Being Ms. Brightside

highlight of carnival: adult's parade

2010-05-04T11:13:00.000-04:00

I know I'm late posting this but i was waiting for the Daily News to run their article about the parade. There are two parades for St. Thomas Carnival: the Children's Parade is always held on the last Friday in April and the Adult's Parade is the following Saturday. Last year I was home for St. Thomas and was in the parade with my youngest sister, mom, step-father, uncle. The troupe we are usually in* is Gypsies - one of the original old-time St. Thomas troupes. *I say usually because I've only been with them once since I am usually never home for Carnival and when I was younger, we weren't allowed to celebrate Carnival and definitely not to be in the parade! My how things have changed lol. My mom has been in the parade for the past several years and usually one of both of my sisters are too. Last year I was home for St. John Festival, which also has a parade...so I was able to tramp w/ Gypsies twice. Here's a pic of Nix and I for St. John. I look like a hot tired, sweaty mess lol.

Here's a pic of my mom and step-dad from this year's parade:

Cute huh!!?

Being in the parade is sooooooo much fun. It's good music, drinking, and dancing down the street in beautiful costumes. I'm hoping I can use someone's costume for the parade in St. John this year.

I also was super excited to find a clip of the troupe from the parade:

Having a good time as always!!

Today's *big chunes* are this year's Road March (the award for best song of Carnival), "Kallalloo" by Spectrum Band, another fav. of mine: "Home for Carnival" by Kevin Lyttle (Barbados) and a bigggg chune from St. Croix festival 2004, "Energy" by Xtaushun:

:-D

STT carnival: food fair and j'ouvert

2010-04-30T10:15:00.000-04:00

If reading this article doesn't make you hungry, something's wrong with you! OMG I would devour a plate of local food right now...and top it off with the coquito that sounds onnnnnnn - and takes 4-5 hours to make!

Wednesday was Food Fair - one of the best parts about Carnival. I haven't actually been to Food Fair in forever because I'm never home :-(

This year's honoree was actually one of my friend's mother. She looks gorgeous (as usual) in the pic.

Yesterday was j'ouvert - an early morning tramp down the street. Basically it's a block party/parade where everyone comes down to the main part of the island and dances down the street behind big trucks with live bands or sound systems. Good times :-D

Ok so today's *big chunes* are obv. inspired by J'ouvert...I'm sooo made I can't find the song "Granny" by Jam Band on youtube!! But here's a funny j'ouvert song by Singa Band...i think yall will recognize the beat lol

Of course you know i had to put a Destra song in here...the video is bad quality but i couldn't find another with this song...and i HAD to include this song:

Ugh there are soooo many big chunes but I can't find good quality videos online :-(

Oh well!

:-D

you may be a food network addict if...

2010-04-28T12:44:00.000-04:00

...you and your sister refer to the chefs by first name only...and talk about them like you know them

email from Nix: "Btw giada is making trinidadian chicken stew...OMG"

:-D

P.S. speaking of Nix and food, this weekend (in honor of her BDay lol) she made some BOMB diggity chocolate molten lava cakes....just like Mommy used to make :-)

Then, we mixed the leftovers with my leftover german chocolate cake icing and made crazy scrumptious german chocolate cakedrops!!!! A heavenly combo, let me tell you ;-)

bacchanal again for 2010

2010-04-28T10:37:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again...

Throughout the year every (i think?) Caribbean island holds its own form of a carnival celebration. In St. Thomas, we hold our Carnival in April...with activities throughout the month leading to a final big week of Food Fair (today!), the opening of the Carnival Village (earlier this week!), J'ouvert (tomorrow!), two parades (children and adults this wknd), and various other activities. This year's theme is Bacchanal Again for 2010.

Side note: I was curious about the origin of the word bacchanal, so of course I looked it up :-) The word comes from bacchanalia, which were wild and mystic festivals of the Roman god Bacchus (or Dionysus). According to wikipedia, it has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry...lol. I guess that's pretty accurate...though you definitely don't need to be drunk to have fun during carnival.

Here's a little snippet about our Carnival:

The first carnival was staged in 1912 during the final years of Danish occupation and lapsed during World War I. Revived in 1952, carnival has become the second largest festival in the Caribbean. A month-long series of dazzling pageants and talent shows is held to choose royalty to rein over the festival. Calypsonions offer satirical commentary on the state of the islands, oftentimes mocking the shenanigans of politicians. Other popular events held during Carnival are j'ouvert - a morning jump up - a food fair presenting the islands’ best traditional eats, and a competition to crown the King and Queen of the parade troupes. A children's and adult’s parade close the lively month with brilliantly costumed and decorated troupes and floats.

Throughout the rest of the week and weekend I'll be posting about my past carnival experiences and memories, as well as this year's carnival celebrations.

Of course today's big chune has to be...the quintessential carnival song...aptly titled "Carnival" by my favorite soca artist, DESTRA, and Machel Montano...This isn't a VI Carnival song, so I feel obligated to give yall a double dose of big chune and include a VI (albeit Crucian) one as well ;-)

UMB and Pumpah "Boom bye bye"

:-D

bad hair day

2010-04-27T11:58:00.000-04:00

As part of my going-natural process, my bad hair days are on the rise :-/ On a day-to-day basis, I never quite know how my hair is going to turn out. The funny thing is, that is one of the things that a lot of long-time naturals (on the blogs I've been following) cite as being among their favorite parts of having natural hair. I think it's just more frustrating for me because I'm still transitioning and I haven't quite gotten my hair routine down.

I have a black tie event tonight for work and I'm not feeling great about how my hair is going to look in a formal setting. I co-washed my hair night before last so I kinda assumed it would be alright for today with a simple re-wetting via spray bottle...not so much. It looks/feels dry and frizzy :-(

This morning I've been going back and forth trying to decide whether I can justify (financially and practically) going to the hairdresser this weekend...it would basically make it my 3rd trip in like a 6 week period...way more than I usually go. And I'd have to drop $60+ just to cut off a biiiiit more (b/c I don't want to totally BC yet...at least i don't think i do but you never know!!!) of my relaxed ends. Sigh. At the same time, I'd rather spend the money and feel good (better) about the way I look lol. And for those of you thinking "Oh just go to Super Cuts" or one of those cheap walk-in salons....Never again!! I did it once and it was not smart...at least not for someone with my texture/cut.

Guess I'll go ahead and give Perry a call....

Today's *big chune* isn't new or anything but it just popped into my head and it's a really pretty reggae duet...and shockingly (for a caribbean-artist) the music video is actually pretty good lol.
Taurus Riley and Alaine: Forever More

:-D

my back-up plan

2010-04-26T16:43:00.000-04:00

Right around the time that I was graduating from Gtown I wrote a facebook note about wanting to be a housewife. At the time I was actually semi-serious about this aspiration, but really it was more about what came with being a housewife...the husband and children. I also hadn’t really found a “calling” yet...I didn't feel passionate about any specific career or line of work. Hopefully now I’ve found the field in which I’m supposed to be working -- or else the next 5 years of my life will be for naught lol (but seriously) -- but that's another story.

Nowadays, even though i still have aspirations of being Suzy Homemaker, I’m starting to think that I can do that with or without a man…lol...Anyone seen the new JLo movie (or ads for it)? I saw it yesterday with a friend. In a nutshell, she decides she's ready for a baby, but hasn't met the right person yet. She takes things into her own hands by undergoing artificial insemination. This is where plausibility diverges into "only in a J.Lo movie" (see "Maid in Manhattan", "The Wedding Planner", "Monster-in-Law" etc) land. She meets the perfect guy, they fall in love, he stays with her despite her being pregnant (not by him)...and they live happily ever after. It's a total chick flick so while it won’t be winning any awards, it was entertaining.

It also got me thinking a lot more about something a former flame and I have been seriously joking (yes i realize this is an oxymoron but just roll with me) about...

Let's just say that in about 6-7 years if I’m single and ready for a baby, I’ve got someone in line to be the baby daddy. Sounds crazy right? Ok, now put aside society's expectations... I know only a few people who are in loving, faithful, happy marriages anymore. Would it be that weird for me to have children with someone with whom I have a good friendship, but not necessarily a romantic relationship? I realize the whole situation could get kinda messy and would be hard to explain (to my family, my kids, etc.) but I don’t think it’s as off-the-wall as it sounds at first. And while I do know that two-parent households are touted as being optimal for a child's upbringing, I feel like if I had to choose between not having kids and being a single mother, I'd be able to do a pretty darn good job at the latter.

The older I get the less interested I’m becoming in the whole marriage thing. I do think it would be nice to have someone special with whom to share your life and raise children, but I just don’t know if I buy into the whole “one special person you’re meant to be with forever and ever" thing.

Ok let me put it in terms of Sex and the City characters….I used to be 60% Charlotte, 30% Carrie and 10% Miranda….Now I’d say I’m 75% Miranda, 20% Carrie and 5% Charlotte.

But, Miranda ends up happily (by the end of the first movie at least) married with a son. So maybe my SATC character mix won’t end up too badly after all? haha

Thoughts?

Today's *big chune* is a super old school Whitney jam...this is like a hidden gem you only know if you had her actual albums...man i used to be straight obsessed with Whitney...at one point or another I've had every one of her albums...and this is one of my favorite songs of hers. I can actually remember my sisters and I singing and dancing along to this song! lol

:-D

i'd rather be...

2010-04-23T09:45:00.000-04:00

...sitting in a bookstore/cafe reading a new book and catching up on all my unread blogs :-/

But alas...I sit at work instead! (By the way, I'm super thankful for my job because I know times are hard...just sayin...)

Seriously, the bolded unread items in my Google Reader are killing me! I've even started resorting to "marking all as read"...but who knows what fascinating articles, important news items, juicy gossip, cool events, and scrumptious recipes I'm missing out on?!

I really don't want to be here...(luckily) my days are winding down. From next Monday I have 5 full weeks until I leave my job and head home to the VI. Then, I really can spend (part of) my days doing what I love...surrounded by the ocean, basking in the sun. Ahhhhhhhhhh can't you picture it!

No? Well here's a visual:

That's the GORGEOUS Lindquist Beach on St. Thomas. Definitely a (if not, the) fav. of mine.

Here's a great friday *big chune* that always makes me think of chillin on the weekend. Apparently this was Aaliyah's first video? RIP

:-D Happy Friday Y'all.

what i cooked (and did to my hair) this week

2010-04-22T15:16:00.000-04:00

I've been slacking on the food blogging this week. So here's a recap:

This past Saturday I made cornmeal banana pancakes from a Food Network recipe (thanks Emeril!) This particular recipe called for egg whites which gave the pancakes a nice airy texture. It also called from both milk and yogurt, which made them nice and moist. The cornmeal flavor wasn't as pronounced as I was expecting but they were overall quite delish. I definitely plan to incorporate egg whites into some (or all) of my future pancakes.

By the way, have I mentioned that we don't use syrup? Instead, we use a different topping (in the Fall/winter we used a yummy pumpkin butter spread from TJ's...recently we've been using fruit preserves/jam) and always have fresh-made (in Nix's VitaMix) apple sauce. PURE MAPLE syrup is fine but for those of you who use Aunt Jemima or those other "pancake syrups" you may want to check the ingredient labels. Syrup isn't even listed as an ingredient in some....so you're basically consuming high fructose corn syrup. Enjoy!

I also made those muffins I mentioned last week. I just tweaked my quinoa banana bread recipe by adding the following:
- whole wheat flour
- oat bran
- a dried berry mix from TJ's
- walnuts
- yogurt (obv!)

I think that's all I added....they came out really nicely I think. Forgot to take a pic tho! I actually wanted them to be heartier...more like a bran muffin, but I'd definitely need to add much more oat bran for that effect and Nix wasn't really feeling the idea. Next time perhaps.

Nix did lots of baking of her own this week as well! First up, she whipped up a chocolate bread pudding to use up a loaf of french bread that had been in the freezer for weeks. Though she was nervous about it, the end result was quite yummy. With a few tweaks, it will be even yummier!

And the day before yesterday she made her own granola bars! They were great!!! But no pic because I totally forgot...so I'll put one up next time she makes them (hint hint Nix).

We also had to eat real food at some point during the week but nothing too exciting on that front this week. We did have salmon one night with a great marinade from TJ's called Island Soyaki (or something). It was really good!

Ok that's all for food this week. Here's a pic of my hair lol:

No particular reason why...just felt like chronicling the process. I'm a big fan of part- or not-rinsing out the conditioner when I co-wash (condition wash...gettin the lingo down haha) it. It really gives it a better curl and seems to last better throughout the day. Aside from that I've been using the Carol's Daughter hair milk, a gel my stylist suggested (whose name I forget), and.....olive oil. haha

Yay Thursday...and it was actually nice and sunny today!

Today's *big chune* is from my girl Fefe Dobson. I'm generally not a big fan of rockish music, but she just does it for me...and (coincidentally i swear!) she's a fellow Mixie (a Canadian one)...white mom and Jamaican dad. She has a new album coming out this June.

:-D

stop being so "alpha"

2010-04-20T14:22:00.000-04:00

One of the bloggers I follow is featured in the Washington Post today. It's a cute little article about her positive approach to the dating woes of black women. (In contrast to some of the more pessimistic stories that have been circulating recently.) Here is her advice:

"Now that the weather is nice again and the men are out...I want to do a quick refresher course on how to meet men."

1. "Smile & Say 'hi.'

2. "If you want to meet a man, look like you want to meet a man. . . . Lip gloss and a comb never hurt anyone. Use both liberally.

3. "Men don't notice you across a room because of your brain. Give them something to look out for.

4. "Flatter your best asset. If it's your smile, um, smile. If it's your legs, wear a skirt.

5. "Stop looking for men in bunches like at the club or happy hour. Men are everywhere, on the street, in line, in the elevator, on the train (in fact, I ran up on a superior cutie last night getting off the train. . . . I smiled, said, 'Hell-o.' He took it from there.) When you see someone that catches your eye no matter where you are, say something. ('Hi' is fine. If he is remotely interested, he will take it from there. He's been practicing opening lines since he was 13.)

6. "Go out alone. (But be safe.) I know you just thought 'hell no!' Try it, just once."

I have to admit, I have a hard time with rule number 1. This is surprising, because I consider myself to be a pretty friendly, approachable gal...but the latter point is important...I'm approachable not approaching (or whatever the proper term for what i'm trying to explain would be...you know what i mean!). I'm not one of those girls who is going to make the first move...just not gonna happen. It often happens to me that I'll see someone interesting/attractive but can't quite figure out how to initiate that first contact. My approach right now is just to make lingering eye contact and a faint smile and hope they take a hint lol.

So, what do we think of this advice? Does anyone actually find it easy to be the "approacher"? Do share your secrets lol.

Today's *big chune* is a group that i initially thought was swv, but is actually called Mokenstef...the opening line gets me every time LOL

:-D

am i being punked?

2010-04-19T14:30:00.000-04:00

Last night I'm innocently doing my laundry when the craziest thing happened....

I go to pull open the washer door (it's one of those stacked front-load washer/dryer combos) and water comes POURING OUT! Mind you, my load was supposedly done...i didn't open the door mid-cycle (the doors are locked in-cycle anyway).

So I slam the door shut and at first I'm just like hmm this is unfortunate, there's a bit of water on the ground. Then I realize that the water is STILL RUNNING...the machine is still cycling...but there is no time on the cycle...so it's just running with no end in sight. At this point the door wouldn't stay closed because my clothes had shifted when I first opened the door and the water pressure was too strong. So I'm standing there holding the door shut for *no lie* a good 10 minutes before a maintenance person (I live in an apt. complex) even shows up. (At this point I had also called Roomie so at least i had some company lol.)

The first dude to show up looks totally confused and calls for backup when he realizes the machine is still running. But...get this...he goes into the back room and gets a MOP! Roomie and I are like WTF is that gonna do?! The water was covering the floor and seeping into the back room at this point!

Then the second dude shows up and he looks flabbergasted as all get out LOL. At this point it's been another 5-7 minutes since the first dude came. For another 5-7 minutes they're on the phone trying to figure out how to get the water shut off. Finally they do (and by this point the first dude had gotten a water vacuum) get the water shut off and they tell me to just open the door and let all the water out. My clothes are SOAKED...we wring them out and I have to do 2 dryer cycles...now like 4/7 washing machines are unusable....but it wasn't my fault!

Oh, and my shoes were still wet this morning...quite a crazy 20 minutes!

Today's *big chune* comes from prob my favorite old school male R&B group, Mint Condition. This one is "You Send Me Swinging"

:-D

o o o o obsessed

2010-04-16T15:54:00.000-04:00

hi everyone! After a cool/rainy week, it's a GORGEOUS day in DC :-)

Once I get onto a certain "thing" I can get semi-obsessed with it...previous (and some ongoing) "semi-obsessions" include biracialness, reading, cooking/food blogs, psychology, gluten free eating, skin care treatments, happiness, gossip blogs, caribbean literature...the list goes on and on.

Annnnnd these are the things I think about when i'm at work :-/ lol

My most recent obsession is hair!! As you know I'm in the process of growing out my relaxer in the hope of getting beautiful natural curls :-D

I did a half big chop last weekend and I'm counting down the weeks (about 6 - if i make it that long!) until i can go back and have Perry cut off some more. Hopefully it will have grown enough by then that I'll feel comfortable cutting off all the remaining relaxed parts. If not, I should have just a little bit of the awkward in-between hair left.

I've been perusing different natural/curly blogs/sites and I wanted to share a few that i like so far:
http://www.curlynikki.com
http://www.livecurlylivefree.com/home.htm

http://www.tightlycurly.com

One of the hard (but great!) things is that there is so much diversity within natural hair, that it's been difficult to identify someone who has hair similar to my own. A lot of the natural hair sites I've been finding are for black women. The woman who does tightlycurly.com is mixed, but she'd muuuuuuch farther along (by 10 years and over 10 inches lol) in her hair process so her steps don't all apply to me yet. (Do any of you have other blogs/sites you'd recommend?)

In the end, i suppose it doesn't matter much because every single person's hair is different. What i need to do is continue to experiment and find out what works for me. I've been having what i consider a bad hair week (but I am pretty hard on myself about these things). In fact, yesterday i told Nix i was having an "ugly day." Does that ever happen to you. It's not that I'd done anything different and it wasn't even specifically about my hair. I just felt bleh.

Anyway, I'm not loving my hair today at all. Actually I think I may re-wash (conditioner only!) or at least re-wet tonight before I go out. My curls feel dry and unformed and the top/front awkward part is even more awkward than usual lol.

I'll be putting up Nix's guest post about her hair process soon, she's just making some revisions. I'm also soliciting posts from some of my friends so hopefully I'll have more of those on the way as well.

Today's *big chune* is another one of those songs that i really like but had forgotten about until it popped into my Pandora (i love Pandora for this reason). It's Avant's song called "Sailing"

:-D

homemade tortilla mexican pizzas

2010-04-15T14:19:00.000-04:00

I've decided that instead of slipping my cooking and baking into other posts, I'm going to devote entire posts to the different things I make/buy/eat. This will also help when I don't really feel like doing a major post, but still want to share something food-related.

This past weekend, Nix and I bought a rotisserie chicken from WF and were thinking of different dishes we could use the chicken for. On Monday we made chicken pita pockets for lunch, and on Tuesday we really took it up a notch (in my opinion lol). Last week I had come across a recipe (in one of my umpteen food blogs) for homemade flour torillas and decided that chicken fajitas would be super yum. Btw, does anyone else remember when McDonald's used to seel chicken fajitas?? Or was that only in the VI? Either way, they were bomb! lol

Anywho, instead of flour tortillas, I wanted to make corn tortillas. We have a big bag of corn meal in our freezer that I have on-hand to make cornbread so I figure why the heck not? ... Well, that didn't go very well. See, corn tortilla recipes call for corn flour and generally use store-bought mixes. I figured I could just put some corn meal into the VitaMix and get corn flour....but this didn't work at all. The "dough" was a terrible consistency and i didn't end up with a tortilla at all. It was kind of like a corn pastele (fried plantain thing). Not what I was going for :-/

Determined to make my own torillas, I whipped up a quick batch of regular flour tortillas instead. It was super easy to do! You basically just mix flour, water, salt, and baking powder...work into a dough and let it sit for like 15 minutes. Then, form into individual balls, roll out (or flatten with a tortilla press if you have one - or if you're like me and you lack kitchen tools, flatten them by hand lol) as flat as you can get them, and cook them in a skillet or on a griddle over high heat for about 30 seconds on each side...and Voila!

You can't tell from the pic but these tortillas were rather thick - not surprising because I was flattening them by hand - so they weren't very conducive to rolling like a traditional fajita or burrito. Instead, I decided to layer all my ingredients on top like a Mexican pizza ;-) Btw, for the chicken, I just seasoned it with some cumin and red chile pepper flakes...cumin is the seasoning that's most "tasted" in mexican dishes like this.

Ok, so I layered the tortilla with mashed avocado, shredded pepper jack cheese, the chopped and seasoned rotisserie chicken pieces, lettuce, black beans, corn, and grape tomatoes. Here's the final product:

It was GREAT!! Not the cleanest and most practical meal, but the taste was awesome. I like the mexican pizza concept, but if I make tortillas again I'll just buy a rolling pin so I can try to get them flatter. If I do the pizzas again I have to figure out how to get the toppings to stay put so it's not so messy. Since it was my first time I used all purpose flour, but next time I plan to use all or most whole wheat flour instead.

Overall a great meal! Maybe not Ultimate Recipe Showdown worthy, but a nice twist on a traditional dish :-)

Coming up I think Nix is going to make cookies from the recipe on our package of Bob's Red Mill 5-grain hot cereal (right Nix???)...and I'm going to whip up some quinoa-banana-bran-carrot-berry-coconut-walnut muffins...no recipe, just gonna wing it ;-D

Oh, and I made another batch of yogurt last night...it's spending the day chilling in the fridge and will hopefully be a yummy snack when i get home from work tonight!

Today's big chune is somewhat different from the usual style of music I like. Everyone knows Vanessa Carlton from her song a thousand miles (which, btw, i can't ever hear without thinking of the scene from White Chicks LOL)...but this is a great lesser-known song of her's, Ordinary Day.

:-D

chilli on cheating

2010-04-13T17:36:00.000-04:00

My friend T sent me this in an email yesterday - Chilli's comments (via her VIBE blog) on cheating (and relationships in general). I couldn't agree more. (The bolding is my emphasis)

My general feeling on cheating, period, whether it’s a girl cheating on a guy—because they do—or vice versa is that I don’t really understand it. We live in a country where we can choose our mate so if you’re unhappy with your mate for whatever reason, then break up. It’s pretty simple. Cheating takes too much effort. You’re hiding and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s just unnecessary and it’s extremely hurtful. It’s excruciating pain...

[i'm skipping some of what she wrote]

...I think women are so afraid to talk about things with guys in fear of him leaving, but if he’s going to be afraid from having a conversation, then the hell with his ass! That doesn’t make any sense. I have every right to ask you questions, you have every right to ask me questions. Now if we want to give the answers, it’s up to us but there’s nothing wrong with that because how else will you find out?

A lot of people out there are really good at hiding things and making it seem like everything is normal so you don’t suspect that they’re cheating. Usually things don’t work out, not because of a cheating situation. It could just be just compatibility. Most people, in my opinion, that are together and even married shouldn’t even be together. A lot of times you just have somebody in your life because you feel like you need someone in your life. You feel like you need a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Those are your own insecurities.

When you truly, truly love somebody and it’s a healthy love, you always want to make sure you’re healthy yourself before entering a relationship and give that person your time. That’s why they call it dating. Dating doesn’t mean we’re sleeping together. Dating doesn’t mean I’m your girlfriend, you’re my boyfriend. It means that we are exclusively dating each other trying to get to know each other, figure out each other’s personalities, see if we click, if our morals are intact—all those things. And then you can graduate to the next level of the relationship."

As I said, I really feel her on a lot of this. ESPECIALLY the part about not understanding cheating. The slew of cheating over the past year or is ~~making me realize i don't want to get married~~ really turning me into quite the cynic. I'm not bitter, mind you. Cynicism and bitterness are two different things to me. These days I'd be more surprised to learn a man is faithful than to find out that he's cheating. Seriously, if you want to cheat on me, just break up with me please!!! I'd rather be happily single than in a drama-filled relationship of lies and distrust. And I'd rather not share my man. Is that so much to ask?

Now, I'm not going to blame everything ~~just 99%~~ on no-good men. Ladies, it takes us for there to be cheaters. If you know a man is married/in a serious relationship, have a little respect for the other woman! (I'm looking at you 20-something yr old "babysitter" sleeping with Tiki Barber while his wife is pregnant with twins...and all the other countless triflin you-know-whats.)

Another thing I wholeheartedly agree with is that there are too many people who are in relationships for the sake of being in a relationship...because they don't want to be alone. You know how there are serial monogamists...those people who always seem to be in a relationship? Well, I'm more like a serial single-ist, with good reason I'd like to think.

Finally, her point about being in a good place yourself before being ready for a relationship is also key. I know a lot of people who seem to jump from relationship to relationship and i'm like dang give yourself a second to breathe. Often, two people's lives become so intertwined that each loses their individual identity...it's like you don't even know yourself anymore apart from what you were as a couple, with the other person. Enjoy being single! Enjoy meeting new people and doing new things! (*ahem RW ahem*)

Today's *big chunes* are going to seem to run counter to everything I've just cosigned on and written about...but it's just music and this song popped up on my Pandora and I remembered how much i like it lol. Sue me! It's Jay-Z with Girl, Girls, Girls and the Remix for it. I think I like the remix better, mostly because of the sample track in the back...you?

Remix

:-D

my half BC

2010-04-12T09:14:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going natural (growing out my relaxer) and curly. I've tried a few times before but always gave up and just went back to straightening my hair. I've gotta give credit to Nix for staying strong and going natural before me. She's much farther along than me and her natural curls are coming in awesomely! Now that I've gotten a sneak peak of what mine will look like - sort of, because we don't have exactly the same hair - I am much more confident about the process and actually really excited!

On the natural hair blogs they talk a lot about the BC - the Big Chop....basically some people choose to just start with a clean slate, and cut off all the chemically treated hair. Well, I don't have enough confidence to rock that, so I opted for a half BC. I (well, my stylist Perry) basically chopped off the back down to the natural parts and trimmed off some of the treated hair up top. Here's what I'm working with now:

As you can see the back is pretty much my natural, curly hair...the front is the awkward stringy hair :-/ Luckily, though, I can pin it up and it's not too bad. I'm so glad to have the in-between hair gone from the back though! And a huge shout out to my stylist Perry and Bogart Salon on Georgetown. I first went to hum for a huge chop when I had super long hair my junior year at Gtown and decided to cut a good deal of it off. We've been together ever since :-) lol...but seriously, on Saturday he was reminiscing about how far we've come...and all the different phases I've gone through with my hair. Having him do my 1/2 BC make it much easier because I know I was in good hands. I'm going to go back for another trim right before I go home (to STT) in June.

As far as "routine" i don't really have one yet. Plus, as Nix and other have said, it will change as your hair changes. My hair is probably confused as heck right now lol.The key thing about natural hair is to keep it moisturized so it doesn't get all dry and ick looking. It's only been 2 days so I haven't done much yet. In the morning I rewet with a spy bottle with a mix of conditioner and water (lol). I've read good things about Carol's Daughter products - and this video makes me want to buy the whole line lol...her hair is gorgeous!
Other than that I don't have much yet. My stylist told me don't brush out in the shower, just run your fingers through or whatever. After you get out you can dry a little with a towel, but not too much. Apply a bit of product and basically just leave it so that you don't frizz the curls. You can shake out your hair a bit and just kinda let it fall how it will. Later you can tease it and move things around a bit. Now, this is what he told me but everyone's hair will be different. I know some people like to twist the hair or braid it to get more defined shape when the twists/braids are taken out. Like I said, though, I'm just starting the process so I should have more insight as the weeks go by.

In other news, last night for dinner I made roast lamb with a (homemade) curry/pineapple marinade. I'd never cooked lambed before so I was a bit nervous about that. Aside from the cut of meat we got, which was pretty fatty (lamb is fatty in general), I think it came out well. I wouldn't do that same marinade again though...at least not for meat, maybe for fish, with some tweaks.

By the way, I heart Trader Joe's but their pineapples have nothing on Whole Foods pineapples. The pineapple we got from WF this weekend was AMAZING....So, I also whipped up a lightened version of pineapple upside down cake. I cannot even begin to tell you how good this cake smelled. I was doing laundry and could smell it down the hallway. As far as taste, not gonna lie, I was a bit disappointed. Then again, it's a light version of something so you have to take that into consideration. Nix and I agreed that it was overall more like a big, sqaure cake-shaped muffin than "cake." It was definitely not as moist as we would have liked, so I may add some homemade yogurt next time. I also cut down on the sugar even more than the lightened version called for, so we could probably afford to use the whole amount. I also used dark brown sugar while the recipe called for light brown...but I looked up whether there was a difference and it seems the only difference is in color and bit in taste, but my main problem was texture so I don't think that had an effect.

Having said all that....it was still yummy!! I'd make it again with some tweaks. Oh I almost forgot! I also made sweet potato pancakes this weekend. (Ok all I did was add mashed, cooked sweet potato to our pancake mix.) They came out great! Very moist and thick. I think I'd probably even add more sweet potato next time, to up the flavor.

Coming up this week in my culinary adventures...Nix and I bought a WF rotisserie chicken so we're going to stretch that as far as it goes. Today I used some in a greek style chicken pita pocket (chx, hummus, sprouts, carrots) for lunch. We're also planning to make our own tortillas from scratch, and do a Mexican night this week. And I love making muffins so I'm going to experiment with some more changes to my quinoa banana bread in muffin version.

Today's *big chune* is one of my old faithful favorites. I was obsessed with this song for like an entire year when I first heard it. The video is a hot mess though lol...most caribbean music videos are LOL

:-D

third time's a charm

2010-04-09T22:23:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned a few times before that I've been sort of unsuccessful in my attempts to make yogurt without a yogurt maker. I say sort of, because my botched "yogurt" has been quite handy for baking and smoothies, and I would actually make botched yogurt again on purpose for these reasons.

Anyway, I'm excited to report that I finally got the real deal yogurt perfected! Without going into all the details of the process, I incubated the yogurt (at that point it was just milk) for 9 hours last night, put it in the fridge all day at work and came home to amazing yogurt goodness this evening.

YUM!! and i'm really glad that i stuck with it and finally got it right!

I don't imagine many of you have any interest in actually doing this (lol), but just in case, this is what you do:

Bring 4 cups of milk to a boil in a saucepan and pour into an appropriate container (Pyrex, etc - put mine in a medium sized corningware) and cool until you can stand to hold your finger in the milk, just above lukewarm (to be more specific it should get down to about 112 degrees F if you have a thermometer(. While the milk cools, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Turn the oven on, set to about 200 degrees, for a few minutes, just so it gets warm. Once the milk is sufficiently cooled (this can take quite a while depending on how hot your milk got), add approx 1-2 tablespoon of store-bought (or from a previous batch) yogurt with live cultures and mix well. Turn off the oven, and turn on the oven light. Cover the yogurt container and place in the oven alongside the hot water with the oven door closed, incubate overnight (i left mine for about 9 hours). Ttransfer it to the fridge in the morning, and let is spend the day chilling...then enjoy!

In other news, my latest obsession is hair. Specifically, I'm following Nix's lead and making the transition from relaxed/straight hair to natural/curly hair. Unfortunately, I'm in the awkward transition phase and it's...well, awkward! My hair is all different textures and it just looks ick. In the curly/natural blog world, the big chop (BC) is the cut that some women make to speed up/avoid the transition process. I don't think I'm brave enough for a full BC, so tomorrow I'm going to see Perry for a half BC lol...I'm basically going to cut the back down to the new growth, and leave the top as is...I'm not ready for anything too drastic, so I think this is a good compromise. I'm still nervous though!!

Oh well...I've had my hair pretty short before, so I should be ok. I'll write a follow-up to let you guys know how it goes!

By the way, I haven't forgotten your request for hair tips Zavi...Nix should put something together for a post soon. In the meantime check out curlynikki.com for some good tips and info.

Any readers have advice for transition or for managing curly/natural once you've grown in out? Products/processes that work especially well?

Today's *big chune* is Wild Horses from the one and only Teena Marie...I'm not really sure why, but I really like this song. Of course, square biz is her most famous, but as usual i prefer something more obscure. Also, I saw video of her at the essence music festival last year...she reminds me of my mom LOL.

:-D

where have i been?

2010-04-08T15:57:00.001-04:00

I really haven't felt like writing recently (as you can tell from the fact that i haven't written in forever). My excuse(s)? I don't have many updates and I've been pretty busy at work, which is when i like to write my blog.

I found out who the other accepted students are for my PhD program! In total, 6 of us will be entering this Fall. Officially, I (and another girl) will be part of next year's cohort because I (and the other girl) don't have a master's degree, while the other 4 people do. Fortunately, I remember meeting this other girl at the interviews and we had hit it off and exchanged info. She knew she got into the program before me, because - if you remember - I got taken off the waitlist. Knowing that there were only 6 students selected for the cohort makes me so proud and honored to have a spot in the program - even if I was taken from the waitlist. A prof. told me that if they could have taken 7 right off the bat i would have been in from the beginning....All's well that ends well :-D I also got my advisor assignment and (based on our interview) she's super awesome; i can't wait to get to know her better!

I have about 5 more full weeks at work, then I'm heading back home. I've already got a few summer gigs in the works - including tutoring, camp counseling/chaperoning, special projects at an old job, and possibly front desk at a gym. I'm really looking forward to the time at home. I'm also strongly considering a trip to the dominican republic to visit a Gtown friend. When I was flying back home last xmas i volunteered to get bumped from a flight so i have a pretty nice voucher i can apply to a ticket. We'll see if that pans out.

Haven't been cooking too much this week because I'm giving my body a break from the heavy eating I've been doing the past several weeks and also because I wanted to save money on groceries this week...lame huh? i'll have to try whip up something fun next week to make up for it.

I'll try to post more often for the next few weeks!

I remember watching Selena for the first time in Spanish class in like 6th or 8th grade...crying!!! lol...this movie (and the true story obv.) is sooo sad! And everytime i see the actress who played Yolanda in other movies I'm like "you killed Selena!!" Anyone, today's *big chune* is one of my favs of Selena's, called Como La Flor.

:-D

i may need to change my blog name...

2010-03-31T10:42:00.000-04:00

...to "Becoming Dr. Brightside"

(doesn't quite have the same ring to it does it?)

BIG NEWS yall...Yesterday morning I got a call from the prog. coordinator at the University of Miami offering me a spot in their Counseling Psych PhD program!!!! I had been on the waitlist for several weeks and was considering just taking the Master's offer and calling it a day. I'm so glad I waited!!

I AM SO HYPE :-D

I'll finish up at my current job at the end of May and head back to the VI shortly thereafter to spend the summer at home before moving to Miami to start school this Fall. This is going to be a huge transition for me. I've spent the majority of the last 6 years living in DC. Most of my friends are here now! I know the city well and I've really loved living here. It's going to be weird to leave....

Well, that's life for ya! Time to turn a new page and start a new chapter. I'll be in Miami for at least 4 years - 5 if I do my internship there as well. In the meantime I gotta start scrambling to do the DC things I've shamefully neglected to do over the past 6 years. First up, going to see the Cherry Blossoms this weekend. Other than that, I'm planning to do a once-over of the museums, Arlington Cemetery and the other tourist highlights. There are lots of other things I'm blanking on, but you get the point.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Ok moving on. This past weekend Nix and I stayed up til (no lie) 3:30am baking LOL. I literally left a bar to go home and bake...weird huh? Anywho, I made an old favorite recipe that my Mom used to make all the time. It's quite appropriately called Anna's Swedish Butter Cake and it is YUM YUM YUM! (you can find it with a simple google search). I made the chocolate variation and topped it with the pecan/coconut German chocolate cake frosting. Quite delicious!!! I plan to tweak the recipe a smidge next time to up the moisture factor in the cake, but overall it was bomb. We also made hazelnut thumbprint cookies with jam filling with were delicious even though we (Nix lol) over-roasted the hazelnuts...and hazelnute chocolate (Nutella) cookies that were scrumptious...and are sitting in our freezer waiting for us to give out bodies a break and then use them to make ice cream sandwiches....mmmmmmm!

Monday night I whipped up another batch of the chili I made a few weeks ago. I basically made the same bulgur wheat and bean version but added ground beef. Honestly, I thought my last batch was better, but Nix and Roomie thoroughly enjoyed this one too. I also made (from scratch) cornbread muffins. I made muffins for built-in portion control...there's something easier about cutting another slice versus taking an entire second (or thurd!) muffin. These are also great spread with jelly for a snack!

Last night Nix and I had the second free salmon fillet (if you remember, she got them free when she filled a prescription at Giant lol). We sauteed it in the pan first with canola and sesame oil, then baked it for about 5 minutes with a soy-ginger marinade from Trader Joe's. Quite delicious but I think it could have been more tender....Nix thinks I'm to critical of my cooking...she's right lol.

K, that's it for today!

Today's *big chunes* are from Lyfe Jennings...two versions to his song "Brand New"
"original" feat TI:

remix feat lil wayne:

:-D

dreams, news, and food

2010-03-26T12:06:00.000-04:00

The night before last I had a dream in which I was moving (away, presumably). I don't remember any of the details except for seeing a lot of furniture. When I was in HS I took AP Psych and my teacher would sometimes "interpret" our dreams. Really it just involves looking up meanings associated with certain symbols and themes and then applying the interpretations to your life. It sounds cooky, but I really enjoy doing this (surprise, surprise). I find that the elements of my dreams tend to make sense in terms of what's going on in my life at the time. Anywho, here are the dream dictionary entries for "moving" and "furniture" (via dream moods dictionary):

To dream that you are moving away, signifies your desire or need for change. It may also mean an end to a situation or relationship; you are moving on. Alternatively, it indicates your determination and issues regarding dependence/independence.

To see furniture in your dream, represents how you feel about yourself and your family. It refers to your relationships with others and how they fit into your life. meanings by DreamMoods.com

To dream that you are moving furniture, indicates that you are going out of your way to please others. Also, you may be changing your ways and trying to reevaluate your relationships/attitudes. Consider how easy or how difficult it is to move the furniture as they may indicate the level of burden or responsibility you are feeling.

To see old or worn furniture in your dream, symbolizes outdated attitudes, former relationships, and/or old ways of thinking.

Interesante, no? Man oh man if yall only know how applicable these themes/interpretations are! As you know, I've gotten disappointed news regarding grad school over the past few weeks. I began thinking about alternatives if I didn't get in. To say that moving/change have been on my mind is quite accurate. The really interesting thing is the meaning associated with furniture -- that it regards family and how they fit into your life. Without ~~putting anyone on blast~~ going into great detail, I've had some stuff happening on the home-front that have been heavy on my heart, so to speak. Dreaming about moving furniture makes total sense. (Aside: another weird thing about dreams...a friend of mine texted me the other day asking is everything was ok with me because they had a dream in which I had stuff going on at home...weird huh?!)

Now, for the news! Yesterday (i.e., the day after I had this dream) I found out that I've been offered a spot in the Master's program at one of the schools at which I am on the waitlist for the Ph.D program!!!! YAY! This was an immense relief because up until yesterday all I had were a pending decision, 2 waitlist spots, and rejections...ouch :-/

Needless to say, this is super super exciting for me. That being said, I also found out that I am very high on the waitlist at the same school's PhD program. One key difference? How much I have to pay...the Master's will mean me coming heavy out of pocket. The Ph.D program provides great funding. Sooooo, I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed that something may open up. If not, Master's it is...where there's a will, there's a way :-D

Finally, FOOOOOOD. This week, Nix and I made our own pizza, with a store-bought dough crust. It's a great way to control what goes in (on) your food, and how it is cooked. We did a yummy veggie pizza with fresh mozzarella cheese slices. Yum, yum yum! (btw, these pics don't do the food justice, because they're taken on my phone...but you get the point!)

We're going to start experimenting with different types of pizza as well. For example, a mediteranean style pizza with hummus instead of red marinara sauce, and more greek-inspired toppings. Another good one would be a mexican pizza with ground beef, beans, corn, etc. Oh man I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

The other cool thing we did this week was use some leftover cupcakes that nix took one day for class to make a heavenly indulgence called cake balls. Because I subscribe to an embarrassingly high number of food blogs, I'm always getting great ideas for recipes. This one is a super easy and different thing to do when you have cupcakes (or cake) that didn't come out great or that taste good but with which you want to do something fun. All we did was crumble up the cupcakes, mix the crumbs with a peanut butter frosting (a "stroke of genius" on my sis's part, right Nix?), form into balls, and coat in melted chocolate.

I cannot even begin to describe how amazingly scrumptious these were. Nix and I shared 1...then another...then another! I could have eaten the whole batch. Thank goodness she had already planned to take them to the family she babysits. They apparently loved them too and want to make them with her soon.

The great thing about this (aside from how on they taste) is that it's not really is "recipe" in the sense that you need to follow it exactly, so you can do whatever variations float your boat. For example, we're planning to do a take on German chocolate cake with these.

As far as upcoming cooking, we're traveling out of town this weekend so we'll be baking up some goodies for our hosts. I'll take pics and let yall know how everything turns out.

Today's *big chune* comes from Zouk artist Kenedy, originally from Guadelope. I really like zouk but I don't know too much about who the big/best artists are (Ms. O, a little insight?). And I wanted to make a Pandora station but nothing came up for zouk, Kenedy or several other artists I tried. Anyway, enjoy!

:-D

(how) did you fill out your census form?

2010-03-24T17:45:00.000-04:00

Last week I filled out my first Census form ever. I admit, I was actually looking forward to receiving it and "being counted." lol. Most of my excitement was the ability to "check all that apply" under the race category. The 2000 Census was the first time respondents were allowed to do so. About 6.8 million Americans, 2.4 percent of the population, checked more than one racial box. I'm assuming my mom would have filled this out for me (and my other siblings) and marked the appropriate boxes, but it was nice to do it myself this time.

For multiple reasons, the Census is always a big strumu (that's a VI term basically meaning controversy in this instance, I have no idea the proper spelling lol) but particularly because it is a large determining factor for a lot of state and federal funding. In particular, advocates for minorities are especially concerned about their number being counted. It's actually quite a sticky subject. In fact, some black groups were against allowing multiracial individuals to choose more than one race, because of how this would affect the population counts. Kenneth Prewitt, who directed the 2000 census, said some civil-rights groups have resisted the concept of checking more than one race out of fear that it will dilute their influence. As someone whose job is all about data and statistics, I have to say that the more detail they collect the better. I did a huge project at work looking at racial/ethnic disparities in child health and believe me, these things make a difference.

Anyway, I did my duty and filled out my form the day I got it in the mail. And it made me quite happy to check two boxes :-) This made me think about times when I couldn't check more than one box. I don't remember every time, but I actually think I would sometimes choose "black", sometimes "other." I would never check white if I could only choose one. I guess I've fallen victim to the "one-drop rule" mentality lol.

The whole issue of racial (self)-identificaton is fascinating to me. The other day I read a tidbit about how bi-racial actress (and wife of Ribin Thicke) Paula Patton is actually offended by the term biracial. This was quite perplexing to me as a headline, but she explains it somewhat in an interview: “I find [the term biracial] offensive. It’s a way for people to separate themselves from African-Americans….a way of saying ‘I’m better than that...I’m black because that’s the way the world sees me. People aren’t calling Barack Obama biracial. Most people think there’s a black president….People judged me because I was light-skinned. [They'd assume] I didn’t want to be part of the black race.”

While I respect her opinion, I can't say that I agree with her. I identify as biracial not because I think I'm better than or want to separate myself from African Americans. I say that I am biracial because it is a more accurate description of who I am and how I identify. It would be even more accurate to reflect that I am West Indian or Caribbean black and white, but I suppose those specific categories are captured in other more detailed surveys by the Census Bureau and others.

In any case, I was happy to be able to choose more than one race on my form. I actually am happy whenever I fill out forms and am allowed to do so. The "check all" option actually occurs almost all the time now. I rarely am forced to choose. (By the way, there was a great study done looking at task performance of multiracial individuals allowed to identify all their racial components compared to those who were instructed to choose only one. Those who were allowed to choose more than one performed better on tasks than those who were forced to choose one!)

Of course, there are issues for other demographic groups as well. If you find this stuff interesting, check out this article.

So, did you fill out your Census form? Did you think about this stuff at all?? Any other issues come up for you filling out the form? What do you think about Paula Patton's comments?

Of course you know today's *big chune* had to come from a mixie right?? Remember the group Groove Theory, most known for their big chune Tell Me? Well, the lead singer is Amel Larrieux (black mom, white dad), who went on to release her own albums. I couldn't pick between two of my favorite songs of hers so today is a 2-for-1 ;-) She has some other great ones too though, so check her out.

"For Real"

"Weary"

:-D

quinoa banana bread, take 2

2010-03-23T21:03:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, on Sunday I decided to re-make a recipe for Quinoa Banana Bread that I got off a box of quinoa flakes. The first time I made it, the bread came out ok, but definitely needed some work. It was rather dense, a bit on the dry side and seemed to lack the traditional banana-ness with which this yummy baked good is associated. But! I saw the promise lol. So I decided to make it again, with my own tweaks. First up, I added another banana. 2 just hadn't cut it. Next, I added another tablespoon of honey (the only sweetener in the recipe). Finally, I added some of my not-quite-firm homemade yogurt. (My failed attempts at making yogurt have actually been pretty useful for several other things). I also added some nutmeg and vanilla extract for some extra flavor. Finally, I lowered the baking temperature (the original recipe is for muffins, so I had to decrease the oven temp and increase the cooking time, to compensate - although last time I think I left it in the oven too long).

So, how did it come out???

IT WAS AWESOME!!! I really think all my changes were on point. Of course, as the baker it's sometimes hard to know whether you just like something b/c you made it lol...but Nix agreed that it was much improved and super yummy. The cool thing about this recipe is that is uses no flour and no sugar. The "flour" is replaced by quinoa flakes (basically flattened quinoa) and quinoa flour. You could buy quinoa flour separately, but I chose to grind the quinoa flakes in Nix's VitaMix blender to "make" my own quinoa flour. I also think adding my homemade yogurt was CLUTCH in this recipe. It was soooo moist! This recipe is definitely a keeper!

The other day I mentioned to Nix that we should start a video blog to chronicle our cooking adventures. I honestly doubt that will happen anytime soon, but it's a cool idea huh! Maybe this summer when we both have more free time on our hands.

That's all for tonight....wait until you see what we made tonight! I'll post about that tomorrow ;-) Oh, we also tried something different with our pancakes but adding some grated carrots - sort of like carrot cake pancakes...We didn't get much carrot flavor, so we'll add more next time and let yall know how they taste.

Today's *big chune* is some bachata flavor from a favorite group of mine - Aventura out of the Dominican Republic. This is the song that started my love for them...I first heard it in HS.

:-D

how i spent my weekend

2010-03-21T20:56:00.000-04:00

First of all, WTF is going on with the tourney this year?! And wtf were my Hoyas doing last Thursday?! ugh!

Moving right along....

Like most people, I live for the weekend. This weekend did not disappoint. Yesterday, I went to the hair salon for my usual hookup (if any DC-based people are looking for a great one, I go to Perry at Bogart Salon in Georgetown. Note: I don't get touchups here cuz they are waaaay overpriced, but cuts are affordable). I'm trying (again) to go natural and grow out my relaxer, but I haven't gotten very far yet lol. Anyway, as a woman - and a "woman of color" - my hair is pretty to key to how I look and thus how I feel about myself. And my hair was in desperate need of a trim. Then last night, my friend T and I went to dinner and to see Our Family Wedding, which was cute - not great, but cute. Good time! (Btw, am I the only person who doesn't think Lance Gross is as fine as all the hype he gets??)

Today was especially awesome. Now that I have pretty much recovered from the wisdom teeth surgery, I can eat normal food again. We started off my getting back into our weekend tradition of pancakes. They were yummmmmy! I've been trying to make my own yogurt and ending up with it too runny...not great for eating straight, but perfect for adding to batters (like my pancakes) and to smoothies. I'm going to try and get the yogurt down though! I'll post once I do.

Then, Nix and I went on a really long, awesome walk and found a new trail/path. Next, we went to Williams Sonoma for their Sunday cooking demonstrations. This week was cakes/cupcakes. OMG I LOVE this store. There is soooo much cool stuff in here. The highlight of the demonstration was the mini-upside-down pineapple cakes. ohhhhh sooooo gooooood. I also spent at least two hours this weekend browsing food blogs and adding to my Springpad.

Have you seen a common theme here yet? FOOD! As I have sort of alluded to, but not quite admitted, I am obsessed with cooking/baking. You know how most men's tv's stay on ESPN and/or this is the first channel they check to see what's on? Well, for me (and Nix) The Channel is FOOD NETWORK. I am absolutely in love with Food Network. My favorite show is probably Giada at Home. Giada is so freakin cute! And she gets sooo excited and straight-up tickled by everything she makes. I love Giada at Home because she always incorporates something about her family/friends into her show. Examples: Her husband Scott and a friend are going surfing, so they need a nice meal after; 2 friends are studying Italian and have a trip planned so she has them over to introduce their taste buds to some authentic Italian flavor; and her sister brings her son over to have a play date with Giada's daughter, who is soooo freakin cute!!! Another favorite is Iron Chef America. OMG this show is sick. If you've never watched an episode please do yourself a favor and watch it. Man oh man I love this channel.

Given all this, I've decided to start blogging more about my (and Nix's) culinary adventures. I'll talk more about what I'm eating and cooking (including pics!)

Tonight, I made honey/dijon glazed salmon. (Aside, Nix got this salmon free from Giant when she filled a prescription....random.) It was soooooo yummy and so easy! I seared it in a skillet first to get them browned, then finished them off (after glazing with the honey-dijon mixture) in the oven for 10 minutes. They came out perfect!! Nix also put together a concoction of caramelized onions, roasted cauliflower, and crumbled goat cheese. Yum!! (See pic!!!)

When I'm done writing this, I'm gonna start on my revised version of the quinoa banana bread that I made a few weeks ago. Also coming up this week: homemade chili, cornbread (from scratch), homemade veggie pizza, and probably more salmon (Nix got 2 free fillets lol).

Alrighty, that's all for now. More to come later in the week.

Today's *big chune* is old-school...I'm actually a big fan of Xscape and you don't know how late I was in realizing that TI's boo, Tiny, was in this group lol. Anyway, this song is Who Can I Run To.

:-D

6 happiness tips from tal ben-shahar

2010-03-18T16:43:00.000-04:00

In my post about natural versus synthetic happiness I mentioned psychologist and author Tal Ben-Sahar
who is one of the leading voices in positive psychology. I remembered today that I had bookmarked some of his advice to come back to later...so here they are!

6 Happiness Tips from Tal Ben-Shahar

Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions — such as fear, sadness, or anxiety — as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.
Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.
Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?
Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.
Remember the mind-body connection. What we do — or don't do — with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.
Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.

Sounds good to me!

It is soooo beautiful in DC this week! Yesterday and today I spent a good deal of my lunch break outside! I work a few blocks from the White House so today I sat in the park across from it :-)

In school news, I got a call yesterday from Georgia State. The professor was just trying to get a sense of my fit and interest in the Master's program in School Psychology - because I had originally applied to the Counseling Psych PhD program. The convo went well but b/c my application was transferred late in the process I'm not going to get my hopes too high. He seemed pretty confident that I'd make the wait list though. We shall see...

I'm also really looking forward to an event I'm going to tonight. I'm a member of the GTown Alumni Admissions Interview Committee and this evening I'm representing GU at a local high school's college night.

And tonight also marks the start of March Madness. Go Hoyas!!

Today's big chune is (i think) the latest from one of my favorite reggae artist's - Jah Cure. Shout outs to Bex for sending it to me. Not my fav or his, but it's cool. By the way, riddim names CRACK ME UP. The song is called "Never Say Never" and it's off the Stonehenge Riddim. LOL

:-D

you don't have to be irish to be lucky

2010-03-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

I haven't given up on the blog! I just had a rough week and needed to take a little break :-)

Updates: As of now I haven't gotten into any of the grad schools to which I applied (hence my bad week *smile*). I'm still waiting to hear from two Master's programs - all the other "nos" have been from PhD programs...so no Dr. Brightside anytime soon. I'm not gonna lie, I was really really down about this last week. I put in a lot of work, time and even money into this process...and I came soooo close by making it to the interview round at 3 schools. I was sort of a hot mess for one day but now I'm feeling pretty good about everything.

Some people may think that saying "everything happens for a reason" is a way to take yourself out of the equation of life...and see yourself as being at the whim of the world. I disagree. I feel confident that I put a great amount of effort into my goal. Having fallen short of the ultimate goal (a PhD) I am now comfortable with the fact that perhaps that particular aim wasn't meant to be (right now if ever). The way I see it, maybe what life has in store for me doesn't require a PhD. Maybe it would have been something that I wasn't prepared for and ended up being stuck in. Whatever the case, I still have some options to go back to school, and I'm waiting anxiously on those. But don't worry, I already have some backup plans in mind :-)

In other news, I got all four wisdom teeth extracted last week...another big reason why I haven't felt like writing. I just felt ick all weekend...I spent the majority of the time lying around with Nix (she got her's out last week too lol) watching Food Network and movies. I saw The Hurt Locker, The Lucky Ones, The Hangover, Did You Hear About the Morgans, and Up in the Air....as you can see I did a lot of nothing this weekend!

Those are my major updates. I'll get back to writing more regularly from now on.

Since today is St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to write a little bit about luck. The interesting thing about luck is that it's sort of hard to define and people have many different views about it. It's generally thrown around in a nonchalant manner. People often speak of themselves as being lucky/unlucky but not in a very concrete way...after all, you can't really measure luck. One thing you'll often hear me say is that I have bad luck when it comes to chance (i.e., I don't win drawings or bingo or those sorts of things) but I have amazing life luck. Stuff works out for me! Another way I express this is by acknowledging and appreciating that I am blessed. But, this doesn't mean that everything in my life is perfect and goes exactly how I want it to...it just means that things happen in a way that I feel good about and that are providential even if not according to plan.

Those who think they're unlucky should change their outlook and

discover how to generate good fortune.

The other day I read this interesting article on luck, based on research that revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They:

are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities
make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition
create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations
adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good

Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, while lucky people tend to respect hunches. The article also mentions that lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I tend to go on "vibes" that I get from things, people, situations.

Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine....for example, taking the same route to and from work and talking to the same types of people at parties. Conversely, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. The article gives an amusing anecdote about how someone thought of a color before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that color. Apparently, this kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety.

Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. One easy way of doing this is to imagine how things could have been (or could be) worse. For example, in one interview, a volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs....he cheerfully explained that he felt luckier than he had before....because he could have broken his neck. Now that is one way to look on the bright side...although I guess it's more like looking at the darkside and being glad you're not there lol. I tend to do this a lot...

In celebration of St. Patty's Day, focus on your luck this week by taking notice of chance opportunities, listening to your intuition, expecting to be lucky, and being more resilient to bad luck!

Today's *big chune* is from Corinne Bailey Rae, who released her second album a few weeks ago. After listening through a few times, I've decided this is one of my favs.

:-D

tapping my "happiness reserves"

2010-03-10T17:04:00.000-05:00

Gretchen Rubin explains that one of her reason's for exploring ways to boost her happiness was so that when she got that "midnight phone call" she would be better equipped to respond with resilience...or something along those lines...

It's been a pretty disappointing week for me. News is starting to come back from grad schools and it hasn't been good so far. After having not heard from several schools, I contacted them all...this resulted in 2 rejections. Btw, don't you hate the word rejection? It just sounds so mean!! Ugh...

Then, literally minutes ago I got an email from the main faculty member I was interested in working with at UT. He apologized that I've been in limbo and proceeded to inform me that he was very impressed with me, but had gone with someone else. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement...and while I'm proud of myself for having made it all the way to the interview round and actually being in limbo (as opposed to an immediate rejection)...this sucks! There's only so much you can do to make yourself feel better about failure. What's more, I honestly feel like this is the same news I'm going to get from UM in a matter of days. You were really great...but just short of what we need...

BUT I am supposed to be Ms. Brightside so of course I am trying to re-frame all of this and maintain a positive outlook. Maybe I'll get lucky with UM. I'm also still waiting to hear back from a Master's program so maybe that will work out favorably for me. And if it doesn't work out that way, I'll ~~go to culinary school with the ultimate goal of my own show on Food Network~~ ~~join this program and go teach in Spain for a year~~ move on to another game plan.

I've always believed that everything happens for a reason...and to abandon that belief because what you want to happen doesn't happen basically defeats the purpose of believing this adage in the first place. So, for now I'll stay hopeful. Luckily I've been happy and blessed recently, so I have my "happiness reserves" well stocked. Of all the problems to have, this one isn't the end of the world....BUT I'm entitled to still feel disappointed ~~and have an extra glass of wine at happy hour tonight~~.

Don't worry yall, I'm still Ms. Brightside :-) And I'll be back to my normal writing soon!

For today's *big chune* I'm really in the mood for some Anthony Hamilton...one of my absolutely fav. artists..especially when I'm in a melancholy mood lol. This one is "Dear Life" from the movie Step Up (lol).

:-D

i'm back!

2010-03-09T12:15:00.000-05:00

So I have been super slacking on the blog thing recently. Like I mentioned, I was out of town this weekend for a grad school interview. Honestly, I don't even know how to say it went. I don't feel great or terrible about it. I actually don't want to think/write about it anymore. They said I should have a decision sometime this week so it will be nice just to have the process over with.

Honestly, this whole thing is just getting very old. I want to know either way!!

Anyway, what else is new in my life? Nothing really. The weather in DC has been pretty nice so I've been able to get outside a lot more. I also attempted to make my own yogurt for the first time. It's pretty cool and came out tasting ok, but I need to work on the consistency to get it right. Nix made chocolate chip cookies this weekend that smelled and tasted exactly how they did when we would make them with our mom. Ahhh memories. We also made Chilean Sea Bass en papillote - which sounds fancy and complicated but is so easy and quite yummy! I won't be doing any exciting cooking for a while, because I'm getting all 4 wisdom teeth pulled this week :-/

My mom sent me a cute email about adversity and it included this passage (which I'd heard before, but forgot about): May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy. This just about sums up what I want out of life :-)

Today's *big chune* is Ludacris "Go Low"...it's one of my guilty pleasure songs lol

:-D