Summertime and the Living is Easy

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A little bit ago I was filling out a background check for a new job and realized that listing my previous address for the last seven years was a very complicated and exhausting process. While counting up where I’d lived I found myself stumbling over old names, arrival dates, and apartment numbers. In the past seven years I have rarely lived in the same place for more than a year. Summertime is especially unpredictable.

One of my favorite things about summer is it tends to whisk you away from real life and then when you find yourself back in “real,” normal life again summer even has a way of improving that. It takes all those familiar places, tired possibilities, and overwhelming responsibilities and turns them into fresh potential for the upcoming months.

I have spent summers packing, weighing, and readjusting suitcases, piercing ears, learning the tunnels of the Capitol building, reading on the beach, bending my brain around technical jargon and acronyms, filling out intern paperwork, sipping white cherry icees at the megaplex, wandering the periodical section and cursing the library copier, making late night, bleary eyed grocery store runs, walking the dog through the greenbelt sidewalks, trying on bridesmaids dresses, jumping through ocean swells, running into old friends, and slipping on perfect, new red shoes. Every summer is a distinct, new, mini suspension from reality.

A few months ago I thought this one might be different. I wouldn’t be a student anymore; I’d be more settled. Maybe even bordering on boring. However summer continues to be unpredictable. These last few months were nowhere near what I thought reality should be. But oddly enough I find myself in the same place I do every year as summer winds down and fall gears up. New opportunities. New people. New places. Now it’s just up to me to take this potential and do something wonderful with it. Wish me luck. I hope your enjoying this last little bit of summer.

Currently: over thinking everything; anyone have a cure for that? :)

Reading Makes Life Better

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It’s a fact. Reading makes life better. The other day I gave in and impulse bought two books and read them in two days. Which is honestly how I wish it could be all the time.

First up was Sweethearts by Sara Zarr. Sara’s a local young adult author who I had the pleasure of listening to before I actually ever got a hand on one of her books. She was a national book award finalist for her book Story of a Girl.

Sweethearts

Here are the basics (sans spoilers of course): On her birthday a girl gets a note from her best friend, a boy who supposedly died years ago when they were in grade school. I won’t tell you more, but essentially she has to deal with this boy, Cameron, reentering her life and all the complications that brings with it. What I liked most about this book was how much I identified with the main character, Jennifer. She is the kind of character that I connected so well with that when I took a break mid-book crisis I carried her with me (I was in quite a mood actually, haha). On a side note, it was a little bizarre to read a book that was set so exactly where I live. I know Salt Lake so much better now I knew practically every place mentioned.

You can check out Sara Zarr’s website sarazarr.com You can also follow her on twitter @sarazarr.

Next I finally picked up Mazerunner by James Dashner. He’s also a local young adult author who I’ve heard loads about. In fact I heard him address a writer’s conference one time and I was crazy impressed by him. He is the type of author that always writes and never gets up. The kind I want to be.

Maze Runner (Maze Runner Trilogy, Book 1)

It took me a while to get into this book, but once I was I really couldn’t stop thinking about it. Dashner creates a world that is unique and, honestly, a bit strange, but still completely relatable. I won’t get into the specifics, but the story centers around a boy, Thomas, who wakes up and finds himself in a strange box. He can’t remember anything except his own name and finds himself attempting to adjust to a strange and dangerous world (think distopyian setting). Things quickly change and progress and Thomas has to find out if he’s up to the challenge.  This book went by way too quickly. Good thing this is the first installment in a trilogy, and it’s been optioned for a movie. Although it does kind of bend my brain to think about how they are going to portray these things on the big screen.

You can see James Dashner’s website at jamesdashner.com and follow him on twitter @jamesdashner.

Oh yeah I’ve done a few other things too. I made homemade fruit snacks, rewatched Overboard (that movie always makes me smile, even if the real world version would be a series of terrible crimes), witnessed a live version of make way for ducklings, went on a little hike/campfire adventure up Millcreek canyon, and started a new job. But not all on the same day, thank goodness.

I made fruit snacks! Or fruit snack-like cubes anyway. They tasted pretty good (ignore the austerity of this picture, haha) and were actually quite easy. However, I don’t think they’ll replace those addictive little snack packs I’ve come to love. The best thing about this cooking adventure was my search for silicone ice cube tray/ jello molds led me to my new favorite store, Spoons n’ Spice.Seriously, this place is cooking heaven.

I followed these cuties all around Liberty Park. There were a few of us actually. The mom kept getting up on the curb and not understanding that her babies couldn’t jump that high.

We went on a little hike at church fork in millcreek canyon. Then we made “hobo dinners.” It turns out none of us are very good at outdoor cooking, but we still had a fun time. We couldn’t get the fire started on our own, so we ended up taking over someone else’s fire after they left to get ours started.

Currently: Happy that life brought me sushi today. Everything at Ginza was amazing. Oh, and eating dinner off paper Christmas plates, because some days I just can’t stand to wash another dish.

Let’s Eat

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I love cooking (and baking), but sometimes laziness gets the better of me. I’ll admit it, I got used to dinner group and having one night of cooking magically equal three or four. However, over the last few days I indulged in some cooking/baking/recipe making time. And I loved it. Hopefully I can make this a regular occurrence and not let bad habits settle in.

Here’s some of the yummy things I made lately:

Watermelon Blueberry Salad: I made this for a 4th of July side. It’s very simple and probably barely counts as cooking, but I’m still telling you about it. It’s watermelon + blueberries with a glaze of lemon juice, honey, and just a little bit of mint. The only problem is I had way too much watermelon leftover.

Strawberries: Covered in chocolate: And filled with Nutella. As you can probably imagine this was Pinterest inspired insanity. To do this: dip the strawberries in chocolate, let the chocolate set, hollow out a little bit of the strawberry with a knife, add nutella, dip the other side in chocolate. Unfortunately these decadent things accidentally got mostly melted. I threw them in the freezer, but it’s not the same. But the test strawberry I ate before they got all melty was delicious and I probably shouldn’t have too many of those anyways.

strawberries

Little chocolate dipped, hollowed out, strawberries; just before the nutella step. Yum.

Balsamic Chicken. This is my go to meal, so nothing new here. But if you want an easy recipe you can see my original blog post on it here.

Red Velvet Cake. This is what really satisfied my baking/cooking craving. I made red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting from scratch. I made one of my favorite recipes, and everything went well for once (I often find myself having “‘interesting” cooking adventures, lol). I love that pay off. When you work hard to make something and it turns out delicious. Come over some time and I’ll make it again :)

Here is a pre-frosted picture so you can actually see the “redness” of the red velvet cake. Not that that affects the taste, but still, isn’t it pretty? haha

Cream cheese frosting sprinkled with pecans.

Empanadas. I used this recipe, and it really wasn’t too hard. I couldn’t find empanada discos anywhere (even at my local Latino grocery store) so I used pre-made pie crust and cut it in half so I had two semi-circles. The shapes a little off, but it gets the trick done. The other nice thing about this recipe is it makes more than enough for one person, so I had some leftover to freeze for future meals.

Hopefully I can keep this up!

Currently: Excited that the hardest part of my quilt is done! I’ve made all the squares and sewn them together. Basically the top is ready to go I just need to make a bottom (or sew it to an existing duvet cover) so there’s actually a place for the blanket.