Why I Love My Friends

Brittany: (while looking with concern at her dying bamboo) “My poor bamboo. It’s so desiccated.”

Me: *snicker* *snicker*

Valerie: “You know, I didn’t know what that word meant until about a year ago.”

Me: *suddenly confused* “Wait. What do you mean?”

Valerie: “You know, desiccate. To dry out.”

Me: “Oh! I thought she meant decimated.”

Val: “Is that why you were laughing?”

Me: “Maybe.”

Tess: (who just walked in) “What are we talking about?”

Val: “The word desiccate. . . It means to dry out.”

Tess: “I thought it meant poop.”

Val and Me: “That’s defecate.”

Tess: ” . . . Oh.”

Recap of an Adventure

Sometimes life progresses along a straight line, routine and expected. And then sometimes, life throws you a very (very) awesome curveball.

On Sunday afternoon, I got a text from one of the guys on my business team– and in an instant, the next three days took on a completely different turn.

The text was something along the lines of, “We’re taking a road trip to Chicago tomorrow. Want to come?”

Whaaaa?!

Suddenly, instead of heading back to Norman before the winter storm hit, which I’d been tossing around in my mind earlier that day, I was headed north to beat the snow slowly rolling across the south-east.

Less than twenty-four hours later, I was on my way to Chicago. Headed to the Windy City — which was apparently named so because of its shady politics, not its nasty weather.

Day 1 – In Which We Follow Through on the Spontaneous Road Trip

Loving Me Some Food Blogs

My newest obsession is cooking blogs. I can’t get enough of ’em. I keep finding new ones, reading through them, falling in love and getting really hungry. I’ve taken to copying all the tasty (easier) recipes onto blank Word documents with the intent of printing them when I get to Norman.

It started out innocently enough. My first love was Pioneer Woman, though I loved her more for her wit and entertaining stories than for her cooking. But I did try a few of her recipes (one of which I have now cooked three times over the break for different people) and I love them.

After Pioneer Woman came The Menu Mama, who is actually an old friend of the family’s. Heather has two little kids and focuses her blog on helping people plan for the week ahead, including a grocery list for the beginning of every week (which I think is brilliant). She’s also great because her meals rely on ingredients that I could easily find in my own pantry — no fancy-schmancy spices and impossible-to-pronounce cheeses.

These blogs I admired passively, browsing through and appreciating but not needing.

Then I went to Montana for part of Christmas break and took it upon myself to help my dad find some easy new recipes that he can make on Sundays (and in turn, find some good recipes for myself). And of course, where would you go for recipes except online?

So with that challenge in mind, I went through the links on Ree and Heather’s blogs and found Bakerella, Smitten Kitchen, and a plethera of other awesome, delicious, super cool cooking (and baking) blogs.

With all these blogs to browse through, I don’t think I’ll ever purchase an actual cookbook now. What’s the point? It’s all online.

Kinda makes me feel bad for the poor publishing industry.

Until I google how to make the perfect brown rice and I immediately get a good fifty or sixty recipes.

From now on, I think I’ll just grab my favorite recipes from all these great blogs and combine them in a binder or something. It’s better that way anyway, because then it’s personalized.

Notes on Flying

I would imagine that the United States seems like a much smaller place if you’re a flight attendant. If you’re traveling cross-country three times in a day, it has to lose some of its allure. And magic. Which is a shame.

I’ve flown my fair share of times (to and from school, etc), and I still love flying. It never gets old, even when I’m half-dead from a lack of sleep and the slow-to-dissipate stress from packing (because I think I’m literally incapable of starting my packing endeavors any earlier than midnight before a 6 a.m. flight. It’s inevitable).

But regardless, I’m still in love with flying. I still love the exhilaration of take-off, the thrill of seeing a familiar face in a terminal of strangers, and the inner leaping of my heart when I find that my suitcase fits neatly under the 50 lb weight limit.

I used to want to be a flight attendant like nobody’s business. I wanted that cute blue suit, wanted to chat with attractive pilots, and fly all over the country. I still wouldn’t mind that, I guess. Especially the flirting with pilots part.  

But the way I see it, flying wouldn’t be the same if I did it everyday.

Old hat = no more fun.

So I’m sticking to my day job (or will, once I get one). And I’ll continue to love flying, and I’ll still get enjoyment from being a speedy security check-through-er, and I’ll love finding that one restaurant in the Denver airport with fresh, not soggy sandwiches. Ka-ching!

Gingerbread Houses and Other Wintery Things

Wednesday I spent the day with Desirae, a good old friend of mine who shared “total nerd” status with me in third grade. We bonded immediately, and we’ve managed to stay in touch pretty regularly since then, thanks to good ol’ snail mail. It’s always nice to see her again.

She invited me over to her house around noon, where we immediately set to work making gingerbread houses. But not just any gingerbread houses. Deluxe houses complete with M&M trees, marshmallow snowmen, and powder sugar snow to cover the rooftops.

My masterpiece had a Skittles fence, candy cane door and windows, and Nerds Christmas lights. I have rekindled my love for making gingerbread houses.

After putting half the candy on our houses and the other half in our tummies, I was invited to be a part of their large extended family bowling trip. So we all piled into cars and headed to the bowling alley across from the cemetery. 

Today Was a Good Day

The weather is beautiful, the prospective student I showed around campus actually talked to me, and I successfully caught my sneeze with a tissue. Couldn’t ask for more.

 

To continue my animal theme…

http://images.video.msn.com/flash/customplayer/1_0/customplayer.swf

For Your Mid-Afternoon Entertainment

http://www.youtube.com/v/FK_CKtYCRIc?fs=1&hl=en_US

I literally laughed until I cried.

Open Letter to the Universe

Dear World,

While I’m not entirely positive– and more conclusive evidence/experience is needed– I’m pretty sure the absolute best thing that ever happened to you is the Christmas season. I am convinced.

Laid out below are my most unbiased, objective reasons for this claim.

– Drinking steaming hot chocolate with a giant mound of mini marshmallows while cuddled up by a fire (real or the TV yule log kind) on a lazy evening.

– Driving around and admiring twinkling Christmas lights — especially white icicle lights. They’re my weakness.

– Snowflakes, snow piles, snowboarding, snow angels (especially while hot tubbing)

– “Last Christmas” — especially the Wham! version. YouTube it. You wont be sorry.

– Watching Elf and then quoting it for the rest of December. “Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?”

– Reading the “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” editorial. It’s so elegant and inspiring.

– Singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” in the most seductive voice possible, then debating the song’s creepyness vs. awesomeness with friends.

– Listening to Christmas carols while studying. Josh Groban’s velvety voice will soothe your stress away.

– Tacky Christmas sweaters. My favorite is when people wear them to be ironic, but you know they just really love that thick wool knit.

– My bright red sleigh bell earrings with green bows. You better bet I’m going to wear them to class. And jingle all the way.

After such strong evidence has been laid before you, I trust that you will agree with me on this claim of Christmas’s superior position within the existence of humanity.

And to thank you for this delightful bright spot in the middle of such dark, dreary months, I would present you with a commemorative gift, if I could. As it is, I can only offer you a hearty imaginary handshake to show my appreciation to you for allowing this wonderful season to continue on forever. Which, I trust, always will (*hearty handshake turns into intimidating squeeeeeze*).

Please don’t ever let Christmas disappear, no matter how much some Scrooges like to complain that Christmas is over-commercialized. Don’t listen to them. They have a glass half-empty attitude, and their parents probably didn’t let them believe in Santa Clause. They’re still bitter.

Sincerely,
Discerning Holiday Connoisseur

Things I Learned From Pioneer Woman

Today was a good day. It was a good day for many reasons, but mostly today was good because I got to hear Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, speak. For those of you who are new to my blog, I’ll let you know now that I may have a sorta huge girl crush on this woman. She is an amazing writer, photographer and cook, and all I want to do right now is copy her blogging empire and make it my own. I admire her so much. And now that I’ve met her, I’ll tell you that my opinion of her hasn’t changed in the slightest. She’s just as funny and quirky in real life as she is online.

You know, sometimes I’ll go listen to speakers and while their speech topics make me think they’ll be super inspiring, they just fall short. Happens all the time, it seems. And I definitely left plenty of space for Pioneer Woman to fall short in my mind, since I’d put her up so high. But she didn’t disappoint. I loved every moment of her talk. I learned so much and I left feeling so inspired.

Below are the things, practical and abstract, that I learned from Ree today:

1. I need a new hosting site, so that the platform and designs I use better reflect who I am as a writer. Did you know that Pioneer Woman also started out on Blogger? Yup! But then she decided that the templates available were too limiting and she couldn’t get the look she wanted, so she branched out. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think she’s right. I’m getting really tired of my current template, and it’s time for a change. I’m going to start looking around for other hosting sites and a different look.

2. I need to get my own domain name. Pioneer Woman, like me, started out using Blogger as her hosting site. And she, like me, had that .blogspot.com ending, which is lengthy and looks uncool. So she put up the dough and got a domain name and server space. I think that’s my next step. Hosting doesn’t cost more than $4 a month, so why not?

The only problem so far on that one is that I don’t have a really good name for my blog yet. To be honest, I’ve started to hate the name VirginiaFilms. Well, hate is too strong a word. But that title tells you nothing about me, except that my name is Virginia. I don’t even talk about films very often, so that’s a misnomer there. I just wish I was better at titles. I need help. Any suggestions?

3. Not only is Ree Drummond writing a book — putting her Black Heels to Tractor Wheels story to paper — but Columbia Pictures has optioned the screenplay. Seriously can’t wait.

4. Photographs make a blog so much better. People are highly visual nowadays, and they need pictures.

5. When she started blogging, it was only to keep her mom (who lived in another state) up-to-date on her growing family, etc. But she found she actually really enjoyed writing, and it developed from there.

6. When Q & A time came, I asked her how she was able to be so honest about her personal life — her romance, her parents, etc– when she knew that the people she was talking about would be reading her posts. And her answer was perfect. She said that she made sure that she never said anything to hurt someone intentionally. She was never critical or mean. The only person she makes fun of on her blog is herself. She said that she could sense when her stories, like that of her parent’s divorce, had moved out of her realm and into being their story to tell (and she’d left it that way).

Then she gave me some of the best writing advice I’ve ever received. She told me that you can’t start out with a box, labeling and defining everything you will and will not write about. Blogs shouldn’t work that way. Start with writing about what you love. Be honest. And if you feel you are overstepping a boundary, you probably are. Then just retrace and start again.

7. Before starting her blog, Ree Drummond didn’t know anything about photography. Anything. She is a self-taught photographer, and I think that’s amazing. And very heartening. If she can learn, then so can I. At least, that’s what she kept saying. Throughout the entire talk, she kept stressing that she was just a normal person who took something she loved and stuck with it. 

I left the talk full of ideas and feeling empowered. First step = get a new name. Any ideas?