I am making a vegetarian feast right now in my crock pot!

This girl I work with got a crockpot for her wedding shower. She said "you know you're really growing up when you get excited about a crock pot." But I think sometimes you just get hungry.

On another note, I think love looks like glitter. I told someone to send me love in a Christmas card and I keep picturing glitter falling out of the opened envelope sort of like fairy dust.

this week promises champagne, tears, curry, cleaning, driving, a haircut, and love. Here's hoping for the best

I am getting very excited about 2005 as the year of me nourishing myself and my new kitchen dreams becoming a reality. I picture the crockpot bubbling away (thanks Jan!) on my new tile peninsula while I lounge in the adjacent hangout area reading Fine Gardening; Friends coming over for dinner and lounging at the bar with wine while I pull something out of the oven; inviting my grandma and aunties to brunch on Sundays and having somewhere for them to sit down. I guess lounging will play a key role.

It's like my dream come true: Karaoke Revolution

Not like I need it, but the review says the game will actually help you sing better. The only problem is that if the fans on the game don't like my singing my best friend can't go over and yell at them to start clapping.

Vreeland:

Make collars for you cats out of vintage brooches?
Pass out evergreen tiaras as party favors?

Check out Fimoculous list of top 25 blogs of 2004. All of the blogs noted seem to have content which is probably why I wasn't on it.

link via my favorite mp3 blog, No. 18, Largehearted Boy

Look how sweet this little garden design map is! It has little links to pages about special places in the garden and little pictures of what is probably happenning and everything. It's color too which is so cute, mine is just a ballpoint pen thing with circles and blobs for planting areas. The whole site is very special and I'm having fun exploring it.

something funny:

" . . .as I've come to realise, 'rustic' is a useful word for describing something you've done that looks a bit crap." (please see my back patio tile for further examples)

Last night I got my ass kicked at Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. Now I know these things about myself:

1. I do not know who Boromir, Denethor, Isildor, or Gimli are.

2. I cannot share any type of sentiment such as "of course! the Pool of Mirrors!"

3. If I land on the same space as my boyfriend, I will make our game pieces kiss.

4. I will never guess "oh I don't know, how about Midas Tirith"

too bad I'm already seeing someone:

Daniel Erenberg lives in a gothic-looking house in a suburb of Long Island shrouded by trees and darkness. His backyard is so overrun with shrubbery that he can't plant flowers in the soil. He's penned articles for numerous magazines (and a couple of websites for free). Currently, he's writing his first novel, entitled People That I've Long Since Forgotten. He's also written two plays, Little Room and Dystopia and a screenplay called Youth Or Consequence. He lives a fairly happy life alone except for the mind-numbing loneliness he feels on occasion. If you’re a beautiful woman that’s fallen in love with Daniel, or you just want to talk Buffy with him, you can contact Daniel at daniel@slayage.com.

Things that will make me happy this week:

1. Sleeping in my own bed with my kitties

2. Champagne

3. My new lemon verbena and munstead lavender houseplants

4. My abutilon/flowering maple is in crazy bloom

5. Chocolate birthday cake

6. Smoking, oh wait I don't do that anymore, bastards

7. Godbabies

8. Advanced step class on Christmas Eve

9. Getting back in touch with a Magnificent Bastard

The Twelve Days of Vreeland are back! Here's one of my favorite posts: of course I'm planning on giving my friends signed first editions of their favorite authors this year. I love these fancy imaginings and some of the ideas are good, like decorating for Christmas with white feather boas!

oh, no she didn't

Falling Petals is totally trying to run game on my man!

look what the topic is for Illustration Friday: Home, my favorite subject

Okay, The 6-8 ft. tall Helianthus with yellow daisy looking flowers backing a prostrate reddish rose ground cover with some lavender mixed in, my two flowering quinces (moved from the bed by the house where they hate it) peeking through the helianthus to give year round structure and maybe a couple of butterfly bushes to make a really thick dense hedge. I think it should give me a cheery hippy garden appearance while sheilding the yard (and me in my underwear when I'm getting the laundry) from the neighborhood. I wish I had some crayons, I would draw you a picture.

Confession No. 3:

I bought something that I want and I don't think anyone else will really like for my office white elephant gift exchange, and I am going to try to "win" it for myself. I'm basically self-gifting through the mechanism of the gift exchange. This could backfire big time. No one ever likes the gifts I bring and I'm always pretty bitter about it (I'm petty like that). Something tells me that since I'm trying to pull this, my gift will be very popular this year.

and while I'm in the confessing mood, I really love the Brittany Spears song Every Time

Extreme Dork Alert! whedonesque.com: A site devoted to every show Joss Whedon ever directed and every thing that has happened to anyone or anything affiliated ever. I could handle Buffy going off the air because I still had Angel, but now . . . there's nothing. Aparently the Serenity movie is either really good or really bad?

Found that link via the USA top 100 pop candy list which is very fun.

Coach Roz is a hottie!

My boss's sister is Coach Roz of the Sierra College Women's Basketball team. She was very dismayed to see she did not get any hottie points, indicated by a little chili pepper, on the ratemyprofessors.com website. If you go to Sierra College and have had Coach Roz please go and give her some chili peppers.

How does everyone feel about me putting a bunch of Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' in the front next to the sidewalk? It could be cool.

MagnificentBastard has a weblog. I went to college with this guy. Please keep in mind, he's very smart and completely full of shit. You know how I feel about people who move far away, but Ladies, you could do a lot worse.

Things that were said to me this weekend at parties:

1. I like your . . . holiday outfit.

2. You're an outsider now, just go with it.

3. Are those the ultra-low-rise cut? Let me see the pockets.

This is how I used to get dates. It worked pretty well, but the dates you get tend to be assholes. By contrast, now I look for the sweetest, dorkiest fellows. I've been very pleased with the results.

My adult acne is going to look so festive with my red sequined holiday top this weekend. I can do sort of a Picassoesque-Rudolph look.

Nectar of the Goddesses! Don't even try, we already bought the domain name.

Things that make me happy right now:

1. When girl bloggers refer to their husbands as "Mr. Theirblogsname." Mine would be called Mr. Lady Candyass Sharkbite, and I'm sure he would love that.

2. Thinking about the names of the children Lady Candyass Sharkbite would have with Rex Venom. Actually I have an exteme internet crush on Rex Venom.

3. old Wilco.

4. The new Gwen Stephani album and my friend Allyn singing along at the top of his voice to the new Gwen Stephani album.

5. Being inside on a clean happy bright snow day like this.

6. Living in Roseville where it is currently 63 degrees Fahrenheit .

7. Cake with plastic rings stuck in the side as decoration.

8. Being called Auntie K-Rock.

I'm in the paper today, sort of.

Since I feel like some of what I said was taken out of context, I will rectify here in my own little publication:

1. When I said "all bloggers want to make money off their blogs" I meant that anyone would want to get paid to do their hobby. I also mentioned that my friends provide good content which I would pay to see.

2. When I said I was the "granddaddy" of my blogging friends I meant that I've been blogging in a very simple way for a couple of years now and I'm excited to see all the creative new things my friends are doing with their blogs.

You know what I mean right?

Also, I think Chrisanne Beckner has the hots for me.

I think this is funny: Future Lincoln in You Got Served

Unedited email chain between me and my friend Julie about her husband Brian, his best friend Justin, and my boyfriend Thad who plays Dungeons and Dragons:

Julie: Hey Karin, remember when I called Brian "baby boots" in front of all his work friends and then as Cheng was leaving he poked his head back in the door and said "See you at work on Monday....BABY BOOTS"?

Karin: yeah that was awesome: especially because you said that right after you said YOU wear the pants in the relationship.

Julie: Poor little Brian, good thing he's such a good sport! Whenever he's being cutesy and then the phone rings he answers it like he's all tough-"Hey dude!" Then we laugh about it when he gets off. Does Thad have cool dude tendencies like Brian? Maybe they could have fun playing together. Brian and Justin can put on their camouflage and pretend to be GI Joe while Thad can pretend to be a fantasy dragon and they can hunt each other. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Yum! Doesn't Banana Pear Pecan Crumble sound so good! That little French chicky sure has yummy food ideas.

Alright. In honor of Rex Venom and Robot K. Synagog I would like to put forward my new internet name: Lady Candyass Sharkbite! So if you see me on the street, you can call out "hey, Lady Candyass Sharkbite, lookin' good today!" And I'll say "right back at'cha," and act like I'm shooting you a bunch of times with my thumb and fore-fingers.

How awesome is it when someone named Rex Venom comments on your site! It's on a level with getting an email from Robot K. Synagog!

p.s. Apparently I use the word "adorable" too much. I never considered the possibility that this would happen to me.

Random acts:

Three of my favorite things in life are as follows: Girl Party, Hot Girl Party, and Girl Crushes (especially when they are on me, but any configuration makes me happy).

That said, last night at the gym I couldn't stop staring at this incredibly fit and beautiful pregnant woman. She's been in my sculpting class all along but in pregnancy she has really blossomed and just glows now. Anyway, I went up to her after class and said "you are the most beautiful pregnant woman I've ever seen*, you look great." By the time I started stuttering the "you look great" part I realized that this interaction was a mistake. I had stumbled on one of the most horrible women there is: the woman who doesn't like compliments from other women. I hate these women. More than anything. The side of the woman's mouth turned up in a polite half smile and she didn't really say anything. She acted like she wanted to ignore the very uncouth thing that had just happenned.

On the flip side, I recently received the most delightful email from my internet (and one time in real life) friend Lori. She had been to see a band and loved the guitar player so much she thought he would be just my type and that I would want to date him. I was so touched that she thought about me in her real life and cared about my dating plight** enough to look for men I would like. I emailed her back and told her so and we both went about our happy ways with extra Girl Love in our hearts. Now that, my friends, is how it's supposed to go down!

So, to my lady readers: You all look very beautiful today!


*This was not actually true. My friend Kim is the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever seen, but it felt true at the moment.

**I am currently very happily seeing someone but she didn't know that.

Cut + Paste has so much adorable gifty stuff up for the holidays. If you are looking for interesting handmade unique gifts and want to support independent artisans, check it out.

Check out Miss Charrming! Charr's 15 minutes in the Sacramento News and Review. The picture is adorable.