I was saddened to hear the news this morning about Andy Whitfield passing yesterday. The hubs first saw the news on his phone and hesitated telling me since he knows I, like most other Spartacus fans, am a huge fan of his. No tears were shed, but it is sad to know that any hope for his return to future Spartacus seasons is now gone. He was a fantastic Spartacus! Now who wants to watch/rewatch “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” with me?!?
Season finale for True Blood Season 4
1 episode left!
Season premiere of Dexter Season 6
It’s been too long… I miss Dexter!
Season premiere of Spartacus: Vengeance
Despite it being Andy Whitfield-less and me not liking this new Spartacus, I’m hoping for a good season anyway. Crixus and Gannicus might be my new favorites XP
Being a busy mom it’s difficult to get things done for myself. I’ve been putting off cutting my hair and it was getting so shapeless that I decided to take matters into my own hands… literally. I accidentally stumbled across this video when doing a search for hairstyles, and I’m so thankful I found this!
I did more research and found that people refer to this layer cut as the “ponytail method” for obvious reasons. After gathering some more techniques from watching videos from some at-home-haircut product (creaclip), I ended up doing this ponytail method in 3 main areas to get more dimension in my layers. With a little no-heat styling, here’s my result!
I think when it comes to long layered haircuts, I’m going to be doing these on my own from now on
Apparently this girl, Promise Phan, is Michelle Phan’s sister-in-law or something. I looked through some of her tutorials and am actually pretty impressed. Just check out her Angelina Jolie transformation!
I’ve been in a crafty mood lately and I think it has to do with my baby’s upcoming birthday party. I plan to make/bake some stuff for it, like pins for giveaways and cake pops, but I’m still not 100% sure yet. I don’t have the luxury of time or the ability to make it happen when the mood strikes, but we’ll see. The funny thing is I haven’t really been working on crafts or desserts for the party, except for the cake pops, but instead I’ve been preoccupied trying other things out. Like making stuff with my duct tape.
I made some of these bows for my daughter and nieces and haven’t decided yet if I’m going to affix them to a headband, bobby pin, or clip. I think a headband would be cute and the easiest to do. A clip would be cute too, but I think I’d want to adhere it with a glue gun which at the moment I don’t have or can’t find (for shame!).
Also on my “want to do” list is making a sea salt spray for my hair. I’m very low maintenance when it comes to my hair and since I’ve been trying to grow it out it’s been starting to look a bit “blah”. I’ve been playing around with different styles to liven it up a bit, and all require little to no effort.
First, creating waves with no heat… on slightly damp hair I put in leave-in conditioner, throw it up into a couple buns (top and bottom), wait a couple hours (or leave it overnight), then take it down when it’s dry, finger comb it, then run some Bed Head After Party into it. Second, creating temporary peek-a-boo highlights by clipping in some old colored hair extensions I got a while back under the top layer of hair. And now third, going for those “beach waves” for even less effort than the first by spraying a homemade sea salt spray in my hair, scrunching it, and letting it air dry. I have yet to try this to see how well it works. Basically all I need to do is dissolve a couple teaspoons of sea salt in a 8oz of warm/hot water, let it cool, and put it in a spray bottle. A dash of conditioner is optional. I can’t wait to try this.
I woke up this morning excited to finish up my cake pops. What was I thinking?
Overall, I think it was a success! Would I do it again? Eh, maybe. I thought coating them would be fun but it turned out to be the most tedious part… not surprising, I guess. But they were delicious and that’s all that matters Here are some lessons learned:
1. buy at least 2 bags of candy melts – I ran out and had 9 naked cake pops left
2. leave them in the fridge/freezer until I’m ready to coat – The first few turned out ok since the balls were firm enough to take some twisting on the stick. After they started to thaw a little, I had a couple just fall straight off the stick But it could be also due to the oil I used in the cake mix. Which leads me to #3…
3. use regular veggie oil – I thought I had general vegetable oil but when I started cooking I saw I was out Instead I used EVOO because technically it is still a veggie oil, right? I don’t think it affected the taste but I think it contributed to the lack of firmness in the cake when trying to coat them since EVOO doesn’t harden when cold. I also noticed some oil seeping out of tiny holes after the candy hardened. This probably wouldn’t happen with regular veggie oil.
4. sprinkle directly on the pop rather than dipping – I tried dipping straight into the sprinkles, then tried sprinkling it directly on the pop. The former was a mess after a while… and makes for less cute pops.
5. melt more candy melts at a time, or keep it pretty hot – It was suggested to melt in smaller batches but it made it difficult to roll the pops in a shallow bowl. I think it might be easier if I could melt more and just dunk the whole darn thing in at once to try to get an even coat. I got paranoid towards the end after a couple twisted off while twirling that I started to just pack it on and hence got a bumpy coat (in the pics, early smooth pink ones vs later bumpy purple ones). It also helps when the melts are pretty hot because the excess will run off freely and it leaves a nicer smooth coat.
6. roll smaller balls – The smaller the pops, the easier to coat and the less likely to fall off the stick while coating. Don’t get greedy and make giant ones (like I did).
I’ve been wanting to try to make cake pops for some time now but I never got around to it until now. Since I’m considering making some for my daughter’s first birthday (yes, I’m slowly planning months in advance! lol) I thought now is a good time to try it out.
Since I don’t have space in the freezer I’m going to have to leave the cake balls to firm up in the fridge overnight. I can’t wait until tomorrow to finish it up!
It must’ve been on April Fool’s Day that I filled out this form for Google to request for Chrome finger sweatbands because I remembering thinking, ‘Finger sweatbands?! There’s no way this could be real.’ The mere idea of it was ridiculous but I filled it out anyway. And look what came in the mail yesterday…
Google did not bluff. Shame on me for doubting them. Excuse me as I go Chromercise.
The mini series/prequel between seasons 1 and 2 of Spartacus, Starz’ “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena”, came to an end last Friday and I’m already having withdrawals. I have to wait until 2012 for season 2! Blah! The long wait is due to the recasting of the starring role for Spartacus because Andy Whitfield (the original star) has been battling Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Definitely an unfortunate decision and a huge disappointment for me and many other fans because Whitfield was the perfect Spartacus that we’ve grown to love. He will always be Spartacus to me. Either way, the series will still be amazing and I wish him the best. I just hope whoever is cast will be just as dreamy
And speaking of dreamy Spartacus, I’ve recently had some discussions with a few people comparing Spartacus in season 1 to Gannicus, the star in the prequel. The discussion wasn’t so much as to who was more bad ass, or who would kick whose ass, but more of who was hotter, lol. I know, so mature. I chose, of course, Spartacus. I argued that he’s handsome, has the perfect build, and looks good rugged — features that I find to be more ‘my type’. Whereas Gannicus is a little too cute for me and much more a pretty boy and he doesn’t dirty down well (opposite of clean up well?) which is not as much my type. Furthermore, I think the shape of his face is a little weird. Anyway, one of my opposers finally ended in doubt and said, “I guess I’ll have to take a look at them again side by side to really know for sure”. Oh?! Let me help you with that.
After presenting my opposer with my case, he finally admitted defeat. I mean, she
Spartacus pwns. Spartacus > Gannicus. QED.
If you haven’t tried watching the Spartacus series, I highly recommend it. It is definitely one of my favorite shows. The first couple of episodes drag a little as it presents the story, but it quickly picks up and continues to be awesome at each subsequent episode. But viewer beware — you must enjoy watching lots of sex and violence
After getting some energy to finally fix a few things on my site (like changing hosts so I could have more space, etc), my page is finally in working order again. Maybe this means I’ll start posting again! Ok, not so fast… we’ll see
