Irrational Fears

hello lovelies,
I'm afraid I've been terribly busy- in the past three days I've cooked around 40 recipes (many of which are self-created), calculated the calorie count for each recipe, and the written each recipe down. Right now I'm in the process of typing all the recipes up and simultaneously converting them to serve 30 people. This whole catering for a small camp thing is a lot more work than I expected! Especially with my greece trip fast approaching. I have a whole slew of things I have to do for that as well, but I've had to put it on the back burner for now.

Anyways, this has kept me from blogging regularly. Also, I have been doing the wardrobe challenge but have been way too busy (and bug bitten the first few days) to snap/upload photos. I will probably do a collective post at the end of this week to show you all seven of my hipster-ed out outfits.

 I did want to stop by for just a few minutes today and talk about irrational fears, though. Do you have any? I have a few that I can think of and probably several more that I can't. They're so silly, and I usually don't let them bother me but they are often in the back of my head. I suppose as long as they aren't interfering with my life it's ok. Here are a few of my more ridiculous ones:

1. I have an irrational fear of walking in front of a grocery cart. If I go shopping with Stewart and he's pushing the cart, I can't walk in front of it without being terrified that he's accidentally going to push quicker than I'm walking and run over my ankles. Death by run over ankles. It's terrifying!
2. Whenever I am carrying a tea pot with one hand by the handle, I get worried that the handle will break off and the entire pot of tea will come crashing to the floor and ceramic and boiling water will go everywhere. I'm sure the manufacturers of tea pots are smart enough to make handles that are strong enough to avoid this issue, but it still scares me.
3. If I go to the bathroom- at my house or anyone else's house- and the shower curtain is closed, I have to check behind it before doing anything else. There could be a murderer or a drunk kid or a giant spider behind there! It's so much easier for people to just leave their shower curtains open. Less aesthetic, yes... but also way less stressful for me and all the other crazies out there.

Do you guys have any irrational fears? I'd love to hear about them. Cause, you know, there's nothing more amusing than finding out about someone's bizarre/OCD side :)

Love you all! Hopfully back to regular posting soon :)

<3
Em

a little off...

is how i'm feeling today. While I've been bombarding you with wardrobe posts I've actually been on a fun little family camping trip with my parents, my sister, stewart, and my sister's boyfriend. It was really great and refreshing and enjoyable but also very tiring and strenuous in the way camping trips can be. I loooove getting outdoors and tenting it up, but after I'm finally home I always feel exhausted, dirty, and in need of some serious me-time. This trip was no different, although there was the added discomfort of having a million bug bites. literally, a million. We went on this crazy awesome hike that involved scaling the side of a mountain, but every time we stopped we would be attacked by a cloud of no-see-ums or gnats or something. At first we didn't think they were biting us, but oh were we wrong. My dad and my sister looked like they had come down with a serious case of chicken pox and I... well, for some reason the insects decided to only bite me on the face and neck. So I look like I came down with a serious case of puberty. ugh >.< I'm also mildly sunburnt and my upper body muscles are a little sore from the whole scaling the mountain thing... and even though I took a hour long bath followed by a shower, I still feel kind of dirty and blah.

What I really need to do is doll myself up and go out so I can feel refreshed and pretty again... but I think I'm going to confine myself to my house until these bites die down. I'm also going to skip today's wardrobe post although I will tell you what my theme of choice is going to be in a few.

I still have about a million things left on my to-do list between the youth retreat and my ever-approaching trip to greece, and I'm stressing hard. Tomorrow it's going to be all systems go and I'm going to just cook, cook, cook all day long. Maybe I can whip all this stuff out in like three days, and then finish my greece stuff in two days, and then have like 1 week left where I can just relax. That would be splendid.

I'll tell you more about the camping trip (complete with lots of pics) in a later post, but for now I'll just tell you what I've been doing since I got back. Stew and I went out with a couple friends last night to our old stomping grounds- the courthouse square. It was a nice, cool evening and we walked around and eventually ended up getting coffee and chatting. After that we went on a random adventure to the top of a hill called acker park where stewart and one of the other people we were with had burried a case 2 years ago for a game of godfather. Unsurprisingly we were not able to find the case in the dark... but it was fun to do a bit of a night hike. We then went to hang out at our friend's house where I sipped on a bottle of mead I had recieved for my birthday and we chatted until about 1am. Then stew and I came home and passed out to Big Fish.

Today I slept way longer than I wanted to because I didn't want to get up before stew, and then we went to lunch with my sis, her boyfriend, and my dad. We went to Kendalls, an old 50's style burger joint where everything is covered in grease... needless to say I felt awful about 5 minutes after finishing my meal. Stewart left to head back down to tucson, I drove my sister and her boyfriend to the airport, and then I decided to go home and teach myself the guitar until I was afraid that my fingers were going to start bleeding. Now I'm here, writing this blog and about to go for a run to work off that mid-day nastiness. For some reason I just felt like telling you guys everything that's going on. um, yeah.

Anyways, I'm really excited about what I'm going to do for this wardrobe challenge week 2 situation. As I've said before it's a wild card so I get to choose my theme for the week!

have you guys seen those funny things online that are like the evolution of the hipster or the various types of hipster? I find them to be hilarious and also remarkably accurate. I won't mince words... I definitely fit into the category of a hipster, even though I think most people scoff at that term and claim they are way better than hipsters. And everyone and their mother makes fun of hipsters. Honestly though, 'hipster' is such a broad term and it includes a ton of people. So many, in fact, that there are tons of subcategories of hipsters which are all totally different from each other. For the second week of the wardrobe challenge, I'm going to represent a few of these different types of hipsters. It's going to be hella awesome, yo. bahaha.

I didn't take pictures today because like I said before, puberty all over the face. Just not feeling very photo worthy. However, I still styled myself according to my theme.

Today I was a granola hipster. These are the hipsters that were likely raised by aged hippies- they wear tie dye, cutt-offs, and hiking boots and eat artichokes dipped in veganaise. They could very possibly have dreadlocks and enjoy being in the outdoors and making stuff out of hemp.

I wore:
a cut-up tie dye tank top that I made back in highschool
a thrifted flannel shirt
cut-off daisy dukes (ross)
suede knee-high boots (wet seal)
a necklace with a stone pendant I received as a gift
a pink bandana head band
a braided brown belt (wet seal)

I looked cute, but definitely very granola. Not something I would wear every day for sure, but I bet everyone thought I was a vegan democrat.
which is..um.. true.. lol

anyways, tomorrow will be another type of hipster and hopefully these bites die down enough for me to snap some pictures.

sorry for the absurdly long post about nothing in particular. I just roll like that.

<3
Em

Wardrobe Challenge: Week 1, Day 7

Hello Lovelies! Today is the last day of the first week of the 4 week wardrobe challenge, so that means this is the last film inspired outfit.

I had trouble thinking of another fun movie to get inspired by, so I just went classic- The Notebook. I love love love everything about 40s style... the pearls, the curls, the floral prints, the pretty hemlines... so great. Also, Rachel McAdams is one of my favorite actresses. She's so beautiful, genuine, and incredibly talented and versatile!

Here's my 40's inspired outfit:

I'm really excited for next week's outfits... It's "wild card" week, which means I get to pick my own theme^^ don't worry though, I've got quite a few non-fashion related posts coming up too! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend :) love love love

Em

Wardrobe Challenge: Week 1, Day 6

Today I pulled inspiration from Center Stage. No character in particular really, just the whole idea of ballet-casual.

I love this movie so much. It's like the perfect girly movie. Hot ballet boys? yes please.

I probably could have done better with my center stage inspired outfit today, but here's what I came up with in a pinch:

Skirt: Forever 21

Shirt: Target

Overshirt Tie-Thing: Charlotte Russe

Shoes: Goodwill Boutique

Necklace: Michael's Crafts

Wardrobe Challenge: Week 1, Day 5

Another day of the wardrobe challenge!

Today I pulled my inspiration from Sandra in Big Fish. I love that movie. Largely because I love Ewan McGreggor... but also cause Sandra's girly old fashioned style is adorable.

so very pretty :)

my sandra inspired outfit:

ollllld shoes.... haha

Shirt: not sure.... :(

Skirt: Rue 21 I think?

Belt: Goodwill Boutique

Shoes: Goodwill Boutique

Can you guys tell I get half my stuff at goodwill? haha. I love thrift stores so much. 

Wardrobe Challenge: Week 1, Day 4

Yay for day two of this challenge! Getting dressed in the morning was way more fun today than it usually is haha.

My inspiration for today is Valentina from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I love love love the whole concept of a traveling circus like the one in the movie. Valentina is so gorgeous in her rags-but-also-riches garb. She has lots of patchwork fabric and drapey shawls but then she also has beautiful showy things like corsets and jewels and yeah basically her costume designer is just amazing.

Circusy showy riches...

adorable boho rags.

love this movie.

anyways, here is my valentina inspired wardrobe for the day:

Dress: from a friend- on my 12th birthday! can you believe it?

scarf: from a bazaar in california

belt: can't remember... oops!

shoes: goodwill boutique

hair pins: forever 21

Love,

Em

Today

is a very very busy day! I was supposed to get up early this morning (like, 6:30am) and walk downtown with my parents and have breakfast... but I had trouble getting to sleep last night so I was way too exhausted this morning and decided to stay in bed. next week hopefully :) anyways, now it's nearly 11 and I have a ton to do! I've got to shower and get all ready and then do my wardrobe challenge post of the day, then I have to go grocery shopping, and then I have to come home and cook 6 things for a family camping trip this weekend- hummus, tabhouli, babagahnoush, tuna salad, chickpea salad, and zucchini pasta salad. And since I'm going to be camping all weekend, I need to write up a handful of posts that I can schedule for the next few days so this blog doesn't get lost again. gah. At some point stewart, my sister, and her boyfriend will be arriving and I'd really like to put together a nice indian dinner for all of us- so throw that on top of the cooking I'm already doing- and then I'd like to go hang out with some friends because it's stew's only night in prescott for a while. whew. I'm exhausted just typing it.

so anyways, that's that. It's a very pleasant somewhat cloudy day today. Yesterday it drizzled all day and I made a pot of tea and a fire and just relaxed. I'd love to do the same today but it's time to get moving... I hope it keeps raining though cause I love this weather!

See you guys after I shower and get dressed haha
<3
Em                                                                                       

Wardrobe Challenge: Week 1, Day 3 (but 1 for me!)

Guys, I'm really excited about this. I decided spur of the moment today after seeing aki!'s adorable outfit to partake in Peachy Keen's 4 Week Wardrobe Challenge. I love stuff like this. It perfectly connects everyday life and style with blogging which is what it's all about, am i right? I'm coming into this thing a bit late but luckily I've only missed a couple days... so I'm going to try really hard to actually pull this off. Although... I will be in greece for the entire last week so we'll see how that goes.

Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. The challenge is divided into 4 weeks, and each week has an inspiration theme. This week is Television and Movie characters! I'm way excited to mirror some of my favorite onscreen styles for the next few days.

Let's get started, shall we?

500 Days of Summer wasn't exactly the best movie in the universe, but man does Zooey Deschanel look awesome. Her character's style in this movie is so adorable- like business-feminine-50s-tomboy. if that even makes sense.

I love the little bows she puts in her hair... so schoolgirl-ish and fun!

see what I mean with the whole tomboy-feminine-business thing?

gosh so adorable. I had to try to mimic her style.

excuse my silly fashionista pose haha

those are shirt rolls, not me rolls.. lol

Headband: random scrap of lace

Shirt: JC Penny's

Skirt: Goodwill Outlet Store

Tights: Forever 21

Shoes: Goodwill Boutique

Belt: Goodwill Boutique

Necklace: Blue Willow Restaurant and Gift Shop

I think I did a fairly nice job... Summer doesn't wear much pink but this was the best girly business shirt I had haha. 

Yay for my first style post ever... be back tomorrow with another film-inspired getup!

Love,

Em

20 things to do in my 20th year

 It's just a week and a day since my 20th birthday, and I've come up with the brilliant idea of writing down 20 things to do or experience before my 21st. ok, so... I didn't exactly "come up" with the idea, per se... i may have stolen it from the lovely lady over at Yes and Yes who came up with 32 things to do in her 32nd year. But I'm not going to steal any of hers! At least not intentionally. I'm not even going to look at what's on her list. I'm going to make mine first :)

1. Eat a habanero. This could be raw, whole, or cooked in some dish. No ditching the seeds though.
2. Do a one week fast- whole fruits and veggies on days 1, 2, 6, and 7; fresh fruit and veggie juice, water, and herbal tea on days 3 and 5, and water on day 4.
3. Drink ouzo in Greece
4. Get a puppy
5. Sell something handmade
6. Create the perfect chocolate chip cookie
7. Rent and actually use one of those silly work-out DVDs.
8. Make beer
9. Hike Pima Canyon, go camping there.
10. Create a sauce/condiment and name it MSoss.
11. Write a song
12. Go to Summerhaven at the top of Mt. Lemon, ride the ski-lift.
13. Take home-ec, make all the projects.
14.Spend a whole day without using my car (just walk, bike ride, etc)
15. Make this mac n cheese
16. Learn to play a new song on the piano- a recent, alt-folk song which I will also sing to.
17. Go on a grocery trip and attempt to use coupons to save an absurd amount of money
18. Take a photo a day for a month.
19. Beat Stewart at chinese checkers (this is his favorite game in the universe, and I have refused to play him at it since I met him in high school, because I want to get freaking awesome at it before I play him)
20. Make and record music with the people I love.

I may turn this post into a new page, so that I can cross things off as I go and keep track. I may also make a post for each thing I accomplish. This was really fun to write! If any of you feel so inclined as to write your own list of things to try/do, be sure to give me the link so I can check it out!!

love,
em

Tasty Tuesdays: Ratatouille

 I've got a file in my photos section on my computer titles 'blog photos'. within this file there are several other files, one of them being 'food'. Within that file there is a slew of recipe photos i snapped eons ago but never had the time or motivation to post. Every once in a while, like today, i decide to peek in that file and debate whether or not to post any of the recipes... and i always decide against it. This time, however, I noticed a recipe that I couldn't believe I hadn't already posted. In fact, I did a google search through my blog just to make sure I hadn't because I couldn't really understand why I wouldn't have posted it. Apparently I didn't, though, so now it gets to be this week's tasty tuesday feature.

Ratatouille is a wonderful dish. It's light, flavorful, and full of delicious summery vegetables like squash, zucchini, and eggplant. It's also incredibly beautiful while maintaining a simplicity and ease that makes it appropriate for a weeknight meal.

Also there's a cute little rat movie named after it so um, yeah... irresistible.

btw, excuse the flash-ified pics. I made this months and months ago at the old apartment down in tucson which had the worst lighting in history. the fact that i didn't get out of class till after night fall and did most of my blog cooking for dinner didn't help with that either.

Ratatouille
Ingredients
1/2 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small, thin eggplant
1 small, long zucchini
1 small, long yellow squash
1 long red pepper
fresh or dried thyme
salt and pepper
rice, couscous, or quinoa for serving
italian parsley and/or goats cheese for serving- opt

Ratatouille starts with a simple tomato sauce base that the rest of the veggies cook in. Who doesn't love things cooked in tomato sauce? so good.

Preheat the oven to 375. In a shallow baking dish, combine the tomato paste and water. A good way to make sure you get all the tomato paste out of a can is to open it at both ends and then use one end to push the tomato-ey goodness out. like a push pop!

 mix well so that a thick-ish sauce is formed. add the onion, garlic, and 1 tbsp of the olive oil and stir well. season generously with salt and pepper. 

Using a mandoline or a very, very sharp knife, thinly slice the eggplant, zucchini, squash, and pepper. exclude the ends, obviously. Try to get as thin of slices as possible.

Starting from an outside edge, begin layering slices of veggies over the tomato sauce in a pretty pattern. Go around in a spiral until you get to the center and there is no more room for veggies. You will probably have quite a bit left over, depending on the size of your baking dish.

Drizzle the remaining tbsp of olive oil over the veggies and then season them with salt, pepper, and a couple pinches of fresh or dried thyme. Grab a sheet of foil or parchment paper and cut it so that it fits over the veggies- this will trap in the steam and keep the veggies moist while they bake.

Bake for 45-55 minutes or until veggies are tender and cooked but not limp. They should retain their color and structure and the tomato sauce should be bubbling up around them.

Serve on top of couscous, rice, or quinoa and garnish with italian parsley or goats cheese.

 p.s., this meal is vegan. don't you just love vegan-by-accident dishes? i know i do.

happy eating!

A Very Long Overdue Easter Post

So... I have this thing where I think up awesome posts/events and take pictures on my swell nikon d40 to show you guys just how awesome everything was... and then 2 days later the idea of pulling out my camera-to-computer cord and like, plugging it in... let alone actually editing the 372480 million pictures seems like the most daunting and strenuous task ever. And so, when I finally do get all those pictures on my computer I find that half of them are random pictures of food or trips to the froyo shop from a month ago which are entirely irrelevant now. ah, well. I do have one collection of photos from my most recent upload extravaganza that can be lumped into a coherent post- easter pics!

So here ya go, a month late:

My parents came to visit me down in Tucson for easter weekend. It was so, so lovely to have them down there. On Friday evening we went to one of my favorite little italian places in tucson- vero amore. afterwards we got gelato at the most amazing gelato place in the universe which stewie and i were introduced to by our friend nicole and her boyfriend sam... I'm pretty sure we are forever in debt to them for it ;)

 mmm... I got rose and saffron and marsala wine and stew got chocolate mint and almond biscotti. soooooo gooood.

the next day we went out to tanque verde falls to have a little picnic and go swimming. It was a fun hike down and up into the canyon, although at first we couldn't really find any deep pools. we had lunch around here:

while we were hiking back through the canyon we decided to go past where you hike up to the road. we came across a group of semi intoxicated college boys and a totally awesome super deep swimming hole! the boys were jumping off a cliff into the water, and their faces when my dad climbed up to the cliff and jumped off were hilarious. they totally wrote him off as an old geezer and he totally showed them up ;)

after a bit the boys left, so i decided to swim a bit. the water was freeeezing but it was a warm day and it felt really nice.

that evening we had dinner at my grandpa's house and then stew and I headed home and then to the grocery store to get some things for brunch the next day. I had convinced my parents to let me take care of the whole easter meal, aside from them bringing some bagels. it was so, so fun.. even though i got like no sleep because i was cooking all night haha.

First and most impressively I made and absolutley beautiful and delicious braided bread stuffed with sweet cheese and fresh lemon curd. holy crap it was so good. and surprisingly easy!

i also made some really good and simple mustard roasted potatoes made with both red and yellow skinned taters.

I put together a little melon ball salad for something fresh...

and i also made a realllly yummy mushroom and spinach baked egg dish but for some reason I don't have a picture of it. stew and I had about 7 eggs to spare after we used them in the different dishes so we bought a little egg coloring kit and colored them (at like 3 in the morning) to use for decorations/place markers. I think they came out really cute!

hmm, what else... I brewed a pot of coffee bean and tea leaf jasmine pearl tea... it's so amazing and also so expensive.... love and thanks to our wonderful friend marby for giving it to us for christmas!!! we've been trying to ration it, it's so good. The beautiful tea pot I got from my dad for christmas and I use it like, every day. me love tea.

For decorations I bought a simple, plastic purple table cloth, some tulips, and some cadbury's mini eggs. You can see the extra colored eggs hiding in the tulips :)

Everything was so beautiful and so delicious and i was exceptionally proud of myself for pulling off such a pretty and homemade easter brunch. I definitely hope to host a ton more brunches in the future :)

my helped me clean up and then left shortly after. stew and i spent the rest of the day doing a whole lot of nothing, although there was quite a bit of playing with the bubbles my parents had brought us in a cute little easter basket full of treats.

and that was our easter weekend! it was so great and relaxing and full of great company and great food. so, um... happy easter? lol.

<3
Em