applesauce!

Today felt like an applesauce day. I didn't have much but I made it work. Here is how I made mine:

• 2 apples cored, medium diced, peeling optional (I like the peel, what can I say?)
• 2 heaping tablespoons sugar, to taste
• splash of vanilla extract (not essential but it makes your house smell amazing)
• a couple shakes of cinnamon, also to taste

Place diced apples into a medium saucepan, fill with water just enough to cover (apples tend to float so if it's a little less than covered, that is just fine). Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 10 minutes. Mash apples with plastic spoon. Add sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Simmer until desired consistency. If it's still a little watery, it should evaporate off as it cools.

You can also easily double, triple or quadruple this recipe to suit your needs.

bad drawings

Ahhh I bet you really wanted to see another bad drawing. This one I actually made using instructions my friend Sara gave me. I think it turned out ok. I had it just on a white background and it looked weird. He's not in prison, btw. I still need to learn how to draw. I want to find out if there is a way to color things on the computer and made it look like water color. Tutorial-hunting I go.

randomness

I am in the middle of a transition right now so I haven't been documenting anything, really. It will get better though!

my constant

This is Desmond. He is naked.

the cake is a liar

Today I experimented with cake and I would have to say it was a rousing success. I used a basic cake recipe and added cinnamon and one diced apple. The icing is just a basic glaze made with heavy cream instead of milk.

twenty years of sleep...

In the evenings, the sun glows through my front window, and the old glass leaves a wavy pattern on the walls. The lantern-like thing is my fishbowl. It was empty at the time I took this. It is now occupied by Desmond. A picture of him will make it on here eventually.

Sometimes things happen that words cannot console.

thirty-two softly focused brightly colored eyes

Sometimes at night I get really restless. I took these around 10 p.m. Central time.

Tweetle Beetles

Last night, the English department from my alma mater put on a night of Dr. Suess readings at a local cafe. I got there as Prof Johnson was reading the Cat in the Hat, complete with Dr. Belcher as Thing 1! It was so cute and fun.



One of the guys I live with, who is also a professor, read Fox in Socks. He was completely amazing. Of course. It was fun feeling apart of that community again but in the end, it was also nice being able to go home, away from it all.

come summer, my brother

Yesterday was my birthday and I was pretty much running around all day and had little time to just relax. So today I decided to do some relaxing and after a little grocery shopping I finally got around to getting some mail into order. One is a package for my friend in Japan, another is a Halloween card to my grandparents, and the other three are postcards for people on PostCrossing. It's been a while since I've sent/received any postcards so I figured now is as good a time as ever to start back up!

bad drawings 3

This is an x-treme close-up of something I've been working on. I'm trying to design stuff that's good enough to make prints and postcards etc of so I can possibly sell them and my goal is to be able to donate most, if not all of, the profit to charity. I am not totally disillusioned and I can definitely tell this stuff needs work. Also, like I said, it's an extreme close up so most of the imperfections won't even matter or be noticeable.

Halloween at the Grahams

Oh man it took me forever to get these uploaded. I really need to get internet of my own. I'm gonna head back to my place for dinner, but if you are interested, you can click the photo above to see some more!

the sounds of short A

I definitely owe an explanation for my lack of updates. I very recently moved into the downstairs apartment of some friend's house in Bradley. It is weird being back in Kankakee county, and I hope some good comes from it. I am gonna keep this brief, but here are some photos of where I am living.

The view from the front door into the dining room.

If you keep going through the doorway on the right, you enter the kitchen (view from backdoor).

If you make a hard left from the front door, you reach the living room with the lovely grandma couch.

A few things have changed since I took these photos but I really did not feel like taking new ones. Maybe later sometime. That's all for now =D

bad drawing 2

This is one of the first bad drawings I did. It was when I was first playing around with cartoon faces and couldn't decide what kind of nose I liked. I don't like this nose.

This is somewhat inspired from some old roommates I had who worked at a coffee shop. It was mostly born of scribbling and trying to make things look not so wonky. Didn't work. Haha.

"The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream."

This is just something I've been playing with lately. I was introduced to textures by my friend Christine and now I am hooked on them.

It's been a pretty lazy Labor Day weekend so far. I am just so thankful for the rest and the break from work!

it looks like the tide is going home

Yesterday we went down to Chicago to help my cousin move into the University Center. Her room is huge and the view is just priceless. I hadn't seen my cousin or aunt in probably 8 years so It was interesting to see how we got along. It went pretty well, I'd say. Hopefully we can spend more time with her and help her feel at home here in Illinois.

We ate at the Berghoff which was pretty good. Afterwards we parted ways. We were all really hot and tired.

cupcake

A little something I've been working on. I bought the pattern from Etsy, my most favorite online consignment shop. My first attempt ended up looking like a weird pink acorn but I figured out what I needed to do and the second one worked much better. I plan on making one for pretty much everyone I know ♥.

bird finds 3

Last but not least is this fantastic amber colored glass owl pitcher I found at the Lake County antiques and collectables fair a few months ago. I haven't really had a use for it yet but I certainly hope to find one soon.

Hopefully I can find things to post about on a more regular basis now. The dark shadow of work is slowly lifting. I can see the horizon and the end will soon be here. It's not the job I dislike, but the being tired all the time.

bird finds 2

Hooray second day of birds! Normally I wouldn't buy a decorative plate, but the rummage sale (different from the one I got the box from yesterday) had a $5 bag deal so I figured grabbing it couldn't hurt. Church rummage sales are the best.

Well this is a short one. Perhaps more tomorrow.

bird finds 1

I'll be bringing you posts 3 days in a row! Amazing, I know. I've been meaning to post these for a while and i thought I could just post all three in one go, but this is more fun. =D This is the back of an old box I found at a rummage sale a couple months ago. I'm pretty sure someone cut out these wonderful bird drawings and pasted them on the box and I think it's great. I wish I knew what kind of person made and used this box. I can tell the box was well loved during it's lifetime and I'm happy to give it a new home.

Because I'm insane.

I got a MacBook Pro! I have always wanted a laptop and I am finally able to afford one. I am in love.

I do a weird thing though. It took me a long time to finally decide to buy it. Many people would think the reason is because I wasn't prepared to make such a large purchase, but my thinking is much more unsound. It's because I was emotionally attached to my MacMini. I don't want to give it up because it has been with me for so long and I'm afraid of hurting it's feelings. I realize how silly my logic is, but I still can't seem to just let it go. I know I could donate it or sell it but I feel like I have to hold onto it.

Image from www.macosx.com

i really need to get better about posting. geezy petes.

I went to The Taste on Saturday with my family and boy was it insane. For those who don't live in Chicago or have never been: imagine a sea. A sea of sweaty disgusting people all eating and breathing and rubbing up against you with food in their mouths. But it can also be really fun and it's a good opportunity to try something new. My knockout favorite of the day was the cochinita pibil tacos from the Adobo Grill.

One major disappointment was a gelato stand that kept running out of cups. We seriously went there like 3 times and every time we got to the front of the line they ran out. It was getting to the point where we were all thoroughly tired and sweaty so I settled on a frozen chocolate dipped banana and everyone else got cheesecake. I ended up enjoying the banana more than I expected. It was almost creamy like ice cream and the chocolate was pliable enough that it stayed on for the duration of the eating without cracking off.

bad drawings #1

I have decided to add a new category to this blog, and that is bad drawings. I like to draw but I'm not very good at it. So here it is.

This is John, the maintenance manager where I work. For the first 6 weeks or so, he really intimidated me and I stayed away from him as much as possible. I finally came to realize that he's actually a big live cartoon character. He always wears red suspenders and his glasses at the end of his nose. It gives me a good chuckle everyday.

Never gonna give you up

Oh my gosh I feel like I never have time to do anything anymore. I went to a wedding a couple weeks ago. It was for the sister of two of my former roommates. I wanted to bring my camera and practice taking the photojournalism-style photos to see if I liked doing that but about a half hour into my drive I realized not only that I'd forgotten it, but if I went back to get it I would have lost an hour and been just on time for it. But I guess it worked out in the end. I adopted Jen's camera for the day and got to take a lot of photos anyhow. It was a good wedding and we got pretty crazy at the reception.

I do ♥ the Grahams.

Both photos ganked from two different facebook albums.

spoonful of honey

A few months ago, I joined Post Crossing and have received some interesting and entertaining postcards from around the world. The one pictured is probably the best one I've gotten so far. It is from Finland and came in a cute envelope (with an equally adorable stamp), a lovely art card given to her by the artist, and most excitingly, a sample of her favorite tea! I've never had Russian Earl Grey so I'm pretty excited. She suggested drinking it with a spoonful of honey. I think that is how I will enjoy it. =D

it was all yellow

Ok, I don't know what the deal with color-themed posts is but I am kind of enjoying it.
This is something I did a while ago and mentioned in my private blog. I wanted to get a better photo of it and post it here...so I did! I had an old Snow White poster that I wanted to keep but didn't particularly want the giant, somewhat stained and discolored thing up on my wall. So instead I got 4 cheapy clip frames from Hobby Lobby and cut out 4 abstract vignettes from the poster. It's a nice solution for something that I wanted to keep but was too gargantuan to have in its original state.

And what, you ask, do these leetle yellow flags indicate? Why, it marks the officious beginning of our street construction, that's what! For everyone who has ever been to my house, you will understand and appreciate just how exciting this event is. Our road is down to the DIRT in some spots and is impossible to drive down without something falling off of your car. After YEARS of being told our neighborhood was next, the time has finally arrived. OK, I know it's not something I've done but bear with me, this is exciting stuff.

orange you glad

Part of a lunch I packed earlier this week. I got a fun lunchbox with different compartments. Kind of like a bento box? I wish. Along with my soba and sauce I packed some kumquats, little carrots, and a mini Babybel cheese wheel. Cheddar, of course.

not really a huge fan of the butterflies, but i can forgive it this time

After I had my Intuos for a couple weeks I realized that having it sit in the open on my desk would greatly encourage dust and other yuckies to form on top of it or in the cracks. I knew I could buy a case for $20 but what fun is that?

I am definitely not a seamstress by any means and my measuring was a bit off. But I used some buttons that were lying around and made loops to fasten it down when I'm not using the tablet. Other than it being too short, I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

The bottom has a cardboard base which is lined with batting as well as the top flap. My original plan involved a zipper, handles, and having the buttons on the inside to secure it open, but plans change and this works just fine for me.

Dutchman's Trousers

I suck so bad at updating this. Since starting the new job I've been on a way different schedule that I've ever been on before. I'm having a hard time balancing everything I did when I was unemployed while getting enough rest to make it through the day. Unfortunately some things have had to take a back seat. I probably didn't start this blog at a very good time in my life, but to be honest, I had no expectation of having a job any time soon.

Onto the things!! One thing I like to do is just happen upon a situation to photograph and immediately be able to run out the door and shoot it. Yesterday evening was one such occasion. I love photographing flowers and we've had these bleeding hearts I've been trying to capture for a long time. But it was never quite right. Until sunset.



On a completely different note, I've been totally digging Pandora at the office. I tried regular streaming radio (9FM) but it seriously got on my nerves after a while. I highly recommend Pandora, though. I have already written down close to 15 bands that I did not know about and fell in love with from this week alone!

OK that is enough for now, Blogosphere. Be expecting photos of projects and yumminess from this past week over the next few days!

sing as loud as you do

This weekend was just nuts. Thursday I drove down to Bourbonnais for Abby's art show. It was so good and fun to be at an art show again. It is the thing I really miss a lot from Olivet. I saw lots of old classmates and professors and not to mention, Abby's awesome art of life.

Saturday was Melissa's amazing wedding shower. It was seriously so pretty. Jen and Jess did amazingly. I ate way too much candy and everyone got chocolate all over everything.

I woke up early this morning in Bonfield and went outside to take some photos of the country. The light was fantastic but I almost got locked out of the house. I was lucky Iris spotted me at the end of the porch before locking the door.

Tomorrow I start a new job. I'm nervous but it'll be a good experience.

woops

I know it's been a few days. It's just I've decided that this is going to be a photo blog and if I don't have any photos I haven't got anything to post. Over the weekend my parents and I went to Jamaica Gardens to look for plants. They didn't have huge selection of anything yet but I still love walking around a nursery.

Making sun tea today. It's a good day for it. And I've been meaning to do so for a few weeks. I'm a little worried about the spigot on that jar though, it seems a bit leaky. Ah well. We'll see when I bring it in.