My Love Affair. With Pie.

I Love Pie.

Blueberry, Cherry, Coconut Cream, Key Lime, Strawberry, Apple, Pecan, Banana Cream, Lemon Meringue, Mincemeat, Pumpkin, Italian Cream Cheese, and, yes...even Chicken Pot. 

If in fact, the world ended tonight and there was nothing else but me and pie left in the world, sitting on the roof of my house, waiting for a chopper that never arrived, I would be perfectly okay with that...as long as I had access to pie.  I know that sounds selfish. What about your kids? What about your Husband? Your Mom? Your Dad? Coconut, your dog? (named after pie) You can’t kiss a pie goodnight, Sueanne. Uh, yes, yes you can. At least I’d have pie. And over the years my family has come to accept and understand this.

My hot steamy love affair with pie started when I was a little girl. My grandma on my mom’s side was a wonderful southern lady. When ever we’all visited she’d have at least 5-6 different kinds of desserts waiting for us--sometimes more--and and least three of those would be pie. She did coconut cream, cherry, banana cream, and lemon meringue the best. You name it, she could bake anything, and she was amazing.  

My mother took after her and in fact got an undergrad AND graduate degree in Home Ec. Not only can she sew like Giorgio Armani, she is like the Martha Stewart of Muncie, Indiana when it comes to the kitchen. She has every kitchen gadget you can imagine. She makes my father birthday pie. Not birthday cake. That’s how good her pie is.

As I was the only daughter, pie, cake, and cookie baking fell into my lap at an early age. I knew what a pastry cutter was when the other girls were still fighting over which Barbie Ken would shag that night at the Dreamhouse. So I had a lot of practice when I went out in the world. There are many things you can do in life if you can knock out a variety of tasty pies.

Then it happened. 

I married outside of my faith. That’s right. I married a cake eater. And gave birth to three more cake eaters. I know. How did this happen? Is this because I wouldn’t let that really annoying girl sit at my lunch table in 7th grade? Because I already said I’m sorry. I’M SORRY!!!  I soon realized that too many pies would go to my thighs. So I stopped baking pies.

This was all okay because If I looked really hard, I could find good pies at a bakery. But they mostly sucked. Then one day I stopped at a farmstand in upstate NY and... lo and behold, what did I see? --- A cherry blueberry pie homemade by Me-Oh-My Pies. The sun came out from behind a cloud. I could hear the sound of angels singing. I didn’t care about the $13 price on the pie. I grabbed it and never looked back.

This sucker was almost as good as Grandma’s. Knock wood, throwing salt over shoulder. For three years I’ve always bought those pies whenever I drive upstate. 

Unfortunately, the last time I stopped at the farmstand, there were exactly ZERO pies. I’m told the baker now has Lyme Disease. It’s common up there. I pray for her speedy recovery. Every day. Twice a day.

Until then, could somebody hook me up with some kick-ass pie? 

#WTFHappened CSI Interstate 87. Jewelry Giveaway Contest

#WTFHappened? CSI Interstate 87. My first Jewelry Giveway Contest.

Driving back downstate from the Catskill mountains, as I often do, you’re bound to see many things. Deer crossing the road. Deer who didn’t cross the road ON the road. Puke in the backseat of the car if you get stuck in stop and go. Lots of pick ‘em up trucks. Ski racks with kids tied to them.

My 15 year old son and I have the exact same sense of warped humor. We have this odd way of saying the same random punchline at the same time. We just think the same things are stupid. I’m not sure if he has a woman’s brain in his head or if I have the brain of a 15 year old boy. I try not to think about it.

Fact is, we both started laughing like two drunk VIPs at a redneck tour show when we saw this minivan next to us. We didn’t just see it for a minute. We were stuck in traffic on 87 for 2 hours. It stalked us. And we just kept laughing. Because..look..that’s just some weird-ass mud splatter pattern you have there. This van was perfectly clean in the back. The whole front was an insult to OCD-you’re-not-eating-THAT-in my-car van driving mommies everywhere. It was thick and it was strange. We saw somebody else taking pictures of it too. Which made us laugh even longer. At least we were classy enough to keep the camera INSIDE the car.

Have some fun with me. Tell me what happened to this Honda Odyssey, license plate beginning in XXL (not kidding) and ending in 8. Tweet it @sueannesjewelry and please use the hashtag #WTFhappened so I can keep track. No dms please. 

The most random and creative answer will win a $50 gift certificate for my jewelry. Winner will be announced Tuesday Morning. Two entries per person is cool.

And if the person comes forward who was driving that van, they get a $50 G.C. too. Virginia Plates.

You have 36 hours.... Get out your swabs and black light and GO!

And the winners are....Miss Shelbi Lavender @Shelbilavender:

There was a mud wrestling contest happening that night.  Tons of people all around and up struts this cupcake fat girl, she just wanted a chance to play.  Well the skinny hot mud wrestlers wouldn't have that so a fight broke out.  Fat cupcake chick was tossin skinnys all over the place then more skinnys started comin.  Cupcake fat chick was losing steam she had to get away, she started running.  The skinny chicks knew they couldn't take her down so one of the skinnys got in her honda minivan and before fat girl knew what was coming SPLAT!  She hit the minivan and dropped like a fly.  

Skinnys tied her up and sat on her while eating cupcakes!  it was sweet!

ANDDDDDD.

Runner up: @beerisgoodfood   :   

Never park next to the Immodium tour bus.

Since nobody came forward as the owner of the fabulous minivan, I decided to give out 2 $50 gift certificates. 

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! And thanks to everybody for playing.

Nurturing Your Inner Bitch

I’m a Bitch.

Oh, puleeze, Sueanne, you’re thinking. Get serious. You’re one of the nicest women.... You open doors for freakin’ everybody, you’re encouraging, supportive, helpful, friend to many. You practically have a therapy couch set up in the living room, for crissakes... This is all true. I am from the Midwest originally, which makes it even harder to believe I am capable of being Queen of all Bitches. You would never know what I am capable of...unless you have made the mistake of pissing off the Redhead.

Let me just say I consider it a compliment to be called a Bitch and I would encourage everybody to both

rejoice in and learn to bring out your inner bitch. Forget about the inner child. The inner bitch is way more fun. The inner child needs a binky. The inner bitch needs tequila. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Why be a bitch? Because we all love bitches. Who loves a doormat? NOBODY except a muddy shoe.

Does this mean you yell and scream at people and are a miserable and unhappy person? No. Do you make other people unhappy? No. Discovering your inner Bitch means you know who you are, are at peace with that, and you expect and demand other people to respect you. When you learn to love your inner bitch you will in fact be at the happiest and most content place in your life. 

Let’s all be strong men and women. Don’t settle for crap. I’m not saying you need to be mean. I’m saying suck it up, be strong, ask, no ...demand...  what you want and need, and don’t stop until you get it. You determine what it takes to make you happy. So be a fucking bitch when you need to be. Life’s too short to wonder what would have happened IF you had done something differently. Just do it differently to BEGIN with.

Whether that’s demanding better behavior from your significant other, or a better table at the new restaurant in town, or that your idiot professor change your grade because you deserve it... Be a Bitch. Hate your new haircut? SAY something. Be a Bitch. Need a raise at work? Tell them why you deserve it. Be a Bitch. 

You will quickly see that once people figure out you won’t put up with their shenanigans, they will give you the respect you need. Then you can tone down the bitch and just keep her on the back burner for emergency situations.

And, contrary to popular belief, there is nothing wrong with men being bitches. It really is a more masculine trait, when you think about it. Men get what they want, and so should my Bitches.

I'm the Man

This summer I became a man. 

That’s right, I mowed 3 acres of 2 ft high grass on a riding mower, twice. And I’ll do it again.

But let me back up, or put it in reverse.

The grass in question is in upstate NY in the Catskills. You know, log home, great for tubing, skiing, summer campfires with raunchy lyrics made up to the tune of Kumbaya, bears, deer, rampant lyme disease, mosquitos the size of Rhode Island, that kind of thing. The kind of place that just makes you want to drink non-lite beer and see who can burp the loudest.

There is no cell service up there, because the residents are stupid, I mean stubborn enough to want to keep it that way, I guess, so once my right hand stops twitching toward my iphone and  twitterfon button, I kick back, start relaxing, stop wearing makeup, crank up the Carrie Underwear CD, and make a lot of jewelry. 

And it’s quiet. So quiet. Not only can your hear yourself think, you can hear everybody on the entire street think. They aren’t too bright, so once I stop listening to them think after 10 minutes or so, I notice how the stars are huge at night and the air is perfect.

The kids even get along better as they have nothing to do but watch TV, play outside, and bust my chops. We do have cable internet access, but In a brilliant move I decided to go for the slowest kind of service available. Did I mention there is no cell service? There is no cell service. That means no iphone. No cell service. There is no cell service.  

We’ve had this place for about 4 years and were usually able to find somebody reliable to mow the grass and plow the snow. That ended with this guy Brendan or Brenden, never quite did get his name, who bailed on us so many times we finally bought a riding mower last summer.

Back to the Lawn. Mowing the lawn has always been my son’s job, But, because we decided at age 15, it was time for him to learn the value of a dollar, My Dear Boy just got a job at a swanky beach club locally as a cabana boy. This is a very difficult job requiring heavy lifting (moving beach chairs) customer service (learning how not to gape at everybody’s daughters) and food management (delivering fries and burgers to the members without eating any). So he’s out of the picture as far as the lawn goes.

Just one problem with his fabulous new job. We forgot about the grass. And it rained alot.

As I pulled into the long driveway the horror awaited me. 2-3 ft tall weeds and grass. 3 acres of it. For sake of argument, I guess you could call it a lawn, but really, the place looked like redneck hell. All that was missing was an abandoned rusted out pick up truck on the front lawn and shotgun shells near an old wooden post.

After I stopped swearing in front of my young impressionable daughters, I unpacked the car and went out to the shed to get the mower and get down to business. And then I started eating grass. I mean mowing the lawn. 

To my credit, I did not utter more than a dozen curse words as the wind blew everything in my face and contact lenses, or gag as something that was still moving flew up my nose. I did instead choose to retaliate by  singing every song I know as loudly as possible and changing the words to curse my husband, who was “working” that weekend.  

 Three hours later, I did not even cry when the mower got stuck in a little ditch and it took me half hour to throw my entire body against it to inch it out because there was nobody to help me. Did you know  AAA doesn’t cover riding lawnmower towing service? They don’t. No, I remained a good role model for my daughters and sucked it up. 

After all, my middle daughter will be old enough to mow the lawn in 2 years. Mama didn’t raise no fool, honey.