Mynx Writes

Insomnia. It creeps up on you and doesn't let you go.  One minute you're so tired that you can't keep your eyes open, and the next minute your brain is on overdrive and you're still so tired that you can't keep your eyes open.  So you lay there and let your brain run rampant.  In my case, last night, it was on full overdrive.  I did everything.  I rolled over.  I put a pillow over my head.  I got up and went to the bathroom.  I got a glass of water.  I even grabbed my phone and tweeted to whoever was awake and listening for insomnia to go away and tell my brain to shut up on the way out. And then, it came to me... Tommyknockers. Not the movie - the book. Have you ever read it?  "Late last night and the night before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, Knocking at the door..." I'm no genius, but this book holds the solution. Stephen King, when he wrote "Tommyknockers", was expressing an idea that writers all over the w...

Would you like to hear about the time I killed a man in cold blood and got away with it? Or, I could tell you about the time that someone killed me and I was trapped between this world and the afterlife for several hundred years. How about that one time – the time when I survived a zombie apocalypse? Have I told you that story yet? I have done these things, and more, because of the library. I have traveled aboard spaceships and taken exotic vacations to planets that don’t exist. I have stumbled into parallel realities through wardrobes, paintings, and hidden portals in the backyard shed. I have colonized worlds. I have lived on a moon base. I’ve been abducted by aliens and lived through a nuclear winter. I’ve actually survived several zombie apocalypses – not just the one. The library was where I fell in love with dragons, unicorns, and elves, and then brought them home to play with in my imagination. I found monsters in the library, as well. They hid themselves in the ...

Heaven in a pan At Crafty Bitch Headquarters , it wouldn't be Christmas without the fudge.  The awesome, killer, Hershey's chocolatey fudge that mom has made every year for as long as I can remember.  Sounds good, doesn't it? This recipe was passed down from dad's side of the family to my mom by my grandmother. I have no idea if I'm going to disappear for leaking it to the Internet, but it's just too good not to share! Grandma Patchen's Killer Christmas Fudge 4 cups granulated sugar 1 large can Carnation evaporated milk Set aside: 2 large (the HUGE ones, 8oz) Hershey's milk chocolate bars (broken apart) 1 pint or 2 cups marshmallow cream fluff (14-16oz jar) 2 cups chopped walnuts 1 12oz package chocolate chips 2 sticks oleo 2 teaspoons vanilla Boil sugar and evaporated milk together, stirring constantly at a rolling boil for 6 minutes or until mixture reaches soft ball stage. (mixture forms a ball when dropped into cold water) Pour hot mix...

Last Saturday, some fabulous bloggers brought you the 12 Blogs of Christmas . I've had a lot of requests for the recipe of the cheese ball that I shared at Amberr Meadow's 12 Blogs of Christmas: Tasty Traditions and so today, I've posted it here.  It's been quite a few years now, but an old friend in Pennsylvania shared this recipe with me one Christmas, and it's quickly become one of my favorite holiday recipes, and traditions.  I make it instead of cookies for holiday goodie exchanges, and I also give it out to friends and family.  When the holidays roll around, I have plenty on hand for entertaining - it's always a hit.  Mynx’s Fabulously Simple Holiday Cheese Ball Recipe 2 - 8oz packages cream cheese, softened to room temperature 1 - 5oz jar Kraft Old English Spread (@room temperature) 1 - 5oz jar Kraft Roka Blue Spread (@room temperature) 2 Tbsp cider vinegar (or flavored vinegar – feel free to experiment) 2 tsp garlic salt (or garlic powder) 1 cup c...

I'm going to preface this blog by saying that I think that the basic social media sharing options on Blogger are great, but they are a far cry from covering all of the options available for sharing your blog posts. So, what do you do when you want to add more options? The easy way is to look for plug-ins - those lines of code that someone else has already done all the work on, and you just have to click your mouse a few times to install it.  If you use Blogger as your blogging platform like I do, you no doubt get frustrated with the fact that the plug-ins are pretty basic, and it's hard finding ones that do what you want them to do.  You are also limited as to where you can place your plug-ins on the blog template. For instance, I wanted to add a StumbleUpon button for readers to be able to use to share my blog posts.  Logically, I went to my "Design" tab on the blogger dashboard and tried to find the appropriate plug in.  I found a grand total of one and quick...

If you follow me on Twitter, you've no doubt seen me mention Craftapalooza and not much else on many a weekend lately.  The fact that I've been a mostly unemployed college student this year has afforded me the opportunity to revisit old hobbies and pastimes in the interest of being thrifty this holiday season.  (Translation: Y'inz are all getting handmade shit from me this Christmas and if you don't like it, too damn bad!) The past several months have been especially busy at Crafty Bitch Headquarters (aka Mom's house), where we've been busier than Santa's elves on crack trying to get the presents and cards finished and ready to go out in time for Christmas.  Now, I'm in no way implying that we do crack at Crafty Bitch Headquarters.  Our speed is usually more along the lines of a nice glass of red wine, which is probably why it's now December 6th and we have a grand total of 11 Christmas cards crafted.  The truth is, there are so many fabulous thi...