TWOsday – September 20th, 2011
20th September 2011 | dinner, everyday life, TWOsday | 0 comments
Simple. Two things I love.
#1. CRIMINAL MINDS.
I absolutely CANNOT WAIT for the new season of Criminal Minds to start. They are my faves.
#2. ENCHANTED.
“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ~G.K. Chesterton.
I cannot imagine anybody NOT loving this movie. Let’s discuss the best part of the movie, the part where they are dancing and Jon McLaughlin is singing. and then McDreamy {he gets to keep that title because he is the absolute perfect Prince Charming, am I right???} starts singing quietly while he is dancing, and butterflies fly all around your insides because earlier he said he doesn’t sing or dance. Oh man. And her clothes! and her hair! All I want is hair like Giselle’s. and dresses like hers too, while we’re at it. I wish I was a real-life Disney Princess.
So hey in addition to Tuesdays being TWOsdays, it’s also the day I’ve agreed to make dinner for my family. and I know you want to know what I made.
I’ve tried finding cookbooks, but I can’t find any with enough pictures. and I wish that was a joke, but it’s not. So I’m reduced to blog recipes. Which is alright with me. Tonight I made crispy chicken with creamy italian sauce and bowtie pasta. Say that 5 times fast. The recipe is from Jamie Cooks It Up.
In case you were wondering, I’m not necessarily the best cook in the world but i’m trying. I’d probably be better if I had an apron.
For some reason making dinner tonight seemed to take forever. From start to finish it was an hour and a half. I think I’m just slow.
I admire people who can take step-by-step pictures of cooking in a strategic way. They somehow make cooking look really awesome and magical. My pictures just look like I am about to make recipe flashcards. Oh well.
So in addition to the chicken and the pasta, we had asparagus just like the last time I made dinner.. and just like that picture. We would have had it regardless of the picture, because I love asparagus like you would never believe.
The end result:
and what’s dinner without dessert? Luckily I had a recipe for frozen bananas hanging around on pinterest, so I went ahead and made those.
Remember how I said that I wish I was a real-life Disney Princess?
Here’s one {there’s plenty of them!} reason why I am nothing like a real-life Disney Princess.
My mom needed to get gas and asked me to go with her. So I grabbed some flip flops and went to the gas station wearing this.
…I know, right? I am pretty classy. I wish I could say that I just sat in the car, but I actually went in the gas station and got hot chocolate.. because did you know that gas station hot chocolate is pretty delicious?
Sorry about the mess of my bathroom. It was on my list of things to do today, but instead I spent about 3 hours playing the piano. Priorities, I guess. Also, tomorrow I am starting a challenge. You know, another one of those blog prompting challenges that I like starting but never finish? One of those. 
ps this is going on my Christmas list… if I can hold out that long:
my {loudness} is my self defense.
24th May 2011 | everyday life | 4 comments
I’m going to assume you all know Billy Joel’s And So It Goes. If you don’t, please listen to this. There’s a line in the song that says “and still I feel I said too much, my silence is my self defense.” and then later, “but if my silence made you leave, then that would be my worst mistake.”
Got it? Staying quiet to stay safe.
Wordiness a cause for worry-ness.
That’s not me. At all. I am wordy. and loud, too. not silent at all.
and yet those words, replacing “silence” with “loudness,” describe me perfectly.
Today it hit me:
When I am loud: obnoxious: wordy: full of stories: easily excited: laughy,
I am actually retreating deep within my shell, building up my outer wall and making it so thick and uninviting to protect what is deep inside.
Some people use quiet and silence to achieve this. I use noise. It’s a distraction, a rouse.
There’s that, for what it’s worth. I’ve been living with myself for almost 26 years {26 years next Monday!} and I’m still navigating the complexities of myself.
This morning I woke up at 6:30 am because… well, I never figured out why.
I sat up and saw the word “UGH.” It’s actually the word “laugh” but my water bottle is covering it. I though it was funny.
Once upon a time there was a pair of twins. Terry and Jerry. Jerry became the father of a daughter in May of 1985. Terry became the father of a son in October of 1985. In August of 1988, Terry got another son.
There they are.
and because don’t we all love showing off the people we love… there we are, at Phillip’s high school graduation. and yes. They are tall, and I am short.
Well, anyway.
The older of my two cousins got married this past weekend. It was absolutely beautiful and I cried and thought {many times} “God bless the people who know this family and love individuals in it enough to marry into it.”
yes, that really was the view.
It’s nice to have girls in my family. Did you see that picture above of us Orefices? Buncha testosterone!
Oh yeah, remember the day that I met him in Starbucks?
the long road home.
19th May 2011 | everyday life, travels | 5 comments
This is a few days overdue, but I am home in the Pacific Northwest. Pulled in on Saturday night. I held my cat and walked around the house, relearning all of the little details.
En route to home, I stayed with the Birks for a few days. Next week I will go back because that girl in the picture is graduating from high school. Seems like just yesterday she was 10 years old. But no, next week she is graduating from high school. We will spend the summer working at Camp Arnold… and then she’ll be a college freshman at Seattle Pacific. CRAZY. Back to the plans: I’ll get to be around for Graham’s birthday, Memorial Day/my birthday, and will stay to play at the Birks house concert. So making it home was slightly anticlimatic. I’ll be in San Francisco for almost two weeks.
But speaking of San Francisco. Like I said, I stayed there for a few days.
I arrived on Mother’s Day. We made Stacy a cake. You can’t see the cake, but we really did make it.
One day I went to pick Emily up at school. I texted her and said “What time do you get out of school, again?” she replied, “12:12.” It was 11:10, and I thought she was out at 11:11, so I sat in the parking lot and started reading Redeeming Love. At about the same time, Andrew texted me to tell me that he was at Starbucks doing homework if I wanted to hang out. After Em got out of school, we went and hung out. My friend Nicole was working, so when she got off she came and sat with us.
Six months ago, only 1 of those people lived in Pacifica. Now 3 do. and then there’s me.
Remember Frappucino happy hour last week? Took advantage of it often. Brought her back one, but it made her cold. so that was solved with a Snuggie.
On Saturday I got breakfast with Caleb and Jen in Sacramento. My GPS took me over the Golden Gate Bridge. My 12th trip to San Francisco and I finally saw it!
Yesterday something really cool happened. Justin Bieber tweeted his cover of my friend Ernie’s song. I wrote about Ernie on my old blog. A few days ago, someone shared a video of Justin singing the song live, and that was exciting… but then Justin Bieber himself tweeted a recording! Ernie Halter was blowing up on Twitter last night.
This morning I woke up and had an insane amount of mail, which was odd because I’d checked it fairly late and had cleaned it all out. This is what I saw when I looked in my inbox:
That’s a bunch of notifications of new followers from Twitter. I was really confused, until I saw the one at the very bottom. See that? Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) is now following you on Twitter! Including Justin Bieber, I’ve gained 103 new followers so far today. one hundred. What the heck. {that image is appropriately titled “what the heck.png}
Here’s Bieber’s cover of Ernie’s song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmTqVXXjhQ
Speaking of videos and my friends. I’m glad to be back in the northwest for many, many reasons. Here’s one of them… Justin Klump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivu4Kd9FrYg
Today I woke up and made a mental list of things to do. Things like “clean out my desk” and “go to the store” and “write letters” and “go on a walk.” However, it is 4:30 and all I have done is prepare dinner, play the piano, start catching up on Criminal Minds.. oh, and make these.
