Tally Hair Cut

Tally got a new hair cut today. She had really bad matted ears and the groomer really cook them down short! Kinda cute puppy like :) and fits better into the anti-Reg bed.

Hair cuts usually cause social upheaval within the Sharples home. It's hard to describe.... Reggie basicly goes nuts. Not as much any more... but ... he seems to think tallys a real looker -and spends a couple of hours licking her ears. Tally's head is aways soaked when he's done. Yuck. So also feels a new found sense of self-confidence and challenges Reg on things that she normally wouldn't. I uploaded a video at the bottom which is a perfect example. Reg has one spot he always lays on the couch and that's reggies spot. He'll shove Ben out of "his spot". So it's totally weird that after hair cuts, tally HAS to sit there and fights Reg over it (while he's licking her head...) Strange.


This is an ongoing project. Ben build this yarn spinner a while back...out of a hook, stick, and a couple of CD's. I'll let him explain later But this is how it's spun....
And this is what you make it into!

Growling video....

Food Alchemy: Mustard

This post is basically just a teaser trailer for my next project, mustard. Mustard is profoundly effected by biological processes (well, possibly considered chemistry, since it is largely an enzyme driven process, but since I am a biologist I am claiming for biology). Ground mustard seed has no relation to the condiment we are all familiar with. This is because there is a reaction that has to take place for the transformation (or Alchemy) to something good. Allyl isothiocyanate (the compound that gives mustard its heat and characteristic flavor) has to be produced. This is done when an enzyme in the seed is activated by addition of water. The interesting part of this whole process is that the mustard levels of this chemical change greatly in time. Immediatly after combining water to mustard the flavor is bland, but after 10 minutes it is nearly unbearable. Good mustards need to age for at least a week (for spicy mustard, longer for more mild) to cut the heat a bit and develop more complex, less bitter flavors. As a fan of mustard I am excited to give this a try, though I wish I had a good source of baby food jars for all my samples... nope, not going to have a baby just for the jars. As an aside, I am especially excited for Sweet and Spicy Apple Mustard

An Eventful Weekend

Happy Chinese New Year!
For 7 years Ben and his high school cronies have been celebrating Chinese New Year. They constructed a Dragon head and body to parade around the city. The thing is pretty impressive. They have been using the same dragon head (made from paper mache and chicken wire) and adjusting to be the head of the animal for every year (pig, dog, rooster, ox, etc). Apparently that same paper mache head gave up the chinese-ghost this last year and Caron made a really awesome one out of fabric for 2009!

The times I have been with them we went to UVU or BYU campus and the public response has been fairly positive. This year they choose the movie theater at Jordan commons. And who is at Jordan commons theater on a friday night? EMO TEENS!! The intial reaction from the crowd wasn't so supportive. I think it was Melinda that figured out that if she (who was the head at the time) chased them ..... it became funnier. :) So lots of screaming teen girls and a group of emo boys with mohawks and stretch pans even joined in!
Ben with the dragon head... (the eye is kinda falling off)
After ward we returned to Carons place and partook in chinese pot luck. Ben made Peanut chicken stir fry. VERY good.
Saturday:
These are my dogs. They are strange. Reggie is camped out in the bed that was supposed to be for tally but claimed it as his own. A year later .... it is NASTY. So i tossed it next to the door to remind myself to throw it out. Sure enough.... Reg is still camped out in it. Maybe i'll figure out some way to wash it. We bought Tally her own bed and i picked a small one that she fits in pretty snuggly ...thinking that Reg wouldn't try to claim it -- however yesterday I caught him sitting on it.. his butt barely fits in it.
Maybe just a little small....
The Shark Project.
Okay... These shark cupcakes were for Ben's work party that was 'tropical themed'. These dang things are so labor intensive I would advise against making them.
The whole thing is a calorie BOMB!

Cook up some cupcakes and then cut a twinkie at a slant, glue to cupcake with frosting and shape the face a little.
(Invite your little brother over to eat the shark butts so you are not temped too)
Freeze em! Rock hard. This is key. You'll then warm up some gray frosting in the microwave so that it's not face meltingly hot -- but warm and liquidy. Then dip those suckers!
This... is.... hard. If your twinks are not frozen everything starts to sag and come apart in the warm frosting. So build just a couple extra for you to screw up on.
I know it looks like i skipped a step here.... but after the dip-a-shark is dry (not a bad idea to freeze them again). You'll add the blue water frosting (DON'T USE WHIPPED FROSTING ON ANY OF THESE PROJECTS), Coca chips for eye, fruit roll up for mouth and white frosting for teeth. (oh, and the fin is a thin mint cut in half...ad that before you dip it)
Because these things are so time consuming to make only make like 6 and then do the rest of the cupcakes as white doughnut light savers things, and under the sea gummy deals.
The best part of this project was the son of Ben's boss - about 9 years old - came up stairs during the work party for a drink and we offered him a shark. The look on his face made the whole thing worth it! ....".... okay.... I can do this again".

Oh - and i won these cheese balls. Currently using them as dog treats.
Ben's head. Longer hair on his face then his head.
Cheese ball?
Cheese ball?
I know she's hairy. She has an appointment this week.

The Hair

Ben has really beautiful hair. And it's a terrible shame that it wasn't 10 inches long so we could donate it.

It all started last spring when the boys of PharmD 2011 had a hair growing contest and Ben outlived everyone by like 10 months. :)Man, does he love that hair. It's long enough to pull it all back into a pony tail! However, I think it became too much work to keep it out of his eyes and tired of the teasing over hairbands. As a farewell, this morning we styled it up big and wavy. ...
And in honor of the Chinese New year we created a 'traditional' chinese male hair-do....pony tail in the back - the rest TOTALLY SHAVED OFF. :)




.... I think he kinda looks like Warf from Star Trek....
This is finished product -- doing some type of Dragon Ball -Z move.
(Ma - I'll make sure it's all even by nursery on sunday.... :))
Fetters- please no jokes about how much Ben loves the chinese :) And if any one wants to donate some beanies to keep his little head warm - it would much appreciated.

FRIED PICKLES!!

I don't remember where I first heard of these, but ever since I did I thought they sounded awesome. There is just something about pickles that has captured my attention lately, and not just cucumber pickles, but all pickled vegetables.

So I chose the basic dill chips for my fried pickles. They had to be quite dry so I strained and dried them.

This is my cornmeal mixture that I coated my pickles with. Pretty basic stuff, just cornmeal, salt black pepper and some herbs. I used some buttermilk and egg as a liquid dredge.
The battered chips, ready to freeze so the batter stays on during frying.
The finished product! Since they are originally from the south I decided that a cornmeal batter would be more authentic, but in hindsight I kind of wish I would have used the flour recipe I saw, as I thought the cornmeal was a bit coarse. Either way they were quite good.

Progress report

Yeah! Thank you Muffin for this awesome sweater book. The goal is create a sweater in less the 3 years and more then a week. With these #9 needles and double yarned-- I'm flying through it. :) I only hope that I can figure out how to keep the stripe pattern on the sleeves.

No update on Baby milward sweater - It's got a cross pattern in it I just can't seem to get.

The t-shirt rug is coming along but I think that I've made the strips too thick. Considering pulling apart and trying again.

A Tribute

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=215261&title=the-bush-years-farewell,-mr.