A Success!

Sarah couldn't decide on what kind of cake she wanted (as I mentioned before) so I decided to brave the crockpot again and try a Chocolate Sundae Cake. I put it together and let it cook while we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. When we got home, I turned it off and let it cool for about a half hour and then we ate it with vanilla ice cream on top.

It turned out really good... I was so relieved.

It's a really interesting cake... it was basically just a chocolate cake batter (I think it'd be even better with chocolate chips added!) spread in the bottom of the crock pot, and then you mix sugar, cocoa power and hot water until smooth and pour it over the cake. When it finished cooking, the sauce was under the cake, and the cake was kinda floating! (And that wasn't my mistake, the recipe said it should end up that way...)

Sarah, enjoying the cake (her hair straightened with her new hair straightener...)

~Lizzie

The Year I was 15 - Pictures!!

So I was gonna do a really long post on how sad it was that's I'll never be 15 again, and how I didn't really want to turn 16, and maybe a recap of how my life as a 15 year old was. But that inspiration only lasted about 5 minutes.
Then I suddenly had a much better idea! And so, I will post my favorite pictures that I took while I was 15, complete with titles/awards i.e: Happiest, cutest, best pose, coolest... etc.
I collected all my favorites, & there turned out to be 250-ish, so obviously, they're not all gonna be here. :)
Enjoy!

Happiest:

Mark & Aaron after some good defense

Prettiest:

Cherry flower

Cutest:

Aaron & Joel. Aww. :)

Randomest:

Bubba, the Italian trucker

Funniest:

A goofy group shot at Goodberrys

Coolest:

Sean playing baseball

Most Different:

A sunbow & power lines

Most Interesting:

A truck silhouetted against a sunset

Best Without People:

An orange sunset

Coolest Colors:

Bright blue & pink sunrise over the ocean

Coolest Focusing:

Wine glasses

Most Colorful:

Another run for the Hawks

Best Action Shot:

Jacob & Chris playing basketball

Best Portrait:

Joel at the beach

Best Light:

Shadow sitting in the sun

Best Pose:

Jordan & Reid after winning a close game

Most Candid:

Nathan & Jessica on the Sunfish

Most Descriptive:

A couple at the State Fair

Most Professional:

Reid playing basketball

Awesomest:

Eric playing basketball

Favorite of Me

me. :P

And 10 honorable mentions... ones I like just as much, but they just didn't get a title:

yay, there it is. I'm really thinking this should become a tradition for me... :)

Sarah's Sweet Sixteenth!

She still hasn't decided what kind of cake she wants. Or what she wants to do...

:P

The beginnings of my attempt at flower gardening...

As you may remember from this post that I started growing some flowers... here are the first blooms!

Several little moss roses...

I like the vibrant color...


This one is probably my favorite though. It's such a sweet pink...

These Johnny Jump Ups are cuter than I imagined! They are sooo tiny!


A little moss rose growing amongst rocks... and weeds that I didn't stop to pull. :P

Snapdragon just opening up (and still in a starter pot on the table... he needs to be planted...

And a bright orange Zinnia.

I'm really enjoying my flowers. And I'm really pleased with how well my camera took those shots. It's just a little camera (not at all like Sarah's professional monster of a camera) but it does really well.

It's a good thing I have my flowers to cheer me up, because my cooking skills continue to fail me. (Cooking skills? What cooking skills?) Yesterday I made a crockpot dish for an impromptu potluck/softball evening with some of our friends. I tried a new recipe from our Betty Crocker Slow Cooker Cookbook, "Lentil and Mixed-Vegetable Casserole." We had just opened a 5-gallon bucket of lentils, and we had everything else we needed, it looked very easy (as if cooking in a crockpot isn't easy enough anyway) and it even looked tasty! We had a lot of errands to run during the afternoon, so I could just let it cook while we were gone and then take it to the potluck.

I got it put together and ready to cook, but since we were going to be gone 3 to 4 hours, and it said to only cook it 2 to 2 1/2 hours, I turned it on for an hour before we left, kept it on "warm" while we were gone, and turned it back on to cook once we got home. It wasn't ready when it was time to leave (the lentils were still kinda crunchy) so I plugged it in to cook while we played softball. It still wasn't ready when it was time to eat. Daddy looked at it, and gently informed me that my lentils were actually split-peas, which is why they were taking so long.

Split peas.

Lentils.

I should know the difference! It's not like I've never had lentils or split peas before! I was told that the bucket was lentils, and I just didn't doubt it, or even use any intelligent brain waves on the consideration.

Mr. J kindly said that with another 30 minutes, my casserole would have been superb, Kara insisted that it tasted fine and Sarah said she liked the crunch. It was nice of them to say those things and I'm sure they meant them... but I thought it tasted like casserole with sand. And it needed more salt. Not to mention, it wouldn't have been too bad if they had at least been lentils... instead of split peas.

~Lizzie

*uncontrollable laughter*

I really love driving my daddy's car. It's a 2001 Volvo S80 automatic turbo. I get to ride the automatic seat from Daddy's long-leg seat position to my very short position. I accelerate out of turns easily because the steering is soooo smooth. I stop for stop lights easily because the breaks are so responsive. And when I get on the interstate, the car accelerates to 70mph so quickly and gracefully... and then, at the end of the entrance ramp, there's a Chrysler minivan RIGHT next to me, who won't move because the driver is too busy talking on his cellphone! *sigh*

Voice, dance and theatre were fun today. Everything is finally falling into place. We know our dance, we have our dance costumes... almost everyone knows their lines for the play, except for people who got to go on exotic vacations (Greece?!?!? NOT FAIR!!!) or even just regular vacations.

You probably had to be there, but Mr. Green tweaked one of the scenes, and it was so funny, we all burst out laughing! And then they tried to run the scene again, and they couldn't even start the scene without everyone cracking up again! After many tries, they finally got through it without TOO much laughing. And then they ran it again about a half hour later, and before they got to the funny part, Mr. Green cracked up, and everybody lost it again. It's going to be HILARIOUS.
Anyone can come! It's at NRCA (7300 Perry Creek Rd. Raleigh, NC) Friday, June 12th, and Saturday, June 13th both at 7pm. Tickets are $5/student (18 & under) $7/adult. Sarah and I will be in the Friday show, but Kara will probably be in the Saturday show. I don't care if you come see me, just come to either show if you can. It'll be great.

~Lizzie

Breaking my fast

It was a nice experiment, but I have voice, dance and two hours of theatre tomorrow, so I figured I should get back to eating so that I'll have normal amounts of energy and be able to concentrate for 4 hours straight. Plus stay awake. Also, I felt pretty toxic yesterday, and Daddy said that I probably needed to do a good cleanse before I try a fast again.

It was pretty cool though. I didn't feel hungry at all, although I think it was intolerably cruel of them to have my FAVORITE pasta last night for supper!! However, seeing food didn't make me hungry, but normal food looked like some kind of decadent delight that we never get to have. Just looking at Sarah's salad with croutons and caesar dressing looked a three-layer strawberry ice cream cake, or something equally delicious.

I lost 6 and a half pounds over two days of water-fasting, a day of juice and a day of raw fruits and veggies. Which is actually enough that I can wear the dress that has been a little small! I just don't know how long I'm going to keep the weight off once I start eating again. We'll see.

~Lizzie

Siccing the Praying Mantis on the pests...

We have several little baby praying mantises that live on our seedling table (although the plants are desperately in need of planting now, and not really seedlings anymore... we're desperately trying to get them all planted!) but Mom found some odd little bugs on her eggplants... so we transferred a little praying mantis to the eggplant. We wanted to watch, but apparently he was kinda scared of us, and wasn't doing any hunting, so we left for a few seconds, and when we came back, he was holding one of the small green bugs in his... arms? Forelegs? Claws? ... whatever. Yeah. Those. It was really neat.


Also... some sad and slightly embarrassing news for me. The dress that I was so excited about making is not turning out well. It has odd pokes and bumps in very unfortunate places. The material isn't the best for the pattern design... and it's probably something I did wrong too, although I don't know what. It is a pretty easy pattern (maybe they skimped on parts that could have been harder, while looking more classy and smooth, to make it easier) and it went together pretty quickly, so I'm still hoping to fix it... but I don't really need it any more, because I found 2 cute dresses at Goodwill yesterday!! And I'm trying out water-fasting, so hopefully I'll lose enough weight to wear a third cute dress that has been hanging in my closet...

I was going to post pictures of them, but it's amazing how pathetic they look hanging on coat hangers... if anyone actually wants to see them, you may submit your request, and when/if I lose weight/fix a few things for them, then I might post pictures of me wearing them. =D

And this is my first day of just water. Daddy had decided to do a water-fast and on the second day of his preparations, I decided to jump in. All I've ever done before was a one-day water fast, and that was mostly because I didn't have much time to eat. In preparation, Daddy did a day of regular eating, but with no meat. Then we did a day of only raw fruits and vegetables. I had fruit juice for breakfast, a large apple for lunch and a huge salad with celery, bell pepper, tomatoes, black olives and sprouts for supper. The third day of prep was just juice. Strangely, I was more hungry yesterday than I am today.

It has been a very interesting experience so far. I slept better than usual last night, and woke up feeling very refreshed (which is unusual) but I have felt very slightly weak. Nothing to keep me from doing what I usually do, though, except, of course, vigorous exercise, like swimming or running.

~Lizzie

Rainy days and sewing corners...

Today there was no 'making "hay" while the sun shone' because the sun did not shine... instead, I did some creativity indoors and FINALLY got started on my dress! After we went to see Star Trek at the movie theater... but that's a post for the review blog. Once I have time to mull over it a little.

And as I'm sure you all know, I could go on and on... about nothing much in particular. But instead, I'm going to end my little break and get back to my dress.

That's probably the shortest post I've ever done...

~Lizzie

I'm BACK!!

I know, I didn't announce that I was leaving. Nor am I going to oblige you with a lengthy and juicy account of all the busy-ness that has kept me from posting for the last month. Hint: it was mostly baseball... baseball game on top of baseball game... and if there wasn't a game, there was a practice. All that on top of everything else I'm doing was too much. But the tournament was May 7th-9th, and now that I've recovered from the team losing, here I am, with PATTERNS!

I splurged on patterns today. I decided about a month ago that I wanted to make a really nice summer dress, because I have two weddings to go to, and my 18th birthday is coming up, so I thought it'd be nice to have a dress to wear to all 3 occasions. (Shh, don't tell I'm wearing it more than once!)

So you might be wondering why I said "patterns" plural. If you are, congratulations on being observant. And thanks for not assuming that I accidentally added the 's'. I got patterns because I couldn't decide which one I wanted, they were all on sale anyway, and the store was getting ready to close, so I didn't have time to decide.

I got Simplicity 2965:


I like the one in red, only they're all kinda short, so when I ever get around to making it, I'll make it longer.

Simplicity 2917:


Either the short sleeve, or the sleeveless.

New Look 6589:


I like the style of the black one, but I've got a plain soft yellow in mind for it that I borrowed from Mom's stash...



It's between this one and the next dress for the dress I'm going to try to make in 2 and a half weeks!

Vogue 8470:

I really like the white one, but I'll probably make the skirt a little shorter, because otherwise it takes FIVE yards! Which I don't have in the pretty yellow material.

And I really liked the Vogue 8489, but they didn't have it:

I like the green, but if I ever get to make it, I want to make it with the accent trim like the tan and brown.

And you're probably overwhelmed with patterns already, but I also got two apron patterns.

McCall's Retro aprons:




And M5358:



For this one, I'm planning on making view C (the lime green at the bottom) but with the tie and pocket in this green checkered, and the main part in the brown. And I also want to add a ruffle in the checkered material.

I was going to go ahead and cut the apron, but I got distracted and did this blog post instead... and now it's late, so I should just go to bed. Hopefully I'll have some "finished apron" pictures eventually!

Oh, and I made the cinnamon rolls Abigail mentioned here for Mother's Day. My icing didn't turn out right, (probably because I didn't want to use our entire bag of powdered sugar... and I didn't have any coffee) but the funny little clumps of sugar didn't dissuade my family. And I thought they turned out okay... next time they'll be better, though.



~Lizzie