Why hello there LiveJournal, it's been a while! Honestly... accidentally cleared all my cookies and it had been so long since I'd logged in to LiveJournal myself I forgot my password... and then I forgot about LiveJournal altogether for... gosh like a year now maybe? That makes me sad, LJ and my community of friends used to bring me so much joy but I've kind of drifted away. I've come to realize that with a lot of things I'm an all-or-nothing kind of person. So either I was totally obsessed and spending hours fostering a life on the internet to the detriment of my "real" life and friendships or vise versa. While I think it was a good idea to get away from it all for a while I'm sad that so many friends fell by the wayside.

I'm still around though. I've been trying to start a blog with no success (I can't seem to get a first post out, it's been so long since I just sat and wrote something for my own pleasure I think I forgot how) so I figured instead I would just dust off my LJ. I'm also on Facebook (facebook.com/and.zombies).

If any of you out there are quilters or crafters, or just have use for a rotary cutter: Joann Fabrics is having a 40% sale on their rotary cutters and various accessories. I purchased a $48 dollar kit with a self healing mat, rotary cutter and large quilting ruler for $29!

Just got home from Christmas Eve with my extended family at my aunt's house; among other things we brought home a Snuggy and a samurai sword. No jokes. I hope that you all have as fun and interesting Christmases as I am having.

Me A Month Ago: Cute! The new kitty carries his toys around in his mouth! Let's teach him to play fetch!

Me Tonight: Go away, stop trying to stand on my laptop *throws toy to get cat off the couch* *cat follows through with fetch procedure*sits next to me on couch and meows and chirps at me incessantly until I throw the toy again*

Eventually he will lose track of the toy (it's a clear hard plastic ball that used to make up the head of his Wubba until he destroyed it) and lose interest, that's after about an hour.

He's adjusted ok; Harry still hates him for the most part, but they get together ok when Bones isn't terrorizing him.

I baked my first loaf of bread! I was cleaning out my kitchen and I discovered the loaf pan my dad gave me when he moved and decided to have a go. I've been intending on learning to bake my own bread for a while, especially since it can be difficult to find vegan bread in the grocery store (as well has bread that doesn't contain HFCS) but have just put it off.
I pulled out the cookbook that came with my Kitchenaid mixer and found a rather simple recipe that also happens to be vegan. I usually eat whole wheat but the recipe called for all purpose flour which I happened to have on hand (along with all of the other ingredients including yeast, I love when that works out) so I decided to try my hand at it and it worked out rather well.

Bread has always seemed rather intimidating, recipes usually end with "be sure not to over work the dough" or something similar... how the hell am I supposed to know when I've over worked the dough if I've never made bread before? I was much more confident using my mixer, the dough came together exactly as described and although I was a little wary forming the loaf (sure I was doing something wrong) it turned out pretty well!

The first image is just before I placed it in the fridge to rise (it's a cold rising dough) and the second image is after baking and just before I tried a slice. My oven is rather iffy (another reason baked goods make me nervous), it needs to be calibrated because the temp is totally off, I used to have it down to a science with converting the temps and times for items to something my oven would understand but haven't baked in a while so it baked a little faster than it should have. The crust is a little dry and crispy but the inside is very tender and quite delicious! Now that I've gone through it I think I know what to do in the future to keep it from baking so rapidly.

I'm going to run through this recipe once more after this loaf is gone and then see about converting most or all to whole wheat flour and then try out some other recipes. I'm very excited about all of this, I am really amazed it turned out so well, especially considering my handicapped oven. I'd like to get in the habit of baking all my own bread instead of buying it from the store; I find cooking and baking such an enjoyable practice and homemade is so much tastier than prepackaged stuff.

My camera is hidden somewhere in my house... actually it's probably just somewhere on my messy desk but I don't feel like digging around there so I used my phone's camera to take this picture, it leaves a bit to be desired. This is our new cat, we named him Bones mostly for Dr. McCoy on Star Trek, but it doesn't hurt that Bones is also the name of an anime studio we both like.

Don't let the picture fool you, he is a little monster than runs amok throughout my house and instigates wrestling matches with our older cat Harry. Despite his irritation, Harry is reserved when they tumble around but Bones earned himself a pretty wicked smack from him the other day that put him in his place for about an hour.
He's an interesting little guy, he carries his toys all around the house in his mouth (something I've never experienced with a cat), and is well on his way to learning how to properly play fetch (he still gets a little excited and will attack your hand if you don't throw the toy quickly enough).

I'm going to be getting a Blackberry within the next week (thank goodness for a new phone, mine is randomly turning itself off despite being fully charged and the case for the antenna is slowing cracking off) and was looking through GelaSkins for a skin (I have a steampunk themed one for my iPod and I love it) and discovered that they have an Alphonse Mucha skin! I'm trying to decide between the Mucha skin, this Wizard of Oz themed skin and this bookshelf skin that is by the same artist as my iPod skin. I love that they offer wallpapers that seamlessly continue the image on to the screen, it looks awesome.

I'm getting another cat! Unfortunately I have no idea what to call him... anyone want to weigh in? The gal I'm getting him from didn't name him because she was going to give him to her sister, only to have her dad call her and tell her she shouldn't since her sis tends to neglect her pets (lame). The poor little guy has been around for 10 weeks and is still nameless, I'm happy to be able to name him myself, but that seems kind of rough!
I asked Chris what he thought, his response was "I don't know, something good though." Lots of help there.
I was thinking Bruce or Wolfgang both of which are, in the tradition of The Raw Shark Texts, completely inappropriate names for a cat. Maybe I should just call him Ian. :P

He will be here at 10:30am, pictures to follow.

In other news: insomnia is lame, but vegan chocolate cupcakes are delicious!

Several things I've had on my mind over the past months but haven't had the energy to make full posts about and so completely neglected. Completely random and in no particular order:

- I successfully transitioned to a fully vegan diet two months ago, and I must say I'm surprised at how easy it is. It was the same situation as when I went vegetarian again last summer, I finally hit a point where I fully realized that it was never going to happen unless I just went 'cold turkey' and so I did, and there was no turning back. This is a HUGE victory for me, I have a terrible relationship with food that has spun out of control over the last year and a half resulting in my ballooning up to a size that I have never been at before. Ever since I have been struggling to get my eating under some control to no avail, and so to make such a drastic change in my diet so easily is a big point of pride for me. I'm glad to say that I've finally started losing weight, not by dieting but by making the changes that address my reasons for being overweight and that I think will lead to a successful weightloss that will be lasting.

- Star Trek was absolutely fucking awesome. I loved the whole cast but I have to say that Karl Urban had McCoy down and was the icing on the cake for me. It makes me sad that DeForest Kelley wasn't around to see the amazing tribute he paid to the character.

- I finally saw the Twilight movie and my thoughts are this: Robert Pattison is one funky looking mofo and I don't get the attraction, also for the majority of the film I couldn't shake the feeling that he was desperately trying to keep from shitting himself.

- Made it to Emerald City Comic Con this year, only about six pictures because I completely forgot that I had a camera hanging over my shoulder for the majority of the con, but I got a picture of two awesome Hazel and Cha-Cha cosplayers, which makes up for it... the best part though was that on the ride home I caught a picture of a house with Betty Page painted on the side. For your viewing pleasure.

- Read my first Chuck Palahniuk novel (Lullabye, loved it!) and am now determined to read everything the man has written.

I can't begin to describe how good it feels to be finally getting some balance back in my life. I feel like a sane, grounded person again.
The last year and a half or so have been very rough. My relationship pretty much exploded the day before Emerald City Comic Con 2008 and we had been dealing (read: screaming fights) with that ever since. Things looked pretty bleak and at my sister's recommendation I started seeing a therapist, best decision I ever made. She has afforded me much insight into myself and the forces that have shaped my personality and behavior, which has allowed me to work past a lot of things and finally get to a point where I feel like I am living my life, rather than waiting for it to happen to me.

I've started back with school, I had skipped fall and winter quarters because my life was in such chaos that I just barely scraped through the previous two semesters, just finished the film and literature class I was taking, it was very enjoyable. Going back and forth with the idea of taking a class this summer, on one hand I'd like to be able to just enjoy the summer, on the other hand there is a 5 week sci-fi/fantasy literature class that is calling my name...

Had stopped writing, which was always a large part of my life. In August my hard drive died and I lost quite a bit of work, this paired with the problems I was having with Chris put a damper on any desire I had to write. I have finally started back at it, and writing has become a daily part of my life once again. I feel like I've become reconnected with a part of myself that was lost.

I'm thinking of starting up a blog (outside of LJ), I've been sitting on an entirely empty domain for over a year, but I just can't give it up and it would make good use of that wasted space.

Also, Windows 7 > Vista. But Scrivener has me wishing that I'd just switched to a Mac in August when my hard drive died, though I am rather fond of the Vaio that I replaced my old clunky Acer with.

Do me a favor

If there is someone in your life whom you love or care for, but for whatever reason isn't as big of a presence in your life as they once were tell them you love them.
Maybe not right this minute, but soon. Very soon. PLEASE. Because you'll never know when they will pass out of your life forever and that chance will have passed, and I'm telling you that the grief and regret you will feel over having neglected to at least once tell them how much you loved them, and how blessed you were to be able to have called them family or friend is indescribable. Please, do this.