I'm so freaking excited.  This website inspires me.

Also this, for my XTi:

Love love love!

Oh and I went up to New York with Brady to see Tara for her birthday.  I got to meet her beautiful and lovely friends and her man again.  Everyone is so nice.  I wish I had more friends in Delaware.  Also Tara inspires me to be awesome.

Lastly, but not least ~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALSO TO HOLLY my best friend, all the way in Texas.  I wish she was just a drive away as well, because I'd love to come see her more often.

I'm thinking about saving up to fly to Texas.

Brady had been offering to build me a gaming computer of my own, as long as I saved up the money, so I figured I'd now take him up on the offer. The only thing was that I didn't have the money saved up, but he had the Bill-Me-Later option with New Egg. So I'm using his account, and I'm the one paying the bills, but the computer has been worth it.

I don't really know the specs, except that it's Intel Dual Core, and the processor is like 2.69 gHz (technically 2.7, but it only sees 2.69.) It's got 4 gigs of ram, and sees all 4, since I'm running Windows 7 64-bit. (Gross, I know.) I also have a pretty good graphics card. I don't know the specifics, but Brady said it's slightly better than his. I have 600-something gigs of hard drive space, and I also installed a wireless card. Why - I have no idea, but it works.

Here's the awesome part. The case is pink!

It's small and compact, and has blue LEDs on the fan, and gives me a temperature reading on the CPU and hard drive. Mine's always hotter than the gauge in the picture, mostly because it's so darn packed in there. The graphics card takes up the whole left side.

So anyway, I'm pretty excited and I thought I'd share that with everybody. I also have a pink Logitech mouse with it, and a keyboard that glows purple! ^_^

Saturday Brady and I went to Walmart. I should note here that I've never shopped at Walmart for myself and never intend on doing so. I feel embarrassed for human society when I go there, and feel like disciplining other peoples' children. After hearing me complain for the first 10 minutes, and not finding a bedframe at all, Brady decided we would take the adventure 45 minutes away from Delaware, to the nearest Ikea.

I've never been to Ikea. I was expecting a store on par with Target, Best Buy, or something similar. But no, this was like the Please-Touch-Museum. Or an Art museum. There was actual organization here, which was a relief in comparison to Walmart. They even had a food court. The food seemed really cheap, but was not Vegan, and I did not partake.

Finding an appropriate bedframe was the difficult part. We didn't actually get to the section we needed until the end. All the bedframes seemed to be either size Queen or Twin. We have a Full sized bed. We contemplated a few that were no better than simply having the mattress on the ground itself. We wanted storage, but all the ones with storage were in the $300 range.

Then, we decided to go into the kids section, and we found it. A nice sturdy wooden loft bed with space for "activities" (Step Brothers reference). It was $199 on sale from $399. We would be able to bring Brady's couch back upstairs from the basement, and have our own living quarters under the bed. I have to say, however, that the idea of a loft bed makes me very nervous, but the sign at Ikea said it'd hold 400 lbs weight, and we probably weigh 281 lbs combined. I hope we'll be okay. I've never seen a loft bed collapse except for in Step Brothers

The other concern I had was that we drove to Ikea in my 2-door Volkswagen Rabbit. It's been known to haul a good bit of stuff, but I wasn't sure if it would fit an entire loft bed. Luckily the entire bed was packed away neatly in two separate boxes that had no problem fitting into my car (surprise!) and we were able to get the bed home.

That was the easy part.

I understand the need for instructions to be easy to understand for any language, but I don't even think the Swedish could understand the instructions. It's all up to interpretation, and involved a lot of staring at tiny details in the pictures. Brady and I work tech support for a living so are used to figuring out problems and understanding the mechanics of things. So what I didn't understand was how do other people figure out how to build these damn things? Do they all call the Ikea people to come to their house and build these things? And how do those people handle their job? There must be some sort of high-suicide rate. I can't imagine having to build shit from Ikea all day every day. I would probably cry.

Despite a bashed up thumb, red and near-bleeding hands, scared cats, and probably angry neighbours, we were able to assemble the bed within 8 hours. I don't love the bed, but I love the extra space. I've never assembled anything from Ikea, and I will never be assembling anything from Ikea ever again. Next time we go to Ikea, we're buying plates instead. They don't require assembly (or at least I don't think they do!)

And so now, I understand this comic.

I went over to my mom's house yesterday. We went to a little play her community was putting on. It was just a few parts of some of Mark Twain's stories. It was cute. It was very difficult to hear a lot of the actors due to lack of enunciation, or they spoke too softly, but it was entertaining. There was this adorable little boy playing one of the parts in Tom Sawyer, and he must've been about 4 or 5. He was begging Tom to paint in this adorable little voice. He even put on a bit of a southern accent. He didn't really like to stay where he was supposed to be. Curtain call was tough because he wanted to stand in the middle of the stage and wave to everybody, but adorable, none the less.

I made dinner for my mom as well, and I'm a little frustrated with how that went down. I cook for Brady all the time, and he doesn't care if it's vegan or not. He loves everything I cook and eats it and gets seconds later. But my mom was picking on the food. She shouldn't care if it's got meat in it or not. If it's delicious, you eat it. I know she was just teasing me because it was "fake" meat, but honestly, if I was cooking that in a pot, with all the taco sauce on it, it smells good, and it looks like meat, so I'm not sure what difference it makes. Frustrations aside, she did end up eating it, and said it was good, but didn't want me to leave the rest of it with her. I took it home, and Brady ate it, and said it was good, so at least I know it wasn't disgusting. My little sister wouldn't eat it because it had corn and onions in it.

I offered to cook for her again, just sans soy cheese and wheat meat. But she doesn't understand that food can legitimately be made vegan. Animal products don't HAVE to be in something for it to be tasty. I'm sure there's plenty of foods that you've eaten that are vegan by nature. Minestrone soup, Oreo cookies, pasta, pancakes (sometimes). And when I told her I was making vegan cupcakes that mysteriously disappear within days of making them, she said that was disgusting too, and couldn't imagine what one would bake with if I left out the butter and eggs. I noted that so many eat margarine, which is a butter replacement, without thinking twice. But the moment I put "soy" in the word it's disgusting. I'll cook something some day that she won't be weirded out by, but I guess until then she'll always be suspicious of my cooking.

In other news, another one of my dolls was repainted recently. To give you a refresher, she used to look like this:

But I had Aileen (frozen wings on DOA) repaint her to be my cute little deadly Zombie/Elf girl:

I'm going to get her these eyes in 12mm spirit dove. Then she'll need a little outfit, and eventually her own body. That's at least exciting.

I did find something pretty awesome just now, and that is a vegan recipe for Twix.  If you search it you can find it pretty easily.  I have every single ingredient, and am very eager to make them.  I'll of course update on how they come out.

Tonight I have plans to cook the seitan I bought pre-made into some Zatarain's for dinner for the rest of the week.  Brady bought 2 medium pizzas for himself, so I'll have to make do.

I'm rambling now.  I'm at work, and I have 1 hour, 8 minutes remaining of an impossibly slow Sunday.

Now, for the topic of the post.  My first batch of vegan cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World was a hit.  I'm not sure how it went with the other boys, but Brady especially loved them.  They were peanutbuttery with chocolate drizzle on top, and chopped peanuts.  They were subtle enough to eat with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and as a snack.  I'd have to say Brady probably had the most of them.

So I had to make another batch of a different kind of cupcake, and test those on him.  I definitely have to say that vegan cupcakes are among the tastier cupcakes I've had.  They've got healthier ingredients (the peanutbutter ones had flax seed in them) and are lighter and more moist.

So today's cupcake of choice was the S'mores Cupcakes with Vegan Buttercream frosting.  I'm not sure how they came out yet, since I kind of screwed up the idea of "graham cracker crumbs."  Essentially I was supposed to grind some graham crackers into practically dust, and mix that in with the batter.  I got large crumbs, just not bitty pieces of graham dust.  Next time, maybe, but I suppose these will be a bit chunky.

The batter was very runny, as I suppose it should be, since the directions said to fill each cupcake to the top of the paper.  The buttercream is essentially shortening and margarine, with confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and soy milk.  Yummy!  It was fluffy enough before I put the soy milk in, and I'm afraid the soy milk may have made it runny, but we shall see.  I'll send an update with what Brady thinks as soon as he tastes one.

For the rest of my day, I'm relaxing in bed, in a t-shirt and shorts, in front of a fan and an open window.  Today was definitely a hot day.  I was running around in jeans, in front of an oven.  Blah.

UPDATE: Brady tasted one of the s'mores cupcakes, and they're a hit!  "Even better" than the peanutbutter ones, which I thought was hard to do.  It seems the pieces of graham cracker that were left over were absorbed by the rest of the mix, and not even noticeable when eating the cupcake.  I was a little worried because Bryan, our roommate, got to the cupcakes first.  I worry when someone tastes something I make before I do.

I'm happy because I got some yummy coconut flavoured vegan icecream sandwiches at the Newark Co-op the other day.  They're so yummy and small and animal-free.  I could eat a million of them, but I won't, because that would be bad.

But another thing I like about being on a mostly-vegan diet now is that my diet is cholesterol free.  I'm never going to have to worry about having eaten too much cholesterol and getting sick from it.  I always get enough protein because protein is in like, everything.  There are only a few vitamins I have to worry about, and I have to make sure I get enough sun for those, and take my daily vitamin.  For calcium I've been drinking calcium orange juice every morning with my breakfast.

I said "mostly-vegan" up there because there are still some veggie substitute things that manage to have whey in them.  I'm not really sure the reason for it, but it's there.  I should give it up eventually I suppose.

If anyone is really wondering why I became vegetarian again (and even vegan this time) is not only because I felt I wasn't being myself, but also because of a movie/documentary called Earthlings.  It's a documentary that shows how we treat animals.  Basically animals aren't ours for any purpose in live, except to share the Earth.  It's a really sad documentary, and I did cry a few times through it, but I recommend it for anybody.

I'm going to be trying a few new recipes this week.  I want to make Brady some more vegan cupcakes or some muffins.  Also I want to try a few stir-fry recpies with the package of seitan that I bought from the Co-op.  I think that if I don't like tofu very much, I'll really like seitan.

Besides all the new vegan-y stuff in my life, I found a new musician to listen to.  Her name is Lenka, and the album I have is her self-titled one.  I really like all the songs on it, but my favourites are "The Show" and another one, that I can't really remember the name.

I'm finishing up here; I'm going to try to upgrade my WordPress to the newest version, and watch Family Guy with my loverly husboi.  <3 <3 <3

Click the link to go to the store that sells them, however I got them on eBay for $18.  I'm not sure if they're very good, but they're cute, and the eBay shipping was free.  I'll be sure to give my review once I get them.

They would be perfect for a morning like today, when Brady went to bed at 5:30 am this morning, and I don't want to sleep until the start of my shift at 3pm.

This is the end of my spending for this week. <3

Which is why I decided to get some cookbooks today at Border's.  I bought two.  Vegan with a Vengeance and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, both by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  Today I decided to make some cupcakes.  It was pretty daunting since there are literally 75 different recipies to choose from in this book, and icings, too.  I finally decided on the Peanut Butter Cupcakes.  It's a simple recipe that involves natural chunky peanut butter, molasses, flaxseed, vanilla, soymilk, and other basic ingredients.  The "icing" is supposed to be a drizzled semi-sweet chocolate ganache.  Unfortunately I didn't have a piping bag, and I forgot I could make one out of a ziplock bag.  But my experience with a ziplock bag wasn't really useful for drizzling, so instead I just spread a small layer of the ganache on the top.  Granted this is probably more chocolate than is required, but it'll do.  On top of that I sprinkled some chopped peanuts, and voila.  Cupcakes a'hoy.

I have to say, after trying one, they are pretty good.  Less sweet than you would expect a cupcake to be, but I think that's the point.  I mean, peanut butter cookies aren't generally sweet.  It tastes pretty wholesome, and the chocolate ganache wasn't overbearing.  They're extremely moist, and I had to eat them over the sink so I didn't lose the entire cupcake all over the floor.

I'm looking forward to cooking the other recipes in this book.  I learned a few things, like I didn't know that soy milk would still curdle with vinegar the way that cow milk does.  I've noticed you can use less soy milk where you'd use cow milk.  I'm glad I don't have to crack eggs anymore or  melt butter.

I'll be updating future posts if I make any more of these cupcakes, along with some reviews.  The book is definitely a good resource, and I recommend it, even if you're not vegetarian or vegan.  It was $15.95 at Border's, and they had quite a few.