Other Photos

More photos I took at the time of that project that didn't make it in.

Photo Project Cont.

Here are the rest of the photos from that project

Previous Info Cont

As I have mentioned before, I love photography and took a class on it at Reed. Not my best plan, not a great class. Cool kids in it, though, and, if nothing else, a chance to play around with my digital camera. I'm actually really proud of my final project for that class: I attempted to represent the sense visually, beginning with a photograph of the body part associated with that sense, leading into something associated only with that sense, and finishing with a photograph of that sense used with a body part associated with a different sense (thus moving the series along). For example: I started with smell. The first photo was of blue cheese, the next, rotting fish, and the final one, the photo of steaming ham being cut (see previous post). The second set of photos was of taste and began with a conversation heart on a tongue, a photo of a sandwich, and a photo of someone crunching on a carrot (which led into sound). I set them up three in a row horizontally with the first photo of the next set starting underneath the last photo of the one above/before it.

Previous Info

So apartment excitement aside, I should probably mention a bit of what I'd been up to between my last post and my completion of my THESIS and graduation. Here goes highlights: Easter--we had an Easter supper thing where we made a ham with a bourbon molasses and orange juice glaze, crescent rolls (those Pillsbury mini croissant things? so addicted), a salad, green beans, scalloped potatoes, wine, and Ramos gin fizzes. Moving upwards in the photos (woops, sorry), my old housemate Em and I decided to "decorate" our other housemate's room one night by wrapping his desk, lamp, and chair in newspaper, and wrapping his bed as best we could. He loved it. The second from the top to the left picture is of a light in a dorm (ODB) at school that I thought was cool and was meant to segue into my next post about photos but I failed again with placement there. More on a photos in a sec. The final picture up there is from our celebration brunch for turning in our big thesis drafts. Huge deal. Therefore we made eggs Benedict (with hollandaise sauce from scratch instead of with the blender!), salad, and mimosas. Talk about yum.

How To Fit Everything In A Small Kitchen

So as I mentioned a minute ago, the biggest problem with my new place is the lack of kitchen storage. Not only do I happen to love to cook, I also have a grandmother and great aunt who love to cook and never throw anything away. Put two and two together, and all of a sudden, while cleaning out my old house/packing to move, I found myself with more than a full kitchen--we're talking 3 sets of dinner plates, bowls, smaller plates, a ton of silver wear, knives of all sizes, an orange juicer and a lemon juicer (two different things, I should add), cake pans, brownie pans, baking sheets, Pyrex baking things, an angel food cake bowl, mixers, wooden spoons, and you get the idea. My fantastic mother came up to help me pack and clean (THANK YOU) and I got to send a bunch of stuff home with her. The point of sharing all this with you, however, is that I basically moved in to my apartment with an entire kitchen myself, and then had to make room for my roommate's stuff (I guess she might have her own stuff, heh). Anyway, the kitchen has limited storage: a handy little island/counter with space underneath, cupboards above the fridge and stove, but waaaay up, and some strangely tall cupboards next to the fridge. I am very short so the tall cupboards are out of reach--I really need a stool, don't laugh--which is an issue, and that's all the storage there is. We got that amazing cupboard thing from Julie's neighbors FOR FREE so that helped, but we still had some space trouble. I should also mention that the apartment is rather old and came without a microwave (!) and that also made things trickier. Luckily, we moved in right around the time of tons of yard sale and bought the worlds biggest microwave for $15 from a guy down the street. This microwave is so big that is serves as a shelf for our toaster, blender, Cuisinart, and a few other odds and ends. However, yay space! In the deathly hot days earlier this week, we escaped our boiling apartment by heading to Ikea in search of a spice rack to hang on the wall. We succeeded in finding one that not only held spices, but also had extra space to hang potholders (well, to hang whatever, but we hung potholders) so that was really exciting. Julie also just got us a lovely hanging produce basket which I think will really be the last thing we need. In other words, the point here is: get creative! Use microwaves as shelves, windowsills as shelves for bottles (in our case of our various liquors and wines), the top edge of the stove for stuff you use with the stove (olive oil, salt--too big to fit in the spice rack, vinegar, etc). Not only does this save space, but it makes it easier to find and get to things that you use often (olive oil, vinegar, Pam, etc), and reminds you what you have and encourages you to use it (two kinds of vermouth, rumpleminz). Most importantly, in my opinion, is that it turns your house or apartment into a home and makes it yours.

I'm really going to update this regularly, I swear

Hello!
So exciting exciting, I am now officially done with college forever! So strange. I also now get to go into major find-a-job freak out mode since my summer jobs are coming to an end and I would like to keep my apartment (which unfortunately requires rent, bummer!). Oh yeah! I moved! EXCITING! No longer do I live in a house that only I really cleaned with an evil landlord, no, now I live in a totally cute apartment with actually nice neighbors and less space to clean. Ah so faaantastic. Of course, new apartment also means new decorating which is something I greatly enjoy. Luckily, my lovely lovely roommate/apartmentmate is pretty laid back and doesn't care too much about decorating. This is good because I moved in earlier than her and got rather excited. The decorating is allllmost done--we just got our kitchen in order (yay Ikea for spice racks) a few days ago--and the only thing I lack to pull of my final touches are largish picture frames. All I really want is 11/12'' by 17/18''. Not so easy to find. I'm really trying to no longer live in a college house anymore and live in a grown up apartment. It's working pretty well, I'd say. No more girls in lingerie in the bathrooms (although they were funny), and no scantily-clad pictures of Heidi Klum that my landlord left (thank god). My biggest problem with the place is the lack of kitchen space but amazingly enough, Julie (housemate) solved all this thanks to some random neighbor leaving an Ikea wonder cabinet--the photo on the left, one down from the top. Also I should note that these photos are slightly out of date now, but you get the idea.

to make my mother happy

The Joys of Lemon and Honey:

I've been sick for the past week and a half ish and it's (obviously) no fun. I'm generally pretty healthy, so when I get sick, I get really sick. Naturally I'm sick when I have a huge amount of work do and I can't really focus well on it, naturally. Instead of lying in bed and watching movies, I'm photoshopping my pictures that I stupidly took with a flash and writing about death, love, and sex, and how they're all connected. Fun fun. I've been trying to be all healthy--got a roast chicken from Safeway, been eating my veggies, drinking til I squish, etc, so I thought I would share a little something about the wonderfulness of lemon and honey. This is a very simple drink to make: squeeze at least one lemon into a mug, boil some water, pour in the water, add honey to taste. Yay! Ideally you want to use pure honey with no other stuff in it, which I have, thanks to my lovely summer job last year. You know what's cool about honey? It doesn't go bad! Ever!! AND it can help with allergies. You get some local honey and take a spoonful a day and it gets all the pollens you're allergic to into your body to immunize you. Honey is also cool because it helps heal your sore throat while coating it, it's sweet (never bad), you can put it on greek yogurt which is delicious, you can eat it plain, and you can cook with it. I'm a fan. Plus you can ferment it and make mead. So much variety! Anyway, I'm drinking that and now getting back to work (and maybe watching CSI).