for my best friend, with whom i am well pleased

both my bff and i turn 50 this year and, in what will come as little to no surprise to anyone who knows me, i'm making a big deal about it.

i remember when it felt like neither one of us was gonna make it this far. when we kept hitting brick wall after brick wall and feeling like nothing we did was working. when we really couldn't see the point of continuing to try. 

but we did, and we're here, and when this goes live, i'll be celebrating my bff's birthday. i am the excited. 

i'm excited b/c i am so ridiculously glad we're still in each other's lives after all these years. decades, really. our friendship is old enough to run for president (and maybe it should, given *gestures vaguely* current events). 

i'm so glad we still show up for and with each other. i'm glad that we're willing to ask questions and attempt to be ok with the answers, even the ones we don't like. i'm glad that the fact that we've never lived in the same city has never stopped us from being close. i'm glad that we're so different in so many ways and yet sometimes we're so alike that it's scary. i'm glad you're slightly more petty than i am and i'm also glad you don't unleash your petty as often as you could or should, because then i'd have to be petty right along with you and the streets are not ready. 

i'm glad that i pushed you just enough to celebrate today. you deserve this and so much more. 

i'm glad i get to wish you a lifetime of abundance. of ease. of grace. of curiosity. of hope. of love. of knowing that who and what you are will always be more than enough. 

happy birthday. love you. mean it. 💜

still grieving after all these years...

hey boos hey. long time no type, etc.

i'm about midway through my annual season of grief due to birthdays and death anniversaries. not gonna lie, this grief has stronger hands and is landing more punches in 2026 so far than it has in previous years and your girl is feeling it.

past me sometimes has good ideas, which means i've been sorta kinda managing to keep myself busy so i don't have as many opportunities to sob and/or scream into the void. however! crying in the shower? definitely still a thing. sobbing myself to sleep? yup. waking up crying because something in a dream reminded me of a dearly departed one? absolutely.

this happens every year and yet i still manage to be fucking gobsmacked by the first wave of grief in february, like i didn't know it was coming. to be fair, i did start this month with three concerts in as many evenings and other social obligations that kept me busy, but when i finally realized what was happening, the shutdown was almost immediate.

sometimes i forget how challenging it can be to deal with my own personal grief while adulting, particularly during these "why must everything be so fucking unprecedented?!?" times. there's so much happening every goddamn day. i can barely catch up on the news without crying tears of sadness and/or anger. and then i remember that lori's not here, and neither is james, and my parents are both gone, and the fact that they all died years apart and yet within weeks of each other fucks me up every single time. it's not fair and it actually physically hurts as i'm typing right now. stupid unsexy grief.

so yeah, if you see me out in the streets and i don't seem like my usual or normal self, it's because i'm not. i'm trying to do that thing where i actually acknowledge how i'm feeling, let myself feel all the things instead of bottling them up, and allowing myself to be vulnerable or whatever. my therapist would be proud but thanks, i hate it. i'm all about loving myself and others out loud, but this particular form of self-care? zero stars. do not recommend. 

if you don't see me out in the streets with my usual or normal frequency, it's because i know i need to attempt to take a break and sit the fuck down somewhere so i don't push myself past my breaking point, emotionally and/or physically. also sometimes it's because i just want/need to be at home and enjoy my solitude and quiet, especially after being outside and around people. i mean, have you met people? the worst.

this is going live on what would've been my father's 93rd birthday. i cannot believe it's been 29 years since i last saw him alive. what in the actual entire fuck. i can barely make a grocery list without breaking down these days b/c i can still see him, clear as day, sitting down at the kitchen table with the sales papers and mapping out what he was gonna buy from which store based on what was on sale. me? the sales papers are digital now and i do the majority of my grocery shopping at one store, but otherwise? o hai, it me. he'd be pitching a fit about groceries being this damn high even with whatever coupons/discount codes he had, but then he'd be proud about snagging a good deal on something, and i'm the same way.

but here i am. trying to lean more into loving myself and others out loud. to embracing whimsy and other things that make me happy because imagine being an unwhimsical ass bitch. ¿en esta economia? could not and will not be me as long as i have anything to say or do about it. 

i just wish grieving wasn't such a big part of living.

love y'all. mean it. 

recipe review: easiest-ever beef short ribs

o hai. it's been a while. my bad. life has been lifing and quite honestly, blogging hasn't really been top of mind for me lately.

i was about to put some recipes away in my binders and realized that i still had this one out from last week. whole foods had short ribs on sale and since i already had some in the freezer, i decided to try this recipe. i only had about 3 pounds of short ribs and not the full 5 pounds called for in the recipe, and i used ground ginger instead of fresh. instead of red pepper flakes, i used chipotle chili powder. let's say i used, oh, i dunno, 6 or 7 cloves of garlic. i might've added some garlic powder to the soy sauce mixture because, well, that seems like something i would do. 

i cooked them on low for about 8 hours and they came out tender. there was a nice hint of spice from the ground chipotle. i skipped all the garnishes and i didn't make any rice. i did, however, roast some broccoli and it was delicious. 

on: the 8th of march

it feels weird to be writing about my brother and my father on international women's day, but here we are. 

my brother james died 14 years ago today. he was 46. 

it feels weird to be writing about my brother on the anniversary of his death when i'm the same age he was when he died, but here we are. 

i've managed to keep myself just busy enough lately to not get completely bogged down in sadness when thinking about my father's birthday and the anniversary of his death a week or so apart, the anniversary of my mother's death to start women's history month, james' death date today, and my mother's birthday later this month. this is not a new coping mechanism by any means. sometimes past me makes great decisions and current me is along for the ride until my brain goes "wait, this isn't quite right" and i realize that another birthday/anniversary is coming up or just happened and then i have to feel things.

but this isn't all about me. this is about my brother and my father and how they helped make me the woman that i am. 

it's about how they showed up for the women in their lives so i'd know what to accept and what to call bullshit on. how they showed up for everyone in their lives, really, but particularly the women they loved. they loved out loud, if not always in words then by actions, even when some of it seemed contradictory. never did i ever have to wonder if they loved me, even if we didn't verbalize it. i kinda wish we'd said it more, but here we are. 

if you've ever seen my work ethic and determination in action, blame them. if you've ever wondered how or why i go so hard for the people i love? that's all them. the mentality of "everybody eats" or "if i got it, you got it" or however else you want to define it? yup, that's them.

it feels weird to be smiling through my tears while writing this, but here we are. 

i'm here because they were there for me. i hope i can keep being there for me and mine like they were for theirs. 💜

more recipe reviews

maybe i'll get back to writing one of these days. today isn't looking like the day, though. 🤷 

these sweet bbq drumsticks happened as part of last weekend's meal prep because i had everything on hand already. i had some collards in the freezer so that was my vegetable. also made the bootleg jambalaya i mentioned in my last post so i'd have it for mardi gras. 

i didn't have everything on hand for this frittata, but i did use some bacon sausage in place of smoked sausage since i'd already used smoked sausage in the jambalaya. i regret nothing. #fatgirlhappy

i was talking to someone last weekend about needing to use the pork tenderloin i had in the freezer and this recipe showed up in my instagram feed the next day. i made it yesterday to have for this coming week's meals and let's hear it once again for having all the ingredients on hand. ok, except for the parsley, but that was optional and i opted not to use it. roasted baby carrots will be the week's vegetable unless/until i decide i want something else. the tenderloins came out great after 2 hours on low. 

and now dinners are set for the next few days. breakfast will be just add an egg because they were on sale and i couldn't think of any other egg dish i wanted to make, and i'll make sandwiches for lunch, thanks to the ~1/2 loaf of bread past me had in the freezer. sometimes you just have to embrace your inner basic bitch. 😉

recipe reviews

halfway through february and i feel like this month has done a number on me already. i'm not saying meal prep has been a lifesaver, but it's definitely come in handy. here are a few things i've made recently. 

chicken thighs with tomatoes and feta: past me bought some harissa from trader joe's and hadn't gotten around to using it yet, plus i had some chicken thighs in the freezer. also i love feta and any excuse to buy mightyvine tomatoes is fine with me. i added a couple two tree cloves of smashed garlic with the tomatoes because garlic. also seasoned the chicken with garlic powder along with salt because i hadn't fully committed to using the smashed garlic at that point. this was good, especially with the crockpot mashed potatoes i made. 

also made these beer-glazed pork chops because i had everything for them except fresh rosemary. i think i used a teaspoon of dried rosemary and also some garlic powder, because skipping garlic was clearly some sort of oversight. beer of choice was hopslam because it was in the fridge and why not use a 10% abv beer for cooking? you cook with what you like to drink, right? right. this sauce didn't thicken as much as i would've liked, so i'll have to think about possible remedies for that if/when i make it again. 

i've been eating this bulgogi-style skillet chicken for dinner this week and i wish i'd sliced the chicken breasts thinner. i skipped the sesame seeds because no way was i buying something i'd only need a tablespoon of. i roasted some broccoli and have been having that on the side instead of rice because while i love rice and make sure there's a stash of microwavable rice on hand at all times, i just wasn't feeling it this week. it's fine. i'm making bootleg jambalaya (read: a box of zatarain's with some smoked sausage) for next week's meal prep and that'll satisfy whatever rice deficiency i might have. 

hopefully i'll have the spoons to post some non-recipe content soon. hope y'all are well. 

new year, new post

o hai. it's january 2023. yeah, i dunno how that happened either, but we're here. let's see if i can try to recap what's been going on since my last post.

i found out that my therapist is leaving their employer and since i'd rather not switch to another provider in that practice, i'll be taking a break from #therapytuesday. we had to laugh about the timing because it happened right after i told them about this whole "open and vulnerable" thing i'm trying to go with during #46andbeyond. i'd be more upset if i was worried about figuring some of this shit out on my own, but i'm not all that worried yet. i like to think that i have a toolkit of sorts to help me deal with my anxiety and stress, even if i don't always use those tools. plus my therapist might open their own practice at some point, so it's not as if i'm done with therapy forever.

i got sick between christmas and new year's, and i'm glad it wasn't covid like it may or may not have been in december 2021. i'd forgotten about my penchant for illness after my birthday - it's like my body said "ok, that's enough fun and shenanigans; now go sit down somewhere" to close out the year. it was kinda funny to your girl because it's not as if i went that hard celebrating my birthday. hell, i left a bar a couple of hours before my b-day so i could be at home on my couch by midnight. thankfully i'm feeling better now, because dealing with constant post-nasal drip and nosebleeds was exhausting as hell.

what else? oh, here's a big one - i'm going to 1st c. in a couple of weeks for a tribute service to bishop. i haven't been back since he died and this year marks the 5th anniversary of his passing and i am absolutely feeling all kinds of ways about it. will it be a shitshow? probably. will someone say something out of pocket about me or carol or someone else i care about? possibly. i'm actually glad this is happening at 1st c. because i know where all the exits are and can get out of there quickly if i have to. i don't think it'll come to that, but i also haven't seen any of these people in damn near five years so who knows what'll happen? i'm already trying to prepare myself for whatever might happen and how i might feel and what i might need afterwards. i also need to figure out if i'm going to join the reunion choir (because of course there's a reunion choir) even though i'm not going to any rehearsals. i don't think i've been in that choir stand since lori's funeral and i honestly don't know if doing that is something i'm built for. also i'm pretty sure very few people will be masked and who knows how many (if any) of them have even been vaccinated. 

as you can probably imagine, my brain is having a field day with all of this. one bright spot? none of those people can hurt me, emotionally speaking, any more than they already have or did back in the day. shouts to being a whole entire adult. 

speaking of adulting - holy shit meal prep has been saving my life once again. i woke up tired today and was pretty much ready to fall over when i got home after work and grocery shopping, but past me managed to portion out just enough leftovers for tonight so i wouldn't have to cook or think about what to order. the only reason this post is happening tonight is because i wrote most of it while i had some downtime earlier. i'll try to remember to post some reviews if/when i try something new.

hope y'all are hanging in there. here's hoping 2023 isn't a complete dumpster fire clusterfuck.