A Little Rambling

The best way to celebrate Leap Day is to remember Gilbert and Sullivan's lovely bit of recit: "For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I've no desire to be disloyal, some person in authority; I don't know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal, has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February, 28 days as a rule are plenty, one year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty. Through some singular coincidence, I shouldn't be surprised if it were owing to the agency of an ill-natured fairy, you are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap year on the 29th of February. And so by a simple arithmetical process, you'll easily discover that though you've lived 21 years, yet if we go by birthdays you're only 5 and a little bit over." Anyways, as another way to celebrate, Rebekah and I are kicking off a new blogging challenge! (tomorrow!) It's been almost a year since the last...

It's amazing how good it feels to eat a bowl full of raw vegetables, even if Chris mocks me for eating rabbit food. Salad is just so good! I love meat and don't want to give it up, but I'm pretty sure I could make it happily as a vegetarian. I think I'd end up counting bacon as a veggie though. It's been a busy week! 3 concerts in the last 2 weeks, including one down in Tucson with The Chieftains . It was pretty darn awesome. JD, Austin, Chantel, and Toby and I loaded up into my car and headed down on a gorgeous day, Irish music playing as they tried to teach me a song in Gaelic by rote so I would be able to sing it by the time we got there - and of course, we didn't even sing it. We got to sing two songs with them, one of which we did learn in the car on the way there, since we'd gotten the music that morning. The other we'd had for 5 whole days already, so of course we knew it perfectly. The concert itself was lovely. Traditional Irish music i...

Happy 100th Birthday to Arizona! I do love my state, and its sunny lovely weather, where rain is something to be eagerly anticipated and haboobs happen. And a Happy Valentine's to all! I really like Valentine's Day, even when single. What's not to love about pink and red hearts and lace and flowers and sappy stuff? It's fun to watch other people creatively love other people. I used markers this morning, which made me happy. I got some valentine cards and yucky Necco sweethearts from some students. I ate a pink cupcake my sister made, and got a card from my parents (which was randomly in spanish). There are pink and white cookies of love calling my name from the kitchen table - I'll probably eat one for breakfast. After work, I went out with Matt and Chris to possibly the most un-Valentiney movie ever. Today was a very bad day to forget my jacket, and so when I got to the theatre and found out the boys were still a ways away, I walked over to the fireplace. ...

I keep having the thought that I want to write a cookbook. More specifically, I want to write "The Alcoholic Cookbook - for People Who Don't Drink." It's one of a long list (included is also a College Student's Cookbook, which is something along the lines of cooking with only a microwave and hot plate and not using any ramen. Maybe I should combine them. But I digress). Anyways. I'm a huge fan of using alcohol is cooking, and this recipe is one of the biggest hits - and suuuuuper easy. Just look - you can see the steam rising from it, fresh from the oven. Ingredients 3 cups flour 2 Tbsp sugar 1 Tbsp baking powder 1 tsp salt (a little more if you use sea salt) 1 cup cheddar cheese (finely grated) 1 bottle (12 0z) beer (I used a Corona...ehhh) 4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) melted butter Instructions Preheat your oven to 350 ° and grease a 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pan. Mix your flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together. Add the beer an...

Fridays are the best. I went hiking this morning with Jenny, which means I've hiked at least once every week since school started. I'm determined to keep this up! After the hike, I headed over to school, where I helped a friend out with a very random video that I mostly didn't understand, but all I had to do was film, so it was okay. After all that, it was time for the Schola picnic, a time for us choir kids to get to know the new people and eat a lot of desserts. There were plenty of sweets - cookies, nutella and graham crackers, enormous-wonderful-gooey-perfect brownies, brownie/cookie hybrids, and awesome rainbow cupcakes that reminded me a lot of Bex's 19th birthday gift . Problems arose in that more than half the people who signed up to bring stuff weren't there, so we had guacamole and salsa but no chips, and most entertainingly, water and juice but no cups. We became creative in our usage of plates as drinking implements. We devoured much sugar, and th...