o christmas tree

It is quite obvious that now that finals are over, my days are basically for sitting on my floor in front of my heater while I edit pictures/paint or make charms/make jewelry/draw/write blog posts. So this is why I have been able to update my blog TWICE today!



We went and got our Christmas tree the other day. Let me tell you something: I LOVE getting the Christmas tree. Last year, my parents ordered it online and had it delivered to our doorstep, which BROKE. MY. HEART. This only thing that assuaged me was that my roommate and I also went out and got our own Christmas tree, which was beautiful and tall and full and decorated with a plethora of bird and mermaid ornaments and LIGHTS. Anyways, going to get the Christmas tree has always been one of my favorite things, ever since I was a small child.



When I was little, my parents had a lot more patience for choosing trees and would allow my brother and I to roam the tree lot while they searched for that PERFECT TREE. Maybe it was just because I was seven and had no concept of time, but sometimes it felt like they'd wander around for at least an hour trying to find a tree. Meanwhile, I darted in and out of the long rows of trees, hiding from my brother and parents. In my mind, I was THIS



Back in the day, I was always a wolf. Wolves were my favorite. I stole a wolf book from my elementary school in the sixth grade and kept it in my tote tray for the entire year because I'm a hoarder (not really). I still love wolves, but I am more likely to pretend to be an owl now and sit in places where I can possibly fall and injure myself.

So getting a Christmas tree is important to me. VERY. IMPORTANT.





A Charlie Brown Christmas tree







Gabe told me to take a picture of the creepy shack located behind the tree lot (which was a golf course)



"Why the fuck can't you smile normally?" I asked









Another important part of my Christmas tree traditions is to decorate the tree (of course). Usually it's done the night you bring it home from the lot, but my family was being lame and I had to write a paper, so we decorated it a couple of nights later.

Step one: turn on Christmas music



(dancing with a bird is optional, but it amplifies Christmas joy)

Step two: get out the ornaments





Missing an antler :(

Step three: commence lights and decoration





Step four: attempt creating bokeh pictures





Then we sat around our newly decorated tree and sang to our Christmas playlist and cuddled with dogs.



Operation obtain and decorate a Christmas tree: SUCCESSFUL

Last night I was supposed to go to my friends' combined birthday party, but I FREAKED out (I reacted in a way that normal people would probably be ashamed of) due to social anxiety and postfinals stress and ended up sobbing at home and watching Gladiator with the family. Then all of our downstairs' drains backed up and so our downstairs flooded at 1:30 in the morning, meaning that plumbers arrived promptly at 6 AM this morning. So it's both a bad thing and a good thing I did not go out last night, because arriving home at 3 or 4 AM and then being woken up by the plumbers two or three hours later would have been awful. In fact, a nap sounds really nice.

So the weekend leading into winter break has thus far been kind of a bust, but I did go to Bird World and play with some soft, adorable Rose Breasted Cockatoo babies with Natal and then we watched Home Alone 2, so that was really fun. Also tomorrow is Christmas shopping and Monday is the Mom and Dad party, plus everyone will be home from their respective collegios! I have three weeks to live it up, so I need to not worry about my party quota right now.

last touches of fall

soup soup soup

A couple of weeks ago, Lisa made us a delicious soup for our Guy Fawkes Party. I asked her for the recipe and made it last night and now I am going to share it WITH THE INTERNET (though it's adapted from somewhere I'm not sure where).

I was going to try and come up with a clever name for it based on V for Vendetta (since that's the movie we watched while we ate it), but I can't because my brain still needs to recover from finals, so I will call it Tortellini Soup for now.

Ingredients

* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 2 carrots , chopped (or 20 baby carrots)
* 1 large onion , finely chopped
* 1l vegetable stock (about 3 4 oz cans)
* 400g can chopped tomatoes
* 1 can of green beans
* 2-3 sticks of celery, sliced thin
* 250g pack fresh filled tortellini
* handful of basil leaves (optional)
* grated parmesan , to serve

I want to apologize because I made the soup at night, indoors, where lighting is relatively...bad. So a lot of the pictures have poor resolution. I wanted to be all cool like Crepes of Wrath or Pioneer Woman and make a step-by-step recipe complete with pictures, but mine are not nearly as beautiful as theirs. But I did it anyways.



Here's a full picture of all the ingredients, minus the tomatoes and olive oil. Also the vodka does not go into the soup, it goes into my mouth.

First, you want to chop up the carrots, onion, and celery really well.



Then saute them with the tbsp of olive oil until all the veggies are soft, which takes about 10 minutes.





Once all the veggies are soft and sizzly, you pour in the vegetable broth and tomatoes (and basil leaves, if you're using them). Bring the heat down to simmer and allow to simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes.



Add the green beans and tortellini and let the tortellini cook for about 10 minutes, until they're done.



It's done!



It took me an embarrassingly long time to chop all those vegetables, but other than that it is a fairly quick and easy meal. Also it was delicious. I've only recently become a soup person, but I'm glad I am now because soup is the perfect cold weather food.

Also we decorated our Christmas tree last night so I will post pictures of that soon.

a melting pot

There has been a lot of stuff going on, some bad and some good.

We got our Christmas tree but we haven't decorated it yet, so I'll post pictures once it's nice and beautiful.

We found out that one of my dogs has an autoimmune disease that has a 60% mortality rate when we took him into the vet to check up on his ears, which were bothering him. I expected an ear infection, not this heavy news. I'm still crying about it. Right now we're just grateful that he's acting normally and is happy.

This boy inspires me more than I can say. I am so impressed by him. He is going to make a difference and I hope that I can do the same.

I'm almost done with finals (yay!) and only have to turn in my final short story for fiction writing tomorrow, and then I'm completely done. I was going to go into the lab today, but after hearing about Winston's illness I decided I'm going to spend the day at him with him while I revise this story.

Let us brighten up this post with talk of presents!

I have gotten some Chrimbo shopping done when procrastinating studying for finals, as well as some awesome Christmas creations for my franz! I will avoid posting presents for friends I know read my blog, but here are the pressies I've gotten so far.

Mom



(I've also made the bird's nest necklaces for other females in my family, as well as my graduate student)

Dad



(but it's worth it because I know he'll really enjoy this)

Gabe



Alibus



(I actually got this for her for her birthday this year, but I had it packed away then so it is now here Christmas present!)

Mia



This is what I've gotten done so far. The rest of the week will involve decorating the tree tonight, lab time, turning in my final short story (hurray!), going out dancing and drinking on Friday night, and Christmas shopping with Natal on Sunday. Plus I've cheered up a little thinking about Christmas and getting in the spirit.

before i go to bed

Remember when I said I should probably not be on my blog for the next few days?

A holiday questionaire from Eat, Drink and Be a Tourist
1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate. I've never actually had egg nog before though.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wraps them. His wrapping paper is remarkably similar to my mother's.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I like colored, though only one color instead of the multi-colored ones you see. Like I have blue fairy lights in my room and I love them.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No, it's a parasite!
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually within the first week of December, but this year no one has done it yet due to business, stress, and my parents being in Rome.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? MASHED. POTATOES.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? The thing that I remember most is the Christmas we got our Gamecube. I remember it was in early junior high, when I was also really obsessed with faeries, so I also got this bell-sleeved shirt with a faerie sitting on a mushroom on it. It was absolutely COVERED in glitter, so I littered it everywhere throughout the house. Anyways, we took the gamecube up to my brother's room and played it for hours with my cousins while the grown-ups conversed downstairs. We spent forever playing StarFox Adventures and trying to beat the dinosaurs in a race to save Tricky (the DINOSAUR PRINCE).
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Uh that's a good question. I think it phased really nicely from SANTA to...I don't think he's real. I don't think that I ever really thought he was SUPER real though.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope, all Christmas morning.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? With white lights, beads, and a plethora of Christmas ornaments we've collected over the years. This makes for a very interesting tree with some traditional ornaments, some matching icicles, bows, and a TON of ornaments that look like toys, creatures, etc. that we've gotten for birthdays, holidays, major events, because they're cool, etc.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? I really do love snow, actually.
12. Can you ice skate? Yeah to an extent. I can stay upright and skate in a circle over and over.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A ticket to Florida to visit one of my best friends, a new cobra punching bracelet when I thought mine was lost forever, the gamecube was pretty great, my tablet...I get really bomb gifts every Christmas.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? I love the traditions of it. It makes me nostalgic, which is one of my favorite feeling ever. For instance, I demand that we always have our children's Christmas books out that I've read since I was a little girl, that we go pick our own tree from the lot (though we've stopped doing this and it breaks my heart), that we watch all of our Christmas specials, like the Grinch and Rudolph, that we decorate the Christmas tree to or Christmas music playlist, and so on.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Carmelitas! They're basically oatmeal bars with chocolate, carmel, and walnuts and they make me want to make out with them. Or eat them.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Haha, see above number. ALL OF THEM is the correct answer. But seriously, my favorite tradition is probably having my Christmas children's books out to read.
17. What tops your tree? A golden star!
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? I really love to give. One of my favorite things about this season is shopping for gifts for my loved ones. I'm actually sort of a fan of commercialism during Christmas! Haters gonna hate. This year there will be a lot of diy stuff though like jewelry. But of course, I also like to receive.
19. Candy canes: yuck or yum? YUM I love candy canes. I eat them like crack during the holidays.
20. Favorite Christmas show? RUDOLPH THE REDNOSED REINDEER, THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS, AND ELF!!!
21. Saddest Christmas song? ?? Uh...All I Want for Christmas is You?
22. What is your favorite Christmas song? We Need a Little Christmas and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

welp

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I'm moving up in the Internet world and embracing the 21st century and using BlogLovin' now! I mostly still need to live in finals world though so I can't do a huge update. I turned in two of my biggest papers though and took what I view to be the hardest final on Thursday (which was HARD and I really, truly hope I passed it with all my might). Still got a final on Monday, a take-home final aka a paper due on Tuesday, and a huge short story revision due Thursday. Plus I'm working all next week and have to shop for Christmas gifts even though I don't get paid until the 22nd, AH! As a break tomorrow I'm going to the craft store and the book store to both purchase supplies to make a shit ton of bracelets (Chrimbo gifts and...for me) and books for my parents.

This has been cool. I'll leave you with this Misdreavus I drew for that drawing challenge I started. I have sort of been keeping up with it. I'm bad at finals week.

It's amazing how I become an absolute connoisseur of the arts as soon as finals week rolls around. Guaranteed that as soon as I need to study for some science exam that I will all of a sudden decide some sort of drawing challenge sounds spectacular or that I should really write seven short stories. I spent roughly half the day at a Christmas Tea with my Oma (which was fun and I got carmelitas and wine wassail out of it yessss), a small portion wishing I could die because I was sick to my stomach AGAIN (I have never been this sick consecutively in my LIFE, something is up and it's pissing me off), and then I spent the rest of the day struggling to get ALMOST half a paper done (5 pages out of 12...not bad in 2.5 hours plus a ton of Internet breaks). But today is the first day I've even started in on my finals materials, because the rest of the weekend as been spent doing (wait for it) A DRAWING CHALLENGE.



Because I'm a huge pokemon nerd.

day 1: normal



I chose Cleffa because who wouldn't choose Cleffa?

day 2: fighting



Breloom because it's the only fighting pokemon I like and also it looks like a plant velociraptor I feel.

day 3: flying



So hard to choose, since I love all flying pokemans, but I chose Rufflet in the end because a) they are adorbz and b) easy to draw.

day 4: poison



I did this one ahead of time (sort of, I drew it on 11 PM on Dec 3 which really was only two hours ago) because I shouldn't be doodling pokemon tomorrow/later today since I really REALLY need to write these papers. Seriously. Anyways, I don't really like any poison pokemon a lot (except for the nido evolutionary lines, but they're hard to draw), but Gengar is hardcore. Love him.

So we'll see how this goes. Surely I won't actually draw one every day. I'm sure at the end of finals week I'll have nine or so days to catch up on.

I went to Festival of the Trees with Natal last night and BOY DO I HAVE SUCH STORIES. Well, not truly stories I suppose, but amazing people watching observations. Which can be composed into a story. I'll draw out comics for that probably sometime this week while procrastinating studying for my lab practicum on Thursday.

Also just a quick note before I go to bed, the electricity in my room and my brother's room goes out CONSTANTLY. For awhile everyone was blaming me, because it seemed to only happen whenever I plugged my portable heater in. If you know me, you know that I love nothing more than sitting on the floor in front of my portable heater and surfing the internet/drawing/playing my gameboy/etc. Since my room is FREEZING due to there being no insulation in the walls and my walls essentially being made of concrete, I like my heater. Quite a lot. Just tonight, however, I realized that it is MY BROTHER who has 1325333 things plugged in all around his room. HE can plug in his heater fine and dandy and be warm and cozy while he plays on his desktop computer with its thousands of plug-ins, but when I try to plug in my heater while I have literally ONE other thing plugged into the outlet, THE POWER FLIPS ITS SHIT. I thought I'd fixed it for a couple of days, because I could plug in the heater into a different outlet and keep it on without the power going out, but it just barely went out again like half an hour ago. So once again, I go without heat. I'm getting pretty fucking sick of it, I will tell you that for free.

I wrote in my paper (which is about blogs, btw) that people won't go to a blog where the person just bitches about their life all the time, so I'm sorry I add in my personal woes about the electricity. I am just a little bit infuriated that I can't have TWO THINGS plugged in in my room without the power going out. And yet my brother has 1325333 things plugged in in his room and it's fine. UGH. Also I was looking through my blog and there are far too many sad posts. They make me feel icky, like I'm covered in sad juice. So I'm going to stop doing sad posts and only do happy posts and sometimes perhaps ANGRY POSTS (if they can be viewed as funny, which they usually can).

Guess I'll go to bed now. PEACE.