The Recipe Book

The Recipe Book is a great little invention. I didn't invent it. It may have been the magazine Real Simple or my wise friend Joy Stahley, both of whom are cool. But the concept is simple, and you, too, could have your own recipe book. All you need is a 3-ring binder, some plastic pages and dividers, and a little creativity.

Take all of your recipes from your recipe box. If you're me, that means there are about 20 cards, and you've only used about 5 of them. Then, sort through ALL of your magazines (if you're me, that's 4 years worth) and cut out all of the recipes you've tried or you want to try. Sort the recipes into categories. I chose: Main Course, Sides, Desserts, Appetizer/Party, and Misc, but if you're a major cooker (get it, Lara?), you may want a lot more categories than that. Then, you put the recipes onto colored paper and slip the paper into the plastic pages. If you have recipe cards that are written on the front and back, skip the colored paper and slip them directly into a plastic page with several other front/back cards (in the same category, of course) and if you place them just so (I recommend taping them so they don't slip), you can see both sides of the card (because the plastic is clear, silly).

Then, put all the pages in the binder after the appropriate divider. As the finishing touch, make a cute cover page for the front of the binder. You scrapbookers could go wild on this project!

My advice would be to get a binder with pockets and dividers with pockets, too. Then you can slip recipes in the pockets when you get them but just assemble pages when you have time. And Real Simple recommends doing something with colored dots, but I didn't understand and I am not THAT organized.

That was my Sunday project as I watched a MST3K DVD I got for Christmas. Yay for me getting rid of clutter and getting organized.

Happy Birthday!

HAPPY 26TH BIRTHDAY, MARK! Hope you're partying it up with your friends in Omaha!

baby steps

Today I started getting my resume ready to apply for jobs! Yay! It's just a start but something's better than nothing, right?

wipe out

So, I got sick. Yeah, the scratchy throat from Sunday night has turned into a serious hit of the influenza (or a cold and I'm just a wimp). Yeah, I felt like I got hit by a truck on Monday, yesterday I felt a bit better, and today I have just been wiped again. Mostly I cannot stop feeling like I need to sneeze and I have so much crap in me. Yuck! So much for a productive break, eh? I guess it comes at a good time--I don't really have anything I HAVE to do. So, yeah, I'm devoting the next few days to resting and getting rid of this gross bug. And, really, in the grand scheme of things, really not a big deal....just an inconvenience.

Resolutions 2

Well, I thought I should share how I am doing with my New Year's Resolutions. It's going okay, but I'm not perfect. My "organize my life and get rid of clutter" plan is going pretty well. I spent the weekend clearing out my old magazines (4 years worth...that feels good!) and hope to do some more purging of items in my living room during our break this week. I'm taking it one room at a time, with the worst room (my back bedroom) being the last room I'll tackle. The kitchen is going to be a bear, too.

Um, the e-mail clearing and washing dishes regularly resolution is going well, too. I just cleared out a bunch of old e-mails and I'm going to clear my kitchen sink after I post this.

As for the resolve to learn to cook, well, that is not going as well. I haven't even taken my pots and pans out of their boxes yet. However, this week is our Jan term break and I'll be eating in my apartment for 5 or 6 days so I am sure I'll cook lots. I even have a bunch of recipes to try that I tore out of my magazines!

Now I am going to bed because I have a scratchy throat and am appartently getting a cold that will hopefully be just a cold and nothing more. :)

TGIF

Today was such a good day. It felt like spring here. It wasn't overly warm, but the sun was out, and we usually don't see the sun until April, so it was such a great day and didn't feel like January.

Tonight, I went Cosmic bowling with my friends Lesley-Anne, Jon, Kelli, and Tim. I got my first Turkey. I rarely get a strike, let alone three in a row, so that was exciting! Tim still beat me, but who cares! We went to Applebee's afterwards and it was a good time to laugh and relax. Then I stopped by the lounge on my way in to my apartment and ended up spending the last 2 hours there chatting with students. A large group of guys were playing Capture the Flag and the lounge was "jail" so a few of us were chatting with the guys who were in jail as they served their time. :)

Now I'm going to go to bed. I have a lot of cleaning to do this weekend and I need to start putting together my resume, too, so I better get some rest!

Happy weekend to all of you who are reading this!

Ice Day!

Whitworth cancelled day classes tomorrow for an Ice Day! How crazy. I guess they decided to cancel the classes because the roads and sidewalks are so icy. I'm not quite sure what the deal is here, but they tend to do no shoveling or plowing until after everything is packed down and it seems like a lot more work to clear the pathways. Driving from the freeway to Whitworth was really no big deal tonight, but walking from my car to my building was treacherous. Seriously...like 4" thick ice on the parking lot, with spots of water, all making it into a dangerous skating rink. Not good.

So, anyway, we get an ice day.

But I have a few meetings that I will still have because I do them in the building I live in and it's kind of pointless to cancel. So I get 1/2 an Ice Day--until 1pm.

I hope the ice melts soon--I hate walking/skating around in the winter!

So Much Better!

So, the last time I posted here, my life was pretty overwhelming. I have just returned from a weekend away to visit my friend Brad, which was EXACTLY what I needed (doctors should prescribe weekends away instead of pills). I am rested and have gotten some space between me and the stuff that was weighing on me last week.

The drive back was a little scary. About 3 hours from Spokane, I ran into an area of freezing rain and drove past a jack-knifed semi, which was pretty scary. Then about 1 hour from home I pulled over at an exit to clear ice from my wipers so I could actually see where I was going. Good thing I did (yay, God!) because when I stopped I realized the area was covered in black ice. So I started back up slowly and crept along as I approached some flashing lights where there were about 10 cars in the ditch, some of which had recently passed me. Had I not stopped, I think I could have been one of them because I would've been going a lot faster. :(

So, here are the great things I did during my weekend away:
*sleep until my body was ready to wake up
*have good conversation with Brad
*watch 2 lame movies and 2 good ones (I recommend Rabbit Proof Fence for a rental and Finding Neverland which is in theaters right now)
*sip coffee in front of the fireplace each morning
*explore downtown Bend (yay for the record store and the antique shop)
*shop at the Old Mill district (yay for Bath and Body Works sales!)
*see the college where Brad works (the cement walls and purple paint make it look like the USF residence halls!)
*watch the Golden Globes
*read some Harry Potter

And now I am trying to make the most of my final moments of the weekend.

looking ahead

This has been a rough week. Very emotionally draining. Work stuff is hard right now. It is a tough way to be affirmed that leaving Residence Life is the exact thing I need to do with my life, but I know from this week that I no longer want to be in this specific field in Student Life. Sorry to sound sad...it's just been a long night and I'm anticipating a long day tomorrow with potential negative parent interaction which is one of the worst things you can deal with as an RD.

On a lighter note (and thus the purpose of the title), it looks like I will hopefully be traveling to Bend, OR, this weekend to see Brad. Based on this week, the work I haven't gotten done, and the amount of snow we got last week, I am still saying "hopefully traveling". I need to get away, so I am hopeful. If I make it, I look forward to good sleep, quality conversation, shopping, knitting, coffee, and the Golden Globes, all the while making it "birthday weekend" for Brad one weekend early.

thoughts from the weekend

I woke up this morning and in my head I said "It has GOT to stop snowing" the way Mrs. Peacock says "People have got to stop coming here" in Clue: The Movie. We have gotten about a foot of snow, most of which came Friday-Saturday. I had to shovel my car off yesterday there was so much of it. Thanks, Dad, for the collapsable shovel for my trunk! :) This is the kind of weather that makes me want to be cozy but I have had a pretty busy weekend and have had to be out-and-about in it. But I haven't been grumpy about it because I know there are good things about snow even if it slows us down a bit.

OK, enough complaining. I watched an AMAZING movie last night. I know, it's SO 1997, but if you haven't yet seen Life is Beautiful, you MUST. I can't stop thinking about it. It's a combo of a love story and a story of a family trying to survive the Jewish holocaust. It's a powerful portrayal of a father-son relationship and hope. WATCH IT.

The Snowy Day

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is my favorite childrens book. In it, Peter goes outside and explores the freshly fallen snow. He makes snow angels, listens to the crunching of the snow beneath his feet, and makes fun patterns with his footprints. It is written about days like the one we've been having in Spokane today. The snow started falling during my 1:45-2:45 one-on-one and it has been falling ever since. It's quite peaceful. I even drove around in it and the roads weren't TOO bad. Now, don't mistake me for someone who loves snow. I don't. BUT I can at least appreciate it as a gift from God today as it falls--it is bringing me peace and calm. And it will be great to watch it fall as I go to sleep. I think I will work on finding joy in this snowstorm like Peter does in the book...I'll savor the crunch of the snow and make patterns with my footprints. :)

New Year's Resolutions

I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions but this year begins a new tradition of setting them with others and making change. Here are my two resolutions which are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and time-sensitive):

1. Get rid of clutter in my life by:
a) filing my RD paperwork at least once a week and keeping it organized
b) washing dishes within 2 days of dirtying them (though I'm trying to wash them every night and succeeding thus far!)
c) sorting through everything I own in Clean Sweep fashion and throwing and donating things I don't absolutely need
d) keeping my inbox clear by sorting through it weekly and deleting and filing messages.

2. Learn to cook by cooking something fabulous once a week.

New Year's

Highlights of the trip to Vancouver, WA:
*great conversation with Sarah Larson for the entire 6 hour drive there.
*being with Bill and Joy, Brad, and Nicole
*seeing Bill and Joy's new house
*watching Napoleon Dynamite
*having our morning coffee and breakfast while we read the paper and ease in to the day (one of my favorite parts of these visits)
*going to 23rd in Portland to shop
*seeing Molly Roberts
*shopping at Buffalo Exchange and finding an actual, published thing called The Name Game
*going to Powell's (the largest bookstore you'll ever see)
*appetizers at Henry's while we talk about the things we love and the things we see each other loving
*dinner at Henry's with Chris and Jolyn Dalvig
*playing the Name Game
*coming up with a fourth round for the Name Game
*sleeping in
*morning coffee and breakfast #2
*setting new year's resolutions with Bill, Joy, Brad, and Nicole that we can hold each other accountable to
*good time with good friends

Lowlights:
*saying goodbye to good friends
*driving the last 2 hours on snowy roads with scared drivers.

Happy 2005 to everyone!