What I'm Doing At This Very Moment...

Cooking. It doesn't happen very often. Let me rephrase that- I don't cook healthy things very often; I love to make goodies, but I don't make dinner to often. Although, admittedly, sometimes I would really love to make my own dinner on certain nights in the cafeteria, but enough about that. Right now I'm making pork chops.

      Usually I stick to, well, mostly I just dump olive oil and oregano all over the chops, but tonight I've gone out on a limb. Here's what I did:

Ingredients
Yellow Tail Pinot Noir (mostly because it was what was open and in the fridge)
Sage
Cumin
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil
Pork Chops (obviously)

Put the chops in a large skillet and anoint them with liberal amounts of olive oil. Turn the stove on (right now I'm cooking the chops on low, but cook them according to how fast you want them done). Then sprinkle the chops with salt and pepper. Pour out the libation of wine on to the chops. Sniff all the spices you have (optional). Settle on sage and cumin, then sprinkle said spices on the sacrifice. Cook until the meat is done, then prepare a bowl of apple sauce as a votive offering. Consume after offering prayers and supplications. 

Dorm Room Diet

It seems that everyone is on a health and fitness kick lately, me included. I find this slightly ironic because I absolutely loathe all forms of exercise, and my favorite well-rounded meal is fruit loops and curly fries (I hope you see what I did there). Last year I was on the 19 meal plan at school. This means that I paid to have breakers, lunch, and dinner at the cafeteria. This coming semester, however, I not only have an 8 am class but a 9:00 and 10:00 as well, so breakfast in the cafeteria is out. At the moment I'm planning out how I will still make breakfast happen. It has to be a) nutritious and b) easy. So here's my hypothetical shopping list:

• Natural Peanut Butter
• Natural Jam
• Whole Wheat Bread
• Cereal (probably kashi)
• Yogurt (I'm in love with Greek yogurt at the moment)
• Milk (lots and lots of it!)
• Tea (Lady Grey, Raspberry Zinger)
• Coffee (of course)
• Bananas
• Apples

Yes, I am totally thinking that PB&Js will become a breakfast food. They are very filling and can be made the night before and stuck in the fridge. I'm pretty sure that I can splurge for the natural peanut butter and jam and still eat for less than $7 a meal (last year's caf price, insane right?). I probably won't have access to a kitchen next year, so all this has to be prepared in my room without disturbing my roomie. I'm thinking I'll carry a piece of fruit in my bag to eat between classes. I may also occasionally get some protein bars; my favorites are Cliff bar builder bars and power bars, mostly because they taste like chocolate bars. 

I am a total coffee addict, but once I realized that it caused me to break out, I've been drinking decaf or half and half. I've also realized that the very action of drinking something warm will keep me awake during my early classes, so I'm going to try mixing it up with some tea. Raspberry Zinger really helps during, ahem, that time. Being home with my tea-guzzling little brother has given me a new appreciation for the stuff. 

 For the rest of meals I will return to my good habits from first semester. In my first semester of college I managed to stay away from deserts and other goodies in the cafeteria, and that combined with all the walking I did made me such skinny minnie by Christmas. Second semester, on the other hand, I really got into the fruit loops and curly fries. Bad, bad, bad. Next semester, I plan to return to my "no goodies" policy. Salad good. Salad filling. Salad yummy. Maybe if I repeat this to myself enough it will become true. Yeah, right. 

The Balloon Lady

As part of one of my many babysitting jobs, I was sent to the library so that the kids could see "the balloon lady." Being the super cool college student I am I was a bit mortified to be seen at this show, especially since I was way out of the kid age-range, and the two dark brunette kids obviously did not belong to my pale, ginger self (excluding me from the mommy range). But despite my initial misgivings, I thought the balloon lady was the bee's knees. Heck, I admire anyone who can make the Grinch out of bendy balloons.

Actually I was inspired to take up balloon doggie making myself. Not because I'm convinced it's my art form, but as I sat there watching her make a ballon Mickey Mouse, I thought, "as an English major, I really ought to have a marketable skill. Why not balloon animals? Who doesn't want to hire a balloon animal maker?" 

How Hipster Am I?

Subtly, apparently.  One of my acquaintances found this baby. Yes, that's right- it's a "How Hipster are You?" quiz. I found several minutes of glee as I filled it out, but at the end I realized that my subtle hipster-ness and poorness were synonymous.  I mean, if I had my druthers I probably would not furnish my hypothetical apartment from various dumpsters, but alas... Anyway, you, dear reader, should also waste three minutes of your life, so we can compare notes. 

You know those days where you do a lot of stuff, but by the end of the day you can't remember any of it? Yeah, well I had that kind of day. Heck, I had a near death experience (I'm fine, I'm fine) , and the most interesting part of my day is that my hair looks good. I did inventory, rearranged half the store, and ran errands. Yet, of all my accomplishments today, the most exciting is that I'm wearing a headband, and my hair doesn't look poufy. What a day.

Image is from here

Cleaning

A few years ago I posted a status on facebook about cleaning, and one of my dear childhood friends made a comment about the usual state of my childhood bedroom, which I must admit was atrocious. But in recent years I have become more of a neat-freak than I was (not saying much).  I now clean on a more or less weekly basis; I've stopped folding my clothes, but the floor is clean. I'm the kind of person, however, who purges rather than cleans. When I get in the mood, I will empty drawers and closets making piles of things to send to my favorite place- Goodwill! But there are somethings you can neither throw away or donate. Things like seashells. What on earth do you do with seashells?  I've got a perfectly good drawer filled up with useless things that cannot be discarded like these stupid seashells. I feel like this should be a metaphor for my life, but it's not. It's just irritating. Like that stack of papers on the floor over there...

Crafts, Clothes, and Conversations! Oh My!

I haven't had to work much in the last week, so there has been plenty of time to catch up with my girlfriends. Several of us are very recently single, so we're having a bit of post-break up rebellion. We've decided that this summer is our self-improvement summer. We're dedicated to doing interesting, artsy stuff. Unfortunately Littleton does not afford many opportunities to be cool and artsy, so right now our plans are a) to go to a coffee shop in Bigton (is that rebelliously hipster, or what?) and b) to go to Shakespeare in the park.  But until such time as we do these things we are content to hangout, do crafts, and blow our hard earned cash in the local Goodwill.

The craft day was probably the most productive thing we've done so far. We painted some really adorable picture frames, ate some nutella, and were generally having a great time, until a random 5 minute storm knock down a tree in Joy's backyard. In doing so, it also took down all the power lines. We were not deterred, however, and continued applying acrylic paint to various wooden objects. When the firemen came, we did take a break to crowd around the window, hoping and praying that they would be handsome (and single). Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to see them, because it turned out that the neighbor had called 911 first. So we returned to our crafts as the house got hotter and darker.  Finally we gave up and came over to my house to enjoy AC and some late-night giggles.

This made me so proud of my artistic abilities.

My other frame. No, I did not drink all those Yoohoos, thank you very much.

The other activity that the girls and I have greatly over-enjoyed is that of shopping at Goodwill. Sometimes you just need a little retail therapy, and Goodwill is a great place to get it because everything is cheap. Plus, don't all the fashion bloggers endorse thrifting? Anyway, our local Goodwill is a magical place. You get entertainment (Who bought that in the first place?), fun (Let's try on all the prom dresses!), and true love (I absolutely positively must have this wonderful garment!). And then, of course, there's all that stuff about finding brand names at low prices, blah blah blah. The only drawback to the thrifting experience is that you occasionally must beat your friends away from really fabulous items. These beauties for example:

Haha, Joy, you will never get your hands on them. 

Now, you might wonder why on earth we would argue over a pair of banana yellow, grandma heels, and the answer is, do you know anyone who has banana yellow heels? I think not. I have also acquired several great dresses. I must confess that I am most definitely not the feminine dress type, but I have recently discovered that dresses help along my habit of turning up for things completely overdressed. So do the cute accessories that can be found at Goodwill. Heck, I could become a total fashionista, except for the fact that I have absolutely no concept of how much color is too much.

But the thing I've enjoyed the most about all this girl time is that I can be my crazy, weird self, and absolutely no one cares. It is also nice to have friends who are going through the same things you are. Okay, not nice, frankly I wish we were all engaged to the nicest, catholicest millionaires in the world, but as that's not the case we can all commiserate. And until these fantastically handsome men turn up, we will have the greatest summer ever.


ADDENDUM: If you can't already tell, I've been completely ODing on Auntie Seraphic' blog. Just giving credit where it's due, in case you think my attitude adjustment is my own doing :p