Friday, November 23, 2012
Cute and a Little Sick...Wish I'd Thought of it First...
Living in a place that has a.) many more people and b.) viable public transit means I've seen a lot of stupid stuff recently. This video was made by the Melbourne Metro to promote train safety. It's adorable and completely sick. I love it! And it's catchy. Enjoy!
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Ziggety Zaggedy Splitch Sploch
So now that I live in a new place with new people all my quirks are new and fascinating again! Yay! I'm hip!
One of my quirks that people are coming to learn is my inability (some might say refusal) to follow recipes. Frequent readers will know that, for me, bucking recipe suggestions is a moral obligation I have to my pioneer roots. My most recent creation: pink lemonade frosting.
This week was my turn to make community dinner. One baked potato bar later we were still short a dessert. What to make, what to make....funfetti cookies!! You know what's even more fun than funfetti? Funfetti with frosting. You know what's even more fun than funfetti with frosting? Funfetti with pink lemonade frosting!
Recipe:
1 box Betty Crocker funfetti cookie mix, prepared per box instructions
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons milk
pink lemonade Crystal Light drink mix, to taste
Once your cookies have cooled, mix your powdered sugar with your milk until you get a mid-weight, glaze consistency frosting. Add the drink mix to your desired lemoney-ness. A little goes a looooong way.
For extra cool points, you can go all Jackson Pollock on the cookies. I made a batch of lemon frosting and a batch of plain (mostly because the lemon batch was...overpowering) and ziggety zaggedy splitch sploched all over my funfetti cookies. They were beautiful AND tasty. And also, apparently, impressive.
I have no pictures of my cookies, but, as promised, I do have pictures of two of my favorite people:
One of my quirks that people are coming to learn is my inability (some might say refusal) to follow recipes. Frequent readers will know that, for me, bucking recipe suggestions is a moral obligation I have to my pioneer roots. My most recent creation: pink lemonade frosting.
This week was my turn to make community dinner. One baked potato bar later we were still short a dessert. What to make, what to make....funfetti cookies!! You know what's even more fun than funfetti? Funfetti with frosting. You know what's even more fun than funfetti with frosting? Funfetti with pink lemonade frosting!
Recipe:
1 box Betty Crocker funfetti cookie mix, prepared per box instructions
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons milk
pink lemonade Crystal Light drink mix, to taste
Once your cookies have cooled, mix your powdered sugar with your milk until you get a mid-weight, glaze consistency frosting. Add the drink mix to your desired lemoney-ness. A little goes a looooong way.
For extra cool points, you can go all Jackson Pollock on the cookies. I made a batch of lemon frosting and a batch of plain (mostly because the lemon batch was...overpowering) and ziggety zaggedy splitch sploched all over my funfetti cookies. They were beautiful AND tasty. And also, apparently, impressive.
I have no pictures of my cookies, but, as promised, I do have pictures of two of my favorite people:
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| The Eclectic Earth Mama and the Urban Ballerina. |
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Fickle Weather
Also, here's a couple of pictures of yesterday:
And here's today:
What? Where did fall go? And what's nor'easter?
 |
| The College of Arts and Sciences (the mirror image of the School of Theology) and the walkway that leads to Marsh Chapel. |
 |
| Some lovely fall color. The Charles River is behind me. |
And here's today:
 |
| Snow on Bay State Road. Notice the slushy walkway. |
Wednesday Wonderland
So. It's snowing. I can't remember the last time we got snow in early November in Missouri. Oh, Boston... Guess it's time to order my winter boots. Seems I've put it off one day too many. The good news is it doesn't seem to be sticking too badly.
As I write this I'm sitting in the living room drinking a cup of hot tea (Earl Gray Creme) and listening to Ben (one of the most adorable people in the world) play Christmas songs on the piano. It's pretty much the ending to a perfect day.
Wednesdays are my loooooong days. This was my day today:
8:00 -- Wake up. Sometimes I have an awkward breakfast to attend, but today I got to sleep in! Plus Sam gave me a mozzarella and pesto sandwich which made an excellent breakfast.
9:00-10:00 -- Discussion group for Hebrew Bible. The TA didn't show up today so we played Hangman and Mafia -- yes, those are totally appropriate games for seminarians. The word for the last round of Hangman was "tardy" which we then took a picture of and emailed to our TA... I'm 99% sure he'll find that funny.
10:00-11:00 -- Discussion group for Reading the World (Christian History with a smattering of sociology). The TA brought "election twizzlers". No idea what that meant exactly, but I had a couple and I don't feel any different, so I don't think they were tainted. I also opened the class by listening to this song. It's been stuck in my head for two weeks...
10:30-11:00 -- Seminary Singers rehearsal. What? It overlaps another event on my calendar? Yep. This is the part of the rehearsal where we find out the logistics of the service (where we sit and when sing and how we get to the alter and stuff). I always miss it. It never seems to matter.
11:00-12:00 -- Chapel service. I sing and crap.
12:00-1:00 -- Community lunch. Today we had vegetable lasagna -- it was full of squash and mushrooms and it was delicious!
1:00-3:30 -- Practices of Faith. Normally this is a real drag, but today was probably the best one ever. One of the deans is one of the professors and she got up to talk about the practices of peace making and justice. Normally this is not something that would be super exciting to me, but it was nice to have someone get up and talk about something they're excited about AND to have some debate about the theology behind the ideas AND to have the permission to argue with an evangelical Christian viewpoint. And a heart. PLUS, one of the points she made about the origins of peace making and justice was the exact same point I made in the midterm paper I had to turn in on Monday. It was nice to have someone with the appropriate credentials affirm that point.
3:30-5:00 -- Practices of Faith (PoF) discussion. It's the touchy-feelyist thing ever; don't even get me started. Today was a continued discussion of the point made in class and in my paper. Plus it was professor-led today instead of being TA led, which was nice. I really like my TA for this class, but it's good to get a perspective from the person who's actually giving you grades.
5:00-6:30 -- Seminar on clergy finance. It was a general waste of time, but there were some interesting articles I can look up later that might be helpful.
6:30-7:30 -- Wesleyan Students Association meeting. I treasured.
And then I came home. In the snow.
The other neat thing that happened to me today is that in the hallway outside my PoF discussion group there was a box that said "free books" and guess what it was full of ...OLD HYMNALS!!!! I brought home 17 of them. I'm not even exaggerating.
The remainder of the evening will be spent reading for classes tomorrow. I was supposed to have a paper due a week from today, but it's been pushed back so I have a little room to read/breathe. I think we're going to stand in line for a pre-screening of the latest James Bond tomorrow afternoon/evening. I'm pretty excited. It looks like it's going to be fantastic!
Oh, also, I've been working 20ish hours a week doing accounting/administrative stuff on the medical campus. I haven't felt like I've been contributing much, but I got copied on an email from my boss thanking me for helping them get caught up and for the quality of work I've been doing. It made me feel good.
And Haley and Sarah have decided that my personal style is Prairie Chic (actually, Haley suggested it was Casual Egyptian...what.). Haley is Eclectic Earth Mama and Sarah is Urban Ballerina. I swear some day I'll have pictures of these people.
Yay Boston.
Wednesdays are my loooooong days. This was my day today:
8:00 -- Wake up. Sometimes I have an awkward breakfast to attend, but today I got to sleep in! Plus Sam gave me a mozzarella and pesto sandwich which made an excellent breakfast.
9:00-10:00 -- Discussion group for Hebrew Bible. The TA didn't show up today so we played Hangman and Mafia -- yes, those are totally appropriate games for seminarians. The word for the last round of Hangman was "tardy" which we then took a picture of and emailed to our TA... I'm 99% sure he'll find that funny.
10:00-11:00 -- Discussion group for Reading the World (Christian History with a smattering of sociology). The TA brought "election twizzlers". No idea what that meant exactly, but I had a couple and I don't feel any different, so I don't think they were tainted. I also opened the class by listening to this song. It's been stuck in my head for two weeks...
10:30-11:00 -- Seminary Singers rehearsal. What? It overlaps another event on my calendar? Yep. This is the part of the rehearsal where we find out the logistics of the service (where we sit and when sing and how we get to the alter and stuff). I always miss it. It never seems to matter.
11:00-12:00 -- Chapel service. I sing and crap.
12:00-1:00 -- Community lunch. Today we had vegetable lasagna -- it was full of squash and mushrooms and it was delicious!
1:00-3:30 -- Practices of Faith. Normally this is a real drag, but today was probably the best one ever. One of the deans is one of the professors and she got up to talk about the practices of peace making and justice. Normally this is not something that would be super exciting to me, but it was nice to have someone get up and talk about something they're excited about AND to have some debate about the theology behind the ideas AND to have the permission to argue with an evangelical Christian viewpoint. And a heart. PLUS, one of the points she made about the origins of peace making and justice was the exact same point I made in the midterm paper I had to turn in on Monday. It was nice to have someone with the appropriate credentials affirm that point.
3:30-5:00 -- Practices of Faith (PoF) discussion. It's the touchy-feelyist thing ever; don't even get me started. Today was a continued discussion of the point made in class and in my paper. Plus it was professor-led today instead of being TA led, which was nice. I really like my TA for this class, but it's good to get a perspective from the person who's actually giving you grades.
5:00-6:30 -- Seminar on clergy finance. It was a general waste of time, but there were some interesting articles I can look up later that might be helpful.
6:30-7:30 -- Wesleyan Students Association meeting. I treasured.
And then I came home. In the snow.
The other neat thing that happened to me today is that in the hallway outside my PoF discussion group there was a box that said "free books" and guess what it was full of ...OLD HYMNALS!!!! I brought home 17 of them. I'm not even exaggerating.
The remainder of the evening will be spent reading for classes tomorrow. I was supposed to have a paper due a week from today, but it's been pushed back so I have a little room to read/breathe. I think we're going to stand in line for a pre-screening of the latest James Bond tomorrow afternoon/evening. I'm pretty excited. It looks like it's going to be fantastic!
Oh, also, I've been working 20ish hours a week doing accounting/administrative stuff on the medical campus. I haven't felt like I've been contributing much, but I got copied on an email from my boss thanking me for helping them get caught up and for the quality of work I've been doing. It made me feel good.
And Haley and Sarah have decided that my personal style is Prairie Chic (actually, Haley suggested it was Casual Egyptian...what.). Haley is Eclectic Earth Mama and Sarah is Urban Ballerina. I swear some day I'll have pictures of these people.
Yay Boston.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Boston -- lots of people and little time to write
I look forward to the days when I'm not so emotional. Who knows when that will be. Sigh...
Between Dad's progress, school, and now work I feel like I get no rest. I'm basically not sleeping, and yet I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be.
Today (well, now yesterday) Dad went home after three awful months -- months I hope I never have to repeat. I am astute enough to realize that at some point I probably will have to relive them, either with my own family or another, but I hope it's a while yet. Dad still has a long way to go, and was never long on patience, but in the midst of his confusion and pain I hope he realizes what he needs to do. My recollection of him is that he was always good at prioritizing important tasks -- I hope that's still in him somewhere.
Today my Hebrew Bible teacher tearfully announced that her husband has bladder cancer and is having surgery pretty immediately. I wanted to hug all 80, bony pounds of her so badly. I cried on the shuttle all the way to work. Her lecture today was emotional, and afterward I wanted to tell her about what was going on in my life, and that God was still a god of miracles and love and comfort. I may still send her a note -- I don't know if that's creepy and weird.
Tonight I went out with some friends and had a wonderful time. I'm fairly certain that my worries of finding friends were misguided, nevertheless they were real at the time. I hope I get to introduce them to people at home at some point -- I'm not one who likes to live with separate but equal friend groups. I think MLK Jr. would be okay with that, but I have yet to get into his papers to research it.
I really need to sleep, after all, tomorrow (well, today really) is another day, and I have to be at work at 8:30am. Yay...
To all of you who I don't get to talk to frequently, which is most of you, know that I love and miss you. I hope your lives are as blessed as mine has been of late!
Between Dad's progress, school, and now work I feel like I get no rest. I'm basically not sleeping, and yet I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be.
Today (well, now yesterday) Dad went home after three awful months -- months I hope I never have to repeat. I am astute enough to realize that at some point I probably will have to relive them, either with my own family or another, but I hope it's a while yet. Dad still has a long way to go, and was never long on patience, but in the midst of his confusion and pain I hope he realizes what he needs to do. My recollection of him is that he was always good at prioritizing important tasks -- I hope that's still in him somewhere.
Today my Hebrew Bible teacher tearfully announced that her husband has bladder cancer and is having surgery pretty immediately. I wanted to hug all 80, bony pounds of her so badly. I cried on the shuttle all the way to work. Her lecture today was emotional, and afterward I wanted to tell her about what was going on in my life, and that God was still a god of miracles and love and comfort. I may still send her a note -- I don't know if that's creepy and weird.
Tonight I went out with some friends and had a wonderful time. I'm fairly certain that my worries of finding friends were misguided, nevertheless they were real at the time. I hope I get to introduce them to people at home at some point -- I'm not one who likes to live with separate but equal friend groups. I think MLK Jr. would be okay with that, but I have yet to get into his papers to research it.
I really need to sleep, after all, tomorrow (well, today really) is another day, and I have to be at work at 8:30am. Yay...
To all of you who I don't get to talk to frequently, which is most of you, know that I love and miss you. I hope your lives are as blessed as mine has been of late!
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