Thoughts on Christmas

Here it is, the day that we've all been waiting for, Christmas! Whether you were counting down with an Advent calendar, lighting a new candle on your wreath every Sunday, or even if you don't celebrate the holiday at all but couldn't escape it (in our crazy commercialized society!), Christmas finally arrived.

My Christmas really begins on Christmas Eve, when my family goes to Mass - yes, I was raised Roman Catholic - and then heads over to Grandma's house for dinner. We of the Walsh brood have a special Christmas Eve tradition: pizza and wings! Everyone goes to Grandma's house, we order in, and we sit around watching movies and spending time together. Then it's home to wait for Santa and see if you can hear reindeer up on the roof.

This morning my alarm was set for 9:30 am, so of course I woke up at 8:00 and couldn't fall back asleep. I recruited my sister around 9:00 and we woke our parents up because who doesn't want to open presents first thing in the morning? I made sure to give my presents to my family before I started tearing into the 'Santa pile', just so you know. I got a sweatshirt for Claire, a sweater and a pair of earrings for my mom, and a book about the Civil War for my dad. Then it was time for Claire and me to open our presents. There really wasn't a whole lot under the tree this year, partly because of all of my car troubles from this Fall (we bought a used Honda Civic the other day!) and partly because my parents are taking Claire and me shopping in a few weeks because we're to a point that it's difficult for them to pick out clothes for us and size things correctly. 

I really don't mind not having much to open. Honestly, I'm to a point where Christmas makes me feel greedy. I sit there and I open up all of these presents and I appreciate it so much, but it's like. Why are we doing this? When did Christmas become this big holiday all about presents and getting new stuff? I mean yeah, I enjoy it. I can't deny that. I love getting presents and having new things. But I just feel like I don't really deserve it. Why am I getting all of this stuff? What dictates that "hey, on this date you should just give your kids - and everyone you know - a shit ton of stuff for no reason!?" It just bothers me a little bit. Which isn't to say either that when I grow up I'll have a totally uncommercial Christmas with no presents or anything, because like I said, I do enjoy (AND APPRECIATE) it. It just makes me wonder.

Now that I've had my little introspective discussion about my thoughts on Christmas, I'll continue with our traditions. After opening presents, we always have sweet rolls as a family, cinnamon and orange. I always only eat cinnamon. Then we just hang out at home until it's time to go back over to Grandma's. Today I helped my mom with the baking - we made Reese's Cup cookies and they are sooo good oh my gosh. I love them, and they're so easy to make (I'll post the recipe sometime before the end of break). We headed over to Grandma's house around 6. I don't know if ham is actually a Christmas dinner tradition for most people or what, but we always have turkey, with mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (which I don't eat), cranberry sauce, stuffing, and rolls (usually from Caporale's bakery.) This year we did presents after dinner, and then I actually left to go see Les Miserables with Katie, Kyle, and Tim.

This was a good Christmas. It was definitely different, without Grandma, but it was ok. I'm glad that I got to spend it with my family and friends, especially knowing that so many people couldn't do the same this year because of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Events like that don't make any sense to me, but they make me hold my family closer and appreciate all that I have. I am lucky, I am blessed.

I always like dressing up for Christmas Mass. Claire said I looked like a doll this year.

Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters! White Christmas has always been one of my favorite Christmas movies!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

if you were wondering what I got for Christmas, I put a list on tumblr 

Galaxy Nails

Finals are almost over! I have a paper that has to be submitted by 8:30 (or maybe 8:00?)am Tuesday morning and then a final at 10:30 on Wednesday and the semester will be over!

For now I'm just going to post about my nails, I'll get all reflective and deep about the semester after I actually have time to think.

Cool manicures are a thing right now, and a thing that I'm definitely into. I've done accent nails, colorful tips, two-tone moons, and my "Maryland nails", and this time I decided to try out "galaxy nails"! I used this tutorial, found via pinterest. My nails didn't turn out quite like the picture, but I feel like they'll look different every time doing something like this anyway. They're not perfect, but I like them for a first try!

p.s. I'm going to post something about the Sandy Hook shooting probably after finals are over. I just have too much time going ton to really sort out my thoughts about it right now. But I will. It deserves to be addressed, even if it's just some 19 year old college student in Maryland. All of the victims deserve to be remembered.

Instalife

I know, I know. Things have been getting kind of serious here lately, but I don't want to bring myself down by making a big serious post, so I'm going to wait to do that until after finals are over and I can just relax for winter break.

Did I mention that I voted? Because I voted.

I'm also not sure if I mentioned that I'm in a book club on campus this semester, I guess I'll look back and check later and if I haven't talked about it, then I will. But we have shirts!

I made homemade fries last week! They were actually surprisingly really good, I'm definitely going to be making them again. The recipe can be found here, and I found it on pinterest.

Speaking of fries, Wells and I went to Ben's Chili Bowl in DC last night, and we got veggie chili and fries (my usual order) and it was amazing!

Ben's Chili Bowl actually has an iPhone app too where you take a picture of yourself there and it uploads to their site and displays on a screen that's on the wall actually in the restaurant. Wells took this one and it ended up being displayed while we were still sitting at the counter.

As usual, food is one of my top priorities, and one of the most photographed things in my life. Tonight I made homemade pizza rolls with crescent rolls, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. They were pretty good!

We decorated our apartment for Christmas pretty much as soon as we got back from Thanksgiving. It's not much, but we have holiday spirit in 709!

Wells and I wrapped the Christmas presents that we have so far and put them under the tree tonight. Hers are the ones with bows, but I only have one done so far - Meghan's - so hers from me is the bottom right box. Her presents are actually put inside an old empty swiffer pad box so that I could wrap them more easily, but I can't wait for her to open it and see if she actually thinks that I bought cleaning supplies for her for Christmas!

Thanksgiving/Black Friday/I Am A Terrible Blogger

It's only been a week...whoops! I'm a bad blogger (and a bad student, I'm writing this in ECON200: Microeconomics. But who needs econ anyway, right?). I just get distracted very easily! I need to make up a real schedule for this or something. Anyway.

Thanksgiving went pretty well. There were 20 of us all over at Grandma's house. My sister, two cousins, and I ended up having to sit at a table in the hallway, six more in the kitchen, and then the remaining 12 adults were in the dining room. The food was good, we had a ton of dessert. Grandma Ruth (who isn't actually my grandma - she's my uncle's mom - but I've called her Grandma Ruth my whole life) kept making fun of me because I was eating cookies before the turkey was even out of the oven. But can you blame me? Cookies are great!

It was strange, though. This is our first holiday season since Grandma died in March. She was already in the hospital by this time last year, but we all still went and visited her in shifts on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even though she wasn't there for dinner, she was still around, still right on the other side of town. We could still go and visit her and celebrate as a whole family. This year we had to hold each other together. No one seemed really upset or anything, but I think it was hard on my mom. A lot of things have been hard on my mom over the last year.

Things looked up a little bit around midnight on Thanksgiving, when Katie, Tim and I drove to Hagerstown to go Black Friday shopping. I managed to get gifts for Mom, Jim, and Meghan for pretty cheap, so I would say it was a successful trip! People always say that Black Friday shopping isn't worth it, but it honestly is, you can get such great deals. I got Mom two gifts for $30 (total) at a store that is normally ridiculously expensive (not giving away any details, because WHAT IF she somehow sees this, hmm???). If you have a shopping problem, Black Friday will definitely be nicer to your wallet than a normal shopping day. Speaking of, I managed a nice Fossil wallet for $15, too.

It's so weird being back in school now, just knowing that the semester is almost over. My last final is on December 19, only a few weeks away. I really need to buckle down and study. I definitely need to try to do well on my econ final to bring my grade up (let's not even TALK about that number right now), and I really want to do well on my English348A final paper, too. I just need to figure out some self control...we're getting there.

19 is a Really Uneventful Birthday

Alright, I guess I should mention that my birthday was on Tuesday. I'm 19 now, bringing a close to my first full year as a legal adult. Woo!

It wasn't a very eventful day. I got up 20 minutes late, skipped econ rather than walk in 30 minutes late (but it's not the first time I've skipped anyway...), got some free birthday Starbucks, went to my English class...basically a normal day, except for the free drink, which was pretty cool. I wish we could have more than one birthday a year, so that we could get free stuff all the time.

It's kind of funny, birthdays seem to lose their significance as you get older. When you're a little kid, it's so exciting every year, getting to bring in a treat for your whole class, having parties, getting lots of presents and cake and having your whole world think that you're special for that day. As I've gotten older, birthdays mean less and less. It's still cool, my friends celebrate, I get a few gifts, whatever, but it's obviously not the same now that I'm 19 as it was when I was 9. It kind of becomes just another day. It's a day full of facebook notifications and texts from friends, but it's not a big deal anymore. Not to say that free stuff isn't a big deal - that's definitely still a big deal. But just the whole day in general.

I also think it's weird how people will go nuts and be all "oh you're a whole year older, what's it feel like to be (insert new age here)??" and you're all "uh. it feels pretty much like it did yesterday, when I was (insert new age -1 here). thanks though". My roommate Meghan did that, it was literally like 12:03am on Tuesday and she screamed and yelled "HAAAPPYYY BIRRRRRTTHHHHDAAAAYYYYY" and woke Wells up. Then she was so excited and kept saying "you're a whole year older!" but it's like. Yeah, I'm a whole year older now than I was this time last year. But I'm really only about 4 minutes older now than I was when I was 18. It's really not a big deal. Birthdays are built up to be this big deal, it's this huge milestone, blah blah, you're older and wiser and everything is great. But it's really not like that at all. You have milestones all the time, and you get wiser through experience. Growing up is more just something that happens to you. It really doesn't have much to do with your actual age.

I did have a pretty good birthday though. Jim gave me a really pretty cameo ring, and my parents bought a new pair of boots for me. Jim and I tried to go to Denny's on Tuesday night for my free birthday Grand Slam, but they were closed between 11pm and 4:30am for some reason. Tonight we all went to Denny's as a group, because it's also my bff Kyle's birthday the day after mine, and I actually got management to give me my free birthday Grand Slam a day late, because they were closed when I got there the day before. That was pretty cool. It was actually second dinner, too. Jim joined my family for my birthday dinner tonight, steak and baked potatoes, followed by chocolate cake with caramel icing. It was all very wonderful. I'm happy to have made it to 19, and to be as luck as I have been and surrounded by the people in my life.

Tomorrow (today really) is Thanksgiving, so I'll try to post something tomorrow night about that. I might incorporate that into the Friday Five, but I'm not sure yet. Have a good night!

Friday Five

1. It's been a long week. There were some bad days and some good days, but on the whole I can't remember the last time I was so thankful for a Friday to finally come along. I think it's just the fact that the semester is winding down - only about a month left! In just a few weeks, the semester will be over, and we'll all have a month off before getting back to work. I mean, unless you're taking a winter semester class, but personally I will be taking the break as a break. Things are getting more serious, we're all having more assignments, more papers and exams. We're coming to the end of things, and it's starting to show.

2. I've been experimenting with various cake-in-a-mug recipes lately. So far I've tried two, and neither have been very successful. I think I'm just going to keep going until I find one that I really like, and then I'll make a whole post comparing the different recipes. I really like the idea of being able to make a quick cake in the microwave. I just haven't found the right recipe yet!

3. I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving break, to be able to see my friends and family and take a break from school for a little while. It'll definitely be an interesting break, considering my current car-less state. I know, it was my own stupid fault for getting into an accident, and I'm mad at myself for it. I know I'll resent myself for not being able to go anywhere over break without borrowing a car from my parents, and just think, this break is only a few days long. Imagine winter break, when I'll be stuck at home every day while my parents are at work. That's not really the point of this though. I want to be home, with my family, with my friends, with the people who I love who love me.

4. OK this one can be about my car. I'm hoping that maybemaybemaybe my dad can find a cheap car that he believes is "trustworthy" that we can potentially buy with the insurance money and my savings. Maybe. I really don't see it as a true possibility though. Dad isn't very happy with me, considering that four days before my accident he was telling me that I drive too fast and don't stop soon enough and that I follow too closely behind other cars coming up to intersections and stuff. He was also counting on my car to be able to make it until I was out of school. It's pretty damn reasonable that he's not really too keen on buying or helping me to buy another car right now. I guess we'll just see what happens.

5. I've really been getting into reading A Game of Thrones lately. I finished the first book the other night, and I've been reading the second pretty steadily, too. I've really missed reading for fun, and I'm glad that I'm getting back into it. I think I kind of needed this.

Weekends are for Fun and Eating, not Blogging.

I know, I know, I missed Friday again! In my defense, Jim and our friend Tim were here for the weekend, so I was a bit preoccupied. It was actually a pretty fun weekend. Yesterday we went to DC and ate at Ben's Chili Bowl before seeing The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which was fantastic) at the Landmark E Street Theater. Today I made a French toast bake for breakfast, which is the real focus of this post, because of course I love talking about food.

I found the recipe for the bake on Rach's Blog, via Pinterest, and decided that it would be great with pumpkin cream cheese, using a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese:
8 oz softened cream cheese
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I used ground cinnamon & nutmeg, and eyeballed my amounts)
1/2 tsp vanilla

1) Beat all ingredients together until smooth. 2) Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 24 hours.

French Toast Bake:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)

1 cup brown sugar

1 loaf Texas toast
4 eggs

1 1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Powdered sugar for sprinkling (I didn't use this)

1) Melt butter in microwave, add brown sugar and stir until mixed. 2) Pour butter & brown sugar mix into a 9x13 pan, make sure it covers the bottom. 3) Beat eggs, milk, and vanilla. 4) Lay first layer of Texas toast in pan. 5) Spread pumpkin cream cheese over the first layer of bread. 6) Cover first layer of bread with half of egg mixture (I think next time I might pour the egg mixture first, and then put the pumpkin cream cheese on the bottom of the second layer, if I use the pumpkin in the next batch). 7) Add second layer of Texas toast. 8) Coat second layer with remaining egg mixture (I also sprinkled cinnamon sugar over the top layer after pouring the egg mixture). 9) Cover and refrigerate overnight. 10) Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, covered for the first 30 minutes.  

It was great! My only problem was that for most of the pan, the brown sugar & butter base burned. I'm not sure if it's just my oven, because we've had some problems with it before, but either way, I think next time I might just melt the butter into the bottom of the pan and skip the brown sugar. Beyond that, it was definitely a hit with everyone here who ate it, and I'd recommend it to everyone who loves breakfast.

And here's a picture of Tim and me while we were waiting for the metro:

The Weekend in Review

Alright, I guess I should fill in the gaps in my life for the last few days. I always get in the mood to blog when I need to be studying.

My family and I spent this past weekend in Indiana, at the Notre Dame v. Pitt game (GO FIGHTING IRISH). Thursday, my cousin Will and I were supposed to drive back to Cumberland, meet our families, and then everyone was going to Ohio. However, this plan was kind of tripped up when I rear-ended another car before even making it onto the beltway. I wasn't texting and driving or doing anything stupid - I was driving behind a big truck and turned to check my blind spot to see if I could merge onto the beltway ramp. While I was looking out the back, the truck in front of me merged over, revealing a stopped car directly in my path, and I couldn't stop in time. No one was hurt and I didn't get a citation or anything, but I don't know how my car is faring as of yet. The front was pretty smashed up, but it could still move. I'm worried that it might be totaled, simply because it's a 2002 Toyota Camry, and insurance companies don't usually put effort into helping out older model cars. Hopefully it'll be fixable though, and I'll soon have Neville back in my possession. Yes, my car is named Neville, as in Longbottom, because it's accident-prone. Appropriate, right? We got everything sorted out, both cars towed away, and then my dad heroically drove 2 hours here to pick up my cousin and me and then drove back, picked up my mom and sister, and drove all the way to Cleveland. We got to our hotel by 4 am, and were back on the road to Indiana by 7.

Besides my accident, it was actually a pretty great weekend. We had a ton of fun at ND, despite the fact that my dad insisted on taking pictures of Claire and me all over the campus even though he's never done anything like that here at Maryland where he actually went to school. We attended a luncheon and a pep rally on Friday, and then the game on Saturday. The band was phenomenal, and their football team is so good this year (9-0!). It felt really weird to be getting so excited over a team that wasn't made up of Terrapins, but I've been a Notre Dame fan for literally as long as I can remember, and I can't just turn my back on that. It was a really intense game, and my whole family was saying that it was Grandma that gave the Irish the push for the win.

I've spent the last few days trying to get back on track, it was strange being away for four days. I really need to buckle down with my school work, there are only about five weeks left in the semester, and things aren't going to be getting any easier. I'm honestly considering quitting Tumblr for a while, because it provides a huge distraction for me. I guess we'll see how that goes, maybe I just won't use it much next semester. Either way, I need to do some serious reevaluating of my life and my priorities right now, I need to get myself back in line and on the ball.

Whoops

I've been really bad at this for the last few days, but please allow me to excuse myself because my life has been fucking hectic as shit lately and I'm tired as hell.

Here are some pictures from this weekend.

Touchdown Jesus

I am tired as hell right now and I'll definitely make a week/weekend post sometime before Monday but for now just enjoy this picture of the Touchdown Jesus (by the way I'm in Indiana).

Soft as a Baby's Butt

I found a recipe for a sugar scrub online today and decided that I had to try it out instead of working on homework.

I cut the recipe in half, mixing:
a little over 1 cup of regular granulated sugar
half a cup of olive oil (though any cooking or body oil should work)
and I squeezed 1/2 of a lemon (the actual recipe calls for 5 tablespoons of a citrus juice)
and then used it while shaving my legs. I shaved my legs first, then rubbed the scrub over them, rinsed it off, and shaved again to remove the dead skin loosened by the scrub. After that I ended up basically just taking a bath in the stuff, and then showering after to rinse off all of the scrub and leftover oil. Then I wandered around my apartment in my underwear to get all of my roommates to touch me, because let's be real, who wouldn't want to touch me now that I'm smooth as a new baby's ass, hmm?

It's seriously some great stuff, and it's the only real scrub I've ever tried so far so there's probably something better out there, but I'm loving this one so far!
Now I have to get to work; I have one four page paper due tomorrow, another paper due Thursday that I think has to be 3 pages, maybe? And one more four to five pager due on Monday but we can email it in by Friday if we want, which I do want to do because I'm going to be in Indiana all weekend so I don't want to have to worry about schoolwork! And in addition to all of those papers, I also have a math exam tomorrow!

Pray for me.

Batten Down the Hatches

I never got around to a real Friday Five post this past weekend, but now I'm posting through a hurricane so I guess we'll have that as a balance.

I live in the DC area, so we've been preparing for surviving the next few days in the storm's path. School was actually cancelled for today and tomorrow, which is notable because the University of Maryland is known for not shutting down lightly - maybe this is the 2012 Armageddon that everyone's been worried about. I've stocked up on batteries and candles, granola bars and water bottles. To be honest, I don't really know why everyone freaks out about buying water before storms anyway (I got a case of 24 for $5 because my mom told me to). I guess it depends on if your water is contaminated or something. Either way, I'm prepared even if I don't agree or understand.

Wells and I were baking last night and today, so we have pumpkin cake and cornbread muffins to eat if our power goes out, along with bowls and bowls of pasta salad. We've also been making our own bags of ice, so that if our power does go out, we can keep our perishables safe in a cooler. We still have power for now though so I'm not sure if we'll need it all or not.

There's a creek that runs behind my building that was getting steadily higher all day as the rain poured down, so I actually can't wait to see tomorrow how high it'll be after a full day and night of rain.

I don't really have much to talk about with the hurricane. I like that school got cancelled, but it didn't really do much for pushing back assignments for me. I still need to do all of my work and study for some upcoming exams. I have food and water, flashlights and candles. I'm prepared to charge my phone and laptop in my car, if it comes to that.

Governor O'Malley, who I follow on twitter thank you very much, just informed me that we're now getting into the worst part of the storm. I guess we'll see how things look in the morning. Hopefully I'll still have power by then!

Instalife

I'm postponing the Friday Five to tomorrow (or Sunday maybe) so enjoy some of my instagrams from this week instead!

1. A grainy shot (blame my HTC Desire, I desire an iPhone but my carrier unfortunately won't support it) from the UMD v UNCS Homecoming 2012 football game last Saturday. It was a great game, but we ended up losing by two points, boooo.
2. My roommate Meghan and I love our mascot Testudo! GO TERPS!
3. Another - definitely better - shot from when I was posting from Hornbake Plaza yesterday (see previous "gushing about Fall" post).
4. I love pumpkin spice lattes! I actually just love basically anything pumpkin flavored, it's one of my favorite things about Fall. I wish I could just get pumpkin coffee (and donuts and muffins and cookies and pies and and and ...) all year long! I also wish that my hometown had a Starbucks, not that I don't appreciate our own Mark's Cafe. I would definitely spend way too much money there if we did have one though, so maybe it's better that we don't.

Just Enjoying the Season

Fall has always been my favorite season. I don't know if it's just because I like the weather, for Halloween, because my birthday is in November (probably that one) or what, but it's been my favorite for as long as I can remember. There are so many great things about Fall. School starts up again, the weather starts cooling down, leaves are changing colors - and where I live in Western Maryland, that is certainly a sight to behold, I recommend that everyone visit Allegany County during late October just to look at the mountains - I can pull out my scarves and sweaters, and everything comes in pumpkin!

Right now I'm sitting outside enjoying Fall while I should be finishing a book for my English class at 3:30. If you're familiar with the University of Maryland campus, I'm at Hornbake Plaza. There's some group in the middle advocating for their cause, as usual. It's cool this time though, they're working for hunger relief, I think, and they have this big banner taped down on the ground and their schtick is they'll paint the bottom of your feet and have you walk on the banner to show support. I might do it before I go to class, but I also really like these shoes and I don't exactly want to get paint on the inside of them, and all there is to wash your feet off is a bucket of water...oh well. We'll see.

Today actually has some great weather, in my opinion. It's not raining, which is nice. The sun isn't out, but it's still bright out, and the whole sky is this big white blanket that I just want to tear down and wrap up in. It's chilly out, but just chilly enough. I love it. Having some sunshine would be nice, but today is almost perfect just the way it is.

Autumn To-Do List

(this picture is actually from last Fall, but it's all I have of my own on my computer right now!)

• Carve pumpkins
• Decorate for Halloween
• Use lots of pumpkin recipes
• Enjoy the Western Maryland scenery
• Spend an afternoon with friends in Downtown Cumberland
• Attend as many football games as I can
• Pumpkin candles!
• Read 3 books before winter break
• Look for boots to fit over my calves
• Make my bedroom more "me"
• Simplify, declutter, minimize
• Go thrifting (without contradicting simplification)
• Research nice cameras --> buy a nice camera
• Build a new playlist
• Watch 5 new movies
• Write at least 10 pages
• Give Sheer Wonder, Baby a makeover

Friday Five, Sort Of / Instalife

1. Wells and I carved jack o'lanterns last week, and I made mine into a cat! I used the pumpkin guts to make muffins, and I'm definitely into the idea of cooking and using pumpkin, it was pretty cool. We had to throw out the pumpkins after a few days though because they were rotting.

2. I printed out some Halloween pennants and pictures to use to decorate our apartment; these were some of my favorites.

3. I went home last weekend, and got this shot of the sunset on my drive back through Western Maryland. I miss those mountains.

4. This week was homecoming week here at the University of Maryland, and I answered 6 UMD trivia questions correctly and got this little stress turtle as my prize!

5. I seriously need to get back into my study grind for this semester. I haven't been taking school as seriously as I should (which contradicts my previous post about how important my grades are to me, I know) and I really need to get my ass in gear if I want to get my ideal grades.

6. I bought some Christmas lights at Target the other night and hung them up in my room. Something about the bulbs kind of messes with my vision, but I don't care because they make my room look cool anyway.

7. The other night at a party a few floors above mine in my apartment building, I ended up holding a snake. I think it was a ball python. It was pretty cool until it started going up underneath my collar, basically encircling my neck. That's when I started to freak out a bit.

8. Wells and I went to the homecoming men's soccer game tonight. We ended up standing in the freezing cold rain for an hour before leaving at the half, and on our way back through campus we both stopped on the sidewalk when we found The Biggest Leaf We've Ever Seen! So I picked it up and carried it back on the bus, through the pizza place where we got dinner, and up to our apartment, where it is now pinned to the wall.

9. This week was tough. I was upset and pretty exhausted by the end. Tests, difficult homework, and freezing cold torrential downpours. All in all though, life isn't bad!

How Could You Feel So Entitled?

My roommate had to do this food challenge for her health class where she could only spend $30 on food for an entire week, and then only eat the food bought with that money. The challenge started on Tuesday Oct. 8th, so Monday the 7th she went to the grocery store to stock up on food for the week. She bought two boxes of cereal, some apples, a package of wheat tortillas, a small jar of peanut butter, 18 eggs, and 10 packets of flavored rice (all the same flavor). By Friday she was weak and tired and couldn't focus because she wasn't getting enough nutrients or anything, because she wasn't eating enough. I understand that she was trying to ration her food and was afraid of eating too much and running out before the week is over, but honestly, even though she didn't get very much or a variety of healthy food, she definitely has enough to last through a week if she measures it out correctly (because it's not even over yet). Friday she basically quit the challenge and started eating again because she was making herself sick. I was gone all weekend so I didn't see what all she ate, but tonight when I got back, she made an entire package of frozen chicken nuggets, ate half of them, and threw the other half away.

I'm completely flabbergasted. The point of the challenge was to experience what it's like to be on food stamps, to know what it's like to not have enough. In my opinion, she did a really bad job when she was buying food anyway. Another roommate and I were at the store a day after she was, and we were looking at prices of different foods and figuring out all of the other things she could have bought to have healthier options and a greater variety of food to choose from throughout the week. I don't even care about that though, I just can't get it through my head that she would get to a point where she was sick from hunger, then waste so much food. I really don't understand it. It didn't even occur to her to only make half of the package of chicken nuggets, or that because SHE KNEW that she wouldn't want the leftovers later - she has a thing about not eating leftovers - she shouldn't make the entire package. I just...I really can't understand. I said something about it and she started giggling and was like "oh, I didn't even think about that...I'm probably getting a lot of judgement right now, but I'm still really thankful". I guess she meant thankful that she isn't on food stamps, and honestly when I first spoke to her I wasn't even trying to judge her, I was just trying to understand. And I still can't understand.

Friday Five

1. I'm home for the weekend! It's my high school's homecoming weekend, and my sister and cousin are in the newly-formed marching band so I'm back to watch them perform at the football game tomorrow! Also because a lot of my friends - including Katie and Kyle ~bffs 5evr~ - are home this weekend, and because I miss my family, and because I miss my bed, and because of probably a lot of other reasons too but nothing really serious, just because. Tonight my family just went over to grandma's house for pizza. Lots of family was there: Uncle Billy, Uncle Jamie & Aunt Laurie and their daughter/my cousin (one of my favorite people in the world) Emily, and then my parents, Claire, and me. Which I guess actually isn't a lot at all, but it was still really nice for us all to be together. I've really missed hanging out with Emily and Claire, the three of us together. The three of us hanging out as a unit was honestly probably one of my favorite parts of growing up, especially after I got my driver's license and we started going on adventures together. Tonight was fun. Tomorrow everyone will go up to school and join in the homecoming festivities and the class of 2011 will partially reunite and we'll see tons of people from other classes and it will just be a great weekend.

2. A weird thing about this weekend though is that Jim's band, Dogjaw, is on tour right now while they're off school for Fall Break (which I won't have - UMD WHY DON'T WE HAVE FALL BREAK, HMM?). It's really strange being home and not planning out my weekend around when I'll get to be with Jim. I mean I guess it's nice on that scheduling level, I can spend all of my time with friends and family and not have to worry about balancing it out with alone time with Jim. And allow me to clarify that spending time with Jim is not a hassle or anything that I ever worry about. It's just something that I love doing, so when I'm home I prefer to do it for much of the time that I'm here, so now I don't have to feel like I'm neglecting my friends and family or missing out on hanging out time with anyone. They were in Cleveland tonight, which I think is pretty cool. I like that they're touring and getting more experience and getting more fans. I believe in them.

3. I got basically a C on my econ midterm. I feel like this massive hypocrite, because I recently made that big post about how important my grades are to me and how much school is a part of my life, and then I just fuck around in econ and don't care about it at all. I think it's because I've gotten myself into this mindset where it really doesn't matter, because I was originally taking it because I was planning on double majoring in English and Gov&Politics, and I needed econ (and math111, which I'm also currently taking) to get into the gov major. Now I'm not really planning on studying government anymore, so econ has become just a random elective that I need to keep a grade in for my general gpa. Which in and of itself should be motivation to do well in the class, but the fact that I no longer need it for a specific requirement has pretty much wiped it off of my list of priorities. I really do need to rearrange that list, anyway. I don't know. It makes me feel bad to not care about econ, but at the same time I just can't make it seem important. I'm going to work in it to maintain general good grades, but that's about it. Scraping by and doing the minimum amount of work, that's my middle name.

4. I updated Claire's iPod touch to iOS 6 tonight. She was super worried about all of her music getting wiped off of it (which did happen, sorry Claire!), but I at least was able to back up her photos and general settings. She wanted the update so that she could use the device to its full potential and get access to apps that needed an updated version of the operating system to work correctly, but she was freaking out about losing her media and having to start over. I know that's just a general thing, anybody would be worried about that, but I just thought it was kind of interesting. Even though she knows that all of the music on her iPod also exists on either my laptop or on the family PC, she was still so scared of losing everything and having to start over. It kind of makes me think about life - yeah look at me, getting existential over an iPod update; I should be a great philosopher. Or a youtuber. Anyway, it was just interesting to me because it kind of made me think about life and relationships, and when we know that there are things that we need to do in order to grow up or make ourselves happier or just get to a better place or something, but knowing that it might hurt or take a lot of work really holds us back. Even when we know that we could survive if we had to start over, that we have all of the tools to rebuild and start again, it's really hard to make that jump and do what we need to do. Claire was really scared of losing everything, but she told me to do the update anyway, and even though her media was wiped, we can rebuild her library. That's just something I'm going to try to remember. We can always rebuild the library.

5. I'm really tired right now. I feel like I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should be lately, and I guess that's just a college thing. It's really stupid, I stay up late for no reason, I'm not even doing homework or accomplishing anything or trying to do anything productive. I'm just up hanging out with my roommates or dicking around on the internet or skyping with Jim (every night, that one). I stay up way too late and don't have enough time to really get ready in the morning and I always say that I'm going to go to bed earlier and then it doesn't happen. Right now it's 3 am and I should have written this earlier and I'm getting up at 10 so that I can get my shit together to be at my hs campus (a 10 minute drive, nbd) by 11:30 to watch a soccer game and hang out with my friends. I need to go to bed. I always need to go to bed.

Friday Five

1. This week, man...this week. I had two exams and a paper, and it was all a lot of work. I've pretty much run myself into the ground, even if I didn't seem like I was doing that much in the way of studying or working. I'm stressed and sleep deprived and today was definitely showing it. I need to really just relax this weekend and try to recoup.

2. Yesterday we had a little roommate meeting, and I'm actually really glad that we did. We talked a bit about how we can sometimes upset each other without meaning to, and the ways that we need to recognize that and respect each others' boundaries. I'm glad that we had this talk now, rather than a few months from now, because it definitely caused problems in my room last year, and I'm trying to avoid that as much as possible now. I think we're all good now though.

3. Jim is coming to visit tomorrow! I'm really excited, I haven't seen him for a few weeks and it'll be nice to get to spend the night with him. It also means that I have a lot of chores to do though, room-cleaning and laundry to do before he gets here tomorrow night. But it'll be worth it.

4. My roommate Chelsea is taking the LSAT tomorrow. She's been working her ass off trying to prepare for it, and I think that she's gonna rock it. I really respect her for all of the effort that she's put into it, and into this semester in general. She knows what she wants and she's going to do whatever it takes to get it. I admire that about her, and it makes me want to change my lazy ways and get my ass in gear to achieve all that I want to do with my life.

5. I've decided that I think that I want to become a teacher. I want to go back to my high school and teach English and literature. I've actually thought for a long time that I don't have the patience or disposition to be a good teacher, but I just woke up earlier this week and was like "I want to be a teacher. That's actually what I want to do, for real. I'm going to do that." I know that sounds kind of stupid or whatever, but that's usually how my best ideas take hold. They take root and then I just can't get them out of my head until I do something about it. I want to make an advising appointment soon to try to figure out what I would need to do to get all of my credits in.

C+ Stands for Crazy Friendless Bitch

Sometimes I wonder if I take my grades and perceived intelligence too seriously. Today I got back an English 301 paper that I thought I did really well on, only to find out that I actually got a 'C+'. It was a poem explication, and I did a close reading on "Living in Sin" by Adrienne Rich. According to my professor's notes on my (5 page, 4 hour) paper, I had good insights and thoughtful interpretations, but I didn't use enough technical literary terms in my explication. That made me kind of mad because even though I may have explained and interpreted the poem well, I still didn't get a good grade because I wasn't 'technical enough'. I feel like at this point, being able to interpret and understand a poem is just as important as being able to say "she used a metaphor here, this was a good use of imagery, there's some personification over there". In all though, I was more upset than angry (even though we do get a rewrite, and in a few weeks I will get a new grade to replace the C+).

I even ended up in a fight with my boyfriend about it, because he doesn't know how to make me feel better when I get upset about school, and that makes him frustrated and upset, and it becomes this big awful thing (but we're fine now). What he doesn't necessarily understand is how much I value my intelligence and grades as a part of my actual self worth. When I was younger, I was really obnoxious and weird - still am, of course, but in different ways - and a lot of people didn't like me. They wouldn't actually come out and say it, but you can just tell sometimes when people are very annoyed by you, or when they just generally don't want you around. I picked up on that a lot in middle school. It got to a point where I would make myself feel better by considering my grades, and the fact that I was in all of the 'upper classes' for my grade level. Even if people didn't like me, it was ok, because at least I was smart. And that got me through, and now, even though my social situation has changed, it still has a big affect on how I view myself and my levels of self esteem.

Now when I get bad grades, or even grades that are just average like a C+, it still makes me feel like I have nothing. It doesn't matter that I have more friends now, that I have a boyfriend, that things are going really well in my life. All that I can think about is my grade, that this one teacher might think that I'm stupid, that if anyone else finds out that I didn't get an A or a B, they'll think that I'm stupid too. All I had was my intelligence, all I had to make myself feel better was the fact that I was smart, I knew what I was doing, I could get better grades than other people and even if they didn't like me, at least I had something to be proud of myself for. But when I get those average grades, when I don't understand math or I don't write a paper the way my professor wanted me to, that all goes away. I can't be proud of myself, I have nothing to hold up in the mirror and say 'hey, I'm worth something today'. And even though I know that it's not necessarily true, it still bothers me a lot.

Friday Five

1. The first month of school is almost over, and I've definitely been enjoying myself so far. I got a 'B' on my first history paper, and an 86 on my first math exam. I'm actually really pleased with the math grade, because math has always been one of my worst subjects. I'm proud of myself for making 'B's.

2. Tonight was my friend Chris's birthday, so we all went to see Looper. The movie was good, and I'm not really going to go into it right now because I'd feel like an ass if I spoiled it for anybody (if anybody even reads this) so we'll leave it at that: it was good. Wells and I drove in my car to get there, and after the movie it was decided that I would drive almost everyone back - 8 people. We actually managed it pretty successfully, with me driving, the biggest guy in the passenger seat, 4 people on the back seat, and 2 people sitting on the floor between the back and front seats. The car was insanely heavy, and we rode the whole way back terrified of getting pulled over for having too many people in the car. So on the whole, a great and vital experience.

3. I'm actually kind of getting into rugby now. Not necessarily to play, but at least to watch. Wells is totally into it, as she's actually a part of the team, and Chelsea, Meghan and I went to watch her last home game a few weeks ago. Tomorrow the women's team is playing two games against Shippensburg, and I will definitely be there to cheer them on!

4. This isn't really a relevant life point, but I've noticed that I use the word 'definitely' a lot. I'm not really sure why I do that, but if you read back through my past posts, it probably creeps up in all of them at least once. I need to watch myself better and use more of a variety of words, because I don't think I actually say it that much when I'm just speaking normally to people. It only creeps up so much here...unless I'm totally wrong and I actually do say it all the time. I guess correct me on that if you know me, and if you don't, you'll just have to take my word for it.

5. My printer isn't working! I know this isn't really any kind of relevant point either, but it's causing problems in my life right now. Chelsea is taking a practice LSAT in DC tomorrow - the real one is next weekend, so be thinking about her then! - and she needs to print out her practice test and answer bubble sheet. I don't remember what's wrong with her printer but she needed to use mine, or anybody else's, and mine won't work either......UPDATE: IT'S WORKING THIS IS SO GOOD RIGHT NOW YAY!

Sunday Pizza // Busy Bee

Normally my roommates and I have 'family dinner' - where one of us makes dinner and then we actually all sit down and eat it together it's so much fun - on Fridays. However, when it was my turn last week, I wasn't actually here on Friday, so I made my dinner on Sunday (This was also interrupted by the fact that I forgot my wallet at home-home so I had no money and Meghan had to meet me at Shopper's and buy my ingredients for me. My parents overnighted my wallet back to me though so I got my bank card yesterday and paid her back today!). I made four homemade pizzas: one veggie with green peppers, spinach, and mushrooms; one pepperoni; one plain cheese with old bay; and one white pizza, half with spinach! They were all delicious - I ate six pieces, oops - and we had a few friends over to eat with us, too. Jon is a sophomore, like Wells and myself, and he lives up on the ninth floor and came down. I met him last year, with his roommate Chris. Chris was also invited to our little pizza party, but he went to the Ravens/Pats game instead (Go Ravens?). Chelsea's friend JD came too, and he brought Meghan's crush Danny. JD and Danny got here late and only stayed just long enough to eat though, and then they had to leave due to a family emergency. Jon ended up hanging out for most of the night, and we watched a few episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is basically one of the best cartoons TV shows I've ever seen.

Now I'm really just posting this to put off having to do my own work. The end of September/beginning of October seems to be when professors are really starting to get in gear. I had a Math111 - Intro to Probability - exam on Monday (86%, which is good for me!), a 5 page English301 poem explication due today, a math quiz on Friday, English301 midterm on Monday, a History213 - History of Sexuality in America - paper also due on Monday, and an Econ200 - Microeconomics - exam next Thursday. Right now I should be making 65 note cards for my English exam, or doing math homework, or taking notes for my history paper, or working on an econ problem set. But here I am, writing about pizza. This is actually a pretty good representation of my life in general. Should be working, but thinking about food instead, while using the internet. Oh well, I'll get my shit in order eventually. For now though I think I'm going to go start on those note cards.

UMD vs WVU 2012

The football game today was pretty fun, even though we lost. Pretty much everyone there was really nice, despite the fact that we were walking around in red. Two guys actually took pictures with us for being at a WVU tailgate in UMD gear. My dad was bumming beers everywhere he could, which was pretty hilarious; he definitely had a good time. One old man actually offered us a jar after the game, saying "Have some moonshine, you're in West Virginia now!" (Dad wouldn't take it though, because I guess he's had some bad experiences with grain alcohol before). Mom ended up driving home, and I slept the whole way back to Cumberland after we stopped for some dinner at Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County.

My four-years-younger sister is unfortunately much taller than I am.

I took my dad's hat and was wearing it in the car after the game. I actually want to get a MD hat soon, I just have to convince myself that it will be worth the money. College team gear is so expensive...

Claire has actually been working on a cold or something for the last few days, so she fell asleep pretty much the minute we got in the car after the game.

Friday Five

1. Our party last Saturday was a success! The crowd ended up being mostly friends of Wells, but a few of my friends showed up, and I ended up semi-bonding with Chelsea's friends who were there, too. It got kind of old by the end, just in that I get bored of parties kind of easily and it's always nice to be able to leave and go to bed, but you can't do that when the party is in your apartment. A few people ended up staying the night, and Wells and I made breakfast for five at about 3:30 AM. It was a pretty great night.

2. Last night was a pretty great night, too. Chelsea and Meghan went to a bar for Chelsea's friend's birthday, and Wells and I decided to stay in and watch a movie. My friend Chris lives on the 9th floor and he came down to watch Scott Pilgrim vs the World with us. This was at about midnight. After we finished Scott Pilgrim (and yes, this viewing did include a drinking game, although I only ended up having one beer for the whole night), Wells and Chris convinced me to stay up and start another movie, so for showing number two we picked Across the Universe, because it is fantastic and Wells and I sing along with all of the songs. Somewhere around halfway through A the U, Chris's roommate Jon came down, and he was pretty much wasted already. The four of us crammed on the couch and Wells and Jon had a pretzel fight. Jon had shaved his hair pretty short the day or two before so I ended up spending literally about an hour and a half just rubbing his head. The whole night ended around 5, and I still made myself get up and go to my 11 am ECON200 discussion (which was a shit show in its own right). The whole thing felt very 'college', and it was fun.

3. I'm currently at home, because tomorrow the Terrapins are playing the Mountaineers at WVU, so the Feeney family will be there to cheer on our terps! Morgantown is actually only about an hour to an hour and a half away from Cumberland, so it won't be a long trip or anything. Dad is planning for us to leave bright and early at 8 am, so we'll see how that goes. I love my school and I try to have a lot of spirit, but realistically, we're going to have our own shit handed to us tomorrow, so it's definitely not going to be a great game to watch as a Terps fan. It'll be fun though, as a trip in general. I'm definitely planning on showing my Maryland pride; my nails are already painted with Maryland colors, and I'll be color scheming my eye-makeup tomorrow. I also bought temporary tattoos, so I'll be wearing Testudo on my face all day tomorrow. Can't wait!

Here is an awful picture of my nails (my thumb is red, too). They definitely look neater now that it's a day later, and this was bad lighting, but you get the idea.

4. I got to see Jim tonight, and I'm really happy about it. I know he was just in CP to stay with me like a week ago, but if I could spend every day with him, I would. He's going to Hershey Park tomorrow morning and won't be back until Sunday, so tonight was the only time that we would get to spend together while I'm home this weekend. We basically spent the whole time cuddling and being grossly cute. I guess that since we don't get to actually physically be around each other very much while I'm at school, we have to catch up as much as possible while we're actually together. I kind of wish sometimes that he went to UMD with me, but I have a ton of personal reasons both for and against that - which I don't feel like going into right now - so I guess for now I will just wish that we could be together when we aren't.

5. I've had hardwood flooring in my bedroom at home since I was about 10 or 11 years old. When I was younger, my allergies were awful, and when we went to see a doctor about it, we were told that I shouldn't have carpet in my bedroom, no big piles of stuffed animals, no overabundance of pillows in my room, etc., so we had the carpet torn up and the floor refinished. I've always liked it (to a point - without the carpet for cushion, it's a lot creakier now, which is bad when I'm up moving about in my room when I'm supposed to be asleep!) but I've also always been a little taken aback upon reentering my room after being on vacation or something. I guess that while I'm not at home, I get re-used to just seeing carpeted floors or linoleum everywhere, and then when I come home, the hardwood flooring is a bit of a shock, which doesn't quite make sense to me because I obviously spend more time at home than on vacation, but whatever. What's funny to me now is that when I come home from college for a weekend or a break or something, the wood floor doesn't look weird. I'll be gone for weeks on end and see no wooden floors anywhere and then it's nothing when I come back, but when I'm gone for a week on vacation and come home, the lack of carpet just blows my mind. I really can't explain it, I have no idea why it doesn't look weird after college as opposed to after a vacation, but I guess I just wanted to share one weird way that my mind works.

I Don't Think All Sorority Girls Are Stupid, But That Doesn't Mean That I Want To Be One.

I'm going to start this out by saying that I'm generally conflicted on my opinion of the whole Greek Life thing anyway. Sometimes it looks like fun, like, yeah, I'd like to be in this big group who all seems to like each other and have sisters and a support system and get to wear cute matching shirts and have socials and stuff. And then I think, last year when my roommates were in sororities, it all seemed so stressful and they don't actually all like each other (because how could you expect a house full of girls to all like each other anyway that's just ludicrous) and if I could be friends with all of the girls in a sorority anyway then why would I pay to be in it? It also makes me question if I could get a whole group of girls to like me enough to want me in the group too. I feel like I wouldn't be able to be completely me, like I would always be putting up some kind of front because I would be afraid that if I was really me, they wouldn't like me (which is basically just how the world works anyway). Now on to the real story.

My best friend Katie goes to UMBC (University of Maryland - Baltimore County or U Must Be Chinese) and she recently rushed for Phi Sigma Sigma. She knew a lot of the girls in it beforehand, so she thought that would help. She was really excited; she knew that while she was friends with the girls and could just hang out with them anyway, she wanted to be part of the group and be able to go to their little functions and wear the letters. She got invited back to their first invite-only function after rushing started, but then last night, she got voted out. Obviously she was very upset, and she didn't understand why she didn't get in considering how close she is with many of the members. She's found out a little bit of the reason, in that some of the older girls didn't like her, and because they were more senior members, their opinions carried more weight. She probably won't be able to find out the actual reasons and things that were said by the girls who didn't like her, because apparently all of the members are sworn to some insane secrecy and nobody will breathe a word to anyone outside the sorority (which, if it were me, you know my mouth would be wide open as soon as I left the house - maybe another reason why I shouldn't be in a sorority). She really was pretty upset at first, but now she feels better because apparently most of the girls did want her, and she wasn't the only one who was friends with the members but got passed over. We think that maybe because she acted like she was already in the sorority, not because she was that confidant but simply because she already was close with so many of the members, the older girls wanted to teach her a lesson in confidence and humility, same as her other friends who were also voted out. Now she's thinking that maybe it was better, because she can still hang out with her friends in the sorority without the pressures and expectations of the whole system.

This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about the whole sorority/fraternity system. Katie knew the girls, most of them liked her and wanted her as a sister, but some older girls had an unknown beef with her so now she can never be a part of the real group. Apparently during the voting process, negative comments count for more than positive comments, and if you make any comments about a potential new members, you can't stay to vote. So basically someone who doesn't like you can gossip and talk shit about you to make the other members think badly about you, and then they can't vote about you. However, if anyone wants to try to defend you, it would require twice the amount of positive comments to counter whatever awful things the first people said, and then all of those girls who defended you wouldn't be able to vote in your favor. It has something to do with if you know someone well enough to say something about them, then you're obviously biased for or against them and shouldn't be able to vote. That make absolutely no sense to me - it leaves the voting for the people who have literally no opinion, who couldn't care less if you got in or not (unless someone kept their mouth shut so they can give you the vote that they want). Shouldn't it be those who do have strong opinions to vote for or against you? The people to whom it actually matters if you get into the sorority or not? I don't know, I mean obviously I have no say in how sororities work, and I don't know if I have this exactly right or if this is how all sororities work or anything, but it just doesn't seem right to me.

It all just further cements for me the fact that I probably will never attempt to join a sorority. I say probably because I can't see into the future, maybe this semester I'll meet a bunch of girls and decide that I want to be a sister and I'll rush in the spring and then everyone who read this will call me a hypocrite. I really don't know what's going to happen. But, I don't think I would want to be a part of a social sorority. It really does seem like too much pressure, too much work. I don't want to go through all of the rushing process and think that I'm in and that people want me and then find out that no, I can't actually be a part of this big family, I'm out. I don't want to set myself up to work under that pressure, that huge potential for failure. It's just not for me.

Friday Five

1. Tonight I was at a party in a friend's apartment, and I was talking to this guy, Kevin, who I met a few weeks ago. I could tell that he was kind of into me or whatever, but obviously as I have a boyfriend I wasn't going that way at all. We ended up actually talking about it and I told him that sorry, I don't mean to be a bitch or anything, but I'm really happy with my relationship right now and I'm not looking to change that any time soon. He seemed to understand, but at the same time, he would say things like "Is it bad for me to want Jim to get hit by a bus?" and "I'm obligated to hate the boyfriend of a pretty girl". It was very 'ha-ha, that's a joke, we're a little bit buzzed so you can say that I guess', but at the same time it made me feel uncomfortable. I guess I just don't really understand what would make someone think that it's ok to talk like that to someone, to tell a girl that yeah, I like you and I want to be with you and stuff, and I'm acknowledging your current relationship by hoping that it dies a fiery death so I can swoop in. I actually called him Prince Humperdink (from The Princess Bride) at one point, but I don't know if he really got the whole picture.

2. My roommates and I are having a party tomorrow night! I'm really excited, I really like stuff like this. I know it'll be work, and we'll have to keep an eye on ourselves so that we can keep an eye on everyone else, but I think it'll be worth it. A bunch of my friends here at school are invited, and my best friends Katie and Kyle might come down from UMBC and Towson, respectively. I don't really expect Katie and Kyle to show up, but it would just make the night so much better if they do.

3. We seem to be starting a new tradition here in 709, that of family dinners on Fridays. We'll take turns making something for everyone and then eating together. Last week Meghan made tacos, and tonight Wells made spaghetti and homemade meatballs. Both meals have been delicious so far, and I think I might volunteer for next week and make homemade pizza. I really like this kind of tradition, I think it's a lot of fun and I hope we continue to do it for the rest of the year.

4. I really want to do a 'fashion' project at some point this year, where I'll take pictures of what I'm wearing every day for a month or so and post them here. I think it would be fun, to show my own style and even see for myself the kind of things that really crop up in my wardrobe more often than others. I feel like it would also prompt me to dress a little bit better, knowing that I'll have to actually take pictures and post them online for people to see and potentially comment on. If I do this project though I think I would want to wait and see if I end up getting a better camera at some point, or even just a tripod or something so that I can take pictures with the camera that I have rather than trying to set up my computer and webcam somewhere. I guess I'll just keep this idea in the back of my mind for now, and see how feasible it is later this year.

5. This really isn't a number-worthy topic, because it really isn't a topic at all, but I am exhausted right now. I took a nap earlier this evening and now it's 3 am and I'm lying in bed forcing myself to post this before I brush my teeth and go to sleep. I think it's just a general college thing, not getting enough sleep and always being tired. I do attribute some of my sleep deprivation to my long-distance relationship, though. Jim tends to stay up late at night playing Guild Wars or Skyrim, and then I end up staying up late too, waiting for him to get on Skype so we can see each other and say goodnight. We really need to try to do something about this, because I love getting to see him as much as I can, even if it is just on a screen, but I need my sleep too (and so does he!). Maybe we can start trying to knock our clocks back, and both start getting to bed a little bit earlier every night. It would be nice, ideal, if I could get in eight or nine hours a night. I don't know that that'll happen, but a girl can dream!

I'm the Goddamn Muffinman

Yesterday I finally went grocery shopping like I've been meaning to for days, and while I was there I picked up a few things to make muffins. The original inspiration to make them came from this post on Sherri Bemis's tumblr, with a recipe for pumpkin muffins using pumpkin pie filling and spice cake mix. I couldn't find the spice cake mix at the Shoppers that I went to, so I improvised, along with a few other ingredients!

muffins:
1 box of Golden Vanilla cake mix
1 15oz can of Pumpkin Pie Filling (we didn't have a can opener so I had to use a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer...that one ended up with pie filling on my face.)
the following ingredients were my own addition and were eyeballed as to my own tastes:
roughly 1 tbsp of Nutella
liberal shakings-of-the-canister of Cinnamon Sugar
less liberal shakings-of-the-canister of Nutmeg
This all mixed together and baked at 350 degrees for about 17 minutes made somewhere around 17 muffins (I think...we started eating before I thought to count, oops!) and it definitely could have made more, as I overfilled some of the cups. Be careful when you're scooping the cups, they definitely rise a lot!

I used cream cheese icing, and I made it myself, this time faithfully following a recipe that I found here.

icing:
2 8oz packages of cream cheese (softened)
1/2 cup [1 full stick] of butter (softened)
2 cups of sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
"In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use."
This recipe made way more than I needed for the amount of muffins that I ended up with, so right now I have a big covered bowl full of icing sitting in my fridge (I think I may make red velvet cupcakes on Sunday, assuming that the muffins will be gone by then, to use up the rest of the icing!). Next time I make these muffins, if I make this icing too, I may half the recipe so that I only make as much as I need.

These muffins were definitely a hit! My roommates and I all love them, they've been great to grab as breakfast on my way out the door for class. Making pumpkin baked goods always puts me in the mood for Fall, my favorite season. These muffins are definitely making me itch for cooler weather, scarves, sweaters, and boots!

I hope this may inspire someone else to make muffins like this, because I know I'll definitely be making them again!

Friday Five

1. I don't care where you went, what you did, how awful or great a time you had. At the end, when everything is over and you're back home, it always feels great to wash off the night. To stand in the hot shower and scrub away the sweat, the parties, the outside, the other people (ew), it just feels amazing. It's honestly one of my favorite parts of the evening, everything drawing to a close and me being able to just take a shower and go to bed. Drunk, sober, whatever, it feels fantastic every time.

2. The second week of classes is officially over. We're starting to get into the actual work part of the year, it's not just syllabus week anymore. Things have been going pretty well so far, I haven't had any big assignments or anything yet. It'll probably all pick up a lot in October, and around the end of September. It's so weird to think that I'm even in my second year of college anyway. Sometimes I feel like I should still be in high school, when did I even get here?

3. Jim, my boyfriend, is coming to visit tomorrow. It makes me nervous, having him here staying the night with me, but I'm also excited to get to see him. It's been a few weeks and I'm definitely missing him. I think we're going to try to go in to Washington D.C. to go to the zoo, but I'm just looking forward to being with him. I wouldn't really care where we went or what we did, as long as I would be spending time with him. He's pretty great.

4. We're having somewhat better internet connection now. I think the View complex is going to completely update their system soon, so hopefully then it will be even better. I'll probably try to post pictures of my room soon, I just need to clean it up a little bit first. #collegeteenagelazymessygirlproblems because that's a thing now.

5. I painted my nails today and tried to do an 'ombre' fade effect, where you paint a base color and then sponge another color on top on the tip. I did light purple for my base and then light blue on top. It actually turned out pretty well, I'm pretty pleased with the way it looks. Unfortunately though, I put a top coat on over it to cover the rough sponge effect, and my top coat is old and crappy so now most of the color has cracked and doesn't look very good anymore. I'll have to re-do them tomorrow, and save the fading for another day when I have a better bottle of top coat.