new.

Wake up and smell the...cactus? I moved to Arizona last week and what a change! Instead of snow crusted mountains and blustery winds I have heat waves and tan lines. I just got a new apartment and I am moving in next week, for now I have been spending some time with my family members that live down here. We have been hiking the trails in the mountains and enjoying each others company. But its about time to get down to business, I have my first job interview in a couple of hours and a couple more later this week. I'm really nervous because these are not just those retail jobs that are no sweat  and easy to deal with, these are high end companies that want you to work your ass off. I think I can do it and I honestly think I'm ready for a "real" job instead of the 'Hi can I help you find what your looking for?" jobs. Thats all for now, I have a lot of work to do!!! Wish me luck!!!

stuffed mushrooms by malynda

So I got to eat some of the YUMMIEST stuffed mushrooms EVER!!! My forensics coach Malynda cooked up these stuffed mushrooms for us the other day and they were so good I had to have the recipe. I have never enjoyed mushrooms before in my whole life but these were beyond delicious. They deserve to have a 5 star rating!

Stuffed Mushrooms

What you will need: 

2 pounds of White Button Mushrooms (24)

1 jar of green olives

1 pound of sausage

fresh Mozzarella

8 oz. of cream cheese

Worcestershire sauce

brown sausage in a sauce pan until fully cooked

mix in cream cheese to warm sausage after transferring it to a mixing bowl.

Then add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce 

1/4 to 1/3 fresh Parmesan and

1/4 cup of chopped green olives .

After you have mixed together all of the ingredients take the stems off of the mushrooms possibly even a little more, creating a small bowl shape. 

Stuff the mushrooms and place them on a flat baking sheet. 

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes depending on the size of your mushroom, the smaller it is the less time it will take. 

You will know the mushrooms are cooked because they go a little watery at the bottom. The sausage mixture will brown but watch the mushrooms to know when they need to come out of the oven. 

YUM! These are so good! I hope you try out this recipe and enjoy some of these yourself!

grad pictures by tia taylor

I got my pictures taken for my up and coming graduation and I had my good friend Tia Taylor take the photos. I have featured her before on the site but I just wanted to say again how amazing and awesome she is at photography. She can take anything and find the inner beauty. For her a doorway isn't just a doorway its an idea that needs to be expressed or an emotion that needs to be seen. I respect her and all of her talents as a photographer because she has taken a hobby and truly turned it into an art.

ok so this one was just for fun, it was a creepy haunted esque house so I did the ghost at the door. 

This was a crazy fun photo shoot and we took a ton of silly shots and thank goodness that Tia can stand me when I get in model mode because Im sure that I am annoying as heck! I just move and move and move busting out the most ridiculous poses and then laughing constantly. But Tia is amazing and just tells me exactly what needs to happen. She is one of the best and kindest photographers I have ever met! 

shake the dust by anis mojgani

This is for the fat girls. 

This is for the little brothers.

This is for the school-yard wimps, this is for the childhood bullies who tormented them.

This is for the former prom queen, this is for the milk-crate ball players.

This is for the nighttime cereal eaters and for the retired, elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters. Shake the dust.

This is for the benches and the people sitting upon them,

for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,

for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children,

for the nighttime schoolers and the midnight bike riders who are trying to fly. Shake the dust.

This is for the two-year-olds who cannot be understood because they speak half-English and half-god. Shake the dust.

For the girls with the brothers who are going crazy,

for those gym class wall flowers and the twelve-year-olds afraid of taking public showers,

for the kid who's always late to class because he forgets the combination to his lockers,

for the girl who loves somebody else. Shake the dust.

This is for the hard men, the hard men who want to love but know that it won't come.

For the ones who are forgotten, the ones the amendments do not stand up for.

For the ones who are told to speak only when you are spoken to and then are never spoken to. Speak every time you stand so you do not forget yourself.

Do not let a moment go by that doesn't remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.

Do not settle for letting these waves settle and the dust to collect in your veins.

This is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling,

for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacations alone.

For the sweat that drips off of Mick Jaggers' singing lips and for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner's shaking hips, for the heavens and for the hells through which Tina has lived.

This is for the tired and for the dreamers and for those families who'll never be like the Cleavers with perfectly made dinners and sons like Wally and the Beaver.

This is for the biggots,

this is for the sexists,

this is for the killers.

This is for the big house, pen-sentenced cats becoming redeemers and for the springtime that always shows up after the winters.

This? This is for you.

Make sure that by the time fisherman returns you are gone.

Because just like the days, I burn both ends and every time I write, every time I open my eyes I am cutting out a part of myself to give to you.

So shake the dust and take me with you when you do for none of this has never been for me.

All that pushes and pulls, pushes and pulls for you.

So grab this world by its clothespins and shake it out again and again and jump on top and take it for a spin and when you hop off shake it again for this is yours.

Make my words worth it, make this not just another poem that I write, not just another poem like just another night that sits heavy above us all.

Walk into it, breathe it in, let is crash through the halls of your arms at the millions of years of millions of poets coursing like blood pumping and pushing making you live, shaking the dust.

So when the world knocks at your front door, clutch the knob and open on up, running forward into its widespread greeting arms with your hands before you, fingertips trembling though they may be.

grad announcement

favorite videos

fooling around

April Fools part two

The second part of April Fools was decidedly less active due to the fact that we all had classes that we needed to go to but nevertheless it was still fun! We found out that Derek had put sugar in not only Karina's sheets but in her underwear drawer, soiling both and forcing her to wash them before she could use them. So the boys got maybe a quarter of a point for that one since it only stands up to about half of what we did to his room not to mention all of the things we did to the other boy's rooms. 

Forrest left one last April Fools joke before he left to go home for the weekend which was to put a picture of the box of shame on the little stick figure picture of Karina in the set of pictures of people that live at our apartment. (1/4 point)

They all had to leave for play practice and as they were leaving Karina told me what Derek did and sent me out on a mission of revenge. I prepared a can of tuna, saran wrapped at the top so it wouldn't get things messy then poked holes in it so the smell could escape, I also put together a jar of pickled beet juice that I saran wrapped too with holes at the top so that it wouldn't spill. I grabbed my sugar along with these two things and ran out the door. I drove down to Derek and Rico's house and I snuck into Derek's room without anyone seeing me. I hid the smelly tuna and pickled beet juice in his clothing drawers and sprinkled sugar in his bed and underwear drawer so he would know what we were getting revenge for (half a point!).  At some point before the end of the night Derek turned off the water to Karina and Jen's toilet so that they couldn't figure out how to fix it and flush the toilet (half a point!)

It took Derek until almost 11:30 that night to discover the smelly and sticky presents we left. To get us back for that he took Jen with him and they went and bought 4 cans of silly string and a horn and they burst into our apartment at 5 minutes till midnight and coated us and our home in silly string (half a point split quarter for Jen as a girl and quarter for Derek as a boy!). We then joined them as we went around to a random apartments trying to spray them with the string. It was a really fun way to end the April Fools. 

After April Fools ended we went on a midnight run to Dennys as a celebration of surviving the infamous holiday.  

The ending Tally of April Fools is: 

Girls: 2 3/4 points

Boys: 2 1/4 points

GIRLS WIN!!!