Slightly out of key

Packing!

2009-08-21T20:35:08Z

Oh, man, I hate packing. I hate packing so much.

I thought I'd done okay, keeping all my belongings constrained to two rooms while I was in The Woodlands. And then I started buying things to take back with me, so I started keeping the bags in the guest room. And then I got some clothes, so they got hung up in the office closet, and then... Now? Now I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get CDs burned, rabbits washed, and clothes kind of folded nicely into the TARDIS suitcase. Which, of course, has broken. Meanwhile, I'm trying to sort out new shoes, old shoes, my mom's shoes, where did I put that cord and do I put the nail polish I bought in my make up bag or in with my pills and oh god, where did my pills run off to, they were here this morning.

And then there's burning CDs for the drive, which means sorting out playlists with a fair mix of familiar and unfamiliar songs that aren't already ON one of the bajillion CDs in my car, and where did I leave my ipod, is it in the middle drawer and..

Gaaaaaah. They'll find me buried under some TJ Maxx bags in a week, blubbering about not wanting mugs to break.

Amarillo

2009-08-04T04:01:51Z

Saturday, Kim n' I took a road trip to Amarillo because it was something we'd never done, and always meant to do. It was amazingly fun, and we're still kicking ourselves for not going sooner. Some random pictures under the cut, with a few explanations, too.

First, we went to the zoo.

Buffalo are AWESOME. Or Bison. I'm not sure. They're still cool, though?

This is my Bear Friend. He and I had a lovely conversation. Probably about how good I would taste. (No zoom. At all.)

The Cadillac Ranch is one of those things that's so weird, it's awesome. It's really just in the middle of nowhere, along the side of a highway. But when we were there, it was completely packed- license plates from Illinois, Nebraska, California... It was so awesome. And it's just some Cadillacs, shoved into the ground. And spray-painted. A lot. It's awesome.

View from the gate, looking out. That's the Goode Shippe Lollipop.

What's a trip to Amarillo without a trip to the Big Texan Steak Ranch? I've been wanting to eat here for years, and it was kind of a let down. Still very cool! But.. not as awesome as I'd built it up in my head to be.

We did get to sit on the second floor, which was awesome for people watching. The guy with the guitar went from table to table serenading people. 'Amarillo By Morning' has been stuck in my head for three days now. Grawrgh.

Obligatory picture of my steak. I hate mushrooms. :( Our waiter was awesome, but way overworked, and he fudged my order. But the steak itself was about eight kinds of awesome.

This is just a picture from the park the zoo was in. Hooray!

Annnnd that's our trip.

Introducing: The Ugly Yellow Chair.

2009-07-28T02:00:50Z

So, I stole the chair out of the living room at the end of June. The upholstery is itchy, the color is hideous- this brown polka-dotted print rarely seen outside of doctor's offices. With a new roommate possibly moving in at the end of August, I really didn't want to start off by explaining that I had stolen the chair, violating the lease. (No, really.)

So the search for a chair began! I don't know if you know this, but chairs are expensive.

Really, really expensive. I am not going to pay $400 for something I'm going to sit in. It's just not going to happen. Unless it comes with a roomba, or a pony. Also, furniture sales people are pushy bastards. So I started combing through thrift stores, hitting up all five in the Lubbock area.

Do chairs possess some magic I'm unaware of? I could have happily walked off with a couch for $50. A sectional for $60, a nice leather sofa, barely used, for just under $100. But the single chair any of them had, a sad, leather chair that was, I swear to god, held together with duct tape? $150. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

So, in a fit of, 'fuckitall', Kim suggested I try Sofa Mart, off the loop. We meandered a while- $300 on clearance for a leather chair, missing a whole arm? $700 for an ottoman to a $980 chair, but the couch is merely $410? I'm telling you, chairs are magic. Pure, unadulterated magic is distilled from chair fluff, I swear. So we're heading to leave, giving up on the hunt. I didn't have a totally set budget, buuut.. $300 wasn't going to happen. Not unless it was The Purple Chair's Identical Twin.

There it was. A price tag reading a mere $237. It was comfortable enough, regular cloth instead of Show Every Handprint Microfiber. But oh, god, it was ugly. So ugly. The yellow was like Dwight Shrute's shirt, a mustard that almost glowed in the harsh lights of the warehouse-style store. It was next to an equally yellow couch. Turning away from the chair, I strode towards the cluster of sales guys, defeat in my voice, "Does it come in any other color?"

No. No it did not. But they'd knock $100 off the price...?

I considered, and then forked over my debit card.

We lugged it up 3 flights of stairs. (We being Aaron and I) It's heavy, but seriously comfortable.. and, well, it's not as ugly as previously believed. But to me? It'll always be The Ugly Yellow Chair. Wolf hates it. A lot. At the moment, he's glaring at it from my feet, as if by sheer will alone he could move it.

Double Rainbow, sort of.

2009-06-15T06:11:15Z

Oh, Lubbock.

Taken from our balcony around 7 this evening. This came before the rain- I called in to work, because the Goode Shippe Lolipop will never, ever sail again. My car shuts down at the very hint of rain now. And so it was clear and/or sunny until the end of my would-have-been-shift.

Sigh. .

It's like a drinking game goldmine.

2009-05-26T05:17:03Z

So, many years ago now, Hannah and I happened to watch an Olson Twins movie. The cheesy, direct-to-video drivel of our youth. Today, I clicked onto Netflix to look for something to watch, and I noticed that one of them had been added to my reccomendations pile. I added it, and this popped up:

We could get really, really drunk.

Really, really fast.

Long time, no see.

2009-05-13T17:59:00Z

Well, journal, it's been a while. But I've managed to complete my junior year of college, and I didn't fail anything. I worked 2am shifts with 10:00 classes, but I passed. HOORAY ME.

So now that I'm back home at my parent's house, I've been going through my old CDs. I've found a few gems- Hanson's Snowed In was a pretty funny find- but my current favorite has to be...

The Pokemon First Movie Soundtrack. Featuring Baby Spice, Britney Spears, and Billie Piper.

Does this mean I can say I'm an old school fan? I loved that song.

BLAH.

2009-01-28T16:02:50Z

Current Temperature: 18F
Feels like: 10F.

dfoiahsofih. THIS IS TEXAS. DID NO ONE GET THE MEMO?

But hey, we got a snow day yesterday, and despite the fact roads have NOT improved, we should all totally drive on them today. Riiiiight.

Caramel Apple Cup Pies

2009-01-01T21:27:36Z

The other day, I got caught up in a bloggy phenomenon- tiny pies. I love Pushing Daisies, and the show always makes me crave pie, but store bought pies are kind of gross. They never taste as satisfying as they look, and as a result I often say that I don't particularly love pie.

Well.

That changed recently, let me tell you. I found a good, fool-proof recipe from the amazing Smitten Kitchen. I think all my bookmarks for recipes to try now lead there, so if you want to burn a few hours, go digging through the archives, seriously.

Below the cut is my first photo-post + Food Blogthingy. Hooray!

We begin in my mother's kitchen, at 10pm. I scrounged in the kitchen for what apples we had, and figured I'd make a filling I saw on Kamikaze Cookery. Which you should be watching, because it's fun.

The recipe calls for a food processor, but unfortunately, mine is sitting in the cupboard above the sink in Lubbock. So I tried to make due with... well, what I had on hand. It didn't work out that well, and I wound up using my (well washed) hands.

This is an apple peeler and corer set. Alton Brown may strike me down, but I don't know what I'd do without it. We bought it back when I was 6, and making applesauce in the tiny galley kitchen we had in the Hanmer house with my mother and my grandmother. Fond, fond memories.

I'm stealing it and taking it back to Lubbock with me.

This apple had a severe identity issue, and as an ex-Kroger employee, I wonder if the cashier just plugged in the code or if they had the granny smith apple code memorized and just used that. These are the things that go through my head, ya'll.

Apples + Nutmeg + Cinnamon + Allspice + Sugar = Apple Caramel Filling.

SO.

GOOD.

I am very lucky I had enough left to make it to the pie.

This is generally how I cook at home. Whoops. I think I was looking at the recipe and talking to a few people while I worked.

Here they are, in the oven! They were originally going to be jar pies, but unfortunately the jars I had weren't quite right. So I wound up making something similar to Not Martha's Tiny Pies, rather than the original jar pies. Or, as Pushing Daisies calls them, Cup Pies.

Here they are, finished! So they're not that pretty, but that'll be what I work on next time.

I meant to take pictures of the filling, but.. uh.. I ate the sample too quickly, and my parents fell upon the other two before I woke up the next morning. The dough also make a full size pie, but I was too tired to photograph it. Phew.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T19:51:00Z

Merry Christmas!

It's been a pretty mellow holiday at the Martin household. Last night, my mom and I went to the children's service at Trinity, where she works, and it was adorable. Instead of the traditional holiday paegant, they have a 'no rehearsal' paegant and extra costumes for the kid's who show up but didn't know about the paegant in time. This resulted in the manger having five Marys, a dinosaur, and Yoda. It was all kinds of awesome, ya'll. We went out for dinner last night, because no one likes doing dishes the night before Christmas, and then we came home and vegged out, letting the animals run around.

This morning, I got up around 9:45 after tossing and turning all night, and went downstairs to find my parents watching some cheesy Lifetime TV show. (But it's HD! So it's okay! /my dad) After that was over, and they'd gotten their tea, we dug into our stockings and then attacked the presents under the tree.

A few of them had tags that had been chewed off, or edges that were helpfully pre-unwrapped by our intrepid rabbit, but mostly everything was identifiable. I got birkenstocks from my mother, which has me hardcore laughing on the inside, and some things for the apartment. I got a gumball machine from the dog and the rabbit, and a Hannah Montanna teddy bear, for reasons unknown. I got gift cards from both my aunts, and money from my parents and my grandmother as well. I also got the full set of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, which means I need to buy a new bookshelf the day I get back from Lubbock. (So I can bring my Valdemar novels back! EE!) My parents gave me enough cash for either an X-Box or a DS, which I think is their way of keeping their promise to themselves that they'll never buy me a gaming system ever again. My favorite present, by far, was a copy of Cleolinda's Movies in 15 Minutes from Ms. Globetrotter stormswift , 'cause I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.

Oof! I have a new layout for my journal, and a twitter, now.

Merry Christmas! Hope you all got what you wanted, needed, or didn't know you'd love, and enjoy the rest of your holiday!