a light has gone out of my life

Grandma--top right--with her mother and kids (there's my mom with the black hair!)

This week, my grandmother lost her battle to pancreatic cancer. Some of you might remember briefly hearing about this back in October, when we first found out and still hoped it'd been caught early enough.

Given that this is not exactly the best place to disclose too many details, I won't go much into her last few weeks. Suffice it to say that while she was indeed in a lot of pain and spent a lot of time sad or afraid, she still actively maintained a positive attitude and never wanted anyone else to worry about her. For awhile, I invented different flavors of smoothies to bring her, and when she was still eating, she requested a lot of baked goods. I practically sprinted home every night to make her whatever she asked for, but she didn't end up actually finishing a whole lot of it.

There's been a lot of grief. I would even admit that most of it probably hasn't hit me in full force yet. However, my grandma wasn't the kind of lady who wanted anyone to dwell on unhappiness. Having said that, I think anyone reading this deserves to know exactly what kind of woman she was.

My grandmother always said her greatest hope was to see her daughters and granddaughters grow up to be ladies who also knew when to curse like sailors.

She always had enough food in her kitchen for anyone who was visiting--and if she didn't, she practically teleported to the nearest Asian market to go get some more.

She was a banging mother. I'm not even remotely doing her justice here, but she spent years as a single, hardworking mom with four kids in a country that wasn't hers--and she refused help from her well-off relatives because (in her words) she was too proud and wanted to make her life herself.

She was always running around in her little trademark straw fedoras. For her birthday one year, Marcus and I each bought her new ones. Jesus, she loved those hats. If it wasn't hats, it was colorful hair clips. Accessorizing runs in the family.

She was an unbelievably strong lady. Her life reads like a damn Univision soap opera, except all of it actually happened. She went through some serious adversity. I would even argue she was still going through a lot of it before cancer even became present in her life. I never heard her being negative or down on herself--she waved everything off and said it wasn't worth the fuss.

She said I had her face, and she loved that. She always called me her mini-me to anyone she introduced me to. After she did, my mom said "you have so much of her in you" and cried.

She was unbelievably crass. Seriously, appearance-wise, she fit the textbook definition of a sweet old Spanish grandmother, but the things that came out of her mouth were insane. I couldn't get enough. She somehow managed to relate to everyone because she never acted like she was above them--she had the raunchy vocabulary to prove it, too.

My grandma was universally compassionate and loving. She could make anyone feel like the most important person in the world to her--and so many people adored her. She had so much room in her heart for everyone, and it would be arrogant to assume you came first in her life because of it. We never minded, of course--knowing anyone, much less a person you're related to, who has that much capability to love, is an incredible gift. I don't care how many people thought of her as their grandma even if they weren't related to us. She probably felt just like one, and I love that. 

She knew everyone. Seriously. If she didn't, she at least found common ground with them. I can't tell you how many times we'd be grocery shopping when she ran into someone with an accent she recognized. She'd proceed to engage them in Tagalog and carry on a full, enthusiastic conversation. She had connections out the wazoo, and I finally just decided to go through life assuming she did know everyone in our immediate proximity rather than not.

We used to fight about the way I wanted to dress. I remember clearly, for my first homecoming dance, I just wanted to wear a conservative dress with sleeves, and in the middle of Kohl's, we had an argument about it. "No granddaughter of mine is going to a school dance dressed like that!" she declared, waving the sequined, strappy, ass-grazing number she favored for me instead. "You're going to show off what you've got, young lady! If you've got it, you'd better flaunt it!" I can almost guarantee very few similar arguments have ever occurred between a grandmother and a granddaughter. This continued until I came into myself over the years and eventually transitioned into a style I felt more comfortable in (which now includes a lot of printed dresses). 

Following that, in her last few weeks, she'd always want to be touching me or my clothing. I got into the habit of wearing her favorite dresses, then laying down next to her. From her little bed, she'd play with the patterns on my tights or dresses and smile for an hour at a time.

I could go on for hours about the things that made this woman someone I was lucky to be able to grow up near. So much of who I am is because of her. I probably can't even begin to guess how many people in the world consider themselves lucky to know her.

It hasn't hit me all the way yet. The hole in my life no longer being filled by her presence feels like a dream to me still. I keep thinking that if I just dial her phone number, she'll answer me like always.

I can't say when this is going to become more of an immediate reality to me. I've never experienced a death of a loved one before, and this was kind of like losing my queen in the beginning of a chess game. There's never going to be a way to replace her--not that I'd ever want to.

I only hope I was able to do her justice and appreciate her enough while she was here. I let her know all the time how much I loved her and wanted to be near her, but somehow I still wonder if it was enough.

If she was sitting here, she'd probably have smacked me in the arm by now, rolled her eyes, and told me to stop it already.

Jesus, we all loved her so much.

The hospice worker told us to say "see you later" instead of "goodbye", because we had every reason to believe we'd see her again someday. I don't know where I stand on that, but I sincerely hope it's true, because I'd give anything to have her back.

Wherever she is, I hope she's unimaginably happy. Someone like her deserves nothing less.

the beginning of october

1. My brother turned fifteen. He's diabetic, so I tried making up a cake that was acceptably sweet that my mother would also let him eat. I came up with a sugar-free box mix for Devil's Food Cake, sugar-free chocolate pudding to add to it, strawberry frozen yogurt in between the layers and fat-free whipped topping mixed with cocoa powder for the frosting. The entire thing was placed in the freezer and became a diabetic-friendly ice cream cake. Tommy has since requested about five more.

2. We had one of our first date nights in awhile. Marcus is becoming a sushi person. I'm really proud of how far he's come in terms of culinary adventurousness. Would you believe I could never get him to eat anything besides plain pizza or chicken nuggets?

3. Surprise--another sweet experiment for Tommy's benefit. My mom won't ever let him order anything from Starbucks because of the sugar, but he loves the strawberries and cream blended drinks. After spending awhile sulking about it, he gave up on asking for them anymore. I was playing with smoothie ideas and decided to try replicating the drink with strawberry frozen yogurt, almond milk and some canned whipped cream. He's deemed it acceptable and asks for these special drinks most nights now.

4. I ordered this beautiful dress from eBay--I really am coming to love Bernie Dexter's designs. This dress is a particular favorite of mine because it combines Tudor roses with a vintage silhouette. Unfortunately, when my package finally arrived it contained the wrong dress. It's currently on its way back, so I'll update you when my other one gets here!

5. My hair is getting long enough to play with a little bit more. I dyed it brown after something like five years of keeping it auburn. I like it better so far, and now I'm just anxiously awaiting more growth so I can experiment with my curls instead of settling for keeping it up all the time.

6. I started a new job (more on that later), and while I was hunting for important work-related documents in my garage I found this little jar I made for my mom in first grade. We have it on the fireplace now--I used to be really annoyed that she never ate the chocolates I put inside. When I found this and showed it to her and my aunt, my aunt exclaimed, "of course! No mom wants to compromise a present like that by eating the candy inside!"

7. I may have also finally gotten my hands on the long-awaited skeleton dress. It glows in the dark and I am in love with the collar. I need to get better at getting real outfit pictures instead of just the ones I use my phone for in the mirror. The full effect is usually a lot more fun! It came just in time for October to start, but I'm thinking I'll be breaking this out even when Halloween is over.

8. In my moments of free time, I occupy myself by rearranging things and keeping the house clean. Our pantry used to look like a tornado had hit it. We buy from the bulk bin at Sprouts for snacks, and somehow the food always stays inside those plastic bags. Nobody could find anything! I finally got impatient and made a trip to Target for several mason jars. The snacks ended up in the jars, and now we can see how much food we actually have. Thank God. (We have pea soup now, too.)

9. We've had family popping in and out for almost a month. I really enjoy watching my mom and aunt together. She's supposed to be coming back next week, so I'm excited to see her again even if the circumstances aren't ideal.

Finally, I'm sure everyone (meaning all two of you) are curious about how my grandmother is doing. She has her on and off days, but she's coming home soon. We don't really know what will happen from there, but anyone who's met my grandma knows she isn't about to go down without fighting.

We love her tons, and, as evidenced in this particular favorite photo of mine, we're all cut from the same cloth as she is. 

In the meantime, I hope things get better. Some family members have really come through, and others have revealed themselves to be largely unsupportive. Strange how these times show you everyone's true colors, isn't it? The family drama has been so insane I could probably write a soap opera about it and retire from the income. 

Well, for now I think we'll just focus on the positives. Within a week or two, my grandmother should be home! We'll just go from there. 

{ saturday: baking scones! }

One of my favorite things to do in the mornings--on weekends especially--is bake special treats for everyone to wake up to. I've been thinking it would be fun to try sharing some of my most-loved recipes with all of you, because who wouldn't want to try making scones at least once? I don't have the cutest vintage kitchen with matching accessories like some of my favorite bloggers (yet!) but I still thought pictures might be fun and help illustrate the process for those of you who might not be too familiar with baking just yet!

I have to go ahead and credit this recipe for what I'm writing about today--it really lives up to its name. It's an excellent base, and you can adapt it literally any way you want to. I would pay special attention to the reviews, because I did find that reducing the amount of butter and baking powder yields a more favorable result. However, it's entirely up to you, which is why this is one of my most-used recipes.

The original uses currants (which sound delicious, but I've never actually seen any around here...) but so far I've tried blueberry, raspberry, chocolate chip, multi-berry lemon, and now, as of today, blueberry chocolate chip! I'm sure there's a whole other realm of savory scones I have yet to try, but that's for another day.

Scones can seem kind of daunting. Marcus and I used to go to this bakery in Flagstaff every Sunday for these huge ones that we had to split with a glass of milk. I always wanted to try making them, but they seemed to easy to mess up.

Not the case!

I went ahead and outlined the basics of how these scones are made, but for exact measurements, visit the instructions I linked above--I wouldn't want to steal all the attention away from the original author who was generous enough to share such a successful recipe!

You need basic ingredients for this:

• Flour - I haven't tried anything so far except basic white all-purpose, but I'm really curious to experiment with wheat or coconut flour.
• Sugar - what's really nice is that you don't use a whole lot, but you still get just the right amount of sweetness!
• Butter - the recipe calls for five tablespoons, but I've always scaled back to three and they're still pretty decadent.
• Baking powder - again, I'd consider using a teaspoon less than the recipe calls for.
• Salt - pretty standard for baking.
• Milk and sour cream - I actually always use plain fat-free yogurt in place of the sour cream, and it works wonderfully.
• Any berries, chocolate chips, or other such toppings you desire! 
• There's also an optional egg wash that includes one egg and a little milk. The idea is that you dust it over the scones before baking. However, I've tried it with and without this, and don't notice much of a difference either way. Up to you!

Here we go! A brief demonstration, because who doesn't like pictures?

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl together: flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Make sure they're mixed well!

My personal favorite part: adding the butter! It seems to work best if you place your block of butter in the freezer, then grate it into the dry ingredients. It's really fun, and it looks really cool. Am I the only one who loves the color of butter?

Throw in your toppings. The recipe calls for something like 1/2 cup of currants, but I always end up adding more. Today I used blueberries and chocolate chips, and I think I might have just skipped measuring! ;)

Mix everything thoroughly. It's important to distribute the butter evenly so that every scone achieves maximum fluffiness!

Combine the yogurt and milk in a separate bowl. I like to whisk them, because it gives me an excuse to use mine. (Not a whole lot of recipes seem to require whisking anymore, which is really too bad...)

Pour the wet ingredients into your dry ones all at once, and mix them well. The recipe cautions against over-working the dough. So far, that's been avoided on my end, but I'm always a little nervous about either over-mixing them or risking leaving chunks of flour just sitting there. Eventually it'll all combine into one huge ball--and a lot of my berries exploded, turning the dough blue in some places!

Pull the dough apart and shape them into little balls on a baking sheet--I try to make them vaguely triangular, but you'll see that they never really turn out that way. It's best to let them rest for about 10 minutes to let the baking powder activate--I use that time to wash my dishes! Afterward, place those babies into the 400-degree oven!

After about ten to twelve minutes, they should be about done, but I know it depends on the oven. When they stop being squishy and start getting golden brown on top, you know it's almost time to enjoy them!

My household in particular enjoys them plain with lots of milk, but you can also serve with clotted cream (never seen that before, either, but it sounds delicious) and jam. My brother tried it with the jam once and decided it was only so-so.

There you have it! Scones are actually really easy and don't take very long at all. Chances are you'll try making them and immediately want to whip up another batch with other toppings. I know I'm looking forward to fall so that I can do pumpkin or cranberry! 

Let me know if you try this great recipe, and tell me how it turns out! What kind of fillings did you use? 

-Katie

{ vacation: san diego }

It's been a little bit!

That's mostly because this past week, my family, Marcus and I were all getting ready to go on a great trip we'd been planning for awhile! Mom's been wanting to go back to San Diego forever--last time we went was probably about seven or eight years ago. While that in and of itself was a fun experience, it had been a long time and my poor mom was pretty tired out from her job. She'd been saving up vacation time all year!

The four days we were there went by too quickly, unfortunately.

While we were there, we:

• Enjoyed some good food, including breakfast time at the hotel's Waffle Spot and their dinner joint, Amigo Spot. (They're big on spots there, I guess). My youngest brother, Tommy, had especially missed these restaurants. I suspect it was a nostalgia thing. 
• Visited the Gaslamp District and shopped around some shops I'd dreamed of seeing, mainly including the Bettie Page store. Pictures to follow.
• Of course, went to the beach! We visited Mission Beach for the day at the beginning of our trip, and we technically went to La Jolla, even though it was just the parking lot. I guess Saturday evenings in the summertime aren't the best choice when visiting a beach, because we had to turn around and go home! :( 
• Spent a day at Balboa Park--this day was sort of mixed, because the original plan had been to go to either Sea World or the San Diego Zoo. Neither of those things happened, mostly due to lack of planning, so the day ended up being sort of up in the air. We went to go explore Balboa Park, and we also went to this science museum that was supposed to be the coolest thing but was actually kind of not. (I think it was really geared toward kids around six or seven years old). Unfortunately, it cost so much to get in that we couldn't have gone to the zoo or Sea World anyway! Oh, well--Jack ended up getting to visit a natural history museum that made his day, and mom and I went walking around the area.
• Following that, we ran into two separate groups at the Pavilion having weddings, along with a family reunion and a quinceanera. We enjoyed looking at everyone's outfits and discussing what we did and didn't like about wedding themes. 
• Played some games in our hotel room and enjoyed the swimming pool and Jacuzzi.
• Went walking with my mom every morning--we'd stop at the coffee machine in the lobby and take a walk around the Hotel Circle! It was some great bonding time! 
• Spent a lot of time watching early morning Disney Channel (I think we all really like Sophia the First now?) and Hell's Kitchen. There was a marathon one night, what else were we going to do?!
• And I got a job! There are more details to follow, but while on vacation, I got a phone call with a job offer! I'll save that for later so that I don't get too carried away in one single post.

And now, here are a couple of pictures! I probably have more around here somewhere, and I forgot to take pictures of some things I wish I had--like walks or certain foods--but these are my favorite parts of the trip!

This thing was in front of the Amigo Spot, but it always froze when we tried to take a picture!

My mom was super psyched.

They enjoyed burying Marcus in his huge hole, but he didn't have too great a time getting out of it!

This beach was REALLY crowded!

Here was the progress of this aforementioned hole! I bought him a shovel at one of the stands near the beach and he was a huge fan!

My brother was nice enough to get me a little stuffed mammoth from his special museum! He felt bad because I hadn't gotten to pick anything that day--very sweet of him! (Also, he bought me that latte. Ladies, he's a very generous boy!)

All week, I wanted some waffles, but felt they were too unhealthy...the solution? Mini waffles with some of Marcus's strawberry topping! They were so cakey! 

This volcano cake was beyond delicious. It was really tiny, and the four of us demolished it while Mom enjoyed some vanilla ice cream.

Here are just a couple of outfits I tried on at the Bettie Page store! I've wanted that green skirt in the middle forever--someday, I'll get it!

This was fun to try to get out of...

We had a really great time! Like I said, I might have more pictures later, for anyone who's interested! (I doubt too many people look on this blog regularly, but I still love to post about things like this!)

Now, I just wish we could all go back!