Art, mexican casserole, and Cooper's B-Day

Here is a pic of my next hidden transformation...which I need to get working on now actually.

 Another type of Mexican casserole from Pinterest. Ground beef, Rotel, cream of chicken soup, southwestern beans, and some taco seasoning...

 Mix it all up!

 Layer of tortilla chips...

 Start layering with cheddar cheese...

 Salsa on top when it's done! This was not so much a good casserole, but a good dip to use with the rest of the chips....it's too soupy to try to eat on it's own.

 Next was Cooper's 1st birthday...taking a drive in his Coupe

 Opening presents...

 I love this picture so much!

 And feeding Dad!

Zombie race and plants

I recently participated in Run For Your Lives, a 5K with zombies and obstacles. The day before the race I went to my hairdresser and got highlights and lowlights- the lowlights being red! Here is a pic of me in my hotel room before the race.

 I obviously didn't take my camera onto the mud encrusted obstacle course, but here is a picture of my friends Mary and Kathleen after our shift as zombies. (If you want to see more pictures of what we looked like, you can see them on facebook) We got there at the crack of dawn and waited in a mile long line to be transformed into zombies. I wanted to do my own makeup and prosthetic pieces, but they wouldn't let you. They airbrushed us a little, splattered brown paint on our faces, added some chunks of blood, then we had ice cold blood thrown at us while we stood in front of a tarp. Needless to say, I could have done a better job if I were allowed to make the latex piece that I wanted (which would have had claw marks going through my cheek).

 Our obstacle where we were placed was by far the best one. We were in the smoke-filled shock house! Runners had to crawl through the windows of the house which was filled with ropes hanging from the ceiling, which delivered 10,000 volts of electricity if you hit them at the right time. And this is while we were standing inside scaring you and making fun of everyone who was scared of the electric shocks.

Then we ate a quick snack and got ready to go run the race ourselves. This was not a fun time, and I don't want to do it again. I already had a pinched nerve in my back, so I couldn't do any of the obstacles where there was bending. We were completely covered in mud and then had to stand under freezing water in a big mud pit to "clean off". The original plan was to camp there overnight and enjoy the festivities, but with no actual showers or bathrooms...that would have been gross! So we got as clean as we could, changed clothes and went to Denny's or IHOP...I can't remember. Which is where I went to the bathroom and saw all of the paint still caked on my neck...I wonder what the waitress was thinking? We then all proceeded to head home and crash from exhaustion. Here is a pic of my 2 medals for being a zombie and running the race, unused drink ticket, and flag that I took from a runner.

 Picture of my ever growing tomato plant!

 Forget-me-knots...blooming on one side and dead on the other...

 Blooms coming out of the tomato plant.

Here is the video of the whole race! You can see us as zombies inside the shock house around the 18 minute mark!!

Random things left over...

Here is a pic of my ever-expanding pile of camping equipment that started to take over my living room last month...

 This is a recipe from Pinterest...making Jolly Rancher suckers. You get them all lined up and bake for only 5 minutes at 200 degrees...

 They melt into each other and you quickly put a stick in the middle... Well these did not turn out. They completely stuck to the wax paper and I had to throw them all away...do not try at home.

 Final project of the hidden transformation I was working on.

 The next book I read was about helping yourself to not be so perfectionistic. This book was written by a Martha Stewart wannabe, and only made me see that there are people with bigger OCD issues than me. But it did have at least one famous quote on every single page of the book so some of those went in my quote book.

Crockpot Pulled Pork and Boston Cream Poke Cake

Both of these recipes are from Pinterest.

The first one is barbecue pulled pork in a crockpot.

Get a pork butt and stick it in the crockpot...

 Cover with a bottle of Sweet Baby Rays and a can of Diet Pepsi...

 Also add some Lawry's Seasoned Salt and cook for 4 hours...

This recipe sucks!! The pork didn't pull apart hardly at all...major pain in the butt and not worth it.

I would try to cook it longer with more marinades if I were to do this again, because as you can see in the last picture it just stews in juices, not barbecue sauce, as it should.

 Next is the Boston cream poke cake.

Get a box of yellow cake mix, bake it and then poke round holes all over...

 Make 2 boxes of vanilla pudding and pour it over just before it starts to thicken...

I must've waited a minute too long, because it was pretty thick when I poured it...it didn't really go down into the holes, so I would pour it as soon as I'm done stirring next time.

 Microwave a tub of chocolate frosting so it gets melty and smooth it over the top. Unfortunately since the pudding was all sitting on top, the frosting all sat on top of the pudding...

 A pic of a piece. This was freaking delicious even though the pudding didn't go down into the holes much. It is super moist and I was eating it for days, I kept this one all to myself.

Art, books and plants

This first picture is another process picture of the last painting I'm doing for my mom. It still has one more layer to go, which I still haven't done yet. It will look much different when it is finished.

 More of the process of this hidden transformation...

 This is the next book I finished. I taught this in group and got it from my former team leader, Bob. This is a description of the 16 personality types from the Myers-Briggs Personality Test that I gave my clients. It goes into all aspects of each personality and the description for my personality type (INFJ) was really true!

 Flowers finally blooming...these are forget-me-knots I believe...

 Tomato plant shooting up...

 The next book I finished. An autobiography of George Harrison. The book is split into 3 sections. The first is a narrative about many behind-the-scenes moments in Beatle history. The second section is a ton of candid pictures...which had some missing since I got it at a library book sale, and someone had cut out a chunk of pics...grrr. And the third section is actual scanned copies of ALL of the songs George Harrison wrote. You can see that he wrote a lot of songs on hotel stationary and can see where he was staying on certain dates. He also writes on the opposite page about what the inspiration was for each song.

 Another process picture...

 And the next book I read. I have possibly hundreds of Dean Koontz books and I read all of them in high school along with some Steven King. I got this one at a library book sale. I finished it in a week and it reminded me why I read Dean Koontz so much. It is one of his typical thriller-mysteries set on the west coast...and deals with medical experiments. The creepy part about all of his books is that this type of medical research is actually happening in the world right now! I'm serious people! This is why I want to do research so badly!

Many more exciting book reviews to come!!!

Dark Chocolate Cookies and Spider Bites

This recipe is from Pinterest and does not contain most of the usual ingredients for cookies.

 Egg whites....

 Melted dark chocolate...

 Add something I'm not sure...

 With some cocoa, cornstarch and powdered sugar...

 And that makes the batter...no flour or regualar sugar??!!

 Then pour the melted chocolate over it....

 And mix it all up...

 Roll in more powdered sugar to bake...

 Done.

 These were really good, but are better when they are warm and melty right out of the oven. Once they cool, all the dark chocolate makes them bitter.

 And here is a pic of the 2 spider bites I got while camping. I don't know when I got bit and they didn't itch for 24 hours. I just woke up with one and later in the day saw the other one.

 They would not go away and are still slowly fading today. But you're supposed to make a baking soda paste and put it on. This helped the itching stop faster and made the redness go away faster...although you can't move much while it's on or it will flake off.



Camping

Here are some pics from my recent camping trip at Carlyle lake...

Mason making this crazy face that he always does...

 Steven cleans...everyone else watches...

 Playing paparazzi with Steven and Tabby on the golf carts

 The coolest camper porch ever...two tiered porch that connects to a gazebo...

 Driving the golf cart through the woods...or jungle.

 Mady swimming

 Mason