April In My Rear-view

                  April In My Rearview 

Wow, it's hard to believe that April is nearly over! This month has been so good, but crazy busy. I have accomplished many things from my Spring Goals post, but I still have a lot left to do from my list. (I love lists!)

The three events in April that stand out to me are:
My Birthday was in April so that was a pretty big deal for me.
I got my license!
The tragic Boston bombing occurred.

My favorite posts from April.
Homemade: Potpourri
Spring has Finally Arrived

Blog news from April.
I made a google plus account,
and a facebook account,
and a twitter account.

Photo an Hour 

8:30 a.m. Playing with Winnie and watching the news.

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 9:00a.m. Writing the day's blog post and doing some blog planning...

  while enjoying the view from my work station!

10:30 a.m. Doing some (more like a lot of) blog planning.

11:40 a.m. Hanging clothes out on the line after Math.

12:00p.m. Eating leftover pizza, while doing science.

1:40p.m. ready to go to some appointments and the library.

2:30p.m The books I got from the library.

3-5p.m.  I was in appointments or driving the entire time. 

6:00 p.m. Some awesome things I got in the mail.  I then made dinner.

7:00 p.m.  I then watched tv and read until I went to bed.

Birthday

Sharing the positive bits of my birthday is something I am pretty excited about, even though it should be a happy thing, for me, it hasn't been for a while.  My mentor/trainer/friend had a brain aneurysm on my thirteenth birthday, so the last few years, my birthday has been overshadowed by grief.  I've just tried to make it through the days leading up to and through my birthday, but this year I put a lot of effort into at least somewhat enjoying my birthday.  And it worked pretty well.  My family has been very important in helping me this year (and past years), I have just actually accepted the help this year. I don't think that I could ever really make them understand that the things they do can have such a positive effect on me; but it has, and I'm grateful for that.

So let's move past the heavy stuff and talk about the fun stuff! On Saturday night, my parents took me out to dinner at a "Sushi Ai." They have all you can eat made to order sushi. Considering that I'm Ovo-Pescetarian, you might think that I would eat a lot of fish, but I really don't have it often, so having sushi was pretty awesome. This is probably why for the first time in my life I over ate, by more than one or two bites! I don't recommend this at all; it wasn't pleasant. HA HA.  We had a lot of fun though.

Sunday we baked my cake, cooked out over a fire and just talked for several hours.  Monday we decorated my cake. And lastly, on Tuesday, I went and got my licence, since in Illinois the DMV is closed on Monday. These are the pictures we took on Monday:

 The T.A.R.D.I.S cake pre-candles.

My Mother lighting the candles (because no one wanted me to just go play with the lit candles)   :-)

The T.A.R.D.I.S cake all lit up.

Me blowing out the candles.

Me "licking" the cake.

Our tongues were so blue by the time we all had a slice!

For anyone that doesn't know what a T.A.R.D.I.S is, here is the wikipedia page for an explanation that isn't as long as mine would be. Hopefully it's accurate; I only read the first section and this is a great video from the show to explain why she's bigger on the inside.

Friday reveiw

Woo! It's finally Friday, this week has seemed more like a month than a week.  I've had a lot going on this week, so I'm excited for the weekend.  Monday is my 16th birthday; I have off of school, and my dad is taking off of work!  On Saturday my mom and I are going to make a TARDIS cake, on Sunday I get my favorite meals along with a bonfire, Monday  I plan to go see Oblivion , and Tuesday (because the DMV is closed on Monday) I'm taking my test to get my license (I'm so scared that I'm not gonna pass). Without further ado, I'm gonna share some awesome stuff with you.

Epic Websites  

 My top 3 websites of the week

1. Beauty schools directory is amazing for anyone considering cosmetology school. 

2. Listography is an awesome website that is dedicated to lists, lists and more lists. It is social media for lists. I just found this website yesterday, so i don't have many lists; but you can check out my profile  here .

3. Graveyards this is a website for finding  graveyards in Illinois. As someone that loves photographing graveyards, I'm pretty much in love with this website.

Other cool stuff from the Internet 

Stuff You Should Know is a podcast that can be found on Itunes.  As a person that loves knowing/learning stuff, this is a pretty epic podcast. I listened to "How Lying Works" and "The Great Chicago Fire" this week and learned some cool stuff.

I hope you guys have an awesome weekend and enjoyed this post . (:

'Chorizo' Pasta

Today I'll be sharing with you guys one of my favorite meals to cook for my family, It's chorizo pasta.

Ingredients 

1 package seitan chorizo 

desired amount of white mushrooms,  I usually add at least 6 but it's good without them too.

1-2 cloves of garlic

1 small onion 

\1 quart tomatoes 

2 Tbs tomato past 

3 dashes of black pepper'

1/4 tsp ancho chili powder

1/8 tsp thyme 

1 1/2 tsp oregano

1 tsp parsley(if you add too much cumin just add extra parsley) 

1/2 tsp cumin

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp garlic powder

cilantro as desired , dried or fresh(best)  

Instructions 

saute'  "chorizo", mushrooms,onion, and garlic, until browned.  Add tomatoes and tomato paste, stir until well mixed.  Add spices,stir, and let simmer for at least 15 minutes.  Serve and enjoy. 

serving suggestion

Put sauce over whole wheat linguine and sprinkle nutritional yeast over the top , with a large side salad. 

Spring has Finally Arrived

Hello all, Spring is finally here at last! While I do realize that the first official day of spring was a few weeks ago this is the first weekend it has truly felt like spring around here. Every April, we have a sheep and goat festival at the county fair grounds on a Saturday and this weekend was the festival. For me this weekend always marks new beginnings (and some tragic endings), new birth, planting time and so much more. 

This weekend tends to be the first or second weekend of good weather. We always have a few kittens and baby goats, and are counting down the days or hours until more goats are born (though I have a few stories about that for another time.). Our cow should give birth in about three months. For the last few years, I've had friends graduating from high school and now this year college.  In two years, it will be my own graduation that I am anxiously awaiting.  And my birthday is just around the corner.

For me spring comes baring hope this year, far more than others have.  I am being blessed this year; I am truly getting a new start: I painted my room last weekend (I plan to post pictures later).  My birthday is in 9 days and with that will come the responsibility, freedom and privilege of being able to drive a car unaccompanied.  I am currently in the process of bleaching my hair (naturally) and then I will be dying it Auburn.  I will be (hopefully) getting a job in the very near future, and working on getting my own business up and running. There are other things happening for me right now as well as the things I have mentioned.   

I suppose the bottom line is that I feel more hopeful than I have in years and that's a pretty darn good feeling.  

Homemade: Potpourri

Yesterday I worked on drying flowers for potpourri. Here is how I did it.

Step one: I went to a part of the farm that has lots of beautiful fragrant flowers. I cut several varieties of daffodils at the base of the flower's stem, and ended up with around two dozen of those. I also cut all of the dead flowers off the plants and used  a few of those that were in good enough shape to be dried. 

Step two: I cleaned any dirt off the flowers, and cut the flower itself off of the stem. This is where everyone does something a little different I only pull the petals off of the flowers that were already dead when I picked them, the rest of the flowers I dry whole.

Step three: Then I placed the flowers on the trays and put them on the dehydrator. I left them in for two hours at 145 degrees.  At that point they were as dry as I wanted them to be. 

Step four: Add any desired essential oils, I plan to add lavender to mine. Then put your homemade potpourri  in desired bags or containers and enjoy. 

 

I found this project relatively simple and it only requires about 45 minutes of hands on work. I did this project about four years ago and the flowers still have a lovely scent. What are some of your newest projects? I would love any feedback, because I plan to make this a semimonthly post. 

It snowed here all day Sunday. We ended up getting  around six inches and we got another inch Monday,  although by around four a lot of it had melted.  These are a few of the pictures I got  first thing Monday morning. I also took a roll of pictures on my film camera.

 The pond in front of my house, always looks amazing in the snow.

 This is a farm near ours that I think looked pretty awesome in this picture.

 I love old buildings that look like they could fall down any day now. You can't see it that well in the picture but this barn is leaning as if it could just fall on it's side any minute.

 This lovely little church is in Fults, the closest town to my house, not that it really has more than a post office and church.

 I think that the distant factory (if that's what it is) in this picture is actually  across the Mississippi river and in Missouri . I love everything about this picture.

Living on top of these bluffs is a bit like living in the mountains, it's lovely. I took this in the bottoms (the area below the bluff). I think the bluffs are beautiful this time of the year.

 I took this and the next two photos at the local cemetery.

         This is my favorite picture of the day.

This head stone was perfectly covered in snow.

I hope y'all have an awesome Tuesday.  Is any one else getting worse weather now than they had when it was actually winter?

Spring Goals 2013

In honor of spring officially beginning, despite the insane Illinois weather not reflecting that at all, I thought I would share my spring goal list with you guys.  My general rules for goal lists are that they push either my natural tendencies or a rut that I've fallen into.  The goal should be reasonable, rather then something I know won't happen.  The only other rule I consider to be very important is that no goal requires a lot of money and that most are free or under twenty dollars this helps me insure that my goals  achievable . So without further rambling here's my list.

Read 8 Books:  Reading 20 books is on my 2013 goal list though it would be awesome to exceed that.  Since I tend to read the most in the spring and Summer I thought I'd try to read about half of my goal during spring. 

Plant my Flower garden: I always enjoy having a flower garden and since I didn't plant one last year I decided that it would be a perfect goal.

Press Some Flowers: I haven't pressed any flowers since I was about ten and I've been really wanting to again so as soon as my flowers start blooming I plan to press some.

Start a Scrap Book: I've been talking about this for years, there has always been some reason for not doing this sooner but this year I'm set on doing this even if I fail. 

Take an art Class: The woman I've taken classes from for years moved to long island a few months ago.  I have actually managed to be successful in finding a place that has a wide range of beginning -advanced classes for reasonable prices.  I'm planning to start taking classes there in April. 

Start a Blog: Well I have managed to do this and I'm at the end of week one I just have no idea of what people actually think of this blog or if anyone is reading it for that matter.  I'm changing my goal from starting a blog to having people actually read my blog. 

Finish getting my Driving Hours: Here in Illinois you must have 50 hours of driving and at least 10 of those must be at night, before you can get your license.   It has been surprisingly hard to get the night hours and after talking to other people this seems pretty common, though I think a large part of my problem has been having other people drive when I could.

Volunteer at the Animal Shelter: I will be turning 16 in less than a month which is the age you have to be in Illinois to volunteer at the Animal shelter.   I'll have my driver’s license then to so it'll be way easier to get there.

Go to Five Local Places I've Never Been To: There is a ton of awesome stuff to do within a four to five hours from my house and after six years of living in this area off and on, we just haven't done much of it.

 I would love to know your opinion and some of your goals have an amazing weekend!

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Pictures From my Trip to the Zoo

My mom and I decided to make a trip over to the zoo yesterday, it was a perfect day for it, not too crowded and surprisingly warm.  A nice reprieve from the miserable "winter" weather and being trapped indoors all the time.  I'm so happy that we went over yesterday because it's snowing today, not the perfect first day of spring I was hoping for. 

I thought these penguins swimming together were so sweet.

An owl in the bird house that "posed" perfectly for me.

My favorite picture of the day.

These guys gave us a great show. they were one of the more entertaining animals.

I wish this picture showed how beautiful these toucans are they looked fake they are so pretty.

This fellow was simply majestic standing so perfectly in the sun.

I was really excited that she was up and moving as all the other big cats were bathing in the sun.

These zebras were so full of life it was wonderful getting to watch them run and play.

He was the first animal we saw when we got there.

My First Post

Hello world, I'm Lauren.
This is my first blog post (that's pretty clear though).I'm planing to "talk" about my immediate plans for the blog , things I plan to regularly blog about until I have a better picture of where this is going.

photography)  I plan to have loads of photo posts including:a photo an hour once a month, random ones of my animals, cemeteries and anything else that strikes my fancy.

animals)  I have a dog(Grace), a fish(Buddy) and a horse(Spice). Though don't let that list fool you there  are way more animals in my life then just that, between our farm animals,strays,the seemingly hundreds of cats that reside here. You'll be seeing all of this a lot and "hearing" some stories about them that I think are worth sharing.

my recovery)  I'll probably only post about this once a month or so. I tend to be pretty open about this subject because I know that sharing my story is important  I've had depressive tendencies and anxiety problems for many years . Helping others with anything from depression to loss and grief ,is one of my main goals in life. I hope that my story helps at least one person.

daily life) I'll be sharing monthly or bimonthly updates about my ever changing life.

literature/film)  I'll be sharing what I've been reading and watching along with a short review.

Art/crafting)  I enjoy all types of art and crafting. I plan to share what is going on in that part of my life and maybe some tutorials.