I have an idea

So dear readers, today will probably be a two post day, mainly because I want to blog about two very different subject matters.  The first is a project I would like to start. I’ve been toying around with it for a while now, actually about three years, and, while the concept has become more defined, I have chickened out on it’s actual execution on numerous occasions. You see, I’ve had  several opportunities to sit out and work it all out, but I have been too afraid that it would turn into a giant waste of my time. On the other hand, it could also be a great success, which would be amazing. So I guess you are wondering what this project is since I have been rambling on about it for so long.

I would like to do a fictional blog, possibly titled Complex, which centers around the lives of about eight people who live in the same apartment complex, plus a variety of random appearances of minor characters. It would be updated frequently perspectives of the main character. It would basically be a novel, written in blog form, about the lives of fairly ordinary young people who live together. The characters, at least those I have already written, have been inspired by various people in my life, though they are fictional and their lives are for the most part invented.  The main character would be Andromeda Nicolette Duke, a  young writer fresh from college who spends her time writing for a local paper while hoping that she will eventually have the novel she’s been working on for so long published, and it would begin on move in day as Andi, as she would rather be called, and her roommates, her twin brother and her best male friend, are moving into the complex. It would be an attempt at a humorous story about the lives of young men and woment in America, told through the eyes of a smart, snarky young woman. I would begin by using Andi’s perspective and possibly move into having entries written by other characters, who would give insights into their thoughts on Andi, the world, and the lives they lead.

The problem with this little project is that it could be a huge flop. And if it were to flop, it would be a waste of my time and effort.  It would be considered a flop if there were no readers to read it, and it drew no responses. I wouldn’t have it open for comments, due to the horrible amount of spam I always seem to gather, but it would have its own email address and a little chatterbox type thing so that people can respond.  I mean it could be a success, which would be my hope, but my huge fear is that it won’t. I’ve had this crazy plot bunny roaming around my head for a long time, and if I could draw it would totally be a comic. Too bad though.

Culinary Adventures: Gooey Butter Cake

So this afternoon I decided to make my father a gooey butter cake, which is a recipe my grandmother gave me long ago. I have no idea where she got it, but it is an awesome cake that has its own icing baked on. It’s a bit of a pain for a couple of reasons, like mixing the cake part and knowing when it’s done. But overall, it’s a pretty cool recipe. I made it for my father because he spent a full day fixing the showers in the house last weekend, meaning I finally have my shower back, and it was very messy and frustrating job. I will not be posting the actual recipe, but I will show you the process. I even took pictures.

First of all it has some pretty basic ingredients: cake mix and the like.

Pretty Basic Stuff

The cake itself, when you are mixing it up, doesn’t look like much of a cake. In fact it looks almost impossible to mix up because its so dry.

Starting the cake mixing

Actually the mixing it up is almost impossible because the butter is only softened and the eggs are the only real liquid in the cake part of the cake. It gets all stuck to the beaters, and you have to pry it off. It’s a messy job with the stuff flying out of it.

The cake mixed up

When it’s done you have to press it into a cake pan; I cheat and get a disposable pan most of the time to ease the clean up after the cake is done. It’s difficult to do this part because you have to make sure that the cake is spread evenly, otherwise it bakes all funny and the icing will be all uneven.

The cake is in the pan

It’s icing time, and it looks pretty gross before mixing. With no milk, and just eggs as the liquid its a strange mix. Mixing it is also messy because the sugar is fine and powdery, and it tends to fly everywhere until it gets moist.

The beginning of the icing

Once it is all mixed up it looks smooth and nice. It’s a lot less nasty looking, and it’s really creamy. The problem is that its pretty thick; so when you try to make sure its all mixed up it tends to gum up a bit.

The finished icing

It gets poured on the cake and spread out. Like I said the icing is very thick and it’s also sort of sticky, which makes it hard to spread. That combined with the crumbly cake makes this step a real pain. Every time you try to make sure you have full coverage you wind up pulling up a bit of cake and have to mash it back down. You never achieve full coverage because of the crumbly cake and thickness, but it doesn’t need to be complete covered.

The icing on the cake

Then its into the oven where it bakes until it is done. I mean that literally; there is no set time for the baking. Knowing whether the cake is done is the hard part. Mostly I just bake it until the edges are dry and firm and the top is a pretty nice golden brown with cracks in it. I also test to see how much it jiggles. Today’s cake was just a little bit over done.

The cake out of the oven

I promised you a culinary adventure today, and here it is.

And the Beat Goes On

So, readers, it’s time for a little update on what’s been happening in my life. Lately  you’ve just been getting random updates without much substance, so I’ll give you a much meatier post. Beware, this thing could have some serious length to it.

Let’s start with some things that are ending. Thursday night is mock trial banquet, since much to Wash’s dismay mock prom was canceled; that means there will be no formal wear on the Zoe, which is why Wash is a bit disappointed. Instead we will do dinner at the Chinese restaurant like always with awards and laughter and story telling. It will be my last mock trial banquet, as this was my last season. Mock has caused me a lot of stress over the years; well that is an understatement. But it’s also been a lot of fun. I’ve met a lot of great people, and really it’s how I got to know Wash. It’s done me a lot of good as well.  I’ve grown stronger as a public speaker, and I’ve learned how to write and argue much better than I once could.  The other thing that’s ending is my college career; you see I am graduating in May, on the 9th, and I will become an MTSU Alumnus instead of a college student. It’s a scary thought, I’m not going to lie. I will, God willing, find myself in a more cutthroat and difficult environment next semester, law school. But I do have an amazing support system in my friends, my family, and Wash.

Thinking of law school, I’m at the moment praying that when I get my applications in near the middle of the week it will not be too late. I’m really hoping that I get accepted at UT Knox’s law school because I missed the deadline for my dream school. Fate handed me a raw deal, and I have been so swamped that filling out applications wasn’t low on the to do list because I have to graduate first. So I haven’t been able to get all my stuff taken care of. At the moment I am terrified that I am too late and that I will be out of luck until next year; I’m scared to death that I won’t get into law school and will have to wait a year, which means first of all I will be off my parents’ insurance due to my age and second of all I will have to find a full time job, that I will only work a year, in this lousy, job poor economy. I’m also afraid that some thing will happen that will prevent me from going all together. I know, weird right, Zoe is scared. But it happens.

I went to the doctor a few weeks ago and discovered that I am a great deal heavier than I thought, which means I am really cracking down on my habits. No more two or three cokes a day, even if its a diet coke, and no more eating bunches of junk. Starting tomorrow I will be keeping “health journal” where I will write down everything I eat and all the exercise I do. I’m hoping it will inspire me to get healthier and excercise more; I’m going to be watching to see how my eating habits and work out habits balance out and working for a better balance that will help me trim my waist line and tone up. No matter how many times Wash tells me I’m beautiful and not fat, the fact reman I’ve let myself get fat and I’ve got to stop it.

On Wash and Zoe front things are moving as they have been, toward a future that makes me smile. At the moment we are on the quest for the perfect song to be our song. After all if we ever do get married or anything someday, we’ll need a song to play, and besides its always nice to have a song that suits you. Wash insists that it be a duet, so that we can sing it together, but I don’t have the same confidence in my singing ability that he does. Wash has a great voice, and I love it when he sings to me. But I just don’t think I have that kind of ability, I know once upon a time had I worked with my voice I could’ve been good. Either way, I guess with practice I might be ok. He wrote a song for us, and it was really cute and sweet, but it shall not be our song. The search is on for a song that suits us, and it’s harder than I thought. He invited me to Panama City Beach this summer, but its a family vacation, and I just don’t think I’m ready for that, not yet anyway. Not to mention the fact that as much as I love the beach I’m not so into being fat in a swimsuit in front of him and his family, which is an argument Wash cannot understand. Next year though, next year I just might  because then we will have been together a little over a year and a half, and I will be more aquainted with his family and the like. And hopefull I will be less fat. This year we will make other plans to do things, and we will still have fun. I look forward this summer and having the time to spend with Wash.

Oh, and at some point tonight I will showcase my latest culinary adventure.

Quote of the Day: “Forget regret or life is yours to miss” – Rent

I fell in love with love

First of all, Happy Easter to my readers who celebrate Easter. I hope your day was wonderful.

I’m sitting here on my bed, with Athena and Nike, the two new frogs Wash gave me, sitting next to me, and I’m working on my term paper and texting Wash. Working on a paper inevitably means that I am doing any number of other things online, like updating my twitter, typing a blog entry, and checking Facebook. Productive? Why yes, yes I am. Well anyway, as I was checking my Facebook feed I noticed that yet another one of my friends is engaged. It seems that every time I turn around another one of my friends is joining the ranks of the married and engaged. A lot of the girls, well women now, who I graduated with, including S my former very best friend in the world, have either gotten married in the past year or have gotten engaged. It’s funny that some time back I was poised to become one of them. Now I’ve started all over again, returning to step one with Wash. Well Wash and I are past step one, but you know what I mean.

Now my realization does not mean that I want to immediately get married, have no fear; Wash and I aren’t there yet by any means. I’m content to wear his class ring and be his girlfriend. One step at a time thank you very much. I do, however, care very deeply for him, and that, dear readers, is the important thing. I have come to some other realizations over the past few days, and I think its a product of a lot of thinking. I know, I shouldn’t be allowed to do a lot of that thinking stuff. It’s dangerous. I’m not sure really what got me thinking, unless it is the fact that so many of my friends are either married or engaged, and that during the time spent with Wash, some of it incredibly intimate time that I relish, we seem to be getting closer and closer. I really like the fact that we are getting so close, and I enjoy every moment of it. Wash and I are progressing, and I want to keep going the direction we are going. I like where we are going, and I am very very happy.

I am now almost positive that I am falling in love with Wash, something I didn’t think would ever happen again. I can think of no other reason for why I am so very happy with him. There is a connection I didn’t know I could still make, one I want to hold on to for a long time. I find myself thinking about him often, in fact all the time, and I can’t help but smile. Even when he is being a total goof. I miss him when he isn’t around, even if we just parted at the end of class or the end of a date; it’s crazy, readers, but I can’t help it. He’s wonderful, even if he doesn’t realize it. At the end of a date or even if he’s just walked me to my truck and I’ve driven home, I can still feel his touch and taste his kiss. Yes, they are that good. For the first time in a while, I find myself looking to the future with someone else involved. I can actually see a future with Wash, and it looks rather good.

Does this mean that I want to rush off and get married? No, it doesn’t. Not there yet, thanks, and I’ll be taking this one step at a time. Would I like to get  married? Yeah, eventually I want to marry someone who I love with all my heart and who will love me in return. Perhaps that could be Wash; I don’t know, maybe. You never know what the future will bring.

Quote of the Day: “Love doesn’t make the world go round,
Love is what makes the ride worthwhile” – Elizabeth Browning

Surviving the Storm

Dear readers, yesterday was an adventure. I live in an area where early spring equals dangerous weather, tornadoes to be precise, and yesterday I was no more than 100 feet from one. We were only supposed to get thunderstorms and then it was supposed to clear out and we’d get scattered showers. We were not so lucky. As I type this, there are many in my hometown who are still cleaning up from yesterday’s storms, and I feel at least a little selfish because I am standing here, rubbing Sweet Pea body cream on my legs in preparation for a date tonight. I am a very fortunate young woman because for the second time in a short period a tornado has missed my home. So the answer to how was your day yesterday is crazy.

I had to go have blood work done in conjunction with my check up from last Wednesday, and Mom went with me because I was afraid that she’d have to sign the forms. I’m still on her insurance. So after a 12 hour fast, I had to go get stuck with two needles so that they could draw blood for the lab work. Then Mom bought me breakfast because she’s awesome like that. After that we went to take a suit back that Mom bought earlier and get some labels for my graduation announcements. That damned Wal-Mart remodel is not cool at all. It’s not an improvement so far. We made a couple of stops looking for hardware to fix my kid brother’s bow, and then snagged some lunch. It seemed like an ordinary day, just rainy and gross, which made me more than a little frustrated because Wash and I had a date. But then I got a text from Wash saying to watch the weather.

We paused at the McD’s for a glass of tea, mainly because they are only $1, and then the weather went nuts. The wind had already picked up and Mom was debating whether to cancel her hair appointment. As we got our tea, a guy standing by the window of the restaurant looked out and saw it. The funnel was forming not far away. Immediately the group of high school girls started panicking, and there were some little kids who were upset; we all migrated to the bathrooms in the back for safety. I was mildly irritated by the few hysterical high schoolers and the college girl who were all acting as though the world was going to end. I’m not saying I wasn’t scared, but I did manage to keep my wits about me. I spent the time on the phone with Wash, who gave me play by plays, and it was a comfort.

The tornado touched down right outside, and the traffic camera at the intersection caught it on film. It was the second time in my life that a tornado has been that close to me. It was crazy, and I immediately wished that I was not relaying what Wash was telling me to Mom and the other patrons hiding in the ladies room because knowing this did not help get rid of the panic. So I spent at least an hour and a half in the McD’s bathroom waiting the storm out, and it eventually passed. Hey, at least they keep those bathrooms clean now. It did head toward my neighborhood, but it skipped us, so I’m very thankful for that. I rarely ask for prayers here, mainly because I’m not super religious or anything, but I’m asking that you keep the tornado victims of the Boro in your thoughts and prayers because the storms left a lot of destruction in their wake.

There is no quote of the day today because no quote seems sufficient.