chimesblog

Okay. I don’t often use my blog as a soapbox for political issues. But this has to do with something I cannot tolerate: HATE.

It makes me sick to think in a state / city in which gay marriage is legal that a sign like this would exist:

Now think about this: How is that sign any different from this sign that was recently in the news?

Feel free to discuss. The backstory is that this sign (the top one) was put up, then the pastor received threats to himself and family so he replaced with “Adultery is not okay.” And according to a source who is friends with the pastor, the church’s Facebook page (which no longer exists) was hacked and extremely hateful messages were sent out to people.

I’m not sure what to believe, but my main concern here is the sign situation. How were EITHER of these signs deemed acceptable by anybody in our society today? Haven’t we moved past this? Or do we consistently have to have a group to hate and scapegoat? Or is it just human nature to dislike things that are “different”?

What do you think?

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This may look like a regular package of greek yogurt to you, but trust me. It’s not

It’s a mixture of chocolately goodness. And it’s going to make some damn good frozen yogurt.

Did I mention that this frozen yogurt is 4 points + per 4 oz serving? That is kind of important to some people. Also, it’s made of whole foods. Which is always important to me.

chimes’s dark chocolate frozen yogurt

Ingredients

32 oz 0% plain Greek yogurt (I like Chobani or Fage, but couldn’t find either this day — Greek Gods was fine)
1/4 c (or a bit more) cocoa powder
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 c coffee

Directions

Mix together and put in your ice cream maker. We got an immersion blender for Christmas, so I used this and it made the yogurt super creamy. Follow ice cream maker’s directions.

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I found this recipe for Skinny Chicken Parmesan from Feeding My Temple on pinterest a while back. It annoys me when I see “skinny” in the title of recipes, but it’s a fast way to know that somebody’s made an attempt at making a healthy dish.

As per usual, I made some modifications.

The recipe is simple: Bread your meat, pour sauce over it, top with cheese and bake. And for you people counting points, it’s 7 points + per serving — her recipe makes 8 servings.

Since I can’t eat gluten, I used our trusty food processor to crush up some corn flakes and rice krispies to use instead of bread crumbs.

Also, I don’t use fat free cheese. When they make fat free and reduced fat things, they add filler. Usually filler is something you don’t want to eat. Unless there is a MAJOR difference in fat or calories, I always choose the real deal.

I also recommend buying the bricks of cheese and making your own shredded cheese. Why? Two reasons: It’s cheaper and there’s less preservatives and salt in it that way. When they prepackage shredded cheese, all sorts of junk goes into the cheese to keep it from clumping together or drying out.

Okay, now that I’ve preached to you about the dangers of reduced fat, fat free and fake stuff, I’ll share a secret with you. The real reason we shred our own cheese (well Mark’s real reason anyway): We add a clove of garlic to it. Adding a clove to the cheese while shredding it pretty much infuses the cheese with the garlic.

He might kick my butt for sharing this secret … he seems to think it was HIS idea. But I bet there are other garlic lovers out there who’ve been doing this or something similar for years.

Ah, yes. Garlic cheese.

Bread your meat … put it in the oven with some sauce and cheese over it, and bake.

YUM.

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I came across this little finished object when cleaning my craft room the other day. I can’t believe I hadn’t listed this adorable zippy pouch on etsy. It’s there now.

It’s made out of several of my favorite fabrics … gray polka dots, some echino, habitat and some of what’s left of my mendocino from blocks I made back in 2010.

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Hi guys. It’s been a while since I posted those awkward in-my-undies photos to show that I’m making progress with LiveFit.

I just have to say … I fucking rock. I feel awesome. I feel great about all the choices I’ve made (except that horrible decision to drink my weight in Grainbelt last Friday night). I am owning it.

For reference … here’s Week 2 and here is Week 5.

I think adding the diet component really added to my progress. I mentioned I joined WeightWatchers, right? I eat a TON of fruits and veggies. I’m eating way more food than before, and I’ve gained weight (YES GAINED muscle … and water weight, but that’s a different story and I fixed that — I was drinking almost 200 oz of water a day. no joke.).

And here I am now. Week 9ish? I have no idea what I weigh. It’s close to the same as in the first two progress reports. Which means I’ve lost fat and gained muscle.

Time for awkward underwearness! I even wore heart panties JUST for added awkwardness. Maybe next time I will wear an actual bikini. Still don’t feel comfortable in one of those.

And um, excuse the ginormous pile of laundry in the mirror. Let’s hope my mother doesn’t see this post.

[ everything tends to stick around my hips ... i'm working on lower back stuff ... it's a slow process ]

[ look ma, obliques! ]

So it looks like my abs went away. WRONG. I lost belly fat so the part in the front doesn’t poof out so much … so they don’t look as awesome as before. which I know sounds weird? But it was total shadow play. FLAT TUMMY.

Mostly I noticed that I lost a lot from my sides around my waist and hips. I feel like I’m finally seeing my  hard work I’ve put into my body. GO ME!

Also, I got up at 5 AM today to do a bootcamp with a bunch of tweeps I know from twitter. Let’s hope I made it.

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It’s been pretty cold the last few days. I didn’t have any coverage for my ears and I’ve been rocking the old lady shawl [ ie. I took an adorable cowl and figure-eighted it so it acted like a hood too ].

I decided to whip up this bad boy. It’s pretty warm. Not to mention cute. And it only took 20 minutes.

I might actually write up a pattern for this and put it on Ravelry. Stay tuned!

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Guys … guess what? My stuff is in the ArtVend machine at Wheatsfield.

See that? Super cool! 40% of the proceeds go to support  local art.

[ you should go buy one of my zippy bags ]

[ here are some of my other zippy bags that aren't in the vending machine ... in case you're curious ... they are on my etsy shop ]

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You voted, and the winner of the cookie for this month’s Cookie of the Month Club subscription was chocolate covered ritz peanut butter sandwiches, or as my family calls them: Bark cookies.

For the record, I really wanted to make Meltaways. Buuut I know my dad and Grandpa will really love getting a big package of these babies.

Also, mind didn’t turn out as pretty as Spoon Fork Bacon’s rendition (photo above). But, I used dark chocolate instead of almond bark and whole wheat crackers. They taste the same, and they’re covered in chocolate, so nobody is ever going to be able to tell I healthed these up a little bit. A little bit. They are still chocolate covered ritz crackers with peanut butter.

If you’re interested in making these, you don’t put much peanut butter on the inside. A little dab will do you. Same with the chocolate. And using a double boiler (or my makeshift double boiler — hot water in a pan with my pyrex bowl of chocolate on top) is the best method to keep the viscosity of the chocolate good for dipping.

I made about 60 of these. For the record, I ate 4.

In case anybody is counting, these are 4 points +. Per cookie. Try not to eat more than one.

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I recently attended the wedding of the first of my 3 college roommates to get married.

For those of you who don’t know, I lived with boys. And one of my long-time girlfriends. She informed me that I need to get on that engagement thing because my other male former-roommate is now engaged. Just us two single ladies left.

Anywho … FLASHBACK to 2005

[clockwise starting on the left: Danielle, me, Joe and Nick]

This was from Nick’s 22nd birthday party — the first party we had in our new apartment as roomies. He and Joe were at the ISU game earlier that day and Nick got SUPER burnt. I’d like to point out that I have pink hair in this photo. And I apologize for the mesh cutoff sleeve shirt I have on — I was in a band at that point and was seriously into finding my own “metal” style. AND I have no clue whot he girl behind Joe is but she seriously looks like Robin Scherbatsky.

…

Moving on

…

So this is 2007, the year we all graduated college. This is one of my favorite roomie pix! Thanks, Danielle for digging this up.

[Danielle, me, Nick and Joe]

Yeah. This was at the Bali Satay House, which, sadly, no longer exists. We used to go see our friends’ bands play there. And my boss informs me that they apparently had incredible food.

…

Fast forward 4.5 years: 2011

[photo by McClanahan Studio — from left to right — Joe, me, Nick and Danielle]

This was November and Nick got married. Joe was his best man. Danielle and I were the queens of the dance floor. I’m amazed at how much we’ve changed in four years.

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You may remember this quilt top from 2009 when I originally had it slated to become a finished quilt for my niece’s first birthday.

Well, as you may know I’m really bad about finishing quilts. Mostly because it isn’t cheap to get them quilted professionally and up until I got my new sewing machine recently it was a huge pain to quilt them myself.

So what I’m saying is that my niece didn’t get this for her birthday in 2009.

It ended up being a lovely baby shower gift for my friend Adria who is due in February. Adria made me a quilt a LONG time ago and is responsible for my slightly expensive fabric hoarding obsession.

Also, I posted the photos on my flickr last week and cutable.com picked one of my images and featured this quilt on their flickr Friday on December 1. I couldn’t share until after her baby shower for obvious reasons.

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