The Muffin Top is the Best Part!

The muffins are better than the last time. OMG yummy. The original recipe is here.

I made changes of course.

Super Duper Zucchini Muffins - Kitten Style

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour Whole Wheat Flour - I used the generic Kroger's brand
1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup splenda brown sugar mix
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening butter
1/4 cup sour milk 1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 2 cups shredded or food processed zucchini &/or yellow squash
1 1.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped walnuts I did add some chopped pecans, but I didn't have walnuts
1/4 cup brown sugar left off this step as it definitely wasn't needed!

Added:
4 teaspoon vital wheat gluten - You don't need this, but it makes the muffins more elastic, rise better, and adds some protein (something I can always use in the morning!)
1/2 cup 2% milk - with the additional zucchini and using sour cream instead of sour milk, I needed more liquid.

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a muffin pan, or use paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. I used a hand mixer to mix the butter with the dry ingredients and then made a well and added all the wet ingredients. So much better than trying to cut everything together. Make a well in the center, and pour in milk, eggs, zucchini and vanilla. Fold in walnuts. Fill muffin cups 2/3 to 3/4 full. Sprinkle tops with brown sugar.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool. - Mine took just about 15 minutes. I removed the muffins from the pan immediately - be careful, they are delicate - and put them on racks to cool. Then put them in ziplock bags and left on the counter overnight. By the morning they are super moist and delicious to have for breakfast.

TGIF

Another very hot day at the shop. So hot. It's been in the 90's here recently, and very muggy. My business shares a building with the landlord, A. He's a good guy mostly, but we are both suffering pretty bad during the recession and have been trying to cut costs wherever possible. So there is no AC at the shop currently.

This morning it was around 65 outside, though we had a great deal of humidity so it felt a bit warmer. But the shop itself was probably 85 in the morning. We need more fans to try to get the cooler air indoors in the morning and then close the doors in the afternoon. Large amounts of money so we could turn on the AC would be ideal at this point.

I've been going into work very early (for me) this week and then leaving earlier as well to try to avoid the heat as much as possible. Shockingly, I've been pretty productive considering the sweating. The funny thing is I'll get all focused on a project and be working away, and I'm ok, but when I stop I'm kind of disoriented and dazed for a bit. I'm pretty sure I lose about 10 IQ points for every hours I'm in the building. At that rate, by the time I left today, I had an IQ of about 80. And I felt like it. It's like Flowers for Algernon up in there.

Did I mention it was hot?

So once I got home I really wanted to bake up my muffins. I have a tendency to procrastinate and I really wanted my muffins done and taken care of before the zucchini turned. They turned out beautifully and smell amazing. I worked on the cucumber & yogurt for tzatziki a bit (both needed to be drained) and later assembled it so it could work it's chemical goodness in the fridge. 3 dozen muffins later - 1 that suicided onto the floor. Sad :(

And now I'm feeling craptastic. Stupid uterus. It causes me all kinds of non-consentual, hard limit, sweat and fever inducing pain. Where's my safeword mother nature??! Would anyone care to purchase it? All you need to do is pay for it's removal and you can haz it 4 free. I've never grown a baby in it, and according to the little ancient Asian doctor who once gave me a pelvic exam, it's "ripe". So cmon.. come and pick mah damn fruit already.

Heading to bed and hoping I feel better. I have two consultations to do tomorrow and hopefully can get a decent amount accomplished. They are having a car show tomorrow and closing off our street for it, so likely I'll be plagued by peckins asking "Do people really buy this stuff?"

My god I'm grumpy.

Domesticity

Since meeting Daddy, I've become way more domestic. You know, competent around the house, doing more than opening a packet of starch and mixing with water, signing up for a CSA, etc. All of these things go hand in hand with me trying to have a healthier lifestyle in general. Daddy wants me around for a while I guess.

Part of this has been diet. I signed up for a CSA, which if you don't already know, is short for Community Supported Agriculture. Yay farmers! I spent part of my formative years living in the country with a gynormous organic garden, lots of pets, a pony, wood furnace, etc. Sadly, even with our awesome produce, my parents would cook the veggies until they were gray. It was so gross that I "hated" vegetables for the longest time. I'm still convincing myself that I don't. But part of being Daddy's is trying new things, so here I am.

My CSA is awesome. You should go sign up for one too. Mine is probably the best in the whole nation because from March until November, I get a weekly delivery consisting of a bushel box full of local and imported organic produce. It's delicious and it's like Christmas because I never know what's going to be inside.

However, after being a starchavore for many years, I had to start learning how to cook this very familiar, yet strangely foreign, food that kept showing up. I'm very "thrifty" so throwing out rotten food is just repugnant to me. Cooking it like my parents did was also repugnant. Fortunately Daddy had some ideas and recipes for me, so I've been learning to cook long distance as it were.

Good recipes are always welcome, especially to help me use up the plethora of greens I get each week. I don't hate salad, but I don't love it either. I end up freezing most of the greens to use later. Last year in the middle of the summer we had a greens shortage, I'm hoping that happens again. However, they are also pretty decent in a frozen fruit/yogurt smoothy with a dash of splenda and handful of frozen greens. You can't taste the greens honestly but it's a good way to use them up.

In addition, I started baking all my own bread about 7 months ago. It's cheaper, tastes better and I use it up before it goes bad. About 2 months ago I switched to whole wheat instead of white bread, which is amazingly delicious. So I've also been doing more baking with whole wheat flour in general. Pancakes, biscuits, muffins. Speaking of muffins I'll be making fabulous zucchini muffins probably tomorrow or Saturday.

I made some for a camping trip I had a couple weeks ago, but the local skunk ended up benefiting from most of them as someone took them out of the safety of the cooler. So I've got a big bowl full of shredded squash and zucchini in the fridge just waiting to be added to multiple batches of muffins so I can freeze them for breakfast and snacks.

This weekend I'm planning on making some tzatziki sauce, pita bread and spicy ground gyro meat. I'm psyched about it as it's a new recipe. But I have a huge amount of cucumbers this week that I need to use up, so some gyros will fit the bill.

Journaling

So I haven't been journaling regularly lately. Oh, no, not here of course. I started this public blog not too long ago, but I've been keeping a journal privately for over a year now. I get bored easily, so it could be that I started getting bored with the journal. It just seemed more of a rundown of the day's activities or events rather than anything of value.

There was a lot of "I worked today and this is what I worked on" and "this weekend my plans are" and "here's my list of chores I hope to get done today". I mean, really boring stuff. God love Daddy for ploughing through and reading it despite the lack of any sort of excitement.

We are just pretty boring I suppose. There's not a lot of drama between the two of us unless I've got hormones to combat, which I do currently. Speaking of which, anyone want to buy a slightly used uterus? I don't want it anymore.

Hormones make me wonky. Like really irrational and sometimes filled with rage. It's gotten worse as I get older, but at least now I can start detecting the signs of it and put of major decision making until I'm stablized. Because sometimes I get ideas in my head like.. maybe I should just run in front of a bus or.. I can't do this thing with Daddy anymore.. or just running away and hiding in general. It's a really gross feeling and while I do have some stress and I don't have an ideal relationship considering he's 3 timezones away, I'm pretty fucking content all in all. Certainly not "dart in front of bus" territory.

The mere thought of not having Daddy in my life makes me feel like I can't breath, so that certainly seems like a dumb choice. And the running away part.. well run to where exactly? I don't drive and I'm not much of a runner anyways. Probably best to just go and take a nap at that point.

This is where my procrastination pays off, because I can procrastinate on such plans until, say, hormones aren't making me crazy and then if I STILL want to, I can always do it later. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But anyways, when I feel like that (yesterday) I make sure to let Daddy know right away. Hopefully, that keeps him in the loop so he knows when I might say crazy, insecure, out of character shit. I get all weepy too, which is annoying as well as messy. And dwell. I just dwell on every fucking thing. Like if Daddy pokes fun at me and I'm being all over sensitive, I just fret and dwell on that thing until I'm a stupid mess.

Fortunately, I know what it is now and that can help sort of. At least I know there's an end in sight. Generally when the clots arrive. Which is it's own special level of hell. I seem to require some sort of leakage from some oriface or another. Happy day for the birth control pill!. I avoid most of that crap by tri-cycling. 4 periods a year, if that, but they are more severe admittedly. I deal though, better than 12, even if more mild.

So where was I? Oh yes, journalling. So, new plan for the moment at least. I figure Daddy and I talk all the time anyways about life, everyday stuff, sex, nomming and the like, so writing that down separately just seems silly. Any issues I have I pretty much bring straight to him, so I don't necessarily need a "safe" place to talk about that. As you can tell from this writing, I'm a babbler. And I have ADD. Shiny!

...

And I have this public blog thingy. So why not just write stuff here? Which may bring some feedback or conversations with other people, and may not, but either way I can discuss other stuff, and kind of keep track of some of my thoughts and reflections here. If I try to cram too much into my brainz, it leaks out my ears and that's not a good way to keep track.

So, beyond all this stuff, topic for the day is my fabulous new toy that Daddy boughted and sent me. It's from Extreme Restraints. OMG I love that store. I've bought so much stuff there and the prices are the best evah!

My favoritest toy is my wand. Mr Hitachi. My boyfriend. And of course his different hats. I have two hats for him. Actually, I should call him Mr. Hitachi 2. I broke the first one. After a month. I swear, it was flawed somehow! Not my fault! Fortunately, the kind folks who made him let me return him and sent me a brand new one. Yayz! Thank you makers of Mr. Hitachi. I heart him. I might have hearted him too much and that's why he broke, but I admit to nothing.

So now my bf has 3 hats! The third arrived today and looks so lovely. It's all knobby. Actually, see it for yourself here. I can't wait to get a chance to use it, which will likely be tonight if I'm lucky.

Ok, my brain shorted out just thinking about it.

If you don't have a bf of your own, you should definitely get one. Disclaimer: May cause carpal tunnel. Just sayin'. Yeah, I'm getting carpal tunnel. I only mostly think it's the wand. It might also be caused by computer work (was doing that before the wand) or by being a seamstress (also doing long before the wand) but have avoided symptoms until the arrival of my bf. I need to figure out how to make some sort of hump-o-matic seat thingy so I don't hurt my hand any worse. It's really getting bad. :(

But yay for new toys!

Micromanagement

After getting very frustrated and annoyed at this post over on Fetlife, I decided a better place to vent my spleen was on my blog instead of on that particular thread.

Look, those of us who are into micromanagement, both Owners & Property, are into it because we find it satisfying on some level. The repetition of "I'm a big girl" "I can shit by myself" "I know what needs to be done" is insulting because it infers that those of us who like to be managed or controlled more tightly are incapable of wiping our own asses or sit about naked and in a pile of excrement picking our noses when not told what to do.

We're all adults and as fully capable of functioning and such as any other adult person. I'm not mentally stunted or a drooling idiot. What I am, is an adult with a fetish for control, and happily, so is Daddy.

If you're not into it, fine and dandy. Any kink or fetish can certainly be denigrated. The idea that this one in particular draws mental midgets or insecure assholes is particularly annoying.

I happen to LIKE that my guy is absolutely interested and involved in every part of my life. I don't NEED him to be, but it feels awfully cozy and lovely to know that he is. There's tons of dudes who couldn't give two shits what I did today, or that I made my first pie, or that I had a breakthrough on something or other at work that was frustrating me. I've lived that life and you know what? It's unsatisfying to me.

I'm as curious and interested as he is, and that's a new one for me. To have it reciprocated. He knows my life so intimately and is able to give great advice and useful instruction to keep me on task. We are both VERY busy, and I have a tendency to procrastinate, get distracted and even be a little lazy when I get overwhelmed. Sometimes there's so much to do that I just need to go take a nap.

He helps me sort, prioritize and get my head in the game so I can be productive and useful without spending extra time that I really can't afford. He makes sure I'm not up at all hours and get good restful sleep. I'm not great at that either. I've done the whole 3am bedtime thing and it makes me a zombie the next day.

We aren't perfect and don't expect to be anytime soon. We just try to to better each day. Some of the control measures have fallen by the wayside a bit, but he'll give me a nice leash yank when I need it and put them back into place for a time. The thing about micromanagement is that it can be time consuming for both of us, and the busier our work/personal lives are, the more we have to compromise on that. If it's useful then it remains. If it's not, then we move on to something different.

If it was static or just there "cuz" instead of having a purpose, I could see it building resentment at some point. Most things were put in place to keep me flowing through my day in a focused and productive manner, so that I could have more down time to actually relax.

When I stopped doing some of them, I wasn't told I failed, it was just assumed that some things had outlived their usefulness.

Ok, irritation is purged. :)