Dolly's twelfth and a half entry; or, I can barely type this right now but I swear I'm not inebriated.

Just a quick update that I'm too delirious to give.
So, here's the Duchess with a synopsis, copied from her DA account. Deviant Art, not Dumbledore's Army. She wouldn't be caught dead in Dumbledore's Army, I'd say.




I should never be allowed to update a journal while in this state of mind. The things that have spewed forth from my mouth in the last two hours have been both nonsensical and frightening. I think it says enough that Facebook refuses to load my current status - which is a collection of the craziest comments known to man.

For example:
I am the Duchess of Dingle-Twang and my roommate is Princess Waffles, the High Sovereign of Delerity. We have declared war, determined the outcome, and decided that our two great nations will come together and unite - breeding very sticky children. They shall be depressed by the might of the Great Waffle Iron and be forced to inhale Prozac.

What a happy, overly-carbohydrated world we shall build.

For those who are unaware of what a Dingle-Twang is, please see the Wikipedia entry on St. Brigid's Day, however, I should hope at this stage in life the concept of a waffle needs no explanation.

Sincerely,
The Duchess




I'm going to add to this when I feel less like. . . this. Bahaha.

Dolly's twelfth entry; or, I promise I'm still alive.

It's been forever since I've updated this thing. I'm sure all of you lovely readers were thinking "Oh, I do hope she's still alive and that she hasn't been eaten by piranhas or mauled by tigers or something equally horrific." Well, readers dear, I have not experienced any of those terrible things, so you can go back to sleeping well at night.

Since I last wrote, I've moved out of the Burrow and into the Nest, for serious this time. I have a bed and everything. Well, mostly. I have a mattress, but that's still better than a cot. I also have my things here, which is lovely, because that means that I can have more than a bag full of clothes, and now I have candles and my 360 and other delightful things within reach. Oh, speaking of my 360, I've been trying to think of a name for it, but I've been coming up short. It really deserves a name; if the one room place that I live gets a name, my pretty gaming wonder should. So, you should help me out and suggest things. I would offer a prize for the person whose suggestion I choose, but I really don't have anything to offer. Perhaps a letter, handwritten by me? I'm sure that's exactly what you want. Or maybe you just give me your address and I'll send you something fantastic, like candle wax or a bit of fabric. :D Promise I'm not a creeper.

Erin and I have pretty much become nocturnal. The Duchess (that's Erin) didn't wake until nearly seven this evening, though I myself wasn't awake until about three. . .and then I went back to sleep until around five. We didn't go to bed until after seven this morning, so I suppose that's reasonable on my part, though not so much on hers.

We're a little unstable at times, but it's entertaining. When we haven't slept in a few hours and it's nearly sunrise, we get a bit delirious. For instance, last night the Duchess got on her kitchen broom and flew about the room, pretending to be Harry Potter when his broom went rogue, ending with a crash landing on her bed. As she was flying, she was shouting "My parents are dead! My parents are dead! I'm Harry Potter, I'm fantastic! Everybody loves me!" in a British accent. Theatrics aside, we often fling spells across the room. Thanks to be bad influence of the Duchess, I've begun using Unforgivables; I can't count the number of times I've Avada Kedavra'd her, not to mention the times she's done so to me. I'm better at being Crucio'd than she is.

I had to run across the street to the convenience store earlier, and I was a bit afraid. One time, the Duchess went alone and apparently the creeper behind the counter asked about me, asked if I was taken, and said "She's niiiiice" in, according to the Duchess' rendition, a voice that sounded a lot like Borat. Thus, I'm afraid (and with good reason, I'd say) to go to the store alone. However, her grace was in the bath, and I was growing a rather large headache from lack of caffeine, so I ventured out alone. Well, not completely alone; I called Mr. C and talked to him there and back, so I wouldn't feel alone. However, my precautions turned out to be in vain; Creeper wasn't there, the older guy was, and he's not nearly as off-putting. I returned triumphant, soda and Haribo Raspberries in hand. Her grace was pleased.

We've been watching The Tudors. Well, her grace has been watching The Tudors, and I've been listening to it, since she can't stand to do one thing like watch a TV show, even when it's as gorgeous as The Tudors. She has to be manipulating some photo or making some layout, and so I feel like I'm listening to a radio show. Oh, if only I had Netflix.

Last night we attempted to make ice cream. She got the idea online, and we got excited. "We have milk, sugar and vanilla! We can DO THIS." However, her grace being the genius that she is, realised that we couldn't; we had no ice. No ice cube trays. No ice maker. No ice cream. However, I'm no less of a genius than she; wrapping my spider-web cape about me, I swished into the kitchen and took the cupcake trays from the cabinet, filled them with water, and stuck them in the freezer.

After a wait full of The Tudors and internet, the water was mostly ice and we poured the milk and whatnot into the bag, and then put that bag into another bag full of ice, and shook. And shook. And shooook. For an hour. After an hour the milk was just frothy milk, not ice cream. We gave up, poured the sweetened milk into glasses, and drank it.
So. DELICIOUS.
I recommend unice-creamed ice-cream to everyone.

Dolly's eleventh entry; or, all I want is some rice.

Hullo, avid readers. I'm really just updating right now so as not to fall asleep. I'm sitting at the Burrow with my little sister Jill and Mr. C, who's asleep. He had driving school today; apparently, you have to go to driving school if you run a red light. We're all waiting around for my dad to feel less sick; we're supposed to go to a Japanese restaurant for dinner, but my dad had the worst headache, so he's laying in the cool air.

My other younger sister Faye went to her prom today. My dad and I took Big Red (that's the truck that he built; words can't do it justice, I'll have to post a picture) to M-town to see her and her date all dressed up, and to take pictures.

That's Faye and her boyfriend Wilson. Aren't they adoooorable? She looks too old though.

Pinning the boutonnière. She was just posing; she had no idea how to do it. His dad ended up pinning it for her.

She looks so happy. :] He actually managed to do the corsage. So proud.

So after that, we were supposed to have dinner, but my dad's headache got worse, so he headed back to the Burrow while Mr. C and I got sno cones to tide me over until we could eat. The sno cone place that we go to has the best flavours, and you can mix them up. They have one called Beauty and the Beast that's really just cotton candy mixed with blue raspberry. Of course, I couldn't get a usual flavour, so. . .

I noticed that they had a cream soda flavour, so I searched the list of flavours for a bit for a butterscotch. . . to make butterbeer, of course. I couldn't find it, but I did find rum butter. I had to try it, so I got the two flavours mixed, and it actually tasted exactly like what I'd imagine a butterbeer to taste like as a sno cone.

It looks a little like blood, but it tasted great. <3

On the way back to the Burrow, Jill regaled Mr. C and I with her tales of being G. She considers herself a gangster, which is hilarious because she's a little white girl with a very slight southern accent. It's pretty incredible. Her story started with "so there was this mannequin". Just now, actually she was talking about her woes when it comes to watching movies online, and how an ad always plays, but it's just the sound, and it's all about how to make shrimp. "I have to close the whole window, because if not, it's just old people talking about shrimp over and over."

That's pretty much all that's happened today. We're hopefully going to eat soon; the restaurant we're going to has incredible food. I'm starving.

Here's another little gem, just for lulz. Erin and I saw this van in the parking lot at Martins and she made me take a picture of it. In retrospect, I'm glad I did.

Dolly's tenth entry; or, what is this morning thing?

Hello, avid readers. :] It's currently after 10:30 in the evening and I'm still awake. I'm actually really proud of myself for this, since I've been awake since 6:30 this morning. Erin and I marathon slept yesterday and actually managed to sleep through the night; she got 15 hours, I'm not sure how long I slept.

We woke up and I actually had a breakfast of eggs and toast and tea. Imagine, breakfast food at breakfast time? The idea of referring to a meal based on the time of day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) had started to become foreign to me, not having been awake/hungry at regular meal times in a week. I think I got back on track today, though.

After breakfast (and a bit of lounging about, procrastination, and adding buttons to my skirt), Erin and I set off for Martins, since she needed to pick up a few things. On the way, we happened across the costume shop, and had to go in to ask if they were hiring (of course). We ended up spending a good hour in there trying on colonial and Victorian dresses, until we found matching satin dresses in different colors (hers maroon, mine green). We hunted down velvet capes and then stood in front of the mirror, flouncing our skirts and glaring and smirking, and pretending to be Death Eaters.

Alas, we couldn't loiter in the costume shop all day, so we again embarked on our mission to Martins. A half hour and a good 25 pounds of groceries later, we were back in Hogsmeade and the heat, complaining the whole way. (Well, mostly Erin. I kept trying to tell her that if she didn't think about the heat, she wouldn't feel it as much, but she never listens to me.) On the way back to the Nest, we passed a thrift store that Erin loves, and so went in. After a bit of looking she found a Burberry bag (we're not sure if it's real, but it looks lovely either way) for only $7. I had to do a bit of convincing, but she bought it. The clincher? The woman who checked us out was from England, which we found out after Erin asked her. Outside of Liverpool, to be exact. When we left the store I couldn't help but gleefully comment that Erin had just bought a Burberry bag from an English woman, and we both bounced around happily for a bit.

Around 2:30, Lee came by the Nest and sat in the cool air for a bit (it was really rather muggy and very hot today), and then he and I set out for the bead shop. He got a nice strand of tiger's eye and a crystal pendant, and gave me two of the four tiger's eye stones. They're really gorgeous stones. I'll have to take a picture later; I can't be bothered to get out of this bed at the moment.

We ate lunch and then went back to the Nest, and then he left, and not too long after, I made dinner for Erin and I. As I cooked, it struck me what a picture we make. She, sitting in her bed on her computer, I in the kitchen cooking what she'd asked for. I really am Helga Hufflepuff, and I finally admit it. I'd known she was a Slytherin to the core. :] She commented that she would have made a great man, and I asked why. Her response: "I work, bring home the money, sit on my ass and mess around on my computer, while the woman cooks dinner. It's perfect." That's pretty much how the past week has gone. :D

I think I've rambled enough. What's this, a post with no pictures in it? If you're still with me dear reader, I applaud you and ask you to comment below, telling me if your attention span was long enough to get you here. :] <3

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