Camera Found! Holiday Shwag Created!

My camera has been found.  It was hiding in the couch cushion just as I had suspected.

More importantly, I spent the whole weekend doing Christmas-y things and watching movies (The Sting loved and The Big Chill meh).

I've always known that I love Martha Stewart, and I don't even care about the whole prison thing.  As far as I'm concerned, she left that prison in a blaze of glory with perfectly folded sheets and passed the warden a hand written thank-you note (on beautiful stationary with die-cut corners, no less).  That prison has probably never smelled better, nor experienced such expertly crafted center pieces in the cafeteria.  So, yes, I love Martha Stewart, but I've recently gotten really into her website.  It has delicious, fairly easy recipes, and they are always so cute and creative.

Being that it is nearly Christmas, I opted to make the Candy Cane Marshmallows.  Wow, I never knew marshmallows were so cute or so delicious.  Go me! (Or, I guess Martha.  I love you, Martha.)

 You have to let your marshmallows congeal in a pan dripping with cooking spray.

Delicious.

Then, you cut the marshmallows into a hot-chocolate-flavoring size.

Finally, you store your marshmallows in a jam jar because you wish you were Martha Stewart.

In a less edible endeavor, I've decided that I want to have a lot of home-made holiday decorations.

I saw this garland on anthropologie.com, and I think it's pretty cute.

But do you want to know how much it is?  

$128.00.  

That's a lot of money for some holiday cheer.

Please see expensive garland here.

Not wanting to blow my entire Christmas wad on one home made-ish item, I went on an excursion to Michaels and compiled these materials:

• ribbon
• felt
• bandanas
• hot glue
• yarn

 I laid them all out on my desk so I could take a picture of them for the blog :)

Next, I cut the bandanas into triangles, glued a contrasting ribbon on top for trim, and glued letters that I cut out of felt on front.

Then I hot-glued them to a piece of yarn.

Ta da!

Speaking of my desk...

I found this desk at Excellent Williams (Good Will),

 painted it the color of macaroni, and added cute knobs.

And radioactive desk was born!

The Best Part of the Holidays

First of all, I can't find my camera, which is making the blogging a little difficult, but a large-scale search involving the depths of the couch cushions and the bottom of a pile of laundry is being launched tomorrow, so to be continued on that.

More importantly, Christmas season is here!

I really love Christmas.  I love the smells, I love snow, I love scarves, I love the trees, and the presents, and the magic.  (I really do think it's magic).  This year; however, I've found something that I think I love most of all:  The Holiday Target Lady.  You can check out all of the commercials here, but I warn you to do so with an empty bladder.  I nearly pee myself every time one of these flashes across the TV.

Darn It.

Last night I made two dozen pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  My camera is lost, so I can't really share the visual splendor that were these cupcakes, but trust me, they were AWESOME.  We're talking delicious ingredients from scratch, and cinnamon and powdered sugar everywhere.  I used my mechanical icing tube-thing from Williams and Sonoma, so the frosting was shot onto those cupcakes with some extra fancy.  I'm not even ashamed to admit that I had more than one taste of the frosting AND the batter while I was making them.  They were super delicious, and they turned out better than I could have hoped.  Thank you, Martha Stewart.  No, literally, I got the recipes from her.  See?: Pumpkin Cupcakes and Cream Cheese Frosting.

I made these cupcakes for a very special occasion.  I was invited to go on a "Ladies Trip," which included myself, my mom, and a bunch of family/friends who have had a hand in raising me.  I've always been well, not an adult, until now, so I was never invited on these fun weekends before now. Before now.  Now that I am an adult, I got the invite to go to Margie's cabin in Arnold with some of the funniest ladies that I know.  I was so excited, and I couldn't wait to go.

That was, until this morning, when I woke up and felt this terrible pain in my ear (chronic ear infections=the cross I bear).  I tried to convince myself that it was nothing, and were I not in the throws of testing my students for report cards next week (That's right.  Kindergarteners have to be tested for report cards.  NOT my idea), I would have stayed home to try and sleep it off.  As the day wore on the tests were administered (One by one because, it turns out, five year olds can't read), the paper turkeys were cut, and a billion little questions were answered, it became apparent that I was sick.  Like, really.  I felt like someone was drilling a hole through my ear, and one of my students even said to me, "Maestra Robin, I know your head hurts because you are holding it and you're making that face."  This was not good news.

After work I drove to our designated meeting spot for the camping caravan, sad with the knowledge that I probably wouldn't be going.  After some short conversations, a few peeks inside my ear, and an exchange of cupcakes, I decided to stay in Sacramento.  It was terrible, but not as terrible as driving two plus hours and then ruining everyone's vacation because I was sick.

I got home, ran into my room, and cried on my bed.  I hate it when things don't work out.

Luckily, Lee Black is always up to saving the day. I happen to have world's greatest boyfriend who hugs me and offers to bring me pain killers, ginger ale and grapefruit juice (or, as it's known around the McBlack house: Gin and Juice), and Thai food.  It's nice to know that if I can't be with one person I love that there is another one waiting in line to bring me take-out and the finest on-sale American sake a full time law student can buy.

I miss my mom.

And I love Lee.

One Hundred Posts! Also, Happy Halloween!

This is my 100th post!  

*Celebration! Fanfare! Merriment!*

Ok, also, Halloween:

We went to Kristy and Eric's house and then later to their friend Sarah's house to celebrate Halloween.  Here is a tour of the costumes:

 Kristy was Grumpy Bear

 I was the Hamburglar

 Lee was Brian Wilson

The costume required some preparation
(Yep, a mowhawk)

I feared the beard

 Eric was a vampire
He got bloodier and bloodier as the night went on.
Like a real vampire?
I'm sure they're more careful.

 Blood...

 Bloodier....

 I mean...

 But best ensemble BY FAR goes to the four people who dressed up as the Golden Girls!
Only ONE person is wearing a wig!
I LOVE THE GOLDEN GIRLS!

Better Late Than Never: Suspects Dinner Theater

I have been SLACKING on the blogging lately.  So here is my pseudo-effort on catching up on some things:

We went to Suspects Dinner Murder Mystery Theater on the Delta King in Old Town Sacramento.  The premise is this: you go down into the hull of the boat and have dinner in a theater with 120 other people.  Suddenly....a MURDER occurs, and you have to spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out who amongst you is the murderer or next suspect, as the actors are posing as normal folk.  IT WAS SO FREAKING FUN! Plus, it was my birthday present from Lee (which had to be postponed a few times) so it was double exciting.

 Our super cute room

 and the view

 Lee's eating my face?

 A suspect?

 Oh, yep, he got shot.

 This guy was the MC

 He and Lee were good buds

 And in an awesome turn of events...

 I was a suspect!

(Dream come true)

 Everyone was a good sport about letting me take their pictures

 Even Lee.

And in the morning, we we opted for the all you can eat brunch and bottomless mimosas.

I wish I lived on that boat.