Month: February 2017

Trivial Recruit

~ Lola ~ Leave a comment

[This was supposed to go up yesterday but then there were technical difficulties using my phone to post and it was too late and I was too tired to get my computer out. I have fudged the publication date to avoid confusion since it was a tech failure and not a Lola failure.]

The amazing group of people that I am lucky enough to be a part of is recruiting new members! In just under a month, we’re going to be opening one of our practices to whoever wants to show up and learn more about derby. Whether you’re interested in playing, officiating (on skates or off), or volunteering in another capacity we want to meet you!

 

 

One of the fun things we’re doing to get the word out is participating in some trivia nights around the area, and I got to play tonight! I had forgotten how much I enjoy trivia, and we had so much fun! We didn’t win, but we made a very respectable showing. The official color of the Golden Gate bridge, if you were wondering, is International Orange.

Cheater Mousse Pie

Some years ago (pre-kids so at least 11, but probably more), there was a recipe on the side of Jello pudding for “Five Minute Pie”. I was extremely skeptical. Oh, sure, I thought, they say “five minutes” but that probably only includes the time to put everything in the bowl or something. In my kitchen experience, nothing ever takes less than twice as much “prep time” as indicated by the recipe.

But…it did sound delicious. And easy. So what if it did take 10 or 15 minutes to throw it together? That’s still pretty quick, right? So I gathered everything up and started whisking. I’ll be damned if that pie wasn’t in its crust and ready to eat in 5 minutes, including package opening time.

The next one I made, I took to a party. Everyone was SUPER impressed. What a lovely chocolate mousse pie I had made! I absolutely must give them the recipe! Holy cannoli, this 5 minute pie thing was a huge hit! I started making it for everything. You can fancy it up by piping on the whipped cream or adding chocolate shavings. People will think you’ve spent hours on this thing. And it really is very tasty.

I lost the recipe a while back, but thanks to the interwebs have recently rediscovered this magical, mousse-ical pie.

I’ve been seeing a thing on food blogs lately where it’s a bajillion pictures of the same thing and you have to scroll forever to get to the actual recipe. So I won’t be doing that, ever. BUT, I thought I might try doing some step-outs in the recipe itself. I’m not sure I like it, but let me know what you think!

Cheater Mousse Pie
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
8 I mean, it's a pie. I could probably eat a whole one by myself, but if you want to share cut it into as many slices as you like. 5 minutes (for real!)
Servings Prep Time
8 I mean, it's a pie. I could probably eat a whole one by myself, but if you want to share cut it into as many slices as you like. 5 minutes (for real!)
Cheater Mousse Pie
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
8 I mean, it's a pie. I could probably eat a whole one by myself, but if you want to share cut it into as many slices as you like. 5 minutes (for real!)
Servings Prep Time
8 I mean, it's a pie. I could probably eat a whole one by myself, but if you want to share cut it into as many slices as you like. 5 minutes (for real!)
Ingredients
  • 2 boxes chocolate pudding The regular size, not family size.
  • 1 container Cool Whip The regular size tub, not the giant one.
  • 1 1/4 cups milk I use skim, because that's what we have on hand. Use what you have.
  • 1 pre-made cookie crust I like the chocolate ones, but the Nilla wafer or graham cracker ones are fine, too. The Oreo ones are little too intense for this recipe.
  • Mini chocolate chips optional -- for decor
Servings: I mean, it's a pie. I could probably eat a whole one by myself, but if you want to share cut it into as many slices as you like.
Instructions
  1. Whisk pudding and milk together until fully combined.
  2. Whisk in half of Cool Whip. Mixture will be very thick. Mousse-like, even.
  3. Spoon mixture into crust and spread evenly.
  4. Top with remaining Cool Whip.
  5. Add other toppings as desired
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Smell What the Lola’s Sprayin’!

Day 2
~ Lola ~ Leave a comment

I have a very delicate nose. There’s a chemical that’s in a lot of scented products that makes it hard for me to breath — not in a throat-closing, I’m-going-to-die kind of way, just enough to make my nose clog up. I have strong feelings about people who wear perfume, especially to places like restaurants or the gym or, god forbid, on public transportation. So it’s been hard for us to find a bathroom spray that my sensitive schnoz can handle. Not to mention the climate consideration: I’d really prefer to avoid aerosols as much as possible, obviously.

One of my derby mates has been making gear-freshener with essential oils, and I thought, “You know, I could totes do that for bathroom spray!” So I went on the Amazon, like you do, and I bought some essential oils: orange, grapefruit to cut the cloying sweetness orange can have, and vanilla. I also picked up some witch hazel, which the internet informed I needed as an emulsifier, and a couple of nice glass spray bottles.

I turned out not to like the vanilla oil…something about it turns my stomach. But the combo of orange and grapefruit is perfect. The best thing is, this spray is much less intense smelling than store-bought stuff but does just as well –or better! — at deodorizing.

Here’s the formula I use — you should of course adjust the scents to your personal tastes:

  • Fill the bottle 2/3 with water, then the remaining 1/3 with witch hazel.
  • 15 drops orange oil
  • 10 drops grapefruit oil

Smells delish!Day 2

365 Days of Lola

~ Lola ~ Leave a comment

Well, hello there, my much neglected blog and that one reader I still have, maybe! This is going to be a little long and rambling (shocker, right?) but I promise, there is a point.

A few years ago, Craftsy launched. If you don’t know, they offer online video courses. You buy a course, you have access forever and can re-watch as much as you like. Plus, you can ask questions and communicate with the instructor and other students. The classes are professionally filmed in their studios. They were (and are!) magnificent at creating classes that are focused and well-taught. I like them a lot and have bought several classes.

However. Although I’ve bought several, I’ve only completed a couple of the ones I’ve bought. I’m still interested in the other ones — they look like really good classes. I just never seem to find make the time.

So when I came across Skillshare in January, I wasn’t immediately enthusiastic. Skillshare’s classes are not professionally  filmed — they’re more like the vlogs you can find on various sites (though I have found them to be of reasonably high video/sound quality). But they have a tremendous variety of programming, far more than Craftsy with their focus on, well, craft. Plus, they were running a special to try the service for 99 cents for 3 months, with no obligation to continue after that. 33 cents a month! How could I say no? (Full disclosure — the link above is a referral link and if you sign up you’ll get the same 3-for-99 deal, and I’ll get a free month.)

I paid my (not quite a) dollar and enrolled in my first class, Sketchbook Practice: Grow In Your Art Everyday, with Ohn Mar Win. It was great! Plus, I could watch at 1.5x speed, which I find makes me much less antsy when there’s exposition happening (you can go up to 2x, but that just makes me feel like I’ve had too much coffee). I’ve since enrolled in a couple of classes that were duds for me, but I’ve also watched a couple more that I really enjoyed and felt I learned from.

One of those was How To Start (And Finish!) Your Very Own 365 Day Project, with Cynthia Koo. As I was watching, I was reminded of the Make’n’Tell, and how every time I’ve tried to revisit that, I’ve failed (and then not blogged for, like, months after). I really, really do want to start blogging again, though. There’s a lot of stuff I want to talk about! So I decided that I’m going to try a 365 Day blogging project.

This is going to be much more relaxed than Make’n’Tell. Basically, the only thing I have to accomplish is a blog post with a picture every day. Sometimes, it’ll be crafty or a recipe. Sometimes it’ll be about activism and/or something that’s going on in the world that is really pissing me off (or, rarely, making me believe in humanity again). Sometimes it’s just going to be a cat picture. I’m allowing myself to pre-write these, too. So if I don’t actually write a blog post every day, that’s okay. As long as something is going up.

Look, I made a pretty graphic and everything:

365 Days of Lola - Day 1

I’m going to let that count as today’s picture, but going forward the post is going to have that PLUS another picture. Maybe I’ll even put that in a sidebar…hmmmmmm. We’ll see. I have 364 days more days to get everything set up exactly the way I want it, right?