Blueberry Muffins

I have recently been pining for the crisp air of fall, for red and golden leaves to slowly drift to the ground, for cozy sweaters and my breath in the air. I've been wishing on all the stars for fall and wishing on all of the candles of everyone's birthdays that I could go back to Alaska.

I told my mom this and she was very surprised. Some of you make know that I take care of my mom, she has some medical issues and she has always been there for me, so I will always be there for her. But for the next 5 years she still has to stay here in DC for her work.

I am searching for a job on the Alaska Slope, the Pipeline. I would of course be cooking or baking or whatnot and it would most likely be a two week on, two week off deal. I could also pay off my loans and save money for...well what I wish for is to open a Bed and Breakfast. My mom wishes for me to open a Bakery. At this point I'm not sure which I would go for, I know what I want...but that almost never works out.

Long story short, while I am looking for said job, I am at home and am working my way through recipes. A few weeks ago I made an AMAZING apple pie. I mean...the BEST apple pie. I stole it from Alton Brown and I tweaked it. This week I decided that I needed to make something with blueberries. I needed muffins. Again I looked to Alton Brown, since to me he is a God, and again I tweaked it.

Let me backtrack and tell you my story about blueberries. Since I grew up in Alaska , and with a family that enjoyed being out of doors I was dragged along on all sorts of trips. Fishing and blueberry picking with the two biggest ones every year though.

I would be packed up along with my mom, my Grandparents and my Uncle and we would go blueberry picking. Apparently I was VERY good at this, my Grandmother would tell my mom that I was fast and gentle at picking. Let me just tell you straight up, I was not always fond of Alaska like I am now. And I HATED blueberry picking, I probably wouldn't really like it now either because I'm not a huge fan of camping. But I would go for two days and one night. More then that I would just say no.

When we picked the blueberries my Uncle would always make some famous blueberry pie...ick. I only say ick because for whatever reason he wasn't very good at picking off the twiggy stems. And it involved SO MUCH gelatin it was as if you were eating a blueberry aspic. Blah.

But, as I am now a certified Baker I can make my own choices on how things are made. And I am working on a cookbook. What better way to start out a book then to start with fall. And perhaps this blueberry recipe will be the first one in it. I'll need to start reaching out and looking for pictures of me blueberry picking.

So here is my recipe. You should try it. Its AMAZING.

12 1/2 oz Cake Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Baking Powder
Salt
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup butter *melted*
1 egg
1 Cup Vanilla Yogurt *you could use any kind though*
1 TBSP Lemon or Orange Zest
Sugar in the Raw
1 1/2 cup Blueberries

Heat oven to 380 Degrees

In a large bowl add all dry ingredients and mix well or sift all together.

In another large bowl mix butter and yogurt together, this way your egg wont curdle. Then add your egg, and zest. Add the dry ingredients, minus 2 TBSP's and mix. Please do not overmix, it perfectly okay to have a few lumps here and there.

Add berries to 2 TBSP's of flour mixture and toss, then add berries into the other bowl. Mix gently.

In paper lined cups heap batter past the top of the cups. Sprinkle with sugar in the raw.

Put batter into oven and crank heat up to 400 degrees, bake 10 min then rotate pan, bake another 10-15 min until slightly brown ontop.

Jackson and His Water Bowls

I have two cats. A boy and a girl, I believe I have written about both of them from time to time. Today I will be talking about my boy cat Jackson and his water bowls. One might think this wouldn't be very interesting, but my cats are strange...

Jackson will only drink from one type of bowl, little glass cups that I normally make flan in. He always wants TWO bowls as well, though he normally only drinks from one of them while the other just kinda sits there.

When he's thirsty he will begin by staring into the water, I always wonder what he's trying to learn by doing this. Does he talk to the water? Is he looking for something? I'm never sure. But he will sit there and stare at them for awhile before choosing which one he wishes to drink from.

He will also sit there and guard the water. If his sister *who doesn't like to drink water* wishes to drink from the cups he will come running over and stare at her while she drinks from his cups. Its very cute, but also very weird.

Thats about it. Not so funny, just weird. I have a weird cat.

The picture is of him deciding if he's thirsty or not. That small weird stain beside the cup isn't in fact a stain its water. He drinks very quickly and tends to slosh it out of the bowls. He's my dorkus!

Scary Cops are Scary Part TWO

When I wrote that out I wrote: Scary Cops are Scary Party Two! by accident. I think now I need to have a party with cops and see how it goes.

So my 2nd run in with cops here on the East Coast goes as such:

I have an elderly kitty. She adorable and sweet, to me at least, but hates anything and everything to do with vets. No idea why. But they dont like her as much either so I wont take her in for a cold or whatnot. But she devloped a UTI. Which she had never had before and she was all sorts of crazy about it. I wont get into the details, but she IS a lady so she would find plastic bags to go to the bathroom on. Thats CLASSY y'all!

So I took her to the ER vet and the doctor didn't want to give her a shot. He "Didn't believe in them" so he sent her home with liquid meds I had to force down her throat. Let me just say that this did NOT go well. She was choking and I was crying and it just didn't work. So then I took her to her normal vet and he gave her a shot and we went home. The next day she went BAT SHIT CRAZY.

I mean she was running around EVERYWHERE as if she wanted to be The Flash. She was a blur, and she would hide under my bed and pant and act all crazy. So of course I freaked out. It was about 11pm and I had made myself a cocktail right before this happened. And drank it. I called the ER vets and they were all: BRING HER IN NOW! And to me I was thinking. OMG. My cat is on the verge of dying!!!! So of course I scooped her up and drove on right over to the ER vets, which is just like 15 min away. To me, they ER vets were saying: RUN EVERY LIGHT OR YOUR CAT WILL DIE!

But I didn't run the lights. I just listened to my poor cat pant and I freaked out.

Now, lets go back to me watching the news around 9pm. They talked about how in MY area there had been TWO incidents of theft involving cars. One car would be driving, ho hum along, minding its own business and then another EVIL car would come up and follow it as if the personal space bubble no longer exsisted. And then it would HIT the first car.

The first car person would pull over and the second car person would get out and ROB THEM OF ALL OF THEIR SHIT! True story y'all. This totally happened. It happened twice, and then never happened again.

So, took my cat in, they saw her and she had calmed down. She was doing better, and they sent us home. Here I am driving home around 1am, minding my OWN business when suddenly a car comes ZOOMING up behind me. Its dark and my cat is crying because she wants out of her little cage. I'm petting her and talking to her and before that person no one had been there. So I was probably swerving a bit, as I petted my cat.

Like anyone you look at the top of the car behind you to make sure its not a cop. Well apparently he had those TINY LITTLE flashy lights on his car because I had no idea he was a cop. I slowed down a bit so he could pass me, I thought he was just a crazy-ass driver being a dick. Well he continued to follow me as close as he could get without hitting me.

I FREAKED out, thinking it was those ppl and they would hit me and steal my cat or my bottles of water or emergency kit. Who KNOWS what crazies want. But I was freaking out. We came to a light, which was red and I needed to turn left and of course they pull up so close to me I could have patted them on the head, behind me...

THEN I realize its a FREAKIN COP CAR! And then I remembered my cocktail I had about 2-3 hours ago. and I was all. OH SHIT! I'm going to get a DUI because I was driving weird since I was trying to calm my cat down. If that had happened I would have cried and told the cop that my cat had been almost dying and now she's saved and please, you were the only crazy person on the road.

But the light finally turned and he honked at me to turn faster, which is all: Dude, I can only turn as fast as my car can turn. You may have a fancy car but mine is from 83. And then he ZOOMED past me. And I went home and had two more cocktails... Also my cat is fine. The girl one at least. The boy one may have a disease that if I stress him out to much he could get crystals in his penis and die. So there's that for you.

And I actually have a THIRD cop story as of a week ago. But its not nearly as fun. The cop was stupid. Do you want to hear it?

Scary Cops are Scary!

So I have to random cop stories to tell you. Let me just say I never had ANY problems with cops in Alaska. But here in MD I've had two run ins.

#1:

I live with my mom because she's sick and I take care of her. Help her with things etc. So one day I drove her to work. It was a nice day, I didn't have anything else to do after I dropped her off so I wore no makeup and was wearing my PJ's. I dropped her off and then went on my merry way!

I had JUST dropped her off and sat at the light RIGHT NEXT TO HER building with a cop behind me. This is how it went:

Me: Ho hum, Mr. Cop I am so lawful its crazy!

Light turns green!

Me: Lets go! Cop can go away now! YAY!

Cop: Not so fast young lady. *turns on his lights and attacks me!*

Me: *pulls off and FREAKS THE FRAK OUT* OMG OMG OMG! Am I going to jail?

Cop: *Gets out and swaggers his way to me.* Miss, do you realize you have a light out?

Me: *SILL FREAKING OUT!* NO!!! I didn't know!!!

Cop: Miss, is this your car?

Me: *FREAKING OUT EVEN MORE* NO!!!! Its my moms!

Suddenly another cop car pulls behind the first cop car. I freak out even more

Cop: *Looks alarmed* Who's car is it? *Probably thinking that a 5'2 little girl looking person stole a Rav 4 from someone*

Me: My MOMS! *Still freaking out*

Cop: Please give me the shit you need to give me so I can make sure you're not secretly a felon!

Me: OKAY! *hands stuff to cop*

Cop goes away and does whatever cops do. Comes back and hands it all to me. As well as a little sheet of yellow paper.

Cop: Miss, this a warning, make sure to get your light fixed.

Me: OKAY! *then we all leave and I head straight to a someone to fix that stupid stinking light*

If you want the second story you should comment and I'll give it to you! It involves cats and crazy ppl who hit you and steal your shit.

Fairy Tales: If I Had A Child

Fairy Tales: If I Had A Child: Lets get this straight, in no way, shape or form do I want children. Other people's kids are fine, I don't mind hanging out with them in sma...

If I Had A Child

Lets get this straight, in no way, shape or form do I want children. Other people's kids are fine, I don't mind hanging out with them in small doses. But I have anxiety issues and the screaming, running around of children makes me want to run and hide in a dark room, curl up an cry. I don't know why. Thats just how it is. Which is one of the reasons I don't want children. I don't want to be a mother who runs and hides when their child needs something and can't communicate it to me in words, but in screams instead. I think I might be a mean mother because I would get so stressed out with the screaming.

But sometimes I just like to think of what I COULD be like if I was a mother. I grew up with only my mother and I thank her every day for encouraging my imagination. Honestly I think today's parents want their children to always be doing something so they give them tasks and projects to do. Why not let them figure out what they want to do on their own? But I digress.

I was watching Arthur, you know...the kids show on PBS. I love it. And Arthur's grandfather is sick. Long story short he learns that its a natural process of getting older, etc. And then between the cartoons they always go visit real kids. And in this episode the real kids were visiting an old folks home.

It makes me think of my Grandparents and what their lives were like growing up, and what even my own mothers life was like growing up. So very different from when I was growing up and I'm sure to my own Grandparents it would be like Science Fiction to see how my Niece and Nephew grow up now. With iPads and talking to people miles away but still being able to see them face to face *skype* etc.

This one older woman talked about how she would gather around the radio and listen to programs rather then watch them on television *since there was no such thing when she was small* and how you had to have an imagination to really paint the pictures that the actors were talking about over the radio.

What an interesting thing. If I were a mother I might do that. Pre-record a show like Arthur and have my child sit and listen to it rather then watch it. I would ask them to draw pictures about what they are seeing in their mind while they listen to the story. The same could go with a parent reading to them. It would be so interesting to see what a child could come up with...

I randomly think of things like this. What if? But for now it will remain in my imagination.

Fairy Tales: And Then The Spider Almost KILLED Me. True Story.

Fairy Tales: And Then The Spider Almost KILLED Me. True Story.: Disclaimer: I do swear like a Sailor in this one. Sorry. But I hate spiders. They freak me THE FUCK OUT! This Picture is from the AWES...