I want this so badly...

...I just have no idea where I would put it.

I hate my body.

Wolf in Sheep's clothing

You were the one to make me feel small. You were the one to make me doubt my friends. Doubt that they care, that they actually like me, that they don't talk behind my back. You were the one to make me feel like I'm just a person to see when you have nothing else to do and no one else to hang out with. I thought we were friends after knowing each other for so long, but you make me feel hurt and used and worthless. I hope you're happy.

New Image

So I got my hair cut today. It's a lot shorter than I wanted it to be. The girl you cut it must have misunderstood me when I said how short I wanted it. My friends seem to like it, but I'm still in the "I don't know" stage. I've never had my hair this short and it feels weird. Kyle says I look like I'm from the 60s, haha. I guess maybe I'll grow like it. My hair grows pretty fast, so maybe it won't be too bad.

Dinner and Dessert

I came home this weekend to get away from school and to try and be productive. I have so much work to do because the end of the semester is almost here. Most of the weekend was spent helping my parents build a ramp so that my dad could answer the front door when my mom and I aren't home. My mom gave me a cookbook to take back to school. She let me pick out a recipe for dinner and dessert while I was home to try and make. I'm slowly getting better and more comfortable cooking without her supervising, haha. I forgot my camera at school so I don't have any pictures, but I'm going to post the recipes.

For dinner I made Bacon and Sun-dried Tomato Alfredo Pasta.

Ingredients: 8 ounces uncooked multi grain penne, 1 (10 ounce) package of light Alfredo sauce, 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes cut into strips, 4 slices precooked bacon, 1/4 cup of chopped fresh basil, and 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.

Alright, so start by cooking pasta, without salt and fat; drain and keep warm. If you're not used to cooking mutli grain pasta it's a good idea to let it sit a bit longer, because multi grain and whole wheat pastas take a little long to soften up.

While your pasta is cooking combine the Alfredo sauce and your sun-dried tomatoes in a sauce. Cook the sauce and tomatoes over low heat for about 6 to 8 minutes or until thoroughly heated and tomatoes are juicy and plump. Stir the sauce and tomatoes occasionally. While your sauce is cooking, microwave the bacon according to package directions. Once your bacon is done, crumble it up and set it aside.

Next combine your pasta and Alfredo sauce in a large serving bowl. Top with the crumbled bacon, basil, and black pepper.

I really liked this recipe. It was simple and quick to make. This was my first time cooking and eating sun-dried tomatoes and I'll admit that I'm not a huge fan of them. The next time I make this recipe I'm going to substitute the tomatoes for broccoli. You could put chicken or shrimp, or your favorite vegetable if you'd like.

For dessert I made Fresh Berry Crunch.

Ingredients: 2 cups of raspberries, 1 cup of blueberries, 3/4 reduced-fat sour cream, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 6 reduced fat-free shortbread cookies, such as Keebler Sandies.

First start off by preheating your broiler. Combine the raspberries and blueberris into a bowl. Spoon 1/2 cup of berries into each of 6 (6 ounce) custard cups, or you could use small bowls like I did. Top each serving with 2 tablespoons of sour cream and 1 teaspoon of sugar.

Next you crumble 1 cooking over each custard cup, or bowl. Broil for 1 minute or until the cookie is golden. It took two minutes for the cookies to become golden when I did it. After they're golden you take them out of the broiler and serve. I mixed the sour cream, cookie crumbles, and berries around in my bowl. You don't have too, my parents didn't and they still liked it. It's just a personal preference.

I LOVED this dessert a lot. It's a really healthy and delicious dish. At first I was skeptical of how the sour cream would turn out with everything. I like sour cream a lot, but I never pictured that it would go well with fruit. It mixes perfectly with the fruit and helps prevent the berries from being too tart or too sweet.

On a side note -- After dessert my dad and I were talking about cars. He's going to pay for driving school when the semester ends. I can't drive our car because it's a huge van and my feet don't reach the pedals. So we have to use a car from a driving school so I can use it for the road test. I've driven the loop around school a few times in a friend's car and I really like driving. He said that if I could get about half the money for a used car that he would pay for the other half. I think we decided on getting a used Ford Focuse Sedan. He said that those run about 1,500 and he started asking my mom about how much money we have. I actually think that I'm going to be getting a car this summer and I'm super super excited about it!

I am holding half an acre...

New Beginning

So I finally got a new phone. My old one was over two years old and recently started screwing up. My mom's phone had stopped charging because of a bent screw so she told me that we were going to upgrade once my spring break started. The camera on my old phone stopped working and it stopped holding a full charge. After one phone call it would say low battery and eventually I stopped being able to get calls or texts randomly. So my parents and I picked out the phones we wanted and ordered them. My mom ordered them on Monday and they had told us 2-3 days, but they came today! Good looks AT&T.

My mom and dad both got the same Samsung a777 slider phone. My mom got it in red and my dad in blue. It's a good phone for my dad who's only got one good hand since his left side is paralyzed. We got it all set up for him today and so far he really likes it. Originally I was going to get the Blackberry Pearl. I know a few people with the phone and I really liked it. Unlike the other phones, that were free with the upgrade, the Blackberry would have been $50 extra. That was fine since I told my mom that I would pay for it. However after talking to an AT&T representative and looking at their website the Blackberry would have been an extra $30 on the phone bill each month. I don't have the money to pay for that and I didn't want my mom to have to pay it each month. So instead I chose the LG Neon in blue. Almost all of the phones I've own have been LG and I really like them.

It's very different from my old phones. All my previous phones have been flip phones and I've gotten used to using T9 to text. Now I've got a keyboard and it slides open. It's so new, but I'll eventually get used to it.

On a side note -- I really think everyone should check out this band The Vigilance Committee. They're a great band! They're actually a band that was formed at Purchase, which is surprising cause there aren't too many Purchase bands that I like. My parents also like them, and we don't usually have similar music tastes. I think my favorite song of theirs right now is Building Bridges. They also have a Myspace and their own website, http://www.wix.com/thevigilancectte/thevigilancecommittee. Check them out!

Spring Break 2010...

...so far you suck.

Friendship...

...it doesn't matter what you look like.

Happy little homemaker

Today I finally got to do my baking. Originally I wanted to try making tarts, but apparently I'm the only one in the house that likes them, haha. So after looking through a couple of my mom's cookbooks I decided on making focaccia. The Weight Watchers cookbook gives a standard recipe and three topping recipes to go along : potato and tomato, feta cheese, and onion and roasted red peppers. I decided to go with the onion and roasted red peppers since I know everyone likes onions and peppers in my house.

I don't have a link to the exact recipe, but when I look through the cookbook I'll copy and post the recipe here if anyone wants it. It was a little bit harder to make this because I've never worked with yeast or dough before. The first time we used the yeast it didn't foam like it was supposed to so I had to get rid of it and try it again. Thankfully my mom had a food processor, which makes the whole thing much easier. I had to wait for the yeast to foam. Put 2 cups and 2 tablespoons of flour, 2 tablespoons of whole wheat flour, and a teaspoon of salt, in the food processor. Once the yeast was foamed I added it to the food processor and turned it on. After a short while the mixture turned into dough. I had to spray a large bowl and place the dough in it, cover loosely with plastic and leave it to rise for an hour.

After that I had to punch down the dough before rolling it into a ball. I sprayed a baking sheet and placed the dough down into a circle about 10inches wide. Again I covered it with plastic to let it rise for about 30 minutes. Then I had to cut up the onions and the red pepper and saute them for about 10 minutes. I set the oven to preheat at 425 degrees. Next I had to uncover the dough and put dimples in the dough and place the onions and peppers on top. I placed it in the oven for about 20 minutes and then served it at room temperature when it was done.

Top of the focaccia. Ignore my shadow.

Onions and roasted red peppers focaccia

I really enjoyed making this and it turned out pretty well. It tasted delicious to me and my family loved it. The only thing is that it's supposed to be a bit thinner, but I think I did ok for my first time. We served this at dinner along with sausage and peppers, which my mom made, and penne pasta and Brilla sauce, which I made. I'm pretty satisfied with my first try at making focaccia. I might try the potato and tomato one next time I decided to make focaccia.

"Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies"

I finally got to see my best friend Jaleesa for the first time since the end of the summer. Thanksgiving and most of Christmas break she had to go stay out at her mom's place in Maryland. She's staying in New York for the last week of her break, which is longer than mine so I only get a weekend with her. Her dad's place is in Brooklyn near the same train I live by so she took the train out to my stop and then we both went to the nail salon I go to. The gift certificate I had could only be used once, which kind of sucked cause I wanted to use it a few times just to get my eyebrows done. In the end I ended up getting my eyebrows done, a manicure and a pedicure, which I had never done before. The pedicure tickled a lot. I might consider doing that more often because the foot massage that comes with it was so relaxing, haha.

Jaleesa and I, summer 2008 -- taken by Kriztille

January 2009

Kriztille was supposed to come over too. My mom made meatloaf for her cause she loves my mom's meatloaf and I was going to make Daddy Nachos for her and Jaleesa. She didn't end up waking up until 6pm, haha. So she couldn't come over. Jaleesa came over and we hung out for a bit. She was going to stay for dinner, but then her dad wanted her home. My mom sent her home with some food though. It was so awesome seeing her again. I love that girl so so much and I don't get to see her that much until summer, which makes me very sad.

On a side note -- It kind of bugs me when at the beginning of the week I tell someone when I'm free and then they wait until the last minute to get in touch with me to hang out and by then I already have plans and then they get mad at me for not hanging out.

Family Dates

My parents' anniversary was January 2. I tried to convince my dad to take my mom out to dinner at Milleridge Inn. It's my favorite restaurant ever. We've always gone there for events. We went for my elementary graduation, my confirmation, my birthdays, my ring day, my high school graduation, etc. I am just in love with the place. I'd like to have my wedding reception there, haha. It has a small "village" near it that are little shops associated with the restaurant. He didn't feel well on their anniversary so we ended up not going.

Anyway, last night my mom told me that we were going out for lunch at Milleridge Inn. I was surprised cause we usually have a reason to go out. She told me that my dad said he was going to take us there cause he knew I wanted to go and to celebrate their anniversary. I was so excited to go!

http://www.milleridge.com/

So we drove out to Jericho, Long Island and had an amazing lunch. I had melons and berries, a small salad, london broil with mashed potatoes and carrots, plus a small slice of cheesecake. I had a glass of White Zinfadel with it and got told by the waitress that I looked too young to drink, haha. So I had to show her my id. While waiting for the food I had a few pieces of the cinnamon bread and two popovers, which I love. They're so good.

After lunch, we made a very quick stop to Home Depot. Later on that night my mom and I went over to the Olympic diner to meet up with Iris and Matthew. She's like another mother to me. I love her. My mom and I were both too full to eat anything. She had some tea, while I had hot chocolate and then a Sprite later on. It was so good catching up with Iris. It was the first time I had gotten to see her during this break because she's been so sick. She gave me Christmas gifts, and I swear she was psychic, haha. One of the gifts was a small sparkly purple nail polish, which I loved because I'm almost out of purple nail polish. The next gift was a $20 gift certificate to the nail salon I go too. I was planning on going Saturday to get my eyebrows done, haha. She got me a small set from Bath and Body Works that had three mini lotions in them Cherry Blossom, Moonlight Path, and Peabody. Cherry Blossom and Moonlight Path are my two favorite from Bath and Body Works, haha. She gave me a really night black tube top dress and a pretty brown and beige dress. Matthew got me this awesome purple t-shirt that has a redheaded girl sitting on a skull in an oversized shirt and underwear eating something from a bowl with chopsticks. It was a really great day.

On a side note -- I love watching Ninja Warrior at like 3am on hulu.

A taste of the south

Since summer started I've been slowly learning to cook. I've always been more of a baker, but I thought I should probably start learning, haha. I can make the basic stuff like eggs, pasta, hot dogs, burgers, etc, but actual dinner foods not so much. What I've been doing is looking through my mom's cookbooks and finding recipes that I like. She's usually in the kitchen with me, watching over to make sure I don't mess up.

Last week I made this really yummy chicken and linguine stir-fry. You can find the recipe here if you'd like to try. It's really delicious I ate three helpings, and I never eat that much.

Tonight I decided I wanted to try making Louisiana Stir-Fry. The recipe sounded pretty good and shrimp is one of the few types of seafood that I like. I've also been interested in Cajun cooking recently. I really want to try Jambalaya and Gumbo, just without the fish, haha.

Anyway, here's how it turned out.

If you think it looks good you should try making it. You can find the recipe here! I hope you guys give it a try especially if you like spicy food.

On a side note -- I think I might start making more posts about the foods or desserts I try making.