Anna Maria Locke

monday award

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[unfortunately that is NOT what it looks like here today!!]

We aren't getting the midwest icestorms, but central PA winter is dark dark dark.
a few days ago I was hit with another
Kreative Blogger award
i don't know why the inventer of this game decided to be kool and spell creative that way

by Jackie at exposed brick !
[she has a beautiful blog and inspiring posts, you should check it out :)]


Here are seven things that are making my life whirl right now:

1. I still can't find my camera cord. !! So expect to see lots of random pics unearthed from my computer archive. I can't find my cord because I am pretty sure I left it at home over break.
I have a really bad habit of forgetting things when I travel, which has made me paranoid.
But quadruple-checking always fails, and my nervous apprehensive feelings of "i KNOW i am forgetting something..." as I leave the door is always justified once I reach my destination and realize what I have left behind.

2. I should never be allowed to have an electric stove. Especially one where the coils don't even change color when hot. It is SO easy to accidentally flip the wrong dial. Or forget the burner is still on.
Although recent perils of melting a spatula and cracking a glass Pyrex are not as bad as igniting a plastic jar of powdered coffee creamer...not that that has ever happened to me...

3. Eggplants bring me great joy for some reason.  Yup, weird. My uncle gave me not one but TWO (probably the 2 only) eggplant cookbooks for Christmas (for real...one is even shaped like an eggplant) and it was awesome. (I also never thought I'd be happy to get mousetraps for Christmas, but luckily I have not had to use them. so far.)
I haven't had a chance to try any of the recipes yet, but last night I diced and roasted an eggplant and I was surprised to find it was the highlight of my night! yyyeah...
It doesn't even taste like anything, so I honestly can't explain my obsession.

4. I am going to publicly admit right here and now that I have been sucked into the Twilight mania. A year too late, perhaps, but now addicted nevertheless.

5. I hated the movie Avatar. Yes, it was good, yes I got way too sucked into the plot, and I was emotionally traumatized for the rest of the night.  [Let me warn you NEVER to read political ecology about the plight of exploited indigenous cultures by neoliberal capitalist development right before you go see a movie about the destruction and exploitation of indigenous cultures.] Oh yeah plus, the redheaded scientist dies. Along with half of the main characters.

Make that five random things about me.

I think almost everyone who has a blog has been tagged by this award

so I will try to tag people who haven't said seven random facts about themselves in the name of Kreativ Blogger :P 
and sorry if you've been hit twice already...Feel free to make up new rules if so!

Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry

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(no spoiler ahead, don't worry).
Back in the glorious, long-gone days of Christmas Break when I had nothing to do all day except sit on the couch and read books, I finished Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry in oh, about two days.  DEFINITELY the best book I have read in a lonnnng time.  I read The Time Traveler's Wife so long ago that I can't remember enough details to compare the two books, but I would say if you liked that book you WILL LOVE this one.  It doesn't really fit into a specific genre; part ghost story, part love story, part life-contemplation.  Niffenegger has an amazing gift in making a non-realistic fantasy situation seem completely believable and never cheesy, and she is an all-around amazingly talented writer.  I rarely get sucked into a book deep enough to laugh out loud or actually cry but this book made me do both at certain points.  At the same time, it was serious enough to be entertaining and exciting on a much deeper level than typical popular fiction, but never too depressing that I had a negative reaction to the story (unlike certain movies I have seen recently....ha).  Plus, I am connected to the author by only two or three degrees of separation (or one? I don't know how it works), which I think is COMPLETELY AWESOME and I would probably be starstruck and intimidated if I ever met her.

Overall, a MUST READ for anyone, regardless of whether or not you have read or liked or seen TTTW. Amazing.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Life on Thursday

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Today was a rare sunny day
and I took my camera to campus to actually take pictures; I think there are some pretty ones
but
I can't find my little camera cord to upload photos!!!!
did I leave it at home over break????!??
losing things makes me kinda freak out.
ughhhh oh well at least I've got my actual camera.

I am breaking in my new crock*pot by making
granola!
It's delicious so far, I am eating some warm with ice cream and peanut butter chips.
mmmmm

I dumped in
~2.5 cups old fashioned oats
-heaping 1/4 cup coconut
-lots of random nuts from my baking box
-raisins
-cinnamon
-vanilla
-between 1/4 and 1/2 cup canola oil
-and LOTS of honey to stick it together. not measured, just drizzled in.

Mix it all together and cook on HIGH for 1 hour, then LOW for 2 more hours, all the time uncovered, until the granola is dry.

NOMNOMNOM

I'd show a picture but yeah.... :(

so I'll upload one instead


THIS is where I'm headed for the summer!
details to come...
[when I've figured them out]





p.s. my favorite word of the day is drizzle; can you spot it?