Quotophilia

I'm not quite a "20 something," and I don't think I would describe myself as "emotionally struggling," but these two points (as well as the rest of the article) are relevant to pretty much everyone.

5. Re-teach yourself how to feel. You’re often too molded by your past experiences to go forth in the best way possible. Fighting those things is what gives them their power. So you’re sad today. It will pass. Appreciate why you’re sad. It means you care enough about something to feel badly about it. Don’t devalue or write off your emotions, they only have to be felt to be valid. It doesn’t matter how “silly” it is or inconsequential whatever you are upset over is. Learn to apply this mindset to other people as well. Stop belittling people for what they do and don’t feel. Realize that even though experiences are different, what we feel pertaining to them usually aren’t. It’s when we become numb that we really have a problem.

6. When you reach the point that you can appreciate the wonder in every one of your feelings, you will start realizing that there is more to life than just “happiness.” Every part of it has it’s wonders. What’s better than “happiness” is fascination, and interest, and commitment to maintaining light and love within yourself. Every situation is dimensional, and when you start realizing the possibility in any given situation, you will start understanding what it means to be alive.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/11-life-hacks-for-the-emotionally-struggling-20-something/

**This is probably obvious but just to clarify, this was all written by Brianna Wiest on Thought Catalog, not me!!

July

Reading old blog posts is like reading my old diaries...I always cringe when I read things I wrote a while ago.
Keeping with the diary spirit, some quotes I've heard/read lately:

"Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."- Mark Twain

"The meaning of life is just to be alive...And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves."- Alan Watts

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."- Henry David Thoreau

"You can't be bored unless you're boring."

In other words, do.

Exciting Plants

After all of my sister's lectures, books, and scientific articles, I'm not sure if I can fully convert to veganism or even vegetarianism (bacon srsly), but I have become fascinated by vegan baking and meals, just because I do agree that reducing meat intake is important and I don't know, it's just interesting to see how many "normal" foods can taste delicious with some veggie substitutions.

First of all, the green smoothie! Yes, I'm one of those people who drinks strange tasting GREEN concoctions and gets excited over them.

But honestly, why would you not be excited? This is a way to eat those veggies (and eat them raw, which is even better) and even some ground flax seeds and hardly notice. Also I might be alone in this, but I actually like the green coloring- it's very fresh and energizing, just like the actual smoothie. To hear about this more elonquently, check out Green Smoothie Revolution and Oh, She Glows, for starters.

Yes, I have heard about oxalates causing kidney stones, but I put literally obscene amounts of spinach in my sandwiches and ate them five days a week for almost all of my senior year in high school, so blending them into smoothies doesn't dramatically increase my intake. However, I'm not a health practitioner and I don't drink these smoothies every day (just because I'm lazy/don't feel like it/don't have spinach), so I'm not the expert. And obviously if you have a history of kidney stones be wary with these.

There are lots of recipes floating around on the internet, but for this particular smoothie, I just used one banana, one orange, one very large handful of spinach, and some ground flax seeds, almond milk, and ice. This is pretty much my go-to recipe because we almost always have bananas and oranges at home.

Secondly, I made some amazing, almost vegan, faux-Magnums (once again, I failed at being completely vegan because I used regular chocolate to make the coating, but this was extremely exciting regardless).

These are honestly one of the most amazing things I've made this summer. They don't taste vegan or healthy at all, and they taste like an indulgent treat but are pretty healthy, even by non-ice cream standards. Admittedly they're not quite low-fat because of the almond butter, but since most of almond fat is mono- or polyunsaturated, I don't count it as fat (for the record, I am not a dieter, I just don't like unhealthy fats. If you're on a diet, don't immediately listen to me when I talk about how healthy a desert is, because I don't pay attention to calorie counts). The coating was much easier to cover the ice-cream with than I expected, and it hardened enough to hold its shape upon contact with the ice-cream (although I did put it in the freezer for a few minutes to let it properly re-solidify). You wouldn't even know that the "ice-cream" was only made of bananas, almond butter, and cocoa powder. I know I'm gushing about these a lot and that my picture doesn't show off just how amazing it is (I really need a new popsicle mold), but check out the original recipe and picture and MAKE THESE. You won't regret it.

Catch up time

In writing this blog, I've realized how much I enjoy writing to an (imaginary) audience, even though as of yet I haven't really had much interaction with the "blogosphere" as a whole; however I have a lot of trouble posting frequently, due to laziness (it's always easier to waste time online than doing things I actually enjoy) and I guess the whole novelty of having a blog. Even though this blog isn't exactly new anymore.

But anyway, the point of that excessively long introduction is that I never get around to posting about things in a timely fashion, and as a result I have a build-up of food posts.

1) Quick lunch: nothing special, but lunch from leftover pasta, canned salmon, spinach, avocado, and tomato.  Simple and fresh, perfect for summer

2) Vegan Trail Mix Cookies: my sister, the health freak, was literally obsessed with these. While I didn't quite regard them as the ambrosia that she saw them as, they were delicious and very healthy, which is always a plus. Also they were quite filling, which is good for someone like me who's always hungry. Also, while I'm not vegan or even vegetarian, I am interested in reducing my meat/meat-based product intake, and I enjoy finding vegan recipes that don't sacrifice taste.

Recipe!

3) This is more of a "day in the life" kind of thing, but my mom bought 7 loaves of day old bread at the farmer's market for $5. So, so exciting! If your farmer's market sells day old bread, definitely go for it- these are much cheaper (usually $4.50 per loaf) and taste almost as good as regular bread (just toast them lightly).

4) Cucumber "Spa Smoothie": As delicious as this was, I definitely wouldn't consider it a smoothie- it was pretty thin and more of a "cooler." Additionally, I made this not because I was in a spa but because my house was more like a sauna...but that's not really important. The point is not to be turned off by the name.

"Mysterious green drink in a jar...how indie"- sister

Recipe: I subbed in orange juice because we didn't have any limes, and I left the peel of the cucumber on to save labor/vitamins. Still delicious

5) NO THIS EGG IS NOT MOLDY. It's just blue cheese. This was my first attempt to poach an egg, and as you can tell, it failed miserably. Still tasted pretty good though. From top down: blue cheese, poached egg, roasted veggies, farmer's market bread.

PS: the book in the corner is The Remains of the Day. Yes, this picture is a couple weeks old.

6: I like to eat other people's food: Stayed over at a friend's house and had a fruit salad, kale/carrot juice, and bread made from the pulp of juiced vegetables. Such a great idea.

7) Cottage cheese cake: Even though almost everyone I know sees cottage cheese as the quintessential disgusting diet food, I've loved cottage cheese and its bizarre texture since I was a child, so I jumped at the chance to make a "light cheesecake" out of it. Admittedly it wouldn't be mistaken for an actual cheesecake at any time, but it did taste pretty good. In response to the reviews: make sure you blend the cottage cheese to smooth out the lumps! Even I don't like lumpy cheesecake.

Recipe; also since I didn't want to use obscene amounts of butter for the crust, I used a vegan nut crust recipe. It's been over two months since I made this so I don't remember the website (seriously what kind of blog is this?) but this looks pretty good.

8) Rice and vegetable stuffed pepper. Like number 1, not very interesting, but a good quick dinner idea to remember.

9) Whole-wheat Banana Pancakes: The whole point of finding this recipe was to use up the buckwheat flour that had been lying around for too long, but apparently I had already used it up (forget what kind of blogger I am, what kind of person am I?). Nevertheless, the recipe sounded too good to be true (healthy AND delicious), so I decided to try it anyway with our whole wheat flour. And believe it or not, it really was healthy and delicious, and maybe I claimed it was more healthy than it was to excuse the fact that I ate several servings of these, they're definitely healthier than your average pancake, and my little brothers liked them enough to vouch for the tastiness factor. As you can tell from the picture, we didn't even need syrup!

10) More pancakes! These ones are a different recipe: whole-wheat (again) lemon ricotta with blueberry topping. The matching plate was completely intentional; these pancakes were actually made weeks apart. These pancakes weren't quite as healthy as the ones above, but more indulgent and honestly still healthier than the typical pancake. Some college-student budget substitutions: no chia seeds, and I used Labne, a Middle-Eastern yogurt-cheese that I use as a substitute for everything from ricotta (what the recipe called for originally) and cream cheese. The flavors are a bit more lacking but the texture is pretty good and I use it so much that I don't know what else food should taste like.

11) Oatmeal cups: These were made after a late-night announcement about roadtrips, and since my siblings and I need to snack constantly, I whipped these up pretty quickly. They're not oatmeal muffins, but actual baked oatmeal; basically the perfect roadtrip snack for my family since we'll eat practically anything when we're in the car. If you want actual oatmeal muffins these probably won't cut it, but I actually liked the unusual texture more, and I liked cutting out the unnecessary fluff.

Recipe

Okay this post took me nearly a month to finish. This is vaguely ridiculous, and when I FINALLY leave for college (next week!), I'm sure it'll get even more sporadic. I wondered the other day why I'm writing a blog that no one is reading and likely no one will ever read, but I do enjoy writing for unknown people to read. Maybe one day I'll write for a magazine or newspaper and people will actually read it!
I have very high aspirations for my future.

Posts without pictures are boring

And since I'm too lazy to upload mine, here's a google image of what I've been up to lately (because really this lack of pictures is boring me)

I didn't plan to blog about every book I read (in case you were wondering, I'm currently on a Sherlock Holmes kick) because honestly I read too much (what's a social life?) but another book with a narrator of questionable sanity caught my attention.

There's a pretty large chance that you've read Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" in high school at some point, but she's also written several novels, including We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I was fascinated by "The Lottery" but for some reason didn't consider that she had written other things too, until I heard about this book on a blog, read the Amazon reviews, and realized that she was the author of that much-loved short story.

Merricat (aka Mary Katherine) is blatantly insane, but in a more blatant/supernatural/unaware way than Susanna (from Girl, Interrupted). She lives with her beloved sister and equally (but uniquely) insane uncle, and within several sentences tells us in her usual straightforward, oddly unemotional manner, "Everyone else in my family is dead." Comments about "living on the moon," talking to her cat, and riding a "winged horse" are sprinkled liberally throughout the book in the same matter-of-fact manner.

The mystery surrounding her family's death is supposedly the cause of the villager's animosity towards Merricat and her family, although tension has always been present ("The people of the village have always hated us"), and the general impression is that Merricat would have been happy with her secluded existence even if the villagers malice had been less obvious. Although Merricat's sister, Constance, was accused (and acquitted) of poisoning her family, homicidal impulses may well run in the family, as Merricat frequently thinks, "I wished they were all lying there dead on the ground."

As in "The Lottery," mob mentality rules the villagers, and the children have been conditioned to chant a haunting poem as Merricat goes about her errands:
"Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea/Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me!/Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?/Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!"

Naturally, this conflict between the villagers and Merricat comes to a head within the novel, allowing Jackson to showcase even more dramatic mob scenes, different types of insanity, and life within a secluded household.

I realize this summary isn't exactly the best (it's summer cut me some slack), but I really hope you pick it up and give it a chance. In writing this review I wanted to increase the book's readership (because really, for a book this brilliant I was surprised by how unknown it is), although this blog might not be the best platform considering that the only actual reader is me. Whoops.

Spiraling out of control

Not really.
(Or at all actually, just enjoying how dramatic it sounds)

Anyways, just a quick note: I intended for this blog to primarily (for this summer at least) record my successes and failures as I attempt to cook for my family, but I mostly cook dinners so the pictures have terrible lighting/I'm too lazy to constantly upload/edit pictures, so I guess this has kind of deviated into my online diary (when I had an actual diary, I updated it this rarely as well). Which may or may not be a good thing (probably not).

But just to take stock quickly:

Recent recipes have included:

• These (fish, peach-corn) taco recipes
• Notes: the fish was very bland; peach was a hugely important ingredient; tortillas toasted best in toaster; very easy to put together leftovers

• "Vegan" Strawberry Cake (not 100% vegan because I used actual cream cheese for the frosting)
• Cake was good with 1/4 cup sugar + 1/2 cup agave nectar; frosting was popular with all but sister (who is extremely particular about food); made one rather flat 9 inch cake- 1 8oz packet of cream cheese was more than enough; next time: less jam, more frosting in between layers

• Chocolate Monkey Smoothie:
• Sort of weird tasting- because of extra spinach? Better with added milk + agave
• Homemade Calzones:
• Very successful, but next time triple/quadruple recipe to feed 6 (and then add veggie side)- pockets are very small

Sorry for the lack of pictures- might add some later, but they didn't look too hot on the camera screen so probably not.
(Update: pictures weren't too terrible, so have been added- hurray at last!)

Until next time!

On "goodbye"s and "see you later"s

I originally meant to post this on a kind of "joke" blog that my friend and I made, but seeing as pretty much everyone reading that blog knows us personally, I figured this post might be better on a more private blog. There's nothing offensive or rude, but ahhh I'm paranoid and this is kind of a personal post and I feel uncomfortable knowing that people I mention offhand could be reading this.

Anyway.


As my friends and I are preparing to trot off to college, we're starting to realize that many of our high school classmates, who we've become accustomed to seeing every day during the school year and usually semi-frequently during breaks, are going to be far far away, busy with their own colleges, friends, and activities.

My school happens to be on the quarter system, so I don't leave until the end of September; however most of my friends leave in the next two weeks, and one of them has already left for soccer preseason.

Due to my Dad's job, I have become semi-accustomed to moving every few years; over the past seven years, I have lived in four very different cities. As a result, I am somewhat used to leaving friends behind and keeping in touch with them mostly through the tenuous, invisible connections of e-mail, texts, and facebook.

I've never moved away knowing that I will come back in a short amount of time, and perhaps as a result of this and my acclimation to moving, I don't feel too sad about my friends moving away for college. Maybe I'm optimistic, or simply naive since my departure is in the somewhat distant future and hasn't quite hit me yet, but I'm convinced that I will be able to see all, or at least most, of my friends when I return for break.

What I've been thinking about more, however, is who exactly I care enough about to keep in touch with properly while I'm away, and who I'll be content with simply seeing sporadically at group events during breaks. As one of my friends put it, I've been thinking about who I'll invite to my wedding party.

I know this sounds cold and harsh, but I don't mean it that way; my experience with moving has taught me that despite trying to balance old friends and new, it is difficult to truly keep up with more than a couple of old friends. Additionally, I believe that while everyone in your life teaches you something, some of them are only meant to pass through, and that's okay. I don't mean per se that I want to stop being friends with certain people, but that I'm content with letting them become casual friends to catch up with every now and then.

Obviously it's too soon to tell since most of my friends are still here, but the fact that high school is over has made me more aware that I'm choosing to spend time with people because I truly enjoy it, not because I feel like I should since they're in my "friend group."

I don't mean this post to be depressing; honestly in some ways I find this transition from high school to college liberating because I've become more aware of who I enjoy hanging out with, and as a result, I've had a lot more fun. Anyways, I'm not sure if there's really a "point" to this whole post, but as I'm a pre-frosh college student, this is the requisite "leaving for college" post.

If you took the time to read this, you are a very patient person, and thank you!