Photo Friday

In an effort to post more cool photos to my blog (because I have a lot of old stuff, and even new stuff!) I'm starting my own Friday meme called Photo Friday. Feel free to play along if you are so inclined! :)

This Fridays photos feature some absolutely YUMMY holiday cupcakes Matt bought for us as a Halloween present... don't they look just delish? They're all handmade from a local cupcakery!



They are white cake with rich chocolate frosting. Mmm mmm good! Better than halloween candy! I couldn't resist taking a bite of that ghosty cupcake...




Happy Halloween!!! :)

Why I am SO Not a Twilight Fan.

Okay, so this is sort of taboo. Everyone LURVES Twilight, amiright? Well, I don't. But I'm not going to be a giant ass about it, as not only do I understand that many people enjoy Twilight and are certainly allowed to, but I also enjoy things that other people may not like. (uhm, Warcraft anyone?) There's no reason to hate on people or things just because you don't like 'em! TOLERANCE, go team!! :)

Okay, now that my pep talk is out of the way. No, I don't like Twilight. Honestly though, I've only read the first book, but I was just so disinterested and unimpressed that I just didn't want to read anymore. Let me tell you why...

The LURVE Story

I like love stories as much as the next guy... uhm, gal. But this one seemed to advance WAY too fast. I mean, at the end of the first book, they were talking marriage already. Wait, whaaaat? Back that truck up! Now I know that doesn't happen until later on in the series, but I think marriage would be one of the LAST things on a highschoolers mind. It was very unrealistic for me to read! (Yeah, I know the vampires were also unrealistic, but they were supposed to be; the humans are still humans!)

I'm also of the love-at-first-sight-is-a-lie camp. The fact that Joanie and Chachi fell in lurve within a mere few school months left me a little uneasy.

Now, like I said, I like the lurve story. When it's done well. This seemed to be done far too rushed to seem realistic. I like it when love takes time to grow and blossom and all of that smarmy crapola, it's great to read and really makes the story and characters that more engaging. (Yes, they had a few awkward talks in the car, and at that restaurant, but ... I feel it's lacking!) It needs more than just half a book to break out the L word.

Mary Who?

To me, from what I've read book-wise and cliff notes wise, this book just screams Mary Sue to me. Writers, you should know what that is, but for the rest a Mary Sue is pretty much an author self-insertion. Taken from Wikipedia, "...primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors or readers. ...single underlying feature of all characters described as "Mary Sues" is that they are too ostentatious for the audience's taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly."

Ok, here goes. Unpopular sort of mousy girl moves to dead-end town, immediately finds her the fancy of one of the most mysterious, charming, gorgeous boys in the school, oh wait let's not forget that other guy in her class that has a serious crush on her (Mike), the guy that hits her with her van and then asks her out for like forever (Tyler), OH, and the werewolf that develops a severe crush on her (Jacob), oh and wait, I forgot that other geek that talked to her on her first day of school and got all googoo over her (Eric)... and that's just the first book! Again, wait WHAAAAAT? It's a bit much. The main girl really doesn't need nearly every main guy fawning over her, does she?

But then again, what high school girl (or any girl, maybe?) wouldn't want a werewolf and a vampire fighting over her? And add some silly ol' humans in for fun? Now I know Steph wrote this book from a dream she'd had (chapter 13), but it seems like she may have had a boring old youth and is making up for lost time.

Movie Edward

Now I REALLY may be the only girl in the world to think this, but I think movie Edward is well ........ yucky looking.



The Cure called, they want their bad hair, semi-stoner eyes, and sickly skin tone back.



Okay, those are my main three points of contention. Well, the first two really, I'm just getting tired of seeing three eeeeverywhere! And I understand that it's supposed to be written as a fantasy novel, but IMO there are just so many other fantasy novels that aren't as amateur and mindblowingly overpopular. Anyone else not a Twilight fan? Or are you a fan, and want to holler at me for defaming literary genius? *hack cough* :) In all seriousness, if you like Twilight, you should check out her book The Host. Amazing story, I loved that one!!

And I love y'all, no matter what you read! <3

It's a giveaway!!

There's nothing like warm, tasty treats to get you in the mood for fall. Pumpkin pie, warm cinnamon streusel, hot chocolate... bundle up in your scarf and sweater and prepare to get tasty!



I'm REALLY excited to be able to host this special Fall is HERE! giveaway! :) I was lucky enough to recently come into a decent amount of absolutely decadent drinking chocolate -- yes, it is called "drinking chocolate" because it's THAT GOOD -- so I wanted to share some of it with you!



If you've never heard of or had Schokinag, you're missing out. They are a producer of extremely fine drinking chocolate - think hot chocolate but WAY more decadent. This ain't your mom's Swiss Miss!! Inside every tin is a sealed bag filled with extremely small, high quality chocolate morsels that you microwave with milk to create an absolutely otherworldly hot chocolate experience. :) (The website says you can actually -eat- the chocolate bits out of the tin with a spoon, if you are so inclined!)

I'm sipping on a cup of Moroccan Spice drinking chocolate as I write this, and all I can say is, WOW. This is a thick, luxurious, creamy drink packed full of heady chocolatey flavor. A healthy dollop of whipped cream would do well on this, I think! Okay, I'm in love!

What I have to offer you, fellow chocolate-loving reader, is this: a 12 oz tin of either Dulce de Leche, Extreme Dark, or Chocolate Mint drinking chocolate. (You can read about the flavors here.) Each tin comes with a sealed bag of yummy morsels inside, along with an awesome fold out brochure with recipes that will make you start to drool!

To enter, all you have to do is leave me a comment (one only per person, please!) with the following info:

• Add the line "It's chocolate time!" into your comment somewhere, so I know you want to enter as opposed to just say howdy. :)
• Specify which of the three chocolates you'd like to have; Dulce de Leche, Extreme Dark, or Chocolate Mint.
• If you want an extra entry, you can blog about this giveaway and post a link to it, but it's not required at all!

That's it! I'll choose a winner on November 6th. :) Plenty of time to get in on this. Happy fall y'all, and good luck!

Spooky pictures!

I'm posting some of my pre-Halloweenie pictures I took the other night of neat looking things around the place. :) Hope you like them, and they get you in the mood for full mons, spooky movies, and candy corn!!

Time to: Get Over It!

So yesterday marked my first day as being a part-timer. It was weird leaving at lunchtime! And today, I have the WHOLE day off!! WHOA!

If you can't tell, I've decided to go with the "enjoy it for what its worth" option as opposed to the "laying in a swamp" option. Things could really be a lot worse; I still have half a job, at least! And even though I had to pay $430 in emergency credit (eek) to replace calipers and brakes on my car today, it needed to be done, and such is life.

SO, I am making the most of things by enjoying the time I have to myself now! Today was a beautiful Friday in North Carolina, and I spent the majority of my day doing the following:

• Sitting outside and enjoying the amazing 80 degree weather! It was warm, sunny, with a nice breeze, and beautiful blue skies like that one up there.
• Watching the jillions of little yellow butterflies romp through the trees :)
• I reheated some chili for lunch and ate it out there too... soooo good!! I LOVE chili with cheese and sour cream... mm mm, nothing better.
• Listened to some great music, and just relaxed and enjoyed the day.

Mr. Cats has been the best boyfriend ever and is taking me out to dinner tonight, after taking me out to dinner LAST night too! <3 Fondue last night, and off for some yummy local seafood in a bit.


I am looking to enjoy some of these yummy seafoods tonight. What is your favorite seafood? I have to admit, before I started dating Mr. Cats, I hated seafood. And I'm from New England, yeah, I know! But now I loooove it. My favorites would have to be grilled shrimp, grouper, and sea bass. I love grouper with a citrus glaze and pineapple salsa, or sea bass done in a nice teriyaki ginger. Yummmm!! And shrimp in ANY form is just dandy with me, thanks. My least favorite would probably have to be tuna, it has a very strong taste, and is a very "meaty" fish. Oysters also are not cool with me. So slimy... ugh.

Here's hoping everyone has a relaxing pre-Halloween weekend! :)

Not all once upon a times are charmed...

Once upon a time, I found out that my work hours were getting cut back from 40 to 20.

Oh wait, that happened today.



I'm officially a part-timer now, and I'm none too pleased about it. Pretty freaked out and unhappy, actually, because while I love this town the job market is lower than Britney Spears' standards. It came as quite a shock and I'm left worrying, like most other people that have gotten hours cut or lost jobs, how exactly I'm going to pay for things. I was right on the 3 month mark to start getting benefits too. Oh well. I suppose it could be worse.

So I'm either going to be a) blogging a lot to get my mind off things and keep myself motivated, or b) heading to the nearest swamp to lie face down in it. Probably a, but I'm feeling a lot of b tonight.

Sorry for the depressing post! But life isn't all about farting rainbows, I guess. (But that would be neat to see.)

Danger!!

This is a dangerous time of year, my friends.

Do you know why?

No, not because of ghosts and Freddy... (although that could be pretty rough)

Because of yummy temptations like this...



Pumpkin Cheesecake? All together now; one, two, three, DROOL!! I had a piece of pumpkin tiramisu the other night and let me assure you, it was nothing short of heavenly.

Let the sweets (and my ass growing fatter) begin!