Just Til My Skin Turns Brown...

... and then I'm coming home.

Home to Autumn. Between Stampede, vacations, wandering outdoors, patio parties, sun tanning, and general lackadaisical thinking, I had little time to keep up with Life Is a Lark.

My sun soaked brain had little time for documenting the complete whirlwind that was my summer.

Back now and with many crafts and projects and travels and recipes and life lessons to write about.

School is now in session.

Cream Of The Crop

Well, not the crop, but cream of the cashew.

Much to much horror, I woke up Sunday morning and stumbled to the kitchen, my sleepy brain aching for a cup of coffee, and realized that I'd forgotten to pick up almond milk to whiten my coffee.

Rather than having a crying fit and going back to bed I decided to take matters into my own capable hands.

Here is the recipe that my pre-coffee brain put together.

Dolce Cashew Coffee Cream

1 cup of cashews, preferably soaked in water
1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
3-4 dates
1 teaspoon of vanilla
About a cup of water

That's my new homemade bamboo cutting board in the background. Thanks Dad :)

Toss everything in your Vitamix and let it rip for quite a while, you want the cashews and dates to be absolutely pulverized.

The consistency should be that of coffee cream so add enough water until you get to that point.

Add to your coffee and enjoy. It really reminds me of the Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte without all the gross animal products and chemicals. Keep the excess in the fridge in a really cute cream boat.

So now with caffeine coarsing through my veins I was ready to hit a yoga class and meditate on my life.

However, all I could think about was getting home for round two of the best coffee I've had in ages.

When I took the mixture out of the fridge, I saw that it had seriously thickened up, almost to a whipping cream texture and so, my next invention was created.

Slice up a crisp green apple into tiny chunks and pour some of the cashew mixture over, toss and sprinkle with cinnamon.

I'm not really a dessert person, but this was amazing!

Simple and fresh and perfect for a guilt free dessert.

Sunday crisis averted.

Am I Ugly?

Confidence is something that I have always had to fight tooth and nail for.

Crooked summer teeth (some are here, some are there), the boobs of a fat five year old, and eyebrows that resemble Ernie's from Sesame Street were just some of the issues that the universe blessed me with to teach me to overcome insecurites.


At this point in my life however, I feel that my body and self image is very healthy.

Braces on my teeth, a killer push up bra, and religious visits to a waxing genius have helped.

So when I downloaded a new App on my iPhone called Am I Ugly?, I wondered if looking for an outsiders electronic opinion of my looks meant that I was backsliding into middle school confidence hell.

Oh well, I uploaded a photo that I thought was pretty darn cute.

Submit.

I waited anxiously, immediately regretting this download. I am nearly thirty, there is no reason for me to look for validation in an iPhone app.

The results.

Do they even have doctors for that?

Recognizing the error of my ways, I went to delete the App and pretend the whole thing didn't happen.

But not before one more submission.

The results.

Something smelled fishy.

Turns out that Am I Ugly? is on an entirely random rotation. It does not judge facial measurements or capture your bra size or zero in on the retainer that you are still wearing 15 years after having your braces removed.

My confidence was restored after the discovery that it is completely random.

Of course, there is no way I'm telling Sofi that.

After all, doesn't matter how cute you are, every girl needs a confidence boost once in a while.

Stallion Salad

Before you judge me on the weird names that I assign my salad recipes, you try making one up. It is not easy.

I chose Stallion Salad for this one because I decided while making it that if I ever land a hot Italian Stallion boyfriend I will make this for him.

He's going to love it.

Stallion Salad

Ingredients:

1 cup of quinoa
8 stalks of asparagus
1 zucchini
5 mushrooms
1 red pepper
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes in oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pepper

There is spinach pictured but I left that out in the end. That's what happens with you invent as you go. Also, I left out red onion because I don't like onions but if you do, toss some in there.

First, add the quinoa and 1.5 cups of water in a pot and let it boil. Once boiling, turn the heat to low and put a lid on it. It will be ready in 15 minutes so hurry up and get your veggies and dressing ready.

I decided to get fancy on this one and used a potato peeler on the asparagus and zucchini, shaving them into ribbons.

Chop up the mushrooms and red pepper, add them to the bowl.

Next, put the sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, garlic, mustard, and pepper into a blender and blend until combined.

Hopefully this is all done by the time the quinoa is cooked.

Add the hot quinoa to the vegetables and mix. The quinoa will slightly cook the vegetables making them delicious to eat.

Add the dressing and mix well.

This takes only 20 minutes to whip up which leaves you lots of time to entertain your Italian Stallion however you please.

He will love that as well.

Yo Momma

Another Mother's Day has come and gone and I have not received a damn thing from Sofi. Seriously pup, do you not appreciate me at all?

Of course she does, she's just bad at communicating her feelings... I wonder where she got that from?

But this post is not about Sofi, it's about me and my wonderful mother.

In the case of me and my mom, the apple has certainly not fallen far from the tree. We have so many similarities that I often wonder if she's copying me. She probably wonders if I'm copying her. Self-involvement might be one of our common threads. Kidding Mom.

We share a love for all things bohemian, the Beatles, being a drama queen, and the Gap. We both come home from hikes with pockets full of rocks, paint every piece of furniture in our homes multiple times, and have the same devotion to Clinique. We even cosmically end up buying the same shampoo without knowing it.

However, there are many ways that she is different and they are the ways in which I wish I could be just like her.

She is completely fulfilled in her day job, working with unfortunate children. She can whip up a fabulous, healthy meal for ten hungry people in twenty minutes flat. She never fails to land the upgrade at every hotel she's ever stayed at. She always makes time to focus on her health and fitness no matter how busy she is. She is a vault for every one's secrets and gives advice that can seem life saving.

I count myself lucky for the ways in which we are the same and admire her for the ways in which we are not.

The latest similarity was revealed to me on Mother's Day when we went to a yoga class together. Typically I prefer not to be beside her at yoga because it only takes one look to get us both giggling in a very non-yogic way.

The closing of the class came with the dreaded group Om. After doing yoga for five years, I still avoid having to chime in and hear my own voice. My solution to this has always been to move my mouth into a circle and just let air, not noise, pass through my lips.

I glanced over at my mom and saw that she was doing the same thing.

"Did you just lip sync your Om?"

A quick nod let me know that she had.

Yep. She was Milli, I was Vanilli.

But rather than blaming in on the rain, we chose to blame it on our hereditary lack of pitch and the fact that we are two of a kind.

Two peas in a pod.

Quite fitting actually, considering that we are both vegetarians.

Happy Mother's Day.

I love you.