Had a busy yet uneventful weekend...
Saw the green hornet on Saturday. It was ok...a little too "stupid comedy" for me...and rather slow at points. The premise itself was great. Good guys pretending to be bad guys....great potential!! Fell short though by relying on stupid humor, cool car, and flimsy character development. Guess I expect too much
I'm excited that one of my favorite author's latest book comes out tomorrow. Kristen Britain's Blackveil is coming out tomorrow. The last book came out my sophomore year of college....that was about four years ago. I'm absolutely hooked though. Its one of those stories where you see no way for it to end the way you want, but you just keep hoping. This is where my dork tendencies really shine. I keep trying to come up with a way to make everyone happy, then I run them by my best friend who also reads the series.
I pre-ordered on Amazon and got the shipping so that it is guaranteed to come tomorrow (on release day). In hindsight...I probably should have just planned to get up at 8 and be at Barnes and Nobel at opening so I could have it and go home and read all day. Now I already paid for it and it will be in my hands "before the end of day" according to UPS. I do hate B&N and would rather not give them the business, and last time I went on release day for a book they didn't have it and didn't know what I was talking about or when it would be in. We'll see if it was worth it or not...I might just need to buy redbull so I can stay up all night binge reading! Boyfriend doesn't understand, he says I should SAVOR it and read it slowly...It's not really a CHOICE though...once I start I can't put it down!! I'm like that with all good books!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Meet Riley
My almost-2 year old forever-puppy is a constant source of entertainment. He's a 4 pound shih tzu yorkie mix. Sometimes, he is too smart for his own good. Within a three weeks, he learned how to climb over the puppy gate.
Don't worry, I was just out of sight to catch him. He's also learned how to open doors that are not fully latched, get toys or food off the dining room or coffee table...and many other things to make him a rascal.
I'm pretty sure he's a dog trapped in a cat's body. He loves to perch on the back of the couch, or in a sunny windowsill. His growl sounds more like a purr. He'll climb the boyfriend's computer chair to the window and growl at the people walking by thinking he's a big dog. Now that winter has settled in, he's decided that it is so much better sleeping *under* the covers with mommy and daddy. Unfortunately, he has *us* trained; I'll wake up to him pushing at the covers and find myself automatically lifting them for him to crawl in.
Don't think you can ignore him either, if he wants to play, he'll pull toys out of his toy box and toss them at you until you give in. Or crawl into your lap and flop onto your laptop when you are trying to work from home. Also, make sure you hide all the squeaky toys really well when you're on the phone - and that doesn't mean the pub-height table, because he'll just jump on the stool and climb up to get it.
Things however, don't always go according to *his* plan either. After he learned to climb the gate, I had to go MacGyver on the gate to try to keep him in place. This meant adding more and more cardboard to the front to eliminate any puppy footholds. The little rascal figured out to work his paw under the cardboard and scale the wall instead. So I added more tape. One morning, I'm trying to get out the door for work and I hear thrashing and crying. I go back to check on the puppy...he managed to tape himself to the gate and wall. He didn't even learn a lesson, and suffice it to say the gate didn't last long. Neither did the crate which he always Houdini's out of.
Well today things didn't go according to plan either. I'm working on my business, ScienceFairGirl.com, and he's been hanging out in the window as usual. I hear a strange thud and him crying. So I run across the room to investigate. He somehow rotated the chair he was using as a ladder, missed the seat, and fell between the chair and the wall. So there he is, trying to pull himself back up and giving me the most pathetic look. So I scooped him up, gave him loads of mommy-love, wedged the chair closer to the window, and went back to work.
What a handful!
Don't worry, I was just out of sight to catch him. He's also learned how to open doors that are not fully latched, get toys or food off the dining room or coffee table...and many other things to make him a rascal.
I'm pretty sure he's a dog trapped in a cat's body. He loves to perch on the back of the couch, or in a sunny windowsill. His growl sounds more like a purr. He'll climb the boyfriend's computer chair to the window and growl at the people walking by thinking he's a big dog. Now that winter has settled in, he's decided that it is so much better sleeping *under* the covers with mommy and daddy. Unfortunately, he has *us* trained; I'll wake up to him pushing at the covers and find myself automatically lifting them for him to crawl in.
Don't think you can ignore him either, if he wants to play, he'll pull toys out of his toy box and toss them at you until you give in. Or crawl into your lap and flop onto your laptop when you are trying to work from home. Also, make sure you hide all the squeaky toys really well when you're on the phone - and that doesn't mean the pub-height table, because he'll just jump on the stool and climb up to get it.
Things however, don't always go according to *his* plan either. After he learned to climb the gate, I had to go MacGyver on the gate to try to keep him in place. This meant adding more and more cardboard to the front to eliminate any puppy footholds. The little rascal figured out to work his paw under the cardboard and scale the wall instead. So I added more tape. One morning, I'm trying to get out the door for work and I hear thrashing and crying. I go back to check on the puppy...he managed to tape himself to the gate and wall. He didn't even learn a lesson, and suffice it to say the gate didn't last long. Neither did the crate which he always Houdini's out of.
Well today things didn't go according to plan either. I'm working on my business, ScienceFairGirl.com, and he's been hanging out in the window as usual. I hear a strange thud and him crying. So I run across the room to investigate. He somehow rotated the chair he was using as a ladder, missed the seat, and fell between the chair and the wall. So there he is, trying to pull himself back up and giving me the most pathetic look. So I scooped him up, gave him loads of mommy-love, wedged the chair closer to the window, and went back to work.
What a handful!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Guilty Pleasure
Our guilty pleasure is American Idol - but only during auditions, after Hollywood week it gets boring.
I am LOVING the addition of Steven Tyler...with his off the wall comments like "Well hellfire, save matches, *BLEEP* a duck, and see what happens." Plus, how he hits on every young girl - or wonders if they could be his daughter. Zaney, Cooky, but absolutely adorable.
Though as we've been watching, I've been thinking he looks like something or someone I've seen before...and today it hit me....
Is it just me???
I am LOVING the addition of Steven Tyler...with his off the wall comments like "Well hellfire, save matches, *BLEEP* a duck, and see what happens." Plus, how he hits on every young girl - or wonders if they could be his daughter. Zaney, Cooky, but absolutely adorable.
Though as we've been watching, I've been thinking he looks like something or someone I've seen before...and today it hit me....
Jen from Jim Henson's Dark Crystal
Is it just me???
Mini Pecan Pie
One of my favorite things to do is cook or bake. Lately I've been doing a lot more than usual - and I've been in a from-scratch craze because a) it saves money and b) I'm too lazy to drive to the store. So far the home-made biscuits were pretty good, and the pasta was too hard to roll (that's right, I was too lazy to go down the street to get dried pasta so I tried to make my own).
The boyfriend loves pecan pie, so the other day I made mini-pecan pies.
Dough:
I followed the traditional easy crust recipe, 1.5 cups of sifted flour, dash of salt, 1 stick of COLD butter, and 4 tablespoons of cold water. Just throw the sifted flour and butter and salt in a food processor (NINJA to the rescue again!) and pulse until you get a course consistency, then add the water and pulse until it combines into a nice dough. From there just dump it out on a floured surface and roll away.
This makes enough for an 8-9" pie or 6 mini pies.
I used mini-ramekins (I love entertaining serving-ware and have a mini-collection). I cut the dough a little larger than the ramekin and then rolled it a little more, then I fit the dough into the ramekin and used my thumbs to smoosh the overlapping edges and work the dough up the sides - like a pinch-pot in elementary school. Rip off any excess over the top, or roll into a fluted edge - your choice.
Filling:
Usually, I follow the Pillsbury recipe for pecan pie. Again, laziness being the theme, I winged it.
I used the rest of the pecans I had leftover from my cheeseball the previous week, a few glugs of light corn syrup until everything was coated, a beaten egg, and a cap of vanilla extract. Then I mixed and filled the cups. In hindsight, I didn't use enough corn syrup, but they were still tasty.
Bake at 375 deg for 30 minutes or so...until the filling looks like a toasted foam, but before the crust burns - or the pecans, as they can burn too.
I treated myself to one last night, it was really good with whipped cream on top of it. Boyfriend has been smiling since. Today I think I will whip up a vat of my every-cheese-in-the-fridge mac & cheese. So good! But first, I got to get my crafting on.
The boyfriend loves pecan pie, so the other day I made mini-pecan pies.
Dough:
I followed the traditional easy crust recipe, 1.5 cups of sifted flour, dash of salt, 1 stick of COLD butter, and 4 tablespoons of cold water. Just throw the sifted flour and butter and salt in a food processor (NINJA to the rescue again!) and pulse until you get a course consistency, then add the water and pulse until it combines into a nice dough. From there just dump it out on a floured surface and roll away.
This makes enough for an 8-9" pie or 6 mini pies.
I used mini-ramekins (I love entertaining serving-ware and have a mini-collection). I cut the dough a little larger than the ramekin and then rolled it a little more, then I fit the dough into the ramekin and used my thumbs to smoosh the overlapping edges and work the dough up the sides - like a pinch-pot in elementary school. Rip off any excess over the top, or roll into a fluted edge - your choice.
Filling:
Usually, I follow the Pillsbury recipe for pecan pie. Again, laziness being the theme, I winged it.
I used the rest of the pecans I had leftover from my cheeseball the previous week, a few glugs of light corn syrup until everything was coated, a beaten egg, and a cap of vanilla extract. Then I mixed and filled the cups. In hindsight, I didn't use enough corn syrup, but they were still tasty.
Bake at 375 deg for 30 minutes or so...until the filling looks like a toasted foam, but before the crust burns - or the pecans, as they can burn too.
I treated myself to one last night, it was really good with whipped cream on top of it. Boyfriend has been smiling since. Today I think I will whip up a vat of my every-cheese-in-the-fridge mac & cheese. So good! But first, I got to get my crafting on.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Swimming with the Fishes
Yesterday, I took the Aqua Tour at the Living Seas at Epcot. I highly recommend this to anyone! It starts off with a behind-the-scenes look of the aquarium facility, including the manatee and dolphin habitats. The tour also includes about forty minutes of scuba-assisted snorkeling in the giant tank - and I mean giant, Spaceship Earth (the huge "golf ball" ride) could fit in the tank with seven feet all around to swim in. Scuba-assisted snorkeling means that you are provided with a small compressed air tank and regulator instead of a snorkel - which is awesome for those of us that always manage to get water in the snorkel tube.
So we get suited up in the provided wet suits, and the first issue arises. As I put my contacts in so that I can see all the fishes, the contact rips IN my eye, leaving a small piece which refuses to come out. So, feeling like a one-eyed pirate, I finish getting ready. You're probably wondering why I didn't just wear my glasses - no jewelery or glasses are allowed in the tank. Plus, if you've ever had contacts and lost one during the day you know that you can trick yourself into only really seeing out of one eye. As we walk to the tank though, I finally get the small piece out of my eye, and issue one is taken care of.
We get into the water, souvenir photo taken, and we're set loose to explore the tank and its inhabitants. Right away I start struggling with this whole breathing under water thing. My brain keeps telling me "what are you doing!? you can't breath under water, I don't care what they tell you about that mouth piece" but the fishes are calling and I really want to find my boyfriend on the other side to take a picture. Its a slow start, I keep getting a mouth full (and occasionally a lung full) of salt water, and have to come up to cough it up - my boyfriend described the whole thing as "flailing". My girlfriend that I'm swimming with is a certified scuba diver, and she's doing just fine, and I feel like an idiot. After about fifteen minutes of flailing, choking, and hyperventilating underwater, my friend asks to check out my regulator. She tries it out, and TA DA takes on water. Turns out it was my equipment and not me! YAY! So we swim back and get a new regulator for me.
Before we make it back, the next adventure happens. While swimming, I feel something brush up against me. I ask my friend what it was - it should be noted that my friend has worked in this tank and knows it intimately. She starts to say nothing and then says "Oh my god, its Whitney". Now, I don't think I mentioned yet that there are stingrays and sharks among the creatures in this tank, and that I had to sign a waiver to get in, so "oh my god" is not what I want to hear. "What is Whitney?" I ask, instead of answering my question, my friend pulls me back and yells for me to move. As I swim backwards, a HUGE sea turtle comes to the surface right where I was. Since the turtles are endangered, my friend was trying to keep me from getting in trouble for accidentally touching Whitney. My boyfriend said it was quite humorous to watch me being "attacked" by the turtle.
Now with a working regulator, I roam all over the tank, looking at all the amazing hidden Mickey's that you would never see from any other perspective, and the beautiful animals. It was absolutely beautiful - I didn't want it to end. I love stingrays, they are my favorite aquatic creature. Disney has three varieties of stingrays, including a giant spotted eagle ray who just gave birth to pups. Gorgeous! The only creature I made sure to stay away from was the 300 pound groupers. I don't know why, but I HATE big ugly fish. I've gone helmet diving in the Bahamas, Snorkeling in Hawaii, and big, ugly fish just freak me out. Yet I love stingrays, go figure.
After the swim, my friend and I took the boyfriend to the Mexico pavilion for margaritas and nachos as a "thank you" for letting us abandon him for two hours while we swam. He then took us out to my favorite Disney restaurant - Artist Point at Disney Wilderness Lodge - the cobbler is to DIE FOR! I am going to try to recreate it at home. After dinner, we wandered to Downtown Disney. There's a new store by Disney Quest where you can build and customize your own R/C car - VERY COOL! Then we went to see a movie at the AMC theater. This movie theater has a bar inside! There's drink specials inspired by current movies - such as "the Hornitini". Considering how drunk some of the patrons were, how long were they waiting for a movie!! One flushed man, who looked a little like Sean Austen, kept trying to tell me how beautiful and intelligent I was and that he'd never tell me what to do....I just asked if he had a recommendation for a drink!
Overall, an amazing day!!
So we get suited up in the provided wet suits, and the first issue arises. As I put my contacts in so that I can see all the fishes, the contact rips IN my eye, leaving a small piece which refuses to come out. So, feeling like a one-eyed pirate, I finish getting ready. You're probably wondering why I didn't just wear my glasses - no jewelery or glasses are allowed in the tank. Plus, if you've ever had contacts and lost one during the day you know that you can trick yourself into only really seeing out of one eye. As we walk to the tank though, I finally get the small piece out of my eye, and issue one is taken care of.
We get into the water, souvenir photo taken, and we're set loose to explore the tank and its inhabitants. Right away I start struggling with this whole breathing under water thing. My brain keeps telling me "what are you doing!? you can't breath under water, I don't care what they tell you about that mouth piece" but the fishes are calling and I really want to find my boyfriend on the other side to take a picture. Its a slow start, I keep getting a mouth full (and occasionally a lung full) of salt water, and have to come up to cough it up - my boyfriend described the whole thing as "flailing". My girlfriend that I'm swimming with is a certified scuba diver, and she's doing just fine, and I feel like an idiot. After about fifteen minutes of flailing, choking, and hyperventilating underwater, my friend asks to check out my regulator. She tries it out, and TA DA takes on water. Turns out it was my equipment and not me! YAY! So we swim back and get a new regulator for me.
Before we make it back, the next adventure happens. While swimming, I feel something brush up against me. I ask my friend what it was - it should be noted that my friend has worked in this tank and knows it intimately. She starts to say nothing and then says "Oh my god, its Whitney". Now, I don't think I mentioned yet that there are stingrays and sharks among the creatures in this tank, and that I had to sign a waiver to get in, so "oh my god" is not what I want to hear. "What is Whitney?" I ask, instead of answering my question, my friend pulls me back and yells for me to move. As I swim backwards, a HUGE sea turtle comes to the surface right where I was. Since the turtles are endangered, my friend was trying to keep me from getting in trouble for accidentally touching Whitney. My boyfriend said it was quite humorous to watch me being "attacked" by the turtle.
Now with a working regulator, I roam all over the tank, looking at all the amazing hidden Mickey's that you would never see from any other perspective, and the beautiful animals. It was absolutely beautiful - I didn't want it to end. I love stingrays, they are my favorite aquatic creature. Disney has three varieties of stingrays, including a giant spotted eagle ray who just gave birth to pups. Gorgeous! The only creature I made sure to stay away from was the 300 pound groupers. I don't know why, but I HATE big ugly fish. I've gone helmet diving in the Bahamas, Snorkeling in Hawaii, and big, ugly fish just freak me out. Yet I love stingrays, go figure.
After the swim, my friend and I took the boyfriend to the Mexico pavilion for margaritas and nachos as a "thank you" for letting us abandon him for two hours while we swam. He then took us out to my favorite Disney restaurant - Artist Point at Disney Wilderness Lodge - the cobbler is to DIE FOR! I am going to try to recreate it at home. After dinner, we wandered to Downtown Disney. There's a new store by Disney Quest where you can build and customize your own R/C car - VERY COOL! Then we went to see a movie at the AMC theater. This movie theater has a bar inside! There's drink specials inspired by current movies - such as "the Hornitini". Considering how drunk some of the patrons were, how long were they waiting for a movie!! One flushed man, who looked a little like Sean Austen, kept trying to tell me how beautiful and intelligent I was and that he'd never tell me what to do....I just asked if he had a recommendation for a drink!
Overall, an amazing day!!
Friday, January 21, 2011
How NOT to Clean Up Pepper Flakes
The other day I was making hummus using the Ninja I got for a Christmas present (I really love it and recommend it!). I had chickpeas but no fresh garlic, so I decided to use dried. Then I decided to spice it up a bit with some roasted red pepper powder. As I was putting the motor down on the container, I saw there was a lot of spice sitting on top of the blade and motor attachment. So I decided to blow it off...you can imagine the result...roasted red pepper and garlic flew into my eye. My only excuse is that I was on the phone and therefore distracted by what a bad idea that was. Too bad my phone call didn't distract me from the burning.
So there I am, with the phone cradled in my ear, yelling "OW it burns! it burns!" My best friend was rather confused and concerned. She couldn't stop laughing when I explained. She then got to listen to more cursing and yelling as I tried to rinse my eyes out in the bathroom.
Next time, I'll use a pastry brush instead...
Worst part: didn't even eat the hummus! after all that it tasted awful...which is when I realized the chickpeas had been in my pantry for about a year. Great practice for using my Ninja though!
So there I am, with the phone cradled in my ear, yelling "OW it burns! it burns!" My best friend was rather confused and concerned. She couldn't stop laughing when I explained. She then got to listen to more cursing and yelling as I tried to rinse my eyes out in the bathroom.
Next time, I'll use a pastry brush instead...
Worst part: didn't even eat the hummus! after all that it tasted awful...which is when I realized the chickpeas had been in my pantry for about a year. Great practice for using my Ninja though!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)