Stuck in a Rut

It doesn't happen very often, but today, I've found myself stuck in a rut. Here I am, only 1 1/2 weeks into the new semester, and I'm wondering when life will change or get more exciting. Don't get me wrong, I've always enjoyed school and learning, and I always will. That is something I am very thankful for. What I'm not a big fan of is the same old routine. Everything is quite predictable. Wake up, go to class, busy yourself for the hours of the day, practice here, snack there, maybe hit up opera rehearsal or gym for a quick workout, then come home to cook dinner, then homework. Then you wake up and do it again.

One thing that's really been getting to me that's bogging me down and keeping me in a rut is the idea of money. I've never liked the stuff because it makes me so uncomfortable. Yes, I love having it, but not having it makes life so very awkward. I'm blessed to have parents who provide for me even while I am at college. I'm so thankful that they offer to pay tuition, rent, and even give me a grocery/allowance allotment each month, but other than that, I'm without a job and don't really have time to get one. Hence, I am running out of cash...fast. Not having money just puts a damper on everything because like it or not, EVERYTHING costs money. Yes, there are ways to be frugal and save money...I'm the queen of that. But being stingy really prohibits me from having much fun. There's not a whole lot to do without money, which equates to no fun, but spending money to do fun things makes me depressed because I'm having to spend money...so that ultimately leads to not having the best time.

See how I'm in this rut? Dust and I just finished our final dance class of the certificate I bought him for his birthday present, and naturally they try and suck you in with a package of future dance classes. We heard them out, and they tried to talk us into signing up for a $1176 dollar dance package! Did they not understand that we are college/recently graduated college students who are broke and can't just drop one grand like that? When I said, "We're broke. There's no way we can afford that," one lady chuckled and said, "Ha! Broke!" kind of under her breath, as if I were kidding. But really lady! I'm broke!

Here we are, pinching pennies and trying to get by just in normal day-to-day life. Then I think about all the money I will have to raise to participate with Up With People and I damn near have a panic attack. I think it will end up being over $16,000 and I'm looking at my bank statements going, "Huh. How the hell is that going to happen?!"

I always try to remain optimistic, but lately I've just been kind of down. My voice problems are overwhelming me and I'm getting frustrated with not being able to sing and talk. I just want to be fixed. And I want to stop racking up so many medical bills. I hate mentioning bills I receive to my parents because I feel like a horrible child who just washes money right out of their pockets. If it's not medical bills, it's expensive drugs or other things to help my voice heal. And then if it's not medically related, it's life related. I need shoes for the opera. I need to order a graduation gown. I need to pay choir tuition to go on a choir tour I probably won't even sing on. I need to order school books. It just adds up and overwhelms me. Hence this long, drawn-out post. My biggest irritation is wanting to be independent and take care of myself, saving my parents the burden of paying my every financial need, yet here I am without a means of income, so I can't yet do that for myself.

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I a lone, depressing pessimist?

Apple Dutch Baby Breakfast!

I woke up this morning itching to make a Dutch Baby pancake. The only problem is, I don't have a cast iron skillet at my house. So I did some nosing around the internet and found it's perfectly OK to bake this bad boy in a 9X13 pan! Whoo! I have one of those! So I set to work on making my first ever Apple Dutch Baby pancake!

This recipe is easy to whip up (despite the impressive look of the final presentation), and takes only 25 minutes to bake! 

I used this recipe:

Cinnamon Apple Dutch Baby Pancake
4 Tbsp butter
2-3 medium size Gala apples, sliced thinly {I used 2}
3/4 C flour
3/4 C milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp sugar
4 eggs
Cinnamon Topping:
1/2 C sugar
2 tsp cinnamon


*Preheat oven to 400.
*Place butter into cast iron frying pan and place in the oven to melt butter. {Be extra careful to keep an eye on the butter so it doesn't burn! I almost had a disaster!}
*In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, milk and eggs.
*Arrange the sliced apples in the bottom of the pan on top of the melted butter.  Pour egg mixture over apples.
*Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the egg mixture evenly.
*Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

{In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, milk and eggs}

{Thinly slice apples}

{Arrange the sliced apples in the bottom of the pan on top of the melted butter}

{Pour egg mixture over apples}

{Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the egg mixture evenly}

{Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown}

I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top of my creation for an added dusting of sweetness. It was delicious! 

The apples get baked through perfectly, and the eggy-ness of the batter works in perfect harmony with the crunchiness of the caramelized cinnamon sugar. Whip this tasty dish up for an easy, impressive, and yummy breakfast!

Ice-Pocalyspe?

My heaven's! School was canceled yet AGAIN today, but not due to snow. No, no! This time, it's due to frozen rain! We got about 8" of beautiful snow yesterday, and today, the temperature has risen just a bit, but the precipitation hasn't stopped. Therefore, we've got frozen rain coming down, and it's solidifying right on top of the heaps of snow. Needless to say, it's an arctic tundra out there! Everything is a solid sheet of ice, powerlines are freezing to trees, and then trees are falling down. Not a good combo!

My housemates Cailin, Kristin, and I braved the weather and ventured the 30 feet to our back alley to take out our ever-accumulating trash and recycle {we just couldn't stand the pile-up anymore!!!} I took the opportunity to take some pictures while we were already dealing with the nasty conditions.

I started Snow Day #2 off right by baking my first ever coffee cake! It was tasty, and quite simple to whip up! It satisfied my need for something yummy, warm, and homemade right out of bed!

The main tree in our backyard is now frozen to our power line. We tried calling the power company to report it, but to no avail. We'll keep trying, but we think the company is just overwhelmed with calls right now.

Cailin's masterwork: Her igloo! She spent all yesterday crafting it!

The collapsed bush in our backyard

Our landlords {FROZEN} car. Not kidding...every ounce of this car is covered in thick ice

The neighbor's garage made for a rather picturesque scene even amidst the horrid ice pellets!

Down the alley one way...

Down the alley the other way...

{Cailin and Kristin ventured a bit after our trash errand!}

 Don't we look lovely? haha. Oh snow days!

My poor bike. No getting that inside right now! =(

Cailin on top of her igloo! It's so frozen it kept its shape!

If all this continues throughout today and through the night, I highly doubt class will happen yet again tomorrow. But who knows. We'll see where this state of emergency takes us next! 

2nd Anniversary and Snow-Pocalypse!

After a month apart for winter break, Dustin and I finally got to see one another again! We celebrated our "2 year" anniversary on the 17th. I put that in quotes only because it's kind of a 2 year anniversary...we took some time off in those two years, but we still remained in contact and very close, so we decided rather than picking out a new anniversary date, we'd stick with our original one and call it good! So, we did just that!

My sweet boy brought me pretty pink Gerbera daisies! My favorite!

Right before we headed out for the night...

 None of the pictures turned out very well because of the awful lighting in our house, but we tried! (And Dust did so good! I didn't even have to ask for a "nice smile!" He did it all on his own! Score!)

 

We attended our first private dance class to start the night off. It was fun, but really basic and short. It was 30 minutes with a lot of repeated basic steps like walking *gasp!* or a side step. Oh well, we'll see what we learn in the other two classes!

We ate a great dinner in the Proctor District at the Europa Bistro, but from there, our plans for the rest of the night were semi-foiled.We were going to grab a cupcake for dessert at either Jubilee Cupcakes or Hello, Cupcake, but both locations were closed! So, we headed to the Grand Cinema to see if the Corina Bakery was open before we hit up seeing a movie. Nope, Corina was closed, too! All before 9pm! My heaven's Downtown Tacoma lacks a nightlife! When we tried to enter the Grand Cinema, the doors were all locked! But we knew they had a 9:20 movie scheduled...weird! A woman came to the door and said they were closed due to low attendance, so we opted to skip the movie idea all together.

Dustin was smart in remembering that we'd always wanted to go to Dorky's Barcade in town (aka, a place with old arcade games and bar...hence the barcade combo). It was fun! We played quite a few oldschool games and Dustin managed to *barely* beat me at air hockey. 1 point, man!!! Darn. We even managed to both get "high scores" on the Asteroids game (but who really knows if we got high scores or if the machine was just lying to us!)

 

We had fun at Dorky's, but then headed to the Met Market to pick up a make-shift dessert. Since most yummy desserts (aka, chocolate) are no longer an option for my revised diet (dumb voice problems), we settled on sugar cookies. But my goodness were they delicious!

We cuddled up at home and watched 'Father of the Bride' on Netflix and enjoyed winding down the anniversary night!

.....

Little did we know what we would wake up to the next morning!

THE SNOWPOCALYPSE!
 

Classes were canceled for me {Thanks UPS!}, and when Dustin tried to drive back to Seattle this morning, he dared not try and make it off my street! There was {and is still} quite a lot of snow out there, and the roads would have been too treacherous, so he called into work and said he couldn't make it.

What a great lazy day to do nothing!

We spent our time eating a late breakfast, playing Guitar Hero and Jeopardy on Wii, and being generally lazy!

 

Now we'll see if it snows enough to keep campus closed again tomorrow. I'm thankful Dustin made it safely back to Seattle, but we'll see where the storm goes from here!

Giggly Girls!

I'm back in Tacoma, now, after a wonderful winter break at home in Colorado. This was one of my most productive, successful breaks EVER! Way to go motivation!!! I guess that's what happens when you're trying to apply to grad schools, huh?

Anyway, I had a whirlwind of a last week since I was trying to cram a lot of unfinished business and little errands into my last couple of days at home. My last night in town, however, I got a last minute request to babysit my most favorite girls! My pleasure! Even though they go to bed early enough that I didn't get to see them much Friday night, we still had fun playing, reading some stories, and giggling! 

Nella and Keagan are SUPER into the Disney Princesses right now...can you tell?

 

{Keagan on the left, Nella on the right}

 

Purple cupcake jammies for the purple-lovin' Nella & pink holiday jammies for the Queen-of-Pink, Keagan {who is sporting a lovely unicorn horn in this picture. Ah the things you can do with a kaleidoscope!} These girls are VERY specific about their color preferences, and they'll be sure to correct you if you accidentally goof their color schemes up! haha

After we read an ABC book for bedtime, the girls serenaded me with their ABC skills!

 

Then, in order to procrastinate going to bed {those little devils!}, they begged to sing me one more song! How could I resist? So they sang me 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' (with a little bit of help here and there)

I love these girls! I'm so glad I got to see them {and their wonderful parents} one last time before I left town!

Pink Peonies Giveaway

Check out the newest giveaway on 

Pink Peonies!

 

Edited To-Do List!

Isn't this new layout the cutest? I saw it and instantly decided I wanted to apply it to my blog. It's very me, if I do say so myself!

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone! It's hard to believe we're already in 2012. I graduate from college this year? WHAT?!? Anyway, Christmas break at home has been going well. It's hard to believe I only have a little over a week left before the next semester starts! 

Break has kept me busy with:

~ family time

~ reuniting with old friends

~ lots of sleeping

~ working out

~ decorating lots of cakes at Cold Stone

~ studying for and taking the GRE and PLACE exams

~watching lots and lots of 'How I Met Your Mother'

I'm postponing my return to Washington by two days, and in the time I have left at home, I still have a lot I need to get done. Since I made a to-do list back in December, I figured I'd edit the one already in progress...

TO DO (or continue to do):

1. Finish Christmas shopping! Goodness school puts a damper on these things!
2. Work out! A lot! I never have time in the semester, but now I do!
3. Mentally practice for my recital. I'm WAY far behind on my repertoire, and I need to catch up, even if my voice is still on the fritz!
4. On a similar note, mentally practice for the opera! We get back from break and BAM! It's showtime!
5. Study for the G.R.E. (Dec. 30th) and Music PLACE exam (Jan. 7th). Yuck.
6. Arrange 'The Chain' by Ingrid Michaelson for my a'cappella group What She Said!
7. Work at Cold Stone a lot so I can actually have $$$!
8. Spend time with my family and puppies!
9. See lots of friends who I don't regularly get to see!
10. Look into more fundraising activities for Up With People 
11. Sleep and catch up! Yes! 
12. Get my recital dress altered
13. Buy necessary shoes for the opera
14. Potentially hunt for and apply to summer jobs since I won't be in CO until June (thinking of a local bakery and working for my former children's choir)
15. Open a new bank account for my UWP travel funds
16. Work on grad school applications - including getting fingerprinted for my D.U. application
17. Clean and organize my room. What a mess it is!

I think that will keep me busy enough! *sigh* I'm exhausted just thinking about it!