turkey recapitulate

This is an aside – at the beginning of my post, I am not sure you are even allowed to do that, but I am going to. Ha – now my aside has an aside. Anyways, it always makes me laugh when people use words but have no idea what they mean. Recap for instance. Did you know it was an abbreviation of recapitulate? I bet 90% of the people who use the word recap would be all ?!?! if you ask them what recapitulate meant. That folks, is why I have a degree in English. I like words. I want to know where they came from. It is an absolute shame “word researcher” is not a valid job title. 

Aside from the aside (haha get it?) the day of the turkey is over. I survived Ben flapping a naked, cold, gross turkey at me & was even able to eat some turkey. Plus about 2 pounds of garlic green beans. Since we brined that birdie, we cooked it without using one of those baking bags. This was the first time we had done that. With a few “maybe you should….” comments from Ben’s parents, everything turned out well. I knew it was going to be a commotion in our little kitchen with 4 people. It worked out pretty well. It was a bit stressful, but yummy food & full bellies prevailed.

Any time I got a little crazy I thought about my super hero parents who were cooking for 15 (my dad who was actually cooking, & my mom who was hosting — both very daunting tasks). I missed my family a TON on turkey day, but I got to skype with them that nice when we were all nearly in a coma & that was nice.

The following days were filled with tons more eating (leftovers & restaurants galore), a Texas Stars hockey game, exploring Austin, watching Game of Thrones (Ben’s parents had not seen it, we had, it is awesome), trying to figure out why Austin was so unseasonably cold (ie- FREEZING), seeing The Descendents at the Alamo Drafthouse (holy moly sadness) & museum exploring (including the imax 3d movie Tornado Alley). If I had to pick a favorite it would be a tie between the hockey game (I LOVE HOCKEY) & the imax (we are avid Storm Chaser watchers). It was nice to get out & re-do some touristy things that seem just silly to do considering we have already lived here 7 months, which is insanity on a whole different level.

It was a good holiday. I did not realize how exhausted I was though until I took Ben’s parents to the airport at 4:30 am yesterday then ending up coming home & sleeping until 10 am. Yesterday was a very lazy day. I am feeling a bit ick today too, but another day of getting this place BACK into shape (ie- recleaning) & I should be good.

It is strange that you spend so much time cleaning up to have company over & you have to clean again after they leave. The same goes for groceries. Which ps- the strawberries at Target right now are insanely delicious (it is possible that is a being in the south thing, maybe not?).

In other random news:

I wanted to mention I will be posting soon about using the oil cleaning method (ocm) for face washing. I had to delay it a bit because I sort of cheating (used non-ocm face wash products). I also freaked out when Ben’s parents were coming, which caused a face explosion (that is all you want to know about that – trust me). But, I am going to walk you through what I have found out so far. So anyways, if that is something you are interested in, check back by the end of the week.

Next week I will also be posting about the gift my sister & I came up with for my Mom’s 50th birthday. Her birthday is on December 6th though, so I do not want to accidentally spoil it & post before then. Here are some hints though: the idea came from Pinterest, it is the best idea ever, I cried making it, I bet money my Momma will cry,  & I know she is going to love it.

So yes, there is a small bundle of random for your on this Wednesday, the one week anniversary of  ”I was a spaz worrying about the upcoming turkey fest.”

I hope this week you find yourself in a much more stress free state.

disown turkey

There are times when I feel very certain I could be a vegetarian. Sure I enjoy steak, chicken is wonderful (especially Chick-fil-a yum yum), I do love a good burger once & awhile, & quite possibly have an obsession with spicy sausage, green peppers & onion.

But besides that – meat is GROSS. ESPECIALLY UNCOOKED MEAT. 

I made one rule this Thanksgiving. I wanted to have nothing to do with the turkey. Turkey really is not even my favorite meat, so when there is a whole holiday meal revolving around the bird I try REALLY hard to just enjoy it. Here is the problem though, you cannot hide from the turkey. 

1. I was there when we picked it out & discussed how much it should weigh. Do I want to think about how our turkey weighs as much as a large infant child? No not really. Also – holy monkeys how do people give birth naturally?!

2. This sucker has sat in our freezer & our fridge. Every time I see it I get to read “young turkey” on the package. Awesome. Because slaughtering a bird was not enough, now you get to remind me you took the poor thing’s life while it was still in its prime. 

3. The thaw. As if the first two were not bad enough this one makes me want to vomit. Let us put this hunk of meat in the fridge so it can de-frost before we stick it in the oven. Yeah, that is not the bad part. THE JUICES OH THE JUICES. If it were clear liquid I think I would be ok. I could totally convince myself that it was just melted ice. But ohhhhh no. This is pinkish red juices. V.O.M.I.T. Thank you for reminding my my infant sized, young turkey is now bleeding out in my fridge. The same place we keep all the NORMAL EASY TO EAT Thanksgiving food like my precious green beans. 

Perhaps the worst part was Ben put the beast on what we call our “bowl-plates.” They are normal plates but the centers are a bit lower than the outside edges making them perfect for things that are a bit soupy (ie- juicy things, pastas, etc.). All would have been fine & dandy except this beast was EXTRA juicy. Yeah, that sucker overflowed a bit. Luckily, I caught it before things really got out of hand. 

Needless to say, bye bye birdie is now sitting in a 2 inch deep glass baking dish where it shall remain until it goes into the oven. 

I want to have nothing to do with this bird, but I know the worst is yet to come. The thing still needs to be brined, seasoned/rubbed, & cooked. Sure it will be tasty & delicious when it is sitting on my plate. But you better believe it will be buried in gravy, mashed potatoes, & stuffing while I try to bury the memories of how this dinner came to be. [side note: heck NO we are NOT putting the stuffing IN the turkey. NEVER]

Oh Thanksgiving, as if you were not stressful enough. This is perhaps the one time of the year where I would like to forget about saving the whales – there seems to be more pressing issues at hand. 

Next year, I would rather have steak. 

make a mark

When I saw this image I fell in love. My grandmother absolutely loved hummingbirds. I have been feeling pretty upset about not having her around this Christmas, so I thought I would make a little something to remember her by. I did not want it to be anything huge & drastic – I am not really a fan of shrines. Just something simple to remind me of her.

This is what I came up with:

The awesomeness of having this design on a shirt is compounded by the fact that the shirt cost $1.00 at the Dollar Store. It was a boys large, which fit me almost better than a normal woman’s size small do. It is a bit boxier, but I do not really mind that. I did cut around the collar to allow for a little extra breathing room.

The process itself was super simple. I actually learned this technique in high school/college when making shirts to support your local band was still a cool thing to do…. back in the day….

Step 1: Find a design you adore/love/want to tattoo on your body.

Step 2: Enlarge image on laptop & trace image onto paper by holding paper up to your computer screen (normal people might just print the image, but I hate using printer ink so I use the trace method)

Step 3: Trace over your traced/printed image with a sharpie to make sure the lines are defined. Remember they need to be dark enough to see through t-shirt material

Step 4: OPTIONAL: when I re-use images, I always alter them. I want to make them in some way mine so as not to outright copy. often, there are also things I find hard to do – simply cut those parts, add your own – make it unique.

Step 5: Stretch t-shirt over a piece of cardboard (I used a notebook turned inside out) making sure you only have 1 layer of material – otherwise it could bleed through to the back of the shirt. Again, a professional might use an embroidery hoop or something like that. I am NOT a professional. I also like having the ability to lift the shirt from the image to see what comes next – some people might not like that though because it is very possible/probable that you could lose your spot.

Step 6: Trace the image in PENCIL onto the shirt. If you use sharpie right away you are super brave you run the risk of screwing up & ending up with something you cannot wear. Fabric moves, bends, & folds making the lines getting jagged. If you use pencil first you have the image on the shirt & can proceed much more slowly when you go over it in sharpie. Pencil will wash out, sharpie will not – which is sort of the point.

Step 7: I used a thin point sharpie to trace over the pencil onto the shirt. I was originally going to use a thicker one, but with how detailed & small the lines were I was a bit worried they would all run into one another. I think the key is tracing smoothly, but quickly then going back to darken the lines. If you do small, slow lines, it looks much more choppy. Again, there were times I did not follow my pencil lines exactly. It is easier to just make it work for you as you go along.

Step 8: I like to press my drawing with a HOT iron to sort of set the ink. If you use a real fabric maker, just follow the marker directions. I think sharpies work just as well as long as you press it, wait as long as possible to wash it the first time, & wash only in cold water.

Not too bad for a dollar shirt!!

not be cute

It really is a bit strange to me when people use the adjective “cute” to describe me. Sure, I might be 5’2” & I might weigh 110 lbs, but that makes me little. Little I understand. Cute though, sounds like delicate, fragile, adorable & fuzzy. I am not sure I really fall into any of those categories.

To explain, I am going to count the number of things that make me uncute. 

Tonight Ben & I are going to a bike maintenance class at the local Bicycle Sport Shop. It is the same place we bought our mountain bikes from (1. I own a mountain bike = uncute). I am insanely excited. I love my bike & this will help me to better take care of it. But also, I really do enjoy mechanical things. (2. how many mechanics would you call “cute,” note I did not says “sexy/hot” I said cute).

I have enjoyed manly things for as long as I can remember (3. self explanatory). For example, in high school I took an agriculture class & learned to identify trees & cows (4. cute? I think not). I also took a welding class. By choice. & I freaking loved it. It was probably my third favorite class in high school (calculus & photography beat it) (5. I was one of 2 girls in my welding class, I was awesome & usually had to show the boys how to do it right. Cute = no). Also in high school I continued to play soccer. Not cheerleading, or volleyball, or sports with boys – soccer, hardcore play with a broken elbow soccer. (6. flipping people & breaking their ribs is not cute – I promise. Also, I am a beast).

This tomboyish behavior did not start in high school either. I played soccer starting when I was 4 years old. I played on a co-ed team & often kicked the snot out of the boys (7. when I was beating up boys no one was calling me cute, especially the poor kid’s parents). I was the kid that played in the mud, helped my Dad change the oil on the car, & spent all summer outside (8. no one calls dirty kids cute, they might say it, but they do not mean it).

My parents always joked that my Dad got his girlie girl (my sister) & his little boy (me). In a way, they were right. I in no way intend to imply that I have any sort of gender related issues. I know I am a female (I have the parts to prove it), I want babies, & I like boys. I also really love some things that could most certainly be considered girlie: cooking especially baking, cleaning, crafts, organizing, children, animals, hugs, yada yada.

My point is, there are so many other adjectives to use in this world, & yet girls somehow always get stuck with ones like cute. You can call me pretty all day & I will say thank you. But cute – puppies & kittens are cute. If you pat me on the head or scratch me behind the ears like you would do to them, you best be expecting to get slapped or punched in the gut. Because you deserve it. I am 23 years old. I might still look sub-20, but that does not matter. I am over being called cute. 

I would much prefer awesome. 

 

/end feminist rant. Sorry, sometimes they just slip out.              

                                                          ^^ that’s what she said 

want a houzz (aka house)

Nah, it has evolved from think I might want a house to full blown – heck yes I do want a house.

Just FYI I completely blame Lindsey & her house hunting adventures for fueling this desire even more.

But the truth is, ever since we left Knoxville to come to Austin I have wished we were moving into a house. The truth is there was no way on this lovely green planet that we live on that we could have actually moved into a house.

Some reasons include:

• we spent 1 week looking for an apartment (including lots of background online hunting/excel spreadsheeting/ emailing)
• that week was the first week we had ever stepped foot in the state of TX
• we would have been idiots to buy a house knowing nothing about the neighborhoods, traffic patterns, cost of living differences (downtown/uptown)
• we really were not even sure if we would like Austin (considering our previous record for living in a state was about 2 years, a house is a pretty big commitment to chilling one place for a bit longer than that)

So even though I KNEW we were not going to be moving into a house, I still wanted to [stubborn much, answer: yes].

Sadly/wonderfully Pinterest came along (wow, I get to blame Lindsey for that too!!) & I was able to handle just pinning millions of things I wanted to do in a someday house to hold me over. All was well in good in the world. Until I met houzz. Oh you have not heard of it yet, let me ruin your life & steal your soul.

Houzz is right up there with Pinterest on the addiction level. There are only about a billion-infinity pictures of houses. From inside to out, by location, by house style – it is terribly wonderful. & just like Pinterest you can “save” them in groupings to go back to & drool over at any time. Thus my “I need a house” syndrome has flared up again.

Let me share a few bits of wonderfulness:

THIS KITCHEN.

I love the layout, I love the color.

traditional kitchen design by austin general contractor Soledad Builders, LLC

THIS POOL.

A ledge all the way around for sitting, a big step area to sit on to tan/relax. & a hot tub.

contemporary pool design by minneapolis landscape architect Phillips Garden

THIS BEDFRAME.

The wood is so delicious looking. I bet I could even make that. I want to hug it.

modern bedroom design by philadelphia showroom usona

Yeah, I told you. I just recently created an account so now I have to go back through & find all the other pictures I had opened & then closed when I refused to get an account knowing it would be an absolute time hog. I feel like that is a good way to spend a Monday though. Oh…. and that whole job searching thing. 

For everyone who thought they would actually get something done this Monday  - sorry. But also, you are welcome. : ) 

have some favorites – part 2

I have a gross cold today & it had made me not want to do anything at all. That could be why these favorites are mostly food & comfort based. Sometimes you just need a cuddly day. 

newly discovered "I do not want to cook dinner" idea - very yummy!! - $3 at Target + chicken/corn/beans/lettuce

the best kind of pasta noodles, well ok, it is the cheap brand, but I love shells

yum yum it is that time of year again

best blanket ever. $12 on sale at Target right now

not only is it the softest thing ever, it is long too!!

the best water bottle of all time = camelbak (it also helps that this one is from Austin City Limits!!)

Last but not least (& very unrelated to being sick) are my Ikea recycling bins!!

a place for everything & everything in a place - $7 at Ikea

 

They snap together so they can be used independently or all joined together like we have them. They hang out on the top of our front loading dryer in our pantry. Since it is so close to the kitchen it is easy to just toss stuff in there instead of throwing it out. Now we just really need to take it all to the recycling center.

wash it all away

It all started with this pin. Homemade face wash I thought now that is…. weird.

I read into it a bit more & the whole “clean your face naturally” thing sounded a whole lot less hippie than making my own face wash/ oil cleaning method. Ok, well it still is pretty green (cost effective, good for the environment, screw the man sorta thing). It also made me actually check out some of the crap I have been putting on my face. Did you know some products say “avoid contact with hair and dyed fabrics” – cross my heart that is what one of the things I have actually says!! Ummm yeah that is a bit scary to me. What the heck is in them that would cause harm to hair & fabric?! Well, ok, you do not need to answer that because I do not want to know.

But what the heck. I figured I would give it a shot. My face my entire life has been nothing short of an absolute mess. I am most certainly a “picker” too, which has never ever helped the matter. I have tried all sorts of stuff from drying out my face to the point where it looks like I have a sunburn, to making it nasty oily. Needless to say I figured it was worth it to try.

I bought this castor oil on Amazon. For less than $7.50 it was a pretty good investment if you consider most acne/face washes can run just about the same, if not more. & that is for 16 oz of the stuff. When you consider the only other “ingredient” is olive oil, I would say that is pretty cheap (you only use about a half dollar sized amount of this with each wash).

I must admit I am not sure if I would have been able to try this face washing experiment if I was working every day. Since I am on the job hunt, it was easy peasy to say sure I can go 100% no makeup & try this starting now. If I was still wearing make-up every day & needed to be presentable every day I might worry how my skin would react. But apparently, this mixture is also supposed to be awesome for makeup removal too. Anyways, now was the perfect time for me to try this.

Today is day 1. I took pictures after my first face wash with the new concoction. They are not really that pretty since my face is in full breakout mode (most likely due to my over stressing at the moment). The great part of that (heck yeah for thinking glass half full) is that any improvement from now will be a step in the right direction & if this works as awesome as everyone claims it does, perhaps I will have some AWESOME progression photos to share. I will try to take daily pictures to post in the follow up post, but if they are too underwhelming I might stick to every few days.

Keep your pores open & perhaps I will have a follow up post in the next few days!!

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rearrange

I have this disorder. I really like to re-arrange stuff.

Usually it is just my closet or how things are organized in a certain room or whatever. While in the dorms at college I am pretty sure I re-arranged stuff 4 times a year (at least). The problem is things need to fee comfortable. Once I get them into a configuration I like, then that is that & they tend to stay put. But until I get it just right…. arrange, rearrange, & arrange again.

This time, I sort of have an excuse. In November we have having company 2 (potentially 3) out of the 4 weekends in the month. One of which consists of having Ben’s parents in town for a week. Since our guest bedroom really was not set up to host people, ESPECIALLY people staying for an extended amount of time, it was time for a re-do.

The hysterical part of this is that I did all of this today. Ben has NO idea. & he will not know until he gets home, unless of course he reads this, which he does not, so I am safe until then.

So anyways. Here is what the space looked like before.

bookcase area previously

new "office" area

Did you notice that random light hanging what seems to be in the middle of the room? I hate it. I think their intention was for you to put a table under it. BUT WHY?! It would be right in the middle of everything & you would have to walk by it to get to the living room. No comprendo. Luckily we were able to rig it up with a zip tie. That sucker use to hang about 2 feet lower. Yeah my 5’2” self almost hit my head on it & Ben in all his 5’8” glory certainly did/would. I would rip it out of the ceiling, but I am not thinking our landlord would like that. *wish we had a house*

That big framed picture that is just sitting on the desk. I am considering hanging that on the wall above the desk, but putting holes in the wall is only something I do after I have a second (aka Ben) opinion.

But anyways….. the things I love about this new set up:

• no more yelling to Ben when he is on the computer in the other room & I need to talk to him!! (I HATE yelling between rooms)
• more accessible use of the desk – I can use it durning the day
• WE ACTUALLY HAVE ROOM IN THE “guest room” FOR GUESTS

view from the door of the bedroom

Where the head of the bed is now is where the desk use to be. It was nice that it was in front of the window, but other than that made absolutely no sense arrangement-wise.

view from the corner (to the right of the door)

I credit my entire idea for this room setup on the fact that the cube thinger measured perfectly to fit where it is in that last picture. To the right of the cube thinger is a TINY closet that gets overlapped by the bedroom door when it is open. Did I mention that bedroom is TINY. That huge window is the best part of the room. The cats adore the over a foot wide ledge/windowsill. For how tiny that room is, it really does have the best lighting. Probably considering 2 out of the 4 walls in there are 80% window.

All in all, I am really liking our new set up. Ideally, we could replace that blow up mattress with a pull out couch (but they are super duper heavy) or daybed (but they are super duper expensive) sort of set up so we could have a bit more floor space when people are not actually sleeping in there (because our cats do not need a whole bedroom for themselves).

Who knows if we will actually keep it this way once November is over & people stop visiting us.

Or perhaps people will keep visiting us so we HAVE to keep it this way.

I am ok with that too.

 

have an addiction…. and its name is Pinterest

You know all those shirt re-fashions you see where people make men’s shirts into women’s shirts? Well, I had seen about 50 hundred million of them on Pinterest* & decided it was my turn to make one. Some examples of the ones I looked at can be seen on this pin, this pin, and this one.

* If you are unaware of Pinterest I pitty you & thus will gladly send you an invite. Just let me know what your email address is. If you think you are missing nothing, you my friend are sadly mistaken. Take my invite & throw away hours of your free time that will now be spent repinning all things awesome. 

The most awesome part of the fact that I just completed this project today is that I can actually consider it part of Young House Love & Bower Power‘s PINTEREST CHALLENGE!!!!

But anyways….

This is only going to semi be a tutorial because I sort of mashed a bunch of different ideas together & just sort of went my own way on this one. Please remember I am a sewing amateur. Before I began, I did remove the pocket that was on the upper right chest using my seam ripper (aka a girl’s best friend).

boys xl shirt from target - $3.50

cut & pin collar - i used a t-shirt i had as a template

There are about a billion ways you can do this next step. I have seen people do pleated, ruffled, or elastic collars. I tried the elastic but it was a bit too tight & constricting. All I did was take a piece of material (mine was a strip from an old t-shirt) and thread it through the casing I made. This “elastic-ed” the collar a bit, but I was able to adjust how tight I wanted it.

Just make sure you sew the string in place or somehow attached the string to the shirt so it does not pull itself back through.

The rest of the steps just involved:

• cutting down the right & left sides – taking the shirt in quite a bit on both (using the measurements from the shirt I had to measure the collar)
• adjusting the width of the sleeves by taking them in & then making them 3/4 length (eyeballed this one)
• adding a bit of girlie to each of the sleeves (see next picture)
• adjusting the length of the shirt so it did not hang past my butt – all I did was cut & hem the bottom

this is my little bit of girlie addition

 

TADA

It really was not that difficult. Since I have the attention span of a child & yesterday was Halloween, it did take me 2 days to complete this. If I actually sat down & did it again & just powered through I think at most it might take an hour.

My favorite part of my new shirt is there are a bunch of different ways to wear it. Here are my two favorites:

(please forgive the wrinkles, I ironed it AFTER taking the pictures…. told you, I am no pro at this)

Even better than the fact that I have a new shirt (for $3.50 no less!!) is the fact that I actually made something from the jillions of things I have been pinning.

The only bad part (& it only counts as semi bad), is now I have caught the bug. I actually want to MAKE all those pins.

Perhaps I will just start with the feasible ones…. perhaps….