Apocalyptic Space

So, my room has become a disaster area...truly, walking through it is DANGEROUS. It wasn't one of those things that happened all of a sudden; it's been a gradual descent into a horrible state of MESS!
Exhibit A:



Isn't that AWFUL??? It pains me, it really does, so tomorrow, I am CLEANING! This room will be totally immaculate by midnight! (Also, if you're wondering why I have two mattresses in my room, it's because I had some friends spend the night last weekend, and we dragged the mattress from the room next to mine which is currently unused into my room so we could all sleep together. That mattress is a lot nicer than mine, so I've been sleeping on the that one ever since.)

Exhibit B:



The bed I used to sleep on has been taken over by assorted objects (I see a bathrobe, a peppermint bark tin, an empty box of truffles, a hat, a camera case, a set of Glee episodes on DVD [If you don't watch Glee, then shame on you!], and the body of the cardigan).

Exhibit C:



THIS IS NOT A FLOOR!!!

Exhibit D:



This was once a work space, but now it has become an...I don't know what...

OK, so here's the deal. I need your help guys. If I don't post a picture of a CLEAN room tomorrow...yell at me. A lot!

Thing to be grateful for today: Homemade ice cream.

Stop! Supper Time!

So, today I tried to cook again. This experience was...poorly timed. Basically, the plan was to make garlic bread, pasta with a basic red sauce with sauteed garlic, mushrooms, and spinach in it, and have ice cream for dessert. I only failed a little (My picture taking was not as extensive with this meal as it was with the cake and I apologize).
My first mistake was putting the pasta into the water before it had started t0 boil. I was quickly informed that this was not a good idea, and so, like the badass I am, I reached into the pot and grabbed the pasta right out of the water.



The pasta, post-badass grabbing.

Now, this was only the beginning of our problems. It was not long after that I realized that, though I had successfully mixed the ice cream, I had not frozen the part of the ice cream machine that I was going to put the mix (not mix like powder, mix like all the ingredients mixed together, just for clarity) into so it would become ice cream...if you don't freeze this piece, no ice cream. There wasn't time to freeze it before dinner, so no ice cream was had.

The problems continued after that. By the end of the night, I had discovered that it takes about thirty minutes to cook garlic bread, and not the five or ten that I had supposed, so dinner was served in courses rather than all at once. I also learned that winging it is not the best idea with food...your ego will inevitably be deflated.



This is the sauce before I mixed everything up. Overall, the meal was actually really delicious thanks to the combined efforts of others to help me towards a successful completion. I'm going to try and get better at this cooking thing.

Thing to be grateful for today: Hildegard von Bingen (look her up, she's awesome).

Inaudible Clocks

So, today was another yoga day, and something pretty amazing happened. Even though I was filled with stress about school (among other things, but mostly school), somewhere along the way, I completely lost that and fell into a very zen space. Now, for those of you that know me pretty well, you might have noticed that I have a nervous habit of checking the time. Today during yoga class, even though I was so stressed, I completely forgot to think about what time it was until the very end, which is pretty awesome for me.
Of course, the moment I did think about what time it was, I suddenly became all too aware of the ticking of the clock in the back of the room, and I lost my zen space for a minute. I found it during the last breathing exercises though, which was good, because tonight, I needed that zen space.
Now that I have achieved that zen space though, I need to get to work on these things that are stressing me out (i.e. a presentation on Hildegard Von Bingen and an essay comparing Christianity and Taoism). I know that the posts have been short and devoid of pictures the last couple of days, and I'm sorry, but I promise that tomorrow's post will be long and full of fun pictures of italian food!

Thing to be grateful for today: Teachers who listen.

Playwriting

So, yesterday I mentioned a play that I'm writing. I guess I owe it to you guys to let you know what that's about.
My school has a thing called "senior projects", which are (obviously), large projects each student takes on in their senior year. What makes these projects so awesome though is that the students are allowed to do essentially anything they like, as long as they can prove that it's a learning process.
Now, ever since I watched the seniors present their projects in my freshman year, I've been thinking about what I want to do, but it wasn't until last fall that it came to me; I should write a play. So that's what I've been doing over the last few months (even though I'm a junior), I've been working on the concept of the play and getting it down on paper (or word document).
Now, since I started writing this play in November, you'd think that I'd be pretty far, but I've only written a handful of scenes, what with school and all of the other things I listed yesterday (that's why I'm giving myself until June 1st).
My plan is to have the first draft done by June 1st, so I can give it to a couple of teachers at my school at the end of the year to look at for me, then start rehearsals in September. I'll probably put the show on in February of next year, maybe January. I already have a tentative cast in my head (I'm in all likelihood only pulling from current students at my school, just because that makes everything easier, though I do have a few people who aren't at my school that I'd like to be in it if I could make it work). With a cast of six, it hasn't been too difficult to come up with an idea of who I want to play which character, though I'm still debating about the two major male roles (I know the two people I want to play them, but I don't know which guy I want to play which character).
The play is about a group of teenagers who, over the course of the play, and with the help of their mutual therapist, discover that they are a single person with multiple-personality disorder. As the pressure under this well-kept secret builds, an old personality returns from the "grave" in an attempt to drive the others out of their shared head.
What do you guys think? Have I got a concept? So far it seems that I do.

Thing to be grateful for today: Microsoft Word.

On the Go

Today I bring you...the blanket:



Or rather, what will become the blanket.
That's 18 skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky (Colors: 6 "Kiwi, 6 "Brown Bear", 6 "Ocean Waves"). I'm making it into a big ol' blanket just for me! I bought the yarn on the second, but I only just cast it on today (with my knitpicks set...it RULES, by the way).
This is what I have so far:



It isn't much, but it's there.
Now, the blanket is knit in plain garter, but I wanted to ask everyone who knits and reads (there are what, two of you?) if you think I should knit the colors in rectangles and sew them together, or pick up the stitches and connect all of the colored rectangles together. Now, the rectangles aren't going to line up in a nice, orderly fashion, they're going to be a log cabin pattern. Something like this, but you know, since I'm the type of knitter that likes to sort of make things as he sees fit, it won't be that pattern, just one like it.
Now, the benefits of doing it in one piece are thus: I think it looks better and I'll be able to learn to get a lot better at picking up stitches. The cons are that I'll be knitting it in one big piece, so at one point, it's going to get really ungainly (I plan on making it 6 1/2' X 5'), and there will be more tricky bits. So, what are your thoughts? (For anyone who's wondering, the cardigan is coming more slowly now, and there isn't much progress to report.)

Lately I've been really busy with all kinds of things (Yoga, school, therapy, playwriting, blogging, knitting, German [for when I go to Germany this summer, more on that later], cycling [which is training for the AIDS ride, more on that later too], and my social life, and I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting). This isn't a problem though, I love being busy. I really do. It gives me purpose, and that is an awesome thing! I just wonder if I take on too much. Either way, I've got what I have, and I'm finishing it (remember those spinning plates? Yeah, I have a lot of them in the air right now).

Spinning Wheels

Today, I did something that I have said I would do for a long time: I rode my bike with a group of friends from my school to a Whole Foods downtown (That's about 13 miles, 4 of which were offroad). They do this every week. I've never been so aware of my nether regions than those four miles of offroad...it was pretty painful. Though, my wonderful friend, Bethany let me use her bike (which was super nice and had a lovely, squishy seat) during the particularly tricky bits.
The trip was actually really glorious (though my butt is still pretty sensitive). We road down a few major streets, but mostly kept to backroads. There was an awesome little park that we rode through, that had a sweet, little trail and a bridge. It was really great timing too, because the park's beauty in comparison to the concrete streets made me forget about my aching bottom.
I wish I had pictures of the ride (maybe I'll take some next week), but it really was quite glorious. I plan to go every week now, because I had a huge amount of fun! This is going to be a pretty short post because I have only gotten ten hours of sleep over the past two days, so I'm basically going to leave it at that.
But first, knitters...I got my Knitpicks interchangables set today...life is complete!

Thing to be grateful for today: Squishy bike seats.

Kitchen Wars

Yesterday, my mother and I engaged in our annual battle over the kitchen as we prepared for my birthday party. My task: Make the cake. Her's: Make everything else (My mother can't bake, and I really enjoy it).
The battlefield:



My weapons (This year's cake was too be a superfudge cake with cream cheese frosting):



Blood was shed. Nails were broken:



My mother and I had several disputes about what was good baking and what wasn't (she did get me to agree that using a toaster to soften butter was not a very intelligent idea).
Here's an action shot of me splitting an egg:



Now, those of you who did not witness my cake last year, you will not understand why this battle is important. I do not have photographic documentation of last year's cake, but if I were to try and assign three words to describe it they would be: Gray, molten, and blobby. These words do not a good cake make, so this year I was bound and determined to prove my skills as a baker. Now, everything seemed to be going peachy keen (I got the layers baked beautifully, despite slight burning around the edges of two):



I even turned them out well:



And the icing looked delicious!



But then...DISASTER!
In my confidence I became careless, and placed the second layer of the cake on top of the first without any icing placed between them! Realizing my mistake, I made an attempt to rectify it by removing the second layer:


(Yes, I love you all enough to put a picture of myself in a bathrobe on the blog)

But alas, these efforts were for naught, as the layer began to brake apart...I was not pleased:



This was not my proudest moment.

Upon realizing the hopelessness of it all, I simply iced the cake, leaving the space between the first two layers uniced.



It was DELICIOUS! Victory was mine, and joy was had by all (except for the people who didn't get cake because the slices were too large, which was NOT my fault because I did NOT cut the thing!).

I got so many gifts, but I think that my friend Bethany got me what was by far the cleverest gift, and the one you will all appreciate the most:




Thing to be grateful for today: My yarn fund jar, and all of the wonderful gifts I received, but most of all, all of the lovely people who came to wish me a happy birthday.