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.
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
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).
Thanksgiving weekend was BOMB. Wednesday was a really laid back day where I didn't go to my first class, only went to work for a couple of (chill) hours, and then went to fiction writing which is really fun anyways. That night we went to Tres Hombres with my grandparents, where I ordered two margaritas and got a little bit tipsy. We ate delicious mexican food, drank tequila, and then when we got home I asked Raphael to pick me up so we could make hand turkeys at Nostalgia.
Raphael's turkey is on fire.
I wrote what I was thankful for on my turkey. Raphael was lame and wouldn't do it.
Then Kit came and made hand turkeys with us!
AWWW, he's doing no-shave November! Also he wrote what he was thankful on his turkey.
Wait...
Yeah, when I looked away Raphael did this.
I originally had wanted to make a bunch more turkeys, write down stuff like Thanksgiving recipes and addresses to places that were serving Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless like this, but we didn't have enough time and it was already dark outside. Instead, we gave the turkeys to Joe, who hung them on the front door of the coffee shop. Yay! I wish I'd gotten a picture of it, but I was rather drunk when we returned to Nostalgia later that night.
After Nostalgia, we (Kit, Raphael, and I) headed out to Brewvies, a brewery/bar/pool hall/movie theater that's super cheap for students. I've never been and was really excited to go, since it's sort of a staple for University of Utah students. We ordered a pitcher of Hefferveisen and some nachos to share and then headed to the theater.
Kit made fun of me for taking this picture, but you know what? I'm a documentarian. Or something. I like to take pictures of ALL THE THINGS. The silver mug with the lemon on top of it was full of "coffee" (coughvodkapinklemonadecough).
We saw 50/50, which is a touching/funny/sad movie about a guy who finds out he has a giant, cancerous tumor along his spine (Joseph Gordon Levitt aka Jeff as Raphael calls him). Basically I got really drunk drinking beer and then shot after shot of the vodka lemonade. There was one incredibly special moment where I started trying to open up the mug after I was done with my beer, but no matter how hard I tried to turn it, it wouldn't budge. So I handed it to Kit, who also couldn't get it to open at all. This is when it was handed to Raphael, who discovered that it was upside down and easily popped off the lid. We had spent the last five minutes trying to open the bottom side of a mug.
Since I was so drunk, I cried. A lot. There was one part especially SPOILER ALERT when JGL is in Seth Brogan's house (his best friend who he just accused of not caring that he had cancer) and he sees a book on dealing with a loved one getting cancer that Seth had carefully annotated and I just started BAWLING END SPOILER. Anyways, it was a good movie, I love Brewvies, it was awesome. Then we drove Raphael back to Nostalgia and Kit took me home.
p.s. on the way there and on the way back we just blasted this song. Over and over and over again.
Skip to 0:51 to avoid Rihanna's annoying fake british accent
When I got home I played Super Mario Sunshine for a little while and then tried to read but instead ended up just passing out.
The next morning my grandma grilled me about where I'd been last night (I sort of regretted not telling her that I'd been at a drug orgy) and we had a small breakfast before people started cooking for the day. I spent the morning doing enrichment for my birds (I taped paper over their food dishes and scattered some treats on top to see if they'd be able to break through to their food - don't worry, I uncovered the dishes later that night since Manny had only eaten the corn chip off the top of his and Maeby had made some puncture marks but ultimately failed at getting to her food). I also decided it was high time to clip Manny's flight primaries, as he was getting too good at flying, which means he hurts himself by running into windows.
His ruffled feathers after I clipped his wings. Poor disgruntled boy.
I set up a bomb foraging activity for Manners, but he just sat in the corner ignoring me. I relented and put him in his cage after that. I was on bird care so I went to feed the pigeons their own Thanksgiving dinner. I found this on the roof.
Just kidding, I wrote that.
I returned home to find that my cousin had set up a delicious feast for us.
Mmmm plastic Oreos.
I helped (sort of...well, observed) the ladies in the kitchen (my mam, grandma, aunt, and cousin) and also ate some olives. Okay, a lot of olives.
BANANA VANILLA WAFER PUDDING IS MY FAVORITE OM NOM
My grandma brought homemade crabapple jelly from her magical home of Idaho. Crabapple jelly is the BEST and I love it the most. THE MOST.
Peach Bellini! We made them all morning long (they are peach nectar with champagne and frozen peach slices).
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER ONE: My grandmother has always been extremely conservative, a member of the Church of Christ, and a southern lady. Which is why it was hilarious that, when we gave her a peach bellini and she started drinking it (which I was surprised by), she asked, "How much of the good stuff is in here?" Good stuff meaning champagne. Basically I died, it was amazing.
I entertained my little cousins by taking them all on a long walk around the golf course with our dogs while everyone else cooked. It was me, Gabe, Ryder, Jeramy, and little autistic Xander. Xander was originally not invited, but he escaped his captors and ran to us. It was like a touching movie where he ran faster than the gingerbread man across the field towards us, his mother and my mother running after him. I told them that it was okay and I would take him on the walk. Everything was fine until we were halfway around the golf course, when he decided he was going to go back the way we came. I told Jeramy to go after him, who sort of did but ended up just wrestling with him in the grass before losing interest and allowing Xander to wander back even further. So I had to run after him and pick him up, kicking and screaming, and then carry him up the hill I'd just run down and back to our party. It really took a lot out of me, as Xander is incredibly heavy for a three year old. Jeramy told me, as I lowered Xander to the ground and started herding him towards the house, that I would make a really great mom. Thanks ten year old cousin! We finally arrived back at the house, where Xander began playing with dog toys.
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER TWO: Xander was playing with one of Taffy's dog bones and, at one point, he offered one to Taffy. Just as she was about to take it from him, he yanked it away from her and jammed it into his own mouth while he growled.
THEN DINNER WAS SERVED! YUMMMMMMM!
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER THREE: At one point during the meal, my cousin remarked, "Hey look at that pretty bird!" I turned around to see what she was talking about and saw two magpies on our patio table, eating our pumpkin pies we'd set out there to cool. I leapt up from my seat (since apparently my cousin couldn't be bothered to) and opened the door to shoo them away. For the most part, the pies were intact except for parts of the crust that had been picked away and a giant hole in the middle of one of the pies. Woops.
The rest of the evening was spent forcing turkey, mashed potatoes, and rolls into my mouth, washing dishes to make up for the fact that I didn't really help cook anything, and then taking a luxurious, tryptophan-induced, post Thanksgiving dinner nap. After the nap, we indulged in a family tradition as old as time.
Christmas Vacation. One of our favorite movies that we always watch on the eve of Thanksgiving to welcome the Christmas season and to prepare ourselves for the Christmas season. I loved it, all comfy cozy as a family and watching one of our favorite movies together, laughing at all the jokes we know by heart.
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER FOUR: When we got upstairs, we found this...
...WHAT?! My mom was like, "Um, I think a dog ate our pie" and I was like, "No, that was the magpies" but then she showed it to me. Not a magpie's work. We're pretty sure it was my aunt's boxer, but apparently pumpkin pie was not meant to be on this Thanksgiving.
The rest of the night was spent eating more rolls and possibly playing more video games. I can't really remember. At 4 AM the next morning I woke up, ran to the bathroom, and threw up all of the food I'd eaten the day before. I spent the rest of the morning super sick with some weird stomach bug, finally going back to bed at about 7 AM and then waking up again at 8 to be sick some more. The entire day I was sick. It was very sad. Especially since it was the last football game of the season, my last Muss football game of senior year. I was really upset. Basically there's nothing left to say except FUCK YOU STOMACH BUG. To make it worse, I had to go do bird care where I found all of my bosses at the lab, who asked me if I knew anything about the game. RUB IT IN, WHY DON'T YOU???!!!
Saturday, however, was much better. Luckily the sickness was only a 24 hour thing, so I felt energetic and happy. I slept in and then chilled for awhile, doing necessary chores like bird care and then cleaned my earrings (a dull and somewhat gross job).
I'm restless lately. I get bored doing things I used to be able to do for hours, such as watch Netflix or surf sites like Tumblr. Now I want to actually go outside, do things. This sounds like a no-brainer, but I really did used to be incredibly content just holding up in my room in front of my heater and spending hours on my laptop. Now I can only do it if I've tuckered myself out by doing something active or being outside.
I was beginning to feel this longing to be outside. So I was inspired by one of my favorite blogs and went for a drive. I put on my hiking boots (with my lovely skinny jeans, looking fly), grabbed my camera, and drove up Emigration Canyon, which is a canyon five minutes from my house.
I made shadow puppets of evil looking moose.
I used the self timer on my camera to take failed jumping pictures in a gravelly truck pullout.
At the end of the road, I found a watershed. I went into the mountains to find a forest to frolic in, but still ended up getting drawn to a body of water. Proof that they are magnetic to me.
In the parking lot there was a large group of rowdy frat boys throwing giant rocks off the side of the hill, which seems to me to be pretty dangerous, so I quickly hurried in the opposite direction.
More awesome self timer shots for Otter.
I was excited for a second because dogs aren't allowed at the watershed (since we, you know, drink out of it) so I thought it was some other form of canid, but I realized it was probably dog footprints. It was muddy.
(sadly I think I'll have to pay for a photo hosting website that doesn't sap the quality from the pictures, because these leaves were GLOWING GOLD)
There was LITTER at the watershed! People, THIS IS YOUR DRINKING WATER! Do you not understand? I hauled it out, as well as a half-eaten blueberry Airhead and a water bottle (that one I dragged halfway across the lake and then took home to recycle).
I ventured closer to the shore, foregoing woods for water, and found the slimy, mossy mud frozen over in some places.
I looked out into the water and what did I see but coots! All of the pictures I got of them are absolutely horrendous, but still! COOTLETS!
Eye-watering water sparkles <3
Even the bubbles from the water in the mud had frozen over! Ice bubbles! I poked a few of them.
Coots running into the water.
At this point my shoes were very muddy. I realized I should probably make my way up the sloping incline to the dry woods before I fell (which was becoming increasingly likely the more I dabbled in the danger zone) and so I trekked it up the mud slope, squelching and managing to keep my shoes on.
I saw that to my left, there was a huge expanse of fields filled with trees that probably led all the way up to the mountain. I saw this golden patch awaiting me at the far end of the field with one tree beaming in the sunlight and decided to go to it.
I have gaussian blurred it for a) your convenience and b) I am just barely getting the hang of photoshop manipulation and love gaussian blur.
As I walked through the corridor, trees on either side of me, I felt relatively safe. As soon as I got into the open field however, my heart froze. I'm not lying or trying to make this dramatic, it's completely true. Let's have a little biology lesson, shall we? There is a general (ish) rule that predators usually have their eyes positioned on the front of their head, so they're only really able to see straight ahead of them with limited peripheral vision. The exception is sharks, which I'm not sure why their eyes aren't on the front of their heads (maybe due to water refraction or something) and also primates. Prey, on the other hand, have eyes positioned on either side of their head so that they have maximum viewing of their surroundings. They can see basically everything around them except for a tiny portion in the back and tiny portion straight in front of them. This is so they can watch out for predators and hopefully not be eaten. Humans are primates, and so our eyes are positioned at the front of our heads so we can see straight in front of us. Though primates are not really hunting predators, humans definitely are. However, despite us being (basically) at the top of the food chain and being predators, I always feel like a prey item. When I was doing birdcare the entire week, I would exit a room with my eyes straight ahead, so I could detect movement in my peripheral vision on both sides of me just in case something was going to ATTACK me. I did the same thing in this open field. I thought back to Bambi (which I always do when going into an open field) and carefully scanned the environment before cautiously stepping into the light and then bounding happily through the grass.
Part of me wanted to venture further into the fields and trees beyond my golden field, but the other part of me thought of the book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and decided against it, especially since the sun was beginning to set. Instead I headed back and looped further around the lake, wanting to explore one last area I had seen from afar before heading back permanently.
Tricksy seeds.
After making my way through this minefield of burs, I found something AMAZING.
A SECRET HAVEN.
It was like a tiny little island that had sunk into the ground and was surrounded by a ring of protective trees, to keep it secret. There were tiny networks of streams and ponds surrounding the bramble filled island, that reminded me of Make Way For Ducklings. It was my dreamworld. I immediately leapt into it (aka made my way along an extremely muddy path that looped down and then leapt the remaining few feet into it.
Then I was met with a problem. There was an icy stream in between me and a way out of the secret island. It was not particularly deep, but I also still had a half hour hike back to my car with the sun setting and the temperature dropping. I didn't want soaked socks or shoes.
So I crossed the stream on two extremely slippery and icy logs. It is amazing that I didn't just plummet into the water right then and there.
But I made it.
I still had one more stream to cross before I could scramble up the hill back to the watershed. I got down on all fours and crossed the stream on loose rocks and logs with three points of contact at all times. Then I squeezed myself through a narrow crook in a tree and was met with dry land.
My lovely baggy skinny jeans/muddy hiking boots/uncombed hair/glasses look.
As I was walking through the woods on the way back, I heard crashing noises. At first I thought it was a small child jumping up and down in place, but then saw a buck bounding through the trees away from me. I smiled and then continued on my way when I saw THE MOST PERFECT PICTURE OPPORTUNITY EVER. There were three does standing in front of me, perfectly silhouetted against the lake in the sunset. I scrambled for my camera, but just as I got it out and turned on I turned to find that they had left. FUUUUUUUUU! I was pissed. I continued down the path and saw them running back towards the golden fields and secret haven. Oh well.
(I love this picture)
The frat boys were gone (though they'd ingrained their insignias into the parking lot with something) and my heart stopped when I saw a sign that read FEE AREA and ALL OTHER VEHICLES WILL BE TOWED. I showed my body the meaning of haste and plowed up the rest of the trail, grateful to see my car fine and dandy at the top. I slid into the car and turned on the heat, making my way back down the canyon. It wasn't until my cheeks began to tingle unpleasantly that I realized that it was really, really cold outside.
When I got back home I changed into sweats and we picked up Hire's.
SO DELICIOUS! Then we watched a depressing cancer movie (cancer movies were the theme of this weekend, apparently) with my mom, Death Becomes Her, and an episode of Castle while we ate burgers and then I played around on Photoshop with making my pictures pretty.
I was really pleased with how some of these turned out. Basically I am in love with making oceans into rainbows and wish this was real life.
Taffy finds ways to be the most comfortable.
I'm jealous of how comfy she looks sometimes.
Sunday was spent doing laundry, picking up my room, moving the gamecube back into my room so I could play it some more (since my cousins had been playing it in the laundry room on Thanksgiving), and watching 30 Rock. Then I did birdcare, picked up Natal from the airport, and we hung out for a little while with the birds before she packed up and headed home. The rest of the weekend was spent doing homework because it is crunch time. I won't have much time for adventures until it's all over :( But Thanksgiving weekend was just what I needed, it was awesome.
