Bachelorette Shenanigans

Hey all! It's been awhile since I've updated...well, I mean I posted that picture in my last entry, but that's because I was having this bizarre issue with my Yahoo e-mail.

This weekend I came home to attend my almost-sister-in-law's bachelorette party, and it was super fun! Below are some pictures. We made t-shirts using glue and glitter to write "bridesmaid," and flip flops again using glue and glitter, and some ribbon for the bow. We also had fun hairpieces/headbands to wear. It was a lot of fun, we went to this place in downtown Chicago called Rock Bottom Brewery. It was the first time I had ever been there, and it was SO delicious! I "made" my own vegan pizza by asking them to leave off the cheese; it had pesto, spinach, tomatoes, and lots of roasted garlic. YUM! We then went dancing for a little bit but since we hit traffic and got a little lost on our way into the city it was pretty late by that point, so then we came home. It was a lot of fun, though, and I can't wait for the wedding and seeing family and everything this week!

I've also started my fall classes at U of I! This is my last semester on campus, and after this I will have only one more semester left until I have my Master's! So far I am really not enjoying my other required/intro class, but absolutely LOVE my Preservation and History of the Book classes, so hopefully I can power through the one class I'm not enjoying so far. Or, maybe the material will be more interesting once we get farther into the class....hopefully! lol :)

So here I will leave you with pictures of our fun bachelorette/bridesmaid outfits. Hooray!

Showers

This has been a busy few weeks! I took a bookbinding class, which was amazing, and I will write about it when I have time to really edit the entry because there is just so much to say about it! In the meantime, enjoy this little bit of fluff :)

Today was a wedding shower for my brother and future sister in law that my mom and I threw! It was very fun :) I was in charge of desserts, so I made some cupcakes, and attempted to make cake pops for the first time. The cake pops did NOT turn out well, and I didn't have much time, but was still really set on the idea of having some kind of dessert pops....so I made brownie pops instead! I totally pulled a Sandra Lee and semi-home made both the cupcakes and the brownies, the cupcakes were a boxed mix and can of frosting, and the brownie bites were those little brownies you can buy from Dominick's (and other places I'm sure). So here are two pictures of what I made: cupcakes and brownie pops! The brownies are stuck into some floral foam in little paper boxes with some confetti stuff on top, and the cupcakes are just on a plate. lol

Painting Water

You must watch this:

http://www.wimp.com/paintingwater/

I'm sorry it's just a link, I tried to embed the video (I even searched on how to do it!) but the code isn't working for some reason. At any rate, this is a guy doing an awesome job marbling paper, something that I learned about in my Paper in the Scholarly World class. You need (as you can see) a tray for the water which has been treated with (usually) something called carrigeenan, which comes from a plant. Then you can drip pigments/paints which have been treated with oxgall (literally stuff that comes from the gall bladder of an ox....appetizing, no? lol) onto the water, where they will float. You can then use various tools, combs, etc. to manipulate the pigments to make cool designs, then gently place a piece of paper that has been treated with allum (another chemical) onto the top of the water. Ta-da, marbled paper! It's often used to cover the boards of books, and/or as endsheets on books.

In somewhat related news, I just started my bookbinding class today and I. Love. It. so much! :) There will be many pictures and a big post to come at the end of the week. I know, you're all really excited to hear more dorky book stuff, don't all tell me at once. hehehe :)

Battlestar and Blog Awards! :)

I have been totally neglecting this blog. Part of the reason is because I am staying with my friend/future roommate, and we have been watching what is now one of my favorite shows, Battlestar Galactica (the new one, not the old one). We JUST finished it today, and there were some mind-blowing twists! I won't say anything else because I don't want to spoil anything in case anyone reads this who hasn't watched it.

Anyway, when I remembered I had this blog (lol) today and checked to see if I had any new comments or anything, I was surprised to find that my friend Lindsey had posted on her blog a fun thing called the Versatile Blogger Award, which she has awarded me (and some others)! You can find her blog detailing her awesome adventures in New York and beyond at:

http://dork-in-the-city.blogspot.com/

The purpose of the Versatile Blogger award is "to recognize good design, writing, photos, etc.; to network amongst other bloggers; inspire content ideas, etc. Conditions of the award stipulate that I need to share seven things about myself and then pass on this award to other wonderful bloggers.”

Without further ado, I give you my seven things, and then seven bloggers!

THINGS:

1. I sometimes wonder what the conversation must have been like when Congress was deciding whether or not tomatoes were to be classified as fruits or vegetables for tax and trade purposes. I bet it was funny.

2. If you hang out with me after a road trip of 1 or more hours, I will most likely have a hoarse voice from singing loudly along the way.

3. I have budgeted for two trips this spring....locations and details to be revealed, but I am so excited!

4. I wish I could still ride horses, but my back injury prevents me from doing so.

5. I just found out that the White Castle buildings were modeled after the Water Tower in Chicago. Cool!

6. I sing the "Soft Kitty" song from the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" to my cat sometimes. Shhhhhh......lol

7. A few weeks ago I bought my friend some socks that turned out to be children's socks, but since they fit me I didn't realize that they weren't meant for adults. lol

And here are 7 of my favorite bloggers!! I would first like to honorarily award Lindsey, because reading about her adventures is always super duper fun!! But since she has already received the award, I will list 7 other bloggers so that she doesn't have to do a repeat post awarding more people :)

1. Holly of Meatless with Mia, found at http://meatlesswithmia.blogspot.com/

Holly is one of my very good friends and blogs about her random adventures, including eating vegan and inspirational fun quotes she finds!!

2. Carla of The Grass is Greener, found at http://greenercarla.blogspot.com/

I have known Carla since we were itty bitty little kids, lol! It has been fun to find that we have come to share interests, specifically that we have both started eating and living vegan!

3. Emily of Carnival of Sorts, found at http://carnivalofsorts.wordpress.com/

Emily is my library school buddy, and I am so glad that we met! Here you can find excellent randomness, including movie/book reviews and accounts of library school adventures. Beware: we both really like paper, and aren't afraid to blog about it. lol

4. Livy of A Field Journal, found at http://afieldjournal.blogspot.com/

I do not know or have any personal connection to Livy, but I love love LOVE her blog!! It is one of the first I found that got me into reading/following/starting my own blog.

5. Amy, a.k.a. That Winsome Girl, found at http://thatwinsomegirl.blogspot.com/

Again, I do not personally know Amy, but her blog and jewelry are both super adorable! Check out her Etsy shop of the same name, and her delicious looking Cookies and Cream Cupcakes!

......I have run out of blogs! I read many more of them semi-regularly, but that's all I can think of at this hour, lol! So that concludes tonight's Versatile Blogger awards. Hopefully this fun e-award will continue to circulate, I like the idea of a community of bloggers :)

Goals

Since summer is almost over and the completion of my master's degree finally seems attainable (I'll be done in May 2011), I have decided that it's time to set some goals for myself. I want to make the most of library school, and so by posting them here I hope that I will be more likely to really stick to them! I *usually* stick to my guns pretty well, but it's nice to have an extra incentive, like the thought of people reading this blog later if I update on progress, and, well, if I haven't made any progress I would feel judged by the internet at large. lol. So, without further ado, here we go!

GOAL 1: get in shape/eat healthy very strictly until the end of 2010

This goal is already going pretty well. Part of this has to do with the fact that I need to fit into the clothes I already own, since a) one of them is the bridesmaid's dress for my brother's wedding in September and b) I can't afford to buy new clothes! I would also like to be a more active person, get outside and all that, and eating vegan really helps with eating healthy (although knowing that Oreos are technically vegan has SO not helped...lol). As for eating vegan, I've been doing pretty well, but haven't been extremely strict with myself over the past few weeks. I'd say I'm eating about 75-80% completely vegan, and the other % are just random things, like cupcakes for my friend's birthday, or butter that was already on some pre-prepared frozen garlic bread. But, the goal of getting in shape/eating healthy will be a joint one, as I am moving in with a friend and have been staying with her the past few weeks, and we are planning our meals and working out together!

GOAL 2: gain technological skills useful to future employment/continue professional development

Now, my mom thinks I'm pretty tech-savvy already. I love her very much, but she is not the greatest relative judge of my technological skills, lol! Since I have planned out my library school path anticipating that I will be able to get a job in a rare books-related position, particularly focusing on preservation and conservation, I haven't taken many classes focused solely on technological skills. I hope to broaden my knowledge of technology through my own study, including learning basic HTML, photoshop, and web-design skills. I don't know if this is a realistic goal or not, having not had much experience with technology, but I know that in many library positions I will soon be applying for that familiarity with many kinds of technology is a must and will (hopefully!) give me an edge over other applicants. In addition, I hope to keep volunteering at the preservation/conservation lab, and hopefully to research and apply for internships for the spring semester before I graduate.

GOAL 3: begin researching PhD/second master's programs

I have already started doing this, but what I really need to "research" is the amount of student loans I currently have VS how expensive it would be to get a second master's or even a PhD. A lot of rare books jobs call for a PhD or a second master's degree on top of your master's in library sciences, and so I think it would be wise to at least consider this option in planning for future employment. I think I'd like to get some "real-world" experience first, but if I can't find a job in my field maybe going back to school WOULD be the best option. I just have SO. MANY. student loans, and so the thought of trying to pay for school literally blows my mind. So that's something I need to explore, especially because taking careful inventory of my existing loans will help me when I have to start paying them back, which is pretty soon (right after I graduate).

That's all I can think of for now! :)

This week, on days of our lives...

...I wouldn't know what happened, I don't have cable. But this week so far has been pretty interesting! I did a lot of grocery shopping/appliance buying in order to make myself eat food that is good for me! The first thing I bought is a salad spinner. It basically looks like this:



Now, I'm sure you know what a salad spinner does, but just in case you don't, it is a handy device that makes it really easy to wash and dry lettuce (and spinach, and other stuff) before you eat it. I made a salad with it tonight that looked like this!:



It was okay, it didn't have any fancy ingredients, just the lettuce, some cucumbers and the dressing. I wasn't very hungry since I had pasta again for lunch, and some of these delicious Back to Nature cookies for dessert :)



They may not be the healthiest food, but they sure are delicious! :) I bought them instead of Oreos (which, surprisingly, are vegan, but I kind of wish I had never found that out lol I need to cut down on desserts!).

I also bought a blender.



Now, the first blender I bought was a total fail, so this is blender #2 after I returned blender #1. Blender #1 honestly took ten minutes to blend (by pulsing) the very small amount of frozen fruit and juice I put into it, and even then was not all broken down! I bought the blender(s) so that I could make my own smoothies instead of going to Jamba Juice all the time.



For those unfamiliar, Jamba Juice is a national chain that has mainly smoothies but also now serves coffee and some lunch sandwich type of items. I used to only get this one chocolate smoothie from Jamba back when I didn't eat a wide variety of foods, and believe it or not this chocolate smoothie is one of the WORST drinks for you nation-wide! So I have expanded my Jamba menu and now just get the all-fruit smoothies, and am trying to make my own at home by blending frozen peaches, mangoes, and strawberries together with ice and some apple or orange juice, or maybe some vanilla soy milk.

So that's about it! I've been doing pretty well with project vegan so far, the only non-vegan items I have had are the remainder of some Dove chocolates I bought before going to the movies with a friend this past weekend! My friend Holly and I also went to the Chicago Diner this past weekend where I had some (vegan, of course) roasted garlic gnocchi in sun dried tomato pesto sauce. It was SO GOOD! We also had a slice of (vegan!) chocolate mousse cake for dessert, and it was hands down seriously one of the best chocolate cakes I have EVER had!!!!!

Vegan powers---activate!!

Hello, fellow internet dwellers! Life has been rather interesting lately. I've been hopping back and forth between school and my hometown, visiting friends and also volunteering at school since I am between summer class sessions right now. I also just finished reading the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels because a) they sounded awesome and b) I wanted to read them before the movie comes out. They were hilariously awesome and I 150% recommend them!

If you are not familiar with the Scott Pilgrim story, let me give you the basics which will lead me to the main point of this blog entry. Scott Pilgrim is a 23 year old Canadian slacker dude who plays in a band and falls in love with this girl Ramona. Ramona has 7 evil exes, as in ex-boyfriends (mostly), who Scott has to fight and defeat in order to keep dating Ramona. One of the evil exes is named Todd Ingram, and his superpowers come from the fact that he is....wait for it.....a vegan!!

BAHAHAHA!!! The reason I found this so funny is because about a month ago I read this book:



It is called "The Kind Life" and was written by the actress Alicia Silverstone, notably of "Clueless" fame. Half the book consists of literature/her personal story chronicling the health benefits of becoming a vegan or even of becoming a "superhero" (that's right, get it now? lol) by following a macrobiotic diet. The other half is recipes, which are (obviously?) all vegan.

One of the reasons that I read the book is that my awesome friend Holly (find her blog at http://meatlesswithmia.blogspot.com) recommended it to me. About a year ago (can't believe it's been that long!) we made the cupcake recipe from this book and it was SO good!! Completely vegan, i.e. no animal products involved, and they were SUPER delicious!! Most of you know that I am a (mostly) vegetarian who occasionally eats a hamburger or a steak (maybe once a month at most), but you may not know that I am super seriously considering becoming vegan for the following reasons...

Now, this next part might get a little personal and health-related, so if you're not one to be into topics that might be considered "too much information" you may want to skip the next paragraph...lol

Reason 1: personal health

I have never been a huge fan of eating meat. Like I said above, I'll have a burger or even a steak every now and then, but texture in food really affects me and I very much dislike the texture of meat. Despite this I do eat lots of food made with animal products, such as cookies, bread, cakes, muffins, ice cream, and most notably, cheese, usually accompanied by macaroni (lol). Unfortunately over the past 3-4 years I have noticed that animal foods, mostly dairy, have been giving me extreme stomach cramps and unusual....bathroom events, we'll leave it at that. These cramps and other symptoms have been getting worse and worse and worse, and I have also gained some weight which is bad for my back (a whole different story, but suffice it to say I have a herniated disc and being even a little bit overweight is not good). So, as a personal experiment, I followed Alicia Silverstone's suggestions and noticed an IMMEDIATE improvement to these symptoms. Because of this, I have decided (even though it may be hard for me!) to try to go vegan!

Reason 2: animals' health

I'm not going to get all preachy, but we all know that there are some less than ideal conditions in many factory farms and it pains me to know that any animal is being mistreated. I DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT condemn anyone for eating meat, I don't necessarily even think that it's wrong, but I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge that this is another part of the reason why I have decided to give up meat and other animal foods for good.

So there you have it! I will probably blog some more about recipes I try, any health benefits I enjoy, etc. etc. I highly recommend "The Kind Life" if you want to learn more about the benefits of a vegan and/or macrobiotic diet, as Alicia Silverstone does a great job of presenting her case without seeming like one of those crazy paint-throwing PETA activists, lol. Maybe I'll even get some crazy vegan telekinetic powers, just like Todd Ingram!!! hahaha :)