revamp.

Sorry about the ugly randomness of the blog.

It's currently being revamped.

We'll be back up and running correctly shortly.

Circle The World-Adam Rallison

Follow the link to Youtube. It won't let me post it. Stupid Blogger.
Circle The World-Adam Rallison

Seat Snatcher

You know the ones.

You're in a college class and despite the fact there aren't assigned seats, everyone sits in the same spot class period after class period...

And then, some jerk sits in your spot.

There's no rhyme or reason to it.

It's not like anyone took their spot either.

Oh no.

They just decided to "switch things up a bit."

Oh please. 

Sit in your own spot.

Where you belong.

I like my back corner.

I don't want your seat, front and center.

You little dirt bag.

3.14 day

Naturally, us being nerds, we celebrated by having pie! :D
We had a French Silk Pie, and it was absolutely delicious with all of its silky, chocolatey goodness.

Talk about tasty. 

deactivate.

Yes, I deactivated my facebook.
No, I didn't delete all of you as friends.
Yes, I will probably be back sooner than later.
No, it's not because I have been offended, or offended someone else.

I left because I have 5 tests and 3 papers to do over the next 2 weeks, must clean my old apartment by Saturday and I don't have time for frivolities such as facebook at the mo. So, enjoy not hearing from me for a somewhat extended time.

My Headless Butterflies Ring

Please analyze the following photo:

I have had so many people tell me, "Your ring is so beautiful! I love the butterflies!"

Huh?

What am I? 5?

Butterflies?

Oh please, tell me how you get butterflies out of this.

Since when do animals not have heads? Or in this case, no body, head or antennae? Because these "butterflies" are lacking all of the above.

For the record, people of cyberspace, they're LEAVES, not butterflies. 

neeeerd.

I openly and gladly admit to being a nerd.

These are my newest creations:

Pokéball Earrings

I really, REALLY enjoyed making these. They make me happy.

I love my Pokémon ^__^

random writing fact.

Sometimes I look at pictures to inspire me to write.

I'll find a scene of some sort of world and use it as my basis of what to write about for that part of the book.

And it's worked almost every time.

Bazinga.

(And yes, I did just quote Sheldon, without a prank. Sue me.)

Caramel Chocolate Brownie Crinkle Cookies

They look amazing when shown on the site, don't they? 

Well, as they are written right now, they're not as good as you'd think.

I made them, but they were... not chocolatey enough. 

And, I'm a girl and I was craving chocolate, so this was kind of a problem.

However, I will give the recipe and also my adaptions for the next time I make these bad boys:

Caramel Brownie Crinkle Cookies
From the sixsistersstuff.com blog.

1 package fudge brownie mix
1 cup all-purpose flour (less than this, more like 3/4. If you can manage 1/2 cup, that'd be even better I believe this was the main problem with these)
1 egg
1/2 cup water (I would also half this and do 1/4 C water. The less liquid, the thicker the dough, the easier it will be to make dough balls)
1/4 cup canola oil (Again, I would suggest less than is put here. You don't want too much liquid, but if you need more because it's too dry, put it in.)

About 24 caramels, cut in half
Powdered Sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl beat the brownie mix, flour, egg, water and oil until well blended (and be sure it is not runny, but somewhat firm and moldable, otherwise this will be an issue later when rolling into balls and in powdered sugar). Place powdered sugar into a separate bowl. Scoop up a tablespoonful of dough (you can use a cookie scoop if you want, but it will still work if you don't have one) and push a piece of caramel in the middle (I would put 2 halves of a caramel into the cookie. It needed more when I made them). Roll the dough around the caramel so it is completely covered. Drop by tablespoonfuls into the powdered sugar and gently roll, shaping into a ball. Place 2 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes or until set. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.   

Yields: about 4 dozen cookies (if they're really small cookies...)

*We found that after these cookies cool down, the caramel in the middle hardens. We popped them in the microwave for a couple of seconds before eating them and the caramel melted right up! They are so good warm!

So there's that. I must say, I think if the dough wasn't so stiff like I had mine, the caramel would melt more too, which would make it even tastier. 

That's all I got. Here are some pictures of how mine turned out. Still tasty, but I think the more gooey chocolateiness would be even better with these tweaks :)

Tilapia With Garlic-Tomato-Basil Butter

I'll be honest.

I don't cook.

And it's kind of a problem.

I'm almost 100% positive Doug cooks more than I do. If I count the number of times I have made all of dinner in comparison to times where he has made it all, I know that he wins. But I do make the lunches, so does that count? Either way, cooking wise, I'm sure he's done it more often than me.

Not that I'm complaining; heavens no.

Though, I must say I feel bad. Sometimes, it makes me feel like an awful wife. Other times I admit to being quite grateful for it. But last night he really needed to do his homework (curse you physics) and so I decided I was going to make one of my favorite mother in-law meals. It's super tasty, so I decided to pass it on to all of you. Normally, fish isn't something we buy, though we would love to. It's just so expensive, even when you find a deal. But when a 10 lbs box is only $1.88 a pound which is basically a dollar less than normal sale prices, we just have to. And we did. And it was so very worth it.

Tilapia With Garlic-Tomato-Basil Butter


What you'll need:

For Garlic-Tomato-Basil Butter

1 cup chopped tomatoes (I do a bit more, closer to 1½ cups)]

2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic (I press 2-4 cloves)

¼ cup butter, softened

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind (I just do rind of one lemon, which is more than 2 teaspoons)

¼ teaspoon pepper

3 Tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped (or 1Tablespoon dried basil if getting fresh is just too expensive. This is what I did last night, and it worked just fine.)

For Tilapia

1 pound tilapia fillets (give or take)

½ c light mayonnaise (I use whatever I have on hand, reg or light. And you may not even need this much)

½ c breadcrumbs

¼ c grated Parmesan cheese (the kind from the can is perfectly fine. Don't feel pressured to buy fresh Parmesan)

1 Tablespoon dried basil

½ tsp pepper

Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

To prepare the garlic-tomato-basil butter, coat a small/medium skillet with cooking spray (or veg. oil, which is what I do), then sauté tomatoes and garlic over medium heat for 5-10 mins, stirring occasionally, to form a puree.  Cool tomato mixture completely. In a bowl, mix together softened butter, the cool tomato mixture and the rest of the ingredients. Set aside while fish is baking.  (I usually sauté and then do fish and go back to finish butter while fish cooks)

To prepare fish, set a rack on a foil-lined baking sheet (for easy clean-up.) Spray the rack generously with cooking spray. Or simply don't use a rack at all and place it on a glass baking sheet directly, works great.

 Combine parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, basil and pepper in a shallow bowl or pie tin and mix well. Set aside.

Using a pastry brush (or fingers if that's all you've got... I may or may not have had a minor freak out last night that we somehow still didn't have all the needed kitchen supplies... But I worked through it. Sorry, rant, please continue), coat each piece of tilapia with mayo on both sides. (I usually do one side and then brush the other side once it is setting on the crumb mixture). Transfer the tilapia to bowl and bread each piece on both sides.  Put fish on the rack (or in the pan) and spray each piece lightly with cooking spray.  (you don’t have to do this but it does help clean-up afterwards)

Bake for 12-15 mins, or until breading is golden and fish flakes apart when gently prodded with a paring knife. Put butter over each fillet and allow to melt. Cut lemon into wedges and squeeze juice over buttered fillet.

Eat.

Suggestions/Tips/Warnings: Don't make your own bread crumbs unless you have the time and have left the bread out a sufficient amount of time beforehand. We hadn't, it was a disaster for me to even try doing, between toasting the bread, using our slap chop thing... No good at all. And such a mess.

If your tilapia is frozen, just run it under water or let it soak (in a baggy or Tupperware container) for 5-10 minutes (assuming their single and frozen. Takes a bit longer when multiple are stuck together) and they'll be ready to go. If the middle is still a little frozen when you put them in the oven, don't fear. Be sure to cook them for the full 15 minutes, and all will be well.

There really isn't much to it. It probably would have taken me about an hour (a little more most likely) had we actually had bread crumbs, which turned out to take the most time. Next time, we'll be buying pre-crumbed bread.

Purge.

Sometimes it's good and healthy to purge something.

Like facebook friends.

Moses, that has caused me so much drama a number of times. It's kinda ridiculous.

But honestly, when I don't talk to you ever, don't hang out with you ever, and haven't seen you in forever, I don't really feel bad.

We're not even real life friends, let alone fake friends.

Sure, there are those who I only talk to occasionally.

And the ones where really, I just like to stalk their photos, or their craft, or enjoy their views on things because they're intriguing. 

But honestly, 95% of those people aren't any of those. 

And thus they are purged. 

And it feels so good. 

I don't know why.

Honestly, it doesn't really make sense.

But it does. 

It's kinda like when you go through your room when you're moving out for the first time and you finally are able to get rid of all this C R A P you've been storing up for years.

Who knows why.

And when you do, it's great. 

You feel refreshed, and all is well.

That's how it felt when getting rid of over 200 friends my first purge.

And another 50 this last one.

Among the other few mini purges I've been doing over the last year. 

It's a great feeling to be refreshed. I play to continue purging things and people in my life frequently from now on.

Important people will stay. Important items, recipes, photos etc.

But the space wasters are going to be gone. 

And somehow, the thought of this makes me happy.

random fact.

Kissing underwater is not at all enjoyable.
Doug and I tried it in a pool, a few times actually, just in case we weren't doing it right.
Oh no.
It just got worse. Progressively worse.
And it tasted disgusting; chlorine.

McCraftiness

Whether this is actually a real word or not is irrelevant.
The awesome part is that I was actually crafty last night.
I made some wicked awesome things:

This is my Navi in a bottle. She's Link's fairy guide friend from Ocarina of Time.
(If you've never played this game, shame on you.)
The point is, it's awesome, if you know anything abut the Legend of Zelda and the epicness therein, you understand just how great this truly is. 
I was quite proud of myself honestly.
And then, I did another super awesomely wicked cool thing:

I made a Hyrulian Shield ring.
This is Link's shield. And it's an epic win.
You should all be jealous now. 

I also made a Pokéball, but unfortunately it cracked in production. However, I plan on making another one soon. I've also decided I'm going to make little Super Mario Bros. Bigs Shrooms and bottle them. I'm also doing Triforce earrings ^_^ I'll probably do more things too, but this is just the beginnings for now. After all, I'm moving on Saturday and I need to start packing stuff up.

Adieu.