cubs vs. cards

Earlier this week, I went to the Cardinals vs. Cubs baseball game.  And I found myself in a strange dilemma.  We all know I am not a very sporty person, but my family does love baseball.  (Hate on its' excruciatingly slow pace all you want, there is no stopping the "buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks" type of carefree attitude!)  I was born in St. Louis and know baseball well enough to realized the rivalry I was witnessing.  

So, who to root for?  Which team did I belong with?  It's typically a very obvious answer in accordance to where I am or who I'm with, but I had some sort of affiliation to both these teams.  It was not a strange sensation in not knowing who I wanted to cheer for more—I've been more than indifferent when it comes to sports situations before.  It was strange because I had a choice.  I was born in St. Louis.  I can take as much of that with me throughout my life.  Chicago is where I live now, but I tend to get very proud of the places I'm not in whenever I'm elsewhere, so something kept pulling me towards St. Louis.

I ended up wearing a green jacket and a purple scarf to the game—colors totally ambiguous to any fan associations.  

Forever indecisive,

--molly

I'm beginning my list of summer shopping must-haves! The maxi skirt (if I can find one long enough) will definitely be included.

I'm campaigning for a copy of this Denver print (by January Jones on Etsy) to go up somewhere in the apartment.

A list of the top ten DIY blogs—how I've been procrastinating this week.

BRUNCH

I'm sure it's clear to anyone that has passed by a restaurant serving brunch between the peak hours of 10am-2pm...aka the hungover rush or just-coming-back-from-church crowd...that people love brunch.  Perhaps the most blogged about meal, it seems that many—myself included—believe brunch to be THE best meal of any day.

The only problem I have with it is choosing to either go the sweet or salty route—do i pick apple cinnamon french toast or a breakfast burrito?  Red velvet pancakes (oh yes, that's a thing at Brunch) or the Denver omelette?

So when I went to Ann Sather Cafe off of Belmont with my high school theater teacher and her two lovely daughters (and friends of mine), my problems were solved.  I was able to order my go-to breakfast burrito AND get cinnamon rolls and fruit as sides.  (They had heard of the place based off only their reputation for great cinnamon rolls—a good sign, to begin with.)  A brunch dream, turned reality.

The only problem was, I was so enthralled to satisfy both my salty and sweet palettes, I didn't take any pictures.  I guess I'll have to go again...

The picture above is the aforementioned red velvet pancakes from Brunch.

I'm two decades old.

Hello!

It has been far too long since my last entry unto this website I call my blog.

Let's see...

We've had Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Passover, whatever else you might have celebrated in the past two months, aaaaand my birthday! I am two decades old.  I can do nothing more than I could have at nineteen years of age, besides officially not be a teenager.

It's been truly a life-changing experience, being this old.  And to catch you up with all the monumental events that have happened since my last dinner I posted about, I'll quickly just synopsize the highlights:

1.  This year, I had more Valentines than ever—ALL of my roommates said yes to being my valentine!  That's right, while you couples were stuck with just one date, I had four willing candidates to watch Glee and eat chocolate we had bought for ourselves that night.



2.  I met the pianist of folk-esque band The Head and the Heart.  On my birthday weekend. Fate?  You betcha.  He may have closed his eyes in this picture that should have had a flash on, but I was too embarrassed to make him wait and take the picture again.  So that's how the picture looks.  It doesn't matter though because in my mind, he agreed to be my valentine for next year's V-Day when he agreed to take a picture with us.

3.  St. Patrick's Day was the warmest day of the year thus far making the multiple piles of throw up that I jumped over on the sidewalks that much more disgusting.  Like I said, life-changing.

4.  My ability to tan decreased if that's possible.  I went to Florida for Spring Break and got sun poisoning.  No, I didn't have the Panama City/MTV style Spring Break rager.  I went to Naples, Florida (aka retirement country) and got sun poisoning because my skin repels light.  Cute.

5.  I got a tumblr account which is a large part of the reason I have not posted in so long.  Who knew there were so many great outfits, beach scenes, and GIFs of Ryan Gosling I needed to reblog!  I am going to try and continue to keep both of them updated in order to spend way more time than necessary on the internet.  If you're interested in discovering just how much I love Ryan Gosling or Hunger Games memes, you can check out said tumblr here.

So now we're all caught up!  I hope to more consistently update this so everyone can know about my new life as a twenty year old.  Because I'm that much cooler.

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.

mason jar mania

Whether acting as candle holders hung suspended from a lush tree, quirky table centerpieces, flower pots, or just as a drinking glass, mason jars are perhaps the item that best encompasses all things DIY.  This multi-purpose jar instantly makes the product handmade and crafty—no matter if you just pulled them out of an attic and threw sand and sea glass in them.  They exude casual and almost beg for you to know just how unplanned and organic an event is.

I'm not making fun—I honestly love the backyard patio-party/summer lemonade feel that I associate with these containers.  I feel I need to find some stash with an abundance of the jars in order to try every craft I've seen with them...

Enjoy some of my favorite incorporations of the mason jar into everyday life and events. Some of these were taken at Beau Jo's Colorado style pizza, which serves their drinks in a mason jar.  The rest can be found on StyleMePretty—an extremely fun and organized way to get wedding inspiration.

follow the leader!

If you would like to follow my varying posts of rambles and rants, you may now do so via the email thingy on my sidebar!

 If you are also on Blogspot, I believe you can just add me to your reading list by clicking 'Follow' on your NavBar.

OR! Follow me on BlogLovin':

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

So many options. But considering I have trouble getting my TV into DVD player mode, my insights into the technology world are minimal and I am not sure if any of above suggestions will work.

 Prove me wrong by following! :)