New Things, Old Things

I've decided, after nearly a one year hiatus, to try to start blogging again. It's been something I've wanted to do for a very, very long time, but due to life circumstances have not had enough time, motivation, or mental stamina. The past year and a half of my life has been very strenuous and difficult (I might go into it more in future posts but for now all I can say is it was very taxing), but now I finally feel I have reached a point where I am able to once again devote time and healthy, positive energy towards this blog.

Many things have changed over the past year, and I feel I've really grown as a person and learned many things about myself, both pleasant and unpleasant. The past few months, in particular, have been like emerging from a dark cave I hadn't realized I had been trapped in. I feel a fresh, invigorating new appreciation for life and an ability to once again see things clearly! It's been amazing.

Lots of exciting things are happening right now, too, which I feel are really propelling me towards a positive future. In order to reflect all the many things that have happened and are happening, I decided that a new blog design was crucial to my renewed desire to blog. My old blog design, which I lovingly designed and took many hours to perfect, was made when I was 19 and still (relatively) fresh faced and oblivious to the trials and tribulations of life. It was lovely, but also rather gaudy. I feel like this new, muted grey and floral look is a much more accurate representation of myself at this stage in my life.. and I think it's much easier on the eyes! I hope you agree.

While my interests and thus the content of this blog will for the most part stay the same (cooking, fashion, film and television, health and fitness), there will be some new things dominating my time and thus likely playing a part in this blog! For instance:

Over the past year, I have become very interested in sewing. I even have my own craft room at my current house! A couple weeks ago I opened up my own Etsy shop, which specializes in fabric housewares, accessories, apparel, and upcycled vintage clothing. There is a new link for my shop at the top right of my blog and I hope you will visit it as I begin to add more items! On this blog, you can expect to see some DIYs, patterns, and updates on my crafting and shop.

As always, I am very interested in nutrition, healthy eating, fitness, and weight loss. I gained a fair amount of weight over the past year as a result of depression and alcohol abuse and while I am very pleased to no longer have issues with either of these terrible ailments, the weight has stuck around as a bitter reminder. Through menial exercise and daily calorie counting I have already managed to lose 15 pounds in about a month and a half, but I still have quite a few pounds to go. Expect to see low-calorie, delicious recipes and perhaps my thoughts and experiences with various workout regimens that I experiment with as I whittle my way back down to my ideal size. For recipes that already exist on my site click here, and for my current weights workout routine which I supplement with various forms of cardio, click here.

I am going to be graduating with my BA in Film and Televison (formerly known as Media Arts) this December, meaning I am a quarter way through my senior year at the moment. As I near this exciting turning point in my academic career, you may see many things relating to my current school work and film studies on this blog.

And finally... this isn't much of a change and it won't really influence this blog, but my darling Clementine turned TWO today! What a big girl! Here she is the day after I got her, at 5 months:

On her 1st birthday, last year:

And now at 2 years old!:

Hm. Looks like she's gotten scruffier and her dresses have gotten fancier. Don't worry, I'm not one of those people that always has their dog dressed up. Just on her birthday!

Well, I hope to be able to write in here at least a couple days at week. I'm busy with school and work (at Brooklyn, still!), but I am very eager to get back on this train and continue doing and writing about the things I love.

Thank you for being here after all this time!


Love, Em

A visit from my mother: aka, all my problems are fixed!

 Last weekend, my wonderful mom visited me down here in Tucson. My dad came as well, but for the most part he was at my grandpa's house doing some work. So, it was pretty much a mom-daughter girly weekend. I thought we'd pretty much just hang out and maybe visit a few of Tucson's modest attractions, but we ended up getting a lot done!

A little back-story. My car, a 1997 Subaru outback, is great. However, over the past few months little things have been breaking or falling apart. Nothing serious, just aesthetic things. For example, my radio stopped working. Then my cigarette lighter (which is essential for my handy-dandy two-in-one phone and ipod charger) completely fell out. There were also a few things wrong with my apartment... I tripped a breaker (faulty outlet) and lost power to half my apartment. I still had my fridge, my stove, my internet, and my dining room light, so I put off calling maintenance and just waited for my dad (an electrical contractor) to get there. Also, as much as I love my little pup clementine, she wasn't exactly house-trained when I first got her. My apartment has carpeted floors and even though I tried to stay on top of taking her out frequently (and cleaning up the messes when I didn't), there were more than a few stains after 7 months. Enough to keep me from inviting anyone to my apartment. Finally, stewart moved out last month to get his own place, and took half the furniture with him. This left me with an empty living room, since the futon was his. My poor mother had to sleep on an air mattress on the floor.

But all that changed this weekend!

My mom borrowed one of those steam carpet cleaner things that looks like a vacuum from my aunt and uncle. At first I was seriously skeptic, and told her we could definitely try it but I seriously doubted it would make much of a difference. At this point I had pretty much given up on ever getting my security deposit back. After running a few other errands on the first day, I took an hour long nap and she decided to try out the cleaner. When I woke up and walked out into the living room, all I could say was "oh my goodness. oh my goodness!" over and over again. I was shocked! The carpet literally looked brand new. If you have ever been to my apartment before, you know how crazy that is.

We also went out to a little car accessory shop, where my mom bought me a new radio for my car- one with an auxiliary output, which my last radio didn't even have. AND, the guy fixed my broken cigarette lighter for free when he installed the radio. This combined with the ipod dock/charger that stewart gave me for christmas turned my previously mute car into mobile musical awesomeness.

Finally, while my mom was finishing up the carpet, she had me look on craigslist for futons. I found an awesome cherry wood one with a super comfy mattress for only 200$. The next day my parents and I drove out to buy it, packed it into my subaru, and then brought it home and set it up in my living room. I have a real living room now, people. Not just a barren puppy pee-stained room with a bookshelf.

Ta-da!

 The futon has a bed sheet over it right now, but the mattress is actually a lovely cream color with decorative cinches. I just moved the furniture around today, so some of the pictures aren't in the right places. I'll probably get to that tomorrow.

I took a picture of my typewriter, just cause I love it so much.

Anyways, it was definitely a super productive weekend. It was also a lot of fun, too!

My mom and I went to the Tucson Art Museum, where there was an exhibit of photographs of Frida Kahlo taken by one of her lovers. There was also an awesome exhibit of artwork featuring text/words called "con(text)". some really cool, inspiring stuff. We also tried the museum's restaurant, which I had been dying to go to for MONTHS. Stew and I tried to go once, but downtown Tucson can be confusing and hectic if you aren't sure where you're going, and since we didn't see it (or the museum) right away when led by my phone's gps, we decided to just get out of there and go somewhere else. This time, however, we did find it, and it was awesome. It's called Cafe a la C'Art- so cute, right? They have lovely outdoor seating with mosaic benches and pillows running around the perimeter, and lots of delicious sounding salads and sandwiches.

 This was a sandwich with baby spinach, havarti cheese, tomatoes, bacon, turkey, and apple slices on a ciabatta roll. It came with a small side salad and a thin asiago cheese and sesame seed cracker. sooo good. I will definitely be going back.

One other exciting thing happened last weekend, and that was Clementine's birthday! Clemmy turned one on Friday, February 24th. To celebrate I bought her a little "happy birthday" shirt...

a little green squeaky bear (although her mouth isn't big enough to make it squeak so she just chews on the arms and legs)

And of course a special birthday dinner. I also let her come to the pet store with me and sniff around at all the yummy goodies.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend and I definitely feel much more comfortable in my car and in my apartment.

I hope you all had a nice weekend as well, and a happy leap day! the world is back on schedule now.

Love,
Em

20 in my 20th: #4 Get a Puppy

I'm on a roll with these 20 things, guys. I signed up for home ec last week and got my sewing machine tuned up to make sure it's in perfect working order, and I'm just finalizing a couple songs I've been working on on the piano- one that i wrote and one that i didn't write but i love. thats 3 more things that'll be coming at you all in the next few weeks! it's been really fun working towards these different goals and writing up these posts :)

Onto the thing you all really want to hear about- this adorable little love muffin!

Name: Clementine, as in Kate Winslet's character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- one of my top three favorite movies. 

Age: 5 months

Breed: Terrier mutt, but she definitely has some border terrier and some wire-hair in there. She also must have some kind of small breed terrier in there because she's tiny and she probably won't get much bigger.

Color: white, with beige-ish wiry top coat in some places

Eyes: beautiful golden brown

Where I got her: Phoenix, AZ- some guy owned her mama and daddy and I guess had to get rid of all the little pups. She was the last one left.

How I found her: craigslist, baby!

Personality: so very  sweet and shy- when i first met her she tried to high-tail it into the guy's kitchen- but she quickly warmed up to me and now thinks I'm her new mama. she follows me everywhere i go, and when I have to leave and then come home she sees me and wags her tail so hard her whole back half wiggles back and forth. She's very quiet, except for if she sees a dog and feels threatened by it- then she'll growl and potentially bark. usually this happens when she's sitting on me or on the couch and the dog comes into the room, so i put her on the floor so she and the dog are at the same level. I'm working on socializing her (which should have been done when she was younger, but i guess the dude didn't take care of that) so that when she's a bit older she can be nice and friendly with other dogs and people. she's very, very smart and seems pretty willing to be submissive- i haven't had to teach her how to heel at all, she just naturally walks next to or behind me on a slack leash when i take her out for walks. unlike the dog i grew up with (that my parents still own), clover, she doesn't have an endless appetite and bottomless stomach- she's generally uninterested in food, although i have gotten her to finish her meals the last two times. this means food will be cheap and I won't have to deal with her being all over me for it, but it's also made it hard to be successful with starting her training commands- like sit, stay, etc- since she doesn't really care about the treat reward in my hand that usually captures a training pup's attention. 

She's such a little cutie, and I've been trying to take her lots of places so she can get more comfortable with the world. she's already doing so well! she doesn't flinch or tuck her tail between her legs when she sees people or other dogs, which she certainly did the first day or two i had her. We've gone down to the downtown square a lot, as well as to other friends' houses, the vet, around the neighborhood, and to the barkery. she's getting more sociable every day! she's such a little sweet heart, and I know she's going to grow up to be such a well-mannered, sweet little companion.

<3

Em