Category: Uncategorized

Last weekend Taylor and I discovered this AMAZING rock opera about the birth of Christ, located conveniently on youtube in three parts. We’ll definitely be rewatching this on Christmas Eve.

I spy a new holiday tradition in the making!

I read Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves a few months ago and I’d been meaning to read Swamplandia! ever since. It took me a little while to get into it- the chapters which between the POV of two different characters and I didn’t really like one of them at first, but it definitely grew on me. This book is basically amazing and you should definitely read it.

Before there was Twilight, there was TWILIGHT: WHERE DARKNESS BEGINS… When I was a kid in the 80s, my sister had a bunch of these cheesy YA horror novels and I read them all. I recently remembered them and on a crazy whim I ordered one, Watery Grave, a total gem of literature. It was just as terrible and wonderful as I remembered, and I particularly like the ending where SPOILER ALERT the female protagonist saves her injured boyfriend by blowing the monster’s head off with a shotgun. There are lots of other books in this series and I kind of want them all, so if you are looking for a gift for me you wouldn’t go wrong with a bunch of these. I’m particular keen on getting Nightmare Lake, Spirits and Spells and The Initiation.

In case you live under a rock or are for some reason not obsessed with Sailor Moon, then you know that all the original manga are being rereleased with a new, more accurate English translation. I preordered the first two, Codename: Sailor V Volume 1 and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Volume 1 and they came on Friday night. It took me a little while to get used to the right-to-left reading, but I have no complaints about this and look forward to getting the rest of the series.

a full list of all this year’s books can always be found here, and as always, book links are usually to Amazon, and clicking on them might earn me a nickel.

I really like recipes that have easy tweakability, and I also really like snacking. These roasted chickpeas are perfect for both tweaking and snacking. I’ve made them with the original salt & vinegar recipe, I’ve made a chili lime variation and most recently, a honey garlic variation that is my new favourite thing to eat.

The honey garlic was a little different to make than the other varieties, so I decided to make a real post about it. Also because I’m totally over my once weekly big food-round-up posts (as evidence by my being terrible about even making them haha).

Anyway. Ingredients! (shown here making an assault on Black Reach.)

1 14oz can chick peas
2 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup honey
1 clove garlic
2 tsp olive oil
salt to taste

It’s worth noting here that all my ingredients are either local, organic, or both, except for the salt, which is my own special blend of New Zealand sea salt and two different varieties of Hawaiian Alaea sea salt. Why is this worth noting? Because I’m a total pretentious douche.

Drain and rinse your chickpeas and mince your garlic.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the water and honey, and stir until the honey is fully dissolved. Add chick peas and minced garlic to pan. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let sit for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a fine sieve, strain the chickpeas and garlic (using a colander with large holes will result in the heartbreak of garlic loss). Place of the baking sheet, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt. Roll the peas around until they are nicely coated- I don’t like getting oil all over my hands (I already have to wash my hands 550,000 times a day, why would I want make extra hand-washing work for myself?) so I do this by folding the parchment over them in different directions and rolling them.

Roast for anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes until golden brown. I’ve never roasted mine for longer than 35 minutes, and they can burn really easily so be careful! You definitely need to keep an eye on these.

Allow to cool for .5 seconds before stuffing them all in your face while reading volume 1 of the newly rereleased Codename: Sailor V, like I did on Sunday night.

Last week I ran-didn’t-walk to Shopper’s Drug Mart to pick up some of the new Quo by Orly nail polishes, and I have to say, WOW. The colours are totally beautiful and the formula is amazing. Not too thick and gloopy, not too thin and watery. No streaks, two coats for perfect coverage, and dries quickly. I’ve tried four shades so far and been thrilled with all the results. Here are the first two.

This has purple in it as well but unfortunately I couldn’t get it to photograph properly no matter what light I used. It’s really pretty but for some reason it reminds me of this metallic blue Wet’n’Wild polish all my goth friends and I used in 1993 (back then it was the only “weird” colour of polish, besides black).

I had a bit more luck with this one! Depending on the light it looks anywhere from bright turquoise to dark teal to emerald green. I love this polish, I haven’t been able to stop staring at it!

I’ve mentioned here recently that I’ve been in a rut, a slump, a funk, whatever. I’ve been feeling very :/ about a lot of things, and one of them is this blog. I’m sick of my posts! I’m sick of my pictures! I’m sick of thinking up titles! But most of all, I’m (was) sick of the layout, so last night I steeled myself for a huge hassle and changed it.

It’s not one hundred percent perfectly how I want it, but it’s pretty close! I think it’s a lot cleaner looking than the old layout, which is definitely what I was going for. I’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback you guys might have about it, and as a thank you here’s a Georgie for your troubles.

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway to win the golden mini bunting necklace from Little Pancakes! I’ve selected the winner using Random.org‘s random number generator, and that winner is…

April from So Yeah… So! Congratulations April! I’ll be giving your email to Melissa so she can contact you for your mailing address.

Thanks again everyone who entered, you are all winners in my book ^___^

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was planning on making some Halloween glitter banners, and here they are!

I’ve never had orange glitter before and it is a pain & a half so it’s available in VERY limited quantities!

The purple bats have acid green paper on the reverse.

I think these little ghosts are so cute!

This black glitter banner has bright red paper on the reverse.

You can find these all in my etsy shop; click on the pictures to go directly to each listing. Also don’t forget to “like” the Unicorn Parade Shop on facebook!

I have the worst luck with the gym. Every time I say I’m going to start going again, I go once and then suffer some calamitous event. I throw my back out and can barely walk, or I get strep throat, or I fall down the stairs at the gym when leaving after my workout and sprain my ankle. Every time I lose all my gym momentum and it’s months before I go back again- just to suffer a new setback.

Well. In August Taylor spent a lot of time talking about how he wanted to start going to the gym again, so I decided it would be supportive and helpful if I went too. Labour Day weekend I strapped my running shoes on for the first time in months and hit up Fitness World for some treadmill time. Aaaaaaaaaaand my shoes (pictured above), my beloved foot clouds, which are neither too old or too new, gave me huge horrible blisters, one of which popped and seeped and oozed and got horribly infected. WHAT THE HECK. It’s been really painful and gross, but it’s finally almost better. Just in time too; I think the weather is about to turn and I won’t be able to wear my flip-flops anymore (my feet are like Regina George on Kal-teen bars” flip-flops are all that fit me right now).

Hopefully I be able to re-restart going back to the gym this weekend, so please stay tuned for my next disaster.

In semi-related gym news, Taylor went yesterday morning and there was an older man running full-tilt on the treadmill while watchign full-on hardcore porn on his iPad. PEOPLE THESE DAYS idek.

Katy Perry for OPI Not Like the Movies

This colour is kind of boring. I was planning on putting different top coats and glitters over it but I started painting pretty late in the evening and after three coats of this I was ready for Seche Vite and bed.

This summer I did a Sailor Moon-themed craft swap with Rhiannon and this week I got my package from her!

A hand-embroidered Sailor Jupiter totebag, Luna necklace and little moon earrings! So cute. And the totebag is UH MY ZING. Just look at this sweet embroidery!

Sailor Jupiter is my favourite ^___^

I also got a star-shaped lollipop but Sym confiscated that pretty quickly.

In case you missed it, you can see what I made for Rhiannon here.