Vitamix – Catch the vision! from Everything Is Terrible! on Vimeo.

Don’t let Lion’s Milk scare you off! Katie’s Vitamix giveaway ends January 30th.

I even have time still to make one of her recipes! Maybe Raw Carrot Cake Macaroons since I’ll be juicing tomorrow and never have enough uses for all that carrot pulp.

photo credit: nostalgia.2009

We had a fantastic dinner last night at a friend’s parents’ house. It’s funny how we all have different relationships with our parents, and though my friend has a tough one with hers (as do I) I can get along with them fine. In fact, I mostly love other people’s parents. They just don’t push my buttons like they do with their own kids. That’s the beauty of it.

We had an amazing salmon dinner with fish her brother had caught in Alaska, roasted potatoes, and a delicious salad that my friend had to make two batches of we ate so much.

The defining moment, however, was the homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie made with homegrown rhubarb. It was not overly sweet, and I am not lying when I say that it was the best pie crust I’ve ever had in my life. I said to her mother, “Helen, your crust is AMAZING!” to which she adamantly replied, “My pie crust IS amazing!” (I can’t wait till I’m old enough to say whatever the hell I want to.)

The secret to her absolutely mind-blowing (not to mention diet-blowing) pie crust is ……..lard.

Whanh wanh.

I’d eat it again right now if I could.

Off for a lake walk….have a great weekend everyone!

Not only does Helen make record-setting pie crust, but she’s in her 80′s and still hikes and cross-country skis. Unfortunately, her communtity pea-patch has gotten to be too much work for her, and she’s giving it up. She was kind enough to offer us her rhubarb plants which we will dig up for her, along with whatever else she decides to take home. We will pay her in razor clams.

Photo credit: 1happysnapper/Creative Commons

Though I’m still reeling over my homework disaster on Weds, I wanted to take a minute this morning to state my gratitude that 1) it’s not raining here in Seattle and hasn’t for days, 2) the ground is not shaking underneath my feet, and 3) the stress of balancing work, school, exercise, and my marriage hasn’t sent me running to the bottom of a bag of something sweet/salty/delicious.

And I’m soooooo grateful it’s Friday!

Next week Brother of Carbzilla comes to town! So excited! And did you see Averie’s Yoga/Raw Eating retreat – I’m pretty sure I’m going! I wish it were next week!

I had lots of other things to talk about, but I have to get this off my chest so I can just move on.

We had our first assignment due for my Sustainable Business class last night.

I totally blew it.

I may have mentioned that we had to learn a pretty complicated diagramming system for this project. Not only was I having technical difficulties, but I somehow missed the simpleness of the instructions and turned the written portion into something totally off the mark.

THEN, to make matters unbelievably worse, I volunteered to go first to show my diagram because no one else was stepping up. My diagram was very very basic (it looked like a balloon animal), and the teacher was very kind about explaining how that wasn’t quite what they were looking for. Then I really realized that even my written portion was a complete digression when what they really wanted was a very cut-and-dry outline of what an article had said. Period. No extrapolation or additional research, no footnotes, no photo. It was like I had written “How I spent my summer vacation” while everyone had seen the directions exactly as written.

Everyone else’s diagrams looked like they’d been doing them their whole lives.

I was mortified.

I was Elle in Legally Blonde.

Now not everyone got up so I didn’t see everyone’s work, but I’m really stunned that in a room of 20 people, I could be the only one who didn’t get it. The other students have been working together for a quarter already so maybe they checked with each other, but still. Yes, it’s possible I’m the dumbest one in the class, which would be a new experience for me, but maybe one that I need to learn quickly. (How many calories are there in Humble Pie?)

Somehow I need to get over this.

The good news is that everything else this quarter is a group project so I’m bound to stay on track (and I will work on my diagramming skills though I hope to NEVER have to use them ever again), and I expect to be a valuable member of my team.

I just hope I “get it” in the future.

Have you ever felt like you just didn’t get it while everyone else around you did?