What you need:

1 cup Crisco
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1.5 cups Pamela’s baking mix (or 1.5 cups white flour if you eat gluten)
1 tsp salt
.5 tsp baking soda (1 tsp if you use white flour)
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups oatmeal (1 minute, but I used Bob’s certified GF oats and let the batch sit a while before baking)
.5 cup chopped nuts (I use pecans)
.5 cup raisins

What you do:

Preheat oven to 350. Cream sugars & Crisco. Add eggs & beat. Add salt, soda, vanilla. Mix. Add oatmeal, nuts, & raisins. Bake 12-15 minutes. Cool completely before removing from cookie sheet / baking stone, especially if you make them gluten-free. Wait till they firm up, or they’ll fall right apart on you. I used a baking stone, and they came out perfect after 14-16 minutes.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier had me on her The Right Doctor podcast today to talk about Twilight / New Moon, Sarah Palin, and how John Hawkins didn’t vote for me in the t-shirt babe contest. John came on at the end of the podcast to get yelled at, and during that segment, I also revealed a Twilight-related secret about Frank. Listen here!

Yes, I’m all about the new gigs these days. The same week that tWits started, I also took over Viral Footage for John Hawkins. See the videos that I think are the best over there, and send me any vids you think I should post. See, I call them vids now, because I’m in the biz.

Contains spoilers.

From tWits. [It’s New Moon week, so I can think of nothing but vampires.]

Every time I tell my husband that I don’t have time to chit-chat or make his dinner or have sex because I’m reading about sexy vampires or watching the Cullen boys play sparkly baseball, he tries to tell me that vampires are creepy. Not because of the fangs or the blood-drinking—he’s a guy, so that stuff probably makes them cool—but because they’re hundreds of years old and pursuing teenage girls.

Now, I’ve thought about it. I’m trying to be a supportive wife and see his point so he’ll drop the argument and just let me get back to my toothily-enhanced hotties, but I can’t do it—I can’t even see the merits in his argument. Because he’s wrong. And here’s why there’s nothing wrong with hot vampires dating much, much, much, much younger women.

READ THE REST AT TWITS…

From tWits

Conversation? We’ve got a problem. I’m about to abandon you altogether and crawl into my cave and talk only to the voices in my head. And I think you know why: the voices in my head occasionally make statements.

I am seriously on the verge of hitting my crazy every time I talk to people, watch TV, listen to the radio, and catch the news. People won’t stop asking themselves questions, and I’m about to lose my mind over it. Whether for stabbing my eardrums to relieve myself of the misery or stabbing the offending parties to relieve myself of the misery is unclear, but lately I find myself reaching often for an ice pick. Why? Because suddenly everyone is interviewing himself.

READ THE REST AT tWits…

Besides Twitter and Snark Raving Mad!, I’m now also blogging at tWits. This was Caleb Howe’s (of RedState) idea and is a fun, snarky, very twittery group blog starring Caleb, Tommy Christopher (Daily Dose), Lori Z (Snark & Boobs), and me, plus other contributors.

I’ll still be here for the personal, so don’t think I’m leaving you.

But do go see us (and blogroll us, bookmark us, etc.) at tWits! It’s snarktastic!

ME: Do you want spaghetti or goulash?
HE: Spaghetti. I don’t know what goulash is, and I don’t like the sound of it.
***

HE: Bless you, Rowdi.
ME: You don’t have a soul, Rowdi.
***

ME: He’s a priest. He said hell.
HE: Priests say hell all the time.
***

HE: BAD. SWEETIE.
ME: You shouldn’t call me Bad Sweetie when I have a gun in my hand.
HE: Threatening Sweetie.

Yeah, so most of my time right now is spent on Twitter, because I’m addicted. Also because I love the memes that get going over there. When I’m not on Twitter, I’m mostly on Snark Raving Mad! making fun of TV. My life is boring these days. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been thinking since about… Saturday-ish. (BTW, yes, Twitter has turned me into a political junkie. You’ll see.)

*My congressman voting no on Pelosicare. Good boy.
*Isn’t it nice to have such an eloquent prez who really cares?
*Ok, Blow Pops, that’s enough. I’m quitting you. Okay, just one more. Bag.
*I can’t believe I’m voluntarily watching C-SPAN. When did I turn old?
*Heh. Pelosi just said “new direction.”
*Yeah, because Social Security and Medicare have turned out soooo well. [Apparently, someone was talking about how we need the health care bill because of Social Security and Medicare or something.]
*Come on, Blue Dogs. Save the economy. [They failed me.]
*Van Hollen, you are so very full of crap. [He’s like a congressman or something.]
*What’s in our grasp right now is the bankruptcy of America. Let’s do it!
*Can’t bear to watch. Putting on football. Y’all let me know when my kids’ future gets sold to the most mediocre bidder.
*No one cares that you can’t go to Vegas. I’m watching C-SPAN on a Saturday. My job’s worse than yours.
*Housecallers are fearmongers!
*”And if we’ve learned anything from H1N1 epidemic,” it’s that the government can’t even handle facilitating vaccines.
*Thank you, Northwestern. Step up, San Diego State. [I’ve moved on to college football, see.]
*So Oregon’s better than Stanford, right? They just had a bad game way back at the beginning of week 9 or something.
*I can’t believe there’s even a DEBATE over whether tax dollars should fund abortion. [Back to the health care bill. Twitter brings out the ADD in me.]
*I’m gonna be sick and clinically depressed. [The bill passed, you see.]
*Blerg. I’m officially depressed. Health Care passes. [Oh, I guess the sickness and depression were preemptive.]
*Who’s the douchebag republican that voted yea?
*I’m just glad that veterinarians won’t have to pay back their school loans. Load off my mind.
*Historic has a hard H and should never be preceded by “an” unless you’re British or a pompous tool.
*Holy crap! These pajama pants aren’t nearly as tight as they were last year! It’s a Pelosicare miracle!
*Really, NyQuil? All these years on the market, and no one’s thought to change the way you taste?
*WHOOOO! GO COWBOYS!
*Yay Cowboys! Thanks for not sucking much tonight.
*Heroes is still on?
*Twilight fans MUST watch this. Taylor Swift as Bella–she’s perfect.
*My skin crawls every time I hear a terrorist referred to as a “mastermind.”
*This is not a rock concert. Please refrain from wolf-whistling for anyone but the fallen. [Memorial yesterday.]
*I can still remember saying to my X that DVRs were dumb, unnecessary toys. Now I need a 2nd one. [NEED.]
*Men don’t seem to understand: just because I have a complaint about the food I make doesn’t mean you get to agree with that complaint.
*I bet that Cylon lady is one of the Visitors. [Oh, TV?]
*The dishes are dunnnnn, man.
*Insomnia, you ugly whore. I hate you.

There’s a little something there for everyone. Discuss.

151.9!!! 151.9!!! Only 1.9 away from a huge hurdle! Yes, I’m a little overly excited about it, but this is a big one for me.

Aaaaaanyway.

If you want to join in, here’s the deal. I’ll post every week (or, um, week and a half, two weeks, once a month–whatevs, just roll with it) (who knows which day?), and you can join in in the comments, or send me a link to your post on your blog, and I’ll link back to it. Here’s what we’re posting:

Positives:
Something healthy you’ve done for yourself this week, food-wise
How many days you exercised this week, and you can detail what you did for exercise if you wish
Any bonus healthy things you did for yourself
How much you lost this week (If you gained, you can include that in the negatives section, unless your goal is to gain weight)

Neutral:
Current weight (if you wish to share it)
Goal weight (if you wish to share it)
Number of pounds you’d like to lose or gain

Negatives:
How much you gained this week.
Something bad you did to your body this week. Only list one thing, let’s not focus on the negatives.

Something you want to improve for next week (besides weight):

Okay, here’s mine for this week.

Positives:
*Healthy, foodwise: Um… none come to mind.
*Exercise: Um… not much in the last week or so. But before I got sick, I was exercising 4-5 times a week. Yesterday was my first day back, and since I’m feeling fine, I’ll keep going today. I started my 2nd 30-day challenge over, since I’d been out of it for so long. But I’m not giving myself too hard a time about it, because I’m back on the horse.
*Bonus healthy: I managed to lose weight while sick and not drinking water, not exercising. Ok, that’s not healthy.
*Lost almost a pound!! (That’s since the last WCWIO update, like a month ago.)

Neutral:
*Current weight: 151.9!!
*Total weight loss so far (optional field): 8.1 lbs.
*Goal weight: 120
*I would like to lose 31.9 pounds and look like I did in my t-shirt babe pictures.

Negatives:
*Do I even need to say Halloween candy? Blow Pops, you own me, and you know it, you minxy sweets.
*Didn’t exercise or drink my water last week.

Something I want to improve for next week:
*Get back to my walking and exercise routines. Drink my water. Juice.

This was my costume.

Let’s discuss. First, the face, SarahK. What is with the face?? I’ll tell you. I don’t know how to use my camera yet, because I’m an SLR n00b, and I haven’t read the manual. Sometimes, it just won’t take the picture. It focuses, then just sits there like it is bored with your face and is therefore not taking anymore pictures of it. So this was Frank’s 500th attempt to make the shutter snap, and I was so over it. No one needs to see me as Luna. They already know I’m odd.

Next, the outfit. This was actually reader MonicaK’s idea, so I handily stole it without apology. I had the witch’s hat from when I went as Hermione a few years back, so I found the stuffed lion and hot glued him on. By the way? Really hard to find a stuffed lion these days. By really hard, I mean that Walmart doesn’t carry them. It seems they only carry FurReals and stuffed animals like that. No generic stuffed animals bin or anything. So I found my lion at Fred Meyer, and that sucker was heavy. If I didn’t lean my head back slightly all evening, the thing kept sliding down and pressing on my rad SpectreSpecs, which kinda hurt my nose. So all evening I looked like I was very interested in the ceiling and couldn’t be bothered to make eye contact with anyone. But since I think of everyone as my inferior, this was nothing unusual. Kidding.

Then there’s the ears. Yeah, so I made the earrings out of real radishes and real hooks, pins, etc. And since I barely function as a person with normal intelligence, I used big radishes, which are heavier than you would think. They hurt, and I was taking the right earring out all night (the left ear apparently feels no pain). Next time I decide to make radish earrings (when I go as the always popular Garden Salad, for example), I’ll make clip-ons.

Clothes. Well, I don’t have any witchy clothes that currently fit, so I chose jeans, boots (so no one could steal my shoes), a black shirt (which I forgot is totally see-thru in good lighting, a bonus since the Halloween party we went to was all church people), and a blue scarf. I would have preferred blue and silver, but I couldn’t find one, since I basically shopped for this while grocery shopping and threw it all together in about a half hour. And I couldn’t find my black robe, so I went cazh.

My favorite touch: The SpectreSpecs, which I borrowed from Frank. Yes, I borrowed these from my straight husband, who made up a story about them being a gimmick that his company gave him during his first quarterly meeting with them to show him that he had a bright future. Riiiight. Oh! My favorite part of the evening was when I said hi to our preacher, and he looked me over, disregarded everything but the glasses, and asked if I was Elton John. Hahaha. No, that would have required a green sequined suit and even bigger radishes.

I also carried a cauldron, my Harry Potter schoolbooks, and a Quibbler that took me about two minutes to make. I forgot my magic wand (a paintbrush).

One final touch: The voice. I got several compliments for being spot on (sorry, Caleb, I’ve been saying this for years, ya poncy git) with Luna’s voice. I also told a few people that they were covered in wrackspurts.

My favorite point of the evening was when Frank got up to get a drink, and J (sitting on my other side) moved on to another part of the room, so I was sitting in the middle of the couch by myself, and I felt it was appropriate that I was Luna Lovegood, the one with no friends. (Ann saved me from the no-friends thing a few minutes later.) Later, while we were waiting for the tally in the costume contest (I didn’t win), Frank stole my cauldron and school books. He gave them back at the end of the night, though.

Frank dressed up as a ninja Friday night for a Halloween party we were going to. After he had his mask tied on his head and over his face, Rowdi was in her crate, and I asked him to go give her some cookies and lock her in so we could go.

Ninja Frank walked in, and when Rowdi saw him, she came out of her crate and ran behind the bed and started shaking.

What. A. Coward.

It took a while for us to coax her back to our side of the bed (by this time, I had joined the fun so I could make fun of the big scary pit bull who’s deathly afraid of ninjas), but we were able to get her to come over and sniff Frank. When she figured out who he was, she started jumping up and down, so happy that her daddy was back after being replaced by the scary masked man. Or something.

Then when we came back in after the party, Frank went to get Rowdi out of her crate, still wearing the ninja mask. When she saw him, she lowered her head closer to the floor, dropped her ears, and started shaking. She calmed down when he pulled the mask down so she could see his mouth.

We’ve only seen her react strangely to someone (besides barking, jumping, sniffing, wagging, dancing the pee-pee dance) one other time, and that was when my mom & stepdad came to visit two summers ago. When Pappy walked in, he stood in the livingroom behind the couch, and when Rowdi saw him, she freaked. She ran on the other side of the couch, and jogged back and forth in front of the couch several times while barking at Pappy. And she didn’t stop until we figured out why she was freaked, and he took off his baseball cap.

So my dog is afraid of ninjas and men in hats. Frank’s been telling me that if I leave my gun at home when I go for a jog, I shouldn’t worry, because Rowdi will protect me. Somehow I’m not so sure.

Hiding from Batman.

This week’s Quick Hits–The Week in TV and last night’s The Amazing Race. Go discuss!

Hawkins did a poll. I participated.