Entries by TATIANA

I have been hibernating like a grandma for the last few weeks. Cooking (food, not meth) by following recipes online. Is this going to be my hobby now, cooking? I made a pot of beans yesterday, spicy beans, that puttered on the stove for about five hours......it takes forever to cook beans. I cut up an onion, some garlic, jalapenos and a green pepper and added that to the pot too. Then I made some cornbread, I love cornbread so I attempted to make some for the first time. It turned out gross - I blame it on the recipe. I am of course.....a phenomenal cook already! So today I found a different recipe for cornbread and it turned out really good. Fresh out of the oven with some butter on top......yum yum.



I just finished watching four episodes of Breaking Bad.....I might start dreaming about Jesse and Walter soon. Besides that, the gym is temporary closed, they are moving.....so I haven't been able to work out and I really want to go and get rid of my excess energy. I'm sure I have gained a few pounds too. I feel extra jiggly. Work has not been on my mind.....but I guess I will go back there.....eventually.

Another thing I have not done for a while is bother with Facebook. It's been since about New Years that I have been on there. But today I did go on because February 1st is my Mom's birthday, so I had to congratulate her on there (of course I called her too). And yesterday it was a friends birthday so I wrote on his page also. I think it is nice to find cute birthday greetings, like flowers, hearts, stars or something funny to put up on a friends Facebook page. Besides that I have been quite turned off by Facebook lately.....or Fakebook as I call it. I'm sure that I am far from the only one that thinks in these terms about it. Some people, not everyone (so don't get offended if you feel targeted).....SOME people are so fake on there, I mean it really is soooo lame. I don't put up much stuff on my Facebook (I have this outlet....the blog....HA!). But I thought it was very interesting when I put up a post about a precious little pitbull puppy that was found badly abused a while back, I put up a pic of her and wrote something in the style of that people that abuse animals are scumbags and horrible......(I can't remember the exact words now). Not a single person liked that or comented.....BUT writing all kinds of dumb bullshit.....putting up a bunch of sayings, proverbs, inspirational quotes and spiritual stuff on there that nobody follows in real life anyways, including the person that puts it up there, putting up pics that don't even look like them or are like ten years old (but pretending it's current) all of that crap generates a bunch of "likes" and/or ass kissing at times. It makes me want to barf. Or people that are so desperate to show off their "love" for each other.....and then they break up shortly afterwards. LOL.
Time to change that relationship status.....again!
It's like high school drama for adults, if you let it be. And I don't want to be like that. I guess I have the blog.....so I can document my life here. Not only the good, fun, pretty and perfect though. The everyday mundane stuff too. Because life is real, this is not Fakebook.
Here is something about Facebook that I found in Adbusters..... ponder that for a minute or two. I am going to return to my bad habits while I lay in bed and wonder if I got chunky or not. What bad habits? Oh, I sometimes chew down all my cuticles and I also obsessively scratch my scalp.....I should put that on the news feed on Facebook and see if it gets any "likes". Oh.....let's not forget how gassy I am after eating spicy beans for two days in a row.....I wonder if that statement would get any "likes"?

Not much to tell you......I went hiking again yesterday. Well, hiking and hiking......if you can call a less of a mile easy walk to a lake a hike. But it was nice. Egumen Lake. The ice was making sounds, a few loud cracks but also some other kind of eery sound that I have never heard before, it sounded like, for a lack of a better description.....a series of low didgeridoo hums.
I have never heard that before and both me and Chhaya were fascinated.





Besides this, I haven't done much. Daily lattes of course. Taking care of stuff at home. Eating a lot. Watching lots of TV. Like tonight.....I caught Miley on Leno. I think Miley is great....what I like about her is that she seems to be dancing to the beat of her own drum. I like that.
Go Miley, I wish her lots of success!
I also went for a night walk with Chhaya tonight, it was kind of frosty out and the stars were on full display, so it was gorgeous.



Sorry that I can't be more entertaining. Maybe I'll have something more interesting to write about when I decide to go back to work, right now I am immersed (happily) in a lazy bubble.

So last week I stocked up on the latest gossip magazines.....I haven't opened one of those in a while. I enjoy reading everything, a very broad list of subjects, so don't get any ideas now that I only read gossip magazines! I was going to write a blog about the latest celeb gossip, or rather what I think about it but I will stick to one particular subject today. Love. That whole "scandal" that Tori Spellings husband cheated on her with some young girl (well younger than Tori) while he was away in some other town. Tori's husbands name is Dean. I think he should thank his lucky star every day for being married to Tori and he should also kiss her ass every day. He looks so unattractive and so unintelligent that I would never in my life want him on top of me. Tori looks like Farrah Abraham to me and that is not a compliment but she seems rather sweet, in a dumb way. So this douche cheated on Tori and she has squeezed out four of his kids. He has two kids (I think) with another woman but more on that in a bit. Every marriage/relationship is different. And some people have open marriages, although I suspect that Tori doesn't since Dean has now checked himself into rehab (classic lame Hollywood move) to work on his "issues". What the fuck is this rehab shit? What's next? After rehab they will be on the cover of Star magazine surrounded by their brood pretending to be happy again with all the issues solved? Yeah right. My suggestion to Tori is to let this ape man go already. She would be so much better off without him. If that was MY husband and I was the sole bread winner too (because Dean is a major mooch) and I was left at home with four whiny kids while he was out fucking around, feeding the bimbo he somehow managed to bed with the classic line, "Me and my wife have a sexless marriage"..... Bahahhaaaaa.......come on now, sexless marriage and four kids, the youngest not even a year old yet? Anyhow, IF that was my man and I would actually choose stay with him, I would feel HOMICIDAL every time he did anything that annoyed me. Hey, probably every time I looked at him. I would want to cut his dick off, strangle him, push him down the stairs, strike him with the car, push him off a cliff - you name it. I don't think I could forgive that. And I don't think this was Deans first tango. What is especially annoying about Tori and Dean to me is that they both were married when they met. Dean was married with kids. But when he met Tori he probably got so overwhelmed with the thought of $$$ that his family didn't matter anymore. Loser! So if they felt this crazy, amazing love for each other, so overwhelming and strong that they had to leave their spouses to be able to finally be together and reproduce, then why the fuck is this ape cheating on Tori? Were they not soul mates? What happened? Oh, he can't keep his thing in his pants?
In general I am against cheating. Love the one your with. Right? I know that every couple has their own story and their own problems and things can get complicated and I understand sometimes that people cheat. Of course. And I could possible forgive cheating myself, depending on the circumstances. But in this case? It is crystal clear to me, Tori should send Dean packing. She can actually take care of herself, he is only a mooch. But if she does stay......she needs to tie her tubes right away, no more kids. And she needs to get him tested for all the STDs. Yuck. Then she needs to put a shock collar on him and start beating him into submission. Some men just need that extra touch, meaning a good beating now and then, it helps them understand stuff better.
I think couples therapy seems to be a great tool to use, actually before any major issues resurface. I have never tried it but I would totally be up for it if I had to. I'd rather have a mainly good relationship with the one I'm with then go outside and look elsewhere. Unless of course, I'm in an open relationship. I have never tried that so I don't know. And note that I say mainly good relationship, I don't believe that the perfect relationship exists, I'm a realist. Although I believe in mainly good and happy ones. And that's speaking from my own experiences. Most people argue, unless you have a rather meek personality or you are a pushover (I'm not that person). When I say relationship I mean something that's longer than at least a year. Every relationship feels great or close to great in the beginning, it's basically lust then......so that doesn't count in my book.

Here is something else I recently came across.......
"My husband and I are a young couple, married almost two years. He recently told me he isn't happy with me anymore and that he may want to leave. He won't tell me why. He says he doesn't know why. It was a complete shock to me. He refuses to seek marriage counseling and has dealt with a lot of depression for which he won't seek help, either. We have a child, and I am now pregnant again. It hasn't changed his thoughts about leaving. What should I do for myself and our children? What can I do to help my husband change his mind? I'm still deeply in love with him."

What? I feel really bad for this woman. I think that so many people get in a serious relationship way before they are mature enough to do so. And with SERIOUS I mean having kids. That's SERIOUS. I'd say hold off with the kids until you grow up and know yourself a bit, know somewhat what you want. What is the hurry with having kids? I don't get it.
I understand why people have kids but at least try to make it work when you do. Unless you happen to have the kids with a total nut job, then I guess it is better to be single, for the sake of your sanity and the welfare of the kid/s. But then I can only imagine how uneasy and apprehensive I would feel when the ex would introduce our (MY kids, if I had any) to some new questionable (until proven otherwise) woman is his life. Arggghhhh......no way!

I have also written some opinions about other relationships that made headlines. Elin and Tiger. She left him (good). Sandra and Jesse. She left him (good). You can search for those entries in the blog if you want to see what I had to say about that.....
I'm not saying love the one your with regardless of what they do. Absolutely not. This is basically about cheating, as in love the one your with, don't go elsewhere looking.
That people break up due to all kinds of other issues, that is a whole different story.

So....after thinking about making potato soup for a while with a certain recipe in mind I decided to stop procrastinating and finally just did it. After that beautiful walk by Peterson Lake yesterday I came home and got busy in the kitchen. Here are the ingredients (most of them).



I tweaked the recipe a bit, I used eight potatoes, I added two chopped Serrano peppers and I did not have any Cajun spice at home and I totally forgot to pick up parsley at the grocery store, so no parsley in my soup. It took a bit of time to prepare for this soup, lots of chopping and peeling but I enjoy that stuff.....once in a while. And it was well worth it, the soup was yummy! If I make it again I will probably only put half of the soup through the blender, I like more of the potato chunks in the soup as texture. And the Serranos added some good heat. You can find the recipe here .
It's on a blog called thepioneerwoman.com I think it's one of the largest blogs is the US.
There are some other recipes on there that I want to try, the Ooey Gooey Cookies, Easy Caramel Sauce (that I will pour on vanilla ice cream) and last but certainly not least the Perfect Iced Coffee. There are so many amazing recipes on the blog, if you are into cooking you should absolutely check it out.

It's almost midnight and I had a really nice day, I need to squeeze in a blog entry before this Sunday is over.....I went to Peterson Lake earlier. It has been so nice out lately, very warm for January, I love it and I hope it stays like this. I don't want any more snow, I wish that the snow will melt away and that we will be snow free by mid March. That would be nice! As you can see there is still ice on the lake, thick enough to walk on. There were large patches out in the forest around the lake that were clear of snow, it smelled like wood and earth. I want to go camping! A gorgeous, gorgeous Alaskan afternoon outside! I felt alive and happy to be alive.













When I got home I made potato soup. No, not heated from a can. I found a recipe on a blog that I have been wanting to try for a while. The soup turned out delicious, I will share it with you tomorrow. I don't cook often but when I do, I like to try out recipes, experiment with stuff that I have not cooked before and it usually turns out yummy. And then it was Breaking Bad time again. Walters and Jesse's adventures give me severe anxiety, I yell at them. I don't know about Jesse having a girlfriend, (I am a bit jealous, Jesse is cute in his own way, he is kind too)
I think the girlfriend is really pretty but at this point making money should be the only priority. More Breaking Bad tomorrow. I gotta go YO.

I have to tell you about my dining experience at Maxine's Fireweed Bistro last week when I spent a couple of days in Anchorage. There was a Maxine's in Girdwood (I guess it closed down?) and I loved it, the food was always amazingly good and I liked the inside, especially if you got a window seat. I heard that they opened one in Anchorage and I was curious if it would hold up to the original. The plan was to go with two of my friends but they both cancelled on me.....ehhhhh.....OK....I was disappointed at first, for about 30 minutes or so but that's life, doesn't always work out as planned. I turned the frown upside down and went to Maxine's by myself and my new book. I have no problem dining alone or going to the movies alone, I'm totally comfortable with that. I must like my own company or something. It was Sunday and I guess they have a fixed menu every Sunday. There were several dishes to choose from as the main course but only one was vegetarian, the risotto. But first there was some bread with a really yummy olive oil dipping mix on the side and a small salad with a horseradish dressing that was delicious. The risotto was good too but the salad was actually better, very memorable. I had the creme brulee for dessert and it was yummy, only because what creme brulee is not? But it didn't blow me away. My choice of beverage? Coffee.
At Maxine's in Girdwood they actually served the coffee with real cream, thick and soooo good but at the location in Anchorage it comes with milk or half & half. They should stick with the old concept.....much better. The service wasn't the best, it was OK. I have found that some (actually many) waitresses tend to be somewhat dismissive if they wait on a single woman or a pair of women because they think that we will tip less or maybe have less money to spend than a man. I can afford to dine at the best places and pay for it with my own money, so it is annoying when I see the waitress put on a show and give extra good service to a table that includes one or several men and act totally different when she interacts with me, usually less attentive and not as friendly. I pay attention to details like that. Note to waitresses out there, it's a restaurant, not a strip club. And I can be rather generous when tipping but I don't like getting obvious worse service than the man sitting at the table over gets. I think the inside was OK, nothing special, the Girdwood location certainly had way more charm. Would I go again? Yes, I would but not on a Sunday. Next on my dining list is The Marxs Bros. Cafe in Anchorage. I should be a food critique or a personal shopper.....n'est-ce pas?





That book is great by the way. Difficult to read at times because it is sad but a really good read. I have another book by the same author, it's called Red and it is worth reading too.