Pancakes and Valentine’s Day

This past weekend I slept. I haven’t done that in weeks.  My life lately has consisted of work (overtime. yea.) and my little pug had emergency surgery for swallowing a toy that got stuck. So sleep hasn’t been on my to-do list in a while.

Sunday I decided to make pancakes. I haven’t cooked anything in weeks. I was quite a sight.  I was wearing bright orange plaid pajama pants, a black tshirt that said “I’m not dead yet.” with a really awesome owl apron from modcloth and bunny slippers while holding up a spatula with a very determined look on my face. PANCAKES.

They came out great. Then I moved on to cupcakes and a cake.  The decorating didn’t come out that grand, though.  Here’s the final product:

Perhaps next year on Valentine’s Day I’ll go all out.  Not so much this year.

Also, sorry for the short and sporadic posts.  I’m trying to get the world sorted and get myself back into the swing of things.   Stick around — I’ll be back soon.

 

Jalapeños and Some Life Lessons

I started off my New Years with a variety of snacks for my boyfriend and his cousin. We decided a quiet night would be better than the crazy that goes on in Austin, Texas. The menu consisted of: champagne (obviously), Blue Moon beer, left over Christmas cookies, and some of my creations – little smokies in BBQ sauce, cheesy garlic knots, pigs in a blanket, some bacon, and the now infamous cream cheese and bacon jalapeños.

The cheesy garlic knots were made from crescent rolls (just add loads of garlic and some mozzarella and bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until golden. The pigs in a blanket were the same concept – wrap little smokies in crescent rolls and add cheese if you like. I just put the little smokies in a tiny sauce pan and covered with BBQ sauce and about one tablespoon of grape jelly (I don’t know why but my grandma told me to and one should always listen to grandmothers). But these are all pretty easy and boring. The jalapeños were the fun event.

Anyone ever heard of “jalapeño hand”? Well. I’ll start with saying these tasted great. I cut the jalapeños in half and deseeded. Then I put cream cheese in them and then wrapped in bacon. Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes on 375 degrees. Super easy.

Until your hand begins to feel like it’s ablaze.

NOTE: USE GLOVES. I’m serious. I’ve cut jalapeños without gloves with no problem before. There must have been one really mean one in this batch because I didn’t use gloves and my hand was on fire for about 12 solid hours.

I felt really dumb being the 27 year old in tears in Walgreen’s asking the pharmacist to heal me. I googled this issue first. I tried everything. Milk. Water. Ice water. Lemon juice. Nothing really helped very much or for more than a few minutes. The pharmacist told me to call the poison control hotline. He said he calls them all the time (I didn’t ask why).

I then called the hotline and the conversation went something like this:
Me: Hi, I was dumb and cut jalapeños without gloves and now I think my hand is on fire. Please help me. Please.
Nice nurse lady: Not a problem. You should try milk of magnesia or some kind of oil like mineral oil or vegetable oil.
Me: I’ll go try those. Thanks.
Nice nurse lady: no problem. Call us back if that doesn’t work. Can I get your name, age, and zip code?
Me: I’m 27. Apparently not a very bright one. Sorry to bother y’all with something like this.
Nice nurse lady: Seriously it’s not a problem. You’re actually my third jalapeño call of the night.

So there you have it. At least I’m not alone. I did call back later and a different nurse lady answered. She said in the future, wash your hands in super hot water with dawn right after you cut the peppers. Or wear gloves. And apparently time is the only main cure by the goal is to get the oils off your hands.

So I rang in the new year siting on my couch with my hand in a bowl of milk until 6am when my hand no longer felt on fire.

Moral of the story: don’t eat jalapeños. Or use protection.

 

New Beginnings

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been around. In the past year I’ve started some new crafts, got an etsy store, and recently received a new KitchenAid mixer. SO! My goal for 2012 is to bake like mad and have some crafts to share. Have a happy and safe new year!

 

Amazing Weekend

I had a pretty amazing Weekend.  It actually started on Thursday.   Here’s how my weekend went, starting with Thursday.

I woke up early to do some errands with the boyfriend, Kaleb.  After the errands, we decided to go eat breakfast.  While walking up to get kolaches, I received a phone call asking if I could come in for an interview on Wednesday.  It’s for a job that I’m super (SUPER) excited about! I hope it goes well.

Then I took a 3 hour nap (mainly because we started running errands at 7am and I went to bed around 2am.), and it was awesome.

Then I had lunch at Thundercloud Subs.

THEN we went geocaching. It’s our new hobby.  We’ve been finding some cool things, and it’s been nice to get out in the nice weather and act like ninjas in parks.  While we were at one park, we saw the most beautiful cat. Kaleb and I both wanted it, which is very unusual because Kaleb is not really an animal person.  We both saw this gorgeous cat, and Kaleb said very convincingly, “If you catch it, I will help you bring it home and will totally condone you owning a cat.”

So naturally, I immediately jumped out of the car after said kitty. It looked like a long haired albino bengal. Maybe not quite long hair, but longer than a regular bengal. However, it was clearly uninterested in my agenda, because after five minutes of trying to convince it how awesome it would be to come home with me, it  just looked at me with the most apathetic stare.

If it could talk, I’m pretty sure it’s response to my pleadings would have been:  “Yeah? Sardines and canned cat food you say? I was chasing a mouse until you showed up. I’d rather not, really.”

And then it just kind of walked off. So Kaleb gave his beast master powers a try.  He said it said the same to him.  (We’re special.)

Anywho, we didn’t leave with an awesome cat, though we did have a lot of fun geocaching.  After a few geocaching places, we were running out of gps battery, so we ventured to the used video store where our friends work.  Now, just to give you a little background about my beloved boyfriend… he writes horror films.  They’re amazing, but nobody has bought one yet, unfortunately.  [Anyone buying screenplays out there, drop me a line.  I have something for you.] Anyway, he also collects movies.  So we end up leaving the video store with the following amazing and spectacular items:

The Dark Crystal – Collector’s Edition

Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre: Tales from the Brothers Grimm

Hook

The Brothers Quay Collection

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

Jimmy Hendrix CD: Blues

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

Supergirl (that was Kaleb’s not mine…)

Demons

976-EVIL

Blood Feast

It had been a while since we went movie shopping, and we probably won’t go again for quite some time. Because we’re now poor again.  We normally make a Half Price Day every other Saturday or so and go to all the Half Price Books in town.  We’re both trying to save money, so that may not happen for a while.

But I digress.  After we left the video store we saw a tiny little carnival with a big ferris wheel about a mile away from Kaleb’s house.  So instead of going to dinner, we went to the tiny carnival, ate a corn dog, avoided carnies, and rode the ferris wheel.  And then we went to Amy’s Ice Cream for dessert.

So that was just Thursday!  Friday was a little less exciting.  Kaleb went to a concert, I babysat and made some money (which is always good).  But Saturday was the best part.  The Alamo Drafthouse has a weekly show on the occasional Saturday morning called Kids Club.  Normally kids aren’t allowed at the Alamo, but they show free (yep, totally free) movies on Saturday mornings around 11am for kids.  Kaleb and I are still kids at heart, so we went on Saturday.  The movie: The Dark Crystal.

[That is a sculpture that one of the employees made.  She is an amazing artist and has also made the hamburger bed, if you've ever come across that on the interwebs.] I grew up watching the Dark Crystal, but I never had the opportunity to see it on film/the big screen until Saturday.  It was amazing.  I’m so glad we went.  I love Jim Henson movies, and this is one of my favorites.  The thing about the Dark Crystal is that the entire world is completely new and fantastical, void of all things human.  The creatures and plants and characters are great.  (Honestly, I think Avatar got some of it’s ideas from the Dark Crystal.) It’s quite scary for a kid’s film, I will admit, but it’s definitely a treasure.  Thank you, Alamo Drafthouse. 

The rest of the day we went geocaching some more and played on some playgrounds and swings.

Then we ate dinner at Woodland on South Congress.  They have amazing mac-n-cheese and a really good BLT.  The BLT has avacado and some kind of herb spread that is to die for. The weather was beautiful and we finished up the evening by watching The Thing.  I had never seen it before, and it was really good.  The effects were great.  It made me cold just watching it, and it isn’t one of my favorite films, but I can appreciate it for being a very good one. I spent most of Sunday working on refinishing a chair (I will post all about that at a later date) and saw The Bride of Frankenstein tonight at the Alamo. I also had never seen The Bride of Frankenstein, and I was surprised at how good this movie was.  It had some very  moving scenes, and the laboratory was surprisingly still very impressive.  This film was made over 70 years ago, and I honestly was still in awe at how great the lab looked.  It’s difficult to watch old scifi and horror films because the tech aspect is usually very dated and looks really cheesy.  This was not the case at all in this film.  I really liked the movie, and I’m glad we got to see it.  I’ve spent the rest of this evening curled up on the couch with my pug with the window open because it’s still nice outside.

I wish all weekends were like this. 

 

Alice in Wonderland

I am a very big fan of Lewis Carroll.  I even have a section in my DVD shelves dedicated to Alice in Wonderland movies (which so far includes Alice directed by Jan Svankmajer, another one from 1972 with Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore, along with a few other weird ones).  I have even made it a hobby of finding old hardcover copies of Alice in Wonderland.  Okay, let me backtrack a bit before I look like a complete loon.  It’s not quite an obsession, but it’s a fun side hobby.  I only buy things maybe a few times a year unless I just stumble upon it.  It’s also a fun element in decorating.

I’ll also be sure to take a few pics of my paintings that I made a few years ago along with my book and DVD collection.  But I’m saying all this because a few weeks ago (actually when it immediately came out at midnight) I saw the new Alice in Wonderland that was directed by Tim Burton.

And I loved it.

I have heard a lot of critiques, and I think a good chunk of those people are just being snobs.   The only thing I disliked about the movie was the music selection during the Mad Hatter’s dance.  Otherwise, it might be the best Danny Elfman score in quite some time.  Also, it might be Tim Burton’s best film in quite some time.

I thought the Cheshire Cat was perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  I thought actress for Alice was a good choice – she did a great job.  I do think the makeup for her and the younger version of her was not very good, actually.  (Okay so two things were wrong with the movie.) I’ve heard a lot of people angry that the storyline took a very stereotypical/archetypal path, which is completely opposite to what Lewis was doing in Alice in Wonderland.   They say that Carroll purposefully wrote Alice as an observer only and not in any way more involved.  My response: I disagree, but even if you’re right… so what.  It’s a fun, visually appealing, and interesting movie.  It’s a different take and tangent to Alice in Wonderland.  In fact, they probably should’ve named it something else.  It actually seems like it’s almost a sequel to the Disney’s 1951 Alice in Wonderland.   I agree that there could’ve been some other device that the writer could’ve used to create an interesting and different Alice movie.  But he didn’t.  And this one works.  So instead of crying about a movie that doesn’t exist, I’m going to look at the one that does.  And this movie was a lot of fun, had a great plot, graphics were amazing, and I liked all the actors/actresses (including Johnny Depp, which I did not think was over the top). My favorite characters: the White Queen (Ann Hathaway) and the March Hare. I also didn’t think it was too Burton-y, which was surprising.

So there’s my opinion/almost rant about Alice in Wonderland.  Any thoughts?

 

A Rainy Day

I have yet to get started on the fabric wall project or much of anything artsy since I moved a few weeks ago.  I’ve been looking for jobs and unpacking and spending much needed time with friends instead. (If anyone in the Austin area is hiring, please let me know – I’m awesome, I promise.) But anyway, pretty soon I should have a few projects in the making.  I did manage to finally get my art nook in working condition and cleaned up yesterday.

It’s a rainy and cold day in Austin, which is upsetting considering how beautiful the weather has been.  This week has been SXSW, and the whole city is going a bit crazy.    The cool thing about SXSW is that there are other unofficial free events going on that are really cool and/or a bit absurd.  For instance, my boyfriend’s cousin runs this social club called the Austin Bacon Eaters (check them out on facebook).  There was an event called the Bacon Takedown last week.  It was basically a bacon cookoff, and the ABE entered.  Our guys made a bacon avacado salad that was to die for.  They won 3rd place in crowd’s choice and 4th place in the two judges’ choice.  A few pics:

There were all kinds of great entries as well.  Oddly there were a lot of desserts.  I know what you’re thinking… “Bacon dessert? What kind of crazies are y’all?” Well, however crazy we all were, it was absolutely amazing.

Aside from the Bacon Takedown, we also went to a concert that was at a used old school video game store called Game Over.  My friends band played, and they only play their cover versions of video game music (everything from Little Nemo to Megaman 3 and Mario. Of course.).  Here’s a video clip of their performance: Descendants of Erdrick.  I took the video with my new blackberry, so the quality isn’t the best. You still get the idea though.

We also attempted a few free shows downtown at Emos… that ended in total failure due to it being a metal show and people being jerks.  Regardless, it’s been fun.

Oh, and on St. Patrick’s Day, I made these:

Hopefully, I’ll get this whole job thing straightened out soon, and I’ll be more in the blogging and artsy kind of mood.  It’s been really frustrating with the job search because I’m qualified to do many things, and I’m not a moron.  However, the economy isn’t that great.  So we’ll see.

 

Packing Boxes, Shutter Island, and Colored Walls

Once I made the decision to move back to Austin, I hit the ground running.  I’m moving this weekend (only two weeks after I signed all the papers to withdraw from the university).  Everything has really fallen into place – I’ve gotten out of every contract with no fees, including my lease.  It’s really surprising.

However, with moving comes packing – one of my least favorite things to do aside from breaking a limb.   I always find myself staring at a fork thinking, “Will I need you in three hours?  What about this ziploc sitting next to you?” Eventually everything will get packed.

I took a break last Thursday, however, and K and I went to see Shutter Island.  I absolutely loved it! I won’t discuss it in depth yet, because it’s impossible to do without any spoilers.  Once the movie has been out for a few more weeks, then I’ll give my two cents about it.  The few things I can say are that I thought the acting was absolutely amazing, it kept my attention the entire time (not something always easily done), and it’s still making me think about it a week later.  So go forth and watch Shutter Island and come back and tell me what you thought!

Also, since I move in three days, I’ve decided my first project of the new apartment will be the fabric wall.  (Here are two awesome blogs that talk about it: Silver Linings: Purple and How About Orange: Starched fabric decal experiment) My mom and I are going to Ikea, so I should be able to find some interesting and cheap fabric to use.  I’m probably going to do one accent wall somewhere.

The one good thing about moving is that I get a clean canvas for decorating.  I’ll be sure to take before and after photos.  Decorating is always an ongoing process for me, but I’m excited to see how this apartment turns out.  Also, a nice perk is that I actually have windows in my kitchen for once, so I should be able to have a nice and sunny breakfast every morning.

I’m so excited I’ll be back in Austin!

 

The beginning… again.

I thought it would be impossible to do what I wanted. I was in law school, spending $20,000 every three months, and hating every single minute of it. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t like the classes. I didn’t like the city. I didn’t enjoy being there. I didn’t have anything to get involved in.  I liked absolutely nothing about it. I felt like I would have to be someone I wasn’t in order to make it work.

I wasn’t willing to sacrifice that. Also, I just didn’t have the energy. I really didn’t want to spend my entire life working 70 hours a week to pay back loans for a career I was not too thrilled about.

So I left. Right in the middle of everything.

I honestly thought it would be terrible. I was going to break a lease, I would have no money, no job, tons of debt, and nothing but a pug to keep me company. But I was willing to do that before I spent one more day inside that school.

Oddly, the easiest thing about law school was leaving. My complex let me out of my lease with no fees. I have a job interview on Monday. My friends are all excited to have me back in Austin. My family even understood and agreed it would be best. The pug still loves me.

So now I’m back in Austin – the place where I can do things I enjoy. I’ve never been so relieved. I really feel at home here. I’ve been going down the gonna-be-an-attorney road since high school. Now I get to plow through some uncharted territory and figure out what I really want out of life.

This blog is going to be my diary of how I get through this whole new change and a collection of things I like – mostly involving arts and crafts, music, movies, local events, baking, and dog treats.