only love

my bestie from high school, becca, got me a gift certificate to this bake shop that has various classes, so tonight i went to a truffle making class. i'm not super into cake balls or cupcakes, but truffles sounded good. and my friend rachel went to the class a couple of months ago, and her pictures looked yummy.

as a "blogger," and i use that term very loosely when talking about myself, you're always thinking about situations like a sociologist. who are these women who go to a truffle making class? it seemed that most of them were newly married late-20-somethings and early 30-somethings who think that they should be going to truffle making classes. over half the class was made up of repeat-attendees. they ask about things like cacao percentages and they know what 'summer chocolate' is. they aren't my tribe.

i know it sounds bitter, but you know those girls on facebook who have gotten married, taken the cooking classes, focused on outfitting their pottery-barn households and doing otherwise really stereotypical housewife things. there's no reason why you have to go down that path, especially when we have so many unique opportunities as young people. anyway a lot of it is probably me rationalizing not being married right now, but i wouldn't want to be a serial baking class attendee.

i also noticed that in truffle class, much like in yoga, there's always one man who's polluting the environment. it's great when men join things that are usually dominated by women, but not when they ruin it for the rest of us. in yoga, they sigh, they grunt, they toot loudly. in truffle class, our sole man, who was sitting across from me, kept interrupting to ask questions in what i felt like was an attempt to catch the woman instructing the class off guard. maybe i took too many women and gender classes in college, but all i could think about was how he kept correcting things she said, or trying to find an alternate way to do something. i don't think that's me being biased though.

anyway all of that being said, the class was really interesting. the girl beside me was really fun. we learned how to make ganache, temper chocolate for dipping (which is much harder than it seems like it would be), and i'm happy to have gone home with 16 really pretty and really yummy (i'm guessing, majjy and i have split one so far) truffles.

green apple tree

slow sunday. it's weird when everyone in america is also not working during the day. i'm used to relatively empty roads and grocery stores in the middle of the day.

(this is the only picture of me we ended up with from the road trip. i was reading the historical marker sign).

yoga tomorrow. getting deputized as a volunteer deputy registrar on tuesday. truffle class wednesday. should be a good week.

also, don't you wish you had friends who greeted you on gchat like my miriam?:

4:14 PM me: mmmmmmiriam!

4:15 PM Miriam: megan! megan! megan!

  hi!

  i havn't talked to you in forevvvvvvvvvver and missed you!

 me: did you have such a happy thanksgiving?

 Miriam: how was turkey day?

 me: jinxx

 Miriam: HAHAHA

  i DID have very happy thanksgiving
but my very favorite thing is miriam's !!!'s:

Miriam: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  oh

  em

  geeeeeee

  MEGAN!!!!!!!!!!!

  that is AMAZING!!!!!!

  ahhh
and her enthusiasm in general. 

10:52 AM me: pop quiz

  what is someone from bangkok called

10:54 AM Miriam: thai

  heheheh

  i dont know!

  what?

  bangkokian

  bangkokese

  bangkoker

 me: bangkokonian!

 Miriam: hahahahahahahaa

  is that true?!

 me: yep

10:55 AM Miriam: hahaha

  love it

  yay random trivia

tiny road trip

so i haven't said anything on the blog, but this boy and i kind of ironed things out. after the friends first conversation, we had another conversation, and now we're back to going on dates. today we went on a road trip to the town he was born in, about 3 hours northwest of us.

we stopped in glen rose to see the dinosaur track. 

there are lots of really pretty restored courthouses in the small towns.

stopped at what once was his great grandma's house. no one lives there now.

granbury court house. 

we had lunch at a soda shop, and a couple scoops of ice cream. walked around the town square sampling fudge, jalapeno jam and checked out things in antique shops. lots of quilts, old razors, and one antique store devoted almost entirely to salt and pepper shakers of every shape and size.

it was a gray day, but thankfully no rain, and pretty nice temperature in the low 70s.

stopped in this tiny truckstop town on the way home called west where they have a few czech bakeries with kolaches and cookies. yum. good way to end the day. my legs are sore from walking around so much in jelly shoes. guess i need to hit the yoga a little harder.

hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving and black friday!

27-24

did you seeee that longhorns/A&M game?! insane.
it was our last game of the rivalry for the foreseeable future, and we were behind for a long time, finally got ahead for a bit, they scored and we were behind by 1 and then we kicked a field goal in the last 20 seconds. crazy. so happy.

happy thanksgiving! turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, creamed spinach, creamed onions, green bean casserole, stuffing and pumpkin pie at my house. and bloody marys, boozy eggnog & apple cider.

like no one's watching you

hosanna in the highest

tonight my boss from the nonprofit i worked for over the last 2 summers got married. it was very pretty. i wish i had taken a picture of her dress. i'll post some once they start to pop up on facebook. 

i got there about 15 minutes early, and two of the ladies i worked with were setting up all of the tables. they had a million vases and buckets full of flowers and candles, so we set them all up. white hydrangeas and roses. some tables had candelabras with candles that melted all the way down to the bottom by the end of the night.

hard to see, but that's everyone dancing. i don't dance. both of the families are hispanic though, so the dancing and music was amaaazing. i don't know if it was more to fun to watch the mother of the bride, who i only knew as a short, shy, spanish speaking woman, as she danced all over the place tonight.. or the little kids. there was a little girl who had the biggest smile as she shook her little shoulders, and a boy who can move his hips in a way i know my body will never be able to.

i sampled each of the 4 kinds of cake while everyone else danced. long night. 

when will i see you again

weirdly busy week this week considering it's thanksgiving week. a wedding, drinks with a friend, thanksgiving, a day trip, a house party. should be a lot of fun.

doesn't feel a whole lot like thanksgiving week around here though. it was 85 today. too hot. definitely too hot for the magic pants. they're velvety corduroy.

diamonds, they fade

today i discovered this blog/hairstyle. it is so easy, and it looks so fancy. i did about one million versions of it before leaving it, but all of them.. almost all of them.. were pretty.

(taco deli fish tacos are the besttt thing.)
really, i have nothing to say today. went to yoga. had a delicious fish taco for lunch. thought i was going to make tiramisu for an event tomorrow night, but bought the best cookies from world market instead. did a little work. laundry. shower. that was my day.

hands to floor

today was one of those rainy, cozy up on the couch with a book and a quilt and take a nap days. so this evening, i thought i would go to back to back yoga classes to make up for a day of inactivity. my favorite instructor was teaching both classes.

the first was hatha flow, which isn't the hardest of the hard, but the 'flow' part means that you're continuously moving, so it's harder than regular hatha. we ended up doing lunges in various forms for 45 minutes. lunge, sit in chair position, bend forward, lunge, chair, forward x 6. then lunges with your hands on your hips x 6, then with your arms over your head. my legs were soo shaky by the end of it, i could barely stand. and there was a slow but constant stream of sweat dripping down my face.

(images from yogatic.com, lunge/warrior 1 pose)

the whole idea is that you focus on your breath and your body to clear a space in your mind that isn't thinking about any outside thoughts.. only on how your body is feeling, and eventually, your body gets to a place where everything doesn't burn and hurt, so you can have a totally clear mind. as someone who can never shut her brain off, that's the main reason i love yoga. at least if all i'm thinking about is how much my legs are burning, there's no room to think anything else. if we're being totally honest, the thought that most often runs through my mind during yoga is 'you're not going to die from this, it just burns, just keep breathing and wait 10 more seconds and it'll be over. no one dies in yoga.'

so after class, i asked the instructor how many lunges would be in class 2. he said maybe 1. i said ok, i'll go.

(chair pose. she isn't sitting back very far though.)

so we're in class 2, regular hatha, and we do our one set of lunges and thennn we sit in chair pose over and over. at one point, i looked up and our eyes met and he just started laughing at the front of the room. i was tricked! only one lunge, but i didn't ask about chair. lesson learned.

and be glad in it

fun weekend. went to another farm fundraiser last night, and two of my favorite girls came. i'm kind of hunting their friendship. as we've discussed in the past, it's hard business becoming friends with new people sometimes. so i was glad they came and hung out.

this afternoon i jailbroke one of my volunteers out of his retirement home and we went to the symphony in the tiny town where we live. he's the youngest one there, and he just wants to get out and about and do normal things. my journalism adviser from high school is on the board of the symphony, so when they need volunteers last minute she calls me, and i've helped out a few times, so she donated her tickets to us so we could go. he really enjoyed it. we had a nice time talking. he couldn't believe all of the different things i've done since graduating.

the symphony itself was chamber music from the 1700 and 1800s. this man beside me was really into it. i mean, i enjoyed it, but this man would start giggling during certain parts, or rocking from side to side. at one point, my volunteer whispered 'he would make a good boyfriend' in my ear. but the man was clearly in his late 40s, and had a wedding ring. what is it about elderly people playing matchmaker?

so that was my day. waiting on udon noodle soup at sushi niichi right now. it is so busy in here. the soup is worth waiting for.

friday

do you want to know a fun fact? when i send emails, i almost always use the day of the week for the subject line. i was an english major in college, and the most agonizing part of every paper was the title. i just hate summing things up in a few words for some reason. so with the day of the week, it's just done.

this is my favorite find of the day:

happy 11/11/11! (it happens to be 11:11pm at the moment, too). the day which most closely resembles corduroy.

one is silver and the other's gold

are you on pinterest? since my main blog audience is extended fam, i'm going to guess you haven't. its kind of like an internet bulletin board. you 'pin' things you find all over the internet. i have 6 categories (food, flowers, home, recipes, etc.). and i was all into it when i first joined, cleaning out my folders of links and just pinning things instead. when people click on a pin, it takes them to the original link you found.

it's gotten really popular in the last 6 months. i get an email every time someone follows my boards (they see what you post), and every time, i feel like writing back and saying 'don't follow me. i never post anything new.'

anyway, it's worth checking out. seems like most people get really excited in the beginning and pin in flurries and then taper off. or maybe i just think everyone has tapered off since i have.

twirl you all around the floor

i think rose water is the secret to rose milk tea. tonight i made a normal cup of tea with gram's black tea of choice, salada, a lot of milk, a tsp of sugar and maybe 1/2 tsp of rose water, and it was pretty close. they make it with a lot more sugar in tea shops, and they steam the milk which makes it all seem a little thicker.

in the summer, i like a teaspoon or so mixed into lemonade. it sounds kind of iffy, but it's good. a lot of people on the blogs say they like it in apple pie or in muffins. it isn't strong, but it adds another layer of flavor.

one last update on the guy: we went to a coffee shop and played scrabble this weekend (i whipped him by 100 points).. and i think the sparkle is officially dead. it's interesting how it's so different to be around someone when you're romantically interested in them vs just being friends. i didn't rush to fill the gaps in conversation, or think about which way i crossed my legs. my friend steve in taiwan used to always comment on how if you cross your legs away from someone, it shows that you're not interested in them. i can never get that out of my head now when i'm sitting beside someone.

speaking of taiwan, the o'sullivans had their baby. tegan clare.
jeremiah wrote me a really sweet email in march of '09 when they had just signed up to teach in taiwan and had read my whole blog. he said 'we did get a little addicted to your blog and i think i ended up reading almost every post in four days (shhhhh, don't tell anyone) and my wife is dying to be caught up.  i would have to say the addiction was up there with our six feet under addiction we had over the summer.' 
it's still one of my favorite emails from the blog. now we're all fb friends.

tiny calendar

maybe you've noticed, but one of my strategies for success in life has been to tell everyone i know every detail about everything that's happening to me, or that i want to happen. sometimes this works out very well.. like the white house internship. sometimes not so well, like failed non-relationships. 

it's good for following through though. if i tell a million people about something, there's a lot more pressure on me to complete it than if i just make a decision by myself and no one knows. 

anyway with that idea in mind, i invited a bunch of my friends to participate in 'lipstick november,' in which we wear lipstick four days a week each week in november. 

lipstick can make you look so much more put-together, but i find it hard to put it on and keep it on for some reason. usually i put it on (and by usually, i mean once every 6 months), feel overly made up, and tissue it off. 

so i made and printed this teeny calendar so we can easily keep track. me and 10-ish friends are doing it. but! i made a little one for you to print out if you want to share or join. it prints at like 2.5 by 3.5 inches.