This is good if you like pasta but are trying to cut back on the carbs. I actually like it better than the pasta.

Pasta: 41 grams of carbohydrates per serving

Tofu: 3 grams of carbohydrates per serving

Italian Tofu (think pasta without the pasta)

Ingedients:

One block firm tofu

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2  medium yellow onion

1 clove of garlic

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of pepper

About 12 ounces of marina sauce

Small palmful of fresh basil

1/4 cup of red wine of your choice.

Prep:

Slice tofu into half inch cubes. Dice onions into half inch squares. Press garlic. Loosely Chop basil Leaves

Cook:

Add oil to pan and put on medium heat. When oil is to temperature add pressed garlic and brown.  Then add onions and cook until the outside layer of the onions starts to get translucent.  Next, add salt, pepper, and wine. Cook about 2 minutes.  Add tofu and cook for a few more minutes. Add marinara sauce and chopped basil and simmer for a few minutes. Serve and Enjoy!

Note: The tofu does not really have to “cook.” It can be eaten raw. While cooking it with the garlic, onions, spices and wine you just want to heat it up and absorb some of the flavor.

Serves 2-3

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Ellie and Amanda, Boys can blog recipes too!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and there have been some pretty cool things going on in my life since the last post. I’ll try to give you the readers digest version.  I came to the conclusion a couple of months ago that I am in fact an adult now. Please hold your applause till the end… And that I was still living like a teenager. So I decided that some things were definitely going to have to change.
~~ I quit smoking about 7 weeks ago now.

~~ I moved to a nice little one bedroom apartment in Round Rock, that’s close to work and close to Jeremy’s house. The coolest thing about moving though is that I got rid of about half of all my stuff and now everything has a place where it belongs and I am keeping my place clean and uncluttered.

~~ I was tired of feeling unhealthy and tired all the time and I have started to eat healthier, drink more water, drink less alcohol, and exercise. Now I need to start going to bed on-time and get more sleep.

~~ My old church was a really large church and there weren’t very many people my age there. I felt pretty lost in the sea of people, and nobody would notice if I was there or not. Most of the time I was not.  I’ve started going to a new church that is smaller and has more people my age. I’m getting connected with some really cool people that are really following Jesus and it is very encouraging.

~~ I have also just started reading a really cool book called Soul Revolution. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. It is written by John Burke, who founded Gateway Church in Austin. The idea behind the book is ” What would happen if you made a conscious effort to connect with God at least once every hour for sixty days”? With a goal of really connecting with God in real conversation continuously throughout the day instead of having some memorized prayer that you say x number of times a day at certain times. It’s called the 60/60 challenge. I will probably be blogging more about the 60/60 challenge in the near future.

So that is my life in a nutshell right now…

Oh yeah, and I typed this whole blog post on my iPhone while driving about 3 mph and watering grass.

The Old Fair Oaks Bridge

I know that the last few post have been OLD news.  Me talking about my childhood.  Have no fear I’m about to do it again.

As a kid I was deathly afraid of heights.  It made me dizzy to look out the second floor window at the ground. So I decided that in order to get over my fear I would have to face it. The picture above is a picture of the old Fair Oaks Bridge in Sacramento, California. I went out there quite often to go swimming in the American River. I would see people jumping off the bridge and it looked like they were having fun.  We went out there one day when I was 10 or 11 years old and my dad and his friend were going to jump off the bridge.  There is a six foot high chain link fence that runs along both sides of the bridge. I watched my dad and his friend both climb over and jump. It didn’t look so bad from the safe side of the fence.  It was my turn to jump. I climbed up one side of the fence and as I was about to put my leg over to the other side I looked down and it looked like it was suddenly twice as high now that I wasn’t looking down “through” the fence but over it.   I sucked it up and continued over. Then I was standing on the other side with my back to the fence looking down and holding on for dear life.  I don’t know how long I stood there but it felt like it was at least 20 minutes. There were boats going by and people standing on the banks of the river, and people walking by on the bridge who stopped to watch. Everybody was saying “JUMP!”  They were really loud at first, then they faded out like somebody reached out and turned the volume knob down. I was hyper focused on the three square feet of water where I figured I would land and everything else went blurry. I was worried that as soon as I jumped a boat would come under me and I would hit the deck. Then a mother duck with her ducklings started swimming right next to the spot where I would land. I thought about the look of surprise on the duck’s face and I was in the air, falling, spinning my arms trying to stay upright. then everything went black. I came to just as my head went under the water, and I was about 15 feet under the water before I started making my way back up. I broke though the surface and swam ashore. The bottoms of my feet hurt like heck where they slapped  the water, but I felt great! I Did It! and I vowed never to do it again.

I can’t say that that day cured my fear of heights completely, but ever since it has been a more rational fear. Now I love to go up to high places, just as long as I’m on the safe side of the fence.

Me in my hometown of Honolulu

When I was young I had an advantage.  I knew that I knew very little about the world. Because of that, I was constantly astonished by things that were true, and the strange theories I came up with about how the world worked didn’t seem so far fetched to me.  I had an imaginati0n, and all things seemed possible.  The older I get and the more I think I know exactly how the world works, the less creative I am.  If I try to draw a house now, I try to make it look realistic as possible.  As a kid I might have drawn a brontosauras with wings, a front door and a chimney and called it a house.

When I was a kid I was constantly growing out of my shoes, but I didn’t know that. Nobody said that my feet were too big for my shoes.  They would always say that my shoes were too small for my feet.  So, for a short time I thought my shoes kept shrinking.

I thought that I could jump off the roof with an umbrella over my head and slowly float down.  The umbrella turned inside-out and I kneed myself in the chin.

For a while I thought that I really did have quarters in my ears and couldn’t figure out why only adults could find them.

I would get dressed to watch TV because I didn’t want Mr. Rogers to see me in my underwear.

I once stood in front of the mirror and closed my eyes to see what I looked like when I was sleeping.

I thought that hiking boots and mountain bikes would give you a super ability to scale steep inclines.

I used to call an octopus’ tentacles “testicles”

I thought that I had red and blue blood and wondered why I only ever saw the red kind.

Whenever I found an old bottle or jar I would rub it on the odd chance that a genie would pop out and grant me my three wishes. I would wish for the ability to fly, the ability to be invisible and make other things invisible, and that my crush since I was two and a half years old “Sita”would love me back.

What did you believe as a kid?  What theories did you have and what caused them?

2. I have lived in Australia and the Philippines.

3. I have been to 40 of the 50 United States.

4. I rarely eat breakfast food. Spaghetti at 6am however… Yummy.

5. I was raised as a Vegetarian.

6. I can say something in at least 10 languages, 11 if you count igpay atinlay

7. I have always felt a need to create something and have usually been frustrated when I try.

8. I love to sing but can’t carry a tune

9. I carry a tune better in falsetto than in my natural voice.

10. I always feel like I should have more important things to say.

11. My favorite drink is Bourbon on the Rocks

12. My favorite bourbons are, Knob Creek, Maker’s Mark, Rebel Yell, and Wild Turkey ( can’t stand Jack Daniels or Jim Beam)

13. I like blue black and grey, I dislike red.

14. If you asked me to tell you what color the number 3 is I will always say yellow, 1 is white, 4 is green, 5 is blue, and 6 is red. I don’t understand this either…

15. I want long hair but am too impatient and always end up buzzing my head…

16. I have bad dreams sometimes about looking in the mirror and realizing I have “bubba” teeth.

17. I have started to read certain books just to be able to say that I’ve read them and discoved that I really enjoyed them. (The Grapes Of Wrath, Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy)

18. I used to pee in the pool when I was a kid until somebody told me that some people put a special chemical in their pools that will turn bright red when it comes in contact with pee.  I still won’t pee in the pool for the same reason.

19. I really want enough money to pay off my land and build a house.

20. I sometimes say self depracating things to beat others to the punch.

21. I like to cook.

22. I don’t like to talk on the phone. Usually only for arranging face to face meeting and arguing with companies about bills.

23. I have never printed any of the thousands of digital pictures I have taken.

24. I haven’t found the right girl yet.

25. I don’t like to admit to being a Christian, because I’m afraid I will give Christians a bad name.

Turns out my new boss does not pay overtime/ doesn’t pay per diem for being out of town/ is paying me as a contract laborer ( as apposed to employee status) so he will send me a 1099 next year and I will have to pay 25% of all I’ve earned all at once to the government.

I’m not mad though… this job has paid my bills for January. That’s all I wanted it for. I’m going to  stay down here and finish this hurricane damaged house but next time I get back to Austin I’m done. i’m going to find a truck driving job where i will work about the same amount of hours per week but I will be home every night/ get paid for overtime/ have my taxes taken out of my check and get employee medical insurance.

It’s rough work but it also kind of nice being able to SEE the work that you’ve done.

I have never been very good at writing, but I’ve always wanted to be great at it.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old I used to try to write poems. There was only one out of the many that I wrote that I really liked and was proud of. I’ve read it again since then and honestly it was pretty cliché and boring.

I didn’t really write again until I was about thirteen or fourteen. I was a moody teenager that felt the need to express myself through dark poetry. I was still using clichés and worn out ideas.

After a bad relationship I wrote “When evil arrives it is so pretty, like a nuclear bomb in Christmas wrapping, and you won’t recognize ‘till it’s at your throat, the evil inside and its silent ticking.” Unfortunately that is still my best work.

In college I took English composition twice dropping the course both times in order to not have a failing grade on my record.

Now I have a blog and there is nothing I want more than to be able to write interesting and creative things that will “Define” me in some way. (Warning! Cliché->) I feel like I am a pebble on the bank of a river and that I need to break out of the masses of other pebbles and proclaim my individuality. I don’t understand why I keep wanting to be a great writer, when, based on past experiences, It’s not something that I do well. Maybe it is because it is a challenge. Maybe it’s because I’m looking for the admiration that I feel for the author of a outstanding book, poem, or blog post. Maybe it’s just a need to create something or make something beautiful.
Does anybody have any good pointers for becoming a better writer, how to discover interesting things to write about, or how to tap into my creativity and imagination more?

]]> http://spikefire.com/archives/100/feed 3 http://spikefire.com/archives/71 http://spikefire.com/archives/71#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:23:46 +0000 David http://spikefire.com/?p=71

<Sarcasm>

If someone tries to flirt with you… don’t worry… I will be offended for you. That sexist pig had no right to talk to you, and God only knows what he was Thinking!

If you didn’t get the job that you applied for… I don’t care if you weren’t qualified for it… because it was an obvious case of (sexual, racial, religious, sexually oriented, age, height, weight)(pick one or more) discrimination. I’m Offended!

</Sarcasm>

I’m tired of people being offended on the behalf of others who usually aren’t.

I mean really. Do you have nothing else to do?  Is your life so problem-free that you have to search out problems for other people that may or may not exist. I think not.  I think that you are really just trying to shore up your image by making a public spectacle of being outraged and offended.  By doing so you think that you are saying to the world “I care” or “I don’t discriminate” or “I love everybody”, but in reality you are saying “I’m worried that everybody thinks I’m a hateful discriminating jerk!”

By making a scene you are probably also embarrassing the person you are being offended “for”.

Maybe they were enjoying the attention they were getting with a little flirting… Now you are telling the world that someone was taking advantage of them, and making it seem like it is something to be ashamed of.

Maybe they never believed that they would get the job they were applying for because of their lack of experience or education, but decided to give it a shot anyway.  You are calling  public attention to the fact that they didn’t get it and now they have to either admit their lack of experience/education in response to the scene you’ve caused or decide to agree with you against their better judgment.

Save your outrage for when some someone smacks you for being annoying.

Let people speak for themselves!

It’s okay for you to be offended by this post, but only on your own behalf.