Friday, December 31, 2010

Adios, 2010!

This year definitely had its ups (getting engaged, getting a new kitty, mini-vacations, starting a new job) and its downs (getting my wisdom teeth taken out on Tuesday). And while the way I feel right now is definitely skewing my outlook to the negative side, I think the good outweighed the bad by far.

We got Oops right around the first of the year and it was such a good decision! She's such a nice fluffer and her and Romp get along so well.

We went on lots of adventures this year: trips to High Springs & Destin, Bonita Springs, tour with Yip-Yip and All Leather, St. Petersburg, St. Augustine...


Did I mention we got engaged?



I'll be drinking my food and in a little bit of pain to ring in the new year, but I still think 2011 will be a good one! Here's wishing everyone a happy (and safe) 2011!!!


Thursday, October 28, 2010

Three more days till Halloween, Silver Shamrock!

Two-headed girl, 2007.
(With my grandmother, Killer Doctor, and my aunt, Killer Nurse)

This year is one of my least favorites, I must admit. This Halloween happened a couple of days before the end of my five years working at a beauty supply store. I stared at those styrofoam heads and that cheap fake hair all day. And then suddenly this idea hit me. I had to make it happen while I could still get my discount. Hot gluing 99cent hair a very unpleasant task. The closest thing I could equate that hair to is cheap fake spiderwebs. Gross.



Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Four more days till Halloween, Silver Shamrock!

In these final days leading up to Halloween, I think it's appropriate to share my costumes from Halloween's past, leading up to this year's monumental costume.


Killer Raggedy Ann, 2006
(with my aunt, Wonder Woman)

This is one of the costumes I'm most proud of. I found the plaid dress in the children's section of a thrift store. It was paired with a quickly sewn apron and red/white striped stockings. I ripped the dress and glued on stuffing, as if I'd been in a struggle. I made the wig myself with a scrap of fabric and red yarn. My favorite part: the handmade decapitated Andy head...that doubles as a purse! 

Monday, October 25, 2010

Devil's Millhopper

Due to the timing of our trip to the panhandle earlier this year, I missed the opportunity to visit Devil's Millhopper, a state park centered around a 120 foot sinkhole. It's been in the back of my mind ever since, so when we ended up with a bit of time to spare on the way to Tallahassee this weekend, I threw it in our trip.

It's pretty crazy looking. And a lot of it doesn't really look like Florida. Some of the vegetation is typically found in Appalachia. It definitely feels like it.

Plus, it's a long way down...


...and back up...


We first read about it in Oddball Florida. Between that and the Roadside America website, we've seen some awesome things this year!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Corny Adventures

This weekend marked my fourth annual trip to...
...the maize maze!

There are creepy sculptures...

...Awesome paintings...

& of course...

Corn!

&


People dressed like corn! Actually, this was first this year (to my knowledge). I now want to be a corn person when I grow up. I'm already the right size, which is to say, I already fit in a very short, child-sized  corn costume.


Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Camera Fun





Brian got a new phone. Me + apps = danger!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Mid-Week Break

I'm still fighting off this stupid sinus trouble and on top of that, today wasn't really a great day.

So, to cheer myself up, I showed a coworker
a funny video.



And on the way home from work, I listened to



And now that I'm here, I've been looking at 
some of my favorite Toothpaste for Dinner comics.



And now I feel much better!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Meow.



I took these (and a lot of other) pictures of the cats a couple of weeks ago (and all of the time).

I think they pretty well sum up my last four days, with the exception of somehow working a bit in there.

I've had a sinus headache that's been kicking my booty from the inside out. I'll tell anyone that will listen that I need a new nose, but apparently that's not an option. So instead, I'll just take antibiotics, my neti pot, tea, and lots of sleep. Speaking of which....

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Crochet machine!

No, I didn't buy some kind of crazy crochet machine....I am a crochet machine!


I made a hat! 



I found the pattern on Ravelry, and started working on it this weekend. This won't be the first (or last) time I've made this terrible joke - but I'm hooked on crochet!

And, conveniently, my new hat matches the dress I was wearing today.



I didn't plan it this way, but I guess finishing a hat a couple of hours before the start of fall was a good idea! Happy fall, everyone!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Necesito practicar!

If not having cable has taught me anything, it's that I need to start practicing my Spanish.


¡Porque quiero entender este programa! ¡Y todos los programas!

Of course, understanding it completely probably wouldn't make much of a difference. Already, I've seen someone eat raw bacon, someone cross his eyes, and someone try to pop his shoulders out of place. I'm mesmerized.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Where have I been?

I apparently took a week off from posting...I guess due to a crazy week at work and a bizarre road trip.

Brian and Jason played Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, NC on Saturday night. So I, along with Jason's girlfriend, went on a crazy road trip with them.

It's about a 10 hour drive to Raleigh, but we planned to leave extra early to have time to thrift and explore. So, we left at 3am on Saturday. I drove from the GA Welcome Center to the first stop on my pre-planned Roadside America list: "Flea Market Mascot Cow".


She is a very stylish cow, complete with a hat, anklet, and really long eyelashes. She's the mascot for Keller's Flea Market in Savannah, GA.



We got there right when they "open", 8am. We drove around for 15 minutes before anything was remotely open. We finally got to walk around in the main building, which looks awesome(r) from the side:


I got four really nice vintage pins, including one that says "If you're looking for me, I just left!". No one else bought anything...The rest of the trip kind of continued in the same way. Many, many thrift stores and several cities later, I bought two shirts. It was quite a dud of a shopping day. And we ran out of time so the cow was the only roadside attraction we managed to see.

We got there, they played the show, then we turned around and drove home. My sleep has been all kinds of messed up since then, but at least we made it home! It was certainly an adventure!



Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Who needs cable...

When the local news is this entertaining?




Florida is funny.

This also seems like the appropriate time to plug the crack photographic reporting I do about Florida Plush in Peril for a friend's website: Free Thee Animals. It doesn't get much more perilous than getting blown up by the bomb squad.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Vegetarian TropiChop Experiment

Brian and I have recently become hooked on Vegetarian TropiChops from Pollo Tropical (a caribbean-inspired fast food restaurant mostly in Florida). Fast food, generally, as a rule is terrible for you. It's also very rarely vegetarian, let alone vegan. But this has got to be the best of the bunch.

The dish is basically a bowl of beans and rice, with corn, tomatoes, and lettuce. The real kicker is when you throw in their (non-vegan) curry mustard sauce. Brian doesn't like mustard and isn't a big fan of curry, but even he loves this sauce.

Given the simplicity of the dish, and that it's a food we both can agree on, I decided to make my own. I found a recipe for the sauce and made some adjustments.


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Curry Mustard Sauce
1 cup Vegenaise
3 T mustard
1 1/2 T curry powder

Mix well. Chill overnight. (Seriously. Do it.)

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Pour on yummy food and enjoy!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

How much are those cats...?

I was planning to post a new recipe I tried last night, but I am having technical difficulties.


So instead I present you with this amazing picture I captured after work on Thursday...


Oops was just watching us through the window when POW, the flipping, fluffy tail was too much for Romp to take!

How could we miss cable when we have the cat channel free 24/7?

Monday, August 30, 2010

Au revoir, cable!


Yesterday, we made a unanimous decision to cancel our cable. 

Save for a few weeks (combined) while moving, I've never not had cable. Oh, sure, I haven't always had 200 channels and a DVR, but I've always had some form of cable.

We quit the fancy stuff today. The basic leaves us Sunday. 

We just realized that we were paying the cable company roughly $75 per month to waste our time. That's $50 per month, or $600 a year, for me and Brian. I could think of a lot better things to do with our $600. Especially when I consider how much television is available online, through Netflix, and through broadcast TV. I also like the thought of it taking more work to watch TV this way. Perhaps we'll watch what we really want to instead of whatever happens to be on.

Wish us luck!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

In the clouds

I'm not a very good judge of distance, but I had to park about five miles away from work when I got back from lunch this afternoon.


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(You see that tiny little building off in the distance - that's work.)


I had to park there yesterday morning as well. (Yesterday was the first day of fall classes, you see.) Each time I've had to park in the middle of this field, I've gotten frustrated. It's always preceded by endless circles through the actual parking lot. Plus, I'm generally late. And this afternoon it was raining.

But when I left work this evening, I rather enjoyed my walk through the then empty field. It rained all day, so it wasn't very hot. Things had just dried off enough to re-solidify the ground I was walking on. It was a pretty nice way to calm down after work.

= Silver lining.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Who you calling Granny?


Ok, so I'd get kicked out of Geometry class (which I haven't been in for over a decade) if I called this a square, but dammit, it's close! 

With the aid of a couple of books (mostly, Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker), I've been teaching myself to crochet (for a second time - I taught myself a couple of years ago and promptly forgot). In all of my crocheting excursions through tonight, all I had made was two headbands. 

I got a book at the library on Saturday that made me want to expand my crocheting repertoire. I mean, how could I not want to make these:



Tonight I decided to expand my set of skills. I thought that I could at least have a goal instead of knotting up a bunch of yarn for no reason, so what you see above is my first (ok, fourth or fifth) attempt at a Granny Square. I was aided in my endeavor by this set of videos from eHow: Crochet Granny Square . They're not exactly flashy, but they work!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Better Late Than Never

Last Friday, Apartment Therapy posted about something incredible. I've been meaning to share, but never got around to it until now. I understand that perhaps some of you read Apartment Therapy, but if not, I feel that you need to know about the best store, ever...

Takkoda.
Why are they the best? Because they sell mugs, shirts, and other gifts featuring images such as these...

   



Yes, we'll take one of everything, please.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

VHS Picking

On Saturday, Jason found a post on Craigslist for "300 free VHS tapes". Given the three of us that live in the house, and our already ridiculous VHS collection, we couldn't pass it up. Jason was at work, so that left me and Brian to go find these mysterious tapes.

We got in touch with the people and headed over to a storage unit near downtown. We arrived to find a cool younger dude who bought a packed-full abandoned storage unit at auction. He'd gotten the couple of good things out by the time we got there, and he was left with piles and piles and piles of mostly worthless garbage. And that's where we came in!

Amid the piles, there were probably 500-600 VHS tapes. There was absolutely no rhyme or reason to the collection. Most of the tapes were blank tapes with shows and movies recorded from TV. We're talking everything from the 2004 Presidential debates to basketball games to David Letterman to The Bodyguard. There were original tapes as well, also quite varied, including rock video compilations, I Spit on Your Grave, Fletch Lives, and Smothers Brothers: Yo-Yo Man.

The guy only had 48 hours to move everything out, so we helped by taking all of the VHS without first going through them. We literally got as many of them as would fit in my car - all but one box.



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The real fun began when we got home and started sorting through them.
We have enough left to fit in a large box. We didn't keep anything recorded from TV, and the rest were either broken or otherwise destroyed.

And to think, someone spent $75 a month for over four years to house all the stuff we just threw away.

Monday, August 16, 2010

This Weekend

I turned my crochet-practice string of yarn into...


...A headband.


And I turned scraps of scrapbook paper into...


...A page in my journal that I should have with me at all times.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Four Simple Goals!



I was excited when I read about Elsie Flannigan's idea for Four Simple Goals. Motivation is always good, especially when it involves allowing the whole internet to hold you accountable!



1. Exercise! I've got three bicycles in the garage, two tennis rackets, a stationary bike, an exercise machine, and a couple of Wii exercise games, so I've really got no excuse. It's time to make getting off my booty a regular occurrence!




2. Eat vegan (at least at work)! I have a boyfriend who loves cheese and a lack of willpower. I can at least take control of my choices at work: five meals and about a zillion snacks per week. Perhaps I can create enough momentum to keep it going.




3. Attack my ever-growing pile of clothes! I have a pile of clothes with rips/tears, old clothes from my mom, and thrifted clothes that need the attention of my sewing machine. Once they're done, it'll be like I've gone on a major shopping spree!




4. Yep - keep crafting, sewing and journaling! For me, for selling, and for gifts...Christmas is just four months away after all! I'm on a roll, now I just gotta keep at it!