Erica wants to talk Endometriosis & Mini Chicken Potpies.

It'll be half depressing (endometriosis ;_; ) and half awesome (chicken potpies!!)...I'm being so generous in giving you the best of both worlds. Yeah, thank me the next time we hang out.

I saw this on a friend's Facebook and had to steal it. Literally my life every time.

I have the best gyno ever. This is how much I like her:

       I first went to Dr. Newcomb in my early twenties. She discovered my health abnormalities and she was the one to prescribe me wonderful pain medicine. She was at Deaconess but moved to the super ghetto south side about 2 or 3 years after I first starting going to her. I was devastated but I decided to stick with Deaconess and started seeing one of the other doctors there. I was not a fan of my new OB/GYN so I went running back to Dr. Newcomb. 

       As mentioned earlier, Dr. Newcomb now practices in a very run-down and seedy part of town. At my first appointment, she greeted me with, "Welcome back, gurl, I moved to the hooood!" (Yes, this lady has a sense of humor.) Anyway, I do not fit in with her clientele whatsoever and walking into her waiting room brings fits of panic and raging shame, embarrassment & depression. Everyone in her waiting room is women ranging from ages 14 - 40 visibly pregnant and pregnant by mistake. The women are either there alone with looks of both fear and hope on their face or they're there with their boyfriends, who have looks of regret and 'pissed off that the condom broke' on their face. Seriously, no one is just there for their annual well-woman exam. I walk in with a neon sign above my head screaming "INFERTILE!!" They all look at me funny (How come she's not pregnant? Is she just not showing, yet? Where's her baby daddy?) and the staff (who has seen my charts and knows of my medical condition) treat me differently... a bad kind of differently. It's a grueling 20-minute wait but eventually, I get to see Dr. Newcomb and everything is well again. I have to really like a doctor to subject myself to such torture in the waiting room. And I do; I love Dr. Newcomb. She's patient and kind and will answer all of my absurd questions. 

       So, back to my update... A few weeks ago, I went in for the follow-up to my endometriosis surgery (if you want to see pictures of what severe endometriosis looks like, let me know. I have gory detailed pictures of my uterus and ovaries. I won't post them here just in case you weren't planning on vomiting tonight.) Dr. Newcomb first asked if I wanted to see a fertility specialist to get pregnant. No. Okay, moving on... she said the surgery would buy me some time but eventually, I'll need to get on birth control. NOOO!!! I hate birth control. She said I have anywhere between six weeks to six months before the lesions start growing again. They flare up every time I have a period so it would be best if I just stopped having periods. AKA birth control or if I am completely 100% against birth control, I can just get surgery every few years to remove the endometriosis lesions. That's a no for my checkbook. So, I'm stuck. I don't want to be in immense pain & I don't want to have surgery every five years but I've done birth control before and it made me hate my life in so many other ways. Dr. Newcomb assured me that both medicine and my body have come a long way since the first time I was on birth control and there will be one that suites me. But for now, I will wait out my six weeks and see her in September, and in the meantime, she offered me a much stronger pain medicine for my menses. If you're wondering, the answer is no, I am not addicted to pain medicine. Dr. Newcomb actually told me that it's astonishing how much pain I can handle. She said that there are women with only one third as severe endometriosis as I have and they act like they're dying. I should be acting like I'm dying but I just pop some pills and move on with life. She said I was one tough cookie. Haha!

       Oh and eventually (maybe 10 -15 years from now), I'll be getting a hysterectomy. Yay me, ain't my life great?  The next time you feel like complaining about being pregnant or complaining about your children, just think... you could be me. Yeah, that will shut your complaining up pretty damn quickly. 

That was the 'Woe is me'/angry/depressing/'I hate my life' part of this blog post. Now to the happy part... another recipe!!

This is the easiest recipe and all of the ingredients are pre-made. I usually use fresh ingredients but sometimes I get lazy after work and just want something simple. And I hate working with raw meat, especially slimy chicken. We'll be sauteing and baking so, really, you can say this is a "real cooking" recipe. Right? Aw hell, I don't need to defend myself... I'm using frozen veggies and canned chicken but in the end these chicken potpies look and taste so good!! One quick disclaimer, though... I originally got this recipe off a Campbell's soup can so I can't technically call it mine. But I did add some extra steps & ingredients to it to give it my own variation. Here goes:

Mini chicken potpies-

       Ingredients needed: frozen mixed vegetables, dried parsley & basil, pepper, green onions, flax seed, butter spray, cream of chicken soup, canned chicken, flaky biscuits (it's imperative that you use the flaky ones), muffin pan

1. Saute the chicken and green onions.

2. Add the pepper, parsley & basil and continue to cook until the chicken is browned.

Sorry for the blurry picture... it was hot. I blame the steam. LOL

3. Mix in a large bowl (damn, forgot to add 'large bowl' to my ingredient picture) - chicken mixture, mixed vegetables, cream of chicken & flax seed.  I don't know how much flax seed or vegetables. It changes every time I make it. I would probably use one and a half cup vegetables and a small handful of seeds. Unless you hate veggies & seeds...then use less. Then set mixture aside.

4. Get your muffin pans and your spray butter. Spray the heck out of those muffin pans! Also, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

5. Open up your biscuits and line the muffin pan with them.

       Do this by pulling apart the biscuits. This is why you want to buy the flaky ones. This recipe makes twelve chicken potpies and each muffin needs to be torn into three pieces. 

You'll have left over biscuits after you finish lining the pans, which is what you want. We'll need the rest of the biscuits later. 

6. Spoon the chicken/cream of chicken/veggie mixture into each of the biscuit-lined muffin slots.

7. Using the leftover biscuits, cover the tops of the potpies. Tear the biscuits into individual pieces/layers like in step #5. If you don't want to do this, I suppose you can just buy more than one tube of biscuits. I've never thought of that before...

8. Bake at 350 degrees for half an hour. The biscuits should be nice n' brown and the insides bubbly n' hot. You can use a large spoon to get these out of the muffin pans. Since we used so much butter spray, the potpies should come right out. 

Serve while they're still warm. I took what felt like so many pictures as I was making these. But it's still only 8 steps. I'm still doing good on my 'no more than 10 steps' rule. Yay \(^.^)/ Sorry, for the pre-recipe lady rant, if it offended you in any way. That wasn't my intent.  Just had to keep it real. LOL I swear I don't talk like this in real life. 

       

Erica doesn't like wearing shoes.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE shoes. They look wonderful in stores & magazines, on other people's feet and in my closet. I just don't like to wear them on my own feet. I grew up barefoot because no shoes were allowed in the house (thank goodness Wes agrees with me on this one so we live in a no-shoe apartment). I would walk around everywhere barefoot if I could. I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't think being barefoot in public is gross. Walking barefoot on fresh grass or on the beach is the best feeling ever. EVER!!

Anyway, while I was recovering from surgery a couple of weeks ago, I had the sudden urge to make beaded jewelry. I'm not a jewelry maker nor am I a bead crafter. But, I had a few beads and some elastic from when I was younger left over in my craft box. Even though I don't like to wear shoes, I really enjoy adorning my feet. In my high school years, I would draw all over my feet with gel pens. When I was into henna, I drew all over my feet with that. I used to wear toe rings (but those things are uncomfortable so I stopped) & I always have at least one anklet on. So naturally, I gravitated toward foot jewelry.

(this has also been a shameless excuse to show off my Kensington tattoo)

Beaded anklet tutorial:
 
       Materials needed - beads, elastic & charms (not necessary)

1. Measure the elastic.
       Start by wrapping the piece around whichever toe you wish to wear this on. Wrap around your toe once, pull across your foot and wrap around your ankle once. Leave some slack (for tying knots) and cut.

2. Tie a loop knot around your toe (the loop should be the size of a toe ring). 

       I left some slack so it was a little loose but I planned on making these as gifts for people with larger feet than mine. (I have creepy slender feet with really long toes >.> ) All of my pictures will look loose but you should measure for the size of your foot.

Please don't think my yucky dry hobbit feet are gross!

3. Bead the elastic part that will stretch across your foot. When you get to your ankle, tie a knot to section off the foot part and the new part that will be the anklet part. You will have tied your elastic into three sections by now: toe, foot and ankle.

       I put charms on two of mine at this step (not pictured but its an option). For this one, I saved the charm for the anklet part.

4. Bead the remaining elastic. I added the charm here (I forgot to count and measure the beads around my ankle so the charm isn't quite in the middle where I wanted it. Advice to you: plan out your bead and charm pattern so everything lays right when its finished.) Leave about an inch unbeaded to tie the final knot.

     Also, This entire project will be easier to make if you're wearing it as you make it.

All done!!

 

I made three of these... one is for a friend who will be vacationing on a beach soon, another is for a friend who lives driving distance from a beach and I'm jealous of them both. LOL But, I had to make one for myself too even though I have no beach opportunities coming up. A gal can dream...

Erica's history with oatmeal raisin cookies.

Oh, oatmeal raisin cookies! Just look at you in all your glory!

They aren't even my favorite but I feel like they're everyone else's favorite. I can name four people just off the top of my head who loves them. Well, lets just do that:

(Brace yourself for a long blog...its story time with Erica!!)

1. One of my best experiences in college was living with my friend, Dominique. She is the most pure, good and innocent person I know. She's just one of those "childlike wonder" people who loves life. She's definitely grown up since we lived together but, to this day, she still sees life with positiveness and hope. 

Oh yes, be prepared for some old school pictures. Like from almost 10 years ago!

She is actually the one who got me into real grown up cooking and appreciating food. I worked and maintained a spectacular GPA throughout my college experience so I didn't have time to cook too much. I just made super simple things like rice or chicken or salads. Sure, I cooked more than the average 20 year old but it was not real culinary cooking. When Dominique and I moved in together, we actually cooked and had meals. Meals, guys, ... not just eating to get full... but real meals where we talked about and appreciated what we were eating. It was great! One of the first things we made was oatmeal raisin cookies. I think we were bored and she wanted to bake. I never used recipes- which both baffled and appalled her that I just made things up in my head- so she decided it was good to start with the recipe on the Quaker oatmeal box. I've tweaked it a bit over the years but I still use that recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies. 

2. Dominique and I had the best neighbors we could have ever asked for. We lived across the parking lot from a group of hilarious and fun guys. It was Jeff, Mike and Dan and their neighbor, Jonathan, was always over, too. We were like the 2 honorary bros to their group. 

Dominique, me, Jonathan and Jeff. The four of us hung out the most.

On a particular depressing Valentine's Day, Dominique and I made oatmeal cookies and brought them over. It ended up turning into one of the best Valentine's Days of my life. It was that day that we learned that oatmeal raisin cookies are also Jeff and Jonathan's favorites.

                                       Before cookies : (                                         Cookies to make it all better : )

We stayed friends as best we could after we all graduated. Oatmeal raisin cookies came into play twice more with this group of bros. Not long after I graduated, Jonathan invited me over just to make cookies! It was pretty great. My cookie legacy lives on!

Jeff and I actually stayed friends for quite some time after our graduations. He is another one of those good and positive people that I adore and need more of in my life. One night when we were hanging out, Jeff decided that we needed to make cookies for Dominique. We baked about 3 dozen, shoved them in a box and mailed them off (she was in Colorado at the time). I have no idea if she ever got them or if they were even any good but it was like the one thing that tied us all together.

Here's a picture of us doing back bends. I'm sure we didn't back bend while baking but I saw this picture on one of my old Facebook albums and just had to laugh. I was in my early twenties but living like a little kid. Childlike innocence is one of the things I hated most about myself as I was growing into adulthood but its pictures like this that remind me it wasn't so bad. 

3. Now fast forward to present day real life. (I've lost touch with Jeff and Jonathan. Dominique and I still call and write occasionally.) When Wes and I were still just friends, I learned that his favorite cookie is oatmeal raisin. He and two of his best friends were heading out for a video game convention in Texas a few summers back. I baked cookies and sneaked them into his apartment with his luggage. All throughout that weekend, he, Travis and Cameron had cookies. It was the first "I'm an awesome girlfriend" thing I did for Wes. 

Enough sentimental chit-chat. Lets bake!

Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies:

Ingredients:

• 1 stick and 6 tablespoons butter at room temperature 
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 & 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 cups old fashioned & uncooked oats
• 1 cup raisins

1. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together with any kind of large spoon.

2. In a separate large bowl, cream butter and both sugars with an electric mixer. I used to do this by hand until Wes got me an electric mixer for Christmas the year before last. That saved my life! 

3. Add eggs and vanilla and continue to mix with electric mixer. 

4. Slowly add flour mixture from step #1. Keep mixing with the electric mixer. I add a little flour, mix a little, and add a little more until its all gone.

5. Add oats and raisins; continue to mix well. While mixing, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

6. Shape the cookies into whatever size dough balls you want (I make them fairly small and get 3-4 dozen out of this recipe). This year for the holidays, Wes got me a cookie scooper and a Silpat. Two more things that are saving my life! I like to keep the dough in the refrigerator overnight before shaping into balls & baking but it doesn't say to do that in the Quaker recipe. 

7. Bake 8 to 10 minutes (until light golden brown). 

Erica is making more clothes...

...wait...does an apron count as clothing? LOL

For the Indie Trunk Show, I joined a Facebook group for local vendors. It was a great resource for all of the participating artists and especially for first timers like myself. One vendor made herself a personalized apron to help advertise her shop (I think she was an embroiderer) and some other vendors started commenting on how useful aprons are. I never thought about it but I'm glad I saw that post! Wes helped with the set-up and clean-up of my booth and my mom and Mike booth-sat for me for an hour so I could go to lunch and take a potty break but other than that, I was on my own. *cue independent women music!* Since I'm neither an octopus or a 2000s sk8r boi with those crazy baggy pants, I am no good at holding tons of stuff on my person. I had my phone, Square reader, loose cash, pen, business cards and lip gloss all stowed away in my little apron. Oh, what a life saver!!

I Googled some DIY apron tutorials but like always, in the end, I never really followed a tutorial. I researched some tutorials and then decided to do my own. So, here we go...

Half apron tutorial:
     I used a sewing machine for this (once you go with a sewing machine, you'll never go back to hand stitching) but if you don't have one, its an easy enough project that you can sew by hand.

1. Measure:
            (according to your body structure and size of apron you want; I have my pieces on a large bath towel for comparison)
     I'm between 5'2 and '3 height and ~110lb and these are my apron measurements-
Back piece A: 12.5 x 27 inches
Front piece B: 7.5 x 24 inches
Waist band C: 3.5 x 68.5 inches
Pocket D: 6 x 6.5 inches

2. Fold the top and bottom ends of piece C horizontally into the middle and pin together; basically a hem along the top and bottom. Sew along the middle.

3. Piece A will be the main piece for the apron. Pin a small hem along three sides, then sew. Set aside.

4. Piece B will be the front pockets. Fold two pleats into the piece, thus dividing piece B into three sections.

5. Then fold along all four edges, pin a hem and sew. Set aside.

6. Fold, pin, and sew a hem around piece D for a little decorative pocket. Set aside.

7. Now you have all your pieces hemmed and sewn. Time to put them together. Pin piece B onto piece A. Sew around the edges and pleated pocket lines.

8. Pin and sew on the pocket (piece D) to the apron.

9. Your apron is done!! Lastly, we need to sew on the waist band. Place the waist band a little bit underneath the top of your apron. Fold top of apron over, pin and sew.

Done! I was hoping I could get this under 10 steps and I did : )

Musings from the recliner...

This isn't meant to be a bitter or angry blog post... I am married and know tons of married and pregnant friends...I just saw this and had to laugh. 

I am home bound for the next couple of days and the couch has become my new favorite piece of furniture. Sounds relaxing (and it was at first) but I've already been cooped up at home for 3 days recovering from my womanly surgery. I am ready to be in any other position besides sitting and laying down. But alas, I cannot move about until Wednesday...doctor's orders.
       In the meantime, I have...
 1. learned how to play Grand Theft Auto V (which I am not good at);
    2. made jewelry--blog post on that to come soon;
 3. mastered the phone game "Cookie Run";
      4. written to old friends (but I can't mail any of the letters I wrote since I can't physically make the journey to the post office);
 5. finished my book for book club;
      6. and taken way too many pictures of Sadie.

Sadie is giving me healing cuddles.

Today, I decided that I should do something useful, so now I am blogging. But what to blog about? Being stuck at home makes one (or at least, me) depressed. I don't want to blog about my depressing shit so I started thinking about my friends and family and their hobbies and added the two up to discover how many future movers and shakers I know (and am related to).

But before I get to that, I guess I can talk about my surgery for a bit. Everyone loved my infertility blog post so here's a "part 2" follow up.
        (P.S. I find it a tad bit amusing that no one gives a flying flip about my DIY crafts, recipes or RagsReborn posts but as soon as I share something personal and painful, I'm an instant sensation. Crazy how the world works, huh?) 
Anyway, a  couple of weeks ago, my OB/GYN decided that it was time to remove the cysts from my left ovary because they are getting too big. (x_x) So this past Friday morning, Wes and I went to surgery. I was completely knocked out but my doctor told Wes the results:

• My OB/GYN said that she didn't have to remove the cysts after all (which is so weird to me because that was the main reason why I went in... we'll need to talk about that during my post-op appointment...) They weren't as big or bad as she initially thought. 
• Instead she removed some bad endometriosis lesions. I've always suspected mild to severe endometriosis and the diagnostic laproscopy confirmed my hunches. 
• She also said she understands why I am always complaining about painful periods (so yeah, it's not just me being a wimp!!!) and I am pretty much 100% infertile.  C'mon, like, duh, what else is new? 
• Anyway, she wants me to either get on birth control or get a shot that mimics menopause. Pretty much my body needs to stop my reproductive system from performing its functions because it's all out of whack. I've been on birth control briefly many many moons ago and I absolutely hated it. I pretty much experienced every side effect and it was bad. Not sure which I should choose. I could choose neither and continue on with super painful cramps and abdominal discomfort; I've lived with that for this long, suppose I don't need to change anything now. Hmmm...decisions, decisions...I guess I have a few weeks to think about it...

So there's that. : /  I have been told that I cannot perform the most basic of female functions... I cannot reproduce. That's the essential reason why both males and females were put on this earth, right? To procreate. And now, I literally 100% medically proven cannot.  That is some heavy news I've just been dealt.
       Luckily, Wes fell in love young and had a child earlier in life. At least his genes will live on. As for me and my family tree, well, its DEAD. I have no siblings. I will never be an aunt, my mom will never be a grandmother and I will never be a mother. It sucks. But what do you do? Wes doesn't want to adopt and we're both against scientific intervention in the baby making department. So we accept this blow and move on.

Back to non-depressing blog topics...
       I studied business in college and always wanted to start one of my own. I started RagsReborn last year (admittedly a little late in life but I've always been a late bloomer). My business venture is coming along rather nicely. I can talk about it all day but I want to talk about some other people who are working toward self-made fame. I know so many:
        my cousin, Jan, is the future of the kuk sool won school of martial arts; 
      another cousin of mine, young lil cutie Michelle, is going to win So You Think You Can Dance as soon as she turns 18;
      one of my besties, Michelle (must be a popular name), is going to get famous from making jewelry. And I own one of her first pieces.

Instead of listing out everyone I know, I settled on a top three list.

EMMA-
aka LittleBennet.  My cousin's wife, Emma, is an award nominated blogger. Her blog http://littlebennet.com/ is a wonderful read. She travels, has DIY projects, fashion advice and amazing photography.  Basically, it's what I want my blog to become when it grows up. LOL

My favorites of her posts are the ones about travel. (I love to travel and don't do enough of it.) Another one of my cousins, Winnie, got married in Norway this past spring. Emma and her husband, Kent, took an amazing trip all over Europe. They hit 7 cities in about a month. They did everything from hiking in Iceland to afternoon tea in London. I followed her blog & Instagram religiously and became more and more envious of her pictures, especially the ones about food.

LACEY-
I've known this lady for decades (yes, I can say decades--plural--because I met her in junior high school and we're both 30 now!). Lacey has always been artsy and creative. Now she makes soap. I'm trying to convince her to jump into the world of Etsy and craft shows with me.

Here's her men's line that she made for Wes last Christmas. The mustache soap is for shaving.

She started out by making her own scents and color to add to pre-made soap. She made this apricot scent that smells sooooo good! I got so many samples but I used them all before I thought to take any pictures. They're really pretty--she used pastels and glitter and formed some really neat patterns. There was a swirly purple & white one and a pink, yellow and white plaid one that were my two favorites. Oh, she also has this gardenia scent that also smells really good.

She's branched out to making lip balm and bath bombs, too. Her newest venture is curing her own soap...like from scratch using lye and stuff. She is on vacation now, but says she has a batch at home that will be ready for me when she returns. 

TREVOR-

aka lightningshinobi.  My cousin Trevor draws & writes manga. I'm not too into the anime culture so I can't be a fair judge (and I'm biased toward his work) but what I've seen of his stuff is pretty good. He started with one boy character a few years ago and has really developed him and given him a good story arc and some interesting compadres. I visit Trevor annually and he is always happy to show me his newest drawings. He's come a long way in the few years he's been doing it. Here's is DeviantArt account: http://lightningshinobi.deviantart.com/

I know this blog is kinda all over the place but 1. I just had surgery two days ago and I'm still letting the results sink in...its a lot to fully comprehend and accept; 2. Sadie is distracting me with her cuddly cuteness and 3. I'm watching Wes play Grand Theft Auto V. I started blogging with this grand idea of highlighting all the future small business owners and entertainers I know and I don't think I organized it very well. It was mostly just a ploy to get myself to be not so depressed. Anyway, its time for lunch and then another nap...