Halleloo!

Today has been a barrage of good news! Despite being hella busy with upcoming projects and due dates as well as feeling slightly under the weather, P called earlier today to tell me that she & M are applying for an apartment 3 blocks down the road!! It's a nice 2 bedroom with a view of the lake. Oh, and did I mention, it's 3 blocks down the road from me? While I don't want to jinx anything for them, I can't help hiding my excitement.

Oh, and while she was apartment hunting in my hood, she also happened to discover this hidden neighborhood supermarket I had heard of, but never found: Pete's Supermarket. So naturally, I went down there to check it out for myself and this place is awesome! It's cute; it's got a lot of basics, while still having a fair amount of the exotic, unique, fancy, and charm; there's over 175 selections of wine; and better yet, it's 3 blocks down the road! Anyone who knows me will tell you that my one complaint about my place was that there wasn't any nearby supermarkets (oh how naive I was). The reason why I couldn't find it was because it's listed as Pete's Wine Shop, even though the store front clearly says "Pete's Supermarket". Even google maps has it listed as such, so of course I would have never thought to check it out. But anyway, I'm just happy to have a supermarket to add to my list of other neighborhood dives that includes a coffee shop, a pub, a bread shop, restaurants, late-night snacking, video rental, mail office, nail salon, and yoga studio, whee!

The Whole Foods Experiment

Welcome to Carmel's kitchen, where I will shower you with love!

And hopefully good food as well. That is, with the Whole Foods app on the iPhone. Btw, have I mentioned how awesome this app is? Especially when you're someone like me who's still learning how to cook (I really much prefer baking...). Don't get me wrong--I can follow a recipe. As Julie Childs puts it, "anyone who can read can cook". And amen to that sista'!

But I don't possess the skills to peak into my fridge, gather whatever leftovers I have, and magically turn them into an amazing and healthy meal. Thankfully, Big C told me about this function that searches for recipes based on the ingredients you have on hand. So for tonight's dinner, I looked up "beef" and "escarole", and through the powers of the Whole Foods elves, I came up with Rustic Farro Soup with Sausage and Mushrooms. (Oh, and while making it, I was also having a little fun with Instagram, hehe)

I figured, this recipe would be delicious because, like all things delicious, it started with a mirepoix (pictured in Lord Kelvin):


But then half way through, I realized, I didn't have any Italian sausage thawed, so I had to compensate with a 1/2 lb of bacon instead (pictured in 1977):


But another 3/4's of the way through, I realized I also didn't have any mushrooms... or mushroom broth... or farro for that matter :/. So I had to settle with a beef both mixed with water and Calrose rice (plus red wine and diced tomotoes in juice). Once the Calrose was cooked, I added what I had left of my escarole (pictured in Nashville):


3 minutes later, a little sprinkling of thyme, some grated Parmesan cheese, and... voila! It came out a little thicker and more gumbo-like than I was expecting, but that was probably due to the Calrose :p. Still, I thought it tasted pretty good!

It's official...

I can't have children...

psych!

The 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week has been announced! And I never even knew there was a first one. I'm glad I stumbled upon Ravelry because I've been able to get more involved in my hobbies and meet others the world round who share this enthusiasm. And at the same time, groups like The Blog Hub keep me learning and motivated with cute, little fun activities like Blog Week. Despite my best efforts, I've been really bad about blogging. And I can't even use the excuse that school has been keeping me busy because the point of this blog was to document life down the grad school lane in the first place! It'll be nice to have a theme to help keep me blogging, even if just for that week.

Who's got 2 thumbs and is excited to blog about arts&crafts?

this girl!

Oh, the Oscars...

Really Oscars? The King's Speech? Now don't get me wrong, I loved this movie! I mean, how can I not when it's about my field? Well... sorta about my field seeing as we discover a twist in Geoffrey Rush's character. But still, I may love me some Colin Firth and some Geoffrey Rush AND most especially, speech pathology, but I certainly did not think this was the best movie I'd seen in the past year. Even when looking at it from a purely entertainment-value/popularity-contest point of view, I still don't think The King's Speech warranted such a coveted title. Then again, maybe my opinion would change if this were about someone with aphasia or a neurogenic motor-speech disorder rather than stuttering, heh. Damn Oscars and their love of biopics!

Instead of looking to movies exploring the past, why not look to those exploring the future? Ones that take full advantage of what technology has to offer and create greater possibilities of the human mind? Why not look to movies like, oh... I don't know... Inception? Haha, ok, I admit, I'm being bias. But despite my love for Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and Tom Hardy and Ken Watanabe and Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy and Marion Cotillard...), this was a great movie that was sorely overlooked :(

you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bit bigger, darling

Things I miss

I miss having a digital camera. I also miss having photoshop. And not even like a fancy schmancy version of photoshop, just any basic photo editing program. I was never really good at it, but I always had fun making ridic photos. Like when I had my "Winnie the Pooh Party" and photoshopped everyone's heads to the gang of 100 Acre Wood. Or when I photoshopped CJ's face on Han Solo. I don't remember why or how such projects started, but that I was shitting around and having a whole lot of fun doing it!

I also realized I miss having a group of dorky friends who love dressing up. Who'd totally be down to have a "Where's Waldo" pub crawl party and commit to it. I tentatively brought up the idea to a couple of my classmates, and I think some of them would be down. I mean, let's face it, we're in grad school. There are definite dorks among us (I say that with love!). But, I don't feel particularly close to my classmates, so I don't know that I'd have as much fun?

Last one: I miss having a car. There, I said it! But not even to drive around town. More like, I miss exploring far off places at leisure. One of my classmates randomly proposed going to Utah for spring break and asked if anyone wanted to carpool. This is a facebook status, so I don't know how serious it is? But I'm so tempted to raise my hand and yell, "Sign me up!" We don't know each other particularly well, but what I do know of her is that she seems cool. And I've never been to Utah, so the sense of adventure sounds amazing! But... I am still a little tipsy from yesterday, so perhaps it's the French 75's talking, hehe :P

Awkward turtle

Things are feeling a little awkward over here right now... For the past 2-3 hours, I've been attempting to go to sleep/do some reading, but my neighbours upstairs have been making a great deal of noise. Normally, the noise doesn't bother me--in fact, living by myself, it's almost somewhat of a comfort because it humanizes the place. Plus, I've been the upstairs person before and I get that just walking across a room can come off like a stampede to the people downstairs. But this wasn't just any kind of normal apartment noise. No, this was like something was out of the ordinary type of noise. I'd here a few bumps and bangs here and there, and I noticed it'd get louder. I was like, "seriously? It's 200a in the morning and you're moving shit?!" It got so bad that I was about ready to go upstairs and knock on their door. Hell, I near busted out the old lady broom to whack on my ceiling!

But then, as the noise got louder and I started listening harder, I began to realize they're having one huge massive bitch-fest of a fight right now, yikes! I just keep hearing a woman's voice yelling fuck this! or fuck that!, and I think I even heard a couple of I can't believe's... Oh, shit, I just heard a DO IT! It's getting pretty damn explosive, and there's no way I can go up there now and ask them to be quiet... With how passionate and for how long this fight has been going, my guess is that cheating was involved. Is it my place to say something or call the cops? I don't know. I just know that this is kinda awkward!

Can't... focus...

I think I may just have to write a new resolution that prevents me from partaking in social activities during the school week :/