.domestica.

found a recipe for samosas in an old moosewood restaurant cookbook and decided to give it a whirl. i am not julia child, but i gotta say, kneading and rolling out dough was by far my favorite part of this process.
unfortunately, i found the "real" way to make a samosa online. in case you want to know, you actually cut the circle in half and make a cone and then fill it. so instead of coming out looking like samosas, when all was said and done, it came out like this:
yeah. they might as well be empanadas. but they did taste good. so i will do a retake, and use the wise advice of my new friend Miss Manjula

.dark.

i'm sitting in the dark, halfway through earth hour. the only things i have "operating" right now are my fridge and my internet connection, so i'm pretty content. hopefully my battery will last a half hour more. it's strange, but the stillness and the darkness don't bother me. i'm pretty used to it. maybe it's part of aging, who knows. i crave simplicity. my head doesn't seem to tolerate noise like it used to. i've been drinking for the past two nights, so i figured i would give the liver a break tonight. gotta love ladies' night at applebees. bless them for free drinks and half priced apps. it makes up for the 4 mojitos i had last night at chilis.
so i'm going to key west at the end of april with some classmates and i'm super excited to be going somewhere new! it's gonna be a good time, these girls are really sweet and i'm glad i've gotten to know them a bit more. plus, since one of the girls is from there, we have free housing! woot woot! i haven't decided when i'll return to jerz, but that is definitely in the works. and then vegas in may with sal. it's too much booty in the pants kind of fun! 12 more minutes, then i get to turn on the lights and work on my e&a assignment. fun fun fun. funnnnnnnnnnnnn.

.pancakes.

i've been trying to do something that will lift up my spirits each day. lately it's been food related which can be good and bad. well this morning i got up early and went to mass. after, went to walmart and bought some groceries although i couldn't find half sandwich bags anywhere? anyhoo, i got home and whipped up some pancakes from scratch with my ipod player blasting in the background. i dunno if my baking powder was defunct but they looked more like crepes and that's fine by me because they were DELISH! growing up, my mother always made pancakes with bisquik. now i can't stand them. i really can't no offense estelle. that and wonder bread. gross. and quik. yuck.

last night went to orlando and caught a magic v knicks game. it was fun! it was awesome seeing some jersey folk that were visiting and i wanted to go out with them after the game very badly, but i had one of 3 options. one, i could drive the half hour west to the venue and then drive home 2 hours after partying, or i could drive the half hour west, then drive to tampa afterwards, crash and drive the 3 hours home today. OR, i could drive the hour and a half home after the game and not hate myself. i chose the latter. so i missed hanging out with them a bit longer, but i definitely have priorities i need to take care of right now. sadly enough. how responsible i need to be! this week's gonna be mother, so please pray for me! you're lovely as usual.

.refresh.

say hello to my little friends! the one on the left is basil, and the one on the right is lavender. i bought them while i was out at the farmer's market today. it was an incredible find, especially after talking with a dear friend about how much i wanted a basil plant. so i paid 5 dollars for the plants, and then went to home depot afterwards for the pots and soil. all under 10 dollars and a total of one hour. it's funny how the little things can be such gifts! i've been so funky lately, battling family issues in my head and in my dreams. i made some brunch and caught suzie orman on public television. in just 5 minutes, she changed my whole outlook on life. just like that, in 8 simple words.

Harmony-Balance-Courage-Generosity-Happiness-Cleanliness-Beauty-Wisdom.

if you can get your thoughts, words and actions to be one in the same, you have acheived harmony. if you have harmony, you can establish balance. once you have balance, you can be courageous....and so on. her words made me want to be a better person. like right after, i realized how i needed to change my line of thinking. for instance, i could be annoyed with the fact that my coffee filter folded over and coffee grinds got in my coffee, but you know what? i'm not going to let that ruin my day. instead, i'll just make another pot. simple as that.
so empowering! and then we can be good role models to our friends that are struggling with any of these areas in their lives. what a great gift. <3

.indulgence.

.Brooks Ghost Running Shoes.

so i made my one major purchase since the new year began, and that would be my running shoes. since i have no recollection of when i bought my asics and they were literally worn down, i felt quite justified in going to a store that didn't have the words foot or locker in it, and actually had a real person help me. they took a foot impression and fitted me with shoes that were appropriate for my type of feet. then they had me run around in them until i settled on a pair. i felt completely spoiled, and felt good about supporting a local business. it was very "road runner"esque. the road to slim stacy has been bumpy, lumpy and slow. i'm 2 pounds away from the 10 pound mark and i'm hoping to get there by the end of the month, especially now that midterms are over. besides, can you believe i haven't hit the beach yet? i dare not venture out in bathing suit attire. so when i'm sweating and craving the WORST foods (see below), i keep thinking of being on the beach. i know, i'm so vain, but this is what's honestly been running through my head when i'm working out and hating every single minute of it.

so that's what's been going on in the my world. oh and can i take ONE minute to discuss how annoying i find it that an asian crew has won america's best dance crew for the 3rd season in a row? i will delve later, but yeah, annoying. <3

.jersey.

.pizza fries.

it's not the most flattering picture, but i wanted to share a nostalgic moment that i had yesterday. on tuesday, i went out to have my green beer and decided to have some curly fries. well they hooked it up and i was totally full so i brought it home. well yesterday, i was missing home, so i decided to make a diner dish. 20 minutes later, and the result, pizza fries! curly fries, pasta sauce, and mozzarella cheese. [sigh]. i was actually surprised to find out that my jersey friend had not heard of pizza fries, but had heard of disco fries. um how is it that she knows about fries that are less descriptive of what they are? how do gravy and cheese covered fries equate that of a disco? she's funny. now i just might make a fat sandwich. who knows, the possibilities are quite endless. and yes, i do miss people from home.

.inspiration.

i love stories when people go above and beyond their call of duty. i love when people take the time to treat someone with the respect and honor they really do deserve. everyday, someone is always under appreciated, and the world seems so self-absorbed and too busy to care about their own. so i really loved this story about this soldier that asked if there was a way some of the US baseball team could sign his flag that he brought home from iraq. the security guard led him to the clubhouse where everyone signed it and then gave him a ball that the all-star team had signed.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-perezteamusa031809&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
maybe i'm just a huge sap when it comes to kindness because i just don't see it as often as i wish i could. but anyway, i'm glad i got to read that today. it convicts me to keep going in this master's program so that i'll be able to help people in a great way in the future. =)

.letters.

.domo you smart japanese people and your origami.

i had a super difficult evidenced based practice exam today. it took literally over 3 hours and i emailed it 10 minutes late. the sun was setting as i was getting home and that was pretty depressing! i went to get the mail, and yay, a letter from a dear friend arrived. she had warned me that it was "ghetto" because she had to make the envelope, but honestly i thought it made it that much more special. and in case you are wondering, yes, i was able to fold that bad boy back into a heart. it must have some sort of correlation to taking 3 hour exams or maybe it's from all that note folding from back in the day. remember how much fun that was? do teeny boppers still do that? no, probably not. they probably just text, ping, IM or call each other on their iphones. lame! yeah, i'm pretty much dating myself (well what else is new, well you know what i mean) but that was the ultimate jam of communication! and it never had anything important to talk about! and really, the biggest risk is that it would fall into the wrong hands. maybe that was the real thrill of it all. but anyway, this made me smile today and totally brought me back.

.survial.

so i survived this week. i think i passed everything, there's just one more grade i'm waiting on. but so far i've passed, which is always a positive to the day. now i just have to bang out this paper, finish a write up and study for pathology. it just never ends. i hate when the female of me gets in the way and makes me do unhealthy things like order a blue coconut slush and large tots from sonic at 10pm at night. so wrong. this was after an evening of sushi. my sodium levels must be INSANE. but nothing else seems as satisfying. i made a huge salad to go with my box of mac and cheese (cuz i was CRAVING it) and did i touch the salad? negatory. yuck. and i should go running today. we'll see if that happens. but yes, i had actually decent sushi last night. it was refreshing. the company was divine. of the group of 5, i was the only OT, so i got to catch up on their PT world, since we only take 3 classes together now.

maybe all this food made me have the bad dreams i had last night. serious. i woke up disturbed, and sad. my brain is a hot mess. i've heard that dreaming is a why to purge all the things your mind doesn't need, well what always trips me up is that people i don't know are in my dreams. like, really, WHO are you?!? thankfully i don't give too much weight to my dreams, but sometimes my mind is just a big tease. maybe it's mad at me because i haven't been in a relationship forever, but that doesn't give it the right to create scenerios with people i have long said goodbye to. anyway.

.daylight.

dang you germany and austria for coming up with daylight savings. i cannot deal with this time change. it has made me miserable. i fell asleep at 5pm today because i was so exhausted from not being able to sleep the night before, and then woke up at 11pm so i could finish the work i didn't get done during the normal hours. i have to be at mass by 7am, and class at 9. i have two practicals tomorrow and i'm just a hot mess. i really can't deal. so please pray for this hot mess and i bid you good morning.

.break.

.clearwater, fl.

since i stuck around thursday and friday and did school work instead of enjoying spring blink, i decided to go and visit my cousins in tampa on saturday into today. i was really anxious about going, because i knew how much work i had to do, it was a 3 hour drive, and i was going to lose an hour to daylight savings time, but honestly, i really really needed to do it. i'm really glad i did. i caught up with cousin cindy and got acquainted with her 2 year old emi, who i haven't seen since her baptism. it was super awesome, and she couldn't help remarking how good it is to have family around. i agree, although i consider my friends family, so i was thinking more of loved ones back home. then we went to lunch at bahama breeze, which wow, is actually in wayne, nj now. well anyway, yeah, this one was along the water. so so pretty. i didn't get a picture of it, but hopefully cindy will hook me up w/ the one she took on her iphone. then picked my cousin welo, and the 4 of us went over to clearwater. so pretty! i wish we had more time there. i will definitely have to make a repeat visit. as i put my feet into the water, i realized that the last time i had touched water from the gulf, was when i was in cancun for spring break 7 years ago. dang. i got to meet up w/ some transplant friends from jersey, and we had some sushi which still doesn't compare to half-priced u-yee's. it just feels so much better on the stomach and the wallet. called it a night, and was very disoriented this morning with the time change.
on the way to our brunch, emi and i did a photo shoot. this is just one of many.
cindy said that when i left, she was tearing up a bit. too cute. i raced back to st. augustine after lunch to catch the 6pm mass and so i'm finally home after some grocery shopping to brace myself for this week. exam tomorrow, debate on wednesday, and 2 practicals thursday. please pray for me as i hold on to my ponties.

.sucker.

okay, so i don't watch reality tv for the most part, because i'm usually using tv to escape reality. i'm also a bit behind the times and end up watching old reruns of csi las vegas, ny and miami, so i can't contribute to conversations about Lost, Heroes, 24 or The Office. BUT. as i channel surfed during a commerical, i came across the finale for the bachelor. i watched a little bit to get the gist of what was going on, and then switched back again when jason mesnick had turned down molly, and molly's monologue in the car. okay, so at this point, i felt for the girl, and she didn't get all crazy on camera. they pan to jason, and poor thing, he actually feels really bad about what he did to molly. aww cute, tears...then the sobbing. o_O. really? that's...not needed. maybe if his child, or parent or sick cancer ridden dog died, but really? so then melissa comes out, and he finally reveals to her that he's fallen SO in love with her, and that's when i changed it, thinking, okay, yay. LITTLE DID I KNOW! so yesterday, our class had a pizza party (it sounds like we're in 4th grade but i have little energy to explain) and i hear some of my classmates talking about it. well i thought i could put my two cents in when my girl broke it down to me. shocker! it was a lot of me with my jaw dropped with a couple of "no way"s and "shut the front door"s. which got me thinking today,
Jason Mesnick, thank you so very much for perpetuating the fear in a single woman's heart that something IS too good to be true, and that a guy apparently has a 30 day return policy on engagements. thank you so much for parading your son as a litmus for your love life, and i hope you are saving up enough money to send him to therapy one day. or maybe, the two of you could start a running tally of how many psyches you will continue to break down. that would be some great quality bonding with your son who doesn't know WHO to call mommy anymore. you are a true inspiration for all men who were teetering on that line of whether they should commit or not. you grounded them real well, and i'm sure they will feel so much better just staying on that line. that's great. after all, you did show them that they don't ever have to really face any consequences in love, just do what you want to do without concern about how it affects other people. you should be an inspirational speaker. today i do wish you and molly well, but who knows, i may change my mind about that tomorrow.

.altruism.

it must feel nice to be able to do something really great for the world or for one another. i wish i could truly live my life as if it was my last day. i think i would be so much more loving and willing to take risks. i need to remember to live more.

.threats.

my farmer's market sweep. so fun. strawberries, cherry tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, red potatoes, sweet onion, bananas, vidalia onions, broccoli, romaine lettuce, carrots, and bok choy.

i couldn't help but laugh the other day while i was making my vegan mac and cheese (which by the way, came out really well) because out of the blue, my mother's threat about waiting till i finished school to have a boyfriend came back to haunt me, almost too well. funny how the world works. it started to warm up this weekend, and i was excited to throw the flip flops on again. it was so nice at the farmer's market and everything came to less than 20. sigh, i love warm weather but it gets me so nostalgic! i was thinking about some pretty good times, and i hope there are some more on the way. we have thursday and friday off, but i'll be trying to brace myself for a CRAZY next week. yuck, i hate that i have to think that far in advance. anyways, i have a mother pathology exam tomorrow, so lift one up for me if you can. tanks!