Daintycakes: So, I was thinking about maternity photos…
Beefcake: Actually?
Daintycakes: so, here’s my idea
me, with some gauzy fabric, looking all majestic with my belly hanging out
riding a horse
Beefcake: That would be the most majestic.
Daintycakes: then, through the magic of photoshop, boom you’re a centaur
Beefcake: Fantasy pregnancy adventure.
Daintycakes: it would be both hot and classy
19
Apr
Every Day I’m Shovelling…
So, listen, Mother Nature. You and I need to have a talk.
Ahem.
I like you. I really do. I spend a lot of time with you. Almost every morning in fact, and extra on the weekends in the afternoons and evenings.
But lately, it seems that you’ve changed. I know, we all change as time goes on, and by and large I understand. Sometimes, you’re shining warm and inviting. Sometimes, you’re gentle and soothing. Sometimes you’re hurtful, chilling and biting. Sometimes you’re oppresive, stifling and strangling. Sometimes you’re downright destructive.
I feel like I take these moods in stride, like all dedicated companions. I find joy in most of these moods, and feel like we can share some really great moments in almost all of them. During those times that you make it abundantly clear that you’d like to be alone, I try to respect that.
But seriously, it’s APRIL bitch. Get a grip. You need to fucking MOVE ON.
1. My tolerance of liquor has diminished in some interesting ways. I find myself, as I get older, stomaching wine better and beer worse, and about the only things i can have in mixed drinks are tequila and liqueurs (whisky and whiskey are taken straight, obviously, or with a splash of Drambuie.) Consequently, i’m trying some pretty specific cocktail recipes that are outside the norm (for me.) Though I almost exclusively post drunk, I don’t drink very much in general, and you, kind audience, are the beneficiaries of my inebriated ramblings AND my liquid confection discoveries. Hence, tonight’s drink of choice, the Paloma. It’s like a margarita without the work of making a margarita, though I took mine without salted rim today. I used Joia’s grapefruit/chamomile/some other thing soda, which, while not traditional, is in fact my favourite grapefruit soda and made a lovely refreshing beverage.
2. I find the whole concept of “Three Things Thursday” to be somewhat shallow and vague enough to be abused. Case in point: I didn’t want to write a post about just booze, on account of that makes me look like an alcoholic. I also wanted to post a picture of my cats. Hence, by writing/posting on both aforementioned topics in addition to revealing my true feelings on “Three Things Thursday,” I was able to write a coherent post and prove my point while disproving my point. That means I win at the internet.
3. My cats are awesome.
says Beefcake, "Nova's the meat in a kittycuddle sandwich."
I’m WAY to drunk to do anything resembling a normal post, so here’s a list of random things:
1. I went to the Almelund Threshing Shown last weekend. This is what thresing is:
Simply the most captivating tractor show in all of existence. Enthralling!
2. Beefcake: “Let me at those buns.”
Daintycakes: “No Goddamn it”
Beefcake: “That was really funny.”
3. Last week, I made some very awesome yarn:
4. Beefcake: “I’m not thinking about buns, I’m playing Star Wars!”
5. This weekend (aka today before I got drunk) I made BREAD!
AND JAM!
6. Girl Talk’s “All Day” may be concurrently the most captivating album ever and the best background music ever.
7. At one point tonight, I pointed out to Beefcake that he was, in fact, the most upper-middle class white guy ever, and he legit responded with “I’m going medieval.” He was playing “Mount and Blade.” Beefcake rarely drinks, and almost never gets drunk, but today, all bets are off and he plays by his own rules; he’s a loose cannon. And he’s really easy to entertain.
8. Ladies are made out of breakfast food.
9. Apparently, it’s MUCH easier to grind at Star Wars: The Old Republic while drunk than it is while sober. This is not a quote from Beefcake, apparently. He’s just running around talking to people and there’s NO benefit…
Cheers, bitches!
25
Jul
Two Realizations
It’s been a while since I’ve done a boozy post, and it’s late and I’m out of wine now, so here are two three things I’ve realized in the last 20 minutes:
1. If I’m ever allowed to get a mini donkey as a pet, I’m naming it “Hotay.”
2. I was perusing the internets and came across some dumb picture the summary of which was “hey dude wives are DUMB I totally have way more fun with my BROS when WIVES aren’t around! Let’s talk about BOOBS and FARTS like MANLY MEN DO WITHOUT THEIR WIVES AROUND.” Then I realized that boobs came up in the last conversation I had with my friend Hoecakes, and farts, among other bodily functions, come up frequently with both Hoecakes and coworker Boozecakes. Therefore, I am a manly man and also think wives suck. But I am a wife. And thus I am a Shroedinger’s cat of wifeliness.
3. This is the second reasonably accurate Schroedinger’s cat reference I’ve made today.
I also found out that Beefcake doesn’t read my blog. His explanation is that he doesn’t need to, since he “lives it.” He will be full of regret.
ETA: Drunk me is some kind of masochist who insists on watching youtube videos of Air Supply even though the lead singer looks like he wouldn’t hesitate to roofie your ass straight to Monday.
11
Jul
Pincompetence
Hey guys! PINTEREST OMG! Like all females on the internet, I spend my most useless hours navigating the brain cell gauntlet known as pinterest, carefully curating the most sophisticated of inspiration boards, travelling the self-righteous path of both CREATIVE and PRACTICAL, gracefully cataloguing the most tasteful of home decor, the most delicious of special-occasion deserts, and the quirkiest of outfits and accessories.
Just kidding. I mostly use pinterest to keep track of recipes and craft tutorials, though one of my favorite pins fits into neither of those categories. When I’m not adding recipes and crafts, I’m probably being a jerk to other pinners.
I can’t, for the life of me, understand why people keep repinning the same stupid things OVER AND OVER AND OVER even when they are wrong or stupid or fake. Because I’m both highly analytical and a glutton for punishment, I think I’ve found the three categories into which all of the worst, most awe-inducingly idiotic pins fall in. And, I think, beyond categorizing these pins, one can consequently use deductive reasoning to align all pinterest users into to one of three painfully stupid categories:
1. Pinner type one: Nutrition Idiot. Pins “OMG SO HEALTHY” pins with no nutritional evaluation.
The fact that someone thought that chocolate chip cookies, regardless of the dough ingredients, would have no white sugar or oil in them but somehow magically also have chocolate chips in them blows my fucking mind. Also, your nasty-ass oatmeal smoothie has 370 calories in it if you consume it as the two servings it’s supposed to be. Let’s be honest. You don’t. My eggs and turkey sausage and random fruit are more delicious because they’re not made out of COLD FUCKING OATMEAL, AND I get to have milk and sugar in my coffee.
2. Pinner type two: Research deficient. Pins “OOH PRETTY” pins without bothering to figure out if it’s real or not.
I think my comments speaks for all of us.
3. Pinner type three: PIN ALL THE THINGS, also known as PIN HOARDER. Pins everything.
I can’t illustrate this type of pinner, but seriously, there are pinterest users with THOUSANDS of pins. THOUSANDS. There are probably some with TENS OF THOUSANDS. I can’t imagine having so much spare time and so little motivation that I spend all day long pinning pictures of stuff and never doing anything.
So, there you have it. A random list of what thing on the internet is annoying me this week. Cheers, bitches!
Hey Daintycakes, you bum, maybe you should finish writing about the Ham Run!
Yeah, sure, ok. When we last left off, I was getting ready for a big race! Race morning conditions were cool, a little cloudy, and kind of damp. The cool and cloudy part I don’t mind, but the damp part made for a somewhat clammy start. Also, the race started about 15 minutes after it was supposed to, so that makes for a bit of restlessness that no one wants when they start a two hour anything.
We all line up to prep for the start of the race. The first ½ marathon I did was the Get Lucky in St Paul, and there were something like 2600 people in that race. For the Ham Run, there were about 140. The scale and feel were much smaller and less nerve-rattling and there was a more comfortable amount of room for everyone before the race started. Of course, then the race started, without any kind of countdown or anything, so off we went!
The first mile or so of this race was on gravel roads and was, painfully, mostly uphill. Since I do a fair amount of hill training, it wasn’t so bad, but man, it does not make for a fast start.
As I mentioned, the Get Lucky was about 1857% larger than the Ham Run. Additionally, the Get Lucky course was a down-and-back, meaning that if you were maybe middle-pack running (I was a little slower than middle pack) you could see the really fast runners after they’d turned around at the half way mark. The race already felt like you were there with a big crowd, which was cool and made for some really good motivation, and you could cheer the frontrunners as they went past you. The Ham Run was a straight shot. And with only 140 people to start, runners spread out fairly quickly. I suspect that between miles 3 and 10, I had about ¼ mile on either side of me that was totally empty. Combine that with that whole area of Minnesota looking like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and this was the most visually boring thing you can imagine.
Keep in mind, I’m not a fast runner. I spent roughly an hour and a half looking at nothing but rocks. Sure, I had my podcasts with me, but really, NOTHING to look at at all.
At about mile 11, it started to drizzle, which I don’t really mind so much when I’m running. However, it was already kind of clammy to start with. So, while I was running, I wasn’t cold really, just wet. Very wet. Just as I was finishing it started to really really rain.
If you’ve run in the rain before, you know it feels awesome right up until the moment you stop running. I crossed the line, caught my breath for a few minutes, and then became freezing cold. Beefcake had the presence of mind to bring me a towel and a dry shirt, so we made our way over to the very crowded tent to dry off and get some ham. HAM! This ham was the entire reason I entered this race!
If you’ve ever done something super exhausting, like run a race or build a fireplace or maybe fight a shark, you know that whatever you eat immediately afterwards is THE BEST THING EVER. I’m not sure why, but everything I eat after doing a distance run also tastes sweeter, which is just fine with me.
Beefcake and I ate a bounty of ham and fixins’ and went to take a nap. After, we decided to go down to a hiking trail we’d seen nearby and hike that trail. We found a couple of suitable hiking sticks and started working our way down the trail. I think we probably went about ½ mile before turning around, but this was for real “climbing and moving fallen trees” hiking.
We also went to go see some rapid that the proprietor of Way of the Wilderness told us about near one of the campsites. They were pretty, but we weren’t able to see any fish spawning.
We spent the remainder of the evening in our bunkhouse eating noodle bowls, playing Pandemic and listening to the Nerdist podcast. Monday morning, we got up, packed up and started our drive back home, and ran smack into the thickest fog I’ve ever had the terror of driving through.
Guys, this is in the middle of the woods. Winding roads, without distinguishable markers, no street lights, nothing. It was scary. We took it slow, and finally made it out into clearer weather. By the time we reached Duluth, it was a beautiful, perfect day for the rest of our drive. The end!
So, this past weekend Beefcake and I made the very long trek up to the Gunflint Trail so I could participate in the Ham Run Half Marathon. It was a very adventurous time! This is part one!
We left Friday morning around 1030 or so. It’s a pretty straight shot up to the north shore from the Twin Cities, though driving through Duluth makes me dizzy. We stopped at a really neat rest stop just outside of Duluth, it had an awesome view and a map pointing out everything of note that you could see from on top of the hill. Next, because I realized about twenty minutes into the drive that I had forgotten to bring my knitting, we made an impromptu stop in Duluth at Yarn Harbor, where I bought some very pretty Colinette Jitterbug and some Cascade 150 Heritage, and a needle. Because I have huge brains, I managed to recall the lace pattern for the Sagebrush Shrug (which was my intended project) so I cast on for that with the Cascade.
We stopped in Grand Marais next to get dinner at Sven and Ole’s. We were told to get a cheeseburger pizza, which we did. It was served with pickles and was delicious.
Now, we were staying at a place called Way of the Wilderness, which is basically some bunkhouses WAY WAY up north. So the next hour and a half were spent driving, nearly by ourselves, along the Gunflint Trail up to our bunkhouse. People, this is for real “murderous hillbilly” country. When we got to the office, we saw this:
So, we just followed the directions. Got to the top of the hill and the view right outside our bunkhouse (sorry, “chalet”) was really nice:
We brought in all of our stuff, setting a few things up and taking in our surroundings. The bunkhouse we were in had a second floor, so we went to check it out, and that’s when we saw the biggest spider we’ve ever seen in real life:
Nightmare Fuel
Fortunately for this spider, we just released him outside instead of panicking and smooshing him. Spiders are good, they eat other bugs, but I wasn’t interested in this guy crawling into my mouth for warmth in my sleep.
Saturday, we slept in. The beds were remarkably comfortable and despite the frogs and bugs yelling at each other all night, we both slept really well. We went for a brief walk around the Trail’s End loop and checked out the view from some of the campsites. We then took a leisurely drive back to Grand Marais, and stopped at some scenic overlooks along the way. One of them was not actually a scenic overlook, and we walked for probably 20 minutes before giving up and turning around. I flipped off Canada too.
Not super sure this was actually Canada, but I flipped off every bit of land over a large body of water I could, just to be thorough
The next site we went to, Beefcake scared some ducks with his Mountain Dew and we found a sign for a picnic site that was probably made by wolves to trick humans.
Yeah, right, wolves TOTALLY didn't make this sign. Whatever.
We finally got to Grand Marais, and took a stroll across the break wall by the harbor. It was super windy and cold, but we were just gearing up for the next stop…
…PASTA FEED! They held a spaghetti dinner as part of the race the night before the run, so we went and ate a gross amount of spaghetti. Because I’m a terrible blogger, I did not take a picture of my spaghetti, so you’ll just have to believe me.
We drove back to Way of the Wilderness and spent the rest of the night playing Pandemic which was awesome (we bought it just for this trip) and listening to the Nerdist podcast. Up next: The race and the rest of the stuff!
It’s Sunday, which means I’m drunk and therefore blogging again! I had made some mediocre grapefruit margaritas, and I was so heartbroken I switched to Frangelico and Kahlua with steamed milk. I suspect tomorrow will bring less-than-pleasant surprises.
So, the internet is full of self-proclaimed nerds and/or geeks. For whatever reason, nerddom and geekdom are popular enterprises nowadays. Like usual, I suspect this is the fault of hipsters, so I’m going to set a few things straight for all five of you reading this.
You are NOT a geek/nerd just because:
-you like something that’s popular A LOT (such as Harry Potter, or some kind of TV show.)
-you like something a lot and think you’re really good at it (like general history or grammar/punctuation.)
-you say you are OMG such a geek or nerd LOL.
-you played a video game once, saw a funny video online, or know what LOLcats are.
You might be a geek/nerd if:
-you play some video games sometimes, especially if you play them obsessively for the first week or two after you get them.
-you make references to video games that you have to explain because everyone else thinks you’re a little whackadoodle.
-things that you think are a good idea mystify other people (caution, this one can also be an indicator that you’re stupid.)
You are probably a geek/nerd if:
-you take the day off of work when your favorite game comes out so you don’t have to shower or anything and can just play all day.
-if you get off work early, you go to the library for fun.
-you watch a lot of documentaries.
-you spend your free time thinking about math, programming, or outer space.
You are definitely a geek/nerd if:
-you have a dice bag.
Aaaaand that should do for this time. Success again!
03
Apr
Et tu, Margarita?
Hey dudes! Drunk again. Decided to try making margaritas!
Beefcake says that tequila makes him take off all his clothes and run around, which is fine by me. I had to make some stuff up because none of the recipes matched what I had on hand, even though I went shopping for stuff to make margaritas.
Beginner Margaritas:
Fancy Booze!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sweet and sour mix
1/4 cup orange liqueur (I used Mandarine Napoleon, but Grand Marnier or Cointreau might work, but I don’t know because I’ve never had them)
1/3 cup tequila (Patron, on the recommendation of coworker A, also it was on sale)
1/4 lime, and some salt
1. mix all the liquid stuff together and squeeze most of the lime juice into it
2. take the lime thingie and rub it on the edge of your glass, then rub it on some salt
3. fill the glass with the booze and maybe an ice cube and drink!
According to Beefcake, it tastes just like a margarita. Success!
I also made some kickass enchiladas, but that’s gonna take some sobering up to post about. They are totally worth the wait. Next post!
ETA: Beefcake did not take off all his clothes and run around but the night did result in the following:
1. A duet of Air Supply’s “All out of love.”
2. The decision that Beefcake’s alternate nickname would be “Juicy Mangerine.”
3. A video montage of Full House’s Michelle Tanner saying “you got it, dude” over and over again.