Oh the places I want to go!

Feeling trapped within the bounds of my house as well as the continental U.S. has given my mind plenty of time to roam around the world and think about the places I would like to visit. I'll start with the places within the U.S. that I would like to go.

• Las Vegas, Nevada
• Disneyland, California
• New Orleans, Louisiana
• Charleston, South Carolina
• Washington, D.C.
• New York City, New York
• Key West, Florida

Europe

• London, England
• Edinburgh, Scotland
• Paris, France
• Loire Valley, France
• Normandy, France
• Brittany, France
• Rome, Italy
• Venice, Italy
• Verona, Italy
• Florence, Italy
• Athens, Greece
• Hania, Crete, Greece

Russia

• St. Petersburg

There is more to just wanting to visit these places there are things to see and do. So these are the things I would like to see and do.

• Stonehenge
• Queens Gallery
• Climb the Eiffel tower
• Visit the Louvre
• Explore Versailles
• Walk the gardens of Chateau Chenunceau
• See the Toullerie Gardens
• Walk the beaches of Normandy
• See the tomb of Juliette (as an adult, and not lay down in it this time ;p)
• Glassblowing shops of Venice
• St. Peters square
• Statue of David and art museums in Florence
• Ruins of Ancient Greece
• The Winter Palace in Russia (home to the last Tsar and his family, yes, that means Anastasia Romanov)
• Mardi Gras and the French Quarter
• Visit Disneyland
• Statue of Liberty (got close last time, just didn't get off the boat)
• Ellis Island (really explore this time)
• White Star Line pier (the one Titanic was supposed to dock at)
• Broadway show (Les Mis, Scandalous, Wicked, Book of Mormon)
• Smithsonian Museum (All of them)
• Washington monument
• Lincoln Memorial
• Vietnam Memorial
• Arlington National Cemetery (I have friends remains interred there)

I'm sure there is more but I'm a little fuzzy today so maybe later I will add more, until then. Happy exploring!

Bright Ideas

Sometimes I wonder if my Mom wonders where the hell I get my hare-brained ideas from.

Why do I wonder if she wonders? Easy. Because I do come up with some really bright ideas. My latest idea...run a 5K in Disney World. I've wanted to do a run down there ever since I discovered that there were runs. There is a marathon weekend in January and February that generally involves a marathon, half marathon, and a family fun run 5K. To me, it seems like a lot of fun. They have a fitness expo at the Wide Workd o Sports ESPN center the day before the races begin.

The expo is where go to check in and get everything you need for the race that weekend. They also have fitness talks and tips and they even have professionals there that will give you tips on how to increase your time and how to maintain your mile time. It looks like a lot of fun to go down there for the weekend enjoy the park, and run through Epcot while no one is there except the runners.

Most of my friends know that I am a Disney fan, and that is a plus of doing the run down there. Especially, if you stay at one of the resorts then you get a discount rate on the rooms and tickets, but not only that, the day of the race they have buses that will run to take you to the start line. I think Mom is a little more reluctant to go beause it is Disney and it does cost money to stay there for the two nights that we will be there.

One of the funnier and more brilliant things about the races is the fact that, they actually encourage you to dress up, be whimsical, and run the race at the same time. There are a fair amount of people who actually will. I see it as a prime opportunity for Mom to do her favorite thing...be silly and embarass me. It's always a sight to see my Mom ride a grocery cart across the parking lot, and if I'm not around to see it, she has the courtesy to  all or text me just to let me know. I think she even emailed me to tell me that when I was on cruise.

I have wanted to do the half marathon, but I haven't trained for it and even Mom Sachs she can't do a half marathon, after  it is 13 point something miles. My goal is to see how well I like the 5K and if I do I want to train and do my best to try and participate in the Wine and Dine half marathon in Seotember of next year. It has been a while since I've ran long distance, but thanks to Run Disney and Nike+ I have a program that I can create to help me get ready. I'm more fond of running on the beach barefoot...it's really nice to run with a sea breeze and wave sounds, and if you're feeling frisky, you can run in the surf or just jump into the water once you've finished running. That's what Mom does after a bike ride, she will get home and immediately jump into the pool with all her bike clothes on.

When I was younger and went on BRAG wit her, my cousin and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world to see pee jump into the pool with their clothes on, especially when it was my Mom.

I'm really hoping and looking forward to doing the Disney World Mickey and Minnie Royal Family Fun Run 5K. I think it would be a great experience and it's something for me to focus on and work towards, especially since I will be done with school in a few months. I just hope Mom is onward with my latest bright idea, if not then I hope that I can get some friends to join me.

Fingers crossed, hoping for a job, and hoping to do something new and never done before.

Haunted

In the night you haunt me like a shadow that never seems to leave. My days are filled with want of another. I often wonder why you refuse to leave my thoughts and memories. It only makes it that much harder to find a peaceful existence. The days should be filled with the mindless thoughts of a past. I'm unsure of how to proceed some days, the memories are bittersweet but an unnessasary nuisance at the same time. The hump of an accord is a difficult and strange place to be. I only want what I everyone else has. I do not thin that is too much to ask of the Fates. Should they decide to act in my favor again. The Fates brought you to me once, and now they have brought someone anew. All I ask is that you leave me. Leave my dreams, leave my thoughts, just leave me be. The haunting of me is unwelcome. Apparition it is time you took your leave.

Adventures in cooking #2

The other day I began doing a google search for a white wine reduction sauce. I had batched Chef Robert on Restaurant impossible make one, and got the idea to try and make one myself. The recipe that I came across was a low carb but looked tasty. It didn't look to complicated, and as a self proclaimed chickatarien, I loved it more because it was a chicken recipe.

The recipe is called chicken breasts stuffed with spinach, Ricotta, and Gorgonzola cheese, with a zesty lemon sauce. Note to self though, the next time I make this recipe I need to make sure that I have tooth picks.

You start off by beating (tenderizing) two chicken breasts (you can do more if you have more than two in a package). Put the chicken between two sheets of plastic wrap, and use a rolling pin or a meat tenderizer (if you don't have either just use what you got). After you have gotten the chicken to a 1/4 in thick, you put the spinach, bacon and cheese mixture onto the middle of the breast, then fold and tuck the folds of the chicken with a tooth pick (or two).

Place the chicken in a skillet with either vegetable oil or extra virgin olive oil, brown and cook the chicken until its cooked all the way and the cheese melted. Then you serve it with the sauce. The sauce is a combo of one lemon juiced, disjoin mustard, chicken stock and white wine. The sauce didn't turn out well for me so I just ate the chicken the way it was.

It was very yummy, up until a few days ago I has never eaten Gorgonzola cheese, it's a very different cheese sort of crumbly and a little pungent, but once it's been cooked or added with something else, it adds so much more flavor to the dish. My advice is to go out on a limb try something new and you will be surprised.

Bonne manger!

History...fascinating!

As some people know, I am a huge history buff. To me it's an utterly fascinating subject, that never seems to not pique my interest. I still remember being in the library when I was in elementary school, and when I was supposed to be paying attention to something else, I saw the PBS broadcasting of the discovery of the Titanic. From that moment on, history as well as the Titanic became my fascination.

I'll get back to more on the Titanic later, I want to talk about the history that surrounds us, that is disappearing due to the loss of labour and manufacturing to other countries because it's cheaper, and as everybody knows its always about the money. In my sleepless state I came across this shoe on the History channel called, Abandoned. I've only seen this one show but it sucked me in immediately.

These three guys are at this factory called Scranton Lace. From 1916 to 2002 the factory produced Nottingham Lace, named so for Nottongham, England where the looms and even the first workers had come from. The factory is as you could or should tell from the titles of the show,the building is now abandoned. It closed its doors in 2002 with only about fifty employees left from a once grand 1,400. It really makes you wonder what in the hell has happened to us. We as Americans have seem to gone all cheap on everything, only wanting more and more money.

This lace factory is AMAZING! They really knew how to treat their employees. They had an infirmary, a bowling alley, a gym, and even a beauty shop with a full time barber. They were even a major part of the war effort in the 1940's by producing masquito netting, camoflogue netting, and parachutes. Is that not fascinating? Well, to me it is.

However, the sad part is, because labour was cheaper overseas, the demand for producing lace in the U.S. dramatically reduced, sending long standing, hardworking companies such as Scranton Lace into closing their doors. Why is that? Do you know how many jobs it could still have if they were not closed and still producing American made products? All those people in that area would have jobs and since their were jobs the local economy would more than likely be a fairly stable one.

I can understand the need for money, I'm an unemployed vet so really I do get it, but going overseas because it's cheaper and the labour restrictions are not the same or as demanding as withing the states, is a ridiculous reason to go overseas to produce products. We have the means to produce products right here in our own back yards so to speak, but instead we send our work over to China, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

People are out of work in the U.S. teach them a trade, teach them how to work in a factory such as Scranton Lace so that they have a job, they have a steady means of income, and so that we as Americans can start depending on ourselves again. We keep throwing history away and building over it to make bigger and better things, but loosing a little piece of ourselves time and time again.History has a pattern of repeating itself, and if we do not learn from history and our past mistakes, then how in the hell are we going to survive? History dearves to be preserved, and taken care of.

I wish I was able to go off on adventures like these men were doing, just walling through an old abandoned factory just looking at the history that was all around. It's an amazing opportunity to do something like that, but it would be another amazing opportunity to reopen such a nostalgic place, and provide jobs for the community as well as a boost to our crumbling economy. It's my opinion that the less we look in our own backyard to help preserve who we have come to be as people and a nation, and the more we look to subsidize everything to foreign
Laces, we are just inviting something to come and bite us in the ass.

I know I said I would get to the Titanic story, and I will, just not tonight. I rambled on for too long. I hope you enjoyed or understood my ratings, I love history and I hate to see it disappear and be one obsolete simply because people have turned into cheapscapes, tight fisted, money grubbing hungry. If we can not depend on our nation and the pepople who run it, then who can we trust? What's next?

Bonnie nuit, et merci

Dance

Once again, this is yet another post about my younger days, but it's fond memories with a little bit of current knowledge attached. So, please, read on.

When I was little, starting from the time I was five until I was fourteen, I was a dancer. I took tap, jazz, and ballet at a small dance studio in the small town where I'm from. I really did enjoy it. Getting to dance and get all dressed up with make-up and my hair done in a cute bun, I enjoyed it when I was little.

My secret ambition when I was growing up was to dance with the New York City ballet. As most people know, that dream did not come true. Not only that, but it is very difficult to even get to the level to be able to audition for such a prestigious company. I just didn't know that at the time, and I didn't even know how to achieve that dream.

There were many years where I wanted to dance en pointe, but my teacher kept saying I had to wait until I was twelve or thirteen. That's generally the age when girls can begin learning pointe. It has everything to do with the bones in the foot.

When I finally reached that age, she would not instruct me, she kept telling me one more year, then one more year. She had only taught pointe to three other girls, and it was apparently a nightmare trying to do so. But then again, it wasn't even a proper studio. most dance studios didn't have tile floors, they would either have a floor made of wood or one specifically for dancing. I had finally gotten my teacher to teach me pointe, but that didn't even last very long.

Pointe work is very difficult, but I loved it and I just wanted to be this beautiful ballerina, so graceful and elegant. I wasn't though, I was just a fat kid that was good at what she had been taught. I didn't want to give up on dancing on my toes, yes, it was hard and abusive on my feet, but it was everything that I had wanted from dance.

I stopped dancing when I got into high school. It was hard to work my dance schedule with my marching band schedule, and then try and work once I had a job. I did try and go back, but it was never the same. Besides, those girls that were in my group were younger than me, I had never moved up in age groups like I should have, but for a time my group was ok, although loud.

When I finally decided to try and dance again, I found a new place that was actually in a building beside where I worked. Going there was amazing. The teacher had actually studied and worked with some really prestigious companies. She had been with the Geoffrey Ballet, and had been a teaching liaison at the American Ballet Theatre, she had even studied with the Atlanta Ballet at their education center. I learned more from her, in one session than I ever had at my small rinkie-dink dance studio.

There is so much more out there now, for people who really want to peruse ballet and dance. I was perusing the shelves at the book store the other day, and I came across a Pointe magazine. I had a subscription to them years ago, but I haven't re-nued it in years. I think I still have their very first issue. I got it free since it was an up and coming magazine. It's thicker today than it was then, mainly because it's grown so much.

As I was looking through the pages, I noticed how many summer programs their are now. Some even go on a tour of the U.S. looking for students.  Its great to see that there are all these programmes out there for those who really want a career in the ballet industry or just to improve more. Sometimes I wish, that I knew of these programmes when I was a kid, but I don't know if I would've been good enough to get in, considering how little education I actually had.

I still want to dance and I still want to be en pointe, as they say. Only thing is, I need a new pair of pointe shoes...Daisy decided one afternoon while I was asleep that my very nice hand made, Bloch pointe shoes were tasty. Therefore one shoe box is completely destroyed. My advice to anyone who wants to dance, whether it be pointe or any other form, go for it, and now, thanks to the Internet, there are numerous resources out there to be discovered.

Adventures in cooking

As most of my friends and family know, I love to cook. My Mom wonders where I got it from, because she does not enjoy cooking that often.  When I was little, and from what I can remeber, my Mom did not really cook a great deal of different things. It was generally Spaghetti with meat sauce with garlic toast, pork-chops (which I despised), rice, butter beans, green beans, black beans, occasionaly I could talk her into spinach quiesh (the ex didn't like quiesh), lasganiagh from a box (it was good, and it was fast), creamed beef on toast, my favorite and still is today was cubed steak or chicken fried steak, howver you wan't to put it, mashed potatoes, and maccaronni and cheese, There might be more that I am forgetting, but even Mom will admit she can't remeber what happened yesterday let alone what she used to cook when I was little.

Although, she does remeber the good stuff from when I was a kid.

I love of cooking stated fairly early, it probably stemmed from watching my Nanny make us waffles and cookies, although I still smell collard greens when ever I see her, no matter if she's made them or not, its just one of those memory smells that has yet to leave. When I mas in middle school, I actually took home economics twice. I learned how to make an omelet, and my favorite...cinnamon rolls! I learned to sew too, but the best was the cooking.

Ever since I've been on my own, my experimentation in the world of culinary cuisine has grown. My ideas come from watching food network. The other day, I was watching an episode of the Barefoot Contessa, she was making a spinach and cheddar souffle. I had never made a souffle before, and I had actually been wanting to make one. Theirs a recipe for a chocolate souffle on the back of the ghirardelli baking chocolate wrapper.

Since the Barefoot Contessa made it look rather simple, I decided I would try and make the souffle.  It turned out really well. Although I did mix up the part where it calls to put the egg YOLKS in the flour, butter mixture...I put the egg WHITES in there! It was funny to me, I seem to always do that, misread directions . I think it was a bit to eggy, and I probably should have used the aged cheddar like the Contessa recommended, but I'm trying to pinch penny's and I just bought the packaged cheese. It probably DOES make a difference in taste. To rectify me using whites, instead of yolks, after I had already mixed the whites in, I went ahead and just figured I'd add in the yokes too. Then when it really called to add the whites, I added more....I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to cooking.

The spinach was a little troublesome, mainly because it didn't thaw completely and I had to spray it with water to melt the remaining ice. Other than that it's not a big problem, just let the spinach thaw either in it's packaging or in a strainer. Then when it's completely done thawing, do your best to squeeze all the water out. If you need to you can always squeeze what you can with your hand then wrap it in a paper towel and squeeze it out more, since the towel will help to draw out more of the water.

Just on key thing to do, when you cook the souffle, you can't open the oven door. If you do that then it will cause it to fall, and that's not good. Just peek at it from the outside if you so desire.

One thing I would like to do in order to improve is get a new cook-book. I would like to get Julia Childes cook book the one with both volumes. She was great at French cuisine, and I'm anxious to try some of her recipes.

manger heureuse!

The question of why

As I was walking through the mall the other day, I began to wonder why we do some of the things we do. Why do we do our best to steer clear of someone who is older and walks slower than we do? I just wonder if anyone has ever stopped to think how they feel? Why do we need to steer clear of someone who is different than we are, its not as if we wont be there ourselves someday, I guess you could say it is the principle of the matter. At some point in time they were our age, young, healthy, and vibrant only time has stolen what remains of their health and youth from them on a daily basis. It's not to say, we need to feel sorry for them, because they are old and slower, but have a greater respect for them because they are older and have survived more in their time than what the much younger generation has.

Sometimes I wonder how they feel...and what goes on in their head, like what are they thinking about. How do they feel about us, the younger generation?  What was their life like growing up?

The biggest question of why is, why is it that people feel the need to hurt the ones that they are supposed to love, why not treat them with the respect that have given you throughout the years? Respect is lacking these days all around, sometimes I think we as people and even as Americans have forgotten where we came from and how we got to where we are.

I often have dreams, where the people in my dreams hurt me deliberately. I try my hardest to turn around and hurt them right back, but I am unable. Why is that? Is it because my nature is that of one who does not wish to hurt anyone deliberately, or one who prefers to stay out of the spot light, so to speak? I am a person of a million questions, that will probably remain unanswered. It's my belief that a majority of the questions are rhetorical. It does not sit well with me when those that are close to me, are deliberately hurt by someone they love and respect. Insults hurled at them, and the past not being let got of...most of it tends to be a family trait...but still, it's not ok for them to be hurt simply because their past has not been let go of, or because the are misunderstood. All of them can be an excuse, although hurting someone is not an excuse.

I have felt, for many years, the "black-sheep" of my fathers family. When I was little I wondered why my Dad never saw me, or why I didn't hear from a majority of his family until I was of an age to understand, and reach out to them. My aunt says I never was a "black-sheep," but just because someone said it was not so does not make it so to me. People and even families, whether the know it or not, do deliberately ostracize people from society and groups. It an inexcusable action. Why, seriously, why do they need to be "kicked out" of a society group or a family when they have done nothing to deserve it? Is it because they have a "new family" so therefore the old can not be kept with the new? Or is it something much deeper?

My family, has always been (on both sides) very concealing and even cold with their emotions. I will exclude my mother and my aunts (her sisters) from this group. Mom has done the best she could with the tools that she was given as a child, and I have never felt unloved by my mother, father, yes, but never mom. Mom has given and given to me, and although we may not understand what each other is asking of wanting, somehow we have always found a way to understand each other.

My heart feels for the people that feel the cold brush of love from a family, simply from lack of clarity or other reasons that are un-named. I can't be harsh towards those that were harsh and cold to my loved one, they are still my family regardless, and I do not know why they did and said what they did. Its worse when there is one person there, that is believed to be the backup, but instead their the ones that cause the pain too. It's something that I've discussed before, and have still left wondering why. Why does the matriarch of my family, treat the ones that are not blood and even those that are, with such callous disregard? It is unfair, and confusing at the same time.

I will continue to ask the question of why, it is just who I am, and the way my brain works. My twin says I am one of the most caring people (persons?) she knows, I do my best to care about everyone else, I do firmly believe in do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If we treat everyone, no matter who the hell they are, black, white, purple, or green with blue polka-dots with a little bit more respect then maybe their will be a few lesser questions of why, I doubt it but I would hope that maybe someday we can truly understand the question of why.

C'est la vie, bonne nuit...