hipstasaurus rex

i'm happy this little blog is back in business!!

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a while ago, i was talking to my mama.  ok, maybe two days ago.  and we were talking about the fact that i was making real live blogs again for a second (sort of) ((sort of, as in, we were sort of talking about that.  not that i was only sort of making blogs...)).  and this little guy came up in the conversation.

her:  i loved your disclosure.
me:  you did??
her:  i was cracking up.
me:  in case you were wondering, it's because all the facebook kids use this thing called instagram where it makes their pictures look all polaroidy, and they put them on facebook...
her:  i have seen them.  your cousin does it quite often.
me:  oh.  yep.  hipster...
her:  i remember you and mikah have done it for years.
me:  yay!! thank you!  at least one person knows!
her:  you are a pre-hipster.  a pripster?
me:  dinausaur hipster.
her:  haha
me:  hipstasaurus rex.
her:  ....

and it made me laugh a little bit.  so now we all know:  i'm a hipstasaurus rex.  hipster before hipster was cool.  hahahahaha

raw muffins

i like to eat raw muffins.  i really do.  i have this memory of going with my sissy to stay at our cousins' house and eating plastic cheese because we didn't have that at home (irrelevant), and making muffins in the morning.  our one cousin and i would basically eat half of the muffins before we even cooked them.  and my sister would be so grossed out by us.

well.  i have discovered that it's the eggs that makes eating raw things so great.  it must be the texture, or maybe even the taste.  who knows?

today i was making "just add milk" muffins.  i was super excited to snack on some raw muffins while i was filling up the muffin tin(s).

there was a problem.  or maybe two.

first of all, i had no muffin tin.  uh, what?  i had about 3 when i lived in my last apartment...

second of all, the batter tasted horrible.  i've never tasted such an awful raw muffin.  i couldn't even lick the bowl.

so here is what had to happen:

(don't mind the couscous box...that was from dinner last night....)

i had to chug some milk to get the taste of milk and flour out of my mouth.  and i had to use a cake pan to cook my muffins.  i'm still waiting on them, so i still don't know if muffin-cakes even work... hopefully they will be edible.... if not, i'll have to throw them in the grass for the wild cats to eat.


aaaaaaand, they're done.  but at first they weren't done enough, so i set my bird/egg timer again.  but it didn't go off.  for reals!  for really reals.  and now my muffin-cakes look like this:

black.  quite black.  

but that's ok.  i'll still try them.

oh dear...  forgot to spray the pan.

done.  these are some crunchy muffin-cakes.

i'll chalk that one up to a win.

ps.  i am holding my computer on my lap, and, sadly, i am attached to an internet cable.  oni just walked straight into the internet cable and clotheslined herself.  and just sat there and looked at me in a very "why would you do this to me??" tone of voice...  where is my camera when i really need it?

pop tart

we always talk about this, but i'd never actually seen it...

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today is my pop tart's birthday.  sometimes that's what i call him.  "what's cookin, pop tart?"  ok, i don't really say that, but sometimes i really do call him pop tart.
sometimes i just call him boyfriend.
and today it's his birthday!  and he's (in his own words, i'll have you know) 'an old ass man'!
and in just 5 short (but probably very looong and dragging) days, he gets to come visit me!  and i can't wait!
as he doesn't have skype, we haven't seen each other since the day that i left wyoming.  here is what we looked like back then:

i told him i would bring a sign with me to the airport in case he didn't recognize me since it's been so long (aka 3 1/2 months).

real live second rodeo

have i ever shown (showed?) you this one?  so beautiful.

we went back to the rodeo.  and again, we forgot how to take pictures until the actual rodeo was over.  or more like a 10 year old girl worried about chasing boys was climbing the fence in front of us and stick her butt out in our faces.  or rather, erica's face.  and when we (again, erica) asked her to move over a little, she pretended not to speak english.

here is a little taste of the rodeo we saw (courtesy of google)

the announcer was saying how girls had travelled across the country just to compete in this barrel thing.  and then almost every girl fell off their horse during the turns....the 6 year olds that competed did better than the professionals.  maybe it's because their horses weren't wearing socks...

(this photo is actually from jubilee days)  

my favorite one of the sheep riding was a little girl in a dress.  when she fell off she landed on her butt and then she fell back with her legs in the air and her dress came above her head and all you could see were her hot pink panties!!

another event where professionals around the world were "the match of the night" on world class bulls that hadn't been ridden in 3 years.  this was all we saw.  

this roping/wrestling thing was too violent for erica and noe.  they had to go walk around until it was over.

and here is what our photos showed happened:

we were trying to self-portrait... also, that's mikah's beer i'm holding.  i was the driver!!

mikah, claire, noe, erica 

things are not working out.  i just got done telling mikah about my pitty sweats (instead of sweaty pitts), and i'm sorry it's on your  shoulder, so i was laughing really hard with my fake teeth.  (don't they look fake?)  and then we laughed hysterically for about 10 minutes about how tan erica makes mikah look!

real live rodeo experience

my sister recently introduced me to a new and fantastic place.  everyone needs to go there.

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a while ago i went to my first real live rodeo.  i've been at (or in the vicinity of) rodeos before, but never at the actual rodeo part, where the cow roping and riding around barrels and bull riding happens.  noe (which is pronounced know-y) and i tried taking pictures of all the amazing things, but nothing really worked out.  so here is our evidence, in which you can't even tell where we are (but the giant cowboy should give you reason to believe....according to noe)

doba (as in qdoba), claire (uh, duh), big rodeo cowboy mayor guy, noe (who was desperate to take photo with said big rodeo cowboy mayor guy)

noe, claire, doba

claire dancing with a 17 year old (sometimes it's hard for me to remember that i am not, in fact, 17 anymore, but this kid made it very obvious), a 17 year old that noe found while she was soliciting for boys (she is 30 and married...). but instead of dancing with them herself, she guilts other people into dancing with these poor solicited souls.

texas nature

when arley comes to visit, we are going here!  i can't wait!  some water to go with this heat will be really great!

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i do like the trees and the plants here.  even though they cause "the worst allergies in the country."  some of the trees still have flowers on them from when i got here in may.  the flowers grow 8 feet tall.  however, the bugs in these trees and flowers are big enough to bite your face off.
and did you know that crickets are very black and spidery and creepy?  and they fly??  but don't worry about me.  the two that have gotten in have been caught, and tortured, and eaten by the heroic oni cat.

the art of unpacking. and re-unpacking.

i just kinda like this one... (try not to cringe, mama!)

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it took me a while to unpack once i moved to texas.  in fact, i still have a few frames to hang on my walls...
not that that should be a surprise to anyone.  it takes me weeks just to unpack a suitcase from a 2 day trip.
i was finally making some progress, working so hard to feel at home in my little blah apartment.  and just when i started to feel like i was getting there, that progress was cruelly, cruelly undone...

the newspapers were originally all stuffed in the blue thing.  but Someone thought they would do something about that....

morning. it's really real!!

everyone probably knows all about this little guy, but i love him!!

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it just so happens that, occasionally, i do see the morning happen.  i even have proof.
once upon a time my car blew up (which may or may not have occurred due to the fact that i ran over a parking curb - it was an accident, ok??).  anyways.  i was without a car, and so had to walk to the bus, and this is what i saw:

disclosure:  i discovered poladroids waaaaaaaaay before instagram.  i'm no facebook hipster, even if i do like independently signed, totally unknown musicians who wear panama hats and beachy waves in their hair.  that's totally and completely irrelevant.

tomorrow = a few days later

i like a song.  suprise.  i can't tell if it's a love song or not...

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once upon a time, my sissy and i encountered some deadly alligators (remember?  i said i'd tell all about it...).  it was mostly my fault.
i thought it would be really great, and really american, and really 90's to get floaty alligators.
i always wanted those cool shaped floats when i was little and saw them taking up half the swimming pool.
like these:

so when i saw the chance to get some really amazing alligators, i couldn't pass.

anyways.  once upon a time, when i was still a baby (aka no study abroad, no degree, no boyfriend [does having a boyfriend mean you're growing up?], the list goes on), i almost got killed by an alligator.

i made a very bad choice to float the river with my sissy, who did not almost get killed by an alligator.  in fact, she was befriended.  jerk.

i told my sister it would be so great to go to steamboat and see our friends (aka. her friends) and float on my shiny new alligators.

it was basically a death sentence.

we got all sunscreened up and had our alligators nice and full of air.

within two seconds of getting in, i was bucked off and scraped my knees on the rocks that were approximately 3 inches below the surface of the water.

things were not looking good.

within about 5 minutes i was bleeding.

and then the rapids came.
(this is the yampa we're talking about.  in late august.  very dry. very rocky.  the rocks stick out of the water and cause rapids and try to impale you.)

i was basically riding my alligator's belly.  hanging on from below.  the stupid thing was so slippery that i couldn't stay on.

i'm usually not a big bruiser.  it takes a lot, and about 3 days for a bruise to show up.  but by the end of our float my knees were both purple, as were my elbows.  and hips.

and you know what?  my sister wasn't even wet.

here is the evidence:

on the way to float.  super excited.  no idea that every second we're coming closer to death itself.

first 3 seconds, and i've already been bucked off.  my whole right side landed on the rocks.  ps.  sister's fine....

alligator wrestling.  it. must. pay.

mikah and gary the alligator were feeling very zen.

the end.

mikah's face:  that was so much fun!

claire's face:  there's still a chance these things could kill us.

a big, fat, texan 4th

i had a very american sort of 4th.  obviously, since it was the 4th of july, it was american.  but this one seemed especially...something.  or maybe it was especially texan.  i guess that is a little different...

sara and i spent the afternoon by the river.  then she took me to her parents house for dinner (banana cream pie, anyone?).  after that, we went with a couple of sara's friends to a nearby lake and drove around and swam, and then watched fireworks from the lake!  and then after the fireworks - i know you're not going to believe this - i went night swimming!  i made sure everyone else got in first, though, so the hungry fish wouldn't eat me.  of course, we also had a few spontaneous boat dance parties...

 the infamous, deadly (and i'm not exaggerating!) alligators (which apparently, you don't know about - so i will tell you.  tomorrow.

 sara's parent's driveway.  

 the american texan lake! with a tree growing in the middle!

 the gathering of the masses.  it doesn't look like a lot, but the entire lake was packed.

 one photo of fireworks, in case anyone forgot what they look like.

 i liked the swirlies that the lights made on the water.