Homemade Cheeseburger & Fries Halloween Costume

Hello Blog!!

I made my first Halloween costume all by myself. 

With a little inspiration from Google. 

I made a cheeseburger shirt. 

First. I went to target. I got black leggings, tan tank top and a tan jacket (so that the coat doesn't spoil the outfit). So far $30 spent. But the jacket and leggings are reusable so only $9 sunk.

Second. I went to hobby lobby, super cool store, and bought various cheeseburger esq felt and fleece pieces. And lots of glue. Next time i'll buy more glue. you can never have enough glue. Actually next time ill have a sewing machine and ill make it better. So this cost about $20 (cause of all the glue and pins). 

This is basically a $30 costume. :-) 

 The adventure begins. So I cut out the burger part. Then the onion and the cheese. 

 I tried to get fancy with the lettuce. I got this stuff to make a the edges stiffer and glued it all wiggly. 

 Then we got tomatoes.

 I ended up cutting bits out of the lettuce to make it more real looking. I glue and pined it down.

Then Alex decided to be french fries. So the next day I made him a costume. Yellow strips, bottom part of a red shirt glued to a white shirt with a brown strip to make the edge look clean. 

 Then I got creative. I wanted a hat. I didn't want to be cold. So I thought sometimes burgers have a toothpick in them with an olive on top. I wanted to make an olive hat. So I made a hat out of the leftover fleece. Hand sewed it together. I studied a base ball hat to make the top. Then ta-da...HAT.

 Then I made this wad of stuff, so the red part on the olive would stick out. 

Then i tacked it onto the top of the hat. 

  TA DA!! Olive Hat. 

 Presenting the Costumes. Alex thought the back looked more fries like. This violates my rule of no picture of me on my blog, but I thought you needed to see the final product. Cheeseburger!

 Suggested variations: Burger and a milkshake...you could make a cute straw hat. Then the olive hat could be used on a martini costume. Then you could do no hat, and wear a flower necklace and shades and flops and call yourself a cheeseburger in paradise. 

Thanks for reading

Ktbug

Fall Harvest Soup

Hello Blog
   Today I made soup. Fall Harvest Soup. It has acorn squash, sweet potatoes, apples and to be honest i just now realized I forgot to add the pumpkin. Lol. So for the record the soup is good without the pumpkin...or the cream cause i forgot that too. It has the consistency of smashed potatoes. This soup came from a recipe from tasty kitchen.

 The above are outside and insides of an acorn squash. It has a pretty plain squashy flavor.










Then you roast them. Then you put them in a bowl.

Then you start making what smells like an apply pie. You mix up apples and cinnamon and brown sugar.




 Then you add the roasted veggies.

You let it simmer

Then you blend it up

Then viola soup. Its pretty good. I guess ill have to make it again with the cream and the pumpkin and see whats different.

Today I did kickboxing (Kenpo P90X) video. I still feel fat but oh well. Boomer stared at me like I was crazy while kicking and punching the air.

Well time for real work. I need to not be in school anymore.

Thanks for reading
Ktbug

Hello Blog

     Its been a while. Over a month. Im sorry. My life has been busy. But you don't need excuses. No one likes excuses. But we always have excuses. No one plans to miss a deadline at work. No one plans to get stuck in traffic. No one plans to study really hard for a test and then run out of time and fail it. These things are not planned, accidental, and no one cares.

    I have learned a lot of things in my few weeks as a "real person" in the working world. Never give excuses for anything, always answers and solutions. Always plan extra time, nothing goes as planned. A smile goes a long way but knowing what your talking about is better. Never contact anyone above your pay grade without making sure they are the right person to contact. Don't let your emotions get the best of you. Also, if you mess up at work and you get caught, you will have to bring in donuts.

     On the lighter side. Now that I finally have my apartment setup I have been able to start cooking again. I tried my hand at a chicken pot pie from a blog i love, For the Love of Cooking. 

     Chicken pot pie is so easy to make when you buy a precooked chicken. Rotisserie chickens are my new favorite thing. As you can see the recipe makes a lot and I had to throw out about 1/3rd. Which my dog promptly tore about my trash can while I was away to eat it. He ate a whole brick of $8 cheese the week before that. Trouble maker he is. I love him most of the time, but certainly not all of the time. He presents such a problem most of the time. Though last weekend I was able to bring him to a tailgate party. 

    I think he had a good time. :-) 

Finally the urge struck to knit after a few months hiatus. A guy a work just had a baby and she was premarture, and has to be in the hospital for 8 weeks. I remembered that I had a preemie pattern. Since I am not in the part of my life were i know little tiny babies and I knew this hate would take practically no time at all. So I leave you readers with the tiniest hat ever. 

Thanks for reading

Ktbug

Annoyed

Nothing is more frustrating then getting inspired to blog. Writing half the post. Deciding to upload some pictures. The web browser freezes. Restarts. And did not save you progress. I am to annoyed to continue right now so I will leave you with this.

Tiny Paper Crane on top of waterbottle

Best Cheesecake in the whole world...with pineapple on it

Its the little things

Hello All,

  I am writing from a different place now. I am currently in Jersey City, NJ for training with my first job. This past weekend was a whirlwind of activities. First and foremost. Moving from my college 3 bedroom apartment to my "Adult" 1 bedroom apartment. Below is the picture of my Uhaul to help me do the job. Once I get it all set up ill show you the place.

    This is times square. Thats right. I am basically in new york city for the duration of this training. As my boyfriend once put it, NY City is like the center of the world, so I get to live in the center of the world. And thats pretty cool.

   I feel a little unrest being away from work. Since my job is not to be in training. But I am doing my best to be HERE while I am here and make the most of it. Last night I enjoyed some NY style pizza with my new work friends. And bought and I <3 NY sweatshirt. When in rome...after all.

  As a part of the training we got to take the Myers Briggs assessment. This is what I got. ISTJ. This means I am an introvert (not extrovert), Sensing (not Intuition), Thinking (not feeling), and Judging (not perceiving). See the link for the descriptions. I think this is pretty telling. But not completely. For example I like my life orderly and planned, but I tend to have a messy bedroom and desk. Its fun learning more about yourself.

And to round out my work day I got to come home to this beauty. A mini fridge. This will be great for leftovers and allow to eat cheaper lunches. There are no words for how pumped I am since not everyone in the hotel has one and I got my resquest in time to get one.

Its the little things.

Thanks for reading
Ktbug

The Help

There are a lot of things between my ears these days. Most of it is hard to articulate. I just have a lot of things to do this week. A lot of things have changed. Everything is very real now. So what does a girl do. Spend a little sign on bonus on a nook and bury my thoughts in a great novel. Highly recommend the nook btw. 

You gotta read this book, THE HELP, it was fantastic.I crossed the point of no return yesterday and could not put it down till i finished the remaining 150 pages. It took me 4 hours and kept me up way past my bedtime. I highly recommend.

The feeling you get after finish a good book is unparalleled. Its like the world is a little brighter. You feel happy. At peace. Better than the feeling of eating a great piece of cake, because there is no remorse. Better than payday. Its just so warming and maybe why its so great is because its so temporary.

Needless to say I woke this morning late and very tired. The feeling quickly wore off as I set off for my third day or work. So far so good. I super nervous I will fail tragically or even minor-ly because either way the criticism will upset me a great deal. I want to be great. I want to live up to the recommendations. But I have so much to learn its overwhelming.
...
...

I know I know. One day at time. Ill be fine. Im being irrational.
...

Now that you got that out of your system lets talk about something else. I am moving soon. Changing apartments. My first post college place all by myself. I have to do this super independently. No parents to help me. I had to rent a uhaul. I have to bribe friends to help. I packed up my kitchen today so needless to say I have nothing yummy to show you. I'll show you a cute picture of my puppy though.

This is boomy. This is his sitting spot at my parents house. Its the only shady part in his part of the yard. The song "in the jungle.. the mighty jungle.. the lion sleeps to night..." comes to mind while I look at this picture. He is a sweetie. I miss him and his strangeness. He is quite a quirky dog.

Well I wanted to put in an update while I still had time. I am moving and traveling in the near future and may be out of touch with my blog. But don't worry ill check in.

Thanks for reading
Ktbug

My Moms Zucchini Bread

My mom's zucchini bread is the best zucchini bread in the whole world. It makes me feel good. I have been hanging around my parents house while they are away in Canada often this summer and I find myself trying to fill it with the things I remember. The things this house in the summer should have. Like grapes in the super cool grape dish my mom has. Cherries, with the pits. I missed out on green beans from the garden, since there was no garden this summer. It occurred to me as my free time was about to come to an end that I have been missing the zucchini bread. That was the icing on the proverbial cake that my summer was sorely lacking. So I made it.

I hate baking. I am not good at it. Baking is a science. Ironically I am not good at science. Thus I am not good at baking. But alas. In order to get the zucchini bread that I so desired I had to bake. The only major mistake I made was the distinction between baking soda and baking powder. It came out ok though.

I have a feeling these won't last very long. 

On the regular cooking front I have made a few dishes. First Caesar Spaghetti from Rachel Ray. This is the first recipe in the book and is quite peculiar. I had to buy anchovy fillets. This is the first thing I have been unable to touch. They cook nice though, literally dissolve into the hot oil. The dish was alright. I think I used to many noodles which diluted the flavor.

The next delicacy involved a rotisserie chicken and came from a magazine. Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches. It was fantastic. I don't even like chicken wings that much (too messy) and this was great. Simply shred a then chicken. Stir in a skillet with 2 tbs butter and 1/2 cup sauce (I just poured till it looked right). I served it with broccoli salad (bacon, cheddar, broccoli, red onion, sauce: Mayo, Red Wine Vinegar, Sugar) and carrot/celery sticks. Nom Nom. 

Finally in honor of my boyfriends birthday I made him cupcakes. He likes blueberries so i put them onto and put one in half of the cupcakes. Now its a surprise if you'll get one with it or not. 

Birthday Cupcakes

So soon I will be leaving the comfort of my home and moving back to my apartment. Where both my roommates have already left. Nothing left but my stuff. I start my job on Friday. Scary. So many emotions associated with this I can't even articulate it. It seems the biggest issue is being able to successfully do what I (think I) need to do to be impressive without letting my own self conscious fears get in the way. But I have all week to mull that over. Not to mention figuring out what to wear, ;-). Enough about that. 

My cooking attempt for the weekend was a Venison Backstrap. I don't practice cooking on fancy red meat often so I was nervous. My boyfriend was deeply distracted by his to do list for the week to help me (or rather I was afraid to ask for help). But either way it turned out great!

The meat is marinaded in Soy Sauce, Whiskey(or Bourbon), Brown Sugar and Garlic. Then broil it. The sauce consists of butter, onion, whiskey, more butter, cream. Its yummy, but with those ingredients how could it not be. For a side dish I improvised. Zucchini (left over from the bread), a squash, onion sauteed with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Then mixed with couscous and sprinkled with goat cheese. YUMMY! I impressed myself with that one.

Nom Nom. Even Boomy was interested.

Well my culinary practice is about to end with my summer. But ill keep you posted on other happenings. 

Thanks for reading

Ktbug