Yerba Mate, Lifesaver

As I have previously blogged, I'm currently on a quest to lose a little weight and tone up my body. Don't worry this won't turn into THAT kind of a blog where all I do is yakkity yak about fitness and healthy food. However, I did make a previous discovery that is too good I HAD to share it with someone.

Along with my exercising regiment I've been watching my portions as well as eating healthier. I researched some ways to curb my appetite naturally. I'm a big fan of hot tea and just the other morning I ran out of coffee so I decided to brew a package of yerba mate that my Spanish teacher gave me last semester (I always complimented on how much I enjoyed the smell of her class room, turns out it was this tea she was brewing). I added a bit of sugar, poured myself about two cups and drank them on the way to school.

WOW. Not only did this stuff taste great (like a sweet green tea) but it gave me energy just like coffee would without the means of caffeine AND it completely curbed my appetite throughout the entire day. I found myself at lunchtime forcing myself to eat my tuna salad because I simply was not hungry and even whenever I got home and it was time to eat dinner, I had to force myself to eat then as well.

I'm not saying, drink this drink and you will lose all the weight you want. And I am NOT suggesting to just not eat because frankly that would be easy to do with this drink. But if you are needing to help get rid of random cravings you don't need, or possibly help you eat less, BUY THIS STUFF. My new favorite daily drink.

New Subject: Haley Page

I'm in the process of building my art portfolio (it's in dyer need) with a series of charcoal drawings with splashes of color. I've been focusing on portraits of people making funny faces for the past several years. I've made a series of prints using my friends. For my series of drawings, I've come to the conclusion that my best model will be my niece, Haley.

This little one has become one of my favorite people in the world. She's 20 months old and has the wittiest sense of humor I have seen in a youngin'. She just discovered that when she snarls her nose it will cause people to laugh so she will do it more. She's quite the entertainer!

Here is her during one of her first encounters of finger painting. She was NOT happy whenever we told her she won't be opening up every color.

Gotta love her daddy-inherited bed hair!

She's always amazed at something. :)

And here's the best face of them all. Please ignore my hideousness.

Beautiful shot by my lovely sister. :)

Scentsy vs. Better Homes

Ever since my teenage years, I have become obsessed with any type of fragrant giver for indoors, particularly candles. I realized several years ago that I can easily go through two candles a week. Add that up and that is a lot of green paper spent over just candles, so I began to invest in scent warmers. The librarian at my school spoke highly of Scentsy's products so I bought a plug in along with several scents to give it a go. I was highly pleased with them and finally thought I found "the product" that would fit me the best.

And then this past Christmas, I was shopping around for a Dirty Santa gift and came across the "Wal-Mart brand" of a Scentsy warmer, made by Better Homes. Where Scentsy warmers can range from 30 - 50 bucks depending on what design you choose, this sucker came out to a whoppin' $16.55. Their scents were $2 each so I threw in about 3 different scents, mostly Christmas related. Surprise, surprise, my sister Heather won the warmer at Dirty Santa. She went home, plugged it up. OH. MY. GAW. Within minutes, her entire house smelled like fresh gingerbread coming out of the oven.

Not even thinking twice about this, I made a made dash to Wal-Mart and bought me one of these along with 5-6 scents.

For those of you many Scentsy-loving women out there, I encourage you to give this brand a shot. Here are your advantages/disadvantages of both.

Scentsy--

Advantages: many colors and designs for warmers, choice of warmer or plug ins, big selection of scents

Disadvantages: pricey, can only order from catalog or online

Better Homes--

Advantages: GREAT price, very strong fragrant scents, big selection of scents, pick up any of them at a local Wal-Mart

Disadvantages: Plug in not available, limited on colors and designs

Personally, I will never purchase a Scentsy scent again. I'm a Better Homes girl now.

Nostalgia-filled Weekend

Beginning to wind down from a great weekend. Matt and I met up after school and drove to Columbia to watch Star Wars Episode 1 in 3D. I hadn't seen Star Wars in forever and it brought my back once again to my childhood. I remember watching Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back while curled up with my Little Pony sleeping bag and eating Cheese Nips with my sisters.

Then he gave me my Valentine's present (that he promised and swore he would not buy, but go figure, that's my boyfriend for you). Before I go further I need to recap about my history of video games. Matt is a pretty big game lover and I used to be a huge one as well. My biggest gaming phase was between the ages of 7-16. I loved all the Nintendo classics like Mario, Zelda, GoldenEye 007, etc. After I turned 16 and started dating in high school, all my video games and systems started collecting dust so I gave them all away to my little cousins thinking they would go to better use. Ever since then, I always find myself talking about how much fun I used to have playing these games and how much I wished I didn't give them away. Among my favorites were the N64, GameCube, PS2 and some PS1 games.

So I opened it up and found once again my CHILDHOOD IN A BOX! He had bought me a Playstation 2 along with my favorite PS1 and PS2 games I had always talked about. I seriously teared up when I found all the goodies he wrapped in this box:

After my addiction to Nintendo, my sister Heather and I got a Playstation for Christmas one year and Tomb Raider I and II were among the assortment of games we received. I remember us fighting over who was going to play the next level all hours of the night. Then for my birthday, my aunt bought us TB III along with a book of nothing but cheat codes and play guides for the first three TB games. Can you say one of the best Christmas and birthday presents I've ever had!!!

Once the PS2s came out, I saved up my money and bought one whenever I was in middle school and I bought FFX the day it came out because I loved FF7 so damn much. I remember being floored by the beautiful graphics and I cried in specific scenes of the story line. I also always played the soundtrack in my car whenever I turned 16. Nerdy, I know.

He also got me FFX-2 which I know was not a favorite among a lot of people, and for true reasons. Being a giddy girl at the time, I still enjoyed the game immensely.

Kingdom Hearts as well!!! This was the last game I was highly addicted to before I graduated high school and went to college.

And the grand finale- last but never least- Final Fantasy 7. I SCREAMED whenever I found this at the very bottom because I had been searching for this game for the past 2 1/2 years and everyone I have found has either been super expensive or in such poor condition. Now it's back in my arms where it belongs!!!!

There ya have it folks. Best Valentine's Day I've EVER had. If you need me, I'll be right here........

Art by Chamo San

I'm a big fan of the blog called "Doodlers Anonymous." Anytime I feel like I am in an "art funk" I will grab my laptop and start browsing through their site. Lots of interesting and fun new art styles. This artist in particular, Chamo San, had posted these figurative studies from their Moleskin sketchbook. It brought me back to whenever I was teaching my Art II students about Leonardo Da Vinci's anatomy studies in his journals. Gotta love the work of the Renaissance masters.

Anyhoo, I just love these!! I'm a huge fan of having the human figure as the focal point of a work of art so I enjoyed these thoroughly. Makes me totally miss figure drawing class in college (which turned out to be my favorite studio class I've ever taken).

Enjoy :)

Resume Tweaking

For the past several months I have been coming up with ways to re-design my resume for my job search coming up this summer. This is my second summer in a row to try and land a teaching job in Nashville and by now I feel like a professional. One thing that I think hindered me last summer was how bland my resume was. I took some time and Googled what made resumes look "cool" and realized that my resume was even MORE BLAND than I had thought! I kept thinking to myself "MALLOREY...you are an ARTIST. You do NOT need to have a boring resume!"

So far I have designed 6 new different resumes, all with different layouts and color schemes. It will be the death of me trying to find out which one to send in. Decisions, decisions....

As I spent all the time making these on my Macbook, it reminded me about how much fun graphic design can be. I find myself going back and forth with the idea of dropping teaching for a few years and digging my hands into the design world. Then I go back to reality and realize that I really *do* love what I do and I will never find a job that has absolutely everything perfect.

Thought I would share some of the resumes I found on Google that became my favorites.

New car and new favorite salad.

So I have been out and about these past several days. Last Thursday marked a big day for me in my life as a big girl, as I purchased my first *newer* car, a 2005 Honda Element. It was a bittersweet afternoon as I kissed my '99 Acura 2.2 CL, Luigi, goodbye. I've driven my Acura since my senior year of high school (8 years ago. Oh my heavens, I'm getting old). Lots of good memories in that car but driving back and forth everywhere in a two-door crammed car was becoming a 'UGE pain in the rear.

Say hello to my newest addition to my family. It's so spacious and I am IN LOVE with it. I want to stay in it all the time! :)

As far as life goes, I'm learning more everyday about fitness and healthier eating. I came across this recipe for grape salad that is my new favorite thing EVAR. Thought I would share this lovely recipe. Keep in mind it really isn't the most healthy thing ever, as is everything else that is sinfully delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound seedless green grapes
• 1 pound seedless red grapes
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 (7 ounce) jar marshmallow creme
• 1 (6 ounce) package slivered almonds

Directions:

1. Wash grapes in a colander under running water, and remove all stems. Place in a large bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, stir together the cream cheese and marshmallow creme until smooth and creamy. Pour the mixture over the grapes. Using a rubber spatula or large serving spoon, fold the mixture into the grapes until well coated. Fold in the almonds.

3. This salad may be served immediately, or covered and refrigerated for 1 hour to set slightly, and to allow flavors to blend.

The Beginning

Why hello there. My name is Mallorey but my famous nickname is Malarog. If you want to hear the story, it's quite funny and somewhat embarrassing. That will come here in a few posts so stay tuned to hear it. :)

I've entitled my blog Malarog*Multimedia, this will be a blog about my crazy life in the form of some kind of multimedia-pictures, video, etc. Here are the interesting things about me:

I'm an artist as well as a high school art teacher. I love art and I do love what I do at work. I'm a born and raised small town girl but deep down I think I'm a city girl currently attempting to move to Nashville sometime this year. Can not wait to get back to the city where I belong.

As far as art goes, my focuses are drawing, printmaking and weaving. Here I shall be displaying images of all my work in my crafty-ness. When I'm not making art work, my other loves are fitness (I'm slowly becoming an exercising and health nut), drinking coffee, watching movies and spending time with my absolutely hilarious and crazy boyfriend. He is worth having a blog over himself because well, he's just that crazy. :)

Stick around for more to come. :))))

-Mallorey