Monday, May 31, 2010

Week One! An Average Dinner

Mkay, so I'm taking a break from my Law ISU presentation and doing this post on what I made for dinner on Friday Night :D


What You Will Need:
Pork Chops (I'm using extra thick bone in pork chops in case you want to know and I did not marinate them before hand)
A grill
Stuff for a salad:
  • Lettuce (I used a head of iceberg lettuce)
  • Celery
  • Radishes
  • Onion
  • Cucumber
  • Tomato
  • Dressing
  • A Container to store the salad if you don't eat it all

Step 1: Preheat the grill; I'm using a George Forman Lean Mean Grilling Machine (that is it's actual name :D) so I set the timer to preheat the grill at 400 for 7 minutes.



Step 2: Wash your hands! Then set the meat onto the grill; I set the timer to cook for 15 minutes.



Step 3: Re-wash your hands and rise the lettuce. I got the head in half for my salad then diced it up.



Step 4: Rinse the celery and radishes (I think they are the dirtiest vegetables you can get from a store!) before you dice them. Add them to the salad being sure to mix them in well (I use my hands to mix them into the salad)



Step 5: The 15 minutes are over; turn your meat around with tongs so it will cook evenly. Because the chops are so thick, the lid of the grill didn't completely close and as you can see some parts of the meat cooked better than others. Re-set the timer to cook for another 10 minutes or so.



Step 6: Peel and dice the onion, part of the cucumber and the tomato (you don't have to peel the tomato!). Mix the onion into the salad but keep the cucumber and tomato separate; you will use those as a 'garnish' on the plate and if you add them to the salad, they will get mushy.



Step 7: Once the meat is cooked to your liking, put the salad, 'garnishes' and meat onto a plate.



TADAAAAA!!! The dinner is ready to be enjoyed with a salad dressing of your choice!!



Just an interesting tip about the George Forman Lean, Mean Grilling Machine, what I love about it is that it gets rid of that NASTY animal fat that you shouldn't be eating and collects it in a lovely drip pan for your inspection. The grill itself can also be removed from the hot pads to be scrubbed thoroughly or popped into the dishwasher.

Hope you enjoyed reading this; it wasn't a super spectacular recipe... it was more of an average dinner at the Bloom house. The major difference is I cooked it! I will embark on more complicated recipes next but I wanted you to get a feel of what is 'normal' in my house :D

P.S. For anyone who likes Lady Gaga as much as I do, check out the GREAT male acapella version above!

20/20

OMG! School will be over in 5 more weeks! HALLELUJAH! I mean I love school, but I don't have time to do anything but school right now! But anyway... I am making time to do a 20/20 project created by Sarah!

My project will go as follows:

Part 1: Successfully cook 20 recipies and then post a how to blog post every Sunday with pictures! I will also post how unsuccessful I was too.... I have a tendency to make the worst damn cookies in the world, and that's one thing I want to try ......

Part 2: Get up to 20 situps in a row without stopping inbetween. I hoping this will shrink and strengthen my tummy (it has been a bit on the puffy side since last years surgery).

So I will make a post about my first 'dish' later on this week, once I have found my head and screwed it back into place! Right now I think it's running from my math test screaming :D

Saturday, May 15, 2010

It's All in a Day's Work!

So... how was your Thursday and Friday? Mine was pretty busy, and I didn't even leave the house!

Thursday morning I was up bright and early..ish (8:35 to be specific) and made tea. Then I ran around the house looking for knitted things for my window display that I never got the time to do on the weekend. It was nice and sunny out thankfully so I could use our big window in the front room for good lighting conditions. So at around 8:45 I burst into the front room loaded with wool and other knitting paraphernalia and proceeded to dump it all on the floor, disturbing my father's who was peacefully reading the morning newspaper. The conversation went something like this:

"Hey Dad"
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Making a window display."
"Oh.. ok" *continues reading*

We have a large window that looks onto a widely used street; and it was around the time that kids headed to school... the elementary school is about two houses up from us, and the high school is about 10 blocks down from us. So here I was hanging sweaters and moving ottomans to make my layout in front of the big, nicely lit window.... in my teddy bear nightgown. Yah, I'm just that cool!

Making the display took about half and hour of rearranging, positioning, getting the darn cat out from behind the drapes and of course, figuring out how the drapes actually worked:
"Dad, do these drapes work?"
"Yes of course" *flips paper*
"Um... they aren't closing"
"Did you pull the cord?"
"What cord?"
"The cord over there..." *points to the cord behind the drapes on the right hand side*
"Oooh, they work with a cooord!" *insert Dad shaking head*

Yah, my brain doesn't function tooo well at 9am apparently.

Soo after figuring out how to take a good picture (they kept turning out dark... apparently there's a way to turn on the flash when there was enough light in the room to blind you ... the setting is called 'Back light' for "when the light is behind the object".) this is what my second display looks like:



Hopefully my classmates will understand that I have a wool/knitting store; apparently the sign about knitting blankets and the skeins of yarn wasn't a big enough hint and the baby dolls confused them because they thought I was selling toys and Disney plushies for small children (FAIL!).

After putting back everything and vacuuming, I ran downstairs and finished my fashion report... which took about.....3 hours :S We had to comment on 5 other displays from our classmates (in depth comments that don't involve "Oh hey that looks cool"), make a name and sign for our store (that was fun) and then find five unique items (with links) that we would sell in our store. My store was all about specializing in the customers needs so my items were:

1. Knitting/Crocheting Classes (ranging from beginners to advanced)

2. The ability to sell customers products: not only could my customers get their supplies at my store, if they make more projects then they could use, they could also sell them in my shop and we could split the proceeds. This allows me to have a wide variety of things to sell besides just yarn and needles such as sweaters, scarves, shawls and hats!

3. Hand spun and dyed wool: by spinning and dying my own yarn/wool I can provide my customers with a wider selection and a cheaper price!

4. Specialty wools and yarns: I can offer my customers are rarer types/textiles of wools and yarns such as metallic, recycled silk, angora (rabbit), rayon (made of tree pulp), eyelash, and neon colours

5. Custom made items: I want to appeal to the customer, so I also offer custom made pieces. The customer can select their item (i.e. scarf or blanket), wool texture (soft for a baby blanket or eyelash for a scarf), colour and pattern and I would make it for them.

(right now I'm making 4 custom scarves for my friends at camp and a squid plushie for my Media Arts teacher)

6. Special Knitting Looms: Sometimes hand knitting is too difficult to learn for some people or some customers would like a method that would provide a smoother finished product (there are two kinds rectangular and circular)


Once that was done, I had a nap, watched the news for my media arts homework, watched Vampire Diaries season finale, played some online Scrabble with my mom, watched CSI and the Mentalist and then bed!

Friday I did the dishes, made tea and had some breakfast while my parental unit went mall walking. Then I went to my Law class and my Fashion class. After lunch (CHICKEN WINGS!) I finished my Law :) Nap, then finished my Media Arts which took a very long time :S Tooo many questions on the chart! Then made pancakes for dinner (I'm the only one who knows how and they didn't turn into failcakes or flatjacks! They were actually fluffy and tasty). Then watched Ghost Whisper, Medium and bed!

Now to watch 4 more math investigations... yah... riveting :P Monday I'm heading to the big (and super polluted) TO (Toronto) for a Fashion field trip! YAHHHH!!!! I will post pics sooon!


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New video, Glee version of Run Joey Run (it is mirrored for some reason...) :D

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Love or Dislike... Don't Hate!

Today is the day to love mothers, so:

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

Love is the opposite of hate, (well duh!). But both words evoke strong emotions in use. Those emotions can be fiery, passionate, cold, or gentle. God is love, so is hate the root of all evil.

Hate is a strong word. I used to say things like “I hate Miley Cyrus!” … I don’t hate her because I don’t know her. I like a few of her songs, I just don’t like the image she is portraying sometimes. However, I don’t hate her. The one thing you can hate is hate itself. Hatred equals too many things people have to suffer that they shouldn't: prejudice, discrimination, poverty, bulling, selfishness, avoidance, labeling, the withholding of love, and the rejection of rights and freedoms that people take for granted (just to name a few). For example, around the world, homosexual’s are hated because they are different; people fear that the “normal” lifestyle will change. And so, homosexual’s are being discriminated by society and government. People use hate to feel powerful, they use hate to put down the things they fear the most. So the next time you start to put the word “hate” into a sentence, stop and think why you are putting it there. Do you really hate it or just dislike it? Is there a reason to hate it? If not, then don’t hate, it’s not necessary.



Please scroll down for posts you might have missed, and don't forget to comment! I like to hear feed back! I apologize if I don't comment on your posts, unfortunately after I read your blogs I don't have anything 'good' to say. It usually sounds over used like "Oh Love the pictures" and not very inspirational! So please know that I love every post you guys write! I check your blogs everyday to see if there's anything new, but unfortunately, I can never think of anything awesome to write as a comment! Lots of love to you!

Friday, May 7, 2010

A Stitch In Time/ Homework :S



So for last weeks homework in "Fashion and Creative Expression" we had to design a window display :D I like to knit and have a vast variety of wools/yarns, so I made a display for my wool shop "A Stitch in Time".

This display is advertising a Mother's Day Special on baby blanket classes and materials. Yes, I did knit the blankets on the left and right side by myself :) The one in the middle came from a close friend of my Mom's and it went with the colour theme. Can anyone guess what the colour theme is?? For my artsy friends this should be a breeeeze!

In the next two weeks we will actually be designing a store!!! Mine will be a yarn store, and I'll be re-doing the window display for bonus marks (because I'm not satisfied with my 95%) LOL!
This whole thing has gotten me in a mood to actually create my own shop! Right now I'm trying to make 4 scarves for my friends who I will see at camp at the end of August! But I've been thinking, now that I've finished my mothers blanket (Yah!), why not make things for others? Soooo... if you are interested in a form of knitwear, give me a shout out and I will see what I can do! I'll post my new window display next week sometime!
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Speaking of homework, math is a pain in my ASSthma :P Lovely Mrs. Bulmer has been teaching high school math for 23 years (my mom and my Media Arts teacher Mrs. Blackthorn say Mrs. Bulmer is either insane or a computer in a human likeness) and this week she decided to give us a math test on Monday (I got 80%!) plus a Unit task due Wed. that covered all we learned in Module's 3 - 6. YAH FUN, nothing like a Unit task due the day I'm busy from 1:30-11:30pm to make the week bright and sunny! The game took 4 hours to do 4 questions :P We had a lot of difficulties:

• I chose this task because it seemed the easiest, but being in a virtual atmosphere made this task the hardest! I first had to send out 2 class emails asking for people to join my group and only 4 people replied late Tuesday morning! I explained in the email that I couldn’t work on Wed. so waiting for a reply was stressful because I was wasting time waiting for replies.
• Melissa, Jonah and I managed to all find a time to meet in Online Office at 2:30. However, only I could talk with my microphone; we wasted a few minutes trying to figure out why everyone else’s wasn’t working
• Mike Wills joined us, and although he managed to make his 10 questions quickly he had to leave for work.
• Melissa and Jonah did and I had done 1 each of my questions so we kept those and we continued on just the 3 of us, at around quarter to 4.
• However VLC encountered some glitches and kept freezing us in the online office! So at 4:30ish we gave up having completed 2 questions total and were in the middle of number 3.
• I factored quickly and completed 4, but one of my questions was from Mike. Since he wasn’t going to do this task in the end, we had to re-start the game. I finished the third question from Jonah and have 6 points. Jonah has 5 and Melissa has 10.
• Another thing I noticed is that Jonah and Melissa didn’t understand that if the question isn’t factorable, then they needed to change the constant and/or the coefficients to make the equation factorable. We wasted a lot of time explaining to each other that just because the equation isn’t factorable doesn’t mean that your done that equation… you need to change it to make it factorable!
• We couldn’t finish the game today/Wednesday because we are all busy and we have tons of other homework! For instance, I'm always busy from 1:30-11:30PM on Wednesday’s with all day voice and choir. So we are handing in what we managed to complete, the issues we had, and how we could do this better if we get another chance.

I haven't gotten my mark yet.... but she is a really nice teacher so I'm not tooo concerned, I have 90% right now :D

Speaking of marks, here is what I got on my mid-term report card (my comments about the teachers comments are in brackets):

Gr. 10 Media Arts Open ~ 97%

Comments: Excellent participation in on-line chats. Great work with your assignments - they demonstrate thorough knowledge of the medium and creative flair! (My mark dropped, it was 100% last year before I got sick... not that I'm complaining! Also, I have creative flair.. Oh Yah!)

Gr. 10 Mathematics Academic ~ 90%

Comments: Excellent work Rebecca! You are a responsible student. (Yes I am! I want to pass with at least an 80 so..)

Gr. 11 Fashion and Creative Expression Open ~ 95%

Comments: Congratulations! Your hard work has paid off! (Really? Because I have yet to see a marked assignment back yet... and the semester is almost over :P Teacher Fail? I think so...)

Gr. 11 Canadian Law Open ~ 95%

Comments: Top Mark in Class! Rebecca combines excellent research with great understanding of course material. Keep it up!! ( OOOOH YAH!! SKILL!!! HAhAHAhahah!)

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In the next few weeks I will be posting up my favourite Glee videos/songs! Check them out! The songs will get stuck in your head .. guaranteed!

First one up: Physical ~ Starring Olivia Newton-John and Jane Lynch

Sunday, May 2, 2010

You Are Beautiful Public Service Announcement

Here is my Public Service Announcement for Media Arts. It was suppose to be between 30-60 seconds long... I sucessfully made it exactly a minute long :) Sorry the screen is small!

The pictures of the little children are my YoungER Singers.. the 6-8 year-old choir that I help with to get my volunteer hours. The other pictures are my friends from Random Notes. I edited the music and video by myself (I feel very proud that I mastered the Window's Video Maker). No Copy Right Intended!
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See below for my blog post!