Holy Vegan Delicious, Batman!

My new love, Pinterest, has been giving me all these wonderful things.

I think we should get married and have little virtual babies.

These cookies are in the oven as we speak.

I found them by typing ‘vegan peanut butter cookies’ into the Pinterest search bar.

And then, because I am incapable of strictly following recipes to the letter, I changed them a little.

• 3 bananas (the riper, the bester)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 3 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1-2 tbsp maple syrup or whatever sweetens your disposition
• 2 cups oats
• handful shredded coconut
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 chopped 90% dark chocolate bar
• handful of pecans and walnuts, chopped

Holy Vegan Delicious, Batman!

I love them and you can’t take that away from me.  It’s so wrong but it feels so right.  Stop yelling at me.  You can’t tell me who to love.

Eat your heart out Nestle. No, really. My cookies aren't gonna kill me.

So here’s the thing…

Mine are a little darker than the original recipe because I shredded some of my dark chocolate and some I chopped.  These badass tasties have antioxidants baked right in, yo.

Also, I greased a cookie sheet as well as did not grease another.  To experiment.  Don’t waste your time.  There’s no difference.  The peanut butter, banana,  & coconut oil must be sufficey.

I wonder what cayenne pepper would do to them…

And this has been in my CrockPot since this morning.*

O, Pinterest!  Where have you been all my life!

You make my vegan days worth the living and my crafty heart beats erratically at your astonishing spectacularity.

*more to follow…

}sharK`Week<

I’ve mentioned my mad, passionate love affair with Pinterest.  Have I not?

A friend who shall remain pinonymous pinned a post comparing the similarities of the shark brain with female plumbing in visual format.  Though it would be infinitely fun for me to insert said pictorial comparison for you, the more sensitive portion of my audience mayhap be offended.  So you shall be forced to Google the image on your own.  Or use your imagination.

Now that your senses have been adequately assaulted, you need to know that Red Ribbon Week, Aunt Flo’s visit, Female Hormone Awareness Week, Men Hide the Sharp Objects, 7-Day Chocolate Binge, etc, has now been dubbed ‘Shark Week’ by my pinonymous fellow pinner.  I follow suit.

We were made in the image of God.  Areas of this Image in humanity have been corrupted, flawed, stained, disproportioned, unenchanted, and marred.  By sin, by Satan, by us, and by our parents.  Yes, I went there.  Yet still, under the debris, an outline of what was to be is visible.  Sometimes it takes tragedy, therapy, and multiple unemployments to unearth a trace.  Unchanged is the fact that I was created by Him and bits of Him are in my image as a result.

I have been fighting a nearly-paralyzing mental battle.  In my mind.  Of course.  Though possibly also with my heart and my plumbing.  My current non-pregnant state is the longest span of time since Jim and I were wed that I have gone without growing a tiny human.  Molly will be 17 months on the 2nd of August.  By this point in the infant lives of my other 2 wonder-toddlers, another child had supplanted him/her as the ‘baby’ in the family.  Metaphorically, of course, since they were all babies.  At the same time.

The battle: my body seems to want to be pregnant.  Desperately.  With a fury that makes my conscious mind question its own validity.  You see, my rationale tells me that it’s a really good idea to enjoy the 3 children I accidentally and blessedly have.  To spend time with them without the energy-sapping of another gestation.  To get to know the ones who currently outnumber the parentals before they realize they outnumber.  Perhaps even get a year of homeschooling under my decorative belt.

My female-of-the-species hormones plead with me almost daily to make additional tiny, and almost inevitably emotionally damaged, people.  I may very well be losing it.  Not the battle, but the little that is left of my conscious mind, and my subconscious, disturbed as it is, vies for control.  I need to get back to counselling, yo.

Eventually I would love to have another kid.  At least one.  Ahem.  But the time is not now.  To be a good mother and tolerable wife, this postponement  is a necessity.  While my uterus weeps.  So, to cope, I keep well hydrated and I beseech God for the wisdom to understand the desperate longing.

I also love to craft.  I also have barely the time and the space for this pursuit.

Image of God, readers.  Image of God.  Apparently one of the little pieces given to me is a love of creating.  People.  Hairdos.  Apparel.  Not food.  More humans.  Style.  Drama.  Ahem.  Decor.  And trouble.  O, and the intermittent literary contribution.

So, I divert my attention from wanting a baby to creating things that don’t require medical insurance and a college fund.  Or that drain my mental powers.  Creating makes me feel whole, complete.  It would appear that my inner turmoil is not a mental defect, but my spirit and mind trying to balance my daily life with something God built in me with a purpose of His own.

I am trying to make a little space in my life for creating.  I very literally created a space.  With a desk and sewing table.  And some Rubbermaids.  In the corner of my bedroom.

Shark Week did not air as scheduled this month.  Maybe the self-imposed 57 1/2 hour fast I endured has reset my biological timepiece.  Whatever happened, I supposed I could be pregnant.  Parts of me dueled for precedence:  Elation.  Concern.  Trepidation.  Bliss.  Worry.  Confusion.  Not equal parts, mind you, since each half of the equation gained ground with each consecutive moment.  And then I was hit by a bus.  That is, we have “returned to regular programming after these messages”.  Sad, relieved, excited, and pensive.  All that.  But not a bucket of chicken.  Chicken’s not vegan.

So I blog.  And at naptime I will dig out some unfinished craft projects.  Since in my mental state of the past 3 days, I have energetically caught up on several household chores.

The answer looks to be balance.

Desire & Reality.

Want & Need.

Gift & Responsibility.

Kids & Crafts.

Regular Programming & Special Bulletins.

~~~~~~~~~~

This message brought to you by the surprisingly delicious Banana/Almond-milk/Raisin/Hemp-protein Smoothie.

And by Midol.  

Ahem.