Happy Halloween!!!

It is Halloween, so Happy Hallow's Eve to all you lovely people out here!! Since it's been a busy day here for me (I'm distributing my muffins which have gone over SUPER well, had dinner with the family, lunch with Matt, and it's all crazy here! But that's life :P) I'm kinda going to go a little lazy on you all today.
I will share a few things with you first. Just a little information about Halloween for you to start off. Halloween (or All Hallow's Eve) is an old Christian Celtic holiday that starts a period of time for honoring the old Christian saints and martyrs. Well, that's my fun fact for today! I hope that you all have a fun and safe Halloween!!
Also, enjoy this AMV for my favorite Halloween song and one of my favorite mangas: Soul Eater!

Love,
Sara :)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

So when I decided to make these muffins this morning, the only thing I realized I didn't have were milk chocolate chips (who'd of thought?!) and the pumpkin purée. The chocolate chips were easy enough to find, but the pumpkin purée proved to be harder to find. I went to four different grocery stores before I found a can of pumpkin purée. Sigh....how was it so hard? Apparently, it has been a bad year for pumpkins.
Anyways, pumpkin purée problems aside, there's a fall recipe that I want to share with you all! I haven't had goo luck with muffin recipes in the past, but this one actually turned out really well, so I'm excited!! I'm writing this as I watch a marathon oh 'The Haunted' on Animal Planet. This recipe is for a batch of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, which a perfect not only for fall but for Halloween because of their orange and black coloring!

Ingredients
1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup canned puréed pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400F and grease a muffin tin for 12 muffins.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk,  oil and pumpkin until smooth.
Fold in your chocolate chips. Use as many as you want, depends how chocolaty you want your muffins to be!
Scoop evenly into your muffin tin. (For this you can also use smaller muffin slots if you want, it's up to you and depends how many muffins you want to make.)
Bake for 20-30 minutes.
Best when they are warm, but delicious no matter what!

For me, this recipe made 12 good sized muffins.

I am sorry that my grammar has been going badly over the past few posts, that's what I get for typing on an iPad instead of my computer and for not double checking my work after...apologies!

Love,

Sara :)

Musica Monday

I'm visiting the punk pop world for this Musica Monday. but first I want to clear up some things. Just because a song is referred to as pop, that doesn't make them a 'popular' band. Allow me to explain briefly: what 'pop' means is that the music is derived from 1950s style rock and roll, which was considered popular music at the time. While the terms 'pop' and 'popular' are used interchangeably, 'popular' music can refer to any genre of music and not specifically to 'pop' music. 'Pop' music tendsto be short to medium length songs that follow a simple chorus-refrain pattern and often times repeat the same melody over again. 'Punk' music is also interestingly enough derived from the same base: rock and roll, only this time from the 1970s in the USA, UK, and Australia. These songs tend to be short and often times politically motivated with at DIY ethic (meaning usually bands use their own record label to produce their music). Just thought you might like to know!
The band I want to introduce you to today is a combination of these two genres in one. They did in fact use their own recording studio, and their songs aren't too long, but they also use the chorus-refrain pattern in many of their songs. This band's two main members actually announced in July that they are expecting their first child this November. I'm introducing you to the Dollyrots. They have a unique sound that I've become a fan of simply due to their intense beat and the fact that they aren't afraid to be themselves and try something a little bit different. They've been around since 2000 and I hope that you guys enjoy this song of theirs called 'Satellite'.

Love,
Sara :)

Carved Pumpkins 2013

Yesterday I posted about the pumpkin farm and today I'm posting about what happened post-pumpkin farming. Pumpkin carving, whether we mean to or not, always tells something about the one who carves it. For instance, a person who carves a Pokemon into his or her pumpkin has probably just bought the most recent DS game or is a collector, plus they've got some sort of talent to be able to carve something like that. I too would like to think that our pumpkins tell a little bit about the people who carved them. My pumpkin (the first picture) is of a surprised pumpkin face with my own hands on the sides as if its hands are on its cheeks in shock and surprise. It feels this way because of the other three pumpkins, which include a Bat-signal for Batman, a big-eyed cat, and a wolf howling at the mood. With that combination, who wouldn't be a little shocked? It is I suppose a bit like seeing the superheros together...you got Batman, Catwoman, and....Wolfman?

And night time wouldn't be any less scary, although my pumpkin is starting to look a bit like a scarecrow or a witch or a mix between the two....but hey! It was a spur of the moment carve! I was the only one who didn't plan out what I was going to carve. 

I still say that one of the best parts of carving the pumpkins was not just the carving of them but also the removing of pumpkin guts, as well as having coffee and good talks with friends and family. These both were in abundance the night we carved pumpkins.

Love,

Sara :)

Picking Pumpkins 2013

When I was younger, my family used to go out and get pumpkins for carving at local pumpkin patches and I remember loving going out on the tractor rides and picking my pumpkin off the vine. However, as my family grew and stuff began happening, it got harder and harder or my family to go out and do these things such as picking out pumpkins and even picking out Christmas trees (not to mention my mother turned out to be allergic to the real trees), it even went so far as my family didn't carve pumpkins this year for trick-or-treating! Well, this year is my first year back from college and Matt and his family ensured that I started out carving pumpkins for Halloween. But first we went out to get pumpkins this morning at a pumpkin patch about 20 minutes away. I was brought back to my childhood memories of running around and finding the perfect pumpkin.

This is the small group of us who went out this past Saturday to pick pumpkins. Wen ended up with quite the haul of pumpkins, both big and small, and gourds. We got four pumpkins to be carved and each pumpkin was less than $10, which is quite awesome and is why we go to this particular farm I guess. My pumpkin was 27 lbs, and I got three miniature pumpkins that I may paint later on, one of them being white! I love the white pumpkins because they always look the coolest! I'll post pictures of the carved pumpkins next! But I hope that you all are enjoying fall (if you have it, parts of Minnesota and I hear New York already have snow!). Fall is definitely my first or second favorite season because of all the colors and going pumpkin harvesting just adds to the colorfulness of the season! I look forward to hearing about your fall traditions and how Halloween goes for you.

Love,

Sara :)

Musica Monday

For today's Musica Monday, I'm going back in time to 1985 and an old song that I remember listening to. A single by A-ha, later found on their album Hunting High and Low, I present to you the song "Take Me On". A-ha was formed in 1982 in Oslo, Norway and performed through 1994, they then had a reunion that lasted 1998-2010. They are considered a new wave and synthpop group. Their other famous single was "The Sun Always Shines on T.V."

I guess I just wanted to also share this music video with you because it's quite cute and not really like what we see in music videos anymore.

The band split in 1994 because their records stopped selling, their fifth album, Memorial Beach, failed to achieve the success that they had achieved in their past albums. In 1998, they reunited to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. After this concert, the band recorded their sixth album, Minor Earth Major Sky, whichever sang nearly as good as their old stuff in my personal opinion. I shouldn't say that, instead if you listen to their newer songs like "I Wish I Cared", nothing has changed, they didn't do anything different with their music which does make them consistent, but also makes them boring and uninteresting as far as changes go, mostly because they didn't change. Don't get me wrong, they aren't bad, but I've lost interest since they didn't evolve really.

What do you guys think?

Love,

Sara :)

Pinning Pumpkins

I've seen painted pumpkins before on Pinterest for Halloween, but they never seemed to be as big as they are this year! People are really getting creative with this different version of decorating for Halloween. I do understand the draw for like younger kids: less of a mess for the parents to clean up, but it still stands that I have found myself more and more interested in trying out one or some of these new pumpkin ideas myself this year. Now, I haven't done my Halloween decorating yet this year, but I will be getting on that as soon as I have a day off of work...so next weekend? I'm not sure when that will be exactly, but when I do get to my pumpkins I will for sure share them with you! For now, here are some painted pumpkins that I have been pinning on Pinterst lately!

From here

From here

From here

From here

From here

Also, you can follow me on Pinterst here.

Lastly, Matt just got Pokemon X and is very unwilling to go to bed tonight even though he works early tomorrow morning because he wants to play :P It's amusing and adorable!

Love,

Sara

Musica Monday

Let's go back in time for a little bit. Ok, not that far back...the 90's, the 1990s. So like 20 years ago or so. There was a great cartoon that everyone I knew watched back then. It's actually still going on to this day (I know because it plays at like 5am when I'm up for work Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Mondays) and produces cards and games that are still just as popular as they were when I was little. The newest game just came out recently. Enough with the clues, if you haven't figured it out, I'm talking about Pokemon. There are really two reasons why I am bringing up this on a Musica Monday.
1. I just finished rearranging my Pokemon cards (yes, I collect them, and I'll have you know I have a pretty great collection :P) and thought of this song that I once actually played in my school orchestra.

2. Lindsey Stirling, a violinist whom I have written about in the past on this blog (and who Matt got to see live....so jealous!) came out with a new duet with another YouTube sensation, Kurt Hugo Schneider, called the Dubstep Pokemon Remix. I, for one, can't get enough of this pair.

I hope you guys enjoy this blast from the not-too-distant past!
Love,
Sara :)

My Poor Kindle...

So I went to dig my kindle out of my desk today because I'm getting a little tired of carrying around all these big books (they do make for good weapons at times and I really like the library, but seriously it's getting to be a bit heavy for my purse and afraid I'm gonna end up breaking it. I still plan on carrying some around every so often, and as much as I love the idea of having a solid book in my hand, when I'm out and about a kindle just seems to be easier and lighter...

Anyways, I dug my kindle out today and plugged it in since it had died and this came up:

Ummmm...I think my kindle might be sick. And yes this is like the very first kindle made. I think it might even be the original version of the kindle! So, my plan is to head into Best Buy tomorrow and see if my kindle can be healed or if I need to buy a new one. If I need a new one, any kindle users out there have a suggestion? I want one that's not too much because all I'm going to do is read books, no tv shows, I've got an iPad and Netflix for that! And I do have kindle on my iPad but I can't buy any new books on there for kindle which is quite annoying. Suggestions?

Love,

Sara :)

Finding a New Job

As you have probably noticed, my posting has been sporadic at best as of late. I apologize for that but in my defense I've been working one full time job (40 hours a week...or more) plus coaching 4-5 days a week. Suffice to say that I haven't had a regular schedule since my shifts for my full time job vary from 8am-530pm to 11pm-9am! I can't guarantee much lately because my schedule keeps on changing too. So, for the past few weeks I've been using my spare time to talk to my family (whom I don't see much anymore) and sleeping (which is a rare occurrence). This schedule is working for now because I'm making money, but it is making daily life hard. So, I've decided that I'm going to be looking for a new job, this time in the field I wanted to work in: fitness. I'm finding a few such jobs around, but the hard part (as with any career) is finding an entry level job. Yet, his is no reason to give up :) I've been working with people with developmental disabilities for the past few months and it's been a blast, and I can use that experience for my new job, whatever it is!

Well, that's my little update for now, sorry about being so sporadic again. I'm working on it! Like right now I'm posting at nearly 3am....wtf?!

Love,

Sara :)

Oh, and this is my friend Umbreon :) isn't he cute?!?

Cheap Find

I should really stop going to Half-Price Books, but I can't seem to stop myself! I went again today and found some new books and CDs and even a movie this time! I spent more time trying to figure out how to keep my spending to a minimum, and again I didn't spend $10! I bought a total of 2 CDs, 2 books, and a movie.

I'm going to start with the CDs. The first CD I grabbed is called 'Twenty Years' by a band called Sad Girl. Anyone who has heard of this band before I would love to hear about them because I know next to nothing! Hthere was a note inside the CD case that read "a guy lead singer with girl backup. Almost punk rock but a little more mellow." I think that this really is an accurate description because I can't come up with another way of describing this music. Plus, I can't find much of anything at all on it even on YouTube or Wikipedia!! The other CD I grabbed is by Meg Lee Chin who actually started her own recod company apparently and then ended up writing her own songs. He CD I got is not one of her original songs unfortunately (or so I understand) nap but is instead a bunch of remixes of other peoples' songs! It's called "Junkies and Snakes", she has a very unique voice, mellow and full.

I also grabbed two books while I was out. The first one I got is called The Ghost Quartet, which is a combination of four short ghost story novels. Starting off with Brian Lumley, followed by Orson Scott Card, then Marvin Kaye, and finally Tanith Lee. I excited to read these stories. When I'm not alone all night. The second book I got was actually meant for my sister, and I'm still thinking of giving it to her as a late birthday present. It's called Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager. Apparently they ordered a lake full of magic? Sounded interesting!

The movie I got is called "The Day of the Triffids" and it's from 1962. I'm not going to tell you much about it now except it looks kinda hilarious and awesome! I'll tell you about it next time I do movie stuff because I'm planning on watching it soon!!!

What types of cheap finds have you guys uncovered lately?

Love,

Sara :)

I'm Confused

I'm having some problems with blogger right now. I tried to post a musica Monday on Monday and it didn't apparently post, and now today's post is suddenly went to Monday!! I'm not sure what's happening with my posts. But I'm trying to get it sorted.... Thanks guys!!

Surprise Plans!!

So I just finalized plans and I will be heading to Minnesota Friday night and onto Saturday :D It's Homecoming at St Olaf (my college) so I will be meeting some friends back there. I look forward to sharing it with you all! I'm also hoping to put up my first outfit post this weekend, so we will see about that!
Sunday will be spent probably with the boyfriend when he's not working, and having me study and look at apartments, which I am beginning to do. I would like to work out a way that I can move out even if it's not to Minnesota for a while. Even just around here would be nice!

Love,
Sara :)