Perspective

It's weird realizing that everyone around you is growing up. Whether people are building or destroying their lives; they are progressing in some way. Some days I look around and feel like everyone is moving faster than I am. Some days, I feel like I am flying.

Nothing puts your life into perspective like a new baby in the family. Yes, I am going to be an official auntie in April. I literally cannot contain my excitement.

Last weekend was my sister's baby shower, which I don't usually enjoy (due to the overload of cute things and lack of beer). However, since I was a co-host, I made an effort. I even stayed up until 2am the night before making the favors.

Hot Chocolate on a stick!

I hand-tied every lopsided bow.

I actually enjoyed the shower. Since I was hosting, I didn't have to participate in any of the games and got to busy myself during the opening of presents. I realize that is the majority of what goes on at a baby shower, but I really only go for the people.

Oh, and the cake of course.

Cake by Firegoddess Cakes.

My dear friend Amanda never ceases to amaze me with her cakes. Everyone in the Sonoma County area is lucky to have her talents. 

Perspective, right. Lately I have been thinking about my life (and how messy it can get) and realized that I need to start cleaning up. I am going to be an aunt soon (hopefully the favorite) and I need to set a good example for my future niece. 

So this year, I aim to figure out some things. Clean up the messy parts. To show I mean business, here is a very serious picture of me:

 Miss Firegoddess and I don't mess around.

Side note, every baby shower should to include fake mustaches. 

Procrastination

I have spent the past two days trying to think of something to write about. Two days. My friend also has a blog; that he updates whenever the mood strikes him, which is about once a month. When I told him I was stuck, he told me he already had his next post planned, to which I responded, "you don't know my pain!" 

I am trying to update this silly blog once a week. Thinking of something worthy to write about in a week has proved more difficult than I imagined. When I first started, I thought I could update bi-weekly. How foolish I was back then.

I'm sure that this is not the first post about not wanting to write and I am certain it will not be the last.

Some days I do really ridiculous things like draw made up creatures instead. Like this:

Octosaurus Rex!

Or spend hours reading webcomics. Currently my new favorite is The Adventures of Superhero Girl.

I'm pretty sure this has happened to me more than once. 

To be completely honest, the only reason I am writing now is because I am procrastinating packing. Which is something I despise almost as much as doing laundry. There is definitely a hierarchy to my procrastination. It is good to know that writing is not on the top (bottom?) of the list.

I'm not sure why I've been having such a difficult time writing lately. I know we all have our slumps, but it really sucks. I have projects I need to work on! Even journal writing has been a chore. I started 'A Poem A Day' personal challenge, hoping it would help me not be so stagnant. I am on day four. It's been a few years since I've written any poetry and looking back at my old stuff shows me why. 

My poetry is terrible. 

Things Unexpected

It has been exactly a year since I started this blog, which is impressive since I almost never stick to a project for more than a couple months. What an interesting year it has been! It is kind of awesome to be able to look back on it through the blog. Mostly it proves that I actually did more than just sit on front of my computer with a sleeping kitty in my lap.

Life is unexpected. Honestly, I never know what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone off in the future. For example, I had no idea that my best friend would buy me tickets to see my favorite band.

I also didn't anticipate leaving my ipod on the plane when I flew up to San Francisco for said concert. After refusing to let it ruin the day, my concert buddy (best friend's roomie) announced that she had an extra one just laying around. See how things just work out? 

So my new (to me) ipod is amazing. It is a lavender ipod mini (pre-nano) and it is the same size as my cell phone. 

Anyway, back to the Modest Mouse concert. From what I can remember, the playlist was this, but probably not in this order:

Bury Me With It

Satin in a Coffin

Dashboard

Fire It Up

King Rat

The Whale Song

Float On

Cowboy Dan

I Came as a Rat

Satellite Skin

The View

Encore:

Dramamine

Tiny Cities Made of Ashes

I'm pretty sure I am missing at least two songs. All I know is that when they played The Whale Song, I thought my chest was going to explode. It was that good. 

So the past year has taught me more about appreciation, mostly for the wonderful people in my life. It's funny, I moved away to prove that I could take care of myself, but it made me realize how no one does it alone. We all get help. If anything, everyone has been more helpful since I left home. 

Another thing I did not expect. 

I Don't Like It When My Candy Tells Me To Eat Healthy

Who does this candy think it is?

Today was not the most successful day.

It was a day of wandering around in confusion and miscommunication. I was on the phone with a friend a bit ago, who was watching a show called Bug Wars. Now when he told me this, I heard Thug Wars. So I kept going on about how it sounds like a dumb show and what exactly was the criteria for "being a thug"? Yeah, I felt a little silly once he corrected me.

I attempted to write a blog post earlier and squeezed out five words before giving up. Those five words were:

Holy Shit.
You know when

I'm not really sure where I was going with it. I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that I'm GOING TO SEE MODEST MOUSE TOMORROW!

Sorry for shouting. I am just really, really excited.

Ever more excited than I was when I found all this in the dollar section at Target...

Who doesn't love Batman and candy?

This past week has been like skipping-Junior-Prom-to-go-see-Good-Charlotte excited. Don't judge, we all liked silly bands in high school. 

So I dedicate this post to my amazing wife, who surprised me with the concert tickets and a flight to San Francisco because I am horribly broke. She is the absolute best. In part to show my appreciation, I drew a fantastically cheesy picture of us.

Adorable, isn't it?

Alright, I need to finish packing for my flight tomorrow. Man, I really hate packing. 

Oddities

Sometimes you set out to take your guests to Melrose and you end up finding a fascinating oddities shop on the way. Here are some pictures of this bizarre place we stumbled upon (in no particular order because I fought with them for quite some time and eventually gave up).

Oddly enough, I don't have much to write about; despite the fact that the past couple weeks have been fairly eventful. I guess I just have too much stuff going on in my head to focus. 

So instead, here is a really geeky webcomic I love...

Scenes From A Multiverse - A daily comic about life by Jon Rosenberg

and the latest song I am obsessed with:

Adventures in Ice Cream

You know you're jealous of my whale measuring cup and diver spoon.

SEA SALT ICE CREAM (test run)

I decided to go with the simplified version of the recipe, which I found here.

The ingredients are fairly simple.

What you need for this project:

SUGAR

MILK

HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM

VANILLA

EGGS

Oh, and of course...

Once you have all your ingredients in place, MAKE SURE nothing is expired. 

Ok, next separate the eggs into two bowls. Whip the egg whites until it looks like whipped cream and mix the yolks with your sugar. 

IF you were smart and checked the milk before this step, you can now move onto boiling the milk over a medium heat. I was not, so at this point I had to put everything back into the fridge and go back to the store.  Luckily, the store is just down the street. 

Boil the milk. SLOWLY. Careful not to burn it, otherwise you will get chunks of it floating around that you have to strain out later (which is difficult if you don't own a strainer). 

Pour the hot milk (which kinda smells weird) into the yolk/sugar and mix. Then pour your milk/yolk/sugar mix back into the pot and let it thicken over a medium heat. Mine didn't really thicken (I think my heat was too high), but it didn't seem to matter. 

Pour your custard (or liquid, depending on how it turns out) into the whipped egg whites. I had to re-whip the egg whites due to being left in the fridge while I went to the store. Now mix and place in the fridge to cool.

Now you have at least an hour to kill. I spent this hour lost in Tumblr and practicing my eye makeup. 

Once your concoction is cool, add the vanilla, heavy whipping cream and sea salt. The recipe doesn't call for a specific amount of salt, since it is to your personal taste. I put in about 3/4 teaspoons. Since this whole project is to recreate the ice cream from Kingdom Hearts II, I added blue and green food coloring. 

Now at this point, you can just throw it in your ice cream machine, but not everyone has one (including me). So instead, I put it in a cake pan to freeze.

Like so.

This way requires a little arm power. It needs to be taken out and stirred about every thirty minutes, until it is evenly frozen and resembles ice cream. 

Close enough. 

It was quite a bit of work and took over three hours to finish, but the result was sooo good. Next time I make it, I need to put it in a ice cream mold to really make it authentic. 

Success!!

It tasted like sunny days and friendship.

I am rather pleased that my first attempt at ice cream turned out so well. It must have been my lucky cupcake shirt...

Things That Keep Me Going

There are just some days when I need a little Modest Mouse to keep me going. Lately it has been Cowboy Dan with my morning coffee.

It is a new year again. I haven't started it with a slew of new goals or aspirations, the usual ones will suffice. You know, finding stable employment and maybe going back to school. Nothing new or exciting. Wait, scratch that. I DO have a food project that I am dying to try out. 

SEA SALT ice cream! 

Sounds a little odd, right? Well in case you have not noticed, I am a bit of a video game enthusiast and one of my all time favorite series (next to Final Fantasy) is Kingdom Hearts. Which makes perfect sense, since it is Final Fantasy and Disney morphed into one amazing series where you can explore HalloweenTown and fight Sephiroth with a sword that looks like a key (but not at the same time). 

Damn. Now I really want to play Kingdom Hearts II again...

Anyway, in Kingdom Hearts II the main character always eats blue sea salt ice cream with his friends, usually on the roof of a clock-tower. This salty-sweet treat has intrigued me since I was a teenager and two days ago I realized that you can actually make it! I found the recipe on this adorable Tumblr I follow called Gourmet Gaming, where food from various video games is recreated in real life. So awesome. 

Now I have never made ice cream before and I am fairly certain I do not own an ice cream machine, so this should be an interesting venture. It can't be that difficult, right?