You know how you have people in your life whom you admire from afar, sometimes letting it slip that you’re madly in love with their talent?

That’s how I feel about Megan. She and I aren’t necessarily best buds or even talk on a regular basis. But I know her, I’ve had dinner with her, and since I started this whole blogging thing, she was one of the first blogs I read with regularity. I have a feeling she likes me, too.

Megan’s blog, Velveteen Mind, is one of those places you go when you want to read with your heart. She doesn’t blog often, and if she did, I don’t think her writing would be as cherished as it is when she does post. I’m probably wrong in that assumption though, because someday soon, she’ll publish a book that wins awards and is a part of required high school English reading.

And I’ll admit, there are some things she writes that takes me a few times to understand because it’s just that intricate and cerebral and well-woven.

But she can’t be too cerebral because she’s in my circle of people. Lordy knows you can’t be too smart and be in my circle of people.

I’m telling you about my girl-crush on Megan because she wrote something that needs to be shared and read by as many people as possible.

A few weeks ago, she shared with her social networks that her daughter, Iris (seen below in her belly, standing next to Heather’s belly with Annie), was having seizures and she asked for prayer and healing energy. The story of what exactly happened and how she saved her own daughter’s life is written at length and with great maternal care on Megan’s blog: I Heard God Laugh. And It Sounded Like Screaming.

As parents and responsible adults, when there is something to learn that could save a child’s life, it’s up to us to share it so that even just one little life is saved.

This is my chance to share what Megan has learned in hopes that someone who reads her daughter’s story will recognize the signs of a Febrile Seizures when the time comes and save a life.

Go read it, love on Megan, and hopefully she won’t run screaming from me for revealing my lust for her written words.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: febrile seizures, megan jordan, velveteen mind

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In my new position as Your Favorite Online Librarian of Smut, I’m reading the suggestions you gave me in the last two posts: Sexy Books To Read To Be Smart. Or Not. & More Romance Smut Book Recommendations.

The overwhelming response to my call out for what I should read was to start the Black Dagger Brotherhood. I’ve actually had the first book, Dark Lover, in paperback since right after I read the Twilight Saga. But since my children are brats of reading age and inconsiderately notice things I do, I decided against reading it in front of them. Now that I’m addicted to my Kindle, I ordered the first book from the library, and waited patiently for it to be available.

And Pee Ess, if your library doesn’t have digital book loans, move. It’s basically free books on your e-reader. For free. I’ve had my Kindle for about 6 months, and so far, I’ve saved what it cost to buy it in borrowing digital books, all in the name of government-funded literacy campaigns. Though I’m not sure having access to free smut books on e-readers is what Mr. Melvil Dewey had in mind when they set up the library system, but I call that a WIN for us!

I’m 1/2-way through the first Black Dagger Brotherhood book, Dark Lover, that I started last night, and holy hell, it’s delicious. Thank Baby Jeebus and Oprah it’s pretty much an R-rated book and not XXX-rated like the last series I read. The Comfort Series was just…heavy to get through.

I haven’t yet read anything about sparkling in sunlight or anyone named Sookie, and since those are the only two kinds of vampires I know anything about, the vampires in BDB seem pretty legit. You know, as far as mythical creatures in a secret society who go unnoticed for hundreds of generations go.

I’m going on a cruise next week, and I’ll need to be stocked up for proper reading on the pool deck with a tropical drink. I need to hear from those of you who’ve read the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.

Is it worth me buying more in the BDB series (at a whole $7.99 a pop!) or should I wait for their availability from the library (I’m no good at patience!)?

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: black dagger brotherhood, romance novels, smut books, vampire books

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I don’t even know who I am anymore.

I cooked yet another dinner.

I know.

Maybe my whole life before now was a lie. Maybe I just thought I was a non-working-in-the-kitchen housewife.

Is this real life?

A few weeks ago, I was at my sister’s house where she and my mom cooked up what I thought was an intricate, difficult, 26-1/2 ingredient linner (lunch/dinner) of Asian Pork Wraps.

We all, including the whiney children, fell over ourselves nomming up all of the wraps, leaving me to feel like the inadequate housewife I know myself to be.

Except, what they cooked up wasn’t intricate and difficult, nor did it have 26-1/2 ingredients. It was all a ruse. A delicious, delicious ruse.

The Asian Pork Wraps were actually made in the crock pot and had exactly 4-1/2-ish ingredients:

The Easiest Crock Pot Asian Pork Wraps EVER

PORK
4 lb. pork butt
1 jar of Kikkoman’s garlic and green onion teriyaki sauce (dump about 2/3 of the jar into the pot)
1/2 small onion, chopped (or some sprinkles of onion powder)
sprinkles of garlic powder
1 cup of water

Set it (for 7-8 hours on low), and forget it!
Remove hunk o’meat from pot, pull apart with 2 forks, add in remainder of teriyaki sauce to taste.

ASIAN SLAW
Whatever your grocery store has in a bag for Asian Slaw.

Mix.

WRAPS
Romaine or Bibb lettuce.

Pile on sauced pork and mixed Asian Slaw.
Nom through the moans of ecstasy, having heaven in your mouth.

Patrick basically humped himself eating most of it up last night. He likes to add some heat with Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, but not me because I’m a weenie and like things with about as much bite as a toothless baby nibble.

And that Sriracha sauce? I’m pretty sure Patrick will be bring it into our marriage bed the way he’s fallen in love with the stuff. I just hope he doesn’t think he’s putting it on me in any delicate areas. Heat rash just doesn’t belong in some places.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: asian pork wraps, crock pot recipe, easy crock pot pork recipe, recipe, sriracha sauce

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I worked at Star Tours during my semester of Disney’s College Program way back in 1997.

Patrick being the massive Star Wars nerd that he is, he’s indoctrinated the children into the lifestyle with my blessing.

Anna is a full-on Star Wars nerd.

Claire is a full-on Star Wars princess.

That’s why we will be buying these Star Wars shirts for our girls at this year’s Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios at Disney World.

I am a Jedi like my father before me.

Cut but dangerous
Yub Nub

These are giant Star Wars nerdlets.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ewok shirt, i am a jedi, star tours, star wars weekend shirts, star wars weekends

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There’s something wrong with me. Again.

I made dinner. Again.

And sweet, sweet Baby Jeesus and Oprah, it was good.

Considering I got a bigger new fancy slow cooker for Christmas, today was a good time to take it out of the box. You know, just 4 short months later.

To break in the bigger new fancy slow cooker I got for Christmas, I did like all good Real Housewives of the Internet do these days and used a recipe I discovered on Pinterest.

Creamy Crock Pot Spaghetti

You can find the original recipe on Picky-Palate.com. I took one liberty with my own recipe and used Vodka sauce for one of the sauce jars, but other than that, I made it straight from the recipe.

HOLY JEESUS CRAP AND MARY, it was effing good. I didn’t even get offended when Child #1 poo-pooed it and went to bed hungry because it was THAT good.

And I have about 3 more day’s worth of leftovers, so if anyone wants to come over, we’ve got plenty to go around.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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I figured if I’m going to suffer through an obsession, I might as well use my obsessive tendencies for a tax write-off.

And when I say “suffer,” I really mean “everything outside of the obsession suffers.” Past obsessions of mine include Downton Abbey, Dexter, and powdered donuts. Thankfully, the current obsession is kind of brain cell-enhancing (or not) and can be used as something for a tax write-off for me.

I’ve had a mental wrestling match deciding if I should actually share the current obsession because, believe it or not, I’m kind of shy. I know. You don’t believe me. But I’m shy about talking about The Sex.

Unfortunately for Patrick but fortunately for my easily-UTI’d lady bits, this obsession isn’t the actual The Sex.

My current obsession: reading romance books on my Kindle.

Let’s just go with the term “romance” as a general description because most of the “romance” I’m reading is more like “erotica” but I’m too embarrassed to say it out loud.

And P.S. – I thank Baby Jeesus and Oprah for the Kindle so my girls don’t see the ridiculous covers of the books and ask why people are naked.

I’ve read 10 books in the last 3-1/2 weeks. Basically, I’ve read more books in the last 3 weeks than I have in the last 5 years, and I’m not even slightly exaggerating.

Say what you will about the 6th grade writing style, the implausibility of a college student not having an email address, and the ridiculousness of a 20-something dude being a self-made billionaire, I liked Fifty Shades of Grey. And Fifty Shades Darker. And Fifty Shades Freed. I read the 50 Shades trilogy in a week, getting next to nothing else done.

I’ve watched every episode of the Real Housewives of Everywhere, so the bar is set pretty low in terms of my taste.

Much like my appetite for baked goods, when I finished all three 50 Shades books, I needed more. I needed books like 50 Shades of Grey to satiate my hunger for asshole sex-monster rich guys being inexplicably and forever changed by the innocence of a woman who bites her bottom lip.

You know, just exactly like Bella and Edward, but not in a sparkly vampire way and in more of a blow-by-blow job description of The Sex kind of way.

The basic plot line of all of these modern-day romance stories are all taken from one outline: asshole rich guy with a superhuman body and a superhuman ability to get it up more than twice a day struggles with falling in love with a poor younger, face-of-an-angel women with self-esteem issues and live happily ever after.

To properly rate these books on my personal shallow scale of readability, I’ve rated these books on these criteria: Sex Language, Page Turn-ability, Asshole Factor, and Lip-Biting on a scale of 1-5.

(Special thanks to my friend Kristie for helping me with the criteria and for sexting me a picture of your naked boobies. For realsies. They totally got me in the mood for writing about sexytime books.)

Sex Language: How much into detail do the descriptions of The Sex go?
Page Turn-ability: Can you put this down or do you need to stay up until 3am reading?
Asshole Factor: They all turn around at some point, but how much of an asshole is the dude before he turns? (The lower the score, the more likable he is.)
Lip-Biting: Overall, how much do I like the girl and want her happy? (The lower the score, the more of a whiney bitch I think she is.)
Series Hopeful: If this is the first book in a series, how badly do I want to read the follow-up books? If it’s a singular book with no promise of a series, it gets an automatic 0 because I love a series.

I’ve done the research to find books that are like Fifty Shades of Grey. For a baseline to understand from where I’m starting with the batteries given, here’s how I rank the 50 Shades books on the whole as a trilogy:

Fifty Shades of Grey Series Overall: 4.5/5
Sex Language: 5/5 | Page Turn-ability: 4/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 4/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5

Beautiful Disaster Overall: 4/5
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 3/5 | Asshole Factor: 4/5 | Lip-Biting: 4/5 | Series Hopeful: 0/5

Gabriel’s Inferno Overall: 3.5/5
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 3/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (coming May 2012)

Love Unscripted Overall: 4/5
Sex Language: 3/5 | Page Turn-ability: 5/5 | Asshole Factor: 3/5 | Lip-Biting: 5/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (coming 2012)

Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel Overall: 5/5
Sex Language: 5/5 | Page Turn-ability: 5/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 5/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (coming October 2012)

Knight (The Unfinished Hero Series) Overall: 4/5 
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 5/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 4/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (unknown release)

On the Island Overall: 3/5
Sex Language: 2/5 | Page Turn-ability: 4/5 | Asshole Factor: 1/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 0/5

The Marriage Pact Overall: 2/5
Sex Language: 2/5 | Page Turn-ability: 2/5 | Asshole Factor: 4/5 & 3/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 0/5

The Marriage Bargain (Marriage to a Billionaire) Overall: 3/5
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 4/5 | Asshole Factor: 4/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 4/5 (unknown release)

Clearly, my favorite of all the books I’ve read in the last few weeks is Bared to You. It’s pretty much a straight off inspiration of 50 Shades, but with more believability and less BDSM. When I finished it, I was scrambling to find out when the next in the Crossfire series would be released, and luckily for me, the author (Sylvia Day) is active on social media and I found out right away I had to wait until this fall for the follow-up.

Now that my current obsession is out in the open, I need suggestions on more books to read that are similar to Fifty Shades of Grey and Bared to You. Tell me what to read next.

Feed my need, fill my wanton passion, tempt me with more more MORE books to read. 

Totally related, Patrick wants to write a personal “Thank You” note to the authors of these books.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 53 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 50 shades, bared to you, beautiful disaster, erotica, fifty shades of grey, gabriel's inferno, knight, love unscripted, marriage bargain, marriage pact, on the island, reading, romance books

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When I make a meal that comes out edible, I’m shocked.

Unfortunately for Patrick, I need his constant guarantee that what I’ve fed him is good, it’s the best meal ever, and he wants me to make it eleventeen more times. I think it’s that insatiable need for reassurance of my cooking abilities that keeps him from encouraging me to cook more.

Or, he’s maybe tired of waiting for the inevitable mental breakdown I’ll have over burning garlic/mis-timing the oven/forgetting the flour/breaking a door/starting a fire.

In fact, I know that’s true because he told me so.

And then I flipped him off because I was in the middle of making BBQ beef ribs and spoonable cornbread.

Beef ribs were on sale at Publix and were pre-seasoned, so I slapped those suckers in a pan with an inch of water and used this cooks.com recipe as a guide.

• Bake at 250º for 30 minutes
• Flip rack
• Bake at 250º for 30 minutes
• Top generously w/ BBQ sauce & tent with aluminum foil
• Bake at 400º for 30 minutes

After the Jiffy yellow cake debacle of earlier this week, I got the Jiffy corn bread mix and made this Country Crock spoonable cornbread recipe.

Those picky kids of mine looooooved the “pork” as they called it but weren’t fans of the cornbread. I know. Weirdos.

From what I gathered, Patrick loved it all because I asked him 4-5 times if it was good, but then he ignored me the other 4-5 times I asked. Maybe he doesn’t like it after all.

No wonder he doesn’t want me making dinner.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corn casserole, oven ribs, ribs recipe, spoonable cornbread recipe

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I have learned more about women by spending time on Pinterest than I learned by being a women for the last 35-1/2 years.

Basically, this is another way for me to justify the time I spend on Pinterest as “work-related.”

1. Paint chip cards are a free craft material.
2. Lauren Conrad is a 20-something’s style icon.
3. Tiny animals are cutest in Mason jars.
4. Planning to organize is a chore unto itself on which to be commented that it will never get done.
5. Motivational quotes are a decorative focal point.
6. Some women think they can get a bodybuilder’s body with a “Simple 30-Minutes-A-Day!” workout.
7. Fingernails are an art canvas.
8. Entryways, mudrooms, and laundry rooms are the most-loved area of a house to decorate.
9. We all need to invest in Polyvore.
10. Women love long wavy hair tied up in socks.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: women love pinterest

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When Patrick and I started dating before I was made a child bride, one of the many things he found odd about me was that I had never read Dr. Seuss books.

Because my mom didn’t understand Dr. Seuss and thought his books to be “weird,” we never had them in our house. It’s only now that I have kids and look at what they read with a keen eye that I realize what she meant.

Dr. Seuss is weird.

Nearly every children’s book he wrote is laced with societal and governmental references mixed in with odd characters, odd rhyming, and odd brainwashing.

Yes, I said it. Brainwashing.

Delicious, liberal-minded brainwashing.

The Lorax warns against over-crowding and urban sprawl.

Horton Hears a Who! is a message about the WWII Hiroshima bombing and post-war occupation of Japan.

Yertle the Turtle is about Hitler and anti-authoritarianism.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas was written as a comment on society’s commercialism of Christmas.

Learning all about these nuances of the Dr. Seuss books and a bit about Geisel himself, I’m now in awe of how he uses children’s books to create a message worth learning.

Seeing that I grew up with liberal parents, I’m not sure why my mom didn’t stock our bedroom bookshelves with the indoctrination of Dr. Seuss like I have with my girls.

Because any author who can sum up the inner workings of my brain’s world in one quote and fight the establishment in another is someone to be admired.

In my world everyone’s a pony and they all eat rainbows - and poop butterflies! -Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: books, dr seuss, government, liberal, messages

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I have’t been able to listen to this song all the way through much less watch the whole video.

I have it on good authority (see: Patrick says) that during The Hunger Games movie, this Taylor Swift/Civil Wars song will be played at just the part that made me *tear* when I read the book.

DAMN YOU, TAYLOR SWIFT, AND YOUR ANGELIC VOICE.

I haven’t been this excited to cry my way through a teen book-made-into-a-high-budget-theatrical-event since Twilight!!!1!!

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: civil wars, hunger games, safe and sound, taylor swift, video

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