home tour

I've been wanting to make a post like this for a while, and I can't wait any longer. This one is going to be incomplete, because the upstairs rooms of our house aren't as pretty or complete as the downstairs, but here is a little tour of my home. I didn't tidy up before taking any of these photos, so you're getting the real deal.


Our living room is a bit of a tricky spot to arrange. It took quite a while for us to find a set up we really loved. This is perfect and cozy. Our fireplace and the beautiful coffee table my mom gave us are the centerpieces. I'm definitely looking forward to cozy winters. Who else has a love/hate relationship with Hans's decorating sense? Swords, light sabers, an ax...the mirror in the middle of it all reflects my taste. It has kind of grown on me. And of course, no room would be complete without Miss Phoenix.


Kenya is always hanging out in this cozy chair, growling and hating on Phoenix from afar.


Phoenix doesn't really mind.


Our kitchen, with more sword decorating by Hans. We have a billion cabinets and ample counter space. Cooking here is so fun! I hated cooking in my cramped apartment's kitchen with its one square inch of counter space. Here, I feel like a domestic goddess. And our dining room, underused but still important to me. Hans fails to see the purpose of a dining room. Actually, we ate in there just last night...I'll have to point that out to him.


Kenya again, scheming as always.


So much love pours out of these puppy eyes.


I love this little corner of our house. My favorite lamp, a pretty mirror (can you tell we like mirrors?) and, well, an empty picture frame I WILL fill, when inspiration finally strikes. Aand of course, my favorite part of our house, the back yard. It's big and fenced in and Phoenix can run around like a crazy person all she wants.

foxy shazam

Tonight I'm going with some of my favorite people to see my favoite band, Foxy Shazam. This will be the seventh time I see Foxy and it certainly will not be the last. I see them every time they come to Atlanta. Hell, once I even road-tripped to North Carolina to see them when they skipped my city. I've met most of them a few times and they are super friendly guys, so I feel great about supporting them.

Foxy's live shows are what really sold me on the music. Actually, the music is almost irrelevant: it's good, but I'd probably like them anyway based solely on their performances. Their vocalist is Eric Nally and he's a scrawny little thing, but an insane ball of energy. Eric usually ends up upside down, climbing on top of something he shouldn't be on, telling ridiculous stories in his high pitched voice, and eating several lit cigarettes. Sky White, the keyboardist, often plays his keyboard with his feet and smiles eerily into the crowd from behind his giant beard. Another band member to watch is the horn player Alex Nauth, who has been wearing the same tight black pants with bones bleached into them every time I've seen them.

The music itself is high-energy, dancey, hilarious, and frequently even beautiful. I'll let it speak for itself...







Foxy Shazam!
Dig 'em.

moleskin monday (on tuesday): creepy edition

It's day four of no Hans. He comes home tomorrow and I'm more than ready to see his smile. But between adventures in dog parks and swimming in rivers (Phoenix is scared of rivers) and doing household chores and sustaining a pretty bad bite from the cat (thanks, Kenya), and blasting The Offspring (weirdly all I want to listen to right now), I have been keeping myself busy.

Yesterday I had an art party with a friend. We drew pictures while watching a marathon of Ghost Adventures and alternately laughing and screaming hysterically.

Probably because of Ghost Adventures I made these cutesy spooky ink&paint doodles in my water color moleskin.









I haven't been in the mood for painstaking ballpoint shading, so I've been doing lots of little ink&paint sketches like these. More to come!

lonely lunch: agavemustard & a dessert smoothie

Hans left bright and early this morning for New Orleans. That's quite a haul from Georgia and he's going to be gone for five days. It's day one and I already miss him. Silly! He's off to some science convention to present the research he's been doing. He's such a fancy pants, and I love it. Eating without him is lonely business (we're obsessed with food), but I'm trying not to miss him too much and instead eat to my heart's content like always.

So today I threw together almost every random scrap of food we had in the refrigerator, and I was impressed with my results.


I have always been a honey mustard lover. But, I also love bees, so now I choose to refrain from eating honey. I've switched to agave nectar when I need that sweet, syrupy fix (and even to replace sugar, the stuff's a miracle). Today it dawned on me that I could probably make something very like honey mustard if I used agave nectar, and this recipe was born.


I don't like to rely on mock-meats very often, but when I do Gardein is my jam. It's the tastiest stuff out there. So I had a few of these beefless tips (hate that name!) left over from quesadillas a few nights ago, and I decided they would taste great with an agave mustard glaze.

So! Do it up like this:
Mix equal parts agave and mustard (I prefer raw agave and organic mustard, but use what you will).
Fry up Gardein tips in a pan with some oil, and when they are almost-almost done, pour the agave mustard glaze over them to finish them up (but save some glaze for dipping!)
And you're done!

And in my household, no meal is complete without a smoothie, so I whipped this one up, inspired by the tasty treat I had at The Loving Hut last night (Hans took me out for dinner before he left for his trip. My boy is a sweetheart♥)

For this one I prefer to use peanut butter without any nasty hydrogenated oils in it, and of course vegan chocolate chips. I also added a hint of agave nectar for sweetness but I think it may have been unnecessary. Now, Hans swears chocolate chips are pointless in a smoothie but I can totally taste them and I don't know what he's talking about. But if you want to take the healthier route, nix the chocolate chips and feel good about this protein-rich and tasty treat.


I heated up some frozen veggies and stirred some Earth Balance and pepper in with them and called this meal complete. This was delicious friends. I highly recommend you try it out.

re-launch: introducing icky monster

I love blogging. I have been having so much fun with it, designing and coming up with content and expressing myself internet style. It's such a fun and positive creative outlet. But ever since starting, I've been trying to find my niche in the blogosphere and it just hasn't happened yet, until now. Although I totally dig it and the girls who keep it going, I realized I'm not quite a cutesy hipster/indie blogging queen and I just can't quite fit into that mold. But now I think I've finally found my real internet soul.

I'm proud to announce the re-launch of my blog, which I am now 100% proud of, as icky monster. I finally feel comfortable in my internet skin. I will now be http://ickymonster.blogspot.com and I am staying here. The name Icky Monster was inspired by my drawings because mostly they’re icky and mostly they’re monsters. I have also changed my tumblr and pintrest names accordingly (twitter user ickymonster already exists! fail!). I'm going to let my artwork influence my blog a lot more from here on out. I'm pretty excited about all this. Oh, and be sure to check out my new arty layout, which is probably still a work in progress.




ick·y   
–adjective, ick·i·er, ick·i·est. Informal.
1.
repulsive or distasteful.
2.
excessively sweet or sentimental.

mon·ster
–noun
1.
a legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination, as a centaur, griffin, or sphinx.
2.
any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.
3.
any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.


So, hi, from icky monster.
I hope every one likes the new direction! I'd love some thoughts.

back after accidental hiatus!

Whoops! Well, the website was down for a while, and my computer was broken for a while, and I've been sort of silly-busy, thus my long and sad hiatus from blogger. But, I'm back! To commemorate my return to blogging, here's a dump of all the recent photos I've taken with my cell phone!

Life excerpts!

This is one of my favorite places to go. From a park, you can walk to where a railroad crosses a river (large creek?) and hang out on the tracks.


A friend and I tried out this anime eye makeup tutorial with sort of okay results. It was pretty ridiculous.


My animal family :)

Our good child.


Our demon child.


And somehow they are coexisting?!


Phoenix with her BFF Kota, having some sleepy time after a run through Piedmont Park in ATL.


Hans is always picking Phoenix up for some reason.


Or doing this...

How about some amazing buildings?

This is an abandoned building in Atlanta. It was built in 1911, 100 years ago! Now it's a crack house or something, but it's so dang cool.


This is on a little street off of the road where my parents live. The company ran out of money before ever finishing their 15 houses. This one wasn't even ever completed on the inside, but man is it gorgeous. We sneaked up to it and peaked inside while out walking the dogs. Want!

Oh, and Hans's idea of a hilarious joke...

He came up behind me the other day and instructed me not to turn around or look while he pressed something huge and damp against my back. Guess which tattoo is real!

While I was away, Hans graduated from college and I attended the ceremony. His name was severely mispronounced, sad/hilarious. He's now working full-time at a job he loves, and I'm so proud. I finished out the semester acing my classes. I just realized I should bake myself a cake for that. I'm home alone a lot, and Kenya and Phoenix have been alternately driving me nuts and overwhelming me with love. I've been keeping busy with housewife duties and looking for more PA work. Many walks with the dogs have been happening and I also started p90x so I can get insanely fit. Summer is finally really here and I can't wait to see what adventures the warm weather takes me on in 2011.

What are your summer plans?

foodz: easy as heck pasta salad

This is an old favorite of my family's. It's really simple and easily altered to suit individual tastes. We used to do it up with feta cheese and such but now I do it vegan style and my family does, too. So here it is, the easiest pasta salad ever.


Shorten or lengthen the ingredient list as you wish. My mom always adds tomatoes but I'm a tomato hater so you'll find none in this dish I cooked up for lunch the other day. Also, not pictured are the noodles! I used angel hair this time but I've used anything from bow-tie to fettuccine.

To make it, easy peasy: boil water to cook noodles. Rinse cooked noodles with cold water to chill. Add italian dressing (a little bit goes a long way) and set aside to cool (or refrigerate to speed things up!). Chop up two stems green onions. Peel cucumber and then cut into chunky cubes. Add the cucumber, olives, and green onions to italiany noodle mix, and tada! Tasty lunch time pasta.



Yum!

moleskin monday: disease man, again

I was so busy last week I skipped Moleskin Monday, but this week I'm back on track.

I have featured this guy in my blog before, but now he's shaped up quite a bit. Maybe enough to call him finished? I can never decide.


Hans's home renovations lead to old toilets sitting on our back porch...we have a lot to do this summer. But I thought this would be an appropriate place for Disease Man to sit.






He didn't used to be so angry. I wonder what happened... Probably a pretty female icky alien told him she wouldn't be his date to the prom.

We pick up Phoenix from the shelter tomorrow! I'm beyond excited.

meet Phoenix

I have been absent for too long now. It has been quite a busy week! I have been working as a production assistant since I quit the liquor store. My dad is a successful lighting director and he's been hooking me up with some jobs. Yesterday was my first paid shoot! I was assisting the art department and had a blast. The job included some fun things like throwing a beach ball at a drag queen's face. As my dad said, in the film industry you never know what you'll be asked to do.

Moving on, this is the exciting news I have to share. We have a new addition to our little family. Her name is Phoenix, and I'm in love.


Hans wanted a goofy lab type dog. I wanted a regal shepherd type dog. Phoenix is part lab part shepherd. She's built like a shepherd but has a bit of a silly demeanor like a lab. Plus, I wanted a white dog to contrast our black cat. She's perfect for us and we can't wait to bring her home.


We can't bring her home until after she is spayed Tuesday, but that actually worked out perfectly because it gives Kenya plenty of time to heal from her surgery. (By the way, We think Kenya will be fine once we introduce a dog to the house because she doesn't like to be the center of attention anyway. She prefers to be invisible, so if the puppy steals the spotlight she won't mind.)


We look good together. Excuse my hair.


Big feet! She is only 5 or 6 months old. Apparently she is going to be an 80 pound dog. Huge monster wolf baby.


Perfect ears.


I have been visiting her at the shelter every chance I get. We already taught her to sit!


We're soul mates. The day I took Kenya to be spayed, I had a feeling I should go to the animal shelter. I tried to ignore it but eventually gave in and went with my mom and sister. Phoenix was in the very last door of the very last row of cages. I knew instantly when I looked at her that she was my dog.


So the next day Hans and I went to see her and sure enough, she was still there waiting for us and we decided to take her home. Hans instantly consented when he saw her. I had expected to have to beg a little but Phoenix did all the work for me ;)


I have an attractive family.


I'm so looking forward to going on a million adventures with her.

I told my mom all of her grandchildren will have four legs. I love my two kids.