Candy Candy!

We watched Hocus Pocus yesterday, and it put me in quite a Halloween-y mood :) It's my favorite Halloween movie...aside from...well, no. It is my favorite! I've seen it pretty much every year of my life! And, in my opinion, Sarah Jessica Parker looks very pretty in it (and I don't think really like her most of the time to be honest...lol)

This morning, I had a super tummy ache, and ended up falling back asleep while Kyle was planning breakfast, so he threw out the trash, and went to the grocery store (because he's a sweetheart) and bought nom-y foods as well as some pumpkins! I'll post pictures once we've painted them, hehe.

And to put me even more in the Halloween Spirit, Kyle's mommy kindly mailed us a Halloween care package! Filled with yummy Halloween candy! It was incredibly nice of her :)

I got an email from Alena (a friend I babysat for) and she was telling be about the Haunted House they're decorating...and I'm very sad I can't be there. The kids in their neighborhood are so adorable, and I'm sure they'll look extra adorable on Halloween :)

Plus, I know that Drew is going to be a Storm Trooper...I bought him the costume as a going away present from me when we moved...He needed the addition to their collection of dress-up clothes, and they had a Jedi costume, as well as Darth Vader...so it was only fitting they needed a Storm Trooper :)

Anyway, I will finish planing my costume (I'm still not sure what to be) and sip on some warm Apple Cider.  :)

Things that I love

There are quite a few things that I love. I love cooking, watching movies, our big comfy couch, our soft sheets, doing the laundry (our detergent is deliberately lovely), checking the mail, taking pictures, reading books, listening to music, laughing, smiling....lots of things. But I've come to realize that I love these things even more when I'm doing them with Kyle. Everything is just that much more full of love and happiness. I LOVE living together. Spending our days wrapped in each other's arms. I love that it's cold outside, it's all the more reason to cuddle, and bake cookies. :)

I do miss my friends, and I do miss my family...but is it horrible to love living in a little bit of paradise? I wish we could've found a way to make SD work...but would have been financial suicide to try to do what we're doing/live like we're living in SD. And plus, I kind of like going home to visit, it makes hellos even happier, distance does make the heart grow fonder!

But, every day is not perfect, we have our fair share of grumbles and cases of grouchiness. There are days when I feel like crying about everything. Or when our joking goes too far...same with the tickling (which I believe would be a great form of torture). One of us will pout and hide under the blankets...but to be honest, even these days aren't bad days, mostly, I think, because of our ability to apologize and forgive so willingly. True, most of our "fights" aren't even real, they're mostly just games. But every so often when one of us really is hurt, the sheer love in fixing things makes all the hurt evaporate. To be honest, I'm pretty sure it's impossible for me to be mad at Kyle for more than 5-10 minutes. I love him more than everything, so even when he's being annoying (like now :P) I can't help but love him. Sure, it'd be nice if we could go out right now, but I am aware that he stayed up all night, and sleep is important. So he has about 5 minutes before I go jump on him and wake him up, haha.

I'm so grateful to have him, honestly, he's more than I ever expected to have, I'm so lucky :)

In addition to Kyle, these things have been highlights of the past few days:

(Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies!)

(Home Made Pazookie! lol)

 (New Toilet! Thank you Management!)

Choppity Chop!

At least once a year, I find this extreme urge to change my hairstyle...usually in an extremely dramatic way. This morning, I asked Kyle if it was a good idea to try cutting it myself (it's so hard finding a hair stylist you like, especially in a new city). He said "yes"...so if you dislike it...blame him, haha. :)

Before:

After:

Crime Scene:

 

I also now look cute in hats:

 

Sloppy Joe, Sloppy Sloppy Joe...

There are many reasons I love Kyle...currently I'm grateful he puts up with me when I'm a big blubbering baby. Alliteration aside, I'm being quite serious, haha. Yes, being a woman means becoming completely irrational and out of control of your emotions at least once a month, however, I pride myself on being unlike the rest of the female population because I'm quite the bad-ass mother pucker! I'm kidding of course, though I do wish I was bad-ass, and I do make an effort. Rambling aside, I can't help but lose control at least one day a month...and it's usually a week, hah. 

Yesterday we needed to go out and buy a book, and we took the time to make berry waffles and shower, which made us nearly late to go to the book store which was suppose to close at 4:30, we're only like 8 minutes away from the book store, so we would've been on time, but of course I was feeling dramatic and decided crawling into bed and crying was a better option, hah. But of course, my knight in shining armor managed to convince me to go with him and we ended up getting the book after all because the store didn't close until 6, go figure, hah. We went home and were hungry, so we decided to try to make something to eat before going back out. We ended up deciding to make vegan Sloppy Joe's. After finding a bunch of recipes and realizing we didn't have the real makings for Sloppy Joe sauce, especially because we don't have a key ingredient, Worcestershire sauce, nor do we have BBQ sauce (a sin, I know, haha). So we decided we'd make a concoction of our own...and then we slightly disagreed on how to do the sauce, stirring it in a bowl, blending it, or just throwing it into the pan and adding stuff as you go (my preferred method of cooking). I once again decided that crawling into bed/hiding under the covers/crying would be productive, and Kyle for the second time of the day held me, wiped away my tears, and cheered me up.

Oh the joys of having an understanding boyfriend/best friend. :)

Anyway, we decided to blend the ingredients, and let me tell you, it turned out amazing! I won't tell you extreme details because it is now an official secret sauce (I'm not gonna lie, I've always wanted to have a secret sauce!) but I'll give you a basic over view and leave out the crazy awesome ingredients :p 

This "recipe" made 2 sandwiches :)

For the "meat" part of the sandwich, you should use a "ground beef" that you're comfortable cooking with, we personally use:

For measurement purposes, I used about half of the package...

To start things off, you'll want to chop up about half a white onion and fry 1/3 of that it in a pan with some oil (I'd recommend vegetable or olive) on a medium heat. Once the onion is predominantly see through, add the "ground beef" to the pan and mix it about. Add a dash of salt and pepper for flavor. Stir things up a bit occasionally to make sure nothing burns :)

Next, you'll want to bust out a blender or food processor. We ended up making a hefty amount of sauce, hah, so you might want to make a little less than we did. We had recently used some diced tomatoes as well as some tomato sauce, and so as to save space in the 'fridge, we mixed the left overs into a single Tupperware space of about 20oz

We threw all of that sauce/diced tomatoes into the blender and added: 

2 cloves of Garlic

Remaining 1/3 White Onion

1 1/2 tsp. Paprika

1 tsp. Red Chili Pepper Flakes

 1 dash of Oregano

1 dash of Cumin

1 cup of Ketchup

4 tsp. of Mustard 

1 pinch of Salt 

Plus 3 Secret Ingredients (maybe if you ask super nicely, I'll tell you...)

We then blended a whole lot, and then blended some more...and then some more. Then we waited a minute, and blended even more!

 

After our blending, we then dumped enough sauce to cover the "ground beef" and let it simmer for a good 5-10 minutes on a low heat. Remember not to drown the "ground beef", and simmering will help the meat thoroughly absorb the flavors of the sauce.

We then grabbed to hamburger buns and toasted them in our toaster oven.

Take the buns out and put a good amount on the bottom bun, then sprinkle some of the cheddar cheese on that (we use Soy Sensation) and then put a little more slop on top of the cheese and put on the top bun. Hopefully your sandwich looks something similar to this little guy:

 Well, that's all for our Sloppy Joe recipe! If you ever make them, let me know how the turn out! Although we didn't personally add these specific ingredients to the sauce (because we didn't have them) they would have complemented the flavors quite nicely: lemon juice, BBQ sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. :)

And now for something with a little umph...

I'm currently at one of those points in the year when I crave some form of meaning to my life. The best way to do so would be to volunteer, so volunteer I will. I've been browsing some of the local options, there are a few that sound appealing: reading to low-income children to boost their vocabulary, working with an organization that provides blankets and housing for the homeless, spending some time at the local animal shelter etc. To be honest, I'm incredibly excited for the opportunity to make a difference. Does it make me a nerd that one of my favorite things about high school was being a part of clubs that focused on making a difference and helping others? :P

Speaking of high school, yesterday I received an email from an old high school friend! Actually, an old teacher of mine! It's nice being reminded you're not forgotten! It's also nice knowing that I just realized that if I ever needed a job, he would make a great contact, hah. I sound like such an old lady with old lady worries! Oh, the tides of life and aging, it's beautiful and horrifying. Quite the combination, no?

I've got my mind set on the birth of a new art project, though I don't quite know exactly what I'm doing just yet. I've got endless bottles of old-fashioned Coca-Cola bottles, and nothing to do with them! I can't just recycle them! Hopefully I'll think of something! I'm just waiting on some inspiration...I have taken a few artistic photos of them...but I feel like they deserve much more!

Anyway, I'm also tired of being out of shape, so I'm going to try to do something about that. I think I'm going to take on Yoga again, I always found it relaxing, and I love stretching, the feeling of your muscles tightening actually feels good to me! Maybe I'll go to the gym or take a dance class, or something, I don't know!

I love spending my days either working on classwork, or cuddling with Kyle all day, but I'm starting to feel a little too cooped up! Our days of exploration are fun...so maybe we'll just go out more often. Anything for a bit more excitement in life! haha. I am kidnapping Kyle and taking him to a pumpkin patch tomorrow...or Monday...whichever day is more weather friendly! It'll be fun, and hopefully surprise him! Which is a hard thing to do considering we spend all of our time together, haha. But hopefully I'll catch him off guard, and the surprise will go well! :)

I don't think he reads this, which is kind of neat so I can talk about surprising him and know he won't find out! Well, I think he reads it when he's incredibly bored, but he knows everything I'm writing about because he lives it, haha.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get some mail out today, we'll see how that goes. I have endless amounts of birthday/miss you packages that need to be shipped, it's just a matter of finding a post-office...

We're off to Costco now, yay for groceries! :)

Newest of News...

So, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything...it's time for a few updates, I suppose!

Since I last wrote a few things have happened...

1. We drove up to Vancouver, B.C. Canada to see Ingrid Michaelson!

2. While there, we ordered our first legal drinks! Kyle had a Rum & Coke, and because they were out of mint, I couldn't get a Mojito...so I just asked the bartender to conjure me up something tasty :)

3. The show was great! Ingrid's so funny, it was my third time seeing her! The first time I saw her was actually Kyle and I's first official "date" hehe :)

4. We got an amazing price on our hotel, and the room was quite luxurious! We had this amazing bath tub that I instantly fell in love with. Oh, and we got fuzzy white bath robes! hehe :)

 

 

5. I have made quite a few delicious meals including my special variation of Chana Masala, a Mexican themed Pizza, and Sety's Spaghetti!

6. I received my new camera (a cute fish-eye lensed lomography camera) who I named Sebastian to A) keep an alliteration between my cameras B)there's a crab on the top of the camera [it's named after Sebastian from the Little Mermaid!]

Date Night

While cleaning the kitchen this afternoon, I got invited to go on a date with this really cute boy, he lives in my building...in my apartment, actually. Anyway, we get along really well and he's super funny, so I decided to say yes.

And boy, what a mistake!

haha, I'm just kidding, it was a great night :)

For dinner we went to Zak's, a burger place, which we discovered, is a "branch" off of Hodads (a popular burger place back home in Ocean Beach).

Kyle was talking to our waiter about how we're from San Diego, and right before our food got out to us (I ordered a spicy black bean burger, Kyle got a chicken burger) Zak himself came out and introduced himself to us. We chatted for a bit, about San Diego, Hodads, school, the Ballard neighborhood, lots of things. He seemed really nice, and the food was amazing! We got Raspberry Apple Cider to drink, and a Milk Shake (the flavor of the moment was Banana)!

After we had finished our food and drinks, we walked right next door to the Majestic Bay Theater and saw Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore. The theater was really neat looking, I didn't take very many interior pictures, but it had a "nautical" theme, and it was very old school!

The movie was pretty much what I expected it to be, and what I've pretty much come to expect from Michael Moore movies...It brought to light a lot of things I wasn't aware about, it highlighted things I was aware about, and in general, was a great portrayal of what's wrong with America. It was funny, sad, and serious, and had a great way of inspiring the audience to want to do something. I really enjoyed it, and hope that you (reader) will take some time and watch the movie. Maybe you won't watch it while it's still in theater, maybe you'll wait for it to come out on DVD, or maybe wait even longer for it to be an "instant" on Netflix...whichever way you manage to find time to watch it, please set all of your opinions aside and just watch the movie.

Experimental Enchiladas

For tonight dinner I tried making enchiladas and mexican rice by myself for the first time...and everything actually (to my surprise) was super amazing.

The enchiladas were super good, they were "ground beef", zucchini, onion, red bell pepper, and corn! Topped with a slightly spicy sauce and some soy cheese. The rice was pretty ordinary, but I added some corn because I like corn :) haha

Anyway, Enchiladas aside, Kyle brought home a pumpkin pie for dessert that was yummy :)

And then we watched some more of the Office!

Today was kind of ordinary, we did homework earlier, I talked to Sahar for a little bit...she was asking me advice on whether or not she should go with her boyfriend and his friends to the Haunted Trails, I told her to go, but I think we both know she's going to get super freaked out, she has like no tolerance for anything remotely scary! I also called my mommy for help with the rice (just double checking her recipe that I memorized)...

For some exciting news, we're going to see Ingrid Michaelson in Vancouver BC next Tuesday! And we're staying the night at L'Hermitage! I'm really looking forward to our little excursion! It'll be like a 2 hour drive up to Vancouver, and then the show is going to be great (I love Ingrid!) and our hotel is super luxurious (not to a crazy extent) and I'm looking forward to soaking in that marble bath tub post-show! Hehe! 

I'm also really considering purchasing a nice medium format camera (with a 35mm adaptor)! I've been thinking something along the lines of a Diana+ or a Holga...and then eventually purchasing an Instant Film adaptor as well, hehe. The main point being, I would love to take a quality lo-fi camera out and about! There's a cool photography contest I'm entering, and I feel like I want to do it old-school. Unfortunately, I can't do any of the processing myself...but...maybe one day I'll have my own studio and dark room!

Rumpus!

Rumpus!

Let me start by first stating how extremely excited I am for Where the Wild Things Are! I recently found out that Karen O. (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) composed all the music for the movie, and now I'm doubly excited! Rumpus is an example off of the soundtrack, which I hope to own very soon. Though, I'm sure you've all heard at least bits and pieces of All Is Love! I've browsed the songs and adore them all :) Hideaway is definitely a favorite.

So, anyway, I have made a full recovery from the sore throat I've had the past few days, and it is nice to be able to swallow without being in pain! Though this has set me back on blogging/communication/homework...so of the 3 I choose to blog, haha.

So let me sum up today:

After waking up from a crazy dream, Kyle and I decided to make Scrambled Eggs for breakfast. Well, Kyle made Scrambled Eggs, I took out trash/recycling/picked up the mail. While downstairs, a neighbor who I pissed off last week almost ran me over with her car while backing into a spot extremely quickly (on purpose? I think so!). Once I had returned from my near-death experience, Kyle was just finished making the eggs and the milkshake. I told him what happened and washed my hands, he decided he didn't want cold ketchup ruining our breakfast and microwaved the bottle for 15 mins. Yes, that deformed, bubbled double dome bottle is our ketchup bottle now. We then watched the Office until Netflix decided to force us to do homework.

And now we're doing homework...aka I'm writing on this, Kyle's looking at movie times (we're going to see Capitalism: A Love Story tomorrow)

It's Been A While

So I haven't posted in a while, mostly because my computer has been out of commission for a while! However, my wonderful boyfriend has fixed that problem! So a few brief updates on life...


1. We are back in Seattle (we have been since Monday night)! Our trip to SD was fun, and Kyle had many, many birthday breakfasts/lunches/dinners with different diners :) But to be honest, it's nice being home and back to our routine of sitting in bed/cuddling/watching movies/playing video games/eating...


2. On our way back, we brought our beloved poster tube! Full of some great art posters/music posters to help fill in some of the empty walls...and I left the tube in the shuttle that brought us back to our car...we called twice, and they haven't seen it! :(


3. We started school Tuesday...books cost an arm & a leg, but we've got a few limbs to spare...


4. While shopping today, we saw multiple Heinz products! It was hilarious/amazing! I've only ever seen their ketchup and wondered to myself what the other 56 products could be...


5. It is officially fall up here! It's sprinkled a little every day, and rained 2 days...but for the most part, it's just been chilly!


6. I'm pretty sure the extreme weather change (+100 degrees to 50 degrees) has definitely taken a toll on me! My throat is SUPER sore and it's painful to swallow anything :( I think I'm getting pretty sick, which does not bode well! At all! Sigh...


7. I've been feeling like a horrible friend/sister/daughter because I'm so far behind on talking to anyone and sending out the care packages/presents I've assembled :( But I must keep trying, persistence is necessary, and I miss talking to so many people...being far away is pretty difficult.


8. I got invited to Google voice, so I feel special! My "Seattle" phone number is 659-SETY hahaha :) and no, I'm not kidding! At least I don't have the "weird" San Diego area code, haha.


Alright, that's all folks! I'm feeling sleepy thanks to the Nyquill!


Goodnight Seattle!