if, then.

If you need a holiday treat then make sugar cookies. If you find you don't have an egg then substitute a mixture of ground flax seeds and water like someone on the interweb said to do. If you decide the cookies taste a little weird then make some icing.  If you discover there's no powdered sugar at home then you can try making your own in the blender. If the flavor of the homemade powdered sugar icing only adds to the cookie weirdness, then go to the store to get ingredients and make gingerbread cookies instead.

Here's to a happy and safe changing of the calendar... Best wishes to all of you for the coming year ♥

stock options

I'm making chicken stock today. Do I know what I'm doing? No, but it makes the home smell cozy and it will be good enough to make rice with at least. And it's a good experiment. We ate a store bought roasted chicken the other day so I threw the remains in a pot with water, salt, a few carrots, half an onion, a couple of bay leaves, some pepper, some sage, and some marjoram (what do people normally use marjoram for?). I know I could have researched in cookbooks and online, but I kind of just wanted to go for it. Wish me luck!

wordy manicure

bookliciousblog

I tried doing this wordy manicure today. It's potentially awesome...but it's going to take me a few more tries to get it right. And to not spend all day on it. I've never been that good at using nail polish (that sounds ridiculous) so YOU might do an awesome job and I'd love to see it. The basic idea is that you paint your nails, use alcohol to transfer ink from paper to your nails, and paint a top coat over all.

Round One: FAIL

I used the Crater Lake National Park newsletter (hmm...not printed on actual newsprint, but has fun colors and words). Huge chunks of polish came off when I tried to peel the paper away. 

Round Two: 50% BETTER

I still had one hand ready to go, so I tried the back of a Safeway receipt coupon because the paper was thinnish and it had cool fluorescent pink ink.  It still came out kind of chunky with bits of paper, but I'll let it go for the rest of the day (but not care too much about wrecking my nails at the climbing gym later).

Yeah.  Sorry, no pics of my handiwork until I get it right...and I think I can...someday.  I think I needed real newspaper (remind me to pick up a free weekly), or a page out of and old dictionary (you know that thin tissuey paper?).  Maybe also some higher quality, newer nail polish. I suspect I did not let the polish dry long enough before applying the paper, and I can't decide if it was better to let the paper dry completely before taking it off, or re-wet it a little bit to ease it off.

Has anyone else tried this? So much for my Friday afternoon...

P.S. Hi! I've been enjoying visitors, music festivals, working, and watching Breaking Bad.  That's why I disappeared. It'll probably happen again...the disappearing ♥ Feel free to drop me a note and let me know you miss me, ha ha!

buried treasure

August was like a strange time warp...has it really been a month since I posted? Well, I'm still here, I assure you...wondering where I've been just as much as you are.  While we're on the subject of time warps I found these old disposable cameras.  At least one is from our wedding 6 years ago...I can't wait to see what comes out of them.  It was a bit of a challenge figuring out how to get film developed (I could have gone to the place the pros go, but figured it would be cheaper and less embarrassing to go elsewhere). I ended up mailing them out in pre-paid envelopes from the drugstore...We'll see what happens.