Regarding Bacon, Overindulgence, and the Essence o...

Thought I'd go ahead and cross post this blog post of Chef Aaron's, I was just reminded of it and if you missed it when he posted it you really should read it!


abandonist: Regarding Bacon, Overindulgence, and the Essence o...: People of America. Stop it with the bacon. You are fucking it up for everyone. Cooking is about balance, even in the instances where a p...

The Stick Figure Collective (update 9/24)

I have a great love of doodling while watching shows I've seen so many times that I don't even need to look at the TV to know what's happening. Today I've been iPad doodling to a soundtrack of Arrested Development. (The TV show that is, not the early 90s rap group*).  Actually I've been doing this for a few days, and I've even been taking requests on Facebook and Google+. Mostly I've drawn stick people. There have also been a few unidentifiable creatures. I've posted most of 'em elsewhere, but I felt like they needed a permanent home here on the blog too. My plan is to continually add random pictures to this post. All the lost little drawings who don't fit in their own blog post will live here together in The Stick Figure Collective.

Side note... I currently have 799 blog views, so if you're reading this right now you might be number 800! This is pretty exciting for me. I mean, it's almost a thousand. One Thousand whole views! Wow! Unfortunately I still only have 4 followers. This means that I am not currently famous, and should probably be less excited at the prospect of an 800th view. (I am still excited though because it is a whole round number and those are cool).

Additions 9/24 - I forgot to include this kitty in the original post, and the party spider is brand new : D

So that's all I've got for now. I think. If I find (or draw!) more I'll add them. These go (more or less) in the order I drew them. You can probably tell that at first I didn't really plan on doing anything with them, but by the end I kinda knew I'd want to put them here so I started adding a little extra detail and bits of color.

The girl photographer was requested by my friend Jen but I was so excited about the picture that I forgot to write her name on it. You should totally visit her blog! Especially if you're a creative person, or just love other creative people.

The bookseller is a tribute to my former co-workers at the 'ole BN.

The tomboy in the tree was requested by a stranger on G+, so if you're a stranger don't be afraid to request your own drawing!!

And the yellow thing is... the yellow thing.

*It turns out that Arrested Development is still together and touring. Learn something new everyday!

For Some SERIOUS Yum:

Check out this recipe post by Chef Aaron!

Ha... It makes me giggle to call my husband "Chef Aaron"

abandonist: Pork Roast: Get a nice size bone-on chop roast (a pig ribeye roast) - at least 4 bones. Rub it down with salt, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, and smok...

There is a Forbidden Forest behind our restaurant

There is a forbidden forest behind The Owl! Well, actually it's not The Owl yet, but it will be soon, and when it is we're gonna be getting out our machetes.

Yes you read that right. We got machetes. We have other sharp cutty things too, but I don't know what they're called, so I'm going to focus on the MACHETES! I'm totally excited to try them out.

I am also slightly terrified.

I am terrified for a few reasons. Let's take a look at those reasons in the form of a list.

              Reasons to be afraid of The Forbidden Forest Project

1. Machetes are fucking sharp. They can cut you. And by you I mean me. 
2. Sometimes plants are sharp too. They will also cut you. And sometimes they are  poisonous, which can make you itch. Unless you're Aaron. If you're Aaron your mutant super power is immunity to itchy poison plants, rendering you capable of boldly crashing through thick undergrowth clad in only shorts and flip flops. Ok maybe not flip flops. 
3. Bugs.
4. BUGS!!!!!!!!!
5. Clumsiness. I am clumsy. There's no getting around it. Think of a ridiculous way one might injure oneself while cutting down a Forbidden Forest and I will probably find it. 
6. Bees. 
7. Angry animals who will be mad that we are chopping down their home because  they  don't know that we are still going to have green things growing for them to live in and eat so they attack us with their teeth and claws. 
8. Weird garbage. Our recon on the outer edges of The Forest has already found empty cans and bottles (presumably of an alcoholic nature), random wires, old wood, and a shoe. Who knows what else lies within. 
9. 
   
10. There's a cliff. Way at the back of The Forest. We can't really tell how far down it goes, or how quickly it goes there, from our side of the forest. In the neighboring (slightly less forbidden but still kind of forbidden cause there's a rope barrier and a lot more old wood garbage) forest we can see very far down. Like "oops you're dead cause you fell off this cliff" far. I'm not exaggerating. I might be exaggerating. But still, cliff = scary!!!  

And that is why I am slightly terrified. I really wanted it to be a 10 things long list, but I didn't have a 9th thing. If you happen to know of a 9th thing to be afraid of while cutting down Forbidden Forests please comment! I would hate to get in there, thinking I was safe because I'd made a list of all the things that could harm me, only to discover that the 9th thing I didn't know about was the most horrible scary gross awful thing that can happen to a person in a Forest. 

Assuming we make it through the coming adventure intact we will be converting our Forbidden Forest into a Lovely Garden. In The Lovely Garden we will grow many things. You'll then be able to purchase these things in the forms of burger toppings, vegetables, fries, and salads! The Lovely Garden will also provide a Lovely View for anyone eating out on the patio. If The Forbidden Forest had it's way anyone sitting on the patio would have a terrifying view. And no one likes to be terrified while eating burgers. 

I gots an I Pad and I made arts with it!

And I'm trying to blog from it. Feel free to not read this since it's really just a test post anyway. For example I need to test if I know how to use HTML to get all italic with this app.

I also need to see if I can figure out how picture adding works.











Woohoo! Picture added! Dunno if my italics worked yet though. That picture, btw, very first one drawn on my iPad. I know, it's spectacular. I also dre (edit: hey look! a typo!!) a park.










You might be wondering why it's so lonely in my park. That would because it came out looking fairly naturalistic when I draw people they look... Not naturalistic.

Let's try a photo!








Well I couldn't make the thing that said I could crop and scale work, so he's a bit cut off, and he's also REALLY poorly lit, and that was probably too many commas, that was definitely too many commas, but anyway that's my kitty Sebastian. You may remember him from such illustrated classics as...

Well actually I don't know how to get a drawing from one of my other posts and add it to this one on the iPad so you'll just have to go look at all my old blogs until you find one with a drawing that resembles Sebastian. I'll give you a hint - in the drawing he wont be in a box.

Hey, know what? If you actually do that I'll get a nice boot (edit: hey look another typo! Unless I want a boot in my views. I don't think boots read blogs though.) in blog views! That'd be cool for me, and you'll get to read all my other awesome words if you haven't already, so it's totally a win win situation.

I think I've tested all the tests I'd thought of so far now. I'll probably test some more later. For some reason I feel like I should sign this like it's an email. It's not an email, it's a blog. And even if I did want to sign it, I didn't address it to anyone, so it'd be weird. I should just stop writing now....

Cleaning, Sleeping, and Squid

Sometimes I do dishes at 1:22 in the morning.

This usually happens because i have spent the preceding (# of days = < 5 but > 2) not particularly caring what my kitchen looked like. Then all of a sudden, at 1:21 in the morning, I decide that I care very fucking much what my kitchen looks like.

So I start collecting dishes from the counters and rinsing them in the sink. Then I open the dish washer and rearrange the dishes that are already in there because I live with boys and boys don't know how to load dishwashers. I put the silverware in the little silverware cubbies haphazardly because I don't care where they go since it doesn't affect how many of them can fit. But then feel bad about having put the silverware in haphazardly while I'm blogging and I consider going back and fixing it because I know Aaron doesn't like it when the forks are having a party in the spoon cubby. But I don't fix it because that would be ridiculous and it's not like he puts the plates and cups the way I want them and only one of us should be allowed to be neurotically OCD about dishes at a time.

I just realized there are 2 cups, a plate, and a mostly empty coke can on the coffee table. I'll be right back.

Since I was back in the kitchen anyway I decided I may as well clean all the counters with multi-purpose windex. I also put away most of the do-not-fit-in-the-dishwasher dishes that were in the dish drainer. I didn't put them all away because I am abnormally short and can't reach approximately half of my own kitchen cabinets.

I own a stepladder but I have an incomprehensible (<--- I spelled that right!) aversion to using it.

I have not taken out the garbage even though there is a lot of it and I'd really like for it to not be in my kitchen anymore. I haven't done this because it is now 1:58 in the morning and even though I'm pretty sure it's safe in the parking lot I can't be 100% sure it's not rapey out there. I can't be sure because we used to have a cool scooter and someone stole it. I figure people who steal cool scooters might also be rapers.

I don't usually blog after midnight. There might be a good reason for that, but I think this is going pretty well so far. At the very least it's keeping me from cleaning the rest of my apartment at 2am. Then again I don't really have a good reason not to clean at 2am when I'm awake anyway...

...Oh wait... I did have a good reason, I just forgot it. I want to listen to podcasts on my ipod speakers while I clean and I can't do that right now because Aaron is watching a show about squids.

I should probably take my sleepytime pill, because all evidence points to me being WAY too awake right now. Although there is a possibility the squid show will fix that. Shows that involve water usually put me to sleep.

Here's a picture from a while ago when I had a headache that I never figured out how to include in a post. I'm glad I just realized I don't need a reason to include it since it's pretty awesome and I'd hate to waste it.

I'm going to test the squid sleep theory now. If it doesn't work maybe I'll draw you another picture. Maybe it will be of a sleeping squid.

Exercise! Bikes! New Drawing! Exclamation!

Recently Aaron and I decided we needed to get out more, and we needed to do it in an exercisey way. We're not necessarily unhealthy people, but with The Owl's opening still 2 months out we've been fighting a tendency to spend far too much time on our couches.

We're not "Go to the Gym" people, and I've never found running to be something I'd classify as "Fun." We have a Wii Fit, and although it is certainly fun it's still an indoor activity. When all these facts were taken into account the answer became clear.

We needed bicycles!

Several problems with this idea were immediately apparent. We live in an apartment, and we own a lot of stuff. Our tiny storage closet is packed to the ceiling, and our closets overflow with random things like guitar cases, old aquarium equipment, abandoned arts and crafts projects, holiday decorations, toys and games, and boxes. So many boxes. Boxes in boxes. Boxes of books. Boxes of cds and dvds. Boxes of all those bits and pieces of life that you don't need out on a shelf but just aren't quite ready to trash yet. Or maybe that's just me. Pack Rat extraordinaire.

So what were we to do? We wanted bikes, but we just didn't have anywhere to put them. Aaron found the answer.
















Yeah. That's a bike. A folding bike. Pretty cool, huh? This ones mine. I kinda love the 70s vibe with the green and brown color scheme. Mine arrived first, and this is a right-out-of-the-box picture. We were foldy bike novices, without the talent and skill to properly fold and strap everything into it's proper place. A few days later Aaron's bike arrived and we took them out for a test run.

There they are, in all their foldy glory.

You can see how much better we are at folding them up now. We're bike folding professionals. 

Aaron let me do a folding bike photo shoot so we could share our newfound skills with you.

The first thing you do is remove the velcro straps. For some reason I didn't take a picture of that.

The next step is swinging the front half forward so that it almost looks like a regular bike.

 A regular bike with no handle bars.

The handle bars were hiding down there next to the wheel. They flip up and lock in place. They are also height adjustable!

Ta Da! Bicycle Accomplished.






After our success with bicycle number one I felt compelled to continue filming as bicycle number two was transformed from Strange Folded Wheely Thing into Fully Functional Transportation and Exercise Unit.

I didn't take any pictures of the strappy parts. Again.

The process is pretty much the same. Really there was no reason to take pictures of both bikes.

As I mentioned before the handle bars on these have height adjustments. Now I'll mention that the seats are also adjustable! Mention Accomplished.

Ta da again! Oh yeah, that's why I took pictures of both bikes - to show you that there are a variety of body shapes available! Mine is called the "Step Through" style. Cause I can Step Through it. As opposed to Stepping Over it.

This may not seem like such a great thing for you, but I'm only five feet tall so it's pretty handy for me.

I wasn't in any of the pictures. I felt left out.






After our Bicycle Assembly photo shoot we rode around our apartment complex for a while. Our complex isn't all that big, but it does have a somewhat hilly terrain. And we hadn't riden bikes in a long time. The results were probably predictable. After about 5 minutes my legs started feeling a little shaky. After 15 minutes they had a whole Jello thing going on. 20 minutes passed and my whole body had started to feel like a wet Spaghatta Nadle! <----- Click that. Click it NOW.                  ..........You're welcome.

We only rode for a half an hour at the absolute most. At the end of that half hour I was pretty sure I was going to die. And I still had to fold my bike up and carry it inside.

It turned out I didn't die. But my hair was wet with sweat and I wasn't gonna be walking anytime soon.

I drank this entire cup of cucumber water. It helped. A lot. <---- Click that too.

You're welcome. Again.




So in conclusion, it might be a while before I look upon my bicycle with the fondness portrayed in my drawing. Don't get me wrong, I love my bicycle, I just don't love turning into a useless pile of mush when I use it. But then again, that's the point isn't it? My goal. To not turn into a pile of mush from riding a bike for thirty measly minutes. 


Wish me luck.






Did you click the links? No? Man, are you missing out. Those links take you straight into the wonderful magical world of Hyperbole and a Half, the best blog on the internet. It's author, Allie Brosh, is my blog hero. I probably wouldn't even be doing this if I hadn't read hers first. I've mentioned this before, and I probably will again. 'Cause I believe in spreading awesome when and where ever possible.


Oh, almost forgot, if you're interested in checking out a foldy bike for yourself you can do that Here.