February 12, 2013
Mini Meatloaves

chickwithmonkey replied to your post: This meatloaf also has peppers in it. When I get…
i have only ever tasted one meatloaf in my life and it was at the end of a 16-hour overnight double shift so i’m not sure i was human at the time. plz post that recipe plz!

Okay, so here’s a thing about me: I am lazy and I love unsophisticated and east to make food. Like, my favorite recipe books tend either to be “Six Ingredients or Less” or the kind all the Mormon mothers used to put together at church of the recipes they used to crowd-pleasingly and incredibly inexpensively and easily feed their many kids. This recipe I got from my mom, who I think got it from one of those church collections.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup ketchup

2-3 TBsp brown sugar

3/4 tsp dry mustard—or 2 Tbl yellow mustard (I usually skip this because I don’t like mustard)

1 egg beaten

3 tsp worchestershire sauce

2 cups chex cereal crushed

2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp seasoned salt (I don’t always have this—regular salt is fine)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 lbs ground beef

DIRECTIONS

Mix ketchup, brown sugar, and mustard—-set aside 1/3 cup to use as a topping.

Add all other ingredients and mix well. (I use my hands. Best way to mix things with the beef, even if it is a little gross). Press meat into 12 muffin cups.

Bake 375 for 20-25 minutes

Spoon ketchup mixture on top of each muffin, dividing it and using it all.

Bake 10 minutes longer.

Aaand that’s it.

Things I love about this recipe:

It is fucking delicious. It is relatively easy and cheap to make. It freezes and reheats really really well. Like, if you’re living alone this is a great recipe for making, eating two or three of the little mini meatloaf muffins, and putting the rest in ziploc bags in the freezer to reheat in the microwave later. It really manages to keep its quality.

So there. That’s my mom’s meatloaf recipe that she fed all of us kids on. 

11:11pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxe2LGar
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: chickwithmonkey meatloaf recipe timemachine wuz here 
December 30, 2012

chickwithmonkey asked: i just saw an ad for an upcoming movie that looks so horrible i immediately felt sorry for you. good luck when you get to movie 43.

Ahahahahaha.

I wonder if I will ever reach a movie where I just, I don’t know, completely fall apart in the theater. Shout “DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY CHILDREN YOU COULD HAVE FED WITH THE BUDGET OF THIS FILM?” and then just run screaming from the building throwing concessions at the screen as I go.

8:05pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxab3PWs
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: chickwithmonkey 
October 26, 2012

chickwithmonkey asked: are you going to gallifrey 2013?

YESSSSSSSSS.

I’ve gone every year since 2009. 

I lurve it.

It’s one of my favourite weekends of the year.

4:21pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxW15GXp
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: chickwithmonkey timemachine wuz here gallifrey one 
October 19, 2012

chickwithmonkey replied to your post: Dear Coby and Groupon, I’ve been thinking about…

whoa i am super tempted by that 40 inch. not that i need one but damn that is a good deal.

Truthfully I’m tempted buy it too, which is a badness because I don’t have the $200 max I’ve said I’d budget for this, $300 is just beyond the limit. 

But 40 inches is awesome. It would take up like my whole dresser and turn my room into a tiny movie theater!

Buuuuuut I do not have $300.

1:58pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxVbKcxp
Filed under: chickwithmonkey 
September 19, 2012

likebadhorse replied to your post: Hey, fellow tumblrians, I have been having a…

Hey dude. You’re awesome! I’m sorry you’re having a shitty time. Best of luck for tomorrow!

hedwig-dordt replied to your post: Hey, fellow tumblrians, I have been having a…

Because you found Axolotl salamanders! Also: Shakesvilleans are a lovely bunch in general. Would you care for the Tray of Comforting Things?

chickwithmonkey replied to your post: Hey, fellow tumblrians, I have been having a…

timemachine! you are awesomesauce. i wish we were in-person buddies because you rock. every time your name comes up on my dash i go, “oh look someone fantastic has posted YAY.” you got this, friend.

Thanks, y’all. Your encouragement really helped. 

I think the interview went well? It was pretty short though, and I arrived at 2:16 for a 2:15 interview (I LEFT SOO EARLY AND THEN FEDEX MISPLACED MY RESUME ORDER AND WE HAD TO REDO THE WHOLE THING AND THEN THE PARKING SITUATION WAS AMAZING AND BIZARRE AND THEN I WAS TOLD TO GO TO THE OLD ANIMATION BUILDING AND THERE WERE TWO ANIMATION BUILDINGS AND THEY WEREN’T LABELED, my getting there when I did is actually a fantastic testament to how on-top-of-things I was that none of that stopped me from getting there pretty much on time BUT IT WAS STILL A MINUTE LATE AND NOT FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLY LIKE RECOMMENDED IN EVERY “WHEN TO ARRIVE FOR AN INTERVIEW” THING EVER) and was out by like 2:28. 

I think I answered the questions well (I always forget to prep a good response to “What are your favourite movies?” which is dumb of me because EVERYONE IN THIS BUSINESS ASKS THAT, but I still think I answered it well).

He said he’d be out of town starting tomorrow so “I’ll see you next week”, so I have no idea what that means? I got the internship? There’ll be a second interview? I was told that once at an interview and got excited and then didn’t get the gig, because there was an implied “If we select you” that I didn’t manage to suss out. 

He liked my coverage sample, though. He thought my commentary was good and said “That’s not necessarily a thing that can be taught, so that’s good.”

I should probably send a thank-you-for-the-interview email. How long are you supposed to wait for those? Right away? Next day? 

I have no idea what I’m doing and it’s a wonder I’ve lasted this long.

3:50pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxTiU9pL
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: likebadhorse hedwig-dordt chickwithmonkey timemachine wuz here 
June 24, 2012

talesoftherin replied to your post: velociraptorchan started following you Right in…

ooh, if we’re all Pokemon can I be Eevee? :D

chickwithmonkey replied to your post: velociraptorchan started following you Right in…

i’m jigglypuff. because of reasons.

These are good choices, and you should feel good about yourselves.

P.S., I’m going to go find this one awesome Eevee poem I saw once and reblog it. 

10:23am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxO1FKi4
Filed under: talesoftherin chickwithmonkey timemachine wuz here 
May 14, 2012

chickwithmonkey replied to your post: The meme again!

yesss we would get along so very very well in real life. you rock. thank you, internet, for connecting persons with the same interests and tendencies.

ISN’T THE INTERNET BEAUTIFUL?

7:38pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxLVpFsn
Filed under: chickwithmonkey timemachine wuz here 
May 13, 2012
The meme again!

I was retagged for this meme by chickwithmonkey, and answering questions is fun so I’m doing it, but I wont’ be tagging any folk this time around, and probably won’t even bother coming up with new questions. Anyway, here goes!

1. if you could have any job in the world, what would it look like? not just what would you do, but what kind of hours/dress code/work station would you have?

Can I make up a pretend job? Because the real-world answer to this question is “TV writer - possibly showrunner - making awesome feminist genre television”, but I have this other answer that is more like “Grand Queen of All Hollywood, Whose Approval You Must Seek” and I would in charge of everyone’s feminist requirements, and pretty much, when shows and movies weren’t sure if something was a good idea, they’d come to me or one of my many carefully appointed consorts for our judgment, and if we deemed something unworthy it wouldn’t get made. And lower aristocrats would be put in charge of smaller things, while I would be pretty much running my favourite TV shows from the top in consulting position with lots of creative input. And then when people were like “We’re thinking of adapting the book ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ into a dudebro comedy” I could be like, “No. You don’t get to make that. I am giving that money to the live-action adaptation of the life story of my friend’s hilarious grandmother.”

And I would wear a crown and a robe lots of glitter. And live in a tiny palace full of royal cats. My work hours would be Whenever The People Need Me, and I would have some kind of technology based spider sense to let me know when and where that is. 

But if I got the real job I’d like to have a clean, but intentionally playful and covered with toys, workspace. A la Pixar. Wear jeans and t-shirt, if not just a tube dress all the time, and work ALL THE HOURS some of the time and fewer hours the rest of the time so my job gets done well. 

2. what’s your favorite animal and why? are you like that animal or do you wish you were?

The answer to this question changes constantly. I like puffins and penguins and otters and cats. Right now my favourite animal, hands down, is octopodes, though. 

Because Octopus is a fun word, because THEY ARE SO SMART, because they look so weird and cool and beautiful, because invertebrates what even. And they have camouflage and also octopodes is the greatest plural nouns ever and should be adopted by everyone. 

I became re-obsessed with them recently when I was thinking about giving one to Sherlock (BBC version) for his patronus. It seemed fitting to me, as both are gorgeous, but in a weird looking way. Both are extremely intelligent, fairly solitary, and good at mimicry. And octopodes were in fashion in the Victorian era, as was Sherlock Holmes. I think I have less in common with them, as I am neither graceful nor a master of disguise. Though we do share a knack for hanging out by ourselves.

3. what tv show/movie/book do you keep watching/reading even though you feel like you shouldn’t?

Bones has fallen by the wayside a bit recently and yet I just keep watching. The characterizations are so wildly inconsistent, the most interesting plot-lines have been pretty much wrapped up (many of them in ways that aren’t satisfying), plus, it’s always been a kind of mindless procedural that I watched initially for Stephen Fry, and continued for Emily Deschanel. 

Also, while I haven’t finished the most recent season, Merlin. Oh, Merlin. You are just not a good show. 

4. what tv show/movie/book disappointed you the most and why? what should have happened instead?

THE LAST AIRBENDER.

THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN ASIAN CAST AND RESPECT FOR THE UNIVERSE AND ACTUAL MARTIAL ARTS AND HUMOR AND DECENT CHARACTERIZATION. 

I WILL PROBABLY BE BITTER ABOUT THIS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

5. what’s your favorite limerick (dirty or otherwise)?

I don’t know very many limericks, to be honest. I could make one up.

There once was a fangeek on tumblr
Who realised tumblr was not an easy word to rhyme
Well shit.  

6. when you were a kid, what did you think your life would look like at this age? were you right?

I thought I’d be married or near to it, Mormon, an internationally famous and wealthy author, and that I’d be in the process of adopting my first child. None of that is true.

Some things I thought I would do, I did, though. I have my own pet. I still wear what I like and don’t always make my bed and despite my mother’s warnings the world has not ended. I still watch cartoons and enjoy children’s things, never having felt any reason to stop outside of peer pressure, which is no reason at all. So I was mostly wrong, but not entirely. 

7. what’s your proudest moment?

Hard to say. I’m always pretty proud when I manage to open someone up to a new way of thinking on things though. That Thing That I Wrote about rape jokes, while sometimes embarrassing to me because I wish I’d had my sources with me when I wrote it or had realised how many people would be reading it, makes me proud because it seems to have gotten a lot of people to think about an issue in a way they hadn’t before. And I’ve converted some friends to fat acceptance and occasionally commanded a room during student discussions with my “But here’s why that’s sexist” ramblings. I’ve been told I go on a good rant, and I’ve managed to defend or bolster some pretty wonderful people. so that makes me proud. 

8. what’s your favorite food/beverage to make? (pouring a glass of water counts if that’s the extent of your culinary abilities!)

Poppy seed chicken. You need a crock pot, chicken and poppy seed dressing. You put the chicken and dressing in the crock pot, wait 3-4 hours, make rice, stir the chicken so it gets all shredded, and then poor the chicken over the rice. Then eat. I love it because everyone loves it and it looks like I’ve actually cooked but lol nope it’s three ingredients and about the same amount of work as microwaving a TV dinner lolololololol

9. what invention or service do you most wish existed?

INSTANT TELEPORTATION

Also, I’d like a Kickstarter-style pet rescue service, where people who have money but not time/space can give money to people who have time/space but not money to take care of animals. When I adopted my cat, I was able to do so because of the financial and personal support of friends who promised me the cat would not want even if things got bad for me, and ever since then I’ve thought it’d be great to use the internet to do the same. 

10. how’s your day been?

Pretty good, but I didn’t get work in like I’d like to have done. I slept in for no good reason, and as a result lost about four hours of potential productivity time.

11. how can i be your friend?

Oh! Um.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME IF YOU WANT TO BE MY FRIEND:

I am not a proactive friend, or a proactive socializer. At all. Like, I don’t text people daily or keep in touch well. This does not mean I am not your friend! This just means that if you want to be talking regularly with me you have to 1) be the proactive one because I never will be and 2) be patient with me if sometimes I drop off of the face of the Earth for no reason and don’t respond to you and then two weeks later you’re like “What the hell?” and I’m like “Oh sorry, I forgot, I was having sudden Life issues that I failed to mention to you and/or playing the Sims.”

I realise this is shitty, and I am working on it. But in the meantime, if you want to be my friend

1) Don’t be a bigot, because that is a big deal breaker on the whole friendship thing

2) Talk to me!

3) Be patient with me and my weird brain and social priorities

Thank you for the questions! I liked them very much. 

11:38pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxLSYnwO
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: chickwithmonkey timemachine wuz here 
May 7, 2012
It’s a meme!

I was tagged by seriesofnonsequiturs for this! 

This tag is to get to know the person behind the blog better. As with any tagging game there are rules:

Rule 1 - Post the rules.
Rule 2 - Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then make 11 new ones.
Rule 3 - Tag 11 people and link them to your post.
Rule 4 - Let them know you’ve tagged them.

My answers to Series of Non Sequiturs’s questions: 

1. Favorite childhood memory/story?

Oh. Um. This one is hard, because a lot of awesome things happened to me as a kid. There was the time that my dad made me a wheeled cart out of old wood I got to bring it to school and everyone rode around in it. There were a couple times I won things at school. The time I got all 100 jellybeans for Jelly Belly Fun Day, which was a kind of field day thing our school did. Times teachers recommended books to me and treated me like an adult.

The first thing that springs to mind though, and the memory is hazy and probably half imagined, but this one time when we were living in Idaho (meaning I was younger than seven), there was this HUGE AMAZING RAINBOW. It was the most glorious thing any of the neighborhood kids had seen. And then someone said, “I think I can see where it touches the ground.” and just like that we were all on our bikes (many of them still with training wheels) going after it to get the pot of gold at the end. And we went after it for ages, getting out almost to the gas station, which was further than any of us had ever gotten*, and we were off-roading through a field when there was this very distinct rattling. 

A rattlesnake. 

By the time someone had finished shouting the word we were all turned around, bolting, abandoning our quest. And we biked so fast. And eventually, when we had gotten much farther than we really needed to to get away from even the most determined snake, we all fell over, exhausted.

It was awesome. I remember feeling really, really happy. 

2. Do you drink coffee? Why/not?

Nope. Because I don’t think it tastes good at all. I hear it’s an acquired taste, and I was raised Mormon and so wasn’t allowed to have any, and now I don’t feel like putting in the work to acquire it. I think my life is full enough without. 

3. Ideal future home? (location, type, whatever details you like)

I don’t like stairs, so prefer single story homes even if they have to sprawl a bit. I do like animals. I still can’t figure out whether I like living in the city or the country or somewhere in between most. I’d like a big backyard, but preferably one I don’t have to maintain for whatever reason (whether because it’s a community thing maintained by someone else, or because I can afford to pay someone else to do it). I have this personal conflict where there’s a lot of things I would love to have in a house, and yet I don’t like big houses all that much. Like, I spend far too much time trying to figure out how I could manage to get a personal gym and in-home theater into a small manageable home. But I do like gyms, and I do like theaters. And I don’t love big houses (having lived most of my life in one as one of five children). 

And I love animals. Did I mention animals? I want a yard and maybe a pond and maybe dog doors and cat walks and a tortoise who just wanders around and maybe to be able to just run a rescue from the living room or something. 

I don’t like humidity. I was raised mostly in a desert and live mostly in a desert and whenever I visit rainy places I think they are the most beautiful wonderful thing until my thick hair hasn’t dried for four days straight and I start finding all the bugs and then the glamour wears off a bit. 

But also, animals. Also I’ve always love the idea of a kind a roundish house layout with all of the bedrooms being around the main room so that there’s your space and community space side-by-side. I dunno.

4. Favorite tv show?

Doctor Who or Sailor Moon or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Don’t make me pick. I’ll cry.

5. Do you like when it’s raining?

I LOVE WHEN IT’S RAINING. IT’S SO NICE. I know this contradicts the desert thing I said above, but I LOVE RAIN. AND KIND OF HATE WHEN IT’S REALLY SUNNY. 

Sunshine burns and hurts your eyes and rain is so pleasant and cool and even when it’s obnoxious it still sounds really neat and looks really neat and I just love it so much. 

If you know of a place where it’s cloudy or rainy like all of the time, but not humid at all through some strange magic, please tell me about it because I want to live there. 

6. Most recent obsession/hobby?

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade. I expect it’ll wear off soon, though, as I’m getting close to summoning the Harvest King. I’ve also just finished My Little Pony:FiM season 2, so that’s back on the brain. Oh, and Legend of Korra. Oh my god, that show. And The Avengers movie.

7. Most recent book you read and what you thought?

I’m finishing up Cold Magic right now and I like it. Last book I finished was War For The Oaks, which I recommend if you’re interested in some of the roots of modern urban fantasy. It’s got a great protagonist and good love story and rock and roll and fairy wars. No complaints here. 

8. Biggest pet peeve?

Casual bigotry. But also any time there’s a simple solution to something, but it’s still being done the longer or more impractical way. There are a lot of little examples of this that are so small, but get me so irrationally worked up. I can’t think of any right now, but the crux of all of them is “But it would be SO EASY TO FIX!” and then I spend all day ranting about a poorly designed toilet paper dispenser or something. OH GOD I JUST REALISED I AM MY FATHER.

9. Favorite book as a kid?

Matilda. So much so that I had an irrational hatred for the movie as a child (which I should probably give a second chance. I just felt it had too cartoony a tone and wasn’t frightening or serious enough) and still get thrown for a loop a little bit whenever I realise how many people think of the movie first instead of the book when it is brought up fondly. I even get unreasonably put off (I realise this is snobby and really wrong of me) when someone says they loved Matilda and identified with it so much but they never read the book. Some part of my goes “How could you identify with her outcast status as a book nerd IF YOU DIDN’T EVEN READ THE BOOK. ROALD DAHL WAS KIND OF AN ASSHOLE ABOUT HOW MUCH HE FELT BOOKS WERE SUPERIOR TO FILMS AND TELEVISION AND WHETHER OR NOT YOU AGREE WITH HIM THAT THEME OOZES THROUGH MUCH OF THE STORY. IF YOU IDENTIFIED WITH IT YOU WOULD HAVE READ THE BOOK” *cries into worn out copy*

I KNOW I SHOULDN’T FEEL THIS WAY. MOVIE FANS, YOU ARE LOVELY PEOPLE. SORRY FOR BEING A DOUCHE. I APOLOGIZE SINCERELY FOR MY UNGENEROUS AND UNWARRANTED THOUGHTS ABOUT YOU. 

10. Favorite time of day?

Early afternoon (like 12-2) or late evening (like 8-11)

11. In your opinion, the best way to eat eggs?

However you find them delicious. I most often eat them made in a sandwich maker into perfect triangles with still-runny yokes. I then set the eggs on toast and eat them with my hands. This is both easy and delicious.

If I’m out and someone else is going to the work of making them, though, I almost never say no to eggs benedict. Soooooooo goooooood.

OKAY HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS

1. What song have you not been able to stop listening to recently?

2. What question do you always wish someone would ask you?

3. If you could swap bodies/lives with any fictional character, who would you choose (note: this fictional character would also be forced into your life)?

4. If you could have your dream project put to screen with your dream cast and dream creative team, what would it be, and who would be involved?

5. What’s the most recent thing to make you laugh?

6. What is your favourite letter of the alphabet?

7. Do you have any effective coping strategies? PLEASE SHARE.

8. Have you ever met any celebrities? What’s your most embarrassing and/or victorious encounter?

9. Favourite names for pets (either that you’ve thought up or encountered)?

10. If you could guest star on any TV show, what would it be?

11. What is your favourite terrible, groan-worthy joke?

I AM TAGGING THESE FOLK

but feel a need to say that it’s okay if you don’t feel like doing this. All this tag means is I like you and your blog. Also, if you’re tagged and want to answer the questions but not tag others, that is also okay! Also, if you aren’t tagged but want to answer the questions anyway, go for it! Also, I might not wind up tagging a full eleven people because I’m not that social. Also, I say also a lot. 

clankerskank

von-questenberg

tardis-stowaway

iwillthinkofanewurllater

lifethroughapinhole

chickwithmonkey

ivyeyed

talesoftherin

aboyscoutandabrownie

11:34pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMbepxL5Yh2I
Filed under: *I feel it is worth noting that this was in a VERY SMALL AND SAFE Air Force town where I walked to school by myself every day starting at... *...five and we weren't just a bunch of kids with really neglectful parents clankerskank von-questenberg tardis-stowaway iwillthinkofanewurllater lifethroughapinhole chickwithmonkey ivyeyed talesoftherin aboyscoutandabrownie timemachine wuz here 
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