Oh Hai...

Um.  Hello?

Not sure anyone is there anymore.  Same old story, I've neglected this blog for months.  Two years ago I blamed NaBloPoMo for my absence.  Last year, I didn't even make it to NaBloPoMo.

I have a backlog of things I've been meaning to blog about. Pictures I've meant to edit and post. At some point in the next 500 years, I'll get around to it.

To be fair, I've been kind of busy.  Last year my full time day job became more of an overtime day job with more stress than I've experienced in my previous 6 years with the company.  I had hoped that January would bring a little bit of relief from the workload, but any reduction in responsibilities and related headaches have only been temporary

In addition to my normal M-F grind, I've been writing for DaemonsTV for about a year now.  Writing for money is awesome.  I only wish it was awesome enough that I could sustain (instead of supplement) my income with it.  Perhaps someday.

Even though I suffer unwarranted anxiety over missed grammatical errors and the occasional mean comment-troll; and even though often find myself plagued with writer's block, staring at a blank screen until 20 minutes before my deadline, I absolutely love it.

I don't know if Mike loves it as much as I do.  Writing a couple reviews every night means that I get home, make dinner, and then go to my second job at my computer. That means he's got to entertain himself for a few hours if he's not into the shows that I've got to review.  He gets bored easily.

This week, most of my shows are airing repeats, so I figured I'd blog.

While I work out.

That's right friends. Your version of multitasking is nowhere near as awesome as mine. My netbook is sitting on top of my ironing board, which is wedged next to my stationary bike so that I can write and bike at the same time.  115 calories down.  100 to go.... because I want to pound out the pudge before I turn 30 in March.  I need to put this skill on my resume.

Because I must be some kind of masochist, I've also started taking Japanese classes on the weekends.  I had been teaching myself for a couple of years, but I figured it was time to actually try to learn how to read and write.  Turns out that even if  it's a class for adults, they still give you homework.  Don't they know grown-ups do not have to do homework?  Oy.

Also, trying my hand at Icelandic.  Ever wonder if an almost-30-year-old has the mental capacity to learn two languages at once?  I'll let you know.

Honestly, the point of this entry was not really to make a huge excuse about why I've been too busy to blog (although Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr have seriously not helped my cause.)  Originally this was going to be a blog about something entirely different (ahem, Downton Abbey) but it took on a life of its own after "Hello?".  It's as if I'm not writing the blog,  the blog is writing me (because it's magical.)

I guess that just means I'll have come back and blog about my original subject some other time.

I hope you'll tune in.

And you better bring a snack.

For me.

All this exercise makes me hungry.

Significant Time Capsules

This was an entry I originally wrote in 2008 for a "family update" kind of blog that we were supposed to write in to keep extended family up-to-date with our lives.  Our day to day activities are pretty boring so when there was a lack of entries, I'd blog about something random to fill the space.  Now I do that here and since the husband isn't as fond of blogging as I am, that blog hasn't been updated in over a year.

 

Anyway, this entry makes me laugh every time I look at it so I'm re-posting it here on this blog.  Made a couple edits, but it's pretty much the same: 

 

In November of 1989 my family went to the Kid’s Stuff convention. My brother and I filled out a time capsule which was not to be opened until November of 2000. Well, we forgot about it and in rummaging through old stuff, my mom pulled these two capsules out. 

 

Here is mine. I wrote half of it in pencil making it difficult to read on the pink paper - so I transcribed it below:

Date: ? (no concept of time apparently)
Age: 7
Grade: 3
Hobbies: swim, piano, tv watch (some things don’t change), birds (really?)
My Best Friend Is: Tina
My Message To Myself For The Year 2000 Is: I shall love everyone (I was a hippie)
My Goal For Myself Is: To be a good student (The perfect child)
My Dream For The World Is: Love and Peace (My dreams actually haven’t changed much, I guess.)
My Plan Of Action To Accomplish My Dreams: is I will study verry hard (Study how to spell very.)

Here is my brother’s capsule. In some ways he's a bit more realistic than I was:
 

Date: 1989 (I bet he cheated and looked at the front of the form)
Age: 6
Grade: 1
Hobbies: piano, play, tv, math
My Best Friend Is: Shelbey
My Message To Myself For The Year 2000 Is: How old I am; what grade; everything (He’s being logical.)
My Goal For Myself Is: Alf (LOL!!!) Green Valley(Swim Team), Bibl Quiz, X
My Dream For The World Is: Money (His dreams actually haven’t changed much either.)
My Plan Of Action To Accomplish My Dreams: XXXXX (Got it...makes total sense.)

It should be a life requirement that kids fill these kinds of things out before they turn 8 years old, because the material is just magical.  I was talking to McPe the other day and she said she also had a time capsule as a kid and recently found it. Among the questions on hers was: "What is your favorite smell?" her response, "The smell of food." She's now a successful food scientist. I guess we don’t change all that much.

Ack

This does not bode well for me.  Day two of NaBloPoMo and I've already got writer's block. 

You'd think I'd maybe write about voting or the election or something... but no.  As part of my civic duty, I voted, but I'm only barely interested.  Apathy? Maybe.  I don't care. Same as it ever was, I suppose the Talking Heads would say.

Work is still too busy and I don't like thinking about it when I'm not being paid to do so. I'm happy and grateful to be working, but I'm really looking forward to the end of November when my stressful work season will pause briefly and I can take a breath before it goes crazy again. 

Sometimes I think about going back to school and getting my Masters... everyone seems to be doing that or having babies... or both... which should make me feel like an underachiever, but really? Meh.  What graduate program? Uh. Probably napping.  I'd make an excellent Professional Napper... I just haven't found a program that really addresses my ideal field of study and I've never heard of anyone getting a decent salary for professional napping services. (And before you suggest it, medical studies are temp work - and they wouldn't pay well enough for someone with a Masters in Naptime.)

I'm really good at it so I'd have to ask for a ridiculously high salary for my napping skills. I could be the clincher of a professional nap-time endurance team. I often wonder if maybe my ideal cycle would be 24 hours awake, 24 hours asleep.  I'm pretty good at staying awake late and once I'm asleep, I've got no problems staying asleep.  Waking up and falling asleep are not as fun...obviously.

Sunday through Thursday I normally dread waking up the next morning so much that I fight to stay awake for as long as possible the night before.  I'll crawl into bed, burney eyed and yawning, alternating keeping one eye open at a time. Watching TV, browsing the internet, reading shampoo labels - anything so that I can enjoy my time after work for the longest period possible.  Irrationally I've convinced myself that the longer I stay awake, the longer it will be until I have to be back at my desk.  If I fall asleep at a decent hour, not only do I miss all the fun TV (this is my inner child talking, she doesn't know about DVR) but I will also be jolted awake by the sound of my alarm after what feels like 2 minutes of sleep.  I know this ends up coming back to bite me in the morning... when I've hit the snooze 7 times and am rationalizing 10 more minutes of sleep when I have to be at work in 15 (I've done it.)  Once I've stepped into the realm of REM, there's nothing I can do better.  10-12 hours of sleep is a comfortable Friday night/Saturday morning if I've got the time.  15 hours makes me feel like I've discovered the fountain of youth. 

Mike used to get annoyed when he'd wake up and be bored on Saturday morning and I'd still be sleeping, blissfully uninterrupted.  No alarms, no gardeners, no loud noises can wake me prematurely on a morning I don't have to be up before noon.  "How could I sleep away a precious day off?!" He would ask.

He finally came to understand that outside of social obligations, sleeping is my past-time of choice.  Where he might like to play video games or even be productive on a crisp sunny Saturday morning, I would like to continue my dream cycle well into the afternoon.   And if you had some of my dreams, I'm sure you would too. 

In  97% of  my dreams I am awesome.  Like I'm flying-ninja-pirate-sexy-Iron-Woman- and-Mother-Theresa-combined-into-one-mecha-warrior awesome.  2% of the time, I have work-related dreams that serve to annoy then amuse and 1% of the time I have nightmares.  Even the nightmares are kind of badass because I always wake up happy that it was a dream and then think, dude... I'm practically Stephen King... except I've never written any of my nightmares down.

I do feel guilty about sleeping in so much sometimes... mostly when Mike is hungry and bored and I wake up at noon to find the kitchen cleaned and laundry being done out of boredom.  Oops.  Eventually I'll make up for it with my nocturnal cleaning  though.  I have been known to suddenly have the urge to clean the ENTIRE house top to bottom at 11:45 in the evening... make the whole place spotless while Mike sleeps blissfully unaware... and then sleep in until 3pm the next day.  So.  It works out.  Mike can fall asleep in 10 seconds flat, but can't stay asleep more than 9 hours even if he tries.  I can take hours to really fall asleep, but when I get there, I make it count.

Ok, it's 11:50PM... I have to post this before I fail at NaBloPoMo on the second day of writing.  Leave it to me to procrastinate this early in the blog game and then write a weird blog.  

NaBloPoMo

New momma, Marci, over at "Marci Explains It All" wrote a blog today reminding everyone that it was NaBloPoMo... aka. National Blog Posting Month.  Essentially a challenge that casual bloggers take up to blog at least once per day every day in the month of November.  

I took on that challenge when I first started this blog, and I didn't do so well.  Not bad... but not good.

I'll be giving it a shot again thisNovember - and of course that means quantity over quality.  Probably a lot of short blogs.  And pictures of my dog.  

So.  Let's get this NaBloPoMo off to a good start... 

 

...With Apple in her Slave Leia costume.  She couldn't be at Mike's Star Wars themed 30th birthday party, but she got dressed anyway. Don't focus too long on the fact that her costume slave torso was too big for her tiny legs and that I ended up just draping it over her like a towel, lest we forget this dog is wearing a wig.  

A DOG WIG, PEOPLE. 

Nothing is better.

Except for Snooki Wookie.  Which was easily the best costume at Mike's Star Wars party... if not the funniest costume of 2010.  It kills me that I forgot to take a full costume shot of her full Wookie outfit dolled up in MTV's Snooki style.

Snookie Wookie / Snooki Wookie

It was a perfect Star Wars party costume - the ridiculous loads of self tanner, the Snooki inspired wig and bling glasses, the official Wookie fur and bandolier with functional pouch.... it all still cracks me up.  Snookie Wookie... hahahahahha!  This is why I always want to throw themed parties... you guys come up with some ridiculously hilarious outfits.

Anyhoo.  This and more to come for NaBloPoMo.

Wait...

Is this really already the last week of October?

What the heck happened?

I'm pretty sure that yesterday was August.

Which reminds me... whatever happened to September?

Why do months whiz by, but I never seem to get enough Fridays or Saturdays?

I've got a lot to recap.

Coming soon...

Things and such.

Blogs.

Etc.

Stuff.

Maybe photos.

Get excited... but not too excited... because, lets be honest, it will probably be a let down.

So instead.  Don't get excited.  Dread it.  DREAD MY FUTURE BLOGS... so that when I eventually write a legit blog, you'll have really low expectations and then I'll seem frakkin' brilliant.

Yes.  I set realistic goals.

Revenge of the Cuppy Cakes

Once upon a time I attempted to make cupcakes for Mike's birthday.

From scratch.

You may remember the annual Halloween parties we'd throw at the Nevada house and later at the Chandler house that would usually end up falling on or right before Mike's birthday.  We'd have a crazy kegger and at midnight, we'd sing Happy Birthday and enjoy a slice (or three) of cake with our fancy red cups filled with Guinness (...and Newcastle...and Great White...and Widers...and Stella)  Tasty.

The year we got married - and at the height of the cupcake craze - I decided that I would make cupcakes rather than buy the standard sheet cake, so as to impress all of our friends with my amazing cupcake making skills...something I somehow believed was instinctual among the female of the species. 

I was to be the prime example of the perfect domestic wife... one who not only had vast prowess in the kitchen, but who could also carry the end of the flip cup chug line (through a straw. It's a skill.)

I had never actually made cupcakes from scratch, but I had a new hand mixer and I had made cakes before, so I figured it was just a difference of containers.  I was going to make a set of chocolate cupcakes and a set of vegan pumpkin cupcakes.  I got to work on the chocolate cupcakes, since they would be the easiest.

I burned half of them. Mistake No. 2. 

Yes.  Number 2.

No biggie, I told myself.  And, no, it didn't matter that the chocolate cupcakes that were not burned resembled the Hunchback of Notre Dame more than an actual cupcake because I'd make up for it in the frosting. 

Which I also had never made before. 

But I'm good at following directions.

Cinchy. 

Mistake No. 3.

I whipped up the batter for the set of pumpkin cupcakes, poured them in their cups and set the time for baking.  Meanwhile, I followed the instructions for the frosting to go on the chocolate cupcakes and poured that goop into my brand new piping bag and began piping away.  

The piping bag exploded.

Everywhere.

Sad face.

Mistake No.4.

By this time, it was late afternoon.  The party was that night and I was sitting in a kitchen covered by exploded frosting. Now I fully understood that Mistake No. 1 was thinking that I could make cupcakes from scratch THE SAME DAY AS THE PARTY.

I wiped the frosting off my sad sweaty face and said, screw it, I'll just spread the frosting onto these cupcakes.  I made a second batch of frosting and got to work.

And then I learned - frosting melts on warm cupcakes.

Mistake No. 5.

I got so frustrated I ate a melty frosted cupcake.  

And then spit it out.

The cake part was fine.  

The frosting tasted like Cap'n Crunch vomited in my mouth. 

Maybe it was the salted margarine I used INSTEAD of butter since I used all my butter up in the cake batter and that first round of frosting that now coated my kitchen walls.  Maybe it was the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar I substituted for confectioner's sugar because I didn't have enough in my pantry.  It really doesn't matter because it was DISGUSTING.

The timer went off and I scrambled to get to the oven to pull out my pumpkin cupcakes in time. - I'd have to deal with the frosting dilemma later.  When I opened the oven I was devastated to see 24 fully baked cratercakes sitting where I had expected to see 24 cupcakes.

Apparently you shouldn't throw in that little extra pumpkin sitting at the bottom of the can into the batter to make the cake more moist.  I became angry at the recipe - WHO USES 4/5ths OF A CAN OF PUMPKIN!? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THE REMAINING 1/5th!?  I MEAN SERIOUSLY. I'm still mad. This may have been Mistake No. 6... but no. I get a bonus point for being LOGICAL. CLEARLY.

I took out those crater cake bastards and tasted.  

Not bad.  

For a muffin.  

Mike had wandered down to check on me. He walked into the kitchen and saw... the danger room.  I looked at him like an inmate in an insane asylum and said "TASTE!" and shoved a pumpkin flavored cake crater his direction.

THIS was Mistake No. 6.

I think he was scared.  I mean, here I am - sweaty faced, covered in frosting and flour, crap all over the kitchen walls and shoving a heavy cratered brown thing towards his face.  I'd be scared too.

He took a bite. And kind of nodded his head very politely without saying anything. "Hmm..."

In a dramatic breakdown inspired by Winona Ryder in Great Balls Of Fire, I tumbled to the floor and started crying and howling:  "I'M A TERRIBLE WIFE", "I CAN'T EVEN MAKE CUPCAKES!" , "I'LL NEVER BAKE AGAIN!" "I'VE RUINED YOUR BIRTHDAY", "NOW  NO ONE WILL HAVE CAKE", "WE NEED TO CANCEL THE PARTY!" so on and so forth. 

Mike hugged me... kind of panicked because he didn't know how to handle his brand new clinically insane wife, but also kind of laughing as he assured me things would be ok and that the cupcakes did not matter.  I'm glad he laughed... because even if it made me want to punch him in the stomach a little, it made me relax.  He really wasn't all that disappointed in my lack of cupcake making skills and he promised I didn't even have to clean the kitchen.

He knows how to solve problems.

I still felt like a total dill though.  Because I had spent the afternoon making a mess and then crying on the kitchen floor, it was almost time for the party and I had to get dressed.  Mike ended up having to go down to the grocery store and pick up his OWN birthday cake and ask them to write his OWN birthday message on it and because I was so traumatized by the sight of the cupcake disaster area I couldn't even go into the kitchen to clean up my own mess so he really did have to clean the kitchen... ON HIS BIRTHDAY!!!  I was useless. What the heck was wrong with me?

I have never baked a cupcake since.

As I'm working on Mike's 30th Birthday party now (he'll finally get his own non-Halloween themed party!) I've been tempted to give it another go since there are some really cute Star Wars themed cupcakes out there that would just be too expensive to have custom ordered and seem simple enough for me to make on my own.

As I begin this process, I reflect on the reason I haven't made cupcakes in the last 3 years and I wonder if I should even go there again. I've been convinced that it can be done. There are some things I've learned:

1. Don't bake the day-of.

2. Ask friends for help.

3. There is no shame in the Betty Crocker box mix and matching frosting.  I'll scarf down a funfetti cupcake any day of the week and naysayers are welcome to make my cakes for me.

Also... and this is the big one... I'll have a back up plan this time.

Offspring From The Future

Procreation is pretty trendy lately - everyone seems to be having babies. Mike and I are not planning on jumping on the baby bandwagon for a couple more years, but our friend Jessica (Swaaaaaan) recently posted an awesome link on my brother's Facebook page called 1,001 Rules for My Unborn Son which, over the course of the last few days has had me thinking of all the "rules" I've got in my head for my still unconceived children.

Many of my ideas actually don't really involve actual parenting - which should give you some insight into where I am mentally as far as the mothering-spectrum is concerned. For example, the one I decided today is this: When I eventually do have an infant, I think I would like to strap it to my body in some way while I go about my business. I'm talking full on papoose-field-worker-baby-attached-to-your-back-like action. It makes sense to me. You know where the baby is. It's not eating anything it's not supposed to be eating. It's got tons of crap to look at while you're doing your own thing. It's floating around like it did in your belly. I have no problem falling asleep in a hammock - and it's pretty much the same thing, so baby nap time seems like a no brainer. Plus, it seemed to work for the hardest working women all over the world. They've got their hands free to do all the stuff they needed to do and freedom to bend over to pick stuff up and junk. Brilliant.

Of course, I'm sure I'll read something as I get closer to having children that might change my opinion, but for now all I need is to look at awesome pictures and stay pretty convinced that this is totally what I will do.

Most people that have had the "will-you-have-kids" conversation with me already know that Mike and I are dead set in rearing some awesome nerd-children. If you review this venn-diagram that Marci shared the other day, I'd say we're aiming for the bluish-purple hemisphere with some yellow overlap for fun. Obviously the "Genius" is our kid, but I'm sure we'd be happy anywhere in the realm of "Brain", "Geek" or the classic "Nerd." We don't want to venture too far into the "Dweeb" category or the emotional dysfunction and social ineptitude hemispheres, but let's be honest, your stereotypical "cool" kid is nowhere on our radar.

Until our children can beat me away from their closets with their tiny fists, they will be dressed primarily in clothing of awesome. This includes daily animal costumes (they aren't just for Halloween friends) hats, sunglasses, and crazy shoes. There's also a good probability that on any given day my kids could walk out of the house looking like they stepped out of a vintage photograph. Why? Because I can. And because kids look cuter in knickers and bloomers. And because you don't remember much of what you wear before you're 4 anyway - you just remember what it looked like in pictures. I promise to be kind and avoid itchy fabrics... but yah. Get ready to be jealous of how awesome our future children will be. Someday.

I'm glad I'm writing this down so that in 7 or so years when I'm actually trying to get a 4 year old to wear a pea coat, knickers and a cap and he is screaming bloody murder and I'm crying because his 2 year old sister prefers to run around naked after ripping off her hippo costume that I tried to make her wear for the family trip to the zoo in February (because seriously, most appropriate time for animal costumes) you can all print this out to remind me how sure I was about how easily this would all work out.

Hot July Brings Cooling Showers, Apricots and Gillyflowers

Ok, so I fail.

Technically.

It's now July and I did not blog every weekday in the month of June. I didn't even blog most weekdays in the month of June. I may have failed, but I'm not a failure. I like to set goals for myself, but I'm not dead set on achieving them. I just like setting them. My attitude about "achieving goals" might be directly related to my attitude about procrastination - I'm just not always that motivated. In general I'm fine with that. I know there are people who are totally perplexed by my attitude - typically the goal oriented folk - who are happy to list off their grand accomplishments and how setting and achieving goals is part of their life mantra. That's great. It's not mine. I love my life, enjoying the flow with or without achieved goals. I'm much happier with this attitude than I was when I thought I needed a benchmark for success or happiness. I didn't.

Now, an anal retentive need for organization, structure and a certain level of control? Yah. Me. No going with the flow there (ref: our wedding, most vacations, and anything that requires even a small amount of planning) although I'm getting better. :o)

So my July goals... that I may or may not achieve in July...

1. Finish my shirts and costume for ComicCon (and post pictures when they're ready)

2. Lose 10 lbs (hahahahhahahahahhhahahah... I think this is a goal I set every month)

3. Make pizza dough again (as a direct affront to goal #2)

4. Blog at least once a week (I can totally do that, right?)

5. Up for grabs!!! (Woo Hoo!)

Looking forward to it :o)