I Am Art

happy meals

The other day Pioneer Woman had a really funny blog post about the right and the gross way to make cinnamon toast. Her right way looked amazing with a beautiful concoction of cinnamon sugar-vanilla-butter and involved turning the oven on. Her gross way is the way most of us involved in a discussion about it on twitter still make it. Toast  your bread in the toaster, spread a thin layer of butter on the warm bread, sprinkle on some cinnamon sugar, then eat ten pieces.

Ever since I read that post about cinnamon toast, it's all I have wanted with my brown bag of popcorn. I do believe you can survive happily on a diet of cinnamon toast and popcorn, even if both are made the gross way. I have now perfected my popcorn in the lunch bag technique. Except for one time I didn't notice a hole in the bag (The Great Popcorn Incident of 2010), each batch has turned out perfectly. And by each batch I mean each meal.

I am so happy.

How's your popcorn turning out?

Hooked

Today We're FEELIN' GROOVY about:
~Chris Pureka's new CD, How I Learned To See In The Dark. You must listen to it 7 times and then you will be hooked. Not even hooked, addicted. I can't stop listening. My favorites are Wrecking Ball, Shipwrecked, Broken Clock, and Lowlands. You can hear them all on her myspace page right now. Someone needs to tell Chris Isaak that he needs to do a duet with Chris Pureka.
~A few lovely days of sunshine and a garden full of blooming flowers.
~J.R. Watkins Lemon Cream lotion. A little bit goes a long way. If you use too much the lemon WILL be barfy. A little on your dry hands is all you need and that little bit is refreshing. And by too much I mean all over your body.
~The Missing Link feline formula vitamin powder you put on your cat's food. It cured Suki's dry skin in days and she didn't even notice it was on her food.
~Planning an adventure.
~I found the Niman Ranch Applewood bacon at My Boyfriend Trader Joe's that was mentioned in the Cooking Light article we mentioned earlier. Oh my Buddha! It's good. 

Our Bêtes Noires:
~ There are some really good videos of Chris Pureka singing her new songs live on YouTube but in every video there's someone coughing. That totally ruins it. If you are sick, stay home. You ruin the youtube experience for the rest of us. Yes, I do believe I have complained about this before but it's still happening. Listen to the coughers here and here .
~Dishes that can't go in the dishwasher.
~I'm apparently giving off an I'm Free For The Taking Vibe. Or maybe it's an I Believe Bullshit Vibe. I can't tell, yet.  What herb do you burn to get rid of either of those?
~A flaky cat. I forgot to add that to the list of things that would gross me out before we got a cat.
~Mosquitoes and spiders everywhere.

*Prints of A GOOD START are available in my shop.

The fun part

*Recently I have been working on some commissioned art  projects for corporate clients. One of the duties of that job is being sworn to secrecy for months and that is a hard thing. The fun part is starting to happen~ I'm starting to see some of it pop up in unexpected places! One collection is now available at AllPosters.com at really good prices.  I think it is important that a variety of styles of art be available at all price points so I am thrilled that is happening.
See the collection here.

*There's a cute article where Karen and I are are quoted about art journaling along with artist Kelly Kilmer here. As you'll see, Kelly was the victim of The Curse Of The Extra Vowel this time. So fun! Always, always, always a good sign. Signed copies of Journal Revolution are available in my etsy shop.

*Remember Little Orphan Annie? One of the photos I licensed last year was the one of her with Buddha. I found it here at Successories! Annie is now a motivational poster. That's funny and sweet at the same time. Her spirit lives on and is customizable!

in a hurry

On Highway 126 between our house and the beach, there sits a psychic tarot card and palm reader (in a small blue cabin) next to a busy gas station on the side of a two lane road. The sign alerting drivers to the psychic is bigger than the sign for the gas station and for over a decade I have wanted to stop and take a photo.  I don't know why we never stop except perhaps there are always kind of scary looking people at the gas station and that prevents me from getting out of the car with a pricey camera in my hands. Or maybe it's because we're in a hurry to get to the beach.
The last time we drove toward the beach,  I was the passenger in the car so I stuck my camera out and got a photo as we zoomed by. I just don't think this psychic is very good. If she were, she'd have been standing in front of her shop with a big HELLO, LINDA! sign in her hands letting me know she predicted the day I'd finally get a photo.
I totally would've stopped for that.

for the love of popcorn

A few years ago when I was on the angel food cake and popcorn diet (also known as Weight Watchers Points) I bought a microwave popcorn popper. It's a thin plastic bowl with a lid and a magic paper liner thing that goes in the bottom of the bowl that does something to make the popcorn pop. The paper liner looks pretty much like a mini paper plate and is good for a few pops but then it gets kind of burnt and you have to change it. I stocked up on the magic liners because popcorn was/is a staple of my diet. And, I don't like salty packaged microwave popcorn and I was afraid of my airpopper thanks to the time sparks came out if it. I loved my microwave popper EXCEPT that since there was the paper liner thing, I had to put the popped popcorn in another bowl to spray my fake butter on it. I was going through a lot of bowls. Still, I used it religiously.
A couple weeks ago I ran out of the paper things. I went to buy some and could not find them anywhere. So I googled them and found a lively discussion among foodies about microwave poppers. One guy was also upset that he couldn't find the liners and another guy called him a blithering idiot because all he had to do was put his popcorn in a brown lunch bag and microwave for a few minutes until the popping stopped.
WHAT?! NO WAY! I was a blithering idiot, too, because I had no idea. Luckily I had a bunch of brown lunch bags left over from a time I was making bag journals! I put 3 tablespoons of popcorn kernels in the bag and folded the top over twice. I put it in the microwave for 5 minutes and the popping slowed at about 3 minutes. I took the bag out and it was full of popped popcorn!  Popped popcorn without cancer causing chemicals! OH MY BUDDHA! I drizzled some melted butter right into the bag and shook it up. No bowl needed.  Life just got so much better (and easier).
I searched foodtv.com and see that Alton Brown has a method for this too but his way involves oil and a stapler.  You don't need the oil to make the popcorn put but I bet his recipe tastes amazing. I also didn't staple my bag and it stayed closed.
I wonder what else I don't know.

McGuyver Woods

 The problem with having a cat and the problem with being a dark haired Eurasian Jew are the same- there's hair everywhere! One of us is always shedding. I remember when people told me that I'd soon love Suki so much that I wouldn't notice the cat hair everywhere. Love has never made me that blind. I love her and I hate cat hair all over my furniture. I also hate it in my sink after I blow dry my hair. It's universal problem.
 
I got the sticky paper hair rollers for our clothes and then I discovered the Pledge Pet Hair roller thing. WOW! It works great! I use it on the couch, our duvet, the chairs, even my clothes when I am out of the sticky paper roller thing. The only problem with the Pledge thing is it's NOT (made to be) REUSABLE.  It's a shame it's not reusable because it's made of plastic and  it fills with fur really fast so we needed to get one almost every week. It was making our house fur-free but what was it doing to the landfills? My husband, Dustin McGuyver Woods, was losing sleep over this. How could we continue to rid our house of excess fur, be environment friendly, and still have money for our trips to Starbucks? He got to work and solved our problem.
 The lid to the pet hair thing is secured to the base with plastic posts on all sides. He clipped the posts on both short ends (one on each end) and along one long side (3 posts) so that the lid opens like a door. He scooped all the fur out with his fingers and closed the lid. Because he is a man, he secured it with a screw. I would've used tape. Now we can use and reuse our pet hair thing and not need to keep buying new ones. We just undo the screw and empty the fur when it is full, then reuse. The plastic posts can be clipped with nail clippers or wire cutters, whatever you cut with that is easy and you won't hurt yourself.  Just leave one side attached so it acts like a hinge. If you use a screw to keep the lid closed, be sure it is a short one so your furniture doesn't get scratched.
Now I wonder if McGuyver Woods  can create a self-emptying litter box.

comfort cuisine

Thanks so much to everyone who shared their lunch with us.  We have entered all the names into the empty guitar case and the winner is Ellen M. and her breakfast!  We'll be doing another contest next month so keep eating!

I said before, I've been cooking a lot lately because my husband is home and it's cheaper (sometimes) than eating out and we're trying to be healthy. Actually, that be healthy part is not really part of it. We are healthy. I can say that with all the scientific proof to back it up.  I am anemic, have thyroid disease and arthritis.  I have had those problems no matter what I ate. We've had our cholesterol checked and we're both fine in that department. Also, neither of us has diabetes or heart disease. So I suppose the be healthy aspect is more to prevent the bad stuff from happening. We're eating more whole grains and organic foods instead of foods full of pesticides and chemicals so when we get cancer we won't be mad at ourselves for eating Twinkies for dinner.  When my husband was working, I ate a lot Lean Cuisine and packaged food and treadmilled for 45 minutes 5 days a week. It was really easy not to gain any of the 45 pounds I lost years ago.  And, I felt really good.

It turns out that since I've been cooking all our food from scratch, I eat a lot more and I spend a lot more time doing the god-damn-mofo-dishes (which I HATE) and have very little time left for that thing called exercise. I'm irritable, sluggish, and I have GAINED TEN POUNDS since I stopped eating primarily frozen foods. Cooking all these things with organic everything takes too much time. You have to grocery store hop to find the things you need because one store doesn't have everything you need and in LA it takes 20 minutes to get anywhere. By the time you go to three stores to get the tomatoes, the organic basil, the half- wheat noodles, and the good olive oil, you could've microwaved your Lean Cuisine spaghetti eaten it and been singing with Erasure on the treadmill for 35 minutes.
It's been three months of healthy organic eating.  And, I'm still anemic. I still have thyroid disease. I still have arthritis.  AND I GOT FATTER and there's no empty pie pan to show for it.
It's so unfair. Also, that it's a total LIE that if you cook healthy foods your family will get along better. I don't care who tells you that (even if it's Jamie Oliver and I am in love with him), it's not true. Seriously, cook a crappy meal and nobody in your family will love you more. Even your cat will give you the evil eye.
Ralphs had Lean Cuisine on sale today. I have no idea what they had on sale in their organic section.
I can't wait to be reunited with my treadmill.

karmic cleansing

Next week I am having a mammogram and ultrasound. I am also getting a haircut. I'll also probably have the cold my husband is suffering from and my period because mammograms and haircuts seems to have the same power airplanes do. Also, my hairstylist is pregnant. Usually my hairstylists turn bad when they either get off or on drugs but I have never had one be pregnant, so I am not sure how this will be. There's just so much that can go wrong (or right!) next week so I think it's best that I do some karmic cleansing.

~I take back any time I ever yelled sell out! When I heard a song by a popular band being used to sell an item in a commercial. I now know that licensing is not an easy task at all and that selling out is way harder than it seems. I hope all my favorite singers and songwriters made lots of money and were able to pay their bills. Also, it's not selling out. It's just doing business.
~I take back the time I accidentally ordered baby cow parts for me and Karen for dinner because I thought sweetbreads were really sweet bread. It was really funny, though.
~I take back any time I complained (too much) about the bad ending of any book or movie.
~I take back all those hours of my life spent in the tanning bed even though I looked really good and felt great.
~I take back all those times I thought I was fat when I wasn't. How stupid.
~I take back all the times I didn't order the pecan pie because I was clueless.
~I take back that one year I didn't vote in our local election because I couldn't get my vcr timer to work and I didn't want to miss General Hospital.
~I take back the time I tried to kill a bee on our kitchen window by hitting it with a broom. The window broke and the bee flew out. Again, really funny but so stupid (it was near the time I couldn't get the vcr to work).
~I take back the hours of my life lost to a Steve Winwood concert even though it was very funny to look over and see Karen sound asleep. We learned that night that noise really won't keep you awake if you are bored. So maybe it wasn't a total waste of time. A lesson was learned.
~I take back ever getting mad at slow drivers. It's a scary world, I get it. I hate to drive, too. Just stay in the right lane so you don't cause an accident.
~I take back that time I accidentally killed that frog in my garage! I didn't mean to! It was suicidal and jumped behind my car as I backed out. Forgive me, Froggy.
~I take back eating cookies for every meal even though it happened as recently as today. Like I said, I'll probably have my period, too.
~I take back any time people thought I wasn't listening. I really was.
~I take back any time I ever gave anyone bad directions. I am not the seester who can read a map yet strangers always come up to me and ask how to get places. Yikes. So sorry, strangers.
~I take back some of the times I got mad when people didn't say thanks.  I am currently suffering from Oh my Buddha, did I send them a thank you note or not? I think I did, but what if I didn't? If I send another one, they will think I am crazy... so I get that sometimes that happens. If I haven't sent you a thank you card or email, it's either on the way or that suffering is about you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

***The Urban Buddha: Namaste print is new and available for a limited time in my shop.

Contest Time: We're hungry and feel like dancing!

In the last 6 weeks, I have made over a hundred pieces of art for a client that I can't talk about yet.  I've done that while my husband has been home which is really hard to do because, well, he is a man. A heterosexual man. A heterosexual man recovering from major shoulder surgery who likes to eat lunch AND dinner every day. I have had to make major adjustments in my routine and one of the things that has had to go was all the time I spent laying around doing nothing while giving myself pedicures and eating bon bons. Ok, I never did that. I did like to sit in my Zen garden (or stand in my kitchen) and listen to CDs really loud while I ate peanut butter cups while answering emails on my iPhone and that had to stop (temporarily).
While working on Meeting In The Ladies Room, we were lucky to meet many wonderful women who make music! I stood in my kitchen and listened a lot. That was one of the funnest parts of working on the project. Some of those women were SUPER FAMOUS and some are on their way to being SUPER FAMOUS like Sara Kamin and the lovely ladies of Kiss Kill. The super famous and the about to be super famous all in one book. That was fantastic! We introduced you to Sara a while back and now Sara and Kiss Kill will be doing some shows on the west coast together! We're very excited about this because one thing led to another thing and things are happening for the girls!
And also it means that the girls will all be coming west and Karen and I will finally get to hug Pam in June.
This month we are happy to introduce you to the music and poetry of Kiss Kill while we all share our lunches. Comment here by Saturday April 10th  and let us know what you had for lunch for your chance to win a copy of Meeting In The Ladies Room and a Kiss Kill Cd, Tank Top, button, and Michelle Blau's book of poetry, She Had Wept. Kiss Kill's Michelle Blau and Dusti Ohland are both featured in Meeting In The Ladies Room.
Names of commenters will be written on small pieces of paper and tossed into an empty guitar case. One winner will be selected at random by my  husband who likes lunch and dinner.

To see Sara Kamin and Kiss Kill live, visit Sara Kamin's Facebook or Kiss Kill's facebook or information.

For information about Meeting In The Ladies Room, see:

Meeting In The Ladies Room by Linda Woods and Karen Dinino | BOOK INFO

*A little bird told me that Pam is giving away something free at her blog, too!