This is why I'm hot...or ya know, not.

It's Doppleganger week on Facebook. Did you know? Another one of those silly status things telling you to change your picture is going around. This time its to your celebrity lookalike. Usually these things would fly under my radar but as it turns out, a few of my friends have amazing similarities to very pretty celebs e.g. Penelope Cruz, Shirley Manson etc. My vanity got the best of me and I was off into the interwebs to find my celebrity lookalike. So imagine my chagrin when the first try garnered Sean Astin! as in, Sam Gamges the hobbit. Yeah. This guy.
I think the Banana Hammock really brings home how embarrassing this is. Must be a fluke right? Of course it only gets better. A second trip to Photo Booth and who is my new twin? Rupert "Ron Weasley" Grint. Awesome.
That look? That was pretty much my reaction too. A few million pictures later I was still a boy but at least I was hot, Gael Garcia Bernal is smoking.
And even though I know I look nothing like him, it helped ease my sorely wounded pride.

The real lesson to come from this came while I was looking for pictures to upload though. And that lesson is this:
I'm totally awkward, and this comes across really well in pictures.
Exhibit 1

Now, I know you're all going "come on, that's it?" And my response is, Oh hell no.
Exhibit 2







Even a pretty dress, make-up and an awesome professional photographer can't hide it...
I don't know when this happened. I mean, I was a completely normal child...


Okay so maybe not. I've been a little weird all my life. So when I find a good picture of myself I keep it around for a while. You know, to remind people that every now and then I'm not a complete spaz. And the other day when I held my arm out and shot my first self portrait with my new lens and got a pretty picture, I thanked God because it's been a year since I hanged my Facebook picture and obviously Doppleganger week isn't going to change that. But this...



This will. And I don't think anyone will be able to pry this lens from me, even from my cold dead hands.

What do you title a post about cheese?

I was driving home yesterday and I was eating some deli cheese out of my grocery bags when I started thinking about american cheese singles and precut american. They're weird. Somewhere along the way they transform, become almost jelly-like. I always thought it had something to do with the plastic the singles were wrapped in, but my friend's mom used to buy the pre-sliced stuff from the deli and it too was oddly un-cheese like. Do people prefer this sort of cheese? I was always fascinated by them as a kid. But then again I also really liked those gummy hamburger things because I thought they weren't really food. I thought they were like, some sort of edible eraser. Cheese singles have that same sort of not-food quality. On an only slightly related note, one time when we were in Canada, my husband asked for American cheese on his sandwich. The lady behind the counter got all annoyed and said "You mean processed cheddar." Until that time I didn't even know what kind of cheese "american" cheese was.

I realize this is a pretty useless post but I've been working off an iPod touch for the past week since my husband needs the computer for school. Since I've found myself with the computer I figured I should try to post while I can. And so a random cheese post is born. I should get some time on the computer this weekend. I'll try to do better, promise.

But I mean, I'm right, right? Does anyone not think individually packaged cheese is weird?

I just gleeked all over my keyboard...

That might be TMI for some people, I dunno. If it is, sorry. It has nothing to do with this post, but it really did just happen. Did you know that gleeking is the word for when you yawn or something and saliva shoots out? Word of the day: Gleeking.

Moving swiftly onward...

January 12

I'm cleaning and trying to sort through the hundreds of magazines I have hoarded. I've just started on the Martha Stewart Livings as you can see. I'm going through and taking out anything I like and recycling the rest. Black for design/building ideas, Turquoise for crafty ideas and projects and patterned for interesting recipes.

January 13

I made a quadruple batch of hungarian goulash. This is the Brown sugar (kind of invisible, it's under the..), Paprika, Dry Mustard and salt. I love the way different spices look together. It's that reason alone that I put them into bowls rather than just tossing everything in.

January 14

This is proof that my SIL Leah rocks. She went through all the trouble of sending my cookbook off to have it signed by The Pioneer Woman. And I love her for it and I threw a little happy fit when it came and may or may not have scared and/or totally confused my MIL.

So far I've only made the Ranch dressing from it but that was delicious. And it looked oh so lovely tonight over the wedge salads I made. I love that I can cut a head of iceberg into wedges, toss dressing over it and say I made wedge salads. It sounds fancy. Even if my family had never heard of that concept and all looked at me like I'd gone totally bananas when I placed a bowl with a hunk of lettuce in front of them. And they all smiled and nodded at me very sweetly when I explained that this wasn't something I had come up with on my own and was trying to pass off on them. I tried explaining how the wedge salad was an actual thing that even very fancy restaurants have and they all said oh... and obviously didn't believe me. My gastronomic explorations are wasted on my family I tell you, wasted! My husband would be tickled pink if I just served pasta every night and I'm sure this will only go downhill when kids enter the scene. :sigh:

Maybe someday my kids will be gastronomes and I'll live in a house where people can appreciate this beautiful, and very tasty, salad.


...actually that does look a bit dodgy.



P.S. Oh yeah. It's delurker day for another half our or so. Not that I think anyone reads this other than my mother, Sister in law and Momisodes[who I will love to the ends of the earth for commenting and following me :D] but on the off chance that you aren't one of them and you read this in the next half hour, drop me a comment and tell me... Oh I dunno your opinion on that wedge salad up there. Who cares, just say hi :)

P.P.S. I love you too Leah, I already said it right there in the post.

P.P.P.S. Mom, I'll love you when you comment. Just Kidding, you probably couldn't figure it out anyway! ;P hehehe

I got my picture today! Also, I'm an insufferable nerd...

Jan 11



I snapped this on Deer Island. My husband and I were there not to take advantage of the pretty lighting or watch the beautiful sunset. No, we didn't even look as the sun set at our backs. And I snapped this picture on a whim as we bolted back to the car. We weren't even there for the brisk walk we ended up taking. With no coats I might add - It was freaking freezing. Wind off the water in January is not something to be toyed with. But toy we did and why? Because we saw windmills!! Two of them! We saw them from a few miles away and got so excited that we drove there right away and immediately agreed to walk the mile+ that it was to see the windmills up close. Then we stood there out in the open until our ears were burning and we couldn't feel our legs. We would have left earlier but the windmills kept starting and stopping so we had to stand there and watch them feather the blades. Duh. And I'm only being a little sarcastic here because I was all for it. Which leaves me with the lesson I learned today. My husband and I are nerdy enough to walk over a mile there and back, without coats, in 20 degrees with a serious wind coming off the atlantic to stare at windmills for fifteen minutes. And be excited about it. And while we will probably bring coats next time, it won't be the last time we go and watch the windmills. I'm grateful for my husband. Plenty of guys would have thought I was crazy. Apparently I'm lucky I found someone as nerdy as myself :)

Ain't they perty?

Project 300 and some odd....

So I'm going to try to take a picture a day. If I'm motivated they might even be any good. Since I rarely motivated this may not bode well for anyone watching. Here are the rules I'm setting down for myself. Since I tend to get discouraged and give up if I fall behind on things I'm going to Aim Low and shoot for 300 days of photos taken that day. On any days I miss I've decided I have to go back and see if I have a picture taken that day the year before. If so, that goes up. If not, then I have to go through and pick a random photo. Or I can steal one from someone else, but only if it's from an event I was at. So if I go out with a friend and they take pictures but I don't, I can steal :) But those won't count toward my 300. So in the end I'll have 365 photos and hopefully 300 of them will be done right. :D

Here's what I've got so far.

January 1
Nothing

January 2
Nothing

January 3
Nothing

January 4
Random Gas Station giving away free apples for "Customer Appreciation Day"


January 5
The birds around our new feeder. I need a longer lens to really get a good one of them.


January 6
Nothing

January 7
A photo of a photo of my husband and his mom :D This is thankfully after he had outgrown his droopy dog jowels. Our children have little hope of being cute babies...


January 8
Nothing

January 9
My husband and our friend standing out on the patio at Sonic as we freeze to death waiting for 3 Rt 44 Ocean Waters :D


January 10
My leftover from the sundaes we got last night. Just ignore that cookbook in the background....


I'll have to fill in the missing ones later since I have no idea where my external hard drive is. :D

Gone out with a bang.

2009 ended in just about the busiest month I have ever had. Ever. I had two birthdays to manage, (one of which was a big first birthday party, the other of which was my husband's) two finals to take (both of which I aced), working, Christmas shopping/wrapping etc and a seven hour drive to western New York at 5pm on Christmas Day. Needless to say it's been a bit crazy and as much as I enjoyed the Holidays and seeing all my family, I'm glad it's over with.

And yet with all the insanity that happened in the past month, nothing blog worthy really went on. Nothing I could manage to wax poetic about anyway. So I'll just begin the New Year with a photo review of the past month, A prayer that this year would be fulfilling and blessed for me, my family and all of my friends and this thought: As I stood drying my hands under the super Xlerator dryer in the bathroom at IKEA today, I felt like my resolution should be to tone up my hands. Those things make my hands looks like jello :P


My niece was entirely disgusted by the smashcake I made for her. Just after this picture was taken she took her frosting covered hand and wiped it all over me and my new dress. :D


These were new candles when they were put on but my In laws sing so many versions of Happy Birthday that this was what was left when they were done.


Drunken Santa! My family's favorite Christmas ornament :D


Did I mention we also went to Canada? I went to Toronto and we visited the CN Tower. I don't think my husband will ever forgive me for scaring the shit out of him by pushing him right after he got the courage to step onto the glass floor (1,122 ft above the ground). Whatever, it was hilarious and totally worth it :D


And that, my friends, is what happens when you use your Macbook on your lap and in bed all the time and ruin your Logic Board. Hello, $400 fix.

I'm considering trying to do a Picture a Day this year. Since I'm already 4 days behind I'll have to tweek some rules so I don't get too discouraged and quit altogether but I think I'm going to try and do it.

Happy New Year! Here's hoping 2010 is filled with Health and Happiness...