wonderful disasters

I'm starting to notice a trend when I try out a recipe that's new to me. The first time I make the food, it's pretty delicious. The dish itself may not look the best, but all qualms disappear once I take my first bite.
Then I try it again.
This is where things go wrong.
But it's okay! Because I know exactly why they go wrong.


Here's what happens-
I make something, using the recipe. The food comes out okay, but I decide to experiment the next time through. The most recent examples of this equation in action would be the lentil stew and strawberry cupcakes recipes that I tried out. For the cupcakes, I decided to mix recipes- one using box mix, and the other from scratch. Didn't work as well as I'd hoped. For the lentil stew I decided to semi-cook the lentils ahead of time, since the last time I made it the cook time was around five hours due to the lentils. That wasn't a great idea either. Then I added chick peas, except they needed to be soaked/ cooked longer, and now they're the ones holding up the party that should be in my mouth.


Does any of this mean that I'm going to stop changing things up, stop experimenting?

NOPE.

In my humble opinion, that's kind of what this is all about.
Everything.
Those cliche sayings are cliche for a reason. I'm not going to list them all, there are so many and I honestly have no desire to beat any dead horses.
But... "Failure is just another form of success."
Someone said that, right?
It's not true at all in some cases, but let's argue that failure is a way of helping us learn how to succeed. Next time I make lentil stew, I'll probably just soak the lentils overnight like I did the first time. And I'll get canned chickpeas instead of dried ones. That probably had something to do with it.

I guess the point of this post is just to remind myself not to give up.



Also, to share the lentil stew recipe because it is THE BEST THING EVER. Really.
I essentially took this recipe and just changed a few things up. Mostly it was the spices, because I'm a big fan of just overdosing on spices, but I also added real garlic. Really, my rule for recipes is to just do what I want to make it how I think I want it to taste. I used more cumin, turmeric, curry powder, dried chili pepper flakes, and ground hot pepper. Also two bay leaves, but those need to be taken out before serving. maybe a few other things I'm forgetting, but the point of all this was to point out that you can tailor a recipe to fit your preferences.


ANYWAYS.


Good luck, friends! I hope you succeed in whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, and the only failures you experience are minor and not at all life-altering, with maybe a dash of life lesson thrown in for good measure.

mIrAcLeS

So here's the story. Lance's sister goes to a college in TN, where a few of my friends happen to go, so I asked if I could hitch along and it was a go go go. This was like, a month in advance, which NEVER happens and I could hardly contain myself. That probably explains why I can't plan ahead very well. Anyways. THEN Lance's car starts having problems. Kinda iffy there for a second, but his uncle offers assistance so we're good. Then the money that his uncle was going to lend is spent on his uncle being in the hospital. Last I heard he has diabetes, they're doing more tests to figure out what went down with the TIAs and it was all very stressful and tragic and unforeseeable. Also, lack of money meant we weren't going. This happened the day before we were supposed to leave.
Then Sami, a friend of ours, offered to pay half the trip money and I extended the offer to Lance and we hammered it all out within half an hour. We were a day behind schedule, but business was going as planned.
We left at an ungodly hour of morning, and had adventures as soon as we landed. Actually, they were very chill adventures. Hiking in the forest, sharing the joy of froyo, sleeping, and just hanging out.

Life is good, and I'm back home feeling like it was worth every moment of wondering how much longer I could keep my eyes open.
I shouldn't be awake right now, but...


I HAVE TO POST THIS VIDEO EVERYWHERE, OKAY?
Why have I never heard this before?





Anyways.

That's all.

PS to Nutmeg-
I'm no longer afraid of riding the bus, and Allison has a job, and those thoughts ARE CONNECTED FIGURE IT OUT SOON I WILL BE COMING SSSOOOOOOO-OOOONNNNN
(that just looks like a really long "son" but it's actually "soon" you knew that goodnight)
(also by soon I meant not soon at all, but much sooner than it would have been which would have been unknowable because life is rough)

Music inspired colorful dancer

Got bored. Decided to look at color palettes. Started listening to the Monsoon Wedding soundtrack. Drew this, except I put her in a salwar kameez.
Realize now that it looks as if her body has been disconnected somewhere in the middle.

(quick update!)

Jhio, you were right! It was easy, and simple, and really I was just worried about nothing. It's like riding the bus to school when you're a kid, except not. Also I think the COTA buses are nicer. And it was actually kinda fun, because I'm a people watcher and I heard some really funny stories and saw some adorable little kids, which brightened my day.

The interview, on the other hand...
Well I mean, the interview itself went well. I have previous experience working in a food environment, and the only thing I'd really need trained on would be the coffee machines.
It's just...
They would be hiring me to work third shift, from 10 pm to 6 am. I would be alone in the shop, presumably without a security guard or whatever like they have in hospitals and some hotels. Not only that, but the Short North has a high crime rate already, then add in the amount of bars & clubs in the area... Then there are a couple of churches nearby that hand out free meals to the homeless, which is great, but it means that there's a higher concentration near the store.
So yeah, that's a little scary.

At the same time, why would they even consider allowing a pretty female to work alone at night if they weren't at least mostly sure that she'd be alright? How worried should I be, exactly?



Now I'm just tired, and I have to get up relatively early tomorrow.
Ugh.

(bird, and also pre-bus anxiety)

So the only thing I really like about this is the background, because I feel a little clever about it. I had some lightning brushes from a while back, and I set it so that the eraser was lightning and put it on low opacity & just clicked away. I was trying to re-create a sketch from my sketch-journal-book-thing, but... Yeah.

Anyways! Job interview tomorrow. I'm going to take the bus there, and it's going to be my first time ever riding the bus. Which of course makes me feel scared, which then makes me feel like a pansy because I know that people ride the bus all the time but STILL. What if I miss my stop? What if I don't have the right amount of money for fare and get stranded? What if I'm too late for a bus stop and get stranded? Basically I'm worried about getting stranded and lost and all the other horrible things that could happen. AAAHHHH I should probably go plan this out step by step.

color test?

Is semi-accurate, possibly?

I was surprised because I wasn't really expecting any sort of accuracy. None at all. And then I look at the results and they say things like, "Is feeling emotionally drained from stressful and tense situations. she is in need of peace and quiet in order to overcome her lack of energy and may become irritable if she does not recover." I mean, there's a whole lot more than that, but whatever.

So it wasn't like one of those WOW YOU TRULY HAVE PEERED INTO MY SOUL AND KNOW ME things, because I don't really believe that a simple test can totally analyze anyone, but it was still interesting.


Wow and I just took it again except I said I was male and now it's got even more info on me. "Seeking to broaden his horizons and believes [her] his hopes and dreams are realistic. Worries [she] he may not be able to do the things [she] he wants and needs to escape to a peaceful, quiet environment in order to restore [her] his confidence", and also "Finds [herself, whatever, you get the point of these stupid things] himself too trusting and needs protection from this because he feels people will take advantage or misunderstand him. He hides his true feelings by being highly critical and distant."



Ergh. It's late and I'm tired and I'm questioning my decision to type all this now. ANYWAYS.


Dear Homestuckers (mostly Meg & Sab)-
Have you guys seen that site that generates a "Land of" thing? It's actually kind of addicting. You just click on the spiral thing once & it stops on a random assortment of whatevers. I'm addicted to the awesome visuals my brain comes up with when I see the "Land of" titles. For instance! Land of: apathy and autumn, frost and coral, gold and melody, ice and shade, magma and rainbows, scales and mist, steam and junk (hehe, steampunk land!). Someday I'm going to learn how to draw landscapes, and I'm just going to go through all of the ones that I have saved and PAINT THEM ALL.
But anyways, here's the link.
Oh my gosh, now I'm doing it again and it just keeps giving me awesome stuff. I'm also doing a horrible job describing it, so here's a screen capture I took-





Okay for reals, I'm going to do heavy labor tomorrow so I should probably be well rested this was not a good idea I'm going to bed IT TOOK SO LONG TO TYPE THAT BECAUSE I KEPT LEAVING OUT WORDS AUGH.