I think I know what I want to do when I grow up

Man, growing up is hard.  I have spent my whole adult life looking around at other adults wondering why they have it all together, and I still don't know what I want to do.  People come straight out of high school and know they want to be doctors, or that they want to join the Army, or that they want to be lawyers, but that was never me.  I have always accidentally become what I am currently doing.

I'm a preschool teacher and daycare provider.  As a teen mom, I was terrified when it came to leaving my child so I could go to work, so I quit my job and decided I would do it myself.  I opened a child care and am still here today.

Still, I always saw it as temporary because of what the world put on me.  Since I work from home, no one ever considered it a "real" job.  Even clients over the years haven't seen what I do as a real job.

22 years later, here I am.  My husband and I together make this certified child care work.  We're respected in our community and it took me nearly that long to convince myself that this was a "real" job.

Guess what?  If you pay taxes for income, you have a "real" job.  I don't sit around eating bon bons and watching soaps while some neighborhood kids run all over the house.  We have a structured successful award winning program that I am proud to say we built from scratch.  That is the American dream, my friends.

There's also the accidental photography side business.  Total accident.  One day people started making me take their money for taking their photographs, and now I am a photographer with a good client base and I really love doing it.  People still don't consider it a "real" job unless I'm employed Lifetouch (heaven forbid) or Sears.

I realize now that I always wanted to be a teacher.  I always wanted to be a photographer, a writer, and a speaker.  It's everything I've always been but have never taken seriously because society said that if I don't punch in and punch out, get a W 2, and have a boss to answer to, it's not a "real" job.

I felt like I had to keep trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I didn't like it at all!  Why isn't what I am worthy of being taken seriously, and who are these people I need to take me seriously?  Why do I need that?

I don't.

Now that I'm in mid-life crisis mode, I can finally put down all of those opinions I've been lugging around for decades and say, "Guess what?  I don't just have a "real" job, I have a PROFESSION, and get OFF my BACK!"

Is it me, or do you think people who tell you being an entrepreneur isn't a real job because they're too afraid to do it themselves?

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm...........

I love what I do, I love my students, and I love being the foundation to their future.  You may not think it's all that and a bowl of cherries, and sometimes it isn't.  Sometimes it's all that and 135lbs of canned peaches!

Don't let society bring you down!  If somebody says something that doesn't lift you up, let it fall to the ground where it belongs!  It took me half of my life to figure it out.  Word to the wise, don't wait that long to be proud of who you are and what you do.  Be proud today.

XOXO
Sunshine

Rogue Kitchen-The pesto incident

So yesterday I decided I wanted to have some pesto on my spaghetti squash.  For many of you who don't know, I've gone rouge and am cleaning up my diet as well as losing some weight...8 lbs down :)

I figure that since the mid-life crisis was born, it's time to lose all that baby weight so that I can actually enjoy all of the things on our mid-life crisis list that we WILL tackle this year!!!  Hint hint, soon to come, Julie and I will be dabbling with some MOLTEN GLASS!!!!

Anyway, I was reading the ingredients on all of the pestos in the store, even the "natural" healthy ones, and they all had like 400mg of sodium PER SERVING!!  WHY IS THIS!?  I pictured myself blowing up like a balloon and blimping all around the house after eating that gunk!  I also learned that there are a ton of kinds of pesto with WALNUTS IN THEM!!!  not good for this pesky little walnut/pecan allergy I have.

So, I bought a Basil plant that donated half of it's self to my lunch, but don't worry, it will grow back ;)

I made it with organic coconut oil and garlic and mixed it into my spaghetti squash and YUMMO!  I'm in heaven.  I also learned that I need to half the amount of garlic...SO I'm eating an apple now...which I just learned (thank you Google) combats garlic breath better than just about anything (In case you're ever in a pickle without a toothbrush...in which case, watch out, because I love pickles and might eat you).  Funny things we learn along the way, right?



So, as part of the mid-life crisis get healthy initiative, here's my SODIUM FREE clean eating ROGUE KITCHEN pesto yummo recipe:

What you'll need:

• Spaghetti squash
• 2 cups of basil leaves
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 heaping tablespoons of organic coconut oil (or avocado oil)

What you'll do:

1. Cut the spaghetti squash in half with a big knife 
2. Clean out the seeds
3. Place cut side down on a microwave safe plate
4. Nuke ten minutes
5. Take out-LET COOL!!!!!  TRUST ME!!!
6. Do the same for the other side.
7. In a food processor (I used a blender) place basil, garlic, and oil.  If your oil is in a solid state, heat up just enough that it barely melts.
8. PUSH THE BUTTON AND TAKE A WHIFF as your pesto forms. 
9. When it's the consistency that you want, stop pushing the button.  
10. When your squash is cooled, scrape the "pasta" out with a fork.  You'll see what I mean.  Scrape it all into a bowl.
11. Take a serving of spaghetti squash and the amount of pesto you want on it, place it in a microwave dish or a nonstick frying pan and heat that stuff up.  
12. PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH!.....the food, not the pan.
    

You can add a little chicken breast, or my favorite, Quorn fake chicken patty to it for some protein and chompa-chompa, delicious pesto pasta that is not pasta and has NO freaking sodium in it.  WOOT FOR CLEAN EATING!

I might just get the hang of this stuff yet!  Give it a shot! Go Rogue

-Sunshine

Here's to the last night of my 30's

Well, we started this journey as a nine month adventure and a way to kiss our 30's goodbye, but as you can see, time chases  you like a Pac Man ghost until it swallows you whole, and then all you've left to show for it is a mediocre score.

Well, Julie has launched into her 40's with grace and style, and I've been rolling around on the floor throwing a tantrum that my 30's are coming to an end, and we accomplished about three things on our baby list.  Now, the mid-life crisis is about to be born, and still, I feel like throwing a tantrum like a big fat baby.

As I sit here on this night, the last night of my 30’s, I feel as though there is something I should be out doing.  Some crazy task that I haven’t yet accomplished yet so that I can say, “On the last night of my 30’s, I did _______”

Well, the reality is that my family is out trying to choose something to give me tomorrow (what do you give someone who is turning 40 anyway?) and I’m sitting here with you typing my thoughts onto a blank piece of electronic paper so that I can once again paste the inner workings of my soul for the universe to see…and not doing anything epic.

While soul searching for what to say, I stumbled upon the idea that if my 30’s were a person, what would I say to it?  Well, hold onto your boot straps, because here it is:

Dear 30’s,

If I was your friend, I would be the worst friend in the history of all friends.  The Hatfields and the McCoys would look like the most kindred spirits in the entire universe compared to the type of friend I was, and for that I apologize.  Instead of embracing you for what you were, quite possibly the best years of my life, I ignored you.  I pretended you were invisible until you were 8-years-old. 

Sure, I thought I was being silly.  I did the trendy tongue-in-cheek thing when you were born and pretended you were never invented.  It was all in fun right?  Stay 29 forever and never lose those years?  As if no one would notice the crow’s feet crevices at the very corner of my eyes, a preview of what’s to come? 

The problem was I did lose those years.  I lost 8 of them as a fraud, only half kidding about not wanting to face them.  I never got the chance to live up to what they should have been.  If you were a human, you would have never spoken to me again.  Now I’m standing at your death bed watching you expire, and I am filled with the regret that I didn’t love you like I should have.

I have a long list of unfinished business.  Things I was supposed to do before you died!  Things I was supposed to share with you!  Now it’s too late, and you will never see any of them.  I’m so sorry 30’s.  You deserved better.

Sincerely,

Your idiot human

And then I sit…staring at the blinking cursor wondering how stupid it was that I actually just wrote that…and at the same time, I feel strangely liberated.  Does that make me a complete crazy person?  Maybe. 

Well, either way, here’s to my 30’s.  I really feel like I could wallow all night about all the things I didn’t get to do, but I’m not going to do it.  Life is an adventure, right?  It’s not like I never did anything in my 30’s.  I ran my first 5k, I did my first zombie walk, had my last baby, saw two of my kids through high school, married Prince Corey, had our first BobCon, did an ice bucket challenge, launched my Damsel in Defense business, saw my oldest turn 21, and I really feel like I got to finally grow into who I am.

You spend your childhood just surviving.  You spend your 20’s trying to get as far away from your childhood as you can and live and work as much and as irrationally as possible.  You spend your 30’s learning from your 20’s and fixing everything you screwed up, and boy, don’t we royally screw up in our 20’s?  Finally, you get to spend your 40’s applying all of that knowledge and hard work.

That list of things I didn't get to do isn't a list of things I didn't get to do!  It’s a list of things I get to do now!!

Here we go!  This decade is going to be the most adventurous yet, and I’m going to embrace every second of it.  TOWANDA!

This isn't the last you've heard from me....

And we paint....again

We're addicted.  Can't deny it, can't hide it, and we might need a 12-step program.

One of the wine and painting companies in Portland is called Wine and Canvas.  They schedule paining classes at different restaurants and you can sip on the beverage of your choice, eat some dinner, and paint a masterpiece.

After our first paining expedition, we decided to do it again.  This time, we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory to paint something called The Bench.  Julie and I met our good friends Summer and Daphne there, and were excited to slap some paint on a canvas!

We started the evening with some food and Carnival Martinis.  If you don't know what those are, I suggest you try one.  Like the headpiece of a Vegas showgirl, two large martini glasses filled with plumes of bright pink cotton candy and cherries were delivered to our table with smaller glasses of martini mix, which we were then instructed to pour over the top of the cotton candy.  It melted into the sweetest martini ever invented.

Then it was time to paint.  The teacher and assistant were fun enough people, and the painting actually

looked like it might be more simple than the one we did before, and we were right.....until the bench.

I'm not sure if it was the martini, slight delirium, or us just not understanding the words coming out of our instructor's mouth, but bench has become a curse word between the four of us who were there that night.  Even the zombies showed up to oogle at our terrible benches.  Songs were made up about them, we grumbled at them, and no matter what we did, none of us were happy with our benches.

Then it came time for the trees.  We all love trees, and it alleviated some of the pressure we felt about making our benches look like benches.  Grumbling turned back into laughter, whining subsided, and jokes about dancing trees took over the dialogue.

Something about painting a tree just seems to make everyone happy and inspired.

Enter the flowers.  How much fun do you think it was to cover our paintings with flowers?  So much fun.  So much that I got so carried away that my painting was almost nothing but a gigantic pile of flowers.  I did think about burring the bench in them, not gonna lie.  There was no shortage of whiny benches jokes.

When all was said and done, I was happy with the entire experience.  Good drinks, good friends, a hilarious group of people, and another masterpiece to hang somewhere in my house.  Even if I do hate the bench, I will always remember that evening every time I look at that cray bench.

All in all, it was a really fun night, and I can't wait to do it again.  Wine and Canvas staff are very professional yet very laid back and realistic at the same time.  They were happy to give help suggestions as well as praised our paintings even if they looked like a third grader painted them.


For more information about Wine and Canvas, you can find them on the web at wineandcanvas.com

Trust me, you're gonna love it.