The Dreadful Week 8

For anybody who's ever been on the quarter system... you know that week 8 is terrible. TERRIBLE. It's that time where professors think it's fun to cram in another midterm or give you some big assignment that is designed to "prepare you for the final" but is actually just a hideous monster that takes up every waking second of your day. Fun stuff.

Anyway, I'm in the midst of paper writing hell and I'm running on very few hours of sleep. I had a midterm yesterday in German which I wound up staying up almost all night studying for.  I've been living in the libraries and coffee shops on campus for the past few days. I have a 10 page paper due Friday that's worth 50% of my grade in my Korean Gender Studies class and I am struggling hard core. I came home from school early today so I could run a few errands (like going to the grocery store, thank god!) I've been really stressed out with all of this school stuff so I thought it would be nice to take a quick break, make something good for dinner and relax just a little before I had back to the library later this evening.

Before I share my recipe, I wanted to share some other news. I know many of you have probably heard about Relay for Life, a 24 hour event designed to help raise funds and awareness for the American Cancer Society. We are fortunate enough to host the event on our campus and I will be participating along with thousands of other students, faculty and staff. Last year I walked 24 miles in the 24 hours but this year we are going for at least 26 (if not more). Never have I been more sunburnt/ blistered/ exhausted in my entire life but it was SO worth it. I am excited to be doing it again in less than 2 weeks! I also saw this video this morning about a boy named Zach who found out he was terminally ill with cancer and had a very limited time left to live. Talk about inspiring! I sobbed through the whole thing (I believe he passed away yesterday). His outlook on life was always so positive despite the circumstances. He was such a beautiful soul and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family. He will definitely be on my mind during our Relay event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NjKgV65fpo

On a lighter note,  it's recipe time! I cranked up some annoyingly poppy tunes to try and perk me up a little and I threw together this yummy dinner in no time!

Sausage and Veggie Bowl

1/3 cup white rice (you can use brown too)

1tbps olive oil
2 Italian style chicken sausages
2 big handfuls of fresh spinach
2 large carrots, chopped and peeled
1/3 cup onions, diced
8 sliced mushrooms
Optional: chicken broth

I prepared the rice in my roommate's rice cooker (thanks Michelle!) but instead of cooking the rice in water, I used low sodium chicken broth. It makes the rice fluffier and super tasty!

In a small skillet, I heated the olive oil over medium heat and threw in my carrots and onions. Then I added the mushrooms and the sausage slices. After those cooked together for a little while, I put in about 1/4 cup of chicken broth and all the spinach before covering the skillet and letting everything cook together. Once it was all done, I threw it over the rice and it was delicious! I don't like to follow recipes very often, so it's nice when I make something that turns out fantastically! :)

I'm off to the library for a little while. I need to get some sleep tonight as I'm donating blood tomorrow... I'm a little nervous but I'll leave that story for my next post. Cross your fingers!

Birthday and Momma's Day!

A few big things have happened since my last post, the first being my 20th birthday! I know, I have no right to say "I feel old", but dang it I feel old!! I have two whole decades under my belt, I've had my license and my passport long enough for them to need renewing and I am almost officially half way done with college. I also recently saw some of the kids that I started taking care of in high school and it occurred to me that I've know their mom since before all three of them existed (the oldest is almost 4 and 1/2 now). So crazy!

Anyway, my birthday was on April 25th and I had a lot going on so I didn't think I was going to celebrate much. Lucky for me, I have great room mates and one of them got a bunch of our friends together and we all went out and had Thai food. It was delicious! Also, all of my home club Circle K'ers surprised me with some goodies and really sweet gifts. I love them!

Birthday treats!

I wound up having a great day and I also got to spend the weekend with the CKI District board in Southern California which was also really fun!

This past weekend was Mother's Day and I was able to go home and spend a little bit of time with my own Mama! She's the best in town :-) I also got to see my best friends, one of whom just returned from school in North Carolina and I hadn't seen her in 5 months!

My parents after church on Sunday 

 Some of the photos from my scrapbooks 

I am super lucky in that my mom was home when I was growing up (until she went back to school when I was 8). She was a consultant for a scrapbooking company so it was kind of like her job to chronicle my childhood in photo albums. I have two volumes filled solely with photos from when I was born until I was six or so! I'm so grateful for those and my brother and I always have a good time looking through our scrapbooks. 

On a completely random side note, I also made a delicious snack since I last posted. I was inspired by a recipe I saw on Peanut Butter Fingers (a blog that I read religiously). It's for a sweet and salty popcorn treat! 

Decadent Popcorn Treat:

• 1 cup plain popcorn (I used the pre- popped stuff from TJ's, it comes in the purple bag)

• 2tbs nut butter (I used peanut but almond butter is also good)

• Sprinkling of dried cranberries and butterscotch chips (I also had a few chocolate covered raisins on hand)

Basically all you do is throw your popcorn in a bowl with all the add ins. In a separate  bowl, melt down your nut butter so it's runny and pour it over your popcorn. Here's what my final product looked like! 

 

Yum!