This was my very silly brunch on sunday. I had some leftover boiled potatos, and I thought it would be fun to make hash browns, which I've never done before. They were good! I'm trying to eat more potatos. For some reason I never made them until the past year or so. They seemed too complicated to make. But they really aren't, they're pretty easy. I was just used to actually *baking* potatos, and that takes a year and a day. I just don't generally have that sort of time for cooking dinner by the time I get home from work. Plus my oven is sort of an unused item in the house. But microwaving them is ok. I just always feel somehow guilty over running the microwave for 8-10 minutes. I'm not sure why. I think I am just suspicious of microwaves in general. I think it doesn't help that my roommate's microwave has been know to have these great big arcing sparks inside. I *think* this is because my roommate put the rotating tray in upside down. I flipped it over and haven't seen sparks since, but it freaks me out! Esp. since I had a *previous* roommate's microwave short circuit and catch on fire while I was using it. (You can, perhaps, understand why I am suspicious of microwaves?)
So that leaves boiling. For some reason I never liked the idea of boiled potatos. Seems so bland and mushy. And I think I thought that took forever too. But it's really faster than baking them, and I can avoid the hated microwave. So I'm trying to remember it as an option more...
I'm sure that mashing them and frying them up is not the healthiest, but I'm telling myself it's not so bad. I didn't add anything to them, it's literally just the potato and then some olive oil and salt. Maybe that's better than butter? It's confusing to be healthy.
I've rambled on quite a bit here, so I'll stop. I have to confess that the heart shape was sort of an accident. As I was cooking, I noticed it looked like a heart. So I really couldn't resist helping that along. It was kind of nice to have such a cute looking breakfast!
Here's another shot of just the food:
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday Brunch
Owl Banks
I was doing fairly well with the blogging for a few minutes there, so let's see if I can catch up again! (this particular entry is a little bit repetitive to what I said on flickr, but deal with it. I don't expect I have a huge readership anyway... :P)
I'm quite pleased to have been able to score these banks. (and yes, apparently banks have some how become a theme) I was eyeing these for the past several months at Urban Outfitters, but they were $10 each. I wasn't willing to pay that. I checked their bargain area on a whim yesterday and found them for $2 each! Hooray! They also have them in yellow and pastel purple. I was tempted to buy all 5 colors, but I don't have room for all that stuff. Even 3 is ridiculous, but they're so cute!
I was esp. interested in these because the pink one matched my ridiculous pink owl figurine:
I used to collect miniature ceramic animals as a kid. Whenever I went anywhere - for a school trip or whatever - I'd buy an animal or two. They still sell them, but I'm not sure if they were more trendy when I was younger or what. (I haven't been to any zoos or nature centers or school tripish place gift shops lately) I think my mom got me into buying them, she'd get me some sometimes too. I really loved them! I think I've always liked miniature things (I like to claim this is because I am near-sighted. I gotta get close to everything anyway, so somehow hunching over tiny things makes sense... XD). The dolls are totally new tho, I always preferred animals as a kid.
The pink owl was like the ugly duckling of my collection tho. Unfortunately I cannot remember where it came from, if it was a gift from a relative, or something I got for free, or if I actually bought it. I think probably I didn't buy it, because I remember not liking it much. It's plastic, whereas all my "good" animals were ceramic, and it's so odd looking. But I wanted my collection to be as big as possible, so I hung onto it. Now it's probably one of my favorite ones! It's so weird, how can I not love it? I wish I knew something about where it came from, I'd love to know something about it!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Country Living
Although I don't expect this to be one of my more popular photos, I'm really happy with the way it turned out! I like the cute old-fashioned country look to it. I'm also kind of pleased with the lighting, even if it is not perfect. I was trying to find a way to get rid of the shadows, but I kind of like the uneven lighting I ended up with here.
The hat is for a Madame Alexander doll, so it won't really fit any of my current dolls, but I've found with miniatures and doll clothes that I just never really know what I will be able to find a use for. This is nice, because nothing goes to waste, but also bad, because it encourages me to keep all the random stuff I acquire instead of tossing it out... ^^;
I got the hat at Toy Fair, they were making them onsight as little gifts for attendees. It was amazing to watch them get made. They were using this really old looking industrial sewing machine (I am not sure if it was an actual antique or not, but it certainly looked like one!) and the hats were made so fast! They could churn one out in less than 10 seconds! Which impressed me, because the guy was just sewing together a single strip and then cutting it off when it was done. Here is a photo of the machine at work:
That pink stuff in the background is what became the hat. So the circular hat shape was pretty much done 'freehand', and without any stopping to think. I was impressed!!
The other item in my photo is a pot of cute little clay flowers. They were selling them at CVS. They were little Valentine's Day decorations. There used to be a little sign in it that held a card saying "Be Mine" or something. I'm not sure what this was good for as a valentine's gift (maybe leave it on someone's desk as a surprise?), but it's really cute as a dollhouse accessory!! They were half-off, so I bought three - this one and two that match. I thought the matching ones would be good for the front of my store dollhouse, if I ever get that stupid project off the ground. This nonmatching one... well, I shouldn't've have bought it, but the pink was too cute! The others are orange-ish pots with white roses. I would've bought 2 matching pink ones and been done with it, but they only had one pink. I guess the orange will look more like what you'd put in front of a store anyway...
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Pinkys in Totoroland
Let's see how long I can stick to my "one post per day, or close to it" plan. This is an old photo too, but one I meant to post here for sure. I got this supercute bank at a new store called Kofuku in Harvard Square. It is located near the Garage Mall, where Planet Aid used to be, if you are familiar with the area at all. It's sort of underneath radio shack and that random vitamin store. It's an odd little store in that you can't really see it from street level, so it's easy to overlook. And rather than using the whole space that Planet Aid did, it actually uses only 1/3 of it. Which is strange, because it is already a small store to begin with! It shares space with a micro-sized boutique clothing store (expensive!) and a small travel agency. I know rent in Harvard is probably insanely expensive, but the teeny tiny store strategy is interesting anyway. It's like the same trend as cramming 4 people into a 3-bedroom apartment by making the dining room into a bedroom. Yeah, it doesn't have a closet... or doors... but, you know, you can sleep there so it's a bedroom. Gotta love Boston.
I hope that the splitting the rent strategy helps them out tho, because they have some cute stuff in there. They seem to be doing the imported little gifty items, but much cheaper than I usually see them. This bank probably would normally cost $30, but it was only half that! Plus they threw in a cool reuseable tote bag and a free gift (which was a wallet). If you are around the area, you should go look for the store! They also had things like Studio Ghibli playing cards, Hello Kitty cell phone charms, a display case for mini figures (capsule toy/gashapon size figures), random toothbrush holders, towels folded to look like cakes, that sort of thing. Similar to a place like Black Ink (also in Harvard Sq.), actually, but cheaper.
Black Ink itself used to be a bit more like Kofuku, back before it moved. It used to be out closer to Inman Sq. It used to share space with the Museum of Useful Things. I think both those stores were more fun in the more obscure location, but it's probably easier for them to be somewhere more populated (unless the rent is killing them. Black Ink always looks busy, but I worry about Museum of Useful Things...)
I bought this bank because I wanted a bank (I usually throw all my change in a bowl, which is ugly), but I can't seem to bear to use it now. Money is dirty! I don't want to get my cute bank dirty! XD
Looks adorable tho just hanging out in my room, so it's ok. ~.^
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Now with more blogging! (I hope)
So, I have these periodic resolutions to blog more, and what usually happens is I start a new web page, add a few entries, and then lost track of it, because I am a terrible blogger. I am currently experiencing another wave of "I really should blog more!" energy, and I am therefore tempted to start another page, but I think I will conserve (virtual) resources and NOT start another page this time, I'll just hijack this one. So, alas for the Pinkys, I'll just start adding some non-Pinky things in here, but keep it toy-related. Flickr has already been serving as an unofficial toy blog for me anyway, so let's see if I can add anything here, or if it will just be boring duplication of effort and I'll give up immediately. XD
Today's picture is a few weeks old. It's of Charmmy Kitty's younger sister, Honeycute. For those of you not in the know, Charmmy Kitty is a Sanrio character. She is Hello Kitty's pet cat, given to HK by her dad. I think it is disturbing for a cat to have a pet cat, but I also don't care - I cannot deny the power of cuteness, and Charmmy is *adorable*. Charmmy likes shiney and sparkly things as well, so apparently we are soulmates anyway. Ha! :P
The Honeycute figure in this picture is a cell phone charm, so she is tiny. She's actually the size to be a Pinky pet. (I unscrewed the part that holds the strap to attach it to the phone, so she doesn't have a wire apparatus stuck in her head) She's sitting with some re-ment flowers on the lid of a Paperchase box. The background is scrapbooking paper.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Frog Princess
I'm just going to hijack my Pinky page briefly, because I need somewhere to host this...
This is Aramina's background story...
Aramina is a headstrong girl with a bit of an anger management problem. Her parents were always trying to make her into a "proper" young lady, but it just didn't work well. She couldn't sit still, she didn't want to eat daintily and with her pinky pointed outward while drinking tea, and she hated dancing. As often as she could, she ran away from her tutors and went outside where she would spend hours tramping around in the forest and swamp nearby. It was modern times, for heaven’s sake! Girls shouldn’t have to wear pinafores!
One day, while trying to escape from her hated piano lessons, Aramina was hunting thru her parents room looking for a decent toy. She couldn't find anything suitable, but she did find her mom's golden ball, where it sat in a place of honor on the dresser. Although gold isn't too helpful for playing sports, Aramina decided to "borrow" it temporarily and at least go play catch. Sadly she would have to play catch with *herself*, because there was noone near her age around, but anything is better than nothing. Unfortunately, throwing a ball into the air and catching it can be amusing for only so long, and so she stuffed it into her pocket and went back to her favorite project - making a map of the forest and swamp.
As she was stomping around the outskirts of the swamp, she heard someone calling her! She thought it was her piano teacher at first, because of the hoarse voice (that old man had such a scratchy voice...) but when she looked all around, it was coming from a frog! After she recovered from the shock, she and the frog had quite a pleasant conversation - of course the frog was very helpful about filling in some of the holes in her map. No one knew the swamp better than the frog! Aramina was feeling quite pleased with the frog, when he suddenly asked for a kiss! Now Aramina might be a tomboy, but she had her standards! Kissing was gross! And kissing a frog was worse. He was getting quite pushy, so Aramina scrambled back and looked for something to throw... Of course she found only the gold ball in her pocket. Without thinking (because that's what happens when you have a bad temper) Ara chucked the ball at the frog. Unfortunately the frog ducked, and the ball went splashing into the water!! Aramina suddenly realized what she had done and was horrified. Her mom would be so upset!
Sensing an opportunity, the frog offered to get the ball back for her - for a price. Aramina flat out refused to kiss him, of course, but said she would agree to take him home with her and be his friend. He seemed pleasant enough, except for the kissing thing, and any friend was better than no friend.
All went well for a while, but he was always after her to kiss him. Often this resulted in her throwing things at him. One day he made her so mad, she threw HIM. And he went *splat* right against the wall. Aramina was horrified, once again, by her impulsive behavior, but it turned out the frog didn't just squash - he turned into a boy! Aramina's parents came rushing in at the sound of Aramina's screams. They knew right away what happened.
"Mimi," said her mom (her mom called her Mimi), "We have something to tell you..." Her dad and mom exchanged a slightly guilty and slightly mushy look, and her mom said, "When I was young, that golden ball was my favorite toy. I lost it in the swamp one day, and a frog offered to retrieve it for me. I promised to be his friend in exchange, but one day I lost my temper with him and threw him against the wall. That broke the spell. It was traditional in those days for enchanted princes to marry those who break their enchantment, so we were soon married, and have been happy since that day."
"But," broke in her dad, "you are still much too young to get married, so let's just see who this boy is."
Unfortunately, Philip was pretty hazy on where he came from. Geography wasn’t his strong suit, and he’d been under a spell after all. So, after months of searching, Mimi’s dad figured out who the boy’s parents were. They were very grateful to have their son back! In the meantime, Mimi and Philip, as it turned out the boy’s name was, had grown very close. Mimi was thrilled to have a companion, esp. now that he wasn’t asking for a kiss all the time. (I mean, yuck! Cooties! Philip had just thought that was the way to break the spell…) He taught her to play soccer, which Mimi thought was the best game ever. Mimi’s mom, seeing all this and being a traditionalist was lobbying Mimi’s dad to arrange a bethrothal. Finally he agreed, and so did Philip’s parents. They arranged that Philip would stay with Mimi’s parents and learn the ropes of running the kingdom, while Mimi would go away to boarding school to learn ‘deportment and diplomacy’ in NYC.
Of course, Mimi hated that, and after a mere two weeks, tried to run away. She ended up outside a club where Talia’s band was playing (Philip had said she liked them, and that Talia was pretty. Altho she’d never admit to being *jealous*, Mimi wanted to see Talia for herself….). Talia caught her trying to sneak in, and when she heard Mimi’s whole story, she brought her back home with her. By a very strange coincidence, it turned out that Mimi was a distant cousin of Janet’s! Not being very knowledgeable about Janet, and how she would probably be the *last* role model Mimi should have (Janet’s temper being none too certain either), they agreed to let Mimi live with Janet and learn deportment from her.
Janet tries to take her responsibilities seriously, but often she and Mimi just end up fighting. (Enna and Smilla probably do a better job of teaching her manners) Mimi writes to Philip regularly. Philip is always sending her frog-themed gifts. Mimi says she’ll never marry, but the fact that she keeps all the gifts that Philip sends probably indicates she doesn’t really mean it… ~.^
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Welcome Year of the Rat!
Happy Lunar New Year to everyone!
I have not done anything to catch up on all the pictures I never got around to posting here, BUT I thought I would post a picture in a timely fashion for once! ^^
