Baby x AatP x Kuragehime

OMG
Dying a little bit right now. Baby and AatP is doing a collab with Kuragehime, currently on reserve: heeeere(how did I miss this??)

100 Follower Giveaway!

Pretty self explanatory! I just wanted to do a small giveaway to show my appreciation for everyone out there reading this blog of bits and bobs. So, the rules:

1. 1 point for leaving a comment with an email address to contact you if you're the winner
2. 1 point for leaving a link to a post on your blog with a link to this giveaway
3. Deadline is 12.2 11:59 PM. The winner will be announced on friday.

* a 'point' is just having a chance, so more points, more chances. Pretty standard set up.

The prize- These adorable letter sets. The kitty one has a ton of stickers and a variety of stationary. I bought them at the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Manhatten over Thanksgiving break!




Have fun~!

Flawless and the Machine

Music post! Music post, because I'm exhausted from driving back from West Virginia (but it was mostly downhill, no police, and a nice day) and was rewarded by my deluxe 2 disc edition of "Between Two Lungs" by Florence and the Machine, who coincidentally were on SNL last night. Seriously, she is one of my favorite vocalists, I love everything on this album. It also came with post cards because I preordered!



I put them up decoratively. I really, really like the style of her music, someone once describe it as "Benedictine monks falling down an elevator shaft" but it's much more beautiful too. Her lyrics are also very twisted and dark, but still shining and moving at the same time.

It's so inspirational too, for me. I find myself thinking back to her songs or just listening to them when I write, do work, walk around, etc.

Exceedingly Interesting

So I've had a very interesting past 36 hours or so. I spent about 26 hours of it in the hospital, completing a PCOS research study. Basically they drew a lot of blood and nothing is wrong with me. They did feed me exceedingly well, which I appreciated. And took quick snaps of. No one really expects hospital food to be really good, huh? Well, I didn't have any special dietary restrictions (besides my allergies) so I think it was a bit out of the norm.



T-T What wasn't cool was forgetting my cosmetic bag at the hospital and having to go back there this morning to fetch it, derp.

Maybe after my second admission, I'll do a write up about the study itself. It's pretty interesting, but that just might be because I'm a bio major.

Mini Burger Patties

When its my turn to cook, I usually make one of two things: korean food, or mini meatball patties. Usually meatball night is sunday night, like today. And the recipe always comes out a little different depending whats on hand. Usually it's a pretty standard mix conceptually:

1) Something to act as bread crumbs. Because Julian is allergic to gluten, its usually crushed rice chex or rice crackers
2) Meat base- at least one part ground beef, I've used ground chicken, turkey, and pork before.
3) Vegetable mix: I sautee chopped onions, and add spring onion if I have it on hand
4) Misc: salt, pepper, a couple eggs for moisture.

I form them into mini patties and just pan fry them. I've gotten a positive response every time. I also prepare a DIY A1 sauce: ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, a dash of soy sauce mixed together.

So, how much work did I get done?

[x] Draft of Lit paper (4/5 pages)
[x] Draft of Story for CW (7/10 pages)
[x] All my japanese homework (just studying left to do)
[ ] read chapter 11 of genetics and do wednesday's homework (Ffffff)

~3/4 isn't bad. That's like 75% of projected goals.

I have had much less productive weekends than this one. Hope everyone has a good coming week

Siren's Call

My resident cook (talented housemate) is gone this weekend, so I had to bear the culinary torch. The result? Savory Duk Buk Ki, korean street fare, essentially. Stir fry of soft rice cake (Duk) and oyster mushrooms, onions, carrots, and green onions with a sesame oil / soy sauce / sugar base. Oh and beef. I'm pretty glad the beef turned out well because it was a pot roast cut I had to butcher some extra. But everyone enjoyed it, so I consider it a success! ... One of the very few I've had this week.

I had a pretty rough week between a lot of personal and school issues. And I get to close my friday with a campus wide siren test that has been going on since 9am. Intermittently the sirens would go off and then stop, with a recorded voice repeating "This was test of the blah blah alarm system". While I appreciate my school's attention to safety, its given me this huge headache.

I'm determined to have a really productive weekend. Here's what I'd like to get done by 11:59 Sunday night. I'll update it then to see where I got.

[ ] Draft of Lit paper (5 pages)
[ ] Draft of Story for CW (10 pages)
[ ] All my japanese homework (???)
[ ] read chapter 11 of genetics and do wednesday's homework

... that's just an academic to do list, I have a pile of stuff to do around the apartment. Plus my resident chef is away this weekend so the boys will have to suffer my cooking. That will be an interesting post, I bet.

Coming up next

Teenage girl spotted running down to bus stop with toast in her mouth, news at 11.

For almost my entire life I managed to eat breakfast before I left the house. All the times I've seen some character run late, go out the door with bread clamped between their teeth, I thought, "Hey if they just got up earlier they would be able to eat at home. Plus you get crumbs all over yourself" and happily tucked in to breakfast.

Well, today with 3 minutes till the bus arrived and my breakfast sitting on a plate, I bit the bullet (or bread...) and rushed out, probably looking like a complete fool. But at least I got breakfast, right?

It gets better- bus pulls up, I've got a quarter bit of bread left, sit down feeling pleased, if not a little self conscious and I heard the dreaded words-

'We've got 6 minutes here'

...

MLIAAA (my life is average/anime/awesome)

Bonus Round



I posted these to my tumblr the other day for funsies, I was just messing around with my hair and stuff. I love that over head braid style, and now my real hair is -finally- long enough to pull it off. The dress is Mary Magdalene (I swear, if I could marry a brand I'd be down on one knee as we speak) and the tights are 'sweater tights' from target... it's getting chilly guys and none of my housemates apparently need heat.

Not What It Looks Like

Sweet sticky rice + Fresh ripe mango + Coconut milk topping=♥ I usually get this for dessert every time I go to a thai place (that has it, obviously). I tried making it for myself this time, and while it did not turn out as good, I got the general idea.

Sorry I post so much about food guys. Looking at my tags and stuff, it's about half lolita/clothing and food/baking. It's just so much fun to take pictures of both, so I hope you don't mind.

Midnight Snack

Studying always makes me hungry. Pancake from box mix is usually the quick and easy fix, plus extra nutella. Seriously, it's one of the greatest condiments known to man (second to peanut butter).

Also, sort of messing around with food photography/pornography, some photoshop was involved... but doesn't it look appetizing?
What's your favorite condiment?

Off Brand Wishlist

It's getting cold and so longer JSK styles are appealing to me more. Especially these gorgeous pieces from the taobao shop R-Series. As they cost about 700 RMB, which is about 110 USD, they aren't cheap. Largely what I've found in buying offbrand lolita, especially from taobao, is that you get what you pay for, but up to a certain threshold (the threshold being the total price versus it's quality) and then past that threshold would be paying essentially for a brand name. Take the SS AP shoes for example. Cheaper tea parties probably have worse quality than the more expensive replicas that are essentially the same AP shoes. But the real AP shoes are obviously way more expensive. I find the same rule applies to a lot of offbrand dresses and blouses.



So I'm far from put off by the price tag. After all, 110USD (before shipping, SS fees) is a little less than half the price for a brand (non print) JSK.


This new floral one went up recently I believe (since I've been stalking their store all month) and I'm really digging both colorways. But I might go for the yellow in the end because I already have too much red tones in my wardrobe, haha.

Not to mention once December rolls around the the holidays start, a lot of shopping services get really tied up and there are delays everywhere. If I need something custom made, I don't want to get my winter style items in early March (though I don't think it's that extreme... probably).

What should I doooooo

tl;dr dresses, man. Dresses.

Another day, another market

Went to the farmer's market, now it opens at 8 instead of 6 and runs till 2. I still got up at the same time to go anyway. I went with a pretty laid back classic coord, between the knit tights, bloomers, petti, skirt, and coat, I stayed very warm.

My hat! I love it so much.


My main haul was bread, a loaf of farmhouse milk bread and french bread (which I froze for later this week) and a new jar of jam. It's "strawberry chocolate mint" and... that's exactly what it tastes like. Amazing. They also had strawberry and thai basil jam.



I also finally caved and got a ring from that jewelry table I adore. Only 5$ and the color matched Mary Magdalene's "Raspberry" colorway so perfectly. I really love wearing rings.

So that's how I spent my last 19$, go me~

OTL now, back to studying....

Feels good man

I don't really like the extreme cold, but I like winter because I can dress up like this (ie, layers of knits, dark colors, sweaters galore). I stocked up on some knit tights over the summer in preparation, haha. However, in the summer I only wear light colors, but now with my darker colors I have to do separate loads of laundry, which at my apartment complex doubles the cost each week. Alas.

Today I spent 3 hours after classes ended today just cleaning: bathrooms, vacuuming, laundry, cleaning every surface of my room, organizing. It's because when I have a big exam and I'm stressed (like now) I need to procrastinate, and when my google reader feed is empty the only thing left to do is CLEAN like a maniac, haha. But my organized environment is a lot more conducive to studying, I think, so everyone wins!

What do you do to procrastinate (maybe in chronological order?), before you actually get down to work?

Stick it

Today's needle count: 2, which is 2 more than any normal given day really. It was just coincidence I went in for my second blood draw this morning, and then got my flu shot after class. Yayyy no flu (hopefully). I know for some people they actually get sick after getting the vaccine, but since that's never happened to me, it can't hurt. I'm also not freaked out by needles. Some people are, my sister bawls, but I'm pretty meh about it. But I'm not ecstatic over having to get poked either.

How do you feel about needles (getting stuck with one)?

Feels bad man

Pic unrelated, I just love Mary Magdalene dresses and everyone else should too.

Today I go into target and remember I have a 10$ gift card and then hunt futilely through my bag for it and realize it's not where it should be. Then I go home and look for it (after getting my plastic mat anyway) and it's nowhere to be found! What a tragedy right?

What's an item you've lost, but never noticed until you needed it?

I'm still hoping in vain that some day it'll come back to me. But I might have just lost it at the drug store when I dropped my card case once and EVERYTHING spilled out and aughhhh

Happy hump day.

Cute Animal Objects

In the spirit of winterizing my room, I picked up a humidifier because it gets really dry :( It's also shaped like a super cute frog. Also I think the high today was 46F... the lowest of the season, yay! There's hope for snow yet.

As just an add on for a lolita related topic, I almost or never wear a petticoat with my lolita skirts when I wear them for classes or school, out of practicality. A lot of the seats in the auditorium or classroom are pretty small and increasing my volume will just get in the way of me and other people. While its an acceptable excuse, I still feel kind of ehhh. I love getting wear out of my skirts, but the poof man. The poof.

Last week of Dahlias

The dahlia seller at the farmer's market is done for the year, so this is my last dahlia for the next months. Sorry the picture is absolute crap ;-; I picked it because the colors (and the shape) reminded me of Estelle from Tales of Vesperia- the game I recently finished playing and had a lot of fun with XD Yay for nerdy inspirations