Three years ago last Tuesday, I moved to Houston. I knew zero people. I knew almost nothing about the city except: NASA and it’s an hour away from the beach. Dylan and I were very, very poor. We didn’t even have a couch at that point in time. We were saving money in every way we could, which means we didn’t get out and do much at first.
There are tons of perks to being in a big city, especially one as international as Houston. Food is my favorite part of a diverse cities because of the access to obscure and unknown foods. The problem is food costs money. When I moved here, there was very little money and a lot of food to try. It was easier not to tempt myself. I did go on the hunt for gelato. I love ice cream a lot. I love gelato A LOT more.
I found Sweet Cup shortly after moving to Houston. I fell in love with them for their gelato. I liked them even more when I found out they are a female owned business. The owner is even sweeter than her gelato! Sweet Cup was the first Houston business to follow my blog on Instagram. Actually, they were the first business to follow my blog on Instagram. I had no following and no real direction. Although currently, it could be argued my direction is no direction. I bop in literally whenever I’m in that part of town. I’ve even been known to drive across town for a cup. It’s delicious.
Houston has been home for three years, and I love it. I wasn’t sure if I would that first year because life was hard; I was poor. I couldn’t enjoy the city to its fullest or tastiest at first. Over the last two years, I have fallen more in love with the city, met friends, explored, and tried new foods. But for me, Sweet Cup tastes like Houston. In the beginning, it was all I could afford. Now, it’s a reminder of how far I’ve come and the dreams I’m still chasing. Three years have come and gone in a flash. So much has changed, but some things are just as sweet.
Worth A Read Yes Length 400 Quick Review A librarian stumbles across a puzzling part of history in the Berachah Home, where erring girls went for a fresh start.
Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler is a much better novel than I expected to encounter. There are so many ways Kibler could have gone wrong, but she didn’t. Diving into complex women’s issues and how society dealt with the women in question paralleled by a century of “change.” Based on a real house in rural Texas serving real women, Kibler builds a world full of sorrow and empathy.
In 2017, Cate is a librarian working in a Texas University Library’s archives and becomes fascinated looking through documentation of the Berachah home after stumbling upon a cemetery in 2017. She has a penchant for running and running away; she lives a solitary life aside from making a connection with one of her student workers. Dealing with a mysterious past, flashbacks to 1998 as a highschooler slowly reveal insight into her troubled past. In 1904, Lizzie Bates, Docie, and Mattie Corder are escaping the evils of a patriarchal society by finding refuge in the Berachah Home for Erring and Outcast Girls. They find solace surrounded by religion and other fallen women and their children as they are taught skills to fend for themselves.
Kibler touches on everything from drugs to rape to incest to abuse and more in this raw historical fiction about loss and friendship. Home for Erring and Outcast Girls drives home the fact that women take a backseat to men, always. Their plans. Their dreams. Their reputations. Their futures. This has been a truth for the majority of societies for as long as history can document. As much as things are changing, much remains the same. Including Cate, as a contemporary woman, shows the parallel between the two eras and how little has changed for women. How little choice there is.
The Berachah Home really did exist outside of Arlington, Texas and was founded by James and Maggie Upchurch. They had a revolutionary idea to keep the children with their mothers. At the time, mother’s were separated from their children without a choice, more often than not, when the children were born out of wedlock. There are real excerpt from The Purity Journal, which went out to graduates of the home and donors.
Abuse is a central point in Home for Erring and Outcast Girls. Kibler makes a beautiful statement I and many other survivors of abuse, loss, abandonment, addiction, rape, assault, and more have felt: “Or how I maybe didn’t fight hard enough, or say no the right way, or at the right times.” Guilt and shame are a raw undercurrent in this book about being helpless and reclaiming an identity in the after. Everyone survives their own hell, but so many of the emotions and recovery processes are the similar.
Religion is a character in its own right in this novel. It plays a role of savior but also demon. Kibler is not afraid to show the church in the light of benefactor and evil doer depending on the point of view of the character. Religion is not one size fits all, and everyone has different experiences. Even in the most positive of lights, the church do not do right by women. Women are often depicted as temptresses “because churches, in general, are still bastions of judgement masquerading as refugees of grace and acceptance.”
I was utterly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Julie Kibler captured my interest and respect with her cutting and insightful novel Home for Erring and Outcast Girls.
Memorable Quotes “A room filled with people can be lonelier than solitude.” “Her ma had done what she must to survive, and that was how it was for women.” “It was always the man who took what he wanted, and the woman who lost everything.” “Devastation was a pain you thought would never go away, and sometimes it didn’t.”
Worth A Read Meh Length 289 Quick Review The Barbizon is now condos but used to house hundreds of girls looking to make it in NYC. What happens when the lives of a long-time resident and new resident collide?
The Barbizon really did exist as a women’s only residence in New York City. In 2005, the building was converted into condominiums. Fiona Davis creates a world where the two identities of the Barbizon meet in her novel The Dollhouse. A mystery with a touch of love and a lot of independent women searching for belonging.
Rose, a journalist, lives in the Barbizon with her boyfriend in 2016. Her boyfriend decides to go back to his ex-wife, Rose is left with a lot of time on her hands and a curiosity about the women who have been in her building for decades. Darby, an elderly tenant, never leaves her apartment without a veil, and the mystery piques Roses interest. Models, night clubs, drug raids, friendship, and more. Rose is on a journalist’s hunt with a personal investment.
Davis crafts the plot of The Dollhouse well. The chapters alternate between following Rose in 2016 and Darby in 1952. There is restraint in the story telling and tries to add some good twists, but I found the plot fairly predictable.
Overall The Dollhouse maintains a nice pace throughout the story and avoids clichés until the last five pages when she throws a good book in the toilet. I actually did not mind this one at all, but the last bit just ruined it for me. Davis does a good job maintaining a consistent and interesting pace, but the ending comes quickly and suddenly. It’s as if her editor asked her to wrap everything up with a nice bow and throw the love story completely out of proportion with the rest of the story. It was saccharine and a little vomit inducing how spoonfed it was. What was an interesting story about finding oneself and relationships between women ended up being a deflated mess of an ooey-gooey love story.
If I could erase the last five pages, I would like The Dollhouse much better. I’m trying not to let the ending overpower the other nice 200 or so pages, but I can’t.
Memorable Quotes “His eyes, which were the color of seawater, had a laserlike intensity that made politics the obvious career choice. That or terrorist interrogator.” “Not scared of change, like Darby was, but scared of staying put, staying unchanged.”
Beau really hated the pool float. | Swimsuit | Hat | Floatie |She did a lap around me to make sure the floatie wasn’t eating me, then said “See ya, Mom!” | Swimsuit | Floatie | Hat |
I have loved water my entire life. I’m happiest sitting by the ocean. I used to crave summer for days at the pool or on a boat at the lake at my grandparent’s in Wisconsin. My brother and I could spend all day playing in the pool.
I’ve had dogs my entire life. Some have loved the water even more than I do. Some have hated any water outside of their drinking bowl. Some have been ambivalent except on the very hottest of days. They are living breathing beings with emotions, preferences, and dislikes just like people. You can’t make a dog like the water.
I didn’t really give much thought to if Beau would be a water dog or not when I brought her home. It didn’t matter either way. The first couple of months going to the dog park, she was pretty tentative about the dog pools and lakes. She loved romping through the muddy puddles. The muddier the better. It wasn’t until a gaggle of ducks started goading her one day that she dove into the water proving she could swim and wouldn’t take crap from anyone let alone a flock of audacious ducks. Ever since that day, she has been my water baby.
Our first summer together, we went to Southern California. After 26 hours in the car, we drove straight to a dog beach at Ocean Beach in San Diego. We hopped out of the car, let Beau off the leash, she ran head first into the ocean, and had explosive diarrhea all over the place. So great….
We have friends with pools, and Beau LOVES going for swims and running around between her water adventures. So much so, she even knows what routes we take to get to their houses, and she perks up the moment we make certain turns. She’s hilarious. Always cautious with her first toe dips, she’s soon jumping in and taking a spin around. I can’t keep her out, which I don’t want to. She loves to jump in after me and swim a circle around me before hopping out and running a few laps around before jumping back in again.
Beau loves lakes, oceans, puddles, streams, rivers, and pools. Anxiety riddled and cautious, she never has a probably enjoying the water or a good swim. With the Texas heat on full blast ten months out of the year, water is a great way to have fun and stay cool.
bisous et обьятий,
Beau and RaeAnna
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Shrimp and grits is a southern staple. Depending on the region and the chef, the recipe varies drastically. Some sauces are similar to etoufee, a broth, a red sauce, or something in between. I like to make mine with a tomatoey, chickeny broth. I like to saturate the grits with as much cheddar cheese as physically possible because cheese is delicious. I’ve made this for friends and all over the country. As my grandpa would say, it’s a solid B+, which is high praise, and he requests it every time I visit.
This is one of my favorite dishes to eat and make for people I love.
Ingredients
Shrimp (raw)
Scallops (raw) (Optional)
Mushrooms (Optional)
Brussel Sprouts (Optional)
Artichokes (Optional)
Bell Pepper (Optional
Garlic
Onion
3 large Tomatoes or 8 oz package of cherry tomatoes
Bay Leaf
3 tsp. Cumin
1 tsp. Chili Powder
1 tsp. Turmeric
1 tbs. Honey
Olive Oil
1 cup Grits or Yellow Cornmeal
½ cup Milk
1 tbs Butter
1 ½ cup Water
1 cup Cheddar Cheese (or more to taste)
Salt/Pepper to taste
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400°
Chop mushrooms/bell peppers into bite sized pieces. Half brussel sprouts and artichokes. Place on a cookie sheet and coat veggies with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Roast for 15 minutes or until browned.
Chop onions and garlic. Cook in sauce pan with 2 tbs. olive oil until translucent. Add in cumin, chili powder, turmeric, salt, and pepper. You can add more or less spices depending on your tastes.
Chop tomatoes if using large/Toss in whole cherry tomatoes into the pan with the garlic and onions. Add one tbs. of water. Cover and let simmer for five minutes.
In medium saucepan bring water, milk, butter to a boil. Slowly add grits or yellow cornmeal, whisking constantly to avoid clumps. Let mixture come to a boil. Then, reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 10 minutes. Stir often to avoid burning.
Tomatoes should reduce and have a decent amount of liquid being very saucy. Add ½ cup water and stir to mix.
Make sure to be checking grits. When the liquid is almost gone….
Add shrimp and scallops to tomato mixture. Cover. Shrimp and scallops should be thoroughly cooked in five minutes.
Stir cheese into grits. Cover and set aside.
When shrimp and scallops are done, add the roasted veggies to the tomato/shrimp/scallop sauce.
To Eat Place grits in a bowl or plate, then ladle a generous portion of the shrimp/scallops/veggies tomato sauce on top. You can garnish with green onions or chives. Dig in!!!
Variation You can always add in some andouille sausage to give it a NOLA kick or just add some extra yum.
I also love playing with the veggies you use. You can use as many or as few kinds of veggies as you want. In my opinion, the more the better!
I’m smiling so hard because I’m sucking in a lot.Tiptoes makes my legs look good. Posing so hard.Playing in Galveston! | Bikini Bottoms | Bikini Top
It’s swimsuit season. Although, I live in Houston, so swimsuit season lasts ten and a half months. This summer is a little, lottle, less comfortable for me.
I’m self conscious. I didn’t wear bikinis much or at all until the summer before I went to college when I was 19. I was always a one piece girl. Partially because of my mom, and partially because that’s what is easiest to dive and jump and slide in.
I was a late bloomer. I didn’t really hit puberty until I was 17. I was also very active and genetically super thin. For a very long time, I was a ballerina and built like it. The majority of my life, I was teeny-weeny. Then, I hit puberty, grew boobs and a butt, and gained weight. The things that happen when a girl becomes a woman. From the time I was 18 to 25, my weight fluctuated a lot. I’ve never been heavy, but when you were a size zero for a decade, anything resembling curvy was rough to wrap my head around. Right before I turned 25, I went through a huge health crisis and almost died. It’s a long story. I ended up losing a decent amount of weight and stayed there for the last three years.
Over the last two months, I have been dealing with a lot of stress. I’m also in the midst of an anxiety induced existential crisis perpetuated by OCD. Kidding, kind of. When I’m stressed, I gain weight. A lot. And quickly. In the span of twelve days, I gained 18 pounds. Believe me, it’s possible. I’ve lost eight of those pounds, but I’m hovering ten pounds over where I’m comfortable. No matter what I do, I’m not dropping them. Ugh.
So it’s swimsuit season. I’m in the midst of an ongoing emotional roller coaster. I know I don’t look bad. I’m still on the thin side of normal for my giantess height status. I’m just not as comfortable with where I’m at in comparison to where I’ve been the last few years. I’m still going to wear swimsuits and bikinis because I’m not going to let ten pounds keep me from the cute suits I’ve spent good money on.
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Raise your arm. Suck in. Point your toes. Your waist looks thin!
