Whoa.

Long time no post! I thought I was doing better.

Anyway, things are moving slowly. I'm fed up with ASU. They keep changing my graduation requirements so it's basically always just out of reach. And apparently I'm not the only one. No one I know that I graduated high school with has made it out of college yet. Actually, that's a lie. I think a few are graduating this Spring. But still. Apparently in order to get a useless bachelors degree you have to go to school for 6+ years. It's completely ridiculous. I'm majoring in English - with no minor - and I have to take SEVEN SEMESTERS of Spanish courses. SEVEN SEMESTERS OF SPANISH in order to get an ENGLISH degree. In what world does this make sense?!

Uuugggh.

In other news, Erika is visiting in TWO WEEKS and I'm beyond excited. I wish it didn't cost so much for us to see each other...We talk every day and that's awesome, but we only get to see each other every year and a half. That's a long time to go without seeing one of your favorite people on the planet.

Boo.

Carved pumpkin (it's Elvis, in case you couldn't tell). My mom entered it in a contest at work and won 1st prize! We've yet to find out what the prize is, though. Meh.




French vanilla ice cream, cinnamon and candied pumpkin seeds! It's so delicious. And candied pumpkin seeds are amazingly yumtastic!
Here's how to make them: (And, as much as I like getting the seeds straight from the pumpkin, I am NOT a fan of shelling all those seeds individually, so I'd recommend just buying a bag of raw, shelled seeds from the grocery store (you'll save a ton of money when you consider you can only get about 1/3 cup of seeds from a $6 pumpkin but a couple of cups of shelled seeds from the store for about $3. Not to mention you don't have to spend a truckload of time shelling all those seeds!).

Here's how to make them: for every cup of shelled seeds, you need 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
Heat seeds in a skillet, stirring frequently until the seeds begin to pop. Add sugar and stir constantly until sugar begins to liquify. Add salt. Then spread on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray to cool. And that's all! So simple, but man...SOOO good...

Sugar Cookies

*I just want to point out that the varying sizes and degree of "doneness" are on purpose (even though having all of them different bugs me). My mom likes small and crunchy and I prefer big and chewy, so I tend to make both.

Also, I got to bust out my giant stash of Halloween sprinkles! Yum!

INFODUMP!

Here's a big infodump of stuff in my life currently/recently.

a) I won a two night stay at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas! I'm super psyched. As many times as I've been to Vegas, I've never done the big "Vegas Experience". It's always staying with family and/or at the general hotels and not being able to do anything anyway because I was under 21. Now, I'm 22 and I get to stay at the Rio for free! I'm gonna go see Penn & Teller. This is my plan so far.

b) I made some homemade dog treats for Fonz on his birthday:



I also ate one. They're not bad. They're not GOOD, but they're not bad.

c) Pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Hooray for fall! I LOVE winter vegetables.


d) Fonz loves laying on yarn and mohawk hats




e) I've officially made $8 so far making mohawk hats!

f) Five Steps to a Happy Tummy (aka Mini Pumpkin Pies):

Crust


Filling


Bake


Lift


Eat!

g) I finished making this pink hat!








And that's about it.

Mohawks and knitting.

I've been knitting a lot of these mohawk hats for friends. I'm enjoying them.

I don't know what I'm gonna do when I run out of friends that want yarn mohawks...

Mmmm..

Blueberry treats




and croque madame!




My house can be so delicious!

Boy, I'm stuffed.

Been making a lot of stuffed foods lately. Calzones the other day, stuffed tacos last night (basically, a flaky crust with taco meat, cream cheese and salsa inside)



And apple empenadas today!




Next up are cherry/banana empenadas and then after that I'll probably stuff some pasta..

Yummy!

Made veggie calzones for lunch today!

The filling = broccoli, mushrooms and roasted red peppers (and some cheeses and sauce, of course!). So yummy!

Plus, I used a premade crust, canned mushrooms, jarred peppers, etc so they were done in like 40 minutes! Gotta love technology...

Little Fonz on the Prairie

It's Fonz...in a bonnet!

Two cool things.

I HIGHLY recommend seeing Public Enemies. I went and saw it last night and I REALLY enjoyed it.

Another thing I enjoy is the White House Flickr Photostream. It's very.....down-to-earth.