Tamagotchi

Ok, this may be a little weird. I am 26 years old. An adult. And, I now own a Tamagotchi. Yep. As a child, I grew up with Tamagotchi's, Gigipets, and all the like. I was actually pretty obsessed with them, I probably had at least 10 on a single keyring, and spent all day taking care of each of them. I don't really remember what happened to them, or where they went to, but a few weeks ago, I was thinking about them again. And sadly, I kept thinking about them more and more. So I bought one.



It's pink, I love it. It's silly to admit, but I think this is the most amusing thing ever. I can sit and feed it, check on it, play with it, for hours on end, just as I did as a child. I wonder if I just never grew up? Hah. But seriously, the changes that Tamagotchi has been through is crazy. I remember them being small, taking little circular batteries, and the screen just being black and white. Now, its bigger than a large egg, you're able to play online with your Tamagotchi, it has interchangeable characters and face plates, you can play with friends, and now, they take 2 AAA batteries (I mean, really?).



Mine came with a Kuchipatchi character, which includes like a "catch the coin" type game, which is pretty amusing.

Chili and Cornbread

Every Thursday, I fix dinner for only myself. There's a lot of food that I enjoy, that the fiance doesn't like, so I take these days to make those foods for myself. I recently purchased a slow cooker, and am having so much fun making food that I love in it. There's nothing like dropping a bunch of stuff in a slow cooker and just letting it do the work for you. Last night, I had chili and cornbread, both made in my crockpot.



First, I made the cornbread. I used a box of Krusteaz Honey Cornbread and Muffin Mix, prepared the way it said on the box (I used the butter option instead of the vegetable oil, because I love butter), then just put the batter it in the crockpot (well greased, of course), instead of a pan to cook in the oven. I cooked it on high for about an hour. It was kind of a pain to get out of the stoneware insert in one piece, though. Like 75% of mine came out in one piece, the other 25% came out in crumbles. I actually gathered the crumbles in a bowl and ate them then, while I waited for my chili to cook. Hah.

After I cooked the cornbread, I washed the slow cooker, and started dumping ingredients for my chili in. I kind of modified this recipe to make mine. Instead of using bagged beans, I used cans of rinsed black beans, garbanzo beans, and white kidney beans. I also didn't use Tabasco sauce. It cooked for about 6 hours on low, and it tasted fantastic. The cornbread came out perfect as well.

That said, there is so much leftovers! I love that my crockpot makes so much food that I can refrigerate or freeze, but I only have so many containers! I made taco soup a couple nights ago, so, between the soup and this chili, I have absolutely no more plastic containers to store my leftovers. It's amazing that I can spend about $5, and have meals for a whole week is pretty amazing to me. Fiance won't eat chili or taco soup, so... more for me!

Gardening Indoors

This morning, I woke up early, intending on playing a little bit of Aion before the fiance woke up. However, that didn't happen. I got the idea in my head to finally fix my RSS feed for the blog. It has apparently been broken for a little while, I'm not sure what is wrong with it. It's still not entirely fixed, but at least it works on RSS readers. I spent all morning, and into the afternoon working on it. It's almost 9pm now, and I still have not even opened up Aion.

Spring is here, and I love flowers, plants, veggies, and herbs. However, I have no garden, patio, deck or balcony. Instead, I have a small room filled with west facing windows. When I first came here, we went out and purchased a lighting system, so I could grow some plants. I started out with planting a lot of seeds in little newspaper pots. I planted broccoli, herbs, roma tomato, peppers, and much more. But sadly, quite a few contracted something called downy mildew, and were slowly dying. I pruned infected leaves, as much as I could, but in the end, I had to toss out several, because they had died. I did save a few though, some asparagus ferns, lavender, chamomile, and a sage. Now, my lighting system has two levels, the top for seedlings, and the lower level for large plants, such as an Easter Lily the fiance bought for me a few days ago. I've never kept a lily indoors under artificial lighting, so hopefully it works out. Yet another plant experiment I have going.



Growing up, I never really lived with anyone who really gardened. The most gardening experience I had, was watching family members bring in houseplants, then watching them slowly wither away from neglect. So, my knowledge of plants and gardening is very limited. But I am learning by the day. I have had some success though. Shortly after Christmas, I planted a few basil seeds, and a few weeks ago, I got to harvest some leaves off of the basil plant. And now, I am harvesting at least 30 leaves off of it every Sunday. It's fantastic having fresh basil, from my own plant when I need it.



That said, I will not give up! I'm starting to plant seeds once again, with new strategies. Instead of using newspaper pots, I'm trying out toilet paper rolls, which is much easier to control where the water goes, smaller, and it seems to be easier, in general. Here in this photo, I'm growing some Yolo Wonder bell peppers, and some dimorphotheca flowers. I had dimorphotheca sprouting before, but it was yet another seedling to fall victim to the downy mildew plague that swept through my apartment. Hopefully this one will be better, I think I eliminated the problems that caused it.



I also planted more basil. I couldn't help it. I love my basil plant, I want a continuous stream of herbs coming through to my kitchen. I have taken a liking to freezing my basil leaves. After I harvest from my plant, I rinse off the leaves, and pat them dry. Then, I fill up an ice cube tray halfway, drop about 5 leaves into each ice cup, and put in the freezer. When those are completely frozen, I fill up the ice cube try completely and freeze again. Then, I take the cubes out, and put them in a ziploc bag. To put in spaghetti, or any other pasta dish, I just drop the ice cube in the pan with my pasta sauce, the ice will melt in it, and the excess water will evaporate, leaving me with the basil. I'd imagine this will work with any herb as well. I'm going to try it. The taller seedling is cilantro - I lost my last cilantro to spider mites (I had no idea they even existed until I googled them. By then it was too late for the plant). This one will do better, I have a counter measure in place when those evil spider mites come back.



In addition to my little sunroom container garden, I also have plants scattered throughout the windowsills in the apartment. I have these 4 behind the couch. The first one is apparently a polka dot plant. It was a mystery plant I fell in love with at the nursery (hey, I can't pass up a pink plant!), I asked a worker what kind of plant it was, and she told me... but by the time I walked out of the door with it, I had forgotten. So I googled, and google told me what it was. It's a little unruly with the flower spikes, and I think it needs a trimming... really soon. The second plant is my lemon balm that I nursed from seeds. I LOVE this plant. I don't know why. I think the leaves are gorgeous and I love the shape of them. When you rub a leaf and smell it, it smells just like lemons. And, people make teas out of lemon balm as well. The last two... planted in a Panera and a McDonald's cup, are Asparagus ferns. They aren't the most attractive plants I've seen, but they add greenery and pretty into the apartment.

I seem to have knitted washclothes under every plant. It's funny because while I was on Amtrack, moving here, I made tons and I had no idea what I was going to do with 8 washcloths. Now, I have at least 20, and am constantly running out. I always have to rummage through my yarn to find more cotton to knit up some more.

Easter Eggs

I enjoy holiday traditions. I can't imagine a Christmas without a tree, New Years without fireworks, or Easter without eggs. I'd imagine that these things might seem silly to do, considering we don't have children to keep these traditions for, but I think it's fun, it keeps the Easter spirit for me, and who can argue with that?

I tried to get the fiance to help with eggs, and at first, he seemed pretty excited about it. However, after writing on an egg, he got bored and went to find something else to do. So, I dyed the remaining 10 eggs. I had actually started with 12 when I hard boiled them last night, but when draining the water out of the pot, one fell out and cracked. I got a nice, unexpected snack last night because of it. It worked out well for me.



And those are my little batch of eggs. They will be made into deviled eggs (and possibly egg sandwiches) tomorrow night! Now, off I go to get my hamburger patties ready to be put in the slow cooker for our dinner tonight.

New Ring

The fiance got me a ring, a long time ago. Since then, it has snapped on the band at the most delicate part of it. It's been superglued, and taped, the cost of repairing - it would be cheaper just to buy a new one. I've been without a ring for...over a year? Well, several weeks ago, the fiance bought me a new one. He set me loose and told me to pick a ring I want. My choice was to shop on Etsy. Handcrafted rings? Yes, please!

I'm not a huge jewelry wearer, but over the course of the past few years, I've discovered that I am allergic to certain metals, and tarnish others like crazy. Something with having very acidic skin makes metals tarnish faster? I can't really even use nickel plated knitting needles, they are almost completely tarnished by the end of a project. Anyway! Because of this, choosing jewelry is a bit difficult. So, I settled on a titanium metal. From what I understand, it is tarnish proof, and harder than traditional metals.

Simplicity was my next requirement. I'm not a person who likes a bunch of diamonds, or a really expensive ring. I'm known to lose jewelry, and I am really rough on my fingers. I've always been a fan of the simplicity of men's rings, but I wanted one to still look feminine.



This was my choice. It's a simple 3mm titanium band, purchased from an Etsy seller. It wasn't too expensive, I believe it was about $30? I like to call it my custom engagement ring, because after all, it was made custom for my size and width I wanted, right?



It's a good size on my finger too, thin enough to look feminine, yet large enough to know it's there. The seller, RenaissanceJewelry, did a fantastic job on the ring though. It is polished, as requested, comfortable to wear, and I honestly couldn't ask for a better ring.