Monthly Archives: May 2010

19May / 2010

I’m famous!

On Monday I was featured on my school’s alumnae association’s blog.  MFAeA, Mississippi’s First Alumnae Association, is posting a series of profiles of recent graduates from the Mississippi University for Women.  This is totally unrelated to anything I talk about on here, but I’ve provided a link for those of you who may be interested (like my mom): New Graduate Profile: Danielle Grimes.

I realize that cropping my Jester babies out of this picture looks really tacky--but I have no decent pictures of myself. It's something I'm working on.

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18May / 2010

I Think I Need This: “Vintage Lace” Print

In reality, I know I don’t need this beautiful print by Eleanor, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting it.

Image courtesy of Eleanor & pushmepullyou design

I’m really crazy about pretty much everything in her shop, but these sweet kitties take the cake.  I love green and black right now, and as far as I’m concerned lace and cats are two things you can never go wrong with.  Plus, shipping is free right now!  What’s not to love about that?

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17May / 2010

Long Weekend

We had a long, fun, productive weekend out of town. Early Thursday morning we left for Lake Charles, LA to scope out our new city, look at my graduate school program, and house hunt.  Then we went on to Houma, LA where we visited with friends, ate too many donuts, and attended a really fun show:

This super-cool poster is by Kirby Doss of Porch Swing Media and The Devil, You, and Me (he also does freelance work!)

Then on Sunday we went to New Orleans and had lunch with my sister Erika.  For a homebodies like like myself, this weekend felt was a little overwhelming—but I had fun!  Lake Charles seems like a really fun city, and it was nice catching up with so many people I hadn’t seen in a while.

A sort-of side note:  I feel like I experience an eerie amount of coincidences.  For example, Selena of Faye Dodges Zombies (it was almost an unintentional Porch Swing Media vacation this weekend) and I were drooling over the Liberty of London at Target in Houma.  There was a comforter set I came very close to buying, but I stopped myself because I really shouldn’t be spending that kind of money.  Then, after I unpacked the car late last night I went next door for a bit to visit with Nick and Chelsey and see their sweet new kitten Buster.  While there, Chelsey presented me with a souvenir she picked up on her beach trip last week:

Image courtesy of Target.com

A beautiful peacock Liberty of London coffee mug (along with a sweet little elephant to add to my collection)! I’m currently sipping my second or third cup of coffee from this beautiful mug and trying to decide what I should spend my only day off this week doing.  Being back at work isn’t nearly as stressful as I’d imagined it would be, but it’s way, way more exhausting than I remembered.

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11May / 2010

Homemade Fig Jam

Great with greek yogurt, cream cheese, and toast.

I’m making a real effort to clean out my cabinets.  Moving food really sucks, but so does throwing it away, so I’vestopped going out to eat for a while.  One of the things I decided to tackle was my large stash of frozen fruit.  My grandmother gave me a ton of figs last summer (I think?), and I didn’t have time to use them all up so I stuck them in the freezer until I could decide what to do with them.  While I really, really love eating fresh figs as a snack, I don’t feel the same way about their fairly mushy frozen counterparts so I tried to come up with something that would fix this texture problem.  The obvious solution: fig jam!

Now, I’m crazy about fruit jam.  It’s delicious on so many things (greek yogurt, toast, dessert pizza, as a filling for cookies, etc.).  Also, when someone asks what you’re doing in the next room and you respond, “making jam,” they’re always a little impressed (all I’ve ever wanted is to be cool).

To make this delicious jam, all you need is:

  • fresh or frozen figs (I had about six cups of frozen figs, and they cooked down to fill two of the 12 oz jars pictured above)
  • sugar
  • lemons
  • clean glass jars with bands and fresh lids
  • a pot big enough to seal the jars in

Dump the fruit, a cup of sugar, and the juice of a lemon into a saucepan.  Cook on medium-low heat until the separate ingredients start to look like jam.  While it’s cooking, heat up a big pot of water deep, but not deep enough to submerge the jars.  Put the empty jars into the pot and heat the water up until it reaches a steady but not roaring boil.  Try and keep it at this point until the jam is ready.  Stick a spoon into the mixture then take it out and blow on it–if the mixture starts to gel then it’s ready to pour into the jars.  Pour in the jam and put the lids on the jars, then let them boil for at least ten minutes.  After that, take them out and let them cool on the counter overnight.  Before storing them, make sure they’ve actually sealed by checking the jar lids.

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10May / 2010

I am a college graduate.

The past few days have been full of a visiting with friends and family, eating good food, attending practices, and standing around.  It has been both fun and really stressful.  I’m going to miss MUW so much, but I’m looking forward to moving on to new and exciting things.

Chuck of Stitchy Sweet and Me at the Magnolia Chain ceremony

One of my favorite parts of this weekend was the Magnolia Chain ceremony.  All of the graduates partner up (Chuck was my partner!) and line up holding a very long chain of magnolia leaves and blossoms, then walk out onto the front lawn singing the Magnolia Chain song.  We make a circle with the chain, watch the presentation of awards, then sing some more songs.  After the last song, in which we wave goodbye to all our friends (I won’t lie, I did get misty), we each dive for a magnolia.  The girl (or boy!) who doesn’t get one is supposed to be an old maid! It looks like Chelsey and I will be okay after all.

This isn't the best picture. In fact, it's pretty bad. But my hair looks so much better than usual that I really wanted to share it with everyone.

In other news, this weekend we are heading to Lake Charles, LA to visit my new school and scope out some homes.  I’m so excited about this!  I guess I’m one step closer to becoming a grown up.

I’m going back to work at my retail job until my lease expires at the end of May.  I’ve enjoyed not working more than I thought I would, and my willingness to go back has pretty much evaporated as I become more and more convinced that what I get paid to work there isn’t as valuable as what I could get done if I were at home not working.  Factor in the fact that this particular job is exceedingly stressful, and my reluctance becomes something closer to repugnance at the thought of entering the working world again.  But I need the money (see previous paragraph: upcoming home ownership), so none of that matters too much.  Oh well :)

Anyway, now that I’m done with school for a while I should be back to a more regular posting schedule.  And since I don’t have to pour all of my energy into writing papers and taking tests, I’m planning on getting to a lot of projects I’ve had tucked away for quite a while.  Congratulations to all the other college graduates out there!

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