bullet blog

Lately I'm feeling a little, mmm, scattered. In order to keep from wasting much narrative energy on this post I think I'll write about some things I've been spending time/energy on lately. Slash been obsessed with.

1. Grits. I didn't anticipate this but a) the grits at Joe's Cafe (go and get them. Tomorrow for breakfast. They are very delicious/unlike any grits I've ever tasted) and b) a surprisingly delicious Bahamian dish, tuna fish and grits, which James has been experimenting with lately (it's supposed to be made with tuna+hot sauce, but is really good with soy sauce instead or barbecue sauce or canned turkey instead of tuna. It sounds weird, but butter+grits+plus anything is bound to be good) has sort of got me hooked. I sat in my breakfast nook this afternoon ruminating over a bowl of grits with butter and honey and feeling pretty good about my life.

2. Baby animals. This isn't a lately so much, but look. (eek!)

3. Bread. I bought The Bread Baker's Apprentice (did I mention this? And stayed up till the tiny hours reading?) and threw a pizza party and have been thinking a lot about/spending a lot of time making bread. I have pizza dough hanging out in my fridge right now--and when does that ever happen? I sort of love it.

4. Parties. Are sort of a feast and famine scenario for me. I did one last semester (which, actually, turned out fantastically) but am working on my third big production for this weekend. And am considering a Valentine's Day party with some friends. I *love* food/parties, don't get me wrong, but. My poor roommates and poor messy kitchen (I'm doing a soul-food based meal for my ward this weekend: sweet potato waffles, pomegranate bbq pulled pork, red cabbage slaw, double-decker red velvet cakelets. I effing love this stuff) and also poor James. He's made me promise to get help cleaning up. And to do something fun afterward. I am bad, still, at being simultaneously nice and in productive party mode.

5. James. Has been around for 7 months. Is adorable and makes me want to do nothing but stare at him.

6. Avoiding my thesis. If I spent half the time I spend avoiding writing on actually writing I'd have the fellow done. Or nearly. Grrrrm.

7. February? wtf?

:)

Mmmm

"We women have lived too much with closure: 'If he notices me, if I marry him, if I get into college, if I get this work accepted, if I get that job'--there always seems to loom the possibility of something being over, settled, sweeping clear the way for contentment. This is the delusion of a passive life."
--Carolyn Heilbrun (love Amanda)

Um. I might be identity-crisising a touch: what do I do now?

Luckily for me my prayers for hope have been answered and answered and answered. I don't have answers, but I'm remembering that they're there for me to find.

Financial Savvy

This semester I'm taking a class called Family Finance. Because I'm a grown up.

This is the calculator I bought.


Because it was the cutest one. Very 70s-accountant-chic, right?

(This is the sort of thing that gives economist stepdad Dave ulcers. :) )

Happy Birthday to me!

I turned 28!

It was a good day: I ate chocolate-covered cinnamon bears and tasty pizza and hung out with good people.

This year is going to be fantastic, I can just tell.

ke

Six Months!

Time flies, huh? (And how cute are we?)

Sleep it off

What a difference a couple of loungey, sleeping-in days make. Today, despite the fog/rain and having to dig my car out, I feel much better.

Other contributions: On vacation, you get to spend a lot of time with boys you like. Watching Avatar (the Last Airbender, not the other) and 30 Rock and snacking on delicious birthday treats (Harry and David chocolate-covered cherries? Yes please) and, you know, scandalizing roommates a little. Heart.

Last night a group got together for Eva's and the Cathedral of the Madeline Christmas Concert. Such a great night. We saw Temple Square, and Eva's is incredible, and they let me be in charge of ordering (this is 2-fold fantastic: 1, I get to be in charge. 2, I get to watch people delight over, like, the baked mac and cheese for the first time. Love love love), and the cathedral was beautiful, and the music was beautiful and we ran into James' sister and kids which was delightful too. The Catholics have this Christmas thing down, en serio.

And then I got Taylor Swift albums and enameled cast iron (Cuisinart!) that was ridiculously cheap. The gay best friend thing doesn't always play out like Teen Vogue tells me it should, but sometimes it's plays out exactly like it should.

2010

(Pic from the Washington Post.)

A lot of great stuff has happened in 2010, don't get me wrong. See my archives for example. But. I walked over to the tabernacle tonight and watched it still burning 18 hours later (in the dark and the snow--really striking) and was very ready, suddenly, for 2010 to be over.

I had a quick pleasant chat with a professor/friend the other afternoon (the one who told me "this should be fun," and "there are some things that once you think them you can't unthink them," actually, both of which have spurred posts,) and he offered another nugget: "this is the only life you have" which has got me thinking all over again.

There's plenty to celebrate, plenty to do, etc. etc. And I keep waiting for things to get better or calm down--and they're not going to, right? Isn't that the moral of the story?

I cried at the tabernacle burning--not a lot, but I snuffled some. I don't know, something about things never being the same again, even in this small thing.

Ramble ramble tonight I'm drinking cocoa and reading Victorian adventure novels (complete with 6 pages of a 'fac-simile' of ancient Greek/Latin texts with their expanded translations *and* a witty translator's note) by my Christmas tree. So I'm not complaining. Just contemplative.

:)