Ipsy December 2013: Celebration

Wow.  I mean, WOW!  I was a bit bummed that it took a few days for me to get my Ipsy bag after I got the notification, and then I open it and it only has five things in it :/

But those five things!

I was really hoping to get nice lively colors, and other than the grey eye shadows, the colors were pretty awesome.  The nail polish is Nicka K New York in Ripe Apple, retails for $4.99.  This is very much the shade of red polish I am immediately drawn to.

Next was Be A Bombshell: The One Stick in Sunset, retails for $16.  I was so confused when I opened the package, but I'm excited to get to play with it.  I love the orangey color!  Much better than a bland coral.

J. Cat Big Lip Pencil in Caramel Mocha, retails $3.99.  It is a much richer and creamier color in person than it is on their website.  A very similar color and consistency to the The One Stick, but a tad darker.  I am very glad that neither is scented.

Pop Beauty eye shadows in Naturally Bare, retails ~$7.20.  These are what I would consider the dud in my bag.  If I'm going to wear eye shadow, I normally want something noticeable.  We'll see once I actually try it out.

Mirabella Eye Blender Brush, retails $27.  OMG IT IS SO FLUFFY!  This one is pretty fantastic.

TOTAL: $59.18.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!

Thankskilling 2013

November 27, 2013, at 5:36 pm, my much loved 5 qt Kitchenaid mixer decided to commit sepuku over a box of gf cookie dough.  Ten minutes later, I dragged Dan to BB&B to get a replacement.  My lovely brother offered to get me a 6qt for christmas!

Unfortunately, not in time for the rest of Thanksgiving, but we made due.  For starters, Dan got a Butterball electric deep frier.

• 13 lb deep fried turkey
• 18 lb roast turkey with all of the garlic
• Onion soup
• Gravy
• Fresh cranberry sauce
• Home cured ham with green beans
• Home cured ham with black beans
• Brussel sprouts with bacon
• Scalloped potatoes
• Hummus
• GF cherry pie
• GF apple flax muffins
• GF chocolate chip cookies
• GF brownies
• apple caramel cookies
• Haroset

Brought by guests

• shells a la putanesca
• cheese
• veggies
• assorted chips and dips

Forgotten in fridge

• creme brule
• 9 egg whites that are probably still there

It was a good few days full of fantastic food and even better people.

Dress everyday like you'd run away with the Doctor in those clothes.

I think I'd end up scaring several aliens with my technicolor skull tights, Zim boatneck sweatshirt, and grey thigh high socks.  The makeup wouldn't be that appealing, either.  I really liked this at home, with the warm bathroom lights, but I kind of feel like Mimi out in public.

First, I went to Ulta yesterday to buy NYX High Definition Eyeshadow Base, thanks to this article with really good comparisons!  It had a thicker texture than the ELF one I'd been using, but went on smoothly enough.  I don't really know yet if it is making any difference, since mineral eye shadows have been staying on me pretty well, even through derby, until I just rub it off my face.

Second: the positive.  I really love how I overlapped the liner and the shadow.  It makes it a bit more dynamic and interesting.

Third:  The negative.  Yeah, the colors are not really my thing.  You'd think Femme Fatale's Sunfire would be EXACTLY what I would want to wear.  Instead, it is salmon.  I don't like salmon.  It isn't pink (which some can be decent) and it isn't orange.  And it didn't have the gold flecks from the picture, either!  Waaaa.  The blue is Riptide.  It was a bit more cobalt in the bag than on the site, but really nice and trippy.  On my face it looks pretty blah and thin.  I even tried layering it a few times to make it more intense!  But it didn't really make a difference.

So yeah.  Learning experience.

I caught the Ipsy bug

From none other than Cephalogal.  Fancy that!  In the past year I have splurged on Smash Cosmetics, Sweet Libertine, and Femme Fatale eye shadows.  I've been reviewing them on Facebook, but I should be collecting them all here in the not too distant future.  Mostly so I can catalogue how the colors look on me.

But for now, My First Ipsy Bag!  It was all pink and shiny.

A gold wristlet.  Whatevs.

Nailtini polish in Champagne.  Exciting.

Star Looks pencil in Amethyst.  I don't know if I'll use it much.

Bombshell lip crayon in Shameless.  It's very moisturizing, I love the texture, and the color is very wearable, but it stinks like rancid sheep.

.em Lash Gallery mascara in Black.  Can't have too many black mascaras.

Pixi Beauty Bronzer in Subtly Suntouched.  I never wear bronzer, but I did find myself wanting some a few months ago to placate my blinding pallor.

BHCosmetics Galaxy Chic baked shadow in Sun.  Right up my alley.

All full size-ish.  I'd say it is definitely worth $10.  Here's the first run through.

 

I'm wearing the eye liner, mascara, lip pencil and bronzer.  The amethyst liner just looks glittery silver on me, which I am perfectly ok with.  I love the featheryness of the mascara!  The lip crayon has a very useable color.  The bronzer (which I swear I piled on!) is invisible.

Pay no attention to my irritated nose.

For eye shadow, I used Femme Fatal's Emerald Dream which is significantly bluer in person.  It's not bad, but I forgot to put on primer and it creased like a mofo.  The glitter pencil also went everywhere within a few hours.

I can't wait until my hair is not Ronald McDonald red so I can try out the Sun shadow.

Autumn in The Valley

I've been a bit sporadic in my updates...  But life has had its changes, and I will probably be getting back on track.  I flew down to Texas in August to empty out my mother's storage unit and drive her truck back to PA to sell.  It was amazing to be able to spend two days with Amalthea and Kakashidactyl, and to meet some of Burn's oldest friends.  And then I got home to a lot of bullshit and debt.  So, in order to get everything back in order, I decided to transfer back to SCAR.

So what am I supposed to do with 15 hours back into my week, no longer stuck in the car commuting 80 miles each way, three times a week?  I was a Phantom in Rocky Horror.

It was a blast!  It was also another three months of no life outside of Derby and rehearsals.  I'm the christmas ham on the left.  

As soon as the mic packs were off, we all ran to get pizza.  OMG, The Arena's pizza is SO GOOD!  Kuges got a whole series of pictures with people stuffing their faces with said delicacy.  It rocked.

So now that I "have time", I plan on updating the last three swaps I was in (Alice In Wonderland, Buffy and ... I could have sworn I'm missing a third one...), finishing all those half socks, and the sweater I started for Burn last winter.  And maybe I might even knit something for myself this year!  You can also expect to see a huge thanksgiving post coming in a few weeks MUAHAHA and a lot of makeup swatches.  Blame it on Cephalogal, who should be scheduling some Crafty Bitches shenanigans already.

[recipe] Brownie Cheesecake Bites

Welp, I made four dozen of these, and they kind of disappeared in one night.  I'm glad I managed to remember to take a picture before we ate the last two!  I made them for Q's birthday and even the non-diety people enjoyed them.  It was such a blast to have Isilzha over and NanoNuki in town again.

BROWNIE BASE

1/2 cup Butter (one stick)

2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate

1 cup almond meal
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch salt
3/4 cup Splenda
2 tbsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Melt butter and chocolate in 30 second microwave bursts, or over a water bath.  Mix in all the powders and vanilla, then the eggs once the butter has cooled down enough to not cook them.  Spoon in to mini cupcake tins and flatten down to fill base.  Bake for 5 minutes at 325F.

CHEESECAKE FILLING

1 lb full fat cream cheese (two standard 8 oz boxes)

1/2 cup Splenda

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp vanilla

2 large eggs

1/4 cup cinnamon (optional)

Beat all together until fluffy and spoon into the prebaked brownie cups.  Bake for 15 minutes at 300F.  Stick in fridge to set, or as long as you can tolerate not burning yourself.

The original recipe from All Day I Dream About Food is written for a 9" buttered springform pan, but cupcakes are always more entertaining ^_^  My other big change was to add the cinnamon.  Of course, this is completely optional, but it made them divine.  And since there is never enough cinnamon for Dan, he made a fantastic sauce to bathe them in.

CINNAMON SAUCE

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 cup Splenda

1 cup cinnamon

Next time I really want to try and make this caramel sauce from Blondie's Paleo and Keto Journey.  I am such a sucker for caramel!

Just keep swimming.

I finally said Fuck It and went to the Natatorium yesterday.  It was soooooo awesommmmmmeeeee!!!! I did 20 laps (1 km) where I alternated 5 crawl with 5 back, and finished in 32 minutes.  I hadn't done laps since 2008!  So I don't really know if it was a good time or not, but I loved every second of it (that I wasn't getting water up my nose).  And then I had regular derby practice, which was started with 40 laps in 6 minutes.  Twice.  I finally got that over all body exhaustion I hadn't gotten at the gym on tuesday.  Unfortunately, I was so hopped up on endorphines that I still couldn't sleep.

But I loved it!  And I'm so glad that I convinced myself to take the plunge (ha, ha) even though I was on a tight schedule due to practice, couldn't find my Speedo and had to wear a VS tankini (which probably slowed me down every time I had to pull it back into place), and was perpetually moist until I woke up this morning.  Love!

Carbs

August has historically been a difficult month for me to do keto for reasons like my birthday and Grange Faire.  On top of that, this year I have Pennsic the first week and a trip to Texas (driving back through Mississippi and Tennessee) the second.  So I decided to take the month off.

Last week, though, I was fantasizing so hard that I chose to start my liberation on the Fourth of July with a funnel cake and caramel apple.  It's been… odd.

I'm not too fond of HFCS, and I've noticed that most artificial sweeteners that aren't Splenda have horrible interactions with glucose and make me feel like there are stones churning in my stomach, so my beverage choices have been severely reduced and I am perpetually thirsty.  Fruit is orgasmic!  I need not say more.

As for exercise, it's a mixed bag.  Skating was peachy keen.  Weight lifting was a curse of the gods!  I lifted less than my max yesterday, didn't feel that typical exhaustion of working to your fullest, and still couldn't squat down to pick up my phone.  I was in bed and mostly asleep for ten hours and still woke up useless (and with dehydrated skin crinkles).  Even walking to my car after work yesterday when my glucose was low (protein shake fail) gave me calve needles.  My joints are ok, but my muscles feel like they have gravel in them.

My ass started high at 160, and in just seven days has made it to 165 -_-  And if the exercise issues weren't enough, I am perpetually hungry.  I mean, I can sit there and eat a pint of beans, be painfully full, and still be "hungry".  I am just never satiated.  And shit keeps getting stuck in my gums and making them swell.

So it's been a mixed bag.  I fucking LOVE eating anything I want again, but I'm paying for it in ways that really suck.  I'm going to give it two months, regardless, but I'll probably start reigning it in more and more if the decline gets any worse.

Orange eyes, take two

After that last failed attempt at getting color on my eyes, I hit the internuts and ordered a bunch of crap from china. And I love it!  The seller was named hittime_hk, but charged under the name Buyincoins, which runs a bunch of chinese ebay sellers.  I got a 168 color eye pallet, 12 nail brushes (which did a fabulous job at lining my eyes), and a 12 piece glitter mineral eyeshadow pot set.

So first I tried out the pots for the play, and they were really nice.  I put a cobalt blue on my lids and purple above the crease, with some ivory highlight.  It was really nice and bright and showed up well for the play.

Today I went all out for work and pulled out the pallet and the brushes.   I used column 7, row 9 wet to line the top of my eyes, 5:1 for the bottom, 6:8 the inner corners, 7:1 dry lids, and 6:9 dry above crease.  The colors pop really nice!

I took the first pictures with my camera and the last with my phone.  You can kind of get the gist.  The best thing, other than them being visible, is that they don't irritate my eyes, so I barely notice I have anything on.

A++, would buy again.

Bigger Blacker Cock

My life normally plays out like a game of Cards Against Humanity.  This weekend I finally had my play, for which I finally made my first puppet, a moose.  It was beyond hell trying to get the antlers to stay in position (yes, I tried multiple kinds of wire.  No, dowels would be too fragile/heavy), so I ended up tacking them to the plack.  Unfortunately, he has now been married to Tooey, and I doubt I'll be getting him back.

I freehanded a pattern and made him mostly out of recycled bottle felt.  The antlers are headliner foam, the eyes were a catnip ball clamshell package.

I miss my moose.

I'm a man and you're a woman, at least last time I checked.

I, Drea, am a shop-a-holic.  I love shopping!  Well, kind of.  I hate the mall, and especially trying things on, so I'll take a quick stroll through, buy a bunch of stuff that looks cool, then return anything that doesn't fit.  I also have tremendous disposal guilt, which causes me to keep things until they ABSOLUTELY HAVE NO LIFE LEFT IN THEM WHATSOEVER.  Like seriously, I don't throw anything even remotely functional away.  I -might- give it away, but only after two years of sitting in a "charity" box without me thinking of it in addition to extreme amounts of guilt from Dan.

This has lead me to accumulate great amounts of tees, shoes and makeup over the past twenty years.  They still fit!  They still work!  Why get rid of them?  I am going out of my way to change this, though.  I donated a lot of old clothing to the play I'm in!  Mostly because one of the characters is a raging nerd that only wants to "sleep and read and bake".

<.<

>.>

<.<

-_-;;

I've also put a moratorium on purchasing shirts and severely decreased my shoe purchases (except for when I find really gaudy heels for $10 (Hey!  They are $10!!!)).  Unfortunately, yarn and nail polish have kind of filled in the gaps.  They're small, cheap and functional, and multiply like rabbits.  And then my friends (see how I'm not naming names?) go out of their way to enable me, and all hell breaks loose.

So, A-Certain-Cephalogal-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named sent me a link to eye shadow tutorials yesterday that are pretty frekin fantastic!  I found this look and spent all night dreaming about it:

Beautiful, no?  So this morning I tried to replicate it:

Yeah...  I mean, it looks nice in person, but my skin has a horrible habit of completely annihilating any color I put on it.  I really loaded it on, and it was bright on my fingers!

I used this old eye shadow pallet from Clairs, Iridescent Red liquid eye liner from Makeup Forever, and Indigo Blue Mega Liner Liquid Eyeliner from Wet 'N' Wild.  Counting down from the left 1-5 and 6-10, I used 6, 7 and 4 in the center front of the eye lid, and 3 and 5 around in the crease.  I lined the top lid with red before and after the shadow, and dotted between the lower lashes with the blue.  Finished up with some black mascara and a bit of 1 illuminating the inner corner and 2 covering bags.

Like I said, it is nice, but I have no clue how to achieve the FUCKING BRIGHT tones of the sample on my skin :/

Sewn Purse

I've been sewing since before I learned to count.  We were so poor when I was little that I had one Barbie and my mother gave me an old blouse and a couple of fabric squares to make clothes for it.  I love sewing!  And yet, I never find time to do it.  It is less time consuming than knitting, but I'm forced to stay in one room for the entirety of the project.  Needless to say, I feel horribly guilty that I don't dedicate nearly enough time to My First Craft, other than the random drawstring bag for a swap here and there.  (In theory, Burn and I will be going to Pennsic this year, so I'll be needing to make a lot of garb in the next few months)

So, I finally did some blog-worthy sewing last night!  Tomorrow we're having an art auction for the musical I'll be in in two weeks (Evil Dead), and I'm making purses.  The first one is supposed to be a chainsaw, but it looks like a lunch sack and I'm not feeling it.  So I made this as a back up: 

I really liked the fabric ($10 remnant - 50%) and I lined it with some brown duck that I had from when I made the sofa cover.  It was exactly the width the pattern requested, and I didn't have to add any interfacing thanks to it being so stiff.

I'm happy with my workmanship, but not so much with the dimensions, since it is supposed to be a wristlet/clutch.  Keeping all the dimensions the same and just halfing the depth of the body should suffice.  I also didn't think to cut the zipper down to size (because I didn't want the pull to fall out) and it creates an odd bulge at the corners, but meh.  Overall, I'm happy at how I mathed the pleats ^_^

I really liked this pattern.  It was a bit confusing to follow (I had to highlight the step I was working on to keep my place), yet still well written.  I'm looking forward to making a rounded hobo bag with a face tonight if I have time after recording. 

[recipe] Cranberry Muffins

I am so mad at Dave right now.  He asked me to make him cranberry muffins for breakfast with this recipe I found.  The bater was orgasmically good and the muffins are just taunting me.  Do I break keto?  Do I give a flying rat's ass?  THEY SMELL SO GOOD INTERROBANG

Also, I'm fat, and I have to be half naked in a play in four weeks...

[recipe] SF Keto Flax Brownies

I've been playing around with this recipe for Miracle Brownies a few times to completely different results.  They are good, and pretty easy to make.

FIRST ITERATION

When reading the recipe, I realized it asked for three full cups of sweetener, one cup liquid, one stick butter, four eggs, and two cups flax meal.  I was horrified by this amount of sweetener, so I only used one cup of erythritol with some baking splenda mixed in.  Dan loved them, but I couldn't get past how sweet they still were, and the texture of the flax meal reminded me a lot of wheat bran or corn hulls.

SECOND ITERATION

Like most weekends, I woke up wanting to bake something at random, and Dan requested flax brownies again.  We were out or low in a few ingredients, so I substituted.  I only used 1/4 C erythritol total, used extra cocoa powder instead of baker's chocolate, and subbed the last half cup of flax meal with a mixture of hemp and coconut flour.  I frekin loved these!  They had the same texture as the carbomb cupcakes I'd made the week before for Isilza, though a bit dry.  I want to make them like this again but add more cream next time.  There was one tray of mini cupcakes (15 minutes) and one of big cupcakes (20 minutes).  Dan found them not sweet enough.

THIRD ITERATION

This morning followed the same procedure.  This time I had all the ingredients, but the stove was in the dishwasher, so I had to add the baker's chocolate shaved instead of melted.  I upped the sweetener to 1/4 C erythritol and 1/4 C baking splenda, which was a good level of sweet.  Again in one tray of minis and one tray of regular cupcakes, but something made them really fluff up!  Dan loved them and deemed them the best batch.  I didn't like them nearly as much as last month's because they had the hully texture again, but it got better after they cooled.  A lot more fluffy like cake than moist and chewy like a brownie.  There's a bit of tinny aftertaste from the sweetener.

MY IDEAL NEXT ITERATION

I want to keep the sweetener from batch 3, but the solids from batch 2.  Maybe do 1.5 parts cocoa powder and 0.5 parts baker's chocolate, and twice as much cream.

Cutting Time

So I tried to do paleo last month and it was a complete failure.  The lines were so blurry that I really can't justify not eating ice cream.  So I basically took the month off and ate anything I wanted.  But now that March has started, I have gone into a cutting phase.  

And let me tell you one thing, it sucks!  But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Dan found this Keto Calculator which helps you know how much you need of what macro nutrient depending on your weight, exercise level, and goals.  This is where I stood March 1st:

32/F/5'10" | CW 162.6 | 22.2% BF | moderate exercise

* 1363 kcal Goal (1362 min, 2374 max)

* 10g Carbohydrates

* 120g Protein (81g min, 158g max)

* 94-206g Fat

I've been trying to get 1400 kcals on days I don't do exercise, with the option to eat a few hundred more when I skate (there's a whole 1000 kcal window).  I weighed in at 158.8 this morning, almost four pounds less than four days ago, but I atribute them to debloating after getting off carbs.

My intention is to follow this through April and the end of the play, then alternating with bulking every six weeks after that.  If I don't finally lose that ponch after this, I will be very, very furious.

Paleo and Lifting Links

See?  Research!


PALEO (kool-aid)

Whole 9 shopping list

Macro Nutrients

Zone Diet (paleo + crossfit)

Another Zone Diet



PALEO (Fuck the kool-aid)

I breathe... I'm hungry

Seven Shades of Paleo



LIFTING

Stronglifts 5x5

judgejudgejudge

Ewwww Goya >.<

Ok.  As far as I understand it, Paleo (in its original incarnation) was all about cutting out processed crap and eating things in their most natural state.  So why on earth do paleoers have such a huge anti-dairy rage boner?  Milk is one of the best things out there!  And I don't just mean because it is delicious, but because it is full of vitamins and fat that our bodys need.  But a lot of paleoers put milk on their Bad List and go out of their way to substitute it by any means possible.

Hey, I love almond milk, trust me.  But it isn't milk!  It can be substituted in some situations to achieve a similar effect, but it will never replace milk.  You can make almond milk by blending blanched almonds 1:3 with water.  Ok, I can put that in the "natural" column; I'm perfectly ok with blanching.  But coconut milk/cream/water?  Guys, when was the last time anything in those cans was ever actually part of a fruit (nut?)?  How much processing had to go into those poor coconuts to create these concoctions?  And how many preservatives had to be added before canning?  How long ago were they canned?  And how far did they have to travel?  See my issues here?

I mean, I'm perfectly ok with the idea of coconut stuffs, and though I haven't tried them yet for this purpose, there's a chance that I'll like them.  But unless you live in Hawaii, where you can make all this from scratch, on what planet is coconut substitutes paleo?

LIFT ALL OF THE THINGS!

During the holidays, which spanned most of halloween through epiphany, I ate everything I could find.  I went down to Mexico and there was no way I wasn't going to fill up on quesadillas, tacos and tamales, or have chocolate at christmas, or wine at new years... yeah.  The weird thing is that I got to the point where I no longer felt going in and out of keto.

Of course, all this food brought along its friends who bullied me into getting serious into exercise.  I started January 9 with the Stronglifts 5x5 program and, while I am still neurotic every day that I am fluffy and keep gaining weight, Dan keeps reminding me that I AM getting much stronger, my form is epically better, and I'm even seeing an improvement in my skating after having taken december off.

When I started with derby 2.5 years ago, I was 185 lbs.  In the first few months of keto I dropped to 165, with an all time low of 145 for a very short time.  I have been stable mostly between 150-155, but went up to 160 while away.  After a few days of strict keto, I got back to the low 150's, but back up to 160 with the month of lifting.

And now I decided to go off keto and have gone up to 165 this wonderful week of Carnaval.  I've been playing with the idea of trying Paleo, but really can't find the logic to it.  The lines are too tenuous and shifting, and Paleo means so many different things to people.  Someone shared this post on the Seven Shades Of Paleo and it started to gel with me.

So, in theory, I plan on trying this Paleo thing (Lent?) but follow the more basal definition of it.  I want to avoid eating (to a certain degree) over-processed foods in favor of more natural foods.  Have I told you how much I had missed fruit?  I have been eating the everloving shit out of it the past week!  And milk.  Damn, did I miss milk.  But yeah, less processed foods.  Steel cut oats instead of rolled oats or other chemically processed cereals.  Milk, fruit, meat, veggies.  

Another thing that I'm having trouble with is completely changing my appetite.  Yes, I'm craving fruit and milk, but I'm also still craving ALL OF THE CHEESE and meat and cream, but now it really disagrees with me, especially if it follows or is combined by some large source of carbs.  This is something I need to work on.  I need to find a balance where I'm not constantly starving or stuck to the toilet.

Now, for something more interesting:  data!

Jan 11 > Feb 12

Squat 5x5 @ 65 lbs > 110

Bench press 5x5 @ 45 lbs > 60

Deadlift 1x5 @ 135 lbs > 175

Barbell Row 5x5 @ 65 lbs > 70

Standing Dumbell Press 5x5 @ 30 lbs > Standing Plate Press 2x5 @ 45 + 3x5 @ 35 lbs

Chest 37" > 38"
Arms 10" > 10.75"
Hips 37.75 > 36"
Waist 33" > 32.5"
Thighs 20" > 20.75"
Calves 14.25" > 15.75"
Forearms 8" > 9"
Shoulders 41" > 42"
Neck 12" > 13.5"

(PS:  I'm on bodybuilding.com and MyFitnessPal for anybody willing to harass me)

[recipe] All-of-the-dairy-in-the-house and Broccoli Soup

1/2 C Grated mozzarella

1/2 C Grated cheddar

1/2 C Grated parmesan

1/2 C Full fat ricotta

1/4 lb Cream Cheese

1/4 lb Butter (1 stick)

1/2 C Heavy cream

1 lt Chicken broth

1 lb Broccoli (frozen works)

1/2 C Bacon crumbles

Blend or process all the cheeses and butter until homogeneous.  Slowly incorporate the heavy cream and then some of the broth.  Transfer to a pot on medium heat and slowly add the rest of the broth until soupy and warm, making sure you stir it so that it doesn't separate.

If necessary, heat up the broccoli in a pan before adding to the soup, along with bacon.  Season to taste with garlic, onion, pepper or chilis.

A dollop of sour cream makes for an awesome garnish.