Thursday, September 30, 2010

TLC (minus the T-Boz and the Left-Eye)

The was:    

   



The is:





What happened:

Fall weather has finally arrived in the Triangle!  And nothing goes better with rainy, cool weather than a big bowl of spicy chicken chili.  I was super-excited about this chili because it is a really simple recipe and because, let's face it, who doesn't love a delicious chicken chili?  I don't have classes on Thursdays, so I usually spend the whole day at work; however, I had today off to study for tomorrow morning's exam.  That means I really had all day to sneak into the kitchen and see how my chili was doing.  It all started this morning when I dusted off the ol' crockpot (I'm serious, guys, I actually had to dust it...  I obviously need to clean more often.  Or maybe just use my crockpot more often!) and then lazily dumped all the above ingredients in.  That's right, this was overall a totally lazy process.  Actually, that's not true - I did have to chop that onion.  But even that took minimal effort.  Anyway, I threw everything in (except the salt and pepper, I forgot it and, in the end, it didn't need it), set it on low, and left it to cook until about 6PM this evening.  Okay okay, that's just slightly inaccurate.  I did let it cook that long, but I definitely didn't just leave it - in fact I probably checked on it about every 45 minutes.  I wasn't actually worried that it wasn't working - crockpots are pretty much fail-safe.  I was just procrastinating.  It's really what I do best.  Why do you think I'm updating this instead of cramming right now?  Oh well, I do consider this entire day a success even if I got minimal studying done because technically I worked really hard today...  I did spend the whole day 'cooking' after all.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Before and After

The was:  I didn't have a blog.


The is:  I now have a blog.


What happened:  So I had this fantastic idea for a blog...  Basically, it would feature all the before-and-afters of my daily life,.  You know, show the way something used to be, the way it is now, and the description of the process.  It could include all the kinds of things that I love (baking, refurbishing, travel, interior decorating, etc) and I could update it daily...  well, semi-daily as dictated by my busy schedule.  And so here it is!  I started off with one of the basic templates provided by blogspot to which I added a few subtle changes and will probably alter again and again.  After all, I do love change...  I mean, if "the was" and "the is" were exactly the same, this blog (and life in general) would be pretty boring, wouldn't it?