Christmas Favorites

I think we still have about 3ft of torn up wrapping paper in the living room.

I'd clean up, but Snoop looks so cute in it.

This is what it looks like when you see all of my Christmas presents at once:

This view was a bit distracting on Xmas Day.  Anyone else ever run into this problem?

Matthew's mom sent me the faux fur vest & the necklace.  Matt said I looked like a villain.  I thought it looked a bit Jersey and made me feel like a stuffed animal.  The petting was nice throughout the night....even if it was just me doing the petting.

Hope you turds had a very merry.

Cheers to a Happy!!

New Ink for Xmas!!

"Why?", you ask?
Both animals represent creativity and magic.  They're reminders for me to get my creative shit out.
The spider spins beautiful webs despite them being easily destroyed.  The eye in it that I can't hide from and is always keeping watch.
Crows have an incredible sense of ingenuity and remind me to get back into the things that make sense to me.
They're there to kick my own ass into gear.
If you're curious, you can check out one of my favorite nifty books here that goes into animal symbolism/meanings in more detail.

While we're being honest, out of the (lucky number) 13 tattoos I have....these were probably the most painful.  Feels like road rash or a horrible sunburn.  I bit my lip, gritted my teeth, and made the pinched up "ow" face a few times.
And my feet are cold with it being chilly out.
I can't wear socks for a couple days.
But I absolutely love them and what they represent.  They make me smile.
And the guy who did them for me is pretty rad, too.  :)
Check him out here.

And see how cute they look with these shoes!!

My Effin' Chicken Recipe

A few of you have been asking for this recipe.  You should know, I don't cook with recipes really.  I "loosely base" my own shit on recipes I watch or read about.  Mostly from memory after I read it once or twice.  And I don't measure things and my cast iron skillet is King.  Love that thing. (heh, that rhymed)

Watch this video to see where I learned the basics.
Thanks to Willie for sharing that bit.

So, on this one, I seared it on 3 sides (back, side, and side - each for a few minutes) and put it back on it's back and then I threw in a half an onion, a carrot, and some celery all cut up into bits.  Oh, and a couple cloves of garlic.  Throw your veggies into the pan around the sides and salt and pepper it all before you throw it all in the oven.  And when you throw it in the oven...it'll be at 350ish, for about an hour.
Afterwards, I like to take a spoon and lean the pan onto one side and spoon the drippings & seasonings back up on the bird before serving.

For a side to go with, I made a badass mashed cauliflower.  Here's how you do that nonsense:
1 head of cauliflower, 1 thing of crumbled goat cheese (I get publix), 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, some salt, 2 or 3 tblsp (or maybe a 1/4c) of chicken broth, some butter.
Boil or steam your head of cauliflower, when its soft, drain it and throw it in the food processor with the garlic, butter, goat cheese, salt, and chicken broth.  Turn that shit on and/or pulse when needed to get the cauliflower lumps out.
Ta-muthafuckin'-da.  Mashed cauliflower.  An awesome alternative to mashed potatoes.

I LOVE cooking this.  And the leftovers are great, too.
So there.

Dragon Slaying & Christmas Decorations

My mom gave me this dragon incense burner over the summer after we'd been getting our Game of Thrones on.  I think it (and she) is pretty groovy.
I hadn't realized before this picture how creepy their eyes are.

The Perry Nutcracker is on watch.

Here's what our external house lights look like just before the cold front rain.

And here's what our tree looks like this year.  Pretty much the same as last year with a few new baubles (cuz I like that word).

haha...."baubles"

Ireland - Dublin, to be specific

The 2012 Turkey

This here is some mustard seeds, black peppercorns, and bay leaves.  Set over a low heat until they get 'fragrant'.  They didn't really do that before they started toasting unless you got your face right up in it.  I figured toasted was fragrant enough.

This here is when you add some water, brown sugar, kosher salt to those toasted little earth nuggets.  Stir it until the sugar and salt are dissolved and then remove from heat and let it cool.

This here is what it looks like when you throw a bacon blanket over it and add the brine (shown above) and some onions and a few bottles of Guinness to it.  The actual bird is breast side down cuz you want that part submerged in the brine.  You'd probably actually want the entire bird submerged but I didn't have a pot big enough for that nonsense.  So we gave it a bacon security blanket.  Don't worry, there's bacon on the underside, too.  This will sit in the fridge for 24hrs.

This here's what that precious bird looked like when we pulled it out of the oven after it'd been roasting for about 3 hrs.  I cooked it for about 1.5hrs with a bacon blanket on top of it, removed that for the last hour of cooking to make sure it got that lovely golden brown.  The drippings and debris left in the pot made a delectable gravy.
I see you, Turkey.  You did a good job & I apprecicate the tough life you had so we could eat you.

This here's what Matt looked like when he carved up that delicious bird.

Zombie Cat Brainstream

One of our lovely neighbors (& massive Snoop fan) gave us a cat calendar earlier this year.  We've got it pinned up over the trash can in the kitchen.
The other day (Friday, I think), I was in the kitchen eating a messy plum over the trash can and started staring at the calendar for snack-time entertainment.
Here's what it sounded like in my head for that moment.

"These cats are kinda creepy.  Look at those eyes.  What is that around their mouths?  Is that blood?  I bet its blood."

"It is blood.  Look at the mess on the black cat's face.  Clearly they're evil and are eyeballing me because I'm salty and they're waiting for me to not notice them so they can pounce and Matt will come home to find a half eaten me all over the floor and fat satisfied creepy ass cats with scary yellow eyes."

 "Oh...no, wait.  Its just that big ass watermelon making their mouths messy.  Would watermelon do that to fur?  Why would cats be eating watermelon?  Its not like they could spit the seeds out.........

.....Awhell...its September."

The Fat Saga Continues...

So, Matthew pointed out that my math was wrong on my Declaration post from last week.
Then I stopped to think about it and DUH!! I'm a mathtard.

30lbs in 28wks is NOT 2lbs a week.
Its only a little over 1lb a week.
But I like 2lbs a week better.
And none of you turds corrected me.

So, once again....
FUCK YOU, MATH!!

Additionally, last week I studied up and listened to Trainer Brian preach on about going paleo.
So, I've been eating meats (organic/grassfed/wild caught) and nuts in the a.m.  Meats and veg (organic & mainly green; broccoli and asparagus and green beans) for lunch and dinner.
(Which is exactly how I was eating 10yrs ago, before anyone started calling it "paleo".)
Drinking 2-3L of water a day.

I've been to the gym 5 times since The Declaration.

I'm down 4lbs.

SO, FUCK YOU, TOO, FAT!!

2012 KM Photo Project #4

Yes, we know we're two months behind.  Shit happens.
The month of April was "Bad 90's Glamour Shots", so here we are in all our soft filtered glory.

Clearly, Martha's done this before.

I love the chin hands and head tilts.

Mine aren't nearly as good.  My lighting was all wrong & forgot to use a flash, but whatever.
Here we go.

The last one was just for fun.  I've never done Glamour Shots before and its been YEARS since I've done any weird portrait studio poses.  Totally forgot about the chinhands and crap.  All I could remember was the collar holds.

What Martha learned: "I learned that I need to keep more stupid hats and gaudy jewelry on hand.  And boas.  And I need to use Tom more for these projects; he's hilarious and oh so helpful behind the camera-phone.  Also I learned that hair-spraying a bang wave is the delorean time machine to my middle school years."

What I learned:  Doing 'big hair' is difficult when you have fine hair.  I've haven't used that much hairspray since back then.  Should've used the flash and had bigger jewelry on.  Also practicing poses beforehand might've helped.  Pay no attention to my nails in the first one.
Oh, great...now you'll go back and look.  I really had no clue how to do "90s makeup", so it just ended up being weird shades of what I normally wear thrown together and overdone.

GAWH!, I WISH I COULD DO BIG HAIR LIKE HER'S!!

You Know You're Fat When -or- A Declaration

1. Your 'fat' jeans are tight.
2. You break a sweat trying on different outfits.
3. XL shirts don't hide the rolls.
4. Your tits muffin top.*
5. The spot where your thighs touch threaten to start a fire when you walk.
6. The spot where your thighs touch are the only hole worn in your 'fat' jeans that are now tight.
7. You look like a stack of mower tires from behind.
8. Your elbows are but mere dimples.
9. Your underwear rolls down when you sit.
10. Your shirt rolls up when you take it off.
11. An Englishman calls you the "softest bird" he's ever danced with.
12. You wear your husband's swim trunks to a waterpark.
13. You sunburnt your stretchmarks.
14. You stand in the mirror and see a more fit you underneath the fatsuit you're currently wearing.
15. All pictures with you in them, suck.

Seriously, you guys....I've been a horrible disappointment to myself over the past year or two, or three, or six.

I even told me so a couple weeks ago when I tried (and failed, yet again) to keep a weight loss journal**.

This one lasted for not even 2 weeks.

ARGH!!!

Back in November, I started actin' like I was going to tackle this thing for real and wanted to do a 365 photo/vlog project and blah blah blah.

That one lasted about 2 weeks, too.

I HATE THE TWO WEEK CYCLE!!

Why do I do that?

Why am I letting me down?

Pannacakes just recently told me she hit a goal and is treating herself with some junk from Amazon.

I have no goals.

I've never had any real goals.

I usually just say what I want and then later on (days, weeks, months, years) it happens, but its not like I have a goal set list.

So, here it is.

I'm saying it, outloud, to you and the rest of the universe:

I WANT TO LOSE 30LBS BY THE END OF 2012.

We have 7 months left of the year.

That's 28 weeks.

And that's roughly 2lbs per week (with an added little challenge thrown in)

Here's how I plan to do it.  (holy crap...is this a goal??)

• Gym 5 days a week.  Bonuses if I have dance class or other high movement-type outings.
• Knock off the beer consumption drastically.  If I have any, it'll be dark and heavenly and 2 is my cutoff.
• Cut out the carb intake.  No breads, pastas, noodles, or other baked goods.  Even whole wheat type crap.  This has worked for me before, why don't I go back to what works?
• Lean meats and veg.  Fruits in the a.m.  Nothing crazy or new here.
• No friggin' CHEESE.  This one's a bitch.  I fuckin' love cheese...BUT like I said, I've done it before.

Its just time for me to do this again.

I don't like the way I feel.  I don't need anyone to make it a competition.  I don't need to keep talking about it.

What I do need is encouragement, constant reminders, and to fuckin' DO IT ALREADY.

If you don't like something, change it, right?

Its time to fucking change things.

----------------------------------------------------

*I'm so not mad at this one.  It took me getting fat to even have tits.

**Written in the book Pannacakes got me that has a picture of a chihuahua dressed up like Michael Jackson on the cover.

From Neil deGrasse Tyson's Tweets Today

Absolutely love these.

The Neverending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part III

Saturday Day 6 - DAY OF!! - The morning greeted us with a maid cop knock, Matthew sleepily saying, "come back later" and then me freaking out that my camera bag wasn't in my room.  We went looking back at the band stage and I told Matt that I kinda remember Willie saying that he had my camera bag but I didn't trust my drunken head at that point.  We did the quick stage search (did not see the washtub bass in the bushes) and talked to the towel boy, to end up back in the room with my phone finally plugged in to recharge and a reply from Willie saying, "Yes, I still have your camera bag." with relief washing over.  This made us hungry and we headed over to the restaurant for breakfast buffet where Matthew told me to check my email on my phone.  I looked and smiled seeing the Two Door Cinema Club tickets for the Beacham Theater on June 4th.  YAY!!!
We went and wandered around the vendor room and picked up some prints by this dude, Willie gave us some badass prints from this dude and this set as a bday present that I'm effin' excited about.
This next bit, I feel the need to preface with the following:
About a month ago, I told Front Man John of The Bloody Jug Band that, with my bday coming up, Matt would probably be hitting him up for a merch/souvenir size washboard that the band sells during shows.  I'd made a little noise about how great it would be to have one on our "gallery" wall at home.
And this bit is the actual turn of events:
After running through the vendor room and pickin' up cards and prints and shakin' hands and playin' games, we went back by the Band booth to say "see ya" and Seth, John, & Stormy were there.  We chatted a minute and then John said something about my birthday and picked up the washboard he plays during shows and recent practices and took the straps & eye-hooks off and handed it to me with a "Happy Birthday" or something or other.
I say "something or other" because at some point while he was handing it to me, my brain shut down in disbelief.
I say "disbelief" because 1) that was the one he uses in shows and I knew they had a show the following night and 2) I asked for A washboard, not THE washboard.
There were 2 thimbles included even.

Completely overwhelmed and in a slight state of shock, I said my thank you's and "see ya" laters and we headed out.

Once home, Matthew said, "Close your eyes and put your hands out flat...." which was shortly followed by, "OK, open'em."  This is what I saw in my hands:

I totally know what you're saying....I was saying the same thing.
"HOLY CRAP, HOW COULD ANY ONE DAY GET ANY MORE AWESOME?!?"
I'll tell ya....
A 2.5 hour nap surely helps.
And dinner at Hawkers might've had something to do with it.
And then a trip with crazy friends to Lil 500 to ride go-karts might contribute, too.

The bumpy track was....
There was NO POSSIBLE WAY to NOT laugh or smile while driving.  The boobahs were bouncing, the track was ridiculous, everyone was doing something different and clownin'.
The fast track was....
Fast...and slippery and awesome.
Perma-grins for the night and sore faces later on from smiling/laughing so much.
We also sang "We Are Young" by Fun at the top of our lungs while we were driving.

This bit of awesome was followed by dive bar karaoke at Cheers and singin' "Man In A Box", "Road To Nowhere", "Bobby McGee", "Roadhouse Blues" and trainwreck shots with an improv LMFAO "I'm Sexy & I Know It" group dance.

Seriously, even just thinking about it now is bringing a giant effing smile to my face.

We finished off the night with sign stealing and 7/11 sammiches.

The Never-Ending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part II

Wednesday Day 3 - This was productive day.  And unintentionally so.  After rifling through the house looking for our marriage certificate in the myriad of unorganized boxes of shit, I went to the DMV to renew my driver's license.  I think that because I'd lost my license (and then found it later) and ordered a new one, it flagged me and that was why I couldn't do the renewal online.  I'd much rather have been able to keep the ID photo from 8yrs ago.
After that mess, I came home to a cable company bill that was charging us for not returning their boxes after we dumped the cable service.  So, having lunch at Willow Tree seemed appropriate since the cable company office was over that way.  Followed by the cable company drop off and another forgotten check card incident and a quick other couple of errands and then a run back home to freshen up before meeting Chrystal's birthday party people at Flats.  Then it was rehearsal night which was followed by an Oblivion stop and the night ended up in stomach cramps and uncomfortableness until 4:30a.m.  I think my body was over-awesomed.

Thursday Day 4 - Because my body was so over-awesomed, Pannacakes and I decided to take it easy with a water filled lazy day over at New Smyrna.  Lunch at Off The Hook and a beach nap in my beach tent and sunburnt tops of legs were included.  Peeing in the ocean and lots of chatting were also thrown in there.  There were 2 accidents on I-4 on the way home.  That was pretty crazy...there were shoes in the road and a flipped truck.  Got home and got cleaned up and went to our rescheduled dance class and wore my new "angry tango" shoes.  That's what Instructor Brian called them cuz they're red and black.  We killed the hustle and did some tango.  Our next lesson, Instructor Brian said, we'd be split up and doing a focus lesson.  Matt will be with Lindsay and I'll be with Brian and then we're back together towards the end of the lesson to go over what we learned apart.

Friday Day 5 - I had a date with Mom for lunch.  We met up in downtown Mt. Dora and ate at the Palm and went over to the Aveda spa for a pre-birthday massage from Mom that left me all noodley & soft-skinned.  We ran through The Drawer to visit Bootie and pick up a few treasures.  Mom ran back to Aveda for a hair appt and I ran home to pack up for Mayhem.  Willie stopped by and Matt came home and gave me some crap for not having seen my first birthday present hanging in the upstairs hall (that I promptly moved to the red dining room wall):

After some squealing and celebrating, we all loaded up and caravanned down to the Wyndham to get situated for the evening's Pool Party with The Bloody Jug Band.  The night was insane...as anticipated with fire breathing clowns, the band, mermaids in the pool, conversations with Brazilians, and Kraken releasing.
It would end with a room party that included beatboxing and a shy amateur gangsta rapper with an awesome gold grill.  His name was Tunk.

The Never-Ending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part 1

Monday Day 1 - Nice leisurely trip to the gym to burn off some of the weekend after being hungover and sleeping almost all day Sunday.  While I was there, Trainer Brian was there and we caught up on things.  He looks like a Beatle now.  Hadn't seen him in months...hair's all grown out and he's rockin' an interesting mustache configuration.  Got home and cleaned up and Willie stopped by to give me some shit about something and brought up Dave & Buster's.  So we went.  And proceeded to get a bit of lunch and a little drunk and a lot excited over some pretty silly games....  Like, video lawn darts (my shit) and a Pirates game we fuckin' pwned through all 3 acts, and a Spaceballs game that was a big ticketer that was basically just a rubber ball version of Plinko from Price Is Right (also my shit).  We had some >3,000 tickets and went crazy snatching up cheap toys & candy from the winner's shop.
The next morning I would realize that I'd left my check card at the bar.

Tuesday Day 2 - The night before there were talks of waterpark action.  Aquatica or Typhoon Lagoon?  Typhoon won out because I used to work there and hadn't been since.  13yrs?  So we stopped by Dave & Buster's to grab my check card and cruised out to Typhoon.  After a quick stop by the bar, The Crush'n'Gusher made me dirty giggle and we grabbed a dual tube to jump on the Bananas slide first.  Got a workout up those stairs and jumped in to immediately start screaming down the slippery slopes and yell "SHIT" on turns when I thought we'd flip over.  Zippy bags full of cards were lost & found more than once.  Mayday Falls flipped me backwards.  Gangplank was shorter than I remember and still pretty lame.  Keelhaul was fun and I scraped my foot on the bottom of the Creek in the same spot Pannacakes pool attacked me from the weekend.  The water seemed low.  Terry made green crazy shots. They were tasty.
When I got home, Matthew and I were supposed to dance.  After another couple of jager shots, I ended up passing out in the car on the way to dance.
Being the Awesome he is, he went in to check out the situation (explaining that I was "not feeling well") for a solo dance with Instructor Brian's instructor lady friend, Lindsay but she was busy, so he rescheduled us and had a cider at the bar we frequent next to our dance studio.

2012 KM Photo Project #3

There's absolutely no rhyme or reason for picking these ideas.  Although, now that I think about it, we should've had some rhyme in there.  Maybe for next year's.

For this month, we did SUGARSKULLS!!

Here's Marty's:

Martha's note: 

So here it is, my sugarskull.  To be honest, I felt I looked more like an evil clown than a decorative skull commemorating the Day of the Dead.  I used talcom powder to make my face a little lighter and an old black Halloween grease pen for the nose and eyes which turned out to be runny and too shiny.  I ran out of black eye liner so my high contrast fine line details were pretty limited. I compensated by finishing off the look with body jewels.  That's right....I vajazzled my face.*  Hey, Tom's been gone for 2 months, its not like they were getting used.  Heh....jewels.  Anyway, I wish I had a decent camera.  I'd like this to be less of a hipstamatic photo project, but for now it'll just have to do.  Side note: How traumatic would it have been to wake up my kids with this make up on? Muahahahaha....next time.

Here's mine:

My note:

Drawing on your face with eyeliners and lip pencils is a little more difficult than I'd thought.  My nose itches.  Wish I could've found some orange pencils.  Thank you, black lipstick.  

I can't wait to wash my face.

Also, my eyebrows are still ridiculous.

YAY!!

-----------------------------------

*The body jewels mentioned were a Xmas present from Matthew due to a facebook conversation where Martha said she hadn't heard of vajazzling before.

Bellyboobs Final

You turds remember this?

I finished up that bad mammajamma before Xmas and had it at the New Year's soiree that Martha didn't attend.
Here's the finished product that should be meeting it's maker very soonly:

Confession: David Copperfield Made Me Cry

Some of you may or may not be aware of my previous super powers.
There was another time, when I was about 13 or 14, I was captivated by David Copperfield flying on some tv special.
He made me believe that I could fly, too.
I remember laying flat on my back and wishing myself to fly so hard that I cried when I opened my eyes and saw that I wasn't hovering over my bedroom carpet.
Maybe it was because I wasn't wearing a billowy black sweatshirt with an audience full of applause and majestic music playing.



HAHA...kids are stupid.

2012 KM Photo Project #2 (heh...number 2)

Happy Leap Year Day!!
Nothin' like putting things off til the very last day of the month.
Because you can and because it just so happens there is, actually, one more day.
How fucking awesome is THAT?!

Remember last month?
Yeah, me neither.

This month we decided to grab some inspiration from the movies.
Without further ado, here are our Cult Classic photo pix.

Dr. Marth-n-Furter

Klockwork Karen

Martha's Comments:  A black wig and an adams apple would've made this photo. It's not easy pretending to be a guy pretending to be a girl.

Karen's Comments: Why did I keep putting this off? And I didn't sweat as much!  I am still envious of Martha's eyebrows.

We Went To Hawaii Pt. 2.

After our stargazing at LAX, we received umbrella drinks when we got to our seats on the plane.
Matthew took a nap.
I caught up on Justified season 2.

At the Honolulu airport, I was smacked in the face by a flowery smell that reminded me of when I was 10 on a family hawaii trip.  It was a flower that was in the leis that folks were being welcomed with.
I kept walking behind them with my nose in the air huffing their flowers.
If you can tell me what this is, I'll find one to plant at home so I can huff it all the time.  I think its a jasmine or something.

Want.

We got the Jeep rental with a peppering of bickering while trying to map our destination, but we met up with our Party at this place to pick up some grub to make us less cranky.

Once back at the accommodations, we poked around the house, made up our beds, vowed to not turn on the tv during our stay, cracked open some brews, and munched on our take out foods.

I believe shortly after that, we sat on the back porch listening to the breeze & finished our beers before we called it a night.

The next morning, we woke up to coffee and this view:

After bagels and some general milling about, the boys decided it was time to go to Sandy's for some skimming & sunning.

 Me & Steph (look how white I am.)

 Flags mark the 'dangerous shore breaks'

 Random hot guy.

Random hot guy's dog.

 Chad.

 Exploring the lava rocks & tidal pools.

 Difficult to see, but there's a sea urchin hiding in there.

 Bob.

 Chad.

 Lifeguard talking to a random film crew.

Random actors being filmed.

We all discussed our theories on what they were shooting.

I believe we settled on 'Brazilian Porn'.

After we hung out there for a bit, we headed back to the house to chill by the pool & hot tub.

There were some fishing poles in the Fun Shed and I tried my luck sittin' on the dock of the bay.

The girls came down to join me and while we were chatting, a giant puffer fish swam up & was trollin' the nearby rocks.

For sunset, we drove out to this place with a bag full of beer and hung out.

 The Sunset Party.

Here's what my first-day-of-vacation sunburn looked like at the end of the day.

Wasn't even the worst burn I've ever had but it sure did get a lot of attention over the course of the following days.  Apparently people don't ever see sunburns anymore.  Certainly not in Hawaii.  Buncha friggin' weirdos.

Don't fret, pets - I'm completely white again.

We finished off the day with cocktails and 90s Trivial Pursuit.

Girls vs Guys...and the guys won.  Cuz they're older than us.