I'm back, and there's change a-comin.

Hello lovelies, it's been awhile.

This happened:

This is less than 24 hours after it was done. it's not like that anymore. If you can't tell, it's on my right chest.

This happened:

and a lot of this happened:

I can't really describe the past 3 months because they've really just been an absurd, emotionally strenuous (but also at times wonderful) blur. Linn- my boyfriend and best friend- passed away and that really shook the reality that our friends (his roommates) and I had come to know. There was a lot of crying, and a lot of talking, but even more silence and numbness which made things complicated and difficult in some ways.

Regardless, the experience brought us all closer together than we have ever been before. As best we could we put the horror in our minds aside and tried to connect with one another- sharing family dinners, having dance parties in the living room, drinking (probably too much) together, and on more than one occasion having snowball fights at 2AM in completely snow-inappropriate attire. I learned a lot about myself and about my friends, and although most of the time I felt (and knew) I was skidding along rock bottom, they kept my from hitting the ground.

As for school, I didn't go back. Not for the rest of the semester anyways. I attended one class on the last day to turn in all my assignments from the entire semester. Luckily, none of my professors hassled me at all. I turned in half a semester's worth of work in one week and pulled off a 3.0 average for the semester. Not too much worse than what I would've gotten anyways (I'd like to hope).

I'm back now though. It's a new semester, and new year, and I just can't justify continuing at the pace I've been going at any longer. When Linn passed, I let all my responsibilities and good judgements slip away and put myself first. I let myself take the much needed time to process and grieve, and I stopped thinking about things like doing homework, eating right, working out, and generally just taking care of any part of myself aside from my emotions. And now, while emotionally I feel much better and I feel I've learned how to cope with and manage my everlasting sadness at losing Linn, I feel like shit physically and mentally. So for the next few months at least, you all get to watch me pick up the pieces and put myself back together into the person I want to be, the person I used to be. This girl:

The girl who eats lunches like this:

and throws brunches where she makes shit like this:

and takes pretty pictures of flowers like this:

and takes silly webcam photos like this:

Not the girl whose DSLR has been sitting in the back seat of the car I haven't cleaned out since summer for god knows how long.

I'm going back to an all vegan diet, but here's the thing: I love being healthy and good to my body, but I also love to cook! And it's hard to develop your cooking skills if you limit yourself too much. Also, there are a gazillion recipes I want to try which contain meat, dairy, or eggs in the original and yeah, I could sub, but I'll always wonder what the dish was meant to taste like. So I'm allowing myself a max of one cheat day a week where I can cook something new (or an old non-veg favorite) and not feel bad about it.

I'll also be attempting to get back into working out, but I'm going to have to get more adjusted with school before I really set up a regimen. I'm just going to go back to my tried and true one that I love, but I have to figure out scheduling.

The most fun thing I'll be doing over the next few months, though, is whipping out those 20 things I want to do in my 20s. A couple I've done and just haven't posted about yet, but a lot of them are going to take some serious time and effort, and I'm running out of the former! My 21st birthday is on May 10th, and I'd really like to give this project my all. You might want to check back on the page in a couple days, because I'm making some minor tweaks to the list. For example, #10- invent a cocktail, name it the soss. Really an endeavor that makes more sense to do in my 21st year, don't you think? So instead I'm going to make a sauce. A really freaking good sauce that would bring magic to whatever you dump it on. And name it "M Soss" (my full nickname). A couple other things need tweaking too, but we'll cross those bridges as we come to them :)

Anyways, at least for a little while I'm not going to be doing my regular features such as movie mondays, tasty tuesdays, lovely little things, etc. Since I'm just stepping back into the blogging world after going on a verrry long hiatus, I don't want to make any promises I can't keep. As I get back into my blogging habit, I'll begin reincorporating them in with my regular posts.

But I think I'll have plenty to post about anyways.

So, welcome back to GO1000F! Thanks for still being here :)

<3
Em 

Summer 2011

It's October, which means several things. 1, it's my favorite month! 2, I'm going to spend the whole month cursing the tucson heat and wishing I was having awesome Fall-filled October like the rest of the world, 3, it's definitely the end of summer and a summer post is way overdue.

Summer 2011 was insane. It was filled with so many amazing once-in-a-lifetime experiences, lots of changes, lots of really difficult times, and lots of really wonderful happiness and love filled times. I swear, every year my summers just get better and better. Now let me rummage through my photos file and facebook to find evidence of all this awesomeness :)

This is how I spent the beginnind of my summer. And a large of my time at home in general, at least before I got my new puppy that makes my older, sweet, perfect puppy feel like she shouldn't spend as much time with me. Internet, puppy cuddles, comfy bed in my nice familiar bedroom :)

My best friends in Prescott are the people I worked with last summer at Mama Edda's. And now 3 or them all live together, so I get to hang out with them all in one spot all the time :) every time i'm in prescott at least. This is from one of the first times this summer I went over to their place. I wasn't planning on staying the night, but then I did. It's kind of a long story with the blanket but basically while I was in Tucson all my prescott friends had a Lord of the Rings night where they all dressed up like LOTR characters. This blanket (and by blanket i mean awesome cape) was a part of one of the costumes. I was cold/jealous/probably a little bit tipsy so we decided I should get to wear it and take pictures and be part of the LOTR group. It was a fun night.

On that same night we played with this plastic dinosaur, sticking it ambiguously into as many pictures as possible. There are probably at least 20 pictures, but I chose this one cause it shows me and one of my besties Natalie :)

 On this day, I woke up at like 11, and decided I was going to work hard all day on getting the youth retreat catering stuff done. at 11:15 I got a call from linn, the boy on the far right, asking me what I was doing. Still in my pjs and having just brushed my teeth, I lied and said I was working on my catering job. He asked if I could get away from that for a few hours and come to frog falls (a swimming hole about 20 minutes away from downtown prescott) I thought about it for a few seconds and ultimately decided that having fun and making memorable experiences would be more important in the long run than spending the whole day working. 2 hours later here I was, drinking blue moon and hanging out with lovely, wonderful friends at a super awesome swimming hole.

 And then there was greece. These are not in order, and they are not my photos. This is at Mystras, an old monastery near Sparta.

I think this is at Pleuron, Greece. With my closest girlfriends of the trip (from the left) Laurent, Jessica, and Jill.

 Jessica and I thought it would be such a fun idea to pick up the ridiculously copious amount of flower petals on the ground outside of the Benaki museum in Athens and throw them in the air. It's pretty obvious in this picture that the girls totally know what's going on and the guys are lost as to what the point of all this is.

 We had to do both a site report and a reading as assignments on our trip. This is me giving my site report on the Charioteer at Delphi, Greece. I am so knowledgeable on this statue it's not even funny.

 One day in Santorini, we climbed down the 587 steps to the dock (i also climbed up them because I was too broke to pay for a donkey or the airlift, but theres no reason you should see a photo of that. 587 steps in 100 degree heat? you try that shit.), loaded up on a boat, and went to the volcano island santorini is next to, and the to the hot springs that are heated by the warmth of the volcano. While treading water furiously and waiting to climb up the single ladder to get back on the boat, we decided to get a picture. the group of people in the back is us, and I'm the sixth from the right.

 One of the most awesome things we did on my greece trip was perform a live reading of The Bacchae at a winery in Santorini. If you haven't read The Bacchae, well you should. Read all the greek plays that remain, in fact. They are all awesome. This is a picture of me reading one of my lines.

 Going back in time. This is at Olympia, in front of one of the many olympic temples. Olympia is small, by the way. just a couple blocks and some ancient ruins. Isn't that weird?

 Santorini again, right after having lunch at a super duper fancy restaurant with an awesome view.

 Back in time even more. Right after arriving in Santorini. We rode a very rocky ferry which made many of the people immediately next to us vomit. It was, um, not incredibly enjoyable. I mostly spent the time with my eyes closed and my ipod on, trying to pretend the rest of the cabin wasn't seasick and disgusting.

 Further back in time. This is in athens, in front of the legendary olive tree that Athena gave to the city of athens in the competition for who the city would be named after.

 Back on the boat in santorini, immediately before jumping into the hot springs water.

 on the almost last day of the trip, feeling very pensive and sad while waiting for the National Museum to open.

 Just a few minutes before I got in the taxi to take me back to the athens airport. So many wonderful friends made, so many wonderful experiences had, so much deep sadness and flittering excitement at this moment.

I flew from Athens, Greece straight to San Francisco California, and then drove to Mendocino, California. The next day, I started work as the head chef for the Mendocino youth retreat which was so much fun, so much work, so exhausting, and one of the best experiences I've ever had. I loved cooking for 30 wonderful individuals and I loved letting my recipes become worthwhile and enjoyed by so many people.

 Roadtrip back to Prescott with Stewie :)

 I got my perfect, wonderful, adorable pup this summer! Clementine has started to show so much personality and spunk, especially with her wiley age of 7 months. Right now she LOVES chewing on anything she can (she's teething), goes nuts when stewie or i come home, and has gained so much confidence from her socialization- she will approach people, lick people's hands, and explore when i let her off her leash. I have to chase after her to get her to come back sometimes :) when I first got her she would only stay by my heels and hide behind my legs :)

 So, I haven't fully disclosed this on this blog. But stewart and I broke up. No worries though! We are still the very best and closest of friends, we are still roommates, and we still have so, so much fun with each other. Not too long after we broke up though I started dating this boy, Linn. He's very sweet and fun and I met him when I started working at mama edda's last summer :)

 One of the parties we had in the second half of summer was a fancy schmancy party for our friend amanda's birthday!

 Then we had another formal wear party after my friend Natalie got back from Italy. I got there at 8pm and everyone was already wasted and passed out... so me and the 3 people that weren't done for already spent the rest of the night hanging out and taking pictures :) see below.

 above two: me and my girly lauren at said party :)

 We went on a picnic at goldwater lake! I made everyone sandwiches and I even wrote their names on all the bags. Cause yeah, i'm adorable. it was so much fun. We drank a few beers, played with puppy, and had fun on the playground :)

 More picnic :)

 This summer ended, as last year's did, with the VW festival. Stewie couldn't go this year due to his cousin's wedding, but I went with linn and there were lots of other people there that we knew. It was a really great time, and I'm already counting down the days 'til next year :)

It was a great summer, 2011. Thanks for all the craziness, all the good times, all the fun, all the sadness and hurt that let me learn so many lessons. I can only hope that the rest of the year will be as awesome as this summer was :)

hope your summer was just as awesome, and hope this coming fall is even better!

Love,
Em

Guess what season it is?

Well, it's summer. For the next 12 hours at least, and then it's friggin' fall! I was feeling a little mopey because it's still 95 degrees here and none of the trees are the kind that turn bright red and orange, but then I read this little article and it kicked my butt into gear. Tucson, suck it. I'm ready for this freaky-assed harvest.

Tucson seems to be taking pity on me though, if only just a bit, because the high tomorrow is 82. Eighty-two! Can you believe it? That's practically freezing. AND, there are supposed to be thunderstorms all day. I might just whip out a scarf. Also, pumpkins and gourds and squashes are showing up in all the grocery stores, even though I'm probably the only one that would dream of baking pies and stuffed squash in this heat. I plan on buying a ridiculous amount, though, and putting them all over my apartment so that people can come over and think, "Hey, it might be too hot to even use the outdoor unheated pool comfortably, but it's definitely fall in here". Maybe I'll even crank up the AC to make it more convincing.