T-Shirt Scarf...

T-shirts are neat, awesome and apparently versatile.  For example did you know that you can make many different varieties of fashion scarves out of t-shirts?  Well I recently learned that fun fact.  I first noticed the t-shirt scarf on this blog which lead me to watch a couple videos featuring many different ways to make t-shirt scarves.  I chose the one that looked easiest.

1-Get a t-shirt.  This is one of my leftover t-shirts from Halloween when I was a pumpkin (purchased from Michaels for probably $2.50 on sale)
2-Get some scissors.
3-Cut off the bottom hem of the shirt and then cut strips from the bottom until you have a handful

4-Stretch the strips so that they curl up on the edges.  The strips will already just go around your neck because of how you cut them from the bottom (you don't have to close the ends or anything to make a loop, they are already a loop).  Cut a little piece of fabric from somewhere else on the t-shirt and use it to tie the strips together so they stay together once they are around your neck.  I feel like this doesn't make sense the way I wrote it so you should probably watch the video.
5-Wrap it around your neck (I doubled mine up) in a fashionable manner (I'm still trying to figure that part out).  Then take a bunch of photos of yourself.

Check out my cool nose bump.

Check out my cool socks.

I thought this was a pretty cute idea that is really cheap and easy.  I'm not 100 percent sure how to wear this.  I'm fashion challenged.  I am also considering adding some kind of flower or button to the side.  It also probably doesn't look that great with the Bayside High T-shirt I'm wearing (although the t-shirt is amazing and magical).  I wore the scarf to trivia last night and got a couple of compliments so we'll see.  I look forward to making more of these in different styles and colors. 

Have you ever made anything out of a t-shirt?  Apparently you can make all sorts of stuff from gloves to headbands.

***Fun Fact-Once you are done cutting the strips for the scarf you have an awesome belly shirt left.****

The Usual Suspects aka Best Movie Night Ever!

One time, several months ago, some of my friends and I were at our weekly trivia meet up when a question came up about the movie, The Usual Suspects.  Approximately 5 of us said "I really need to watch that movie, I heard it was good."  And the other 2-3 people were all, "You have never seen that movie?  What is wrong with you people?"  And that is the night we all decided we'd get together and watch The Usual Suspects. 

Then we forgot about it. 

Then one day Curly T was like, "yeah my apartment complex has this movie theater that I can rent out.  Wasn't there some movie you guys wanted to watch?"  And thus began our quest to find a night that we could all watch the movie and that the movie theater was actually available for rent.  A mere 2 months later we finally nailed down our date.

We decided to all bring food but to not tell anyone what we were bringing.  We ended up with an amazing assortment which included, chicken nuggets, taquitos, lettuce wraps, raspberries, guacamole, spinach dip, bread...

Then there was the candy.  Apparently we all thought we should bring candy.  I brought my personal movie watching favorite, Twizzler Bites (I like them because they are cherry flavored instead of strawberry).  There were also Mini Reeces Cups, Junior Mints, Whoppers, Sour Patch Kids, etc.  Plus of course popcorn in a variety of flavors and styles.

Here is my personal candy bowl and beer.  B decided to bring the 'usual suspects' of beer aka all the beers we normally order when we go to bars.  So there was a nice mix of Budweiser, Michelob Ultra, Wildflower (a Greensboro Natty Greene's specialty), some Stouts, etc.

Here is the lovely group picture I forced everyone to take before the movie started.  See it's a real theater!

And here is when the movie screen stopped working for no reason.  Luckily we fixed it (well after awhile).

"Dude, quit posing for pictures and fix it.  I want to know
who Keyser Soze is"

And here's my homemade contribution to the food table....Guacamole with Chipotle Peppers.  Good stuff if I do say so my self.  (Recipe-2 avocados, 2 peppers from a can of chipotles in adobo sauce chopped and a spoon full of the sauce, the juice of 1 lime, sea salt, pepper, a quarter of a red onion chopped, a sprinkle of garlic salt-Mash it all together...Adapted from this recipe).

Reasons this movie night was the best movie night ever....
-I got to bring my own blanket and sit where I wanted to
-The movie screen thing broke in the middle so we had an impromptu dance party while we were waiting for it to cool down (or something).  Well it was more just B demonstrating some commercial for some dancing video game for x-box.
-There was lots of candy and beer that was easily accessible to me (mostly because I sat beside the cooler)
-Some dudes came to the attached cafe area in the middle of the movie and when we went out to use the bathroom we saw 5 dudes with no shoes on, sitting on a blanket together eating figs (or something like that).  Not sure what was going on there.

What movie should we watch next time?  Fortunately Curly T and I both hate horror movies so that's out.  And I'm pretty sure no one is going for my suggestion of Gigli (when you hear that something is the worst movie ever, don't you want to see why?  Plus I heart Ben Affleck).  We need something that is awesome (perhaps classic) and that will be good for a group of people with a variety of interests.  Any ideas?

The Best Dessert I've Made in a Long Time aka the Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich....

OK I'm back.  I have mostly recovered from my debilitating illness.  I kid, it wasn't debilitating, but I just do not handle colds very well.  On Friday when I got off work at 11 am (yeah it's awesome) I spent my afternoon baking cookies for the basketball team my husband coaches.  They had an ice cream social on Saturday to celebrate the end of the season.  We had a few cookies leftover but I was tired of eating just the cookies.  Plus it was really nice outside this weekend for the first time.  So we bought this...

This ice cream is good on it's own.  The cookies are good on their own.  But then I came up with a better idea...

Delightful...

These cookies are chocolate chip oatmeal.  I got the recipe from "What's Gaby Cooking."  This is a great site for recipes, especially if you like guacamole.

So what did you do this weekend?

What's your favorite summertimes dessert?

Cake Balls-Part 2: The Successes

And now, the riveting conclusion to Cake Balls-Part 1.............

So the cake ball pops were not a complete failure.  There were just a few bumps a long the way.  We actually ended up with many wonderful and semi-wonderful looking cake pops. 

How we made our cake pops:
2 boxes of cake mix
2 containers of icing
A bunch of Candy Melts from Michael's (we had 5 bags but only used about 3 bags)
Sprinkles
Cake Pop sticks (from Michael's)

1-Bake the cakes according to package (very important)
2-Let the cakes cool
3-Crumble the cake into a bowl and add about 3/4 of a can of icing
4-Mix the icing into the cake to form a dough (add more icing if you need it)
5-Roll the dough into little balls and then refrigerate or freeze them so that they are more firm (makes it easier to dip in the melted chocolate)
6-Melt the Candy Melts (or you can use real chocolate, I think Candy Melts (CM) are easier because they harden faster but real chocolate might taste better)
7-Dip a stick in melted CM then dip the stick in a ball and dip the ball back into the CM until it's coated.  Quickly add sprinkles before the CM hardens.  You can also let it harden and then write on it with more melted CM or draw designs on it with melted CM
8-Stick it in styrofoam to fully dry

T constructed a cake stand for us out of styrofoam and ribbon.  We started with the sprinkles and then B5 did an excellent job of writing letters (and drawing creatures) on some of the balls.  Basically the ones that T and B5 made are much prettier than the ones I made.  I also tended to shriek or yell when my cake balls did not turn out as planned.  It got pretty tense up in there (for me, not for other people).

Our biggest success by far was figuring out how to transport the cake ball pop cake from T's apartment (3rd floor by the way) to the bar later that night.  We sat in contemplation for a few minutes when we realized we would need something to put the cake in, in order to move it.  Then T decided to take action and after searching through her storage closest for a few minutes, T pulled out this drawer which ended up being the perfect thing to transport the cake.  (We cleaned and disinfected it before putting the cake in there by the way.)

So I took the cake to my house and then later was in charge of transporting it to the bar.  I was very freaked out the whole way to the bar and sat in the back seat with the cake to make sure it stayed safe.  I also yelled at B for going over speed bumps.

However, we made it and the cake was a success!

I'm not really sure what she was blowing out here as this cake ball
cake had no candles.  However, M seems to think it's hilarious.



Cake Balls-Part 1: The Failures

How it all started..........
Secret email chain between Me, Curly T, and Beezus5 in regards to Shanzie's Birthday party......
ME: should we make/buy cupakes or a cake or something for saturday night for shanzies bday partay?  what does she like?  will the bar allow that?
T: hey...sorry, for the delay in response...I didn't have to work today.  Yes...I think she would definitely appreciate that....and I would think that the bar would be fine with it since we are bringing like 20 people into their business (but B5 might know the establishment better).
B5:  The Bar would be fine with that. #1 i'm in with the waitresses, #2 i had some cake balls there a few nights ago for another dude's bday.
ME:  ooh maybe we can make cake balls.  i have wanted to try them
T:  my co-worker brought in cake balls for Valentine's day and they were delicious!!!
ME:  yeah i see them on food blogs all the time.  lets do it.  I THINK IT'S PRETTY EASY.  you just bake a box cake and crumble it up and mix it with icing and dip it in something.  we can add some sprinkles to make it birthdayish.  i'll look it up.

Of course I was the one who had to say "i think it's pretty easy."  In my head I should have known it wasn't going to work out as I planned (just like those Martha Stewart glasses).  So after a few more email chains we decided that B5 and I would pre-bake some cakes and take them over to T's house on Saturday morning.  She would get the stuff to decorate them and then we would make something amazingly beautiful, just like these.......

Picture from cakepops.com (much prettier pops than ours)

So anyways, my first big fail happened when I was making the cake.  The directions on the box said to add 1/3 cup of oil.  Apparently I thought it said to add 1 and 1/3 cups of oil.  Ooops.  I didn't realize this until the cake had been baking for like 45 minutes and it was still liquidy.  It finally baked and I decided since we were crumbling it up it would be fine. 

No, not really.   I should have known.  I mean the balls were pretty soggy even after I froze them.  The first one I tried to make ended up like this.....as did the next few. 

We finally got a few of them to stay on the sticks but an hour later we realized that they were actually leaking oil (yeah there was that much oil in them).  GROSS.  So we threw away all the pink cake.  Fortunately I did make a chocolate cake with the correct amount of oil and B5 made a yellow cake to use

Our next big mishap occurred when B5 threw one of the recently coated melted chocolate balls under T's kitchen table.  Ok she didn't really throw it.  She just dropped it.  I just stood there frozen and yelling while T and B5 actually figured out how to get the (hardening) chocolate off the carpet.  (I also took pictures. I'm sooo helpful in a crisis.)  Good times.

by the way, they got the chocolate up with clorex wipes, I think

So in conclusion, when you make cake balls don't add 4 times the amount of oil the cake recipe calls for and try not to drop the balls on the ground.  See what we had to go through, Shanzie.

Did we end up with any successful cake balls?  You will find out tomorrow in the riveting conclusion, 'Cake Balls-Part 2'. 

Scavenged...

In case you haven't heard, this weekend I participated in a Scavenger Hunt Birthday Party Extravaganza for my friend Shanzie who just turned 30.  The scavenger hunt consisted of 5 teams of 3 to 4 people.   These people then ran around local stores and restaurants taking pictures of things (like a Maryland license plate, a person with a cool beard, the giant horse in front of PF Changs) and collecting items (menus, brochures, pennies, etc).  There were also several extremely hard riddles to solve (ok, apparently they were only hard for me).  My husband, B was in charge of planning and scoring the scavenger hunt.  Below is my hard hitting interview with him...

Tallying up the scores...

Please give a brief description of the scavenger hunt?
B-This was your typical scavenger hunt. You had a list of items that either needed to be found or photographed.  I kept it limited to The Friendly Center (local outdoor shopping center) and downtown to try to limit the travel time.  There were a total of 68 items, including 10 riddles to solve. And the riddles were hard.  There was one that was so hard that no team got it.  Granted, I had a typo that made it impossible to figure out, but still.

How much time did this take to plan?
B-Hard to say. When you are doing something you love, you just lose track of time.  But in all seriousness, all of my hourly charges are detailed in the itemized bill that I sent to Shanzie.

What was the funnest part about organizing this?
B-I enjoyed coming up with what people had to scavenge, particularly the riddles.  I enjoyed the looks of frustration on both my wife and Shanzie's faces when I told them I couldn’t give them any details of the scavenger hunt because that would have been inappropriate.  That was all a lie though, I could have told them, but I really enjoyed that feeling of power.  Also the friendships.

Do you think you did a good job?
B-I included a Comment Card for Shanzie to fill out rating her experience.  I will wait to see what comes back, but I would say it was an A to A+.  Some comments that were overheard Saturday night during the post-hunt party...
“This was the best birthday party ever, including the time when my parents got me a bouncy castle”- Shanzie
“I am in a moment of euphoria, scavenger hunt high is so much better then a runners high”- Beezus5
“After watching you host and lead a scavenger hunt, my love for you has increased twofold. I am the luckiest woman alive”- JM
“I am an expert on Ashton Kutcher”- Curly T
***all of these where made up, except for Curly T.  She is an Ashton Kutcher expert.

Did you have a sense of fulfillment once it was over?
B-You know, I did.  It might have been because while everyone else was out scavenging, I was drinking at the bar (special shout-out to Old Town Draught House).  But I would say it was about 70% sense of fulfillment, 30% beer.

What if anything would you change about the hunt?
B-It was pretty much perfect.  But I would look to limit the driving. Both Beezus5 and Mrs. Acorn may or may not have run over a pedestrian.  (Note-No participants or innocent bystanders were injured in this scavenger hunt)

Do you think Hobie was mad that you were doing all the planning in front of him and then didn't even invite him to participate?
B-Hobie and I are cool.  He understood that with his heightened sense of smell, he would be at an obvious advantage in regards to scavenging.  He said as long as I didn’t include his bone in the hunt, he was ok with not being invited.

Which team did you want to win?
B-I had a soft spot for Team Mo-Tif-vated.  I mean, they only had three people, two of which were from out of town.  I think they did well for all they had working against them. Plus, they were the only ones to put together a team outfit.  Oh, and JM’s team.  We made a pact 2 years ago to always support each other through better and worse. I know you are thinking it was our wedding vows.  Nope, it was an OIB Olympic Games Unbreakable Vow overseen by Beezus5.

Why didn't you give your wife more of an advantage over the other teams?
B-One, I put JM on the team with the only participant who could fit into Harry the Happy Dragon. (PHOTO needed.) Two, JM and I have been to 99% of the places on the list together. Three, she lost because of a key tactical error. I gave everyone 10 minutes to strategize before the hunt began, but Team Mo-Tif-Vated was the only one to take advantage.  Yes, they finished last, but still, she should have focused on the higher point riddles.  That’s Scavenger Hunt 101.

Team Member with Harry the Happy Dragon-5 Points

Would you consider the Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza a success?

B-The goal of every scavenger hunt that I have ever put together (well, this was my first one) was to get people to spend two hours taking pictures of themselves looking silly while I hang out at a bar watching college basketball.  So yes, in that regards, Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza was a rousing success.

Thanks B!  Even though my team only got 3rd place, (I mean we did only have 3 members whereas most other teams had 4 players) I had an excellent time.  Yes I think I pulled a muscle when I was trying to photo myself in front of the PF Chang horse and yes I was profusely sweating after running from the Harris Teeter to REI to PF Changs, but still, I had fun.  I would like to give a special shout out to Mrs. Acorn's husband who was willing to sprint in any direction we told him although he usually had no idea where he was going (since he just moved to this city) and of course to Mrs. Acorn for jumping into the Harry the Happy Dragon ride without thinking twice.

Team Photo-5 points