Dolly's ninth entry; or, when did the bananas come into play?

Erin just woke up. It's 9 in the evening, and she just woke up. D: I swear, I don't think she's human. I think she's secretly a vampire; she doesn't need to eat, or drink, or go to the bathroom. Just sleep all day. I wonder when the last time was that she saw sunlight?

I exaggerate. She just sleeps a lot.

I suppose it's understandable, though. She didn't go to sleep until like noon. We were both up past five this morning, but I fell asleep soon after that and apparently, she didn't. I woke up at 11, showered, and when I came back, she was asleep. D:

Last night was pretty awesome though. We were hungry, so we went to Hogsmeade Burgers and Fries, then to the theatre to see Shutter Island. It's one of those awesome theatres that show movies that aren't in theatres anymore but aren't released on DVD yet, and for only $1. By the way, Shutter Island was incredible. I wasn't expecting very much, and I was blown away. Erin sort of ruined part of it for me by comparing Leo to Sirius and the island to Azkaban. . . well, not ruined so much as enhanced.

After being thoroughly made to feel insane by Leo and his crew, we stopped by the convenience store to get some soda, and Erin saw a package of cake mix and pretty much decided she wanted cupcakes. Not one to refuse cupcakes, I acquiesced, and we got French vanilla cake and icing and cupcake pan liners, and some veggie oil. Silly me, I thought she had the tools to make cupcakes back at the Nest. . .

I was mistaken. Once we returned (and after I'd had a chance to chat on Skype with Helene, who ended up watching me bake from my computer's perch on the table), Erin started fussing at me to get started making the cupcakes, so I began trying to gather the things I'd need.

My first obstacle: there wasn't a bowl in the whole apartment. Well, there were cereal bowls, but they were all dirty and way too small.

Solution: Erin grabbed a colander and lined it with a plastic bag and bade me make cupcakes in it. Dubious, I complied. The fork I had to stir with (no mixer, no spoon big enough) ripped the bag and it started leaking.

I had to add oil. I asked where the measuring cups were. I was met with a laugh and "what measuring cups?".

After a hunt through the apartment to find any container that would have its volume printed somewhere on it, we emerged with small plastic cups that said they were 7oz. We researched (yes, we had to research) and found out that 8oz is a cup. Not quite focused, I just filled the cup with oil and dumped it into the cake mix. . . and then realized that I'd just put a quarter cup more oil than necessary. So, the only logical course of action to be taken was to use the cup to dip out what I thought was a quarter cup of oil into a plastic bag. Erin was flailing about and cursing me, as usual.

When I finally got it all mixed, I had to spoon the rather thin batter into cupcake tins using teaspoons; the batter got eeeeverywhere.

I think I'll stop narrating now and just show pictures. . . they speak louder than words, right?



That's the inside of the tent that Erin and I sat under at the burger place. Do those colors look familiar? Perhaps Slytherin and Hufflepuff?



The colander. Enough said.



Helene watched and made fun of me.



Catastrophe.



the cupcake tin. . .



We began to experiment. . .



Cupcakes. There's a banana slice on one. . . they tasted better that way.



Yeah. . .



Bananas. Erin decided to make a banana wall, so that we could fill half of the pan with the choco mess and make it not crepe-thin. . .



The banana wall, sort of.



In the spirit of experimentation, I decided to put some English Breakfast in one of the cupcakes. . .



Instead of the wall, she just decided to spread them out. . . and add two more bananas.



and then we covered it in the choco mess.



After it was baked. . . we couldn't get it out of the pan.



It's uhm. . . yeah.



Erin tasting it. . . she swears it's edible. I don't believe her.



Finally, done.



The kitchen is still full of dishes. I wonder how long it'll stay that way. . .

Dolly's eighth entry; or, what's a reasonable hour, anyway?

Hello readers. :] I'm beginning to think that you actually exist; my hit count is up past 120. Not incredible, but I'm positive that I haven't clicked on my own blog 120 times, so it must be someone else. <3>

Nothing particularly fun or blog-worthy has happened yet today, except for the fact that I fail at waking up at a decent hour. . . which I've decided is 11 am. Right before noon, but not so early that I want to die. Most of the time. I woke up at 11 yesterday and was tired allll day, and couldn't wait to get into bed. I finally got into bed. . . not tired. So I went upstairs, got a hot cup of Yogi Calming tea and some toast and preserves; what better way to fall asleep than tea, carbs and Prisoner of Azkaban? Still nothing. I finally drifted off around 3, and woke up at quarter to 4. -_- Then I couldn't get back to sleep. . . Blah. Lots of tossing and turning later, I woke up at one this afternoon. Oh well.

I'm going to Mr. C's house when he gets off work, so probably around dinner time. I'm excited, I haven't been there in forever. I miss his kittens. <3>

I'll be at his house until Friday morning, when he's taking me to the Nest before work. Aaaand I'll be there until my dad can come get me. I'm excited, I love being at the Nest, and it's weird to be online without sitting next to Erin, commenting aloud on what we're both doing on the internet. Oh, technology.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the thrift store in Hogsmeade that I applied to. I'm starting to lose hope. It'd be such a good job. . . it's literally yards away from the Nest, and the ad said up to 30 hours a week. I could use that money.

OH, speaking of money. I've earned $.01 through Adsense on this blog. You guys need to click here more often. The more of you that view the ads, the more money I get. Not to use you for money or anything. :D I'm just super broke.

That's it for now, I think. I'm sure there'll be another update soon, though maybe not until I'm at the Nest.

Dolly's seventh entry; or, I see plaid and thread when I close my eyes.

Alright, so I'm sure I mentioned Erin giving me a lot of fabric. I probably didn't mention the fact that my mom, in her infinite generosity, brought a bunch of stuff to the Burrow that I'd needed for my sewing ventures, including a magnetic pincushion (literally one of the best things ever invented) and some fabric squares she had cut forever ago with plans of making them into a quilt. I thought that was nice enough; I could maybe make a patchwork apron. What I didn't realize was that, hidden underneath all those squares was a good three yards of Newfoundland tartan.

When I saw it, I had to make something out of it. Recently, Erin and I have been sharing a love of pleated plaid skirts, so it's no surprise that the first thing that came to my mind was a skirt. That was last night. I took the box of fabric down to the Burrow and started playing around with it, and realized that it was a lightweight cotton. While that's lovely, I wanted something with a bit more weight (in retrospect, I'm really glad I thought of that), and went rooting through the fabric Erin gave me to find the heavy black cotton. It's almost a soft canvas, it's so heavy. Anyways, my first step was to line the tartan with the black.

That's my sewing table with (obviously) the tartan and black sewn together. I was in the process of ironing it (which explains the iron. . . ) Please excuse the messy room in the background. . .

The next picture really doesn't do justice the amount of trouble I had with the pleats. I can't even count the times I redid them, trying to get them to lay right, or to be evenly distributed; I'd pleat and pin, then hold it up to my waist and the pleats spread at my hips and made them look huuuuge. This was one of my versions of the pleats. They didn't stay like that.

After much trial and error, I figured out that if I didn't want the pleats to spread so high, I shouldn't pleat so high. The solution? Darts. Well, sort of; I'm not sure if what I did is technically a dart, but it worked well eventually. This next picture was taken right after I figured out that I had to flatten the top so the skirt didn't flare so high. I pinned it where I planned to make the darts end.

After I pinned it there, I had to try it on to see how it fell. I fell in love. I still sort of wish I'd made it the way it is in the picture below, but it was a bit tight and really, really high on my waist (pretty much my chest), so it would have been hard to wear with anything but like. . . a tight black shirt. Still though. Don't those pleats look lovely?

Just another picture of the high-waisted version to show just how high the waist was.

I took that off, and decided I should wear it lower. So I folded the top in half and pinned it. I tried it on (there are pictures of that, but they're blurry and redundant), and decided I liked it and sewed it in place.

I don't have any pictures of the next step (I think), but all I did was cut a strip of fabric that I thought was the right length (I've never been great with measurements. . . ) and sew it onto the top to cover the folded pleats. I machine stitched the front to give it a clean look, but if I'd machine stitched the back, there would have been another line of stitching visible on the front, so I decided to hand stitch it with a simple whipstitch. Honestly, other than the pleats, the hand stitching took the longest of everything else.

and another picture of the hand stitching process, up close. My stitches are so messy. . .

Alright, so, after that all I had to do was hem the edges, and there would have been no point in taking pictures of that. It's pretty straightforward.

So, the finished product! Well, nearly finished. I still need to get some buttons for the closure. It closes in the front. . .which wasn't intentional. As I was trying to get the pleats right, I kept experimenting with different things. When I finally got it to look like what I thought was right, I put it on and. . . I'd made the pleats too big. It wouldn't close in the back. So, ever the problem solver, I turned it and tried to see what it'd look like to close on the side. Nope. Another quarter turn and. . . BAM. It looked like a kilt. I squealed excitedly; that meant I wouldn't have to add fabric and make it look like I hadn't, which would have meant very careful, neat seams. Luckily, I didn't have to do that, and so now it closes in the front. Thereforeeee I don't want to use a zipper. . . I'm thinking buttons.

For the moment, however, I just closed it with safety pins (punk look, right?) and put a belt over the waistband, seen below the picture of the finished product on my sewing table.

It's not hanging quite right, but don't blame that on the skirt; I put it on around 1 am, after working on it nearly nonstop since around 11 the night before. I slept for 6 hours and showered, and ate while I worked. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the skirt and couldn't get my mind to stop trying to problem solve. I'm so glad it's done; I can't wait to wear it out.

Whew. If you're still reading after all that, thank you. <3

I have plans in the works to make Erin a skirt out of the leftover tartan; I'll be sure to post pictures of it; too. :D

Seriously though, I'm super proud of this skirt. I never finish any of my projects. I haven't finished my curtains, and they're literally just a rectangle of fabric that needs to be hemmed. I think it was the fact that this is something that I can actually wear.

Anyway, I intend to wake up at a decent hour tomorrow. I was up until after 5 because I couldn't get my mind off the skirt, and I woke up around 2:30 this afternoon. I'd like to have more daylight to my day . . . just saying.

I'm hopefully going to the Nest this weekend; I'm sure there's another update in the near future. <3

Dolly's sixth entry; or, brownies and a job hunt.

Readers, non-existent or not, help me. I'm going insane. I've been searching for a job for hours and there's nothing out there. ,k,cikdxjhzxjkcjkxz.kz

Alright, I'm done complaining. On to the blog.

I woke at noon today; sadly, I'm proud of myself for that. I was up late last night with my friend Felicity applying for jobs. . . and indoctrinating her. Well, attempting to anyways. She didn't know who Draco Malfoy is, and that's unacceptable. So I loaded up Philosopher's Stone on one of the trusty sites I use to watch movies online and had her watch it with me.

I think she fell asleep right after the sorting. -_- Oh well, we can't all be magical, I suppose.

It was nice to see her again, though. It'd been way too long. She goes to university hours away from where we both grew up, and although we talk online some, we don't talk nearly enough. So it goes when you graduate from high school, I suppose.

I currently have brownies in the oven; I forgot to add the oil until it was already mixed (I was wondering why it was so hard to stir. . . ), but it seemed to mix fine.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Brownies out and cooling, and I'm licking the bowl. Just one of the many benefits of being the cook, right? Well, baker, I guess.

I really don't have anything to to talk about. I'm trying to write up a resume for my application for the thrift store across the street from the Nest. It'd be so amazing if I could get that job, it's so close by.

That's pretty much it. I suppose I'll go write that resume now. . . and maybe have a brownie.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. . .but not really.

So, readers (all two of you). I've decided to move to Wordpress; the layout and interface is cleaner there, and I think I'll like it. Erin convinced me to switch.
So, here's the address of the new blog, if you want to follow that one.

dailydolly.wordpress.com

Please follow it~! <3

---------------------------------

I posted the above a while ago, but I can't get Adsense to work on Wordpress, so I think I've decided to keep this one, too. So I'll have two blogs, with the same thing in them. Weird, I know, but that way I can have Blogger followers and Wordpress followers, and I can maybe generate some cash through Adsense, if I get enough clicks. So if you have friends on Blogger, tell them to follow me, and the same goes for your Wordpress friends.

Dolly's fifth entry; or, a trip to Hogsmeade.

I'm currently sitting at Erin's new kitchen table eating a chocolate frog and honeysuckle, and finishing up a lovely cup of English Breakfast tea. This has been the perfect day. We went up and down Hogsmeade (my name for the little district Erin lives in), in and out of thrift stores, and spent a surprisingly short time in my favorite chocolate store ever. I bought the aforementioned chocolate frog, and an apple pate de fruit, and then Erin and I went to Subway (which, by the way, had probably the least friendly, oddest employee ever) and I made myself eat half of the sandwich before I'd be allowed to eat the chocolate frog. Erin pointed out that I'm an adult and can eat dessert first if I want, but I figured I should at least pretend to be responsible and grown up before I ate my Harry Potter candy. I almost bought some Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans but they were nearly seven dollars and Erin said I shouldn't spend that much, and of course, she was right.

Alright, so I'll stop rambling now and do a sort of picture recap of our day. :D:D



That's the sketch alleyway that we have to sidle through to get to Erin's door or to get to the street. That alleyway began our journey into Hogsmeade.



This goat. . . ram? was standing on the porch on the front of Erin's apartment. As you can see, he's wearing a purple feather boa and a towel on his face. We're still confused as to what it was doing there. . . and it wasn't there when we came back.



Erin posing with a mannequin we found in one of the thrift stores in Hogsmeade. There were also Chinese men bargaining with the store's owner and manager; to us, it sounded like they were trying to get their clothes and fabrics sold at this store. It was awkward.



Erin bought these Butterscotch Drops at the chocolate store and we opened them in Subway and ate one. . .and my goodness, they're good. Legit butterscotch. The reason she bought them was because the tin has tartan and bagpipes on it. Erin's pretty Scottish. <3 href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank">

My chocolate frog, still in the wrapper. I'm still disappointed that it didn't come in a little box. It was tasty either way.



My chocolate frog~! Erin made me take a picture before I ate it.



The wizard trading card inside the wrapper. It's holographic. :3



My apple pate de fruit. So yummy.



Erin's grandma brought freshly cut flowers, so while they were putting up curtains and cleaning, I was arranging roses and honeysuckle. I was in heaven. That one's on her mantle.



Erin's grandma brought this table, too. It had to be cleaned, and Erin had the genius idea of putting lace over the table base and under the glass, and then she put the leftover flowers that I couldn't get into a vase on the lace. Gorgeous. And of course, on top of the table is my other bouquet. Erin says I'm a good florist. :D <3>

Dolly's fourth entry; or a Slytherin refuses to stoop to blow out a candle.

It's nearly four pm and Erin and I just woke up. We went to bed at. . . seven fifteen. D: I have no idea why. I think we were trying to stay up all night, but Erin closed her laptop and we stopped making each other laugh hysterically for no reason, and we were out.

Last night was hilarious though. I don't remember a lot of it. We weren't even drunk or high. . .just tired. Everything is hilarious when you're really tired. We turned off the lights and lit candles on the floor and rolled around laughing and arguing with one another, as a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff are prone to do. Now I'm hungry and my head is pounding and my hip hurts from being curled up all night because my little blanket kept coming off my feet. /end complaining. I think I'll go raid the fridge for last night's dumplings. . . mmm.

I'm not sure what the plan is for today; I think we're gonna walk up and down C street and thrift shop, which sounds incredible. I'll take pictures, if there's anything worth taking pictures of. C town's really pretty, though, so I'll probably find something. It's this little shopping district in my city that has thrift stores, a movie theater from the 30's, all sorts of restaurants and apparently adorable nest apartments. There's also a fabric store next door, which I have yet to visit.

After a shower and a scavenge on both our parts for clothes to wear, I think we're off. I'll update my two readers [one of which is Erin] later.

Dolly's third entry; or, you can enter my chamber of secrets

SO, my third entry now. I mentioned Erin in my first entry, saying that she was visiting the Burrow. Well, I'm currently in her new apartment, named the Nest. It's an adorable little place. Pics are above. They're pretty self explanatory.

We just finished watching Chamber of Secrets while we did a rolling commentary throughout. We only sound recorded part of it, but if she gets it online, I'll link to it here. Looooads of fun. Being that I'm a Hufflepuff and she's a Slytherin and says that it's a requirement for her to make fun of everyone, we had a great time with it; her encouraging people and things to kill Harry, and me smacking her. She's pretty much in love with Lucius Malfoy, so she often tries to make anything he says sexual. . . usually succeeding, as well as succeeding in making a poor Hufflepuff blush. I keep saying we should have a Youtube channel as a Badger and a Snake; we have so many similar loves, but she always roots for the bad guy; she has an "evil playlist". So great. I really hope any readers that I may have get a chance to listen to it, my face actually started to hurt from laughing so much. . . and it's worth it just to hear Erin cackle. Because she literally does cackle and not laugh.

Anyways, I'll try to stop fangirling about this now. I should talk about other things, right? This isn't my fanblog.

I actually woke at a decent hour today, decent meaning 11:30. So proud of myself. My day was pretty slow, though, until I got to come to the Nest. I'm not sure how long I'll be staying here, it depends on the availability of a ride back to the Burrow, since I'm still carless.

One thing I've gotten from today; "chamber of secrets" will forever be an innuendo.

Dolly's Second Post; or, of napping and Wizard rock

Mood: sleeeepy
Listening to: the tv
(re)Reading: Tamora Pierce's Wild Magic series
Watching: a show about hoarding
Playing: WoW -_-
Eating: nothing
Drinking: water



It's nearly two in the afternoon and I've gone to the dump and had breakf- I mean, brunch, at the local diner. I'm so proud of myself. Yesterday I slept until 3 in the afternoon, so waking up at 9:30 was a definite accomplishment. Step two: resist the steadily growing urge to fall into bed and take a two hour nap.

Sometimes, good things come of cleaning. Besides having a freshly clean, ant free house, I mean. When I clean, I always find things that I thought I'd lost. For graduation in 2007, my parents got me a hot pink digital camera, the charger cord for which I promptly lost. My mom, grumbling, got me another charger, and I lost that one. I haven't been able to use the camera in over a year. However, she's been going through stuff in her house, since she's considering moving again, and she fouuuund it. All I'm waiting for now is a way to retrieve said charger, seeing as I'm about an hour away and carless. . . but when I get it, I'm going to be able to take pictures of things without holding my laptop up to it and using the webcam. -_-'

The plan for the rest of the day is a lot of trying to stay awake to be able to sleep at a decent hour [read: 1:30] tonight, and my dad's planning to do burgers on the grill tonight. I might take a secret nap.

This blog was only going to be one post a day (hence Daily Dolly), but what with my being so sleepy and my not wanting to get started playing my WoW free trial again (yes, I gave in. Five years of resistance and I gave in.), I figured writing, even if it's meaningless, is a good way to stay awake.

I'm trying to practice writing non-fiction. I found a magazine that focuses on fantasy and magical realism, and they're looking for contributors for poetry, short fiction. . . I'm also trying to get them to let me write a Wrock column. (That's wizard rock, for those readers not as much a fan of Rowling. A whole genre that sprung from devoted fans. Incredible.) The editor wanted a sample of my nonfiction writing, and I really don't have any. . . so I'm practicing. Well, I suppose I could use a paper as an example. . . but that's such a long sample.

If you guys want some Wizard rock, try this.



They're my favorite Wrock band. Also, look up Luke Conard's other stuff (he's one of the singers of MoM). He has this band with one of the members of the Parselmouths (another Wrock band), and they do nerd music. Great stuff. If anyone's reading this, and you watch the video, tell me what you think in the comments.

Dolly's first post; or, there's a hedgehog in my bed.

Hello, dear readers. Or, rather, lack thereof thus far. I'm sure I don't have readers yet, but I certainly hope I will, since a bit of change from AdSense would really come in handy right about now.
I recently moved into my dad's basement. . . which at first sounds really sad, doesn't it? BUT. It's rent free, and I have the whole floor to myself. Which, admittedly, is only one room and a laundry room, but it could be worse. I'm jobless, so a rent-free place is totally ideal, at the very least until next spring, when I start at U of X again.
I'm technically a junior right now, but I'm taking next semester off to get my head straight, so I'm still sort of counting myself a sophomore, at least until I turn in the "withdraw from U of X for a semester" forms.
I got more than a little tired of calling my new place my "basement". Not only does it sound a little depressing, but I felt creepy inviting people to come stay for a few days in my basement.
Therefore, I recently christened my new space "the Burrow". The more nerdy readers might immediately recognize the reference, but let me first outline what the name is not.
When I first told my parents about my new name, it was in person, so they couldn't see the spelling. My dad's first thought was that I meant "borough", or small town. My mom's first thought was "burro", or donkey.
Neither of those are correct.
The more discerning [read: obsessive fan] reader would correctly guess that my little home was named after the Weasley's little home of the same name. While I'm not a Weasley, nor do I particularly want to be a Weasley, the name evokes some sort of warmth, happiness and coziness. Also, when I hear the word "burrow", I think of a little animal making its home under the ground, which also works for my place, given that it's a basement. Add that to the fact that I'm a Hufflepuff and our Hogwarts common room is in the dungeons and it's a perfect name.

I have a certain Slytherin friend, Erin. Theoretically, we're natural enemies, right? Well, Slytherins are the natural enemies of Hufflepuffs, but Hufflepuffs aren't natural enemies at all, I think. Anyways, I'd say we're pretty good friends, we share a lot of the same interests, and we're both nerds, in the best possible ways. I got a text from her the other day (she's Snape in my phone, it's infinitely amusing to get text messages from Snape, especially when they involve dewing and needlework) asking if she could spend a few days with me. Of course I said yes. I got the opportunity to show o- er, I mean, have someone enjoy the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes I'd made a few days ago as much as I did, and I also got to cook for her. I love cooking for people.
OH. The hedgehog tie in. Erin's name is Erin Aceous. Erinaceous means "hedgehog like". Erin's favorite animal is a hedgie, and she was in my bed.

She left one morning and then texted me, informing me that she's just found an apartment in my favorite part of town. She named it "the Nest", and the Burrow couldn't be happier about it; he has a new best friend.
I think I've rambled enough about the Burrow and his friends for now. There's certain to be more about him and Erin and her abode soon; I'm hopefully visiting the Nest this coming week.

Next time, possibly; my Hufflepuffian struggle with my love for a certain Slytherin boy.