Juices

Although a glass of refreshing orange juice sounds wonderful....

http://lancastria.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/orange_juice_2_lancastria.jpg

...it's not exactly what I mean.

I wish I could get my creative juices flowing! I finally came up with a theme and such that I want to do for my midterm. Let me explain. My meal management class has the most interesting midterm, but I like it. I have to host a dinner party with 6-12 guests. I finally decided to do a girls night. Not just any girls night. One for the married friends of mine (because I don't think we socialize enough outside of church) and it's going to be a PAJAMA party. I don't know exactly where I want to go with this, but I do want to go. I don't know if it will be a movie night (too boring? I think maybe) or a spa night (too messy if I get too many people? I'm afraid so). My apartment is not that big, but I have already started coming up with a list, and I have like 11 people on it. =o How I'm fitting that many people? I don't know. I wanted to do something cute for the invitations like a nursery rhyme with some different words or something. I had it planned in my head while trying to sleep in bed, but I'm afraid I can't find the resources I would like.

It's too late. I couldn't go to sleep earlier because I couldn't stop thinking of ideas but now I can't think of them because I'm tired. Good night. Let me know if any of you have a miraculous idea. :) It would be greatly appreciated.

My Favorite Things

Getting blown a kiss from outside your sewing class door from your amazingly cute husband.

How nice is it to know he has me on his mind? Not even measurable. I promise not too get too mushy on here, but it is almost Valentine's day so I wanted to share some cute (and cheap) ideas that I found (some for kids and some for just husband and wife/fiances/bf gf).



When I have kids in school, I think I will use the idea to buy pencils and attach a little tag saying, "You are just 'write' for me!" haha Love it. And maybe for teachers buying some bananas and writing, "I'm bananas about you!" What a cute way not to give more processed sugar to the poor teacher. =P

Happy Thoughts jar is another cute idea I have seen. You write why that person is loved. :)

Or this idea from hip2save's reader Amy:
"Last year my kids and I bought daddy some of his favorite candy bars. We taped them to popsicle sticks and put them into a flowerpot/jar to make a homemade candy bouquet. He loved it and the kids had fun wrapping pipe cleaners around pencils to make curvy “confetti streamer” kind of things to come out of the flowerpot too "

Can I just mention I can't wait to have kids?

Continuing on..... BEWARE: These blogs are super cute and have links to other super cute blogs. Many hours could be lost if you are not careful. :)

http://loveactually-blog.blogspot.com/2011/01/remember-when-valentines-banner.html

http://themoodyfashionista.blogspot.com/2011/01/diy-chalkboard-picture-frame.html

http://meandmyinsanity.blogspot.com/2009/02/amazing-race-valentiness-edition.html

^^LOVE IT! It is for a group date! Amazing.

Ok, so those are my current findings. :) Enjoy!

The Last Airbender

Ok, to start off this post I am going to admit for all those who may have forgotten--I'm a nerd. Also, I am not going to have the best of grammar and punctuation. It is almost one in the morning; so, please forgive me.

This being said, I will continue. I love Avatar: The Last Airbender. This is an anime (yes, anime. Remember, I'm a nerd. I do have to say it is better than most other anime I have seen since) TV series aired on Nickelodeon  I watched this in high school before it was, as Steven says, "Hollywood-ized." I love Sokka's humor, Aang's childish behavior, and Katara's maternal instincts.

http://www.digavatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/avatar-the-last-airbender.gif

Can't you just see it in the picture?

Steven and I finally (yea!) rented the newlyish released movie "The Last Airbender." Now, this review and comments are from somebody who LOVES the series and probably annoyed her husband the whole time because I tend to think out loud--alot.  I kept commenting on pronunciation, acting, characters, and missing scenes, episodes, storylines, etc. I know they would have to cut some stuff out but come on..........

First off, I had to stop the movie because Sokka looked way too familiar and I couldn't place where from. This lead me to wikipedia (what a wonderful source) and I found that he is played by the same actor as Jasper, yes Jasper from Twilight. He should have stayed in Twilight. No offense, I think he is great in that movie. Sokka is supposed to be the comic relief, but he just made me feel pain and agony *like he's supposed to do in Twilight.*

Jackson Rathbone + Jasper= Great
Jackson Rathbone +  Sokka=Not so great

The Last Airbender took a different tone than the series. One that I did not like. Everything was too dramatic or over acted. They did NOT pronounce anything correctly. The movie producers either a) had something against the good ol' fashioned long "A" sound or b) didn't want to follow the series with pronunciation? It bothered me oh so much. I mean c'mon everybody knows in the English language it is pronouced, "yen and yAng" and "yen and yaWng." They cut out a TON of stuff--the ending of the first season where Aang manipulates the water so he becomes a big giant water man and smacks down all the fire nation army? He doesn't do anything and they all just... leave? (plus a ton of other things) I know they do that to most movies made from books, but I haven't noticed anything that seemed to BUTCHER the original.

Maybe I hold the series too close to my heart and this movie wasn't so bad, but unfortunately I won't be looking to add this to my collection; however, I wouldn't mind having the series! :)

Thanks for "listening" to me rant. I may write more. We'll see. To be positive, I am glad it was PG and it got some attention. :)

http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/last_airbender_01.jpg

Smile much?

The Missing "Lee"

This post is me ranting on the missing "-ly" in the daily English language. I think I should say it has become on of my interests in finding out if I'm right and may be a pet peeve of mine. No worries, I don't judge actual people on this matter. :)

uwplatt.edu

Is it just me or do people never use adverbs correctly? And what in the world happened to well? I am becoming more of a grammatical snob (although I say I know everybody makes mistakes-I know I do all too often). When I ask somebody how they are doing and they respond, "I'm doing good," I wonder what did you do today? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked? That would be awesome but most of the isn't the case. I love listening to Grammar Girl. I know. Stamp a big NERD sign on my head because it's true. I just listened to one here about good versus well just to make sure I wasn't being ridiculous. I did learn some new interesting facts. I can't wait to listen to bad vs. badly because of a conversation held last night. Steven and I were graciously invited over to the Bessey's (no longer our neighbors but still very good friends). Summer had stated, "I want to get my haircut so badly... You know I've started saying that since you guys say it so much." (note: last part may be paraphrased) Then, we had a discussion about adverbs--which really deals with my good versus well issue--and if that would be considered correct. I think it is. I wonder if I was correct in this scenario:
Teacher: "I want the turned in correct."
Me: **Cringe**Thought process-
Shouldn't that be "correctly"?

Things I probably need to work on:
When to use parentheses
Vocabulary-It's horrifically narrow in my opinion-the English language has much more to offer than what we allow
And many other things.

Milk vs. Water Family

 Over the years I have realized something. You are either from a milk family or a water family.

ooyes.net

http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/2014566.jpg

Indeed, one family can have the other drink but for the most part. This works. It actually all started at the McIntosh's. I believe it was one of the times my parent's went to some awesome part of the world and left me. Which was great because I got to have an extended sleepover with my best friend, and what's better than that? Anywho, we were having dinner and I remember either a) all of the glasses were filled with milk or b) everybody chose to drink milk. The point is, I remember milk. My wheels starting turning, and I realized that my family never really has milk with dinner unless stirred with lots and lots of Hershey's syrup--which was mostly my dad. Then, I forgot about this notion for quite some time until I met Steven. We went to his house and his family has tons and tons of milk. They have it with all meals and even for "snacks" throughout the day. I don't remember the first time I started to realize it again, but I did. It was probably when Jennie came home from shopping and seriously had 10 jugs of milk. Don't get me wrong, it's fine; I just wasn't used to it. My family always has water. The only thing I used milk for was to cook, have cereal, or dip my Oreos and graham crackers (yum!). Steven and I are from two different "drink families" which has brought some funny things into play. For now, I am winning because milk is more expensive than water. I just wonder when we have the money, which one our kids will claim to be from. Anyway, I believe my theory is still true and wanted to write about it.
:)

And we're off!

I just poured in a 1/2 gallon of milk in my crock pot and can't wait until tomorrow morning. Why is that? Because I'm trying out this awesome for homemade Crockpot yogurt. I am not a big yogurt fan but Steven likes it. I know it's healthy for you because of the probiotics (or prebiotics-I always forget which one) and that helps your large intestine by adding more of the "good guys" (aka beneficial bacteria), so I would like to like it for the health benefits. A lot of people on the website say it's better homemade because it is not so overwhelmingly tangy. I think I just don't prefer the texture.

So, what's the coolest thing about it? You can drain off the extra liquid with a cheesecloth to make a cream cheese-like substance. :) Now, that I will eat. Also, you can save the yogurt you just made (before flavoring) for the next batch. The cost is quite low. Whole Milk-$1 Yogurt-$.50 for a little over 1/2 gallon of yogurt--or better yet cream cheese which then I'm sure the cost is much lower than the store. For the yogurt aspect, it would be $6 for the store brand 1/2 gallon of yogurt. So, it's 1/4 of the cost! Wonderful.

I will be updating this tomorrow with the results. :)
Update:

 There is a lot of whey in it, but considering there were many comments saying during the winter months their yogurt didn't turn out unless they were cooking a crock pot dinner next to it because it was too cold. I decided to put it wrapped up in a blanket in front of our heater and didn't turn it down like we normally do at night. It even smells like yogurt! Yay! We will most likely make half of this batch into "cream cheese" and the other half will be used as yogurt. Now I just need to figure out how I want to flavor it! :) Steven wants raspberry.

♪ New Song ♪ ♫ ♪

I enjoy the beginning more than the end (it's a little repetitive).