veggie tales

Excuse the overtly geometrical presentation, but this colorful platter was my dinner the other night.  Baked zucchini, tomatoes, and breaded eggplant with mozzarella over orzo pasta...

This is a big deal for several reasons. One of them being that when I was little—among a multitude of other embarrassing occurrences throughout my childhood—I literally only ate chicken fingers with ranch dressing.  At every meal I possibly could I would order fried chicken strips with a side of ranch—I even included a small blob of ranch on a plate when our elementary art project was to sculpt our favorite food.  Hidden Valley's ranch and I have had a love affair that has lasted through the ages.  

While chicken fingers and I have since grown apart and my palette has expanded immensely.  So the amount of vegetables I consumed just the other night was probably more than I had my entire life up until about age thirteen.

Other reasons for this being a big deal are just that it was so unexpectedly delish—I underestimated the scrumptious-ness of a meal without meat—and not to mention pretty!  One of my roommates is a vegetarian and this came from her cookbook, 

Zucchini Casserole:

1. Slice zucchini lengthwise into four strips and brush with oil.

2. Bake at 400F for 10 minutes.

3. Remove from oven and layer mozzarella, diced tomatoes, basil and/or oregano over it.

4. Bake for 5 more minutes.

Delightful, delicious, de-lovely—see what I did there!?

scars and stories

The Fray is my first love.  I will always love them.  They were my first concert ever. "All At Once" is my "first-day-of-school" song for inexplicable reasons. And they met me at the beginning of my DIY career—see above picture of this appropriately 'frayed' shirt I so cleverly paired with matching pink bracelets my freshman year...cute...

Anyhoo, their new album entitled "Scars and Stories" is out now and it's as good as ever.  I'm probably (definitely) just biased because they're from Colorado.  Didn't really mean to make a plug for a band but I just thought I'd share this cute attempt at making my own concert tee my friend dug up in honor of the album release.

It's finally snowing in Chicago! Time to break out the sweaters. Starting with this one.

Also, I'd like to live here, if someone wants to setup a little garden getaway with me.

january

I have been doing my best to take pictures of the things I have seen, places I have been, and food I've eaten rather than all the people I do it with.  But it's difficult to take your camera with you somewhere you're going with others and not take any photos of actual people.  However, I do not want to turn this into my Facebook so I've decided I'll share of monthly compilation of the goons I hang out with.

This is also a good opportunity to share my newest form of procrastination—Pixlr.  I swear it is the easiest and best way to make your photos look heavily hip without the Instagram help on a smart phone.  All you do is upload any picture and sort through different effects, borders, overlays, etc.

Go check Pixlr out if you, too wish to live your life through the rose-colored lens that is a nostalgic looking photograph. And it makes you and your friends' lives look infinitely cooler.

Optimist

Optimist from Brian Thomson on Vimeo.

This Tuesday has been little weird. Maybe it's because I spent the first half of my day in class imagining life if Darren Criss and I were in love...and the latter part at Starbucks pretending to study while trying to connect to the irritably sketchy wifi. It might also be that I'm missing my Rocky Mountain snow...

Whatever the reason my productivity for the day has presented itself in the form of this video and consequently adding something to my Bucket List.  This is Sri Sri Radha Temple's Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork, Utah and it's a celebration I more or less want to live in. I must take part before I die. The cello is probably the perfect instrument in any setting but the cello set to slow-mo footage of color explosions is epic—music by Zoë Keating.

I will also be accomplishing another 2012 New Year's resolution (in addition to blogging semi-consistently) by running the Color Run this June!

Training has begun....yes I am training for a three mile run.  But that color stuff looks like you could easily choke! Getting too winded could be dangerous and I must be prepared.

Uh-Oh Oreos

The two most popular dessert items to be classically paired with milk.  Combined.  I don't know what more there is to say than that.

"Uh-Oh" Oreos:

1. Make any old recipe for chocolate chip cookies

2. Put some flour on your hands to avoid super sticky fingers and mold dough around oreos.  Try not to put too much on them—only enough to cover the oreo because they turn out very large.  

3. Place on greased pan and bake 12-13 minutes.

Similar to what The Londoner writes about the 'slutty brownie', "They're oh so easy, and more than a little bit filthy".  So if you're ready to dip your Oreos in more than just milk, I would definitely give it a go.

The other day I had a major breakthrough—I know what I want to do for my retirement! That's right—I have little to no idea of what I might be doing after graduation but I am confident I will spend the latter half of my days as a local librarian and or piano teacher.  Cannot.  Wait.

I don't really know what to title this post but I wanted to share these great patterns that I feel would each make for splendid wallpaper.  When I have a house I am convinced I will need a different wallpaper for every room.

On another random note, I will start accepting donations for THIS beauty of a couch for previously mentioned house any time...

And if you're an old soul like myself and have not yet seen The Happy Huffmans on YouTube, they will no doubt bring a smile to your face.