getting [kind of] better.

One of my new year's resolutions was to be better at cleaning... not just hurrying and cleaning and hiding stuff because I found out people were coming over in less than an hour. But in all honesty, nothing gets a home cleaner faster or more thorough then when you find out you will have guests on short notice.

So far, success! It is only February, but right now, it looks like we are waiting for people to come over and we definitely are not. Every time I have to type out d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y I really just hate the freakin' word. I've learned, cleaning is kind of a habit, not just a chore. But I still will hate nothing more than having to do the dishes. We don't have a dishwasher. Actually we do have a dishwasher, and she is typing this right now. Can your dishwasher blog too? CAN IT?

I'm exhausted. Couldn't wait til I got home so I could nap. But that really annoying thing happened where you are tired all day and then you get home and feel like you've been on doing speed all day. Is there a word for that? Because I hate it. I laid in bed for an hour trying to get into sleep mode. Stared at the ceiling. Tried to spot "look-a-like" things in the ceiling moldings (only found a duck, Conan O'Brian, and a bottle). Looked at the Christmas lights draped around my window. Decided if I should take a picture of how pretty they made my room look. Didn't take a picture. Thought, eff this nap, I'm getting on the computer.


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If you are terrible at cooking like you know I am, click on this link. It will make you feel LOTS better. And you'll laugh and say "what the..."

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/people-worse-at-cooking-than-you-food-fails

lunchables are a good way to celebrate.

Cooking diaries: Day 412

Last meal attempted was home made fish & chips. Kitchen is still in tact. Only one boo-boo aquired from cooking last night and that's because when oil boils it jumps out of the pot and gets you in the face.

 

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Home made fish & chips was thankfully a success and surprisingly easy. My self esteem needed that tiny success. So now I'm going to celebrate by eating a Pizza Lunchable.

 

update on a lot of nothing!

Tonight!

 It's my first night back in our apartment!

My home!

My natural habitat.

And I'm looking forward to getting re-settled. Usually... I would hate it because I hate unpacking... sometimes I never even unpack. Ha. There is usually clothes always in my suitcase. But you know, I just look at it like it makes things more convenient for the next trip.

I have big plans tonight. Big plans to attempt making fish and chips from scratch! Minus going out to a lake and catching the fish. I'm just going to substitute that part with the fish market at Smiths. The internet makes it sound and look easy... but that's usually when I have the hardest time. I for some reason will always overcomplicate things. Especially in cooking. And life.

Then, after I try and serve dinner in a kitchen that's hopefully not on fire, I am going to make this collage thing. I have this bulliten board I got two years ago that I never found a use for. So I decided all my concert tickets will look very dandy on it.

I have started to collect pins. I actually collect a lot of things... being a person who finds sentimental value in everything, you end up with a lot of collections. My newest collection is pins. And this is my favorite:

 

the troubles of cooking.

Will there ever be a day where I won't burn whatever I'm attempting to cook in the kitchen?

Will there ever be a day when I won't have to buy a backup dinner in case the one I'm making doesn't work?

Ugh. I am trying so hard to be better at cooking. I follow the freaking recipe (how hard can it be?) and it never turns out. I can make really good easy dinners but I want to get where I can make a ballin' Sunday dinner that people will be saddened to find out there aren't seconds.

I am this close to giving up. My self esteem (in the kitchen) can't handle it anymore.

Basically my kitchen when I'm done cooking:

this and that.

It's official. I've become the type of blogger that I hate. The kind of blogger that isn't a regular poster and when they do blog, it's not sincere or lacking depth. Those are the perfect ingredients for a poorly kept blog, in my opinion. I do apologize and this stops now! To be honest, I think it's what has been going on (or not going on, i suppose) in my life that is responsible for this nonsense.

Anyway, some highlights of this weekend were:

-Getting locked out of the apartment at 11:30pm
-Watching Utah get beat by Washington State.
-Running into a long lost friend/crush/person on Saturday night after the game. We both did double takes. It was pure magic.
-Worked until 7:30pm on Friday night. I usually only work til 5:00pm.
-Made some homemade salsa. If you want tips on how to make salsa NOT GOOD, just come watch me make it and take notes.
-When I was making salsa, I was cutting a banana pepper and the juice squirted right up in my eye.

My to do this for this week that I will do no matter what because I need to:
1. Decorate for Halloweeeeen! It's October, hooray.
2. Dye my hair again since the color is fading.
3. Go on lots of walks and take lots of pictures.
4. Don't be sad.
5. Hopefully find a free laptop somewhere that still functions properly.
6. Go for a run after work everyday.

the happiest of weekends.

If think back to all the weekends I've lived in 2011, this weekend was my #1 favorite so far.

Friday:
Friday was super rainy. People at work were saying, "it literally is raining cats and dogs!" so when I heard this, I left my desk at once, ran outside to see. Sadly, it was only raining raindrops, not cats and dogs. People really need to relearn what LITERALLY means.
I was supposed to go to a free outdoor concert but since it was "raining cats and dogs" I went home and had Mike, Tyler and Scott over. We went to a place that had breathtaking Philly cheese-steak sandwiches. I wanted to do something dramatic to show how much I loved the sandwich, but the only thing I could think of was... to keep eating it.
After the sandwich eating went down, we went to the store and got the most childish combination of purchases. The purchases uncluded:
1. Silly string.
2. Punch balloons ( balloons that have rubber bands so you can just punch it back and forth with yourself ).
3. Toblerone candy bar.
After being attacked by the newly purchased silly string, we ended up back at my apartment where we decided to see how long we could hit the balloons to each other without letting the balloon land on the floor. Our longest record was six minutes and fourty seconds. Our shortest record was two seconds. The game got so intense that I now have three bruises on my leg and Mike had a cut on his shoulder. It's not a good weekend unless you get a bruise or a cut.

Saturday:
Saturday was fully consumed by college football, obviously. It was the rivalry game between UTAH and BYU also known as The Holy War. (read about it here) We went down to Provo in all red to witness the game. The final score was Utah-54 BYU-10 So yeah, we spent a great deal celebrating and my voice is basically destroyed from cheering.

Sunday:
I bought a food chopper thing at the store so I can make homemade salsa. Note to self: DON'T USE ONE ENTIRE JALAPENO PEPPER. I think I'm slowly making progress on the road to being a great cook.

things thing and more things.

I am grateful for the word: thing. However, I would probably have a larger and more impressive vocabulary if it weren't for the word thing, but thing always seems to get the job done when I need to talk about.... things.

Right now, I have some funeral potatoes cooking in the oven. That's right. It is my first attempt at making them and the process went surprisingly... safe. Nothing in the kitchen broke and I didn't need any bandaids when I was done cooking. This is a huge step because whenever I cook, it takes a day or two of mentally and emotionally preparing myself. Just standing in the kitchen makes me feel like I have zero skills.

Right now (part II) I have hair dye on hair, what I also like to call the roof of my head. If everything goes by plan, my hair will be a dark, brownish burgundy-ish when I rinse it out.

Lately when I take naps after work, I wake up thinking it's the next morning. When this happens, it's worse than death. So I lay there, staring at my clock with panic and alert in my eyes and then shoot up out of my bed faster than a dog chasing... whatever dogs chase. I run out like a crazy person to the living room and then realize, it's only been 10 minutes since I laid down to nap. It's a very dramatic and berserk time.

"maybe we should put the smoke detector back up when you are done cooking dinner...."

....said Steve after my dinner cooking set off our smoke alarm. (Sorry upstairs and downstairs neighbors, didn't mean to send you in a sweaty panic). If my cooking self esteem was a bruise with a deep, wide cut in the middle of it... well, Steve just sprinkled some salt in it. A lot of salt. Ouch.

I made a freakyawesomewickedhoppingcrazyrunningdelicious comeback when I made chocolate chip cookies. Reader, you won't believe the tiring effort that went into making these cookies. First off, I had to cut open the package. Yeah, I know, I thought it was tear open too. Whew. Then, I had to place the already shaped cookie dough onto a baking sheet. Lastly, oh finally, I had to wait a lasting ten minutes.

Look, unintentionally a heart cookie was made. For Steve, of course.

when I say ''the other day'', it can mean any time up to a year ago.

I logged on today to find I lost one follower. Bye little follower, it was nice having you the time I did.

This week I am determined to become a better cook. I'm not aiming to be a cooking guru, I just want to feel like I have some skills when I'm in the kitchen and not a worthless pile that has every cook-time memorized for the frozen food section.... I'm actually kind of proud of that. But I can't fool myself any longer by pretending pressing microwave buttons is a cooking skill. 

It started off successful. I made potato soup. While it was cooking, I thought,
while I'm waiting here, I should make a dessert.
 I open the pantry and behind all the Cheezits, EZ Mac, Dortitos, etc, I see a box of instant brownies. Add 2 eggs, 1/4 cup water, 2/3 veggie oil, bake for 24 minutes.  
Okay, this looks impossible to mess up.
Some mixing, stirring and 35 minutes later (oops I forgot), I open the oven and see a pretty pan filled with solid brownie. Whew. I slightly tip the pan when I set it on the stove top and liquid brownie pours. Wtf?

Just so you know, instant brownie isn't as easy as it sounds. And they might leave you scratching your head for thirteen minutes.

Will I ever be able to walk out of my kitchen without my self esteem bruised?

Brownies: 1 Kaleena: 0

Oh and do you like the new layout? My blog and I do.

the best things in life come in pocket form.

Whenever I wander onto a food blog, with fancy pictures and detailed recipes, I can hear my food self-esteem softly cry. So, I thought I would do a How-To myself. BEHOLD! The step by step on how to get the Hot Pocket in your freezer into your belly.

#1: Locate the ingredients.

#2: Prepare Ingredients.

#3: Place in microwave.

#4: Wait. Cooking time- One minute and thirty seconds. A great way to wait for this time to go by is to snack on other things in the pantry.

#5: Bring out of microwave and eat. But not too soon, you don't want to cause second degree burns in your mouth.