The Next Emeril?

Not quite... but I've been wanted to try my hand a cooking for a while now. Besides helping my mother and making some simple things, I made this a couple of weeks ago.

Chicken marinaded in a homemade strawberry concoction on top of some noodles along with a salade with fresh strawberries and a strawberry vinaigrette.

It was pretty good.

Next I'm thinking of doing a zucchini and summer squash casserole with some sort of chicken or maybe fish.

They say it's your birthday...

we're gonna have a good time.

Here are the The Beatles cupcakes Danielle and I made for my mom for her birthday party. I made them a head of time, but the decorations were a complete collaboration effort between the two of us.

"We all live in a yellow submarine."

"Strawberry fields forever."

"I'd like to be, under the sea, in an octopus's garden, in the shade."

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly."

The Beatles! In their Abbey Road album cover outfits.

Geroge.

John.

Paul.

Ringo.

Our favorite, although his head is a little small and therefore he looks a little chubby.

I think considering this was the very first time I used fondant it was pretty sucessful. We had a few problems. We had to redo Paul's head, John's glasses bled and made it look like he had two big eyes, they wouldn't stay on the cupcake stand because they were too heavy and the stand is slanted, and the black food coloring marker we used for the submarine and Paul's eyes turned green. But whatever, it was super fun and a great learning experience!

So thank you so much to Danielle and Happy Birthday again to my mommy!

Happy...Lots of Things

Yesterday we had a huge party for my mother's 50th birthday, my parent's 20th wedding anniversary, and a going away party since in just under a month we will be moving to San Diego.

I planned all the decorations so this is what this post is all about.

I wanted all the decorations to be a surprise to my mom, so about an hour before the party started, she left and we got to decorating. I owe a giant thank you to the wonderful Danielle, Ari, and Kellie, who came and helped. Ari and Kellie put on all the table clothes in the hot sun and wind, and Danielle painted some pretty flowers on our brick walls.

So here it is, pictures before the party.

The first thing people saw when they walked in, a little display of pink flowers, candy, pink ribbons, and cards asking for donations for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer I will hopefully be participating in in October.

A little display table inside. Complete with pictures of our new home, a guest book, the yearbook from the school my mom works at, and favors of 100 Grand candy bars with little cards that read "Friends are Priceless" and had our new address on them.

Outside.

The little centerpieces. Just old Fuze bottles wrapped with ribbon.

"All these places have their moments with lovers and friends..." from the song "In My Life" by The Beatles. I thought it was a fitting quote and a nice centerpiece to the party. Plus the The Beatles quote went along with our gift and the cupcakes.

Danielle's flowers!

My brother and I got my mom the entires The Beatles collection on CD. "Julia" is playing as I write this.

Pictures of the cupcakes will be coming very soon! As will some more pictures from the party.

Spin Pins!

You guys, let me tell you...THESE ARE AMAZING!!!!!!

As a busy college student, there are many days where I simply don't have time to straighten, blow dry, or sometimes even french braid my hair. I try to put it in buns, but they never look good with hair ties pulled around them or I can't get enough bobbypins placed right to make it stay in place, look good, and feel comfortable.

Or sometimes I just want my hair out of my face and off my neck, but other techniques of making a bun don't stay in place.

So when I saw the commercial for the Goody Spin Pin I had to have it.

This isn't another lame hair trick like "Bump-It" and it works in exactly the way that it is advertised. You just spin your hair into a bun (no hair tie needed, which equals no crimping if you decide to take the bun out later in the day) and then spin one Spin Pin from the top on one side of the bun, and spin the other from the bottom on the opposite side (don't let them touch! So no diagonal spinning!) VOILA! Beautiful AND secure bun!

Try it with a braid, on the side of your head, take only half of your hair and make a bun (using just one spin pin), put it on the top of your head or place your bun at the bottom, anything works!

My only complaint, they are very hard to find. They are constantly out of stock (which doesn't just speak for good advertising obviously) and they aren't even carried at Walmart or CVSs (at least in my area). Your best bet is Walgreens or Target.

Old School #2

This is for Maddie, who saw this picture on my computer and then told me to post the picture of me "cooking as a kid".

I'm assuming this is the picture you are talking about, but I am not cooking here. I am doing a very groundbreaking science experiment.

Picture Roundup of a Bad Blogger

I know, I'm a horrible blogger! Blogging is on my list of things I plan on doing better next semester, along with not procrastinating and going to New York City.

So here is a bunch of pictures from the last couple of weeks of the semester I never posted, I won't go into too much detail.

Alicia, Nicole, and I went to PF Changs, walked around the Source Mall, got ice cream, and saw the underrated movie "The Joneses" as a last night out together of freshman year.

The next night Nicole, Maddie, and I went to California Pizza Kitchen (I know, in New York, sigh) and the to Dance Adelphi.

These are the gorgeous cherry blossoms that are all over campus. They are so pretty, and are probably the main source of my, literately, unbearable allergies.

Eddy Hall had a BBQ, it was fun and had free food. I cut to the front of the line (because I was running the BBQ for some of the night and knew the people running it at the time) to steal Nicole and burger, and somehow got two bottom buns.

We also had a carnival! Once again, free food! Maddie and Catherine are not yelling at me here, they are rapping the song the DJ was playing.

Nicole, Catherine, and I went to a Rocky Horror Picture show. AMAZING!!!!!!!!! (We went to sushi first, hence the green tea ice cream). Everyone should go once in their lives! Come to New York and I'll take you, it costs $9, plus a train ticket and probably dinner. We were lazy and didn't bring rice or toast or toilet paper or memorize any of the shout outs, but Nicole and I are taking Maddie and Alicia next semester and we will be sure to bring all that fun stuff.

This was the last Circle K meeting of the year. I woke up approx. 14 minutes before that picture of Alicia and me was taken. I had forgotten what this meeting was all about, and was kind of in a fog for it. Alicia, Nicole, and I won most service hours for the semester, because we do a lot of the events but also because we spent like 24 hours on the board game drive and bake sale, and everyone else who does that much is on the e-board and can't win. I also got Fellowship Chair for next year, Alicia got Recruitment Chair, and our friend Meagan (from DCON) got K-Family Relations Chair.

Oh, and then I got most dedicated member! WOOOOO!!!!!!!!! The frame was sharp and cut me though. :(

For Art History we had to do a presentation on Gustav Klimt. Our presentation ROCKED! Because we covered a lot and focused more on his actual art than anyone else did with their artists, but also because we made those awesome cupcakes. Look up "The Kiss- Klimt" on google images and your get that first one there, IDK what the other one is, Catherine chose it randomly out of one of 4 Klimt books I checked out from the library cause I'm such a nerd. (For our huge English essays, Maddie just printed out a bunch of articles, I probably checked out 25 books over two months on everything from religious art to TV Fandom and the Occult to books on the apocalypse, my tours were afraid of me).

Catherine is LEAVING US next year We threw her a surprise party so Maddie and I made her bowling ball cupcakes (not our best work, we had those giant papers due the next day) and giant bowling pins made out of rice crispie treats. We then made Catherine eat one, she said it was gross because of all the frosting and spit it out (not in that order). Maddie and I took bites too...and also spit them out.

I worked the last Saturday before I went home. This is Pedro (who trained me, we give awesome tours together and have been given compliments specifically on how "cohesive" our joint tour is), Laura (who also trained me, she is from California too, but was a senior and graduated, Edwin, and Regina.

That night after moving all my stuff into my storage unit (which I will write a individual post for, promise, it was insane) we went to Legal Seafood and the mall. Alicia bought those shoes...I didn't because I'm a wimp and refuse to wear heels higher than 2" or smaller than 2" in width.

There it is, my last two weeks of school.

I promise to do some fun stuff on this blog this summer if you comment!

Old School #1

Here are a handful of facts about this picture:

1. I'm in my Junior Year of High School.

2. I'm in the room the Media sub-team of my Robotics team worked in.

3. I stole that dress the year before from the Drama department's dressing rooms, which I completely reorganized Clean Sweep Style.

4. It is obviously a Saturday, since I never wore that dress to school.

5. I'm not really supposed to be sitting at that computer, since it was the main computer and I was no one of great importance at that point, I must have gotten there early and stole it.

6. At this point, I had no idea that I would basically live at that computer during work days the next season, since I ended up not just having any title, but the highest title of "Team Leader" the next year.

7. I have no idea what I'm working on or why I'm making that face.