Granny Chic

Bestie Hillary and I have recently realized that there should be a name for our particular brand of lifestyle. Granny Chic is the new craze! Well, not really ... but like everything else I start liking, this will probably catch on and become ruined by internet memes and hipster doofuses. [I may be a self-hating hipster ... but I'm no doofus!]

I've seen a few different themes on Granny Chic on some really great blogs, mostly pertaining to home decor or fashion, but I think that I'd like to dub this the first time this great little title has been given to one's demeanor or specific penchants. I like naming things! Not everything needs a label, but I enjoy it. I think it started years ago when my sister and I used to try and describe the way we liked to dress. I dubbed her "Modern Romantic" and she dubbed me "Hitchcock Rock."

So, what makes someone Granny Chic? Well you most certainly must be able to sew/knit/crochet or all three. I knit and sew some; Hillary is a wiz with crochet! Beyond that there are definitely a few more lifestyle choices that you could attribute to your Granny Chic-ness, such as ...

The Granny Parts ...
drinking loads of hot tea [electric pot next to the computer, much?]
a severe addiction to murder mysteries [Poirot, Miss Marple, etc.]
own a wardrobe full of tights and cardigans [I have serious cardi issues, I have at least 30]
never going "out" unless it is absolutely necessary [honestly, why go out when you can have drinks and food and friends at home?!"]
a complete knowledge of most card games
an active and seemingly overused library card
craftiness is also a must! [I call it hobby-whoring, but I like to keep the creative juices flowing!]
reading cozies, themed  mysteries & presidential biographies almost exclusively
cooking nearly everything from scratch, for funsies!

What Makes it Chic ...
killer heels, and lots of them
pencil skirts [not mermaid skirts posed as pencil skirts by online boutiques! skank-ay!]
smelling like cloves and cinnamon
cat-eye make up, every day
being ladylike with out being girly
favoring the bun over the ponytail

So ... are you Granny Chic? If so, lets sit in a craft circle sometime and talk about our new shoes & handbags over a cuppa tea.

♥

DIY Candy!

Well, I've finally gone 'round the bend, domestically. I've now started making my own candy! I've got a really simple recipe for some great lollipops. These taste really great and they last forever! Honestly, hours ... I guess this just proves that nearly everything tastes better homemade.

Here is what you'll need:

1/2 cup Karo Syrup

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

flavored oil to taste [about 1/2 tsp or more]

a fun sucker mold! 

sticks/baggies/ribbon or ties

candy thermometer [this is a must!!]

food-grade mold coating spray

  

I got my mold online for about $1, I already had sugar/Karo/water 

and I got the flavored oils, sticks and bags at Michaels!

Instructions:

Add the water/syrup/sugar in a saucepan 

Set heat to med-high

Let the mixture boil until it reaches hard-crack temp [300 degrees].

This will look like Sprite, will get thicker and begins making large bubbles around 250 degrees.

Remove immediately upon reaching the hard-crack stage ... 

this mixture has a tendency to burn quickly after 300 degrees!

Next, add your food coloring [about 3 drops depending on how bright you want it].

Add in the food oil. I probably put about 1 tsp in

it will smell really strongly [especially the peppermint!]

Don't let this mixture stand, stir in your oil and coloring and then 

immediately pour or spoon the mixture into the mold.

The goal here is to cover the stick but not overflow!

Tips:

#1. You can use any pot for this, but don't freak out when you see it harden 

into an almost plastic-like thickness!

Simply let it harden and then you can melt it down and rinse the 

pot with hot water. I definitely thought my pot was ruined the first time!

#2. Flavored oils and food extract are NOT the same thing!

The extract will simply evaporate at these high temperatures, so go ahead 

and search for the oils. I looked everywhere and finally found them

on the cake-making aisle at Michaels. They're really in expensive!

#3. When you reach about 250 degrees, watch your pot carefully!

There is a swiftness to the rising temperature that 

could really mess things up for you if you're not careful.

#4. This is messy as hell. I'm one of those people that kind of just

jumps into things without thinking, so I made a giant mess, 

but this is certainly avoidable. I'm sure you'll 

do much better!

So cute!! I made these and sold them to help raise funds for the History Club, of which I am now President. Yay! My plans for next semester involve a lot of cemetery activity, naturally. And a trip to New Orleans in the Spring! If you or someone you know would like to join, e-mail me! LSUSHistory@gmail.com

♥

Miss Shasta

I honestly believe that surrounding yourself with good people will promote goodness in yourself. This is, of course, why I married Brandon. [not the only reason, of course! haha] He is truly the best person I've ever known. I also have a few friends that are just good people. These are the people I want to always have relationships with.

My attraction to "good" people hasn't always been active. I actually prided myself a long time ago in dating bad boys or having friends of questionable motive so to make myself look better. [what the hell, right?] When I look back on those years, I realize that I had no idea who I was. I used to always joke about people who say they're "finding" themselves, but there is definitely a time in every person's life that they can look back and say "wow, I really didn't know who I was back then." I don't believe there is a magical age in which this happens, I just believe that once you get through some shit, you know ... stuff that makes you make decisions based solely on what you know and how you feel, then you're a little closer to knowing who you truly are.

With most of my friends, I can remember a time when they were lost, or confused or rampantly stupid ... you know, "finding" themselves. But there are a few friends that have just always been exactly who they are meant to be. When you know who you are at an early age, you tend to be able to do great things in the world. There is no break-out phase or lashing-out phase. I have at least one such friend and her name is Shasta.

In the few short years that I got to spend with Shasta at Centenary, she gave me countless one-liners [anyone ever heard me say "I'm sweatin' like a whore in church!"? ... yep, Shasta] and mini life lessons that I of course didn't realize then. I guess that I can tell the difference in a friend of convenience and a truly dear friend by how often I think about that person now, at nearly 28 after not seeing them for years. I can't remember my suite-mates or even most of my sorority sister's last names, but I remember nearly everything about Shasta and I think about her more than any other person from that time in my life.

After college, Shasta decided to help people [see? not like me at all ... I love it!] and so she joined the Peace Corps and began teaching abroad. She's been at it for a few years now and I am so proud!! I selfishly want her to move back to east Texas so we can make day-trips to see each other and I can have some of that goodness rub off on me again, but I know that there are kids who need her elsewhere at the moment. She was in South Korea for awhile, now in Honduras and will be moving to Japan [ah!?] sometime next year I believe. Then, like a good Southern woman, she promises her mother [and all of us Shasta groupies] to come home for a bit.

 Yes, she is also beautiful. She's hoggin' all the good human qualities!

She was recently written about and interviewed for TeachingTraveling.com ... please read! I'm so proud to know and love Miss Shasta and I can't wait to see her again!! Also, I sent her a little Zombee, so now there are Zombees loose in Honduras!

Stud Muffin

I never wear brown! I'm so excited to do a post about brown shoes, finally. My general rule is when brown is in order, wear navy. I just don't think my coloring is right for brown, so I stick to black and navy. But, today, I'm wearing a grey skirt, white tank and purple top, so I was digging around for some nude shoes when I came across these bad boys. That is the great thing about buying shit-tons of shoes for years and years .. sometimes you forget about them and it's like finding a $20 bill in your winter coat!!

These are too cute. I have a black pair of studded, pointed toe flats that I wear nearly twice a week, but I guess I just had to have these as well. I plan to wear them a lot this summer. The color is perfect; not actually too brown, but also not nude. They're a really pretty camel color and the studs are bronze rather than gold or silver, so they'll go with all my grey, white, cream, army green, navy, etc. really well. I actually have a great safari style dress [you know, cotton, 3/4 buttoned sleeves with a drawstring at the waist] that these are going to go so great with! I just have to find it. They'll even go with black, but let's face it ... I've got plenty of black to go with my black. ♥

Yes, I need a tan ... I'll be sunning at the beach soon, so my pictures won't be so abrasive!

Grammar Lesson

Stop labeling photos "Becky and I" ... it's incorrect! Are you trying to be classy? Do you think using "I" sounds fancy? It doesn't, so stop it! Ugh ...

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's talk about why the rampant use of "I" in Facebook/Twitter [is there MySpace anymore?] photos is incorrect. Let's use Marley ... since I'm pretty sure the people who rape the English language are the same kind of people that would go see that dumb-ass movie. [I actually would have seen it, except I read the book and I know it is sad as hell ... I didn't need that played out for me.]

Look at the DVD cover ... it's Marley & Me ... now apply that to your pictures. If you're showing a picture of yourself, you wouldn't label it "I" would you? No, you would label it "me," so add on your buddy and you've got "Marley and me."

Moving on ... if you were to show a picture of you and your beloved/friend/slam-of-the-month kayaking, you could say "Meranda Raven and I went kayaking this weekend!" but you could not say "Here is a kayaking picture of Meranda Raven and I!"

Now, besides the fact that the latter is incorrect ... IT SOUNDS AWFUL! Do people really not hear how awful that sounds? We all went to elementary school, right? The rule is ... if you take out the other person [Miss Raven], the sentence should stand alone. Por exemple, "I went kayaking this weekend." is a perfectly acceptable sentence. However, "Here is a kayaking picture of I." is wrong.

My blood pressure cannot handle your inability to grasp the concepts we were taught to us at least 15 years ago. Let's try another ... let's say you and and your brother/husband/doctor/local redneck took a picture you'd like to show everyone for some reason. You could label it as such ... "Landon and me." Just like Marley, girl! You may not, however label it "Landon and I" because that doesn't make any damn sense.

Why is this important? I've Googled the shit out of this subject and apparently most people think "well, it's just talking, who cares?" Or, "well, it's Facebook, so you don't have to talk right." To which I say, "WHAT!?!?!?!?" But, while I understand that not everyone cares as much as I do, I still believe that it is imperative to teach young people [and old people who have been taught incorrectly] how to effectively communicate on paper as well as in conversation. I went to McAlister's in Alexandria this weekend and they had a sign on their door that said "Are computers are down, sorry for the inconvenience." My head almost exploded in disbelief and anger. You see, auto spell-check allowed for their correct spelling of inconvenience, but there is no "dumb-ass filter" to help them decide whether to use "our" or "are" ... what is happening!? Sure, "there," "they're" and "their" sound the same, but they're not the same and people should know that! We should not let "ur" be a replacement for "you're" and "your" simply because it is easier to type and sounds the same when spoken. Stop the madness! Educate yourselves!

I honestly think that reading regularly, in any capacity or discipline will help people achieve grammatic enlightenment. I read everything from non-fiction books about religions of the world to ridiculous, Halloween themed cozy mysteries about little "bitties" solving local murders. If you are constantly exposed to correct word usage, it will rub off on you and you'll recognize incorrect speech or writing when you hear it or see it. I promise. Everyone makes mistakes [I constantly put about 15 more commas per paragraph than necessary and often misuse "less" and "fewer"] but lets get the very basic stuff taken care of on a wide scale, then we can start picking at people who don't know whether to use "affect" or "effect."

I've included a PowerPoint presentation to this blog in case you need to make copies and throw it off of rooftops. That is my afternoon plan. Good luck.

[plus 10pts if you get the Meranda Raven reference.]