What I'm watching...

I'm so excited for the Les Mis movie coming out on Christmas day, (also, a bit nervous...seriously, can Russell Crowe pull off Javert?) so I've been watching the 25th anniversary concert pretty much on repeat. It's so amazing (even with Nick Jonas) and well done and just lovely!

Marsh Mellow

1 bag of marshmallows leftover from Thanksgiving yams = 1 bag too many for me

So far I've added them to hot chocolate, coffee, milk. I've put them on top of granola and inside a bowl of popcorn. I've played WAY too many games of chubby bunny. Last night I browned a bunch in the oven to add on top of my ice cream.

You know what ice cream needs? Not marshmallows. Not even a little bit. (I may have given myself sugar overdose) 

I don't want to waste food, but it's possible that I'm going to need to throw out that bag or before you know it I will be adding marshmallows to stir fry or meatloaf.

Thanksgiving 2.0

The second dinner of the weekend went really well, my turkey was much browner and while the yams were runny...they still were tasty!

And despite all the cooking I did this week, I only set one oven mitt on fire! Yay for me! Personal best!

Eucharistia

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm struck by how much I have to be thankful for this year. I keep trying to write something and really, I'm not in the mood. (also, I'm distracted by family, parades, turkey and tumblr) I really don't feel like explaining...just feel like praising God. I am so blessed and I'm so thankful for all that He has given me and done for me.

Jen's List of Awesome Things that she's Thankful for!
1. Free Wifi!
2. Family that I can spend the day with
3. Family far away
4. Heather's chocolate chip banana bread! Yummy!
5. My church family
6. The freedoms I have as an American
7. My cats (who are spending the holiday at home alone)
8. Feliz Navidad (my favorite Christmas song)
9. My God who loved me enough to send His son, who loves me enough to provide for me every day and has created an amazing and good world.

Lowered Expectations

Do you remember that bit on MAD TV where they did horrible dating videos? (Side Note: If you have Comcast or Xfinity or whatever they call themselves now, you can watch dating videos on their local on demand programming. All the videos here are Detroit local and while I feel guilty about it…I do laugh hysterically at every single one.)  The sketches weren’t funny all the time but what I remember was the softly sung 90’s jingle with the couple walking towards the barb wire fence. Every time I think about my Thanksgiving dinner this year that little jingle sings in my head “Lowered Expectations!”

I’ve been searching for cookbooks for my aunt and have kept a few for myself. I’m not a great cook, but I do enjoy challenges and I do like making food for my family. I’ve experimented with some recipes this year that have not sent anyone to the emergency room, so I was pretty excited about Thanksgiving. It’s a day devoted to cooking and eating and just seemed ripe for me to get my chef on.

Unfortunately, it’s a pretty standard fare around these parts. Turkey – slap some olive oil on the bird and stick it in the oven. Stuffing? It doesn’t get better than Stove Top. Cranberry sauce: we’ve had both canned and relish over the years and I’ve eaten neither. Gross. Give me my cranberries in a muffin form only please! As I got to thinking about it, the only things that I could conceivably experiment with were mashed potatoes and dessert. I scoured the internet for potato recipes. Mashed, baked, twice baked, jacket, fried, scalloped, and a multitude of other ways to cook ze pomme du terre. I really liked the creamy garlic mashed potato recipes, or the super delicious looking jacket potatoes.

As for dessert, I really wanted to make a pie. Apple, to be exact. For some reason, apple pie is the epitome of a perfect dessert. I think it’s just because it’s so iconic, not necessarily because it’s the tastiest dessert ever. I’ve always wanted to make an apple pie from scratch, peeling the apples in my sunny kitchen, wearing a frilly apron and smiling at my adoring husband and perfect children…and you know what, this fantasy might be about more than just dessert.

So my first step in pie-making was looking up recipes online. Do you know how many recipes there are for pie? Many. A multitude. A plethora of pie procedures. (HA!) After being overwhelmed I attempted to pick just a few recipes (ones that had “easy” in the title) and see what I could do. Which turns out, not a lot. I know how to cook…and sorta bake…but the instructions for these pies were not easy. In fact, that whole “easy as pie” saying is a lie. Pie is not easy at all. It’s full of sifting flour and crimping and tears. Despite my pie-in-the-sky (ha again!) dreams of baking from scratch, I decided to spend my thanksgiving not sabotaging myself.

But tonight I am packing a bag full of ‘stuff’ (scientific term) to take with me tomorrow so that I can experiment with mashed potatoes. Garlicy stuff, ranch flavored stuff and normal loaded potato stuff! It might not be the Julia Child/Martha Stewart masterpiece I wanted, but it’s more attainable and hopefully attainability will make my Thanksgiving much more enjoyable!

Alva FTW!

Crossword puzzle while waiting at USCIS. I'm so proud that I know Thomas Edisons middle name!

Like the song says

"Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes!"

It's the first snow of the season and I'm happy to finally see one of my favorite things!

It's novel time!

Writing music: Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
Writing environment: Far away from any distracting windows
Writing accessories: Afghan and wrist warmers (it's cold!)
Writing procrastination: THIS BLOG POST

I'm excited to write, but I'm still struggling to figure out just what to write. Each time I go to start on one of the ideas, my mind goes to another. I filled out my profile on the nano site yesterday and got intimidated by the page that has you enter your novel information. Title? Summary? Excerpt? COVER? Are they kidding me? The pressure of having all that information makes me want to avoid putting anything on that page, but then it makes me feel lame that I don't have a novel listed. Can I just enter nonsense? Are there rules? WHY ARE YOU HURTING ME WITH YOUR HIGH STANDARDS NANOWRIMO?

Okay, I'm back. Took a little breather and decided to avoid the nano page for the rest of the day. I've also decided to just start writing. Any writing is better than no writing!

Wait a second!

I could write about zombies! I love zombies!

NaNo Oh No!

Actually, it’s not that terrible….I’m just melodramatic.
So, it’s the day before NaNoWriMo starts and I’m full of ideas! Too many ideas. I really need to pick one thing to focus on, but I can’t seem to narrow things down.

“That’s a Novel idea!”

1. Young woman has spent the last several years caring for her aging grandparents. After their death (or after they are moved to nursing home) she struggles with acclimating to life as a young adult. Shenanigans ensue: dating, workforce, interpersonal relationships with people under 80. Maybe romance? Certainly comedy. Heartwarming level…eh…upper 70% range.
2. New family visiting a church notices that beyond the surface of happy hymns and yummy potlucks, a deep evil lurks. As they begin the process of becoming members they are thrust into a world of secret leaders, shady ceremonies and dangerous practices. Will they be able to free the church and themselves from “The Right Hand of Fellowship?” *
3. Group of 30-something friends/coworkers are forced/challenged to end their lukewarm ways and start being passionate. Or, you know, the opposite. Pros: Get to put those Revelation Sermon Series notes to good use. Cons: Forced/challenged how? Contest? Dying wish of friend? Hunger games-type fight for ULTIMATE SPIRITUAL CHAMPION?

“Procrastastic! – Abandoned ideas ripe for reuse!”

1. Wikikiller – Serial killer who edits wikipedia entries BEFORE he kills. Armchair detective catches on when he sees an note in an article about his town that states a gruesome murder happened on this day. He watches the news that night and realizes murder happened after the entry so it could only be done by the killer. The police either don’t believe him or think he’s a suspect. His friends are scared for his life. He just wants justice. – When I started this story, the main characters were teenagers. Then I discovered that I can’t write teenagers so I quit.
2. A really great action story that involves tanker ships, custom agents and explosions. Unfortunately every time I try to write characters for this it just ends up being Hawaii Five-O fanfiction. As much as I love me some Danno…I don’t intend to write that.
3. Amnesia fic! – Woman gets into car accident and loses ten years of her life, including her intro to church, exploration of faith and decision to become a Christian. As she struggles to relearn about the last ten years, what she’s most shocked by is herself. Her responses, attitude, even her feelings are so different. Can it just be ten years of maturity or is it this ‘holy spirit’ that she’s apparently accepted? – I’ve always loved the concept of amnesia and mind/muscle memory and the influence God has on a person’s life.

“That’s so random!”

1. Time loop. TIME LOOP! My favorite trope ever. I enjoy reading any and all time loop story I can get my hands on so it would be fun to write one!
2. Nonfiction? Not sure what to write about…and every other time I’ve tried this I’ve just ended up blogging instead. Yay for easy formats!
3. Joke book. (why hello, it looks like we’ve reached the point of our program where Jen has run out of ideas and is just typing random things down. Elephant. Tractor beam. Fluff.)

Between now and the birth of November, I will need to pick an idea and write. Or I could pick a couple and write for both until one looks better? Is that allowed? Are there rules for this? Do I care if there are or not? ANARCHY!
*in other words, Jen gets confused reading church bylaws and has late-night-pizza induced nightmare. Seriously, it was like B-Movie scary!

Favorite Things

My friend is running the youth lock-in at her church tonight and I promised I would pray for her. Apparently that means that I need to stay up all night to do so. Seriously, I am thankful that God gives me opportunities to pray for my loved ones…even when those opportunities give me insomnia.

November is just a few days away and my mind has been busy trying to come up with ideas for NaNoWriMo. Unfortunately almost all my fiction ideas have turned out to be plagiarized from movies I’ve seen over the past decade. (No kidding, I came up with a lovely idea about an aunt adopting her niece and nephews and all the pitfalls of childrearing and it wasn’t till I was thinking on titles that I realized it was the plot of Raising Helen) I may end up doing nonfiction this year, which wouldn’t be horrible. I tend to get all ADD about halfway through the month anyway and abandon whatever I’ve written to troll wiki and edit pages to spice up historical figures.

Apropos of nothing, I’ve decided to make lists tonight. It’s like writing with no actual talent needed! Yay!

Favorite Real or Fictional Animals

1. Hengroen – King Arthur’s horse. I have no idea how this is supposed to be pronounced (is it Welsh?) so I say “Hen-Grrr-En”. If I ever had a horse, this would be its name and together we would conquer our enemies for the crown!
2. Ham the Astrochimp – The first chimp launched into space. There was a time in my childhood when I wanted to be the first kid in space. I imagined the experience would be much like Ham’s…adorable spacesuit, tiny helmet, hilarious pictures of scientists training me to push levers for banana pellets. (like you wouldn’t have accepted candy as salary when you were a kid?!)
3. Curious George – Cute monkey who gets into everything and causes problems but still is loved by his ‘dad’ at the end of the day. Substitute ‘plagued by daddy-issues Jen’ for ‘monkey’ and you’ll see why these books appealed to me.

Favorite Random Movies That No One Else Watches

1. Ladyhawke – I first read a movie novelization (a total guilty pleasure) of this and searched for the movie for years before I saw it one night on television. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a woman cursed to be a hawk during the day while her love is cursed to be a wolf during the night. The reason I love it is Matthew Broderick who plays Mouse, a skinny little thief who is roped into helping the lovers and manages to be both adorable, hysterical and earnest.
2. Surf Ninjas – You know those things that are so woven into your life that you can’t remember where or when you picked them up? My siblings and I have quoted this movie so often at each other that we should probably pay royalties to the actors. “Money can’t buy knives!”
3. Congo – This movie has scary gorillas, diamond laser guns, a character named Herkermer Holmoka, a volcano and a hot air balloon. It really doesn’t get any better. It also encouraged me to read H. Rider Haggard’s works which was an unexpected but awesome bonus.

What is up with polo?

Polo. The sport of kings. Several men riding horses and hitting a ball with sticks. I'm sure there's more to this game but that's really all I know. 

Oh...and it's haunting me. 

Yup, that's right. The sport of polo is following me wherever I go. I thought it was just a TV thing. You know how television works, one person has a good idea and other people think it's awesome and the next thing you know every show has a character with a brain tumor. Half a dozen shows I watch have mentioned, shown or been focused around polo this season like it's the most common sport in the world. (disclaimer: I don't think its all that common but my knowledge of sports is small). But it turns out it's not just TV with the horsey-sport obsession. 

Two movies I've watched in the past week have had passing mentions of polo, neither of them particularly large mentions...but they were there. Later I was reading a book about Nazi gold and all of a sudden the characters were at a polo match. I escaped to the internet only to find polo on my tumblr dash and in my reddit feed. 

I have a couple of theories as to what is happening. 

a.) God is obviously trying to get my attention with this whole polo thing. Maybe the odd trivia of knowing the rules of polo will solve a dispute. Maybe I'm about to get trampled by a horse. Maybe I need to buy more polo shirts?

b.) Polo has always been prevalent but due to a horse-related incident as a child I have had some sort of mental block. I've been walking past polo matches for years but instead of yuppies on horses I've just been seeing...I don't know...prairie dogs or something. Due to maturity and personal growth, I've started to overcome my mental polo block and have been able to see the world around me as it has always been...full of polo. 

c.) Aliens. 

(okay, that last answer may be a little vague but I think it has merit. If aliens had abducted me and recreated an artificial environment for me, it only stands to reason that there would be abnormalities. Glitches in the matrix. Why couldn't one of those glitches be the over abundance of polo?) 

So...has anyone else noticed this? Is polo haunting more than just me? 

Either the smoking man in the peacoat is messing with me or he is stuck in a time loop.

Things NOT to do before you go to bed...

Browse through a Reddit post on the most disturbing articles people have read on Wikipedia.

I probably would be less disturbed if I had just marathon-d horror movies all evening.

Fall's many splendors would be more easily enjoyed without its abundance of spiders. Never again, pile of freshly raked leaves. Never again.