Sometimes I Run too Fast.

Right now I should be doing homework, cleaning my room, studying for the AP test, or exercising…

but what I’m really doing is listening to country music and drinking Dr. Pepper.

I’m not sure why but today lately I’ve been feeling pretty weird, I’ve been doing more school wise, yet some times of the day I’m just not caring. I think I’m getting too close to the finish line to care 100% these days.

I wish I would’ve posted about Nashville when I got back, or when I was there (wi-fi problems), but let me tell you it was hands down one of the best trips I’ve ever been on! I had so much fun, but I did wish that we would’ve gotten to explore a little more. I’m definitely going to go back soon so I can see more of Nashville, because what we did see what so exciting and just breath taking, everyone was so nice it seemed like we knew them! 

Prom is coming up, I’m not sure exactly how I feel about that yet. I got my dress, my shoes, and my date of course but I’m still a little nervous. It’s at the Milwaukee Public Museum, so that’s pretty cool. I’ll be sure to post pictures of the night for those who do read this.

Speaking of reading, (ha, like how I did that?) I’ve been reading a lot lately, I have yet to put up my review of The Scorch Trials, and I couldn’t for the life of me finish The Death Cure but I did read A Thousand Splendid Suns. That book will be reviewed without a doubt. Right now I’m reading a book about advertising, a little dry but I like it.

What have you been reading? How are you liking this bi-polar weather?

Book Review: The Maze Runner

So for those of you who frequent my blog know that I don’t usually do reviews, but yesterday in Effective Composition my teacher was telling us our next paper was going to be a review. As my teacher was talking I began thinking about it, why don’t I do more reviews? I do my book review inThe Patriot,I watch good TV shows, listen to interesting music, read good books, eat good food. I could be sharing my happiness with the blogging world, so from here on out, at least once a week I’ll attempt to do some sort of review.

My first review is going to be on The Maze Runner by James Dashner. I was exploring my schools library looking for something nearly as mind blowing as The Hunger Games Trilogy and as I was looking I saw The Maze Runner, it looked interesting and then I read the inside cover:

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every 30 days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.

Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.

(Taken from http://www.jamesdashner.com/)

I was more than excited to read this book, it sounded a little confusing but really exciting at the same time.

So I checked out my new read and then was forced to wait until the end of the day to read it, before musical rehearsal started I opened the book and began to devour the pages, soaking up all the awesome things about this book. James Dashner is a phenomenal writer, he makes The Gade seem so real like and the way he makes characters such as Thomas and Minho and all the otherShankscome to life is just outstanding.

I loved that this novel was written in third person, that made the world Thomas, the main character, lived in so much more real. My favorite part of the story was probably The Maze, again Dashner makes it all seem so real and exciting, I was scared and excited, sad and mad throughout this whole book, when it came to an end I saw something on the last page

END OF BOOK ONE

Seeing those words never made me more excited, I’m currently reading The Scorch Trials, but when I’m finished you bet your bottom dollar I’ll be back with a review.

Deranged Rating: 5 out of 5

★★★★★

DIY Mirror

So for those of you who don’t know, I now work at Farm Girl Art &  Antiques. I love working there. I get to meet a ton of people who are interested in awesome art and items of history. Another thing I get to do is be a part of the art. Lisa has a ton of her stuff going on in her store and a couple weeks ago she gave me a project.

I didn’t really think about it but I thought going a DIY would be awesome, but the idea didn’t really come to me until I was done with the project. Lucky for you guys it wasn’t that long ago so I still remember, plus I have a few pictures.

so here goes nothing:

A lady came to Lisa, my boss, and my boyfriends mom a while ago and gave her a ton of sea shells, and I mean a ton. So she was looking for something to do with them. Being the brilliant woman she is she indeed came up with an idea. She came to me and said,I have an old mirror I want to do something with so I’m thinking we paint it, and then cover it with seashells.I looked at her and thought, that’s a terrific idea. So I did it and it looks fantastic.

What you will need:http://mesamendoza.wordpress.com/

-Seashells, the size doesn’t matter but I kept my sizes relatively small.

- A mirror that can be painted

-Paint, I went with a light blue to give it that beach look

-Glue, I used Modge Podge and Gorilla Glue

-Time

Step One:

I got my paint brush out and began painting the mirror, and like I said I used a light blue to give it a relaxing ocean feel. I then waited and added a few more coats

Step Two:

I covered the mirror in seashells to see what it looked like without the glue. Just to make sure everything would fit and look good. I also added a starfish to the top center of the mirror.

Step Three:

The glue… This was a little challenging for me, being that I’m new to the world of arts and crafts. I started with modge podge, I took my brush and painted the glue on, then added the seashells. I felt like modge podge was too thin so I switched to the gorilla glue and I felt more comfortable with that.

So it’s a pretty easy DIY all it really takes is time.

This is the mirror before it was glued.

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And of course this is the final product that I’m so proud of!

 

 

 

Chicken Dumpling Soup

Lately I’ve been testing my culinary skills and today was my first fail. I’ve been using foodgawker lately because they have amazing recipes and I found a great recipe for chicken dumpling soup on mommiecooks, which I’ve seen before and really enjoy her blog.

So anyways on with my treacherous cooking event. This is the recipe I was to follow. Now the bold is my mistakes, the italics are the directions from the mommiecooks blog.

 

Chicken and Dumpling Soup

Total Time: 35 min

Now take a look at the time, 35 minutes. Yeah, my soup was in the slow cooker for about 3 hours.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 Cup Ice Water
4 Cups Chicken Stock
4 Carrots, Chopped
2 Stalks Celery, Chopped
2 Bay Leaves
1/2 tsp Celery Salt
2 Cloves Garlic, Minced
1/2 tsp Basil
1/2 tsp Oregano
3 Chicken Breasts
1/2 Cup Half & Half

So I looked at these and thought, simple right? I had most of the stuff at home, the only thing I really needed was the chicken stock, celery, and the chicken. So I went to the store, purchased it all and came home ready to get my cookin’ on!

Directions:

Start out by putting together the dough for your dumplings. Mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Then slowly add in your ice water. Keep adding it in until you have enough to form a nice dough ball. Knead your dough for about 5 minutes and then set it the side and let it rest while you work on the other end of the soup.

This was super hard to do, it was really sticky and it was getting stuck to my hands, so I put more flour on my hands to de-stickify it. That’s possibly why my dumplings turned out bad but more on that later.

In a large pot add together your stock, chicken, carrots, celery, garlic, basil, oregano, and celery salt. Heat it up on medium heat and let the chicken cook through. When the chicken is cooked, remove it and set it to the side.

This was easy, my chicken was from a can so I just put it all together and threw it in the slow cooker.

Now grab up your dough and roll it out about 1/4″ thick with your rolling-pin. Cut it into small squares and place them in your hot broth. As they cook up, they will rise to the top of the broth.

Again another easy step, but I doubled all my ingredients, so I think I had way too much dough, and my boyfriends dad said I used the wrong dough when I was trying to figure out where I went wrong.

While your dumplings are cooking, go ahead and shred your chicken up. Add it to your soup. Last but not least, add in the half and half and give it a couple swirls around the pan to incorporate everything together.

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So that’s the end of the directions, I followed everything other than I doubled up on all the ingredients, it turned out pretty mushy and not very good but Chris and I ate a bowl anyways, we both added some corn to ours. I mean it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t as good as last weeks soup (chicken coconut curry soup).

I’m not 100% sure where I went wrong other than I think I had too much dough, and Tony, Chris’s dad said I used the wrong dough. But all in all I had fun cooking it. I’ve been trying new recipes and enjoying it, so maybe next weekend I’ll go with something simpler. The end of my soup result was this:

So if anyone has any tips or anything feel free to comment and let me know. Otherwise I hope you enjoyed my food fail, it is kinda funny!

I Know You Love Each Other, But Get A Room!

I’m so tired of seeing this everywhere I go. Every morning when I go to school there are couples here and there making out obnoxiously in the hallways. It’s not that it bothers me because I’m single because I’m not single, but my boyfriend and I don’t suck each others face because it’s just gross.

Walking down the hallway is another challenge in my school because you see couples walking obnoxiously or (again) standing in the middle of the hallway “passionately” making out as if they’re never going to see one another again. Then there’s those who walk in the halls as they should, but they have their hands all over each other’s butts! Seriously? Why is that even appealing? I don’t know if  I’m missing something but all I know it it’s more than disgusting to see all that.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying all PDA is gross, some of it is cute and understandable, but I just hate watching people exchange STD’s in the hallways. Get a room.

 

Then there’s the guys I feel bad for, and before I go on with this topic I am not saying I don’t see guys do this to their girls too but I see it MUCH more with girls.

My locker is somewhat surrounded with couples and all I usually hear from the girls in their relationships is “Do this” or “Do that” and “No you can’t do that” or “‘Don’t touch me” blah blah blah. The only thing I want to do to these girls is scream in their face and see how they like it. I wish they knew how it affected everyone else around their locker because I hate listening to that crap every single day. I guess I just don’t understand why these girls enjoy excuse my language but, bitching at their boyfriends. I get angry at my boyfriend and sometimes I want him to do things but I don’t whine about it until I get my way.

If you think this might be you let me give you some advice, stop whining and just ask! Guys appreciate when you put things right out there so they don’t have to search your confusing brain trying to figure out what you want. Don’t yell, because it probably just makes him want to do whatever you want even less now. And last stop being so controlling! Guys have feelings to and if you can’t respect them, you don’t deserve to be with him. This guy probably slaves over whatever you want and he deserves some respect too.

It’s That Time!

So this is the post where like everyone else, I’m to talk about how 2011 was dreadful or amazing and how I will improve in 2012. This is the post where I wish everyone a happy new year and give them ideas for resolutions or talk about my plans.

Well I don’t like doing what’s expected.

Today one year ago, a very good (well at the time) friend of mine told me our resolution should be to start a blog and use it for the whole year. His resolution lasted about three days, mine however lasted 365 days. Thanks to him I’ve created this blog and I’ve fallen in love with the art of blogging. So today is I guess the birthday of the idea of my blog. I started a blog on blogspot (ew) and then I converted to WordPress. So I’d just like to thank that person who helped me come up with the idea and I hope you’re doing just fine.

As for the rest of you, I don’t have much today, being that it is New Years and I have things to do! So Happy 2011 and I’ll be back next year!

Yet Another Challenge!

This past weekend I learned to knit, nothing fancy, just very basic knitting. I’m no professional at it of course, but I’m slowly grasping the concept and I’m really  starting to enjoy it!

So here’s my plan, I’m going to start knitting scarfs until I can get it all right without ending up with a million extra stitches. Once I get that, I’ll learn new stitches and how to make things such as blankets, and maybe even socks!

I’m really excited to start challenging myself so soon with something I’ve come to enjoy very quickly.

Any websites that could be helpful? Do you knit, if so, what’s your favorite stitch?