Top Ten Posts

I didn't want yesterday's blogiversary post to be suuuuper long, so I left out the list of the top ten most popular/viewed posts from the last three years. Here they are now! There's a good mix of recipes, a handful of movie mondays, and a few other random posts. Enjoy!

1. Reasons why Autumn is the Best Season- my most popular post by a loooong shot. It has over 500 views more than the second most popular post. I think it got into the stumbleupon world.

2. Movie Mondays: Wristcutters: A Love Story- one of my favorite movies to this day.. according to my stats though a lot of people find this post after google searching "cutting wrists" :/ soo... that's unfortunate/weird. I hope those people are inspired to watch this excellent movie and are thus in a much happier and enlightened place for having done so.

3. Movie Mondays: Life as a House- I think this was one of the first R rated movies I saw when I was a kid. Very sweet film. And Hayden Christensen at 20 playing an angsty lil teenager is a real cutie.

4. 20 Things to do in my 20th Year-I'm glad this post is popular because I think it's one of the better things I decided to do on this blog. I didn't do them all but maybe I'll recycle a few for my upcoming 22 in 22! I am starting to think I may never have the chance to beat Stewart at Chinese Checkers though.

5. Shampoo? Toothpaste? Facewash? Who needs 'em!- This post has a really corny title, but some pretty decent info/ideas for anyone trying to go the all natural/no-poo hygiene route. I still stand by it all! Especially the facewash. PUT OIL ALL OVER YOUR FACE. seriously. you'll thank me.

6. 7 Layer Burritos- The only post I know of that has gotten "pinned", which makes sense because pinterest is obsessed with copycat recipes. Inspired by my 17 year old self's diet of taco bell but so much more delicious.

 7. Sesame Seared Tuna and Papaya Tempura Sushi with Spicy Sesame Sauce and Papaya Chutney- A long time ago I did this thing for a website that doesn't exist anymore called Foodie Fights. It was basically a competition between food bloggers... 5 or 6 people could enter each week, 2 secret ingredients would be revealed, and everyone would create/blog about a dish. The winner from the previous week and a special guest judge would decide the winners. This was my first entry and it won! If you couldn't figure it out the secret ingredients were sesame seeds and papaya.

8. Mint Nail Polish and 30 Day Challenge Day 18- I have no idea why this post is popular but it has a couple weird pictures of me and a couple funny videos. And I'm wearing nail polish and trying to be cute.

9. How to Couch-Hop Successfully- I had no idea, when writing this post in a state of frustration and annoyance at my current house guest situation that it would become so popular. Honestly I sound a bit like a self-righteous bitch in it. Oh well. I stand by my tips! And don't hop onto my couch if you don't like it ;)

10. Movie Mondays: Dakota Skye- Another awesome movie. Low budget indie, filmed in Scottsdale AZ which is cool. Great quality and sweet, interesting storyline about a teenage girl. Very very nice.

There you have it! That, apparently, is what people have been reading on this blog. Lots more recipes/movie mondays/other cool stuff in the archives :)

Love,
Em

3 Year Blogiversary/Me at 18!

Today marks the three year anniversary of the day I sat at my little dorm room desk and decided to start a blog! Crazy. My writing has been somewhat sporadic and I don't have a ton of followers, but I am SO glad I decided to make an effort to document my life. There are so many photos and memories that I would have (and did, until browsing the archives) never taken or completely forgotten about! It is so wonderful to have the posts to look back on now and years down the road to see who I was and read what I wrote (as cringe-worthy as it might be) as I transitioned out of adolescence and into adulthood.

I was thinking the other day about how much I have changed over the years. It's almost like I can look at each year from about 14 years old to now (21) and pinpoint exactly who I was -taste in music, style, beliefs- and each year is almost completely different. I guess that's what growing up is all about. It makes me kind of nostalgic... like thinking of a group of old friends I haven't seen in a long, long time. Do you ever think about who you were at 15? or 19? I know that at both those ages I was pretty sure I had shit figured out and I did not see my tastes or aspirations ever changing. And yet I did not move to NYC and become a Broadway star.

BUT, all that stuff still makes up who I am today... all those different girls with different things they think are important. I've been thinking about maybe doing some throwback posts... looking back on me at 14, 15, 16, etc just for the fun and ridiculousness of it. Kind of like VH1s I love the 70s/80s/90s but just about me because I'm a blogger and thus inherently narcissistic. Hah.

So, in honor of this blog's third birthday, here's a little bit of who I was when this all began... 

Me at 18

When I was 18, I...
- graduated high school

Me and my fellow show choir seniors on the last day of high school!

It was raining! That's why my hair is so weird.

- moved out of my parents' house/AZ and into a little dorm room at Lewis and Clark in Portland, OR

Administration building at my gorgeous first college

 - Dated and then stopped dating and then dated and then stopped dating and then dated Stewart

- Got my first pet fish, a purply-red-aqua Beta named Mikal

- Worked at my first "real" job- Subway!

- Performed for the first and last time in a dance show - LC's Dance Extravanganza

- Spent my fall break riding in a UHaul with a bunch of other college kids to Bend, OR where we stayed in someone's aunt's vacation house.

 

 

- Ate mostly vegan, sometimes just vegetarian.

- Decided I missed AZ and my friends and my boyfriend too much and moved back at the end of the school year, just a couple weeks before my 19th birthday.

My favorite bands/artists were: Modest Mouse, Regina Spektor, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sublime, Tool

My favorite movie was: Wristcutters: A Love Story

I read: All the Harry Potters again, the first two books of His Dark Materials, Siddhartha, Kneller's Happy Campers

My best friend(s) was(were): Stewart, Sharney, Megan

The most important things to me were: Hanging out with my friends, living a vegan lifestyle, dating Stewart because I liked him soooo muuuuchhhh, coming home to arizona so I could continue hanging out with my friends and dating Stewart and cooking vegan food.

18 was a pretty weird year for me. When I look back on it I think I really had no idea who I was and was just trying to figure it out. That's probably pretty common for the first year of college. I have lots of great memories of exploring Portland, flying home to visit my best friends in Prescott, experiencing the whole dorm-meal plan-college in a new place thing, and leaving high school behind. The summer before college was one of the best ever, and luckily I filmed a good deal of it so I have a nice little video reminder of that time. I won't put any of it here, because we were being dumb 18 year olds.. but it's pretty cool to have.

I also still used Myspace when I was 18 and got a lot of these pictures from there. So old school.

Here's to another year of blogging!

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

Stretched Too Thin

is how I am feeling recently. Needless to say I've been quite absent in the blogging world, but not for lack of trying. I simply have absolutely no time. I'm at school monday-thursday, I work thursday nights and all day friday and saturday. Typically I have sundays off and I use that time to do all my homework, clean the house, etc.

But that's not all. I recently agreed to help out one of my coworkers with an independent film project. He's a dj and was asked to do the music and sound effects recording in order to get the film ready for upcoming festivals. Since I'm a media arts major and have a bit of experience with sound effects recording he asked if I would help him out. It's been fun work, but it's also been long, tedious, and complicated. I spent all of saturday night after work doing it, and then much of sunday and sunday night, and today I'm going to have to spend several more hours working on it. It's not for nothing, though, I will be getting IMDB credit as well as a small portion of sales if the movie is picked up.

And then there are the trips to prescott. These are frequent, though not as frequent as I'd like since they're my only chance to see my boyfriend, my parents, and many of my closest friends. They're always fun but they always mean cramming with homework as soon as I get back and spending a minimum of 6 hours out of my weekend driving.

Lastly theres the whole trying to be social and act like a college student thing. With my minimal free time, I pretty much try to fill every second with something enjoyable or relaxing, such as zoning out in my bed watching silly tv shows or hanging out with stewart or going to parties and activities and such. Unfortunately, when I do have time to do these things I get bogged down thinking of all the stuff I'm going to have to do later, so it's not nearly as enjoyable as it should be.

I hardly ever have time to do things like keep my blog current or keep my house completely clean or even go grocery shopping or cook my own food. It's nuts.

I really wish things could go back to simplicity- I miss not having anyone depend on me to do things. People asking me to cover their shifts, project partners needing to meet during my few precious free hours... it's all just too much. The days fly by because I'm constantly busy but I feel like I'm always slipping behind, I can never quite catch up with all my obligations and work. I haven't responded to any emails since like the beginning of the semester, I haven't even really had time to fully read them. I want to feel like my work is done, like I can just relax, but I seriously don't have time to. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The end of the semester can't come soon enough, and honestly neither can graduation. I really hate having to go to work and go to school. It's just not a good way to live. In my finance class, we learned that a full time student who works more than 15 hours a week significantly raises their chances of getting bad grades and is much less likely to graduate. I work 21 hours a week and I can certainly see why that might be the case. It's freaking difficult.

Anyways, vent sesh over. Just had to get that off my chest, and now you understand why this blog has been so lame recently.

If I find any free time, I will try to devote it to posting more, because I miss it so.

<3
Em

So here's what happened:

Remember that list of things I learned in my teens? This one and this one? Well, one of the things on that list is "Life is the most important thing". The past couple weeks I have been adhering to my personal philosophies, and enjoying the shit out of life. After I finished up (most of) my work for the youth retreat catering stuff, I got busy going on hikes, going to swimming holes, spending time with friends, and watching many, many movies. I didn't post, I didn't even try to think of a movie monday, and I totally dropped the ball on this month's lovely little things.

but...

I'm not the least bit sorry :) I've been having an AMAZING time these past few weeks, and tomorrow I'm going to hop on a plane and fly to greece. I'm way less prepared than I should be but whatever. It's life. I'm just living it, enjoying it, and taking it one moment at a time.

So, I do apologize for my very extended absence, but I'm also glad that I got caught up in the whirlwind of living life, rather than bogged down in the business of documenting it all the time.

I'm not sure what my computer/internet situation will be like over the next 6 weeks. If I can, I will stop by to upload some pictures and throw out a few posts here and there. All the feature posts will be put on hold until I return in late july.

I love you all, and I hope you have been enjoying your summers thus far. Talk to you again soon!

<3,
Em

my turn...

Follow my blog with bloglovin

mandy over at Smiles Awake You literally just did this, and now I'm hopping on board. Feel free to follow me on bloglovin if that's how you do your blog readin' :)

top ten posts thus far

Hello lovelies! Happy thursday! In high school, thursdays were my least favorite day of the week... but these days I usually have no class/only one class on friday, so thursdays are my day to let out the stress I've been working up all through the work week and relax. This weekend Stewart and I are driving up to Phoenix to visit his brother, and then up to Prescott to see our parents and attend our dear friend Mikey's going away party. I've known Michael since the first day of 6th grade (almost a decade ago!), and now he is joining the army. It's very sad, but I'm also proud of him for getting out of our hometown! More on the party and the rest of our trip to prescott later.

There are 2 days of the Ultimate Blog Party left- and I'm having so much fun so far! I've already found like 10 new blogs to follow (with some pretty super cool ladies behind them!), and I've gained quite a few followers myself. It's been so fun to virtually mingle with everyone. So, since there are some new people checking out this blog and there are bound to be a couple more who stop by, I thought it would be fun to post my top ten most viewed posts. I'm not sure if I would consider them all to be my best/most interesting posts, but numbers don't lie so I guess people are checking them out for a reason! There is a nice variety... a handful of recipes, a couple posts from various countdowns, a book review, some basic life stuff, and my workout regimen that I still follow. Enjoy!

10. No Booze November- last november I went without a drop of alcohol to see how it made my body feel. the answer was- great! I'm back to drinking occasionally now, but I definitely think the hiatus did me good.
9. Last Week/New Book- a general life update post with lots of pics of what I had been up to.
8. My Workout Routine- combination of cardio, weights, and biking myself to school. It's been working great for me!
7. St Paddy's Day Countdown Day 3- Irish Colcannon Recipe- This was one of my very first posts on this blog, and the first countdown I ever did. Colcannon (mashed potatoes whipped with cabbage or kale) is soo, sooo delicious for any day of the year.
6. Looking For Alaska- My review of the book. A little below my reading level, but still good :)
5. 7 Layer Burritos- If you've ever eaten a 7 layer burrito from taco bell (one of the only good already-vegetarian things on the menu), you've probably had the thought "this could be a whole lot better". Well, I had that thought, and tacked "if I made it myself" onto the end of it. Homemade 7 layers= most delicious thing ever.
4. Foodie Fight #2: Honey Mustard and Lemon Greek Skewers with Hummus Dipping Sauce- Foodie Fights is something that sadly no longer exists, but it used to be an online battle between food bloggers. 2 obscure ingredients are chosen (in this case it was a 'special' battle, where the only requirement was skewers) and 5 bloggers create a dish that features them. 2 judges evaluate each dish/post and decide on a winner based on yumminess and creativity. I came in 2nd with this one :)
3. Halloween Countdown Day 4- Creepy Cocktails- Another countdown post! Halloween is my favorite holiday (with st paddy's close behind) and on this day of my countdown I made up a fun candy corn layered drink.
2. Movie Mondays: Wristcutters: A Love Story- Only one of my many movie mondays, and the only one that makes the top ten list (at number 2, no less!) I'm glad this is so popular, because this is my favorite movie! It's so interesting that it ended up being so popular with viewers as well :)
1. Sesame Seared Tuna and Papaya Tempura Sushi with Spicy Sesame Sauce and Papaya Chutney- whew, how's that for a title of a dish? This was my first crack at foodie fights, and I came in first! The two ingredients chosen were sesame seeds and papaya. My winning dish was a really fun and creative sushi. Takes a little work but the results are delicious :) 

There ya go! My 10 most viewed pages. Check them out, and if you decide to do a post like this be sure to leave a link in the comments so I can check out your most popular posts!

temporarily under construction

Hey guys,
bear with me over the next few days as I revamp the look of this blog! I'm trying to do everything from scratch and not use any pre-made codes or anything, so it could take me a while... but rest assured everything will be way more awesome in the end! so if you stop by here and you notice something looks really strange and awful, i
i'm probably just knees deep in html codes experimenting- so don't worry :)

also, i don't see any reason why i wouldn't be able to keep posting as usual, things will just look a little different :)

talk to you again soon!
<3 Em