Fantastic Flying Books

Just a quick post. This is just beautiful and makes me want to start hoarding all the books. I'm absolutely in love.

Bangles galore

I'm so excited about this project. I know a lot of people have been making friendship bracelets since they were little, but it was just nothing I had ever tried before. For a while when I was in middle school, my best friend at the time and I made knotted versions with embroidery thread, but it was nowhere near as "complicated" as this. My mom received all together too many of those kind, as they took about five seconds to finish. When I first started spotting the chevron bracelets on pinterest, I was instantly hooked. I adore the look of tons of bracelets all jumbled together- and I'm not a bracelet kind of girl! However, after suffering through the first set of instructions, I was left with a gnarled mess of embroidery floss. Let's just say, I wasn't pleased.

After a bit of googling, I finally found Zakka Life's tutorial and it became instantly clear where I was messing up. Somehow, I had gotten it into my head that you were supposed to tie each strand together, rather than carrying the outside strand to the inside. When I switched to yarn, it was immediately obvious where I was going wrong. Plus, it went a lot faster.



I absolutely love my bracelet. I made it out of Sugar & Cream/Peaches and Creme yarn, so it's going to stretch out over time (it's already a bit loose). I think when it gets to the point where it's difficult to wear, I'll probably throw it on as an anklet. I switched the knot at the end because unfortunately, I didn't cut enough yarn. Instead of braiding two braids, I braided one, and then triple knotted it so that it's held loosely in the loop (wow, that's a fun one to say). That way, it stays secure while I'm wearing it, but if need be, I can unhook it easily.

I seriously love this. I can tell that soon enough, I'm going to arms absolutely covered in bracelets. I'm resisting the urge right now to run out buy ALL THE YARN. Okay, that may be my normal inclination, but I don't normally rush out for yarn best suited for dishcloths!

I need to lay down for about a century

No Start Something Sunday post today because after working the closing shift then the opening shift, driving for three hours, baking cupcakes for seven hours (SEVEN HOURS), driving for another hour and celebrating Monkey's birthday, I'm pooped. I did start something, but taking and editing a photo is just not going to happen.



The cupcakes were delicious, FYI. All one hundred and four of them.

Belated Birthday

I am a bad roommate. A very, very bad roommate. I missed by roommate's birthday by a week. Oops. After begging for forgiveness and blaming Monkey, I asked her what kind of cupcakes she wanted. Being the wonderfully agreeable person she was, she told me she didn't care. After the brilliant success of my last caramel frosting, and the impending doom of several chocolate cupcakes for Monkey's birthday, I decided to make some caramel cupcakes. Unfortunately, I didn't have any satisfactory recipes bookmarked already, so after a quick google search, I came up with a recipe for brown sugar cupcakes with salted caramel filling and frosting.



Hellloooo delicious.

Unlike the last recipe, this one didn't go the lazy way out and use caramel straight from the squeezey bottle. This one used real caramel. And made a horrible mess in my pot, but it was definitely worth it. The frosting was amazing. The filling was amazing. I had a great deal of fun using the leftover caramel filling in my coffee.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my skinny tips, so I had to scoop out the top and fill it that way... which meant I ate the tops of approximately 20 cupcakes. Yummm.



I think the most exciting part about these cupcakes is that I got to use some of my thousand cupcake liners that I went overboard with. A few weeks ago, somebody let me loose in Michael's and I went a bit overboard. I now have a giant bag of cupcake liners- a good thing too, since I devoted an entire day of the week to them! Though, I think when I run out of cupcake mojo, I may change the title to "Sweet Sunday" or something similar.



Anyways, this recipe was delicious. A lot of work for sure, but the result was worth it. I think I prefer the lazy caramel frosting to this one, even though this was extremely delicious. The cake was heavenly- just interesting enough to not be boring, and not overwhelming with the frosting and filling. Yummy all around!

Alberta

This is the second in my series of monsters. She's the first one I stuffed and seamed however, as Glasglow unfortunately had to have a second dyeing experience.



This is Alberta. She's made from the Lurleen pattern by Rebecca Danger, and is so darn cuddly. She got to chill in a jaccuzzi with two packets of grape kool aid, which turned her this really interesting color. I think I like it best by far out of the three overdyeing attempts.



In terms of her personality, Lurleen is quite cuddly. She'll sit and hug you for hours, it doesn't matter who you are! She's not shy at all either, even if she's just met you, she'll lean over and give you a squeeze. Alberta loves people, and is always willing to make new friends. Her favorite thing to do is hang out with all of her friends on cold wintery days, sipping hot chocolate and watching the snow fall.

A Study in Scarlet

A Study in Scarlet was the first Sherlock Holmes novel that I ever remember reading. It certainly wasn't my first experience with Holmes- that might have been an episode of Wishbone featuring the Hounds of Baskervilles- but at any rate, it was my first literary foray into that universe. I've mentioned before that I've always loved mysteries, and when I saw the first Sherlock Holmes novel, I was determined to read the original stories. I put a somewhat comprehensive book on my wishlist on Paperback Swap, and waited with glee for the book to arrive.

Unfortunately, by the time it actually did arrive, I had lost steam for the topic, and the book was pushed to the back of my to-read shelf. Nevertheless, last summer, I packed away the rather large book to take with me while basically isolated in my apartment during summer classes. My thought process was that it was large, and therefor should occupy quite a bit of my time. I managed to breeze through the first story in the book- this one- during nightly bubble baths. After that, I was sucked into the world of Doctor Who and spent essentially all of my free time watching that instead.

Flash forward six months later, and I kept hearing about the BBC program Sherlock. I was immediately drawn into the world of Holmes again. Unfortunately, I didn't have my anthology with me, so I resigned myself to waiting until Spring Break to start reading.

Yesterday, Monkey kicked me off my own computer, and out of my own bedroom so he could finish homework. After exhausting all of the TV possibilities, I finally stole his iPad and downloaded this book for free. It was every bit as gripping as the first time I read it. The ending was a complete surprise for me, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good, as it wasn't predictable or stupid, but bad in the fact that it came extremely out of the left field, and when the explanatory narrative started, I wondered if there was some sort of error in the book- I had assumed it was an entirely different story. Nevertheless, I really loved the introduction to Holmes' character. I love the bits and hints of his vices that are only suggested in this book, and I can't wait to continue on Holmes and Watson's exploits.

(4/5 stars)

Announcing Blog Week!

This is just a quick and dirty post today, as I've got tons to do.



I really enjoyed participating in Blog Week last year, even though I didn't finish. I can't wait to see what the prompts are for this year! Even more than that, I can't wait to read all of the responses. I think that may be my new form of procrastination- going through the answers from last year... Uh oh! So much for getting things done!

Sad, Sad Trombone

As I mentioned in the last post of this theme, a big mood booster for me has been writing lists of things that make me happy. Along the same line, Gala Darling wrote a list of things to do when you're unhappy, aka the Sad Trombone List. I don't remember when exactly I stumbled across this list, or who exactly turned me onto it (I believe it may have been San Smith), but I'm infinitely glad they did.

Lately, I've been having a tough time focusing on the good things in my life. A lot of it is because I'm completely burned out of school- I want to be done and I want to be done now. The thought of going through another year is absolutely unbearable at this point- especially because I need to fill out applications to even go through that last year. Even trying to enjoy my favorite things has become really difficult. All I've been doing lately has been stressing myself out and being an emotional wreck (poor Monkey, he's had absolutely no fun with that). After a tearful night of declaring that "I give up, I'm going to be a cashier at Kroger for the rest of my life", I realized that I (and Monkey) had had enough and that I need to finally start tackling this anxiety I've been feeling. I finally remembered this list, and even just reading it made me feel better.

If that doesn't cheer you up, I'm sure Monkey pretending to be Wolverine with DPNS will!

Healthy Eating

I had plans- grand plans- for this blog post. Instead, I wound up not having enough time to get anything done, so the photos are pretty horrendous.

I really need to buy grown up dishes.

The first time I tried home-made macaroni and cheese, it was straight from Pioneer Woman's cookbook.

I nearly retched after one bite.

The mustard was disgustingly overpowering, and it was generally an incredibly unapetizing experience. It scared me off macaroni and cheese for quite some time, until I stumbled across this thoughtful little recipe from, oh, year 1870.

With a past like that, how could it be bad?



It wasn't. It was a-maz-ing. Seriously. I nearly gobbled the entire batch up. It had just the perfect amount of mustard powder, and while it was quite saucy, it was absolutely delicious. I've since adapted the recipe to use almost double the cheese (I have a bit of a problem with self restraint), and one and a half time the amount of noodles. It makes delicious leftovers, and I have to fight Monkey over who gets to eat the rest. Since I usually buy my pasta by the bulk, I usually cook it with penne, but tonight I stumbled across a box of good old fashion elbows buried in my cupboard.

Yum, yum! This is totally my new go-to meal when I'm just too tired to cook real food. Seriously. Two bowls of this was my dinner (along with a cupcake and a metric ton of jellybeans). I'm nothing if not the model of healthy living.

Gimpy

This is kind of a cop out, as I started this a while ago and have been frantically working on it since then. One of my co-workers is going in for surgery soon, and I thought I'd make her a cuddly monster to make her feel better while she's recuperating. This is Hugo, otherwise known as Gimpy (because I am a horrible person). He'll have a duplicate stitched red cross on his chest, and a sling for his arm when this is all said in done.

You know, if I can ever manage to finish him. I'm hoping that the practice with duplicate stitches will help me when it ocmes time to make my special hexipuffs. Practice makes perfect you know!