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All this talk of new babies in my family has got everyone on a baby craze. One of my cousins just had a baby just before Christmas. Another cousin is due in April. And then, of course, there’s me in July. And finally, a close family friend is due in June. Apparently, we all jumped aboard the baby train around the same time. So in preparation for upcoming showers, Mom started digging through her pictures looking for baby pictures of people… she happened to unearth this:
I think it’s one of the only pictures of my mom when she was pregnant with me. Isn’t she pretty!? I always remember this picture fondly. In fact, I was recently thinking about it. Unfortunately, the original photo suffered some damage over the years (in the form of a large crease running across the image) so Dad sent me a scan, hoping that the “Photoshop Doctor” could restore it. Above is the result. The plaid was a bitch, but I don’t think it came out too bad.
Occasionally I check the blog: Photoshop Disasters to see some truly wretched examples of Photoshop gone horribly wrong. It can sometimes be morbidly entertaining especially when it involves extra body parts, missing body parts, grotesque distortions, etc.
Today, a disaster was delivered right to my inbox. Feast your eyes on this lovely beauty from our friends at Pier 1…
In case the problem isn’t glaringly obvious to you: The overall light source of this image is coming from the left, however that lampshade has a carelessly been placed in the image with the exact opposite light source. Also, the chair has only 3 legs. SIGH!
I showed it to Mike and at first he thought it was the fact that the chair has different shaped legs… while that does look odd, unfortunately, that just makes it a cheap chair.
So I was driving to work a few weeks back after a pretty substantial snow storm the evening before. Along my journey I saw a peculiar site: two or three guys standing proudly around a large mound of shoveled snow at the end of their driveway. I thought it was kind of odd, but I didn’t realize what they were looking at until my drive home. They had unmistakably embellished this perfectly shaped mound of snow to look like Jabba the Hut!
Another snowstorm fell, quickly covering him up, and I didn’t get to take a picture until the next thaw. Luckily, he was still in decent shape. :) You be the judge… Jabba the Snowman??
Since the cat is out of the proverbial bag at work, I am free to make the public service announcement: I am pregnant, knocked up, bun in the oven, gestating, preggers, whatever. It took a lot for me to keep this whole thing under wraps which is why I have been rather absent here of late. Some of you (and you know who you are) are slamming your hands down on the desk, screaming, “I KNEW IT!” Yeah, well… SURPRISE! It was inevitable, really.
[ November 11, 2009 ]
I recall a time when having kids was the last thing on my mind! You see, unlike some of my friends, I never had the overwhelming urge to procreate. The thought of stepping foot in a baby store used to give me the sweats, and quite frankly, I still hate going in them. I really haven’t enjoyed very much of the first 3 months — with the sole exception of seeing the first ultrasound. I can’t see myself being one of these women that proclaims to the world how much they love being pregnant. But then again, who knows; it’ve got a long 6 months ahead of me, as I start to balloon and not be able to fit into my clothes.
[ I didn't need the ultrasound tech to put the word "BABY" followed by 4 exclamation points to know what I was looking at here. ]
I would like to just skip through the pregnancy, labor & delivery business, but we all know that doesn’t happen unless you adopt. I know I sound negative about being pregnant. I don’t exactly hate it, but I just prefer how I feel when I’m not pregnant. I’m told by those more experienced that once you can feel the baby moving, it starts to get fun and interesting. I’ll keep you posted on that. :)
As the “all day” sickness is finally waning, Mike and I are starting to get excited about the prospect of being parents. Well, it’s a mixture of excitement and terror, but I challenge you to find any first time parent-to-be who isn’t a teensy bit terrified.
So throughout this whole adventure, I plan to resume blog business as usual (hopefully with a little more regularity) but perhaps also with pregnancy updates and maybe some “crafting for baby” fun. Sorry if that’s not what you were hoping for, but with the offspring growing inside me, it’s hard to think of much else.
Much to my horror and dismay, I learned that my blog had been compromised. Some malicious douchebag found a weakness in my site, and decided to inject my code with horrible virus-ridden file downloads. (Sincere apologies to anyone that may have been affected!) Since I’m on a Mac, the problem wasn’t initially apparent to me. My first indication that there was a problem was an email from my dad with a screenshot of his virus software catching a malicious file my website was trying to download onto his computer. The most likely culprit was the fact that I was slightly behind on the latest WordPress installation. Damn my recent lack of regular posting!!
To dig a little deeper, I downloaded the plugin “Exploit-Scanner” to see if it could locate any problems… Well, there were so many rogue scripts running on the site, I couldn’t even begin to locate them all and delete them. So my clearest plan of action was to export all my posts, delete my entire database and perform a fresh install of WP. Since my theme files also appeared to be affected, I couldn’t import my old theme. So the current theme you’re seeing is only temporary until I can either redesign a whole new theme, or somehow resurrect the old one. SIGH!!
Bloody SAVAGES!!!
OK, it’s WAY past my bedtime and I have good reason to believe that this blog has been hacked! I am going to bed now so that I can attack this bitch clear-headed tomorrow. Stay tuned, this could get ugly… literally.
Hi! I am not dead, just distracted. It always seems to happen around the holidays, but perhaps more so this year. All I can say is, SORRY! Anyway… You’ll have to excuse the crap-tastic photo; I forgot my good camera at my parents house a few weeks ago, and must wait until they bring it next time they visit (which is thankfully next weekend).
This tiny dish contains the last bits of the THIRD batch of candied pecans I made. I think I made at least 7lb of nuts in total this year! They made fantastic gifts and just about everybody asked for the recipe. I can’t take full credit for it because I found it on allrecipes.com, but I added a little bit of my own twist. Instead of plain old white sugar, I used organic sugar. It has a slight molassesey flavor to it that I like. I also added a splash of vanilla to the egg white mixture because vanilla is awesome. All other directions were the same.
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water
1 pound pecan halves
1 cup *organic sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
*1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I guessed on this measurement)
Directions
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). Grease one baking sheet.
In a mixing bowl, whip together the egg white, water and vanilla until frothy. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Add pecans to egg whites, stir to coat the nuts evenly. Remove the nuts, and toss them in the sugar mixture until coated. Spread the nuts out on the prepared baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees F (120 degrees C) for 1 hour. Stir every 15 minutes.
I leave you with a photo of the “Humping Santa” as I affectionately called him. He appears to be doing something highly inappropriate to that snowman, or maybe I just have a sick mind. Hope your holidays were wonderful! See you again in the new year. :)
As I write this, I’m cooking up some sugar coated pecans in the oven… My take on the “Consumables Christmas” inspired by Kris. Except I’m in a panic because I’m trying to make a bunch of them before I go down to NJ tomorrow afternoon. You see, this year we’re having Christmas with the in-laws. Which means that I have to have all my family’s gifts ready tomorrow!! I am sorely ill-prepared for the trip, made worse by the fact that I’ve had shit to do nearly every night this week — tonight included. Last night, Mike and I trudged thru Toys R’ Us, glassy-eyed and bewildered; trying to find something for my nieces and nephew. UGH! Let’s calculate, shall we, the time I have to:
Factoring in that I have a reunion happy-hour thing with some old co-workers at 5, and then Sayokan at 8, I’m pretty much screwed. We’re supposed to leave after I get home from work tomorrow at 1. I highly doubt that’s going to happen. Plus, I dragged out my Christmas tree and decorations last night, and they will continue to sit on my den floor until next week when I have a moment to breathe. Did I mention I love Christmas!? I just have to keep thinking, “SERENITY NOW!” It’ll be my mantra from now until after New Year’s. Guess I really shouldn’t be sitting on my ass typing a blog post right now…
What about you guys? Are you feeling stretched too thin this Holiday season?
