book club.

it's time for yet another book club post. i'm still failing miserably at wicked and the devil in the white city. about a month ago i read the queen of palmyra by minrose gwin. yet again it was another book about a girl growing up in the south during the 60s. the book was enjoyable. it touched on some darker issues, moreso than i was expecting. overall it was a good read.

i also read a 'fluff' book called the ridiculous race. it was co-written by two los angeles writers, steve hely and vali chandrasekaran. the two friends start in la and race around the world, with one going east and the other going west. the only rules are they can not take without airplanes and they must cross every longitude along the way. all in all it was entertaining, both from a travel perspective and from their banter and bashing of one another.

currently, i'm rereading an old favorite. the shadow of the wind by carlos ruiz zafon.

poptarts.

so it's been awhile since i've last baked. due the recent acquisition of a kitchen aid stand mixer, my new favorite website, and just my all-out desire to bake and try new recipes, i've been going a little crazy in the kitchen. ok, not crazy per-say, but baking much more than i have the past few months. sunday morning i decided to test the waters with some homemade poptarts.

one of the first recipes i saw on this site was the homemade strawberry poptarts. as soon as i saw it, i knew i was going to make it this weekend. they tasted great. i think for an icing i would just mix up some confectioners sugar with a little bit of milk. the dough was easy to make, but i found it very difficult to roll out and maneuver onto the pan. the heat may have had something to do with it. next time i might just make them more like biscuits and add the filling after the pastries have baked. or before i refrigerate the dough, section it off so i don't have to roll and cut so much at one time. despite all the minor mishaps they were delish. the recipe can be found here. i didn't actually take pictures of mine/they didn't turn out as pretty as deb's.

enjoy!

gaga for gaga.

i have to say, the gaga craze has hit me. it's been coming on so gradually i hardly know when it began. i must admit i've been listening to the fame monster pretty much non-stop for a few days/weeks now. i've been slowly making my rounds on all the videos as well.

love them.

all.

in all of their weird glory.

and yes sometimes i feel like i live in grand central station.

weekend rewind.

this weekend i decided to tackle a little diy project. i wanted to repaint an old dresser that's been sitting around the house.

i wanted to paint the dresser in a soft seafoam/powdery blue color. i decided on martha stewart's sea anemone with a semi-gloss finish. the color did turn out lighter than anticipated. the online swatch is much more true to the color than the paper swatch, but no biggie.

i also revamped the hardware with the violette knob from anthropologie. i had a tough time deciding between that and the glass melon knob, but i think i made the right choice.

redoing the dresser didn't take much. i did a bit of sanding, a lot of elbow grease to get the old knobs off, the rest was just painting and drying time. all in all it was a pretty quick and easy project. now i just need to find some pretty matching wallpaper to line the shelves!

...before

the old knobs

during the makeover process

...after

the semi-gloss sheen in all of its glory

detail

may day

wow...is it really the middle of may already? where does the time go? i feel so old saying that, but it's true. one minute it's the end of february with winter still lurking around the corner. the next, it's frigging 90 degrees and halfway through may. i won't bore you with all the exciting non-events of my life the past few weeks. i'll just run through some of the highlights...

-i saw passion pit in concert a few weeks ago.

-artisphere in greenville was awesome. i saw a few of brian olsen's art in action performances. i also helped with the artists' of the upstate exhibit still up at centre stage through the last weekend in may.

-all of my wonderful siblings are home for the summer, which means a cramped house and learning how to live with them again.

-i still have yet to finish devil in the white city and wicked.

-it's been over a year since i graduated from clemson! (and what do i have to show for it?) oh and they have the nerve to send me letters asking for donations. haha, what a joke!

-one month until my birthday!

well, ta-ta for now!

book club catch-up.

i know it's been awhile so here goes...

the bell jar wasn't entirely what i was expecting, but it wasn't completely unexpected either. as i've read a few books since then, it's not fresh in my brain. upon finishing it i just welmed, maybe? not overwhelmed not underwelmed, i just took it in stride i suppose. eat, pray, love by elizabeth gilbert was next on my agenda. as i stated earlier, parts of it read like my diary and parts of it i just wanted to tell her to get over herself and quit complaining or dragging on about your year of paid vacation/finding yourself journey. all things aside, i was interested to hear her accounts of india and indonesia as both those cultures are not something i know very much about. soon after i finished the book, i was informed that there is going to be a movie. i'm not sure how i feel about that one...so don't expect me at the box office on opening day.

here's where things get a little tricky. i've been a little indecisive about the past few books to read; therefore i've been multi-tasking and reading three. go figure. some books i have been more successful at than others. here goes: i started devil in the white city by erik larson. i must admit, i've never read a non-fiction that i wasn't required to read. it centers around the world fair in chicago telling the stories of daniel burnham, the head architect, intermittently with an infamous serial killer h.h. holmes. the architect's section can be a bit drawn out and slow (yes, i said it). the holmes section sufficiently creeps me out, and always just before bed. i can't bring myself to fall asleep with thoughts of gas chambers and underground kilns in my head, thus leaving me no choice but to continue on to the more technical and longwinded accounts from the designer's point of view. while house sitting for a week alone, i needed to pick up a little more light-hearted book. so i picked up saints at the river by ron rash. the book centers around a young girl's drowning in the tamassee river. i know you are thinking that's not how i would define a light-hearted read, but it was a nice change of pace from devil in the white city. rash actually lives in clemson, my alma mater, and writes about the upstate of south carolina so many places are familiar and his writing deserves much praise. i did enjoy the read and the book presents a family's tragedy and a town's battle to preserve and protect nature. in the near future i am sure i will get around to his three other novels, as they are all at my house and read very quickly, despite their heavy content. upon finishing saints at the river, rather than pick up where i left off, i decided to start wicked by gregory maguire. i've heard various accounts of the story from people who have read it so i'm not sure what to expect. from what i've read, the book is very detailed, almost too much so. i suppose that's what happens when you see the play before you read the novel. to date, i can't say i'm in love with it, nor do i hate it. then again, everything is just beginning for elphaba so i think it's too early to tell.

sorry for the hiatus. after neglecting the blog for so long one would think i would have more exciting things to talk about. there's just too much, probably too little, to actually tell so i figured the book club would be the best place to start. more to come soon!

whoops.

has it really been 3ish weeks since my last post? i suppose the two week olympic hiatus proved to be true. yes i had olympic fever. i had it bad. especially the first week. second week, not so much. well, i got a little addicted to curling. also, lack of posting is due to my busy life schedule. not gonna lie, my life has gone up a notch on the busy meter. i got a job about 2 weeks ago. i didn't even go looking for this one. it's not what you know, it's who you know. i must say it's nice to have a slight purpose in life beyond entertaining myself all day. however, the job factor did put a kink in my non-routine daily routine. actually the whole j-o-b really disrupts my workout schedule ie the only really productive thing i do everyday. i would proudly like to state that i have gone to the gym a few days a week, before work. (meaning i get up long before the sun comes out so i can be at work by 8.) i know you want to know all the dirty deets about the job, but let's just say it isn't exactly up my alley and not in a bad way. i am working in the medical realm so mostly i just do what i am told and work diligently to remain in the good graces of those who tell me what to do. the job has its perks and is interesting, in a i'm-not-really-in-my-element-kind-of-way and it's nice to have a solid paycheck en route to my checking account. plus i work with some characters, and i mean this as a compliment.

i am still waiting to hear back from some grad schools. i had an interview with one this past week. more to come later. slash when i actually have some information to give. i would really love some non-loan money tips though.

i haven't really been baking so i have no new recipes. i'll save the book club stuff for later because my reading pace has slowed considerably.

oh it snowed all day on march the second. yes, i thought it was crazy when it snowed on march the first last year. this weekend it is in the high 50s-low 60s. go figure.

anddddd i'm leaving for key west tomorrow. my first big travel adventure since the great european tour. and yes, i have a free place to stay. that's how i roll. we all know i am an expert on doing it cheap and doing it well.

(that's what she said)

with, that i'm gone again, but hopefully more exciting updates coming soon!