I’m trying to make money by not making money. Genius.

It’s only day 2 of Easter break and everyone’s already bored out of their skulls. Yesterday, Corrupted Brother was walking in circles in the kitchen, licking a Triscuit, and humming Fur Elise for a good five minutes. Yeah, it’s that bad.

I’m not taking a break this week because I’m a bit behind in school and I just need to finish. I’m so unmotivated to do school, so I’ve decided to plan things to look forward to this summer. Brilliant plan, no? I work well for incentives. Mainly Rolos. My siblings got a bunch of those for Easter and I’ve been living off of them. I’m pretending that they’re fruits and vegetables so I actually have a balanced diet. And starches. And meats. Hey, I have a weakness for candy. Don’t be a hater.

This summer is going to be insane, though. All I want to do is make money so I actually have money to spend on food in college. So far, I’m only volunteering. Logic at its finest. Earlier today, I filled out an application so I can volunteer at a local children’s hospital. I’m hoping to volunteer a few days a week this summer so that I can get a feel for the pediatric hospital environment, since that’s where I’m thinking of working after I graduate from nursing school. Anyway, it’s volunteer, so no payment there. I’m also hoping to volunteer in a lab where a friend of my grandpa’s works. I guess I’ll continue teaching piano, but that only pays so much. Basically I’m just going to have a humungous graduation party where you’ll all shower me with gifts and money because I’m broke.

I had a productive day applying for stuff that will make me absolutely no money. Know what else I did today? I looked at the return policy for a pair of running shoes I bought last week. They’re the barefoot trail shoes, which I was hoping would help me not be so incredibly sore when I run. But guess what? I opened the box yesterday to try on the shoes, AND MY DANG FEET ARE TOO WIDE. I think God sort of fell asleep at the wheel when he was designing me. He accidentally gave me bricks for feet. So I’m returning them. Speaking of running, I’m running a 5K on Saturday! And guess what! I totally hurt my knee yesterday! I’m pretty much an invalid right now. I feel like Crutchy from Newsies, minus the fact that I’m not a dude with a bad fake Brooklyn accent. That movie is so horrible, it’s good. I’m hoping whatever I did to my knee heals up before Saturday. I AM running/walking/limping the race. I dropped 40 bucks on this race, and last time I checked, I was still a poor, struggling student.

But you know what fixes all of life’s ills? Sour cream coffee cake. This stuff is the bomb… and I didn’t even get to eat it. We gave it to my mom’s friend who just had a baby. I absolutely hate giving away food I made. Not only do I not get to eat it, but I’m never sure if it’s cooked all the way through or it tastes good. First world chef problems for real, but I hate it. Anyway, here’s the coffee cake that I didn’t actually get to enjoy. It’s one of my favorite foods, so I’d strongly recommend making it. Or you can just go lick a Triscuit. That’s what all the cool kids do.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Cake:

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt

1 cup sour cream

Topping:

2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Beat the butter and granulated sugar together. Beat in two eggs, mixing thoroughly after each one. Add vanilla.

3. In a separate bowl (you gotta keep it separated…), combine the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, stirring until combined. Wallop in the sour cream. Is wallop a word? I know dollop is. I’m too lazy to look it up and there isn’t a red squiggly line under it, so it must be a word. Duh.

4. In yet another separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Um, that’s it.

5. Grease a bundt ban (well, it’s actually more of a pan used for angel food cake, but I’m not sure what to call it), and layer 1/2 of the batter in it. Sprinkle 2/3 of the topping (didn’t think you’d have a math lesson, huh?), then the rest of the batter, and the rest of the topping. Let’s review: batter, topping, batter, topping. Right then.

6. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes.

7. Yum.

I went to a bacon festival today. Need I say more?

I know what you’re thinking (especially you Katy). THERE’S A BACON FESTIVAL? Absolutely. Only in America do we have an entire shebang dedicated to that wonderful heart disease-inducing deliciousness. ‘Murica.

In my blogging absence, I have found myself another human being who is willing to room with me for at least my first year of college. This is Emily and she’s pretty cool. We met on the Facebook page for my college, and within less than a day of talking, we decided to room together. I was beyond happy at how easy everything worked out. As much as I would have liked to have just gotten a random roommate, knowing me, I would have gotten a total psycho and then had to find a way to ask her to leave. It wouldn’t be pretty. Luckily, she’s exactly like me and just as awkward. She kind of runs like a penguin.

We went to the bacon festival today and it was quite wonderful. Incredibly packed, but wonderful. There was a 100 pound log of bacon that was being cooked all day. I guess it was going to be served tonight and we weren’t willing to wait around for it because we had places to go and people to see. Also known as she had to go to her horrible minimum-wage job at the McDonald’s drive thru from 7 to midnight and I had to go dye Easter eggs with my family. The bacon log was 50 feet long and it was made up of various pork products wrapped in bacon. How does that not sound delicious?

(Side note: What you’re looking at above is downtown made out of bacon with a dead pig in front of it and a guy in the background with a classy mohawk and pony tail. Just wanted to clarify) On the way from the parking lot to the event, we were at a stop light waiting to cross when a woman comes up to me, gets in my face and exclaims “OH MY GOODNESS, I LOVE YOUR SHOES.” I was wearing a pair of Beatles Converses that my aunt got me. In her defense, they are one of my favorite pairs of shoes, but even I wasn’t as excited as she was when I first got them. I then had to explain to the woman that I got the shoes off of Etsy… and then I had to explain what Etsy was while we were crossing the street. Luckily I was able to shake her off, because she was seriously creeping me out and wouldn’t stop talking. While we were waiting in line for something bacon-related (the lines were so long we couldn’t see the booths and had no clue what we were in line to eat), I heard this older couple behind us. The woman said “Hey, she has the Beatles on her shoes. But I can only see two of the guys.” and then man went “I see that. I’m going to go around to see if the other two are on her other shoe.” Then he nonchalantly walked around, looked at my shoe, and nodded to her. Moral of the story is always wear Converses. No one checked out the Livestrong Nike shoes Emily’s friend Wyatt was wearing. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, we finally were able to see the sign that said we were going to either buy bacon covered shrimp on a stick for $2 or deep fried crab and bacon with green chilies and grits for $5. Of course we opted for the crab. It was quite possibly the most delicious thing I’ve had in a while, and I eat my cooking all the time. I didn’t even know it was possible to top the biscuits I totally burned the other day.

Comic Con is also downtown this weekend so we got to see a few Comic Con people. Oh my word. Where do these people come from. I didn’t know the Joker enjoyed bacon. Stan Lee was there and apparently it cost $400 just to meet him. I – being the incredibly naive non-dork that I am – had no idea who this guy was. I asked my dad if he had ever heard of him and he basically grounded me for life for not knowing about the creator of the most amazing comics ever. Okay, he didn’t. But I know he was thinking it. Emily wanted to go to Comic Con with me, but tickets were $50 just to get in and we actually only wanted to go to meet Tom Felton. I have no idea how the bad guy from Harry Potter is in any way affiliated with comic books. I’m guessing he’s out of work. But when you really weigh it, five bucks spent on delicious bacon and crab definitely trumps at least fifty bucks just to gawk at a 20-something British guy who’s already balding. We chose the bacon, because it’s okay to gnaw on it, but we might get arrested for gnawing on Mr. Felton.

Emily is going to try to be a vegetarian in college and I offered to attempt to try with her, but after today, there’s absolutely no way I’ll make it. Speaking of college, we met up with a group of girls yesterday who are also going to the college we are. It was so awkward. We knew it would be, but we were just so different from every other girl there. When we were going around saying our favorite movies, almost everyone said super girly movies, and Emily goes “Pulp Fiction.” It got rrreeeaaallllyyy quiet and some girls were doing their best to be like heehee that’s… cool… She was really going for shock value with everything she said, and it definitely worked. As nice as the girls were, I doubt we’d actually be friends with any of them. They are cheerleaders, Emily plays the ukulele and, well, runs like a penguin. Sort of different.

Also, I really, really love bacon. Today was a good day.

It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all… right?

No cooking today. I just wanted to quickly post to ask for some prayers.

Back in the day, I met this girl, L, through my homeschool group. L is definitely one of the most vivacious people I’ve ever met and, at the time, probably the best friend I’d ever had. She made me a DVD for my birthday one year talking about how happy she was that we were friends, and it was so nice it made both me and my mom cry almost uncontrollably. It was always fun to go over to her house when I was younger and sneak drink coffee and jump on her trampoline at 2am. That’s about as rebellious as I was as a child… We were inseparable for years, but time has a funny way of slowly making people drift apart until you wake up one morning and realize that you aren’t even part of each other’s lives anymore. It was unspoken, but I know we both realized that we were just too different for each other. Our friendship ended with a fight and her basically saying I had to choose between her or another friend of mine – and I obviously chose the other friend. I’m not sure if continuing to be friends with L would have kept her from having the friends she does now, but our separate groups of friends have definitely molded us into completely different people. I still see her, but we’re not the twelve year old girls with the secret club and a mutual love of making things out of duct tape we used to be, and we’re both strangers to each other.

Last night her dad passed away. It came out of nowhere and it feels like there’s absolutely no way that he’s gone, especially since he was alive and well when I saw him a few weeks ago. I’m sort of in shock and really sad right now, but I can’t tell if I’m more sad that he’s gone or that L and I aren’t friends anymore and I can’t be there to help her like I wish I could.  She’s only sixteen and I know her dad was younger than fifty, and both are way too young for any of this to happen to them.

I asked around for L’s number and when I got it, I texted her letting her know I can’t even imagine what she’s going through and that I’m here to talk if she ever needs it. She thanked me and I felt like we were both able to be sincere with each other for the first time in years.

I would be thrilled if you all could send some prayers and good thoughts towards her, her mom, dad, and five siblings – the youngest of whom is just six years old. It’s sad that things like this make you realize just how short life is and that our time to go could be at any moment.

I’m not always the best with words, but I think this Lemony Snicket quote pretty much sums up everything else that I want to say:

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

Stay strong, L. I don’t know if we could be friends again at this point in our lives, but I really do miss the friendship we once had, and I am and always will be here for you.

the depressing Downton Abbey finale, dry sockets, and other first world problems

Well hello. I didn’t see you there. I’ve missed you all dearly and wanted to let you know what’s been going on in my life. Also, I always have a lot to say and it all bottles up unless I blog. So sit back and listen to tales of what’s gone down in Piccoland.

*spoiler alert* Who all watched the season finale of Downton Abbey last Sunday? Am I the only one incredibly upset with it? Not about Matthew. He’s always been my least favorite character and I wasn’t sad to see him go. Sorry. But if they put Branson and Mary together I refuse to watch it anymore and will instead spend my time looking at pictures of Allen Leech. Anyway, I hated how the episode just sort of …stopped. There really wasn’t much of a plot line for it and if I heard the words “Anna and Bates” or “Mismanaged estate” one more time, I was going to punch the tv. But I was incredibly impressed by that bagpipe song. I thought there was only one song and it was the duh duh daduh duh duh duh DUHHHHH one, but that proved me wrong. Now we’re going to have to wait an entire year for season 4. Although I’m a bit excited to see them cover the Great Depression. That affected the UK, right? *spoiler alert over*

I’m almost 100% recovered from my wisdom tooth extraction of death. In the recovery process, I found out I had four dry sockets. Have you ever had a dry socket? It’s like a toothache/ear infection/headache all rolled into one fun ball of pain. My oral surgeon only packed the bottom two sockets, and I’m glad because the whole process is horrid. Basically he took gauze coated in clove oil and a sedative and put it on the sockets. Disgusting? Yes. Did everything taste like potpourri until they were taken out? Yes. But I’m much better now and I’m so glad I’ll never have to go through that again.

I still have to irrigate the sockets so I’m not eating much stuff that will get stuck in them (sorry to make this post incredibly disgusting). I’ve also only been craving Cream of Wheat and hot chocolate. And by craving I mean CRAVING. I’ve already gone through almost an entire box of Cream of Wheat. That combined with the fact that I wished that I had my glasses this morning to find my glasses because I’m so nearsighted makes me feel like an old woman. So yes, no cooking. But next time my dad goes to the store I’m having him pick up the ingredients for a German chocolate cake, so get excited for that. In the meantime, here’s a picture of the homemade hot chocolate I made. The recipe is on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa box. That’s as homemade as it’s going to get. I put it in my Mark McGwire cup because I miss baseball so much. I’m going to ignore the fact that Mark used steroids.

I think I’m going to watch the Oscars tomorrow. I’ve never actually watched an awards show. Is that weird? I’m probably just going to watch the first hour because, no offense, I could care less about the acceptance speech from the director of Kon-Tiki.

So yes, that’s my life. Any thoughts on Downton? The Oscars? My odd Cream of Wheat addiction?

127 hours (more or less) after I got my wisdom teeth out

Let it be known that I’m absolutely hilarious after anesthesia.

My wisdom teeth hadn’t come in yet, but since I had five (yes, five…) of them, they needed to come out so they wouldn‘t poke through and ruin my two years of braces. I had an appointment for 9:30am on the 6th and I’ve got to admit, I was incredibly nervous. Not so much for the actual surgery part, but for the anesthesia. I know people have it all the time, but I was still scared that something would go wrong. Luckily, everything went as smooth as Kevin Bacon’s dance moves. This post is a bit long, but I’m hoping it helps people who are going to get their wisdom teeth out know what to expect. I had a hard time finding people’s stories of what happened post-surgery. Here’s basically what went down Wednesday:

2/6 1:30am Still awake. I was hoping to have fallen asleep by 11, but I was thinking about the surgery. I had been attempting to do some sudoku on my phone when I realized that I really hate it. So I spent a few hours just staring at the ceiling.

7:00am Wake up after having one of the wost night’s sleep of my entire life. I woke up like every hour because I kept having a dream that my face was being run over by a truck.

7:30am Take an anti-inflammatory medicine. Yummy.

8:30am Take a gigantic 825 mg ibuprofen pill. Chokey.

9:00am Leave for the oral surgeon’s. Commence minor panic attack…

9:30am Get there and right when my dad and I walked in, the woman at the front desk said, “Ok, we need you to use the restroom!” I felt like I was 5 years old and my mom was telling me to pee before we went to the park because she wasn’t taking me home if I had to go while we were there. I came back from my potty break to hear my dad and the mom of a kid getting his wisdom teeth out too talking about where I was going to college. I felt so popular.

9:45am Go to get a panoramic x-ray so the oral surgeon can see how much my teeth have moved since the last x-ray I got. The x-ray machine wasn’t working so I had to stand there with my head strapped into this contraption to keep my head still and biting on this lever thing for a while. Needless to say, I started drooling a bit.

10:00am They finally got the x-ray machine to work and they brought me to the operating room which doubled as the room I had my appointment in a few weeks ago. It was weird. The surgeon and nurses there are beyond nice and it was one of the most enjoyable places to be nervous, next to waiting in line to order food. I always have to recite my order like 10 times in my head and when I get there I pretend that I was like oh, there’s the menu. Let me just casually order. True story. Anyway, they couldn’t get the heart monitors to work which aided in my nervousness. They finally put these things that looked like jumper cables on my wrists that I‘m hoping were heart monitors. Then it was time for the IV. For those of you who don’t know, I almost pass out when I get my blood drawn. I’ve never officially passed out, but last time I couldn’t hear or see anything and fell on the floor. In my defense, I have an actual condition called vaso vagal, and there are other oddballs in the world who have this too. Also, I will never, ever donate blood. They didn’t want my blood pressure to drop when they put it in, so the nurse kept talking to distract me while she put it in. Turns out, I’m fine with IVs. It’s just the whole taking-blood-against-my-will part that I’m not so good with. I did the nervous chuckle and wouldn’t stop talking about how I was happy I didn’t pass out and they knocked me out. No count backwards from 10, no pick out a good dream, nothing. They probably were like please shut this girl up…

10:45am Surgery over. I honestly can’t remember much from here until about 1pm. All I remember is that I was convinced that David Beckham took out my wisdom teeth. I looked at the nurse and was like YOU’RE VICTORIA BECKHAM. Remember that I’m saying all of this with lots of bloody gauze in my mouth too. When the surgeon came in he’s like how are you feeling? And I whispered to Victoria “…shhh, it’s David.” Then I remember asking how much chipmunk models made. When the nurse wheeled me out to the car, the nurses were laughing at me and asking who they looked like. I was scared because I saw two Victoria Beckhams and then one who wasn’t even blonde I thought looked like Ellen Degeneres. I don’t remember the elevator ride down, but when I was about to get in the car, I told Victoria #1 that I was going to model so I could save up for an iPhone. The first thing I did when I got in the car was look for my friend Katie in the backseat and freak out when she wasn’t there. I texted her and said that since my dad wouldn’t tell me where she was, I assumed it was top secret.

11:15am Get home and let the hilarity begin. I really don’t remember much of anything that happened then, but luckily my mom filmed me. Thanks, mom. Apparently I was making everyone here laugh so hard they were crying. Also, I was really mean to Sister Celiac. She brought me down a really ugly shirt to change into with a lion on it and I said, “What is this crap?! You are the weakest link. Goodbye.” I do remember alternating between laughing hysterically and crying.

12:00pm Mom decides to feed me ice cream. I hadn’t eaten since 7 the night before and it tasted wonderful. Actually it was so good that I proclaimed it was God flavored. I only remember bits and pieces from here on, but I sort of remember being convinced that the movie Annie was about drugs and that the painkillers made me feel so good, I should be a drug dealer. My mom was talking to my aunt and said I was being hilarious and very surley and I yelled, “Don’t call me surley!“ like “don’t call me Shirley” from Airplane. Hey, I can be witty even when I’m high as a kite.

1:00pm Eat some pudding and take some medicine. I was really feeling fine and was actually excited that getting your wisdom teeth out didn’t hurt as much as people said it did.

2:15pm Pain kicks in. Acutally pain is an understatement. I wasn’t able to take more painkillers just yet, so I was just lying on the couch with an ice pack on my face.

3:00pm PAINKILLER TIME! Started getting texts from my friends asking how I was doing. I really appreicate everyone who talked to me, even those of you who made fun of me. You know who you are. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful because I was falling asleep off and on.

6:00pm Bleeding has slowed down so I’m not having to chomp down on gauze as much. I also attempted to eat some chicken noodle soup broth. You know how hard it is to eat soup when your lower lip feels like playdoh? Very hard, I tell you.

8:15pm I hung out with my best friend. Also known as Oxycodone time again.

10:00pm Time for bed. I started to watch Fringe and realized it’s hard enough to understand the 5th season of Fringe anyway, and it was just impossible while on painkillers. I passed out.

2/7 7:30am Woke up and made the mistake of looking in the mirror. I really should be a chipmunk model.

9:30am Shower and mozy on down to the living room couch. My mom decided to take a picture of me and Spiderbaby together since our cheeks are about the same size.

10:15am Painkillers again. I’m still icing my face on and off for 20 minutes and I think I have frostbite.

1:00pm Oral surgeon calls and tells my mom how funny everyone thought I was. I love making people laugh, even if it requires me being pumped full of anesthesia.

1:30pm Spend the rest of the day sleeping and eating apple sauce and ice cream.

7:30pm Marie brings me a chocolate shake from Steak n Shake. It has definitely been the best thing I’ve eaten for the past 3 days.

9:00pm Marie leaves and I start watching Fringe. I accidentally let it slip that I’ve watched 95 Fringe episodes since August and my mom goes NINEY. FIVE. Are you serious?! Whoops.

12:00am Finally fall asleep. The pain seems worse at night, but that might just be me.

today 9:00am Wake up with my right cheek the size of a small dog. My 5th wisdom tooth was on the top right and he had to dig around more up there, which I’m guessing is why it’s so big.

9:30am Take an anti-inflammatory before I ate anything and feel incredibly car sick. Always take the medicine with food, kids.

10:00am Breakfast of apple sauce and pudding. I think this experience is ruining pudding for me. I also got my hair cut.

12:00pm Take some painkillers that I’m officially sick of. They help with the pain but I just feel so sad and foggy when I take them.

1:00pm Say goodbye to my dog, Gemma. Our house just isn’t big enough for a 70 pound labrador plus 7 kids and two parents. Since apparently you can’t kick kids out of the house, we had to get rid of the dog. She’s living with my great-uncle now and I know she’ll love it there, but I’ll really miss her.

2:00pm I’m also officially getting sick of putting ice on my face. It hurts so much but it also hurts if I take it off. Meh. Take a nap and accidentally fall asleep on my side.

4:00pm Wake up from nap in horrible pain. It’s so hard for me to sleep on my back, but if I don’t, hurty things happen. Watch Fringe. I only have 2 episodes left until I’m done with the entire series and this last season has been a major letdown.

5:00pm Painkillers again. The pain has definitely gotten better since the surgery two days ago, but I’m just feeling uncomfortable and on edge. My dad got me vanilla pudding which was a nice change from the chocolate pudding I’ve been eating.

5:30pm Make the mistake of looking at the stitches in my mouth. The incisions are still bleeding off and on, but I’ve only had to use gauze once today. I’m getting better!

6:00pm Friend brings over ice cream bars. She broke into her dad’s stash so I was supposed to keep it on the hush hush. It’s not going to be too hard since I have a hard time opening my mouth anyway.

6:30pm Breakdown crying. I don’t quite know why I lost it so badly. I think it’s a combination of being in pain, the medicine making me feel sick, having my dog leave, not being able to eat (I’m craving biscuits and gravy, pork steak, and waffles), not being able to sleep well since I keep rolling on my side and waking up, and being unhappy with a grade I recently got for school. This whole wisdom tooth surgery stuff really messes with you.

7:15pm Eat copious amounts of ice cream and watch Whose Line is it Anyway.

9:00pm Bedtime on a Friday night? I think yes.

I read some stories of people who went back to school/work the day after having their wisdom teeth taken out. You know what I call those people? Coo coo for cocoa puffs. No matter how good you may feel, you seriously need to give yourself a few days to recover. I mean come on, some dude just dug up in your gums to take teeth out and then stitched you up. I know I’m getting better quickly, but I’m just worn out right now. Time for more ice cream.