The year of 9.

I think I figured out that in numerology, 2011 will be a 9 year for me. Which means the end of a lot of things, and the promises of new things. (from what I gather).

Let's hope it will be the end of my uber expensive smoking habit and a newly OWNED house. Meaning not rented...meaning I can paint rooms or have pink plastic flamingos in my yard if I wanted. Maybe a whole zoo of them. So other neighbors secretly despise me?

I really love smoking. I know, I KNOW! It's bad for you, it stinks, it's expensive, it effects others around you. Eating a big Mac isn't healthy for you either, but according to McDonalds more milk and apples are ate there than anywhere else...or did I misunderstand that commercial? Either way, sad.

I will really miss the nicotine. Actually I think I will miss the "breaks" I associate with smoking. It's my excuse for quiet time. To get away from everyone else. To have an intimate conversation with my husband.

I know that doesn't mean I can't do those things anymore, but if I want to quit I can't do them for a while.

Whew. Either way. Good luck to you if you are able to maintain your resolutions...and if you don't, well don't feel too bad...I'm pretty sure 99% of the population doesn't either.

Oh, and who the heck is Patience anyways!?

Do you want to know that Patience does not make a very good impression on me!?! Patience is like a ghost child playing hide n' seek in the backyard of my brain! Patience laughs at me and taunts me and is truly a very unruly thing...


Is it so wrong to think that maybe it is my own time to shine. My life's time. Have I not waited with Patience for the many wonders of those things that come to those that wait?


My inner child has been with Patience...waiting, contenting to window shop her dreams in vivid imagery. Directing her hopes like the most Oscar Winning director can direct. All the nooks and crannies cleaned, polished, organized, done and redone to perfection.


and Patience laughs and says, "Silly girl! but what do you want that you don't have already?"


And I will match that laugh with cyanide and say, "Well Patience, since I'm feeling like a five year old...I would like a house! As if that wasn't obvious!"


...and then I go back to window shopping.

Just when you thought Mars was safe.

I'm pissy and frustrated. I want to scream at the top of my voice in 

someone's face.

Thought I would just dump that happy can of cranky on here so I don't take it 

out on someone that doesn't deserve it. 

That is all.

Oh and I knitted that scarf. That one that was in my first post of this blog, ever.

It looks great. I gave it to a friend that was eye-ballin' it a lot.

Now back to your regularly scheduled ass-bitch.

THE List | #1

Oh, do you remember when I decided to have a list of things I wanted to do before I died? Well, I sorta didn't.

BUT!! I'm back, AND I know something I would like to add to the list!

 I want to learn how to play a STEEL DRUM! 

Like really KNOW how to play one.

Inspiration for this goal actually came from my ten year old! He was accepted into the marimba band at school. I happen to know they have two steel drums and make some of the coolest music this side of the universe....

                                                               I might be a bit biased though. ^.^

Bake Sale: September 2010

I AM A CUB SCOUT!

(well the parent of a couple anyway.)

Did you know that I bake sale my brains out almost monthly?

Did you know I mostly cheat at this by buying store bought cookies and arranging them in a cookie tin just so? Did you know? So?

So.......I have resolved to actually BAKE the goods I bring! I'm going to be "THE MOM". Oh yeah! (Said like the Kool-aid guy. So rad.)

My first bake sale of the 2010 was in September. I opted to make something of the apple persuasion since it's fall.

...and I cheated.

In my defense it was SEMI-HOMEMADE. For the September bake sale I used a box apple struesal muffin mix...but I made from scratch the maple icing for the tops.

The verdict stands: NOT A HIT! The icing was PHENOMENAL! BUT the boxed muffin mix was whole wheat...and dry! I will not ever, never, (blogspot as my witness), EVER make the apple struesal muffins for bake sale again....

The icing though, the icing was a keeper.

Recipe courtesy of Food Network and Paula Deen.

Maple Icing:

2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar

3 to 4 tablespoons milk

1/4 teaspoon maple extract

In a small bowl, combine confectioners' sugar and 3 tablespoons milk; stir well. Add additional milk to reach desired consistency. Stir in maple extract.

Yield: 1 cup icing 

The List

Have you seen the movie The Bucket List? I haven't. I've been told it has something to do with lists and dying and good times? Am I wrong? I should watch the movie sometime I suppose.

Anyways, from what I gather, a bucket list, is a list of things you would like to try before you die..try or do or see or feel or live..before you "kick the bucket". 

I think that's a pretty nifty cool idea, don't you? I don't like the term "Bucket List" though, so I'm just going with THE List....(kitty is attacking my bum through the office chair, she is telling me it's bedtime!) 

Anywho, I will start having an ongoing "list" of things I would love to do!

What would you put on your list, may I ask?

Meet my little friend....

COCO BUTTERS!

Isn't she a doll face?

This thing about kittens....

The thing about kittens...or cats for that matter, is they pick you, you don't pick them.

The thing about me is...I love cats.

The thing is, about three weeks ago (August 6th to be exact), this kitten chose me to be her (most likely a her) 

soul mate.

Imagine this:

I'm working. Printing and marketing and stuffing envelopes. I'm typing and filing and MEOW!

Let me re-iterate...meow meow meow meowmeowmeow.

KITTY? kitty? Is that a kitten?

(this is the part where I tear through the office door and march up and down the length of the building looking, searching, am I crazy or what?)

Would you believe...Just would you? There was an itty bitty, teeny weeny, ball of fluff crying under my print shop?!

The thing about kittens, especially when they're abandoned, is they are most certainly too afraid to pick you.

The thing about me is... I am not patient...but the thing about this...

Well the thing about this is... I was patient. 

....and the best thing about it. 

Is she loves me...

and now I need lots of kitty litter.

The Tale of Two Tomato Plants | Part Two

Do they not embrace? Did I not declare this a story of LOVE ?

Did I not say that my father-in-law was the champion of all things earth bound?

...and you wanna know somethin' else? ....do you?

Mama's got TOMATOES!

The Tale of Two Tomato Plants | Part One

This is a story. A story of adventure, woe and love. This is a story about tomatoes. 

Okay, alright. It's a short...very short, brief, few sentences about my tomato plants. It started about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I had visited a friend. She quickly quipped upon my arrival, "You NEED tomato plants!"

(No, she really didn't say it quite like that, but that is how my brain translated it.)

I made excuses. Would you like to hear them? It went something like this.

Why are you getting rid of them? I don't have pots. I don't have soil. I don't have fertilizer or Miracle-Gro. I don't have stakes. Where can I put them? I've never grown tomatoes. I heard they are hard to grow....

I HAVE A BLACK THUMB.

Surely if you give me these dearies you are sending them to vegetable death row. Do you not love them?

She replied, "They are easy to grow. Here's some pots and do you want to put these in the back of your car?"

Tough love. 

They sat on my front porch for a while...not watered, not planted. I put them in pots...and well the evidence of my black thumb is apparent.

My husband had given up on the wilted beauties.

The champion of all things earth bound (my father-in-law) came to their rescue. I bought the potting soil, but he supplied me with the knowledge (and a few supplies) to bring these darlings back from the dead. (zombie tomato anyone?)

Here is the recipe for Eternal Vegetable Life:

 

Fill a pot with potting soil.

Dig the hole where your tomato will go.

1/2 cup of fertilizer in the hole. Mix it in the with the soil.

Fill the hole with Miracle Gro. Quite a lot if your plant is on the brink of death.

Put plant in the hole. Fill hole with dirt. Find a stick, or stake, or whatever and tether your tomato plant to it!

If the leaves are wilting and dry, you aren't watering it enough. 

If the leaves are turning yellow, you are watering it too much.

You can spray pesticide until blossoms form. Otherwise leave it alone.

Make sure it gets a TON of sunshine.

I have done these things and already the plants have improved. Will they bear fruit? Will they survive?

Stay tuned!

The Dirty 30 Rock.

Did you like my play on words? Pretty witty huh?

See this is what happens when you're 30. 

I will be 30 in 4 days. 30 has been a bit quirky on me. 

At first I felt that it's presence was...non existent. I didn't feel any change. I didn't feel old and feeble. I didn't feel like a kid again. I felt like any other Tuesday might feel at 29 or even 25. (Never 18 though, those Tuesdays are long gone.)

After this feeling of nothingness I felt odd. I mean I'm supposed to be hitting a monumental birthday right?

Then I found the grey hair!! What the DEVIL is this! YAAAANNNNK! 

--------------------

 Upon further inspection it wasn't gray, it was white. I'm gonna chalk it up to those bazillion bottles of dye back on the Tuesdays of 18 long gone.

...and then I remembered! BOTH my mother and mother-in-law told me that the 30's were some of the very best years! The-VERY-BEST- years! Free, is what they said. Independent, confident, in control!

(I need these things! I need these things NOW! please? yes?)

The 30's aren't promises of diminished years ahead. They are promises of womanhood, not like w-o-m-a-n, but like "I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR!"

Instead of having a mid-life crisis or third life crisis...(people live long lives now, you know) I am having a tri-life epiphany! 

I must try! I must try everything! I must conquer my fears, try new things, let go of the small details and look at the bigger picture!

It's like a bigger new year's than the biggest new year's of your life! If you're 30, RELISH it!

Embrace it, dance with it. Sing really loud in the car.

When you 've reached 50 you're going to wish you were this young again!

Crafty little thing called DesignSponge!

Hello again!
I recently subscribed to Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Magazine...If you have ever wanted fancy dinner in real dinner time with real dinner ingredients I HIGHLY recommend it!

Turns out when you order Everyday Food you get Body + Soul as a bonus magazine.

Honestly, I'm not really into eating tofu and granola...and exercising (I would like to enjoy my life thank you very much)...but, BUT I perused it...(looked at the pretty pictures and WISHED I loved exercising and eating granola)..but, BUT I found an article on a seriously crafty raised-by-hippies chick. Her name is Amy Merrick and she totally decorates her apartment in recycled art she creates as well as antiques!

Anyway in her fancy little article was one of her websites, naturally I looked it up and LOVED some of the ideas. They seem reasonably cheap, and fairly easy to handle!

The website is DesignSpongeOnline.

Let's craft it up.

Whatcha gonna do with those plastic bags.

I don't know about you but I stuff all my plastic bags into.....a BIGGER plastic bag! The big plastic bag of plastic hangs by a thumb tack by my dryer above my plastic bag lined cardboard box of dirty kitchen rags. 

One day if I ever get handy with that sewing machine my mom-in-law gave me, I might be able to beautify that thumb tack. 

But what to do with used kitchen rags when you don't have enough to quite make a small load?

Plastic Bag Organizer

Scarfed.

Oh beautiful easy to knit scarf! How I love thee!

Could I ever knit you before another not-so-harsh winter?

Knitted Scarf Instructions