Happy Halloween!

Today, room 206 had a blast!

Best Buds Carving Pumpkins!

Family and Friends of 206 :D

All of our pumpkins! Mine's a cat :)

 After carving pumpkins all of us (minus a few girls who decided they wanted to sleep soundly tonight) watched "What Lies Beneath". Um. It was scary guys. Honestly, I screamed. It is nice in a way because it resolves at the end, but now all of my senses are way heightened.

Apparently I wasn't the only one! Some of my roomies decided to have a sleep over together! We moved all of our beds in the living room and we are just chillin, watching some happy tv, and trying to be reassured by all of our long distance boyfriends :) Our other roommate said she was going to make pancakes tomorrow morning. Can't wait! :D

In other news, I made a pork roast and wild rice today. It was pretty exciting to be cooking this big piece of meat. I felt very official! I made sure not to wait until I was super hungry to cook, but unfortunately after the first HOUR I got hungry! I had made rice, which was supposed to take about 20 minutes, in the last half hour, but it turned out that the roast took an hour and a half. Hungry, I just started to eat the rice. Then I had a plum. Then some crackers. And then I wasn't hungry when the roast came out! I tried a little piece, but I just packed the rest up and put it in the fridge. Tasted good though! Thanks for all the advice, Mom!

So I have always been a little competitive.

And God has blessed me with roommates who share that quality. :P

A few days ago, we recieved a flyer for a door decorating contest for Halloween! You were allowed to go all out and decorate the outside of your door for all of Eccles C (floor 2 :D) to see. The winners are rewarded with a free Bowling Night with our R.A. (and our besssttt friend) Karlee!

Here was the competition :)

And here is us :)

We made little cut-outs like ghosts, bats, pumpkins, bones and tombstones to write our names and cute little messages on!

Roomie #4's neighbor gave her this cute ghost to decorate with! It's eyes and mouth light up!

I made that!

The best part- this all cost us under 10 dollars. We had so much fun decorating together. It was a long day, and there is nothing like a craft project to lighten the mood :)

In other news, I made homemade mac and cheese with Eric's recipe today. It was way good, but not as good as his. :(

<3

Flaws.

"What are they? Oh I dunno, I sing in the shower? Sometimes I spend too much time volunteering. Occasionally I'll hit someone with my car. So sue me. No, don't sue me. That is opposite the point I am trying to make." -Michael Scott (The Office)

There are a few vices I have. I decided to dedicate a post to them.

1. Deseret Book.

Not only can I spend like...hours in that store and not get bored, I am also the most tempted to spend money in there. They have perfect gifts for like...everyone (I mean, who can say they don't like some spiritually based gift you got them?), and also, its really easy for me to convince myself that something is worth the (generally over-priced) expense when it is going to aid my spiritual growth. I am basically Deseret Book's target audience. After all, I spent 45 minutes looking at CTR rings today.

2. Baking Things.

It sounds harmless until you realize that the harder things are to bake, the more weird (and expensive) the products to make them are. That's why I am kind of stuck. My roommates are pretty sick of chocolate chip cookies by now, but I am sure my boyfriend still wants some. :) I am feeding my love for cooking with my new shopping plan though. Now I make every dinner fresh. Gives me the opportunity to experiment, and I am starting to learn a lot of cool things.

3. Cleaning.

No. Don't get excited. This is seriously one of the worst things on the list. First of all, I like to clean my way, which makes anyone who asks me to clean very frustrated. Secondly, I can no longer function in a mess. Before I cook, I have to do the dishes, clean the counters-- everything, before I can even read a recipe. If my laundry is crazy, I have to tend to it before I start homework, and before I go to bed I need to do a quick clean up of everything. I feel so much better when everything is clean, but it sure makes it difficult when I want to be lazy!

4. Weird Candy.

I am all over it. Whenever you see movie theater candy that you are pretty sure no one would like, I probably love it. I love Halloween because Candy Corn is readily available (yum) and Sweedish Fish are the bomb. I just finished off a box of Red Hot's. I usually can't eat much in one sitting, but if its around, it will get eaten. Yum :D

5. Talking on the Phone.

As my Dad pointed out the other day, his side of the family isn't big on the phone talking. However, talking on the phone makes me feel very important. Whenever I am talking on the phone, I feel extremely grown up. I am pretty sure I have felt this way forever, as I was always offering to make my Mom's primary president phone calls for her. I still love it. I wish I had to call people more often. Right now I just call my family, and Eric. They probably wish I had other people to call too.

No pictures this time, but I do have to use this time to thank my parents for all the treats they sent me in the mail! Super fudgy brownies, cookies, candy corn, the cutest card ever, and all my mail from back home! I picked it up on the way to institute, and before my class started, everyone was asking me who loved me enough to send me stuff! I am sort of learning that taking a package around is like in elementary school when you get an invitation to a party during class and you are supposed to hide it so no one gets jealous or tries to pull your hair. Thanks guys!

Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Food in my Tummy!

After a few months in college, I have really started to miss some real meals. I eat very well, but I was sick of microwaving all my food, and I wanted some nice big sandwiches and things with lots of veggies :) When I went shopping yesterday, I got all fresh foods! Nothing frozen. I was so excited. When I got home I immediately organized all my vegetables, and chopped parts of them up for easy food making. While I was doing this, I realized I could make some fresh picco de gallo-- so I went at it.

First, I chopped Onions, Cilantro, Tomatoes, and Green Peppers

I used to work at taco time when where we would make our own recipe. I pretty much used this same recipe, however, I didn't have chili powder or anything to give it a kick, so I actually put a little medium salsa (pureed) in it. Probably like a quarter cup, not much at all, just enough to coat all the vegetables.

Then I added really finely chopped jalapenos, and that was it! :)



YUM!

Then today, I made some steak!

First, I melted butter, mixed with vegetable oil, added Mrs. Dash's Garlic Herbs and Spices mix, and finely chopped a clove of Garlic.



I used this mix to sear the meat (which was a 1/3 of a Rib Eye Roast, for those of you who care)

To sear, I placed my oil mixture in the pan on High, and placed the meat in once it looked hot. I seared each side for about 2 minutes. One problem I ran into was that my garlic burned in the frying pan. The meat got so much flavor from it that I would hate to omit it during this process. I ended up just kinda shaking it off the meat before I put it in the oven so it would look nice. Anyone have suggestions on how to fix this problem for next time? I dont really know what I am doing.

Then I put it in the oven (Broil on High worked very well) about five minutes on each side. I then turned the oven off and let it stay in there while I finished making my mashed potatoes and gravy so it would stay warm. I think this probably ended up cooking for the equivalent of about 2 minutes on High. When I got it out, it was Medium Well, and ABSOLUTELY perfect.

Here was the final product! It turned out SOOOO delicious. I personally wanted to cut up my steak into small pieces for presentation sake, but it looked beautiful as one piece as well. It was soooo juicy. It was Eric's idea to sear it, and I think that is what kept it so flavorful. This was really easy, and the meat itself was pretty cheap. I got about a pound of it at the grocery store for 5 dollars, and that is enough for 3 meals for me. Awesome!

Tomorrow is Sunday so Roomie #4 is making dinner (Chicken Tortilla Soup! Yummmm :D ) and monday, I am making a Quesadilla for dinner. I am excited :)

Can't leave without saying a quick thing about my grocery shopping. I was trying really hard to stick to a budget, so as I crossed things off the list, I wrote the price and at the end of my shopping I totalled it up. I was a few bucks under so I decided to "reward" myself. How did I do this? I allowed myself to buy two types of cheeses. Haven't been this happy in a while. :) haha

Advil PM.

Pros of Advil PM:
You put Eric right to sleep.

Cons of Advil PM:
You put Eric right to sleep.

I had a lot more typed out that I wanted to say, but I don't know how to say it. I just miss him. Not really just when he is sleeping either. Life is kinda hard without seeing your best friend.

Anyways. I got 132% on a test today. How crazy is that?

I also got my car fixed. Everyone was really nice, and it wasn't an expensive fix at all. I noticed when I was pulling out of a parking spot today a little liquid was on the ground. I didn't check to see if it was oil or water from the air conditioner. I will have to check on that tomorrow. If it is oil, I will have to drop it off again so they can fix that, but its fairly likely it is just condensation.

I went to see the social network today. Fantastic movie. I totally loved it. I would recommend it. Parents don't seem to get it, but I think the stories of the actual people who created something I love to use every day are really interesting. Part of that is because the people are actually really cool, unlike the guy who invented the toaster. He probably isn't as cool.
.....and one of the guys in it was totally rockin'

I know its really late. I just had to get a few emotions out. haha
I hope everyone has pleasant dreams :)

Wednesday Night = Party Night

I want to just start in the verrrrryyyy beginning of the night. What on Earth would have gotten 3 teenage girls so hyper?

It all started with one room.

In my appartment-style dorm, we have one space that all of us (6 girls!) share together. That is our kitchen and living room area. We often hang out in the mornings here, and spend our evenings together watching NCIS, Law and Order, Teen Mom, or any chick flick we snag for red box to have a girls night together.

Yet recently, there seeems to be a little discrepancy with the furniture. Though some liked the furniture against the walls, other roommates seemed to prefer the furniture moved into some sort of half-circle. I am not one to give my opinion, so I won't tell you how much I absolutely hated this new setup.

Every morning for the past week, I have gotten my workout moving the furniture back to the position I liked it at. Only to have to do it again after lunch, and one more time around dinner. I was not the only one to move it to its original position, believe me, I had allies. I almost wish we had a camera in there so we could watch everyone move the furniture all around that week.

At around 9:10pm, we decided enough was enough. Me and two other roomies decided a new layout for the room, hoping it would please both those who enjoy the perpindicular setup and the half circle setup. It's like designing for the sexes, except we are all girls.

So, here is the final room! We got the approval of all of our roomies, and I look forward to not having to do any more rearranging!

After redoing the room, we decided we had a lot more energy to spend. Roomie #5 said she wanted ice cream. Roomie #4 said she wanted french fries. And I metioned I could go for some sweet cuppin cakes. Deviously we planned how we would spend our evening. NO ONE WOULD BE DENIED OF THEIR DESIRED TREAT. While I stayed home making cupcakes, the other two girls went and got 2 large curly fries, and 1 large french fry. Though Roomie #4 decided against gettin ice cream, we did just have some the other day...

Roomies with all the fries and Ketchup :D





Magically Delicious!




Roomies + Friend :D

 Roomie #4 said "this is our freshman 15 right here", but I would like to point out that we all go to the gym all the time and when we do get around to eating, we generally eat healthy. We can afford a caloric splurge :P

Now, don't forget. During this whole time, I was making cupcakes. I have to show you what I did...

Basically, I never got a cupcake pan. My mother told me that most of the time, cupcakes will turn out alright when you just set the papers on a regular pan. In general, I actually don't think this would be so bad. The foil ones managed to keep their shape nicely. I think the problem I ran into though, was using the high-altitude recipe, which calls for you to add flour to the mix. This made it quite a bit denser than regular cupcake batter, so it kinda cooked flat in the papers...



The COOLEST RA EVERRR :)



Nevertheless, they were a crowd favorite.

In all of the partying, one thing went unnoticed. Roomate #5 and I had locked ourselves our of our room. It generally costs ten dollars to get your room unlocked. Totally sucks. So, my roomie calls the On Call R.A. to come and unlock us. To our joy, a guy answered the phone. Now, we are all taken young women, but desperate times call for desperate measures. He knocked on the door wearing too-tight Mtn Dew Pajama Pants and all. We decided we most certainly wouldn't flirt with him, but we would offer him several cupcakes. Once we did so, he said "Are you bribing me?" And we all nodded. It seemed to be working, but roomie #4 told him she liked his pants. I think that is what really what helped our case.

The only problem was, that after he unlocked our door, he seemed to think he was invited to the party. He said "You girls are too cute" and would not leaavvveeeee. He even started to go out the door, and came back just to smile. Poor thing. Probably thinks we offered him baked goods because we liked him.

Summary of the night:

French Fries: 6 dollars

Frosting, Cup Cakes, and Cup Cake Papers: 8 dollars

Getting locked out of your room: Priceless.

Mix It Up.

This past little while has pretty much been a mix of several things:

Yesterday
-Sent Eric cookies :)

-ANOTHER 100% on astronomy. Shyeeeaaa.

-Went to a city council meeting for my Education in Society class with my roomie. It was way hot in there so we got out as soon as possible and went to Dairy Queen. Delish.

- I found 6 bucks in my coat pocket, which was seriously like the coolest thing ever.

-Went to astronomy lab. My teacher said I was funny, which is good. I didn't do so well on my moon journal this week (because it's so cloudy...and a new moon...sooo....) so I didn't necessarily score lots of points on that, but I turned in my 12-Hr moon watch info, and he said it was "beautiful". Hopefully all the other A's will even out my moon journal failure for the week.

-Watched Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmere's with Eric

THENNNN today:
-Woke up and totally pwned the crud out of my Education in Society test. Suhhweetttt.

-Got a letter from Eric :D

-Called Eric on the phone. I woke him up. After talking for a few minutes, he suggested it was time to take a nap. Lazy :P I did try to sleep for a little bit, but then I got bored and watched some good ol' television.

-Went to the dark room and developed an AWESOME photo. So much fun, I will definitely go again. This is the awesome picture of the moon I developed all by myself!

 I included my feet and the textbook in this picture so you can see how big the moon photo is. I will definitely go again!

-Went to English class where I wrote a letter to Eric. We were learning about paragraphing, which after peer reviewing some kids essay, I decided it was a necessary lesson for them, but I kiiinndaa know that paragraphs have to have one (and only one) point. The great thing is, because that class is so miserably long, I had pllleeennnttttyyyyy of time to pay attention to the other bazillion power point slides.

-For my english class I am preparing a exploratory paper towards the media's use of rhetoric to create bias. After a few recommendations from my daddy, I decided to hit up the library. There are soooooo many books that I found that talk about media bias. I decided I would just look at the first 6 on my list, and choose which ones fit best. I wasn't sure how many books I could check out at one time, so I didn't want to get every single book I had listed. I had only been on the research and study floor, so I was soooo excited to see what the actually library floor was. I walked through the door and seriously, had the most nerdy, magical experience ever. There are huge picture windows everywhere, different types of study tables. They have rooms that you can actually reserve if you want private study time, or you can sit in the main part of the library. They have little places on each aisle to put books you took off the shelf, and the whole place is just silent. I can't wait to go again tomorrow to get more books :P

(And, not to mention. The school has this reeeaaallyyyy cool automated self check-out that even prints you a receipt to tell you when each book is due!)

-After my amazing library experience, I set up a meeting with the Education advisor to talk about my minor. I have a few questions about endorsements vs. certification. I also added Psychology, Political Science, and Sociology to my list of potential minors. My goal is to have another subject to teach. I am a little worried that I wouldn't be good enough at something to teach it, but Eric always assures me that I can do anything, I just should choose what I like. Thanks for the support, E (:

-The rest of the day was puuuree fun. My two roomies and I went to wingers and had the beeessttt food ever, and then we went to Walmart. SOOO much fun.

As you can see, we found particular entertainment in the Halloween costume aisle. We are planning on renting some movies, carving pumpkins, and having some buddies over. We want to decorate our little home soon. Hopefully I can convince the girls to dress up a little :)

My roommate just came to tell me that there was ice cream in the freezer. Yea. I live in Zion, baby.

Crafty Weekend: Mooning, Booties, and Treats :)

This weekend, I have mostly been glued to the wonderful (but long) LDS General Conference. For me, sitting down and devoting 8 hours to the tv sounded hard, just because I felt like it was a lot of time that I couldn't do anything else. Though I never was much of a busy-body at home, now that I don't have a job here at college, I find I have tons of energy to expend. So here is what I have been up to :)

For astronomy, I had to finalize my sketches of the moon I did a few weeks ago. At home, acrylic paint and paint brushes are easily found, so it took me back a little when I realized I had to go art-supply shopping! After working for quite a while, this is what I had!



Here is the basic background of the project. It has the mountainous horizonm, and then the sky. Because my project needs to display time, you can see the normal sky in the daylight on the left, slowly changing to night on the right. Fun!




During this picture I was still working on the sky. This is my cute little work area. My little set of acrylics and my make-shift paint palette. Now that I think about it, probably not the best idea to have my laptop and phone there next to all the paints. Crisis averted.





Here is the finished result. It's not 100% perfect, but I think that gives it charater. I had fun :)



This morning, I made cinammon rolls! I know that's not a great creative accomplishment because they were just from a tube, but you know what? It was fun. They taste delicious! The brand I got only has 140 calories a serving, so I didn't feel so bad when I had two for breakfast :P Making cinnamon rolls for conference was a tradition growing up, and it has remained one of my favorites! I wasn't brave enough to wake up early and make the recipie my mom uses, but maybe by the time the next conference rolls around I will have tried it by then and I can make them.

While I was listening to conference today, I was crocheting. I picked up a huge thing of cheapo yarn and a cute little hook from Walmart yesterday, and I had been playing around with it. I got to thinking that I actually wanted to do something cool with it, and here is what I did.

I was looking online at charities for crocheted or knitted items, and I one of these things caught my eye: Baby booties! There are several charities that collect baby hats, jackets, or baby booties to give to mothers who cannot afford it, premature babies who have to stay in the hospital, or babies who get sick and also have to stay in the hospital. The thought of a little baby having little ice-cube feet made me so sad, so I decided I would take on the project and make a couple pairs to send to a local charity.

My one problem was, I really don't know how to crochet. I had never learned much as a kid, only enough to make little squares for my barbies that had holes big enough for them to fit their heads through. So I decided, I just needed an easy little step by step pattern

I found this website http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/bevsbooties2.html for these ADORABLE baby booties!

The only problem was, even though the steps were so basic, I didn't know ANY of the stitches. So, I went to youtube and found Teresa's Step By Step, How To crocheting videos! They helped SOOO much. I now know so many more stitches and making the baby booties was fun, not frustrating.

Here was the beginnings of my first booty. The stitches you use make it curl like that so it actually WANTS to be shoe-shaped

Here I was stitching up the first booty. It's pretty skiwampus, but it was a great start



Here is Booty #1 Completed




Here is the very top of the booty that goes around the ankle. I learned to do a little ruffle to put at the top. It says that the ruffles are only for girl babies, but I think a manly baby would appreciate them too. Can't imagine donating the booties without this cute little ruffle!




This is booty #2. It is a lot tighter looking than the first. I think that comes with practice. I folded over the stitching for the picture so you could tell what it was. In this picture, I still had a row to do of the ankle, the ruffles, and I still had to stitch it closed.




Here is the final product!

 Booty #1 (on the left) looks weird. You can see from the photo that the ankle size is much too large and the booty is kinda twisted. I am not sure how that happened, but it must have been a mistake because my second booty (on the right) looks very nice. I will definitely redo booty-#1 before I donate, I just wanted to show my progess! I am thinking I will add little bows like the website pic shows, but I would rather do that with ribbon, rather than yarn that will fray.

I think crocheting could become a nice hobby for me. I am never patient enough to work hard on something that is mine, but I would love to be able to give crocheted gifts or donations.

I am thinking I will make a little somethin'-somethin' out of my cookbook tonight. I made cookies from Nestle Dough a few days ago, but I really want to actually make something! Here I go!