Happy Thanksgiving

We are having a lovely time in Vermont. The boys are sad about the outcome of their football game, but other than that...

I had fun cooking in a real kitchen. 

Daryl is the turkey cooker. 

Scotty made his holiday phone calls from this perch.

This is what Larry did when he wasn't trying to find scraps in the kitchen.

This is what we ate. 

Larry's Thanksgiving dinner.
(We give him rice when he gets into things...helps with digestion )

I'm really excited about shopping tomorrow because there are some great Black Friday deals at the local outlet malls. I'm gonna stock up on some work clothes for my fake office job. 

The Ninja Likes Chemicals

He'll do whatever it takes to get ahold of food items. After almost three years, I thought we'd finally figured out how to Larry-proof our apartment.

We got really lucky with him; he's not much of a chewer. He has never really destroyed our material things, clothes, shoes, furniture, etc. I knew that he liked chemicals, because he tries to lick your legs when you have lotion on, or he'll try to taste the medicine you put on your face.

The other day I came home and found this:

This was my brand new 3.5 ounce bottle of hand cream/ointment. He licked it dry. 

I called the emergency vet, who instructed me to call poison control. The vet at poison control would only give me a consultation if I forked over 65 bucks. I thought that was pretty lame, because if I had to end up taking him to the vet anyway, it would have been another xx dollars. She didn't sound terribly concerned when I told her what he had ingested, so I did some googling and determined that it was probably non-toxic. Since he was acting totally fine we just decided to keep an eye on him. 

The next morning, we woke up and said: "Larry, you're alive!" Other than being extra-gassy, he's been fine for the past few days. 

Daryl got onto me about leaving my lotion out, but I was like, "C'mon, he's had access to lotion for years and it hasn't been an issue. It's not like I left it on the floor. Or in his food bowl." 

So now I guess I'll have to put that up, too. 

Larry Is Angry

Since I don't get any light in my kitchen, I have to transport most of my creations to the bedroom in order to photograph them properly. Larry sits on the bed and watches me do this, but he doesn't like that I never let him have a taste of my subjects. He gives me the stink eye on a daily basis.

Just one of his many stink-eye looks.

It's the little things...

I love bargain shopping. You know this. Today, I picked up a potato masher and a turkey baster. I'm determined to make good mashed potatoes this year! I also scored a pan set for a fraction of what it should have cost because it wasn't marked and so the employee just tagged it for 10 bucks...I bought an eyebrow kit so that I won't butcher my eyebrows at home anymore, and I found some smoked paprika at Marshalls. I couldn't find in in any of the grocery stores around here.

Even though I found a lot of great deals today, the purchase I am most proud of is my new cell phone case. It's a lot like the one that was stolen from me; only this one is better because it's made by jelly belly (who happens to make some stellar jelly beans) and it smells like strawberry cheesecake. That's right- my phone is now dessert scented. Pretty weird, huh? I don't know who thinks of this stuff, but I like it.

Okay, so this picture sucks, but my phone smells delicious now.

My other blog

It's up! It's my first name and then "eats" .com.
I'm not linking it from here. Check it out and leave a note.

In other news, I managed to cut off a chunk of my eyebrow tonight. I haven't done that since I was 13.
Trimming your eyebrows with a pair of fingernail clippers= bad idea.

A New Kind of Naughty

When Larry's friend, Koda comes over to play, we've discovered that he gets a little territorial by leaving puddles on the floor. Not ok. I finally caught him in the act the other day and when I scolded him, he jumped up on the couch and smiled at me like this:

He feels no shame.

He smiled for so long that I had time to grab my camera and snap a photo of that ridiculous face. 

I was just wondering...

...if you made these yet. Because it's November already. Pretty soon it will be gingerbread and egg nog season. I hope you're getting your pumpkin on.

I also wanted to share this picture with you. This was taken at our friends' house. I love natural light and wish that we had some in our apartment. This morning I made some eggs and had to take them out to the hallway to get a decent shot. Hmm. Maybe I'll have to invest in a lightbox one day.

Geeking Out

I've always liked to eat, but have never taken it too seriously.

I have been such a nerd this week and it's been so much fun! I was hoping to launch my new site by this Monday but I've been busy working. Yesterday I stood in for the judge on L&Order and all I wanted to do was go home and play with new fonts. Yeah...geeky, I know. I also really wanted to pound the the gavel and I didn't get to. It's not very often I get to (or will get to) sit on a judge stand.  It's the little things, you see. On Sunday, the NYC Marathon is happening. I won't be running because it makes me feel like I'm going to die, but I'm proud to be working the event. I'm going to help set up the gatorade/water stands for the runners. The marathon is always such an inspiring and positive environment to be a part of. I wish that I wanted to participate. It's 26 miles. I run a half a mile and I'm done. We have friends that run and I really admire them. Daryl has talked about running one. That would be awesome.

A New Project

I'm really excited to tell you about something I've been working on for the past few months; Ladies and Gentleman, my food blog will be born soon. I have been glued to my computer (and kitchen) working on recipes and other content, photography, design and a little html. It's been a little frustrating (web coding...whhaaat??) but mostly fun. I've been honing developing some photography skills on my new SLR camera, which means that I have 100+ pictures of Larry sitting on the couch.

You might have noticed that my blog has been lean on posts lately. This is in part because I've been avoiding food topics so that I'll have lots of content for my new site and, well...I mostly write about food.
That being said, I still intend on keeping up with Mandyland as a personal blog and a way to keep in contact with my family and friends. My new blog will be written for you all with a more public audience in mind, as well. After some thought, I've decided that I prefer it be somewhat anonymous (yet not impersonal). Therefore, I won't be linking it to this blog.

As soon as I launch my new site, I will let you know! I'm just going to write about what interests and inspires me and hopefully there will be a few people who find it useful and/or entertaining.

Here are some of my photo experiments:

This could be his headshot, no?

Looking much more angelic than he really is. I think I was holding food above his head.

I made these!!! It took 5 hours and they weren't perfect but they weren't too shabby either.  I'll tell you about it later.

My new hand mixer. It's no Kitchenaid stand mixer but it does the trick. Look at the peaks on that meringue. 

Adios, October

It's November. Whhhaatt? How was everyone's Halloween? We weren't feeling too festive this year; no costumes or themed parties for us. I just wasn't inspired by all of the weird-I'm-trying-to-be-sexy things running around the village the night before. There is something especially pathetic about a slutty bunny hobbling around in a drunken stupor. I did make Daryl's favorite cupcakes, though. Yep, it's the time of year, folks. Mmmm. I brought them to a get-together so we couldn't eat them all ourselves.

Here's a scary picture for you. Happy belated Halloween: 

Rot Face Shirley...she sort of made it until Halloween