You should pay close attention (and by 'you' I mean Branden)

Tip of the day: which is actually a tip for my husband


When I come to you with "OH HOLY CRAP!!!" written on my face and then tell you my big scary problem, you can't give me the "OH HOLY CRAP!!!" face back! You're supposed to tell me something to make my face better, not freak me out by seeing how freaked out you now are!

On a side note, when Branden and I took photos of our bunnysicles yesterday, he was a slightly opposed to me posting the first photo of us...

I blinked at him with a surprised look on my face, "YOU?? YOU have a problem with THAT photo??? Must I remind you that you are on this blog as Kate Middleton???" (seriously click that link if you haven't seen it!)

Thus, the bunnysicle photo was posted yesterday.

The Molds Have Eyes!

I went shopping on Saturday, and one thing on my list of things to look for was a popsicle mold. For the past few months, I have been making my own 'ice cream' out of canned coconut milk, and Branden suggested that it would be nice to make them into popsicles. I headed to a new, super cheap store in town and found 2 types of molds. I picked the one that had the biggest cups, because in the dessert world size completely matters, and headed to The Market for some meat shopping. Since Branden works at the market and I sort of needed more cash I stopped in and let him know of my find.

"So I got a popsicle mold," I proudly beamed, "They are decent sized cups with multi-colored tops that have sippy straws in them!"

"Great!" Branden happily contributed to my proud purchase.

"They technically are for little kids though," I began to let the cat out of the bag a bit and Branden looked questioningly at me, "They are VERY brightly multi-colored...and they have eyes."

"Eyes? How do they have eyes?" he managed to giggle his question out.

"Well, they have these random eyeball stickers on them for some reason so they look a bit childish, but they should work!" I defended my now seemingly ridiculous purchase...which still only cost me less than 2 Euros. (Yes, that probably should have explained a lot!)

Not wanting to pull out the silly things from my backpack, I got the money from Branden, went to my usual butchers for pork chops, sausages, and ground beef, and headed home. When Branden came home from work, I showed him the molds. He giggled a bit and pointed out that the 'sticks' that you hold were actually 'ears'...bunny ears to be exact.

"So that's why they have eyeballs!" I stated my revelation out loud, "they are bunnies!"

At this point our African housemate came into the kitchen, had his eyes drawn instantly to the colorful neon plastic thing on the counter, and took a few more notches out of my pride, "What's with the kid's toy?"

"It's a popsicle mold, you know, for making popsicles with," I maturely demonstrated by grasping my plastic bunny by the ears and popping it's head off from the cup tray, sticker eyes staring oddly back at my housemate who is also a doctor.

"But those are for little kids," he laughed out at me.

"Well, they were the only ones at the store that I could have got! The other ones were rocket shaped, which I would have preferred, but the cups were too small!" my voice squeaked out like an 8 year old trying to get out of climbing that horrible rope in gym class.

He laughed more at this and then gave a fabulous compliment, "You guys are just a bunch of kids at heart!"

"I can't argue there, and none of my friends or family would either!" I now beamed, pride totally restored.

If my bunnysicle had a mouth, it probably would have smiled too...but it only has eyes.

Oh look! Our first awkward family photo! (this actually got us laughing which brings us to the next photo)

I'm cracking up and so is Brandon so he's can't hold the camera right which cuts my face off! 

I get him back by licking his bunnysicle! Haha!

So, as you can tell, we made popsicles and they are fantastic! They are blueberry fudge and are so decadent! Here's how I did it:

Ingredients:

1 can of coconut milk
1 pot of blueberry yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)
2 teaspoons of unsweetened coco powder (we did heaping but you can do it to suit your chocolate needs)
4 teaspoons of sugar (but you can adjust this to your taste, or put in honey, or an artificial sweetener if you prefer)
1 big spoonful of blueberry jam (optional. We had some that Branden brought home from work and it's not sweet since it's organic and has only apple juice concentrate used to sweeten it, but it did add some extra blueberry flavor)

Directions:

Dump the coconut milk into a pot, turn your heat on fairly low since you don't want to boil it really, and  stir out all the lumps. Add the yogurt (and jam if you are using that option), slowly add the coco powder, and then add the sugar one teaspoon at a time, tasting to make sure it's the way you want it and not too much. Let the sugar totally dissolve, and I noticed the liquid started to thicken a bit but not much. Pour into your molds and them pop them in the freezer!

If you are wanting to make ice cream, just put the liquid in a tupperwear tub and make sure to take it out and stir your mixture with a fork about every 30 mins until it's the consistency that you want it. Also, you don't technically have to heat this up. I just did because it's easier to dissolve the sugar but if you use honey (like I normally do) then you don't need to heat it at all. Just stir everything together in a bowl and freeze! It's as easy as catching a cold and much more pleasant!

There will be ice crystals in the 'ice cream' since it's coconut milk and not done in a machine, but with the fabulous taste you get, who cares!?! I've done lost of variations including a Thin Mint coconut ice cream that was amazing, a chocolate Tia Maria version, and even just a basic vanilla. You can throw candy pieces in, flavor however you want, or even throw in some cream and make it more rich. Just have fun and make it how you like it!

 ...preferably in a bunnysicle mold  ;)

*Santa and Tooth Fairy spoiler alert!

Since Branden works a full day on Saturday, I usually try to go into town and meet him for his lunch break. This last Saturday was no different, except I was also planning on meeting a friend of mine for coffee afterwards. My friend took me to a quirky little coffee shop I hadn't been to before down one of Cork's many little alleyways.

My friend is originally from Spain and I was curious to know if they had things like the Tooth Fairy back in Spain. She informed me that instead of a Tooth Fairy it was a mouse, which would crawl under your pillow to take your tooth...sure that might be more believable than a fairy but I don't think I'd like the idea of a mouse on my pillow!

This got us onto a wonderful Christmas conversation.

My friend informed me, "We didn't have Santa when I was growing up although he's part of Christmas now because he's so popular everywhere else."

"So did you have something else then besides Santa?" I questioned her.

"Oh yes, we have the Three Wise Men!" she stated.

Slightly chuckling, "Well I suppose you would get more gifts with Three Wise Men than with just one Santa!" She laughed a little too and I continued, "We leave milk and cookies for Santa that our parents eat and drink when we sleep..."

She jumped in, "Oh we do that too for the Three Wise Men."

I was definitely laughing at this thought, "That would be pretty tough for your parents to have to eat everything for Three Wise Men!!"

And then, as if I should have thought of it myself, she stated, "And their camels!"

At this point, I lost it and was just dying! "What do you leave for 3 camels!?! A hay bale?? The poor parents that have to eat that!"

She sadly didn't really know what to leave for the camels because she never did it when she was little, but I couldn't get over the thought of leaving a massive plate of food for 3 Christmas visitors and a bale of hay for their camels!

On a different note, she also said that she never knew anyone who was vegetarian back in Spain, which really got me thinking. Since we had a Spanish housemate who's family would send him the most amazing sausages and cured meat, Branden and I came to the conclusion that Spain has the best meat in the world! With this in mind, I wondered out loud, "With the incredible meat that you have in Spain, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be a vegetarian there. Maybe vegetarians only live in countries that have not so great meat? I just think it would be torture to be a vegetarian in Spain!"

Maybe I'm onto something???

Anyway, for your music today, I'm giving you something super cute and fun! Britain's Got Talent is going on over here and even though we haven't been watching it faithfully, we have caught some bits of it. Thank goodness we saw some of it last night because this was the sweetest thing! Since most of you are dog lovers, I know you'll love it too!

Isn't that the cutest ending ever!?! I about died from overdose of adorableness! I really hope they win (although I am a bit bias, especially since I haven't really seen any of the other acts!) and Simon really is rooting for them too. He has wanted a dog act to win forever so he loves these two...and can you blame him?

Where's the Beef??

One of our housemates is moving out soon so a few of us are going out to dinner tonight. We are going to a fantastic little vegetarian restaurant called Cafe Paradiso. I am not one to think it's worth spending a lot of money on food where you don't get meat (prices are on the higher end) but apparently Bobby Flay, BBQ King, went to Ireland and loved Cafe Paradiso! I have also had rave reviews from my friends so Branden and I are excited to finally get to try it.

As exciting as it is to get to go out for great food, it is sad to be losing another housemate. He's been in the house since before we moved in and he is always great for stories. I don't think I've ever met anyone who has been around the world (literally) more times than him. One job he had, had him flying totally around the world every 6 weeks and he was there for I think about 3 years. It's also sad since he has a similar sense of humor as I do. Although he probably had it first, being originally from Scotland, and mine developed more from living there.

Who knows though, maybe we'll get another girl in the house and finally we can outnumber the boys!

On a different note, it was actually really nice yesterday so we went to the park along the river by our house. As we were peacefully sitting on the bench along the bank, we heard this loud air spout type noise. A good sized seal had someone managed to get up the river and was swimming along by where we were! There was a row boat with 2 people paddling slowly behind the seal which almost made us think that it was 'pushing' the poor thing further up the river. The seal's breathing when it would surface was really loud, making me think that it was tired as there was no bank for it to get up on for rest.

Once it swam past us, Branden and I decided to walk up the path along the river to follow it and see where it would go. The boaters pulled up to some steps and started to get out, but we still headed up the river, since the seal was a bit ahead of them. At first we walked slowly, listening for it's loud breath when it would surface but we heard and saw nothing. Fearing that it was swimming faster than our slow walking, we headed up river faster, hoping that maybe it found the sandy bank up ahead and was finally getting to snooze in the sun. When we got to the top of the trail, we still saw and heard nothing. This had us thinking something a bit different.

"I know this seems a bit far fetched," I started, "but what if the seal was actually the people in the boat's pet, and they were just taking it for a swim?"

Branden surprisingly didn't look at me as if I had lost my mind, "I oddly was thinking the same thing."

"Since we didn't stick around to see the people get out of the boat, we may have missed the seal getting out too and I could have snuggled it!" I practically moaned.

We headed back to where the people got out of the boat but there was no sign of anything. No boat, no people, and no domestic pet seal for me to cuddle. Ok, so maybe the seal just swam back down the river once the boat left but it is more fun to think of some random eccentrics taking their pet seal for a swim!

Unfortunately we forgot to bring the camera with us so I don't have any photos to show you. Sadly, the weather is back to nasty with no signs of getting nice again but it was great to get out for a bit yesterday...can you tell we probably needed it???

This was taken at the end of February but this is the section of river where the seal was.

Well, I'm off to do some cleaning! Happy Thursday everyone!

Why do we say these??

Back in October 2005, when I was the ripe old age of 21, I wrote this blog post:

I have come up with a list of sayings that I've heard over the years that are either stupid, don't make sense, or both. Unfortunately I have used some of these.

Beauty is only skin deep.

(Well duh! Not many people have a beautiful spleen!)

Smart as a whip.

(How many smart whips do you know?) 

A watched pot never boils.

(We are giving this pot way too much credit to 'know' when we're not looking)

Going to clean their clock! 

(There is nothing more threatening than a good clock cleaning!)

Not over until the fat lady sings.

(Is there a magic fat fairy that's supposed to appear and end things?)

He who laughs last, laughs best.

(No he's just the slowest!)

Cat got your tongue?  

(Eww, I hope not!)

Fit as a fiddle.

(Because you know how much fiddles work out)

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

(They should also get dressed in their basement!)

Barking dogs seldom bite. 

(Tell the dog that!)

Cute as a bug's ear.

(Bugs have ears?)

For Pete's sake!

(Who the heck is Pete and why do we care about his sake?)

Well I'll be dog gone.

(Huh?)

Knock on wood.

(The only thing it will get you is bloody knuckles!)

A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. 

(Baffled at what this could possibly mean)

For crying out loud!

(I have never heard this said while anyone was crying out loud)

Between a rock and a hard place.

(Isn't a rock a hard place?)

Who spilled the beans?

(Would be easier to say "who told?")

Happy as a clam.

(Because I'm sure they are very emotional creatures)

You're pulling my leg!

(I don't usually touch people's legs let alone pull them)

Deader than a door nail.

(First off, you can't be deader than anything! And secondly, what's a door nail?)

There's no such word as can't.

(Umm, you just said it)

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

(I'm sure there is a culinary class in China that teaches the many methods)

You can't have your cake and eat it too. 

(Then what's the point of having cake!  To look at?!)

AND: One of my favorites that I actually use often

The world is your oyster!

(still don't know what it means!)