dressing more fun! using pinterest!

Carla Ghee, Norman, and I were sitting in the front window at Squirrelly's the other afternoon and these girls walked by and Carla Ghee and I were like "those girls look FUN!" and we broke it down that they were wearing lots of prints and scarves and scarves in their hair so now we're taking it upon ourselves to start dressing more fun so that when people see us they will immediately know how much fun we are and how we like to party forever.

Look how fun these girls look! they are having the best most free times ever!
I had pinned this photo a week or two ago so I was already in the mind-frame of how fun to be I just hadn't put it into action. I did last night though:



(awww Yulie)
I look so fun!


also hilarious was that I was wearing these printed shoes as well and Carla Ghee was wearing prints and her very own headscarf headband!



it was the best because we hadn't really discussed how committed we were going to be to this new plan but then really followed through!


see I'm having extra fun because of how I'm dressed I bet. Yulie is also wearing a printed scarf so there you have it!

obviously when going to dress fun you should look to your friends for inspiration:
all photos below hijacked from Dayna's instagram stream!

 prints!!! colours!!! jewelry!!!

 Man, I think Dayna has me topped in terms of self-portraits! Unfair!
(I'm not even competing in any way fashion-wise)

Yep, a guiding light, a beacon of how to dress fun!
Nice work, lady!
I have to go in search of the best prints!

Yesterday I did another thing off pinterest, I made individual baked oatmeals. Sort of like oatmeal muffins but a bit heavier and different... I got the recipe from sugarfreemom.com but then I just changed everything anyway (as I do).



BAKED OATMEAL

first blend
1 banana - mashed
2 eggs
2 cup un-sweetened applesauce
1/2 cup brown sugar (she called for stevia or honey, I didn't have any)

then add
5 cups rolled oats (she called for old fashioned I used quick)
1/4 cup flaxseeds (she called for flaxseed meal, I only had flaxseeds)
1/2 cup Red Mill Wonderful Gluten-free hot cereal (I forget the actual name of this, I just had it in my cupboard, you could not use it but it is good for you that's why I put it in)
1 tbsp. cinnamon
(I also added a bit of ginger and nutmeg because why not)
1.5 tsp. vanilla (I love vanilla)
1 tsp. salt (yeah, sea salt is the best!)
3 tsp. baking powder

then
2.5 cups skim milk (you could use any kind of milk I bet!)

then it's really runny pretty much and you put it in cupcake liners (top it with things you like if you want or all blueberries in there or whatever, up to you, you're a free man) and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.
NICE.
Thanks, Pinterest!

OKAY I HAVE TO GO TO ISLAND NOW BECAUSE MY LIFE IS THE FUN KIND OF LIFE.

yesyesyesyesyesyesyes

typed on a new machine

I'm in a better mood!

uh ohhh uh oh I have a new computer that I'm in love with.
I'm learning how to edit videos! funnnnnnnn ohhh so fun oh so funn fun fun.

Also, I made some super good soup today. All I eat and like is soup.

I wanted cream of broccoli but not with cream because I've given up eating for new years. Just kidding, I'm eating sometimes.
But I want to eat less bad-for-me stuff and way less stuff and become super skinny like a model. Haaaaaa.
(the worst part about people on diets is all they ever do is talk about diets. it's because they're hungry!)

Anyway, soup is amazing because it's just cutting things up and putting them all in a pot and it's so easy to heat up later and is a one-pot meal.

I'm not one for instructions and measurements in my cooking really, but I'll tell you what I did for today's soup because it is VERY GOOD.

MOSTLY BROCCOLI SOUP

1 onion
all the broccoli you have (even the peeled cut stalks, obv.)
half a zucchini
some elderly mushrooms (haaa or any mushrooms)
2 potatoes
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup dry quinoa

lots of cumin
lots of italian seasoning mix
lots of salt
pepper
dried rosemary
(you can put whatever savory spices you have in here, pretty much! I did whatever I wanted at the moment.)
(also you can put other vegetables! I would have put peppers if I had any

cut up all the onion and put it in a big pot with a lot of butter (I don't know, 2 tbsp.?) and some olive oil and then cut every other vegetable up small-ish and put it all in there, too. It's good to kind of sautee the stuff, especially the mushrooms and potatoes maybe? it also doesn't really matter. that cooked for awhile I guess.
then I put the minced garlic in too and some water, like, enough water, ya know? Like so that it'll cook in the water. and then I put in all the spices and then I decided quinoa would be good so I put in the quinoa and more water and I then I just simmered it for awhile on very low. And then when everything was soft I put almost all of it in the blender. Fucking pureed that. But not all of it because I like a few chunks, but if you don't like chunks then blend everrrrrrything.

then cheddar cheese on top! Of course!

anyway.
WHY THIS SOUP IS SO GOOD.

it tastes like a good broccoli soup but has the added bonus of quinoa which is suuuper good for me. Also, the other vegetables give it a nice roundness, I think.

I'm so super tired! I keep staying up waaaay late for good reasons. Good reasons like important conversations or hanging out with the best buds.
Good reasons don't make me less tired right now!
Work tonight and then a couple days off, which should but nice and also filled with improv mostly. I'll never mind that.

once you've got it, how do you keep it? (my hair as a metaphor for life)

It takes a concerted effort for me to leave the house without mascara on. Even if it's just to walk the dog. I try to do it from time to time to prove that I'm still the don't-care hippie I imagine myself to be.


Luckily I am nothing if not completely enamored with my hair today. If my hair looked like this every day my life would be complete. How did I even get it to this colour? Why won't this colour last? Honestly, though, how do I keep it?
Lately everyone is dying their hair red (exaggeration) and now I have conversation after conversation about trying to get a good shade and then keep it. It's quite amazingly stupid, really! Amazing.

I thought I wanted it to be more Emma Stone's colour in Easy A,

But I'm okay with what my hair is doing right now. Though I still do like that darker colour.
WOW THIS BLOG IS LIKE A ROLLERCOASTER RIDE


Hey, look, the dog!
Probably Lucinda Bright (my foster cat) is getting very jealous about how many dog photos I'm posting. Just kidding, she's not allowed to go on the internet.
ugh, sorry. I feel like I'm getting lamer by the second.
I'm getting more and more into bad puns and lame word jokes, also. I think it's because I expect other people to make them more and I want to get there first. Almost fair.



My stomach was being dumb and so I hung out at Dollface's and watched TV for a bit today. I like walking DF's dog but I would never want to walk other people dogs. Just Kaya. Also because I never worry if DF will be annoyed I'm watching her TV or touching her things. Also because Kaya is a low-stress dog, she's pretty easy going and a good walking companion. Aww.



I don't really have any shifts at work this week. I feel alright about that. Terrifyingly poor, yes, but excited to relax about, hibernate a bit, and get some work done. And next month is lots of shifts (fingers crossed).
I meant to write all day yesterday but really only got into it around 11 p.m. or so. It's alright because I got a lot alot done by the time I decided to pack it in around 3.
The stuff I'm working on is alright. But then I started reading a couple of other scripts that I didn't write and they were great. I was a bit jealous. Got to get past the jealousy and just do the work.
I know I've said it before, but man, I would really prefer if I were great at everything right off the bat and never had to actually work at things.
Classic deservist attitude.




Pineapple-shaped tea ball which was a gift from Violet awhile ago, still one of my favourites. Saskabush tea (Saskatoon berries and rosehips and things) from Cuppa Tea in Lawson Mall in Saskatoon.

I made soup! Ha, everyone is surprised. What else would I make?

It looks thick. I like it like that. If you like a thinner soup, add more water, I don't care.

TOMATO LENTIL QUINOA SOUP
1 medium onion
1/4 zucchini
1/2 red pepper
6 button mushrooms
1 can crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup lentils
1/2 cup quinoa
2 cups of vegetable stock
some Italian seasoning blend

This is exactly like all the other soups I make (especially like the one that's just curry instead of tomatoes, leave me alone), and all the ingredients are 100% approximates. Just cut everything up and then put all the ingredients in and cook it forever. You can put in other vegetables or not these vegetables!  I fried up the onions and mushrooms in a bit of butter and olive oil first. You don't have to. You can do whatever you like, really.
I lovelove the combination of lentils and quinoa. So filling in a great way.





Ha, I made apple-strawberry crisp the other day and my friend came over and he said, "why?"
What a question! Like there ever needs to be a reason for a crisp.



I haven't been able to find a good day planner yet for the year (and I depend on my dayplanner/notebooks so much!), so I'm going to go about marking up a blank book to make it into one. Hey, I have the time. Plus then I can make it the best ever.
I have to find a great movie to watch while I do so. Lately I've watched:
Black Swan (liked it)
Easy A (liked it)
All Good Things (liked it)

Those are my reviews. You're welcome.

does anyone have an apron to cover my apron while i eat? I don't want to get it dirty

Christmas martini!

also, Christmas apron.

Which my cousin made herself for me. Amaaaazed. So beautiful. I think it might be the most beautiful fabric I've ever seen. Maybe. Can I wear this out and about?
Can I please have my own house and family now and wear this around all day?

All I want to do is eat and eat and eat. Everyone else is in the same boat, yeah? I'm not even hungry! It's just that there is way too much delicious food around. Ridiculous amounts of delicious foods!

Yesterday I made my birthday supper (tacos!) and I made my birthday cupcakes. I don't mind cooking too much. And actually it kind of soothed my terrible achingly-bad mood yesterday afternoon to putter around in the kitchen. But especially because it all worked out. If it hadn't then I might have had a real melt down.



Today has been fantastic so far. And we're done now with all the heavy stuff (not quite for my mum since she's preparing dinner). Breakfast is our big crowning jewel of the festivities. And it was all it should be. Along with the regular (but still amazing) eggs and potatoes, we had the (gluten-free!) crepes with gingerbread cheesecake stuff and poached pears my cousin made! Jeeeezus!
So lucky!

Along with the apron I got mostly a tonne of plates and dishes and each one is so wonderful. Good life, this one.


Okay you wanna know about these flourless chocolate cupcakes with maple creamcheese insides that I made for my birthday last night? (I know my cousin does so I thought I'd just post it here for everyone.)

I took a few different recipes and sort of combined them. I'm not the best baker for that exact reason -- that I have difficulty following recipes and sticking to things, luckily these turned out soooo good.
You know how eating gluten-free is all about trying to find things that are almost as good as their glutenful counterparts? Well these cupcakes were some of the best cupcakes I've ever had!

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES (WITH MAPLE CREAM CHEESE):
8 (1 oz) squares of semi-sweet chocolate
(you could do half of the squares of chocolate with 1/2 cup cocoa)
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

okay so I didn't have a double-boiler so I heated the chocolate squares and the butter in a pyrex over top (not touching the water but resting on the saucepan) of boiling water until they melted.
While that was going on I beat the eggs a lot with an electric beater. Then I beat the sugar and vanilla in. I may have used more vanilla than that.

In another bowl I combined
1 package cream cheese (warmed slightly to mix easier
1 egg
1/2 cup maple syrup (I would use more next time or possibly maple flavouring, you could also do some pumpkin or gingerbread type mix that'd be so good)
1/3 cup sugar

Then when the butter and chocolate were all melted and mixed I poured them into the rest of the cake ingredients and mixed it lightly.
Then poured it into the cupcake wrappers in the tins (it's very runny so don't be worried). Then I dropped spoonfuls of (the also very runny) creamcheese mixture into the centre of the cupcakes.

I baked the cupcakes at 300 degrees for half an hour. Except I forgot about the second batch and they were in there for probably 40 min at least and it didn't do them any harm at all.

If you were to make a cake with this recipe it's suggested to grease the tin and then flour it with cocoa powder. Apparently this amount is good for one 8-inch round cake (without the creamcheese bit -- that's the part I completely made up) but I would suggest making it in a bigger pan and spreading it out very thin. I would also suggest making mini cupcakes. The crunchy bits around the top edges of the cupcakes were everyone's favourites, that's why. These cupcakes are very soft and squishy and a bit more like pudding than cupcakes but I like fudgey brownie-type cakes way better anyway, so it's perfect for me!

Ugh so good. Now I wish I weren't so full so I could eat another.



Anyway, Christmas has been delightful thus far and I'm exceedingly pleased about today, etc. And I'm also pretty exhausted. Maybe I will have a little lie-down before dinner. Mum's making veggie pot pies and a big salad!
eeeeeee! christmas!

I hope you're having a lovely lovely lovely little time wherever you are and also that your family leaves you alone for awhile like mine does because man, so many people get overwhelming after awhile!

simply having a wonderful (early) christmastime dinner party

I'm in a way better mood today!

Yesterday I felt like I had not done a good job at my audition, I felt like I had just not looked as good as I could have or been as lively as I could have, etc. etc.
anyway, they want to see me again for it. So that means I wasn't the worst. Yay!

Also, I had a super nice time at my dinner party!

awww look how happy I am in my little tiny kitchen! cooking away for some of my favourite people. awwww what a life what a life! pictures are such good things to have to remind me how much I like things.


This guy told me he's been angling to make an appearance on my blog forever. I love him! He also said he needs an awesome nickname but then failed to choose one for himself. Hmmm. I kind of like Beastly. How about Beastly? No, wait, what about Sweet Beastly?
I'm going to go with that for now anyway.


haa I'm such a round little elf lady. kind of nice. I should get to be a mum someday I would rule at it so hard. I fully ruined that dress in a bunch of ways. Ah well, whatevers. I should definitely have found my apron but I really just don't know where I would have put it.


ooooeeeee so dashing, hey??



Okay maybe you're wondering about the food for this dinner party. It wasn't terribly exciting more like just basic and good. That's what I was in the mood for. I had originally planned for making curried lentil quinoa soup but then on the day all I could think about was stew. It was just so grey and windy and I wanted stew and biscuits.


VEGETARIAN STEW:
man, okay, you can just boil some stuff up together, that's what I do. But what I did for this particular soup was

butter/olive oil
1 large onion
2 medium potatoes
lots of mushrooms
some carrots
lots of broccoli
some zucchini
veg stock
Italian seasoning
cumin

Is that it? maybe?

Fried up the onions in some butter mixed with olive oil. Then sauteed all the mushrooms up in that. Then added the potatoes and the stock because I like when my potatoes are fully cooked right up the most so mushy. Then added the rest of the vegetables then the seasonings then it just stewed around for a couple of hours while I made other things/cleaned up/etc. It could have been done an hour earlier if necessary I think but it didn't hurt for it to stew around. Ya know?
I like my stews with lots of broccoli and mushrooms. That's what I like.
You can also add TVP (textured veg protein) to this if you want but just before serving I would think. I've done that in the past makes it like chicken stew sort of. but I mostly like this stew just on its own.

(christmas napkin roll-ups!!!!! ugh ugh lovelovelovelove)

The biscuits I just made with a gluten-free mix I got in Kensington. BUT I added dill seeds and cheddar. Mum-style.
The dill and cheddar just fucking make them. Also putting butter on them. Butterbutterbutter.


We had a big salad as well. I should always remember to eat more salad. Like the salad that's in the fridge right now.

I'm in love with all my dinnerware and glassware and my silver salad tongs. Just in case you were wondering.


I also made candied cranberries. I got the recipe from my cousin's blog. So festive! I wish I'd gotten them done earlier so they could have crisped up a bit longer. Still pretty nice.


And we also had some spiced cranberry-almond sugar cookies for dessert. They weren't the best but they were alright. I'm still learning about gluten-free cooking, so cut me some slack. Also some clementines. I had never heard of a clementine before Toronto.


For drinking we had lots of red wine and we had gin and/or vodka mixed with a punch I made that was cranberry pop mixed with lemonade basically. With cranberry ice-cubes and lemon slices.

llllllove gin with cranberry and lemons. I was first introduced to this years ago in Saskatoon when I had a weird brief fling of a friendship with a girl. Along with our gin adventures we had a New Years party just the two of us at the mansionhouse she was house-sitting that involved cigars and wine in the hot tub and dragging all of our blankets and stuff into the living room to sleep under the 10 foot tall Christmas tree and be beside the fireplace and then we had a motown dance party. Crazycrazy fun.




We had a real nice time just sitting around talking about anything. And listening to the Christmas mix I had prepared, of course.


Wanna know the track listing? obviously.


OH MISTLETOE CHRISTMAS MIX
The Three Kings* - Mormon Tabernacle Choir
It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Johnny Mathis
Ring Ring - Sleigh Bells
Wonderful Christmastime - Paul McCartney
Paris 2004 - Peter, Bjorn & John
Jingle Bells - Ella Fitzgerald
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
What Christmas Means To Me - Stevie Wonder
All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
Carol Of The Bells - Home Alone Soundtrack
The Holly And The Ivy - Mormon Tabernacle Choir
We Three Kings - Wintersleep
Maybe This Christmas - Ron Sexsmith
December - Basia Bulat
Merry Christmas Baby - Otis Redding
The Man With The Bag - Kay Starr
Sleigh Ride - Ella Fitzgerald
Home Alone (movie theme)

*this song is different than WE three kings, it's the most amazing carol. if you need a copy of it email me and I'll send it to you for sure

 
This smile looks forced, but I assure you he was having the time of his life.


I'm very happy that everyone agreed to wear their Christmas hats from their crackers and also their Christmas jewels I bought to wear on our faces.

Aww I'm so happy thinking about this.



haaawww Sweet Beastly, can't take him anywhere.


wellll... they can't all be flattering shots, eh?

I want to have more Christmas parties now. Luckily I have about 10 on the horizon. Never enough! But I do feel like I should do something for my birthday/Christmas. Hmmmmmmm.


I do have a few more photos but I think I'll save them for tomorrow. To have some content going while I'm away.

Tomorrow I am going on a road trip with Dayna and I am SO EXCITED. I think I already said that, but it bears repeating. I keep thinking something's going to interfere and ruin it. I don't know why.
I'm not a big worrier but sometimes I'm a neurotic worrier.
I am such, such a big fan of road trips. And of parents. And of dogs and of adventures. And of thrifting. And of crafting. And of Sweet Thing. We're going to their show on Friday in Ottawa, so fun! I'm going to hit on all the OTTAWA BABES.
Hey do you guys know any babes in Ottawa?

Hahaaa I was yelling at a babe the other day about babes and he was like "I have a name you know. we aren't just all just babes"