Seasons here are AMAZING.
One of my very favorite things about Earth is observing the changing of seasons. It's great in Illinois, especially driving down Liberty street, which is lined with trees that blossom, fill out, change color, drop their leaves, and catch snowfall all with each other. And while I like to say that I would be happy to live anywhere on this awesome planet, living without the changing of seasons would probably depress me a little.
I had no idea how beautiful it would be here.
I LOVE mountains and trees and, by virtue of being both a college campus and located in the Rocky Mountains, BYU gets both. When I arrived in August, the mountains were stunning greens and rocky greys (green! I thought Utah didn't like being green!) and the trees that dot campus were all awesome and huge.
Have to admit, I was a little worried about autumn. Things die and tend to get gross-looking, especially bushes and grass, but Utah proved me wrong- the mountains were only yellow for a matter of days before they lit on fire. The campus trees all change at different times and to different shades, the leaves all cover the grass, and those mountains...what stunning contrasts of red, orange, grey, and awesome!
Plus, it rains in autumn. Yes, even here! On days like last Saturday when I'm on campus and no one else is, it feels like a little piece of heaven, or at least a scene in a movie...the quiet, the rain in the puddles, and the awesome trees. And when it's not raining, there are always small children running around collecting leaves, reminding you in case you forgot that it is a dang magical season.
And now the next season change is upon us. Today, most of campus were wearing coats, even a few winter hats and gloves. And the mountain tops are all snow-peaked. Not just Timpanogos, which collects snow like it's its job. Y Mountain and Squaw Peak, which I'm photographing 3x daily for my Atmosphere and Weather class, are as beautiful as I expected they'd be.
Snow! Where I can see it all the time, where it is awesome, where it won't get splashed on by car tracks, and where it won't make us any colder than we already are. Best of all, the weather here loves to fluctuate and it might snow in Provo this week and then we'll all be in T-shirts by the start of November. And still, that snow is going to stay stuck in the mountains! None of that "oh let's snow a lot and then have it all melt as if it never happened" crap that Illinois likes to give.
I cannot wait for it to get even prettier as winter keeps creeping down Y Mountain. I'm yet to be disappointed...so Jack Frost, you can do your worst! We're* ready!
*By "we" I mean "me and everyone else crazy enough to like being frozen as long as the calendar says it's okay"
"Winter is Coming" can be found by Radical Face.
on an unrelated note, I should have asked for iTunes money for my birthday. Youtube is wearing thin when you meet so many new people with awesome taste in music.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Do the Cooking By the Book
Yesterday, I was in a terrible mood for no real good reason. I know everyone has had those before...but it was particularly odd. I wasn't angry, or sad, just...terrible-feeling. Nothing was helping. So, I decided to do some cooking.
I have discovered, out here in BYUland, that I love cooking. I already knew I liked cooking, and I've always enjoyed baking desserts and things, but here I've really realized that making a full-on meal is one of the most wonderful things. I'm not awesome or creative at making particularly inexpensive, unique, OR healthy things, but I LOVE following recipes, combining ingredients, mixing, making smells, making meals, and making myself feel instantly at home.
Not even necessarily "oh mom used to make this I can taste my childhood" at home. More like "look, I just made something amazing that my mother made once (or not). I'm my own adult!" at home. Making things like Chicken Cordon Bleu, various casseroles, Apricot chicken, and other fancy-sounding recipes is the most adult thing I've done here and, frankly, the aspect of college life I feel most confident in my personal success.
Even Pasta-Roni and Easy Mac is a wonderful little adventure when I get to think "now which meat would make this more a meal? Which vegetable??". Cooking is the BEST way to distract myself from homework, and makes me feel productive and adult, instead of facebook or silly little websites that make me feel like I have no motivation to learn (even if that is sometimes very much the case).
As such, yesterday, when I was in this disgusting mood, I figured the best thing to do was cook. I pulled out my cookbooks and scoured them, but as I refuse to buy chicken until it comes down from $6 for 3 breasts and I had already ran out of hamburger meat, my only meat option was stew meat. And I really didn't want to just make pasta-and-sauce. Nothing in my cookbooks looked good...probably because I was in such a disagreeable mood.
I decided, somehow in some way I don't remember, that I was going to MAKE MY OWN RECIPE. This normally fails. Hard. But I was in such a disagreeable state that I figured even if it bombed, I couldn't feel any worse, so why not.
I decided to combine my stew meat with some green peppers I had frozen, which made me decide I should just go ALL OUT and make a shish-kabob-syle-pasta-type-thing. I didn't know what to do for a sauce, but everything worked out AWESOME.
So, below, is my "recipe" that I have created and approved (as have my roommates) C:.
Ingredients- Keep in mind these are all VERY rough. Regarding the salt, pepper, and spices, I really just poured stuff in when it looked like I should, then added some more at the end. So I'm probably way off. Anyway! You'll need about 1/4 pound of stew meat or other thinnish slices of beef-type-meat, a few good handfuls of Penne (I used half a bag), a can of pineapple (the wedge kind... I actually ended up eating about 10 of the pieces afterwards, so you can use a little less than the whole thing, depending on preference), half a green pepper or so I would guess...it was what I had frozen :P, 1 tbsp of salt, 1 tbsp of pepper, and 2 tbsp 1 tsp cajun seasoning or whatever "throw-in" spice you have around, like Emeril's BAM! or maybe you're awesome enough that you can make your own using...uh...I don't know how spices work so I'm not going to pretend. Also, vegetable oil.
Directions- Boil the pasta according to directions on the box. After this has been going a little bit, preheat a saucepan with oil, then begin to cook up the meat. It will bite you, as hot oil always does, and you'll be stirring the pasta, too, so you're going to look REALLY COOL during this part while you do the crazy "I don't want to get burned but neither does my food" dance.
Add the peppers to the meat so they cook up nicely, then pretty soon afterwards, pour in the pineapples. The juice from the pineapples combined with the juice from the meat and the oil are going to make a delicious sauce, which was a huge relief to discover. Keep this on about medium heat; it has an awesome bubbly, frothy kind of look at this point.
Once your pasta is done cooking, strain the pasta and add it to the sauce. That sounds backwards all typed up. Add the spices, then stir well. Season to taste because I don't trust my "directions".
It's very tasty! The cajun spices, whatever the heck that is, made gave it an almost barbeque-y flavor, which is perfect because I was going for a "kabob-type" flavor. Also, the meat was a little tough, but that's becauseI don't know how to cook beef that's how it tastes on a kabob.
Also, I vote someone else should try this and tell me if my roommates could just sense my bad mood and didn't want to perpetuate it or if I ACTUALLY thought of something tasty. :)
At the very least, it cured my bad mood.
"Cooking by the Book" is from Lazy Town
I have discovered, out here in BYUland, that I love cooking. I already knew I liked cooking, and I've always enjoyed baking desserts and things, but here I've really realized that making a full-on meal is one of the most wonderful things. I'm not awesome or creative at making particularly inexpensive, unique, OR healthy things, but I LOVE following recipes, combining ingredients, mixing, making smells, making meals, and making myself feel instantly at home.
Not even necessarily "oh mom used to make this I can taste my childhood" at home. More like "look, I just made something amazing that my mother made once (or not). I'm my own adult!" at home. Making things like Chicken Cordon Bleu, various casseroles, Apricot chicken, and other fancy-sounding recipes is the most adult thing I've done here and, frankly, the aspect of college life I feel most confident in my personal success.
Even Pasta-Roni and Easy Mac is a wonderful little adventure when I get to think "now which meat would make this more a meal? Which vegetable??". Cooking is the BEST way to distract myself from homework, and makes me feel productive and adult, instead of facebook or silly little websites that make me feel like I have no motivation to learn (even if that is sometimes very much the case).
As such, yesterday, when I was in this disgusting mood, I figured the best thing to do was cook. I pulled out my cookbooks and scoured them, but as I refuse to buy chicken until it comes down from $6 for 3 breasts and I had already ran out of hamburger meat, my only meat option was stew meat. And I really didn't want to just make pasta-and-sauce. Nothing in my cookbooks looked good...probably because I was in such a disagreeable mood.
I decided, somehow in some way I don't remember, that I was going to MAKE MY OWN RECIPE. This normally fails. Hard. But I was in such a disagreeable state that I figured even if it bombed, I couldn't feel any worse, so why not.
I decided to combine my stew meat with some green peppers I had frozen, which made me decide I should just go ALL OUT and make a shish-kabob-syle-pasta-type-thing. I didn't know what to do for a sauce, but everything worked out AWESOME.
So, below, is my "recipe" that I have created and approved (as have my roommates) C:.
Ingredients- Keep in mind these are all VERY rough. Regarding the salt, pepper, and spices, I really just poured stuff in when it looked like I should, then added some more at the end. So I'm probably way off. Anyway! You'll need about 1/4 pound of stew meat or other thinnish slices of beef-type-meat, a few good handfuls of Penne (I used half a bag), a can of pineapple (the wedge kind... I actually ended up eating about 10 of the pieces afterwards, so you can use a little less than the whole thing, depending on preference), half a green pepper or so I would guess...it was what I had frozen :P, 1 tbsp of salt, 1 tbsp of pepper, and 2 tbsp 1 tsp cajun seasoning or whatever "throw-in" spice you have around, like Emeril's BAM! or maybe you're awesome enough that you can make your own using...uh...I don't know how spices work so I'm not going to pretend. Also, vegetable oil.
Directions- Boil the pasta according to directions on the box. After this has been going a little bit, preheat a saucepan with oil, then begin to cook up the meat. It will bite you, as hot oil always does, and you'll be stirring the pasta, too, so you're going to look REALLY COOL during this part while you do the crazy "I don't want to get burned but neither does my food" dance.
Add the peppers to the meat so they cook up nicely, then pretty soon afterwards, pour in the pineapples. The juice from the pineapples combined with the juice from the meat and the oil are going to make a delicious sauce, which was a huge relief to discover. Keep this on about medium heat; it has an awesome bubbly, frothy kind of look at this point.
Once your pasta is done cooking, strain the pasta and add it to the sauce. That sounds backwards all typed up. Add the spices, then stir well. Season to taste because I don't trust my "directions".
It's very tasty! The cajun spices, whatever the heck that is, made gave it an almost barbeque-y flavor, which is perfect because I was going for a "kabob-type" flavor. Also, the meat was a little tough, but that's because
Also, I vote someone else should try this and tell me if my roommates could just sense my bad mood and didn't want to perpetuate it or if I ACTUALLY thought of something tasty. :)
At the very least, it cured my bad mood.
"Cooking by the Book" is from Lazy Town
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
From my Washing Machine
I am not afraid to admit that I am weird. For many, many reasons; more than I would ever have time to explain. One reason I'm very well aware is "stranger than strange"- I love doing laundry.
Unlike the dishes, which I ADORE putting away but hate putting in dirty, laundry is the opposite. There's few things better to me than pretreating a stain and having it disappear, making me feel like I'm in a commercial for Resolve fromerly Spray and Wash, or putting our filthy filthy rug in the washer and having it come out as clean as it looked in Ikea. I just don't like putting the laundry away afterwards.
Laundry adventures at BYU are wonderful, as well. Our Heritage washers are 75 cents a load and the MASSIVE dryers only 25 cents a load. When I do two loads, one colors one whites (they only have three settings- colors, whites, and wools. I weep at night for my poor jeans, ripped from their loving home in Aurora where the washer could give them a load of their own.), I can dry them together and save myself a quarter. And the laundry room is spacious, making it great for homework or hanging up delicates.
Today's specific laundry adventure has yet to conclude, actually. It started when I stripped my comforter off my bed, peeling the sheets individually and putting them in the basket. Then I plucked my towels off their hanging places, carried the things to the washer, and went on my merry way while they washed. Nothing strange, right? WRONG.
The timer went off, so I opened the washer and much to my horror, saw some terrible, mysterious white thread wrapped around all my sheets and towels. My first thought was "why on earth is there so much floss in here?!", which I quickly dismissed. There wouldn't be floss in my sheets and towels...it must be the elastic of the fitted sheet.
Thinking the worst, I started taking the thread off, trying to find the spot where the sheet had begun to unravel, and trying to remember what I'd ever done to hurt my sheet's feelings (besides spilling Woolite on it that ONE time). And then, I found the truth. I was right the first time. The thread was, in fact, floss. It was all there, the massive spool of dental floss that I got in my stocking last Christmas or so, and the floss cartridge was wedged in the corner, trying to look innocent.
I cleaned up the floss and threw it out and transfered the sheets and towels to the drier. Problem solved. But I have to wonder...how on earth did floss get in my sheets? I can promise it wasn't one of the things I so carefully put in the laundry basket. What would posses dental floss to so terribly want to end its stay on earth by leaping into my pile of dirty sheets? My breath can't be that bad.
I'll certainly never figure it out, but I know that I've got to go get my sheets from the dryer now...and check if my toothbrush has joined the movement.
"Washing Machine" can be found by Michelle Branch
Unlike the dishes, which I ADORE putting away but hate putting in dirty, laundry is the opposite. There's few things better to me than pretreating a stain and having it disappear, making me feel like I'm in a commercial for Resolve fromerly Spray and Wash, or putting our filthy filthy rug in the washer and having it come out as clean as it looked in Ikea. I just don't like putting the laundry away afterwards.
Laundry adventures at BYU are wonderful, as well. Our Heritage washers are 75 cents a load and the MASSIVE dryers only 25 cents a load. When I do two loads, one colors one whites (they only have three settings- colors, whites, and wools. I weep at night for my poor jeans, ripped from their loving home in Aurora where the washer could give them a load of their own.), I can dry them together and save myself a quarter. And the laundry room is spacious, making it great for homework or hanging up delicates.
Today's specific laundry adventure has yet to conclude, actually. It started when I stripped my comforter off my bed, peeling the sheets individually and putting them in the basket. Then I plucked my towels off their hanging places, carried the things to the washer, and went on my merry way while they washed. Nothing strange, right? WRONG.
The timer went off, so I opened the washer and much to my horror, saw some terrible, mysterious white thread wrapped around all my sheets and towels. My first thought was "why on earth is there so much floss in here?!", which I quickly dismissed. There wouldn't be floss in my sheets and towels...it must be the elastic of the fitted sheet.
Thinking the worst, I started taking the thread off, trying to find the spot where the sheet had begun to unravel, and trying to remember what I'd ever done to hurt my sheet's feelings (besides spilling Woolite on it that ONE time). And then, I found the truth. I was right the first time. The thread was, in fact, floss. It was all there, the massive spool of dental floss that I got in my stocking last Christmas or so, and the floss cartridge was wedged in the corner, trying to look innocent.
I cleaned up the floss and threw it out and transfered the sheets and towels to the drier. Problem solved. But I have to wonder...how on earth did floss get in my sheets? I can promise it wasn't one of the things I so carefully put in the laundry basket. What would posses dental floss to so terribly want to end its stay on earth by leaping into my pile of dirty sheets? My breath can't be that bad.
I'll certainly never figure it out, but I know that I've got to go get my sheets from the dryer now...and check if my toothbrush has joined the movement.
"Washing Machine" can be found by Michelle Branch
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