There's a chill in the air. You know what that means. Wait, do you?

Anxiety is a hell of a drug.

     Well not really. I just like to sound like a jaded 70s club queen sometimes. Keeps things interesting. So, anyway! I'm back from my adventure! I went gallivanting off to Louisiana to visit mon petit ami, which was a really big test for me to see how far I've come in dealing with my anxiety. As you'll know if you've been reading for a while, homegirl has problems. Problems interacting with people, or being haunted by slightly embarrassing mistakes for years longer than is strictly necessary, or worrying myself to the point of physical illness over all the things that could potentially go wrong in a given situation. So you can see where flying alone across five states and a time zone, with a layover in the middle, could be a bit of a challenge for me. But in the words of the great Meatloaf, I would do anything for love (but he wouldn't do that. He sucks. Ipso facto, I'm a better girlfriend than Meatloaf. Schwing!), so I put on my big girl pants (they're leggings) and did it anyway. And I was really pleasantly surprised by how non-anxious I was! Airports are designed for dum-dums in the first place, so navigating them wasn't difficult at all, and it wasn't even stressful to interact with the people working in them or on the planes, because in a place like an airport, you know the employees have all seen some shit. They are used to the stupidest, most belligerent people on earth; you'd have to do something incredibly, catastrophically, brain-meltingly stupid for them to even remember it. So it doesn't matter if the question you need answered really is stupid. 

     Aside from those sort of organizational, "be in place A at time B" aspects of traveling, it was completely stress-free. That's what makes me say "Anxiety is a hell of a drug." It's so amusing to me that my brain decides talking to the nice old dude at the ticket counter is cause for abject terror, while hurtling through the sky at 500 miles per hour in a tuna can with wings is a totally chill delight. It's like all the fear I was allotted in this life was assigned to people and the passage of time, and there was none left to go towards normal things like fear of, oh, I dunno, literally any situation that could lead to my death. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Brains are funny little things. 

     So yes! I can now officially boast having traveled alone without getting irreparably lost (keyword irreparably. I got lost driving once, but I figured it out, so it doesn't count) or having a panic attack. The only issue I ran into is the part during takeoff where it feels like your head is squashing down like a Barbie face under a shoe. I still don't love that. 

 Yes, like dees.

MONDAY Favorites: GIF Edition!

     Since I was too sick to put together a coherent Favorites post on Friday, I figured I'd do something a little special and different and make today Monday's Favorites, now with 100% more GIF-y goodness!

FAVORITE #1: LOOKET THESE EARRINGS! 

Should I have put a seizure warning on this post? I mean I warned you there'd be gifs, right? 

     These gawgeous thangs were made by my amazingly talented Aunt Patti (you can go check out her Etsy shop HERE- right now everything is 20% off and the proceeds from any purchase you make go to Miracle Horse Rescue, which is a great charity that helps horses that have been abused or neglected. Tell me that's not a win-win!). I saw them posted on her Facebook page and immediately said "Oooh, those are cool. They would look pretty on my head." And they do! I love a happy ending, don't you? They fit perfectly with my whole "hippie archaeologist by day, benevolent but still kind of spooky witch by night" aesthetic, and they also happen to be the same kind of blue-y green-y gray-y color of my eyes in sunlight, which is exactly the kind of super-cliched character detail I'd have made fun of in my college writing courses, so yay nostalgia! 

FAVORITE #2: I'VE BEEN EATING THIS STUFF LIKE CANDY, IN THE MOST LITERAL WAY POSSIBLE.

Mmm, snake-oil -- I mean Vitamin C....

     By which I mean "sporadically, whenever I see the bottle sitting around and think "Oh, I could go for something sour." You know me and my immune system are not seeing eye to eye right now, on account of it being a good-for-nothing layabout and all, so I decided I'd try this stuff and see if the "blast of vitamin C" makes me feel any healthier. All I've noticed so far is more like a blast of powdered citric acid, but I'm cool with it. They're kind of like giant soft Sweet-tarts, except ostensibly less horrible for you. I don't know if I believe it will make me any less likely to get sick, but the placebo effect kind of brings back that teenager-like feeling of invincibility, like I couldn't possibly get sick, ever ever again, so I'm all for it. 

FAVORITE #3: THINGS TO PAINT ON MY FACE! 

Skin is so weird looking up close. Especially when you're the color of the mooooon. 

     When I found myself at Ulta again the other day (found myself there. As if I have no idea how I got there. I just woke up from a fugue state in the middle of Ulta. Yes, that's it exactly), I picked up two liquid eyeliners from Jane cosmetics. I already had the gold one, which is amazing, and I needed a new black liquid eyeliner because the 20 I already owned were all drying out. But it was 2 for $10, and they're normally $8, so I had to get two, and the second one I picked was this one, called "metallic nude." It. Is. So. SHINY. This was actually what gave me the idea to do a GIF post, because a static picture alone just was not doing justice to the shininess. I also like these eyeliners because they have an actual brush tip, not a felt tip. I know a lot of people like the felt tip because it's easier to work with, but I don't like that they dry out, and also I kind of like how a tiny little paint brush makes me feel like Mulan in the Disney movie when I use it.

     Here's what the black eyeliner looks like, in case you are interested in the nuances of black eyeliner (I mean, I am, but I'm interested in almost everything). It dries matte, so it has a 60's velvety feel to it. I also have the metallic nude on my inner corners. 

Do you like how I just told you I have blue-green-gray eyes and very pale skin, then closed with a gif where I look tan with almost brown eyes? Sorceryyyyyy!

     I don't find it hard to work with either. I mean it's not a beginner's eyeliner, for sure, but it's not so runny that it gets in your eyes and makes you look like a tiny squid swam across your sclera. Too far, people who are weird about eyeballs? Sorry. 

     
     I hope this GIF-tacular post makes up for the fact that it's on the wrong day, and I also hope you all had delightful weekends full of all your own favorites! 

Fact of Life #3435

     On a scale of exciting surprises from 1 to 10, with 10 being "winning the lottery when the jackpot's up high enough to make it onto the news every night," I'm not gonna say that finding Chik-fil-a sauce in my purse is better than the lottery...but it's right up there. Like at a 9.74. Solidly holding its own next to things like "successfully panning for gold at the creek in your backyard."

IT'S REALLY FREAKING GOOD, Y'ALL. 

Cat ownership in a nutshell.

     It's terribly exciting. 

Grandma's Fudge: Whoopsie Edition

     Yesterday I was given a special task from Jen: make my Grandma's fudge. She was having a hankerin' for it, and I thought it would be fun to see if I could do it. 

     See, the problem here is that my Grandma's fudge barely even has what could qualify as a recipe. It's one of those "summa this, summa that" type deals. So because of that, it's not a good recipe for beginners. Although, on the other hand, it kind of is a good recipe for beginners because even if you screw it up, hey, you just made chocolate goo, and maybe that's not what you were shooting for but damn if doesn't taste good. Unless you burn it. God help you if you burn it. But we'll get to that. First let's take a look at the original recipe. 

     Ok, so we've got the basics, anyway. But first! You'll notice it has "milk" listed as an ingredient, but what it should say is evaporated milk, and don't bother measuring it, just get a little can of it. I'm not just making that up, my grandma always used evaporated milk too. I remembered watching her use a little can of milk, but I couldn't remember if it was sweetened condensed milk or evaporated milk. I went with the former and immediately realized it was the wrong choice, but I just added some milk to make a nice thick liquid texture, and it turned out just fine. But I'm getting ahead of myself again! 

     So you take your evaporated milk, your sugar, and your cocoa, and plop 'em into a pan and cook on low to low-medium (is that a thing? Let's pretend it's a thing) until it thickens. If you're like me and you accidentally used sweetened condensed milk, you'll get a weird gritty thick paste, so throw in about 3/4 cup of regular milk and stir it up, and it'll be ok. Now this part is important: stir. Constantly. This is not a recipe that you can throw on the stove and walk away from for a minute. You do have to stir it, literally, constantly. It's not bad though, because you'll only need to cook it for ten to fifteen minutes before it gets thickened to the soft ball stage. My grandma always used the candy-making method of dropping a smidge of the fudge into a cup of cool water and seeing if it turns into a soft ball; when it does, it's just about ready. I prefer to just go by intuition: when you're stirring the fudge and you notice it filling back in on itself following the spatula nice and slowly, like a lava flow. Because I know the hardest part of this recipe is figuring out when it's thickened enough, here's a little gif I threw together so you can see what it ought to look like when it's ready. 

     When it looks like that, it's time to add your power-up ingredients: butter, vanilla, and peanut butter, unless you don't like peanut butter (GET OUT. Just kidding, you can stay while I judge you from afar) or have allergies. The recipe just says "add vanilla and butter." OKAY GRANDMA. Just add it. Some. A lot. Whatever. I used about three tablespoons...ish of butter, a teaspoon or so of vanilla (that's just what was left in the bottle, real talk), and probably close to a cup of peanut butter, because I really like peanut butter, like, a lot. Just add all that in and let it melt in with the pan off the eye, no stirring necessary. Once everything's melted, give it a quick stir to get it all together, then it's pan time! Pour it into a brownie pan and let it chill and set into solid form. Try to resist the urge to lick the spatula and burn your mouth to ashes with boiling chocolate napalm. 

     Once it's set, slice it into bite-sized pieces and enjoy! At the end of all of this, I ended up deciding the sweetened condensed milk debacle was a delicious mistake, because it gave the fudge a sort of caramel-y taste. So it all worked out in the end! 

Hope you're all enjoying your holidays! Regular posting will be back on Monday!

Huh. That's interesting.

     I had a unique experience yesterday. I was trying to help Jen keep the babies happy so she could get some shopping done, but they were in rare form. As I stood there watching them scream bloody murder and flail about inconsolably because "AAAHHHH I'M TIRED AND I'M  NOT ASLEEP BUT I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP LIFE IS ULTIMATELY MEANINGLESS AHHHHH" or whatever, I had an actual pang in one of my ovaries that I can only imagine was my reproductive system recoiling in horror and saying "Nope, not anytime soon, not for me, no sir. Don't think so." Basically, this: 

So this is a problem.

     Ever since I saw the second Hunger Games movie over the weekend, I've been seeing reminders of it everywhere. For instance, I'm staying in the garage apartment this week so my Grandma can stay in my room while she visits for Thanksgiving. And the shower over here reminds me of a certain scene...(spoilers, I guess? I dunno man, read the books or something).

     Ok, gonna go think about that part and cry now.

Experimental Rock

     Oh, the wide world of geology-related puns. It shall never cease to amuse me. 

     The reason I made that joke at the risk of infuriating pun-haters everywhere is because this whole shebang I'm about to tell you about was pretty much just an experiment. You see, I didn't have anything else to do, and I had recently found a rock that I'd been holding on to since last fall (I'd shoved it in the pocket of a jacket and forgotten about it). So I figured I'd just kind of play around with it and see where I ended up. Here's the rock in question, and what I did with it. 

     If I recall correctly I picked this up while walking the dogs at the park. It caught my eye because it had a nice glint in the sun and was already pretty flat on two sides. To start out, I took the Dremel to it to smooth and flatten all the edges, then shine it up a bit. Just for fun, here's a shot of one of the sides where I've done one half and not the other. It's satisfying in the same way as powerwashing something really dirty.

     When I got done smoothing everything out, I was left with this.

     I put that in gif form for you because I had a feeling in photos this was going to look like...well, a beige rock. I wanted you to get a sense of the pretty natural sheen and depth. I dunno, maybe I'm just really into rocks. If nothing else, it shows off what I did here, which was just to smooth everything out and bring out the natural shape of the rock, because that's my personal preference (remember how I like my things to look like they were crafted by an ancient artisan and only recently excavated?).

     Anyway, next I decided I wanted to add some glitz. First I tried taping off the two large flat surfaces and spray painting the sides with my favorite gold spray paint (the Krylon kind). 

     It was alright, and I didn't hate it. But then Amanda suggested I gold leaf the sides (she had some that she'd received in a monthly nail art box -- of course -- that she wasn't ever going to use). Go big or go home, right? That's what I loved about this experiment: if it succeeds, awesome, I get to look like the coolest witch in the coven with some weirdo homemade rock jewelry; if not, hey, it's a rock. Throw it back outside.

     Here's what's cooking once the gold leaf was applied.

      Much better! To actually turn this into a piece of jewelry, I just spun some little loopies into some gold wire and wrapped it around. I wanted to hold it in place permanently with a dab of epoxy, because I like to be sure of these things, but then I decided I liked how glossy the epoxy made everything, so I dunked the whole damn thing in there. Just went for it. Then proceeded to glue my hands to EEEEVERYTHING. It sucked. But this turned out to be a pretty pendant!

     So this guy will not be getting chucked back outside! I love a happy ending. 


     And the happy ending to this post is a nice before and after shot to remind you how far we've come (and for convenient Pinteresting purposes. Yeah, hi all you readers coming from Pinterest! Welcome, come in, sit down, have a lemonade, don't let the dog drool on you).

Illustrated Tweet of the Day!

     Today I thought it would be fun to make a little gif illustration of a tweet I...tweeted...recently (not redundant at all). I may start illustrating more tweets; it's surprisingly fun!

Woooosh.

     That's the sound of the wind rushing through my ears and around the inside of my head. I'm going through one of those spells where my creative energy just goes "Lol, nope, don't think so suckaaaa" and stops existing. So I sit around trying to think of something fun to craft/sew/draw/write about and this is what happens. 

     I'm hoping it's just because I haven't been sleeping well at all these past few nights, and not because my whole life's supply of creativity has suddenly run dry and now I'll have to become an accountant or something (no offense to accountants). 

America is England's Bratty Teenaged Child

     A conversation (about who will end up making it to space and other planets and junk, one day far in the future) that happened today:

Me: I would think that's how it'd happen, anyway. America and China, last two superpowers standing.

Amanda: Maybe Europe.

Me: Ehhh, I dunno.

Amanda: Well we'd take them with us, anyway. England at least.

Me: But France, no way. We'd jet off, all, "YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN, FRENCHIES!" You're probably right about England though, we'd take them. We tight with England. It's funny how we're all buddy-buddy with them now when just, like, 200 years ago we were all "EEEENGLAAAAND!"

Amanda: Yeah, but they were only hard on us because they cared.

Me: Sure, "We only oppress you because we love you!" "Leave us alone, Britain, we know what we're doing! We don't need you!" We're the bratty teenaged child of England, aren't we?

Amanda: Oh my God, we are.

Rocky Raccoon

     Today's "Thing that popped into Jacki's head and made her laugh out loud so that she looked like she was on drugs to everyone around her" is brought to you by the humble raccoon.

     See, we've discovered, with the help of modern technology (the future is now!) that a raccoon has been stealing all the birds' food.

He ain't even sorry.

      So, naturally, Amanda has decided she wants to feed him and love him and keep him forever as an outdoor pet (I, for one, have little to no trust for raccoons since I saw a show once about how they can open almost any container you put in front of them. The combination of adorableness and ability to open a bottle of poison to put in your food is one I generally dislike).

     Anyway, so she asked me to do a quick googling and figure out where raccoons live. And after finding the answer (dens, hollow spaces in tree trunks, POSSIBLY YOUR ATTIC, in case you were curious), I kept reading and found this gem:

"The raccoon uses the fingers of its forepaws to feel around. As it feels around, it sometimes finds food. That’s how a raccoon can catch fish without even looking. A raccoon often stares straight ahead as it puts its hands into the water. It holds its hands there until it feels something move." (animals.howstuffworks.com)

      And then I died laughing. Because that's a funny enough factoid to begin with -- I mean what kind of hunting strategy is that, raccoon? To stick your paws in the water and just space out while you wait for some dumb fish to bump into you? -- but when you add in the fact that raccoons look like they're constantly preoccupied with something and that mental image becomes hilarious.

I'm so tired I think I might be dead.

 

     I spent almost the entire day yesterday cooking, which, as you know from my last post, was not part of the plan. But I woke up with an urge...to converge...ingredients into something tasty. I dunno, I really wanted that to rhyme. Just roll with it. 

     So I made "turtles" for Amanda, because she specifically requested them (they're "turtles" instead of turtles because they're actually just chunks of peanuts held together with chocolate. "Don't you want caramel, and a fancier kind of nut?" I says to her, I says. "No. Peanuts and chocolate" she answers. So here we are).

     Then I made chocolate covered molasses candies, because they're my favorite kind of Valentine's Day candy, but they don't always even put them in the heart-shaped boxes anymore. I guess I'm the only one who likes them. Which is a shame, because I have approximately four thousand of them now, and I should like to give some away. They took forever to make, too. I spent such a long time standing over a bubbling pot of goo, trying to get it to precisely the right temperature, that I started to think I was at Hogwarts. 

     Then I made Thai peanut noodles because man cannot live on sweets alone, and it was dinnertime anyway. They were amazing. I've tried and failed to make peanut noodles in the past, because if you leave the sauce on the burner for just a hair too long, it turns to a weird paste that will have the completely wrong texture and ruin your whole meal, as well as probably your entire life. Pay attention to your peanut sauce, people. It can make or break you. 

     Then I looked around the kitchen at the mess I had made and sang "what have I done? What have I done?" all mournfully. 

    

Struggsville, Population: Me

     Wanna know what my week has been like? This, pretty much. This is a thing that actually happened. I'd been freaking out about whether or not my hair was pretty enough for...life, I guess, and Amanda told me "You're only miserable because of your hormones. Next week you'll feel better" to which I responded, from my fetal position in the floor,  "Then I don't want to have hormones anymore!" Then I cried for a while and ate some ice cream. The end.

LASERBEAMS.

     By the time you read this I'll probably already be at home napping while my eyeballs gently emit smoke and a faint sizzling sound, which, based on my knowledge of science (cartoons. All of it from cartoons) is what will happen after my LASIK procedure, since that's what happens in cartoons when someone stares at the sun too long, and it's totally the same thing, right?

     Or, as my mom phrased it, I'll be "among the sighted," which makes it sound like I'm going to get psychic powers. I doubt that'll happen, but when you're messing around with lasers who knows. The whole scenario does have a whiff of superhero origin story about it. "A standard procedure gone wrong left her with a terrible burden...and a gift that would stop crime in its tracks...before it makes them." Damn, now I'm kind of hoping for that to happen.

     Or maybe, due to a freak accident caused by...ah...by the uh... hurrmafrumma sunspots obblegobble radiation and...ahem...and stuff, my DNA will react to the lasers in an unusual way, absorbing the beams and turning them outward so I have LASER VISION. Watch out Cyclops, there's a new set of laser-eyes in town, and they're gonna have way better sunglasses than you.

     Or, in the most likely of scenarios, I'll just be able to see. Which is still a pretty good outcome, so I think I'll take it. I'll let you know how it all went down!
 

Tippy Tumbles

Like this, except it went on for a thousand years.

     Somebody took a tippy tumble down the stairs (every last one of them, from the very top step). Guess who it was? Yeah, it was me. It was the worst. Slick hardwood stairs + socks + just took out my contacts and switched to glasses so my depth perception was a little whack = OUCH, MAN. I'm pretty positive it happened in slow motion, since I definitely had time to spend the first few steps desperately grasping for anything to stop or at least slow my fall, then change strategy halfway through and just go limp like you're supposed to do before a car accident. I also distinctly remember hearing Amanda already laughing about halfway through the fall, instead of waiting until after she knew I wasn't horrifically disfigured or maimed, then laughing. 

     Apparently everyone around was very confused because it sounded like I was falling down the stairs, but they thought it couldn't possibly be that, because it was taking too long. I think the noise they were hearing was just the shattering of my ass-bones. (Not really, nothing was broken except my pinky nail.)

    So now my entire right side is useless. My entire right buttock (please read that in Forrest Gump's voice, you'll be happier for it) is bruisey and sore from fighting the noble battle against slick hardwood floors, and my right arm is sore from trying so hard to grab something/stop gravity from being such a turd.

     All of this is to say I didn't finish the skeleton dress yet because I was in a sorry state. So I sat in bed watching my bruises bloom and drawing you this gif.

Ouch.

Ughh, this headache. Knock it off, brain. What are you doing in there?

I'm a real hoot at Christmas parties.

Here is a gif I made illustrating exactly why I'm such a joy to be around during the holiday season.