Scary Clip Art

My Friend works for the State Dept. of Real Estate and while cleaning her office found some actual clip art, like, from before it was on the computer. It is pretty much solid gold. Yeah, there are some lame pictures, but then you flip the page and you see this:

And you sort of want to cry because it's so good and SO SCARY at the same time.And you are sure that he is the devil in clip art form, and the heads around him are his evil cohorts. Then you take a picture of it and start sending it to your friends before they go to bed, and give them nightmares.

It's actually a good way to keep friends.

7-minute, Easy No Bake Cookies

One day, a day about a week and half ago, I was craving some chocolate. I needed a treat STAT! I only had about an hour and half before work and I still had to shower and get ready, so I needed something that would be quick and easy. I remembered pinning a recipe for some no bake cookies, and decided to try them out since I (miraculously) had all the ingredients in my tiny cupboards.

Find the pinned, original recipe here

No Bake Cookies:
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• 2 cups sugar
• 1 stick oleo, margarine or butter (I used butter)
• 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 cups oatmeal (old fashioned rolled oats, not instant)

Mix the sugar, butter, cocoa, and milk in a medium saucepan.* Boil for 1 minute.

Add the peanut butter and vanilla. Mix quickly until peanut butter melts, then add the oatmeal and mix til well blended.

Drop spoonfuls on tin foil, wax paper or parchment. Allow to set and cool completely.
Makes 2 dozen 3 inch cookies.

They literally took 5-7 minutes totally satiated my treat craving. 

New Followings

Lately (and I mostly blame pinterest) I've been finding more and more style blogs that I can't get enough of. It first started with Kendi's Everyday and then through her I found Keiko Lynn and just today I found What Would a Nerd Wear AND Get Dressed. If that wasn't overkill, there was another that I had linked but I decided to take it off. This will be the second time that I've had it linked and then removed it. The Chloe Conspiracy is adorable, but in the end, just not my cup o' tea (which is odd because she wears tons of j.crew). I think the reason I didn't end up liking hers was the layout, it just didn't speak to me.

I love these blogs, these women have amazing style and poise. I love that they site their clothes so that I can copy them (if I ever become rich enough to start buying clothes again). Looking at their sites is much better, for me, than looking right at a clothing website. When I'm at the website I either spend or start feeling really antsy, like I should be spending, and then I quickly plummet into a depressive state because I can't buy anything. Plus, these women are real people, they exist! They are not models (although some of them definitely should be) and they re-wear their clothes and most of them have admitted to not showering every day which makes me then feel even better about myself. Yay for not showering and being greasy.

Mostly I just wanted to let you all know how my list of "friendly sites" had gotten so long.

Re-locating

My blogging lifetime has spanned about 3-4 years? And part of me is feeling like it's time for an upgrade.

What had started out as a learning experience through work has now become something I look forward to and thoroughly enjoy doing. Blogger seems to me to be the amateur blogging site, and while my blog is nothing special, I'm not sponsored or even have a specific theme, I just like it and even though it doesn't really look like it, I am somewhat particular about how it looks. When I say that I know it doesn't look like I put much effort into it's design and aesthetic appeal, part of me just let's it be, thinking to myself that one day I'll have a great blog and everyone will want to read it and it'll be very pretty and clean and there won't be the awful orange buttons around that are associated with blogger.

The logical step for me is then to switch over to Wordpress. I was even at the site yesterday ready to create one, but then I thought, do I really want to do this? I really do, BUT I've been here so long, and what will happen to all of my posts? Maybe Wordpress isn't really the way to go, but in my vast research (which hasn't been vast at all, in fact I've only looked at Wordpress) it seems to be a much nicer site. From what I've seen it feels like the blogger has more control over their little space on the internet and ever blog I've seen through wordpress has had such a nicer, pretty layout and design.

I am not sure who even reads my little space here on the internet but if you have any words of encouragement or suggestion please leave them for me. I am about 80% committed to moving over to Wordpress, but I don't want to lose my past posts, does anyone have a solution for me?

P.S. Cali

P.S. If you know where Kiehl's had this couch made in Italy, or if you know of one EXACTLY like it, please contact Boyf, or me. Boyf. completely fell in love with it when we found it at the Kiehl's store. He even made me ask them where they got it from. Sadly, they said it was custom made in Italy. That may have crushed Boyf's dreams.

California

On August 6th one of my very best friends got married in California and Boyf and I were lucky enough to be able to attend and it was so special and I'm so glad we were there.

Melanie has pretty much been my best friend since I was hmmmm 13, 14? I've at least known her for sure since middle school. She's been mentioned in a lot of my previous posts but just in case you don't know that much about Melanie you should know that after talking to her for 5 minutes you will realize that even though you thought you were fairly witty you're really not, and you'll know because you laughed for 4 of those 5 minutes. She's also the kind of person who is so effortlessly chic and sometimes I hate it because something that  looks like she just threw on will totally outshine your 45 minutes of getting ready. Remember how you were laughing for four minutes after talking to Mel? Well the other minute was spent on some serious conversation about politics or the environment or some subject in which you'll realize you are not as well versed as you should be. At least, that's what happens to me. Melanie is also a great baker/cook. She's always making delicious treats, that are for the most part vegan. I'm really going to miss her treats.

Basically Melanie is one of the best people I've ever known and as a friend she's even better. I've always been able to trust her and I'm pretty sure that she's known everything that's transpired in my life since I met her way back in middle school.

I'm so happy for Mel and I'm so happy that she chose to marry a guy that I like hanging out with. I feel like, once your friends get married you are pretty lucky if you can establish a pretty good rapport with their spouse (I realize it's not that rare to like your friends spouse but I really like Brad) and Brad couldn't be any cooler, just ask Boyf. I think Boyf. talks about Brad more than Mel (I guess that kind of makes sense cause he's a guy? But we both knew Mel first), and it's actually pretty cute, Boyf. kind of talks about Brad like they're both kids. For example, if Boyf. says, "I wonder if Brad would like such and such show" it kind of sounds like "I wonder if Brad would like to play with Star Wars toys". I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's just the tone of excitement from Boyf, like, that another boy that he thinks is cool might like the same thing he does. Anyway, we love Brad. (And if Brad ever wants to play with Star Wars toys with Boyf. I'm sure Boyf. would be pretty excited.)

As far as the rest of the time we spent in California we got to go to Newport Beach. The water was actually warm enough for me to play in, so that was actually the first time I've been in the ocean.

We spent a day at Disneyland and besides the wedding this was probably the highlight of the trip. Boyf. had never been to Disneyland before and I was more excited about that then anything else. Boyf wanted to go but I didn't feel true enthusiasm from him until we walked into the Star Tours building and he said "Whoa, this is awesome!". That was probably the best moment of Disneyland for me.
Here are two picks of us at Disnelyand:

AH! Boyf has a Wookie on his back!!!!

Splash Mountain! Boyf was brave and sat right in the front.

Obviously I was a terrible picture taker, and I am so SO mad at myself for it. SO MAD. I always do this, and then I vow to do better in the future. I really am going to try, but it's also hard when your main camera (on my iphone) doesn't have flash, this tells me that for my future posterity and when I have Alzheimer's I'll really have wished I had flash camera so I can look back and remember the fun times.

p.s. if you'd like to see a lovely picture of Mel and Brad on their wedding day go here

One on One

Well, really not quite one on one cause it was me, Charlie and Grandma but still kind of. Having nieces and nephews is quite possibly one of the best things that's happened in my adult life; and now that they are getting older spending one on one time with them (as well as collective) is so special.

Charlie is the oldest, he's going to be 6 in October and I can't believe how old that is! He's one of the handsomest and smartest guys I know, and I can't wait for school to start so I can start hearing about all of his girlfriends (he's definitely already had a few girls fawn over him).

Anyway, Charlie and Grandma and I went to the Clark Planetarium and saw the Sea Rex 3D movie. It was pretty cool and we almost got eaten a few times from a scary sea dinosaur. Then we went and had some ice cream and cookies.

Charlie is, I think, less messy at eating ice cream than I am.

After ice cream and cookies we went to the library and read just about every Spider-Man graphic novel on the shelf.

I adore this little guy and can't wait to see him grow up, although I will miss this time in his life.

Star Wars Japanese Tenugui

I WANT THESE!!!!!!!!!!

get them for me here

Crafty Lady

I just got back from California for a best friends wedding and I'll be posting on that later, but I had to share this quick little post with you now.

I bought the pattern for this:

I haven't cross-stitched for a while, like since I was 12 (and I never finished that one), but this looks fairly easy and I have a very well experienced sister if I need help. I'm pretty excited.

If you don't know anything about Dr. Who then you probably can't fully appreciate this, and if you don't know Dr. Who you MUST hurry over to netflix and watch as much of it as you can. Then you'll understand and you'll wonder if you should get some  Dr. Who things or cross-stitching patterns from Jennifer's shop on Etsy for yourself. Also, if you are interested in Dr. Who but not sure where to begin (cause there have been a lot of Dr. Who seasons) I would start with either David Tennant or the current Dr. Who Matt Smith.