This is the second time Jason and I have made this for breakfast and it is better than sprinkles on cupcakes. This chocolate gravy recipe is out of a cookbook from the Mahan side of my family and Jason makes it better than I do because he is patient and I am not. I make the biscuits.

Chocolate gravy
3/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup water
2 cups milk

Mix the dry ingredients and then add a little water until all the lumps are gone. Add the rest of the water and milk and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. Which seems to take for frikken ever.

Jason recommends adding the milk a bit at a time instead of all at once.

Biscuits
Preheat the oven to 450.
Sift together 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 3 tsp of double acting baking powder.
Add about 5 tbsp of a combination of butter and shortening and cut it into the dry ingredients.
Make a well and add 3/4 cups of milk and stir until the dough is free from the sides of the bowl.
Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead it quickly.
Roll or smoosh it out with your palms until it’s about an inch thick and cut with a floured cutter.
Brush with butter and bake on an ungreased sheet for about 12 minutes or so.

Next time I’m going to have this with strawberries.

MoMA | Kiki Smith: Prints, Books & Things

I enjoy this every time I revisit it. Her work is such an inspiration.

Just a few more weeks until I can sit beneath waterfalls, spend long hours in the lake, jump into blue holes, wade in creeks and get my feet stuck in muddy rivers but until then there is this.

 

 

fall creek falls

ureteroscopy (YER-eh-ter-OS-koh-pee)  Examination of the inside of the kidney and ureter, using a ureteroscope. A ureteroscope is a thin, tube-like instrument with a light and a lens for viewing. It may also have a tool to remove tissue to be checked under a microscope for signs of disease. The ureteroscope is passed through the urethra into the bladder, ureter, and renal pelvis (part of the kidney that collects, holds, and drains urine).

I’ve got one of these coming in the not too distant future but hopefully it will be put off for a bit. I’ve already had a cystoscopy and that was a fun filled morning waiting on plastic couches while reading AARP and being surrounded by ancient men with blank stares and then sitting all alone in a cold room half naked with my legs in stirrups with a q-tip shoved up my urethra until I was adequately numb. It was actually neat being able to see inside of what I normally think of as a gross organ, but as neat as it may be to watch a camera go up to my kidneys, there’s something disconcerting about having a rod shoved half way up my torso.

Yesterday was nice. We had a glimpse of snow, I enjoyed laughing and walking with my favorite girl and went on a fun drive to see friends although J might have some other word to describe being stuck in a car with me. Winter lets me be empty and I just feel like my chest is spread open and I am free for a little while.