coconut and its uses (2)

On the internet I had heard tell that if you wanted to have hair as soft as silk hand spun in tiny caves by silkworms tended to by only the best silk specialists, you should use coconut oil in your hair. Made sense to me.  I've done hair masks before--normally it entails putting something semi-nasty on your hair, letting it sit for 20 minutes, and then washing it out. Your hair looks great!

I decided to try it with the coconut oil. Not because I was particularly upset with my hair, but we had coconut oil, I had some time to kill, and sometimes it's fun to have super soft hair. I read some instructions, and followed them carefully. First I dampened my hair, then using my hands, spread melted coconut oil through the bottom half of my hair. Nothing near the scalp, who wants greasy hair?! (that's what the internet said, and I trusted it. Foolish, foolish Jenna. Be careful when you trust the internet.) I rolled my hair up into one of those towel turban things that every girl knows how to do, but doesn't really remember how exactly she learned how to do it, and then I waited.

20 minutes went by. I was ready for you, hair! Hair that fell in a cascade, like the rippling water of a babbling brook! That was going to be my hair!

My first hint that maybe these instructions weren't all they cracked up to be is that they told me just to "rinse" the coconut oil out of my hair. Maybe they never had vinaigrette salad dressing growing up or had missed some chemistry 101, but water was not going to get oil out of my hair. After I rinsed for a very long time, wondering if maybe coconut oil had some special powers, I realized no, it doesn't. So I washed my hair with shampoo.

Blow drying my hair, I noticed something funny. Instead of being as soft as the downy feathers on a baby bird of paradise, my hair was....greasy. No problem! I probably just didn't use enough shampoo the first time around. So I grabbed my more hard core clarifying shampoo and washed my hair again.

Still greasy. And now all of this washing has managed to spread the coconut oil everywhere, so I felt as though I had bathed in chicken nuggets. Whoever told me to put this stuff in my hair has basically ruined my life. Fine! I will wash my hair again! Twice!

Finally, now 4 washes from when I originally put the coconut oil in, my hair was clean.

And you know what? It WAS as soft as baby's breath with morning dew.

So next time I need super soft hair, and have 2 hours to wash my hair 4 or 6 times, I will definitely use coconut oil.

Otherwise, conditioner works just fine.

coconut and its uses

preface: When I was younger, I didn't really like coconut. I would much rather have a peanut butter cup than anything fruity, and that's normally where you saw coconut. But as I've gotten older, my palate went crazy and now likes ALL SORTS OF THINGS. Including coconut.

via starbucks.com

use of coconut no. 1: Starbucks has the mocha coconut frappucino back, guys. I rarely, if ever, drink frappucinos. Probably something to do with the cost (over $4 even for a tall?!), the low caffeine to volume ratio, and the whole "sugar is probably not the best thing for most people to consume in huge quantities" deal. But this last week was Starbucks happy hour, so I have to admit, I indulged. When it's half price, who cares about the sugar? Probably your doctor, but shh, we won't tell them.

So I go in, ready to order a caramel frappucino or something. And then I saw it on the menu. The mocha coconut frap. A little choir of tiny angels sang out a brief "Aaaah!" right by head. Or they would have if I was in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It's chocolatey, but with a tropical "aha!" in there, plus a toasty coconut topping that is crunchy and a great foil to the sweet creamy coldness underneath. Here's a hint: Starbucks has chocolate whipped cream right now. Get that on your mocha coconut frap, and then just cry a little tear of happiness.

use of coconut no. 2: Recently, my mom read an article about how coconut oil can be good to help your brain stay sharp. Considering this to be a positive thing, she bought a jar of it. I've tried putting it in my smoothies, and man oh man, is it delicious. Super easy recipe below (note: sub in whatever fruit you like, I just used what I had on hand)

via thekitchn.com

(also note: I didn't use any ice because most of my fruit was frozen. If you are using non frozen fruit, add a handful of ice. Let me also use this time to plug freezing your fruit if you want to make smoothies--it makes your life so much easier, and you don't even have to water the smoothie down with ice!)

Blueberry Coconut Smoothie
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 banana
3/4 cup frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted. (from what I've read, I guess it's important to get virgin coconut oil, or you lose some of the benefits. We bought ours at Trader Joe's. Also, coconut oil is a semi-solid at room temp, so you need to melt it. I just microwaved it for 15 seconds.)

optional: 1 tablespoon honey (I skipped it)

Layer milk, yogurt, banana, and blueberries into blender. Blend until nearly smooth. Take the melted coconut oil and while the blender is running, stream it in. If you want, add honey here. Then drink, and pretend you are in a cabana on a beach. Unless of course, you live in a cabana on a beach, in which case, no pretending needed.


use of coconut no. 3: Well, you'll just have to tune in tomorrow to hear that one. Spoiler alert: it's about a hair mask gone very wrong. 

corona cupcakes (you know that's right)

corona lime cupcakes

Pinterest is good for a lot of things. It's nice for keeping track of stuff you'd like to remind yourself of (like how to fold a tshirt japanese style!) or for looking at clothing you will never be able to justify buying (I'm talking to you, pleated pink and blue skirt.) It also is good for reminding you that holidays are coming up and maybe you should make something to celebrate!

So, thanks to Krystal pinning a recipe from Lauren Conrad (who thought I would ever link to her?) via the Sweet Tooth Blog, I remembered that it was Cinco de Mayo last Saturday, which meant I needed to make (what else?) --Corona cupcakes!

These are pretty delicious. We even froze some before frosting to eat later (with new frosting) and they were still fantastic. You guys should definitely try these.

Corona Cupcakes
(via  Erica's Sweet Tooth)

For the cupcakes: 

3/4 cups butter, at room temperature

1 3/4 cup sugar

2 1/2 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Zest of 1 lime

1 cup Corona beer, plus more for brushing on tops

1/4 cup milk

1. Start! Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, and line your muffin tins with cupcake liners. Warning--these cupcakes do not have very domed tops, they tend to spread, so I recommend greasing the top of your cupcake pan (I used Pam) so they don't stick.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. 

3. Beat together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at at a time. Once that is all combined, stir in the vanilla and lime zest.

4. Combine the beer and milk. It will look disgusting, but trust me, it will make for a good cupcake. Alternate pouring the beermilk and the flour mixture into the mixer, until all combined. 

5. Fill cupcake cups 2/3 full (ere on the scant 2/3 side) and bake for 18 minutes. Sometimes they needed more like 20. Either way, check and see if they are brown or if a toothpick comes out clean. 

6. Optional: When they come out, prick the tops of the cupcakes with a toothpick and brush beer over the top. I didn't do this because I tripled the recipe and therefore had used all my beer in the actual cupcakes.

For the frosting

12 oz cream cheese, room temperature
6 tbsp butter,  room temperature

Juice of 1 lime (I made it with the juice of 2 limes, and that was even more wonderfully lime-y, but I leave it up to you)

Zest of 1 lime
4ish cups powdered sugar

1. Cream together the butter, cream cheese, lime juice, and lime zest until creamy. 

2. Start adding that powdered sugar. 4 cups of powdered sugar is going to make a pretty soft frosting. I knew I needed something a little more stiff since I would be transporting these, so I put in more about 6. Do whatever makes you feel happy. 

3. Once cupcakes are cooled, you can spread them with the frosting, or use a star tip and a pastry bag (I did) and pipe the frosting on. I topped it with light green sugar, instead of actual lime wedges, because sugar is more fun to eat than wedges of lime. At least, I think so. Feel free to disagree.   

 4. Enjoy!

autocorrect

People joke about how much they don't like auto correct. "Haha, I tried to tell them I was coming to dinner, but instead I told them I was canoeing down a river!!!! hahahahaha"

But you have no idea how much trouble auto correct saves you until your phone mysteriously stops using it.

I realized that nothing in my text messages were being auto corrected. I would send messages trying to say "hi i will be right there," but sometimes I type really fast and sloppily so it turned into "gu i wikk be rifgt tjwew" which is typing not even a mother could love (or understand.) Normally, my phone would be all "hey now! when you type "gu," we have gathered that you may actually mean "hi!"" Sometimes my phone, for all of its silliness, is pretty smart.

But last week, for some reason, it decided it was tired of correcting all of my mistakes, so it just stopped working.

This proved to be a bit of a problem. For one, speedy texting while in line relies on your ability to load groceries onto the conveyer belt and text quickly at the same time. This means your text messages look something like this: "aslkdfasd faleiwoe gnalweig hlkasjdhfw sld woeig skld we ide lsdkfs we." Autocorrect would helpfully turn that into "Are you sure we need onions?" Without autocorrect, I couldn't even send the message, which meant we ended up with way too many onions at home.

(please. You don't text in line at the grocery store?)

After about a week of slow and careful texting, I was getting a little put out. I tried poking around in my settings. I tried shaking my phone. I tried some of the complicated double tap finger slide while holding the phone upside down maneuvers that I figured I might have inadvertently done in the very beginning that had made my autocorrect die.

Then, I tried google.

While google was mostly full of people trying to turn off their autocorrect, I was successfully able to reverse the instructions and turn mine back on.

That's why I could type this whole pipe on my pool!

Oh autocorrect! I meant--whole post on my phone. 

cab driver questions

I came back this weekend on a train that got into Union Station at about 12:45am, so I had to take a taxi home. After exchanging pleasantries with the driver and letting him know where I was going, we settled into the comfortable silence that comes when you're riding in a cab after midnight, coming home from a work trip.

image via wikipedia

(sidenote: the silence on my part normally comes because I'm dozing. I'm hoping the drivers are normally silent because they're deep in thought, not because they are also dozing.)

About halfway through the ride home, the driver asked me a question. Since, as previously mentioned, I was slightly asleep, I didn't quite catch what he said. Maybe he needed to be reminded of the exit we should take?

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I'm trying to remember something. Does the energizer bunny wear slippers?"

 "Um....I'm not sure?"

Now I was alert. Was this the start of some bigger conversation?

But he didn't say anything else the entire ride, except for "please sign here" and "have a good night!" when he dropped me off.

 So, just in case YOU were wondering if the energizer bunny wears slippers or not, I checked. It appears that the energizer bunny does wear flip flops, sometimes called slippers. Now I'm prepared for the next time someone asks me that question. Whenever that may be.

a prairie home companion

Listening to A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday evening instantly takes me to the long summers we've spent in Minnesota. When Garrison Keillor says "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon," and inhales, long and nasal, somehow I am standing on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, trying to decide if I can swim all the way to the floating dock. All of the older kids play out there, diving off and shaking their hair as they reemerge, and you hope you can be as cool as them--but when you are seven, the swim is just too far.

"What are you going to play for us?" Mr. Keillor asks, and then they sing, oh how they sing! When they harmonize with soft violins and trembling banjos through my radio, I can see summer twilight descending on my grandparent's yard. The cousins wave sparklers and shout, even though the babies are asleep inside (they're used to it, my mom and aunt say, sitting on the front step.)

Somehow the rise and fall of Mr. Keillor's voice, interspersed with the sound effects man (who knew you could recreate that sound on the radio?) holds the quiet Minnesota magic. The call of the loon, the inevitable mosquito bite. The gentle rumbling of the car putting us to sleep as Dad drives us home from the state fair.

Even if you're stuck in traffic on 66, trying to finish all of your weekend errands, there's something comforting in knowing you can turn on the radio at 6pm and maybe--just maybe, it'll take you home.

easter 2012

   

He is not here, for He is risen, as He said.

come down from the trees (you've been gone too long)

return to the house that you came from
(matthew and the atlas)

 

easter 2012

Chicken, Asparagus, and Bacon Pasta

it's been a while, but getting back in the habit, here is a photo-less recipe. It is tasty, so, for whatever that's worth.....

---

A few nights ago we went to Sweetwater Tavern, and I had a dish that involved flattened chicken, a buttery sauce, and angel hair pasta. I decided to try to make my own version, since it was just SO GOOD. This basically is not very much like their dish, but it does include bacon. Beware, I made this for our family, so you could probably cut down the quantities a lot of if you're only cooking for one or two.

Chicken, Asparagus, and Bacon Pasta
Serves 8-10

1 package of bacon
8 garlic cloves
1/2 bottle of white wine
1 cup chicken broth
6 tablespoons of  butter
1/4 cup half & half
4 chicken breasts
1 "package" asparagus
1/2 tablespoon onion powder (you could slice and cook the onions with the garlic. I just didn't feel like it, so I cheated)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 and 1/2 packages of angel hair pasta (I used whole wheat, Sweetwaters used white. White is kind of tastier, whole wheat fills you up more.)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook the whole package of bacon. Set bacon aside. Leave enough bacon grease in pan to coat the pan.

2. Pound Chicken breasts until about 1/3-1/2 inch thick, making sure they're a uniform thickness so they cook evenly

3. Chop garlic and cook over medium high heat until browned in the bacon grease.

4. Pour in 1/4 bottle of wine, and let cook for 1-2 minutes so the flavors can meld.

5. Add onion powder, chili powder, and paprika. Add butter, let melt. Add half & half. Taste your sauce. See if you want more spices. Add them if yes.

6. Add chicken to pan. Cook until done. This is where I'm a horrible recipe writer--I just cooked it on one side until it was browned, flipped it over, and let it cook until it no longer felt "squishy" to the touch. I did cut one open to check and make sure it was done. This was maybe 3.5 minutes per side, but please check yourself. Or :: foodie snob voice :: you can always use a meat thermometer! It can be a little underdone here, though, because you're going to cook it for a bit longer to cook the asparagus.

7. While the chicken is cooking, roughly chop the bacon into bite size pieces. Trim the tough ends of the asparagus, and cut into bite sized pieces. Also, bring water to boil and cook your pasta. 

8. Once the chicken is mostly done, add chicken broth to pot. Once that has started bubbling again, add asparagus. Cover the pan and let cook for a few minutes (3ish?) Once the asparagus is tender, add chopped bacon, and cover again to let heat.

9. When everything is heated through, taste your sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Mine needed hardly any salt, and lots of pepper.

10. Serve over pasta.

NYC WiFi

Recently, I've been moonlighting as a photographer/videographer for work. This means that over the last month, I have found myself in New York on several occasions, in search of a spot to upload photos back to the mothership. (Of course I mean the office, yes.) What follows are my official rankings of "places to upload photo and video in New York City, from worst to best."

1. Your Droid WiFi
Your droid wifi is great when you need to find out a thing or two, or have to send that one text file using your computer. Try uploading a picture with it and it instantly freaks out. "A photo?! Me?! From your computer? Over the internet?! I don't know what to do! AAAAAAAAAAH the only correct response is to turn off!"

(Then again, my droid does this even when I'm just trying to play angry birds, so maybe I just have a particularly sensitive phone?)

2. Your midtown hotel wifi which costs $9.95
If you think "oh, this wifi costs money. It must work well," hahahaha, you are so cute. My first clue was when I opened my computer and it spent several minutes trying to open the google homepage. I decided to upload a 30 second video clip. An hour later, I bailed. At the rate it was going, I could have developed an entire broadway play around this clip before it finished uploading.

3. A downtown hotel where you are eating lunch's wifi
We had stopped for lunch at a hotel that we weren't staying at, and I thought  "oh, I will just get some photos uploading while we wait for our sandwiches." These were complicated sandwiches that took a little while to prepare. We ate them leisurely. I tried not to look like a weirdo as I kept checking to see if I needed to add any more pictures because they were uploading so fast. (no, they weren't.) The check came. We looked at it for a while. We got coffee. We paid the check. We talked for a while. 3 pictures had been uploaded.

4. Time Square Starbucks' wifi
There was a guy watching hulu next to me, and another woman was uploading videos too. Yet somehow, this wifi  managed to get itself together and CARRY THAT VIDEO across it's waves. Or whatever wifi has. It took some time (about 2 cappuccinos and a bag of glazed almonds of time) but it WORKED.

5. A Midtown Church where your boss has a meeting's wifi
If you have to upload video in New York, I highly recommend swinging by a church. Their internet is like a streak of lightning. And you will be like "woah, I got up to take a drink of water and all of my pictures that I have ever taken have been uploaded. I really don't think the office wanted to see my early attempts at artsy photography that include poorly lit shots of clover. . . oh well."

Of course, it is helpful if someone in your party actually has some sort of connection to said church, like a meeting or something, as opposed to just knocking on their door and being like "hey, I hear there's good wifi. . ."

Wednesday (okay fine, Thursday) list 7

sometimes it's a greatest hits blog day. This is one of those days.

1. Don't listen to the media who tells you that there's just one demographic represented at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Stand up for the little guy.

Via the daily beast

2. Cutting boards in the shape of states? The cooking and geography loving parts of my soul just did a little dance. 

via woodbob

3. Just make these pumpkin pancakes. They are so good.

via joythebaker

 4. This is not as exciting. It appears that my RSS feed is having some issues -- if these posts are still showing up in your reader, can you let me know? You're the best.

pumpkin quest

Brownies 1. Courtesy of pennies on a platter

As we've previously discussed, I really, really, really like fall. A key ingredient in fall is pumpkin. And what goes great with everything? Chocolate. Duh. 

This is the story of my quest for the perfect pumpkin brownie. Do I find it? Read on to discover the answer! (hint: MAYBE I DO.)


Brownies #1

On pinterest a few weeks ago, I saw someone link to "pumpkin brownies."

Great! I thought. That sounds wonderful. Pumpkin + brownie--what else could you ask for?

 So I made this recipe. They were fine, but I used too small of a pan for my doubling of the recipe, so they were really thick and not quite "brownie" enough for me. Not enough chocolate and too cakey. If you are looking for "pumpkin cake with chocolate chips," then yes, this is not bad.

Onward I pushed.

Brownies 2. Courtesy of Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World

Brownies #2

Once again, pinterest held more treasures! I saw these brownies, which were pumpkin, brownie, and vegan. Okay, that's cool. I can roll with the vegans. Of course, I managed to unvegan these by using butter instead of oil, buuuut....

These were not awful. They just weren't GOOD. The pumpkin wasn't very flavorful. The chocolate base STILL didn't taste very chocolatey. Overall, I was sad.

Enough of leaving my pumpkin brownie life to fate. I was going to get serious. I was going to try....

Brownies #3

These pumpkin brownies were from Martha. Which means you KNOW it will be good. Or at least, really complicated. Thankfully, it wasn't too complicated. I noticed right away that it was different than the other 2 recipes in that it used a small henhouse worth of eggs. That's cool, that's cool. I also skipped the nuts, because we
a. didn't have them
b. Most people in this house don't like them. (probably why we didn't have them)

And then they came out of the oven. Oh! They were perfect. The chocolate was chocolatey, with a nice crispiness on the bottom, while still being soft on the inside. The pumpkin was flavorful, and the swirling meant that you got just the right amount of pumpkin and chocolate in every bite.

Make these. Trust me. You won't regret it.

brownies #3. Via Martha Stewart

eyeliner?

via tinamarieonline.com

a few days ago, I was thinking "you know what I am really bad at and I bet there is an internet tutorial for? Winged eyeliner."

It was a lazy sort of day, so I got out of bed, without any other make up on, and practiced my winged eyeliner, using an internet tutorial. Hey, not bad!

I kind of forgot about my winged eyeliner, puttered around...and then decided to go to the gym. My plan was to come back afterwards and shower for the day, and then I would be clean, awesome, beautiful, all that stuff.

As I was walking into the gym, I caught my reflection in the glass doors. That was when I realized I had no makeup on. Except for heavy winged eyeliner.

I handed the guy my gym card, debating the best way to cover over the fact that I looked a little bit mental. Is it better to look him straight in the eye, or look down? Doesn't looking down emphasize the fact that I have cartoonlike winged eyeliner on with nothing else to soften it?

(by now, i was pretty sure that I had scribbled all over my face with eyeliner, that's how self conscious I was feeling about it.)

So I kind of looked all over the room and was like "heeeeey, here's my card!!" and didn't look very closely at anything which probably made me look even crazier.



I now am really dedicated to washing my face after messing around with makeup.


(ps: to those of you who are interested: winged eyeliner tutorial)

stop tactics

where I work in DC, there are people standing on the street with clipboards pretty much constantly, trying to get you to sign on for some cause or another. Mostly it's the greenpeace people, although this summer we also got peta and "clean the anacostia river."

Anyway, most of them try to arrest a hapless office worker's attention with something like "Do you have a minute for the environment?" or handing you a free CD. (that was the peta tactic). This is normally remarkably unsuccessful. We've seen you there. We know you're coming. So we smile and say "no thank you" and keep walking.

Today there was a new group of folks. I didn't catch who they were with because I had a scarf over my head in an attempt to dodge the impending flood raining down from the sky, but I knew they weren't greenpeace, peta, or the anacostia river. But they did have the best opening line.

"Hi, let's be friends!"

I was trying to discern whether something in the urban outfitter's window was meant to be a hat or a shirt, so I wasn't paying very good attention.

"I'm sorry, what?"
"Let's be friends! You look like a fun person."

I then realized he was holding a clipboard, so I had to give him the normal "no thanks," and run inside before every single part of me was soaked.

But hey, this is progress! (for them, that is.) I at least paused for about 10 seconds!

wednesday list 5

I promise, I'm going to post more than lists. But right now it's what I got for you :p

via joy the baker

1.  Cold avocado soup. I know, I know. You're like "that looks gross!" and it kind of does. But it tastes AMAZING and is a perfect way to end summer--because it has that smoky hint of fall bacon in it. Via joy the baker.

via Juju treasures

2. Flying bird earrings Super simple, but so adorable!  If only I had enough money to buy everything on etsy I liked.

3. okay go and the muppets. What else do you need?

wednesday list 4

Today I went outside, and it was chilly enough that I needed a SWEATER. AAAH!!! I am so excited! HEY FALL!!! HOW YOU DOING?! ::cough::

via modcloth

1. fall is coming, which means I'm starting to lust after fall shoes. How cute are these ones?

via target

 2. but speaking of new trends. FANNY PACKS SHOULD NOT COME BACK. Come on Target! Calling it a "belt bag" does not un-fanny pack this.

3.A song. Yes, this is also from Crazy, Stupid, Love. But they had some good songs on that soundtrack, okay?

pho.

 

This weekend, Mr. S. Squirrel was out of town, and most of our family was gone too, so the house was strangely empty and quiet. Obviously, the thing to do is to have Mrs. S. Squirrel over for the weekend!

We made cinnamon rolls and mimosas, then thrifted our little hearts out. I didn't find anything too special (well okay, some Christmas gifts, but I can't tell you about those. So don't even ask.)

Around lunch time, we realized just how starving we were. So we looked down the strip mall we were in to see if there were any good food places, and there it was! Vietnamese food.

For about $5 per person, we had spring rolls and pho. There was so much, we couldn't even finish it. 

If you guys haven't had pho, you should. It's a Vietnamese soup, and manages to be both light and filling, while also having lots of delicious flavor all mixed in happily. Eventually, we're going to try to make it around here (evidently, it requires boiling forever and THEN making it awesome) but until then, we'll probably head back to the Vietnam House and eat a few more bowls....

not quite what I meant...

Tonight, we had a dinner time conversation that clearly showed the difference between spirit and letter of the law. We will call the players Tom, Jerry, and....Sam.

Me: Tom,  you can't have more tortillas until you eat some carrots.
Tom: I can't eat carrots. I have braces.
Jerry: How come you eat popcorn then?
Me: Okay, well then you have to eat A VEGETABLE before you have more tortillas.
Tom: Because carrots are tough to eat all the way through.
Jerry: Popcorn sometimes is hard all the way through.
Me: Jerry, stop talking about what Tom can eat.
Tom: Popcorn is mostly soft and if I hit a kernel I can spit it out.
Me: Tom! Everybody! No more talking about what Tom can or can't eat with braces!

Brief, blessed moment of silence.

Sam: So Jerry, let's pretend that you have braces. What could you eat?


:facepalm:

wednesday list 3

1. You should not do this in the metro. But...it does look pretty cool.

2. This rug is only 9.99 and I love it. That's the problem with living in a very small space--there are many cute decorating things, and no where to put it. Sadly, this rug will not be coming to live with me because of my space-lacking. :(

via urbanoutfitters.com

3. My new favorite song. It's wistful and hopeful all at once.

things you should tell me

I promise, I'll stop talking about shopping for a car soon. Probably as soon as I actually have a new car.

But until then, I offer some tips if you find yourself selling a car. Here are things you probably should mention on the phone as it may affect whether or not I actually want to buy your car.

• The back window is smashed.
• The car shudders violently when you go over 35 miles per hour
• someone else is coming to look at the car as the same time as you and we're going to let them drive it first
• when we say "we open at 9am" we actually mean 9:30. It's our little secret.

All of these things would have been helpful for me to know in the past few days. Sigh. 

wednesday list 2

welcome to wednesday. I know, you would have just felt a little bit uncomfortable being here in this day of the week if someone hadn't welcomed you in. That's what I'm here for. The theme of this week's wednesday list? (sometimes these things won't have themes. But this one does.)

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR WORK WEEK.

1. Do you sometimes need to nap at your desk, but don't know how to? Try the Ostrich Pillow. Totally unassuming, not awkward at all, and it definitely won't smother you!

2. This drink is sweet and best enjoyed in very small amounts, but it is like a tropical wonder. Just make sure you don't order this when there's a long line behind you at starbucks, because changes are, the barista will have you repeat it a few times and you might get confused too and it all goes downhill from there.

Tall passion tea, orange mango mix instead of water, one pump coconut. It doesn't have caffeine. But it does have IRRISTABLE BRIGHTNESS. I know, it's totally not the same as caffeine. Humor me.

image via starbucks

3. I saved the best for last. This will get you through your week. I promise. Just watch it. All of it.

oo rah, Momma dog.

tips on buying a car

Like I've mentioned before, I'm trying to buy a car. Saturday, I had an experience in which I learned several things about car buying. While these lessons may seem basic, I think the real-life application of them will help you internalize these principles for the next time you are trying to buy a car.

I saw a Ford Focus online that seemed to be a good price and really low mileage. I didn't know how I felt about Ford Focus's, but I decided to go to the dealership because it was close to my house and give it a test drive.

1. If your car has unexplained holes in its paint job, be concerned
While the dealer man was copying my license, my roommate and I looked at the car. It looked great, except for a few saucer sized rust holes in the paint. They were pretty inexplicable. Maybe the previous owner threw flaming paint balls at his car?

Obviously, a perfect paint job isn't everything, but it does say something about how the car is cared for.  I didn't want that to stop me from fairly evaluating this car, so I moved on.

2. If the car is vibrating violently while it is idling, be concerned
Most cars move a little bit while they're idling. Because, you know, there is an engine working around in there. This car was shaking like a very small child who had been outside playing in the snow for too long and had left their mittens at home.  My roommate called her brother, who sells cars, and asked him if that was normal. He said no.

By now I was pretty sure I didn't want to buy this car, but the guy was coming back out, and I figured that I'd at least take it around the block. The way the car was situated, I rolled to the edge of the parking lot. That's when I learned the third principle.

3. If, when you touch the gas pedal, the car sounds like someone has dumped a bucket of marbles into its engine, and lurches forward like a drunken sailor, be VERY concerned.
Yes, that happened. Unfortunately, it was incredibly difficult to make a U turn back into the parking lot. So instead I had to go about 4 blocks around, hoping that I wasn't about to blow anyone up. Or that the car wasn't just going to stop. Or that the marbles from the engine wouldn't start flying through the windshield.

4. If, when you are trying to turn back into the dealership parking lot, you realize that the whole car is shaking so violently you can't even see out of the side view mirrors, RUN. 

However, if you do have all of these things happen, clearly, the thing to do as the salesman, is then to try and sell the poor shell-shocked test driver a car 3 times as expensive as the one she just drove. Unfortunately, at that point she will have pretty much vowed never to drive again.

more lists!

Wednesdays and Fridays are days made for lists. So here it is. a list to send you off into the weekend.

A List of Good Things

 

1. Joanna at A Cup of Jo showcased this print a few months ago. I bought it. Now it lives next to my bathroom mirror. . .although I'm not sure if the rest of the world appreciates my new found commitment to messy hair. (PS: the girl who makes these is in Northern VA, folks. So local buying and all that!) (Unless you're not in Northern VA. In which case--uh. Well, they're still cute prints!)

2. If you haven't ever tried Simply Orange Juice with Mango, then stop. Put on your shoes. Get in your car. Go buy some. Drink it. Thank me later. My roommate in college, Ems, and I would drink this stuff non-stop. It helped me survive Junior year, I am pretty sure. I tried to think of a way to describe how good this is, and the only thing I came up with was "it's like Orange Juice! With Mango!" You just have to try it for yourself.

3. If you thought you knew how to fold tshirts, think again. You think "this can't be real." But then you do it, and your tshirts look fantastic! I mean, okay. Caring about how your folded tshirts look is probably not the most important thing to care about. But this is as close as I'm ever going to get to a magic trick, okay?

breaking stuff

(this post was in my drafts folder from a few weeks ago. so adjust dates accordingly, if you're that sort of person) 

there should not be anything made of glass in our house.

Why, do you ask? Because we manage to break it. This weekend in particular was a glass breaking extravaganza.

It all started when one of my brothers picked up a decorative glass thing that kind of looked like an acorn (but not really) but was about the size of an apple. I'm not even going to try to describe it because when I do it sounds weird but really, it wasn't that weird. It was painted, and he thought it was metal. He said to my other brother "catch!" and tossed it at him.

it wasn't metal.

So that was shattered glass thing number one that we threw away this week.

lamps from ikea

Then yesterday, my youngest brother was playing on the top bunk in my room. I've been redecorating, which means moving from random college plastic tubs and into actual furniture. One of the things that my roommate and I recently put in were these little lamps from Ikea, one for both the top and the bottom bunk. That way we wouldn't have to do the whole "do you still need the light?" "uh, just for a few more minutes" "how about now?" "hold on" "okay now i'm good" thing when we headed to sleep each night.

So my youngest brother was up there, playing with a cookie monster stuffed animal. Apparently, cookie monster was attacking a city where all of the people are cookies. Sounds pretty dangerous to me. I was sitting directly beneath him on the bottom bunk, working away, when suddenly, SMASH and a huge chunk of glass came flying at my head. No, someone was not breaking in through the window. Apparently, cookie monster had just gotten a little rambunctious and thought the lamp was a cookie.

(no one was injured, thanks for asking. but the lamp is a goner)

Twice is odd. 3 times is a trend. And this one didn't even involve anyone doing anything. This weekend, we also had our 5 month old oven replaced. Why would you have your stove replaced? you might ask.

Well, there was a bottle of wine sitting on top of the refrigerator. Not too weird. It's a good place to store bottles of wine -- they're out of the way, but you can still see them to drink them. We were doing some work in the kitchen, and closed the refrigerator door the same way we normally close it -- firmly, but not CRAZY.

Apparently, it was crazy. Because the wine bottle rolled off the top of the refrigerator, bounced on the floor, and bounced into the front of the oven. Then back to the floor.

The wine bottle was fine.

The oven door was not.

For the next few weeks we avoided the random showers of glass that kept falling out in millions of teeny tiny pieces from the front of the oven. Thankfully, it was under warranty, and we got a new oven.


But clearly, anything glass should really stay away from our house. At least for the time being.

wednesday misc.

It's wednesday. Therefore, I give you links a go-go.

image via The Black Apple

1. Mumford song "home." Some people like it. Some people hate it. Its a nice song in a playlist when I'm spending all afternoon glued to my computer screen trying to get work done.  (ht Nicole M)


2. Strawberry Banana Cream Pie, via Joy the Baker. Its summer, which means clearly it's time for such wonderful things. I'm making it this evening and you should too.

3. I have the print this locket is based off of hanging in my room. Now I want it as a fancy wearable! (Check out all of The Black Apple's store--I love her work!)

I'm trying to buy a car

Right now, I have a goal. It's a pretty simple goal.

"Buy a car."

Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of limitations that go along with this goal.

1. It should be cheap.
2. It should not have spent any part of it's life wrapped around a telephone pole. Or squished by an 18-wheeler.
3. it should have only driven across the country 5 times, as opposed to 10 or 12 times.
4. It should not be a fifteen passenger  van. (you think I joke? stay tuned)

The other complicating factor is that I know nothing about cars. Well okay, very little. I know what the steering wheel and the brake peddle are. Also that cars generally have windows which should be able to move up and down.

via swiftweblog.com

so I am very apprehensive about buying a car, because I'm afraid I'll buy a car which, based on the internet, might not be a horrible deal. And then it will come home and spontaneously combust in my driveway. 

But despite these fears, I'm moving forward bravely. Mostly because coordinating rides is getting old. So a few days ago, I called a dealership close by our house. They had a 2002 volvo listed online that seemed like it might be in my price range and still have a working odometer!

Unfortunately, someone else agreed with me that this car was a catch, because it had already been sold. Boo. But the salesman on the phone was very interested in trying to get me to buy another car. At first he mentioned a car that was 3x the price of the car I had called about. I made a confused, raised eyebrow face (which he couldn't see since he was on the phone) but I think he got the picture. He then started telling me about another car he had, in my price range, that also seemed to not have been driven from alaska to chile.

"Um, what type of car is it?"
"(Something that I didn't understand. Presumably a car name.)"
"So it's a -- sedan?"
"Oh no, it's a minivan."

I don't think that he understood what I was looking for.