The panther is pencil and charcoal, and the parrot is a watercolor. He is actually complete, but the paper was too big for the scanner, so his beak is a little cut off.

We had a nice holiday weekend. We did a little BBQ in the park with my mom and sister and her family. We had burgers and dogs and hung around and chatted. Noah and Uncle Mike had a blast playing with a few boxes of those popper thingies. We did a few sparklers, but it was kind of lame in the middle of the day. Here’s Noah playing in his fancy sprinkler from Grandma.

As for our bird feeder, Mike put the squirrel dome on, and it totally works! Monkey Tail and his chipmunk legions can’t scale the pole anymore, so the birds are free to eat the seed! It’s kind of awesome and we feel very victorious.

I have been having some trouble with some of my plants. The Celosia in the front window box are damn near dead. I don’t think they were getting enough sun there, so I took them out and put them in a pot on the front patio. I planted some purple and white Dahlias in their place which seem to be doing well. My Astilbe in the way back is like, almost totally dead, maybe not even salvageable. I didn’t check on them for like a week and clearly, that was all it took. Anyway, I am trying really hard to nurse them back to health. If that’s even possible. Ugggh, I suck at gardening!!! It’s just really not something I enjoy. I don’t mind the small stuff, like my window boxes, but the big planter out back is just a pain in the butt.

On Sunday, we had the gang over for Crappy Movie Sunday of course. This week we never really got around to planning for a movie, so Clovis brought a stack of kung fu movis over with him. We chose a movie called Chocolate that turned out to be sad, depressing, gory, and also a little absurd. We all had a great time watching it, though. After the movie we had some snackies and beers, discussed the concept of shame and how it impacts our daily lives, then we played the telephone game. The telephone game is pretty much a guaranteed good time, and we all loved it.

Yesterdy, we had my family over for a Memorial Day BBQ. It was a totally sucky and rainy day, but Mike is a trooper and stood outside grilling while holding an umbrella the whole time. We had some delicious eats, and we all enjoyed chatting and hanging out together. I made a yummy strawberry shortcake, and then I kept the strawberry tops and made fresh strawberry juice, which was really really tasty. Anyway, despite the weather, it was a great day, and a great holiday weekend.

Quick knitting update: I finished a pair of socks the other day. I think the socks theselves turned out great, but man is it some ugly sock yarn. I bought it on clearance, and I knew it wasn’t my favorite color combination, but it’s even uglier than I anticipated. I call these Toxic Sock Syndrome.

As for the sock yarn binky, there hasn’t been much progres. It’s just large enough that I don’t want to work on it when it’s hot, so I haven’t done a whole lot with it recently.

We bought a grill (FINALLY!!) on Thursday, so on Friday Mike put it together. Then we hit the grocery and bought an assortment of smoked sausages and buns. We came home and Mike made magic happen. Well, actually, he just grilled some smoked sausages, but it seemed a little magical since we didn’t have a grill for so long.

After we finished eating, we heard from Clovis, who decided to stop over. He & I ended up MST3K-ing the original Clash of the Titans while Mike slept on the couch. It was fun!We also made plans to hit up Marmalade Dog the next day and see Hot Tub Time Machine.

OK, Marmalade Dog is a gaming con that happens at WMU every year. We heard about it a few weeks ago and decided this would be the year that we check it out. So Mike, George, Clovis and I headed ver there. First of all, there was a costume contest, which is always sure to make it entertaining for non-cosplayers like ourselves. Since we weren’t actually playing any games, and just wanting to look around and check out the vendors, we got in free. SCORE! We were there for about an hour just checking things out, and it was pretty cool. There were lots of cool things to see, and plenty of costumes for us to gawk at. As soon as we rolled into the Bronco Mall there was a Guy dressed up in a long red cloak and a pimp looking hat waiting in line at Subway, so we knew we were in good hands. Anyway, I met a Jedi! Yes, really. Look!! And the second pic is a dude called Pyramid Head or something from a video game. Mike knew who it was supposed to be. To me, it was just weird. 

After Marmalade Dog, we decided to grab some lunch before the movie started. At the theatre, my homegirl Dawn joined our little posse, and we went in to see the movie. It was AWESOME. If you have not seen Hot Tub Time Machine, you totally should. It is so worth it. Excellent movie. Right up there with Old School in my opinion.

Once the movie was over, Dawn needed to watch the Kentucky game going on with this March Madness thing. They were in the Elite 8, so she was nervous and thought it would be better not to watch it alone. We went to Gallagher’s and she waved her foam finger. Sadly, the Cats did not win, and Dawn was very sad. We decided to ply her with booze to make her forget her troubles. We all went over to our place and played Would You Rather for a little while, but then ended up in deep discussion about life and love until the wee hours. I think Dawn DID forget her sad loss, but then the next morning it all came crashing back to her – along with a bad headache and a deep resentment of beer.

We all went out for brekkie, sans Clovis who decided to sleep in (good man).  Sunday afternoon, we decided to start a new tradition – Crappy Movie Sunday. Basically we will all get together and watch an awesomely bad movie. We decided to start huge, with the mother of all awesomely bad movies – Flash Gordon. Dawn had never seen it! I know, I was shocked, too. She was in awe of it’s awfulness, of course, but you can’t help but love the rockin’ Queen soundtrack, glittery, shimmery, sequin-rich costumes, and the Hawkmen. So this one was a winner. Next time, we are screening Conan. Clovis totally sold Dawn and I when he mentioned James Earl Jones with Rick James hair turning into a snakeman.

So that was our kind of crazy weekend. I am sort of hoping this weekend will be a little more low key. Sidenote – I am all finished with all 5 seasons of Weeds, and I just started watching Lost (thanks Clovis!). I’ve seen the firt couple of seasons before but then I stopped watching. Re-wtching season 1 is kind o a chore so far. It’s really boring. I’m not sure why, maybe just because I’ve seen it before. However, I watch the same stuff over & over with zero issues, and this is exceptionally boring. I am trying to stick with it. Wish me luck!

Speaking of small appliances, I have been continuing to make juice just about every day. I even made a cucumber toner for my face using real cucumber juice! It’s awesome. If you want the recipe, comment or email me. You don’t have to have a juicer either, you can do it with a blender.

Yesterday I met up with the ZPDK peeps for knitting and coffee. It was a blast! I had a great time, and I even managed to finish a sock, which is awesome. I loooove this colorway, this sock turned out so beautiful. I bought this sock yarn by the pound at Stitches Midwest in August. It’s a superwash merino, and I think I paid about $15 for around 250 grams. That’s enough for about 3 pairs of socks, so it was definitely a bargain. It could be a tad bit softer, but I think once I run them through the washer & dryer, they will be awesome. I call them Forbidden Forest, because the colors definitely look foresty and also, I heart HP. Anyway, here’s the first sock, still need to make the mate:

Also, I changed my theme, and I like this one a lot. Very crisp & clean. I am feeling pretty BA because I changed it all by myself! I hope you dig it too.

Last night we met up with Mike’s boss and a friend of his at Gallagher’s. I converted another person to the Beer Society, so now there are even more people for me to have beers with!We had a nice time, and I got to try some more beers too. I got Mike’s boss to try #9, and of course, he loved it. Woot! One of the beers I had last night was Orange Blossom Ale. It’s brewed in Florida, and it was very tasty. Check the link on the right sidebar to see what I had and how I rated it. I am up to 19! Only 106 beers to go!! It’s still early in the game, so I am taking suggestions – what beers should I try? Comment or email me.

I got up this morning, made some coffee and a yummy brekkie of Trish McMuffins, and relaxed while Mikey slept in. After that I decided to get started on dinner which was a crock pot feast called Beef & Potato Casserole. I browned the meat, washed potatoes and peeled the carrots, then diced them up along with an onion. The recipe calls for tomato juice, so I even made fresh tomato juice with the juicer. I put everything in the crock and started it up. About 30 minutes later I heard a loud POP that sounded like a gunshot. I went into the kitchen and found this:

I have no idea how this happened, but my crock pot is ruined, along with my super fab dinner! How sad and disappointing. I am going to look online and see if I can find a replacement lid, because I’m pretty sure the crock itself is fine. Anyway, this is very frustrating. I guess we will be ordering sammiches or pizza or something for dinner.

I’ve been rocking the Wii Fit Plus for about a week now, and I am feeling the burn in my abs and thighs. I did these lunges a few times and everytime I tried to sit down I cried out a little. Not cool, but very cool at the same time. I am also trying to make friends with my elliptical machine. We were close for a while, but then we drifted apart. I am rocking the rebounder too. I am trying to vary it up to keep things interesting - so far, so good.

I think everyone had fun! Nehemiah is wearing a hard hat because Mike & I got the boys a Handy Manny work bench for Christmas, and they all love it – somehow Missy found them kid’s hard hats – so cute! While I was there, I found a book about making juice on Missy’s bookshelf. I have been looking around at juicers for a couple of weeks because I am interested in trying out making my own juice. They are expensive, though, so that had sort of put me off of buying a new one. I figured I’d look around thrift stores and garage sales and find a used one. Anyway, I asked Missy about the book and it turns out she has 2 juicers and rarely uses the older one. She loaned it to me and told me I could keep it for a while. I was super excited.

Yesterday, I busted out the juicer and decided to give it a go. George wanted to try the juice too, so I did 3 carrots and 3 granny smith apples, then I mixed it all together, added ice and took a tentative sip. It was DELISH. I mean really really good. I was surprised by how good. Later in the evening, I decided to do an all veggie juice. I did a couple of carrots, a roma tomato and some spinach. Again, surprisingly delicious. My plan is to have a veggie juice once a day. I need to get some celery and some cucumbers. Anyway, making juice is really easy, really fun, and SO GOOD. I need to figure out a creative way to use the fruit and veggie pulp though, I hate throwing it away. I added some fruit pulp to a smoothie I made, and I also read that you can use it for muffins, soups and tons of other stuff. I need to do a little more research.

First, the heart shapes, while only 1 inch, were too big for their tiny mouths. So after all that work, I ended up having to chop the treats up into smaller bits. Note to self – making the treats cute does not make them more appealing to the target audience. So I chopped one up and presented it again. The reception was….less than enthusiastic. They nibbled and licked the pieces a little, but I got the impression that they knew I had worked hard and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Yesterday morning, I gave them each a few more tiny bits, and this time they didn’t even bother. One sniff and they both wandered away. Rats!!

I decided to try another recipe. This one is chicken based, but still baked like a cookie. I whipped these up this morning. This time, I just dropped them by the teaspoonful onto the cookie sheet – no fancy shapes. Once they were baked and cooled, I took a tiny biscuit, chopped it into bits, and put some in front of Nemo. Again, polite licking and nibbling, but no real enthusiastic chewing. Hmmm. Next I went to Buffy. She LOVED these – she tore into them right away and ate all I gave her. SCORE! I tried Nemo again with a few more bits – nope. Not interested. I have found Buffy’s favorite. She has always been a carb lover, so the cookies were bound to be a hit eventually. She loves breads and potato chips. Nemo is not into carbs, he is more of a meat eater. I have one more recipe in mind for him and I think he will dig it. It’s made with canned cat food, scrambled egg, and cheese, and it isn’t baked. I am 90% sure this will be Nemo’s kryptonite. Pics:

I have a buttload of Tuna Hearts leftover, so I am giving them away to other cats to sample. We are heading up to Grand Rapids this evening to see some friends, and I am going to try to unload some there as well. At least all the cats of my homies can maybe benefit.

On Sunday we headed to Casa de Vargo in lovely Sparta for a VII reunion. It was so much fun, and I’m so so happy that everyone was able to make it. Even Matt’s mom & sister came from Toledo, which was just great! It was really really fun to hang out with everyone. We finally got to meet Tony’s girl, Karin, and she is awesome. Thumbs up big time. Everyone seems to be doing really well, and we had a blast. Here’s my favorite pic of the guys. It’s blurry from all the action, but I think it’s a great representation of these dudes. Also, more pics from the party are here.

While at the VII reunion, I was talking to Shawn about the Gallagher’s Beer Society, which I joined recently. He is sort of like my beer mentor. He has completed the GBS beer list 3 times and is working on number 4. There is a plaque on the wall at Gallagher’s with his picture on it for crap’s sake. The dude is an expert! He told me that he usually goes on Monday night because the bottles are discounted, so I told him I’d like to go too. I met him there the following night, and he attempted to show me the ropes of the GBS. It was really nice to hang with him and chat. He is such a nice guy. I’m sincerely hoping that Mike & I can get together with him soon. Maybe this next Monday night since I have many many more beers to drink before I can complete my task.

On Tuesday, I had lunch with my mom, then met up with my girlfriend Laura and the 2 of us went out to meet the Zombie Prom Date Knitters for coffee & knitting. We had a great time! Those chicks are so much fun. After knitting I hooked back up with my mom and we went grocery shopping. When I got home from all that I made dinner and also rice krispie treats for Mike’s friends at work. It was kind of a busy day considering that I have no job (besides being awesome).

Also, I’ve got some newly finished projects I want to show off. First, a headband that I whipped up last night from some leftover sock yarn. I made one of these a long time ago, but my hair was short & I didn’t like the way it looked. Now that my hair is longer, Laura suggested that I make another because she thought it would look great now that my hair is longer. She was right, I really like it. Keeps my ears warm and looks cute. I will definitely make more of these in some different colors. Next, a green sock I finished, still working on it’s mate. Last, a crocheted afghan that I’ve been working on all winter. Made from scraps, and a gift for The George. I gave it to him this morning, and I think he digs it.

I think that’s all for now. Today I am staying home &  doing chores. Scrubbing toilets = not that awesome. But definitely needs to be done. Word.

First, I have been taking my vitamins and doing my workouts and I am actually getting to bed at a reasonable time at night – which is awesome news. My workouts are getting steadily better and longer which is also amazing news. So things are progressing and I am starting to get more sleep! Which is even more amazing considering that work has been extremely stressful lately.

Mike & I took the cats to the vet last Friday because they needed their Distemper vaccine boosters. Nemo hates it when he is in the carrier, and he always rubs his nose on the metal bars until his nose is all puffy and sometimes even bleeding. He also got weighed, and he is a whopping 15 pounds. What a hefer! The vet gave us a few suggestions to get his weight down. Otherwise, both Nemo & Buffy are healthy and fine, and there is no danger of Distemper in their future either. I noticed 2 days ago that Nemo was sneezing. A lot. He sneezed all afternoon and evening and would have these fits of like 20 sneezes right in a row. The poor kid! I was really worried. He continued the next morning so I did some research online and found that excessive cat sneezing can mean there is a respiratory infection. So I called the vet and they asked me to bring him back in this morning. I was right, he has an upper respiratory infection and we have to give him antibiotics twice a day for 14 days. Yipee. But hopefully this will help and he will be feeling better soon.

My mom got me a pressure cooker for Christmas, and I tried it out a couple of times this week. I was nervous at first because I have heard horror stories about them, but it is actually awesome. On Sunday I made a delicious pot roast and it only took about an hour! It’s crazy how fast that thing cooks food. I also put frozen chicken breasts in it along with some sauce and chopped onion and mushrooms, and that took 30 minutes to be completely done, and was also delish. My mom also got me a couple of really cool cookbooks that I have been making good use of as well.

From Mike I got Star Trek The Original Series Season 1 on special edition Blu-Ray. HOLY COW. It looks AMAZING. They have redone all of the effects and cleaned up all of the film, and it is crazy how awesome it is. There is a little documentary where they explain how they did it, and they show side by side comparisons of the original footage and the redone footage. Just the clarity of the picture alone is great, but on top of that, the redone effects are incredible. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

As some of you may know, Mike’s birthday is next week. We decided to make a weekend trip to Traverse City, so we are leaving on Thursday next week after I get out of work. I am super excited to get away for a couple of days, and also to celebrate Mike’s birthday. It should be really fun, plus we got an amazing deal on the hotel room!

When my stepmom was here, she told me that I remind her of Punky Brewster. I think she was referring to my pajamas. I usually just look in the closet and grab the first PJ things I find that are clean and put them on. When she said that I was wearing my crazy knee high socks that I made, grey cotton capris, a baby blue care bear t-shirt, and a bright blue & hot pink plaid long sleeve flannel shirt. A few nights later, after my family left, Mike, George & I had plans to watch a movie. I put on my jammies, and then came downstairs. They both looked shocked because I was wearing hot pink legwarmers, a purple and black striped skirt, and a fleece top with a crazy print in insanely bright colors. They laughed and made jokes about how much my clothes clashed. Anyway, it really got me thinking. I think I am like Punky Brewster. My favorite knitting projects are always the ones I make with scrap yarn in a crazy assortment of colors. I searched my Flickr photos for “scraps” as a tag and I got this. Hmmm, kind of a lot. Plus, that’s just the items that are complete – I also have 2 scrap afghans, a pair of scrap socks and 2 scrap scarves on the needles right now, and I recently made a draft dodger for the Man Cave from scraps that I don’t have photos of yet. I think maybe Punky should be my new street name? The thing is I do love color, and one of the reasons I love to knit so much is because I love to put colors and textures together in interesting and unexpected ways. So yeah, I guess my stepmom was right – I am sort of like Punky Brewster. You have to admit – the kid had style. I love her whole outfit, right down to her pigtails and jaunty thumbs up.

Sunday morning we all got up and around and hit the brekkie buffet at OCB. It was actually pretty good! After brekkie, my mom and I hit KMart, because I was desperately in need of some new dishes. I love the set we got for a wedding gift, but over the years we have broken several pieces and are always running short on plates and bowls. We were actually down to only 2 bowls!! Our set is quite expensive, so I decided to get some inexpensive “every day” dishes so I won’t feel so bad when they get broken. I got a plain set of dishes in red and another box in black. So know we have a full service for 8. I put our wedding dishes into boxes and packed them away. I love them, and we will definitely pick up another box of those, but it’s also nice to have something different. We are having either Thanksgiving or Christmas here, so I will bust out my fancy dishes then for sure.

Also, WordPress is so annoying! What is up the the weird spacing? I can’t fix it, so I guess I’ll just have to deal. And so will you.