I wrote a post about body image a while back and I feel like I need to bring something up. Have any of you heard of skinnygossip.com? It’s a “thinspirational” blog dedicated to being a bitch about anyone bigger than a size two’s size. Maybe you’ve heard of them because of the controversy over what they’ve said about Kate Upton. Now I’m all for people being aware of obesity issues in America and everyone wanting to work towards being healthy, not necessarily skinny mind you, but at a healthy weight and build for their age and height. There is a right way to do this however, and then there is the skinnygossip way. Now she has back tracked and said she meant it to be a gossip blog with a “snarky counter-view to culture”. Here is the thing though, there is snarky and then there is downright cruel and deplorable. She likened Kate Upton to a cow. A Cow! Now I’m not particularly a kate upton fan but I will concede that she is a beautiful woman. And to call her fat is ridiculous. Yes she is a bit bigger than most of her model peers but I think that’s a good thing. This blog goes on in other posts fat shaming people. Yes I realize the girl wants to bring notice to the glorifying of excess but again, fat shaming is not the way to do it. She also brings up that she gets the same treatment by people telling her she needs to eat more, etc. Guess what? I have too. Most skinny girls do but that doesn’t make it ok to fat shame. How about you make a blog dedicated to healthy body image instead of fat shaming those that don’t fit into your mold of skinny? All your doing is turning what was done to you and putting it upon others and that isn’t right. Yes it needs to be brought to people’s attention that we have an epidemic of obesity and making obesity ok but when you go and take women who have a perfectly healthy body size and say that she is a fat cow and has a double chin because she doesn’t look like a stick you are just adding to the problem.

Just found out

one of my favorite DIY blogs is located in the same city as me

To Do

So I’ve got some projects I need to get done that I will share with you guys.

Refinish my vanity

Refinish my coffee table

build floating deck

dig out front flower gardens

paint various rooms

build open closet

refinish dining room table

build sun room furniture

reupholster loveseat

And thats about it right now. I’m supposed to have a job interview either friday or saturday so hopefully I will get the job and have the money to get these all finished. Hopefully I’ll have them all finished before school starts.

It was brought to my attention via a kind of rude reblog (or maybe it’s just me) that my kitchen cabinets were messy and that they looked really bad and my dishes do not match and are not worth looking at. Because of this I feel like I need to let you guys know a little more about me and my life.

I am a 21 year old college student. I just moved into this house with my boyfriend and his cousin (hopefully there will be a fourth person here soon unless we decide we can afford to only have us three here). I am currently not working first due to the fact that we were moving 2 hours from our previous apartment and now because I haven’t been able to find a job yet. My portion of the rent, bills, and food are paid for by my student loan money and it covers just that and nothing extra. I get a bi-weekly allowance from my mother when I do not have a job so that I can put it aside should an emergency come up or if there is something I really need to get. To put it simply, I’m poor. I don’t have any extra money to go buy brand new dishes that all match. Everything I have is stuff that my mother bought me in high school to prepare me for when I would be living on my own and then stuff she has bought me over the years from pampered chef. No it doesn’t all match. I don’t think it should have to match (I just reorganized my cabinets today and they look much better now IMO) and that it can still look good without all the dishes being cookie cutter matches. Yes my cabinets were quite messy in those pictures but I had JUST finished taking those doors off and had yet to reorganize or get new containers for certain things. I have since gotten two baskets (I would have gotten more but they were the last two in the store so I have to order them off the website now) and a container for my rice. And to say that my dishes are not nice to look at is a bit rude. You are entitled to your own opinion but it isn’t like they are thrift store dishes that are all super chipped and dingy and cracked. They are quite nice dishes.

And yeah my kitchen looks like crap but I have to work with what I’ve got because there isn’t a whole lot I can do. I rent this house, I do not own it. I am allowed to paint and will once I have some extra cash to buy paint but other than that I can’t do a whole lot else. And honestly my cabinet organization is the least of my worries when it comes to my kitchen. I have weird bars with ugly laminate, TILE counters and back splash and and old cabinets that desperately need to be replaced. I apologize that my kitchen is not up to your standards and honestly it isn’t up to mine but aside from the reorganization I needed to do there is not a whole lot else I can do.

Just some further advice, it’s awesome when people have comments or suggestions or even constructive criticism, but don’t bother reblogging my stuff if all you have are negative comments that come off as a bit pretentious and rude and aren’t constructive in any way. Not all of us are able to do full renovations. Oh and by the way, my kitchen is clean as I scrub it every single day but the cabinets need a new coat of paint and I don’t have the money to do that.

Here are photos of my cabinets now for anyone who is interested.

I switched them around some. I put all our plastic cups and dishes in a separate cabinet and put our main dishes on the bottom shelves. My mixing bowls and such are on the top shelf and cups and my nice bamboo bowls are in the middle. Still not exactly what I want but close. One day I will have all bamboo and clear glass dishes.

Here I have my rice in a nice container now and most of my stuff is in these nice baskets I found at Wal Mart for a buck each. Still not precisely what I want as I would love to have an actual pantry but that will all come when we actually own the place or if our landlord will pay for a kitchen remodel if we do most to all of the work ourselves.

So they aren’t quite as messy now and I still completely disagree that my stuff isn’t nice to look at, sure it isn’t cookie cutter perfect but neither am I.

So

I haven’t posted in a while because frankly, I’ve been super busy. I had finals for school, my boyfriends graduation weekend, paperwork and other such nonsense for getting our lease taken over, and now working on moving. So now the next 2 1/2 weeks are going to be filled with packing, throwing stuff out, slowly loading cars up, apartment hunting (because unfortunately we’ve had to put that part off for far to long) and subsequently a lease signing, then a full weekend of moving all our stuff out of our current place, steam cleaning the carpets and washing the walls, and then moving and settling into our new place. But I promise, there will be plenty of posts later because I have so much I want to get done especially since I’ll actually have an outdoor area.

Taking suggestions

So I realized that all these awesome dessert recipes I have, while delicious, aren’t very adventurous. So I want ask of you tumblrs, what should I make? I want something fun and funky, something that I can be creative with. Think cupcake wars or Sweet Genius (which I watch religiously). So whatever you have shoot it to me.

Oh dear god

So to try and fill up my extra time I decided to start taking a zumba class every Monday, and possibly Thursdays as well if I don’t feel like killing myself. Tonight marked my second class and phew. What in the hell did I get myself into? I know I’m not in great shape to say the least but I didn’t think I was in THAT bad of shape.

During my first class I felt like my muscles were about to cramp up on me and there were multiple times where I almost passed out right there in the middle of a song. Afterwards I went home, took a mildly warm shower and sat my freshly squatted booty on the couch and promptly felt my muscles starting the painful process of tightening up.Three days later and I was finally able to get up and walk around without my back being in to much pain.

Tonight I succeeded in NOT almost passing out so I think I deserve a cookie or something for that. Afterwards I came home feeling proud that I made it through the class and didn’t feel like killing myself despite the fact that it was almost 90 degrees out today and we were in a gym with no a/c let alone ventilation. I promplty hopped into a cold shower and now I’m sitting here writing this, proud of the fact that I am enjoying and keeping up with a work out regiment. And hey, maybe I’ll even start going on Thursdays so I can feel even better about myself. Now excuse me while I go nurse my aching knees and back and try not to have ALL my muscles tighten up on me tonight.

Your body and you

So today I wanted to write a more serious blog post. Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff having to do with body image and that not being a size 0 is ok. Because of this I wanted to write a post talking about body image, self worth, etc., and my own personal thoughts and struggles with it. Now before you read this I want to clarify: I am not trashing people for being overweight. I am bringing to light certain issues that I believe need to be discussed.

First off, lets talk about this new “being curvy is beautiful and ok” trend. I love this trend. I think that women should be able to be proud of their curves. Hell, most of us have curves, even me. For the record though, you can still be skinny and have curves. I have a more slender stomach but my hips are like *BAM* a good ten inches farther around than my waist. Now that being said, I want to discuss this misconception that seems to be going around. Curvy does not equal obese and especially not morbidly obese. Now for those of you who may not know the difference between the three, I am going to provide you with some pictures.

This is Adele, we all know and love her and she is proud to be a CURVY woman:

This is Gabourey Sidibe, the actress who played Precious. She is OBESE and is on the edge of being morbidly obese:

These are children and, for their age and height, they are morbidly obese:

Curvy is good, you should be happy. Obesity and morbid obesity however are not something you should be proud of. You face multitudes of health problems and honestly you are a bad role model for the youth. Yes, girls need to be taught that being bigger and having curves as they get older is ok but there is a huge difference between that and telling people that its ok to be obese.

Next, I want to discuss this trend of skinny bashing. I know what you are thinking, skinny girls deserve it right? They’re the whole reason larger curvy girls are bashed. Let me put it this way, have you ever wondered if maybe that size two girl was making fun of you to make herself feel better about her body? I can talk about this from experience. My older sister is a larger girl, not morbidly obese by any standards, but she is definitely a little overweight. I am very protective of her and would happily get into a fight to defend her. Even with all of this though I used to get on her case about her weight and not in a very nice way. It was always out of concern because I do love my sister and I want her to be healthy, but I never really went about it in the right way and probably hurt her feelings a lot every time I brought it up. I like to think I am more positive and less criticizing of her now by encouraging her when she tells me she has lost a couple of pounds and trying to share with her new ideas for exercise or food.

That being said, skinny girls are being vilified. The girls who are at the lower end of their healthy weight range, the ones who can’t help that they’re skinny. I can’t tell you how many times in school I was told I needed to eat more and that I was to skinny. And it wasn’t an “Ellen we are concerned that you may be underweight”. It was a “girl why are you so small? You need to eat more, you’re to bony”. That hurt a lot. Especially since I couldn’t help that I was skinny. My entire family can vouch for that as I have a humongous appetite. Hell, my brother and I once got into a competition when I was 16 (he was 12 so a growing boy who is also known for his larger appetite) and we were at IHOP. We both ended up ordering two full meals each and I ate every last bite. I was eating so much and never really gaining any weight yet I’m sitting here being told by girls that I’m to skinny and there were times where I was told no guy would want to date me because my hips stuck out to much, I had a smaller chest, and I just plain didn’t really have soft curves. It hurt and that hurt my self worth and self esteem.

To this day I still have self worth and self esteem issues. I’m in a loving committed relationship with a man that loves me and yet every so often I look in the mirror and wonder at myself if I’m pretty enough for him. I sit there and tell myself that I’m not good enough for him and that he deserves better than me. And its not just because I was told I was to skinny. It was all the bullying I dealt with throughout school. People see me today and think that I am so confident in my looks and who I am, but in reality I am insecure about everything. I dealt with being told I was ugly and looked like a boy. I dealt with being made fun of because I wore some hand me downs. I was made fun of for being socially awkward. Every part of me was ripped apart by my classmates. But today? you would never know it. I’ve still got my moments of self worth issues and feeling I am less than I am but I’ve become better about it. I’ve been knocked down by an ex who treated me like shit after he dumped me. I’ve dealt with a father who accused me of prostituting when I was 13, a father who took away my makeup and black clothes because I was an embarrassment to him and he didn’t want someone he knew to see me in my normal attire for fear of being embarrassed and thought poorly off.

Over the years I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety, problems I still deal with. I’ve contemplated suicide and becoming an alcoholic. I’ve dealt with so many things in my short time that I don’t think any one person should have to deal with. Honestly though? I am a stronger person for it.

I feel like every person should be stronger for their experiences. I’ve learned that the bad in life only serves to make you stronger and you can’t let what others say or think of you affect how you see yourself. That being said however there is something that I want to put out there. If you are obese or morbidly obese I beseech of you, don’t be proud about this. Don’t take the whole “curves are beautiful” to mean being unhealthy and obese is beautiful. I am sure you are a beautiful person on the inside and I am happy that you are comfortable with yourself. However, you being ok with being obese or morbidly obese is unhealthy for you and unhealthy for our youth. When they see someone who is obese talking about how they are proud of it or that they are ok with being that big they get the wrong idea and think that it’s ok to live an unhealthy life style. No one should be ok with being so large that they’re stomach hangs over top of their waist band when they are standing. No one should be ok with being so big they have fat hanging over their elbows. Again, obesity is not beautiful and not something you should brag about, those “curves” you keep telling us smaller girls to get are just hanging rolls of fat. I understand that some people can’t help it and that they have gland or thyroid problems and such but there are things they can do to lose weight and bring their size down. Do something that is better for yourself and become a role model for youth that are overweight, lose some weight.

And for those of you wondering if you are at a healthy weight and such here is a link:http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/index.html

You may be bigger than you thought

I’ve been seeing a lot of articles and posts lately where ladies have posted about discovering they were not wearing the right bra size and discovered they were indeed larger (usually only a cup size bigger and a band size smaller) than they thought they were. So out of curiosity I decided to remeasure myself and see if I was indeed wearing the right bra size. Now I’ve been wearing the same size bra since the 8th grade and I didn’t think my chest had grown very much over the years (I’m currently 21 so this is over a span of 9 years). After some searching I was directed to a website (http://www.sophisticatedpair.com/bracalculator.htm) that seemed to be pretty reliable. Now I want to say real quick that the normal way of measuring for your bra size is very outdated and this is why a lot of women aren’t actually wearing the right size bra. For those of you who have never known how bra size is usually calculated, the way that is now considered grossly outdated, you take your underbust measurement (right under your boobs) and add four inches if its an even number, 5 if its odd. Next you measure around the fullest part of your bust. take that number and subtract your band size from it and you get your cup size. Negative numbers are AA and AAA, 1 is A, 2 is B, 3 is C, and so on. 

So an example. My underbust measurement is 32 inches. I add four to get a band size of 36. My bust measurement is 35 inches. Now, by the old method this means my cup size is a -1 or AA. AA’s absolutely don’t fit me so I have always sized up to an A.

I went to this site and they have a specific algorithm so all you do is input your band size without adding anything (mine is 32) and then you input your bust measurement in the other box (mine is 35) click calculate size and bam, you’ve got what your bra size should be.

Now there is a disclaimer stating that this is only a starting point and you should still get a professional fitting (obviously by someone who doesn’t use the old method as its been shown that it is outdated and flawed and the reason why a lot of women are wearing the wrong size) and actually try bras on, which makes sense as, like clothes, some companies bra sizes are different from others.

So I did all this and got my bra size. I have to say my jaw kind of dropped as soon as it gave me my size and I have a feeling of calling bull shit. Like I said, I’ve been wearing sizes anywhere between 32-36 A’s for years. Now what is my bra size apparently? A 32 C! So now I’ve got to plan a trip to the mall and start trying bras on. I’m a little giddy with excitement I have to say as it has always been hard for me to find lingerie and bras in my size since most of them start with B cups. So excuse me while I go on a spree of trying bras on.

Pink lemonade mini cakes

Two updates in one day! Holy cheezewiz Batman! So I just finished making these adorable little mini cakes and they are, well, adorable. When I went grocery shopping last week I was perusing the center aisle displays and noticed that Pillsbury came out with pink lemonade cake and cookie mixes. So of course I had to buy a box of the cake mix to try out and what do you know? The back of the box had a pretty good looking recipe on it. So no long listed recipe for this post as all you have to do to get it is go pick yourself up a box of the mix. This recipe also calls for lemon curd as a topping so here is a recipe I really like: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/lemon-curd-recipe/index.html

I also suggest making lots of lemon curd if you think you are going to use it pretty often like I do as you can simply freeze whatever you don’t use and thaw it out when you need it.

Southwestern Pizza Con Queso

Hello Kittens! So for dinner I made some delicious, albeit very messy, pizza. This is yet again another Pampered Chef recipe (seriously guys, they’re cookbooks are great: http://www.pamperedchef.com/) and is fairly easy to make. Instead of a pre-baked crust I used a pizza dough mix and the only difference is you need to pop it in the oven for about 2 minutes longer initially. Also I learned the hard way that you do not need to use the whole container of salsa as I decided to, otherwise you will be eating this pizza with a fork. So without further ado, here is the recipe:

1 pkg pre-baked thin crust pizza crust, 8 oz. cooked chicken breasts shredded, 1 tsp vegetable oil, 1 small red bell pepper, 1 small green bell pepper, 1 small red onion, 2 tbspSouth western seasoning mix(can be bought off of pampered chefs website), 2/3 c. monterey jack salsa con queso (can be found in walmart), 1/2 c shredded mexican cheese blend.

Preheat oven to 450 F. Place pizza crust top side down on round stone (or pizza sheet) and bake 4-5 minutes. Remove and turn crust top side up.

Add oil to skillet and heat over medium heat for 1-3 minutes. Meanwhile cut bell peppers and onions into thin slices and and toss in seasoning mix. Add the vegetable mixture to the skillet and cook for 2-3 minutes or until tender. Add the shredded chicken and cook about a minute to heat through. Remove from the heat.

Using a spatula, evenly spread the salsa over the crust leaving about a 1 inch border around the edge. Top with the chicken and veggie mixture and then sprinkle with the cheese blend. Bake in the oven for 7-8 minutes, remove, let cool.

Enjoy!

Baking Fail

Well, I was going to post about these delicious lemon meringue cupcakes I was making this afternoon. However, upon taking said cupcakes out of the oven and letting them cool I thought they looked a little weird. I stood there for about 5 minutes trying to figure out exactly what happened and why they looked so strange and so dense. Wouldn’t you know it? I forgot the darn baking powder in the batter. Major palm to face moment. So there will be no delicious lemon meringue cupcakes this week but I will be posting a delicious Southwestern pizza con queso recipe tomorrow and a different treat Thursday.

Chai Swirl Cookies

Hello once again kats and kittens! So my plan originally was to make some delicious cupcakes but both the different types I considered making I either didn’t have neough of an ingredient or just plain didn’t have it….soooo those will be done at other times. Instead I decided to do these cookies that I have been meaning to make but just haven’t gotten to. They’re so cute and the perfect mixture of sugar and spice and everything nice. Now the recipe and picture that came along say that they’re supposed to be circles (because that is what shape cookies generally are after all. I however, decided that these would be even cuter done as a little bit of a loaf shape.

Now the recipe itself claims that it will yield 3-4 dozen cookies but mine didn’t. I don’t have a pastry mat though so I couldn’t exactly measure my squares out which would make sense…. Anyways, here is the recipe and some pictures. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups plus 3 tbsp of all-purpose flour, divided

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

3/4 tsp ground cardamom (warning, its like 10 dollars for a bottle of this but its a decent size bottle)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter softened

2/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tbsp light molasses

Directions:

In a small bowl combine 1 3/4 cups flour, baking powder, spices, and salt; mix well. In a mixing bowl cream your butter and sugar together, then add your egg and vanilla. Beat this until it it light and fluffy (you can use an electrical mixer as is recommended but I don’t own one and if I’m going to spend the money on one I want a nice one which are expensive…). Then gradually add your flour mix. mix this together until it forms into a dough. Next your going to divide the dough in half (I used my bowl the flour mix was in to put one half in), add molasses and the remaining 3 tbs of flour to one of the halves. Now cover these bowls and chill for 30 minutes.

While you’re waiting I recommend making a sandwich since baking is super hard work.

Now that you’ve had a sandwich and chilled your dough you are going to take your pastry mat (or if you don’t have one like me, flour your counter). Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll your dough out ( I recommend lightly flouring your dough as well for minimal stickiness) to two 8x11 inch rectangles. Place your lighter colored rectangle onto your darker one and start rolling it tightly into a log (you want your log to be 11 inches long) after that wrap it in parchment paper (aluminum foil works as well) and stick it in the fridge for two hours.

Now you have plenty of time to clean the dishes you used and watch a show or two.

Now that your log has chilled preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your cookie sheet(s) with parchment paper (again, aluminum foil works just as well). Cut your douch into quarter inch slices and place them on the cookie sheet. Put them in the oven and bake them for 7-9 minutes (I know, not long at all). Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let you cookies cool. Now eat.