Saturday, July 6, 2013

Blog Every Day in July: Day 6, Interior Design

So yesterday I FINALLY finished painting Melissa's old room, and hopefully I will soon be able to move into it and Melissa's Old Room will become Melanie's New Room.  I'm waiting on some pieces of furniture, and I have yet to buy a couple of pieces.  In the meantime, let me share some of my inspirations for the room:



So this is the color that I painted the walls.  It's from Behr's premium plus line and it's called "Parisian Taupe" and it's a really pretty neutral.  It looks a little bit darker in this picture than it does in the daylight.  I'd say with natural lighting, it translates to more of a khaki.  But at night, with indoor lighting, it's a lot closer to the color you see on the screen.  I really wanted a true taupe for the room, because I like that it's kind of in between brown and gray and it's got some warmth to it but it's also a little stony.  You know what I mean?  But when I bought paint samples, the true taupe that I was looking at ("Gallery Taupe" by Behr) was a little too dark, and according to everyone else it was kind of "muddy".  Which is a shame, because it was my favorite of the three swatches.  I wound up picking Parisian Taupe because eventually I am going to move out of this house to be a real person, and my parents will use my room as another guest room.  Since they didn't like the darker taupe, they planned to repaint the room.  Picking this lighter shade means that they don't have to do that, since everyone pretty much agreed that this was a really nice shade for the walls.  And in the long run, I think this was the better choice (even though my heart still yearns for true taupe!!).  This color is much less overwhelming, and much easier to coordinate with a variety of colors.  The other one?  Not so much.

Speaking of coordinating colors, here are my inspirations for accent colors:



I am really loving the combination of coral and turquoise as of lately.  I don't know what it is, but I am determined to make this color scheme work.  It sounds a little weird when you just say the two color names together, but honestly when you look at it, it's not so crazy.  In fact, it's fairly conventional.  Originally I had thought about painting the walls either coral or turquoise, like in the bottom right photo of that collage, but it made more sense to go with a neutral.  I'm not even going to try and get all of my furniture to be these colors.  I'm going for an all-white theme for my furniture.  So far I've bought a white wrought iron headboard, and a white five-drawer chest.  I plan on getting a white desk and two nightstands in either white or an accent color...but that's about it.  I like that white makes several statements: clean, contemporary, simple, elegant, etc.  I think that white furniture with turquoise and coral accents will be very...Melanie.  I like things to be light and bright.  I'm thinking for beddings, going with some sort turquoise comforter (I really like this turquoise marrakech pattern) and sheets, with a ton of throw pillows in coral and white and turquoise.  But first I need to find some more furniture!!



So this is the furniture I have bought so far.  I'm going for a more traditional style of furniture, and obviously I'm going for all white.  I like more vintage-looking pieces that have a bit of character, and are little curvier or loopier.  If that makes any sense.  One of the things that I would like to try and use to tie any other pieces I buy together are the knobs on the five-drawer chest.  You can't really tell from the picture, but they are kind of...crystal?  Like...they are plastic, but they are made to look like big crystals.  I think I can compromise on the type of desk I get (since everything cheap is a little TOO simple for my taste...but I'm really trying to cut corners in cost) by changing the knobs on the drawers to match this chest.  Ditto on the nightstands.  Hopefully this will all look cohesive and put together...instead of...not.

I'm really excited to see how this all turns out!  Now that the room is painted I feel like things are going to move a lot quicker.  I'm definitely dreading the switch from my current room to the new one, and the idea of having to fill in wall space with pictures and stuff like that stresses me out a bit...but so far everything seems to be headed in the right direction.

I'll keep y'all updated on progress as the project continues!


Blog Every Day in July: Day 5, Uncertainty Ahead

Technically it is still Friday on the West Coast!!  THIS IS MY BLOG POST FOR JULY 5TH.  IT STILL COUNTS!!

So I am just about halfway through my summer, and time seems to be moving at rapid pace.  Honestly...I'm not complaining.  When I was a kid, I used to think summer went on for-ev-er.  The older I get, the more things I find to fill the day with, and I don't mind.  Isn't that the reason why we try to get out and try new things and spend time with friends?  At the root of everything we do...we're really just trying to pass the time we have here.

Okay, that sounds a lot more depressing than what I mean.  Let me try this again.


Since going off to college, I've been afraid of wasting my summers.  Every year when finals start to ease up and everyone starts talking about their summer plans, I get a little insecure because...I never used to have summer plans.  At least not until college.  I'm lucky enough to have a job working for the girl scouts for four days a week, but it's only a month-long job.  Everyone I talk to seems to be doing internships, working as camp counselors, or doing summer research.  Or even just working at part time jobs to earn some extra cash.  I just feel really...unambitious.  And kind of lazy.

That's the thing, though.  I feel lazy in the sense that I'm not accomplishing anything tangible (cash, research, useful experience), but every day I go to bed exhausted from whatever I spent the day doing.  Because I'm not spending the day just sitting around and watching TV like I used to when I was a kid.  I'm remodeling my room, teaching arts and crafts four days a week, hanging out with friends that I never get to see, trying new restaurants around the area, spending time with family, and tons of things that I think are really really important.  I really wanted to be home this summer for the full summer, because it's been a while since I've had the chance to do that.  I want to hang out with my friends from home, and spend time with my family, because I'm really scared that I won't have the opportunity after I graduate.

I'm about to be a senior in college, and that is terrifying to me.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm any less prepared than anyone else...but prepared or not, there's this huge chapter of my life that's about to end, and I have no idea how the next chapter is going to start.  When I think about life after graduation, I visualize myself driving on a road and all of a sudden I'm driving into a white backdrop...and when I try to fill that space with pictures, it's different every time.  For the first time every, I can't predict where I will be a year from now.  I have a pretty good idea of what I want to be doing...and a couple of ideas of where I want to be, but everything else is one big TBD.  I might not have any control over the specific details of my what and where.  I might even have to sacrifice one for the other.  There is so much that I don't know about the future, and it's just plain scary.

Except...I can't stop thinking about it.  And I don't want to stop thinking about it.  Because I'm excited.  So far, I really love what I think I'm about to do after college (as in teaching music).  I've had rough patches in my studies, and I've definitely had my insecurities about myself as a musician and a teacher.  But I've been determined, and I've worked really hard.  Part of me is positive that I'm going to be the worst teacher ever and that my first few years of teaching are going to be horrible.  Another part of me doesn't care, because everything gets easier after time goes by...and if I have to wait a couple of years to be really good at doing something I love, then it's worth it.  Even though I can't get a clear picture of what lies ahead, I still get this feeling of excitement.

It's kind of like getting in line for a roller coaster.  First you decide what ride you want to go on...and you get excited because that's the point...it's supposed to be exciting.  Then you get in line and you wait and wait and wait (....the first three years of college), and all of a sudden you're on the ride and the car is slowly working it's way up to that first drop and the anticipation makes you so anxious that you're starting to wonder if maybe this was a bad idea (ALL OF SENIOR YEAR), and then suddenly you're flying.  Who knows, when you get off you might throw up or have some serious whiplash.  Or you might be pumped up with adrenaline and ready to go again.  But you won't know until you get in line and go on the ride.

One of the things that always makes the wait in line seem shorter is by surrounding yourself with friends, and people whose company you enjoy.  Summer may be moving quickly, but at least I'm enjoying every moment of it.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Blog Every Day in July: Day 4, HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

I am stuffed with burgers, hot dogs, and various forms of salad.  Also, my trifle was delicious!  I skipped out on the fireworks this year, but I can still hear them going off outside...so that has to count for something.  My favorite part of the 4th of July is spending time with my friends.  I feel like in the fall and winter there are always a lot of excuses to get together and stuff your face, but then there's this period of time in the Spring and Fall where there aren't any named holidays and you have to make up your own excuse to see people (I KNOW, SOCIALIZING IS SO HARD).  I give the 4th of July an A+ this year.




No matter how you spent your day off, I hope you enjoyed it!

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Blog Every Day in July: Day 3, A Trifle for the Fourth



I love the 4th of July.  I'm not kidding.  I'm pretty sure that I like it even more than Christmas.

I think it's because it's such a relaxing holiday.  You don't have to stress out about buying people presents, and making an extravagant feast.  Although...I do love burgers and hot dogs.  And dips.  And potato salad.  It's all low key, though.  And that's the main thing.  The 4th of July is just a day to take a break and enjoy the summer heat.

(I just reread that paragraph and I sound like a nervous contestant on the Next Food Network Star.  Jeez.  You know what??  4TH OF JULY RULES.  GRILLIN'.  CHILLIN'.  'MMURRICA.)

This summer my friends Tovah and Nick are hosting their annual 4th of July party as a potluck.  And I insisted that everything that everyone brings should be patriotic.  I'm not even kidding.

I think I may have been a little aggressive...


Anyways, I decided that bringing patriotic macarons would be too complicated, and a whole cake would be too heavy, and that brownies were just...not patriotic enough.  So I opted to make one of my favorite desserts...a nice, light, patriotic trifle.

Please note: my friend Sarah sitting in the background,
texting instead of getting out of the way.  Rude.
Here's the cast of characters: some torn up angel food cake, lemon pudding, blueberries and strawberries, and whipped cream.

*whispers*art
I got pretty flexible with the recipe, since I couldn't find any that I really loved.  I'd say that my version was a combination of this recipe and this recipe.  I made the whipped cream myself because I thought it would be a nice homemade touch, and I used a box mix for the angel food cake because I couldn't find any in the bakery aisle.  I just made sure to over-bake it a bit (which wasn't hard...angel food cake is rough, man) and then I ripped it into pieces. I also opted to use lemon pudding, even though it was neither red, white, or blue.  Mainly because I forgot that lemon pudding is yellow.  I just really love lemon pudding.  IT'S YELLOW IN HONOR OF MY ASIAN HERITAGE, OKAY??  Anyways, I used jell-o lemon pudding.

Assembling the trifle is pretty simple.



First I laid down some of the pudding on the bottom, just to give the cake something to stick to (...I don't really think it was necessary.  It's not like the cake is goin' anywhere...).

...I accidentally started the next step before taking a picture.
NOBODY IS PERFECT.

Then I put some pieces of cake over top.  And as you can see, after you put the cake in you add another layer of pudding.


After that I put down the fruit.  I love me some berries....especially blueberries.  I'm obsessed with that stuff.



Then I topped it off with whipped cream, and started it all over again with the cake (as you can see by my stellar inability to photo-document a recipe step-by-step).

And then I repeated the whole process: cake, pudding, berries, whipped cream.

Uhh ignore the messy countertop.

In order to make this trifle super patriotic, I did my best to make a flag on top of the whipped cream.  I think it turned out pretty good!  I posted the recipe down below, after the jump.

I love these bowls.  I love them so much,
I want to marry them.


The best part of making this was that I had a bunch of leftover pudding and cake.  So I did my best to stretch the last of the blueberries and I scraped out a mini-dollop's worth of whipped cream, and I made some mini-trifles for me and Sarah.  Mmmmmmm.  De-lish!



Oh yeah.  This is a flag I would definitely pledge my allegiance to.


So what are your plans for the 4th of July?  Is there any food that you are looking forward to having?  Let me know in the comments!!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Blog Every Day in July: Day 2, Home Improvement

I've been watching a lot of HGTV lately, and it looks like home improvement is the theme for this summer.  My sister recently bought a house, so she and her husband have been focusing on giving their new home some personality and making it as inviting as they can on a budget.  They are also working with my dad to remodel their laundry room into a space that doesn't look like it might have it's own miniature ecosystem.  Meanwhile, my parents are remodeling their master bathroom (and when I say my parents, I mean my dad...)--which crosses off another item on my mom's "wish list" (other rooms that have been crossed off: the kitchen, my bathroom).  So I decided to hop on the bandwagon and start my own project for the summer.

BEHOLD:

I think the star of this photo is my sister's 2002 haircut.

When I was ten years old, my sister and I decided that we wanted to design our own bedrooms.  So I opted for deep purple walls and some paisley sheets, which went really well with my ikea furniture, my beaded curtains, and my giant Tuck Everlasting movie poster (????????).  This just confirms the fact that I was a hot mess as a kid.  Honestly.

Anyways, my sister opted to go for a more cohesive theme (PFFT).  The picture above is a pretty accurate representation of the concept.  She decided to design the room around Van Gogh's "Starry Night".  The framed work in the photo above is a tissue-paper project that someone made for an art class, and Melissa bought it for thirty dollars.  You can kind of see in the picture that the wall is a pretty dark blue, and that my sister was REALLY EXCITED ABOUT STARRY NIGHT.  What you can't see is...the rest of the room.

The room was full of star and moon themed trinkets, and her bedspread had illustrations that look like they came out of a deck of tarot cards.  And it had all of this built in furniture that my dad made himself, which was really cool of him to do and we got like eleven years of use out of it--but it took up a ton of space.  Very appropriate for fifteen-year-old Melissa.  Not very appropriate for twenty-one-year-old Melanie.

FINISHED PRODUCT.
Just kidding.
This is what the room looks like right now.  One of the item's on my mom's wishlist is to turn my room into a guest room, and to turn Melissa's room into my room (seeing as she no longer needs it, on account of she now owns an entire house).  It's obviously a work-in-progress...but things are moving along a lot faster than I thought they would.

The first thing we desperately needed to do was repaint.  The dark blue fit well with the Starry Night theme, but it doesn't really fit in with....any other theme.  So easy fix, right?

NOPE. 

The previous owner of our house decided that it would be a great idea to cover the entire house head-to-toe with wallpaper.  Except, SURPRISE, removing wallpaper is hard...so when it came time to sell the house, they opted to paint over the wallpaper instead of removing it.

In case you were wondering, painted wallpaper is harder to remove than unpainted wallpaper.


Here you can see each step of removing the wallpaper.  You can see a little bit of the dark blue on the top right.  After we peeled off the paint and the top layer of the wallpaper, there was still all this leftover adhesive to remove (which you can kind of see to the right of the ladder, underneath the blue).  In order to remove that, you have to soften it up and carefully scrape it off of the drywall gently, making sure you don't scrape up the drywall (spoiler: I scraped up the drywall).

"BUT WAIT MELANIE...AREN'T WALLS USUALLY WHITE???".  Uhhh yeah.  Ideally, you would prime your drywall with some white primer before sticking on some wallpaper, or so I hear.  I guess the old owner of this house was left out in the dark on that one.  WHICH IS WHY IT TOOK US TWO DAYS TO REMOVE ALL OF THE WALLPAPER.

So after we painstakingly scraped off all of the wallpaper and adhesive, all we had to do was sand, spackle, and prime the wall, and then we'd be paint ready!

That's about as far as we've gotten.



Stay tuned for a post about furniture shopping, some decor inspirations, and the bound-to-be-drama-filled painting experience.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Blog Every Day in July: Day 1

So I left this blog with a bit of a cliffhanger back in May...

(Spoiler: I did.  Barely.)

Wellllll

IMMA BACK

I always pick Luigi when I play Super Mario Bros with my friends.

So I know at this point my blogging has been erratic at best....and I made all these promises to myself that I never really kept (ex: all of my New Years Resolutions).  And I didn't get to write about any of the awesome things that happened during the semester (turning 21, going to Dallas for ACDA, being a party-planner-extraordinare) and all the things that caused chunks of hair to fall out of my head (...every class I had).  The blogging world is MISSING OUT ON ALL OF MY CRAZY ADVENTURES.


CRAZY ADVENTURES

So there is no actual challenge out there in the blogging world called "Blog Every Day in July" (I google'd it), but I've decided that I need to get into the habit of blogging regularly.  And according to like, my nutritionist or something, it takes about two weeks for a habit to form.  So I'm going to one-up that ish and blog every day for a WHOLE MONTH.  And not one of the dinky months, we're talkin a big 'ol thirty-one day month.  It's on.

I'm gonna keep this entry short and sweet, since there's about to be THIRTY MORE DAYS of sweet sweet blogging coming your way.  GET USED TO IT.


Sunday, May 19, 2013

Schedule Captains and Some Eggs

So after what was maybe the busiest and most stressful semester I've had in college thus far, I have MADE IT TO FINALS WEEK. Barely. I still have a mountain of work due tomorrow...so naturally I am taking a break to blog about it.

Earlier in the semester, my sister and I started doing this thing called Schedule Captains, where we would email each other our schedule for the day and then do periodic updates on our progress. We kind of fell out of the habit, because we both got too busy living in our schedules to type them out. I'm thinking that I might need a schedule captain for the next three days of my life. Unfortunately, Melissa is moving into her NEW HOUSE today...so I am not going to send her my schedule because she ain't got time fo' dat. Instead...THE INTERNET IS MY SCHEDULE CAPTAIN. WOOHOO. Here's what's in store for the next few days:

Today
11:45-12:45: Do video reflections for Conducting
12:45-1:45: Work on rep lists for Choral Lit
1:45-2: Lunch
2-2:30: Finish up rep lists for Choral Lit, OR start working on 2-year plan
2:30-2:35: Stretch/Facebook.  NO TUMBLR.
2:35-4: Work on 2-year plan for Choral Lit.
4-4:30: Go on tumblr BUT JUST FOR 30 MINUTES
4:30-5:30: Go to the library to get books.
5:30-6: Either decide to go back to my apartment, or stay in the library and finish up 2-year plan stuff.
6-6:30: Eat dinner somewhere somehow
6:30-7:30: Finish up 2-year plan or work on Music History paper.
7:30-7:45: Take a break.
7:45-9: Work on Music History paper.
9-9:15: Snack break
9:15-10:30: Keep working on paper.
10:30-10:45: Another break.
10:45-??: Keep.  Working.  On.  Your.  Paper.

Tomorrow (Monday)
7-8: Wake up/shower
8-9: Eat breakfast.
9-10: Work on paper
10-10:30: Meander over to Choral Lit final
10:30-12:30: Choral Lit final/GET YOUR LAST BUBBLE TEA EVER NOO
12:30-5: WRITE YOUR PAPER LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT
5: Turn your paper in, no matter how ashamed you are.
5-6: Cry in the fetal position.
6-7: Eat something because you probably forgot what eating feels like.
7-9: Practice piano stuff for MUED final.
9-10: Go over interview questions for MUED.
10: Go to sleep.  You earned it.  Hopefully.

Tuesday
6-7: Wake up/get ready for the day/tame the beast that is your hair
7-8: Eat breakfast
8-9: Practice piano stuff for MUED Final and go over interview questions
9-9:15: Meander over to MUED final
9:20-9:40: MUED FINAL WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T CRY IN FRONT OF YOUR PROFESSOR.
9:40-noon: Eat/sleep/cry/whatever
12-3: Start packing!!
3-whatever: Study for your history final

Wednesday
Music History final at 10:30 then GO HOME FOR THE SUMMER WOOHOOOO.

As you can see...life is going to be a bit crazy (crazier than usual...) for the next three days.  Hopefully I will be able to come back to this blog post and edit in updates about my progress.  Or I will cave under the pressure and run away to Canada with a new identity and a different hair color.  Who knows.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also wanted to share a recipe that I have been making for breakfast the past couple of days, because it is delicious.

When I was fifteen, I went on an exchange trip to Spain for 3 weeks.  As you can probably already assume, I basically ate my way through that trip.  One dish in particular that has stuck with me, even six years later, was the tortilla espaƱola...which is basically a big 'ol potato and onion omelette.  Only..it's so much more than that.  My favorite version of this was the one that the grandmother in my host family made.  She made it every day, and I'm pretty sure that it is the sole reason why I gained like fifteen pounds in Spain.  Something about the size of the potato chunks, and the sweetness of the onion, and the fluffiness of the eggs.  I still have dreams about that tortilla.  And I STILL.  CAN'T.  MAKE.  IT.

I am such a failure when it comes to cooking scrambled eggs...or omelettes, more specifically.  They just...they never turn out quite right.  Combined with the added pressure of putting potatoes and onions in that?  Nope.  Never made a successful frittata.  Sooo even though I just told you a story about a tortilla...that's not my recipe.

I'm not even pretending that these pictures were taken
with anything but the camera on my cell phone

This recipe was inspired by my favorite Spanish tortilla.  I had some left over frozen hashbrowns from a breakfast casserole that I made for a class, so I had intended to do a fakeout frittata.  Except...the onion that I had been keeping in a plastic bag in my fridge went bad.  Go figure.  Instead of onion, I just diced up some bacon and called it a day.

If this was iron chef, I would receive a 0 for plating.

Since I knew this wasn't going to be anything like the tortilla that I love, I didn't even try to make it a perfect circle.  It's okay...it was still so so so delicious.  You really can't go wrong with eggs and potatoes and bacon.  It's not possible.

Recipe
2 slices of center cut bacon
A handfull of frozen hasbrowns
Some olive oil
2 eggs
Salt n' peppa.

1. Dice up that bacon real good.  Yeah, you like that.
2. Put the bacon in the pan and let it cook up a bit.
3. Drizzle in some olive oil, then throw your handful of hasbrowns in and stir it around with your spautla. Season with salt and pepper.
4. While your potatoes and bacon are falling in love, crack your eggs into a bown and beat 'em up.  I like to add salt to my eggs while I'm beating them, but apparently you're not supposed to do that?  Do whatever you want, it's your food.
5. When your bacon looks crispy and your potatoes are looking golden, pour in your beaten eggs.  Maybe remove from the heat.  Actually...definitely remove it from the heat.
6. Make yourself an omelette!  I have no authority on this.  Just make sure your eggs aren't raw.
7. PROFIT


Wish me luck on my finals.  Hopefully I will make it out alive to blog another day.