Life & Yappin’

  • Dirty Soda Dupe (No Drive-Thru Required)

    So, I was sitting outside feeding my colony of cats, when the wind picked up and blew a Sonic bag across my yard. I spent the next 20 minutes convincing myself not to order delivery for a drink – I am addicted to the Dirty Diet Coke at Sonic. Here’s what I made instead… And it’s Keto Friendly!!!

    I used grapefruit flavored unsweetened sparkling water.

    I added a splash of heavy cream and one squirt of liquid sucralose.

    It’s absolutely delicious. It kicked my craving right out the door. I assume this would work with any citrus flavored sparkling water and maybe with any sparkling water if you want to just want add the lime or lemon juice. The dirty part of the Sonic beverage is lime, heavy cream and coconut syrup.

    I don’t have any kind of coconut flavored sweetener that’s keto friendly. I don’t really mind not having the coconut flavor. I don’t ever taste it anyway. This just hits the spot for me and thought I would share in case someone is in a similar craving spiral !

    Let me know what you think and send me variation ideas!

    Update: The Coconut Citrus Version

    So I kept experimenting (because of course I did), and I found something even better. Instead of plain grapefruit sparkling water, I used half coconut sparkling water and half LaCroix Sunshine (which is this amazing citrusy blend). The Sunshine replaces the lime flavor from the Sonic version, and the coconut sparkling water stands in for the coconut syrup — no sugary syrups needed. Add the same splash of heavy cream and squirt of liquid sucralose, and oh my gosh. It’s SO good.

  • Outnumbered by Cats

    So what have I been up to?

    Short answer: cats, chaos, and coffee.

    Long answer… Zuri has her own emotional support bedroom now. Zazu has decided walking is optional. Zorro is out here auditioning for Most Dramatic Cat. And Zephyr? Zephyr is just trying to cat peacefully in the middle of all this nonsense.

    Meanwhile, I’m over here pretending to be a functioning adult.

    Somewhere in the middle of all that, I’ve been knitting, designing t-shirts, and absolutely not doing dishes. Priorities.

    Zazu

    Zazu kicked things off by deciding he didn’t feel good, which always scares me because he’s my OG. He went from being my loving little shadow to a sick little loaf, only moving if I carried him to food or water like the tiny king he is. He would only eat if I brought food to him, and drink if I held him over the sink and gave him bottled water, like the spoiled house panther that he is. At one point, I realized he wasn’t even getting up to use the litter box, so I was carrying him to the bathroom too.

    The good news is, today he finally moved from the one spot he’s been laying in for a week to the window perch… so we’re calling that a win.

    Zuri

    Zuri is… a whole different situation. She’s set up in her own room right now, which honestly feels like her emotional support bunker. It’s quieter, safer, and she does better in there… as long as I don’t push it.

    She’s never been a “people cat.” Whatever life she had before me left its mark, so we’ve learned to live at a distance. I let her exist in peace, and she lets me love her from afar. It works… until something like this happens.

    She ended up with the same eye infection Zazu had, but without all the sinus stuff. It got bad really fast, and of course I couldn’t catch her, so I had to call in backup. My son came over and got her in the carrier for me so I could take her to the vet. The vet gave her an antibiotic shot, which I’m really hoping does most of the work, because getting close enough to treat her eye at home just isn’t realistic.

    After everything she went through, she’s even more on edge than usual… and usual was already keeping her at arm’s length.

    The Drive From Hell

    I should also mention the drive to the vet, because that felt like a full stress test.

    I was already a mess worrying about her eye, and then I realized there was a cop behind me, which is also when I remembered my tags were expired. The current ones sitting in an envelope at home, obviously.

    And just to complete the picture, my neuralgia was flaring so bad I was driving with my left arm up over my head, holding onto the headrest behind me. So not only did I look guilty, I looked like I had an attitude about it.

    Zorro

    And then there’s Zorro… our resident bulldozer.

    He doesn’t walk into a room, he storms it. If there’s food, it’s his. If there’s a spot, it’s his. If another cat is peacefully existing somewhere, he takes that as a personal invitation to go bother them. He’s not mean in a mastermind way… he’s just pushy, chaotic, and running purely on impulse with no real plan.

    The problem is, he has the grace of a falling chair. Short, stubby legs, no sense of stealth, and absolutely zero finesse. So his attempts at intimidation usually look like a clumsy ambush followed by accidental chaos. He’ll charge in like a warrior and then immediately trip over himself, crash into something, or get distracted mid-bully mission. It’s like he never actually learned how to be a cat… he’s just improvising.

    And yet… he is ridiculously adorable. Like, offensively cute. Big eyes with zero thoughts behind them, a fluffy, goofy face, and if you pet him long enough, he starts drooling like a leaky faucet. So now you’ve got this chaotic little menace, bulldozing through the house, leaving emotional damage and a trail of spit behind him… and somehow you still want to scoop him up and kiss his little face.

    Zephyr

    And then there’s Zephyr… my sweet middle child, just here existing.

    While everything else in this house has gone completely off the rails, Zephyr is just… here. Watching it all with those big eyes like he knows something’s wrong, but also knows better than to get involved.

    He still gets his wild, full-speed, tear-through-the-house zoomies like nothing is wrong at all, and honestly, I love that for him. Somebody in this house should be having a good time.

    But mostly, he stays close. He’ll curl up in my lap or tuck himself under my chin like he belongs there, like he knows I’m stressed and he’s trying to help in the only way he knows how.

    And somehow… it works.

    As for me, I’ve been knitting on my daughter-in-law’s shawl whenever I get a chance, hoping I can finish it before winter lets up in North Dakota. I opened an Etsy shop, so I’ve been squeezing in t-shirt designs where I can, between everything else life keeps throwing at me.

    Mostly, I’m just managing the stress and the pain the best I can… and avoiding the dishes like an absolute professional.

    It’s not pretty, it’s not organized, but it’s my life right now.

  • The Age of Wisdom (and Who Decides It?)

    Lately, I’ve been watching a show called A Taste of History with Max Miller.
    It’s meant to be a light food series, but it keeps pulling me into something deeper. As he walks through the historical context of each dish, I find myself thinking about how young so many of these people were—leading, building, changing the world. And how differently we’ve come to view youth today.

    —

    In my generation—Generation X—we were raised to believe that wisdom only came with age.

    “You’ll understand when you’re older,” they told us. And we believed them. We were taught to listen, not speak. Respect our elders. Wait our turn. Because we hadn’t lived as long, our voices were dismissed as inexperienced, invalid, even foolish. (Or female.)

    We were meant to watch and learn until some invisible line was crossed, and then—someday—we’d finally be old enough to matter.
    But when is that day?

    —

    Looking back through history, it’s hard not to notice how often that idea just doesn’t hold.

    Joan of Arc was only 17 when she led an army.

    Alexander the Great became king at 20.

    Phillis Wheatley was 20 when she became the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry.

    Even within our own American history, people in their 20s and 30s were founding nations:

    Edward Rutledge, 26, was the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence.

    George Washington, 22, was commanding troops during the French and Indian War.

    Mary Shelley, just 20, published Frankenstein—a work that shaped literature for centuries.

    They didn’t wait their turn.
    They didn’t ask permission.

    —

    Did we break the cycle?

    Did we teach the next generation to think for themselves?
    To speak up, to question what they’re told, to use their imagination?
    Did we give them the confidence to shape the world they’re inheriting?

    Did we learn to listen to them?

    Maybe the question isn’t how old you have to be to be wise.

    Maybe it’s this:
    What if the age of wisdom isn’t an age at all?