Lots of Really Black Stuff. . . and He-man

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting new [neon] socks ~

It's finally Friday! And Friday is finally over! This has been a busier week than I anticipated. Not bad, just busy.

 

In Drawing 101 today we learned about charcoal, and got filthy dirty. We also collaborated as a class to draw this:

 

 

Super cool, right? I've also just completed a portrait of Ned the Pie maker from Pushing Daisies in charcoal. I don't like charcoal much. It's too messy. . . but I do like Ned :)

Oh! And I finally found the episode of He-man I grew up watching. It's pretty great, just sayin':

Part one can be found here,

 

And part two is found here.

 

Enjoy :)

 

 

Sister Adams

~ Highlight of the Day: Seeing Sister Jessica Adams at the MTC today - best day ever. :) ~

 

I don't have anything else to post about. . .

I just really wanted to post the Highlight of the Day. 

 

And a little less than a year and a half from now when Sister Adams is back from Scotland and catching up on all my blog posts she'll know how her totally interrupting the lesson the poor Sister was trying to teach me by  shouting my name over and over right outside the doorway totally made my day, even though I couldn't find her afterward to talk with her :)

 

 

Cullinary Adventures with Rachel

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting my bike lock cut by BYU police - I really hope I make it into the BYU Police Beat! :) ~

 

I cooked a lot of new stuff this weekend. I must be finally getting bored of all the recipes I discovered at the beginning of the semester :)

 

Friday night I made Stuffed Peppers:

 

 

 I had been craving these like a crazy person for a good half a week, so as soon as I got home from class on Friday I started busting these out. I pretty sure these are unlike any stuffed peppers ever made before - but they turned out great :)

 

It's just ground beef (the not-lean kind, cause it's cheaper and all that jazz) , worcestershire sauce, a small can of tomato paste, a can of diced tomatoes and green chilies, and salt. (topped with liberal amounts of cheese, of course)

 

Then Saturday morning I got kind of ambitious and decided to try something other than bacon and eggs for breakfast. So I made these really cute little sausage and egg muffins:

 



 

 They taste great. Especially the ones with a sun dried tomato in them. But the pan was so hard to clean. I think I was scrubbing that muffin pan for a good hour. Not fun. Next time I'm using the little papers.

 

These are great for quick breakfasts though, which is nice when I'm supposed to be somewhere at 8 or earlier every day of the week :) 

 

And then there was the duck.

 

I first ran into this little guy in the frozen meat section of WinCo. I was looking for chicken, and got distracted by the large frozen turkeys. I thought, 'how long would a whole turkey last me? about a month? Maybe two?' And then I looked at the prices on the turkeys, and then at the five lbs of corned beef and 4 lbs of ham I already had in my cart. And then I saw the frozen ducks.

 

'How hard can that be?' I thought. I had never had duck, and the size looked so manageable! So I brought one home and stuck it in the freezer.

 

And that's where it sat for two and a half weeks, till I went shopping again and needed more room in the freezer. So it got bumped to the refrigerator to be prepared for cooking.

 

I have never dealt with meat that looked so much like the original animal. . . it was. . . new.

Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for all of you) my roommates were all busy getting ready for church, and didn't catch my reactions to preparing this duck on video :)

 

 

I know when my dad makes the Thanksgiving turkey he stuffs it full of oranges and onions, so I figured, why not?! And I had a random lemon half left over from an avocado pie I'd made Saturday morning, so I threw that in there too - just for good measure.

 

 

After two hours I had a beautifully roasted duck,

and a bunch of burnt onions and oranges.

 

 

And even though it took me a good 40 minutes to carve it (how am I supposed to know where there's meat on a duck?!) It was totally worth it, and definitely a success.

 

Oh! And Easter's coming up! We died Easter eggs with our Family Home Evening group today - gotta love Easter eggs :) 

So there you have it. One weekend full of lots of time in the kitchen, and lots of good food :)

All About Next Week

~ Highlight of the Day: a smashingly successful experimental breakfast ~

It has been a really busy week. But now it's over, and I've got at least a two day break before it starts all over again :)

 

Except next week won't be nearly as bad. I won't have a big presentation in my Medicinal Plants class on Khat. I won't have a midterm in my Soil Science class covering what I missed when I was in Alabama. I won't have 6 hours of make up work to do in the Environmental Analytical Lab. I won't have to worry about running out of food, because I'll still be going strong from my WinCo trip on Friday. And if all goes according to plan this weekend I'll get my Drawing 101 assignment done and not have that to worry about either!

 

So next week's looking quite rosy.

Here's some visual representation of this last week:
 

 

 testing for organic matter in the Environmental Analytical Lab

 

 

The Jordan River Temple, that we made it to just before they closed the doors for the night - perfect timing :)

 

 

 

 

 

 



Ward Talent Show, Here We Come

~ Highlight of the Day: Sleeping in for the second day in a row! ~

 

Happy St. Patrick's day!

I made corned beef to celebrate.

 

And then I learned that one cup song recently made famous by Pitch Perfect. . .

this is the original I believe:

 

 

My roommates wrote some alternate lyrics and we'll be

 performing it in two weeks at our ward talent show. . .

 if I can stay sane through the constant practicing :)

 

It's going to be so much better than last year's ward talent show when we

tried to lip sync to a lyric-less song. . . good times :)

 

 

International Cinema

~ Highlight of the Day: Sleeping in. Hands down. definitely the best ~

 

Today I watched an amazing movie - Where Do We Go Now?

 

It was funny, yet so very serious at the same time.

I highly recommend it. And if it wasn't so late I'd write a meaningful and well thought out review of it. But it is way late, and I just can't take the time to do that.

 

Next week I'm planning on watching Made in Dagenham.

It looks pretty good too.

 

I love International Cinema :)

The Ides of March

 ~ Highlight of the Day: Wearing lime green pants :) ~

 

Can't believe I forgot to post this yesterday.

 

Important things like this cannot go undocumented.

 

 

 

Wrapping Up SCD

~ Highlight(s) of the Day: talking to my freshman roommate for way too long on the phone, and t-shirt and shorts weather - here comes the farmer's tan :) ~

 

Ok. I appologize for the super long, suspense filled days I've been putting you all through. I promise it was unintentional. I just got caught up on Sunday with packing to come home, and then Monday I spent the day in Atlanta before flying back to Utah, and was totally exaughsted when we finally got home. Tuesday was my 'Crap-I-just-missed-a-week-of-school-how-am-I-going-to-make-this-all-up! day, which kind of carried over into today, and will probably carry over into tomorrow as well.

 

Atlanta was way cool, by the way. I wish I could say 'the Atlanta Botanical Gardens were amazing!', but I can't. They are apparently closed on Mondays. So instead we walked around Peidmont Park, which would have been kinda boring except we were all plant people and can be thouroughly entertained in a large place with lots of trees :)
 

 

(before we knew we couldn't get in)

 

 

We were so close to the conservatory!

 I will have to go back to Atlanta to see it eventually.

 

 

Hellebores!

They have got to be some of the coolest flowers out there, despite their name

 being slightly awkward to say in mixed company :)

 

 

Aaaaand us in front of a lake, with Atlanta in the background. Yep.

 

Oh yeah - the competition!

 

Well, BYU moved up one spot from last year. We came in 2nd! BYU-I beat us by 70 points, but it's ok cause we're gonna cream them next year :)

 

And . . .

 

I got 2nd too! 

I will admit I was surprised. I was not expecting to place.

I scored a 96/100 and the guy who got first place scored a 97.5.  

 

I've been dying to see my test, but I haven't yet. . .

hopefully I can get my hands on it soon. I want to know which ones I got lucky on!

 

 

 

This Is Student Career Days

 ~ Highlight of the Day: taking the Interior Plant ID test and recognizing every single plant ~

( course, there's always the spellings and the cultivars to mess up too . . . :)

 

For those of you who have heard about the 'landscaping competition in Alabama' for the past 8 months, and still aren't quite sure what that is, here are a few events:

 

 

Paver Installation

 

 

Truck and Trailer

 

 

Wood Construction

 

 

Landscape Installation

 

 

There are many many more competitions, but not ones that people go and watch. You know, things like design and ID and the business personnel/management/leadership ones.

 

You can't really watch or take pictures of the Interior Plant ID event too. It doesn't lend itself well to that. But here's a practice test we set up last night to help prepare us for it:  

 

I think I did well, but I don't find out till tomorrow morning. And you guys don't find out till I post again! {insert evil laugh here} (:

 

 

Meanwhile, Down In Alabama . . .

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting my first sunburn of the season while studying for interior ID ~

 

~ Highlight of Yesterday: Hearing that my lovely roommate Marina has been called to the Thailand, Bangkok mission . . . Aaaaahhhh!!!!! So excited for her :) ~

 

Well. I do like Alabama. It's cold in the mornings, but as soon as that sun comes up it gets to be the most lovely weather. And there are so many trees! It is a little flat though. At least the parts I've seen. But that's forgivable.

 

The food's been pretty good too - I had fried chicken for dinner last night (with a little goat on the side), and que stew* tonight.

 

*'que stew' short for 'barbeque stew', apparently. . .

 

Aside from eating and basking in the sun I've been studying. A lot. My competition is tomorrow morning at 10am, and I'm actually pretty excited about it. I still have a fair amount to polish up, but I definitely won't be in panic mode come 9:55 tomorrow :)

 

K. Ready for this? Here's a taste of what I've been studying:

 

Echinocactus grusonii, golden barrel cactus & Agave victoriae-reginae, Victoria agave

Guzmania 'Marjan', bromeliad

(not really though, because 'Marjan' is more yellow and less orange, but for the sake of studying, it is yellow)

 

 

Ficus lyrata, fiddle leaf ficus

 

 

Guzmania 'Ostara', bromeliad

(and it's not 'Kapoho Fire' because that one is variegated. . . I think)

 

Pericallis x hybridus, cineraria. . . I think.

 



 

Codiaeum variegatum 'Norma', croton

 

and Beaucarnea recurvata, ponytail palm

 

So multiply that by about 7 and that's how many plants I've been studying the last 3 months.

I'll let you know how I do - wish me luck!

 

 

Beasts of the Southern Wild

~ Highlight of the Day: rhubarb jam on the fluffiest bread in the world ~

 

Really quick post:

 

Beasts of the Southern Wild - such a good movie. I absolutely loved it. I want to someday own it. I already own the soundtrack, and have been listening to it straight for the past 12 hours :)

 

It's absolutely brilliant.

 

 Here's one of my favorites:

 

 

 

 

 

March Already?

~ Highlight of the Day: don't-even-need-a-coat weather :) ~

 

Only three days till I fly outa here! I've got my flashcards done, my passport in hand, and I am ready to go! Well. . . I have a few things left to do. Like Monday and Tuesday classes. And laundry.

 

Anyway, I've had a pretty eventful week. I went to a Korean festival (where I discovered the most amazing thing called Su-jeong-gwa), and Wreck it Ralph (made me cry), and took a Doctrine & Covenants midterm (and got a 92%! woot!), drew a giant chick, went through one and a half glue sticks making 146 flashcards, watched 'A Separation' at the International Cinema, and slept in today till 9:20!

 

Me. Drawing a giant chick.

 

 Flashcards at the halfway point - almost 300 pictures cut out :)

 

My completed drawing of Tweetie (my chicken, when she was little)

 

All 146 flashcards - glued and labeled!