Hiatus

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I haven't written in a while. TWO MONTHS to be exact. Let's call it an accidental hiatus- There have been lots of times that I have meant to blog, but silly things have a tendency to get in the way. In the interim, I've been doing a little (yet unpublished) maintenance work, and I plan to be back with more regularity in AUGUST!

Once I'm back, is there anything that anybody would like to see or hear about? [Seriously, anything at all.] Let me know in a comment!

That's all for now. Until August, my friends...

Stuffed Pepper Fiesta!

These stuffed peppers are a result of my trip to Trader Joe's with no list and no plans for dinner. I arrived home with a week's worth of groceries that didn't necessarily go together.

Challenge Accepted.

These are peppers stuffed with ground turkey, black beans, corn, and tomatoes. I've been trying to come up with a more creative and enthusiastic name for them... (Yet Another) Mexican Stuffed Pepper seems to be what is sticking. Wanna know how I made them? Of course you do!

Ingredients:

*four bell peppers, any color
*half a tablespoon olive oil
*one onion, diced
*one pound ground turkey
*one cup frozen corn, thawed
*one (15 ounce) can black beans,
[drained and rinsed]
*one can mild green chiles
*one cup halved grape tomatoes
*one tablespoon taco seasoning
*one teaspoon chili powder
*shredded cheddar cheese
[for the top]

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2) Slice peppers in half lengthwise, and remove membranes, seeds, and stems. Bring large pot of water to a boil, and cook peppers for about three minutes. Drain peppers and rinse with cold water until cooled. Arrange in shallow baking dish with a splash of water in the bottom.




3) Heat olive oil in a medium sized skillet. Add onions and cook over medium-low heat until soft, about five minutes.



4) Add ground turkey and cook until browned, breaking up turkey with a wooden spoon or spatula.

5) Stir in corn, black beans, and chiles. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until everything is heated through.



6) Stir in tomatoes, taco seasoning, and chili powder. Cook for 5 more minutes, allowing flavors to mingle.



7) Using a slotted spoon or spatula, scoop turkey mixture into prepared peppers. Top with shredded cheddar.



8) Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until heated through.



ENJOY!!!

When Mandy Met Pierre...

I got CPR and First Aid certified today. I even got a fancy card which, at the suggestion of the instructor, has my (soon to be) married name on it, so I will refrain from posting a picture, for my own personal superstitious reasons.

I met a new friend while I was there. His name was Pierre, and he was SUPER chatty...




...we were both very relieved to find that there was no infant CPR module for this class. I'm still traumatized from having to go anywhere near the freaky, silver, alien babies they distributed in my high school health class.

That's all!!

Happy Tuesday!

Real-Life Prom

The podcast that I listen to while I run was discussing proms as I hoofed it around the Harlem Meer this morning. The premise was that everybody imagines a wonderful prom for themselves, but nobody actually has a good real life prom. I hadn't thought about my prom in quite some time, but as I continued my run, I considered my prom, or what my old and senile brain could remember of my prom, and I think they're right. Looking back, I don't think that my prom was bad as much as it was just...not good. It was apparently so blase that my brain chose to commit very little of the ordeal to memory.

At least the pictures make it look like we had a good time.



It rained the day of my prom. It was a constant, torrential rain which resulted in me wearing my mother's black and white polka dot raincoat and a pair of blue rain boots I'd had since childhood as I drove out to pick up my date in my '98 Ford Taurus. To be honest, I don't remember much beyond that. I'm sure we went to dinner...though I'm not sure where, and I DID get to dance with the boy I liked...though the odds of us becoming "a thing" seemed much smaller than I'd hoped, particularly because the topic of conversation en route to the dance had involved him having sex with some other girl. I'm sure we had an after party of sorts. Part of me thinks that there was a tent involved, but the whole thing is so cloudy that I am really not sure. And it's making me feel old.

So prom was decidedly not awesome. In fact, most of ti was so "eh" that I don't even remember it. What I do remember is the afternoon after prom. We went home, we slept in, and we reunited in H's attic to watch Pretty in Pink. It was still raining, and it was just us. The girls. Soulmates. Laughing and crying about the night before. It wasn't romantic or fantastical, it was real life. And I wouldn't have had that part any other way.

A Week of the Classics

When you are a teenager, and you're having a rough or unusual week, it's usually due to the fact that the world and everybody in it are out to get you.  However, as you get to be an adult, you start to realize that these stretches of time are less about the world being out to get you and more about the way you handle the things that happen.  It isn't a conspiracy, it's just "classic you."

For me, this has been a week of classics. It is the first of two finals weeks for my program at Hunter, and the children in my after school art program are performing their play for parents and friends. There's a lot going on. 

I spent the weekend slaving over my two final assignments for my literacy class.  One of them, I knew was pretty good; the other I figured I would just muscle through when I got home from work on Monday night.  I had no other obligations, it was perfect, right? Wrong. I arrived to work (in the already hot weather wearing a dress) to hear N ask if I was dressed up for the meeting we had after school. Whoops! Nope. Even though I have known about it for months and was even reminded about it on Friday afternoon, it slipped my mind. Classic me. 

I will spare you the specifics of the meeting and head into my buckling down to finish this assignment. Last semester, I would have called it a night around bedtime and resolved to finish at lunchtime on Tuesday.  But after a few too many crazy stressful afternoons wondering if my paper would end up being tinted in on time, I vowed to never do that again.  My assignments would be done the night before. There was no alternative.  I was starting to feel the pressure, but didn't worry too much because I professor had promised is the opportunity to revise.  When I go to submit it via Blackboard, the attempt is labeled as late. I die, email the professor, and lay awake fretting over how many points would be taken off for my lack of punctuality. 

Around ten o clock the next morning, I get an email stating that my assignment was, in fact, on time. Relief. Then I get to class to realize that this paper cannot actually be revised, as I originally thought. And I died. I fretted the whole subway ride home about how I would deal with what would most certainly be a zero point score for that particular paper.  I buy ice cream before I head upstairs to ease the pain. Then I check my grades.  100.  Classic me. 

This brings us to Wednesday, the day before we are supposed to show our play to parents and friends. I go to dig out the costumes, props, and sets that the kids have been working on for the past three weeks so that I can do some last minute trimmings, only to find that they are gone. Upon further investigation, I found that they must have been mistaken by the cleaning crew for garbage and have been thrown away.  They had been sitting in the same spot for the better part of a month, but were thrown away just one day before they were needed.  I had somehow left them in precisely the wrong spot. Classic me.

Sigh. But we rallied. A was amazing at reproducing what was lost.  It looked a little more adult made than before, but still wonderful. Thursday and Friday were a whirlwind of costumes and Mommies and Daddies and gourmet soft pretzels.  A good time was had by all. Or.....most.

But it sure was a slow moving whirlwind. 

You would think that Friday would mark the end of the insanity, but that just isn't the case. After factoring my grade in my undergraduate history class and realizing that, even if I didn't pass in the final paper that was assigned, I would still get my desired C or higher, I had a hard time concentrating. And waited till the very last minute. Which, if you recall, is something I vowed not to do. At least today is Saturday. And it's beautiful. And I will definitely be getting that C+. 

Classic me.

Enjoy your weekend!!

To My Neighbor With Such Terrible Laundry Etiquette...

When I first came down to the laundry room (albeit about 5 minutes late) to move my load over and saw that you had strewn my wet clothes all over the counter and floor, I was pretty pissed at you. I understand that your laundry needs far surpass those of any others in the building, and my clothes were done. You were completely within your rights to move them. It was just so awesome that you were able to sense that I was having a bad week, and instead of exerting the extra effort to move my laundry into the available dryer directly above, just threw my wet clothes where ever they landed, so long as they were out of YOUR washing machine. What's one more annoyance?

I came back upstairs on a tear, and wailed to Ben about how inconsiderate you were. I contemplated several retaliations: perhaps trying to rush back down to the basement before you, leave your clothes on the floor, and flee before you had a chance to see me, or leaving a post-it on the door of the washer, reminding you that "YOU ARE AN ASS." I was actually rather partial to the post-it plan, and in fact, I almost did it.

But then I remembered.

I remembered a nasty note that I once received from a housemate of Ben's. She left a note on my windshield, explaining in unnecessary detail, what a bitch I was for parking incorrectly in the driveway. I think the note served its purpose- I was very careful about my parking from then on, and to this day, I cannot think about that note without feeling a little guilty. I remembered that note, and I decided that I did not want to be responsible for you feeling that way. It was just a parking space. It's just laundry.

So, I want to thank you, unknown neighbor, because your crappiness reminded me how very important it is to be kind. And when I went down to get my dry clothes, saw that your load had finished, there was another woman waiting for your machine, and that you were nowhere in sight, I resisted the urge to pull all of YOUR clothes out of the washer and fling them around the room. Instead, I moved your clothes into the readily available adjacent dryer- the same dryer that you could have used to put my wet clothes in, but couldn't be bothered to. For all I know, you've had a week that was every bit as horrific as mine, and maybe pulling my clothes out of the washer was therapeutic. Maybe my miniscule act of kindness will help turn your Friday night around.

Or at the very least, save you the trouble of moving your laundry around.

Thank you for reminding me how much better it is to be kind, even when being nasty is oh-so tempting.

Sincerely,

6D

Cry, Baby.

I cried a lot in college. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. At LEAST once every day, over some stupid grade or an even stupider boy, or because someone did something nice for me that I felt I didn't deserve. I was awarded "Most Likely to Cry at a Grocery Store Opening" at the Theatre Department's end of the year accolades. And probably cried about it.

Nowadays, I'm not like that. It takes a lot more buildup to get me there- certainly more than one day's worth of frustration. In today's case, it was three (pretty much) solid days of frustration that broke the camel's back. And my tear ducts. Ick.

The worst part is trying to convince everybody that I am fine, because I am. It just so happens that I am mega- sensitive, even though I am much LESS sensitive now than I used to be. And then we get into the whole smile crying thing....and it's just not pretty...



[I'm sure I shouldn't find that picture as funny as I do. I'm sure it has some heartbreaking context that will make me feel guilty, which is why I specifically avoid looking into said context.]

For me, crying is more an annoyance than anything else. It makes me look silly and weak, and like I can't let things roll off my back. Why is everyone around me so much stronger than I am? And why can't I just suck it up and NOT cry when I feel the tears coming? I wish I knew.

Although, sometimes I feel like crying is my way of processing things that bother me. I discover the irritation, I stew about it, cry over it, and then I feel better. It probably isn't the healthiest way to deal with unpleasantries, but apparently it has been working for the last 26 years, or it wouldn't be so terribly well ingrained. Must look into that.


And it's been a weird, not-so-great day. Good thing we have crybaby Dawson.

Sunday 180

Growing up, Sunday was my least favorite day of the week. I disliked it even more than Monday.  Why? Because it was a chameleon. It would pretend to be all fun and part of the weekend, but in reality, it was just pre-Monday. The day that you used to fret about all the homework that you had all weekend to do, but managed to put off until Sunday evening at about 8:30pm.  Remember those Sundays? I do. I hated them.

Now that I'm a grown up (ish), Sundays have really climbed the ladder. A day to sleep in, stay in your jammies, And take a nap? Awesome!! And let's not forget that most half marathons are on Sundays too! Great!! Nowadays, a good Sunday gets e pumped for the rest of the week, even the dreaded Monday!

Anybody else have strong feelings about Sundays? Either way? I dare say it may be my favorite day of the week now!

Except for Friday.

And maybe Saturday.

Yeah. So. Top three.

"After this weekend, I need a cleanse..."

A strange thing happened last night.  As Ben and I were walking to dinner with a friend of ours, my phone (a droid 3, complete with keyboard , that I have loved dearly....and dropped often over the past few years) turned off, and try as I might, I couldn't get it to turn back on.  Much as I hate to admit it, my entire evening was shrouded in turmoil. Why wouldn't my phone turn back on? Would it ever turn on again? Had anybody updated their Facebook page recently? GASP!! Was I missing text messages??

We did have a delicious dinner at Uskudar, though. And 16 Handles just happened to be on the route I insisted we take home. That definitely eased the pain. 

Today, J and F came in from Queens for some shopping, currywurst, and dessert at Rice to Riches. It certainly hasn't been the healthiest weekend ever, but it HAS been delicious!!!

And, since I'm sure you are all dying to know, after about 20 hours sans phone, I popped into the Verizon store for an upgrade...I now have an iPhone which Ben has programmed to do all kinds of fancy things.  It's an addiction in the making.

There were, however, zero missed text messages and zero Facebook norifications. Sigh. All that angst for nothing.

Hope everyone had a great weekend??

Disney Photos....and not much else..

Those of you who know me probably know that I have an affinity for all things Disney. I will be 26 this month and still obsess over Disney vacations, RunDisney races (specifically, the Disney Princess Half Marathon, which Al and I ran last week...), and love a good snuggle with my Stitch pillow pet.

With that in mind, here are some photos of my most recent trip to Disney World. I'd show you photos taken of me on the Half Marathon race course, except I don't want to....:p

Happy Sunday! Have a great week!!

Bonus Day

Sunday nights usually come with just a little bit of gloom. Monday is coming, and so is the work week and early mornings and waiting, waiting, waiting for Friday afternoon. But tonight is special. It's a long weekend Sunday. Monday is still coming, but the work week has been postponed by one more day. I have a special bonus day to do whatever I want, which, judging by the crazy afternoon I had today, will probably involve binge-watching television and doing chores.

I met up with A for brunch today, which was wonderful. We've been living in the same city for about 6 months now, and it was about time we got together. "Do you want to do this weird thing with me?" I asked as we were finishing our eggs, "If you ride the 6 train all the way to the end, you loop through the abandoned City Hall Station and come out on the uptown side of the tracks" [sidenote: I have been really into this lately- as in, I am so into it that I want to become a member of the MTA museum so that I can have a tour]. He said sure, and we gave it a shot, but I think the combination of being really involved in a conversation and perhaps sitting on the wrong side of the subway car hampered us from seeing much of anything. So that was kind of a bust.

Luckily, A had further plans for the afternoon. A friend of his had a booth at the Vogue Knitting LIVE 2014 expo, which was going on at the Marriott Marquis in (the dreaded) Times Square. So off we went. And it was a blast.



Here's me with my pass. My name, for the afternoon, was Susan Smith.



I didn't realize that knitting and fiber arts sort of have their own subculture-universe. There are well-known knitters, more buttons than I have ever seen, and really imaginative pieces. My favorite was this woman, Kelly Fleek, who herself described her work as art that just happened to be wearable. It was so quirky and fun. And A's friend plays a part in making these bags, which hold all of the knitting supplies you'd need AND zip up in any way imaginable. SO COOL!

But that was not the highlight of our visit to the Marquis. The highlight was meeting THIS GUY. His name is Steven Berg and he is wonderful. "Did you make this scarf?" he asked as he shook my hand. "No," I replied. It actually had come from Forever 21, but I didn't think he needed that detail. "Well, you certainly could have," he said, "But, you know what I always say, everything looks better with a pom pom!" and with that, he adjusted his feathered scarf and was gone. Amazing.

I know that knitting expos certainly don't sound like everybody's cup of tea, but this was a really good time. I felt so inspired to go home and dig a project out from under my desk!

What a wonderful Sunday. I hope you all enjoyed yours as well!

Pre- Nuptial Big Brother

Maybe it is just one of the rules of the trade, but let me tell you, when you're shopping for your wedding, suddenly EVERYBODY wants a piece of you. F and I popped into a bridal boutique near Boston while Ben and I were visiting, and we had barely stepped in the door before being accosted by an odd, nervous man inquiring about when and where the wedding was, and offering his services as a DJ/videographer/MC/photographer. It was unclear whether or not he intended to do all of those things by himself at the same time, but I had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps he did. I told him, as I tell most of the people who approach me about those things, that I would have to talk to Ben first and think about it. He understood and walked away. Then he was back a few minutes later, as he had forgotten to give me the free coffee cup I had apparently earned for doing nothing whatsoever. I had my coffee in it this morning, though- pretty good mug.

It seems that a lot more people than I realize know I'm getting married. I barely had time to change the old Facebook status to 'engaged' before there were wedding ads popping up on the side of my computer screen. And once I started looking at gowns, random wedding vendors began blowing up my phone and voicemail about free gifts they had for my fiance and I- and congrats on my engagement! But I think the point was really driven home when I noticed a thick envelope in my pile of mail today, with a message full of desire to be a part of my special day- complete with a free gift card.

This mail was from Target. As in, the giant department store chain with the big bullseye. Target knows that I will be getting married soon, and wants to make sure that I'll sign up for their registry (which, hey, I probably will...).

HOW does Target know this about me? And how does Target know where I live? I'm sure there are very simple, very creepy answers to this question, since nothing on the internet is private, but eeesh.

The wedding's getting closer, though. Perhaps it's time to dust off the binder that my mother sent me for my birthday last year and have a look at the things I still have left to do. You never know, it might be time for me to give one of those vendors a call back.

Resolve.

I have a book that I've cherished since I was in about 5th grade called 101 Ways To Improve Your Life. Basically, it calls for you to relax and enjoy your life, but it also suggests that, in order to improve your attitude, you should never, EVER make New Year's Resolutions. So, for the past ten years, I have not made any resolutions. And it's been great.

But I feel like maybe I will make some this year. It will sort of be like having a to-do list for the next 12 months, and I DO love to cross things off of lists.

I decided on four resolutions for the year, with the obvious 'no more eating crap' and 'get the apartment organized' as mere implications...

1) FINISH A STORY-- something I have been talking about for years. I really think that a year will be enough time, if I have enough nagging [so get going, blogosphere, NAG AWAY!!].

2) GET MARRIED-- will certainly accomplish this one. August 29th, mark your calendars!

3) SEE A CELEBRITY-- preferably Patrick Stewart, who lives somewhere in Brooklyn.

4) LEARN TO PLAY THE GUITAR-- Ben gave me a lesson while we were visiting his parents, and it is actually very tricky- and hurts your fingers!! But I think it might be fun to at least know the basics, so that maybe I could play and sing with the kids in my class.


So there you have it. My plans for the New Year. Anybody else have some good ones? Or are you opting for none this year?

WOOO!! 2014!!!




And yes, I know that I shared this meme last January as well, but it's Captain Picard and it never gets old.