Thursday, April 28, 2011

furthermore...

Boyf. doesn't seem to find my new favorite blog (Hyperbole and a half) as hilarious as I do. When I'm trying to contain my laughter and instead spouting tears he sort of gives me a side ways glance and stops reading and goes back to whatever it is he's doing. I feel like he must at least appreciate why it's so genius but I just can't tell if he does and am saddened. Because I'm with Boyf every day I would really like to be able to talk about this blog at length with him.

He has promised to read the god of cake and spider post. I really hope he does. I know he would definitely agree that my experience with spiders and hers are very closely related.

I made it, sort of

It's 11:30 and I quit. I'm watching Glee now. Well, not now but after I finish my post.

If you couldn't tell from my earlier post I was experiencing a sort of crisis. And it was real and it was mostly my fault but I'd say that 1/4 or possibly 1/3 of it was induced by the sheer incompetence of people.

To begin it is the end of the semester so I have been studying at school late into the night for the past week. And this is not because I am good student who studies all the time because, while I like to stay up late doing fun things, I'd rather do anything, even go to the field house to work out than study till the library closes (2 AM!!). This all happened because about two weeks ago I decided that since my professor makes podcasts of all his lectures and posts his notes online it was a good idea to skip class and sleep till noon. After about a week and a half of this I decided to resolve and become a good student and not skip class until school was out. The beginning of my next class after this decision I realized from the way the professor was talking, saying things like, "we're skipping ahead a bit because we've only got a few classes left before our final," and "don't worry about the last lecture shown on the syllabus we most likely won't get that far," that I realized there was only about a week left of school.

$#@%!!!! That is what happened in my head. The smart part of my brain decided to finally speak up and told me that I'd really screwed things up and I immediately turned this all back around on him (yes my brain is referred to as a "him" in this story) saying that it was in fact all his fault. He stopped arguing and we started thinking about all the catching up I had to do. $#@%! again.

Now, starting Monday I began going to school right after work and staying late, late, late. Then when I got to work on Tuesday there was that amazing cake that I previously posted about, I had two pieces of it then.

Today I got to work and there was still some cake left. I had a tiny sliver and then saved the rest for a girl who hadn't had any yet and I felt some sort of obligation to let her taste it (probably because I liked talking about the amazing cake with coworkers almost as much as I liked eating it. almost). I had my sliver before I actually started working (I usually arrive to work early because I take the bus straight from school). During my break she came in the back to have her piece she'd been saving. She decided that she couldn't eat the whole thing by herself and even with my half-hearted refusal I soon found myself eating the end with all the frosting. I did not object further once I had the first bite in my mouth.

After I had said cake I had to go back out and work again. Somehow the large quantities of cake in the last 48 hours and my lack/poor quality of sleep and stress of finals were starting to get to me. Then, I'm pretty sure every stupid patron within the vicinity of 5 miles decided to stop by the library. And not only did they stop by, they were insulting, and returned 500 materials a piece (all to be checked in by me). Then the phone rang...

I was starting to complain to my coworkers and they found my plight strangely hilarious. They laughed, and I sort of laughed back, but that sort of defeated type of laugh. Soon after this all transpired I found out my supervisor was experiencing a similar type of day minus the finals, staying up till 2 and exorbitant amounts of cake. She was however, very stressed and very disturbed by the utter incompetence of our current patrons.

I wish I could explain to you the true idiocy of the people visiting the library today. I tried to draw you a diagram but I just can't do it at this moment and am too strung out to really focus my efforts. But for my own sake just pretend you are following along...

The library in which I am employed is basically the shape of a square and it's quite small. There is a fairly large meeting room that is available to the public and many people throughout the community book their HOA and girls scout meetings and what not there. Let's say that the meeting room takes up half of the building. the rest of the building is split up into small portions, the immediate center of the building has our desk and sorting area, behind us is a wall and on the other side of that wall is the meeting room. On one side of the desk is non-fiction and the other is fiction. When you walk into the only entrance of the building you can either go right or left, and both will lead you to the meeting room, because there is NO WHERE ELSE TO GO! People usually come in and stop right in front of me and ask where the room is. If they moved two feet in either direction they'd see the doors. But no, they can't use their feeble brains and comprehend the tininess that is the library and that if they are supposed to meet in a room with a capacity of maybe 150-200 that it must be in an obvious location.

After directing a few people nicely to the room I soon became so annoyed with everyone asking me I began just pointing. My supervisor was also asked numerous times (she was sitting next to me) where the room was. She was the one who cracked and told me she couldn't believe how stupid people were.

I used to firmly believe that half the population was below average. Yes, the entire world's population. But, that was about a year and half ago that I came to this conclusion and it seems that along with the population this number continues to rise and is now a whopping 2/3 of the population. This is disheartening. Truly. But, if you need more evidence go to the trib or desnews online. The news stories are either about natural disasters or about people making stupid decisions. I think on ksl today the main story with the blown up image was about a woman who drove drunk into the side of a house with her kids in the car, or something like it. On the trib's site (when I saw it) one of the news stories was about some guy who had driven his car off the edge of the grand canyon. He had survived but only because he ran into a tree on his way down.

My supervisor told me she believes that only a select few should be allowed use of a car, and even a cell phone. I'm not sure that this would rid all the world of it's stupidity but it would at least help curb some idiotic tragedies.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

It's too much...

Currently I feel like I might explode and implode at the same time.


...more on this later, if I haven't ex/imploded.

bunny necklace

I haven't posted any jewelry or clothes or shoes that I have seen and want for a while (seems to have been substituted with make up) but, I found this necklace and my mouth dropped, my eyes widened and I furiously tapped on boyfs desk to get him look up and acknowledge.
it is a small picture, but it's great. and I want. Of course it's expensive and of course you either have to order directly from the makers (Finn Jewelry) or from Barney's. I'm kind of annoyed that I can't go anywhere in SL to oggle fun jewelry like this.

In other jewelry news I'm seeking, and hoping that somehow they'll magically appear without my having to actually spend money, very small diamondesque studs. They don't have to be real diamonds (and if I'm buying they mostly likely won't be unless they are dirt cheap), but I am desperately seeking good quality earrings, (and of course I just assume they will be diamonds. I guess they could be just plain studs but if I was spending the money on quality why not get the diamonds?) ones that I can pretty much just keep in constantly. I thought I had found myself a good pair but they only lasted about 3 days before I started noticing my lobes were sensitive to the touch but I tried to ignore it for the rest of the week and then when I finally took them out my ears took quite a while recovering. If anyone has suggestions please let me know (I of course didn't keep my original piercing studs, but then again I think those had sharp, knife like tips which is probably why I disposed of those asap).

In other news I think I've blogged, like, a months worth of posts today. Soak 'em up.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

more food

Yesterday was a good friend at work's birthday. Instead of letting us get him a crappy cake from the grocery store he decided he wanted a friend of his to make his birthday cake (she does this for a living). I wasn't expecting much, just you know, a better than grocery store cake. But after having two pieces of it in the space of two hours I have realized that I've happened upon the best chocolate cake I will have ever had in my life. (She left us her business card and I definitely saved her info in my phone because if I ever need a cake made and you can bet I'll find any excuse possible because my wedding is too far away to have to wait for this cake again).

Anyway, it was the best cake of my life. It was fairly rich, but not too rich (I did have two pieces fairly close together this afternoon) and I even remarked to a few colleagues that if I could make that cake I would probably be the fattest person my age, because I'd make it once a week and I would offer one piece to boyf but since he doesn't like sweets too much he wouldn't take it (in offering it I know he wouldn't take it so it looks like I'm trying to be nice and share but really I'm not). Anyway, I took a picture of it (because apparently I'm becoming more and more obsessed with food and soon my phone will have more pictures of food in it than lolcats).





I know this picture doesn't do it justice but the frosting was amazing, the cake itself was the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted. AND I'm pretty sure this cake and I were meant to be life long friends because I packed along some strawberries to eat as a snack at work and low and behold the perfect pairing for this cake is strawberries. I was going to take a picture of my piece with strawberries but only sort of thought of this more than halfway through eating my piece and then decided that I'd rather keep eating than take a break for a picture.

Also, when I got home I tried a hand at whipping up a stir fry from scratch. It was actually really easy (I've never done it before, and tonight was my first real time ever cooking and cutting meat on my own and I'd say it was successful). I made a beef and broccoli stir-fry. It was actually really easy and I'll give you my recipe now (I originally got it from my cooking light magazine but made it even simpler by omitting a few ingredients).


Beef and Broccoli Stir-fry:
1 lb of top sirloin beef, thinly sliced
4 cups of broccoli florets
1/2 cup of beef broth
garlic, minced (I think it called for 2 tsp, but I did two little cloves because I like garlic, whether or not this is the right amount, I didn't even measure this but it looks like more than 2 tsp.
1/3 cup of green onions
1tsp sugar (maybe 1 T, I'm doing this from memory if you couldn't tell, but I'm not sure this is imperative)
1/4 cup water
1T hoisin sauce (everyone should get this, at least you should if you plan on ever making any kind of asiany type of food, it's amazing and you can add it to about anything and I have no idea if it ever even goes bad. It probably does but I am not aware)
2 T soy sauce
1 tsp or T (can't remember, but again, I'm not sure it's imperative, I'd probably just go with the tsp) of cornstarch

In a bowl combine 1 T of soy sauce, sugar and beef. In another bowl combine cornstarch, hoisin sauce soy sauce and broth.
In a skillet heat 1 T oil med/high heat and add beef mixture, cook 3 mintuesish or until beef is browned. Remove beef.
In skillet add 1 T of oil (if needed) and add garlic stirring constantly for 30 seconds. Add broccoli and water stirring constantly for 1 minute. Add onions still stirring for another whole minute. Then add broth mixture and beef mixture stirring until sauce has thickened (about 2 minutes maybe a bit longer). Enjoy over rice!
Omitted: Sherry- but only, like 2 T and when I read online about non-alcoholic sherry everyone said it sucked so I figured that 2 T wouldn't matter that much. However, I may buy some so that I can make this all the freaking time because apparently Sherry has a very long shelf life. Sirachi (sp?) and bottled minced ginger (I couldn't find it at the grocery store, but if you do add it when you add the garlic, I can't remember what you do with the sirachi sauce)

you might not be able to tell from my picture but it's freaking amazing. The broccoli is still pretty crisp but I actually liked it this way.

Side note: I need to get better at taking pictures of food with my phone, if not to get a better picture of the food but so you'll at least believe me when I say that something is dang good. If I just had a new Iphone 4 because they have a flash. yeah...that'll happen, someday.

Strawberry Avocado Salsa





My new favorite salsa, Strawberry Avocado! It was so easy, I don't think I'll ever forget how to make it because I think there are, like, 3 or 4 ingredients (if you haven't noticed I'm a huge fan of the easy recipes).
Here's the Recipe:
1 cup chopped strawberries
2 chopped avocados
2 T of minced cilantro
2 tsp. of fresh lime juice (half of a small/med size lime)
there was some jalapeno in the original recipe but I chose to omit it.
-Mix all together, but I found if you mixed it too much the avocado spread everywhere and it wasn't so "pretty" but then again, who really cares as long as it is delicious.

For the chips I bought a package of whole wheat tortillas and brushed a very light layer of olive oil on one side and then sprinkled some cinnamon sugar, cut the tortillas into even wedges and then preheating the oven to 350 and baked them for 10 minutes.

Glasses

Boyf has been in need of new glasses for quite some time. He's been using a pair from probably the early 90s, so not only are they, like, 3 prescriptions behind they are also terrible 90s mens-glasses-fashion (the really sad thing is that I think boyf looks so good in glasses I even like those awful things).

So, he finally decided to bite the bullet and get some. Naturally he consulted me, and we ended up picking a lovely pair online. However, I told him not to tell me when they came but just to show up with them and surprise me. You must understand that I am one of those people who think that glasses can only make you hotter (at least for the men folk), and you must also understand that Boyf is one of those guys whose goodlookingness is just amplified by glasses. So, I was super excited when he finally showed up one night to my apartment wearing his new and very nice burberry glasses. Here is a fun candid of him pushing them up his nose.

Side note: I asked him if they fit (since he ordered them online he couldn't be 100% sure of the fit) because he kept pushing them up. He informed me that asians do not have nose bridges and that glasses basically rest on their incredibly high cheekbones. I will remember this for the future.

Hyperbole and a Half

Okay everyone, I've found it, the BEST blog of all time. It IS! It IS! I was going to post a link to just one specific post but, I'm only going to do it to the main home page of the blog. On the right hand side of it there is a list of her "best of" posts and you should pretty much just go there and read all of them. Especially the "Spider" one, and especially the "God of Cake" one. I can very much relate to the "Spider" one, in fact I believe it reveals my exact life experience with spiders, EXACTLY, to a T. Yes, when I was a child I was "unafraid" of spiders and now, I envision them with the exact same swastika and knives and guns strapped to it's legs.

so go here: Hyperbole and a Half and enjoy, and laugh till you cry, just like I did.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Hash browns from scratch

These are my made from scratch hash browns. They are super easy and delicious!
My recipe:
 2 Russet Potatoes (or however many you need, but 2 was plenty for two people with some leftovers)
T of oil
-plus whatever add-ins you want.

It seems like it would be easy to do hash browns, just grate the potato and cook, right? Well, I have the secret to making them even better! Cooking them before you cook them! Ha, bet you didn't see that one coming.
Seriously though, boil your potatoes for about 8-10 minutes (I did mine for the full 10 and I think next time I'll cut it a little short cause I like mine to still have a bit of a crunch to them). After you've boiled them drain and cool for at least 5 minutes before grating. The recipe I used says to peel before grating and the skin does come off pretty easily but I didn't really do this, however I might next time. After you've let them cool and grated them, heat about 1 T of oil in a frying pan at about med-high heat. Then brown the potatoes to your liking. I added about a 1/4 of a white onion to mine and it was delicious!

Next time: I will not boil for so long, maybe peel the skin off, wait longer to grate (I only waited about 2 minutes) and I will cook them in batches. I did it all at once and it took longer and was not so easy to get each grated potato piece golden brown the way I would have liked, but then again I'm just lazy and if it can sort of fit into the pan at once then why not?
Real recipe: says to use butter AND oil! Totally not necessary, why would you need both? I just used the oil and most people who commented on the recipe I got online said that both was too much and they ended up being very greasy so probably a good thing I didn't try with both cause that's the last thing I need.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

First home made salsa of the year


well, it's a  little blurry, but this is a pic of the first salsa of the year! It was amazing. I of course used my brand new food processor to make it and it cut the time it usually takes to make by hmmm..probably 75%!! here is a pic of my adorable blue food processor

yes, it's bright blue and I couldn't be happier about it. Now, of course I've only used the one time since I've had it (which has been about 2 weeks) but I've been so busy, but I have many plans for it in the future, such as salsa every other weekish. it's that good.
by the by, my salsa is super easy, here's the recipe:
1 white onion chopped (or half, I usually do the whole thing though, I've discovered a great love of onions in the past year or so)
1 bunch of cherry tomatoes, they usually come in a little plastic container or you can get them in those red mesh bag things (sometimes I do more than one thing of tomatoes)
a bunch of cilantro. For the cilantro my local smiths and sunflower market have huge bunches of it, so I don't usually use the whole thing, but you can be your own judge of how much cilantro is too much.
That's it! Well, I usually add a few dashes of salt, and if you want to add a kick chop up some jalapenos and add 'em.
Also, I suggest making it a few hours before needed. It's still delicious right from the chopping, but I like the way the flavors taste when they've had some time to marinade togeth in the fridge.