sass bread.

ok… i had to post this NOW before i forget what i did. i didn't take any 'in the process' photos, because i didn't even know if it would turn out and i honestly didn't even think to photograph it because it's just carrot bread.

just carrot bread it is not. 

this. 

this bread. 

it is amazing. 

Sass Bread

makes 2 loaves

4 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup canola oil

2/3 cup coconut oil (in liquid form)

3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp salt

4 cups grated carrots (i used the multi colored pack from TJs)

1 can crushed pineapple (drained and pressed)

1 cup currants

preheat oven to 350.

spray 2 bread pans with coconut oil spray.

beat eggs till fluffy.

add oils slowly with mixer on medium high.

add sugars and beat until light and fluffy.

combine all dry ingredients in separate bowl.

slowly add dry mix to wet and then mix well,

stir in carrots, pineapple, and currants by hand until fully incorporated. 

pour batter evenly into pans and bake just over an hour. loaf will be a little brown, but a knife will come out nearly clean.

let cool.

or don't and eat straight outta the oven.

oh my god it's good. it's reeeealy good.

go make this. now. now i tell you!

tori.

i have started umpteen posts on the subject that's been rolling through my mind and my heart for the past month. it is a story that is so gut wrenching with it's debilitating sadness that there have been few days that i have not thought about her and wept since i first read her story.

a young mother... just 37... lost her battle with cancer this past tuesday. it was just over a year ago, after giving birth to her beautiful son, that she found out that she had cancer. just a year... and now she's gone. what a void. what an immense field of sadness that is seen and felt by so many. i didn't know tori, nor did i even know of her until a month ago, when her battle was starting to slow. but we are both women and mothers and i feel like there's this bridge… one shared heart that allows us to feel what one another is feeling.

and this collective heart is breaking. breaking for her two small babes that will know their mother's love, but won't feel her touch. breaking for her husband who will no longer feel his wife's loving kiss. breaking for her family and friends who long for one more hug. and breaking for her. all of life's moments that were just beginning that she had to say goodbye to.

before lucy, my grieving would have been for her children, husband, family, friends. i would have been saddened by the void it left in the lives of those left here. but now, my heart is heavy for her. for the knowledge and deep feeling of loss at what she'd be missing. i can't imagine knowing the end was near and that you'd be leaving your children. i honestly cannot handle the thought. and knowing that she had to endure that is gut wrenching.

every ounce of my being is with you and your circle of loved ones, tori. every ounce.

life lately.

this weekend was a much needed one. 

do you ever feel like you're going and going and going and going and… it's just exhausting? we finally pressed pause and just hung out. loved on each other and soaked up all the weekend goodness.

baby's bikini for florida! looooooooove this little toots and all of her sassssss!

land before time as an adult? soooooo many feels :(

and… just because i know you were begging for it..

hazzaaah!

so gross! hahahaha

green machine.

i think i'm becoming addicted to making baby food. our freezer is bursting at the seams and i have 3 recipes that i've been wanting to try... i'm crazy. i know i am, but they are just too easy to throw together, relatively inexpensive, and my little toots needs to eat... so... it kind of have to... maybe just not the quantity that i've been whipping up, though!

back to the food...

i like to make sure that Lu has a bit of green in every meal and this is one that's on continuous rotation. blanch some greens, toss in some fruit, a little coconut milk to thin it out, and BAM! you've got yourself some green machine baby food. i think i might start playing around more with the addition of herbs. i used to use more spices, but have kind of tapered off for some reason. oh well! 

you can tell this was a daddy day, as it was probably 5 o'clock and Toots is still in her pjs. such a cheeky little monkey!

so hungry! i'm pretty sure this is beets, blueberries, and spinach.

blend that ish up! i like to put everything in a baggie to make it easier to transfer into the ice cube trays.

i let my daughter do this step... no. no i didn't. i'm just really precise...

when all cubes have frozen, i like to write the ingredients and due date on a baggie to store. it just makes things easier when you're in a hurry, or if someone else is feeding her and they have allergies- ie. my mother in-law watches Lu 3 days a week and is allergic to squash and zucchini. this way, she won't go into anaphylactic shock when feeding her granddaughter... yikes!

 

 

  Green Machine

1 pack of frozen peas

1 bag of fresh spinach

1 bag of frozen green beans

1 bag of frozen peaches

1 can of coconut milk

 

dump bag of green beans into boiling water for about 3-4 minutes

transfer directly to ice water

blend all ingredients together

taa-daaaaa!!!

 

from there, you can either feed yo baby right away, put it into the fridge for up to 4 days, or freeze for up to 4 months.

 

**fyi...i am not a fan of the peach flavor. i've made this before with apples and it turned out much better. it's not terrible by any means and i'm sure Lu doesn't even notice nor care, but i do, damnit! i will never use peaches again! well... not in the recipe that is.

cloudy with a chance.

i've been feeling so cloudy lately. not depressed or down or anything like that. just cloudy. which is making this week at work tough. i feel like my mind is fogged, that i can't keep anything straight. not like in a confused state, but more like i have a million thoughts floating through my head and it sometimes feels like grasping at straws to actually focus on one. is that normal? i think it is, well at least i hope it is!   

 

my daughter gives me life and my husband gives me fire, but me... what do i give myself? i have felt that i am at the cusp of something for a while now. something just for me. all of these thoughts just bounce around my mind, making my head cloudy... fuzzy... unable to bring things into sharp focus. it feels like a sneeze that never comes or that word that would fit a sentence perfectly, that's right there... and you just can't manage to pull it out. even writing feels... i'm so good at reading someone else's words and knowing exactly what they should've said or how a sentence should have been structured, but then i start plucking away at the keyboard and my words all seem so choppy... cloudy.

 

it's a strange feeling and i'm hoping it doesn't stick around too much longer. i've got things to do, damnit. until my mind is free and clear... i'll just keep on keeping on.... and post a bunch of pictures :)



 

i'm not sure i exist to them anymore. womp womp. (only joking... sort of)

i bought this suit plus a pair of trunks when my baby was an it... not a her. and gah!

it's too tight and i'm so sad, but i'm still bringing it to florida... i am, i say!

sew kewt!

does it get any better? i think not.

so gross. they're everywhere. turkeys. ick.

fitbit goodness.

get it with a fitbit! get fit with the bit! (for some reason, I can't stop saying that in my head... now I'm annoyed with it and wish I had never written it. oh the struggle!)

i am so late to the fitbit game. BUT. i love mine with all of my heart. 

 

if it hasn't become obvious, i'm trying to lose weight... a lot of weight and I'm starting to realize that I need little reminders here and there of how much I'm eating or how sedentary I've been, etcetera, etcetera. for me at least, tracking these things has been a real eye opener. like right now... it's noon and I haven't even hit 1,000 steps. noon! when you have a desk job, it's hard to get up, get out, and get moving. you work work work... go make some coffee... work work work... go to the bathroom... work work work... go to a meeting. it's a vicious cycle for activity and moving around. you get sucked into a project or a this or a that and before you know it, the day is done and you have no recollection of if you actually ever got out of your chair.

 

THAT, people, is why I love my fitbit. that right there. I have been in that trap for years on end... allowing myself to be chained to my desk by day and then going home and watching tv till I'd go to bed (on top of not the healthiest eating habits and a love a wine). it's a terrible, terrible pit to fall into because one day you look in the mirror and are like 'shit... who's that fatty?' and it happens in what feels like the blink of an eye.

 

but now I have my fitbit. my best friend. he tells me when I'm being super lazy or need to take a break from work and go on a walk. he also cheers me on when I reach my goal and reminds me that I'm working hard to look and feel better. oh the love affair that I am having with my fitbit!

 

it's a magical thing.

baby growth.

we've been watching lucy grow from the day that we brought her home from the hospital and from not being able to hold up her head to sitting on her own to now crawling… in circles… crawling none the less we knew that it was going to happen in the blink of an eye, but looking back through old pictures is unreal and almost heartbreaking. my big toots was such a teeny tiny little toots! now she feeds herself and thinks it's funny when she pulls my hair… even when i sternly tell her, "no, that hurts momma"… that's normal right? and not a signs of news headlines to come, right??

SO!!

knowing that this time was going to fly, i wanted to visibly document her growth and so i've been taking pictures of lu next to her kitty and gotdamn! this is my bitty baby at two weeks old.. dimple and all <3

 awwwww! she's not much bigger than kitty! and those teeny, tiny legs and those teeny, tiny toes and those teeny, tiny every things! guh. kill me now i'm in love.

and here's toots just last weekend at seven months old:

oh my word. i'm meeeelllllting!

my big baby! it really is astonishing. she still feels like my little baby, but then looking at these pictures and seeing the amount that she's grown… it's exciting, it's sad, it's fun, it's scary, it's so many different things, but mostly, it's an honor. it's an honor to be given the responsibility of raising this sweet little thing into an independent, caring, loving, strong, funny, amazing woman. wow.

how cool is that?