Morning of the Living Blog!

Thought I’d update in the all of five glorious minutes I have before I have to run my 22 labrats through their mazes. Well, approximately two nights ago, Whitney and Liz stopped by Athens on their way to Charleston, and thus I was lucky enough to spend some time with them before I had to crash.

Me and Whitney discussed the novel we are writing extensively; it is shaping up quite gloriously indeed. I haven’t been this excited about a writing project in quite some time. It is difficult for me to disengage from the world of Stropsville (town title a Whitney original. ) and focus on real life, which involves responsibilities and chores and school and work, and messy, messy interpersonal things.

Well, best get back to work. *sighs* I have become something of an old woman. Didn’t get my coffee this morning and am feeling its absence sorely.

 

Mmmm food!

I have been dreadfully remiss with the blog updating, so I thought I would upload some pictures of food I have been making these past few months.

First, I made some tasty tasty bagel roll sushi, which has cream cheese, cucumbers, and smoked salmon in it. They were very much yum! Although I made waay to much for lil me.

Sassy always helps:

Sassy helps with sushi!

Sassy helps/lusts after the pigs in a blanket I made with left over pie crust.

Piper only deems strawberries acceptable offerings after wrapped in leftover pie crust.

There is a farm near Athens called Washington Farms, where you can pick your own fruit and it is so much tastier! I went a month or so ago and picked with some work friends and then made pies with my gallon’s worth. Blueberry season will be in full swing in two weeks, and then later in July I’m heading home for blackberry time!

Strawberry heads! Mwahahaha!

This monstrous strawberry that either looks like a turtle, or one of those Piranha Plant enemies from Mario.

Prebaking. (Yes, I use store bought crust! Don’t be judgin’!)

Cooling in front of the window. Turn head sideways for full effect.

I also made some honey wheat bread that was pretty tasty.

Also that day I reeealy wanted some pound cake. It was, after all, finals week.

NomNomNomNom!

Well, that’s seems to be good for today. I will update more often, promise!

 

Since Facebook is the place for frenemies…

…I’ve decided to talk about my newly single status here instead.

So…I’m single.

So…I thought I was going to talk about my newly single status but cannot think of a way to talk about it that isn’t high school xanga-esque in style. Suffice it to say that I have been single since Friday, that even though she broke up with me, I was the one that really wanted it, that we are going to try to be friends, and that I think that I will, at some point, be happier. At least happier in the long run.

I am going to be single for quite some time, I think. I need to reclaim autonomy.

 

There is a website…

…called FML. Which stands for the obvious. And people post the woebegone incidents of their lives, most of which are amusing. And then viewers to the site vote on these stories, and they can either vote “you life is f’d” or “you deserved that”.

I have been reading them for the past hour to make myself feel better and over the course of that time I have decided the site ought to add another option.

“You deserve your life”.

 

Valentine’s Day Post, Having Nothing Whatsoever To Do With The Day Itself

So the other day I was in the Student Learning Center and I stopped by the Jittery Joes to get a small dark roast coffee and I proceeded to put in it honey, cinnamon, skim milk, and a splash of half and half. Then I got one of those cute tables all to myself, the ones with the black stone tops, and drank it while reading Suttree by Cormac McCarthy. I took a sip that was heavy on the cinnamon just as I read these lines: “They tucked their elbows and their hands hung from the upturned stems of their wrists like broken lillies. They stirred and subsided with enormous lassitude.” and I felt as well-content with the world as I ever expect to.

In addition, I am currently reading the Tain, which is a collection of Celtic myths. I am enjoying the surprising agency of its women and the unsurprising accuracy of its prophets. Also, it has many poems dedicated to cows. To say I approve would be a most decided understatement.

 

Take a journey to the bright midnight…

…or a couple hours past it. I have lost the ability to sleep for some reason. I have not been able to sleep at night for the past week. And its not like I sleep that late to make up for it either. I went to bed at four last night and woke up at nine. This would have been great around finals time, though.

I think I am going to go read Oliver Twist in bed. If that doesn’t relax me enough I am switching to Pilgrim’s Progress. That may be my answer after all. John Bunyan is what would be the result of C.S. Lewis being hit by the boring truck multiple times. Same basic outline, but ultimately lifeless.

 

Because I have better things to do than study…

…like write this blog. So, to steal from both Whitney and Betsy:

Seven things I plan to do before I die:

1. Get married (possibly even legally ) and have four babies. I kinda wish I could have them all at the same time so I would only be pregnant once.
2. Live in another country (with my significant other, not with some creep)
3. Finish crocheting that charity baby blanket I started in high school.
4. Finish writing a novel.
5. Publish a poem in a literary magazine.
6. Build a computer myself from scratch
7. Own 40 acres of land, have a cow, a donkey, and assorted goats, and build the perfect adorable farm house on it.

Seven things I can do:

1. Read three (average sized) novels in a day
2. House train a dog.
3. Castrate a male animal.
4. Write a three page paper on a two sentence poem.
5. Draw a Kekule diagram of any molecule you like.
6. Find any book in any library, if it is checked in.
7. Field dress a deer.

Seven things I cannot do:

1. Sing on key
2. Handle insects.
3. Drive a stick.
4. Watch Rachel Ray (ahhh! that voice!)
5. Keep my apartment clean
6. Stay on a diet.
7. Understand cars.

Seven things I find attractive in others:

1. Scrawniness (I used to feel shallow until I realized my taste runs to not merely skinny, but, in fact, gangly and awkward.)
2. Sense of humor
3. Intelligent
4. Kindness (Not just not-mean, but genuinely nice. Mean people suck and they are a big turnoff.)
5. Humility (Arrogance is almost a big a turn off.
6. Nerdiess is hawt.
7. Glasses are sexy.

Seven things I say most often:

1. Sassy, you’re a whore.
2. Sit! No! Down! Off! OUT! (I decided to combine all the things I say to Sassy or I wouldn’t have any people words left lol)
3. What do you want to eat?
4. I don’t care. Whatever y’all want.
5. It’s true.

Seven celebrity crushes:

1. Always and forever, Ron Weasley. <3

2. Alex Gaskarth from All Time Low

Here he is IN GLASSES!

3. Not young (all little too awkward) and not old (a little too grizzled) but middle aged harrison ford.
4. Orlando Bloom = Still hott

5. Shaki

6. Allison Hannigan has really pretty eyes

7. Anna Popplewell: I definitely thought she was ugly in the first movie, but when I watched the second I changed my mind. Plus her last name is awesome.

 

Chocolate chocolate chocolate….pecan cookies

Or, as I like to call them, (and thus reveal my Star Wars nerdiness) C3P-Oh’s! The Oh! part is because they make you orgasm, just a little. As requested, the recipe:

C3P-Oh’s!

1/3 c. flour<— I remain amazed at how little flour this is

1/4 c unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

One 12 oz pkg (app. 2 cups) of semi-sweet choc. chips (I prefer Giardelli’s but fancy-pants-ness is not necessary)

1/2 c butter

2 lrg eggs

3/4 c sugar

1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (people, spring for the real stuff. trust me)

2 c chopped pecans (if, like me, you are a poor college student, walnuts work too. But you have to take the Oh! off the title)

Preheat the oven to 325 dg F. Grease two cookie sheets. Combine 1st four ingredients in a mixing bowl. Melt the butter over low heat, then add half the package (1 c) of chocolate chips and melt over low heat stirring constantly. Low, because burnt chocolate is both gross, and very tragical. Once the chocolate is melted set mixture aside to cool. While it is cooling, cream the eggs and the sugar at med. speed about 2 min until light in consistency and lemon colored. Add this, the chocolate mixture, and the vanilla to the dry ingredients and beat on low till just blended, then on med for two minutes. Stir in the rest of the chocolate chips and the pecans by hand, then drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the cookie sheets and bake until the tops are shiny and cracked, about 13 min. If doing 2 pans simultaneously, rotate the pans halfway through. Cool completely as this is a pretty fall-apart-y cookie.

 

What happened this weekend:

Well, this weekend was fall break for me, and I anticipated it to be a pretty low-key one, as I was still recuperating from a cold that turned into a cough (which I still have gosh!). So we got Friday off, and Milena and I were planning a nice quiet evening in. Then, I get a call from Hannah Tant, who is apparently in Athens visiting Mallory. I told them I would hang out with them later that evening, as Milena and I were playing video games, which is serious business. Later, they invited us to dinner with them, but took so long that I had become exasperated and cooked dinner for us both and we were eating it by the time they decided where to go. So we went to meet them for dessert at Mexicali, but b/c I had to walk my dogs, and because I live on the West side and Mallory lives on the East Side, they were leaving as we pulled into the parking lot. So I don’t even know why all that was relevant except for the purposes of expressing my mild frustration.

Moving on, we met back at Mallory’s place and hung out and played games. That is all my blog post will say about that, because well, lately I’ve noticed how anything you put on the internet never ever leaves, and I am becoming a bit more cautious about such things. For example, I have taken most of my personally posted poetry off here and deleted my writing xanga because (don’t laugh now!) I have begun sending some poems out to zines and journals for publication, and some (only a few) considered posting to your personal site to be previous publication and thus an automatic rejection. I have checked up on these deleted posts, and some still show up on search engines like google. You can’t ever truly get rid of some stuff. The internet is a vast graveyard of ghost links. And to be quite frank I’m not terribly happy about the fb pictures, although by themselves there’s nothing really incriminating. In fact, some them are much better than most of my other fb pics! Betsy, I have fb messaged you the juicier details.

The next day I went and hung out with Addie down in South Ga, and then drove back late Sunday. Pretty uneventful. I posted pictures of Addie’s puppy all grown up that I took that weekend on fb and also on facebook is Milena’s new dog. Milena’s even though it lives at my apartment and I walk it and feed it lol…but anyways, here is the best picture of Piper and Milena:

 

Unfortunateness

Four tests in a week

Is a bit much I think.

And yesterday at work my boss told me because a research project ended a couple weeks ago that gave the dept. lots of money, they are cutting the student workers hours back to weekends and holidays. Which I cannot make rent on, so I have about a week to find another job. So far I have applied at the humane society, a library, and Red Lobster. I think its obvious which one I would least like to work at. Oh well. I should look at this as a new opportunity. I’ll meet new people, more than likely make more money, and learn new things.

That is, if I get hired anywhere with our economy going down in flames.

In other news, I’m pretty sure I aced three out of the four tests which is good. And I also have a decently sexy new haircut.

Happy Friday!