Eeeee! I mixed my own eyeshadow color for the first time tonight! So cool!

Was a little disappointed to find that my pretty "plum passion" eyeshadow was merely the distributor's purple in a smaller package with a heftier price tag.  If I was going to sell it I would at least mix it with something else so that it would be unique... Ah well... live and learn. I noticed that there were a couple of sellers who had taken the colors and merely repackaged them in smaller sizes. I suppose I shouldn't judge, that's what resellers do... it's pretty universal. So the moral of the story is... good thing I love the color... I have shitloads of it now. The sample baggies I bought are pretty huge when you think about how much you actually use... infinite possibilities.

OKC fell through for a second time, at least for that particular weekend. Maybe we can get a group together and go another weekend. It just wasn't meant to be.

I've got jerk chicken marinating in the fridge (or as I like to call it "ex-boyfriend chicken"). I ran across an awesome recipe. It's pretty easy, especially tomorrow when all I have to do is toss it onto the grill, and the flavor is amazing... I've made it a few times now, and everyone loves it. I'm having people over, it was a last minute decision - but the amazing part is that I don't think anyone turned me down - on a holiday weekend no less! Wow! So I'm looking forward to hanging out and having fun tomorrow. Yea for fun! Screw painting trim... I can do that on Monday. =)
 
I love the taste of lobster, but I find myself conflicted over the fact that they're boiled, or sometimes steamed, while they're still alive. I absolutely won't cook them for myself. You can't convince me that a lobster can't feel pain.

I once saw a show that I thought I was really going to like. It was this snarky old English lady who went to people's homes and taught them how to cook -- but if they didn't catch on quickly enough, she bonked them over the head with a cookbook. Sounds awesome, doesn't it?

It was.

Until she broke out the langoustines.

She proceeded to talk about how to cook them, while a voiceover tells me that, "the langoustines have been chilled to make them sleepy." My spidey senses begin to tingle. She picks up a langoustine... and violently rips it in half... head in one hand, tail in the other. It was still alive. She tells the women they can't feel it, but there on the counter is another langoustine, and he knows his number is up, because he's bucking like a little bronco... before she reaches out and rips him in half, too. I felt a tear slide down my cheek and I quickly flipped the channel.

I'm not gonna judge, I just don't know how other people do it. I'm too sympathetic. I always say that if I had to kill the cow myself, I'd be a vegetarian, but as long as it comes in the little packages at the grocery store, I will buy it. So I already know I'm a hypocrite, but at least I feel a little guilty about it. Saturday I felt a little ironic as I sat there, thinking how violent the movie was, as a hook ripped through the flesh of this guy's leg... and I sat there on the sofa, shredding up a rotisserie chicken...

I was watching A Lyon in the Kitchen as I ate dinner, that's where all the lobster talk came from. I like watching him cook, he's so easy going, and the food is so simple, but it looks delicious because it's incredibly fresh (in that way that only television food prepared by a professional chef seems to be). That would be nice, but I don't have the time, the money or the resources to get produce that fresh. I do visit a local market from time to time, but it's rare enough that it feels like a special treat. Mostly I rely on the grocery store down the street, and it's hit or miss. I didn't realize how much I missed really fresh produce until I cut into some fresh green beans a few months ago. The smell reminded me of my grandparents... both sets had their own gardens, and we used to sit around snapping the ends off of the green beans and peeling off the string that runs down the middle (we called them string beans).

So I'm upping the ante this week. One soda a day, and a full hour on the treadmill. This weight is coming off dammit! I did see a little more weight loss with the approach I took last week, but my time is growing short if I want to look good in the pics from Scotland. Only 63 more days... close enough that I can call it two months!  Woo-hoo!
 
The agent giveth me hope... and the agent taketh it away. This morning I was elated to see that another agent wanted me to send a sample chapter, but I felt the impending hand of doom when she also stated that she wasn't sure if my book was right for her. She said she'd read it right away and get back to me. True to her word, within two hours my once-high-hopes were dashed. I would be crushed, but I have a lot of irons in the fire, and it's a very subjective business.

Not going to linger on it. In fact, I'm going to continue to make edits tonight, and hopefully print a hard copy so that I can read the whole thing through next week, one with all the changes incorporated into it. Yesterday I sent out 35 more queries, and received no rejection from the agency who requested the full. No news is good news... unless they tell you that no news is bad news. *pulls hair in frustration* There are about fifteen more agencies I will approach once I print the query letters out (snail mail only), and another twenty that I can contact once I write a synopsis... I'm really hung up on the synopsis but there's an agent that I really like on that list, so I need to do it for her... lol

I finally joined a writer's group (of sorts), a site called Absolute Write that I've been using to get agent information in cases where the agency doesn't appear to have a website. So far people have been friendly and I've run across a couple of interesting author websites. It's intimidating to read other people's work, because I have a tendency to make comparisons to my own writing. My writing tends to be pretty simple, no epic battles or complex worlds, mine's more relationship-based and internal. Thank god there's a market for that, and hopefully there's room in it for me!

...I don't know how many times I have to find myself in the middle of making dinner only to find that I'm missing a key ingredient before I start to pay attention to the frickin' recipe. I got Monterey Jack instead of Mozzarella... no big deal... but I totally overlooked the riccota. I don't know if this is going to work out or not, but there's an interesting substitute (no amounts specified so I winged it) of cream cheese, egg and parmesan. Dinner's in the oven now... we shall see. Casseroles tend to be pretty forgiving.

This week I've decided to test my willpower, and yeah--go ahead and laugh at how pathetic I am... I intended to cut back from three sodas a day, to one. I ended up cutting back from three to... two. Yes, it's still progress, but I didn't meet my goal. So this week I'm going to adhere to it, and I'm going to cook meals from Cook Yourself Thin, and I'm going to hop on the treadmill every day and burn at least 250 calories. If I don't see a difference this week, no matter where you live, you will hear my scream. I figure it's six days. If I can't last for six days then what does that say about me?

And you'll be happy to know that I survived the night, in fact, 30 minutes after finishing the movie I was in bed asleep. I am a badass! lol
 
Got up at 7:30 this morning to go to the grocery store with the intention of renting one of those steam cleaners, but decided to buy a rug stick instead. Pretty impressed with it. After I scrubbed the foam in, the rugs looked pretty good. I won't say they're soft and fluffy, but they're much improved, I got a workout, and I didn't have to go back to the store to return the nasty rug cleaner (or attempt to shove it into my trunk). It's great at grabbing pet hair, so that, if nothing else, helped greatly.

Made lunch... wasn't terribly impressed with the rosemary-garlic beef skewers with horseradish-cream. Sounded great, was kind of eh. Was easy though, pop them under the broiler and they're done in 6 minutes. So I think maybe I'll go Tex-Mex for the dinner party unless I can figure out something else to pair with the potatoes.

Then I painted the hallway. Pretty impressed with myself actually, I had to match the paint, and I think I did a pretty good job. There were more little white dings on the wall than I thought... tried to just touch them up but that didn't work. Scrubbed some adhesive off the floor from the a/c install. All in all, things look good again. Less shabby.

After that, I stepped outside and painted the trim around two of my windows. Not so sure about that. From far away it looks good... Closeup... I tried to be careful, but...  And the flowers will have to wait, I'm tired now, and by the time I get around to leaving the house it'll probably be dark, which is no time to be planting flowers. =)

Bought a corset for my halloween costume, had a gift certificate, so it was pretty cheap. Now I need to find a peasanty top to go under one of them and I should be set. I hate putting costumes together, I suck at it... but I hate the pre-packaged ones that cost a mint but are such incredibly poor quality.

All in all I feel like I accomplished something. Now it's time to print out the latest version of my story and see what needs to be edited... and take a nap!

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