What I’ve Been Up To Lately: Holiday Baking, Crash Bandicoot, Design Contests, and More!

Dec 31, 2009 | Life

So – I have to apologize first off for not keeping up with this blog as much as I’ve been wanting to.

First the Christmas rush – then the rush of sending New Year’s cards, then some other things happened, so I took a bit of a breather from my self-imposed once-a-day posting schedule.

Just a little time off, ya know? It’s the holidays – and I’m proud to say I’ve been slacking!!

So what have I accomplished in this time?

I’ve spent alot of time with the family. Just relaxing at home, playing games and doing activities. Finally putting the Christmas lights up.

I’ve baked and decorated more cookies and sweets than I ever want to see again in my life. Chocolate Coffee Toffee Oatmeal Cookies, Lemon Yogurt Cookies, Sugar Cookie Cutouts, White Chocolate Cranberry Bark, Chocolate-Dipped Ginger Almond Cookies, White Chocolate Lemon Shortbreads. Enough already!

After all the holiday hoopla had died down, the birthday/Christmas presents unrapped and oohed and aahed over – I also sprained my ankle. It was one of those dumb injuries where I was just walking along, tripped on nothing, fell down, and hurt myself. Well, not really.

The real story is that I was done taking some photos of a finished DIY that I was going to post here – I was holding the dress in one hand and my camera in the other – went to place the camera on the table, and my slipper got caught under my foot and the dress got caught around the dining room chair – I twisted myself around so as not to shatter the camera lens and place it as best I could on the table, overbalanced, spun around in aformentioned godforsaken slippah-o-death – cracked my hip on the windowsill behind me, and managed to come down hard on my right foot in precisely the wrong way – and my foot turned like 180 degrees as I fell. I swear I couldn’t do it again if you paid me.

So I couldn’t walk last Saturday (the day I did it) and it was kind of puffy and blue on top – even though I kept it elevated for most of the day – then, progressively, daily it’s gotten bluer and – sort of dead-looking. The puffiness has gone down, but there’s a ton of blood pooled right under the skin. It’s disgusting. I can finally walk again by hobbling around but I still can’t bend the foot properly. I really mashed those darn metatarsals!

Day 1: You can barely see anything. Oh yeah – it looks a little puffy/discolored. Right…there.
Day 2: Spreading, puffy. Yoweee.
Day 3: Ewwww.

(The point in posting these, dear readers – is not to gross you guys out in general – but specifically to hopefully deter Mr. Anonymous Foot Fetish who left a rather…um…interesting comment on one of my earlier posts. See, I wouldn’t think there would be anyone wanting to lick that. Just…no.)

I’ve also beaten Crash Bandicoot and Crash Bandicoot 2 (both for the second times in my life) on Playstation. All very well and good. I know – I’m cooler than cool.

I’ve managed to get through a couple letters in Nina Garcia’s The One Hundred: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own, which was a birthday gift from my mother. It’s a good basic – and surprisingly witty at that. I think I’m on B by now. (I swear, once you have kids reading goes out the window. Well, it’s either reading or blogging – not both. Does reading “Cars: The Official StoryBook to the Pixar Movie” 3 times in a row count??)

I managed to send in a couple entries to Steve Madden’s Sole Search on Brickfish.com just mere hours before the contest deadline, so since the prizes are decided by highest voted entries – no one had any time to vote. Ah well – I guess I shot myself in the foot with that one or sprained my foot hardy har har. I found it particularly ironic that I am designing glamazon shoes with teetering 5″ heels while at the same time propping up one black-and-blue puffy foot on my desk. Here are the shoe designs I submitted:





I’m also beefing up my illustration portfolio to submit to some local companies – and I have one big project in the works – can’t say anything specific just yet (will rev
eal more in late Jan/Feb), but I promise there are many forthcoming DIY’s to do with said project!

I’ve also ordered (well, because I’m immobile, instructed Hub to order) the traditional Japanese 2-tiered New Year’s Celebration box of food – brined shrimp, pink-and-white fishcake, kelp-wrapped simmered carrot packages, stewed lotus slices and rolled devil’s-tongue jelly, sweet beans, chestnut paste, salted herring roe, and candied sardines galore. Thank goodness I don’t have to piece it all together from scratch like I’ve done in previous years!! I’ll be eating out of this special box for three days straight come New Year’s, as dictated by Japanese New Year’s traditions. *sigh* Honestly, the only things I like in the box are the chestnut paste (middle row on the right), sweet black beans (upper left in green circle), and rolled puffed egg (second from right on the top – those things that look like brown cogs). The brined shrimp and the salted herring roe and I have an agreement: neither one of us looks the other in the eye – and thus, I can get away with not consuming them. Besides, Hub is the one who really enjoys the contents – Little Tot and I will fight over the few sweet items. (Truth be told, I am okay with the candied dried sardines as long as there’s walnuts mixed in with them, but alas, not in the box we ordered.)

Ah yes – and in the past couple days (perhaps anticipating my New Year’s Box of herring roe and kelp packages??) I’ve snacked myself silly on toffees and Walker’s shortbread (the shortbreads being one of my MAJOR vices. Damn you, Walker!!) Back to eating healthy tomorrow!

How about you guys? Anything you’ve managed to accomplish during the holidays?
xoxox
Carly