Photos of the Week: February 18 - 24

No longer behind on my photo posts! Yay!

18. Building IKEA furniture
19. Union Station at night
20. Candles
21. Sunset on the Metro
22. Hill Country happy hour
23. I got school spirit!
24. Hello Moon!

Photos of the Week: February 11 - 17

Week late and a dollar short. Trying my best to get back on schedule.

11. More valentines
12. Got a secret, can you keep it?
13. Nothing but net
14. Sushi boat
15. Bedtime reading
16. Elementary
17. Bagpipes

2013 Academy Award Predictions

This is it! Final picks for the 2012-13 award season.

Update: I totally crushed it this year. Scored 18 out of 24. The actual show was okay. I thought they could have cut a few things to make it shorter like consolidate musical numbers, not have a 20 minute intro, cut some presenter dialogue, etc. Favorite moments include the "Why aren't Tina and Amy hosting?" line, the Sound of Music gag, and Jennifer Lawrence winning Best Actress.

Best Picture

Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Photos of the Week: February 4 - 10

This is very late, but that doesn't matter. Without further ado, I present the mediocre photos I took over the week of February 4th - 10th.

4. Ice skating at the civic center
5. Fancy hotel rug
6. Sprinkles!
7. Homemade ratatouille
8. Visions of a drunk Liz
9. Valentine's crafting
10. Almost midnight

Holidays: Single Gals All-You-Can-Eat Sushi Valentine's Day

Valentine's day kinda sucks when you're forever alone. But the silver lining is that I have friends that I love more than anything. So instead of sitting home alone trying to use tv to comfort me, I went out with one of my best friends and two of her co-workers. This wasn't just any dinner though. It was Single Gals All-You-Can-Eat sushi. And it was freaking fabulous.

Our first round of sushi came on a BOAT! It was the most exciting thing ever. We all were expecting to eat our weight in sushi so lunches had been considerably light. Once the boat had been docked on our table all you could see was a flurry of chopsticks. And 15 minutes later, the four of us devoured all the sushi and moved on to round 2. Unfortunately, that didn't arrive via aquatic vessel. By the time we finished, we practically had to roll ourselves out of there.

Crafting: Valentine's Day Cards

I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day, but it's a holiday with chocolate and tons of crafting potential so there's the silver lining. This year I wanted to put my new papercutting skills to work. So with a couple of quick Google searches I found some Valentine's Day card patterns.

For the little valentines to pass out at work, I used this pixelated heart pattern from Mini Eco. They are super cute and surprisingly easy to make. I'd say in less than 15 minutes you could make a complete card and envelope. Just a couple of cuts and scores, and voila! Pretty cards. The instructions also include patterns for the outer card and envelope.

For those who deserve a more labor-intensive card, I found this papercutting pattern at Kind Over Matter. It is a fairly simple papercutting design. I found the letters to be a little troublesome just because they are so tiny. Average time it took me to make one of these cards: 1 hour. So next year I'm going to start making my cards much sooner than the week before.

Cooking: Ratatouille with Quinoa & Lentils

Earlier this week, I decided to be a real adult and cook the one meal I seemingly know - ratatouille with quinoa and lentils. I like making this meal because it is so simple and foolproof (at least so far I haven't screwed it up). I'll tell you what I do to make this dish, but as a disclaimer, I have no clue what I'm doing so you should probably look up a recipe from a more credible source (unless you're lazy like me).

Ingredients

1 green pepper

1 onion

1 zucchini

1 yellow squash

1 eggplant

1 can of diced tomatoes

Dashes of seasonings (basil, marjoram, garlic powder)

Instructions

1. Wash your veggies. Dice up the onion and green pepper and put to the side in a dish. Slice the zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant into half circles or quarter circles depending on your preference.
2. Add a splash of oil to a large pot. Swish it around so it fully coats the bottom of the pot. Turn the stovetop heat to low and wait for the oil to heat up a bit ( about 30 seconds). Then add the diced onion and green pepper. Mix them around so they begin to soften.
3. Add the zucchini and yellow squash  to the pot. Mix around with the onion and green pepper.
4. Add the eggplant and the can of diced tomatoes. (note: you can use 2 fresh tomatoes instead of canned. I just find cutting up tomatoes to be impossible and far too messy). Add a dash of garlic powder, basil, and marjoram. (Alternatively, just season with what you have around the kitchen or not at all. Already told you I'm not an expert at this.) Mix contents of the pot.
5. Cover and let simmer until it comes to a boil. Check to see if all the vegetables have softened. If not, let sit for a little while longer until you are too hungry to wait anymore. Voila!

Ratatouille close-up

For the quinoa and lentils, I follow Whole Foods' instructions for how to cook quinoa. Rinse, put in a pot with a 2:1 water to quinoa/lentils mix, bring to a boil, wait 15-20 minutes until all the water is absorbed. You should start the quinoa and lentils around the same time you start putting the onions and green pepper into the ratatouille pot. They'll be done cooking around the same time. And voila! Serve some quinoa & lentils into a boil and add the ratatouille on top.

Quinoa & lentils close-up



Photos of the Week: January 28 - February 3

28. Did you know the moon is especially difficult to photograph?

29. Happy Endings title

30. Bulgarian sweets

31. Shrine to 30 Rock

1. 404 Not Found (I forgot to take a photo that day.)

2. Valentines sneak peek

3. Superbowl Champs

Reading: The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I had been meaning to read this book for a while. Well, ever since review called it the grown-up Harry Potter. I am on board when Harry Potter is mentioned.

Well now that I've finished the book I'm not so enthusiastically running out to start the next one. Let me explain. It follows Quentin Coldwater, who out of the blue is invited to study at Brakebills, a magicial college. This is everything he believes he could ever want and is as close as he can imagine going to the magical world of Fillory (a.k.a. Narnia). Structurally, the story is divided into for "books," each following a different period of time in Quentin's life. I won't go into specifics because I don't want to spoil too much.

The geek in me loved all the little references to Harry Potter and Narnia and anything vaguely nerd culture. But it seemed to do this only to point out that it wasn't like that. It was strictly, "this is what happens at Hogwarts, but that's now how it works here at Brakebills." I guess I  can appreciate that Grossman was trying to set his world apart from others that came before him. But while reading this, I couldn't help but think every once in awhile "Why am I not rereading Harry Potter right now?" Like it was a struggle trying to get through some parts of the book because it was either a) boring or b) annoying, especially Quentin.

God, I did not like Quentin at all. He was just so whiny and petulant. Grrrrargh, I don't know how to put into words my dislike towards him. And I understand that he represents today's privileged youth after college, questioning "what will I do now?".  But that's sort of the reason why I don't watch HBO's Girls because I don't need to watch something that is going on around me. I could just pay attention to the real world going on around me for that. I read fiction like this to escape the everyday life.

The more that I think about it, I guess I'm also like those who leave Brakebills. I had such high expectations for this book and now I'm just complaining about it because it didn't live up to what I had thought and I'm unsure if I want to read the next book. I mean I will read the next book because I like finishing things. Also because in the last 30 pages he tried to rush and set up a sequel with very little explanation and I just like knowing things.

For more (professional) reviews, see one of the links below:
[ A.V. Club ] [ Washington Post ] [ NY Times ]

Watching: 30 Rock Finale

What the what? It is really over. What a brilliant series finale!  I am always curious with series finales or at least the ones that are planned. Abrupt cancellations leave very little resolution with cliffhangers meant to drive you insane. Though I almost prefer that a show gets cut down in its glory than produce a super-sappy sunshine and rainbows and puppies type of finale. It can feel like they were just phoning it in with the happily ever after.

But that is definitely not the case with 30 Rock. As the internet keeps pointing out, the final season of 30 Rock has been one of the best ever. Tonight still had the feel of a typical episode with its jokes and absurd plotlines. But this time it was mixed with the gravitas of saying goodbye and moving on.


It is no secret that 30 Rock has become a huge influence on my life. I see myself in Liz Lemon, as I'm sure many of us do. My daily vocabulary consists of obscure quotes, whether or not others realize it. Sure it can border on crazy obsessive. I built a little shrine to the show to bid it farewell. But isn't that what Liz Lemon would do if her favorite show was ending?

And it is not gone forever. 30 Rock lives on in syndication so I can get a daily fix before going to bed. Nevertheless, saying goodbye to a favorite show is tough. You set the bar high, dear friend. Lemon out!

(Okay, ending this now before you think I need a padded cell.)