A World of Disney

So, for those two or three of you who may not have heard, last month we took a big trip to Florida to Disneyworld. Mr. Graham has done a very thorough trip summary on his blog, but, in the spirit of my first-time Disneyland post, I'm just going to list some of the highlights here.

Favorite ride(s): DINOSAUR. It's like Indiana Jones, except with dinosaurs! I wanted to go on it again and again and everytime I squealed with delight. Another winner was Expedition Everest, also in Animal Kingdom.

In general, I preferred the Disneyland version of the rides that the parks have in common (like Pirates, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain etc.), but the Disneyworld tweaks on Tower of Terror and Haunted Mansion where were pretty good cool.

Least favorite ride: I actually have one this time! Journey to Imagination, at Epcot. Wow, what a snoozefest! I was a little bit insulted by its lameness. A runner up to this would be Maelstrom, also in Epcot. As soon as it matches the Maelstrom in At World's End, let me know.

Favorite show: As at Disneyland, it's a tossup between Captain EO and Bug's Life. I find this interesting because I'm not a huge fan (or even a medium fan) of Michael Jackson or a Bug's Life. But man, I could go to those shows over and over. Thank goodness they're in California too. I also really liked Mickey's PhilharMagic, the Indiana Jones stunt show and the live Lion King show.

Tastiest food: We ate so much food! The turkey leg is always a winner, but the pizza we had in Italy ('Italy') was SUPER good. I mean, I even ate the crust, that's how good it was. We usually got breakfast at our hotel in the morning, and they had this super delicious breakfast pizza. Basically everything we ate was delicious.

Favorite souvenir: I looked EVERYWHERE for the Nightmare bath toys, but they were not to be found. I consoled myself with some pink flip flops instead. We also got a magnet to match our Disneyland one, and a pin, like we do on each trip. Drewbles got me a shirt in England ('England') as well as a very expensive pack of Jammie Dodgers. He also got me a Claddagh ring which I, along with pretty much every other girl who ever watched the early years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, have always wanted. Well done, husband.

A few of my favorite things:
--The different countries at Epcot. We walked through them many times, and I think you could spend hours exploring all the nooks and crannies.
--Did I mention Dinosaur?
--A week with no work and time with my honeybuns! It's always a delight.
--Speaking of Mr. Graham, he auditioned for the American Idol Experience in Hollywood Studios, won his first show and placed second at the finale show for the day. He did so great, and I was so proud. You can see my contraband video of him in the second show here (you can also see his first performance too, but I like the second better).
--Drew's sister Cami and her Disney cruise-bound family were in Magic Kingdom for one day and it was fun to rendezvous with them. It also led to a really great picture on Splash Mountain (see below).
--I liked that in addition to the rides, shops, shows and Disney stuff there was also a lot of stuff was, like, educational and informative. There was a cool aquarium in Epcot, a safari and nature trails in Animal Kingdom and other things scattered throughout. I had fun and I also learned that a rhino's skin is an inch thick! It's the best of both worlds.

In the end, I will miss some of the things you can only find at Disneyworld, but I'm excited to go back to Disneyland and go on Indiana Jones and walk across the street to the hotel. Both of them have really cool, unique things. Props go to Mr. Graham for planning the whole thing!

Okay, picture time!

At the Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom. It is quite the impressive big, fake tree.

Oh England! Such a beautiful castle. Bonus: (almost) not a single other soul in the picture. Double bonus: Dumbo.

It is always kind of weird experience interacting with characters, especially ones who don't talk.

Those side-by-side seats on Splash Mountain are handy! Thanks, Cami, for making this picture extra special.

Oh hello there, girlhood crush of mine. You seem to be lacking a body.

The delicious pizza! We bought it from a lovely Italian boy named Alberto.
DINOSAUR! Need I say more?
(And apologies for the punk behind me.)
(Especially since you probably wouldn't have noticed him if I hadn't pointed him out.)
In France! Pretty much the same as the real thing, right?

A huge (flasher) fruit bat in Animal Kingdom! They were fascinating and had such cute little bat faces.
Farewell for now, Disneyworld! We'll see you again.

Stay tuned for the rundown on Harry Potter land. Pretty much everything will be filed under "Coolest thing ever."

The After Birthday: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The good: On Saturday morning we met up with many friendlies at Tucanos so all of us May birthday people (there were 3 of us) could use our birthday coupons. We stuffed our faces and it was delightful indeed to see so many of our peeps AND get to eat those cheese rolls at the same time. Drew's sister, Elise, has been in town and it was especially nice to get to have some birthday festivities with her as well. She also came bearing a gift of an H&M gift card, which I will put to good use as soon as it opens in the fall (SCORE). The Ls gave me a wacky eyeglasses-style straw (http://www.latestbuy.com.au/drinking-straw-glasses.html). I haven't *quite* put those to good use (yet!) but I'm sure the event will be thoroughly documented, to everyone's amusement.
After Tucano's some of us girls (+Drew) took a little trip up to the mall. I just love the mall. I think I could spend hours there walking around and not actually buying anything. This time I found, at last, a maxi dress.

The bad: I actually can't think of anything for this section, but you can't just say "the good and the ugly." Let's transition to that right now.

~*~*~*magical transition*~*~*~

The ugly: I set a goal last summer to make a red velvet cake. I've never done it, and I like red velvet so I wanted to try it. But then we went to England and I never did it when we got back. So I set that goal again for this year and my birthday seemed like a good occasion (for the record, Drew did offer to make my cake). So! I made the batter. It looked beautiful. I put them in the oven. They smelled delicious. I opened the door...and they both had fallen. I sighed, but was not defeated. After all, frosting can cover many flaws, yes? Well, it can if your recipe makes enough frosting which mine, inexplicably, did not. Okay, so maybe I could have sent Drew off to the store for more frosting supplies. But the cake already looked like a sinkhole anyway and it looked so AWFUL that at that point abandoning it and making another attempt later seemed like the better solution. So, abandon it I did. And MAYBE (maybe) Drew felt a little wrath-of-the-foiled-baker (I love you, peaches!), but in the end we came out of the event unscathed.

Since I couldn't bear to let anyone see my disfigured and half-frosted cake we met up with our friendlies again sans cake. In the end the cake situation turned out well, with an expedition to Walmart, the buying of a chocolate mousse cake and the singing of the birthday song. Thanks, friendlies! One day I hope to give you some red velvet cake.
As an epilogue to the unfortunate cake story, after lunch the next day Drew said, "Now, can I FINALLY eat some of this cake??" It tasted good, for all of its wretchedness. I guess that's something.

As an epilogue to that epilogue, Elise suggested I made the sad cake into a trifle and so I did! Elise, thanks for the idea--if you come back you can have some trifle. It tastes pretty good and it's a heck of a lot prettier to boot.

In Which I Age a Day

Okay, so maybe I aged a year, but I would rather just stick to the day version. At any rate, I just had my birthday. I had been very much looking forward to it because I was aware that Drewbles had been plotting and planning for some months. Plus it didn't hurt that there was a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie opening on my very birthday, just for me (more on that later). So, it was a Pirates-y kind of birthday, just for me.

The night before we stopped at the store to get a few things for my cake. I've been wanting to make a red velvet cake for months, and I thought my birthday was a good opportunity. Unfortunately the store did not have red food coloring of all things so we didn't get cake stuff after all. Instead we decided to get my birthday cereal of choice, chocolate Marshmallow Mateys (there's that pirate theme again). But alas, they had none of those either. So we went home because it was late and I didn't want to go to another store.

Well, the next morning I woke up and stretched about in my bed and lo, there was season 2 of Veronica Mars under my pillow! Well done, birthday fairy Drewbles. I traipsed off to get ready for work and then finally wandered into the kitchen to have some (*sigh*) non-birthday cereal when LO, there were the chocolate Marshmallow Mateys on the shelf! Drew went racing off to a different store while I was in the shower! How delightfully tricksy.

So off I went to work. I was only working a half day so I didn't take a lunch, which means I didn't touch my bag for a few hours. When I did finally open it, what did I find but season 3 of Veronica Mars! My first reaction was puzzlement, as I tried to remember when I put it in there before realizing what had happened. I hooped and hollered (inwardly) as now my collection was complete.

Drew came to pick me up from work and surprised me with a shaved face. He's had a beard since January and while I am very fond of the beard, I had been missing his face lately so it was a nice surprise. We ate lunch and watched some Project Runway, then I settled down to finish a collage of my Pirates socks (a collage Drew did most of the work for already). I then read my book for a little while and then played with the Wii until Drew came home a little after 5. I very much enjoyed wasting some time.

We had dinner plans at Bombay House but first we played a little game of hot and cold. The clues led me to our Tesco reusable bag in the kitchen where I found a Pirates fun pack--the new Lego game for the Wii, the latest soundtrack, a little Lego Jack figure and two tickets to the movie! At this point I was feeling *quite* spoiled. I put my Lego guy together and then off we went to Bombay House for MORE spoiling.The food was delicious and we headed to the movie. Let me just say here that I love the first three movies to a perhaps ridiculous degree. I could talk about this for a while but I will summarize and say I love them and Dead Man's Chest is my favorite and I quote it often and I watched them all this week for the first time in ages and I just love them. Phew. Anyway, so when they announced a fourth was being made, I was skeptical because 1) it's totally unnecessary, after the neat wrapping up in the 3rd 2) No Will and Elizabeth 3) Worse, Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane. BUT I was still cautiously optimistic because hey, it's more Pirates and my love for it is not dependent on Will and Elizabeth by any means.SO. We watched it, and about halfway through I turned to Drewbles and told him it was making me sad. Part of me wanted to leave, a little part of me wanted to cry and a very small part of me was occasionally amused. *sigh* And now I will summarize my grievances briefly: Ian McShane=BOMB, too much Jack being in the lead, not enough piracy, too much swinging from palm trees, too little chemistry, too much innuendo (compared to the first three). Anyway, I will give it another whirl at some point, I have been known to change my mind, but I did feel a little burned after.

So we headed home, dissecting the movie all the while, and as we were walking back inside, Drew said he left something in the trunk. Say, maybe I should go get it? Well, it turns out someone had left a large wrapped box in there. How weird! We went inside and I opened it up and found something I have been talking about for several months.Isn't it the prettiest and cutest little netbook you have ever seen? Originally I planned to name it Chabo, but when I saw it in its purple tinyness I knew what name she needed.

Quinn! And everytime she makes a fuss (which I hope is not often) I intend to say "Gee, Quinn." Unfortunately Quinn had a loose mouse button so we actually had to exchange her in the morning, haha. But now she is up and running, and I have great plans for us. Vera doesn't seem too jealous. In fact, she is probably relieved because this alternative will lead to much less of me shaking my fist at her and her aged, fussy ways.

To top of the day, we played a little Lego Pirates and watched the season finale of the Office. I also chatted with my Mama and Papa, heard a cute message from my brother and his family (who called during the movie), and did a little MSN chatting with my sister. So, almost everyone.

In the end, it was a truly delightful birthday. Many thanks to my lovely Drewbles for all of his surprises. He does spoil me so! But I'm not going to complain.

Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat.

Here is a confession for you, Internet--I am a binger. Of songs! Here's how it happens: now and then I run across a song that I really like. I like it so much that I listen to it over and over and over again, maybe 10 times in a row. I do this for days and maybe weeks until it fades off a bit. And while you might think I never listen to that song again, I haven't seemed to have killed a song so far and I listen to past bingees pretty regularly. In the interest of sharing, here are some of my recent favorites. I've listed the number of plays according to my lil iPod, Athena, but I'm pretty sure they're all quite inaccurate. Add like 20 to each of them and maybe that's pretty close to the real number.

A Promise to Return, from season 2 of Battlestar Galactica:

I love all the BSG music, but this is probably my #1 favorite. Anders!
Plays: 25

Better Than Neil, from the musical commentary (called "Commentary!") on the Dr. Horrible DVD:

It never fails to amuse me! Also, it's all true. Nathan Fillion is SO much better than Neil. (PS: there's a moment of naked Mal bum in the video)
Plays: 21

Til I Hear You Sing, from Love Never Dies:

Mmhmm. This one never gets old. And it's so much better when you aren't watching the lame video, haha.
Plays: 63. LIE. It's so many, many more than that (I've even listening to it right now).

Secrets, by One Republic:

I just love a good, big angsty song. And bonus for the strings.
Plays: 56

Swallowed in the Sea, by Coldplay:

Of course I've heard this song many, many times before I started Le Binge, but it just suddenly grew on me the other day!
Plays: 13. Hah!

Something to eat

If you are craving this deliciousness and are sad because it's not in stores anymore, might I suggest the following:
It's just like the ice cream, minus the caramel and, oh, the ice cream.

Fruity grapes

Apparently my blog style lately is short, random posts about nothing really important. So, to keep up with this theme, let's talk about grapefruits.

I have always despised them. My mama would always push me to eat one when I was sick, and I would dump a lot of salt on it and choke it down, complaining all the while about how sour and gross they were. Well, it has been some years since my mama pushed me to eat anything so you can imagine that grapefruits did not come anywhere near my diet for years. But I began noticing them in the stores a few months ago--they started to look so big and potentially delicious. About a month ago I couldn't resist (they looked so pretty!), and I took three home and it turns out grapefruits are delicious! I halved them, gave them a sprinkle of salt (okay, several sprinkles of salt...I really like salt), and dug in. They're still tart, some more than others, but it turns out my mama was right all along.

Unfortunately, it's been hard to find any that are as good as those first three. Maybe that was just a magical day, but the ones I have found since are small, pale and sad. Then, last weekend, we checked out the new Whole Foods up in Salt Lake. Just look at the difference!
They're twice as big! And let me just add that the grapefruit on the left was the best one I could find in the area too.

It just goes to show that sometimes the foods you despise need another chance. Oranges have already been victorious, corn tortillas are making progress...maybe one day nectarines will prevail too. Maybe.

Apes for the watching

I watched the trailer for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie today. It intrigues me, and it doesn't involve Paul Giamatti, which is a big bonus. Mostly it just made me think of the following classic moment from the The Simpsons. It's so funny that it even made my mom laugh uncontrollably. A mom! Laughing at the Simpsons! That's how you know it's really funny.

Anonymously speaking

I got this comment on a recent post from that infamous blogger commenter, Anonymous, and it's so full of gibberish I just had to share. And never fear, I edited it for you, my tender readers.

"Thanks looking recompense the mammoth info. To be established ' ethical sh**! I on the entire do not commentary on these but I cerebration you did a genuinely humanitarian proportions and I’m indubitable some people meditate on the awfully unvarying"

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need go meditate on the awfully unvarying.

Cereal revolution!

Berry Berry Kix is one of the best cereals in the world. I think we can all agree on that...until now. First they replaced the berry-shaped pieces with the regular round balls, then it was virtually impossible to find and now they've changed the FLAVOR. And it's just not very good (though of course now it's readily available in stores now...). So not very good that I wrote General Mills. And you can too! Just take my word for it, don't worry about trying it. It's bland and dull--not even as good as regular Kix. Here's what I told them (and every word is true):

Berry Berry Kix has been my very favorite cereal for many years. For a long time I could never find it in stores but I always looked for it. Now it's back in stores but with a new look and taste. Unfortunately, neither of these changes were an improvement. Instead of the brightly colored berries, they are now muddy colored, like a white shirt that was washed with a red sock. Even worse, the cereal is now bland and unappetizing. The one box I purchased sat on my cereal shelf for nearly a month before I could finish it. I love regular Kix, I enjoy the Honey Kix, but I will not be buying Berry Berry Kix again, unless it returns to its former state. I can only hope it does because I really loved that cereal.

Giggle snort

This makes me laugh so hard I can't even control myself. Seriously, every time (every time!) I just dissolve in uncontrollable facial contortions from laughing so much.



Glenn Steves!

Frog's breath?

Have I really not blogged once in March (until now)? How ridiculous of me when this, this and this have happened lately. Good thing the Mister keeps up on these things. I guess I have been kind of preoccupied. Well, anyway, here we are and here is a new blog post (and here is my resolve for a more bloggy April).

So, if you don't know by now my favorite of all movies is Nightmare Before Christmas. Back in late 1993 I went to see The Three Musketeers with my Mama and sister. Some hapless employee had mislabeled that movie as PG-13, and so my Mama changed our course to that weird Christmas movie that was only PG. I had seen the trailer at Wal-Mart once and was basically repulsed by it--oh the folly of youth! If you haven't seen it before, I so highly recommend it. It is magical and delightful. Plus then you will understand half the things I say quote. As an epilogue to that story, my Mama and sister could only come up with "Well the dog was cute" afterward, but no worries, they've found their Nightmare love since.

Anyway, my oldest brother was on his mission when Nightmare came out and when he got back he wanted to see it. Luckily he had a little sister who liked it and who happened to have enough money to buy the video on the day it was released. I guess you could say that was my first piece of Nightmare paraphernalia, and in the such and so years up to now I have acquired many more from hither and thither. Let's look at some of the highlights! Yes, the whole point of this post is to show stuff related to this thing that I have loved for so long.
I got these little guys way back in the early 90s for Christmas. I was pretty ecstatic, and even more ecstatic that the bugs in Oogie Boogie's mouth glowed in the dark. I was also still a Nightmare newb because I didn't realize Zero's nose is a jack-o-lantern and I picked off the stem thinking it was a spare bit of plastic. Even now these sit on my nightstand.
I got this beanie for Christmas in 2001 from my longtime buddy Allison. I distinctly remember wearing it when the Olympic torch runner went past my house in Provo, and I still wear it to this day! Let's not talk about how it's been almost 10 years since then...but we are still buddies, which is neat.
This came from my longtime buddy Allison's sister Leslie who is also my longtime buddy. Isn't it cute? I've bundled this up very carefully for several plane rides across the country. Snowglobes are so pretty.
You all know this fellow. He's the cutest thing in the whole apartment beside the Mister. Look at that face! I found him at Disneyland in 2008 and while I resisted him that time, when we went a few months later on our honeymoon I just had to get him. I still call him the Baby, as does the Mister because he indulges me that way.
Another thing to come from Disneyland is this cool bag I found there last October. I don't normally buy souvenirs at Disneyland because they're typically so expensive, especially for larger things like this. But the bag I used for work (and England) had a broken zipper and several holes and this had a surprisingly reasonable price tag. So I pushed it at the Mister and told him it would be a great Christmas present (and so it was). It has pockets everywhere!
If I have a particular pride and joy in my Nightmare things, it is this. My oldest brother got this for me at Disneyland for my birthday one year. He had gone to Disneyland with his wife and baby while on leave from Iraq, and my sister-in-law brought it down to Provo for me after he went back to Iraq. It always reminds me how sweet my brother is and how he thought of me and my birthday while on such a short vacation with his family. This has also been ever so carefully taken back and forth across the country, and I would cry desperately if it were ever broken.

Have I saved the best for last? Well, I have certainly saved the most unique for last. Growing up, for Valentine's Day we would each make a mailbox and then make valentines for each other. While we were in Missouri for Christmas I found a bunch of my valentines from the last few years that we did this. Just check out these creative things:
(Yes, that is an envelope made from the paper that the Jack/Sandy Claws was cut out of.)

And there they are, some of my favorite Nightmare-related possessions. I'm fond of them for their movie connection, but I'm just as fond of them for the people connection. The love! It's nice. As a side note, probably one day many of these things will be safely secured in the back of my closet or in some kind of locked trunk to keep them out of the future hooligan children's hands. But I shan't deprive the wee ones entirely--I'll just have to get these unbreakable gems.

Let them eat soup!

We have been eating a lot of soup the last few months. Soup is delicious! I suppose I have always thought so, but I feel like I have rediscovered my appreciation for it lately. It's hot and it doesn't require a lot of dirty dishes usually either. I like standard kinds of soup but I have trying my hand a number of new and interesting kinds too. There have been so many delicious ones I finally decided I should share them with one and all!

(Before I launch into the soups, I should add that I am a big fan of AllRecipes.com. I love the variety of recipes and I REALLY love that there are reviews. I feel like that provides something of a guarantee that the thing will be delicious. And they usually are--I have very rarely been disappointed with the results (*cough*fried cheese curds*cough*). Anyway, that is the story. Now the soup!)

Easy Chicken Fajita Soup
This was so so good. The funny thing is that it really IS just like fajita filling--all the pieces are in big long chunks. If I had wee ones, I would definitely make smaller pieces but it would still be just as tasty. I also followed a recommendation to make this to go along with and that was a very good decision.

Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup with Noodles
I don't know how authentically Thai this actually is, but I do know that it's really good. Coconut, cilantro, noodles?? So many things that I love in my food! It can turn out super salty so keep that in mind.

Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup
Sometimes we like traditional soup. I have tried several different chicken noodle soup recipes, but this one is my favorite. I like to throw in a potato. I made my own noodles once or twice--we had no rolling pin then so I used a can of biscuits to roll the dough out. True story.

Potato Clam Chowder
Another traditional soup--clam chowder is one of my very favorite soups. I tried a few different recipes, but I like this one because there's no cream so it's not super heavy or fattening. We like to occasionally watch our figures around here until dessert.

BLT Soup
It sounds kind of funky, but this soup is REALLY good. I feel almost as much pride in it as if I had made the recipe myself. I like this soup because there are a lot of shortcuts you can take in terms of quickness and healthiness--like bacon bits or turkey bacon or premade croutons. I also like throwing in a little radiatore just to give it a little something extra. Try it! You'll love it.

Well I think that is enough soup for one day. I heartily recommend them all, and if you try them, let me know what you think! And of course I am always happy to hear about new soup recipes.

On Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day! I think I am a sucker for festivity. I just like to be excited about the things that everyone else is excited about, whether it leads to fun things for me personally or not. What's not to like about V-Day after all? Pink! Red! Sparkles! Flowers! Sparkles! Chocolate things!

As a singleton, I was always kind of annoyed by the whole S.A.D. thing. I mean, isn't Valentine's like any other holiday, big or small, in that if you WANT to have fun with that day then you can? Not that you have to go hog wild with every single holiday, but there's no reason for anyone to feel bitter and sad on Valentine's Day. You can have fun with your friends or family or by yourself, it doesn't matter if you don't have a valentine. In my second year at college I started a Valentine's tradition for myself where I would watch a Disney movie, and I had a great time every year. Now as a non-singleton, we still are doing that (amazingly, Mr. Graham had no trouble adopting that tradition).

Naturally I have more fun on Valentine's Day now with my buddy, but that's true of pretty much any occasions and I still don't feel like there was anything lacking in my earlier V-Days.

Anyway, here is my gift to all of you. I can't even tell you how many times I have watched it but it is a lot.
(I just watched it like four more times.)

On a not-really-related note, we finished watching Daria recently, which I had never seen before. It took a little while for me to get into, but I loved it by the end. I think we are going to be Daria and Trent for Halloween. Gee Quinn.

Christmas: It's Crafty

Let's rewind to Christmas. This year I did a couple of crafty things for people, even though I've always been snooty about the "homemade Christmas" thing (because I'm materialistic of course). Since I have a tendency to document my craftiness on my blog I will tell you about my Christmas crafties.

The first thing was some cookies. Okay, maybe they're not necessarily a craft, but I'm counting them anyway. This year we made cookies for Drew's family and my contribution was a gumdrop cookie (Drewbles made his BCEs*). I became acquainted with these cookies several years ago through my sister-in-law, Sarah, but had never made them myself before now. They were, if I may toot my own horn, rather a hit. So, for you curious folk who didn't get any and for you interested folk who did, here is the recipe, which is courtesy of Sarah's lovely mother.

Cream together 1 c. shortening, 1 c. brown sugar, 1 c. white sugar. Beat in 2 eggs. Sift together 2 c. flour, 1/2 t. salt, 1 t. baking soda, 1 t. baking powder and add in. Stir in 1 c. shredded coconut, 2 c. cut gumdrops and 2 c. oatmeal.
Cook at 350 for 11-15 minutes and then eat until you can eat no more.

I would add that mine didn't need quite all the flour. Also, make sure you buy FRUIT gumdrops and not spice gumdrops. I followed Sarah's lead and just bought fruit slices and had Mr. Graham cut them up for me into manageable smallish pieces.

My second Christmas craft was to make some more magnets, this time featuring the grandkids.
I was going to make a set for both my parents, but the craft store thwarted me and didn't have any in stock for all the many weeks before Christmas. In the end I used ones I had leftover from my England magnets but I only had enough for one set. Maybe one day they will sell the really clear stones again and I can make a nice new set.

My last Christmas craftible took the most time by far, but first, a story. Lo, these many years ago when I was wee tot of 5 or 6, my teacher at church gave us each a gold Christmas spider (along with the cheesy story I forgot soon after). Over the years my Christmas spider became quite infamous among the decorations, and the tree was never complete without it. In 2009 my mama sent it to me here and then, later, plaintively asked me to make her one for next year. I tucked that idea away for this year, and I made a spider for my parents and each of my siblings (and myself of course). Again the craft store thwarted me and I had to make white spiders instead of gold. But in the end, they turned out so cute anyway and I just wanted to hug and squeeze them all. Behold my little fleet (and a cameo from Boston Rob)!
And here is the original.
He's a little wonky these days, but now that I know how to make them, I'm thinking about pulling him apart and remaking him. But then he wouldn't be quite the same, would he? Oh, little Christmas spider, what larks we have had.

And that was Christmas. The crafty part anyway...maybe this whole "homemade Christmas" is okay after all.

*Best Cookies Ever.

Sunday is for Funnies

There's an artist on dA that does some funny things. One funny thing she did recently is this:
It was a big hit and led to some altered versions by others. This is my favorite, for obvious reasons:
Hah! Everything is better with dinosaurs. Unfortunately I can't tell you who did this one, but whoever you are, I tip my hat to you, sir/madam/mademoiselle.

On a completely unrelated note, little Vera has just been a basket case for well over six months now. I thought it was because she picked up not one but two viruses in a pretty short amount of time last spring. And, yeah, that probably didn't help but months later she was still taking a ridiculous amount of time to boot up/shut down/open Firefox/open anything. Finally last week I had a little suspicion that maybe my antivirus software was the culprit. So Friday night it was in with the new (avast) and out with the old (symantec) and Vera has perked right up to her old delightful self. I would say symantec served me well, but remember those two viruses? Anyway, it's nice to see Vera happy again and it's nice to not be waiting half an hour for her to do anything. Huzzah.

2011: Let's Be Friends

And now commences the blog post I have been meaning to write for weeks now.

So, 2010 has ended, and now 2011 is here and I can't even believe it. 2001 seems like last week, even though I know it obviously wasn't. Okay, maybe it seems like, five years ago, but not ten. My my my. Anyway, I don't usually get big on resolutions. I tend to make goals whenever they come to me and then follow through from there (or not). This year I made a whole list, and while most of them aren't really interesting/relevant for other people, I do have two categories of goals that I am particularly excited about.

First, I have some art goals. I spent so many of my teenage and college years drawing pencil portraits, but ever since I started drawing my own things my senior year at BYU, that's kind of fallen by the wayside. I've drawn a handful, but they've taken months and months at a time. So one of my goals this year is to do a lot more pencil drawings, even just small ones. I'd like to do one a week but since that is entirely unrealistic, I'm aiming for once a month at least.

Another one of my art goals (leftover from last year) was to start an art blog for me and Drewbles. We finally did it and you can see it here. The design is still in progress but we've been updating it pretty regularly. You can also see one of my other art goals in progress--finishing a drawing of Legolas I started about a year ago (eesh). He's the main reason I haven't done any of my pencil drawings yet.

So, aside from the art goals, I have some book goals also. I feel like I spent 2010 reading either a) books I'd read before or b) reading dumb books that I knew were dumb and read anyway. Not that I don't enjoy a ridiculous book from time to time, but the ratio was a little off last year. This year I plan to read more books that I've never read and to have most of them be good books. I haven't made a final list of books to read or anything, and I have no set number, but here are some books I have already lined up to read during the year:

• Jude the Obscure (the only big Hardy novel I haven't read)
• Mansfield Park (the only Austen novel I haven't read)
• 1984
• The Bourne Supremacy (I read the first, and have the 2nd and 3rd)
• Cold Comfort Farm
• I Capture the Castle

I'm also planning to reread Series of Unfortunate Events with Drewbles in the summer, but that's my only planned repeat. I'm really excited to read some new things! A little while ago I did a little books meme on Facebook and marked off which ones I'd read. I was quite happy with how many of them I'd read, but I hadn't read many of those recently...so I'm going to have a much better book diet this year.

In 2011 I have a lot of things that I just want to get done. Lately I've felt like I've been kind of stagnant with things. And of course I'm largely to blame with not using my time as well as I should, but dang it, my favorite hobbies are just time consuming. So I need to be better and prioritize things so that the things I REALLY want to do and get done actually HAPPEN.

I feel pretty good about the year so far. January has been kind of busy with post-holiday stuff and apartment hunting, but I've been sticking to my art goals, and I'm almost done with my last 2010 books so I can start afresh. Huzzah. I've also been noticing that my poor blog has been a little neglected lately. Unfortunately I think it might remain a little neglected, for a little while. If I've got these goals, I can't spend the time blogging about random stuff. I'm definitely not abandoning my blog--I mean, it's been around since 2004, it's not going anywhere--but I just want to focus on taking care of some other things for a little while.

BUT luckily Mr. Graham keeps a good blog with regular updates on our doings so if you like to keep tabs on me, please go hither! But in the meantime you can also find bits and pieces from me here and here. And of course, Facebook. I think I'll always be able to make time for a little status update.

In Which We Go to England: The Stuff Edition

I know, I know, we've been home for a while now (*sigh), but I've been planning on doing this post for months now. My skills of procrastination are mighty indeed of late. ANYway, we came back from England with a lot of stuff. Really cool stuff. And since most of it is, naturally, in our house and you can't all come to our house just to see our new magnets, I will show them to you this-a way.

Like I said, we got new magnets. They are pretty awesome. You can probably guess where we got two of them.The sheep one we found up in Windermere, where apparently their sheep (and byproducts) are a big deal. It just seemed appropriate to get something cheesy for our wedding anniversary celebration.

We got this delightful Christmas tree ornament at Westminster Abbey. It was the ONLY ornament we found like this in all of our travels--most were felt-y and puffy and big. This one is so charming and wintery and yet also Londony.We saw lots of shows, as you know, and we got the programs at every one. Aren't they pretty?We also got books. Lots of books. Seriously, a lot of books. But I didn't take any pictures. So just IMAGINE a beautiful pile of books from pretty much every place we went, along with a boxed set of the adult edition Harry Potter paperbacks (you knew that was going to happen). I also got these books.Okay, so I haven't made anything from them, but I WILL. Soon. I also got those measuring things so I wouldn't have to convert all the recipes--I will say that was a stroke of genius. Go me. Oh, and we got these other food-related items--salt and pepper shakers! Aren't they the best? I'm already dreading the day some ruffian child o' mine breaks them. (Yes, those are tiny Pirates of the Caribbean figurines you see in the pictures.)

I love to buy postcards of my favorite things from a museum. We went to a lot of museums so...I got a lot of postcards. These are another thing that I hope to be able to display at SOME point in life. For some reason, they don't look like very many in this pictures but trust me, it's a fat stack.I also kept all the maps, guides and brochures we picked up along the way. These were the source of my totally awesome magnets, as you may recall.Oh, and we got this cool thing too. The tiniest Stonehenge of them all!In other stuff news, we brought quite a lot with us, and some of them didn't make it through the whole trip unscathed.You might think that we would have left these items there and gained a little extra suitcase room, but no, we brought them all back. We didn't even stop using them. In fact, we didn't even repair them, aside from the glasses (which have since mysteriously disappeared). That's just how we roll. I guess?

Of course we got other things as well, like shirts from Oxford, hats from various shops, scarves and an umbrella. It's always a delight to go through the day and run into these little reminders of our trip. It's so nice that we could not just go, but also have the money to bring back these little mementos. Thanks, work!