I miss blogging.

Yup. Every day I see something or think something that makes me go, oh, that should be on my blog! And of course it doesn't get on my blog, because I haven't been blogging. It doesn't help that blogger has been really weird for me the times I've tried to blog either. Heck, I haven't been doing much of ANYTHING as far as the weekdays have been concerned! But now, it's time to try and play a little catch-up. Be prepared for a post of epic proportions! And... it gets even better because now I have this:

(Pardon my grossness. It's Sunday which means no makeup and no dressing up day.)

Yes, I finally got around to buying myself a new digital point and shoot. Say hello to the Canon Powershot SD40 Digital Elph, 7.1 megapixels of adorable pinkness to carry with me wherever I go! Canon changed the memory cards on the point and shoots, so I had to buy a new one. Talk about an upgrade - I went from something like 152 mb to 1 g!!! And did I mention that it's pink? And so is the case? Love.

Now I can do things like this again:

Poor husband!

So, what happens when Miss M gets a job and her body only wants to sleep when it is not at work? Well...

She stops painting her toenails. (GAH!)

She stops scrapbooking.

Heck, she stops pretty much all creative pursuits.

She kinda stops cleaning, actually.

She eats crappy takeout for dinner and puts on all the weight she lost with weight watchers again. You can see that first picture if you want to admire my fat neck. I have a really fat neck.

But then the weekend comes, and she wants to be a part of the world, so rather than catching up with those weekday neglects like toes, cleaning, and cooking, she goes out and:

I helped my friend move. Hard work, but we honestly can have fun no matter what we are doing, physical labor included!

My husband and I went on a tour of historic homes in downtown Phoenix and got a nifty sunburn. Yet another detail observable in that first photograph. It wasn't hot, but there was enough sun for us to get burned, and I rarely get burned! I loved the blue tiles in this pool. They were practically cobalt in real life. The brick deck makes a pretty contrast, but I bet that's hot as heck in August when it's 115 outside!

There were a bunch of cute old cars parked in front of the homes.

I rearranged the furniture. Most of it is like this, but I moved the couch to where the TV is in this picture.

I decides to plant a container garden (inspired by the home tour). In these pots I have herbs, and a strawberry plant (inspired by Susan Keuter's adorable little berries). There are also some marigolds and some other cool looking plant that I forgot the name of that also need pots. I may intersperse the red cool ones in the herbs though. Not sure.



I've had this Aloe Vera for a few years now. I got it for $1.99 in a teeny little plastic pot. This is it's third home so far, which I got for free when my friend moved, and as you can see, it's gotten pretty dang big! Some of the tips froze when it got really cold a few months ago, but other than that, it's doing just fine.

As you can see, pots, plants, and soil have been purchased, but no planting as taken place as of yet. I need some screen (meshy stuff) to cover the holes in the pots first.

We went to the Art Festival in Tempe. Bagpipes are LOUD 3 feet from your head!!!

I've still been making bento lunches, so I have at least two healthy meals (breakfast miso soup with veggies and a bento lunch) everyday to offset (sorta) my crappy dinners.

This one is a couple of Lil' Smokies (so bad, yet so good!) on a bed of plain steamed rice in the bottom tier with steamed broccoli garnished with raw carrot flowers, a hard boiled egg (shoulda garnished that somehow!) molded into a heart, some curry croquettes (yummy new discovery from the freezer section of my local Asian market) in the top tier and a little side dish with a couple gyoza (potstickers) on a bed of lettuce.




This picture shows how the tiers stack. The pink one is my lunch and the red one is my husband's. I made a sushi style lunch. There isn't any vinegar in the rice, so it's not real sushi. The bottom tier has three small rice balls filled with chicken in a soy/ginger sauce and wrapped with nori (seaweed) sitting in a bed of edamame garnished with raw carrot flowers. I looooove my raw carrot flowers, as they are great for adding a pop of color.

The top tier has a couple more of those rice balls, stood on end, with little faces made from scraps of nori. There are also some plain rice balls topped nigiri-style with tamagoyaki, which is a japanese omelet, also called a japanese egg roll. It's kinda weird at first, because it's sweet, but on rice, it's very good. I also tossed in two lil' smokies and some japanese gummy candies. There are two little plastic piggies filled with soy sauce filling in the last gaps. This was a very filling lunch!

Here are both of our boxes again. The bottom layer has plain steamed rice topped with furikake. It's a rice seasoning that comes in a lot of different flavors. You can sprinkle it over the rice, or mix it in, or coat rice balls with it. Good stuff. This flavor is called Yasai Fumi I think.


The top tier has 2 gyoza, a sauce pig, edamame garnished with raw carrot flowers in a silicone cupcake liner (LOVE those things for bento!) and a grilled turkey burger. I cut mine into flower shapes, but that was really hard, and kinda girly, so I just cut my husband's into wedges.


Like I said before, it's kinda like scrapbooking with food. You want to make sure it's visually appealing, and that you have plenty of contrast in your colors. This is a tricky way of getting veggies in there! Also, it's really good for portion control. You just have little bits of several things which seems to be way more satisfying than say, one sandwich and some cheetos or a Lean Cuisine.


I am loving work still, which is a good thing. Can you believe I've been there four weeks already??? It went by so fast! They feed you at every turn though. For instance, last week one of the women came by with a giant (I'm talking at least a foot and a half across) bowl of bacon. "Would you like some bacon?" she asks. Seriously, I have never worked somewhere where someone passed around a bowl of bacon. I had three pieces.


After I was done with those, another guy came with an identical bowl filled with mini cartons of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Had one of those too. People have delivered cookies to the office, they have parties with fantastic deserts (brownie bottomed ice cream cake made with Cherry Garcia anyone?), employee appreciation lunches with steak and shrimp as big as your fist, among other things, and all for FREE. Free lunch, free fountain drinks, free snacks... it's insane the amount of food in this place. Even if there isn't any food around, it still smells like food all the time, because the restaurant and the kitchen are just across the lobby from me. It's torture!

Well, that's about it for now. I've sent the husband off on some errands and I'm gonna pretend to straighten up around here and maybe tonight I'll precook some bento stuff for the week. I am going to try and post more often, but until I get the hang of my schedule, it's a toss up as to when I'll be on. I haven't even checked myspace in like a week now! The horrors! I leave you with a parting photo of my three favorite grubby couch potatoes: