Me, sunburned and kinda out of it, with Stephen Colbert at the National Museum of American History in DC.

Mood sleepy Music ANTM Season 7, in the background Tags: pictures

I'm not dead, I swear! I feel like I've been running around all week, so that doesn't leave a lot of time to posts on Dreamwidth. I've also been doing a lot of cooking this week and have some pictures to show for it.

( Pics, pics, pics )

Mood drained Music The Fashion Show, in the background Tags: cooking diaries, food, pictures

Over the course of the evening, it's gotten creepier and creepier outside. First it was ho-hum cloudy, then the sky turned yellow (uh oh), then blood red (!), and now it's almost completely dark due to storm clouds. I admit, I'm a weather freak, and every time we get some unusual meteorological phenomenon I get excited, but even my weird, Twister-lovin' self is worried. So now I'm hiding in my room, but before I retreated, I just had to go outside and get some pictures. It's really scary out - you can hear grumbling in the distance and there's an oddly calm wind. Gah!

 ( D: )

Mood distressed Tags: life at home, pictures

I went to the salon today to get my dye job replenished and my hair cut. Ostensibly, it was only supposed to be a trim, but I feel like I've been carrying around a lot of sadness with my ultra long hair, and as silly as it seems, I thought a hair cut would liberate me a little from that. I think it did it's job - I already feel a lot freer and more confident. The only nitpick I have with it is that it's basically Kathy Griffin hair, which I only realized when I was playing around in the mirror afterwords. That's okay, though. Kathy's fierce. I'll rock it.

( Pics after the cut )

Mood happy Tags: life at home, pictures

Monday was Memorial Day, and for my family Memorial Day = awkward cook out. I frickin' love cook outs. I love the drama of choosing between a hamburger and a hot dog. I love planning which salads (out of the 20 billion varieties that abound in the Midwest) are going to be made. I love that there is a very big chance that flavored lemonade is available. So, yeah, I'm a cook out fiend. I really want to learn how to grill this summer so when the time comes for me to host my own cook out, I will be so ready. Since I can't grill yet, I couldn't contribute any meat, so I decided to do dessert. Because this was actually a holiday, I decided to aim big, and so I spent most of the day making Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes.

( CUPCAKES! )

Mood lazy Tags: cooking diaries, food, holidays, life at home, pictures

So there I was, my hands all gritty with cornmeal, making biscuits, when all of a sudden a lady from Von Maur, one of the stores I applied to, called. OMG! She sounded really interested in me...until I said that I was only looking to work during the summer. Apparently they don't hire temp workers. I was pretty crushed, so my dinner ended up missing that certain zing that comes from being fully engaged in the cooking of it. I was pretty sad, and so I was a bit sloppy. Overall, it wasn't bad but it could have been better. This is going to bug me for a while, I can tell.

Anyway, my menu evolved partially as a private joke - it's very loosely based on the concept of an English dinner, as shepherd's pie is the main attraction, but it's heavily Ameicanized. I got a little smirk out of literally making pudding to end things, because it's another word for "dessert" in England, but I didn't want to be too over-the-top themey.





( Images, Ahoy!  )

Mood sad Tags: cooking diaries, food, pictures, work?

Tonight was my first night to cook, and I think everything turned out really well. There were no disasters in the kitchen, the food turned out as described and tasted good, and I gained some cooking confidence that will serve me well. I documented everything, so you can see what I was up to.

( Very image intensive! )

Mood accomplished Music Wake Up - Arcade Fire Tags: cooking diaries, food, pictures

Sure enough, I went on a little photo-taking expedition this afternoon, and have returned triumphant. These are my favorites of the pictures I took.



This is the school's church, which, after the post office, is my favorite building on campus. It is where I take my organ lessons and occasionally I sneak in there to do homework when the library gets too loud. Sometimes when it's warm outside, they'll open the doors so you can hear the organ music drift throughout South Campus, which is lovely to hear.

( More under the cut )

Mood sleepy Tags: life at school, pictures