What isn't made of soy?

I've been burning candles a lot again lately, and have been avoiding buying more until I can find a place that sells soy candles (because I'm going to get cancer anyway, but I might as well avoid it where I can!), and while looking for freezer ziplocks, I stumbled upon soy candles at Safeway of all places! I only bought one -- lemongrass and coriander scented, though I sorely miss my cinnamon-scented one that made my room smell delicious! -- to see how I like this brand. So far it has completely taken over my room, but I don't mind yet =P

~*~

Chicken Cordon Bleu Deux

The first time I made chicken cordon bleu, I neglected to buy bread crumbs. Today I went grocery shopping and remembered! The third bowl in the breading process THIS time had ~1/2 cup of garlic and herb bread crumbs and ~1 tablespoon of Tony's seasoning (my favorite to put on everything!):

~*~

She's Got a Muffintop

This was definitely last week's Iron Chef Blogger Challenge....but you can read my last post to learn why this is out of order, because I definitely had my ingredients in time to bake these the end of last week.

~Apple Muffins~
Mix together dry ingredients: 1.75 cups flour, 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

Whisk together 2 eggs and 1.5 cups light brown sugar.
Add 1/2 stick melted butter.
Stir in 1 cup sour cream.
Mix in dry ingredients slowly.
Stir in 1 cup of pecans (or walnuts), chopped.
Stir in small pieces of 2 diced apples (small, or in my case 1.5 medium apples).

Pour into muffin cups (in a tin), 3/4 full.

Streusel Topping: 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 2 tablespoons softened butter, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Mix together and drizzle on each muffin before baking.

Bake 20 minutes at 400F.
Cool on a rack before removing muffins from tin.
Store in airtight container (refrigerate after 1 day).

Enjoy them warm! I forgot to photograph until after I took a bite...



The first batch looked weirder than the 2nd, because the original streusel recipe called for 1.5 T of butter and it was not quite fluid enough to drizzle, and I had to spread on with a knife, so it went on thick and the tops of the muffins didn't crack. But so delicious! And I was too lazy to take and upload pictures of the more attractive batch. Just believe me when I say they tasted amazing!

YUM ALL GONE!

~*~

Cheesecakepie

So, I am kind of doing my Iron Chef Blogger Challenges out of order, here. But I had a pie crust in my fridge I needed to use, and when Kevin and I shopped for ingredients for last week's recipe, we also got the fixings for a cheesecake, because for some reason, they call it a cake even though you bake it in a pie crust! Both apple muffins and lime cheesecake were on the agenda for the weekend, and two things convinced us (well, me, since I do all the work anyway) to do the cheesecakepie first:

1. Cheesecake has to chill overnight, and Kevin needed to help me eat it before he left for LA again!
2. Upon returning from the store, I found that the next ingredient was cream cheese, and I just so happened to have bought 16 ounces of the stuff!

~Lime Cheesecake~
First of all, you're supposed to use a graham cracker crust. The pie crust I had was regular pie crust, but the only other pie Kevin wanted was apple, and that requires 2 crusts. So we settled on cheesecake! It isn't as decadent as graham cracker crust, but still tasty!

For the filling: Blend together two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese with 2/3 cup of sugar (oh, I 2/3s a recipe that wanted 3 packages and a larger pie mold). This works best with a mixer, but I don't have one, so I let it soften on the stovetop as I cooked dinner, then cut it up before putting in the bowl, and used 2 whisks to simulate a mixer. Yeah, I'm that awesome.

Stir in 2 or 3 eggs (it calls for 5, so 2/3 of that!) one at a time.
Stir in 2/3 cup sour cream.
Stir in 1 tsp vanilla (the recipe we "used" didn't call for it, but others did, so I added it).
Stir in 3/8 cup lime juice and the zest of 1 lime.

I'm pretty sure that's all that was in the filling. I kind of Frankenstein'ed a few recipes because the original one we had wanted crazy things to be done (baking it surrounded by water??) and actually wanted the low-fat version of cream cheese that I saw for the first time at the store (and didn't buy!).

Bake at 350?F for 45 minutes.
Let cool, then refrigerate overnight.

It was tasty!

~*~

Meat Purse Filled with Cheese!

Kevin came to visit this weekend, and as always I had the task of feeding him. He's kind of picky, but he enthusiastically volunteered chicken cordon bleu as a dinner idea, so I found a recipe and dragged him to Safeway. Even though I did most of the work while he watched Venture Brothers (oh, I guess he did make the rice pilaf Riceroni!), it was fun and delicious!

~Chicken Cordon Bleu~
Cut 4 slices of swiss cheese and 4 slices of ham into halves. Stack 2 of each and roll up (cheese on the inside). Fold a thin chicken breast around each and secure closed with toothpicks so you have 4 meat purses (hehe).


To bread, set up 3 bowls:
1. Flour
2. Egg Wash: 1 egg, 1/4 cup water -- whisked together
3. Seasoned bread crumbs (note: I overlooked this part when I went shopping, so I had to toast and cut up bread and mix with Tony's Seasoning to make my own; it looked pretty neat, but they were too big and hard on the roof of the mouth, so I don't recommend it!)

Dip in that order and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, toothpick-side up (I guarantee your meat purses will leak delicious melted cheese!)


Bake 25 minutes at 350 F.

Serve with rice pilaf!

~*~

Knitting My Troubles Away

All fall and winter I have been working on a red and black scarf for Kevin, yarn and dimensions of his choosing. It was really small gauge (I couldn't tell you how small because I'm a pretty ghetto knitter -- in fact, I learned that I don't know how to knit, only how to purl!) so it took forevererer! Knitting about 10 rows of 30 stitches each per ~hour-long episode of House or Dexter, I'd say I spent about 45 hours just knitting, and let's say another 3 going back to pick up a lost stitch -- 2 whole days! Also, I ran out of yarn and had to get more RIGHT before Christmas when Joann's was having a sale and sold out of the colors I needed!! I went to 4 or 5 Joann's before I finally obtained what I needed to finish.


It is heavy but very soft! Kevin loves it. I gave it to him on our 7-monthiversary, and it matches the bracelet I made him with magnetic clasps (which he picked out during that first trip to Joann's when he picked out the yarn!)

~*~

I'll Bring Home the Turkey If You Bring Home the...

BACON!

Kevin really wanted me to choose bacon when it was my turn, but I picked mushrooms instead and included bacon in my stuffed mushrooms. Well, someone picked bacon this week, so I get another go, and I chose to bake something.

~Maple Bacon Biscuits~

First, cook 1 12-ounce package of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, in a frying pan. I used low sodium bacon. Pat dry on paper towels to rid of excess grease.

Whisk together 3.5 cups flour, 2 Tablespoons sugar, 2 Tablespoons baking powder (recipe calls for 1, but my roommate Will told me to routinely double that to make stuff rise better), 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Cut in 2 sticks of butter "until it resembles small peas", whatever the hell that means. This part was very hard, so do your best.

Stir in bacon, 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons maple syrup (I used regular Ralph's brand pancake syrup, because I have a lot of it, which may have been a mistake, but they tasted good to me), and 3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons of buttermilk. Mix together until the dough comes together; it will still be clumpy. I suggest using flour to help with this process.

Roll out the dough to 1-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 2-inch rounds (I didn't have a cookie cutter, so I used the 1/4 cup measure, and it worked okay). This should make about 24 biscuits.

Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

While they are chilling, mix together egg wash: 1 egg, 1 Tablespoon heavy whipping cream.

Brush the egg was on the biscuits and sprinkle 1 pinch of coarse sea salt on each biscuit (I didn't have coarse sea salt and wasn't going to buy it just for this, so I used a salt grinder that had course sea salt inside of it -- salt is salt!).

Place 1-2 inches apart on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 F.

Drizzle 1 teaspoon of maple syrup (here I think the type of syrup is important...I probably really should have used maple, because mine came out REALLY sticky!) on each biscuit and bake for ~3 minutes more.

You tasted breakfast before you even got them in your mouth -- it was amazing! They were really sticky, which took away from the quality, in my opinion, because I don't like food that is too messy (sticky) to eat, but they were tasty. I brought them with me to LA when I visited Kevin, and he nommed on them pretty good.

~*~

Easy, Brie-zy

This week's ingredient was: brie!

Irony of ironies, the day before this ingredient was announced, Kevin and I picked up some brie and sourdough at Safeway to snack upon. But not quite enough left to do anything with, so another grocery trip was in order.

I shopped by myself this time around because Kevin was home with a fever -- pobrecito! That fact also resulted in a strange combination of foods in the meal.

I made Kevin soup out of chicken broth and rice noodles. For Iron Chef Blogger Challenge I made: quesadillas! Weird combo, I know, but if you ignore that fact, it was a tasty and filling meal!

For two quesadillas, split 1/2 pound of brie (including the rind, which I had to cut away from, so less than that), and diced: 1 roma tomato, half of an avocado, and 3 green onions. Using Kevin's new handy dandy sandwich grill (from Fry's -- impulse buy!), I melted the brie in the large, whole grain tortillas. When the brie was melted, it got everywhere! Then I added mixed veggies and served.

The brie was very mild, but the veggies added some good flavor. We added that red sauce you see at Asian restaurants, and it was pretty good, too. Quite the confusing combo of foods, but who cares as long as it tastes delicious?

~*~

Chipot-laway!

This week's ingredient was chipotle. And boy, was it an adventure.

Kevin is staying with me (yay!) for large portions of his Christmas break, and so he fueled my resolve along the way. It started with a harmless trip to Safeway to get groceries -- our base idea being steak tacos, with the steak marinated with chipotle chiles somehow -- and ended several hours later after visits to several other groceries. Safeway did not have chipotle chiles, not even in cans and not even in jars. Not even dried. Not even anything.

Our revised game plan was to put away our groceries and go to Ranch 99 to look for it there, as well as drop off my disposable camera at the Walgreens across the street, both of which are on El Camino near where I live. Oh, but first, we drove up El Camino to get hairball remedy for Cisco. There was a Cost Plus World Market across the street from that, so Kevin suggested we try over there. They did have dried chipotle chiles, but I thought canned/jarred ones in adobo sauce would be more fitting for making marinade, and the line was uuuuuuber long, so I decided to hold out for Ranch 99. But while we were there, Kevin was like, "I still need to find Pepsi Natural" (the new line of Pepsi that uses natural sugar instead of artificial sweeteners) and iPhoned the nearest Trader Joe's. So we continued down El Camino to Trader Joe's. They did not have either of what we wanted, but they did have chipotle salsa, and that seemed good enough to me for marinade, so I got that along with some tasty looking tortilla chips that were a mixture of rice and whole grain and other things -- they were good!

There was an Asian dollar store in the same shopping center, so we stopped in and I almost got a tea set but got a big back of straws instead. There was a Whole foods or something across the street and Kevin said, "we should just go there and check all the grocery stores in the area off our list!" but that was silly so back down El Camino towards home we went! We skipped Ranch 99 since we already had our chipotle solution, but stopped at Walgreens to drop off my disposable camera from Senior Fountain Run back in April. But lo! A Smart and Final right next to Walgreens! So we picked up a handle of tequila and some margarita mix. Oh, but the Asian supermarket nextdoor, we have to! Mostly, I wanted to check out if they had any sushi grade fish (for future culinary adventures!) and if they had this one macaroni my old roommate Patti used to make for me.

At long last, we returned home. I don't quite remember the recipe for my chipotle-marinated steak tacos, but I pretty much winged it anyway.

I mixed the sauce in sandwich bags to marinate the thin steak strips. It was probably 1/2 to 1 cup of the chipotle salsa from Trader Joe's + 2 table spoons of soy sauce. I think that was it? I marinated the steak for about an hour.

In the meantime, Kevin made margaritas -- and they were the last my blender would ever make, for Kevin fucked it up and the rubber teeth that spun the blade inside the blender, and it was no more. They were good margaritas, though?

I seared the steak while Kevin cut and grilled the onions.

We toasted the small corn tortillas on a frying pan to warm them up. Finally, the marinated and grilled steaks were sliced and added to the tortillas with the grilled onions, cilantro, and a sprinkling of grated Mexican cheese (from Smart and Final!).

Mmmmmmm so tasty! Enjoyed with strawberry margaritas!

~*~

Shroomin'

This week was my turn to pick the ingredient. I really wanted to pick something uber nifty, but I totally forgot it was my turn until 7:44pm on Saturday, sitting in Kevin's room who I hadn't seen in 1 week (and before that hadn't seen for 3 weeks), giving me only 16 minutes to pick something and wanting to get on with my night anyway. Kevin wanted me to pick bacon. I couldn't really think of anything so I went with something pretty versatile: mushrooms. Yeah, yeah, pretty boring, but it will hopefully mean variety in the recipes the girls choose this week.

When I began my recipe hunt, I already knew, before clicking my Google search results, that I wanted to make stuffed mushrooms, because I had never made them before. I flipped through a few pages of recipes on a couple different sites, getting the idea of different things to stuff them with. I kept a few in the back of my mind when I went grocery shopping the other day and came back with what inspired me.

~Stuffed Mushrooms ~
[with bacon, just for you, Kevin!]

• fry 4 pieces of bacon [low sodium, if you're salt conscious like I am]
  - de-grease with paper towels
  - crumble into a bowl [or use Bacon Bits, if you're a cheater]
  
• while the bacon is sizzling, prepare the mushrooms -- 6 medium-sized
  - mine were from a bulk box and smelled like dirt, but I hope you're not moronic enough to forget to wash them...dry them too!
  - remove the stems from the caps/the caps from the stems (you want to keep the caps) -- I twisted and pulled, and kind of dug out whatever clung behind
  
• finely cut green onions -- about 2-3 tablespoons
• finely grate mozzarella cheese -- about 2-3 tablespoons
• combine the crumbled up bacon, cheese, and onions
  
  
  
• brush olive oil on the rounded exterior of the mushroom caps [important! do this before stuffing the mushrooms! I neglected to do so until after, which was awkward]
  
• stuff the Christmas-colored mixture into the bowl of the mushrooms [and I mean really stuff -- the openings are small and you have a lot of filling! pretend you are at the mall getting Mongolian BBQ and cram as much into that bowl as you can! but be gentle -- the mushroom caps can split]
  
  
  
• broil the oiled and stuffed mushrooms for 3-5 minutes, or until cheese is melted
  
  
  
• serve and eat!
  
  
  ~*~
  

Asparagus Pee

I bought some asparagus a few days ago because it looked good and I need to eat more veggies. I forgot to thaw chicken or something to go with it, and I'm headed to LA for the weekend to see Kevin tomorrow, so I needed to eat it before it went bad. So I sauted it with garlic, salt, and some almond slivers for dinner. Bacon salt too.


Yum.

~*~

You say Bok, I say Choy

Sorry, ladies and gents, but I did not do any cranberry cheffing last week. After coconut milk curry on Saturday, I ate curry leftovers Sunday and Monday, went out for Indian food with Sarah Michelle and Brandon on Tuesday, and went to my parents' house Wednesday (eating leftover Indian food) in order to get up early to prepare Thanksgiving for six on Thursday. Friday and Saturday I was with Kevin + family + friends in Marin/San Francisco. But! I did help bake cranberry bread for Thanksgiving. Alas, I have no pictures or recipe. Nevertheless, the show must go on!

This week the ingredient is: Bok Choy! And I made salad.

I got the original recipe from cooks.com, but I adjusted the ingredient amounts as seemed about right at the time, so I will do my best to guesstimate how much of everything I actually used. I think the topping was a bit heavy (too many nuts and sesame seeds!), so maybe half that.

~ Bok Choy [Sans]-Noodle Salad ~

• cut up 1 head of bok choy (about 1 inches apart) and set aside in a bowl
  
• cut up 1 bunch of green onions and set aside
• saute in 2 Tablespoons of canola oil (recipe calls for butter, but that seemed excessive for a salad):
  - 1/2 cup sesame seeds
  - 1 cup cashews
  - 1 cup slivered almonds
  - chopped green onion (improv)
  
• mix this in with the bok choy
• for dressing, mix together (very well -- the oil isn't very friendly!):
  - 1/2 cup olive oil
  - 1/4 cup red wine vinegar (original: 1/2 cup vinegar)
  - 1/4 cup soy sauce (addition)
• drizzle the dressing on the salad and stir well
• [the recipe called for breaking Ramen noodles up by hand, but I decided it was already crunchy enough without that]
  

[1/160 sec, f/5.0, ISO 400, 63mm, with flash]
~*~

While grocery shopping today for the missing ingredients, among other edible necessities, I spotted a pre-marinated teriyaki salmon fillet. This not only looked and sounded absolutely delish, but it would go well with my salad. So I grilled this as well. Using the same pan that I saute'd the salad fixings in, I heated 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, then grilled each side of the fillet for 5-7 minutes each, flipping regularly. I cooked the bottom first so I could peel off the skin easily.

Yum!

[1/160 sec, f/5.0, ISO 400, 48mm, with flash]

~*~

Give them a Twist, a Flick of the Wrist!

So a week or two ago, while browsing my Facebook news feed, I noticed some commotion on Sarah Michelle's wall about hunting down rhubarb. It sounded like a fun little scavenger hunt/pot luck, so I voiced interest. Apparently she and a few friends started a weekly event called the Iron Chef Blogger Challenge, where every Saturday night, someone announces an ingredient (and, optionally, a rule; for example: "no pies" for the first week's ingredient of rhubarb) and everyone has 1 week to cook something using that ingredient and then post a blog about it. The ingredient for this week is coconut milk, and it is my first week participating.

I browsed the nets at work earlier this week looking for what to make. I decided on Sugar Snap Pea & Shrimp Curry [cooking.com]. I also decided to make risotto to go with it, a modification of a chicken risotto Kevin and I made the weekend he came up for my birthday. I know it's mixing genres a little bit, but I don't see why not -- it is so tasty!

~Sugar Snap Pea & Shrimp Curry~

• heat 2 Tablespoons of canola oil in a large skillet [let me stress large!]
• add 2 Tablespoons of curry powder and cook for 2 minutes
• add 1.5 lbs raw shrimp [I cheated and used cooked shrimp]
• add 1 lb sugar snap peas, trimmed [I don't know how much 1 lb is, so I used about 2 cups]
• cook for 4 minutes
• add 1 cup coconut milk
• add 1/4 cup lemon juice
• add 1/2 teaspoon salt [I just grinded some over top]
• bring to a boil and cook for ~2 minutes

[1/160 sec, f/5.0, ISO 400, 63mm, with flash]
~*~

~Chicken Risotto Sans Chicken~

• melt 2 Tablespoons of butter in a skillet [I used margarine this time around, and it tastes fine]
  
• add 1 clove of garlic, minced
• add 1 cup rice [you're supposed to use a special kind but I just use sushi rice]
• saute until the rice is browned
• add 1 teaspoon basil [or whatever looks right]
• add 2 cups chicken broth
• bring to a boil
• reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15-20 minutes [or until the rice is tender and moist and delicious looking]
• top with sharp cheddar cheese and stir in so it melts
• add sliced mushrooms [this was my addition since I removed the chicken part]

[1/160 sec, f/5.0, ISO 400, 105mm, with flash]~*~

This recipe was really fun for me, because I am not a very experienced cook. It was really easy, too! I botched the planning of the simultaneous cooking, even though I knew the risotto would take much longer. Sauteing the rice was a cook time I neglected when planning when to start the curry. This wasn't too big of a deal, except the curry was meant to be served and eaten immediately "to keep the snap peas crisp." Honestly, it just made the snap peas lose color by the time I was ready to serve and eat, but it still tasted good! Overall a very filling and tasty meal =)

[1/160 sec, f/5.0, ISO 400, 105mm, with flash]
~*~

Here is what everyone else made:

• Thai Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce and Cilantro Rice
• Coconut Scones
• Indonesian Coconut Chicken
• Thai Coconut Soup
• Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, Leek and Coconut Milk Soup
• Brazilian Soup and Pan de Coco
• Basil Chicken in Coconut-Curry Sauce

Next Week's Ingredient: Cranberries!
How festive! The rule is: no making cranberry sauce. Hmmmm, I'm not the biggest fan of cranberries, so I'll have to look around for something to like.

~*~

Fallen Star

I drove up into the Los Altos Hills last night to watch the beginnings of the Leonids meteor shower.

Even driving up 280, I saw a few from my car. I found a really nice lookout that didn't have too many trees blocking the view. I was freezing, more noticeably so with Kevin so far away instead of cuddled under a blanket with me, but I still stayed out stargazing rather late. There weren't TOO many -- it hadn't hit the peak yet for California, and I no doubt would have seen more a couple hours later towards dawn, and tonight -- but I got a few good wishes in on a few spectacular ones. Either way, it was peaceful, and beautiful.

I really missed living somewhere you can see the stars.

[f/3.5, 30 sec., ISO 1600, 28mm]
~*~

Rainy Day

The weather is certainly cooler up here in Mountain View compared to LA.

Today was the second rainstorm. I forgot how much I liked rain.

It rained a lot freshman year when I had a lot of places to go, so I didn't like it much then, and after that it probably rained few enough times to count with my fingers and have some left over.

But today, at quitting time, I stepped outside and was greeted by the cool atmosphere of rain. The air was chilly and moist, and there was something refreshing about walking to my car, under my umbrella, stepping on puddles in my heels. I had to drive home slowly, but I didn't really mind (the 2-mile commute probably didn't hurt my patience). And I spent the rest of the day warm inside because it was raining outside, watching TV shows on my computer and knitting (unfortunately, that wine bottle was already empty, but that would have been nice, or perhaps hot chocolate).

[1/3 sec, f/8, ISO 400, 60mm]

It was comfortable, but lonely. Kevin is still in sunny LA, and so rainy Mountain View doesn't quite feel like home.

~*~

Big Girls Don't Cry

So it's been a while. Almost 3 months?? Well I'd like to say I've been too busy to blog, but that's probably not true. Too many other things I'd rather be doing? Probably more likely.

I relaxed a lot this summer, seeing friends disappear one by one as the inevitable fate of growing up and leaving college approached. Dating Kevin delayed it slightly, because he was still taking summer school (with 2 semesters left to go), and we both still worked at ITS, my campus job for 2 years. I only slightly wish we *did* more stuff while I was in LA, but only because I don't have time (or energy) to anymore; I really, really enjoyed the relaxing summer with him, in my favorite apartment (to which it was so hard to say goodbye!)

Kevin and I went to Europe for 2 weeks in August.

While it broke my bank account and made my feet fall off, from going toooo many places in only 2 weeks, it was amazing, and I miss that trip a lot. It was kind of a last hurrah of my carefree youth, between USC and my big-girl job at AST. I'll post some (backlogged) pictures soon.

At the end of August, I moved to Mountain View.

My high school best friend Cheryl's older brother, Will, needed 1 more roommate. It just so happened that his apartment was 2 miles from my up-and-coming job, so I dove in. So now I'm living with Will, his girlfriend Carmen, and his co-worker Mike. Toby and Keiko -- my gypsy cats -- came with, and for the first time in 12-years, Cisco moved away from my parents' house in Almaden. It was a terrible idea, and it was really hard on him, but my mom has been getting sicker and needed me to start take care of him.

He's the big gray cat posed in these pictures of my room:




In September, I started working at my adult job.

Despite having a CECS degree and being assigned to the Software Department, my job title is "Engineer" (as opposed to "Software Engineer"). I'm working on the largest software project I have ever seen. C++ pointers and MySQL database errors make me want to shoot myself sometimes (especially because my assignment was to take over someone else's stuff, finish, test, fix, and optimize his code), but finally solving a bug and seeing your chunk of code work flawlessly is strangely satisfying.

I've struggled with deciding on dress code. What few girls I've seen seem to dress much nicer than the men (who wear a lot of jeans with collared shirts and tennis shoes). I feel under-dressed wearing jeans beside my pointy-heel wearing office-mate. The other girl on my team is pregnant (well, actually, she went into labor last night, so pregnant she is no more), so the rules are an exception to her.


I'm definitely struggling with "adult life" for so many reasons.

I had a hard time adjusting to USC, and right when I started to call LA home, I was uprooted again. And just when my heart was getting attached to someone new. So the 360-mile move by itself was difficult. I struggled very badly for the first few weeks, but routine (and exhaustion) are stamping that out.

Working 5-day weeks is an exhausting change not only from an entire summer of me choosing my own carefree schedule -- if and when and how long I wanted to work -- but from an entire senior year of 4-day weeks/3-day weekends. On top of that, 9-hour days are tough!

What makes them tougher is staying in one place all day. At my busiest, USC days were much longer than 9 days, but they were chunks of time scheduled at scattered places doing many different things. My short attention span could handle 2-hour blocks much better than these 4-hour ones.

What's more, I have had trouble gripping the idea that this phase of life has no foreseeable end. Up until now, there was a schedule. My entire four years at USC were pretty much planned out which classes I'd be taking, all broken up into semesters. There were finish lines -- due dates, exams, semesterbeginnings and endings -- so I knew what to expect. I didn't even have my first deadline put in front of me until last week, 1 month into the job. But it goes bigger than assignments. At USC, I had 1-year leases, knowing how long I'd be in once place, whether the specific apartment or the city I lived in. I have no idea how long I will be at this job, or living where I am now. Either one of those things could change drastically in any unknown amount of time. And it sounds exciting, I guess, having a palette of life in front of me, but it's also scary. I've come to realize how much I like stability. I like new things, but only if the big things are stable.

But it's not all bad.

Visiting Kevin/Kevin visiting me most weekends has given me stars to put on my calendar, things to look forward to. Mostly we just recover from the workweek and relax together, with the occasional outing for food or a movie (and one weekend we made hummus + pita bread, and raspberry sorbet! Damn, I really should have taken pictures...), but I really couldn't care less. Simply reuniting with him warms my happy heart.

This job comes with some financial stability. True, I have to pay my own rent and insurance now, but I was still able to pay off my Europe debt, and finally build myself a new computer!


So there's one more thing that passes my time as I burrow into my nest, missing Kevin and trying to distract myself from all of life's hovering questions.

I'll try to post again soon.
Because this started off as a photoblog, I feel obligated to have a picture to post. So I'll try to start taking more pictures.

~*~

New Lens!

Per my request, my grandmother wanted to give me a new lens as a graduation gift. Her husband was a professional studio photographer when he was still alive, so it was a meaningful idea to her. Unfortunately, she has 12 grandchildren, so she could only afford $200 towards a new lens. I found a relatively cheap macro lens on eBay for which I could afford the difference.

I got a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens. 60mm is slightly zoomed in (I am used to 28mm completely zoomed out on my other lens), and so starting out zoomed in, but without the ability to zoom in more is a little weird to get used to. I've also been playing with B&W shots again, which I haven't really done much with since my film photography class in high school. Here are the shots I took right out of the box:

Spider Webs

[1/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400, 60mm]

Stucco -- Depth of Field

[1/400 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400, 60mm]

Porch Railing

[1/125sec, f/2.8, ISO 400, 60mm]

Toby -- not his usual ham-it-up model self

[1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400, 60mm]

~*~

Big Night In

So I'm dating a new boy. His name is Kevin.
Doesn't he look cute in a vest?

We've been making dinner together the last few nights, like some old couple -- and I don't mind a bit =)

Chicken Marsala with Mushrooms and Linguine Alfredo:

Old Bay Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Walnut Asparagus:

Strawberry and Mango Margaritas:

Still on the list:

• Cheesecake
• Lasagna
  

~*~

Curiousity & Cats

Toby has always been a ham with anyone he meets -- it's too bad that the same can't be described about his relationship with other cats.

The problem is he's a housecat through and through. People adore him, but he would never survive in the wild. And the local stray -- who we've dubbed "Evil Keiko" because of his black fur and pudgy mean face -- proved that one by biting Toby in the foot and sending Toby home with a limp.

The wound got infected and an abscess formed. The vet had to put a drainage tube in, and I had to clean it twice a day along with feeding Toby antibiogics with a medicine dropper.

Pobrecito!

~*~

Going Down in Flames

That's it. I finished the last of my college classes. Only 1 final project, 1 report, and 2 finals left. Then graduation. Then an open summer during which I have no idea what I'm going to do and it feels fabulous. Then hopefully San Diego at Northrop and hopefully not hating my job and cursing the last 4 years of my life.

In salute, some friends and I went to Dockweiler and had one last bonfire....

[1/50 sec, f10, ISO 200, 53mm]

[15 sec, f6.3, ISO 400, 28mm]

[1/160 sec, f8.0, ISO 400, 28mm, w/flash & cropped]

~*~