banana chocolate chip

There isn't much in this world I hate more than I hate bananas. Apparently (according to my mother) from the time I was old enough to eat solid food, I've had a unique hatred that borders on phobia, and refused to have anything to do with them.

I personally think it's a texture thing, since they don't really have an overpoweringly strong smell or taste to them, and I was intrigued when I recently came across this recipe, and decided to test that theory.

The basic premise is that you make pancakes with just one banana and one egg, rather than unhealthy pancake batter. I also added a little pinch of salt to add a little depth to the flavour.

I wasn't expecting much from this recipe (I also hate pancakes, and refuse to eat them except as a vehicle to consume large amounts of chocolate for breakfast) but it was actually really delicious. It didn't taste like bananas, and the texture was very pancake-ish.

It's a very simple recipe

Mash up the banana...

Add one egg and a pinch of salt and beat

Cook like you would a regular pancake, with a tiny bit of oil or cooking spray

Add chocolate chips (or blueberries, nuts, etc) and flip

Put on a plate

Demolish in 5 seconds flat (with Derek's help)

I will definitely be making these again as a "healthy" snack or for breakfast. I also think they would be good with a dash of cinnamon and vanilla, and then served with sugar free syrup and a sprinkle of icing sugar, like french toast without the bread or the frenchness.

what would you be?

I came across this video on Facebook yesterday. It really hit home for me. I think the older you get, the more you can be concerned with what you "should" be doing, rather than with what you are really passionate about doing.

It can be easy to scare yourself into thinking that the things you want aren't possible, and that trying to achieve them will only lead to failure and heart ache.

But maybe if we learn to let go a little bit, veer off the path, and accept that we might not get exactly what we want, but that things might be OK anyways, we might get something even better.

get dirty

Last weekend it was so gorgeous outside that I didn't want to spend a single second indoors, so I loaded up on plants and spent most of my time playing in the dirt.

I spend so much of my time inside lately, and I love to have a place to hang out outside (read: tan and drink margaritas) so I always like to spruce up our backyard in the spring.

Aside from the constant terror of spiders (I'm not really afraid of spiders, but the ones here in California are SPIDERS. I saw a black widow once) it was very pleasant and relaxing. I even bought myself some gardening gloves.

I am pretty much a floppy hat and some Crocs away from being every grandmother in a movie, ever.

When life hands you lemons, just say fuck the lemons and bail

Using all the strawberries from these two plants I can make the world's smallest strawberry shortcake

I love my orange tree, but I'm afraid to eat the oranges, I don't know why

spotted

Just a few lovely things I've seen while I was out and about recently:

On Venice Beach: Love Making in Progress, Do Not Disturb Creation. Legitimate.

Beautiful graffiti portrait

On an LA apartment building

I walk by this heart every day on my way to work. I always wonder who put it there, and why.

el eh

We had a really wonderful long weekend in LA, in addition to the Hollywood Sign hike, we got to see some of Derek's family, spent a day at Universal Studios, and did some sight seeing and spent some time at the beach.

There is so much to do there, and we were only in town for a couple days, so I've already started planning our next trip which will hopefully include a movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, a tour of the WB studios, and brunch on the beach.

How excited are you to be at Universal Studios?

I think I win

You can't have everything in life

Don't worry, it's not a real shark

Gabrielle's house from Desperate Housewives

Whoville

It's probably not a coincidence that Whoville is directly behind the Bates Motel

it was mutual

Starstruck

Venice beach

The single greatest tree in the history of the world

art on Venice beach

date night in Long Beach

free front row tickets

I touched his hand, we're basically best friends

the happiness project

I just finished reading the happiness project by Gretchen Rubin. She basically spent a year trying to figure out what made her happy and why and figuring out how she could make little changes to increase the joy she got from each day and how to identify and eliminate the little annoyances that can take it away. 

There were a few things in the happiness project that I found very interesting. One of her happiness resolutions was to "be Gretchen", or to stop doing the things that were supposed to make her happy, or the things that other people enjoy and really figure out the things that made her happy. 

She talked about how we can feel pressure to like certain things because we wish we were people who enjoyed them or because we think they are more intellectual or cooler than the things we really like, but if those things don't actually make you happy, or worse, actually make you feel bad about yourself or guilty because you feel like you should do them and you don't want to, then that can drain your happiness.

If you really love listening to Top 40 music, but you are ashamed because you think you should enjoy listening to classical, or jazz because it's "cooler" or "more intellectual" so you try to force yourself to listen to it. There is something to be said for broadening your horizons and learning new things, but at the end of the day, why not embrace the things that truly make you happy in life?

And I've never really understood people that say they have "good" taste in music because they like jazz or underground rap. Isn't that point of music to make you feel connected and happy? Any music that makes you feel good, is good music. The end.

Another interesting point from The Happiness Project was about how things like bad habits or nagging tasks can steal moments of joy from your day because you feel bad about eating junk, not calling your grandmother or not making that doctor's appointment.

I am a bit of a procrastinator myself, and I can definitely see that I would save myself a lot of time feeling guilty about not doing something if I just did it, and that some of my bad habits, while they may feel great at the time (like eating an entire bag of chocolate chips) lead immediately to feeling guilty, weak, and in my case, sick.

I'd never really thought of things like this as taking away from your happiness, but I suppose if there are little tasks and bad habits that are constantly weighing on you, it could be a major source of unhappiness that might be eliminated fairly easily.

One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was when she was researching the link between companionship/friendship and happiness. She found that for both women and men, the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn't make a difference.

There are several reasons for this, including women being generally more empathetic, and better listeners. This point really struck me, because I know the times in my life when I have felt the loneliest, those are the times when I didn't have a lot of female friendships, or at least contact with women.

So basically, girls night out is very important, it's science.

You can learn more about The Happiness Project here.

it's not so black and white

A few weeks ago I wrote about a dress I had been stalking all over the world, and I finally found it on eBay, for twice as much as it would have been in the store, but still. It was very gratifying to track it down and I was so excited when it finally showed up in my mail box.

I'm not very good at dressing for the weather or the occasion. If i want to wear something I'm going to wear it, even if that means white pants at an amusement park or ballet flats during a monsoon.

I couldn't wait to wear it so naturally I put it on when we went for a drive to explore the area because why wouldn't you wear a cocktail dress and heels to a nature preserve?

Dress H&M, shoes Forever 21

hollywood

I had a seriously fun weekend in LA, and one of the highlights was hiking to the Hollywood sign. Ever since I was little I always thought the Hollywood sign was the coolest thing around, and then a few years ago I found out you can actually hike to it, and I've wanted to do it ever since.

We had a gorgeous day for it, the trail is about 4 miles, and you can hike it, or go on horseback. The view from the top was amazing, and it was pretty neat to be that close to such an iconic piece of history.

You can learn more about the Hollywood sign hike here.

I wore new shoes for some inexplicable reason, and ended up walking on the backs so I wouldn't get blisters