It's been hot outside for a few days. It's the kind of heat that makes you think you could bake a cake if you let it in the car with the windows shut. It's also been storming at night, apocalypse style.
To celebrate this wonderful season, I decided to make some coffee flavored ice cream.

First important thing to know, since that's obviously my super cheap 90% off ice cream maker, I broke my ice cream maker. Never fear though, This nice little thing was in the attic waiting to get cleaned up and used.

Ingreadiants:
2 cups of milk
2 cups half and half
4 cups heavey whipping cream
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp instant coffee (I use a few packets of Starbucks VIA in Columbia roast)
Chocolate ships, if desired.

What to do:
1. Scald milk in pot.  You don't want it to boil, but it's going to have to disolve the sugar.
2. Add sugar, salt and coffee.  (The coffee dissolves better in hot liquids) stir until sugar dissolves.  Remove from heat.
3. Add whipping cream and half & half.  Stir together.
4, refrigerate for 15 to 20 minutes.
5. but mixture in ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's directions.
6. when motor stops, remove canister for frozen cream.  As you pour your ice cream into a storage container you can add your mix-ins.  I recommend making layers.
7. freeze until it's stiff enough to scoop.
8. Enjoy!

Helpful tips:
-Avoid getting water in the cream mixture.  The water will form little ice crystals in the ice cream 
- have enough ice to fill your ice cram maker tub at least 3 times. 
0Get your rock salt ahead of time.  Most hardware stores have it year round, just not on the shelf.  It's the same salt you use to salt your driveway in the winter.  It's cheaper at the hardware store.  For some reason mass retail stores charge triple of so for a tiny bag.

If you find something on Pinterest, You should make it.

One of my friends pinned a very easy DIY shirt out of scarves to her Pinterest  page a few weeks ago.  Upon following the links, I found it!  So do give credit properly, the directions are here: Scarf Shirt.



I found the front scarf on the clearance rack at Gap. The back is Symphony broadcloth from Jo-Ann fabrics.

Mine is more like a dress, since it's so long, but given the weather it can be a swim coverup.

Making plans sometimes helps

"You make your life look easy, and it's not." -Stacey Lyzanga

There's some background information that you need to know about me. Kalamazoo, Michigan will always be home to me now. Why? It was the first place I really enjoyed living. It's where I met my friends, where I learned to love myself before trying to love someone else and it's where I finally started to take a stand for thing I believed in. When I was there, it wasn't home; home was where my grandparents lived, Richwood, New Jersey.

I fell in love with someone that I shouldn't have when I lived there. He broke my heart. Broke probably isn't the right word. He shattered it, smashed it into pieces, and ground it the unfinished floorboards in the entryway of my cute little apartment. Don't worry, he knows he did it, it's been an ongoing conversation for a few years now. This is the kind of thing we talk about on the way too and from events that include our friends. They are the friends who refuse to accept his girlfriend into our circle. It took awhile, but he's still my best friend.

Let's start at the beginning, which was probably the worst year of my life so far. When that man I fell in love with needed my help most, I was finishing a trip back to NJ. That was the trip where I was informed I needed to give up my life and move back east. That was the trip where, given time, my whole life would change. That was three years ago yesterday. Tried to keep the moving thing to myself, but it was hard. I tried to give myself reasons I couldn't move, a new job, a kitten, a new lease, a friend who needed help....another new job. Eventually it all came crumbling down at the joint combination of my broken heart, a lot of gin, everyone's wedding plans and my conscious. Even though it doesn't always look that way, given my shady past, I usually do the right thing.

I held off for a year and a half, and then finally broke down and moved. Instead of community gardens, coffee shops, riding bicycles, playing guitars, knitting at parties and public school democracies; my life became blood sugar levels, Delaware River Port Authority tolls, corn fields, apple orchards, peach trees, the History Channel and Bonanza and trying to keep my grandfather from getting lost. I took a full time job at Target, a company I've worked for on and off for a long time, but I still wanted to keep my life mine, so I joined a gym.

A combination of sobriety and an 'all or nothing attitude' has helped my lose a lot of weight. 119 pounds, to date, to be exact. Keep in mind, that much weight does not vanish overnight. Losing that much weight does not make you skinny. (I will NEVER be skinny, nor do I want to be.) And only a very small amount of this was done with the intention of being skinny. Along the weight loss journey there were some wonderful people that have popped up along the way. CK and Tone at Retro Fitness were a huge help. I'm pretty sure that CK didn't think he'd see me at the gym almost everyday when I joined. When he left, Tracey joined their team and she was also a delight to see everyday. It really does help when the person at the gym is excited to see you, it makes you WANT to go. Caroline, Ashlie, Lexi, Emily (and her boyfriend Mike who I see more then her sometimes) were also a huge part of things. If you have someone to talk to at the gym, it makes you want to go a little bit more. Joining a gym wasn't enough, I joined Weight Watchers, too.

Weight Watchers helped me realize I want to be a Dietitian or Nutritionist. Why? I love eating, and if you've known me for more then 3 years, you know that. Weight Watchers helped me figure out how to make my food a little more healthy, but still enjoyable. Combine that with my Martha-Stewart-like domestic skills. (I would have been an awesome 1950's housewife.) I started experimenting with baking and cooking.

With those little things going on, there are much more creative events that have happened too. I took a part time teaching position at Rowan University, which actually uses my college degree. With the advice of a man I knew from my party days in Kalamazoo, I applied for some grants to aid the city of Philadelphia in involving the public school kids into art programs. (The arts are the first programs cut out of most inner-city schools when a budget crisis occurs.) At the time he played for the Philadelphia Eagles, and has since been traded to Detroit. Thanks to his commitment to Play 60 and his teammates curiosity of "the random white girl who's drawing on the walls where we're building a playground that you keep talking too" (yes, that was a quote from the highest paid Quarterback in the NFL) I got help on the murals. The project went from 7 schools to 17. And it went from some kids and myself painting to pretty much every sports figure in Philly, along with some people from my past just randomly showing up. It also allowed me to get to know the mayor. Mayor Michael Nutter is a magnificent person. He makes politics in a city look easy, and it's not.

That was the fun stuff, now comes the hard stuff. My grandparents are old, almost antiques. My grandma is doing fantastic, for being her age. She still paints china, does her crossword puzzles without cheating too much, can recite versus of the bible from memory, usually know what the date is, always knows the day of the week, (I don't usually know the date, so that's pretty impressive), remembers the baseball schedule and stats (John Mayberry Jr and Jimmy Rollins are her favorite players....and Ryan Howard who's out this season.) She CAN cook, if I'm not there to do it, she CAN drive but doesn't like too, and she CAN do dishes, but that's my job. She has friends who are still alive and like to shop, so she (window) shops. (She says she doesn't "need" anything, and when she does need something, we go get it right then and there.)

My grandpa, on the other hand is not doing so well. He is a diabetic with a sweet tooth and has cancer but due to his age can not have anymore treatments. Most of the time he thinks I'm my mother, forgets that we have two cats, does not know their names. He does not want to take his medicine, sleeps all day when possible, and should NOT drive. My life really revolves around taking care of them.

All of those things bring me to Friday night, and a mental breakdown at work.  I made it through, trying so hard not to let it show how absolutely horrible my evening was going, but it was not working.  Most of my coworkers do not know that I'm sick.  There are very few of them who need to know the details. Usually when things get sticky, I can sleep it off, but when I work up Saturday morning things were still a disaster in my head.  There are a few ways to for work through a breakdown, one is talking it out, that isn't really an option anymore.  Another is sleeping it off, which didn't work.  Lastly there's re-directing my focus, and that was going to have to be it. 

The hardest part of living here as opposed to Michigan is not having friends like I used to.  Yes, I'm still friends with those people, most of them at least, but at 11:45 on a Friday night I can't call them.  I pulled out the button maker, I reworked some sewing patterns, did my organic chemistry homework and re-wrote my syllabus for next semester.  I re-directed my life into a schedule that I'm going to try to keep.  Cross your fingers, because things can't get too much harder.

In just over two weeks I'll be in Michigan at Stacey's wedding, in the city I love with the friends I adore.

There are many Shades of Blue

Paisley. In the past I was afraid of prints, but not anymore.

The lady at the fabric store always argues with me about what I'm making. Yes, I understand that the company where you work has embedded the question "What are you making today?" in your head. Yes, I know you "think" you're an expert. Yes, I know how to sew. Yes, I know what the recommended fabrics are and that this is not one of them. Yes, I know it "might" not work. No, I do not want your input. (Oh and I also know that Jo-Ann's is named after the founder's daughters, Jo and Jackie Ann. Which the manager at that particular store did not know.) For anyone who does not know, I worked for Jo-Ann Fabrics for 9 years in a 13 year time span. Yes, 9 very long years. Those years started before the big do-it-yourself/I-can-make-anything movement in the early 2000's. Those years started in North Kent Mall, which no longer exists. Back in those days Martha Stewart hadn't committed any known felonies yet and the store did not carry very much yarn. There are a few other details that are important to my sewing journey. First, my mother attempted to teach me to sew, but didn't really have any teaching skills. One day I decided that Barbie needed some new clothes, so I made some, I was about 10. Second, the Home Ec teacher in middle school didn't like me. I'm pretty sure it was because I already knew how to make a drawstring bag. Third, the Home Ec Teacher at the high school where I was about to attend died of cancer when I was in 8th grad. They did away with that department. All those things made me a self taught seamstress. When you teach yourself how to do something that's hands on, the best way to learn is to jump in head first and experiment your little (or big) heart away. So I did. Making a pair of dirty lime green corduroy trousers was probably not a the best beginner's project, but they looked pretty awesome when I was done. (Back in those days you could wear something you made to work at Jo-Ann's on Friday's) The cords led to other projects, including the interior of a car for my classmates in an auto shop class, re-upholstering things for teachers at school and being on too many musical crews to count. Not all of my projects worked, but a fair share turned out awesome. Fast forward to 2012, today. I now live in something that's close to a time warp. Southern NJ is still stuck in the 1950 and 1980's at the same time. Think: Snooki driving through a stop sign in an El Camino with a bed of trash behind her. She's wearing a vintage shirt dress, which she wears while tending to her huge garden while listening to a mix of Laurence Welk, Third Eye Blind and Bon Jovi. She's pregnant and had a beer in her hand which she throws out the car window when it's empty. Oh, but she has a lot of spare money to spend on things she doesn't need. That is a mental image of where I live. For many reasons, I make my own shirt dresses, refuse to have a garden in my front yard and will never sing along to Bon Jovi again. Don't get me started on the El Camino. When I go to the fabric store, it's a gentle mix of all those things. The person who cuts my fabric always second guesses me when I tell them what I'm making. I alwys wear the project in the next time I go to prove them wrong.

I can make that...

Sewing is probably my favorite hobby, after shopping. Shopping allows me to see what other people are buying and wearing. Sewing allows me to make those things the way I want.

This top was at Macy's (you can get it at Nordstrom's, too), it's part of the Michael by Michael Kors collection and costs about $60.

The second version was made by me, at cost about $10. (that was 2 yards of fabric at $3.50/yard, a spool of thread and the cross modification of two well used McCalls patterns.) I really need to make the top longer next time, but it's pretty darn sweet.