So, my first day of class was today. I'm only taking one class this semester. I was supposed to be taking three, but one of them got canceled, which pushes me back to graduating a semester later than I had planned. Which sucks. So I decided to drop the other class so I could take it next semester, leaving me to focus on this one class.

Pretty much all my friends graduated in the spring, so I only vaguely knew a few people in this class. We're going to have a semester long project based on a country of our choosing. With a partner.

Then the teacher announced we were picking our own partners. In a class where I don't know anyone.

It's amazing how quickly you can revert back into being a scared 14 year old, on your first day of high school, worrying that no one wants to be your friend. The embarrassment, the racing heartbeat, the flushed cheeks.

Only, when I was 14, I wasn't this bad. I was confident. I had friends. I knew what I was doing. Why is it harder now? It's not like its a big deal. It's not embarrassing to not know someone. You just introduce yourself, and voila! You know them. We're all grownups. Well, I am. Some of my classmates are still children.

Thankfully the guy in front of me didn't have a partner, either. The cute, well dressed, funny guy in front me.

I was starting to get psyched about this, as we discussed which country to choose. I wanted England. He wanted Russia. Or Mexico, where his partner's from. Of course.

(We chose Sweden.)

I used to see these photo-memes every once in awhile, but I haven't seen it in a long time so I thought I'd resurrect. Take a picture of your book pile. The books you're planning on reading, not books you stick in there to look smart. Don't take out the embarrassing ones, I sure didn't. My pile's a little bigger than normal because I went to the library today and recently raided my mother's bookcase (1-3).



1. Barbara Freethy-Don't Say A Word: Okay, it's cheesy, but I do like the occasional romantic suspense novel. In moderation. It's about a lady who tries to find where she's from and figure out her past which she can't rememberf.

2. Fern Michaels- Late Bloomer: My mom recommended this one. There's a good chance I won't actually read it. I think it's about a lady who makes amends with her childhood friends.

3. Heather Graham- The Presence: Not just romantic suspense, but supernatural romantic suspense with a Scottish Laird.

4. Guy Gavriel Kay- The Summer Tree: I've heard this is a great book from a lot of people, so I thought I should actually try it finally. For some reason I've really been into fantasy recently.

5. Jean Hegland- Into the Forest: I love a good post-apocalyptic novel.

6. Katie Williams- The Space Between Trees: A coming of age novel. Mostly I grabbed it because of the beautiful cover

7. Andrew Pyper-The Wildfire Season: This is the one I'm currently reading, I'm not sure how to describe it. It's sort of a thriller but really it's a downer. It's depressing me.

8. Michelle Cooper- A Brief History of Montmaray: Another YA novel, but this one's a historical novel about a fictitious kingdom and the royal family .

9. Jordan Sonnenblick- After Ever After: Yet another YA novel (I know, I know), this one about a boy whose cancer is in remission and how people interact with him.

10. Audrey Niffenegger- Her Fearful Symmetry: Her other book, The Time Traveler's Wife, is one of my all time favorites. This one didn't get the best reviews, but I figure it's worth a shot. '

*** If you're wondering what the books are sitting on, it's a step thing that came with a step aerobics DVD. I use it as a table for my books now. Because I'm classy.***

I love to cook. I love to bake. I'm basically a 50s housewife, without the husband or the house. I love trying new things, and thankfully, Mike will pretty much eat anything I put in front of him (as long as there's no blue cheese) so I always have a willing guinea pig.

Yesterday I was reading an article about Superfoods on Livestrong, and decided to try combining a few into a side dish for the pork tenderloin I had marinating. It's basically a succotash with no cream, I guess, but that doesn't sound as yummy as this dish ended up being.

It's super healthy, quick, easy, and cheap to make. I know we're all interested in those things, so I thought I'd share it with you all in case one of you wanted to try it. It will make enough for 4 generous servings, and it tasted great with the pork. I think it would be really good with fish or chicken as well. I had some of the leftovers today for lunch and I think it was even better the 2nd time around.




You'll need:
2 ears of fresh corn, de-cobbed
1 can of beans, drained (I used butter beans, but kidney or black beans would all work well- And if you use black beans I'd throw in a little chile powder too)
1 jalapeno, diced into tiny pieces (We like spicy so I used the whole thing but you could easily just use half)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 shallot, chopped (1/2 an onion would work just as well)
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

I was kind of winging it, but I'd say it cooked for a total of about 15 minutes

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium until it's just starting to go soft.

Add the bell peppers, and continue cooking for a few minutes (I like my peppers crisp, so I didn't cook for long, but if you like them soft, keep cooking for awhile), then add jalapeno.

Add the drained beans and heat until warm.

Add the corn for a minute (you don't want to cook the corn, just heat it up)

Salt and pepper to taste.

• So... I get to bring my own food, my own booze, and give them money for their honeymoon? AWESOME. Am I wrong to think this is really tacky? It's fine if you don't have the money for a big fancy wedding, but it seems super tacky to expect the guests to pay for everything, plus give you money on top of it.
• Mike's driving my car to work today while his in the shop and during the five minute drive from the shop to my house, he managed to pick apart just about every aspect of my car (the clock's wrong, I need an oil change, there's an unexplained squeaky noise, the backseat is messy, etc). I believe that was his way of thanking me for letting him borrow my car all day.
• It's hot. There are four air conditioning units at my store, and two of them are broken. My company's to cheap to fix them because, after all, two of them are working. Um, no. It's hot as hell in there. I've been wearing skirts everyday, which is weird for me, but it's a necessary breeze. I'm a little too chubby for this to work though, and my thighs are permanently stuck together.
  
• I'm really liking SYTYCD this season, but I still don't know that I'm crazy about the new format. There are so many great dancers (Alex, Billy, Robert, Jose, Kent) and I just want to put Kent in my pocket and carry him around with me. But the all-stars distract me from the contestants, especially the female contestants (who are not bringing it yet), because I get so excited to see Twitch, Mark, Pasha, Ade and Neil again that I ignore the dancer who is actually trying to win.
  
• Okay, I know I'll be alone in this one, but I kind of feel bad for Tony Hayward. Don't get me wrong, he's a tool. But what happened certainly isn't his fault alone, a lot of mistakes were made. The clips from the hearing (grilling) yesterday made me cringe. I think it's got to be hard to be the face of the disaster when so many are to blame.
• Is it just me, or is Train's Hey Soul Sister an awful song? I mean there's a lot of music I don't like (the entire Black Eyed Peas catalog) but there's only a few I really hate. These are some of the most ridiculous lyrics I've ever heard in my life. Yet somehow, this freaking song is on the radio constantly.
  

I think I'm going to pick and choose through the questions on that meme everyone's been doing. I don't want to answer all of them, but when one seems interesting I'll play along.

My guilty pleasure? I think I've talked about it before, but I love stuff made for teenagers. I love the TV shows , the books, the movies, all of it. I don't know why. I understand the simplicity, the overused plot lines, the poor writing, all of it. I just don't care. Something about it just really interests me. Only 28 more days until Eclipse comes out!

Speaking of Eclipse, my 6 year old nephew recently saw Twilight and thinks that Edward is the "coolest vampire ever!" This upsets his step-mother to no end. She's a hardcore goth with a major vampire fetish (yes, for real.) She loves Le Stat and wants desperately to show T Interview with the Vampire, but it's obviously not appropriate for a 6 year old. So now, whenever Mike and I are around T we bring up how great Edward is, and how super cool that baseball game they played during the thunderstorm. It's fun corrupting the mind of a child. And irritating his parents in the meantime.

Another guilty pleasure I used to have? Crappy pop music. I've moved on since my early teenage years, but tonight, my former love of shitty music served me a great purpose. One of the local concert venues had a Twitter trivia contest to win tickets to see the sold out The Black Keys concert next week. Thankfully, the question they asked was about who the first band/person to play at the venue were.

I knew the response because at the time, this band was a guilty pleasure of mine. A few years prior they were cool (to me and my friends at least) but by the time this concert rolled around they were passe. So I really wanted to go, but I couldn't let my friends know how lame I was.

The band in question? Hanson.

Hanson helped me win tickets to see the Black Keys, one of the best bands out there. It's sort of deliciously ironic.

For one, I would like to point out that my orchid is still alive. I mean, I think. I haven't looked at it recently. I did water it. Last week. Once. I'm so great at taking care of things.

Like my car. I was at the grocery store this afternoon to buy a six pack and the ingredients for rice krispie treats (WHY CANT I LOSE WEIGHT?). When I got to the car, I sat in the drivers seat and moved to put the groceries in the passenger seat, when the bottom of the six pack gave out. A bottle bounced off my console and broke, sending glass and beer all over the front of my car. And me.

I was soaked, so I didn't want to get back out of the car looking like I peed my pants. I drove home covered in beer and glass, trying not to move.

It took me a while to clean up the glass and beer, and I sliced my finger open on a shard. The smell of hefeweizen has really soaked into the car. So far I've sprayed the hell out of it with frebreze and I have the windows rolled down, hoping to air it out. Let's just hope I don't get pulled over for a very long time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a pan of rice krispie treats to eat.

UPDATE: Ugh! I went to water the freaking orchid after writing this. I guess I overwatered it, and now everything around it is soaked, including the mail and the box of rice krispies. FAIL.

So, today is our 7 year anniversary. I stayed up really late last night watching a tv show on Netflix, like an idiot. So I woke up late today, around 10. I stumbled into the kitchen and saw a bag from Dunkin Donuts next to a flower on the kitchen table, and a note that said "COFFEE" on my microwave. I opened it to find a delicious Starbucks vanilla latte. I had just started digging into my munchkins when the phone rang.

Apparently, Mike came by with the stuff and I was still asleep. He didn't want to wake me up, so he sat in the living room for a half an hour waiting for me to wake up on my own. He started to feel creepy, so he drove to his office and called me to wake me up.

It was then that I really looked at the flower on the table. It's an orchid. In a pot. Like I'm supposed to water it and keep it alive. I have never in my life tried to have a plant before. I barely remember to feed and water myself most days.

So I've been doing research on how to care for an orchid, and apparently it's complex. Did you know an orchid can get a sunburn? It can. And you have to let it dry out for one day before you water it because it likes to be dry for a day before it's wet again. And you should avoid the center of the plant and just water around the edges. There are a lot of online orchid communities.

Any bets on how long it will be before I kill it?