Black Box, Dr. Black is not public about her illness except for those closest to her. 

Reading the book and watching the show has made me think a lot about mental illness and the stigma that it carries. People can be less understanding and sympathetic of mental illness because it's often invisible. Many of the wounds are hidden, and often something tragic happens before the illness is even detected. Something that Jamison does well is being honest about both sides of her illness. On the one hand, it can help drive her creativity and passions when she's experiencing a mania, but it can also cause violent moods and depressions so dark that she's attempted suicide. 

What I like most about this book is it's transparency, and the way that Jamison shows all sides of living with this difficult, but treatable illness. She ends the memoir on positive note, reflecting on the support and love that helped her get through. She confesses on the last few pages that though the book started out being about mood disorders, it's also about love: "Love as a sustainer, as renewer, and as protector. After each seeming death within my mind or heat, love has returned to re-create hope and to restore life." Jamison was quite lucky that she had so much support, but others are not as fortunate. This book reminds me that everyone deserves kindness and understanding and that I should say and do all things with love because everyone is battling something whether or not the scars are visible.

View from the Top

Last Friday, I crossed another item off my list when Michael and I rode the SkyView Ferris Wheel in Atlanta. It's located across from Centennial Olympic Park, but the view is still quite lovely. We had a nice ride, but it rocked a little bit more than I prefer.

I got a pretty good deal on tickets through ScoutMob. I was able to get tickets for two plus dinner at Park Bar for just $49!

It's a pretty sweet view from the top. Check out these pictures for proof.

The Sound of Rain Man

Film 9: It's true--I just saw The Sound of Music (1965) for the first time ever. What's funny is that I know a lot of the music from the film, just never watched it. Mike and I watched it on sing-a-long mode because that's just how we roll. It was everything I expected from a musical--cheery, sweet, funny, and just a little drama for balance. I was not expecting the Nazis though. Apparently, I based my whole idea on what this film was about on the cover alone. The trailer was no help either. All this time, I just thought that it was about singing in the mountains. Boy, was I wrong. Anyway, I found it to be fun and delightful film, and it makes me want to watch Mary Poppins, which I have also never seen.

Film 10: I love character-driven films, and Rain Man (1988) did not disappoint. I also love road trip films because all of life is really a journey. The most impressive thing about Rain Man is Dustin Hoffman's performance, which was outstanding. I found this film to be a moving, honest, powerful drama about the twists and turns of life and family.

Beautiful Chaos

I didn't cook anything this weekend--mostly ate leftovers/out, or this week, so I have no new Tasty Thursday recipes to share. Instead, here's an update on my home organization progress.



Photo: Morguefile.com

Lately, I've been pinning a lot on my organization board on Pinterest, and I found a pin on getting organized in four weeks. It sounded pretty good until I realized that it was for a stay at home mom because she was describing the whole morning routine that she has, which was something like: wake up, read Bible, run (run?! really??), shower, get dressed, clean bathrooms, unload dishwasher, start laundry, and on and on and on. If she's a working mom, then she must get up at like 3 AM. I'm lucky if I can get up in time to pack a lunch for myself on most mornings! There's nothing wrong with SAHM's, but I'm not a mom, and I work, so these exhausting routines will not work for me. Even when I wasn't working, I could get this organization thing down, so I'm just going to (everybody sing it with me) let it go!

I'm never going to be as organized as I would like. The label-maker will never be my best friend. I have and always will be a piler not filer, but that doesn't mean I'm sloppy. I just live in a beautiful chaos. I know where everything is, and I've made it difficult for anyone to rob me. Good luck finding anything worthwhile, crooks! I'm also never going to keep up with a routine or cleaning schedule. I'd like to--I'd love to be able to, but that's not who I am either. I won't let these to do and lists and routines dictate my days. I get done what needs to be done on my own schedule.

I'm just behind schedule right now, but I've started a donate box or two, and I just need to get it out of the house. I'm hoping to finish a little bit each day.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Book 8: Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir about her grieving the death of her husband, who died suddenly from heart failure.

My favorite quotation from this book is: "Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know if ends." And I agree, life odes change fast. In an instant.

This book really resonated with me because part of what she does is relive the moments before, during, and after her husband's death to get closure. And partly, I think she's seeking an answer to the question: Could this have been avoided? or could I have done something differently? 

This resonates with me, because those are the same questions that I ask myself about  my mom. I try to remember things like when did we first notice something wasn't right after the surgery. I wonder if we should have pushed harder to get them to do an MRI sooner. What if she never had the surgery? She'd probably be blind, but she would still be herself.

I try not to go down that path too often though, because it doesn't change anything. I have to tell myself that we did the best we could. We did what we thought needed to be done. Life as we knew it ended, but life is still going on. We do the best we can. And we live on.

My Girly Girl Take on Rocky

Photo Credit: Morguefile.com

Film 6: Terms of Endearment (1983) is the kind of film that I wish I had watched with my mom. I enjoyed watching the ups and downs of their relationships, marriages, and family. I thought it was a very realistic look at love and life and relationships. It's truly a timeless piece of cinema that will translate well for future generations. The world may change, but the way that people relate to each other pretty much stays the same.

**Spoiler Alert** Don't read ahead if you haven't seen Rocky and would like to see it in the future.

Film 7: Rocky (1976) surprised me. Seriously. I always thought that Rocky won at the end. I don't know why, I just assumed he did. I was actually a little shocked--I mean, all that running in Converse's and punching raw meat and that pretty graphic fight at the end and he loses. Boo!!!

The second thing that surprised me was how much "heart" was in this film. Let me first say that, I'm not a big fan of sports or sports movies or jocks, so when I first starting watching Rocky all I could see was this dumb jock just going through his life. Working out, drinking beer, beating people up, etc.

I started getting into the film as Rocky's feelings for Adrienne were revealed, especially how he was ready to punch the guy that told her he should take her to the zoo because "retards like the zoo." So, girly girl that I am, I really loved watching their relationship evolve and how her brought her out of her shell. Oh, how I wish that I wore glasses and that just taking them off would suddenly make me beautiful. And of course, I love how he explains to Paulie that his relationship with Andrienne works because they fill each others "gaps" or shortcomings to become whole. That's not something I was expecting to hear in a jock movie. His character is actually pretty endearing, like how he comes up with a excuse to buy different turtle food just to talk to Adrienne and how he tells her that what the people on TV were saying about him really bothered him even though he said they didn't. That vulnerabilty is not something I was expecting to see.

Also, beacuse I was a big fan of Arrested Development, I recognized Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed, and all I could think about during every scene was how in Arrested Development Carl swindles Tobias into paying for acting lessons, and how Carl wanted to save bones from dinner to get a stew going. 

So, if I were to summarize this film, I would say that it's a love story between Rocky and Adrienne while Rocky trains for some fight at the end. That's my girly girl take on Rocky. 

My First Frittata & Honey Balsamic Chicken

Recipe 7: Mike's dad gave us a cast iron skillet one weekend, and I've been wanting to try out a frittata for the longest time. I just never had an oven-proof skillet for that last step of cooking the frittata in the oven. For my first attempt at this, I tried making a kale, potato, and onion frittata. The recipe is simple enough and the ingredients aren't hard to come by. I nearly dropped the skillet trying to get it into the oven. Note to self: Use two hands to transfer the skillet from stove to oven. Anyway, the picture I took doesn't really do it justice, and I added the cheese as an after thought because I love cheese.

 

 

Recipe 8: Yesterday, I woke up at 4 AM, for no apparent reason and couldn't go back to sleep, so I made a marinade for Honey Balsamic Chicken. I was going to make it on Tuesday night, but I didn't realize that I had to let the chicken marinade for 2 hours or overnight, so Mike and I went out to dinner, and I was supposed to prepare the marinade when we got back, but that just didn't happen. Anyway, I like this recipe because it doesn't call for a lot of crazy ingredients, just what you see below minus the not pictured ingredients.

 

Not Pictured: Chicken and Corn Starch

So, I put the marinade together and let it sit in the fridge all day while I was a work. When I got home, I popped the chicken in the oven. While it was cooking, I worked out to Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD, which is no joke, and I'm still feeling the effects of it today. By the time the workout was done, the chicken was ready, and all that was left was making the glaze. I served it with some rice vermicelli noodles, and it was very good, so this is a recipe, I'll likely use again.

 

Recipes 8/30 complete. I'm hoping to do some baking this weekend. I'd like to make bread, but we'll see. What should I cook up next?