Pina Colada Cake

Do you like piña coladas?  And gettin' caught in the rain?  

Then I have a cake for you.

It's found in our church's cookbook, and it's actually called "Piña Colada Cake."  I've made it so many times now, I can pretty much make it in my sleep.  At least twice a year, Easter and Christmas, it's a family "special occasion" favorite--I even make the occasional cake for my aunt's birthday because she's so crazy about them.

Chicken Ball

This is actually a family recipe that I got from my aunt, out of a church cookbook (Recipes and Reflections, Bethel Presbyterian Church, Clover SC, and you should probably track the cookbook down, because it's got a lot of delicious recipes in it.)

Household Quickie: Sticker Residue Removal

If you're anything like me, then you tend to re-use things, most times until they pretty much disintegrate from usage.

I'm also a crafter, and I make glycerin and gelatin products as well, so I'm always on the lookout for bottles, bottles that won't cost me a fortune (I like to pay about $1 per bottle; I found a great deal on bottles at my local dollar store, Mighty Dollar, and cleaned them out. Sadly, they've never re-stocked.).

And so I came upon the idea, after much consideration, of going back to the Mighty Dollar, or even Wal-Mart (because their brand costs right around 88 cents), buy new bottles of hand soap, dump the soap into the big refill bottle in my cabinet, and use *those* bottles for my soap and lotion products.

The down side to this is, the Wal-Mart bottles come with some pretty labels that leave a hideously sticky residue on them.

In Their Names, Let's Drink To True Love, For a Toad and a Scorpion Fell

I have to issue several warnings about this post:

First of all, it's about a movie that some of you have probably never heard of. It's called The Devil's Carnival, and it was created/produced/directed/paid for/bled-sweated-and-cried-over by a couple of guys named Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich. They collaborated on another fantastic movie you've never heard of called Repo! The Genetic Opera.

For the long and short of it, The Devil's Carnival is exactly that; three sinners go to Hell, and each one is subjected to a performance in Hell's carnival that echoes the sins of their lives. The neat twist to all of this? Terrance and Darren used Aesop's Fables to illustrate the sins. They used three fables; The Dog and Her Reflection; The Scorpion and the Frog; and lastly, Jupiter and His Due. Today's words are about The Scorpion and the Frog.

Second of all, this will contain a few spoilers about the movie, or at least, a part of it. So if you're one of those folks who doesn't want to be spoiled about a movie (that is now out on DVD, by the way, and available through Amazon, Hot Topic, Netflix, Hulu, and The Devil's Carnival website) then you might want to find yourself another post to read.

Sweet, Sweet Sinus Relief

I am an avid sufferer of allergic rhinitis and (self-diagnosed) chronic sinusitis. All that boils down to? I'm congested, deep in my sinuses, pretty much year round. Some times are better than other times, I'll be honest, but there are days, like today, when I wake up dry-mouthed and stuffy because I've been so congested I'm breathing through my mouth and not my nose.

There are a lot of OTC meds I can (and do!) avail myself of, but I have to be careful what I use because I am prone to nosebleeds. Nice, big, heavy, Old Faithful-like gushers, if I'm lucky, that take an age and a half to stop and leave me with headaches afterwards.

So I tend towards suffering through it, or slathering on the Mentholatum or Vicks VapoRub. Although occasionally, I will find myself going homeopathic, and I'd like to share with the rest of you snufflies out there my "miracle cure."

Vinegar. Mixed pickling spice.

Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce

If you're anything like me, you're always on the lookout for something that you can just toss in the crock-pot, let it simmer for a few hours, and then come back to it and have a nice, delicious meal ready.

Well, I can't promise that, but I can promise you a meat sauce that you can use for spaghetti, beefaroni, or pretty much anything else you want to use it with. It can also serve as the base for chili (with or without beans).

It's a pretty low-maintenance recipe that you can spice up with any additives that you want. Mostly I just add cheese near the end, shredded cheddar or Mozzarella if I've got it on hand, because we're a cheese-eating family here.

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Stop Making Kristen Stewart A Martyr

Before we begin, I would like to offer a disclaimer:
I am a thirty-five, soon to be thirty-six, year old woman who despises the Twilight series and everything that it stands for. However, I have no personal anathema or particular hatred towards Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, or anyone else involved in the whole shebang. In fact, I rather like some of the actors and actresses.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let me start this off by giving you the two links that started my tirade.

IndieWire: The Public Shaming of Kristen Stewart
Trampire: Why The Public Slut-Shaming Matters For Young Women from RKEC on Tumblr.

Go ahead and read, I'll wait here.

Spicy Beef Roast

Like pretty much every single other person on the planet, I'm always looking for things. A new purse, the exact right pair of jeans that fit perfectly and make me look flawless while being extraordinarily affordable, a nifty pair of shoes that don't hurt my feet and yet offer decent support, the best deal on Fancy Feast cat food for two picky cats who don't know how good they've got it.

Mostly, though? I look for recipes. Because cooking is not my favorite thing to do. I don't MIND it, oddly enough, I just get tired of DOING it every night, and I'm occasionally always looking for something new to try that's easy, that tastes delicious, and that doesn't break my budget.

While in recent months, both Pinterest and Six Sisters' Stuff has filled that void, I came across a recipe of my own that I discovered a few years back. It's from a booklet of recipes at Crock-Pot.com and is amazingly good.

Image borrowed from Blossy's Cook Book

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Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Dip

I found this on Tumblr and it had been reblogged so many times, I could not find the actual original attribution. I traced it as far back as I could, to the blog of the person (Jessica) who first posted it, but not the exact post.

That being said? It looks so sinfully delicious I can't wait to try it, and I thought it'd be worth sharing.

Book Review: The Lives of the Monster Dogs

I picked up The Lives of the Monster Dogs at the library one weekend strictly on its cover; a beautiful Siberian Husky/Malamute-type dog in a smoking jacket. The blurb on the back was intriguing; dogs that walk upright on their hind legs, have prosthetic-yet-working human hands and voice boxes, land in New York City.

You'd think they'd have all kinds of zany adventures; wrong-o! Turns out these are Monster Dogs, that's the name they accept for themselves, and they set up housekeeping in NYC. Of course, they're all still stuck in the 1800s (there's a long, semi-pointless back story that vaguely involves Kaiser Wilhelm that explains this) and are all wearing bustled dresses and Prussian uniforms, but that's okay because it's New York City and that's where the Freak Flag flies. At least, that's their rationale for landing in NYC.

Talking dogs, Victorian clothes, and laser guns (yes, laser guns). What could go wrong?

DIY Project: Jewelry Box

How many of you have trinket boxes, junk boxes, photo boxes, or any other kind of box piled around the house with no idea what to do with them?

Oh, just me, is it?

Well, I am a box collector. I have quite a few, of many varied shapes and sizes, but the box in question, that precipitated this whole project, is one I've had for eighteen years; it was a senior gift from my high school the year I graduated, and over time, it's served as a pencil box, trinket box, necklace box, bead box, storage box, empty-box-sitting-around-looking-pretty box... you get the idea.

I also collect rings. I rarely wear them; they get in my way when I type, and when I get hot and cranky, my hands swell and the rings get really tight and uncomfortable. But I love collecting them, especially unique ones. Like these ones.

And so, I made this:

You can, too, and for under $10. More likely, it'll be under $5, depending on if you already have felt at home or not.

Ev'rybody Wants To Be A Cat

... because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at.

Yeah, I'm a cat person. I love dogs, don't get me wrong. I almost adopted a little terrier-lab mix (and no, I don't know how that happened. God, please let the mother be the Labrador, because otherwise, owie.), but tickle my feet and make me declare, and I'm cat girl all the way.

I'm feeling the need to announce my cat allegiance because of My Cat From Hell and its host, Jackson Galaxy.

This would be Jackson Galaxy, and yes, real men DO love cats.

I have two cats myself, Maggie (Margaret May, for when she's in trouble) and Sammy (Samhain Murray, for when he's in trouble), and while they are not cats from Hell by any stretch of the imagination, the things that I've learned from Jackson Galaxy and My Cat From Hell have made me understand my kids a little bit better.

Book Review: The Man Who Left Too Soon (Barry Forshaw)

Earlier this month, I blogged about all the reasons that I don't do reviews. And then, as I went to my local library with my mom, we were browsing the stacks together and she found The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Life and Works of Stieg Larsson. Being a fan of the Millennium trilogy, and knowing that I liked the books too, Mom picked it up for me and I checked it out.

Big, big mistake.

Reviews and Reports

You know, I sometimes wonder why I don't write reviews.

And then I re-read some of the reviews I've written in the past, and I realize why I don't. I suck at it. It's not for lack of trying; God knows I've tried. But I just don't have the right voice for it.

I've tried to write reviews for Flash Gordon as well as for Supernatural, and while I think my Supernatural reviews might not suck, they're also not gold standard.

Confirmed, Plausible, or Busted?

As you may or may not know--or care--I am a huge Mythbusters fan. Adam Savage is the unrivaled soul-mate to my inner five-year-old; Jamie Hyneman is the type-A personality that I love to watch, hate to work with, and want to be like. They've done more towards making science and building cool than Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye combined, and the show is hilarious.

Back to School (Again)

As it might surprise you to know, I dropped out of college after a car accident. I broke my ankle, and there was no way I could navigate the stairs and carry my backpack with my leg in a cast up to my thigh (don't ask me why it was so high, when the broken bone was way down on the other end of the leg), and so I withdrew from all my classes and pretty much dropped out.

Cross-Stitch For Life

Shockingly enough, I cross-stitch. I'm not as good as my mother or my aunt, but I get by. I've been doing it on and off for a few years now, more than I'll actually admit to, but I've never really progressed beyond the intermediate stage.

I've been stitching a lot more lately, and I've found some patterns online that are amazing. Carrie Luhmann Pieniozek maintains a site, Free Patterns Online, that offers a nice variety of free and relatively simple-to-use cross-stitch patterns. I've printed a lot of hers out, and are using them this Christmas.

For now, though, I'm sharing some of the projects I've actually finished stitching.

Ten Ways To Survive A Horror Movie

As you may or may not know, I love horror movies. I love watching them, I love getting scared by them, I love crying over them, everything. So, while I'm by no means a connoisseur nor an expert, I have come up with a list of survival tips. Just a few things that'll help you out if you ever get caught up in a horror movie.

The Best Laid Plans Of Mice and Women

Well, I obviously didn't get a chance to do ScriptFrenzy this year. I missed the whole first week and a half because my dad was in the hospital. He's fine now, and the rest of the month is full of doctor's visits and such.

Which brings me to what I'm doing the rest of the time.

Why, I'm getting my lazy fingers in gear and updating my screencap site! That's right, I finally got the DVD drive in the lappy fixed. My first set?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season one, episode seven, titled "Angel." Yes, I did it out of order. But you know, it was worth it. Imaginos: A Screencap Image Archive is where you can find it, and everything else I've capped! As George Carlin once put it, "And enjoy your digital selves."

Rockin' Robin: Tweet Tweet!

Twitter is becoming a bad, bad habit for me. Of the 35 42 people I follow, maybe five--MAYBE--I speak to on a regular basis. The rest?

Celebrity twitters.

My most recent addition? Meat Loaf. That's right. Meat's on Twitter. @RealMeatLoaf, if you want to follow him, too.

What other celebs do I follow?