Life, Short Post

Update: Half Ginger Goes On An Adventure (a.k.a. The Trip)

R. Hamilton

So, here I am at 5:00 am and I’m updating my blog. “Why?” You may ask. Well, it’s because I’ve booked my ticket for my trip. Yep, that’s right, it’s happening. I’m still not going to tell you where I am going though. It will ruin the suprise!

But I did buy a new suitcase today. It’s smaller, as I’m trying not to take a whole lot with me. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Isn’t that exciting? It came with an extra little bag too, which is nice. The one I fell in love with, well, I should have checked the price before I left the store. It was $140 and it was 50% off. The one I got, in green of course, was $70 at 50% off. AND, I got two bags instead of one. Pretty nifty in my opinion.

I also got a discount on my ticket, about 25% off. Which was STELLAR!

So, ticket is bought, luggage is… empty. I leave on the 22nd.

FUN TIMES!

Life

The Trip List

R. Hamilton

So (as I begin every post, mostly) there is a chance that I might be going on a trip soon. A really awesome trip. I’m not going to say where my trip may take me because if it doesn’t happen. I don’t want to disappoint all you readers and be all “WHHHHAAAA I’m going to this stellar place and I can’t wait to go and everything is magic and rainbows!” So, nope not telling. BUT! I do need to make a list of things that I’m going to take. So, that’s pretty much what this post will be about. I needed something to write about and I needed a place to put my list. I thought about buying new luggage too, but I don’t think that’s financially responsible right now.

List:

  • Toothbrush
  • Socks
  • Computer
  • Shoes
  • Undies
  • Camera (if I can find it)
  • Pants
  • Shirts
  • Phone and Charger
  • Bacon (probably not)
  • Crochet Stuff
  • Other stuff that I may find important

Apparently…. I need to get things together. I’m hesitating on buying my ticket away, to tell you the truth. I’ve never been nervous travelling, really ever. I’m nervous this time and it’s because I think it’s a last ditch effort to pull myself out of the rut I have found myself in. But I’m going to make the best of it. The longer I wait, the less money I’m going to have. So, the sooner the better.

Bryant and I have talked about it extensively. Since we’ve been together, we haven’t really been apart. He supports my trip though, and I really appreciate it. So,I’ve made a list. I have to fit it in to the bags that I have. I’ll have more money if I don’t buy new luggage… even though we found this amazing black luggage set with green piping. Oh my goodness it was amazing to look at… and it was on sale. I didn’t look at the price though, because I didn’t want to see it and be all in love and then be let down. Man, I love containers.

Food, Success Dinner

Success Dinner: Food Loaf

R. Hamilton

Tasty Tasty Food Loaf

This is Food Loaf. I made it last night for dinner. It was AMAZING! Now Food Loaf is made of what ever you can fit in a loaf pan. I posted a picture of it on facebook last night and people were asking for the recipe. Well, I didn’t have one, but I’m going to post what I can.

ALSO! There is NOTHING healthy about this type of Food Loaf, I’m sure I could make a healthy one but I didn’t!

 

Food Loaf (Italian Style):

1 jar Prego Italian Sausage and Garlic sauce (you can use more, I used one)
Foster Farm Turkey Meatballs (as many as you would like)
1 Bag of Pasta, (I used an Organic bagged pasta that I bought at Costco, I don’t remember the brand… THIS ISN’T WHAT THIS IS ABOUT!)
Half of a White Button Mushroom
Grated Cheese (LOTS OF CHEESE)

Boil your pasta until it is done.

Heat sauce in saucepan and throw in meatballs. cover and let simmer, but don’t burn your sauce. Stir occasionally to avoid burning.

Strain pasta. Spray two loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray. Cover bottom of both pans with pasta, only one layer. not too much. Cover layer of pasta with layer of cheese (thick layers here, cheese is the binder). 

The sauce should be done by now, use a toothpick to test the meatballs, if you can put a toothpick into the meatball without any resistance they are done. Layer meatballs and sauce as the second layer. I put three meatballs on this layer. NEXT, MORE CHEESE. Bryant assisted me in the cheese department, we bought a 5 pound block and we used a good portion of it. 

Next, layer more noodles. Noodles are important. More cheese. Layer more sauce and meat balls (i put two balls of meat on this level). More cheese. 

Pack as MANY noodles as you can on top of this level. This next part is extremely important… You’re going to put so much cheese on the top level that your arteries will clog at the very thought. No exposed noodles, no empty corners. just cheese. I even tucked cheese down the sides of the pan to make sure it wouldn’t melt over the edge of the pan and we would lose cheese. Cheese is basically what this food loaf is about…

If you haven’t preheated your oven, you probably should have. It should have been preheated to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. I probably should have told you that sooner.

Anyway, put both pans now filled with deliciousness, into the over. Now, we’ve already cooked the majority of our ingredients, so you may be wondering WHY we are putting them in the oven. TO MELT THE CHEESE! SO MUCH MELTY GOODNESS! It’s going to bind the pasta, sauce, and meatballs together. Don’t put it in for too long because you’ll burn it and then I will be disappointed. 

About five minutes, or so. Just keep checking on it. When the cheese has a nice crust to it, not necessarily a dark crust, just a nice melted looking crust. The cheese will sweat if you use Tilamook cheese. Which I did, but it was the best. So use that cheese. And don’t get it pre-shredded, shred your own cheese! 

So, after five minutes you’re going to have a delicious melty cheesy food loaf, Italian Style! 

To properly remove your food loaf from the pan take two thick paper towels, layer them together. Take the loaf pan (which shouldn’t be hot because all we did was melt the cheese. Well it may be hot, depends on what you consider to be hot) by the little sides and flip the loaf onto the paper towels, Make sure you have a plate. The cheesy crust part will be on the bottom and that IS NOT where we want it. Grab the paper towel (if you used thick paper towels this won’t be a problem) and slowly place the paper towelled loaf on the plate. You’re going to have one chance at this, pull the long end of the paper towel and flip the food loaf onto the plate. BOOM! Food loaf! Let it settle and eat it. 

We didn’t cut the first one, we just ate it right off the plate.

Now if you are looking around and you realize that you have one pan still full of food, you can put it aside go eat the first one and then come back to it later. Once it sets it will be a firm loaf. You can cut it into slices and make Food Loaf sandwiches. YUM YUM YUM! 

You can wait with both loafs, but once you smell that melted cheese, you won’t want too! 

 

This Success Dinner did put me into a food coma. So beware, but it was a happy food coma

Life

The Gym And Why I Hate It

R. Hamilton

As some of you know I joined a gym back in January, you may not have known that I joined it in January, but now you do. The first month of my gym membership I went once. Yep a whole one time. It was hard to make time after work and everything, as I wasn’t sleeping much at night and when I got off work all I wanted to do was sleep. So that’s what I did. My mum, who is awesome, was really supportive of me joining the gym and I thought that was pretty cool. She sent me all sorts of cool little motivators. I went a few more times in February, not as many as to constitute how much I was paying for it though. Bryant’s mum joined our gym goings though, and we’ve been going quite a few times a week now (or at least trying too, it isn’t always constant). 

Yesterday… Yesterday the gym kicked my ass. I’m not kidding. It hurts to move today. The reason for the ass kicking is because I am quite lazy when it comes to working out. I would run sometimes on the tredmill (usually 30 minutes or so) or do a tad on the eliptical (also an ass kicker) but that was the majority of my working out. Until yesterday. I started weight training yesterday. I didn’t start with the 5 pound weights either. I started with 20. I can lift somethings, I don’t have a problem lifting bags of potatoes or anything like that, so starting out with 20 (well, 20 on each side of the bar) was pretty good. I did 3 reps of 12 and the first sign of how much I neglected my poor arm muscles… My left arm decided it didn’t want to participate anymore. It just decided that it wasn’t going to bend or be lifted. So of course the right arm decides the same thing shortly after. I move my arms as best I can in a way that can only be described as ‘octopus on drugs’. I sat down at the next weight machine and continued with my pattern of 3 sets of 12. My arms dropped on my last set at 10. I took a short break. I glanced in one of the horrid mirrors that gyms keep around so people can watch themselves fail. I could see the muscle in my arm cramp. I was liking watching a car accident. You see it happening and there is nothing that you can do to prevent it. I saw a bulge start to form under my skin, I knew what was going to happen right before my arm felt like it was on fire and being stung by a horde of angry dragon bees. For those of you who don’t know, dragon bees are a hybrid of a dragon and a bee. It spits fire and stings you at the same time causing HUGE amounts of pain. It’s even worse when it came from my imagination and I know that I’m just going to mutate the creature of pain further. But back to to story, my arms are on fire. Bryant helped my rub out the cramp in my arm, and the dragon bees disappeared. I knew they would be back, in greater numbers and more mutations. I sat down on the next machine, this one required that I reach up and pull down to work my back muscles. Easy enough, I thought as I sat down and began. It was entirely too easy, I assumed there had to be a catch. The catch, was bringing your arms back down to a resting position when you were done. Apparently while up in the air my arms had decided that they were not done rebelling and that they would rather stay in the up-right position and play freeze tag, with much less tag and more freezing. It was a slow bring down but the were eventually safe and back at my sides. A few muscle cramps later and I was done with lifting. With my arms anyway. Next was the legs.

Now my legs are in relatively good shape, they carry most of me around during the day and help e do menial tasks such as lifting. The legs were easy, I was thinking that the rest would be a breeze. I did calf extenders, knee lifts, and inner and outer hip adductions. It was awesome. Until I woke up this morning!

So, I didn’t sleep last night. CT kept my up with the utter nagging that I had spent the hours before lifting things that it didn’t think I needed to be lifting. Some Aleve and a rotation of the wrist braces proved to get it to shut up at about 6 am. I go to sleep.

Waking up was the hard part. I couldn’t move my fingers. I was able to lift my forearm and touch Bryant. He asked if I was ready to get up. His voice was pretty distant. I tried to move my legs and it hurt, moving my arms hurt, and once I was able to get the fingers going, they hurt too. I grumbled into my pillow, feeling like I had been hit by a truck and put back to bed again. 

So I was up and moving around eventually, I can’t sit in the same position too long, and I’ve discovered muscles that I  wasn’t fully aware that I had. 

I don’t really hate the gym. It is a place where I can go and work the muscles that have been neglected for a very long time. I just wish I didn’t hurt. But I’m off to the gym here pretty soon so that should be an interesting event.

Life

The Half Ginger At The Mall

R. Hamilton

So today I went to the Supermall. The Supermall is a mall, amazingly. It’s not very super though, so it’s just a mall. I had a Victoria Secret Secret Award card that could possibly have 500 dollars on it, and I thought that would be nice. But, as my luck would have it, I didn’t have 500 dollars. I had 10 on the card and I bought a nice little mini mister. It smells pretty good. I wish it was a real perfume though, body mist is okay but it doesn’t last as long as I would want it too. I might just keep it in my purse for when I go into bathrooms and want the entire world to know that I was in there. Because everyone knows that I’m kind of person. It does smell nice though, and it doesn’t have a smell that you can choke on.

My Three Dresses
These are the three dresses that I bought: a paisley V-neck and two eyelet strapless dresses, in green and orange.

I didn’t actually go to the mall with Bryant, I went with his mother. I love Bryant’s mum, she is uber cool. She helped me pick out some nice clothes for spring too. I actually purchased nice clothes too, so I have something to wear next time I am suprised with a fancy brunch. I a now the proud owner of three dresses that actually fit me and I look good in them.

Bryant’s mum said that I should get cowboy boots to go with them, but that would look a little to country for my taste. I told her the only reason why she thought that was a good idea was because I’m from Montana and she laughed. I also bought a new pair of jeans. Ones that fit my legs and fit my waist. The one’s the she had got me for Christmas fit the legs but the waist on the is a little big. We found the Old Navy Sweet Heart fit me the best. Some of the best pants that I have tried on. Which is awesome! They also had Sweet Heart shorts but didn’t have any in my size, that would have been awesome had I found some. First pair of shorts that do wedgie me in about two years, but oh well.

I felt pretty good about shopping today. Usually I don’t like it because it’s a stress filled event that I can’t stand! But Bryant’s mum made it a lot of fun.

I got two squares done for the project I’m working on. Two squares in three days. That’s a record or something. I  don’t have a text pattern for the face that I made when I typed that. Hopefully I get something else done with it soon.

Life, Rant

Stress and Anxiety

R. Hamilton

For those of you who don’t know, I am a very stressed person. Normally when I say this people get the impression that I don’t know what stress really is because I’m not really that old and that I’ll know more of it when I get older. This is so far from the truth.

I have grey hair. I’m 22 years old with grey hair from stress. And one of them is white! I remember a few short years ago (like 4) I was plucking grey and white hairs from my mum’s head. Now I have them. It must be contagious, the stupid things!

The fact that I get anxious about almost everything doesn’t help either. I am constantly worried. Sometimes I’m not worried about anything in particular, I’m just worried. Bryant calls me a worry wart all the time and it’s true. We all have some title that we don’t like and worry wart is mine.

Just learned the worry wart is actually one word, worrywart. There are just too many right side of the alphabet letters in that for me not to put a space there. My stress has been affecting my sleep lately, I have a million things that run through my mind; things I need to do, things I’ve done, things I regret, people I’ll never get to talk to again, the last things I ever said to those people, how if I’m not doing anything important with my life, so on and so forth.

I think it’s moderately funny that when I do have a job, I wish I could just go home and spend all day in bed, and then when the situation where I don’t have a job comes about all I want to do is work.

I always feel better after writing, or crocheting. However, it has been a pain to do either of those because of the CT. I’m just going to call it that. So BOO! on CT. BOOOO! My fancy magnet bracelet that Bryant bought for me isn’t working like it used too.

Food, Life

Sunday Brunch and Why I Could Never Be A Rich Person

R. Hamilton

So, it’s Easter. Or Zombie Ham day. Which ever one you choose to celebrate. But today I went to a fancy brunch. I mean a really fancy brunch. So fancy I wasn’t allowed to wear jeans… or really any pants. I was allowed to wear ladies dress slacks. For those of you that don’t know, I only own like 2 pairs of pants. They are both jeans. One of them I have had for years, and Bryant’s mum was so fed up with them not fitting me that she bought me some for Christmas this year. I was trying to save them to be my nice pants, but life is funny like that. They are still nice though, don’t get me wrong, I just wear them every single day. It happens when you don’t have other pants to wear. I do wear my jammies a lot, because they are comfy and I like to be comfy. I don’t think jammies would have flown at all where we were going though.

So, I get dressed, nice shirt that fits and my nice jeans. We sit and wait for the rest of the house to get ready. Bryant’s mum comes down and says that I can wear jeans and that I should wear a dress. Apparently we weren’t going to Bryant’s grandparents house, but their country club where jeans are not allowed. I have a total of ONE (1) dress with me at the moment. It doesn’t fit anymore in the boobie area and is quite short on someone as tall as me. For some reason, I’m trying to change with my boots on. I notice that with the dress on (I held it in as much as I could to get it to fit) that you could see my underwear. So that’s an embarrassment that I don’t want to live through. I hurriedly take those off (with my boots on)  and the dress comes undone to my waist. I get frustrated and take the dress off. Bryant is trying to help me at this point because we’re going to be late if I don’t hurry. He keeps telling me to take off my boots. My underwear are stuck to my boot.

I’m frustrated by this point. Bryant keeps telling me that I can wear his clothes and the fact that the pants I wear (which are 4 inches longer than his) won’t be noticeable since I’m wearing my boots and you won’t be able to tell that they are too short. I grumble something about not wanting to look like a man. Bryant’s grandparents are the fanciest people I know. The last thing I want to do is show up at the fancy brunch at the exclusive country club to which I was invited too by the fanciest people I know. So I tell him no and rummage through the clean laundry. I have ONE (1) set of nice clothes that I wear to interviews. I have a nice top that does not have a bottom. So, ONE nice set of clothes. They had just been washed and I grabbed them off the top. But them back on with my boots still present on my feet.

I was unaware of the fancy-ness of this gathering before I arrived. In my nicest clothes, I still stood out. We got to the country club and walked in with Bryant’s grandpa, who was parking the car after dropping Bryant’s grandma off at the door (fancy fancy people, seriously) and we walked in with them. The host said hello to Bryant’s grandpa in a very formal greeting, this guy even knew his name. Boom, felt out of place number one. But since I was with Bryant’s grandpa I was all (in my head) “Yo, I’m with the cool guy” but I just smiled at the people we passed. I was sat down, offered champagne (it was 10 am) and received an beautiful chocolate egg from Bryant’s grandma. So, this was good, I had a drink, I had good people, and I was about to have some food.

I get up to get the brunch. Bryant comes with me. The people around me live in houses that have house payments that I wouldn’t make in a year if I had a job. I trip just a little bit and I feel my face get a little warm. I think to myself “It’s all good no one noticed.” I grab a plate. This plate is older than me and rimmed with gold. Second thought, “Do not drop this, you will not hear the end of it”. I get to the breakfast bar and all of a sudden, as my luck would have it, TONS OF PEOPLE ARE SUDDENLY BEHIND ME. So my inner monologue goes a little something like this “We can do this, we’re good, just get your food, ooooh roasted potatoes, those should be-” “Damnit!” I dropped the serving spoon. The lady behind gasps a little and her very dapper son gasps with her. I murmur an apology and pick the spoon up off the floor and take it to the wait staff. From their reaction, no one has EVER dropped a serving instrument at Sunday Brunch before me and they all ran in different directions to try to remedy the situation. My face is red by now. The woman who I swore at by mistake it looking at me with a mixture of horror and distaste. She hasn’t moved in line and lets me continue in front of her. Her son is asking her why I am there and why can’t he go ahead of me. There are now MORE people in line behind me. Who are ALL staring at me. I mouse back to the front of the line and lift the next lid. Bryant’s dad tried to lighten the situation a little bit by cracking a joke and a few people chuckled uncomfortably, but I felt a little better that I wasn’t the only non-fancy person there.

The next try had bacon in it. I love bacon, it’s the best food on the planet. I hold the tongs in my hand, and try to be as confident as possible. I would give you a cookie if I had you guess what happens next BUT, it’s pretty obvious. I drop my bacon. I drop A LOT of bacon. I am so embarrassed at this point that I catch it with my hip before it hits the floor and just put it on my plate. I go sit down and drain my champagne glass; which had become a mimosa in my absence, for which I was very grateful. The lady comes through and re-fills my glass. Right now she is my best friend.

Today, I learned that I am not a rich person. Even if I had all the money in the world, I could never be a rich person. I could never wear high end brands. I do not fit in with huge groups of really fancy people. I think I’ll keep my lifestyle even if I do get a lot of money. It’s too hard to be a ‘proper’ lady.

 

I hope you all survived my parenthe-crazy post. Oh, and next time I will have to pick something more difficult to guess when I make something.

Crafts

What I’m Making

R. Hamilton

So, I haven’t posted in a while and it’s because I’ve been working on this great project. My secret project. An awesome secret project. Which apparently going to be huge. It’s already 6 feet tall, and I’m not sure how long it’s going to be. But I’m excited. I decided to show you all how far along I am. I’m not as far as I wish I was, but my carpal tunnel has been kicking me in the wrist lately because I’ve been playing TONS of Army of Two with Bryant. It’s a really awesome game!

Uber=Secret=Awesome Project

If you would like to guess what it is you are more than welcome to comment.

Crafts, Life, Short Post

After A Few Days…

R. Hamilton

Hi everyone! I haven’t posted anything in the past couple of days. I haven’t had anything to say really, and I didn’t want to bore your brains out like meal worms. I’ve been working on my new project and playing a video game or two. I haven’t been feeling my best, really down lately. I’m hoping that I can get my project done very quickly so I can show you all!

 

Happy hooking!