All Things Amai: July 2016

GOSH

I always feel like it's been way longer than it has been since I last posted a thing. But I think it's only been a couple of weeks.

Probably feels way longer because I've actually been pretty busy having a life.
It's a good thing.

Let's see, what have I been up to.

Took a day trip to Seward. Another town along the coast, south of Anchorage. MUCH bigger than Whittier though, I'll give it that.

We went with another couple, whose wife I met on Craigslist.
As shady as that site is, I have yet to really encounter a bad experience.
We hit it off SO well. It's amazeballs.
Seriously.

But Seward was fun. We arrived into town, grabbed some grub from a local brew pub joint then walked onward to the Sea Life Center. Which was actually way bigger than I thought it was lol.
That is ALSO a good thing.

Just me dicking around before we left for Seward.

It has been so unbearably hot. It's like how I imagine being swallowed by Satan's fiery asshole would feel like.

I miss air conditioning.

Just LOOK at how fucking gorgeous we are.

We'll make the most beautiful imaginary offspring

When that raw asshole starts to prolapse.

But for real though. Sea anemone are cool. Freaky, but cool.

Okay, so there was this are with just birds chilling on rocks and in the water. You're not allowed to touch them but there is literally nothing but a sign to stop you.

I loved it.

Except for constant fear of being shat on.

SO CLOSE YET SO FAR.

This is my new favorite couple of all time.

I'm very happy to have met them both.

When you miss living near a best friend and you find something so reminiscent but on a vastly greater level of relating; you just can't beat it.

I've actually made two friends from Craigslist. Both with very similar interests to mine.

I lucked out hard on that one. Especially with at least one that enjoys baking too lol.

Okay, that's enough of that.

My mom returned from her now annual trip to Korea.

WITH PRESENTS.

Mostly like, a million scarves. In July. I guess she's thinking it's just freezing here all the time.

This was definitely my favorite though. I've always wanted my very own hanbok and now I have one!

Please excuse my hideous appearance. I was just so excited to put this on.

Hubby got one too. It was actually a couple's set as a wedding present from one of my Korean uncles. He wants us to take some nice photos in them to send. I'll be more than happy to oblige!

These were custom made and the fabric is gorgeous. He definitely went all out on this gift. For someone I've never met, that's extremely generous.

I have so many cute pairs of socks from Korea now. My mom never disappoints with these.

I'm still a crazy cat lady at work.

I love this chunk so much. He's been up for adoption FOREVER. I hope somebody adopts him soon.

IF ONLY IT COULD BE ME

This was SUCH a sweetie. Look at ALL THE EXTRA TOES. Poly-dactyl cats are so cute. He was adopted in like a week though. No surprise there.

I just want to take a moment to express how much I fucking love asian markets.

There are SO MANY here. It makes me so happy. I've been deprived of such variety for a very long time.

There's so many awesome weird imports to browse.

LIKE THESE DISGUSTING ICE CREAM FLAVORS.

I'll be honest though, I was *so* close to buying that cheese flavor.

The ingredients literally listed processed cheese food.

That's gotta mean it's delicious.

I see what you did there.

Chiz.

DID YOU KNOW THAT MOCHI ICE CREAM COULD COME IN SO MANY DIFFERENT FLAVORS?

FUCK NEITHER DID I

I'll have to go back to buy a box, or two...or ten.

O.O

I got a small haul this time though.

I didn't get a chance to try the mochi ice cream because I bought it for aforementioned friends. But from what I hear it was a good choice.

Two of those mochi were also for them to try. SINCE THEY HAD NEVER ONE BEFORE.

MY GOD.

Also, the kit kats were sweet potato! And they were the kind you could "bake" in the toaster oven. I had some cheesecake flavored ones that you could do the same things with.

I need more Kit Kat flavors.

I just need to go to Japan guys.

I've been on a baking frenzy!

It's been pretty awesome. I had such a dry spell and now that I have people to force feed it's so worth it to try new recipes again.

This is me destroying that dragon pound cake from my last post.

Did I mention that I'm a fatty?

This was the best red velvet cupcake recipe ever. They were SO incredibly moist.

I strayed from the frosting in the recipe. I like to whip up a version of my own that's much lighter. It goes magically with red velvet though.

Snickerdoodles! It had been a while since I've made a batch and from a different recipe this time!

They came out beautifully. Only thing I did different was to freeze the balls to firm them up before baking. Otherwise I'm sure they would have spread like pancakes.

We wouldn't want that.

At least not at the moment.

I also found this cookie dough on clearance at the grocery store. I have no shame. I'll buy whatever is on clearance as long as it's still good. You can freeze almost anything until you're ready to use it.

I don't typically buy this type of stuff but I was like what the hell. It was like a dollar and some change. I figured I could incorporate it into an easy recipe if anything.

WHICH I DID.

New friend loves peanut butter and chocolate. So this was the obvious choice.

I made a somewhat no bake peanut butter cheesecake.

Thinking back I could have made an easy recipe tutorial for this. IT WAS SO FREAKING EASY.

AND DELICIOUS. THIS IS ALSO IMPORTANT.

But I essentially took one of my spring form pans and mashed the cookie dough onto the bottom and up the sides about an inch. I baked it oh, for about 20 minutes then set it on a wire rack to cool. For the filling I beat 16 oz of cream cheese with sugar, vanilla, and lots of peanut butter. Then you add a pint of whipped cream and beat until you get stiff peaks. Pour into cooled crust, top with some ganache, refrigerate and enjoy!

So much yummy diabeetus.

Did you know I have shitty, tasteless humor?

No?

Well now you do.

So you know by now that I love music.

I grew up in the time of Blink 182 and it's a heartwarming thing to see them put out a new album this year, minus Tom.

But with the addition of MATT SKIBA FROM FUCKING ALKALINE TRIO!

During times of great goth-ness and emotional torment, their Good Mourning album was almost all I would listen to.

Welcome to Blink 182, Matt. You'll serve them well.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Gosh, I think it's been way longer than a week or two >.>

I've been...busy?
Right!
Busy!

o.o

Anywho, gosh what to talk about. I think I actually have been a *little* busy lol. Mostly with work though. Just lots of sweaty morning work shifts ending with damp underwear followed by hot afternoon naps. I'm just so productive.

I mean, I sometimes am, but I feel a little stagnant lately. Mostly because my funds are still so insufficient. It just feels like I can't really do much. Then I look at my living room floor filled with boxes of fabric and think maybe not lol.

One of my greatest discoveries as of late is that I get to live out my crazy cat lady fantasies at work. Employees are the only ones able to spend countless hours with the adoptable kitties and that's just it for me. I literally spend about 30 minutes to an hour after every work shift playing with cats. FOR FREE. BECAUSE I'M A MAD WOMAN.

But how could I NOT?

Look at this stupid cute fluffy face! (the cat's, not mine. mine is awful)

I had a litter of five kittens all to myself. It was what I imagined heaven might be like if I believed in a heaven.

I also did some shopping because I finally had a little extra to grab some shit I wanted/probably might need. Mainly at the thrift store though because I'm just cheap besides also being broke. I grabbed some good shit though. I found a broiling pan that looked brand fucking new, as well as some extraneous baking pans that ALSO looked brand new. Jack pot bitches.

They don't have a whole foods here. Which I'm okay with. I mainly went there for dumb shit like fancy meats and cheese and bread. There are actually plenty of places to grab stuff like that here though without the ridiculous mark up. But they have a place similar to it called Nature's Pantry that I meandered around in.

I walked around for about an hour just to see what they had. The only thing I bought was this chocolate they make in the land of Canadia.

It was actually pretty good and the fact the bar was molded into actual pigs was a cute win.

Let's see, as far as sewing goes, not much happening.

I did finish that llama!

I both like, and don't like how this turned out. The pattern was way easier than I thought it would be. I made a platypus with minky last year and that was a bit of a pain. The only thing disappointing was the fabric for the face was not really a minky. It's more like a super soft, fluffy fleece. So, at the right angles this thing has a joker's grin because the seems are so apparent.

I might buy a different color and give it another try with the right materials.

Here's my first minky project for comparison. Pain in the ass but worth it. And surprisingly enough, the same type of fleece was used for the beak and feet but it's just not as noticeable. I need to pay better attention when I fabric shop.

I bought this fabric to make burp cloths for my pregnant bestie. She's expecting a baby girl so I wanted something extra cute. I LOVE this fabric. It's fucking adorable.

Burp cloths are SO easy. Just a little tedious and time consuming.

Also, I can't believe I'm making anything for a child on purpose.

I picked these up at a local asian grocery. You have no idea how excited I was to see the samanco ice cream. It's been at least 8 to 10 years since I've had one. I obliterated them all in like 48 hours.

Worth it.

The other two are also pretty decent. I have no problems eating any of these.

I had another three day weekend so me and the hubs did a little in state traveling to see what's around. We haven't really left Anchorage since we arrived. It was a nice little day trip. There's a small port town called Whittier fairly close. You have to drive through a one-way tunnel that was blasted in the bottom of a mountain. That was definitely an experience. The toll was expensive though >.>

He's so happy outside. Wish I shared in his excitement of the wilderness lol. But I'm glad he got a chance to see something new and go outside. I always feel bad that he's inside so much because I love the inside.

This was actually a river coming down the mountain. The snow caps were melting so this was all melted snow. It was pretty neat.

It's been SO long since I baked a thing. I also wanted to test out this cake pan I got for x-mas so I made a simple pound cake.

It's obvious the pan works like a damn dream. Let's just hope this tastes as good as it looks. Planning on sharing it with some new found friends tonight. (Which I'm also pretty happy about ^^)

LOOK RANDOM STUPID CAT THINGS OF FUNNY