Mmmmmm...doughnuts

What's that one?

I'm sorry did you say "Pumpkin"? I'll take two.
And Amy was happy.

I'm sorry for talking about myself in third-person.

This is my friend Josh.

Hi, Josh!

When I first was in Durham, I went with Megan to socially awkward mixers with the new divinity students. We all know how much I like new people. (They make me nervous.) But Josh and his wife, Christina (who you may remember from the Scratch post) befriended Megan and me when we were scanning faces. Let's be honest, Megan and I were looking for single men. Instead we found a couple. YAY! Josh and I bonded over being Div School spouses.

Josh thinks Will Ferrell is funny. I don't know how our friendship made it.

Then we carpooled and worked together at UNC. Then I quit UNC when I became a massage therapist. Then we got together for desserts, coffee, ice cream (he's an ice cream fanatic), dinner and board games.

And doughnuts.

I love doughnuts.

And coffee. Surprisingly, I can pretty much drink coffee whenever, wherever. It doesn't keep me up all night.

Josh prefers Pepsi. I don't know if it kept him up all night.

We played a rousing game of Phase 10. It's in the top running as one of my favorite games right now. It's not high stress, it's easy to have conversation while you play, the rules are simple.

I would like to point out in this scorecard that I won many rounds. Yet, I lost the game. My competitive edge tried to come out. Then it failed.

Then I ate another doughnut. (I think that's called "emotional eating.")

Thanks for hanging out with me, Josh! And for being my friend!

It's Love

I love my cat.

He's funny. He's needy. He has to be in the bathroom with you while you're using the toilet. He loves cucumbers. He's weird.

I might be a bit weird as well. I did just write this post about Hank. 

Texting

I'm a fairly new texter. Textor? Texting sort of person?

So, I have been exchanging text messages on my mobile telephone since December 2009. That's about 9 1/2 months of texting.

Feel free to text me.

The more you write the word "text" the more weird it becomes. Just a thought.

Anyways, Sarah is a hardcore texter/textor/person who texts.

And she's texting someone new.

Which she subtly tried to do all weekend. As if we wouldn't notice.
Isn't she the cutest cheeseballer ever?

Coffee

I think you should know something about me.

Since Sunday, I have purchased coffee eight times.
EIGHT. It's been a lot of espresso.

It's a problem. For my mind (caffeine) and my wallet ($$$).
Oh yeah, and body (calories).

Grande, iced, skinny, cinnamon dolce latte? (That's my beverage of choice.)

Hazlenut Frappuccino.

Grande, iced, 5-pump, skim chai.

Unfortunately (FORTUNATELY), I have people who don't discourage this behavior whom I will henceforth not refer to by their actual name, but by their Starbucks drink order. 

Birthday!

When I planned my trip to Chicago, I was informed by my iCal that Rach McF's birthday was occurring while I was going to be there.

So I invited all the girls to Michelle's. Good guests invite others to their host's house, right? Some friends are just at that point.

Michelle and I are. I mean, I've taken pictures of her in the bathtub for goodness sake. So I invited 10 people to come over for dinner. And cake. And to stay the night. Best guest ever.

Then we celebrated this girl's day of birth.

Man, I like this woman. Even when Rach's talking about (self-proclaimed) nerdy stuff which I have no clue about.

This is a sonic screwdriver.

And apparently a photo reference to Doctor Who.

(Just so you know, as a "nerdy" thing, I actually knew exactly what she was talking about.)

Michelle made this cake from Aunt Peaches' blog.

Chocolate cake, chocolate-peanut butter ganache, chopped Reese's peanut butter cups...deeeeeeeeeeee-licious! Oh and zucchini, so it was a health food.

She brought the crazy train to the kitchen.

It wasn't even my birthday, but I felt pretty special on September 21st to be surrounded by such amazing, awesome, supportive, encouraging, ambitious women.

I don't know what Rach wished for, but I hope it was for years and years and years with these women in our lives.

Chicago

I came to Chicago for a little R&R this week. I've got some peeps here. Yes, I just said "peeps" like I'm back in 8th grade. Embrace it.

Once upon a time when I finished college I thought I could live in Chicago. Then I found out the truth: I'm not an urban environment girl. I like feeling like I don't have to lock my doors and being in the country and having the tallest things around me be trees rather than buildings. I'm embracing it.

Plus, when I lived in Chicago, I spent all my time working so I could pay the bills and I barely got to enjoy anything about the city. Work, work work. Don't ask me what I did, it wasn't a career highlight. It's also the six months that are missing from my life on my resume.

Yesterday I was a downtown tourist.

Where does everyone take pictures in Chicago? The bean.

Vas ist da BEEEEN??

A giant, mirrored kidney bean artistic sculpture in Millennium Park. Duh.

Right off of Michigan Avenue.

Then we took the requisite jumping pictures!

WHOOOO!!!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  Please don't be alarmed. There is not an actual, gigantic pink butterfly on me. It just so happens that I am a very enthusiastic jumper and my stomach was on display in this photograph. You didn't need to see that.

Shells

I don't know why, but I always feel special when I find cicada shells.

It's like I just discovered something amazing! Even though they're everywhere. I don't care though, every one is special and I hunker down and examine it. The thing I don't really understand is that I've never seen a cicada before it comes out of it's shell.

You know? Those shells belong to un-winged, squatty, bugs. Cicadas have beautiful iridescent long wings. I've seen them. So where are the cicadas pre-shell emerging?

Am I looking over some nondescript bug thinking, I should squash that? Summer porch sitting wouldn't be the same without cicadas, I hope I'm not squishing the babies.

The summer of 2004, I went to a retreat in Maryland. It was the summer of the 17-year cicadas. You know, the ones that emerge every seventeen years from the ground. IT WAS SO WEIRD. They were everywhere. There were more cicadas than flies. As we drove down the interstate surrounded by traffic the sound of the cicadas buzzing permeated through all the other sounds. We could hear them inside our van though the windows, past our conversation, past the air conditioner and past all the other road sounds. Those babies were singing. Twenty-four, seven. All day. All night. All the time. Then they were flying all over us.

It was really quite disgusting.

I still feel special when I find their shells though.

Peaches

I would now like to quote to you from The Presidents of the United States of America:

Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man...Millions of peaches, peaches for me. Millions of peaches, peaches for free.

You're welcome for that.

I love peaches. I don't actually love that ridiculous song. Or even really like it, but it was very popular back in middle school. Sixth graders have very discerning taste in music.

According to a report I heard this summer on NPR, North Carolina had a booming crop of peaches this year. Without a late frost to kill the early blossoms, it was destined to be a bangin' summer for peaches. This report made me pretty excited so first I relayed the information to everyone I know and then I began frequenting the farmer's market in hopes of finding some peaches.

I love peaches. *sigh*

The big break came the weekend after I got back from Indiana. There they were; glorious, glorious, fuzzy, peachy peaches. Deeeee-light!

I then remembered that I hate peach skin. It's gross and furry and unpleasant on my tongue. I still love peaches, just not their furry exterior.

When Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for peach shortbread, I knew it was destiny. I must make it. I must eat it. It will be delicious.

And it was.

You should totally make it, but then let it sit for a day. Because on day two of their life as peach shortbread bars, they come alive.

No seriously.

I bought peaches yesterday just so I could make them again. Yes, they're THAT good.

I'm one cheap girl.

Do you know about Anthropologie? It was recently introduced into my life since their stores are few and far between in the mid-West, now that I'm living out East-ish and I have friends who are addicted, I know Anthro.

How to describe this store? Well, you should definitely check out their website, but I would say they offer very unique, interesting, detailed, feminine, beautiful, fun clothing and accessories (for your home or body).

They are also rather pricey.

As in, the only thing this girl, who was raised on "It's not a sale unless it's at least 50% off!" would purchase is probably one knob for a dresser. If a dresser were to have one knob. I love their stuff. I would love to own one of everything (provided it fit). I just can't justify some of the prices in my current life situation.

Meaning I'm unwilling to part with more than $20 at a time. UNWILLING I say!

I saw this beautiful cardigan a few weeks ago:

It's gone now. Your time is up. No more Scribble Flower cardigans are available.

Have I ever told you about my true, passionate, intense, insane love of cardigans?

I love them.

I believe this particular cardigan was $98 when I first spied it. Over my cold, dead body would I ever be able to spend $98 on a cardigan. That's practically $100. That's like 1/10 of $1000. That's like a one-way plane ticket. That's like several massages. That's a lot of money for one portion of an outfit. At least for me it is.

So, I did what any reasonably crafty girl would do.
I attempted to make something similarly unique one for myself.

I started with a turquoise Old Navy cardigan. Purchased from the clearance section of their website when they were having take 30% off your entire order sales. (I told you I was thrifty.)

Yes, I am currently sleeping in hot, hawt pink sheets. I'm a girly-girl sleeping by herself in a king sized bed. I like my pink sheets.

Grey chiffon, 1/8 of a yard.

Embroidery floss, I bought two but I only needed one.

Seed beads.

They usually work better if you can keep them in the container rather than spilling them all over your floor. Yes, I spilled them. Twice. These babies are teeny-tiny too.

So, my process: I just kinda did it. I first drew some scribbled flower-ish shapes in my handy notebook and based on those sketches, I hand stitched random flowers over a small piece of the chiffon and then added beads. Aaaaaaannnnddd:

Ta-Dah!

I only did three flowers, one large and two smaller on the left lapel area of the cardigan going just over the shoulder.

I'm not going to lie. I think it's pretty cute.

Let's do a cost analysis, I'll approximate by rounding up so we can work with roundish numbers:
Old Navy cardigan: $11.00
Chiffon: $0.75
Embroidery floss: $0.70
Beads: $2.50
GRAND TOTAL: $14.95

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssss!

I saved myself about $83. Granted the original was cuter (in my honest opinion), more colorful, more well made, BUT for a cardigan I will probably only wear one season, I'm willing to save the $83 for the cuteness factor.

And that's that.

5 Things that are Wrong with Me

There are most definitely more than five things that are wrong with me. Please feel free to not elaborate upon this list. Thank you.

1. I went to Whole Foods in Durham. Because there's a guy who works there who happens to be easy on the eyes. Then I waited in his line just so he would check me out. Pathetic. Seriously though, sometimes I try to think of reasons to go there just to gaze at his lovely face, his confidently hooked nose, his sexy tattoo, his beautiful eyes. Then I remember that I'm me which means that I'm shy which means that I'm not actually going to do anything and I'm just going to imagine things which if I wanted that to change I'd have to grab life by the balls and if I were going to do that it would be a miracle which is really quite sad.

Almost as sad as that pathetically punctuated, non-gramatically correct, run-on sentence.

2. I can't stop buying yarn. It's a problem. I went to Michael's for some other crafty stuff (see #3) and I had to get yarn because it was on sale and available in beautiful colors. Two skeins. AHHHHH!!! I'm going to have a yarn room when I grow up. And I will make hats.

3. I'm so cheap that I saw a cardigan I liked on Anthropologie's website. It was $98. I don't want to spend $98 (which comes to over $100 when you add in tax and shipping and all that) on a cardigan. So I purchased a $10 cardigan from Old Navy and I'm going to try to do a similar applique. I'll let you know how it goes.

4. When I give a massage, I generally spend about 50 minutes in completely silence. The sound of spa music and breathing are all I hear. Then my mind wanders. What do I think about? Usually cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes with mint buttercream, pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, white cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream, chocolate cupcakes with coffee buttercream, strawberry cupcakes, lemon cupcakes with a lemon curd center and whipped icing, homemade ho-hos...etc. It's a problem.

5. I'm trying to buy plane tickets to go to Kansas for the Christmas season. Except I need to know if I should fly back to North Carolina from Kansas or from Indiana. Mostly I need to know this because I need to know if I need to start preparing to drive one-way or two-ways with 5 other people (6 adults) and one dog in a mini-van to Indiana. It's a long preparation for a two-way trip. Fifteen hours (each way) in a van with your parents, brothers, SIL, and sister-dog is a lotta love. And a lot of patience. A lot of action adventure movie series-es(?). A lot of fast food (which if you're mostly vegetarian, is no bueno). And not a lot of personal space.

Sing Me to Heaven

(If for some reason that won't work, does it work? Here's a video.)


In my heart's sequestered chambers lie truths stripped of poets' gloss
Words alone are vain and vacant, and my heart is mute
In response to aching silence, memory summons half-heard voices
And my soul finds primal eloquence, and wraps me in song

If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby
If you would win my heart, sing me a love song
If you would mourn me and bring me to God,
sing me a requiem, sing me to Heaven

Touch in me all love and passion, pain and pleasure
Touch in me grief and comfort, love and passion, pain and pleasure
Sing me a lullaby, a love song, a requiem
Love me, comfort me, bring me to God

Sing me a love song, sing me to Heaven

Ridiculous Kitties

Our cats are whores.

We have one attention whore. (Hank)
We have one cuddle whore. (Sweet Tea)

It makes for a well-rounded house.

The cuddle whore loves the window.

Oh, Sweet Tea. What do you think she's thinking?

Mmmmm, I love this window. I'm a cat. The prettiest-kitty. Dooo-do-do-dooo. Do you think that person will pet me? Will she let me sit in her lap? I'm going to try. Especially if she wants to do something else. I love laps.

Then you have Hanklin who wants to tell you about everything.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Look at me. Hey. I'm right here. Ahhhh....I'm all stretched out. Maybe she'll rub my special place. Hey. Did you see my special place? Hey.

Our cats are weird.