Month: April 2012

April 27, 2012 – Friday 5

~ Julia

It’s Friday, I have two weeks of laundry to do, and 8+ hours of group work ahead of me for my capstone class. In a little over a week, it will all be over, and I’ll pretty much effectively know whether or not I’ll graduate in December.
So, that being said, onwards! To the Friday5!
  1. Besides on a sandwich, what’s your favorite use of peanut butter?
    On pretty much everything. I love it in sauce for ribs, on chicken satay as a dip, on fruit, as peanut butter sauce on ice cream, and in smoothies.
  2. What are your feelings about pudding?
    Mostly “meh.” I get weirded out by the skin it forms. It totally clouds my enjoyment.
  3. What’s the best use for peas?
    As concrete filler for mashed potatoes.
  4. Where can you go for a really good dish of mashed potatoes?
    Any place that pretty much whips them into creamy, buttery, fluffy peaks, and covers them in salty chicken gravy.
  5. Besides gum (that’s too easy!), what’s the worst food you’ve ever had stuck in your hair?
    I haven’t gotten food products specifically stuck in my hair, but I get lipgloss in it all the time, and it makes me dadgum crazy!

Source: f.riday5.com

April 26, 2012

~ Julia ~ 1 Comment

A while ago, a farmhouse close to my house finally sold after being on the market pretty much the entire time I’d lived in the neighborhood.

I was really excited because I loved this farmhouse. It is situated on 13 acres, has a gorgeous home, and two big barns on it. I really, really wanted someone to love this farm.

For a while, the new owners of the property made some renovations to the home, brought a bunch of horses, steer, and a camel to live on the property as a pony ride-cum-petting zoo type of destination. The owners out adds in the local paper, and the farm seemed to be gaining traction.

The new owners started to put up a massive barn in the back of the field, and that’s when the signs of trouble started. Only the framework went up before the winter snow came, and the project was abandoned. The skeleton sits, sagging terribly since. Then the camel was no longer to be seen in any of the pastures, then the horses followed. Four steer arrived in the largest pasture, and a month later, they, too were gone. The house, though in much better shape than before, still looked like it had a long way to go.

I waited with baited breath, and a tiny spark of hope that the owners would wait until it was warm to try again. That was squashed on Tuesday, when the original, hand-painted sign with a reproduction of the farm home indicating it’s sale went up in the frame that had been built two weeks earlier.

My farm is up for sale again…

April 18, 2012

~ Julia

My skin has finally calmed  down since its recent aggravation when I got back from my business trip. Oh, sensitive skin, how I loathe thee…

Turns out, drinking gallons of aspartame in a week makes my skin go haywire. While I was away, I got back in the bad habit of drinking Diet Coke as regularly as breathing. Mind you, I had already fallen off the wagon a little before that, but during the conferences, the only think the conference center served in sealed containers were bottles of soda.

Since moving out to the country, I’ve developed a “thing” about drinking tap water (and, I like fizz, anyway), so I wasn’t really down with drinking the communal water out of the carafe. I’m pretty sure I was up to  96oz of soda/day on that trip, and then the only liquids I was drinking when I got back home was soda, too.

The lightbulb connection finally clicked on, and I realized I needed to get back on my seltzer kick. I headed over to Marc’s and got back on the wagon with 16 liters of seltzer, which I’ve been going through at a rate of roughly 2 liters per day.

The amount of times I have to use the restroom is unreal, but at least everything is starting to clear up.

April 13, 2012 – Friday 5

~ Julia
 Hey folks, it’s time for the Friday5!
  1. What were the libraries at your elementary and high school like?
    I don’t have any recollection of the library in my first grade school, but in my secnd one, it was first in the basement, in a long room off of a main hallway, and then they moved it to the renovated rectory when they annexed it to the school. I remember spending a lot of time in that library. I have absolutely no recollection of the library of my first high school. But the library of my second high school was a large, amply-windowed room off of the main atrium of the main building. The advent of the Internet was upon us then, so I remember spending way more time in the computer lab than the library. Through both grade and high school, I was a lover of the library, and spent a lot more time in the public library than the school library.
  2. What’s interesting about your nearest community library?
    It’s large and spacious, and has hex signs in it as an homage to the Amish community.
  3. What is the longest you’ve had an overdue library book?
    I’ve been sent to collections for an overdue book. It was a dark time.
  4. Among people you know who aren’t already librarians, who would make a good librarian?
    Definitely the two women I know who have degrees in library studies.
  5. Who is your favorite librarian?
    Hmmm, I didn’t know people had favoritelibrarians. I do not have one, I must admit.

Source: f.riday5.com

April 12, 2012

~ Julia

As I am typing this, it is 9:40 and I am in my jammies, watching The Big Bang Theory, and relaxing. It feels almost sinful.

Though, that said, I just found out that if I want my name in the graduation program for the December 14th ceremony, I will need to have my application in by, oh — TOMORROW! So, I think I know what I’ll be frantically doing tomorrow evening….

But oh my God, guys, I’m going to be graduating. Well, hopefully, barring I don’t flunk the capstone course this semester. I don’t think I will, but “prepare for the worst, and hope for the best” and all that jazz.

In other news, does anyone have any ideas for where Charlie and I should go to dinner tomorrow? If I don’t have a solid idea tonight, we’ll spend half of date night trying to figure it out.