Fresh pasta

I love thrift stores, not only because you're recycling and paying less, but also because it's like a treasure hunt. Today we went to the Goodwill, looking for a few things for our house. We got some records, a picture frame, a purse, 2 stools for our bar, a circular saw, and a championship wrestling belt. We also found a pasta maker for $5. It looks brand new. So we made spaghetti tonight, and it was pretty awesome. Here are some pictures:

Here are the pieces of dough we made with just eggs and flour.

And you feed the dough in here where it gets pressed through the front.

Here it is coming out.

The first few noodles.

And the whole bunch!

Cooking.

Draining.

And done!

Maturity

I would like to share an actual conversation I had with my boyfriend this past week. We had just gotten home from work.

Me (S): I’ll make dinner if you take [the dog] out.

Him (B): Ok.

S: And then I was going to take a quick shower.

B: But I wanted to take a shower.

S: But I just went to the gym, so I’m all sweaty and gross.

B: But I’m a boy, so I’m all sweaty and gross.

S: Were you really planning to take a shower because I have documentation* proving that I had planned to take a shower.
*I really did have documentation.

B: I’ll show you my documentation:

S: Oh yeah, well here’s a memo for you:

B: Oh yeah, well this is you eating a giant sausage*!
*He’s making fun of me for talking about how bad I wanted these sausages earlier.

S: Oh yeah, well I’m shooting you with my gun*. Oh no! Your brains are spilling out!
*I don’t actually have a gun.

B: Oh yeah, well here’s the 101st airborne dropping a million bombs on you!

S: I forgot to mention that there’s this rocket over here with your name on it!

B: Oh yeah, well that giant sausage you were eating? It was made of poop.

He got me there. Sometimes it's the little things. :)

So this is it.

So I've been working a real, full-time job for about a month and a half. And things are going as well as you might expect. I'm surprised at how busy I still feel, but it's nice to focus on one thing (rather than 3-4 classes, part-time internship, and part-time job). It's also nice to have a grown-up albeit modest income. And being slightly above desperately poor has made me realize a few things about the way poverty effects a person and why it's so difficult to get out of it - that's a blog post in the making.

I'm excited for the holidays. Last year Brian and I painted postcards to send to our families and we have an idea for this year, which I think will turn out nice. I'll probably try to blog about that. This is the first year holiday planning doesn't have to compete with final exams, which is nice. I'm hosting a vegetarian Thanksgiving for my mom and her girlfriend, which I'm looking forward too also. I've thought about posting pictures and recipes of yummy vegetarian food we cook since I'm always talking about how easy it is.

I wish I had more interesting things to blog about right now, but I've been busy doing stuff in real life, which I think is a good thing.

Take it easy y'all.

<3

Elation!

I just got my first grown-up (permanent) job! Finally! I'll be honest, I started to lose hope a little bit. I thought that I must actually be an unemployable loser. Turns out, I'm an employable loser! Sweet!

So I guess all those papers and exams and hectic schedules really do pay off. I was starting to question all of my career/educational choices as I sat around my house feeling sorry for myself all day every day for the past month.

Celebrations are in store! There's a sparkly alcoholic beverage I've been meaning to try. This might be the occasion!*

*I have been on exclamation mark overload ever since I got the call this afternoon! I'm! just! so! freaking! happy!

Wacky Misadventures

Quick update: I moved into a rowhouse in south Baltimore with my main squeeze - and no one else. We've been living together for two years, but during that time, we've always had roommates, so this is the first time we've lived together alone. Which is nice. We love our house. It was built in 1920 and has original hardwood floors and interesting reclaimed wood accents and vintage 1950's kitchen cabinets. We're renting right now, but there's an option to buy. We're not in a position to buy at the moment, nor do we feel particularly warm or fuzzy about the neighborhood, but you never know.

We decided we wanted to paint pretty early on, so we went to Home Depot to get a bunch of swatches, which we hung in every room and carefully considered the benefits of subtle differences in blues, greens, reds, and even greys. In they end of course, we went to the Loading Dock and picked up a 5 gallon bucket of reclaimed green paints. Volunteers go to landfills and find half empty (or half full?) cans of paint and mix them based on color and type. And we're avengers of the Earth, so this seemed like a good option. I'm also still unemployed, so the fact that a 5 gallon bucket of paint regularly costs $10, but was on sale for $7 was also a selling point.

And what could possibly go wrong? Well, actually, it went pretty well. Mixing this much paint is hard enough as it is, but there were clearly several different colors of green, so mixing it well was really important. We realized how important when the paint on the walls dried, showing just how many different shades of green (and yellow and blue) were in that one bucket. It took two second coats until we got a method of mixing/painting that left us with a nice even color, but you know what? It looks pretty damn good now. And the color doesn't exactly match the swatch we picked (I say it's bluer; Brian says yellower), but it's a nice color. We think we'll go this route again.

Wanna see?



Any discoloration you note is due to lighting rather than paint.

Overall playing house has been a lot of fun. It'll be more fun once I'm employed and can spend more than $7 on nonessentials, but all in due time.

Other than that, it's been same ol', same ol'. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good job and enjoying my time off.

Enjoy the fall y'all!

Remember that old window?

Hey, do you remember that old window I got off a freecycle list and turned into a picture frame? Well, last January I changed it for my new apartment. I will likely be changing it again soon, so I thought I should document the first change.

Here is a well-lit, tightly cropped picture so you can see what it looks like:


And here is an oddly cropped, poorly lit shot to give you a feel for the ambiance it creates:


I told you it was a versatile thing to have around. I've also thought about putting mirrored glass in it or painting the glass with blackboard paint, but those things seem too permanent. I don't think this window is sure what it wants to be quite yet.

The Times They Are a-Changin

I'm headed for another major life upheaval. Hopefully, the last one for a while. I feel like my life has been in transition for a long time, and I'm ready for stability for once. I'd give more details, but I don't have them yet. I don't even know what I don't know.

It's Mother Fucking Show & Tell Time!


No caption could do this license plate justice. I love it.


I bought a wee heirloom tomato plant from B'More YOURS back in May (or June. Maybe July), and man, has it grown - not tomatoes, but taller. I finally have a few flowers starting to blossom, but the plant is so tall and the flowers are way at the top, so I'm afraid those honkers are going to weigh it down too much. We'll see.


I got asked to proofread a document at work. I pretend to know about grammar and style, but readers will know that I pretend to know about a lot of things I know nothing about.




Would you say I have a plethora of church pictures? I don't really know what it is with me and churches lately, but I really enjoy them - again, not for religious reasons, but aesthetic ones. I guess I appreciate the fancifulness of their design. New buildings I see going up around Baltimore are all square, brick, simple. But these are interesting and beautiful. Someone took time to design these, and I like that. Plus there are a bunch in Mt. Vernon on my way home from work. Sorry some of these pics are so hazy. It's been muggy around here.


Look at this hilariously skinny house! How do you put anything in that corner? I had to walk around the corner to make sure it wasn't just a wall with a door and windows. I thought for sure I was in one of those Ripley's Believe It or Not displays where you do something ridiculous while people behind the one-way mirror laugh at how stupid you are. That actually happened to me once, which is probably why I'm paranoid about it. Wouldn't you love to see the inside of this house? Maybe I'll act like a canvasser and knock on the door and then ask to see the corner of their room.

Let's see... what else have I been up to? I went to Bay Cafe for happy hour the other day. It wasn't really my scene, but if you're into fake beaches and fake people (not the ones I was with), you might like it. After that we went to Nacho Mama's, which I was way too drunk appreciate, but I definitely want to go back! I think I have a picture somewhere...


We had just signed a petition. Apparently the restaurant used to have this Elvis outside, but someone told them it had to be inside because it was obstructing the foot traffic on the sidewalk. The woman with the petition must have been very convincing because we all thought it was the worst travesty known to man. Did I mention they have good margaritas?

Flicks from the Hill has been a lot of fun. And I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but you get the point. So yeah, summer fun.