Four more days

I'm kinda going nuts! I've got four more days before I head halfway around the world to see the people I love and get a little bit of a vacation - an actual break from what I have to do every day here - but I feel like the world has to end before I'm allowed to cross that finish line. I've got lots of work (both school and job) and I think my immune system is choosing now to give out. Or as my lovely friend Sarah likes to say, "give itself some exercise". Oh what stress does to our bodies!

I'm going to break things down and do them one step at a time. That's the only way to get through it.

How do you deal with stress and the holidays? Let me know in the comments below.

All this stuff

So, as my husband and I round out our last few days in Hong Kong for the year with school work and job work and crazy philosophy barbecues, we got an email from some American friends of ours who have been staying in HK for a semester as lecturers (ahh academics). They told us they were leaving within two days and were hoping to get rid of a few things that we might have use for. When my husband heard the words "toaster oven", the words "of our very own" popped into his mind and he was sold - we were going to sort through stuff. Just a few things, right?

So after a long walk on a bum knee (my knee, not his) and a ride on the metro, we get to their by-the-month hotel apartment to look at "a few things". A few things turned out to be six huge bags worth of stuff - and we didn't even take everything they offered us. Two large bags that we use as luggage when we travel, plus a huge mesh laundry bag full of dry food products, two huge tote bags of items and a large insulated freezer bag. We ended up with all this stuff to put in our apartment: more than 2000hkd worth of food, blankets, pillowcases, the contents of an entire medicine cabinet that they didn't want to haul back, foldable drawer space, plastic bins, water filters, kitchen utensils AND a toaster oven.

Now the question really is... what are WE going to do with all this stuff?

Your stuff in the comments. :) Happy Rabbit-rabbit day.

Not your usual post, not your usual potatoes

I know I've never really done food on this site, but hey - I love LOVE love to cook, so it was really only a matter of time. 


So... I think I might be breaking the unspoken rule of blogging about food: I have not made this recipe yet. BUT it is a recipe that I have wanted to make since the moment I read it. I was silly enough to sign up for that Gojee app on Google Chrome. It doesn't always have recipes to my taste. I might get one every week or two that looks interesting, but I saw this one and couldn't pass up looking at it.


 My husband and I eat vinegar potatoes a lot, but I have never thought of boiling them in the vinegar without water. It sounds intense. In fact, the blogger from which I got this recipe flat out says they're pretty intense. This recipe originally comes from Martha Stuart.


Salt and Vinegar Broiled Fingerling Potatoes

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, June, 2009
-serves 4-

Ingredients
1 pound fingerling potatoes, sliced lengthwise to 1/4-inch thickness*
2 cups white vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher Salt
Pepper

Method
1. In a small pot, combine the potato slices and vinegar. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until fork-tender, about 8 minutes. Let cool in liquid for 30 minutes. Then drain well and pat potatoes dry with paper towels.

2. Preheat the broiler with a rack about 6 inches below the heat source. Dump the potato slices onto a sheet pan, sprinkle very generously with olive oil, salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Arrange the potato slices in a single layer. Broil until lightly browned on top, about 7 minutes. Then flip the slices and broil until the underside is lightly browned, about 5 minutes more. Serve warm.

I'll be trying this out this week. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

Book Challenge Update

So I recently finished A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire. I've been rereading the series in preparation for Out of Oz, the last book in the series. I've also now finished L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz, which funnily enough, doesn't have much to do with Ozma. I mean, she's there, but only for a very small portion of the story compared to Dorothy. I'm looking for the Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz audiobook at the moment. Thus, my Land of Oz themed reading continues.

29 books. I'm at 29 novels for the year. That's not bad. My goal that I set in December/January (I don't remember - probably January) was 30. Not too shabby. I'll probably even exceed my goal by a bit. And that doesn't even include articles for my Master's degree work, articles for my research assistant position, and about 3 or 4 books that I've started and not quite finished over the year. Plus - and I hate to admit this - my rereading of a few of the books I've already read this year. I've reread one already and I started rereading another a few days ago. I can't help it. Sometimes I'm just really in the mood for one of my favorites. I'm one of special people in the world that has the ability (and sometimes the desire) to read books and watch movies back to back (to back) in one go. It's weird, but it's true. 

What's your favorite book? How many times have you read it? Leave me a comment to let me know you've stopped by. 

On a random note

What is up with this lap booking thing? It sounds like a great idea, but every time I go to a website, I have a bunch of religiosity shoved down my throat on every page.

Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against being religious or spreading the word (in general), but I would like to find a site that explains something to me about lap booking and how it might be useful for older kids in the classroom while still saving my future (and I might add hypothetical) job in the public school system of America. No ten commandments, no prayer circles, so I'm guessing probably no crosses on every page of a lap book. But usually these sites have no instructions provided and very small pictures.

Other than the fact that every lap booking site seems to suggest that the only people who home school (where lap booking is all the rage) are people that accompany their "C is for Crickets" lap book with Crosses and sCriptures to teach the lifeCycles of bugs, it sounds like an interesting and creative idea. I can see older kids (I'm talking high school) doing some interesting projects in this kind of format. It would be a nice way for them to have and create long-lasting major artifacts in their classroom experience that can be used to teach others, be read aloud or explored by younger and older kids.

It seems silly to be very broadly lesson planning at this stage (the still getting certified stage) of my teaching career, but these kinds of ideas excite me. I'd love to hear any recommendations for creative learning sites with these kinds of projects illustrated.

Do you make lap books with your kids? Have you heard about them? Let me know in the comments.

The end of my hiatus

I know this is an excuse, but work and transitions have overcome me for a while. It's a part of poor planning - a teacher shouldn't let transitions break too far into the daily plan. But then, I'm not a teacher yet, so lessons are still being learned on that front.

Unfortunately, there isn't much fun news to catch up on. I finished The Marvelous Land of Oz. I also got through Son of a Witch again, which was better this time through. I'm closing in on the end of A Lion Among Men as well, in preparation for Out of Oz, which I expect to get for Christmas. Now it's a matter of holding myself back - I know I shouldn't buy it on my kindle before I go home to get a hard copy. It'll be maddening to wait though. :)  Again, if you haven't read the series, I highly recommend it. Maguire has a way of doing all of the political satire and intrigue well folded into highly personal and delving narrative.

I've been doing making some stationary and calendars for those at home - DIY Christmas gifts. The easy way out too. It's a pain to drag gifts for people from halfway around the world - especially when you're not sure if they'll like them. Plus, we've done the normal "from Hong Kong" gifts of jade and Chinese zodiac things. You just can't do those kinds of gifts over and over. People's houses get full of stuff they don't use too much anyway.

 Instead, I take the time to make some nice designs and pay for the printing. I'll do all of the cutting and packaging myself. I think they're coming out quite nicely. I've made a gamble posting one of them to the internet early,  but I'll run the risk. :)

What are you doing to get ready for the holidays? Do you make your own handmade gifts? Leave me a comment to let me know you stopped by!

Two book challenge updates in a week....

... this should tell you something.

I've been busy. And when I'm busy, I tend to sleep less, which means I end up reading more at night. I ploughed through Wicked without a second thought and bought (again) Son of a Witch to follow it up. It helped that I ended up spending quite a while a immigration  on order to get my visa.

So Wicked by Gregory Maguire is the next book on my book challenge that I've completed. I'm hoping to add The Marvelous Land of Oz to that today. I think the audiobook is nearing its end. If a lecture on Buddhism doesn't get in the way, it should be finished.

For those of you who haven't read Wicked, I highly recommend it. It takes some of our favorite settings, people (well, I was a fan of Edith Hamilton) and ideas from L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz and turns them on their head. We get a new, deep view into the "Life and Times of" Elphaba (EL-fa-ba/ L-F-B/L. Frank Baum), the wicked witch of the west. One of the most interesting parts, I think, is how Maguire chose (and continued to choose throughout the series) to make them like memoirs. It's written in third person omniscient, but the entire series, thus far, has taken the definite tone of a memoir. I'm happily awaiting the release of the final book in the series (book 4) this month. I cannot wait to see how it all gets concluded. :)

What do you have on your bedside table? Do you like to read before bed or another time of day?

The Inevitable

"Can I say something about destiny? Screw destiny. If this evil thing comes, we'll fight it and we'll keep fighting it till we whup it. Because destiny is just another word for inevitable. And nothing is inevitable as long as you stand up, look it in the eye and say, "You're evitable." (pauses) Well, you catch my drift." (From a geeky show that so geeky I'm going to make you click to find out how very geeky and girly I am)


Today, I'm writing about the inevitable (and possibly the evitable, too): writing. There's a certain kind of people out there - if you're a blogger, you're probably one of them. They're a kind  of people that no matter what they try to do, they end up scribbling or typing things down. Sometimes its random impressions or bits of fluff. Sometimes it's a novel's worth of words. Whatever it is, it's writing and it comes out of us. It's inevitable. 


There are some difficult parts of being one of the writerly population:
1) It's not always easy to express what you want on paper. Usually stuff comes out, but it may not always be what you're trying to say.
2) We tend to gather piles of little scraps with tidbits of writing on them around us. They end up in the shadowy corners of our desks, the pockets of our bags, under the bed... the list goes on and on.
3) We have to find an audience for our rubbish writing.


This third one, I think, is the one that stops many of us, especially when it comes to the blogging world. Here's a few scenarios:


A handsome young man excitedly opens his laptop and pulls up a blog hosting site in his web browser. He clickity-clacks away on his keyboard, knowing it's good. Excitedly he presses the "Publish" button and waits. And waits... and waits...


A beautiful woman whose children have just been put down to nap for the afternoon goes to her desktop and pulls a notepad out of her purse. She's scribbled some profound moment that she experienced while in the grocery store. The grocery clerk had stared as she awkwardly held her notepad against the milk jug and written messily with a broken pencil from her bag while her kids took a dozen boxes of cereal off of the shelves, but she knew it needed to be written then. She flips to the correct page and types the words. She, too, presses "Publish" and waits. And waits...


The ending is the same both ways: no one reads the blog posts. Maybe they'd change someone's life if only that someone would READ IT! A blog seemed the perfect medium on which to post my (poetry/recipes/stories from my childhood/diy tips/love of all things Wilma Flinstone/fill in the blank). It is the perfect medium... when you get some feedback.


Everyone and their mommy blogger has written a post about creating traffic on your site by forming an online community, but when you're first starting out none of that comes easily. It takes time to find the right kind of bloggers to start that community with. You have to go out searching for blogs that are interesting that are written by people that are interested in your writing. That doesn't always happen. 


Here's where we say: "You're evitable." 


I've found a  few good communities, but it took some time. I was lucky enough to already know some people who blogged and could start there. The great thing that I've found out about blogs is that everybody in the blogosphere is rockin' a meme. Every other blog you hit hosts some sort of "linky" on a given day of the week and has a nice name for it that uses alliteration (like "Susan's Silly Sunday Post" or "Mommy's Frickin' Tired Mondays"). Sure, they may not always be the topic or format that you've been wanting to write in, but I know some people (for the sake of these examples... person) who write things like Listicles (list blogs), but break the rules or make them stream of thought*. It may not be the perfect thing for you, but you can make it work. Best of all, when you link up you get a few people coming by your site. Most blog designs have ways of enticing readers to click on other posts (previous post buttons, popular post widgets, recent post widgets, etc) and you'd be surprised what they'll do. Sometimes I link up a blog post, only to find that more people are reading a previous posts than they are the linked up one!


Crazy stuff. 


Even seasoned bloggers need to be reminded sometimes that if you put a few backlinks to previous posts, you can gain readers by helping new people see what you're about. I like to feature awesome stuff I find on other people's blogs from time to time to help spread the love myself and I LOVE when people recommend things in comments. I like to tie them into follow up posts. 


But back to that evitable bit. If you're someone who's writing all the time, but the blog traffic just ain't happening - try it again. Stop by here and let me know you're out there to be read. Link up on a site like lovelinks or Write on Edge or Just.Be.Enough or Monday Listicles and get to writing! 


And that's the point - to get to writing, because writing is inevitable, but a lack of people reading it doesn't have to be.


This post (in fact) is being linked up with lovelinks #29. Check it out! Also, let me know you stopped by in the comments. :)


*A special thank you to Erica at freefringes, who did not volunteer her blog posts as examples, but who got taken advantage of here because she just has such good examples. 

November: Rabbit-rabbit

It's the first day of November and I still can't quite figure out how October went by so quickly.

Most people are scurrying over to the NaNoWriMo site to start typing the first of the 1 billion words that they've promised to write each day this month. I've made a much small goal of getting in 1000 words a day. I hate to say it, but with the drafting that I do for my job and writing my blog, that won't be too hard. I am going to try to focus them on a story I've been meaning/needing to finish for a while now. We'll see how that works out.

I've got a few Book Challenge updates (since I'm absolute pants at doing it when I actually finish books).

I recently finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum. I've never read any of Baum's books before. I had only seen the movie of The Wizard of Oz. I decided to start listening to the audio books of the entire series (which are public domain and therefore free, by the way). I'm now listening to The Marvelous Land of Oz. It's not your typical YA series. Given when it was written, it's interestingly imaginative, but also strangely mundane. They would never be published today, but I love the platform that they've given Gregory Maguire to run with. It's great to see all of the details Maguire picks up from the different Oz stories - they make for great inclusions in his version of the story. (If you can't tell, I'm also reading Wicked again.)

I also kinda cheated and reread one of the books that I've already read this year. I couldn't help it and it won't count toward my overall goal.

Also, I officially got my job today!

So... have you made the crazy decision to become obsessed dedicate your November to NaNoWriMo?

Leave me a comment to let me know you stopped by!

History of Halloween

The last October Post of the month is here! It's gone by so quickly. Today we'll be doing a brief history of Halloween to celebrate the day. :)

The ancient Celtic celebration of Samhain was a New Year's celebration. November 1st was considered New Year's day, marking the end of summer and harvest and the beginning of the darker, colder months. The Celts believed that on this transitional day, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became thin and blurred, so ghosts could walk among the living. Samhain is a fire feast, so it was traditionally celebrated with bonfires, predicting the future and wearing costumes to scare away any spirits that came near.

When the Roman conquered the Celts, two Roman holidays started to blend with the tradition of Samhain. Feralia was a late October Roman holiday the commemorate the passing of the dead. Another holiday celebrated Ponoma, the goddess of fruits and trees. Her symbol is the apple and is commonly believed to be the origin of the bobbing for apples tradition.

Later, the Catholic Church declared that the November 1st would be All Saints Day, a day to honor saints and martyrs in feast. As this celebration spread, it started to replace some of the old Celtic and Roman rituals, which all blurred together further. It was typically celebrated with bonfires and costumes of saints, angels and devils. The day was called "All-hallows" or "All-hallowsmas". The day before (also the traditional day of Samhain) became known as "All-hallowes-eve", which eventually evolved into the Halloween we know today.

Halloween came to America along with immigrants. It was much more popular in the southern colonies (rather than the more puritanical New England ones) until the mid 1800s when the great potato famine in Ireland brought millions of Irish to America. This population movement helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween on a national level. As the Irish and English had done, people began to dress up and travel door to door asking for money and food, which eventually became "trick-or-treating". By the 1930s, Halloween was a secular holiday. The 1950s saw a boom in celebration just as they saw a boom in population. Trick-or-treating was considered an inexpensive way to celebrate as a community. Today it has become America's second largest commercial holiday.

If you're interested in learning more about the History of Halloween, visit History.com's Halloween page.

It's been wonderful writing these October Posts this month! I've enjoyed having the direction and getting to share with you all in the comments. Happy Halloween!

Please let me know you stopped by  in the comments below!

October Post: Get Organized II

So I got some great comments on Monday's blog post about getting organized! Laura @ Catharsis shared her love of cozi.com - a site that helps you keep your life together using your tablet or smart phone. If I had a phone, I'm sure I'd be all over this. You can connect with all of your family members so that everyone uploads their schedules onto a common calendar, you can create to do lists for everyone so that you can stay on the same page. Very cool site.

Jamie @ Chosenchaos pointed me in the direct of Erin Condren organizers. You can find some gorgeous bound organizers at this site filled with bright bold colors, useful tabs and great holiday/event ideas.

Thanks for sharing!

Source: eighteen25.blogspot.com via Carina on Pinterest

The last organizer that I want to share with you today is all about getting ready for the holidays. The blog eighteen25 brings us this awesome holiday organizer for those of you with long lists of holiday cheer to spread. The site gives you a step-by-step rundown of how to create your own holiday organizer from a composition notebook, some scrapbook or wrapping paper and some of their nifty printables. They even help you create tabs for your coupons, your gift lists, your Christmas cards and that calendar to help count down to the big day. If you're big on the holidays and always feel the stress come on the week before Thanksgiving, then this is the book for you.

Leave a comment to let me know you stopped by! Tell me how you beat the holiday stress and keep yourself organized.  :)

On writing

So... I've been in a bit of a dry spell in the writing department. We all have them. It's led me to no little frustration of late, because I find myself wanting to sit down and write, but not having a whole lot to say. It doesn't help that I'm pulled between projects. I have a fanfic (oh God - so embarrassing to admit) project that I've been writing for way too long, but haven't finished, I have another floating on the edges of my brain and an original writing project that I've been toying with for years, but that just hasn't gotten there in the plot. Add work, home life and school to that and I've got myself a real mess. 

I got some advice a while back about poetry, but I think it could work with anything really. I was told to read some authors that I like, that are good and that are successful. Take their work and copy their style closely for a while until you get what they're doing. Try this with more than one author (obviously) and see how different authors shape their craft. Somewhere in the middle of it, you'll start to get how the professionals do it, but you'll probably develop your own voice in the middle. 

I find that it's time to take this advice, even if it is months and months later. I've picked a few authors that I think are successful in one aspect or another and I will be looking to them for some structure, pacing and tone (hopefully). I'll try to post some of my writings here. 

What do you do when you're in a writing rut? How do you push yourself out of a dry spell?

October Post: And you thought you were busy before

This week's October posts will be dedicated to the current state of affairs in my household: BUSY! I know that I've been having a tough time fitting it all in and as we start creeping up on those big family holidays (Halloween - especially for those with kids, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's), work and shopping and cooking and cleaning and cards and every last thing that you never wanted to worry about at the same time will all start coming together.

Breathe folks! Don't let that above paragraph give you anxiety. This week's going to be about keeping it all under control, setting some goals for ourselves and keeping a master plan. The thing to do isn't to try to organize your life in one swift go - it's to start by making small parts of your life organized and then starting to organize outward.

The first resource I'm going to talk about is an entire website getting and staying organized. The ladies at Get Buttoned Up are some serious planning people! They have lists for reducing your lists - which is meta-listing. That's how serious these women get.

But you don't have to be that serious (or even have obsessive compulsive tendencies) to use some of the fabulous resources that these ladies make available for free on their Free Tools and Downloads page. Here's my favorite list that I've started using:

I started using this for midterm goals (a few months) and I've found that it really worked for me. It's great to be able to break a project down into small pieces and set deadlines for yourself. I created this chart and found that I actually got ahead on the first three tasks, so I had time to do the last two at a slower, more reasonable pace. This could be used for holiday planning, your Christmas list, cooking for Thanksgiving, arranging a party, or just getting a project done around the house. 

Another great resource that I don't think people use enough is a calendar. When I think of calendar use, I tend to think of the one calendar at my parents house on which the birthdays get written every year. Once a month (usually) my parents sit down and write general plans that they know about on the calendar and then it hangs on the wall... never to be touched again. Or at least not usually. 

Personally, I've taken to using a weekly planner, which helps me keep my job and master's work in order - gotta keep those deadlines straight! There are, however, dozens of ways to make calendars more accessible and useful:

-Set up a dry erase board weekly calendar on your fridge. Use it to remember which nights you or the kids have events and activities, plan meals for the week, remind yourself that there's a birthday you really shouldn't miss on Thursday and that Wednesday is the day you're husband/roommate/live in occupational therapist has a late deadline, so you're only cooking for one. 

- Find a nice planner that you feel comfortable writing down goals and making plans in.

- Create your own holiday planner, complete with calendar and lists of to dos on a manageable schedule (MORE ON THIS FRIDAY).

Get free calendars from sites like Calendar Labs where you can find free printable calendars of all kinds, or even your own gmail or microsoft outlook. People forget all the attachments these great accounts - and they appear right in your inbox. 

So tell me, folks. How do you organize? Or, maybe more interestingly, how do you go nuts in the fall preparing for the holidays?

Please leave me a comment and to let me know you stopped by! Also consider stopping by lovelinks, where I've submitted this post.

October Post: Fall Decor II

Source: thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com via Carina on Pinterest

I got a comment on my last post from Ado over at The Momalog about how all she did was throw some apples up on her mantle to decorate for the fall. This first idea is for her. :)

I think it would be so easy to do this. All it takes is a bag of apples from the grocery store, a bag of votive candles from the dollar store and a knife. Make a hole in the apple large enough for the votive to fit in. If you want the streaky wax thing, then I suggest you light a separate candle (a taper might work best) and drip the wax on your apple radiating from the votive.

The best thing about this picture is that the apples look so delicious, even though they're covered in wax. It really brings that harvest feeling, even if we're not looking at wheat or grain of some kind.

So, Ado, this one's for you!

Source: None via Carina on Pinterest

This next one is also being posted due to the response from my last post. Everyone really liked the fall leaves in hurricane lamps for the dining room, so here's another idea for those wine drinkers out there (and I do know you're out there - I've been talking to you all about it since the guilty pleasures listicle happened on Monday!).


Instead of putting pine cones and fallen leaves in your hurricane lamps, try filling them with corks. The candles get their own cylinder vases on the inside of these so that the corks stay separate and not burned. The center vase also helps keep the corks lined up in a nice even pattern. 


This doesn't have to be a candle thing either, though I like the glow from behind the corks. You could put fall flowers or even some bare branches in the center vase to give that autumn feeling. 

Source: blog.craftzine.com via Carina on Pinterest

As you can probably tell after a month's worth of October posts, I have a love for owls. I've been collecting them for years, so I can't help but put another cute pumpkin owl idea out for those of you who haven't yet done your carving. 


I love the way that the carver didn't go all the way through for the wings, because when a candle shines through at night, it'll give a different appearance from the parts that are carved all the way through. I like pumpkin carvings with good texture. :)


Stay tuned for next week's October Posts. I don't have a theme picked out yet, but I'm sure I'll get more Halloween-y as we get closer to the 31st. 


Did you try any of the decorating ideas that I posted? If not, what inspired your decorations this fall?

Fall Decor

This week's October Posts are going to be about fall decor.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I spend much of the little free time I have on pinterest. I've been using it to search for fun, beautiful and spooky ways to decorate for the fall.

Source: pageturnershollow.wordpress.com via Carina on Pinterest

The first decoration on the list today would make a great pumpkin carving alternative. For those of you who prefers to not have to buy one of those mini serrated knife kits every year only to realize you can't think of anything creative to carve into your pumpkin, this is for you.

This creative, diy project comes from Page Turners Hollow. There are some great links to resources for these lovely silhouettes (don't worry! you don't have to draw these by hand).

For those of you who like  to have a wreath year around, this is a great Halloween alternative to winter greens or fresh flowers.

A few old newspapers or a book and a wreath form is all it takes to make the base for these bats to flutter around your doorway. Visit Heidi over at Vacuuming in High Heels & Pearls for simple directions.

Source: themerrymagpievintage.com via Carina on Pinterest



Who can resist hurricane lamps in autumn? These are a great fall decor addition to a dining room or living room and they'll last you through Thanksgiving.

Source: granvillehouse.blogspot.com via Carina on Pinterest

I can't help it! I have to put a cute pumpkin owl in. I know that everyone's into owls right now, but I've been collecting for a while and I thought this was adorable. It's another great way to not have to carve your pumpkin while getting to ride the hayride to pick one out.

Source: saraspartyperfect.com via Carina on Pinterest

What kind of decorations are you putting up this fall? Feel free to link to pictures of your place in the comments. :)


This post has been added to lovelinks this week. Check it out at its new space!

October Post: Halloween Food!

So this week's October Post theme has been food and today we're looking at some Halloween treats.

Source: nicolehill.blogspot.com via Carina on Pinterest

Owl Oreo Cupcakes


I found this wonderful picture on Pinterest, but when I followed the link there was no recipe. That being said, these cute little owls seem to be fairly self explanatory:

1) Make your favorite cupcake recipe and frost your cupcakes with chocolate frosting.
2) Disassemble some oreo cookies, keeping all of the ends with the frosting still attached set aside for the eyes. (Save the non-frosted sides to make an oreo pie crust.)
3) Place your frosted oreo halves on the frosted cupcakes to make the owl eyes. Put reese's pieces or even candy dots on the white frosting for pupils.
4) Take the orange reese's pieces and stick the in the crack between the oreos for the beak.

Voila! Owl Oreo Cupcakes.


Candy Corn Sugar Cookies

Source: kathiecooks.blogspot.com via Carina on Pinterest

The Kathie Cooks blog posted the recipe for these adorable cookies that depict one of the most iconic Halloween candy treats: candy corn.

This recipe is really simple and comes down to dying your dough and layering it in a baking dish so that you can cut your cookies into neat triangles. The sugar cookie dough recipe can be the one you prefer, but I like Kathie's idea of adding some lemon juice and lemon zest into the dough for a cookie full of flavor.


For the last set of recipe's I have to send you to a blog that is swiftly becoming one of my favorites: The Pastry Affair. The author spent a part of her summer at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida and brought some of the book treats brought to life home with her. She spent sometime experimenting and came up with some great recipes for Honeyduke's Treats, Cauldron Cakes, Butterbeer, and Butterbeer Cupcakes.

Check out these sweet treats and whip up a few for yourself.

What are your favorite Halloween treats? Do you think you'll try any of these recipes?

Books and Guest Blogging

Hello!

Just a week update:

I've gotten my first opportunity to be a guest blogger over at freefringes as a guest judge in the lovelinks contest this month! Check out my vote and freefringes. :)

Also, I recently finished a book called The Tavernier Stones: A Novel by Stephen Parrish. It was one of those almost DaVinci Code type deals, but with diamonds and rubies and no one found out they were related to Jesus. It wasn't bad. It was written by a cartographer/gemologist about a thief, a model, some criminals, a detective and an Amish guy... yes, an Amish guy. It was kinda fun escapist literature at least.

23) The Tavernier Stones

So close to reaching my goal. Only 7 more books this year!

Some Self Reflection

Things have been so crazy and busy with school and work and everything that falls outside of those two categories that I've barely felt I had a moment to myself recently. I'm trying to make my workouts a mental muscle-memory reaction, be an efficient employee, prepare for my project and testing, keep my expanding philosophical thoughts expanding at their exponential rate by participating in some interesting conversations, and keep up my end in the blogosphere.

Many of these things are supposed to be outlets for the stress, but lately they've all been jumbled up with it. My husband asked me yesterday a bit about how I'm approaching life* and why I gather stress, so that I can remember how to let that stress go. What do I really need to work on and use as a focus for my activities?

This led me to some self-reflection about how I'm looking at the world. The great thing about liking to look at things holistically is that everything is connected. The bad thing about liking to look at things holistically is that everything is connected. It's great to be able to carry the good moments and connect them to the more mundane bits of my life, but it's difficult when stress becomes the overriding factor of the interconnected world I live in. While compartmentalization could be a simple solution to this problem, I don't like to chop my life up into bits. I needed to remind myself that when it comes to helping others, I like to keep positive about the options and possible paths ahead of them in hopes that they'll see the positive paths too. That is an outlook that I should carry over into every aspect of my life. There are several areas in my life in which I've been searching for a dao (a path, a way) to walk. Sometimes it looks like there's no path ahead of me that isn't painful and stressful and dark and dreary. I realized yesterday that this isn't the case. What makes the paths look that way is that I'm resistant to them.

It's time to spread my positive attitude to the stressful parts of my life. The fact is I have to walk a path. Why not like the path I'm walking? After all, this is what I'm making of myself.

What path are you walking? When do you set aside time to reflect? Please feel free to leave a comment!

*I must say, this is one of the many fabulous perks of being married to a philosopher. It's in his job description to think about and question and prod things. It makes for an interesting time around the house.

Fall Foods

This week's October Posts are going to be all about food! I love all kinds of food, but when the days start getting colder and the fresh fruits start to thin out in the grocery aisles, we know it's that time of year again: the time when every recipe includes something canned; when slow, hot and savory describes your menu (and not just your bedroom life); when you've stopped worrying about how you look in your bathing suit and have started thinking of fattening up to hibernate for the winter. This week will include some recipes for all of us - including those who cringe at the idea of fattening up for hibernation.

Today I've got four recipes for you:

1) Mexican Chicken Lime Soup

Source: shine.yahoo.com via Carina on Pinterest

Now I know what you're thinking - "This doesn't have any of those things you mentioned above!" - but it certainly could. This hot and savory dish could easily be modified to work in a crock pot. If I were making it, this is how I'd do it: (note this recipe has not been tested - I don't have a crock pot in Hong Kong to cook it in or I would!)
1) Saute your onions and garlic.
2) Cut your chicken breasts into desired size for soup.
3) Add your broth (with maybe some extra), cilantro, onions, garlic, chicken  and chilies into the crock pot. I might also add some chunky canned tomatoes rather than extra broth at this step.
4) Let slow cook for several hours.
5) Before serving, stir in lime juice and add avocado slices to each bowl.

Suddenly an otherwise 30 minute soup has become a stew-like crock pot meal for those cool fall nights.

2) Sweet Potato Hummus 

Source: wholefamilyfare.blogspot.com via Carina on Pinterest

Sweet potatoes are a key fall food. They're also a great health food. Sweet potatoes are very low in saturated fats and cholesterol. Add to that their high dietary fiber and vitamin C content and we're looking at a pretty good, healthy food.

I love hummus, but I'm not fond of the sweetness of sweet potatoes. I do, however like red pepper hummus and this great recipe from Whole Family Fare claims to get close to that red pepper taste. I know this recipe will be on my list to make!

This recipe could bring some fall flavor to your lunch, as an appetizer for a dinner meal, or even add some elegance to an otherwise raging, cheese-dip filled football party. (Not that I'm against cheese-dips. I love cheese. More than I'm allowed to admit to my health-nut husband.)

3) Low-fat Pumpkin Bread with Pepitas

Source: skinnytaste.com via Carina on Pinterest

I know, I know... LOW FAT. But this recipe is naturally low fat. It doesn't contain any reduced fat dairy products, no reduced-anything substitutes and you can pronounce all of the ingredients. Promise.

The nice thing about this recipe is it gives you all the pumpkin flavor and moist bready goodness of a quick bread without the added fats. Skinnytaste.com gives you a healthy recipe with all of the weight watchers point information if that's something like to do.

This could be a great substitute for high sugar desserts. I imagine it would go really well served warm with a cup of hot apple cider or spiced wine.

And last, but not least...

4) Cute Wicked Witch Cupcakes

Source: marthastewart.com via Carina on Pinterest

I decided that each post must contain at least one Halloween food and these were too cute to pass up.

Not everyone is a fan of Martha Stewart, but you don't have to be to get some great ideas for making witchy cupcakes. They would be a great group activity - and kid friendly too. Assembling your own witch cupcake could bring out the artist in your friends for at a Halloween party.

Ahhh... there's nothing like getting into the season.

Tune in Wednesday for a regular post and Friday for another Fall Foods October Post.

What are your favorite fall foods?

Autumn Halloween GIFs

In light of the  "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" post this week, I've found some great GIFs to brighten up your autumn or Halloween blogs entries and websites.

by scandyfactory

I think this is my favorite of all:

from keepsake2sweet

Please remember none of these are my own work and to follow the links under each image to go back to the source and spread the love there if you choose to use one.

Tune in next week for more autumn/Halloween posts!

Which GIF is your favorite?

The 9th Day of the 9th Lunar Cycle

Today in Hong Kong is the Chung Yeung Festival, or the Double Ninth Festival. Nine is a very auspicious number in Chinese tradition. It is the yang number. Yang is the light part of the yin yang. Apparently the double 9s is just too active, masculine, and hot (temperature, people - keep your mind out of the gutter) for anyone to be having.

If all that activity is allowed to remain in us and around us, it'll be too much to handle - we won't be able to maintain balance. So, the Chinese pick this day for a holiday in which we can let out that activity and sweep the cobwebs out behind it. Drinking chrysanthemum tea or climbing a high mountain are considered good ways of cleansing and getting that energy out. Some people also use the day to visit the graves of their ancestors.

Personally, I plan on going up to the roof, doing some tai chi, meditating on those who have passed and getting some good ol' relaxing in.

How do you unwind?

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

If you didn't see it in my last post, I have promised to post October-y, Halloween-y, Autumn-y goodness here at Make of Myself at least twice a week for the entire month. Mondays and Fridays you'll get themed posts with other posts on Wednesdays. This week, our topic is (of course) PUMPKINS!

If there is one thing that starts to magically appear in stores in large quantities as of September 1st every year, it's pumpkins. Real pumpkin, plastic jack-o-lanterns, pumpkin paper plates - you name it, we got it! By why the pumpkin you ask?

Originally, it wasn't the pumpkin. In the Celtic cultures (as Scottish, Irish and Welsh cultures tend to be invariably denoted), it was turnips. Just think it we all tried to empty and carve turnips every year! They're so small and it would be hard to fit a candle in one. The pumpkin didn't have its Halloween hay day until Halloween became popular in the Americas - where pumpkins are plentiful.

The story of the jack-o-lantern comes from an Irish tale of Jack the blacksmith who made a deal with the Devil and was therefore denied entry into heaven. Since he was doomed to walk the earth, he asked the Devil for some light. The Devil gave him a burning ember which he placed in a turnip with the center gouged out. The Irish would hang lanterns and carved turnips in hopes of keeping the damned, wandering soul from coming near their homes. When the traditions of Halloween made their way across the pond, pumpkins were more common than turnips (and, I imagine, easier to carve due to their size).

Last year the world's largest (and by largest I mean heaviest) pumpkin record was set anew. The 2009 record setter was a 1.725 pound pumpkin. In 2010, a man from Wisconsin broke that record with a 1,810 and a half pound pumpkin! That's a lot of pumpkin.

Of course, ever fall between October 1st and Thanksgiving, the most classic dessert on the menu is Pumpkin Pie. Today I'm linking you up with Food Network Paula Deen's recipe here. I picked this particular recipe for two reasons: 1) Paula uses mashed canned pumpkin (and canned in my house means something you do to preserve food, not something you by from the store) and 2) because Paula Deen has broken a personal record by only requiring a mere half stick of butter in this recipe (an all time low!). If you're a pumpkin pie fan (sadly, I'm not), then try this out and comment to tell me how it was.

The last pumpkin-y topic on our list for the day, but certainly not the least is The Great Pumpkin. Charles Schulz first wrote Linus van Pelt talking about The Great Pumpkin in 1959, through he has (not) appeared many times since. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown first appeared in 1966. Every since then we've all been waiting most sincerely with Linus for The Great Pumpkin to appear. He is reputed to only appear in very sincere pumpkin patches to give gifts to good boys and girls. He is not to be confused with Santa Claus, whose job it is to bring gifts to children; The Great Pumpkin has a moral obligation to fulfill in his gift delivering (or so Linus explained to Lucy in 1960). Sadly, The Great Pumpkin has yet to appear for Linus van Pelt, but he still faithfully awaits.

I don't know about all of you, but I'm looking forward to waiting for The Great Pumpkin with Linus this year by enjoying all of the pumpkin paraphernalia!

What pumpkin-y things have you picked up?

sources: 1) Pumpkin seed image 2) Irish folk lore 3) Pumpkin records 4) Paula's recipe 5) The Great Pumpkin

Rabbit, Rabbit

Well, folks, it's rabbit, rabbit day (the first day) of my favorite month of the year. It's my goal to post October-y, Halloween-y, Autumn-y goodness here at least twice a week for the entire month. Mondays and Fridays will be my October days (with other posts on Wednesdays in between).

As the first official day of October I'm going to share this beautifully crafted tree I found on Pinterest. I love the colors of the leaves. While they're not the traditional reds and yellows all the way around, they remind me of seeing the leaves change color at home and the beginning of that time of transition. The great thing about this tree is that it's a DIY project. All you need are some leafless tree branches, bits of scrapbook paper cut into leaf shapes, some floral wire and a vase. If you don't have leaves changing where you are, you can always create your own instead.

Welcome to the new site! If you didn't see about the move from Ren Bi Mo, then check it out here. Despite the change of venue all of your favorite (and even your least favorite) posts have followed me here. Just check out the archive for old Ren Bi Mo writing.

How are you transitioning into Autumn?

Under My Hat

I have a design project that I've been working on, but I can't do any posting until there is some finalization of the product. My brother just started up a business and I've been playing with logo designs. They're not too fancy, just some ideas that I've been kicking around. I got four new designs created today and emailed off to be considered, so I've felt productive this morning. It's been nice to get to work on a project of some sort.

With my test out of the way for the week, I thought that I'd get some time to write or design, but alas no! As it seems, the world is out to keep me as busy as possible. I got a last minute call to an interview today, tomorrow I have to pick up my Hong Kong ID and attend class from 1-5pm, Thursday I believe I am babysitting before attending a philosophy department lecture and Friday seems to be my first day free of obligation. Nuts!

 

Trying to be Festive

This week was a little bit harder to really get much in the way of creative things done. I have a test in about an hour which I've been studying for. We also had a great Saturday outing around Hong Kong with some friends. This week is completely designated for testing, so I'm sure I'll be able to squeeze something creative out of myself.

Since I didn't really complete any art project or writings this week, I had to do something to start getting festive for the fall season. I've just become a member of Pinterest. It's a really cool community in which you can 'pin' items (particularly pictured items) up on your personal 'pin boards' from all over the internet. I've found some really good recipes and fun fall decorations I wish I could enjoy at home. I've also started a little collection of owls on a pin board, though apparently fox is the new owl. LOL.

I also could help but start to make a Halloween banner in Illustrator. I'm trying to learn how to use all of these beautiful Adobe products that my husband just bought for me, so I thought 'what better use?'. I had lots of work this week, but I still needed some break time, so I'm teaching myself how to make vector art.

This week I'm hoping to get some fanfiction written, because I'm stuck in the middle of a story I started three years ago when I have two or three other really great story ideas brewing in my head.

Here's to hoping there's enough free time in the week to fit it all in!

Book Challenge Update

So it's been a while since I've done this and while I have not been reading books, I have been listening to them. I think this is a completely valid way of consuming books for my book challenge this year. :)

Over the summer I listened to the entire Harry Potter Series on my ipod, so 7 books up!

16) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
17) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (yes, I even listened to my least favorite of them all)
18) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
19) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
20) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
21) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
22) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

There's nothing like doing a series to help get you through your book challenge. I tend to listen to these while driving or cooking dinner. It's a nice way to take in a book while doing something else that I find relaxing.

On another note, I've updated San Serif with a rant on teaching and exploring as a learning technique (or how I'm not really getting to do that second bit, at any rate) here.

Do you have any audiobooks you love to listen to?

Autumn Aura

I was recently reading a post by NatureGirl who describes her love and passion for the summer. It made me think of all that hot stickiness that she describes (and that I'm still feeling here in Hong Kong even though it's getting on mid-September) and I couldn't help but shake my head 'No.'

No. Summer is wonderful, but not my time. Autumn is my time. So much so that even through the continuous heat waves of Hong Kong, I have been getting flashes of that feeling you get as fall sets in - the cool breeze, the smell of the leaves as they prepared to come off the trees and, for myself, that feeling that all is right in the world.

As I start to wonder if I am hallucinating - for these little bits of imagery, olfactory and tactileness seem oh so very real - I find comfort in the fact that even halfway across the world from my home, I can still feel and experience some glimpses of that favorite season of mine.

I'm that kind of person, I guess. I have certain things which signal the change in year, which brings along with it the change in my mood and how I relate to the world. As a wonderful scholar recently pointed out in a lecture, we humans are beings of cycle. It is one of those things that we do in beautiful synchronization with the Earth around us. Let's not become so distracted by our constructed notions of progress to forget that. The Earth around us, too, progresses, just not at the speed we're used to.

Here's to the oncoming of my favorite season.

Do you have a favorite season or time of year that changes your whole outlook on the world?

Another week gone by

I planned it out - it was perfect. I was going to write last week and get it done before I had to start worrying over this week's assignment and next week's test. But the life happened. I've gotten so out of the habit - of both writing and taking classes - that I'm a damn mess. The difficulty of the class isn't what's getting to me. Oh no - that's not the problem. Sure, it's a lot of reading and when I do the work, I like to make sure it's what I consider good work. This means my notes are too detailed and my answers are too researched for my TA to appropriately respond. I guess that's where I'm feeling the struggle. I feel that the response I'm being given is either highly authoritarian or too narrow.

On top of all of that, I got my husband's hope up that I would work on the writing project that he and I are working on together now and so I've neglected another story for a community that I write in for another week. I'm hoping to get a chapter out (for the first time in much much longer than I'd like to admit) for that community after I get my assignment done today. I'll give myself a day's break from studying to get that done. Then it's back to the grindstone and studying for the first test (which I'm positive will be much easier than the one I'm preparing for in my head).

Oh the stress. I need to remember how to let it go.

What's keeping you from doing the writing you want to be doing?

Here we go again.

This is not my first attempt at blogging. I have a blogger site, which I intend to link up to this site. I've got some old content there, but here I am trying to get a fresh start. I started out wanting to have a writer's blog, but then I realized I'm not a writer. I'd also love to have an artist's blog, but I'm not really an artist. The thing about it is, I'm one of those people who shifts modes with my mood. I'm working toward my teaching licensure and living in Hong Kong while my husband gets his Master's degree. Sometimes in the middle of all of that I need an outlet, a venue, a place to vent my thoughts, frustrations, and creativity.

So... here we go again.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. After you read this, you should delete and write your own post, with a new title above. Or hit Add New on the left (of the admin dashboard) to start a fresh post.

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

1. You can find new ideas for what to blog about by reading the Daily Post.


2. Add PressThis to your browser. It creates a new blog post for you about any interesting  page you read on the web.


3. Make some changes to this page, and then hit preview on the right. You can always preview any post or edit it before you share it to the world.

Starting to Relax

I finally got my grad school application submitted. I'm still waiting on one recommender, but then it's all finished. I'm trying to get this medical junk taken care of and even though I've had no luck with jobs, it looks like things are FINALLY starting to settle out a bit. It took long enough. 


I'm really hoping that this settling out business will allow me to start writing again with some regularity. Really.


If nothing else, I'll have more book updates. I'm reading The Te of Piglette and The Secret Holocaust Diaries right now, so I should have plenty to be updating on soon. 


What keeps you ridiculously busy during your summers?

Another day, another book

So, book 17 on my list is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. After hearing what a great book it was since I was in the fourth grade and since I very much enjoy a good YA novel, I decided it was finally time to read it. 

I was surprised. It kinda got Dark Knighted for me - by which I mean the build up for the book was so big that I didn't like it as much as everyone said I would.

Don't get me wrong, though. It was a good book. Tessering was an interesting time travel invention that took the shimmery, centaur-like guardian angel things to a whole new science fiction level with their interplanetary travel. Very interesting idea. I was surprised how obvious the religion was in it. The idea that love conquers evil conclusion made me feel even a little more ripped off by JK Rowling than I already did (for such a crappy epilogue).

For all of the build up, I felt the climax and conclusion were a little obvious and abrupt, but then I keep having to remind myself that this is a YA novel. Perhaps, I just give young adults more credit than I ought to. I was reading Tolkien to some effect by the fourth grade (which is why I skipped things like A Wrinkle in Time in the first place). I have a friend who's  getting into the business of writing YA and I'm fairly excited to see what she brings to the genre. :) 

Another book closer to my goal. 

Did you ever read A Wrinkle in Time? What did you think?