Hurrah for the Holidays!

We made it, friends! School has been whirlwinding ever since Thanksgiving, but it's finally settled down for the Holidays. Or perhaps it only seems to have died down because I've decided to ignore term paper and Tocqueville for a little while (ie: since school let out yesterday and until tomorrow morning). However, I'm very, very grateful for a break (from classes at least). Goose needs to rest. A little reading, a little writing, some practice (must catch up! But hurrah for music), and perhaps time to paint, play, bake or do pleasant household things. It's also a good time to finally finish A Severe Mercy and The Wind in the Willows.
Speaking of wind in the willows..
or more like "winter causing leaves to fall off ginkgo trees"?...
...Maybe not.
Pictures!

We have ginkgo trees lining our neighbourhood. Alas, a petition has gone out to have them all removed because of their smelly fruits (female trees) and excessive leave droppage.
I rather enjoy the leaves, all scattered about the sidewalk like little yellow faeries. However, I don't have to rake up the leaves or deal with smelly, sticky fruits since there are no ginkgo trees directly in front of my house.

Good bye, Ginkgoes!
**
**

Hullo Mr. Penguin!I stopped by Starbucks before class yesterday to find something for my tutor. Not only did I find something for him, but I also found this charming little fellow for myself. Unfortunately..erm..the charming fellow is..no more? White chocolate...is good...

Let's move on, shall we?
**

*cue twilight zone music*

Hehe.
'Tis only Murphy!



:-)
Have a wonderful Holiday!

Rainy Day Reflections

Hurrah for the first rain of winter! I was awakened early this morning by the drip-drip of the drainage pipe below my window and the pitter-patter of rain falling on the roof. A splendid alarm-clock, indeed! It was raining before I left for my piano lesson. :-)
It was raining while I was driving to my piano lesson (gah! just the slightest bit nerve-wrecking..).
It rained during my piano lesson. :-)
And it was still raining when I came home! :-)
(Excessive smileys! But it's raining, and the rain deserves emoticons. Maybe? Yes.)
Yay, dear rain! Please stay for a while, or come back soon if you do decide to leave.
Rainy Fridays at home are almost the most pleasant rainy days of all. Nothing like curling up in bed with a book (well...the Federalist Papers.....) and a snuggly sleeping cat to keep you company. I've almost forgotten what it means to rest.
Dear Miss MKR's post today made me stop and re-evaluate my priorities and the general way I've been living lately. I'm still not entirely sure how to go about things with school and music yet, since my perfectionist-streak often gets in the way. But I must work on not worrying so much, since I tend to become rather tense and digestion goes downhill from there... Breathing is good. Oxygen is even better? Hmm.
Well, I probably should stop here before I begin worrying about my blog post.
Silly goosie.
I shall enjoy cookie-night and not think about the concerto competition or little Asian violin virtuosos or the fact that I think I'm behind musically or so on or so on. I'm glad that we will continue learning and growing for a very, very, very, very, very long time. There is hope for goosies like me!
Anyways, enjoy the rain and keep warm!

gaazzkkkkkbzzaqwaqwerjjj

For some reason, I always come down with a severe case of apathyitis during the last few weeks before the Holidays. All motivation and clarity of thought vanish! Whoosh! Kapoot! Bah! It's a bad sign when you're stuffing words into incoherent sentences for the sole purpose of meeting the word limit. "Wesley...No...John Wesley. (2), John Wesley is...(3)..John Wesley is a very..very very very very very very very very.........*dotdotdot*baaackspaaaace*".
Oh well.
Must practice!
Must read!
Must study harder!
..
Must take time to be?
:-/
gah!

Blip

Poor blog. It is always filled with occasional little blips. I must practice writing more proper posts. Blips and posts. Hmm, but would this not count as a post? Then again, I would hardly call it a "proper" post.
...
I recently discovered that Trader Joe's sells panna cotta and crème brûlée in their frozen dessert section. :-D (Of course they are not next to each other..Heaven forbid!) Hurrah for sweet, creamy-ish, gelatinous, puddingish, custardish desserts! C'est si bon. -_^
My mind is often quite distracted with thoughts about dessert. Must not think about scones, either. Or white cake.
What odd things you think about when you're trying hard to focus on Hobbes and Locke.
Random thought, but is it possible for there to be some sort of "harmoniousness" or "agreeableness" of flavours in food?
Anyways.
Off to term paper and Mendelssohn. :-)

Hehe..

This is what I had the pleasure of waking up to the other evening...(when I fell asleep at the dining table):

=^~_^=

Golden Raspberries (How's that for a straightforward title? :-/)

No, I'm not referring to the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation. (I'm very curious why they chose a Golden Raspberry for their title....wiki? Google? either way.)
I really do mean Golden Raspberries!

Behold their golden goodness!

I never knew there was such a thing as a golden raspberry until I stumbled across a recipe for Golden Raspberry Tartlets in a cookbook the other day. Intrigued by their unusual colour (well, unusual to me at least, since I'm used to raspberries being red or purple), I searched the web for more information on these golden beauties. I learned that the Fall Gold variety (which is pictured above) is the result of crosses between a Korean wild berry, the Fall Red raspberry, and the red Taylor raspberry. (Gah! I have been living a berry ignorant life! [no pun intended]. I never knew there were different types of red raspberries, let alone raspberries that aren't even red! So much to learn!) I have yet to taste a golden raspberry, but I hear that they're available from May through October, so hopefully I will be able to hunt some down.
Off to Gelsons! Or Whole Foods. Or the Farmer's Market. Or all three..

Farewell, Dearest Hershey

Because I was recently diagnosed with acid reflux, I've had to alter my diet and cut out items--including spaghetti sauce and chocolate--that incur the acidy-wrath of stomachdom . I don't mind not being able to eat spaghetti sauce as much as chocolate, since chocolate is..well..chocolate! And who doesn't like chocolate? Yet interestingly enough, life without chocolate hasn't been all that bad, and I am now forced search out non-chocolatey alternatives. Hence, I have converted from chocolate ganache to vanilla buttercream, chocolate mochi to green tea mochi, and from brownies to blondies. (I don't know about Oreos yet, though. There's something about an Oreo that makes it an Oreo, and nothing--not even those "vanilla oreos", can take replace it.) I found a recipe for Butterscotch Blondies that I'm planning on trying this afternoon. If they turn out, I'll let you know.
...
Then again, if they don't turn out, you'll probably hear about it anyways. :-P

Happy Hobbes-ing/Montesquieu-ing!

-Pauline

Today I wandered into the garden...

and discovered clusters of grapes on our grape vine! Despite the fact the rest of my poor garden is overgrown with weeds and tangling plants--on account of my own negligence--the grape vine inexplicably continues to thrive and bear much fruit. What an exciting summer discovery!

Hooray!

Here comes the post!

The Newlyweds

Sarah and Paul!

Today I attended my cousin Paul's wedding (second cousin, second uncle--something like that). The ceremony was at a Church in Long Beach, and the reception was held in one of the gorgeous ballrooms at The Reef Restaurant. It was fun meeting all my distant relatives and discovering that I actually do have cousins (of some sort) on my mom's side of the family. Here are a few pictures from the afternoon!


(Our lovely table!)

The amazing cake. (We actually had the privilege of eating some of it! It was a chocolate cake layered with chocolate mousse and raspberries, and the outer frosting was a vanilla buttercream! Hurray!)

**I feel I ought to mention something about the luncheon. :-) It was absolutely delicious! I had salmon in some sort of creamy dill sauce, along with mashed potatoes and steamed summer vegetables.

After the First Dance, the DJ gave a short swing-dancing lesson and my Auntie Esther made us all dance. During the lesson, I became acquainted with another of my cousin's cousins (does that make him my cousin? Gah!) whilst trying to avoid stepping on his toes. It was interesting!

Afterwards, we all gathered to bid the couple "farewell" as they left for their honeymoon.



Following the send-off, the father of the groom (who is my Mom's uncle, which makes him my....Great Uncle?) invited all of the family to his house to continue the festivities (which included fighting bears and bats with my littlest cousin Ellie)! She's one of the most adorable four year-olds I've ever met. Or maybe I'm biased because she's my cousin ;-). Anyways, here's a picture of her and her treasure map.

So that was my day.
Have a good weekend!

-Paulie

Hello Summer!

Whew! Another year of school completed! :-) I'm not sure which year of high school I just finished, or what grade I will be entering next year, but either way, I'm ready for a little break. My last few weeks of school were so very hectic that I never tried to "plan out" my summer vacation, and once it finally arrived (last Friday), I wasn't quite sure what to do first. So....after some serious consideration :-P, I decided my first order of business was to do "nothing"! And nothing I did--for a day and a half. It was fun at first, but in the end I was reminded of the chapter from Little Women where the sisters attempt to "do nothing" and things become quite disorderly. In the end, my time doing "nothing" made me want to do "something" all the greater. ("nothing" and "something" and "nothing" and "something"...this whole blip is rather confusing. :-/)
My first "something" was to catch up on housework I had neglected during finals and such. It's rather refreshing to clean and tidy up the house after long weeks of being too busy to really care. Hopefully I'll finish cleaning my room sometime today, and then sort through all our bake ware and crockery. I also want to give this poor house a good dusting and scrubbing, and maybe pull weeds in the garden. But one thing at a time. :-) I have a bad habit of trying to do too much at once, and I end up not doing anything at all.
I'm really enjoying this early summer weather--not too hot, not too cold. It is quite a lot like spring. Perhaps it is the spring we never get here in California. o.O Hmm. It's also a good day to wash things (such as cars and doggies), and I think I'll go and do just that! Have a merry summer!

To Eat or Not To Eat?

Hmm. The other day, someone mentioned to me the "dangers of animal crackers" and that children shouldn't eat crackers in the shapes of animals.
...
Hmm.
What do you think about that?
o.O

I've Returned!

Considering I was never very good with anything "bloggish" or "computerish" or "technology-ish", it's not very surprising that I managed to lock myself out of my blog for a while. (Mainly because I forgot that I had to sign in using G-Mail and I didn't even know I had a g-mail account, ect., ect.) But after some poking around, I realized my errors and am now able to access my blog again! So hopefully posting shall resume next week.
There really isn't anything interesting for me to say today (not that anything else I say is very interesting anyways), except that my birthday is on Monday..... ;-) So you may shower me with tart tins and baking pans and mixing bowls and...ermmm anyways. (Actually, that sounds rather painful. So you needn't shower me, just leave them in lovely little packages on my doorstep :-P) 'Tis all for today!
Au revoir!