Busy bee to Lazy Sloth...

I'm just going to go ahead and pick up where I left off. Cool? Thought so. (PS...for future reference to those who ever think I'm being cheesey...shhhhhhh I don't care.)

Thursday was my first day back to school. I was very surprised to find just how unprepared I was for it. Normally, the day before I start a new quarter (especially after a long break) I am frantically getting all my school supplies in order. Pencils, black pens, blue pens, highlighters, erasers, tiny stapler, paper clips, rubber bands, flash cards, notebooks....I love school supplies, if you can't already tell. My back pack is cleaned out, packed, and set in a convenient location. I usually have what I am going to wear and eat for breakfast planned. I am showered and groomed and go to sleep at a decent hour. Well, Wednesday night, it didn't occur to me that I hadn't done any of this until I was about to turn my lights out. I have scattered supplies from the previous year, my back pack still had random stuff in it from moving and was buried under boxes, I was so unkempt I was disgusted with my own hair and felt sorry for anyone who sat behind me and had to look at it, and I had no clue as to what I was going to wear or eat or, better yet, where any of my classes were. I hadn't checked the condition of my bike, of course, it had a flat tire. I did what I could and set my alarm for 7:00 so that I could shower, cook breakfast, and still have time to go to a coffee shop to look up the location of my classes since I didn't have internet in my apartment. Thursday morning didn't exactly pan out like that, naturally. I snoozed all four alarms until 8:45. Even though I was so unprepared, I was not panicked. I have been going to school for so long now that this "first day" felt like any other day of the quarter. I slowly rolled out bed, put on some clothes, and grabbed a Luna bar. I drove due to my bike's flat tire, which is always nerve wracking because there are bikers and skaters and runners of all sorts everywhere. I managed not hit anyone...this time. My classes were fine. I love my French teacher, so sweet and naive but has been and taught everywhere (oh the perks of being a foreign language professor).  She looks like the chick from Hung but cuter:

My spanish class is awesome because my teacher strictly speaks spanish. I can understand her for the most part but still get lost at times. I hope she doesn't crack like most of my teachers have in the past. I have a good feeling about it though.

I got to hang out with a couple of my good friends on Thursday night, which is always nice. My friend moved into the Excursion Club House this year. It's pretty sweet. They have a huge backyard that has fig  and orange trees, a sweet husky mix named Bear, a jacuzzi, annnnnddd a climbing wall! So, I ended up climbing a bit. After my first top out, I was privileged enough to peer into their neighbors yard. Turns out, the neighbors own a few raccoons and skunks and grow a lot of pot. Interesting. After a while the raccoons got a little curious too:

They hung out by the sketchy, handmade latter the climbers climb down.

It was fun catching up with them, but I started to get tired and my throat started hurting so we called it a night some what early.

One thing I forgot to mention about Wednesday, I drove to Ventura and went to Target. I did a whole lot of shopping for the apartment. I also ordered the necessities online... bad news, most things wont be coming for about a month, including my desk and chair. So, my apartment will not be quite ready until November. Everyone is still welcome to visit and stay, it just wont be as cute. I did add a couple things to my kitchen though!

I'm a sucker for color. and yes, that mug does say big daddy.

I worked really hard on my apartment on Wednesday and Thursday. I am quite proud of myself for it. Unfortunately, come Friday morning, my cold came back with a vengeance. This cold is something special. It clearly does not want to leave my body. So, Friday and today have literally been spent laying around in pajamas watching Parks and Rec, finding new recipes in my new cookbook and vegetarian magazines that the previous resident of my apartment forgot to unsubscribe to :), and a whole lot of cooking. There was a window on Friday where I felt better (probably due to coffee) and I realized how beautiful it was outside. I went out and laid on the bench on my porch and took advantage of the only sun we've had for the last week. Here are some pictures to show how that moment was spent, plus, a picture of me, coffee, and my new cookbook:

What I was looking up at as I laid on the bench and read.

If you can't read that because it's small and backwards, the title of my book is Super Natural Every Day. So excited.

Speaking of cooking... I have decided that I am going to try a new recipe every sunday. It will give me a chance to see what else I can do with food. At the moment, I am only good with vegetables and olive oil, so, it will be interesting to see what other spices, oils, techniques, and foods other than veggies I can explore. Since I felt sick yesterday and it was chilly outside, I decided to try a soup recipe out of my cookbook. It was a red curry zucchini soup with tofu croutons. How was it? Well, like every other time I try to cook something out of a book, I read one of the steps wrong. So, I am not sure if it turned out the way it was supposed to. It turned out some what bland. I didn't want to add too much salt but it didn't have much of a flavor, which may or may not have been my fault.The tofu croutons turned out well though. What I really love about this is the afterthought of how I could have improved the dish. Personally, I would have added either a collard green or kale and good sized slices of white onion. I would have added more spices too to add more flavor, the problem is that I don't know a whole lot of spices... which brings me back to why I need the direction of a cookbook. Anywho, here's what it looked like and what my sautéed garlic, kale, mushrooms, and toasted pine nuts with a side of tomato soup looked like:

Today I made my rendition of bruschetta (diced tomatoes and avocados, shallots, garlic, olive oil, a little sea salt and pepper, and lemon zest....I'm learning). I toasted a whole wheat baguette and drizzled it with balsamic vinegar and sprinkled fresh basil on it. Sadly, I ate it too fast to take a picture of it for you. It was THAT good.

I hope you all don't mind the excess photos that I share in my blogs. It is my way of letting you all into my life. I enjoy it. Also, if you are all bored with the cooking speeches just go ahead and skim over them, I wont be offended. Also if you are bored of them...sorry, because I am going to give a detailed report on Sundays about my experiments. Again, you don't have to read it.
I am going to leave you all with a couple of weird cards I found at Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
Card #1:

Card #2

Love.