March 3rd, 2008 by Missy

So we’re playing loaded questions (it’s a game where one person asks a question from a card and everyone else writes their answer down — then the asking party has to guess who wrote which answer). Anya decided that she wanted to play (just saying her answers out loud, of course). My mom reads the question “What’s the most annoying thing that a driver can do when you are a passenger in their car?” Anya’s answer?

“Slam into another car.” I found that pretty clever, actually. It would be quite annoying.

Another Anya one here. Just happened about five minutes ago actually. She’s laying down on the couch and pulls her big girl pants down and pulls her butt cheeks apart and says “Hey mommy, why does this open?”

Like, omg x.x

January 3rd, 2008 by Missy

New pictures up from Christmas (finally, sorry it took so long.. having serious issues getting Gallery Remote to work and was too lazy to do them all one by one x.x) and New Year’s Eve. Enjoy! For all you uh.. two people reading ^_^

December 26th, 2007 by Missy

Well, Christmas was fun (aside from a random, unexplained fainting spell on Christmas Eve). The childrens got so many presents that it’s absolutely disgusting. Pre-Christmas we already had two overflowing toy boxes, four plastic bins full of toys, and a four shelf storage unit. Not to mention all of the toys just stacked up against the wall. Throw in the rest of the enormous horde that the children opened yesterday and it’s like……. Well, dot dot dot is all I can say.

Anya got a three-foot-tall pony that responds to touch and voice, a parrot that does the same (but thankfully isn’t three feet tall), various other stuffed animals and more random toys than I can count.

Alex got a roboquad (I think I like it more than he does, it’s soooo cool), a toy castle with secret doors and a cannon that Anya keeps shooting me with, and a nice big sandbox.

They got all sorts of other things as well, of course, but it’s really too much for me to list (or try to remember, for that matter). Suffice it to say that we don’t have ANY ROOM FOR IT. It amuses me greatly how my parents can go on and on about how Dan and I have no room over here and we shouldn’t buy anything (like we buy anything bigger than paint pots anyway) and they go buy Anya a freaking horse that practically needs a corral. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she got the pony because she wanted it very badly and I wasn’t about to drop $300 on it.. but it just drives me nuts how they can bitch about our lack of space in one breath (like it’s our doing, especially) and then shower the kids with stuff in the next.

Anyway, as far as presents for Dan and I. We both received money, of course, and we bought laptops this morning (AMD TL58, 2G RAM, 160GB hard drive, GeForce 7150Go). I had to ask Dan for those specs, of course, since they mean nothing to me QQ Anyway, $650 each. I really didn’t need a laptop, of course, and I told him not to get me one while he was out at the store this morning getting his (he really needs one for when he starts school soon, and it was a good deal), but we ended up going back to Fry’s later and I just couldn’t resist the temptation. It’s so sexy having a laptop! I had a shitty old Dell one that I dug out of a discard box from my Dad’s old computer crap but it was literally like, beyond shitty. Anyway, I was just using it to work on my novel, and it really was fine since I was only using Word.. but it feels much spiffier to have a nice new one. That’s actually capable of.. you know.. opening two Word documents at the same time. Not to mention, now I can browse the internet at speeds that don’t make me want to cry while snuggling next to my sexy man on the couch.

I totally got off the topic there, back to presents. Dan only asked for socks and polo shirts, so I suppose he wasn’t too surprised when that’s really all that he got from anyone (except me, of course). I got him a subscription to White Dwarf and finished fleshing out his Dwarf army — I bought him around 2,000 points or so.

I got an assortment of decorative scarves, some jeans from Dan, and a gift card to Victoria’s Secret and Dillards. My gift cards were, of course, converted into bras and shoes. All in all, the Christmas pickings were quite good!

Pictures to come soon, I’m sure.. as soon as I work up the desire to resize them all.

As an aside — during my proofreading I noticed that I say “of course” an inordinate amount.

December 18th, 2007 by Missy

You’ll notice that I always post when Dan buys me something, yanno.. to talk about how wonderful he is and how much I love him. This time, however, he has truly outdone himself. I’ve been begging on and off for the past.. I dunno how many years.. for a bird. I’ve always loved birds and wanted a young one who I could teach to do tricks and snuggle me and all sorts of other things. Anyway, Dan has finally agreed that I can have a bird and after much searching I decided on a Quaker Parrot (or Quaker Parakeet, depending on who you ask). After much more searching I have found the perfect one! I was starting to despair of finding a baby quaker by Christmas, but here she is! Isn’t she beaaauuuutifuuuuul? She is nine weeks old and just weaned, and she’s the sweetest little thing. Right when I first walked in the house to see her (the breeder’s house, I mean) she wanted to snuggle and sit with me, and she kisses and is so adorable ^_^

I get to bring her home on Thursday! I’ll have to go get a cage and some toys and food and all that tomorrow.. I just can’t wait until I can bring her home. I need name help! I’m up between quite a few — any opinions would be really appreciated!

• Mika
• Mischa
• Nadia
• Vasya
• Katya
• Nina
• Raya
• Asya (Asiyah)
• Sonya (Sonja)
• Vika
• Arya
• Anika

November 27th, 2007 by Missy

Seemingly (if Dan tells the truth) the cookies were a hit at work, so I decided to tackle some brownies tonight to send with him tomorrow. Here’s the recipe:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour (all purpose or baking, I prefer baking)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup chopped pecans

I suppose you could use walnuts or some other nut, but I decided to use up those extra pecans from the cookies yesterday ^_^ Also, I’d like to note that if you look closely in the butter section you can find “European Butter” which is 83% butterfat, as opposed to 80% on most butters. It doesn’t seem like a big difference, but you’ll find that it gives your baked goods a much creamier and crisper quality. I also prefer to use unsalted butter so that you have total control over the amount of salt going into your recipe.

In any case, melt 1/2 cup of the butter with the chocolate — either over a double boiler or just in the microwave.. about two minutes in the microwave will do it, but check it earlier to avoid burning the butter if you’ve got an uber microwave.

Mix the remaining 1/2 cup of butter with the sugar and vanilla (speed 2 for 30 seconds, then speed 6 for two minutes, or until it looks like all of the sugar is incorporated). Switch to speed 4 and add your eggs one at a time, waiting to introduce the next egg until the previous one is well blended. By this point your mixture should be nice and creamy. Turn off the blender, scrape the bowl and add the chocolate. Mix at 2 for around 30 seconds and then add the rest of the ingredients. Scrape the bowl down, set it to stir speed, and mix for another 30 seconds or so.

Pour it into a greased 13×9 and bake for 45 minutes at 350. Cool on a wire rack (still in the pan, of course), cut and enjoy!

We also made some pirogies tonight, but I’m not going to post that recipe since I wasn’t quite satisfied with it. The dough was too thick. It may be that it could be rolled thinner (or pressed once I get the flat pasta attachment <3<3) but by hand I don’t think I could have gotten it much thinner, which leads me to believe that the dough recipe was not quite right (especially since ancient Polish women have to be able to do it ^_^).

The filling was good — onions, mashed potatoes and Gorgonzola. I also made a creamy onion / Gorgonzola / butter sauce to pour over the top which was very good. I’m sure I’ll be attempting pirogies again soon and once the recipe is perfected I’ll post it on up here. Not that I think anyone is coming here looking for my recipes, but hey.. I have to have something to blog about!

November 27th, 2007 by Missy

I don’t think I mentioned it already, but Dan picked me up a KitchenAid on Black Friday for $129 (best husband ever, went out at 4:30 am so we wouldn’t miss the sales!) and I finally got a chance to use it today! I say finally like from Friday to Monday is such a long time which, of course, it isn’t. But still, I’m excited! We were sitting around painting tonight (also of course :p) when the monster children decided to break open the Oreos and tempt me greatly. I managed to abstain until after they went to bed and finally I couldn’t wait any longer. Oreos didn’t seem like they would do the trick, however, so I decided to bake up some fresh chocolate chip cookies. I sent Dan out to the store to pick up a few ingredients (namely the chocolate chips.. can’t have chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips) and got to baking! The KitchenAid is sooo wonderful. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to make cookies from scratch, but the dough is not easy to mix by hand, and my dinky little hand mixer can’t manage it at all. The KitchenAid just powered right through it, however, and mixed up in 30 seconds what would have taken me (or Dan, more likely, since I am lazy) at least five minutes.

In any case, the cookies were delicious, and I’m sending the leftover with Dan to work tomorrow so that he can share them with his friends and I won’t be tempted to eat them all ^_^ For anyone who cares, here is the recipe.

• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 oz chocolate chips (I like bittersweet dark, but milk is fine)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 375.

Mix up the sugars, margarine and shortening in a bowl and beat it until it’s nice and fluffy.. with the KitchenAid I did it on speed 2 for about 45 seconds. Add in the vanilla and the egg and blend it well (speed 4, less than a minute). Add the flour, baking soda and salt and beat (speed 4, two minutes). Toss in the chocolate chips and nuts and blend on the lowest setting for about two seconds.

Roll’em into cute little balls (I don’t know why, but I’ve always preferred to drop cookie dough with my hands rather than a measuring spoon, not that it makes them taste any better) and bake them for 8-10 minutes until they look tasty and delicious. Pull’em out of the oven, let’em sit on the tray for about a minute them scoop them off and enjoy. Technically they should go from the tray to a wire rack to cool some more but I can never resist eating them right away.

Off of the cookie note, I finished painting up the new skink..

Soooo…. which skink do I go with? Oh yeah, lots more pictures of the black skink in the gallery, of course (accessible by the Pictures link listed under ‘Pages’).

November 26th, 2007 by Missy

.. which is what I spent most of today doing. And it sucks. A lot. Woke up this morning intending to hit the Bowflex but Dan left too much weight on it and I couldn’t get the plates off (afraid I’d bust a nail, yes I’m girly), so I just walked on my treadclimber, which was a good workout nonetheless. Anya also hit up the treadclimber at a whopping 1 mile an hour with resistance set to 0! She seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, though, which is what matters.

Now that the house is all picked up and such, hoping to get some painting done tonight ^_^ Yesterday was spent working on another skink paint scheme. I haven’t finished the model, but it’s black-skinned with a rainbowish stripe running down each side. His scales are blue and his crest is still green. I’d post pics, but I’m considering tossing it in for the DakkaDakka painting competition, not that it has any chance of winning (no, I am not just being modest) and the rules forbid the model being posted anywhere prior to the competition. Once it’s finished I’ll probably decide that it sucks too bad to enter in the competition and then I’ll post it up here (or in my gallery, more likely). I’m honestly not sure how I’m liking it at this point. I think I like the rainbow skink better and I didn’t even really like him *that* much. Maybe with some modification to his hands.. hmm. But yeah, when I do eventually post the new black picture I’d love some input on which is better. And which will go better in my army. I’m feeling like the black skink is too dark to go with my current Saurus theme, and I’m actually quite fond of my Saurus theme so.. Although I did recently make a minor change to my Sauruses, which I haven’t posted yet. It’s nothing major, but I added a red undercoat to the scales so that they appear to have a little more depth.

So, anyone have any ideas / tips for painting black skin? That’s what I’m mostly not liking about the new skink at the moment.. the highlights (blue) just aren’t looking great to me, but I can’t figure out what to do to make it better x.x

November 24th, 2007 by Missy

Well, I’ve got some Disney pictures up in the gallery, so go and check those out.. I’ve also started adding some pictures of my up-and-coming lizardman army to the gallery as well and would love some feedback on the models, most notably the rainbow skink. I’m still kind of messing with colors at the moment (so please forgive the awful paint job) and haven’t really decided whether or not the rainbow skink is just too… EQ1 bard or something. And my I say that I desperately need a photo-box? Taking pictures on a paper towel is just so… meh. Maybe my darling husband will surprise me by making me a photo-box for Christmas (hint hint).

November 15th, 2007 by Missy

I don’t really have anything to say, although I imagine that by the end of this blog I will have found 700 different tangents to go off on and it will end up quite long indeed. Basically, I am bored out of my mind right now. I haven’t been bored all day, of course, but I’m bored right now. Lets see — I swung by the bank to get the money for my treadclimber (which we picked up today, whee!!), went to my Grandma’s new place.. did a puzzle, watched “The Last Unicorn” and “Zoom” (very cute, by the way), had lunch… Lunch was Butternut Squash soup. Comes in a cardboard container (in the soup aisle, not refrigerated), made by a company called “Imagine”. It was ridiculously delicious, and I definitely suggest buying some if you see it. I sprinkled a little nutmeg and cinnamon in mine and added a dollop of natural goat cheese (comparable in consistency to warm cream cheese, but crumblier). Sooooooo good.

Dinner tonight was also delicious. We had mini-penne (we eat mini-penne a lot) tossed with steamed asparagus and chicken (the chicken wasn’t steamed, of course — just one of those precooked Foster Farms packages), and Walden Farms 0 calorie Alfredo sauce. The Alfredo doesn’t really taste like Alfredo, but with a little salt and a lot of pepper added it is actually quite good. On a side note, the Walden Farms marinara is quite tasty. The scampi, peanut butter, and jellies are all decent — the consistency is just a bit strange, but on a piece of toast (the peanut butter and jelly, duh) they aren’t bad at all. The BBQ sauce is really good and I would definitely definitely suggest trying it. My next order will also include an order for the apple butter, which I am definitely itching to try.

I think I also mentioned in my previous Walden Farms post that I ordered some 0 cal chocolate syrup as well. I used that (plus Splenda and fat free evaporated milk) to make some Irish Cream today. I made a regular batch as well (well, three regular batches, but they fit into one old Maker’s Mark bottle) with good’ol sugar, Hershey’s and standard evaporated milk, but I am most excited for the low-cal version to mature. 8oz of the regular version is close to 600 calories and 8oz of the low-cal version will be 185ish. Still hefty for a drink, but definitely much better and I have to have my Irish Cream for the holidays!

Oh, for anyone curious, here is the recipe! I’ll list changes to the recipe for the low-cal version in italics.

• 1 1/2 cups of evaporated milk / 1 1/2 cups fat free evaporated milk
• 3/4 cup Irish whiskey (I use Jameson) / 1/2 cup Irish whiskey
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar / 2/3 cup Splenda
• 2 Tbsp chocolate syrup / 2 Tbsp Walden Farm’s chocolate syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp instant coffee

Mix it all together, stick it in a bottle, shake really well and chill in the fridge for at least a week to let the flavors meld. Serve simply over ice, mix it with your coffee, or blend with vanilla ice cream for a tasty dessert!

On another side note, I think I might like to take a pottery class (wheel). I’ve always had a desire to do something creative, but I am terrible at drawing / painting, crocheting and knitting are both too… mindless… I am too shy / nervous to share my writings with anyone, and aside from that I never have any good story ideas. Pottery just seems very intriguing. I’m hoping to beg Dan into a class (or perhaps I’ll use whatever Christmas money I get to sign up for one). Dan said he might consider going with me to a pottery class. Not that he is particularly taken with the idea himself, but he said he would like to go with to watch me be happy. Apparently I am cute when I get what I want ^_^

Anyway, this is starting to get pretty long. I did say that would happen, didn’t I? So, I sign off for now.

And Disney soooooon! Jamie comes tomorrow, then Disney when we wake up!!!

October 31st, 2007 by Missy

Happy Halloween everyone! I’m not entirely sure who everyone is, since I don’t think anyone really reads this :p Well.. Dan and Ryan excepted, there. But in any case, if anyone is reading this, then Happy Halloween indeed. As you can see, I went as a sailor for Halloween. Dan was Vash, Anya was Sailor Venus, and Alex stayed home. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of Anya to post at the moment, because she ripped her costume off the moment we got home — I guess the shoes were hurting her, and the wig was pulling her hair. Katie did manage to get a picture or two on her camera before we went out Trick-or-Treating, so I shall see if I can steal those from her tomorrow and get some Anya Venus pictures up.

Man I wish that I had a Halloween party to go to! It seems silly to get all dressed up just to walk Anya around the block for an hour collecting candy. It would be much more satisfying to actually have somewhere to wear a costume to. But my life is dull and friendless so, of course, I didn’t receive any party invitations. One of these days I vow to have friends. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m shy and anti-social. It always seems strange to people to find out that I am shy, given how talkative I am online, but I truly am. Tremendously so. I think it tends to get taken more for snobbery than shyness, which is a shame…