reading and grilled cheese. two of my favs.

i really think that i had forgotten how hard {wednesdays} were.
today has been brutal! (good luck i don't have a lot of homework or i would be pretty much toast...)

i know i talked about the soul-searching aspect that always seems to accompany the beginning of each new semester, but some people can say it so much better than i can.

pictures from 365q.ca

so i am a pretty big quote geek. back at home, i have quote books from high school, i copy quotes and keep them on my computer, i type them in my phone and send them to myself so that i don't forget them... i love reading what people that are much wiser than me have to say about the world.
the last quote has always confused me. not that i didn't understand what it was supposed to mean, i knew what it was saying, i just didn't get it. i do now. having lived in a different country for even three months - leaving my family, having to fend for myself (ie not blow all the money that i had), meeting tons of new people was all part of an amazing adventure.
but coming home was special.
i don't know if i can quite explain it adequately, but it was an eye-opening experience to come home and see how blessed i am. and how often i take all of those blessings for granted.
like going for a walk by myself.
wearing shorts.
sitting on the grass under a crystal clear sky.
hearing my younger brothers fight. because i am with my family.
having to run errands for my mom, but getting to drive around in my car.
cooking!
sharing my beliefs with others.
having so many clothes that i don't know what to do with them anymore...


on another note, i read something really cool from this awesome blog - i love reading it... it always makes me laugh.
it also made me feel justified in bringing home six books from the library today... (i have no idea when i'm going to read them - but don't judge me! i couldn't put them back!!!)

-------------------

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but...she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.


***
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
***
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
-- Rosemary Urquico

:)

and it this weren't random enough already, we have to speak of food! the world would probably explode if i didn't...
this looks pretty much like the ultimate in grilled cheese.
i can almost feel my arteries clogging up looking at it, but it looks so good! 

and finally! 

a homemade solar oven to cook s'mores. 

{genius.}