For Your Aural Pleasure

New and old things I have discovered lately in the music and story realm.

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I have three words for you: This American Life.

Podcast that awesomesauce, friends. I've been driving quite a bit lately and an hour of This American Life is the fastest hour you will ever spend. Case in point: every time I've gotten lost--always driving from West Virginia to Ohio oddly--it's been while I'm listening to This American Life. I recommend listening to this when you drive I-70 across Missouri when you cannot miss a turn since there aren't any.

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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: The Heist

I have now made a goal to learn how to rap. Wish me luck!

**This album is so explicit that if there is a clean version at least half the words are missing. JUDGE ME.**

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Tiny Desk Concerts

Another gem from npr, also tons of fun! 

You can listen to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. 

Do you love a cappella the way I do? Cantus. [See the guy in the cardigan with the plaid and the beard? He announces the second song. I find him totally attractive, in case you're looking for me.]

Adele is adorable.

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I heard this group on a Lowes commercial [weird?] but this music is positive and happy and fun! This one is totally clean. (-:

American Authors

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Anything new I should check out? 

love you people.

xo

chai banana bread

I don't cook or bake or do much in the kitchen the way I used to, so I'm coming back here for recipes. It's easier than trying to be worry about maintaining two blogs all all that jazz. Ain't nobody got time for that. [I don't even know what this saying is from, but it's all over facebook and pinterest and I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I'm so up on my pop culture right now.]

Plus, I don't have a tiny kitchen any more.
I live in a house with a large kitchen with windows and an island and everything! It's so awesome.
They have a dishwasher! And not the kind with two arms and hands whose name is Amy.

I miss my little apartment sometimes though.

Yesterday, I had a statistics exam why no, I do not care about F/Q/Z/T tables beyond getting an A in this class. As you know, I'm all about stress relievers, so I baked some banana bread. It's about the baking not the eating, so I'm good with this form of self-care.

Stress relieved.

Whew!


Chai Banana Bread

• 2 Bananas, mashed
• 2 bags of Chai tea, cut open
• 1 container, or 1/2 cup 0% Greek Yogurt [I used Fage]
• 2 Eggs
• 5 Tbsp Butter, melted
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 cup Quick Oats
• 1 1/4 cups Flour [use GF, whole wheat, something fancy if your heart desires]
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking Soda

Preheat your oven to 350. 

Combine the first five ingredients [just cut the bags of tea open and dump it in] and then add the sugar and stir until combined. Next, add the oats, flour, salt and baking soda. Stir again until just combined. I'm lazy, so I smashed the bananas with a fork and then used the same fork to stir everything. Laaaaaaazy. 

Dump it in a greased loaf pan of the larger variety [I used a 9x5] and bake for 50-65 minutes checking frequently during the last 15 minutes so you don't over bake that bread.

Let it cool and by that I mean, don't dig in right away because you want to put some glaze on it.

Unless you're feeling healthy, then this glaze tastes like dirt. 

Glaze

• 3/4 cup Powdered Sugar
• 1/4 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• a pinch of All Spice
• a pinch of Cloves
• a pinch of Salt
• 2-3 Tbsp Milk of choice, I went with Heavy Whipping cream 

As we all know, I don't measure icings, glazes, frostings, etc. HOWEVER, this is a decent estimation of what I did this time. (-: You can adjust the spices or leave them out, but oh, they taste good. I put the glaze on while the loaf was still warm.

Then I ate a slice, but not because I was stressed. I ate it to make sure it wasn't poisonous. 

I'm still alive.

love you people.

xo

love: making a statement

There's a lot going around today and I avoid all charged and controversial topics like the plague. 

However, now I'm going to make a bold-on-the-interwebs-for-all-to-see statement: 

I support my brothers and sisters who want the human right of marrying the person they love. 

I don't believe any other person's marriage is a reflection of the validity of your marriage. Does your neighbor's marriage affect your marriage? Does the abusive husband make your husband abusive? Does the couple married in Vegas have less of a marriage than the couple that planned their wedding for a year and spent thousands of dollars? Does the wife who cheats make your wife cheat? Does the couple who never got married but have lived together for 26 years affect your marriage? Does my singleness affect your marriage? 

When I think about being called to live differently, I look at examples of disregarding societal norms: approaching the shunned, the outcast, the sick, the downtrodden, the hurt; leaping over rules set for treating people of different races; defending women in a time and place where woman were chattel.

Yeah, I'm talking about how Jesus challenges me to love.

My willingness to love my LGBTQ brothers and sisters and believe in their right for equality isn't even the hard stuff Jesus is talking about. These friends have come into my life through school and church and work and mutual friends. I've washed their feet. I've kissed their cheeks. I've danced in the moonlight. I've cried in their laps. These "people" aren't just "people," they're my friends. Why can't everyone see that? Why the words of hate? Why is this so hard to support?

Since I can only speak for myself, I can tell you that I've been a non-vocal ally for years. Non-vocal. What does that say about me? I keep quiet because I love people who have opinions coming from both sides of this coin. I keep my mouth shut and words untyped because it feels safe, easier than having to defend my opinion. Is safeguarding my opinion a way to live authentically? Is it a way to let people truly know me?

I tell myself that maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my heart is telling me something that's not true. Maybe the logic and emotions that have brought me to my conclusions have holes throughout. Maybe I'm too easily influenced by others. The thing is, I don't care if I'm wrong because if being right means that I have to take away from someone else, I cannot live that way.

It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion

Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment

The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins

It's human rights for everybody, there is no difference!

Live on and be yourself

When I was at church they taught me something else

If you preach hate at the service those words aren't anointed

That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned

When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless

Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen

I might not be the same, but that's not important

No freedom till we're equal, damn right I support it

love you people...even the ones who disagree with me.

love you people...who are hurting.

love you people...who feel alone.

love you people...who can't find their words. 

love you people...no matter how you identify. 

you matter.

xo

a word or two

It's no secret I'm a lover of words.

I'm also a hoarder of quotes. Where do I hoard them? On pinterest, in a notebook that I neglect, and in Stickies.

This is a screen shot of my stickies with a list or two [I told you I love lists] and a recipe or three and a couple of blog posts [you can't write in Word and copy and paste into blogger, they hate each other] for good measure.

If anyone kidnaps my computer this is something I want back. OK? Notes and pictures and music and documents...well, don't steal my computer, please.

So, I'm making a goal to share one with you every once in awhile [I'd say every week, but we know how good I am at that *cough-etsy-cough*].

This is from a Ted talk. 

What ignites and excites you? 

love you people. 

xo

this week's mani

I'm headed up to spa to work this weekend, so I had to do my nails...duh. Clip them, file them, decide what to paint them, get it done while watching Duck Dynasty: this is the process.

(-:

And I chose these as my inspiration [via pinterest, you can see my nails and other such things board if you'd like]:

Cute, right? 

Here's my version: 

I seem to think that I want more randomness, but I think I would have liked these better if I'd done orderly polka-dots. Yes, I think about these things. 

I'm totally in love with the kitty on my thumb though. 

love you people.

xo

5 things

1. It's barely the first day of spring and I'm ready for it to really arrive! Sunshine and warmth and seasonal produce and all that, so what I'm saying is, I want this:

Yup, that seems about right.

2. Coffee. COFFEE. COFFFEEEEE. Want. [I realize I have yet to write a sentence for #2, and I've used four periods.]

If it says skinny on the cup, does that mean it will make me skinny? Pleasesayyes. 

3. I think I've come up with a new plan for school. Sorry I didn't include you in the plan. I'll let you know how it pans out. Yup, I'm mysterious. It ups my interesting factor don't you think?

4. I love blogs like...whoa, and GOOGLE RSS IS QUITTING ME.

It's been my jam for years. I have been a faithful, loyal, lovah to Google Reader. So, I made sure to quit it first. I made the switch to bloglovin' today after reading this tutorial.

You don't RSS yet? I don't even know you.

5. I arranged and rearranged a few things up in hurrr. Whatcha think? I'm kind of into colors in a rainbow variety lately, please refer to numero uno.



love you people.
xo

'sup hank?

When my mom found out I was coming home for spring break she arranged it so my brother would bring Hank out to stay with us.

You may imagine our joyus reunion: he hears my voice, we spot each other from across the room, we run toward each other, and he jumps into my arms! 

Well, keep imagining. He's still a cat after all. 

It took him two days to come out of hiding and find me.

I will say, the nephew is pretty terrifying. 

Look at that face. Too much toddler could scare any creature. (-:

When they had to go back to school he spent most of his time hanging out. Gazing out windows. Running away from Daisy [back when Daisy stayed at my brother's it was Hank who tortured her]. Teasing the dogs by staying inside the screen door and then running away as soon as they barked.

I miss you Hankity-pankity-pants!

love you people,

the crazy-for-one-cat lady

I made a book!

Yes, you know.

I'm obsessed with Instagram.
You know!

I should stop talking about it. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, I took my IG obsession and made a book out of it. True that.

If you follow me on IG you know what this book contains: the nephew, the niece, hank, friends, and selfies with friends. I kept the food to a minimum.

I found a coupon code for a free 50 page printing [I paid shipping and handling, this is the Instant Photo Books -->Instagram Book] from blurb.com. Google them, they run promotions frequently. I'm impressed by the quality [pictures from my phone can look like that in a 7"x7" book?] and I love holding pictures of the non-electronic device variety. 

Since I was taking pictures in the living room at my parent's house...here's Daisy. She's in desperate need of a haircut since she's a schnauzer that looks like a beast.  

She's hanging out with Bo-bo. He used to be Matt's [younger brother] favorite stuffed animal. As you can see, he's bigger than she is so when they wrestle, things can get intense.


love you people.
xo

a walk around the farm

I arrived in McPherson last Friday night. It rained all day Saturday. We were on the edge of a blizzard warning on Sunday. By the following Friday, it was 82.

BOOM. Spring has spring. 

Well, for the day. 

The wheat is growing bright and green; the weeds are brown and dry.

Mice and rodents and pests are just part of farm life. In one of the fields my dad showed me row after row that didn't get planted with wheat because a dead mouse was blocking the opening. That's life.

My mom has been talking about the owl that hangs out around the silo for months, so my reason for this walk was simple: spot the owl and take its picture. I'm pretty sure it flew away as soon as I opened the back door, but I maintained hope that it would return to the silo.

As I looked up the rungs for the silo I saw something sticking out near the top. A NEST?!?! WITH BABIES!?!? I got really excited.

I was totally going to make my mother's day. WE HAVE BABY OWLS!!!! [Yes, this does require that much punctuation.]

Then the nest moved.

And crawled up the silo.

Could someone please tell me how a raccoon got up there? The first rung is about three and a half feet off the ground. As I child, I remember having difficulty getting to the first area to climb up. What was this raccoon doing?

Then I thought about it potentially falling on my head and I got the heck out of dodge.

I love sunshine.



love you people.
xo

TODAY!

GOOD MORNING!

I ate this GIANT, AWESOME cinnamon roll from approximately 8:30-10:45am. Yes, that's over two hours of munching. At least four mugs of coffee were also consumed and a few hours of conversation were had. As always, I sat in the corner of The Well that used to be The HearthRoom, history makes me happy.

New gallery space with this gorgeous stained glass at Clayworks.

I stopped at the grocery then went home where I found this little furball sleeping on the couch. There's a schnauzer under there somewhere. I think.

I made some treats for my dad's camp and recreation class that met at our house tonight. Browned butter cookies, chocolate whoopie pies with a salted caramel buttercream [I'm not linking to the chocolate part, I wanted them to be more brownie-like and wasn't terribly happy with what I got.], and an apple pie that was demolished in a few minutes.

I also roasted a chicken and some veggies. [No pictures.] Why am I single?

GOOD NIGHT!

nails lately

I still paint my nails.

I just don't document it and show you on the regular. Sorry. 

Anyway...here are three different nail painting things that have happened in 2013. Of course I didn't take a picture of my favorite. 

These were too busy. 

These had matte over the glitter. I love matte and glitter.

The far left nail on the picture on the right is not matte just to see the difference. 

Instagrammed Valentine's Day nails. 

These got picked off yesterday in a reading incident.

Today my nails are nakey and I'll paint them sometime soon. And I might show you. (-:

That's all for now. Do we care about nails over here in the land of Nonsense? 

love you people.

xo

glasses

As you all know, I have a vision disability. I cannot see things that are far away from where I stand, so I wear corrective lenses in the form of spectacles. Technically, I have myopia and my eyeballs aren't the right shape for the focal point. I learned that in physiology. Thank you very much academics.

I looooove my glasses. I get compliments all the time on these babies.

BUT, I saw this picture yesterday on pinterest:

Source: keikolynn.com via amy on Pinterest

Then I thought, that I miiiiight need something new. Maybe? Yes?

Frame One:

Frame Two:

Frame Three:

All frames from Zenni Optical. 

Do I live in crazy town? These would look terrible on me? like I'm trying too hard? What? Huh?

Thoughts?
	Frame 1
	Frame 2
	Frame 3
	You don't need new glasses.
	Do your homework and stop shopping.
pollcode.com free polls

Thank you for your opinions. I appreciate it more that you know because I am 100% indecisive right now. If you voted for me to do my homework and stop shopping, you're dead to me.

Focus is not my forte.

Back to statistics homework.


love you people.
xo