Asian stir fry mix remixed

Yup, the same frozen Asian stir fry mix from Ralph's added to whole grain pasta.  And, the best part is that it's (the vegetables are) totally microwaveable and it still comes out nice and not too limp the way microwaved vegetables sometimes do.

Bullet Bill

Another little collaboration with my friend.  I'm sensing a Nintendo theme here.

Chicken and "Asian stir-fry" mix

Hooray for totally easy meals that look complex :)  I found these bags of frozen "Asian stir-fry mix" vegetables on sale at the grocery store and bought them because I totally love the combination (I'm not sure what makes it Asian, but I'm not complaining).  Green beans, broccoli, mushrooms, and onions.  Chicken was cooked the same way as I did here, and after I took the chicken out of the pan, I just threw the frozen vegetables into the leftover oil and sauteed them until the onions were translucent the mushrooms were soft. 

Another delicious and economical dish.

Did you know that when you search Kirby, the top hit is a vacuum store?

I'm afraid I don't have the pattern that was used to make this Kirby, it's quite well done.  I just added the detailing on the face after my friend finished crocheting the body.  She hates finishing, and I have a love/hate relationship with finishing, so I offered to do it for her.  I had limited colors of felt so Sharpie cheeks it is!  Also, I've only recently discovered the wonders of using felt for intricate detailing on crochet things, I used to crochet everything.  Felt is much nicer (and I only have to glue, no sewing!)

Scientists have the best humor.

 

via Improbable Research

This apparently isn't the first time someone has snubbed the abstract.

I lol'ed.

A step up from plain pasta: Peas and tuna pasta

This meal was pretty darn tasty and pretty much composed of random things I had in the cupboard.  And I think all together, this dish cost me around $1 per serving. 

-Can of water-packed tuna (not as healthy as the oil packed but still good) (I probably used about half for one meal)
-Frozen peas
-Mini shell pasta
-Dash of salt and pepper

This was inspired by a Real Simple dish but that one was for a cold pasta dish, and I like my food hot ;]  All I did was cook the pasta, cook the peas in the pasta water, and put tuna into the bowl.  I didn't even have to cook the tuna; I just put the hot pasta and peas on top and mixed it up.

Economical and tasty. Not bad.

Apparently, strawberries aren't actually a "berry"

I love quick little projects like this strawberry that require minimal finishing :]  I'm especially loving the pattern for the leaves at the top, this is the best one I've come across yet.  I found it at the Make Little Things blog somehow in my trawling of the great wide internets.  I'm still on the hunt for the most perfect strawberry pattern, I feel like this one could have been pointier at the tip of the fruit ;] But now I'm just nitpicking.

Also, it is a very special strawberry-blonde's birthday today. Something like 16 years I've known her now, and I'm quite happy to make that another 16+ years :]

Fanfare

I think this is so beautiful plus the music really makes this video. I've always wanted to learn how to dance, ballet that is.



 via {frolic!}

I can't believe this is actually an ad spot for Chloe.  Well done.

Incidentally, I've been taking ballroom dance classes at our Rec Gym. It's surprisingly loads of fun.

Shent

What is a shent? (A little bit of humor, definitely pokes fun at Rachael Ray and some other Food Network hosts)
TL;DR: shirt < Shent < tent

 I have this shirt, from Wal-mart I think, that's been tucked away in a drawer because it hangs like a tent on me.  And with the wintery season upon us (San Diego winter, but I'm a SoCal girl and it's cold to me), I decided to take in this shirt so that it looks nice and it'll lay nice and flat under other shirts/sweaters.

I didn't take a before picture with the shirt on me because it was cold and rainy on Sunday, and I didn't really feel like changing out of pajamas. Believe me when I say it looked awful on me.

Flipped the shirt inside out and laid a t-shirt over that fits much better.  Drew in new rough seam lines with some leftover chalk from my teaching days and pinned it up.

Sewed it up with a ball point needle for my machine (better for knits to give it some stretch).  I just used 2 parallel straight stitches although I've heard zig-zag stitch should be used on knits.  I didn't even cut off the excess since I'm lazy. 

Yay, done! Nice wardrobe staple for the late fall/winter.  Hopefully my seams hold up well in the wash.

It's definitely Monday today.

You know how I know it's Monday today?

When I got to work this morning, it took me nearly 45 minutes to get started on any of my experiments because I had to take apart my scope and replace the bulb.

It's going to be a long week.

+1 to Cooking Skill. Your skill in Cooking has increased to 2.

 I used this recipe for Sauteed Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Pears from Real Simple, but since I didn't have some of the ingredients and I didn't want to buy them, I left out the 1 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, and 1 tbsp tarragon.

I love the recipes on Real Simple mostly because it says things like [Sauté the chicken until cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes per side].  This helps me a ton because I have no idea how long it is until chicken is "done", and I poke at it every 2 minutes to see if it's still pink inside. 

Also, why was this sweet potato yellow when most are orange inside? Sweet potatoes are deceptively heavy, the one I picked out ended up being about 1.5 pounds!

It was delicious! But just a little advice, don't spend so much time taking pictures and congratulating yourself on making an edible and safe-to-eat meal that your food gets cold. Just saying :)

Now I have leftovers and lunch for the next couple days, yay cooking at home!

And I have leftover chicken breasts from the package I bought, so maybe a savory chicken dish next? The sweet potato and pear were obviously a very sweet combination for the chicken.

For the happy lovebirds

I made these as an anniversary gift a couple of months ago for my friends who got married last year.

I might be a terrible gift-giver because these are the most impractical thing ever. Especially for two young people with very little extra space in their apartment. But that's my thing I guess, giving impractical gifts to people.

For my generation:

Amazing. I can't believe it's all over.

Trick or treat 'til the neighbors gonna die of fright

Happy Halloween! Awesome costumes, anyone?  I wonder how many slutty-somethings I'll see today.. "Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it." I love Mean Girls, probably one of Lindsey Lohan's finest works.

Slimy things in jars lining the walls

Just a quick little jellyfish I worked up while listening to a particular boring meeting.  Also used this as a chance to work out the new corkscrew curls I learned. Just chain to desired length and put two sc in each st, so easy!

[Bonus if you can name where the quote from the title comes from]

It's a dead man's party

 I made this sweet phalanx bone (a fancy science term for 'finger') pen with just a little bit of air dry modeling clay and a cheap stick pen.

Here's what you'll need:

-Air drying modeling clay
-A couple cheap stick pens with detachable tips that the ink cartridges can be replaced (mostly so you can get the most life out of the bone pen :]
-Optional: paintbrush and white paint
-Newspaper to cover your work surface

[On the second pen I did, I figured out it was easier to sandpaper the surface of the barrel of the pen first so that the clay stuck better.  Of course, I didn't actually have sandpaper available, so I just scratched the heck out of the surface with the edge of a bottle cap which seemed to do the trick just fine.]

Wrap the layer of clay around the barrel of your pen at the base nearest where the tip of the pen would go.  Be careful not to go over this edge or else the pen tip and cartridge won't go back on the pen.

Repeat this process for 3 sections of bone (or however long your pen is).

 
Ta da! A fabulous pen that may (or may not) freak out any coworkers :]  Enjoy your little bit of Halloween spirit.

And, a funny outtake from this project.  I saran-wrapped the side of my camera so that I could photograph the steps with clay-covered fingers.

Be still, my heart.

Why must he be so cute?!
Also relevant, this.

A tisket, a tasket

This little bun is only the size of an egg!  Perfect for carrying around in your pocket.

NBD. Just Neil and Buzz on a return flight.

 Note the place of departure:

A little bit of bureaucracy red tape from Neatorama.

They're at it again...

Seems the pigs have got into the bird nests again, making them Angry Birds indeed.  These were made by a lot of eyeballing, I'd guess Ravelry probably has some patterns for the pigs.

Money does grow on trees

This is amazing.

It's like a huge collective art piece that isn't premeditated.

One of these things is not like the other

The awesome lady who wrote this pattern is hilarious on her blog.  I mean her blog is called "Look at this crap I made" and well, the address of the blog itself is something else.  This is a super simple pattern although I have issues with shaping while stuffing so my bell pepper is more round than square but that's ok!  It's a special bell pepper :)

Glass Pumpkin Patches

These are the perfect decoration for autumn goodness the whole season instead of just during pumpkin months (October).  I always felt like buying actual pumpkins and then throwing them away when they rot was like throwing away money.  And I hate to waste money.

I "Like" This

Katie of Punk Projects did this sweet guest post that I finally got around to crafting because I found some old erasers I didn't mind cutting up (thanks drug abuse education!).

It was a good exercise in not cutting myself again with a very sharp craft knife. Not on purpose anyway.

I also just used a blue crayola marker to ink the stamp, and it works perfectly well, plus I mounted it on a little square piece of clay that I had left over from a different DIY that I'm working on.  It's like having a real stamp :)  Now, what to stamp this on?  People's hands? ;)

Life imitates art

Great concept.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

I pulled this pattern from Ravelry, since I've been having a minor love affair with all things fox lately.  I thought it was really adorable, but it sat in my unfinished WIP pile for a very long time because I lent my only skein of white yarn to a friend and had no opportunity to get more or get that one back.  I also was surprised it was so small when I started assembling it, I don't know why because the pattern very clearly states it is 5" tall, but I was imagining it to be bigger I guess.  I also am terrible at assembly because the legs and arms are supposed to be attached teddy-bear style with limbs sticking forward, not out like a starfish as I have done it here.

Meh. Well he's still cute.

And some other fox related things I have hanging around in my Crafts folder.

 

Pretty bookmarks from Lemon Squeezy with coordinating back print.

Prints by Melissa Nucera at Shana Logic.

Plus some other things that I need to be more diligent about noting the source :(

That's all, folks!

Day 30. In motion

Just the electric fireplace with "fake fire" flickering in the background. 

And that's the end of this little venture.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks

Day 29. Purchased.

But in this case, it seems you can.

I have always struggled with my hair. It pretty much never looks halfway decent to leave it down plus it bugs the absolute shit out of me.  However, the options then fall to ponytail with I-always-think-they're-a-good-idea-at-the-time-bangs that are pinned back, and I look like a boy.  A 12 year old pre-adolescent boy.  These might just be a godsend.  I have to use 4 normal bobby pins to pin things flat to my head so they aren't in my eyes all day and somehow they end up in my eyes anyways because 1)my hair tie gets loose and 2)my bobby pins start to fall out.  I only need one of these in place of 3 and it holds all day.  So far, so good.  Thumbs up for Goody.  (I've always loved Goody, btw.)

Nonessential essentials

Day 28. Daily routine.

Everyday, I take these off and put them here (on top of my printer) when I get home from campus, and in the morning, I put them on before I head out the door again.

Help! Come quick, they're still extinct!

From the TV show "FRIENDS": 
Joey: What the hell does a paleontologist need a beeper for?
Monica: Is it, like, for dinosaur emergencies? "Help! Come quick, they're still extinct!"

Found this and thought this was so rad.  I've always loved light painting.

 









 

Check out the full photostream by Darius twin at his flickr.

And darkness is real

Day 27. After dark

The creepy sweet darkness of the neighborhood.

((Grim Goodbye by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus))

April showers bring May flowers

Day 26. Something old.

I found a few of these while cleaning out some boxes at home.  These used to belong to a little Fisher-Price desk with these die cut cards and magnetic alphabet letters.  The desk would slide open to store things and the lid was magnetic so we could practice recognizing letters I think?  I distinctly remember playing with this when I was little :)

[Something interesting about the sun]

Day 25. Sun flare.

My usual lens is fairly recessed into the barrel (usually no flares or sun spots) but this came out of my Diana lens.  I'm not entirely sure that this is real sun flare, but I like it :)

Unicorn of the sea

I used a pattern from Ramen Needles.  Turned out pretty cute except that his body is a little weird.  I blame that on my non-knowledge of invisible decreases!  The pattern called for it, but I was too lazy to go and look it up so I made a regular decrease, and it's very visible in the body, but oh well.  Done is done.  One more pattern made and rated ^^

There's some other pretty cute patterns on Ravelry for narwhals if you want to try a different pattern.  I was originally going to use the Wunderkammer pattern for the narwhal, but I, as usual, was being lazy and didn't want to look up the knotting pattern for the horn that she did.  I must say that the spiral staircase horn from the Wunderkammer pattern is really cute and adds a touch of uniqueness to the pattern.

I'm a centenarian!

No, just kidding, but this is my 100th post!  I started this blog a little more than a year ago and have been growing it slowly!  More to come :)

Isn't this butterfly gorgeous?  I managed to snap one picture before it fluttered off.

Sweet Child O' Mine

Day 24. A smile.

A kitty smile that is. I love this picture because she looks so mischievous (like she is).  She usually looks so sweet and innocent in pictures.

Is this the place I've been dreaming of?

Day 23. Sunset.

Oh San Diego, you are beautiful sometimes.

((Somewhere Only We Know: Warblers version))

I speak for the trees

Day 22. Trees.

 

All the trees are in straight lines every way you look.  It's a real artificial forest.

The Lorax.

Boyce Avenue

I saw Boyce Avenue on a whim at House of Blues when they were here last week.  I must say that I'm surprised that I haven't heard of them long before now.  Definitely up my alley music-wise. They put on a really good show too.

 

They played Iris as one of their last songs, it was very touching.  Iris might be my favorite song ever.

They're super popular on YouTube with their covers of songs, but I must say that I am really impressed with their album as well.