The Road Frequently Traveled

One time, I got sent to another state on business. I got most of the way to said state without a hitch: no taking wrong exits, no getting lost on back roads, nothing. Until the very road the hotel was on. As it turns out, this hotel has a very, very small sign that's the same color as the bush behind it, and since it happens to be dark at 9 pm and the sign didn't have a light, it was nearly invisible. So I drove up and down a 3+ mile stretch several times, which left me in despair and wondering if I should just pull over to the side of the road and sleep in my car. Both the despair and the sleeping-in-the-car plan may have been coping mechanisms that were laughable enough to keep me driving, but still. Sleeping in the car would have been very uncomfortable though, so finally I pulled a How to be a Millionaire and used up a lifeline.


It was extraordinarily helpful! I might have been driving forever without it.


I don't really count not being able to find something as being lost. I knew what I was looking for was supposed to be exactly where I was. But I'm not convinced I can still use "I've never really, really been completely lost before" as a claim to fame, especially since I have another getting lost story that's even better than this one. I'll tell that one another time. Oh well. Call it a humility check?

Conversation Over Dinner

Small brother: "What makes the wine you're drinking a dry wine?"

Jillian and company: "It's not sweet - there's less sugar in a dry wine."

Small brother: "Oh, so the wet wines are the sweet ones?"

Snapshot

Today in a nutshell:

Work (ate a lovely lunch, called England, survived a tiny earthquake)

Home (made an omelette with a good pan, texted a lot o' people, read blogs)

3.6 mile walk (strolled past a swearing, angry, possibly drunk man on a bike, saw a concert and the beach, stabbed finger by accident on a plant (presumably) and drew blood, came back in the dark)

Home (changed into very comfortable clothes and got ready for bed)


Minus the fact that this sounds really boring when written as such, it was an eventful day and I feel healthier than I did when I left the house this morning. Except for the bleeding finger, of course.

Insert infomercial here.

Ok, SHAMELESS product plug. Bear with me.




This stuff is the BEST face wash I have ever bought in my life. So much so that it actually makes me want to wash my face at night, which up until now has been the task that has almost always made me want to take a full shower rather than deal with washcloths, water all over the sink, and staying up for an extra five minutes when I could be in my nice cozy bed. That, friends, means we have a miracle on our hands.

I insist that you go buy some immediately. I don't care that it's midnight. Go do it.

Lately

I have been failing on the blogging front as of late. It isn't because I've had nothing worth writing about. Not at all.

I could have told you about how I moved away from the spot I called home (away from home) for the last four years and how it somehow felt a little like graduating all over again.

I could have told you about I went to Pinkberry again with roomie dearest and discovered that they had resurrected pomegranate, which - you may be of a varying opinion, but I don't care - is the best frozen yogurt flavor known to mankind.

I could have told you that I started working at a new job with marvelous people...(but it's probably best to keep work away from blogging).

I could have told you - since we're on the subject of people - how much I value good friends, spontaneous adventures, good conversations, and the beauty and blessings associated with all of the above.

I could have taken a literary jaunt and described how my rediscovery of the glory of libraries had me pondering the power of the written word - how authors take language and twist it masterfully until I no longer see words on a page but become swept up in some fantastical adventure. Or maybe how I wish I was gifted enough to weave together stories of my own.

I could have told you about the (cheater) cookies I made (from a mix) or the obscene number of times I found myself waiting in line at Panera, asking for a chai latte, a chicken caesar sandwich, or a chocolate chip cookie.

I thought about writing about each one of those things at one point or another, along with a long list of other things. But somehow, the doing of all those things got in the way of the writing about all of those things. And honestly, while I love documenting, describing, and detailing, I think it's better that the doing outweighs the writing. Don't you?

Presents!

Remember when my family went to Switzerland? I never showed you what they brought back for me!


They're salt and pepper shakers! Aren't they the cutest? I love them. And I can use them forever because they're black and white and will therefore match everything.

News.

Oh, perhaps I should mention this to relieve suspense.

(I'm employed.)

Bloglovin'?

I don't really know what Bloglovin' is, but it sounds a little like Google Reader. Since I love Google Reader as much as I do, why not use this too?

It's asking me to post some code in a new blog post, so....I'm not sure what's going to happen. Here goes nothing.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The Joy of Cooking

Well, glory hallelujah. I forgot how AMAZING it is to have a functional kitchen!

This evening I had the opportunity to make a full dinner for three people, myself included, and all of a sudden I remembered that I basically haven't cooked anything real for eight months. Between student teaching and the gross summer living situation, cooking just wasn't an option.

That's all changed now.

This evening's dinner included rice (with thyme, bay leaves, chicken stock, and butter), breaded chicken, asparagus, hollandaise sauce, and a very nice Riesling wine. Nothing very complicated, of course, but it was good nonetheless. Also, I've never made hollandaise sauce before. Turns out...it's pretty good! I took pictures, but my USB cable is currently buried in a bin in the back of my car and is therefore inaccessible. I'll do it later.

A note that I'm absolutely positive I've made before: butter is the key ingredient to making anything taste good. I will stand by this statement until the day I drop dead from an artery blockage, which, given my views on the substance, is entirely probable.