Diet Food

So I was totally stressing about this post because all yous guys are like totally hilarious and way smarter than me and all I could think was "MUST BE FUNNY! MUST BE SMART!" And it just wasn't coming. So INSTEAD I shall distract you all with pictures of deliciousness. Because this is going to be a FOOD post!

Back story: Hyram is on a diet. He decided he wanted to lose 30 pounds. So of course I'm thinking "Screw you, male human. Just don't look at pop for a week and BAM! You'll lose 30 pounds." Because for real. Being a man is just so unfair. But anyway he has become Expert Hyram because of the 3 podcasts he's listened to. Which means that he has been suckered in to the whole "grains are indigestible and bad for you" thing. Whatever. Well sort of whatever. Because now he's not eating grains. Which means I can't make things with grains. Which means ALL I DO IS WANT TO EAT BREAD. So rude, right? I'm not on a diet, I'll eat BOTH our shares of bread. Just TRY and stop me. But anyway, he's also not eating processed/refined sugars. Which I agree with more. But of course we are all humans and we all love dessert. He had heard on one of his podcasts that cheesecake is the best dessert to eat when on a diet because it has fairly high protein and low sugar. Which made me think: maybe I could still make a cheesecake that he can eat freely even within the limits of his diet?

Hence this amazing recipe I'm going to now share with you.

So.

WHAT YOU NEED:

Butter, whipping cream, maple syrup, cream cheese, unsweetended coconut, vanilla (forgot to put that in the picture).

HOW YOU DO IT:

Step 1: Put 2 cups of coconut and 1/4 cup melted butter into a pie plate. Mix and smash in to shape.

  

Step 2: Stick your coconut crust in to a 350 degree oven and cook for 10-12 minutes until it starts getting toasty and brown (and your house starts smelling like yummy). And then set it in the fridge to cool for about a 1/2 hour.

Step 3: In a bowl, beat 1 cup of whipping cream to stiff. Set aside.

Step 4: In a different bowl, whip 2 blocks of cream cheese til smooth-ish (PS guys, no name has done something super cool with their foil packaging that makes it super easy to open! About time! NO NAME FOR LYFE!) Then add in 1/2 cup of maple syrup and beat til all the lumps are gone.

Step 4: Add the whipped cream in to the cream cheese mixture and gently (or not so gently. I'm a beast) mix together til smooth. At this point you can also add 1 tsp of vanilla and if you wanna go crazy you can add a lemon's worth of zest OR if you're REALLY adventurous, like 2 drops of lemon oil (don't yell at me Amy!)

Step 5: Slop all this mess in to the pie crust that should be cooled and shove it back in the fridge for like an hour or something until it's set a bit. I've also put this in a freezer and it's super duper yummy when it's half frozen!

Step 6: EAT IT!!!!!! Top with your favorite pie filling, fresh fruit, or like me you can microwave some frozen strawberries with a little cornstarch and maple syrup! YUMMO!

This is going to be my favorite dessert forever, and I'm fairly certain I've decided that coconut crust is where it's at. For realz you, it's the shiz. 

I hope you all try this and enjoy!! I guess it's not low fat, but it's TOTALLY gluten free (Laurel), low sugar, low carb, high protein! Yay!

Camera Face

So, I recently was cornered into getting a headshot taken for my show’s playbill. She took me over to a blank wall that the daylight could reach, pulled out her semi-fancy little camera, held it almost as high as the full extent of her arms (turns out my director is a tad short), and pressed the button. It turned out something like this:

She said, “Good?” and although I in no way thought it was good, it looked just about as flattering as most posed photographs of me look, so I said, “Yup looks great!” really just to get out of there and forget the whole thing.

It got me thinking, once again, about Camera Face. Like, as in, maybe it’s not such a stupid idea for me to spend a few hours of my life developing one. I know people actually do this. One of my sisters in law literally looks exactly the same in every single picture I have seen her in. It’s something along these lines:

Always from below and to the side (every time same side), no teeth showing, pursed lips. She’s worked on this. Especially evidenced by the fact that I find the result looks as little like her real self as possible without actually being a different person.

Actually my other sister-in-law has a Camera Face too. It’s more like this:

I don’t get it.

So anyway I’ve thought about it some. My main trouble is that it turns out my face is somewhat rounder than I imagine it to be when I look in the mirror. And my nose hookier. And my eyebrows sinister-er. I’ve considered how I might rectify this problem but it actually requires some skill. I have this issue with my eyes where one often is a bit more open than the other. It has this effect in pictures:

So I thought maybe if I artificially open my eyes...

Insane much?

There’s also the question of angle. I think I work better with the head-tilted-to-side look.

But you can’t always pull that off.

Plus I don’t want to come off like I’m trying.

I mean I am trying. But I don’t want to come off that way.

I also have this habit of doing a sort of sideways smile which I always considered endearing but turns out it just mixes with the unbalanced eyes to enhance the mentally-challenged-serial-killer look. Also I have that stupid gum smile I used to judge other people for before I realized I am in fact a perpetrator. OH THE HORROR! Anyway, here are some other options I threw together:

It’s an exhausting business, constructing and perfecting your Camera Face. But I am determined—determined—to one day NOT have a completely hideous headshot.

Why can’t they just use this one?

The Only Thing

The only thing I could possibly write about this week is what our family has been dealing with this week as our aunt (and sister) Carolyn passed away in a car accident on Sunday. Sunday was my own daughters tenth birthday, and I remembered that my grandfather Ivan died the week she was born. In between we also lost our grandmother.

I cant write a long tribute to Carolyn's life as we lived far away from each other for most of my life, but I know she loved me. There are photos of her holding me as a baby. There are photos of her visiting Ottawa, there are photos of her at my wedding with her children.

Now I am an aunt with six nieces and nephews who live far away, so I know how she must have followed my life from afar, getting pleasure from good news about me and worrying about my struggles.

I have a specially blessed life because I have a lot of people who love me in this way. I exist in a supportive webbing of threads of strength made up of love for me. Everyone on earth has the same strong rope consisting of the love of God, but many people are sort of hanging by that thread.

I don't know why I and my family qualify for such luck, but WE all exist in an expansive woven web of threads.

When I found out that Carolyn was gone from this life, I felt the sadness of empathy for those whose lives she was in more often, but I also felt something I didn't expect. I felt the change in my web as a person who loved me crossed from this life into the next.

Another special blessing in our family is the blessing of eternal families. My grandparents and parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, many cousins, are sealed together so that when one of us crosses over, the threads in our webs are not broken. The ends of the threads are anchored in Eternity so they can never break.

No matter how old I get and how many of the people who love me disappear from the world, I (and everyone in my family) will always have an intact web. That is a state of existence so remarkable that it's almost like heaven already if you think about it.

The game changer.

I have spent the better part of my life hiding.

There, I’ve said it.  I hide.

When I want to hug someone and tell them I love them, I just smile and say they are awesome.

When I want to say something with deep meaning, I will get silly, make a joke or pass off what I want to say as ‘dumb’.

When I want to cry I steel myself and act like everything is fine.

When I yell I actually want to say how hurt or sad I am.

When I can see someone is making a bad mistake, I mention something then apologize for mentioning it.

I sit in silence when I want to speak with feeling.

And on it goes.

But I’ve learned that everyone hides to one extent or another because they are afraid.  I’m afraid. 

I fear:  any type of rejection, looking stupid, feeling inadequate, losing someone, getting yelled at, being wrong....

As I’ve gotten older, I have begun to feel different...freer.  To some people freedom means ignoring rules and doing what they want.  But I have learned, and almost always the hard way, that is never freedom.  Bending or ignoring rules and what you understand to be true almost always comes round to haunt you or cause pain.

 

The freedom I’m talking about is knowledge of who I am. 

It’s a game changer people. 

I KNOW who I am.  The challenge left is to do and say, with that knowledge in mind.  The old ways still want to creep in and take over, but I fight hard to get rid of them once and for all. 

For some things I’ve succeeded. 

For some things, it’s on the way.

For others, it’s still a fight.

That is what I’m here for.  To fight for my freedom, to know who I am and to take that knowledge and then help others do the same.

I know: I am strong, intelligent, silly, spiritual, loving, empathetic, kind, forgiving.  I love to laugh and make others laugh.  I find absolute joy in singing, nature and the success of my kids and husband.  I like to have friends and I like to be alone. 

But most of my freedom and my knowledge and my strength comes from the fact that I am a daughter of a loving Heavenly Father and I know what that means and I feel the power of those words when I write or say them.

I do hide, but not from Him.

I’m so glad I know that.