30 Day Challenge: Day 1

I'm such a sucker for these things. They remind me of the days of MySpace bulletins, where I'd waste the majority of a weekday evening answering survey after survey full of silly, pointless questions. Ahh, junior high. 


I feel like I've been out of the blogosphere for so long I literally have to go months back to catch up on all my favorite blogs. I was reading my friend Chloe's blog today and found that she made up a 30 day challenge like a week ago. It's a good one too! So I've decided I'm going to follow it. A good way to breathe fresh life into this old blog and hopefully get it rolling again. 


Here are the rules, I encourage you all to visit Chloe's blog and follow along too!
1. Your name, nicknames, changes to your name (if any), favorite usernames and meanings behind them. Insert your favorite picture(s) of yourself.
2. Some of your favorite things. Smells, songs, food, movies etc. Why are they your favorite?
3. Guilty pleasure things/secrets. That thing you like that people might make fun of you for.
4. Tattoos you have, their meanings, and/or tattoos you want to get.
5. Opinions on those things everyone argues about, brief or not so brief, and any one or more topics. (Politics, religions, rights etc) i.e. Things you feel strongly about.
6. Things you want, rational and irrational. Places you want to go, famous people you want to meet and more.
7. Working out: things that work for you; things you should do vs. what you are doing etc. Get motivated!
8. Style your hair in at least four or more ways and take pictures. Do you ever do these styles on regular days or for occasions? 
9. Comfort things; what do you do when you're sick to feel better? What do you eat/watch/do when you're having a bad day?
10. Childhood things; traditions and things that take you back. Did you have a favorite stuffed animal? What kind of books did you read? What were your favorite movies?
11. The best day; describe a good memory or the elements of a good day. 
12. Your best traits and your worst habits. Personal struggles as well as accomplishments. Balance it out. 
13. Things you're addicted to. Foods, sites, shows, whatever. 
14. Your favorite meal of the day and the elements that make it perfect. Obviously, post lots of delicious pictures. 
15. Things that make you jealous, whether it's possessions or people. 
16. Things you can't let go of. 
17. Something (or things) you haven't done in a while that you would really like to. 
18. Your hobbies or hobbies you would like to pick up. 
19. Your significant other. How you got together, your favorite things about them and maybe even things that bother you at times. 
20. Things you don't like that other people do. It's ranting time. Be specific.
21. Things that make you laugh really hard. Include some youtube videos. 
22. Your favorite video games and/or board games/card games/party games. Also include your least favorite.
23. Songs from your childhood/teenage years. Post some 90's/ early 2000's songs that take you back/make you laugh etc. Talk about the memories attached to them. 
24. VLOG DAY: take a video of yourself for this! Pronounce the following words: Aluminium, salmon, talk, caramel, lieutenant, mirror, scone, nearly, bath, grass, near, bacon, beer can, again, been, garage, process, hot, coffee, thought, not, tomato, potato, cheese, cake, Barbie, fond, duck, dog, cat, fish, chips, milk, friend, fried, disenchanted, sleep, dream, state, cinema, last ,lost, Raxocoricopalavitorious, antidisestablishmentarianism, dance, aunt, copper, win, one, on, herbs, rotten. Where were you born?
25. Three completely unselfish wishes for other people, and three selfish just-for-you wishes.
26. Some things you always think about. Where does your brain go when you try to fall asleep? 
27. Things you wish you could do. Skills, traveling etc. Include a video or pictures.
28. If you absolutely had to go back and relive a part of your life (say, a few months), what would it be? Would you change something, knowing it would most certainly have an effect on your future? 
29. If you could see a day of your future somehow, would you take the chance? How far forward would you go? What do you hope you see? What do you dread to see?
30. Admit or confess something. 


 Day One:  Your name, nicknames, changes to your name (if any), favorite usernames and meanings behind them. Insert your favorite picture(s) of yourself.


My first name is Emily, my middle name is Louise. I haven't made any changes to my name and I don't plan to, aside from maybe changing my last name when I get married. 

 I've got dozens of nicknames. Literally dozens. My mom called my "lou", "louie", "lou-lou", "lou-la-belle" and many other things as a kid. She still does, actually. My friends in middle school and high school called my "auntie em". some of them still do. I also got "mama emmy", because I was like the mom of the group at times. I also got just the standard "em" and "emmy" and of course "emi-lou". Stewie called me "emilem" all through our relationship and he sometimes still does. Probably the nickname that stuck the most was given to me by stewart's brother, brian. That would be "msoss" (it's pronounced em-sauce) or often just "soss". Brian calls me "sossy-poo" on occasion, too.

 usernames? hmm. lately I've taken to just using my first two initials (el) and attaching it to my last name. That's what college email addresses do for you anyways, so I just go with it. Sometimes I've used Emilemsoss (like on my twitter and stumbleupon accounts) because It's a combination of my two favorite nicknames. When I was younger I used to come up with all kinds of ridiculous screen names for use on msn messenger. remember msn messenger? does it even exist anymore? all I know is that is was all the rage in 8th grade. How else were you going to talk to your crush over summer? or before text messaging was something everyone had access to? I don't know if I can remember them now, but I can guarantee that many of them were cring-worthy emo song lyrics that I thought mirrored my life exactly. Thank god I graduated that phase. Now I just post them as my facebook statuses ;) jk. kind of.

See you tomorrow for day two!

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

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 

goodbye for a while

won't be posting for a bit. my boyfriend committed suicide on tuesday night. can't think, breath, eat, sleep, anything. not successfully anyways. didn't know it could be so hard to swallow or keep things down. everything is heavy. don't know what i'm going to do in the next few months, but i dont have it in me to blog. maybe in a little bit. thanks for reading, i know i'll come back eventually.

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

Fall Fix-Up: Finance

Ugh, money. it seems like there's never really enough of it. I know I hardly ever go a day without thinking about money in some way, and I know a lot of my friends have the same issues and difficulties.

I'm taking an online personal finance course this semester as one of my gen eds. Primarily we are learning about budgeting, real estate investment, buying and selling a home, and applying for mortgages. I just had my midterm yesterday and found to my surprise at 11am that I had to write 3 3-page essays by 11:59 that night. This wouldn't have been that big of an issue if I hadn't already agreed to work with one of my work-friends on a film project all day as well as do various other important assignments for today. I ended up spending the hours between 7pm and 11pm just sitting in my apartment and writing nonstop. It was not the most pleasant day off from work and school. On the bright side, however, I now feel quite well versed in the issue of personal finance management.

I'm just a kid in college so I won't act like I know what to with finance in the larger scheme of things. But there is one thing I have learned which my professor claims to be the most important rule in finance, and I will discuss that today for my fall fix-up.

The rule is that you should always keep your spending on must-haves to 50% or less.

Must-haves are all the necessary costs of living such as electricity/gas/water bills, rent, clothes, and food. In the 1970s, the typical family had one spouse working and spent on average about 54% of family income on must-haves. This left a wide margin of 46% for savings for the future and wants. Wants include things like family vacations, dinners out, the occasional morning cappuccino, etc. In 2005, the typical family had both spouses working, and yet 75% of total family income was being spent on must-haves. This left only 25% for wants and savings for things like retirement and college. This means two things: our economy has changed drastically since the 1970s, and the average American family is trying to live in a way they can't truly afford.

The main sources of must-have spending are homes and automobiles. Many people have taken out loans larger than they can realistically pay back (thanks to deregulation of banks/mortgages) in order to pay for things like new cars and large homes. They can't really afford these things, so they are constantly pinching pennies and tightening their belts just to pay the monthly bills. Whereas, if they had simply bought a home they could afford even if it is slightly smaller and perhaps a used car instead of a new one they would be much more financially free. The extra financial freedom means a better ability to save for the future- savings which can ultimately be used to buy the bigger home or nicer car when the timing is actually right.

I think it's important to create a budget and evaluate how much you are spending on must-haves and wants each month. My course teaches that ideally, you should spend 50% on must haves, 20% should go into savings, and the remaining 30% can go towards wants and any unforeseen expenditures. 

Personally, I'm fine with living in a smaller apartment and driving a used car if it means more freedom to do things like take weekend road trips and go out to dinner with my friends. I had never heard of this way of budgeting money before, and I found it very interesting.

If you're interested in learning more about this idea, check out the book All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi. It goes into much more detail :)

Another fall-fix up coming at you later this week!

Fall Fix-Up: Nutrition

This week is going to be a double fall fix up, because I didn't have time to post last week! To be honest I haven't really had time to post ever, and it makes me sad. Between school, work, homework, trips to prescott to visit linn/friends/parents, housekeeping, and maintaining a wee bit of a social life, I've found I really have no time at all. I look forward to the day when I don't have to work AND go to school. just one or the other is fine with me. Anyways, I hope that one of these days I will not have so much work to do and have enough free time to blog regularly like my heart desires :)

Today I'm going to be talking about nutrition, and tomorrow, since I have my personal finance and family planning midterm, I will be talking about money.

Nutrition is something I care about a lot. I've been a vegetarian since I was 13 years old, although I've flipflopped quite a bit- sometimes going to one end of the spectrum and eating a vegan/raw diet, and sometimes "cheating" frequently, as I did in Greece over the summer. There are a few rules I always try to stick to though, and I'd like to share them with you.

1. Eat Food. If you've read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, you've heard this one before. Actually, that book has a lot of good tips and you should check it out. It's a quick read- took me an hour while lounging on the beach in mexico last winter. anyways, this isn't as simple as it seems. It rules out a lot of the things you find at the supermarket. Read the ingredients on the things you eat, and if you can't picture in your mind one of the ingredients, it's not food. If your grandmother wouldn't know what it is, it probably isn't food. This can be expanded upon by saying "eat whole food". as in, things that are one ingredient. fresh fruits and vegetables are best. The fewer ingredients listed, the better usually.

2. Don't eat until you're full. Eat until you aren't hungry anymore. In french, one says "J'ai faim", which means "I have hunger". There is no way to say "I'm full", rather, you say "Je n'ai pas faim", meaning, 'I do not have hunger". Eat with this mentality. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to process a full stomach, so if you stop eating when you're full, you're already 20 minutes too late. Something that goes along with this tip is "drink your food and chew your drink", meaning take the time to chew your food thoroughly and enjoy it, and keep your drink in your mouth long enough to fully appreciate it. Not only does this make eating more enjoyable, it slows down your pace and keeps you from scarfing everything down before your brain can process it.

3. In my experience, counting calories is the best way to lose weight. I like to think of it as science. a pound is about 3500 calories, which means if you want to lose one pound you have to burn 3500 calories more than you consume. If you figure out approximately how many calories you burn in a day just from the processes of living, you can figure out how many calories you can eat (without exercise) to maintain your current weight. Then it's just a matter of reducing that number and/or adding exercise to your daily routine. Eat like you normally do, but count your calories for a day. You will probably be amazed at how much you actually consume. This website has been very helpful to me, and a lot of restaurant websites now carry nutritional information as well. I like to keep a food diary or use the My Fitness app on my droid in order to keep track of my daily calories- it really helps to be knowledgeable about just what you're consuming each day.

4. Ignore the food pyramid. 6-11 servings of bread/grains a day? Are they kidding? when was the last time you you ate 9 slices of bread or servings of rice or pasta in one day? It was evident to me early on that this model of nutrition was not going to work for me- find something that works for you. I prefer to eat mostly fruits and vegetables, maybe 2-3 servings of grains a day, and 1-2 servings of dairy/protein. It's different for every body though and as long as you are getting the vitamins you need and are minimizing fatty, sugary, starchy foods, you should be fine.

5. "easy" doesn't mean "healthy". I'm astounded every time I look on pinterest and I see a slew of pins of "Easy weeknight meals!". They usually are some combination of chicken, cream cheese, pasta, and a crockpot. and various other dairy products. these are the kinds of meals I see as comfort food that I would make for myself while wallowing in a boatload of self pity or spending a night in with sappy movies and a snowstorm. They are not things I would ever feed my hypothetical children on a regular weeknight as a regular nutritious supper. So don't fall for quick and easy recipes that also happen to be starchy and fattening. There are plenty of almost as quick and easy recipes out these that are actually nutritious and chock full of good stuff like veggies and whole grains :)

6. If any slight part of you has ever lightly considered eating vegetarian or vegan, look into it further. I recommend the book skinny bitch, especially for younger adult women. It's a lifestyle that is so rewarding both to you and to the animals you save, and there are so many wonderful substitutes out there that you will never miss meat, dairy, eggs, etc. Of course this is not to say that you have to be a vegetarian or a vegan to be healthy. It's just one way to do it :)

7. Eat whatever you want. This is the most important tip. Yes, I count calories and try to eat vegan and look for whole, healthy foods, but if I want to eat a giant bowl of fettucini alfredo or 7 chocolate chip cookies I let myself, and I don't feel guilty. Yes, I want to be healthy so that I can look good, feel good, and live a long, healthy life, but I also want to have a good time while I'm here. Food is fun, and a lot of food that isn't very good for us is freakin' delicious. As long as you don't eat it very often, it's ok to say to hell with nutrition and let yourself eat it every once in a while. That's what life is about. The little pleasures. In general, be healthy and do what's best for your body- but don't let that stop you from enjoying life and enjoying food :)

Those are my nutrition tips for today. I will try to be back a little later in the week with a few calorie controlled recipes, and I will do my best to be here tomorrow with my fall fix up- finance post.

have a happy, healthy thursday!

<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

Tasty Tuesdays: Mariscos Chihuahua

Every so often, I convince Stewie to skip class so that we can go out to lunch and hang out instead. I'm a pretty awesome roommate but a pretty terrible influence ;)

On these occasions we usually decide to do a sit-down lunch at one of the gazillion restaurants we haven't tried before. Once we moved to our new apartment on the SW side of Tucson (before we were NW) I scoped out all the restaurants nearest to us and looked them up on yelp. One of them got really fantastic ratings so I had been wanting to try it out for several weeks. Thanks to Stew's alarm not going off and us both being really lazy and hungry a couple weeks ago, we finally got the chance.

Mariscos Chihuahua is very unassuming from the outside. It's a little rundown, just a white and blue building with a tiny parking lot and a sign that has a drawing of a shrimp, which I first thought was a lobster. In fact, when I first saw the restaurant (before I looked it up on yelp), I pointed at it and said to stewie, "look at that weird little restaurant. Why does it have 'chihuahua' in its name but a lobster in it's sign? And it's disturbing for a restaurant to be called a tiny mexican dog, right? I would be so afraid to eat there." Obviously I am extremely white. And also I didn't know what Mariscos meant until like 3 days ago. It means seafood, by the way.

 Anyways, all these initial worries should be set aside, because this place rocks. Apparently it began as a little family run seafood stand in Nogales, Mexico, simply called "Mariscos". It was right next to a fruit stand called Fruteria Chihuahua. Eventually people started calling it the Mariscos next to the Chihuahua, and the name eventually just got stuck as Mariscos Chihuahua. The stand eventually got popular enough to become a restaurant, and when members of the family moved to Tucson and Phoenix they brought their recipes with them and the business spread. Now there are multiple locations in Phoenix, Tucson, Nogales, and Sierra Vista. The one I went to (on Grande and Speedway) though still maintained a total small-town family run feel which is something I love in a restaurant.

The inside of the restaurant totally makes up for the shabby exterior. There is a lovely beachy/oceany mural covering the walls, plants, nice tables and chairs, and cool molded ocean effects in some places.

I told stewie he should order the "dos equis and clamato thing, cause people on yelp said it's good". But I couldn't actually remember the name of the "thing" (it's a michelada), the menu didn't list the alcoholic drinks, and the waitress didn't speak much english, so stewie wound up with both a michelada and a dos equis. Which basically just meant I got to share with him. The michelada was delicious- dos equis, clamato, lime juice, salt and pepper. 

Like most mexican restaurants this place also gave us chips and really awesome salsa right away. The salsa is spicy- a good sign of a good mexican restaurant. If the salsa is every wimpy, you know the place is mainly catering to tourists/americans and isn't trying to be all that authentic. Another thing that instantly told me this place was going to be awesome was that they brought out a bowl of halved key limes with the chips, which is typical at restaurants in mexico but not all that common at mexican restaurants in america. it should be though. Lime-drenched chips and salsa are the best. Lime drenched anything is the best really. 

We ordered the Camarrones (shrimp) Culichi, which is apparently the dish that made them famous. It's also the dish that was raved about most on yelp, so yeah. It's (really, really good quality) shrimp drenched in some sort of magical green sauce served with rice and some fresh veggies. It was so, so, so good. We also ordered a plate of calamari, which was tender, lightly breaded, and served with a tangy tartar like dipping sauce. But we just dipped them in the leftover culichi sauce, cause it was that good. 

I forgot my phone so I had to take pictures with stewart's crappy non-smart phone. Like, it flips and uses T9 and doesn't even have a touch screen. O.o lol. so not only are these pictures crappy but they downright refuse to be rotated. sorry!

Yeah. sorry about those pictures. just, um, turn your head, ok?

anyways, so so delicious and I think about 30 dollars, maybe 35 after tip. And we had leftovers. So really not a bad deal at all for two people.

If you're in the southern AZ area you should scope one of these places out and give it a try, it seriously is one of my new favorite restaurants.

Have a tasty tuesday lovelies :)

<3

Em