#365Gratitude Day 246: No Hassle Cooking

I used to not know how to cook at all.  Back in college I was so horrendously bad at it that my girlfriend-at-the-time once threw pancakes I had made her out the window, rather than tell me to my face how atrocious they were.

(That's 100% true.  Later that day we went for a drive somewhere, and as we pulled out of the garage, we both saw them laying on the ground.  The window to my apartment overlooked the driveway and the dumpster, but she missed the dumpster entirely.  Apparently while the pancakes were rubbish for eating, they were somewhat aerodynamic, and caught a good stiff breeze or something.)

Anyhow, decades later I decided to go on a low carb diet that required a lot of cooking.  So, I taught myself how to do it.  I'm not an amazing cook, but I know some stuff.  

The thing I like best about cooking is when I can improvise.  I'll take a recipe I find, and substitute ingredients I have on hand, maybe combine parts of other recipes with it.  (I make really, really good baked breaded chicken with a lemon-dill weed-caper cream sauce, just in this way.)

Last night, I did exactly that.  

Ages ago, back when I was working in Silver Spring, the building I worked in had a café that served this awesome spinach salad.  I loved it so much I got it at least three days a week.  A couple of weeks back I made my own version of it, but simpler.  I also found a recipe for "Hasselbeck Chicken".  This excited me because I've made Hasselbeck potatoes before.  (They're fan cut, and look kind of like a potato slinky.)  I had never thought of doing that fan-cut technique on chicken before, but it's a godsend.  Stuffing chicken breasts is a miserable experience.  It never turns out exactly the way I want.

I modded it up.  I didn't have the cajun spices, or the pepper jack cheese the recipe called for, so I used garlic powder and mozzarella in mine.  My spinach salad is super easy too.  Fresh spinach, chopped red onions, crumbled goat cheese, and a balsamic vinaigrette.  Combine, shake, serve.  

See? Supertotal easy!

The dish turned out just perfect.  I'm so glad I learned not to be afraid to cook, and to make tastier, less aerodynamic food.

#365Gratitude Day 245: Tools of the trade

This morning I was working on a scene in my new novel about the first time the main character experiments with a vibrator during masturbation.  I was struggling to find just the right way to describe certain sensations.

I decided to do a little research.  I got a "massager" of mine out of the bedroom, plugged it in here in my office, and rested it against the inside of my thigh, listening to the way it made my body feel.

This is how it felt.  

The vibrations sank into the muscle, tickling her skin on the surface, but spreading outward in a wave deeper down.  

I love my research.

#365Gratitude Day 244: Brushing up on what matters

Missy gave me a good, hard spanking with the bath brush tonight. I needed it, too. ​

I'm accountable to her for my choices. It's something I've asked her for, and which she both enjoys doing for me and because it makes her feel powerful. ​

This past week, while I really rocked at my writing, I made some rather poor eating and exercise choices.  I was over my calorie budget and only had two days of exercise to show for it. 

I didn't feel good about it, and told Missy so when I sent her the weekly report my food and exercise journaling tool compiles for me.  

I asked her if my opinion about the report mattered. She said, "your opinion always matters."  That made my heart melt. 

I told her I needed to be punished for my poor choices, and sure enough, she took care of me. 

After she sent me to get ready for bed.  In a little bit she will cuddle me to sleep.  

My bottom aches and my heart is over full. I'm so lucky she understands me, loves me, and takes such good care of me.  

#365Gratitude Day 243: Rabidly good at giving bubble baths

On Sunday I gave Leah a bubble bath.  I'm not the bubble-bath-givologist that Missy is.  (She's like the best bubble-bath-giver ever.) But I'm a good study, so I think I did a good job.

One of the things I did was let Leah suds me up with a big glob of the stuff, so I wound up looking like a rabid dog.

After which I barked at her like a crazy dog.  She laughed herself silly.

Good times.

#365Gratitude Day 242: The Cute Girl Compression Method

Friday night some of our Kids™ (adult age players who are in our family and belong to us) came over for the weekend.  Katiebug and her girlfriend, Leah.  We hadn't had a visit with both of them in ages.

We spent nice quality time, ate several meals together, snuggled, watched movies, and hung out. They also did us a big solid favor, helping us to move out of a storage bin we no longer need or want.  

We did this Saturday.  It was a bit of a comedy of errors.  I made the assumption that it would be super easy to rent a big van from The Home Depot for a few hours (it wasn't) and instead went with U-Haul.  My last minute decision resulted in a whole lot of shuffling about that made us drive to a place kinda far from our house or the bin to get the van, then have to load it up in a hurry.  

Some of what we moved/got rid of was old beds.  We had two in storage.  Mattresses are a horrible pain to move.  Mommy had the idea of putting one on a pull cart at the storage bin, and Leah had the great idea of folding it over and using something to weigh it down.

The something she suggested was in fact, herself.

Note Leah's adorable moving co-ordinated ensemble.

 This worked out great.  We employed the Cute Girl Compression Method twice, and got the van loaded up in short order.  

Then after a now-comical-but-not-then-funny-in-even-the-slightest-way discovery that Goodwill doesn't take mattresses but that the Salvation Army does, we were able to unload the stuff we were giving away, and bring the rest back to the house.

This all took about 2 hours longer than I thought it would.  (Side note, I'm also very, very grateful to my sister-in-law who used her charm and clever trickiness to bamboozle the angry counterman at the U-Haul place out of charging me a $250 "You're an idiot Mako" fee.)

After which we all went out for well earned milkshakes and burgers.  

I'm grateful for all the clever help and resourcefulness my family gives me.