The way we get by

I'm having one of those days where I'm feeling slightly retrospective.  As I get closer to my birthday memories from the past year seem to be flooding back to me.  It goes back more than just the last year, but mainly 2011.

So much change can happen in just one year and you hardly realize what has happened until it is done and gone.

But I digress, this blog is starting to get to bleak for me and I don't want to be a blah-de-blah blah blogger.  At least not today.

I've been working on my list of 25 things to do while I'm 25.   So far; if I'm remembering off the top of my head correctly, I would like to read 25 books.  I'm looking for must read books that I haven't read.  I would considering reading something I have read before if it is something really good.  There are plenty of classics that I haven't read and need too, but please suggest some!

Doing a marathon of some sort was something I thought about but I can't really run because of my knees but there are walking ones too, right?  That one I'm still on the fence about.

There must of been something else that I can't think of at the moment. Usually they come to me while I'm in bed trying to sleep.

I should put unpack my boxes from moving finally and paint the rooms in my house to my list, but I don't know if those are considered must haves of my 25th year.

OH! I just thought of one that's on my list and I actually have progress on.  I want to go to my first ever convention.  My boyfriend and I have already preregistered for Gally!(What Gally is: http://www.gallifreyone.com/ )

He went this year and loved it, and is willing to share it with me next year.  It should be super awesome since it is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.  The convention would still be exciting minus that but 50th anniversary could mean some pretty cool things might happen.  I just can't believe I'm already excited for something that is happening 315 days from now.

Now I'm just excited thinking about Gally and this blog isn't going anywhere.  Here's a good song.

P.S. Why does typography look so cool?

P.S.S I realized that was a really short video of that song after I posted it...so here is a longer one but less cool because it lacks typography. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5dCKc7LxaI

Updates coming soon!

So it is pretty clear that I have let my daily blog go to the wayside but I have been making plans to bring it back. I'm not sure if anyone will be excited for it or not but I think it will be good for me to have it back again.

I will most likely be doing the picture a day again like I did two years ago.  I'm thinking of starting this up again when I hit my 25th birthday.  It will be a nice way to remember how I handled my quarter life crisis (assuming I have one).

Another idea that I have is to bring back my list.  That list being twenty something things to do before I turned twenty something.  For some reason I can't seem to remember if it was 23 or 24.  I could just do some digging in my blog and find out but I'm far too lazy for that right now.  Instead of it being 25 things before I'm 25 the list will be 25 things to do while I'm 25.  I'm taking any suggestions as far as what those 25 things should be.

Lets hope this post isn't an empty one and I actually succeed in bringing back this blog.  I still find myself planning out a picture for a blog post even though I haven't really blogged for almost a year now.  I've got a few months to prepare since my birthday isn't until May!  Better start making my list!

June 27th - July 1st, 2011

Phew another week has swooped on by and I have found myself behind on my posting.  I'll condense my week done into a few paragraphs and of course some pictures.

Mostly I spent my time working and all those fun shenanigans.  One of the days I went to the History Center in St. Paul with some free tickets I got from the library.

I saw this plane and had to think of my friend Jenny.  It also didn't help that I was in a history center either. :P

Did I mention that I was there two days before the State was planning on shutting down because they can't seem to figure out what they want to do with their budget.  Is it really that difficult to plan a budget?   How is it that all the other states have theirs planned but we don't?  Come on Minnesota.  Get your head in the game.

Also, I have to wonder what they removed just for the shutdown.  All the items that seemed to be missing were from the Minnesota History part of the place and no where else.  It was really odd.  They close down the whole building anyway...so why would they need to remove things?  Weird.

 One of the cool items that was there was this sweet mustache cup.  The extra ledge was made specifically to protect your bushy mustache from getting wet from you drink.  How brilliant is that?!  Why don't we have those now?!  I would totally want one of those if I had a bushy mustache.  Me thinks I need to go online and see if I can find some for sale.  I have plenty of relatives that I'm sure could use some mustache protection.

Now for something completely different!  I had my house inspected on Thursday and you will be glad to know that nothing to wild and woolly showed up.  I took some more detailed pictures of things like the tile on the wall in my bathroom(above).  The walls in the house aren't bad but I'm really considering painting them.  I like the idea of having colored walls for once in my life.  Not sure what I can do with the walls in the bathroom.  Only part of it has the blue tile.

I've been more concerned with the kitchen.  There is this blue and white vinyl on the floor and wooden panel part way up the side of the wall.  I'm thinking I'll paint my cabinets a white color to brighten up the room because they are a dark brown right now.  There is also a small amount of yellow/white tile on the wall next to the shelves.  Sooo.  I'm looking for ideas on what color to use. Any one?

Oh I almost forgot!  I had some delicious turkey sliders from Good Earth restaurant in Edina.  I really like their food.  I've never been their for lunch before but it is pretty good.  Their breakfast is pretty tasty.  Now I'm craving their breakfast!

June 26th, 2011

Never have been one to count my eggs before they have fully hatched, but in the case of my house I'm pretty sure I can put all of them in one basket.  (That was painful to write that many cliches in one sentence. )

Used my lovely Sunday afternoon to wonder aimlessly about Ikea to get ideas for what I would want in my house.  Got some good ideas as far as furniture for my living room and second bed room.  Probably won't fork out the dough for Ikea furniture but at least I can start visualizing what I'd like to have.

For a couch I would probably want something similar to this. The link for this couch is:  http://www.roomstogo.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=showItem&ipac_id=36886  One of the things I have come to discover I am a big fan of is a Chaise.  They work nicely when you can connect them onto a couch like the picture above.  Most versions of the chaise/couch combination at Ikea that I saw had the ability to switch sides or be free standing, and I really like that idea.

That couch also has a pull out sleeper inside the couch.  I'm think of getting just a small sleeper sofa for the second bedroom for guests to use when they come over.  Then I can still have the guest room to use as an 'office' but also a place to keep quests.  Plus if I had a big couch like the one above in the living room people could sleep on that too!

Who knew having a house could make one so excited about buying furniture!

June 25th, 2011

Good news!!! Excellent news! Probably the best darn news I can get...well me winning the lottery would be better, but this is pretty close.

Today was the day I found out my offer on the house was accepted!  Here I was thinking it was going to take until next week before we could even start to haggle with them, but they must be eager to sell because they got back to us over the weekend.

Now I have a place to rest my head after my lease is up.  There are plenty of things I will need to be figuring out now that I have a house!  Technically first I'll have an inspection done and then wait for all the paper work to do what it has to do.  Originally I was going to move end of August but the seller wants to move the closing date up to the end of July.  So, I will most likely have a whole month to move into my home.  That is crazy!

Still think I'm in a bit of a shock from having it go so well.  Please hope and pray that the inspection doesn't find something terribly wrong with the place.  Definitely don't want to look for houses yet again.  Plus I think I got the place for a pretty good price. : )

My house!  I'm so excited to be working towards owning a place instead of renting.  Lets just say the 'block' party our apartment place had while I was trying to sleep today was more than annoying and solidified my choice to get a house even more!

June 24th, 2011

Sometimes your body doesn't like to make plans.  Today was one of those days.  My morning plans went through without a hitch, it was what I had to do in the afternoon that got a wrench thrown in it.

My morning was filled with paperwork to make an offer on a house.  The papers probably won't be seen by the seller until monday.  Not really looking forward to waiting, but that is part of the game.  Despite the intial money I will have to spend on the house I can't help but look forward to the smaller monthly payments.  Need to be careful though...don't want to get my hopes up and have this get shatter.  Really, really, reaalllllly hoping that does not happen.  High hopes for all of this.

As for the rest of my day; did some picking up around the apartment because they apartment people wanted to show our place to a perspective renter.  Since the showing was at 5:30 I needed to get some sleep before hand because I had worked the night before.  Thinking I would get up an hour beforehand and scooch on out before they got there was my plan.  

Sadly that didn't happen.  My phone kept ringing while I was trying to sleep and kept me jerking in and out of sleep.  This ended up causing me to sleep through my alarm later and be woken up when I hear someone opening my room's door.  There was no panic or screaming "Omg who are you??!!?!"  Somehow I remembered they were showing it and laid still and the person mentioned something about someone sleeping and left me alone.  

Oops?  Guess I can't really feel too bad about it.  They got to see the rest of the apartment....just not my bedroom.  Not like they are judging my room, it's the place itself they want to judge.

Oh, one more thing about this viewing.  They told me that they would give us at least a day advance warning if they wanted to bring someone in and they had tried to schedule the viewing the same day they called.  Come on people, if you are going to say something please try to keep to your word.

P.s. Flower pots have their first bloom!  I can't remember what all is in there, but if you can tell me what it is you get a high five.

June 23rd, 2011

Today was a day for firsts.  Never have I ever cooked with eggplant before and for some reason this was the week to do so.  Admittedly, I should have read up more on the technique to get it to cook correctly before I jumped into the recipe but I was hungry!  Hind site; never cook when you are very hungry or you'll make too much or do something wrong.  It is kind of like how you should never shop while hungry, expect entirely different.

When I bought the eggplant I did at least look up how to find one that was ripe and I think I succeeded at least in that.  The recipe I found was eggplant parmigiana.  Basically it is just like chicken parmigiana except with eggplant in place of chicken (imagine that).

Some of the ingredients listed were not in my cupboards or I had forgotten to get them at the store, but I made due.  The only things I think I changed were crackers instead of bread crumbs.  After having made them I'm almost sure bread crumbs would have worked better.

The recipe in a nut shell: eggplant, crackers, egg whites, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, pasta sauce, and mozzarella cheese.  The eggplant is put in the egg whites and then dipped into the crackers, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder mix.  Then it is baked, flipping them once.

After they baked on the sheet you lay them in a pan and slather on the pasta sauce and cheese in layers, and then baked it again!  Some how with all this time in the oven I'm pretty sure I still managed to some how under cook them because they seemed far to crunchy and chewy.  Then again I haven't ever cooked them so I'm not really sure how they should taste.

All I can say about it is, I doubt I'll probably make it again.  Definitely not added to my favorites.