Benjamin in a box

Benjamin has been watching me watch Maru vids. I think he's a lil jealous.

You shy

The kittehs have all decided that the bookshelf is THE place when I'm in the office. This is Calico's shelf.

75 reasons to love kittehs

Taken from Catster:


Here are the 75 top reasons cats are some of the most lovable, wonderful, perfect creatures in the world!

• They purr.
• They are soft. 

• They are better alarms than any snooze button or clock will ever be.

Get out of my face, you animals.

• They give you someone to talk to. Sometimes they even listen.
• They talk back.
• Their tails move to the beat of the music.
• They can eat the same thing every day and not complain.
• They look really cute in clothes.

• Wet noses.
• Fluffy tails.
• Head bonks.
• You can talk like a baby and not feel silly.
• You don’t have to take them outside to do their business.
• They never hog the remote.
• They won’t yell at you.
• They are good listeners.
• They know when you need a little extra cuddle.

• They make great pillows.
• They can stay home alone all day and the house will be fine.
• Two words: Whisker kisses.
• They don’t need expensive toys.
• They love you unconditionally.
• They smells like kitty, which smells so good.
• There is nothing like being woken up by sandpaper kitty kisses on your nose.
• The vibrating foot-warmer feature is awesome.
• They’re independent.

• Cat toys are fun to buy.
• Two more words: paw pads.
• They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
• Cat hair is an accessory. Wear it proud.
• Sometimes they start purring before you even pet them.
• That chirp when they see a bird or squirrel outside.
• They can turn almost anything into a toy.
• Cuddle piles!

• Sun puddles!
• The way they stick one back leg in the air when they’re grooming, and then stop in midlick and just stare at you.

Oh, Benjamin.

• They love you unconditionally … as long as you feed them.
• Cats don’t judge.
• Sometimes they go for rides on Roomba vacuums.
• When they slide and skid down hallways or smooth floors.
• The Ancient Egyptians worshipped them. If you’re reading this, you probably still do today, too!
• That sideways, arched-back crabwalk thing they do.
• *butt wiggle*

• Sometimes they get a little twitchy in their sleep, and it’s fun to think they’re dreaming of mice or chasing bugs.
• You pick out their eye boogers without even thinking twice.
• Every cat has a different meow.
• One minute they can stretch out and take up an entire bed, and the next they can be curled up into the tiniest, teeniest little ball of fur.

My bed is in the basement.

• That “cat smell” they have. Makes you want to eat them up.
• Little pudgy kitten bellies!
• They are great judges of character. If the cat doesn’t like someone, I don’t either.
• They can be so funny when they see themselves in the mirror!
• Without cats, YouTube probably would have gone out of business a long time ago.
• When they knead on your stomach, or any part of the body for that matter.
• How they block you with a paw when they don’t want any more kisses.
• How they fly through the air and twist and do crazy acrobatic moves to catch a toy.
• OMG A FEATHER!

• Cats are beautiful.
• That stretch when they first wake up from a long, comfy cat nap.
• You didn’t want to read that newspaper/book/magazine anyway, right?
• Just looking at them can put you in a more relaxed mood.
• Random love bites and nibbles.
• How their eyes get really big when they focus on something.

• Every cat has his own personality.
• Yes, you can teach cats tricks.
• They greet you at the door when you get home.
• A cat in the windowsill is a sign of a happy home.
• Perfect little pink noses.
• They are geometrically perfect: two little triangle ears and a cute little triangle nose.

Perfect babeh kitteh heads.

• The way their tails get all curly when they’re happy.
• Two more words: elevator butt.
• No bug or spider or lizard will ever go unfound in the house.
• How they stick their noses up to smell the fresh breeze when the windows are open.
• They are happy to “help” with almost any task, especially if it means getting in the way.

• Cats are the best work distraction ever.

• They have the most expressive faces.

Have any other reasons to add?

On it like a bonnet

I gained a couple of pounds when I went in for the weigh-in this morning. Eeep. This was an accident though, because I transposed the numbers when I first met with the dietitian so I thought I lost weight. Oh, wells.

I'm using this fab app called MyFitnessPal. It's on iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire so I have a copy on all of my devices and they all sync. Loves it. It also has a nutrition label scanner so that while I'm in meetings, I can scan my Wawa banana smoothie rather than look like I'm texting and not paying attention. Which is, of course, what I am doing.

Nice job, turdface

Today I sucked on day 1 of thin life. I had OJ, sushi, apple, and some carrots. Then for dinner I had a footlong Subway tuna hoagie and 4 slices of my mint choco orange. If i'd only had half of my hoagie, i'd be legit.

Good luck, tomorrow.

Fa la la la fat

My sista is getting married in 8 weeks and I am purposely trying to be as fat as possible for it. It's my wedding gift to her.

But for realz. I'm doing this study at UPenn wherein they pay me(!) to lose weight! Why haven't I started this yet? Well, the weight loss part starts about now, though I did ask to start 2 weeks ago. I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow to see where I'm at. I'll also try to measure my arms/thighs etc, but I think the study is tracking all of that.

Suffice it to say, starting tomorrow I will be working on the fat part of my life and not so much on the cats. But they will get many shout outs bc they enjoy working out and eating healthy, too.

Ying yang twins

Blogging is hard

I suck cat it. George is gone. He's been adopted. I'll update that later. For now, pics of kittehs! (Also, Greybie has a formal name for the vet: Virginia Slims. Again, I'll get around to the story.)

These are just the kittehs doing what they do best. Being adorbs.

The only time that math is fun

How to substitute in baking


You guys. I don't make cakes with silly things like eggs or butter or milk or oil. That involves me going to the grocery store. Ever since I learned about Diet Coke cakes from Weight Watcher days, I've always substituted. I've never gone back. Except for making my sister's birthday cake because she is annoying and a purist and thinks Diet Coke cakes are ludicrous. Whateva.


Yes, my weight-watching, calorie-counting friends. You can substitute all the ingredients typically needed to make box cake mix with a diet soda. I swear! One 12-ounce can per box of mix. So when I'm making cupcakes just for me, I divide my box mix. Typical box mixes have 12 servings. 


So I take the weight of the mix (18.25 ozs) divided by the number of the servings (12).


18.25 / 12 = 1.520833333333-forever.


Then while I have that number in the calculator, I times that by the number of servings I want to make (I wanted to do six because I'm fat and will eat them all this weekend).


1.520833333333-forever x 6 = 9.125. 


Now you smarties out there are saying if I wanted half, just divide the weight by half. True. And that is actually what I did tonight. But I just wanted to show you how to divide it individually in case your stomach is smaller. Anyhoo, I have a food scale so I used that to measure out the amount of mix I needed.


When it comes to the diet soda, you use one 12-oz can per box mix. Which happens to serve 12 people. Convenient, right? Secret genius on the part of cake mix makers and soda makers. Thus, One ounce per one serving of cake mix.


1 x 6 = 6 (!!! I love My Dear Aunt Sally [If you don't know what that means, ask in the comments bc I'd love to know what you might possibly think it is.])


Mixa mixa, you make-a the cake-a. Bake as normal and enjoy the most delicious, moist cake you've ever tasted. And you just saved yourself 


([half a cup of veg oil, 960 cals] + [water, 0 cals] + [three eggs, 210 cals]) / [number of servings, 12])=


97.5 calories per serving!!!


Times that amazing number by the number of servings you're eating and I am saving


585 calories!!!


A normal box prepared "normally" is 3240 calories. A box prepared my way is


1020 calories!!!


Thus for half a cake, I am only eating


510 calories instead of 1620!!!


Now. The fact that I am eating half a cake is another issue for another day. :(

From the kitchen of Chef Monica: Bowlcakes

Bowlcakes? What is that, you ask? Oh, well you see. In Chef Monica's kitchen, nothing ever quite goes as planned. Not even cupcakes. :(

Looks gross, right? hehehe

I am an amazing chef. I have an extraordinary ability to combine random foods and come up with awesome ideas. My execution and ultimate product is perfection. Some people may disagree (cough cough sister), but ultimately everything will turn out ok.


In the past, I may have had some mishaps. Lemon bars made with pancake mix (Sister was out of flour and it seemed like a good substitution), July 4th lemon cake made with lemon pepper (what is the difference between grated lemon peel, dried lemon stuff in the spice rack, or lemon pepper in the spice rack? aren't they all lemon?), and Paula Deen's sweet potato balls (actually, I'm not sure what happened there. They just didn't come out... right. :[ ) to name a few. Whatever. Great chefs need to experiment.


So enter bowlcakes. There seem to always be barriers when I want to bake or cook, but I'm not one to let that stop me.


I wanted choco cake.


1. I do not have a cake pan for cooking cakes.
2. I always divide my box mix because I don't want a lot, just enough for tonight and maybe tomorrow. This means I have to do math. (Sister had to take my college math placement exams for me. lolz.)
3. Instead of measuring parts of an egg, I often just use the whole egg. This experiment has worked well in pancakes, but I've never cooked a cake this way. Since I really wanted the cake I didn't want to risk it. As well, I need to cut down the milk and oil. Boooooo-ring.
4. So, I use DIET COKE! Only this time, I didn't have Diet Coke. But I did have diet root beer! Substitution is my middle name.

5. So the bowlcakes come out of the muffin pan completely unconnected. As I try to take them out, they crumble and fall apart. But they were moist, so I pushed the cake into tiny bowl and smashed down.

6. Add store bought icing.

7. Eat and enjoy!

PS
Someday I will do a post with all my amazing substitutions. Not only are they typically better calorie wise, but probs cheaper and easier to deal with than having to go to the grocery and buy fresh things like eggs and milk.