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two days late but here nonetheless

i'm in trouble. izze comes in sparkling blackberry now?!? i had one on Friday and literally crushed it in a matter of minutes. izzes are my favorite. well...their caloric count isn't TOO high. :)

i messed up. :( planned to do two posts last week but i only did one. :( boo.

today i celebrated Father's day with my dad. We spent the day together yesterday but there was a church picnic that kind of ruined the plans that i had so we postponed it till today!

i had such a great time with my dad today though.

everything i planned went so well :)

for starters, i made lunch for him and it was actually really really good. he loved it so much that he went back for seconds and thirds :)

menu:

oven baked spicy red snapper

greek pasta salad (this was my best one yet)

roasted asparagus

it tasted PERFECT :) *pat on the back*

after that, i gave him his card and gift. it was funny watching him try to figure out the card and open it. Hallmark was a little too advanced for my dad. lol.

after that, we went to CaliYogurt which is this great frozen yogurt place. it's a great dessert for those who are trying to watch caloric intake. i prefer the one in adam's morgan but they have one not too far from my house. it was my dad's first time there and he really enjoyed it. after that, we went to DSW to get him some new sneakers but ended up leaving with new church shoes. they looked really good on him.

he took me back home and then got ready for tennis (he plays literally EVERY day). great day. i'm tired now. between staying up late last night doing homework, seasoning the fish, doing laundry, washing and detangling my hair, and watching Leandria win Sunday's Best (woohoo), I'm tired.

it was worth it though. i really appreciate and love my father and i'm grateful for how the relationship is growing :)

okay so i'm KINDA disappointed. i was planning on trying this new recipe for dinner tonight. i was really looking forward to it. i came across the recipe months ago and decided that i'd like to give it a try. the dish was called asparagus gruyere tart. i really like asparagus and am always looking to experiment with food so i bought the smoked gruyere cheese yesterday evening. needless to say, i grated the cheese and was nervous about how i would like it. turned out that i thought the cheese was AWESOME! i was really excited because i rarely have good experiences with new cheeses (brie-yuck...goat-made me queasy). so i made the dish as instructed on the video.

with almost any recipe, you kinda have to take into consideration the tools you're working with: in my case, the stove. the recipe said to set the stove @ 400 degrees. i thought that was a bit high for a puff pastry shell, but decided to do it anyway. i also had to let the puff pastry shell bake for 15 minutes with the toppings on it. if i were to do it all again, i would have let the puff pastry shell bake for maybe 10 minutes on 350 and then after putting all the toppings on, baked the whole thing for maybe 10 minutes instead of 20. the

pastry shell is a bit too brown aka burnt for my liking. i also would have used low-fat mozzarella instead of gruyere. the baked gruyere was WAY too rich and heavy for me. :(

i'm a little disappointed because i don't really like it and it'

s about to be my dinner for the next couple days

(not a fan of wasting food). smh.

this is all to say if you try this recipe, proceed with great caution.

so i'm trying to get to bed earlier and program my body to start winding down sooner. i seem to get more work done when i start at 8am. i used the google search to find some articles and tips on how to get to bed earlier and i bookmarked the most hilarious article about this lady who really did the most to get to bed earlier and wake up earlier. i don't think i will have as difficult a time as she did but i figured i might as well share the wealth. very funny article entitled "can a night owl become a morning person?" enjoy!

so...i just realized one of my new missions this summer that i CAN and WILL tackle.

i'm currently in the middle of an art history course. it's been pretty taxing. i spend alot of hours reading and writing even on the weekends :( both saturday night and sunday night were spent in the books and i had company in town. there was this one particular assignment that i was really working hard on to finish in time for last night's deadline and i'm really afraid that i didn't do well. i finished the work and was as thorough as possible but i really don't know what to say about art. any given question on the assign-

ment said go to a specific museum website and then tell me how such-and-such piece made you feel... better yet, critique it! my answers were a bit of stretch. i didn't know what to look for or what to appreciate. usually with art, i either like it or i don't.

if i have an opinion on it, it's basically the way i interpret the piece. i can never really figure out what the artist was trying to actually say. i felt like my answers were incredibly shallow because my word placement and usage read like it was obvious that i didn't know what i was talking about.

that's gotta change.

so i sent an email to my teacher at the beginning of the class letting her know that i didn't know much about art and that i'd be visiting the National Gallery of Art to help physically involve myself in the online course. she gave me all these great pointers and so i'd like to keep in touch with her outside of the class so that i can gain a better appreciation for art.

if you saw some of my answers, i think you'd understand

why i'm so concerned but i don't want to COMPLETELY put myself on front street so you'll just have to take my word for it :)

so tell me...

how does this piece make you feel? (j/k)

i love fresh flowers. something about the smell of some flowers reminds me of a funeral service but the colors and different types are beautiful all the same. these are on my desk and then i have another arrangement of white roses on my bedside table. now to make them last forever...

i didn't do a Memorial day post but i took time and thought about all the men and women who have put their lives on the line for so many people. i'm thankful and grateful. the war is serious. there's a whole world that i know nothing about beside the images i see on television or the articles i read. i came across the picture and decided to share. i found it on time magazine's official website. it's entitled "bedded down" and it truly tells a story that i couldn't help but read.

taken from Time.com:
Bedded Down
U.S. Marines sleep in their fighting holes inside a compound in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Photographer David Guttenfelder explains, "We'd stopped in this farmer's field for the night. It took me an hour to dig my own firing position in the dark, and it feels like you're sleeping in a shallow grave. But you do feel safer— and sleep better — protected by those few inches of dirt. I got up at dawn and was able to get the guys enjoying the first full night's sleep they'd had after marching for six days in temperatures up to 135 degrees, carrying 120-lb. packs."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1946595_2010942,00.html#ixzz0puZ6kMkn