Diana Ross

I want her boots!

WANT!

This is my motivation for SO much right now! Oh, my, I cannot stop lusting over this dress from Victoria's Secret.


The colors are perfectly spring, fading into summer, drifting into fall. Light and floaty, perfect for the humid Baltimore summers where the thought of wearing cotton is about as appealing as dipping one's self into a vat of canola oil.

I see myself wearing this, walking barefoot through a field at the vineyard, listening to crisp jazz notes on a summer evening.

Mmmmmmm.....

New cookbook!! May I just say that it is amazing. Picked up Skinny Bitch in a Box this week, and made (almost) vegan chicken noodle soup. Perfect timing as I've gotten sick for the second time this season and was craving a vegetarian version of the soup. "Quorn" is a very chicken-like fake chicken. V. tough to find. I know. I've been a veggie since I was 12. Anyhoo, if you can get past the expletives, those ladies really do know how to put together some healthy, tasty meals. Tonight was potato and butternut squash curry and rice.

Can't wait to start working out to their DVD as well! Too bad that has to wait a few months, as the most I can do at the moment is walk timidly and do my PT exercises. Knee has gotten to an 85% bend! Yay! Did I mention what I did? Tore my ACL. Yup. All the joy and pain (mostly emotional at the moment) that comes with it. I am determined to be the fastest healer they have ever seen, with surgery in April and the Ragnar Relay in September. After all, I did recover from Mono in a month and a half back in college!

Ug, and speaking of PT, I forgot that I have to get up early for it tomorrow, therefore I am 2 hours past my bedtime.

Happy Friday to all!

Fun with PhotoBooth

I've been entertaining myself with the PhotoBooth application this morning, stalling the start of the day until the library opens. Patricia was not likewise amused.

Patricia desperately trying to remove herself from my grasp.

A Little Time

I've been off for a bit due to my coordinative (is that a word?) brilliance. Finally organized a basketball team in town, and then the first game I manage to sprain my knee, resulting in crutches and a leg brace for the past two week. Apparently it is a bad idea to block a girl with your leg. Who knew. Perhaps I should have practiced somewhere in the past 7 years since I last played.... So therefore have not felt much like blogging recently!

I did however take a trip out to Las Vegas for a long weekend over Valentine's Day to see an old friend of mine. Truely, we've known and kept in touch since first grade. Clearly were not able to do all the hiking we had planned, but managed to off-road the crutches a bit!

Up in the red rocks of Valley of Fire with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, my two crutches.

Finds in the Freezer

For Christmas at my grandmother's, my aunt sent us dessert we had never heard of- canneles, a French pastry/dessert. No one, other than myself, much appreciated them at the time (I think we dried them out in the oven), and my grandmother insisted I take a half dozen home- not something I had to be persuaded to do. I rediscovered them in the freezer last night, so I defrosted then heated one in the microwave. I broke through the chewy exterior into the soft, moist center, and thus began my love affair.

Tartelette has a delicious post on her blog concerning canneles. There are at least two French bakeries here in Baltimore that I must check for canneles once my frozen supply runs out.

Lovely, moist canneles

Must call my grandmother and share the discovery!

Warmth on a Budget

As with so many other things, the price of electricity is beyond the desired scope of a girl on a budget. I do all the things I can to keep it down- all CFL lights, no plugged gadgets or appliances, plastic on the windows, heat on low or not at all. Even though I hail from the north and consider myself fairly cold-hardy (ok, who am I kidding, I'm always cold), it gets rough when the temperature is in the 20s and my apartment is only slightly warmer than that, with big old drafty 7' windows.

What to do? I take advantage of my cat as a living heater (this is the first year she has ever slept on my lap.


I have also broken out the wool poncho given to me by my parents' neighbor back in PA, similar to below:


And now I will drink some hot tea and look out the window at the snow...