I’m not sure I’ve eaten anything this weekend.
Well… I’m not sure I’ve eaten anything beyond chips, gummy bears, coffee, and gin.
I definitely didn’t eat this gorgeous breakfast pizza.
Really, it’s no one’s fault but my own.
There was arugula on this breakfast pizza.
Ps. That totes makes this vegetables for breakfast. Get into it!
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I don’t have one single recipe memorized.
Actually wait…. I have the recipe for a Bourbon and Ginger Ale memorized. That’s two ingredients. That doesn’t really count.
I don’t have one single baking recipe set to memory. Not my Dad’s Buttermilk Biscuit recipe. Not my favorite pancake recipe. Not the best Creme Fraiche Quiche ever. None of those are in my brain.
What I do have in my brain is: my best friend’s parents’ phone number, from 1988, the license plate number for my first car, and every single lyric to Blues Traveler’s “Hook”.
Wwwwhhhhyyyyy?
Can we erase these three useless pieces of information, and replace them with: a buttermilk biscuit recipe, the quadratic equation, and something awesomely conversational… like the lifespan of the beluga whale. That would be better, don’t you think?
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I need to make some decisions. I know… welcome to everyday living.
Who do you turn to when it’s time to make big decisions?
Mama and Dad? Bestest girlfriends? Awesome boyfriends? Husband? Wifey? God? Bottle of beer? Giant stack of doughnuts?
When it comes to making decisions, I make lists… and stare at them. I take hot showers and try to figure out my life. I chip my manicure off. I stop blinking.
I ask friends for advice… and wait for them to give me the answer I want. Are you guilty of this too!? Be real. Bad habit.
I ask God… I listen and then I try to figure out how I’m going to hear his answer.
I think. I make more lists. I stare.
I’ve found that tremendous amounts of fried food also help the decision making process. Well… they help pass the time during the quiet list making/staring phase of the decision making process.
Do people actually make decisions while running around like maniacs? Is that something that works? Is there a lot of yelling involved? That sounds like chaos. I prefer the sitting, staring, fried food eat, and listening method… but really, that’s just my own personal crazybrain.
Oh wait! Are you one of those people that makes important decisions while working out?! Ugh. Why can’t I be you!?
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New Joy the Baker Podcast is ready for your ears! Get your listen on!!
When I was a small little baby girl, I was super stoked to grow up and:
Wear sunglasses like Jackie O. Stop doing homework. Shave my legs (um…. wwwhhhhyyyy!?). Stay up past 9:30. Watch all the Beverly Hills 90210 ever ever ever made. Do my own hair. Roller skate without a helmet. Play basketball better than my little sister (I can not. I mean… come on). Be a firefighter, writer, or veterinarian. Eat cookies for breakfast, Cheetos for lunch, and fried chicken and chocolate cake for dinner.
I’m a real-life grown-up now.
I’ve moved past my haphazard Jackie O phase. I’m pretty sure that email is the new homework. I shave my legs, but wow… the appeal of that pastime is loooong gone. I stay up as late as I want… because I’m grown. Beverly Hills 90210 has been replaced by Real Housewives of Minnetonka. I get my hair done did…. and that feels nice. I wear a helmet because I’m totally over trying to look cute. I’m totally into trying to look alive. I realized I don’t like fire, dictionaries, or sick animals. I don’t eat Cheetos for lunch. If I ate fried chicken and chocolate cake everyday I would be a happy and hefty lady.
But! but but but but but….. I can totally have cookies for breakfast.
I may have known absolutely nothing about my adult self as a young youth…. Meh! At least now there are cookies, and coffee, and iPhones.
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The dream house that I hold in my head is sunny and smells like banana bread. It has a real-life adult couch and big, fluffy, matching, totally not hand-me-down bathroom towels. The bookshelves aren’t dusty and my desk is huge and spotless. There’s also a lovely woman that comes over everyday to help me clean my kitchen. She’s wise and knows everything about life. She’s my secret, dream house guru… and she does dishes.
My dream house has hints of food everywhere. Raspberry colored lamps in the living room. Black coffee colored walls in the bedroom. A French vanilla bathroom. Avocado rugs. Pink Himalayan sea salt for a little girl’s room. Fig colored guest room. Cauliflower whites through the office.
This is what my brain does. It makes a dream house and fills it with beautiful food smells, food colors, love, cat hair (why!?), and kid laughs.
How diplomatic is your shower?
Do you have minty unisex soaps? Do you have pleasant, not completely feminine smelling shampoo?
Do you hide the pumice stone in the bathroom cabinet? What’s going on with the face wash situation? Does it smell like… you know, soap?
I might have an issue. I’m rocking gardenia body wash, crazy flower town shampoo, an excessive variety of hair conditioners, lavender soap, and rose face wash. It’s a lady paradise. Truly.
… and I’ve noticed that not a drop of my lady products are used when a certain handsome-handed gentleman I know uses my shower.
I might need to get him some man soap. When do you buy a man mansoap ? Is that too forward? Oh gracious….
I suppose some people prefer to eat their lavender as opposed to bathing in it.
Wait. I’m certainly not complaining. I’ll keep the expensive lady’s paradise to myself… I’m just not sure about the timing of man soap.
I’ll totally share my lavender… in scone form.
**Update. Mansoap purchased. Mansoap in shower. No biggie. Done and done.
Five Things I Learned About Myself Last Week
by Joy Wilson
My Los Angeles style of driving will piss many people off outside of Los Angeles.
When traveling, I will take an unreasonable, and possibly troubling amount of travel-sized toiletries with me no matter the duration of the trip.
I so so soooo want to be the girl that’s awesome at Frisbee football…. but I’m totally just not.
I’m stubborn. I practice. I’ll totally be good at Frisbee football one day.
In a canoe in the ocean? I’ll jump out. You won’t even have to dare me. Life is short and the water is warm.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I’ll score a 2.2 in gracefulness returning my body back to the canoe. Whatever. Remember that part about life being short. Yea. Exactly.
Some people might feel like a bikini top is a suitable shirt…. but I’m pretty sure it just feels like wearing a bra in public. That’s just me.
When on vacation is a warm place with tropical fruits and fresh fish… I’ll most likely be thinking about cheese grits and my monster kitten. I dunno.
Was it you who spent last Friday night with a bottle of white wine and a truly GIANT bowl of salty, sweet popcorn.
Did you find yourself 4 hours into a Say Yes to the Dress marathon? Wait… did you cry a little bit?
Was it you who glanced at the random pair of scissors on your coffee table, then took a quick glance at the sleeping cat sitting to your left? Was it you who again glanced at the scissors… then back at the unsuspecting cat? Scissors. Cat. Scissors. Cat.
Wait… was it you who decided to give your poor, helpless cat a summer hair cut?
Was it you who found out that trimming a cat’s hair is actually waaaay harder than it seems?
Was it you left with the kinda silly, lopsided looking cat?
Was that you? Oh. Wait. No.
I guess that was ME. My bad. Honest mistake.
I can’t show you a picture of the cat. It’s downright embarrassing.
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Here’s the plan: breakfast!
Here’s the second plan: dice up potatoes, toss it with stuff, and call it hash.
Here’s the other part of the first and second plan: serve it to someone you love. Maybe that’s your dad. Maybe that’s your handsome husband. Maybe it’s that dude who takes your trash bins in just because he’s nice.
Here’s another important part of the plan: parsley and butter… they should go in pretty much everything (except probably cupcakes).
This is Dad and me. I know because my mom put a sticker on this… one of my favorite photos. My Dad is the best man I know. I also love those jeans… I wish he still had those so I could borrow them.
But seriously… best man I know. Thanks for being that guy, Dad.
Other Dad-friendly foods include:
Dad’s Buttermilk Biscuits & Dad’s Buttermilk Pancakes & Dad’s Perfect Sweet Potato Pie
See a theme here? Yea.
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Can I tell you something about me? This has exactly nothing to do with bananas or butter or bread. Feel free to roll your eyes and skip ahead, if necessary.
I used to be a worrier. Like… a professional worrier. I would worry like it was my job to worry, like I was getting paid mad/crazy/rich person dollars to worry. I wasn’t. I was broke. That fact, in itself, made me worry.
I thought that worry would save me from every possible pain in the world. I thought worry would prepare me for bad things, disappointing things, and crazy unforeseeable things. If I worried about it… it either wouldn’t happen or I’d be prepared for it.
Well… let me tell you: worry is no preparation. It took me years.. YEARS, people…. years, to figure out that worry is just wasted energy.
Let’s be real. I still worry about things. It’s human nature. We have big brains… I’m pretty sure a small portion of them are built to worry.
I worry about earthquakes in the middle of the night when I’m wearing no bra, my ugliest possible t-shirt, and the most embarrassing pair of panties a girl has ever owned. What if there’s an earthquake, and my house falls down, and I have to retreat to my neighbors house in this hideous outfit? Those thoughts usually lead me to find a reasonable pair of pajama pants and I slip on a sports bra. See? Worrier.
But I’m changed my expectations. Instead of worry about the worst, I try to expect the best.
Seriously… what would my day look like if I expected great things instead of disastrous things? I’ll tell you… it’s looks a heck of a lot better. It feels better too. I can drink more coffee without completely spazzing out. Less worry frees me up to jump around in the world, and be silly, and thankful, and wear mint green nail polish, and write pen pal letters, and tell people I love them.
I still worry about earthquakes. Those are scary. But I also expect and welcome not just the good… but the great.
(What? Wait… I’m not talking about trashy reality television? No. I know. It’s weird.)
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My produce dude at Whole Foods might know me just as well as some of my closest friends. We’ve built quite the relationship.
Yea.. he’s MY produce dude. Miguel gets to work at 4am.
He’s in the produce restocking business… and he has to get his ducks in a row before 7am rolls around, and the store opens.
I saunter in around 7:30am. I generally have ridiculous bedhead, sunglasses on indoors, a scarf wrapped around my head, and lip gloss… always lip gloss. Miguel has seen some truly unfortunate morning fashion choices. Maybe he judges. If so, at least he does so with kind eyes.
Maybe I look like one of those dishevelled, incognito super famous people… except that I’m not at all.
Miguel always greets me. We talk about what I’m about to cook. He picks up an apple and slices it for me to sample. He tells me about how many beers he is going to drink when he gets off of work, and what he’s going to do with his family over the weekend. That’s about as much conversation as I can muster at such an early hour.
I think he and I have high-fived once. I initiated it… surely it was awkward.
He gave me a smushed avocado once, and I acted like he was giving me a brick of gold. Also awkward.
I wonder what Miguel is doing right now.
Probably stacking potatoes and chatting up the girl that does her produce shopping everyday at 10:30am. She probably likes apple slices too.
Hm… she’s probably more chatty and less awkward. But I’m probably cuter.
And yes… I’m totally comparing myself to a fictional girl I just made up in my head. Whatevs. I’m over it.
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Pictured above are 12 toasted marshmallows. Warm, gooey, sweet, toasty good.
The rest of the bag of marshmallows… I ate those standing in front of the oven waiting for these little puffs to bake.
… Then I went to the store and bought another bag.
… Because I have a problem. … And marshmallows are so soft so soft so delicious.
Have you ever made popovers? So simple.
Popovers are like puffy pancake doughnuts. Aren’t those good words? Yes.
Also… toasted marshmallows. Buy two bags. Don’t feel bad.
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Good morning!
I made us breakfast.
There’s not an ounce of butter in it. Clearly I’m not feeling myself.
Grains and applesauce and fruit and nuts. Delicious. Wholesome. True.
We’ll eat it and feel utterly contented. Then we’ll have butter for lunch. Let’s be real.
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Pretty scones with pink fruit.
Also… I clearly have an obsession with patterned plates, napkins and table toppers. And I hate matching.
You should see what I’m wearing today: plaid, stripes, a stupid over-sized sweater, and weirdo shoes. I think I look cute.
Matching just doesn’t suit me- grapefruit does.
There are only three reason why I would rip the shirt off my body in public:
1. If a kitten were on fire and I needed to smother him, put him out, cuddle him, give him food, and make him mine forever.
2. If I discovered a bee… a ferocious, man-eating bee, down my shirt.
3. If a handsome young fireman needed my shirt to wipe his sweaty brow after saving a grandmother and her fluffy orange cat from the top of a burning tree. But even then… I’d make the fireman take his shirt off first. I have standards.
Yesterday, I ripped my shirt off in a spazzy, screaming fit on Main Street in Santa Monica. There was no kitten nor fireman in sight. There was a bee down my shirt. A live bee… buzzing down my shirt. Standing in front of a bike shop and across the street from a busy cafe, I full on FREAKED OUT and tore my shirt off my body. There was also FREAK OUT screaming involved. Then I spent another agonizing ten seconds trying to brush the bee off my body with the shirt I was supposed to be wearing.
Then I was just standing there… on the street… shirtless… in my ugly bra… the one that looks like my grandma’s sprotsbra. I just stood there, holding my shirt and staring squarely at the ground… at the bee struggling to walk away… at the bee that had rendered me shirtless. I knew that if I looked up from the ground I would be mortified times one million.
As I’m struggling with the sleeves, trying to get my shirt back on… I see a pair of feet stroll past me. I didn’t see one of those red tipped seeing eye sticks, so this person was clearly a seeing person. A witness. Ok. Carry on.
My sleeves were all wonky, I couldn’t button my shirt inside out. I was a hot mess… so I had to take my shirt off (again!) invert the spazzy sleeves and put my shirt back on. That’s twice that I’ve taken my top off… Enough!
I never did look up from the ground. I never did blush. I did, however, want to dig a whole through the concrete and tunnel home instead of putting my shirt back on and riding home. But that’s just what I did. And if anyone was pointing and laughing… well, I guess I can’t blame them. I was quite the site.
Lessons were learned. Always wear a cute bra.
Listen up dearhearts.
I made banana bread with peanut butter in it.
It’s a good idea and you should totally jump on this bandwagon.
I like the word bandwagon. It makes me want to wear bellbottoms.
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If feeling:
lonely, bored, restless, hungry, smell deprived, sleep deprived, cold, greedy, kooky, crazy, cabin fevery, sun deprived, snow deprived, sullen, extraordinary, sluggish or spicy…
Might I suggest turning up the oven and roasting a bulb of garlic?
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My life is so orderly. Most afternoons I make up a pot of coffee, whip up some cookies, take out my fancy napkins and invite a friend over for coffee.
Nothing is ever out of place. My hair is always shiny and perfect. My lipstick never wears off. I could totally walk down a read carpet… like, now.
My dishes wash and dry themselves… and hop right back in the cupboard where they belong.
Occasionally there are crumbs, but I keep them contained to my lined baking sheets.
Everything is easy and perfect. You should see just how neat and tidy my closet is. Too good to be true.
And I don’t have to pay taxes…
… oh man… if only that were true.
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Dear Future Husband,
I got your email yesterday… the one with the subject line “To My Future Wife”.
Um….. can I be honest? That was sweet… but a little creeptown.
I know… I know… you’re probably going to say it was all a joke and you were just kidding and blah blah blah.
Listen. You may get the impression from this blog that it’s all sunshine and lollipops here at my end of the world.
Here’s some things you should know:
Sometimes I run out of toothpaste and forget to buy more. Irresponsible. I’m sorry.
I only have 168 Facebook friends. That’s not a lot.
I adopt stray cats… even the ones with dirty, matted fur. And I love them. And I talk to them in my cat voice.
I have a voice I use specifically for cats.
I put my feet on the coffee table. I’m demanding and unreasonable when I get stressed out. I text too much. I don’t want a pet bird. I don’t want to pretend that I like your mother’s pet bird. Oh.. and I’ll lose my everloving mind if you get pee on the floor and don’t clean it up. I will.
So… yea. I understand if you want to retract that email now. If you don’t, you’re nutso.
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