Is It Really Only Tuesday?

It feels like the past two days have been two years long! I'm done with all but one of my classes. I have my last final tomorrow! It is in Chefs, so I'm not too worried. It seems like a very easy exam. My French final today was a disaster. We had to write three different stories, and writing in French is what I have the hardest time with. I still managed a B, though!

Graduation practice is going surprisingly well. We have two plans right now- one for an outdoor graduation and one for an indoor graduation. It looks like we have a 40% chance for rain on Saturday. If it rains and graduation is held indoors we can only have a limited number of people attend, so everyone is hoping for a sunny Saturday!

Boho Mom has honored me with three awards.


The International Reach Out Award:

This award was developed by Tessa in honor of Dr Maithri Goonetilleke's birthday. Tessa was inspired by the way Dr Goonetileke reaches out to others and, with his humanity as her guide, she created this award "to acknowledge the depth and breadth of the warm open-heartedness from bloggers all over the world who reach out and touch their readers with their words." Tessa goes on to quote Dr Goonetilleke: "It has been my experience that whenever one human being reaches out to another in compassion, a bridge is built. A bridge which leads out of despair, into the light of hope and the possibility that tomorrow will hold a few less tears than yesterday.

The Mental Duck to Mental Swan Award is given to two amazing groups of bloggers;
1. To Bloggers who encourage and nurture others bloggers to explore and grow in their creative, spiritual or mental lives.
2. To Bloggers who are blooming and growing creatively, spiritually or mentally in their lives & sharing it on their blogs.

This Noblesse Oblige Award is an award given to those who promote creativity, and positive thinking. The recipient's blog is refreshing and creative and has a clear purpose.

The recipient of this award is recognized for the following:

1. The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervade amongst different cultures and beliefs.

2. Their Blog contents inspire; strives to encourage, and offers solutions

3. There is a clear purpose at the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding on Social, Political, Economic, the Arts, Cultures, Sciences and Beliefs

4.The Blog is refreshing and creative

5. The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking

The Blogger who receives this award will need to perform the following:

- Create a post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.

- The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.

- Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably
citing one or more older posts as support.

- The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions.

- Blogger must display the Award at any location at their Blog.


I am amazed and touched that Boho Mom thought of me for these awards. It's nice to think that people believe my blog is all of these things. I'm worried that I just come off as a teenager ranting about her life. That's all I seem to do lately. I haven't even been participating in Wreck This Journal! Thank you again Boho Mom! <3

I would like to pass these awards on to Cynthia at SoulCollage Fusion.

I haven't uploaded those pictures from the trip to Boston yet. I'll try to get to that on Thursday. I don't need to be at school until 1 in the afternoon that day! I'm looking forward to sleeping in. I've had little 'down time', but when I do get it I try to enjoy it. I kind of want to just sit and watch a movie tonight once I'm done studying for my final.

Tackling The To Do List

I am happy to report that my Sunday to do list is shrinking! Sunday is the day I get stuff done since I babysat all day Saturday again. I'm glad that I've gotten so much done, even if I still have stuff to do. Great joy in small victories, right?

I woke up and immediately wanted to go back to bed this morning. I've been sick the past couple days. Friday was the senior class trip to Boston (oh my gods it was fun! Pictures at a later date) and I ended up losing my voice due to a combo of singing/ talking loudly over music and having a cold. I had a wicked sore throat yesterday and I can barely talk at all today.

I got up anyways and made my mental to do list. At first it consisted of three things 1- clean the house 2- use up the zucchini by making muffins and brownies (brownie recipe and more at a later date) 3- study for finals.

Not a bad list for the day. Then it grew. The house was dirtier than I thought, cooking takes forever when my dad starts making spaghetti while I'm making zucchini muffins, I forgot that I also need to make bread for myself for the week, I needed to eat & relax, go on the exercise bike, and I wanted to catch up on blogs.

Once I'm done writing this I only have to make my bread and study for finals.I don't even have to make dinner! Mom got Pizza Hut and there is some left.

The finals for tomorrow are:
AP English (easy exam!)
and Personal Finance (stressing over!)

Then graduation practices also start tomorrow. And I have a NHS meeting and then senior NHS members have dinner with Mr. Sullivan. I don't think I'll even have the chance to get near a computer. Any free time I have will be spent cramming for the French final I have on Tuesday! French is easliy my toughest class- this learning a second language thing is hard.

Off to throw some stuff in a breadmaker and then cram my head full of knowledge about finances.

Wishcasting, Awards & Finals To Study For

This Wednesday Jamie asks us What do you wish for your body? When I first saw it this morning I had no clue what I would wish, or if I'd even have time to write a post tonight.

Right now I know exactly what I wish. I wish for my body to be strong and able to handle the stress ahead of me, but also able to relax when I have the time to do so.

I woke up with a massive headache that has not gone away. It starts in my neck and goes all the way up. Even worse- my whole body hurts now! I'm sure it has something to do with the stress of having my first two finals tomorrow. Our senior class trip to Boston is on Friday, a nice little break from school if I do say so myself. The rest of my finals are spread across next week, and they don't get much easier. Then there are the graduation practices all next week in the afternoon, a senior NHS members dinner with Mr. Sullivan, class day, and the actual graduation happening on the 20th! I'm looking forward to this being all done with.

Thank you Jamie for giving me the chance to wish for this. Wishcasting is a wonderful way for so many of us to express our wishes, wish for others, and have others wish for us.

Here I was complaining about all these bad things when I did have a good thing to share! Monday night was the Academic Awards ceremony. I received two awards. One in Family and Consumer Science (Home Ec.) and one in Business. Both these teachers know of my plans to own my own restaurant, and both are very supportive. It was touching to hear them say in front of so many people that they have such confidence in my ability to succeed. They each gave me a book. One is the James Beard Cook Book, and the other is called Start Your Own Restaurant and More. The cook book has recipes for things I could never even imagine. The business book is so interesting and a huge comfort to read. It gives me a better idea of what to expect.



Peace for now. I'm going to sit and do nothing for a little while, I'm hoping this helps the headache go away. Then it's dinner and studying for my 1st period final. World Religions. I'm not too worried, but I still have to study. I know my 2nd period Conflict Resolution final is going to be wicked easy, there's nothing to really study for it.

A Look At My Weekend

I had a very busy, fun, awesome weekend! Friday night I saw Up! with my sister and some friends. It's a very good movie and I suggest seeing it. In the previews I saw that Disney is coming out with a new princess movie! As expected it's one based on an old popular fairy tale- The Princess and The Frog. I am wicked excited and can't wait to go see it when it comes out!

That night my friends and I stayed up to make new Free Hugs signs.


Apparently Anastasia wanted to be in the picture, because when I tried to move her she just ran right back up there.

Saturday was the Strolling of the Heifers parade in the next town over, so we went to see that. Tons of fun! Here are the pictures I took of that.

After the parade my friends and I walked around with our Free Hugs signs. We got a bunch of hugs! Free Hugs is one of my favorite things to do. It really brightens peoples days, and you can't help but walk away from each hug with a smile.

Full Strawberry Moon Dreamboard

Tonight is the Full Moon! After running around so much yesterday I am really enjoying just relaxing today. I know I won't have too many more relaxing days, because the last few weeks of June are the busiest. For my dreamboard this month I decided to use an oak leaf and some grass to make it look interesting. I also colored in the tree trunk right on a real tree trunk to get the textured look. Check out other dreamboards here.

Bread Recipes

The bread I made the other day tastes great! I chose a recipe I found somewhere while looking up breadmakers. It uses honey instead of sugar, so it didn't give off the good smell while baking that I usually relate to homemade bread. I don't care, though, because it turned out good!

1 1/8 cups of water
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp of honey
2 tsp salt
3 cups of flour (I did 2 cups wheat, 1 cup white)
2 tsp yeast

makes about 1 1/2 lb loaf

Tonight I made zucchini bread. I was so excited to find them in the stores, I've been looking and waiting for them for months. Let me just say- YUM! Here's the recipe I used:

3 eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
½ tsp vanilla
2 cups of grated or finely shredded zucchini
2 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp salt

Beat eggs, sugar, & oil
Add vanilla, spices, & zucchini- mix
Put in dry ingredients & mix

Bake at 350 until toothpick comes out clean

You can add nuts if you like them, I don't. I've also had zucchini muffins with chocolate chips in them. Those are good. I made the mini loaves this time because they make it easier to give bread away.

Random

First of all- thanks for the recipe and website. I'm going to make wheat bread tonight, so I need to choose a recipe to use. I'll probably post it tomorrow.

I know I never blogged about it, but I was stressing all last week because last night was the NHS banquet for the new inductees. All the current members had to plan the ceremony and pot luck dinner. I was basically put in charge of the dinner, because they all know that I plan to become a restaurant manager and thought it would be good practice. It was! And it went perfectly. I am so glad it's done and over with, though. Now I can focus on my finals and graduation- which are quickly approaching. Finals begin on the 11th, and the graduation date is the 20th.

For anyone wondering about the banana bread recipe I talked about before, it can be found here.

I've been wicked busy with tons of different things lately. I'm going to be busy until the end of June! I still plan on participating in The Next Chapter's Wreck This Journal fun, starting on Friday! I did start wrecking my book a while ago, so I can simply post old pictures on my busy days.

And finally I'm going to end with this cool, fun, quiz Cynthia took and posted about on her blog.

You Are a Red Crayon

Your world is colored with bright, vivid, wild colors. You have a deep, complex personality - and you are always expressing something about yourself. Bold and dominant, you are a natural leader. You have an energy that is intense... and sometimes overwhelming. Your reaction to everything tends to be strong. You are the master of love-hate relationships. Your color wheel opposite is green. Green people are way too mellow to understand what drives your energy.

What Color Crayon Are You?

I took it twice because I thought it had it wrong, but I ended up with the same answer. It kind of makes me want to find that coloring book I have somewhere!

Breadmaker Bread

Friday night we were hanging out at my Aunt Jen's. I made banana bread and my mom mentioned how I wanted a breadmaker. Aunt Jen says "Really? Look in that cabinet there." I pull out a breadmaker, along with a pound of dust. xP I wiped it down and took it home. SO, now I've got this bread maker to use!


I tried it out last night. What I got was a good looking, great smelling, perfectly square loaf of bread. I cut off a piece and ate it. It might look and smell good, but it's not like the homemade bread of my childhood that was so good I could eat it with nothing on it. There's nothing wrong with this bread, I just didn't like the taste very much.

I am going to experiment with different recipes, and hopefully find one I like! Plus I am going to get some wheat flour. All the times I've made bread I've never been able to make homemade wheat bread because my mom hates it. It won't be 100% wheat bread, only about half so it isn't so heavy.

If anyone has a good recipe I'd love to hear them!

8 Things I Need Less Of

It's *8Things Thursday again! This week it is 8 things I need less of. It ties in with the Do Less Revolution going on.
Here are my 8 things...

1. Stress
2. Commitments
3. Homework
4. Headaches
5. Self Doubt
6. Cold Weather & Rain
7. Worry
8. Sickness

Can you tell that all of these are connected? I am stressed because I have too many commitments and too much homework. The stress causes the headaches. I'm still sick from when I woke up with that cold on Sunday, and it won't go away because of the cold & rain! The self doubt... well that's normal, and so is the worry. I mean, I am graduating in 3 weeks!

I'm just not having a very good day. I don't mean to sound like a pessimist, but the next few days don't look like they'll be any better either.

Some Of My Favorite Things

Guess what? This is my 200th post! I didn't know I'd done that many! I've been thinking about what some of my favorite things are lately... I guess now is as good a time as any to post them. Some are odd, but oh well.

Mac-n-Cheese
Yup, it's probably my all-time favorite food. I don't think I could ever get sick of eating it. I'm picky, though. I don't like homemade mac-n-cheese. I've grown up with the boxed stuff, and I just like it better than any homemade kind I've tried.

Disney Movies
I am such a little kid... I've grown up with Disney movies and I still love watching them. The other day when I said I wanted to just sit and watch a movie? I watched The Rescuers. My favorite Disney movie of all time is Pete's Dragon, though. When we were little my cousin and I used to ask to watch "Pizza Dragon!" And we always fell asleep watching it. I still end up falling asleep half way through it.

The Sound of Peepers
It's just one of those comforting sounds... I love falling asleep listening to them.

The Smell of Cigarette Smoke
This is my comfort smell. Weird, right? Most people hate this smell! All the adults I've grown up around smoke, though. It brings back memories and makes me feel relaxed. I know how bad it is; but there's no stopping them from smoking, and I like being around my family.

These are just a few of my favorite things. I could list more... but I've got blondies to bake!