Valentine's Day was on a Tuesday this year so the weekend before was when we decided to 'celebrate'. I have put celebrate in quotation marks because I am not really sure on my feelings surrounding Valentine's Day. Half of me believes it is a silly Hallmark holiday that has been blown completely out of proportion. On the other hand, I was really pleased with the flowers and chocolates that I received! Double standards here, I know. It was a fantastic weekend and I even took some pictures!
Saturday Kirk came down and we went skating with Paige. It was the first time I have been skating this year but it was so much fun. I only almost fell down five times or so, which I am very proud about.
Then we met up with Emily and Kellyto go bowling. As it was cosmic bowling, the pictures did not turn out so here are just a few from the night.
Sunday Flowers + chocolates = happy Katelyn!
I also made Valentine's Day treats for my class, which I will blog about later because this is already a long posting. What did you do for Valentine's Day?
One of the blogs that I read did a posting about all of the books she read in 2011 and I loved the idea! So here I am, eventually getting around to posting my own book list. You can check out Holly's post here! {which I highly suggest you do because I find her extremely amusing and witty}
I challenged myself over at Goodreads to read 50 books in 2011 and I was so close! 47 out of 50 isn't too bad considering how busy I was with school. I also started at the end of February so I don't consider this a failure, just not an success. This year I reduced the list to 40, hopefully I don't end up with 37 at the end of the year.
Holly's list involved her review on the book but I am not that ambitious. Right now I will just make the list and eventually get around to reviewing them. Hopefully I will be smart enough to write a quick review for each book I read in 2012!
February:
So as I was half way through putting these pictures on I realized two things. The first was that there is no way I am getting through 47 books tonight. So here is just February. The second thing I noticed was how juvenile these books appear to be! All well, there is nothing wrong with children's literature. I am proud to say I read children's literature.
Look back for March books sometime soon!
And as I preview this I realize I am in need of helping putting pictures on! Any suggestions on how to properly add pictures?
Once again the Scholastic Book Fair was the only reason to get up this week! I am been feeling quite sick with the start of a cold, my throat was awful yesterday. So it was wonderful to have the book fair to look forward to.
This year I was not able to get to the book fair until 11:30 because of class. I was very surprised about how little was actually left! All of the teacher resources were picked over but there was plenty of picture books to buy!
This morning Paige and I decided to go first thing to see if they restocked their shelves and they had!! I was so pleased! I bought a lot of wonderful teacher resources that I am so excited to use some day.
{Please forgive me for the messy collection of pictures, it was incredibly hard to arrange them}
As a side note, I am feel much better today! I am not sure if it was the billion glasses of water I drank or the overall pleasantness of buying books. Either way, I am feeling better. Last night I also became extremely productive around 10:30 or so and I am hoping to keep this productiveness rolling today. Next week is a pretty dreadful looking week but then I can 'relax' until March.
I feel that the concept of relaxing while being a university student is something that I was to focus on later. So my question to you* is about relaxing. What wonderful tips for relaxing and de-stressing have you heard about or swear by?
*you - anyone who reads this blog and wants to comment! It can be completely anonymous if you prefer it that way.
I feel sorry for anyone who has not listened to the Vinyl Cafe. I recently started to listen and I am hooked. For those who do not know, the Vinyl Cafe is a CBC Radio program by Stuart McLean. It features hilarious stories written by Staurt about Dave and his family, along with essays and music.
For Christmas we received a 4-cd Family Pack of stories and I just love listening to them.
The stories are not only hilarious and intelligent, but I can picture everything that happens happening to my family! One of the stories in the Family Pack features Dave forgetting that he was suppose to take care of the turkey dinner for Christmas and having to go to a hotel and ask them to cook his turkey for him. Another story has Dave riding his friend's bicycle that is secured to the roof rack. And Stuart has one of the most interesting voices I have ever heard!
I suggest everyone listens to the Vinyl Cafe, it will sure bring a smile to your face!
I hear that so often... quality, not quantity. Recently I hear it from professors talking about essays or projects. And I believe it is a great mantra, but I am making some changes.
Too often I find myself thinking I need to sit down and actually blog. Too often I find myself trying to come up with some brilliant or witty topic to blog again. And way too often my ideas get deleted.
Not anymore! Even if the posting is a few sentences long, I am posting! I am still hoping my posts will be brilliant but my goal is just to post. Expect randomness to ensue!
Randomness #1. To the guy who just wiped out in the middle of a busy street: don't run on unpaved, snowy streets and sidewalks!
Randomness #2. How do you juggle all of the university assigned readings and your own personal reading? I will let you know when I figure this out!
Randomness #3. This picture!! So excited! It is going to be epic.
Randomness #4. Today one of the students I work with told me that I was her best friend, even though I was an adult. Thank you T for being accepting on my age!
Randomness #5. This video. (This is not really random because it is also about The Hunger Games but just ignore that) There is something about this song that I just cannot get enough of. I listen to it on repeat a few times a day. And I am not a Taylor Swift fan, but this song blows my mind.
Randomness #6. Do I want to end this list on an even or odd number?
It has been quite awhile since I last blogged but here I am! I am still alive and very much kicking. Midterms at school are now over but now papers are going to be due soon than I want to admit!
As I am starting to become more and more stressed out, I decided to start thinking about things that make me happy. There are so many things in a very ordinary day that can make your day extraordinary if you let them. As I found on Friday I came across many things that could have made me cranky but as I was focusing on finding things that make me smile, I changed my perspective on things. For example, it was freezing Friday morning! I am talking -4 Celsius freezing! But instead of complaining about how cold I was going to be I decided to smile about the fact that I am going to be wearing my winter coat for the first time this year! And seeing my breath the first time this year was smile-worthy because I chose to make it smile-worthy.
I had a great day on Friday. The little things didn't make an enormous difference in my day; I wasn't walking with a bounce and I certainly wasn't whistling (mostly because I don't know how to whistle). But I was walking around with a smile on my face for the majority of the day and I felt happier.
Here is my list of things that made me smile:
The light changed green right as I walked up
I could see my breath for the first time this year
Being able to wear my wonderful winter coat again
Receiving an average mark on a midterm but being so nervous about my mark that the average mark was turned into a wonderful mark
Coming home
Having 4 cats coming running up to me as I come in the door
Getting mail {yes, it was only a bank statement but who doesn't love getting mail!?}
Seeing Kirk walk up the drive way with a smile on his face
Laughing so hard with my mom over some pictures even though Dad was asleep in bed
As you can see these are just ordinary things that happen in most people's lives, everyday. They certainly happen to me often but this was really the first time I took the time to realize how these things make me smile. And this very simple decision turned my day from ordinary to extraordinarily ordinary.
Trying this out for one day was a success and now my goal is to go an entire week, making a list of all the little things that make me smile during a day. If a day made a difference in my mood, I think this upcoming week is going to be a great one!
I created a sheet that I will use to write down anything that makes me smile.
I would love to hear your own Day of Smiles! Print off the sheet or use your own and write down anything and everything that makes you smile!Let me know how your Day of Smiles went and I hope your day is filled with smiles!
I have not had much luck with trying recipes recently. I am a very picky eater and I really do not enjoy trying new recipes. So I was extremely proud of myself when I found a recipe to try on Pinterest.
I really wanted to try this recipe out so Paige and I bought the ingredients the next time we went grocery shopping. Or at least we thought we bought the ingredients. In case anyone is not aware of this, evaporated milk is NOT the same thing as condensed milk! Please don't ever make this mistake, because the results are nasty!!!!
As I was making the lasagna, we were both blissfully unaware of our mistake. That is until something started to happen with the chicken and the sauce. The chicken started to harden, there was a nasty smell coming from the pot and it was started to get lumpy. It was at this point that we realized our mistake. There was a moment where we decided we were just going to try a piece of the chicken, maybe it won't be that bad. As neither of us were willing to even try it, we threw it all away and had tacos instead.
Fast forward one week and I am once again trying this recipe. This time my mom got me the correct ingredients and I was determined to make the most delicious cheesy chicken lasagna EVER! Everything was going wonderfully, until it was time to actually eat the meal. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't fantastic and not worth the effort and hype. Maybe it was just my cooking so if anyone makes this please let me know how it turns out!!
That was meal making disaster #1. Meal making disaster #2 happened last night when Kirk tried to make me supper. We have recently been going to Pizza Hut and having their wonderful calzones and Kirk decided that he will try and make one for me for supper. Once again we went shopping and once again the wrong ingredients were bought. This time instead of pizza dough, we actually bought pie crust. We didn't realize our mistake until we were cooking it. It was getting kind of flaky, like a pie crust. It wasn't really cooking and staying soft, like a pie crust. It took over twice as long to cook, which really should have been our first indicator that something was wrong. But we carried on. Lesson #2, do not try and make a calzone with pie crust. It doesn't very good at all, not matter how much ranch dressing you put on it. So we went to Wendy's instead.
We have our calzone without pepperoni - photo credit Pizza Hut
Oh bother! Two meal making disasters, two gross results and two funny stories. Hopefully these will be the only two meal making disasters that I have but I have a feeling there will be more.
The two life lessons learned today are:
1 - condensed milk is not the same thing as evaporated milk. Just because condensed milk has evaporated milk in it does not mean you should use it for a recipe that calls for evaporated milk.
2 - just because a ball of dough has a cartoon of an Italian chef on it does not mean that the dough is pizza dough.
Anyone have any cooking disasters that they lived to tell about? What has been the worst meal you have ever tried to make?
an avid reader, personal movie critique for my friends and family and lover of white chocolate. I am said to be unique, fun, witty and feisty. I am excited to share my journey of life on this blog.
