penn

A few new photos

As always, click on the pictures to enlarge -- you'll be taken to my flickr site.

My friend received this beautiful pink bouquet; I think it's a breast cancer fundraiser. I took photos for her to send to her gifters:

the Halloween pumpkins I left on my balcony for far too long:

the Christmas tree in my apartment this year. Yes, I need to get around to posting pictures of my lovely apartment. It really is quite nice.

the Advent wreath at my church:

Order of Operations

I didn't end up making cupcakes. My schedule has just been too busy -- between working out, attempting to stay on top of schoolwork, and trying to take lots of time to myself, I sometimes just run out of steam at the end of the day (which is why I really should be in bed now, since it's past midnight, but my baking isn't quite done).

So, yes, I did end up doing some baking. I've got lots of bananas in the freezer, so I decided to make my old standby: banana bread. This leads me to the title of the post.

I went grocery shopping earlier tonight and then went to a friend's house. We enjoyed eggplant parmesan (homemade by my friend), red velvet cake (two slices bought from the grocery store by me), the latest American Gladiator (nostalgia for my youth), and the State of the Union address (blegh). When I got home, I started unloading groceries. This included putting my new bag of flour into my tupperware flour bin.

Of course, I decided to just start right in on my recipe by loading up the bowl with flour, since I already had the bin open. I then added the sugar, baking soda, salt, eggs, and crisco. And then I had a horrible mess:

My gooey, clumpy, sticky dough in no way reminded me of any previous banana bread making. I spent a good 5 minutes deliberating before I wrapped the dough up, stuck it in the fridge for later experimentation, and started again.

This time, I creamed the crisco and eggs. Then, I added sugar. Only after that did I add in salt, baking soda, and flour, and I ended with some lovely defrosted bananas. This time? Beautiful!

So while I do bake, and I am typically quite savvy, and I'm always careful to cream the liquids first . . . even I am still prone to error. At least I now know exactly what happens when I don't follow the proper method of mixing.

Cupcake Lust

I have cupcake lust. Girly, fluffy, cupcake lust. I want to make cute cupcakes with lovely icing, decorations, and delectable flavors. A few problems remain: I don't own a pastry bag, I don't know how to make lovely icing swirls, and I've never yet made a cupcake that didn't come from a box.

Not to be dissuaded, I am searching out some lovely recipes to try. I'm bringing snacks for a class on Tuesday afternoon, and cupcakes seem like a perfect thing to share.

Among the cupcakes I'd like to try:

-> banana cupcakes
-> chocolate cherry cupcakes
->oatmeal banana cupcakes
-> self-filled cupcakes (with cream cheese center!)
-> coconut orange cupcakes
->key lime cupcakes
-> the wonderfully different cake in a jar

Do you have a favorite cupcake recipe? Feel free to share it here!

Slice of Pink

I don't normally do this, but I am so entranced with this new blog that I've been reading through her archives for the past several days. I'm mildly ashamed to admit that I'm already back in January 2007 . . .

Anyway, I found Slice of Pink (which my fingers apparently want to type as "Slide of Punk") through Janet's comments on a few of my recent posts. I'm pretty sure she got here via my friend Zandria's blog. And then I started reading, and I haven't stopped.

Since I'm so taken with her blog, I thought I'd direct y'all to a few of my favorite posts from there. Granted, this is not a complete compendium; I haven't made it through all her archives or anything. But these are some posts that really struck me as I was reading through. I missed a lot. She is in law school now, but she used to be a high school photography teacher, and she supervised the robotics group. Talk about someone who matches my own teaching aspirations (okay, I want to be a photography and biology teacher). That just makes her extra rad.

An educational kind of night

I'm blessed to have awesome friends (both in real life and online; a big thanks to all of you for the kind words and emails I've received this week!). Today is day 3 of the "cheer up Leah" project my friends have instituted. I have not been alone a single night since not-so-fun Tuesday. While I'm still sad and upset, I'm feeling better, and I didn't spend the day crying.

Tonight, my friend Abby and I decided to have some sportsy fun. We headed to Korean food together and then went to a Michigan sports event. Michigan sports are interesting -- some are quite expensive (football, baseball, and hockey are all not cheap) while others are free. Yes, free! And guess what one of the free sports is? Oh, yes, wrestling!

Neither Abby nor I knew anything about wrestling. I went to a few matches in high school and college, but I didn't remember anything about them. Now, I know a lot about wrestling.

We got to the match just a touch after it started. I was surprised to see that a lot of people were actually in attendance. After sitting through one match with no clue what was going on, I made a quick phone call to one of my military buddies and learned the basics. Apparently, there's lots more to wrestling matches than just getting some guy down on to the mat. There are points for the takedown, but there are also points for keeping the guy down, getting his shoulders on the mat, escaping from being down, and keeping the advantage for more time than the other guy.

I'm not sure if Abby and I will become wrestling aficionados. We did keep score on the provided scoresheet (but we do that at every sports thing we go to -- we're especially big fans of baseball). But we did have lots of fun learning about a new sport. Tomorrow, there's free water polo, so I might check it out if I'm feeling bored. Next week? Free gymnastics!

On reading books

Like most over-educated folk, I'm a big fan of reading. There are days when I like nothing better than curling up in an easy chair and enjoying a good book (both fiction and non fiction). Currently, I'm enjoying Middlesex by Eugenides.

But there are definitely some books that have always turned me off. Despite a love of many classic authors (examples: Steinbeck, Hemingway, Cather, and many more), there are a few authors and books of the "must read" variety that I've never been able to handle.

High on that list is Dickens. During high school, I kept a copy of Oliver Twist near my bed. Whenever I had trouble falling asleep, I'd try to get through a few pages of the novel. Without fail, I'd be asleep before I learned the name of any other character in the novel (if I had learned something, perhaps I could have though of a wittier mention there). Something about being paid by the word just doesn't sit well with me.

Similarly, I have great difficulty with Mark Twain. Again, despite repeated attempts, I have never made it through Tom Sawyer nor Huck Finn. This saddens me; Twain, great American author that he is, should definitely be on my reading list. Heck, I read most of the other great American authors. But, again, there's just something about his style that doesn't sit well with me.

It's been many years since I attempted these books (I think my last assault on the fortress of Twain was sometime during my early college years). I no longer remember why I didn't like them, and I am beginning to suspect that I might be able to make it through them if I attempted it now. But, honestly, there are too many other good books out there. I will let Twain and Dickens sit in my ranks of "unread classics" (admittedly, along with Dostoevsky, whoever it was that wrote Tristram Shandy, and James Joyce, whose books I've muddled through for class (along with some sparknotes help) but never been able to process recreationally). Perhaps when I retire. Or when the writer's strike spreads to book authors.

Plastic Bag bans

Apparently, I'm in a blogging mood for the moment. I just read the NYTimes article about Whole Foods eliminating plastic bags from their stores. Of course, they're not eliminating goods packed in plastic bags; they're eliminating the plastic bags distributed to customers.

The article seems to make a big deal of this decision. However, hasn't Trader Joe's always been plastic bag free? I tried googling to find some information, but I haven't come up with anything definitive. In my experience, at least, the two Trader Joe's I shop at don't offer plastic bags. (okay, according to this article, there is limited use of plastic bags at Trader Joe's).

In any case, regular readers here probably know that I am strongly pro-reusable bags. And I mean that for everyone. I don't think people need to use them for every single trip (I, too, understand the utility of store plastic bags for garbage). But I definitely think people could reduce the number of plastic bags they get from stores without making a dent in their lives. So I'm pretty happy about this whole new Whole Foods things.

My boyfriend broke up with me last night. It was completely unexpected and felt sudden from my end.

I'm really upset, and I don't know when I will feel like blogging again. So please bear with me. I might blog a lot to distract me, and I might not blog at all.

Juno

Headed out by myself to see Juno tonight. While I haven't posted my 101 things in 1001 days list yet (still cleaning it up and refining a few goals), I've already started working on it. One goal is to go to three movies by myself. I have a tendency to only see movies as a social event. I recently decided this is bunk. I really like seeing movies, and I can't always find someone to see everything I want to see. And sometimes I like doing things by myself and for myself, and I just don't do enough of that. So, in the spirit of trying to be good to myself and do what I want to do, I went to go see Juno.

I really enjoyed the movie. I was pretty sure I would -- it has been highly recommended to me by several folks familiar with my taste -- but I had no idea how much I would enjoy it. Honestly, for a flick about a pregnant teenage gal, it was pretty wonderful.

In particular, I really enjoyed watching the emotional struggles Juno went through. I won't highlight exactly what struggles she had, but I liked the idea that she did spend time deliberating her choices, thinking honestly about what would be best for her, and then following through (and this is not just in reference to the pregnancy). I liked that Juno was a strong, independent young woman. Despite her unintended pregnancy, I still think she makes a fairly good role model for teen girls.

Further, I think the movie was filmed in Minnesota, and I love the cute accents. I am a pushover for almost any accent.

In any case, I heartily recommend Juno.

Work out tip

I've been doing a lot of running recently with the Couch to 5k plan. One thing I notice is that I tend to get a headache about one to two hours after I run. This is a consistent headache, and some days it is worse than others. I get it worse when I run than when I use the elliptical. I also get the headache when doing other exercises (last summer, I got a killer migraine one night after swing dancing).

For a long time, I figure it was water intake. Maybe I was drinking too little? One friend suggested I was drinking too much. But altering my water regime didn't seem to make a difference, and I never feel waterlogged or dehydrated, so I figured that likely wasn't the cause.

Finally, while talking to someone online, I realized the problem. She has it too. I tense my neck muscles when running, which later results in a tension headache. Brilliant!

For the last week, I've intentionally been loosening my neck during runs, and I now take care to do some extra neck stretches after the run. So far, knock on wood, I haven't had any problems with post-run headaches.