Klutz

I am a klutz. My dad always told me that my middle name should have been grace, so that I would have some grace in my life. Unfortunately for me, my dad did not have this revelation until the second time I cracked open my chin playing in the yard. Is it too late for a name change?

Matt loves to snowmobile. He grew up in New Hampshire, so it kind of makes sense. Unfortunately for him, I am a big fan of watching the snow FROM A WINDOW. When I was little I would go out, and come inside as soon as possible. I liked the snow. Ok let me rephrase I liked the idea of snow, but the actual cold wet stuff, eh not so much a fan.

Ever since I started dating Matt, he has talked about going snowmobiling with me. I gave it a try last winter with his sister, but for some reason Matt and I never went. Fast forward to this weekend. There is a foot of snow on the ground in NH and Matt was itching for some snowmobiling. Matt's sister, knowing of my iffy background with life, decided it was smarter to let me ride on the back while she drove. Matt put me on the front and decided that I needed to drive. BAD IDEA!!!!

Round and round we go and I'm doing ok. Then I hit the gas and the GINORMOUS machine starts to tip. I really wasn't terribly excited about the prospect of my right leg being crushed into a bazillion pieces so I bailed. Years of experience falling has given me a talent in bailing. Arms off and FALL. Yeah it's a talent. Maybe I should be a stunt woman. They make a lot of money doing what I do on a daily basis.

The end result, Matt's baby went into a rock. He will not be letting me drive again. I could have warned him, I tried to warn him, and now $70 later he has learned. It could have been much worse. I could have been hurt, or Matt. Neither of us are made of plastic and our parts don't cost $70 to fix. My finger was jammed a little. It hurts a little if I use it too much, but it's not terrible. My chin didn't crack open.

On a lighter note I made a perfect batch of fudge. Maybe gracefulness isn't needed in a kitchen. Or maybe things just make sense inside my kitchen. Outside there are icy sidewalks and bumps in the road. Potential hazards are all around me outside. In the kitchen I have a pot and a spoon, some knives yes, but I know how to use those, and things just makes sense.

Of course after I cleaned up my kitchen, made myself a cup of tea, and went to sit down on the couch I spilled boiling hot water all down my leg. Are you sure it's not too late for a name change?

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Paper Papers Papers

I see letters, words, paragraphs, and pages in my sleep. 5-7 pages to be exact. Everything has to be 5-7 pages. Some become 10. Some barely eek out 5. Some fall beautifully in the 6 category. Those don't normally get privileged enough to receive dreams. Dreams are for the bad papers. The papers that make no sense. The papers that are completely incoherent and already 5 pages too long. Scrap it, dream for a week about it, and then rewrite it. Writers block? Ha! You have to be kidding this is more a case of writers diarrhea. It just keeps coming and coming and nothing is coming out solid. Ok I'm going to end that analogy before this becomes more visually nauseating than I already have made it.

I have obviously been drowning in papers. There really is nothing I can do about it. Little by little things are starting to come out ok. My ethics professor told me that he has not returned my second draft of my paper to me, because he could only find 2 things to fix and he knows if he looks a little deeper he can find more. Thaaaanks! I mean just what I always wanted; someone trying their hardest to find my errors.

I'm sure you are all wondering the result of this writers diarrhea on my every day life. I didn't eat dinner till 9 p.m. last night. When I did eat, it was a three egg "omelet" with cheese. I use the word omelet lightly here because I don't know if you can call three eggs scrambled slightly in the pan with adobo and cheese an omelet. It's more or less scrambled eggs. I am literally at the stage in my stress where I don't enjoy food. You know when you get the stomach flu and you never want to see another piece of food again. Yup I'm there and I get it just from writing too many papers.

Thankfully I am making strides at reducing the stress, achieving my goals, and beginning to enjoy food again.

Today I had a doughnut for breakfast. For lunch I went with Matt to Wendys. For dinner we are hitting up Pizza Hut. Greasy food might be terrible for you after a stomach flu, but after writers flu it hits the spot. Thankfully greasy food hits the spot for Matt every time, so I am always in luck.

Christmas is a stressful time of year whether you are in college and dealing with finals or not. There are Christmas cards to send out and cookies to bake. And presents to buy for your favorite blogger. (That is probably stressing you out more than anything.) It is rather easy to let all of the "holiday fun" leave us feeling emptied out and sick. Breathe and say no to making a Christmas card with a picture of you on it. We all just make fun of those. Let's be honest with ourselves and end the narcissistic habit. Then eat lots of cookies, drink some hot cocoa, and pretend there is an awful snow storm and cancel all plans for at least a day.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Bacon = flavor

Bacon makes my life happy. Any chance I get to eat bacon is really a chance at happiness. I bought some bacon the last time I went grocery shopping with Matt and brilliantly Matt suggested I freeze it. At first I was a little miffed the first time I took the bacon out of my freezer. It was all stuck together. What was I supposed to do with that? Well I just decided that I would make it last longer by cutting it into hunks and then dicing it. So much easier to do frozen.

All of that was complete nonsense brought about from me feeling the need to explain ever conclusion I come to BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO FILL 5 PAGES!!! I've been writing way too many papers people, give me a break. Back to the bacon.

I love bacon. It holds so much flavor. Yesterday I decided to try to make my own lentil soup. It called for ham, but I didn't have ham. I decided to risk the last of my bacon on a soup that could end very badly. See I've never tried to make a soup with beans from scratch before. When I say scratch, I mean hard beans. Anyone can open a can. One time my mom tried to make soup from hard real beans; it was awful. I love my mom to death, but this soup was just inedible. The beans were crunchy and it was just gross. She swore against ever trying to make a soup like that from scratch again. I swore with her, until I found these lentils for $1.42 at Walmart and thought "Yum lentil soup."

So here I was risking the last of my bacon on something that's success was iffy. This just had to work. I fried up the bacon and an onion and a clove of garlic. Yeah talk about a lot of goodness in one frying pan. I then washed the lentils. I wasn't quite sure how one was supposed to wash lentils, but I washed them the way I washed rice during my time in Panama. I put all of the lentils in a bowl. Filled the water so it was above the lentil and swooshed it all around. Repeat 3 times. Do you want to know why 3 times. I do too. The women in Panama didn't even know. They just said the rice was ruined unless they washed it 3 times.

After washing, I Poured the lentils into a pot. I added 4 cups of water and a beef bullion, some salt, and pepper, and let it boil. Once it came to a boil, I covered and let it simmer. And simmer. And simmer. And simmer.

Ok so here's the thing about homemade lentil soup. It takes time. I kept taking spoonfuls to see if it was done and I would find done lentils done lentils and then a hard one. Ugh not done! I did that for about 20 bites and then finally after adding more water and waiting another 15 minutes it was done. And it was good, shockingly so. The bacon was well worth it. Only I had eaten about half a bowl of soup in the process.

I put some cheese on the soup and packed it for lunch today. Woah so much better the second day! There is supposed to be snow tomorrow. While my mom swore to never make real bean soup again, I would suggest it is time for everyone to try some lentil soup. It's good for you. But remember season with bacon or ham. I got my recipe from Goya and we all know Goya knows what is going on with food. It's called flavor folks!

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Gluten free?

I really feel for people with food allergies and such. I can not say that I have any food allergies as of right now, well except I find milk disgusting so I like to tell people I'm allergic when they give me those WHY DON'T YOU LIKE MILK eyes. It makes them feel better. And I'm always about people feeling better. Ok maybe not always, but perhaps I'll try from now on.

There really is no allergy I cry more about than gluten allergies. Have you ever tried gluten free bread? It's actually the most disgusting thing I could honestly think of eating right now. Give me a second and I may think of something that would be more disgusting, but right now I'm saying gluten free bread. Gluten is a protein that's in wheat, rye, and supposedly barley too. Gluten does all sorts of wonderful things like helping the bread rise, giving it its nice fluffy structure, and keeping the right shape of the bread.

Unfortunately if you consider all of the bread and cereal you probably consume on a daily basis, you can imagine how difficult it would be for someone to have a gluten allergy. And that's not even venturing into the scary world of gluten free bread. Imagine bread without a fluffy texture, wheaty flavor, and shape. The blob of a rock you are imagining is so close to the mark. Now just imagine the flavor of grass and you nailed it on the head.

General Mills decided something had to be done, so they started a website. In some ways this website scares me about as much as WebMD scares me. It is such a blatant marketing ploy that only tells of the wonderful things General Mills sells, but it does inform gluten allergic individuals of their over 200 items that are gluten free. I'm sure individuals put lists together on the web of items that are gluten free, but to have the manufacturer informing you of the safety of their products is pretty impressive.

I snooped around the site and dear WebMD these people have won me over. They have recipes, an impressive list of their gluten-free products, and even a guide of where to find the "Gluten Free" info on the food. Beautiful! Lovely! Ignore the General Mills stuff. They pretty much gave you tons of info FO FREE, and attached their labels on it. The labels of course aren't the important part; the info is.

I am still terribly sad for these gluten free people, but my heart is a little warmer knowing that they are allowed to eat fruit snacks. Who doesn't love fruit snacks? The lack of any real nutritional value makes them all the better. If I were allergic to gluten, I would replace all of the bread I eat with fruit snacks, because of course I would never touch the gluten free bread.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

It is snowing

What says holidays to you more than the Rolling Stone Magazine. Ok yeah not so much my idea of holiday cheer, but the magazine has decided to take on some culinary-type ventures and they announced it just in time for the holidays. I doubt the ability of these music people to do food. Have you ever eaten at a Hard Rock Cafe? It's basically a TGI Fridays with a little bit of music paraphernalia. I guess people don't go to these types of establishments for a Michelin worthy meal.

My real question to all of this is, do we really need another one of these chains. I know journalism people and I know food people. I wouldn't trust my food choices to journalism people, so I'm really hoping they hired some good food people in this venture. Either way I think the whole thing is really funny and definitely something (if it actually takes off) Matt will say we should go see...you know just to see.

In other news, Matt's goal for me today was and I quote "you're not going to cry." What have I done to this poor guy! I had breakfast with a wonderful friend, got lost in Walmart and found out that Coke is selling these amazing round Christmas bottles (I know so cool), helped a good friend with some internet stuff, ate dinner and took a nap. It was actually the most amazing nap I had in a long time. Matt was wonderful enough to just let me sleep. I think he thought as long as I wasn't crying we were good.

Right now I am watching the Santa Clause movies and looking at the beautifully lit tree Matt and I are sitting under in the picture. I'm also thinking hot chocolate is probably going to be necessary in the near future. Finals? Yeah they are still looming. Life is a progression, and today I made progress. What progress? I didn't cry.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

Finals

It's the dirtiest F word that exists in the dictionary of all college students everywhere. Finals in high school were just pretend. Of course no one informed us of this. They just said "Look how prepared you are." LIES!!! No one could have prepared me for the weeks of work and the stress, oh the stress. The stress is the worst part. It eats away at you. Slowly surely and then all of a sudden you are in tears because of makeup.

Make up? Yeah I know it sounds silly, but it could have been an elevator not moving quickly enough. That last straw might be epic or it might be totally every day. You just never know. For me it was makeup. I forgot it. Then I blew my hair dry and of course it was sticking out in the strangest of ways. "I'M UGLY!!!!" Boy was I whiney. I'm normally not like this. I'm a fun exciting person. I cook and clean and buy Christmas presents. That is me; but this, guys this, is finals.

I normally resort to Ramen every night during finals. This time I am not allowed. In defense of the lack of salty easiness, I have been far more healthy this semester. I have been taking vitamins daily, and my meals have been involving real meat, a starch, and a veggie. Healthier is fine. In fact it's kind of nice during a school year that saw the oink oink flu and other unique illnesses.

Blah blah blah it's all well and good, but finals are a beast of their own. They are a time when the world poos on you and you can't do anything about it. Right of passage, if they aren't hard you aren't learning anything, yeah yeah yeah LIES! Finals are just one last form of torture adults feel they have a right to place us through. You know like the brussel sprouts weren't bad enough.

A finals menu? I have been thinking nonstop what I am going to eat. I know it sounds silly, but when you are stressing about so many things that you can not control those few things you can control tend to float up to the top of the stress list. So I have made a few executive decisions. That sounds so official doesn't it?

It sounds official because it is, and because I am in the middle of finals. So here's the list. You all know how I love lists.

1. I will have dinner every night.

2. Dinner will include REAL food. This is opposed to the fake food that will make me sleepy. I'm talking veggies for dinner and oatmeal for breakfast.

3. Dessert is not optional. Chocolate intake must increase during finals. If it doesn't there will be one unhappy Emily and probably a few other unhappy people who I come in contact with.

4. Breathe between bites. Such an important factor in a finals meal.

In the beginning of this semester I was worried about this blog. I was worried that I would not have time, but I have made it. I have survived without Ramen. It's all very impressive, but now comes the real test. Can I survive finals? All I know is that I'm a week into the process and the straw has already broke the Emily's back.

So over finals and school you can't even remember the stress I am talking about? We all have stressful moments. I think the 4 steps that are entirely necessary for finals meals are also good tips to live by. Everyone goes through stress. The key is to make sure that our tummies aren't too affected. Happy tummies always settle at least some of the stress. Now do I write my history paper on "The Other" in Seasons of Immigration to the North or do I do it on the fact that it is a reverse of the typical colonial opinion of natives. Oh the dilemmas.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

I need some chocolate asap, but munchkins will do

Today I had to register for classes. There were only 6 seats on average in the classes I needed, so the race was going to be on at 8 am. I left for class like 15 million years early, hoping that I could get into class set up my computer and be all ready to register.

"We are sorry to inform you blah blah blah delays blah blah blah you will be waiting here for the rest of your life blah blah blah the T is delayed." They might as well have been announcing YOUR LIFE IS OVER multiple times over the loud speaker. I tried to see if I could get cell coverage so I could call Matt and cry about how he needed to help me. No such luck. At 7:40 the train pulls in. I was there at 7:20. Should have been sitting in class by 7:40, but who was keeping track.

I finally arrived at the stop that I got service at and pulled my phone out to call Matt. "ugh what hi what time is it" It doesn't deserve punctuation because it kind of sounded like a lack of anything more than a couple of wonderful mumbles by the man who was about to save my life. I am not overexaggerating.

"matt you need to get a piece of paper and a pencil NOW." He really is a saint. He wrote down everything I told him and got ready to register me for classes. Then my phone was about to die. I turned it off, because Matt had the info it would all be ok. NOT. Guys when you think everything is going to be ok slap yourself because nothing is ok at those moments NOTHING. I gave him the wrong tab to click on, had to figure out I was wrong, while running in and out of my class before class started. Finally I come back in. Matt said everything said I was web registered. Probably by the skin of my teeth, but I don't care I was registered.

Class is canceled. Class is canceled. Did you check? Class is canceled. Oh yeah as if this morning could not get any better. I did not need to wait 20 minutes for the T. I did not need to wake my saint of a boyfriend up. I did not need to barely get into all of my classes. Why didn't I check WebCT? I will be asking myself that question over and over for the end of time.

You know what I needed all day. Obviously CHOCOLATE. There was none in sight and all day I had this aching feeling in my stomach just begging for a sweet. I was of course too cheap to just go out and buy a candy bar. The feeling persisted and I just kept grinding my teeth, bearing with the headache, and reminding myself that I got into classes so today was a good day. I had to tell myself that. With chocolate in my system, I would have been thrilled. Oh chocolate how I underestimate your powers.

I walked into my last class and told my professor that I bought animal crackers for our class on Thursday. "That reminds me" She just disappeared, which is kind of typical of her, but when she came back I wanted to kiss her. She came back with a whole container of Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts. It was such a beautiful thing. I ate like 4 of them and the stress started melting. It wasn't Hersheys, but it sure was delicious. My group started writing our children's book and I actually laughed. The girl, who was almost in tears pleading with Matt to please hurry and register me, was laughing. Sugar is such a powerful thing. Have you had your fill today?

Happy Eating!!!

Emily