I Need a Makeover. Or a Wig.

I want to change my hair. Like RIGHT.NOW. I want bangs. To be more precise, I want hair like this:

Keep in mind, my hair isn't nearly this long. Or straight. Or colorful. And I guess if we're going to be nit-picky here, I'm not a Caucasian waif.

So if we take into account my stats instead, getting bangs will probably look a lot closer to this:


When it comes to my hair, I have a hard time NOT being impulsive. When I was younger, I used to cut my own hair all the time- bangs, front, back, everything. Now that I'm older and my looks are quickly going down the drain, I'm a little more cautious about sabotaging myself.

It's taking everything in me to not go into the utility drawer, get the scissors, stick my head under the bathroom sink, and cut them right now.

I've been growing my bangs out for a year because I had high hopes that long, sleek hair would make my face look thinner. Unfortunately, that hasn't really happened. In fact, unless I put a shit ton of time into drying/straightening/curling my hair, it just looks like I have a dirty, dowdy, frizzy, shitty mop on my head. And on any given day, I look like I've spent hours chasing after wild children at the local Chuck E. Cheese. Which is exactly where I draw the line when it comes to my hair.

Do you think I should get bangs? Or stick it out with the long hair?

If you need a refresher on my current hair state, just refer to my Christmas post. HOWEVER- keep in mind, that WAS the holiest day of the year and Baby Jesus visited my hair that day with a Christmas miracle, making it turn out especially healthy and darling.

Either way, I have a hair appointment this weekend. Fingers crossed.

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Recipe: Homemade Cut-Out Cookies.

This is a recipe I discovered a long time ago and over the past few years it's turned into my signature Christmas cookie. I.LOVE.THEM. The fact that I'm even sharing this recipe right now is blowing my mind because I imagine that someone is going to read this recipe and then get super famous over it, sharing it with people like Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres, and then I will find out (and probably get roid rage) and then have to track them down AND KILL THEM.

Anywho.

Even though it's my absolute favorite cookie and I could eat these babies for days (weeks) on end, I save it strictly for Christmas time because they usually take all fucking day to make. And I only have that kind of patience and dedication once a year.

It doesn't require many ingredients. And the directions themselves are surprisingly short. However, anything that involves "chilling" time (unless it's wine) gets -2 points. Add in the fact that you have to roll out the dough and cut, cut, cut, and then roll out the dough and cut, cut, cut over and over again... I'm sure you get the idea on why this has turned into my once a year delight.

Also, the frosting is the kind of stuff dreams are made of.

(CHRISTMAS) CUT-OUT COOKIES

COOKIE INGREDIENTS:
-1 cup butter
-1 cup sugar
-3 tbsp milk
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tsp cream of tartar
-1 tsp vanilla
-3 cups flour



DIRECTIONS:
Mix all ingredients.

(This picture is kinda gross. I don't care.)

Once thoroughly combined, chill dough.



Roll out to about 1/4" thick on a floured table.



Cut with cookie cutters in desired shapes and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with colored sugar. Bake at 350 degrees until brown around the edges.


FROSTING INGREDIENTS:
-4 tsp butter
-1 tsp milk
-1 tsp vanilla
Powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS:
Melt butter with milk in microwave until hot. Add vanilla. Mix in powdered sugar until you have a good spreading consistency.



Frost the shit out of your cookies. Eat them by the handful every time you make a trip past the kitchen.




NOTE:
-I chilled my dough for about 30 minutes. I also placed it back in the fridge in between batches.

-I don't bother with measuring the rolled dough thickness. I just stop rolling when it looks like it's a good thickness for cookies.

-I don't do the colored sprinkles. Instead, I insulate my cookies with two inches of frosting.

-Start checking your cookies at 8 minutes in the oven. It doesn't take much for these guys to to get crispy.

-I've turned my back on "greased cookie sheets". Instead, I just use parchment paper. It gives the same non-stickness, but prevents baked goods from slipping and sliding and go all pancake style.

-These cookies don't really expand in the oven. Which means you don't have to worry about cutting apart one giant pizookie.

-The frosting takes a lot of powdered sugar to become the perfect spreading consistency. Start by adding a lot of powdered sugar to your butter mixture. Use a whisk to break up all the lumps. Then add a shitload more sugar. Whisk again. And right when you think you've got it perfect, add more sugar. Whisk as needed.

Boner'ppetite!

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Christmas with TILTE 2011.

Despite knowing that every other blogger is posting millions of holiday pictures and really, nobody cares about holiday pictures unless they're featured in them, I'm still going to post a shitload of my own Christmas pix.

I can't promise they're going to be entertaining. But since this is my blog and I call the shots around here, I'm just going to do it anyway.

Christmas 2011, Featuring TILTE and Family.

Decor...

My favorite wrapping paper this year: Purchased at the $.99 Store

Holiday cards on display

Our tree

Wintery decorations at Boyfriend's relative's house

Nativity at Boyfriend's parents' house

Biscuit being a regal beagle


My Christmas cookies in the making


White Russian. AKA dealing with baked goods that take fucking forever to make


A cooking staple at my Grandma's house

Family Time...

Pearl and her cousin playing in the yard

Mom showing off the new scarf I got her

The kids were mesmerized by A Christmas Story

"Come play with us Danny..."

Grandma talking to relatives in far away places

Me and Boyfriend

Pearl and her Grandpa

Gifts and Miscellaneous...

Red Robin gift card - Holla!

Biscuit's wearing her Chippendale's bowtie

Pearl and a LaLaLoopsie (I hate those scary ass dolls)

One of our top favorite gifts: New plateware!!!

Boyfriend's super shocked face over THE BEST GIFT EVER (that I happened to get him)...

...CUSTOMIZED GUITAR PICKS.

Special Moments Caught on Film...





Worth noting:

-I've turned into a hermit and can't bear the thought of going into work tomorrow. Even though I love my job, I'm hurling at the thought of having to wake up early and sit in traffic.

-My breakfasts for the past four days have consisted of cookies and Earl Grey.

-In related news, I've outgrown every item of clothing I own. Even my scarves.

-My actual Christmas night dinner consisted of a tuna sandwich and Lay's potato chips. Since our official celebration meals took place on Friday and Saturday, neither Boyfriend nor I had any desire to cook/ clean/ go out for food. It was fucking delicious.

Was my Christmas everything you imagined it would be???

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Christmas 2011.

My life has been super hectic lately, as I'm sure everyone else on the planet's has been. This year, Christmas has been creeping up quickly on me, much like a ghetto thief hanging around the parking of the local Wal-Mart.

Just so we're all on the same page here, this is what I've been busy with.


We had a "Cookie Decorating" party at my mom's house. As you can see, the kids went crazy with the sprinkle shit. By round two of cookie decorating, all the supplies were gone.


They also made a really easy candy-type recipe my mom found, called Peppermint Bark.


Lastly, all the kids made Christmas Pomanders. If you've never made these, they're easy and make the house smell great.



I met the star and director of the film Bellflower. He was super nice and we hung out, shooting the shit, in the Humor section of Barnes & Noble.

(My coworker pointed out that I was dressed like Fred from Scooby-Doo.)

Biscuit's made some guest appearances at my office lately. She LOVES being a hard-working professional. Especially on "business casual" days.



We had my company holiday party at The Delphine in Hollywood. As I'm sure you all have guessed, I'm not a high-roller and would probably not go to a place like this on my own. So, I was very excited and felt like a pimp daddy. Unfortunately, the food was a thumbs down. On the positive side though, my hair and makeup turned out great.



And because I like to save the best for last, here are some special moments caught on camera. These are from the "Lazy Eye Club". (Click to enlarge)

This one was my original pick for my TILTE Christmas photo. However, it was too embarrassing, even by my standards.

So on that note...

Happy Holidays from the TILTE household!

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Snickerdoodles.

The other day, I woke up from a nap in a Snickerdoodle frenzy. After a short Google search, I made up my mind on this recipe.

SOFT SNICKERDOODLE COOKIES

INGREDIENTS:
-1 cup butter
-1 1/2 cups sugar
-2 eggs
-2 3/4 cups flour
-2 teaspoons cream of tartar
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/4 tsp salt
-3 tbsp sugar
-3 tsp cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Mix butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and eggs.

3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Blend dry ingredients into the butter mixture.

4. Chill dough and ungreased cookie sheet in the fridge for 15 minutes.

5. Mix the remaining sugar and cinnamon.

6. Make 1-inch balls of dough and roll in cinnamon mixture.

7. Place on cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes.

8. Remove from sheet immediately.

(Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took. In real life, they don't look quite so much like they were dropped in sand.)

NOTE: Since each oven is different, I would suggest messing around with the cooking time a bit. At the 10 minute mark, my cookies came out gooey in the middle. 11 minutes, 30 seconds worked perfect for my batch. They were still soft.

Juju Bee @ Food.com did not let me down. These cookies are simple to make and I had all the ingredients already in my kitchen. They're a great baked item to take to holiday events since they're kind of festive (cinnamon!) and take no effort. And by "holiday event", I mean for those days when you call in sick so you can stay home and watch DVR'd episodes of Judge Judy.

Boner'ppetite.

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A Funny Story About My Dog.

I know what you're saying.

YES, it's another post about Biscuit. And YES, this blog is supposed to be about food. And YES, I am looking great today.

I'm still a little burnt out from the Thanksgiving fiesta, so I don't really have much to share on the food front.

Which means you get another story about my dog.

And before you get too involved, BE FORWARNED: This story has to do with poop.


On the December 24, 2008 (two weeks after we'd adopted Biscuit), my boss called an in-office meeting even though we all had the day off. It was going to be a short meeting and my coworker Grant and I were both allowed to bring our newly adopted pups.



During the meeting, Biscuit was full of energy. She was only a 2.5 month old puppy, so it wasn't surprising that she spent the hour pulling and tugging and yelping and just being an overall nuisance. I had to put her on a leash because otherwise she would take off running throughout the office or chew up naughty things like the Play Station cords. (I'd like to add- Grant's dog Stella was a total DREAMBOAT and just slept in his lap the whole time. Some dogs should take note (Biscuit, I'm talking to you.).)

My boss, who thought he was a fucking dog whisperer extraordinaire, offered to take the leash so he could demonstrate how to get a dog "under control".

Not long after, Biscuit wandered outside the conference room. Still inside the office suite, but outside of view.

I noticed the slack on her leash wasn't moving. Like all of a sudden she wasn't curious about anything and everything in sight.

Something seemed wrong.

I quietly got up from my seat and walked towards the door to see what she was doing.

That was when I saw it.

She was squatting to take a pee.

After a quick "Oh fuck", I ran to the kitchen to grab the roll of paper towels. I ran straight back and unrolled what I can only guess was about 500 paper towels to soak it up.

As I pressed them onto the floor, making sure to BLOT, not WIPE, I realized something was wrong again. In the split second between realizing "Uh-oh" to when I lifted my head and looked over at Biscuit, I saw the last thing any employee (who actually LIKES their job) wants to see...

Biscuit was positioning up for a shit.

INSIDE.MY.BOSS'S.OFFICE.

I quickly leapt (like an actual leapfrog) from the lesser-important pee spot over to Biscuit.

Somehow in my horrible realization of what was about to go down, I forgot to bring the paper towels with me.

And it was too late to turn back for them.

Because the shit was coming.

Literally. She was shitting.

It was just like in the movies where the main character is looking left and right for something and then at the last second they do something real crazy-like.

Which is exactly what happened.

Because I reached my hands out...

And caught Biscuit's poop.

In my hands.

Hot, steamy, soft-served poop. In my hands. While I'm kneeling in my boss's office.

This was seriously the biggest poop I could have imagined coming out of that little body, because not only was there enough to fill my hands, some turdage also landed on the carpet.

Thankfully, I managed to be hidden behind walls during this whole disaster. And lucky for me, nobody has the image of me sitting on the ground holding hot dog turds on Christmas Eve burned into their memory (like the way it is in mine).

From here, the action wraps up pretty quickly.

I throw the shit out in a trash liner, tie it up tight, and toss it in the main trash. I soak the carpet through with 409. And I burn my hands off in an incinerator.


A few months later, I was laid off due to company cut backs.

I didn't feel so bad about the shit anymore.

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What's New with Biscuit?

Many* of you have been asking how Biscuit is and what she's been up to these days.

Here are some updates:

She had to go to the vet a couple weeks back for a mysterious gaping, oozy wound on the side of her neck. Thankfully, it was just a "hot spot" that had gone awry. The vet gave her a shot of steroids and sent us home with a daily ointment (and a nice little $160 bill).

Since her hot spot was in just the right positioning that a funnel collar was pointless, and bandage wrapped all around her torso slipped off within minutes, the vet advised that we put an old t-shirt on her to prevent scratching and irritation. As soon as I heard about the shirt suggestion, I knew the perfect thing.

I KNEW THIS DOG COAT WOULD COME IN HANDY ONE DAY.


Last week, I saw this cool dog toy at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

It's a dog puzzle where you hide little treats under each slide-able circle and the dog has to sniff around and figure out how to get to the treat. It was a little pricey, but it was one of those "smart" dog toys that keeps dogs busy for hours. I figured it would be good for those long days when Boyfriend and I are at work.

Yes! Great idea!! I'm pet owner of the year because I think about smart dog toys to keep my dog entertained for hours because she's a fucking dog genius and needs brain stimulation all day long!!! High five to myself!!!

Yesterday, Boyfriend came home to this...

Hm. Not exactly the outcome I was hoping for with my new genius-dog-toy.

Or maybe she's smarter than I originally thought.






*None

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