Harry Potter Personality Test

Take your Myers-Briggs result and match.

Click here to see a larger version so you can actually read what is says!  It was too big to see well on this blog.  Sorry.  I'm Ron Weasley, which kind of disappoints me.

Or, if you aren't so much a fan of Harry Potter, (we probably can't be friends), then match yourself to your Disney character.

10 Worst Halloween Candies

We don't do Halloween, see here for reasons.  But we definitely do Halloween candy!

Love it, and one of my all time faves.

Generally, we buy a couple bags of candy and hole up in our house playing games or watching movies and all around having a great time.  Last week I saw this list originally on MSN.

The Top 10 Worst Halloween Candies

1. Snickers
2. Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins
3. Candy Corn
4. M&M candy corn white chocolate candies
5. Tootsie Pops
6. Starburst
7. Sour Patch Kids
8. Fun Dip
9. Skittles
10. Sugary bubble gum

Let's see, I like numbers 2,5,6,7 and my kids cannot handle themselves around Fun Dip.  They go absolutely insane.  I don't like Snickers but I love Snickers ice cream bars, go figure.  And candy corn, meh, never been a fan.  But I think it is safe to say that this list just destroyed everyone's ideas on how wonderful their candy makes them feel, cause chances are its got one of your favorites on their too.

Oh well.  I'll get over it.

Before They Pass Away

I saw this project on CNN.  It just gave a brief statement of pictures on tribes that will eventually become extinct.  So I quick jumped over to peek.  And you know how you see something that forever changes you or how you think?  That is this project.

It is some of the most beautiful photographs of tribes you will ever see.  I watched the video and actually cried at the beauty of it all.  The project was done by Jimmy Nelson who wanted to capture tribes showing how some of them have changed very little even with the huge changes the world has seen.  He wanted to record images of them before their current way of living goes extinct.

I really encourage you to go the website and look around.  The images are so stunning.  There is also a book on amazon that is going immediately on my wish list.  But at $142, it will stay there permanently.

All pictures below are from the site Before They Pass Away.

The Himba Tribe in Africa

Huli Wig Men

Kazakh Men

Maori Woman

Kalam of New Guinea

Samburu

Here is the link to the short video I watched. So amazing to watch him with the tribes and how they got the shots.  

It is soooo worth your time to click over to Before They Pass Away and look around.  I promise that you will not forget it.  And probably, you will do what I did, and spend a day clicking back and forth and looking around.

It seriously makes me want to take my family, travel the world and see things how they are, before so much is lost.

Rosemary Gin Gimlet

What's a gimlet you ask?  According to the dictionary, it is a cocktail including gin and lime.

I totally did not know that until I googled it after stumbling across this pretty drink from the blog Savor Home.

Yummy.

I used her recipe but tweaked it a little bit.  Originally it calls for you to steep the honey and sugar and rosemary for 6 hours, but ain't nobody got time for that.  So I cheated and crushed the Rosemary with a knife to get the juices moving.  In the end, I let everything soak for about 1 1/2 hours and it turned out fabulous.  (Recipe below with my modifications)  For her original recipe click here.  Also, mine didn't turn out so pretty and light as hers in the picture above.  I think it's because I crushed the Rosemary, but I don't know.  Mine were more of a yellow color, not the pretty whitish like above.  

But be careful, these things have some serious kick, so I also only added 1 oz. of Gin instead of the called for 2.  If you add the 2 I don't think you will be upright for very long, and that is never a good thing, so trust me and add much less then you think you need.

1 cup boiling water
6 sprigs fresh rosemary
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 cup honey
Gin
Fresh lime juice

1/ To make the honey-rosemary simple syrup, add the boiling water, 6 sprigs of fresh rosemary, 1/2 cup sugar and honey to a medium sized bowl or pot.  Rough up the rosemary to get the fragrance out.  Let sit for at least an hour, more if you want to.

2/ To make the cocktail, fill a shaker halfway up with ice. Add 2 oz of honey-simple syrup, 1 oz of gin, and 1.5 oz of fresh lime juice to the shaker and shake it up.

3/ Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to a plate.  Run a slice of lime over the rim of your glass. Dip the rim of glass into the sugar.

4/ Pour the drink into the glass and garnish with the remaining sprig of rosemary. Enjoy!!

I didn't do the whole lime on the rim with sugar, or garnish with rosemary, but left the instructions in case you want to.

We had a "date" night at home and drank these and watched Sherlock.  It was the first time Chris had seen an episode and he loved it.  Bring on season 3!

Jaida

I was going to title this "Meet Jaida" but then I figured it would be a cruel joke and someone would assume we adopted a girl or a pet or something named Jaida.

Faucets, we are talking faucets.  Specifically, this one by Pfister.

Isn't she pretty?

This was the one I wanted originally for the upstairs bathroom, but Chris vetoed it.  But then the handles we got for the new vanity were quite modern and didn't match the faucets we had picked out.  Enter Jaida the second time around.  Chris is totally onboard with it, and I am excited to hear my husband say things like "let's go with a modern look for the bathroom".  

Look at how nicely the water pours out of her.

She's also supposed to reduce water wastage by 30%.  I don't know how that works, so don't ask, but I am quite excited about it.  Although, to be fair, I would have been excited about this faucet if it had wasted 30% more water, so in the end, I guess that's a moot point.

Our friend Chad, our wonderful reno guy is gone this week.  And I leave next week for 2 weeks of hunting with my dad and brother in Wyoming.  The bathroom is being finished without me, which I admit has me a little nervous.  Not because I don't trust Chad, but because I am so type A when it comes to decorating.  So I will come back to a finished bathroom minus the decorating.  How crazy exciting is that?

I may even come back to Ava's new room downstairs being finished as well.  That would probably give me a heart attack, but it's like the little remodeling fairy came while I was away.  Come to think of it, that is how all remodeling should go- you go away some place fun and come back with things all done.  In my very rich dreams!

Salamanders Are Wandering My House

Yesterday we went to a friend's to take a walk and enjoy the nice weather and try to figure out something to do with all the kids over MEA.  And wouldn't you know it, my kids found 3 spotted Salamanders.  Which they promptly brought home for pets.

Ambystoma maculatum, you know, in case you want to use their real name

We used to have one a couple of years ago until Chris dropped the corner of the top on it and it started secreting some type of pus and we had to help it go to Salamander heaven...

Anyway, we brought home three of them in a little cardboard box that we put on our kitchen counter and then forgot about when we went to Bible study.

2 hours later, we came back and the Salamanders were not to be found.

Now, I don't really have any irrational fears of reptiles and amphibians, but I am not particularly fond of the idea of some animal crawling into my clothes and getting squashed by my foot and wrecking my clothes with all their insides.  We did manage to find two of the three, one was in the bathroom that we are remodeling, and the other made it all the way to the beginning of my closet. The third, well, we don't know where the third is, and I am afraid it is going to be a replay of the pet crab we had that crawled out of the tank and into a vest I had on the floor and then was promptly squashed.

They are kind of cute little things, but I'd prefer they be in a cage, not free roaming my house.  We might be a laid back family, but not quite that laid back.  And they aren't very big and could be lost forever.  Also, I have kind of this irrational thing where I feel really bad for animals (people too) that are suffering.  And these cute little salamanders need moist places, which my house most certainly isn't, and I have all these awful images of it slowly drying up and being tortured. 

At least it isn't something that will be able to make it up the bed and crawl over my face in the night while I am sleeping.  Because then I might develop a fear of amphibians and reptiles....

The Curtains Coming Up!

I am freaking out about the upstairs bathroom remodel.

Totally having shower curtain issues, which I realize sounds completely ridiculous.  But I want to get it right, and I want to get it right prettily, and cheaply.

Originally I had my heart set on this one.

Here

But at $64 dollars I just can't do it.

So then I got searching, and searching and searching, and I found out quickly that there wasn't anything speaking to me in stores.  I moved online and came up a little more successfully.  But if it weren't for Target I would be out of luck.  Not even fancier (more expensive) stores had what I wanted.

Here's what I came up with to try and experiment with once everything is in place.  And remember, I am going for a black, white and wood/natural theme.

This one is fake alligator print.  I can't decide if it's brilliant or the worst faux pas ever.

Weird dots.  But the background is white, and I am a little nervous that if I go dark it will be like showering in a cave.

Fancy scrollwork.  But Target calles it Twigz.  Someone please smack the people who think it is clever to spell things wrong on purpose.  

Too grannyish?  I can't decide.

This the lead right now, and it's extra long so I can hang it higher and completely cover the tub.

I really like this one.  But I feel like it isn't going to go the best with black and white.