Angela's Ponderings

The sun's still shining when I close my eyes.

2009-10-31T10:23:00.002-07:00

I'm enjoying a perfect morning. After sleeping in, which was a godsend, I'm enjoying my second breakfast (hey, who am I to refuse a fresh apple muffin from my favorite bakery?). Also painting my nails to match my costume for tonight, and listening to country music on Pandora. Lovely, lovely morning.

I've been planning a Halloween party with a couple friends for a month or so, and the excitement has been gradually building. I'm so glad the day is finally here! Goofing off with my friends (in costumes, no less) is one of my favorite occupations.

What else...oh yes, NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow, and I've decided to give it a try! I was lamenting my lack of creative outlets when I found out about it. I think it'll be a good experience for me in creativity and endurance. 175 pages in 30 days-woohoo!

I will surely blog about the party later, complete with pictures.

Happy Halloween!

Oh! Materialism.

2009-09-20T14:37:00.004-07:00

You know when you listen to a song and it reverberates through your soul? Well, Viva La Vida by Coldplay is my soul music of the moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44xirQ55IgA

Even though the lyrics are kind of sad, it somehow still gives me a hopeful feeling that things will be alright.

...I love when songs do that. (:

So, in other news, I finally ordered Deathly Hallows on Amazon (I know, what kind of crap HP fan am I, buying the book two years after it was published?! Nevertheless...) and in order to get free shipping I had to buy $25 worth of items, so I bought a cd as well. It's called Limbs and Branches by Switchfoot's Jon Foreman. I've only heard one of the songs on it, House of God Forever, but it, too, is One of Those Songs, so I just had to buy the album. I listened to clips from the other songs on the cd, and they sound good too, so...yippee! I love waiting for packages to arrive-it makes me feel like a kid at Christmastime. :]

And Paramore's new cd, Brand New Eyes, comes out in 9 days! I can't wait to hear it.

Since apparently my mind is on shopping...in other GREAT news, I got the Bargain to End All Bargains. A $70 dress-of-my-dreams discounted to $26. At Macy's. Pricey, fancy, ridiculously expensive Macy's.

...sweet!

And with that thought, I bid thee adieu.

Ensalada Deliciosa

2009-08-24T19:12:00.007-07:00

Howdy, folks!

Today I thought I'd share with you my favorite salad recipe, one of my own culinary creations, which I wittily dub "Spinach Apple Salad." It's so simple to throw together, yet it hits the spot every time. It's great as a side salad but can be filling enough to be a meal in itself.

Ingredients:
1/3 to 1/2 bag of spinach (don't forget to rinse it off if it's not pre-washed)
1 apple, sliced into bite-sized chunks (can toss apple chunks w/ cinnamon for added flavor)
handful of walnuts (or substitute your nut of choice)
handful of raisins (or two handfuls, if you're me♥)

Toss together in medium-size bowl and serve!

♥Y♥u♥m♥m♥y♥!♥

My first day of classes went well, by the way, although my hopes of a short lab were utterly put to shame. (2 hrs & 50 min. Good thing I like my professor.)

YouTube, Ghibli and Reptiles (oh my!)

2009-08-23T19:35:00.004-07:00

On Thursday my friend Kelli spent the night at my house (I haven't had a "sleepover" since high school at least). We had fun eating, watching movies, more snacking, painting our nails, snacking, and the next day we filmed a Youtube video that we had planned to do some time ago. Won't you give it a look?

Today I saw the Studio Ghibli film Ponyo. It was way better than I thought it would be, and definitely up to director Hayao Miyazaki's (Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle) legendary standards. I highly recommend that you see it while it's in theatres! Another benefit to supporting this film is that if it does well more Japanese movies are likely to be dubbed for English-speaking audiences. (Note: I usually avoid dubs at all costs, but this one wasn't cheesy like most dubs usually are.)

Here's the trailer:

Also, while adding annotations to our video on Thursday, I spotted a funny sight:

A lizard (brought inside and missing its tail, thanks to my two cats) had taken refuge in a stand-up fan in my living room!

My dad later took it outside, where hopefully it is safely out of reach of the devious felines.

In other news, my fall semester begins tomorrow! I'm so not looking forward to waking up early and fighting for a decent parking spot. I also hope/beg/pray that my anatomy teacher is merciful and decides not to use all three of the allotted hours for our lab. [Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.] Science labs are the bane of my existence.

Alrighty, I'm off to prepare my things for tomorrow!

Angela

Literary Storm

2009-08-21T20:36:00.002-07:00

It's really windy and thunder-y and generally stormy outside right now.

This makes me very happy as we almost never get to experience this kind of weather in AZ, even during what we dub "monsoon season" [overreaction much? haha].

Well lately I've been reading a bunch of teen chick lit and now I'm addicted to its fluffy predictable-storyline goodness. This week I've read:

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

its sequel, On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God [neither are as raunchy as they sound, I swear!]

The Queen Geek Social Club by Laura Preble

and just finished today: The Actual Real Reality of Jennifer James by Gillian Shields

This weekend I need to go to the library [in order to further indulge my new addiction] and buy my textbooks for school, which starts on Monday[!!!] I'm not quite ready for it to start, but oh well.

Guess that's all for today!

Angela

I hope you dance.

2009-08-20T00:08:00.003-07:00

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

-Shakespeare, Hamlet

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

"Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy/ but I've got friends that love me/ and they know where I stand"
In a contemplative mood this evening. I'm realizing more and more lately that I need to cherish the friendships that I so often take for granted.

"Everything I am/ everything I long to be/ I lay it down/ at Your feet"
I'm finally at a point in my life where I'm content with who I am and have learned to accept my imperfections. But, like anyone, I still wonder and worry about the future. What will I be doing 5, 10 years from now? What will my life be like? Will I still be close to the friends I have now? Will I be married, dating, single? Where will I be living? Will I have a job that I love? Will I have a better relationship with God?

"I want your symphony/ singing in all that I am/ at the top of my lungs/ I'm giving it back"
I'm uncertain and wish I had all the answers, but I know from experience that worrying only invites fear and depression.

"I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance/ never settle for the path of least resistance/ living might mean taking chances, but they're worth taking"
So here's to living in the moment and letting the future come at its own pace-God's own pace.

Angela

Harry Potter and the Incredible Cakepod

2009-06-30T17:46:00.010-07:00

Lately I've been reading a lot to pass the time (and to maintain my sanity while taking a month-long summer course-2 days left!). With the release of the sixth Harry Potter movie (Half-Blood Prince) coming up fast (two weeks from tomorrow, in fact) I decided to re-read the last 3 HP books, since I have read them less times than the first four and am a bit fuzzy on the details. The problem is that when I read the last two for the first time last year (long story why I hadn't read them sooner) I read them in quick succession, so I didn't give myself enough time to absorb the details. This time around, however, I'm determined to pace myself...somewhat. I may even wait until after I see the movie to start the seventh book (I'm 3/4 through the 6th at the moment). I was thinking of reading this book, which basically goes over the different theories of what would happen in Book 7 (obviously written before Deathly Hallows was released). One of my biggest regrets is that I missed out on the last chunk of HP fandom. I stopped reading HP after the 5th book came out for personal reasons, which took me a few years to come to terms with, by which time the hype had passed. Sigh. But I'm trying to make up for missed time now. (: Next year will mark ten years-a whole decade!!!-since I first read Harry Potter. That's a bit mind-boggling.

In other news, I finally succumbed to the pressure, got with the times, jumped on the bandwagon, sold my soul...however you'd like to think of it. I got my first MP3 player. Until recently, I had held steadfast to my cd collection and trusty battery-sucking cd player. Why should I go digital when my cds work perfectly fine? Well, the last straw was a frustrating experience in which I tried unsuccessfully to burn all of my favorite songs on a cd. So for my birthday, my parents told me they'd pay for an mp3 player of my choosing! They gave me a gift certificate to Costco for $94 (which they had received for free), and said they'd pay the rest. As you can see, I ended up choosing an iPod Nano. I wanted to compare different brands, especially the Zune, but Costco only had iPods and a 2GB Sandisk player, so I went with an 8GB Nano. It's quite pretty! With the gift certificate, it was only $50-much preferable to the $130+ it costs elsewhere. It didn't take long to figure out how to use it, and I've since purchased a clear case so it won't get scratched up. Now I can listen to podcasts! So exciting.

And on that note, I must share a sad/disastrous moment of mine:

If you'll pardon the overused reference, my cake was...a lie. I kind of broke it, you see. Let's just say I am investing in a new set of cake pans before I attempt to make cake again. >_< Anyway, it turned out all right; I just frosted the other half and served it with ice cream. My original intention was to make an ice cream cake by spreading ice cream between the layers and then freezing the cake before frosting it, but you see how easily that plan was foiled. Sigh. Another time, perhaps.

Oh yeah, I'm 20 now, by the way...no more teenagedom for me! Sayonara.

A Sugary Update

2009-06-11T22:05:00.005-07:00

My Eurocrem craving has been sufficiently placated (for the time being):

I showed my mom around the Asian Market yesterday, and besides getting another package of cookies and that jar of Eurocrem I had been eyeing, I also found a Eurocrem candy bar! I am officially addicted. [:

Also, I made cookies with my friend today! Or rather, I made cookies while he held the cookbook for me. ;) I tried a new recipe from my Nestle cookbook called "Jumbo 3-Chip Cookies"-usually we only have semi-sweet chips at my house, but we had a bag of white chocolate♥ chips in the cupboard, so I decided to combine! The recipe called for milk choc. chips as well, but I think milk chocolate is a bit overrated (plus I didn't feel like buying a bag of them), so I just modified the recipe a bit and they turned out GREAT. They're much bigger than the cookies I usually make (it called for 1/4 cup scoops!!! instead of the usual rounded tablespoonfuls). They turned out just like the cookies from Paradise Bakery & Mrs. Fields'-now I know their secrets! (Use both granulated & brown sugars, less salt, and larger scoops of dough.) Mwaha.

...I blog about sweets a lot, don't I? 0:)

If I were a rich man...I'd buy a lifetime supply of Eurocream-filled cookies.

2009-06-09T20:46:00.009-07:00

I have book/movie/music cravings the way people crave certain foods. I have to be in just the right mood to read/watch/listen to something, or else I can't enjoy it. Well, tonight I had a sudden and random desire to watch Fiddler on the Roof, so now I'm watching it while typing this and trying not to burst out into song. ♥

There's this pottery place called As You Wish near my house. Basically it works as follows: you pay a fee to sit at a table, then you choose a blank ceramic piece from their collection (items range from the useful-such as bowls and pen holders-to the decorative-including kittens and mermaids). Then you grab some paint and paintbrushes and get to work! When you're finished, you pay for your piece and leave it with them. They fire it in their kiln, and you go back two days later to pick up your newly-glazed, shiny item! It's a lot of fun.

I prefer to spend money/time on things that won't just sit around collecting dust, so I chose a couple of tiles (to be used as coasters) to paint. At first I was just going to paint one, but as my idea evolved I realized it wasn't going to fit on one tile, haha. It took me at least two hours to paint (arts & crafts + perfectionism = a terrible thing) but it was worth it! I think it turned out really cute. They're not attached, btw; it's just that the full design can only be seen when they're placed side-by-side.

Okay. So there's this grocery store about 10 minutes from my house, creatively called "Asian Market", that sells imported goods-mostly Asian food items (imagine that!) but also some things from Europe. Well, I'd been wanting to go there for quite some time and my friend finally got me to go. As soon as I stepped in the door, I knew: I'd found My Place. Home. Heaven. Whatever you want to call it. Imported goods, far as the eye can see! Edible imported goods!

Well, we were there to get snacks to sneak into the movie theatre (I usually don't condone rule-breaking, but no way am I paying $10 for crappy movie theatre food. If I'm going to eat junk food, it's going to be delicious and cheap, by golly!) So we went straight to the snack food aisles, and I fell in love. After much browsing (and drooling), I laid my eyes on this [above] package, and I knew I'd found the perfect snack. Cookies w/chocolate filling, not made by Nabisco? Heck yes.

But the packaging was nothing compared to the taste of these babies. One bite during the previews and I was hooked. I'm-moving-to-Europe-to-be-closer-to-the-source-of-this-goodness-hooked. The cookie wafers themselves had a nice flavor, but it was the chocolatey cream (Eurocream, which, I found out, is like Nutella but 1,000,000,000,000,000...etc. times better) combined with the crunchy cookie texture that got me. I will never call another cookie delicious again.

Yes, I did just spend most of my blog ranting about imported cookies. ¬_¬;; No regrets...next time I go to the Asian Market I'm buying a jar of Eurocream and as many packages of those cookies as I can afford. They're made in Serbia, btw. Guess the Balkans know how to please the taste buds! Usually I steer clear from pre-made/packaged cookies (I figure if I'm going to take in a ton of calories, they're going to be made by me in my own kitchen where no preservatives are added), but for these I shall definitely make an exception. [/rant]

...Drat, now I want some of those cookies. Well, I have class in the morning so I'd better get some rest.

Adieu!

Oh, the videos I miss out on...

2009-05-26T23:38:00.004-07:00

This makes me sad:

That is all.

Friendship on Memorial Day

2009-05-25T23:59:00.010-07:00

Friends.

I am so grateful for them. Without them, my life would be utterly dull and glum.

For instance, who else would I have *owned* at Monopoly this afternoon?

For who else would I stay up 'till 2am baking a cheesecake?

Who else could I shake my head at for playing too many video games, yet at the same time borrow a PS2 controller & game from? (I'll always be a gamer at heart.)

Thank You, Lord, for bringing them into my life. (:♥

Happy Memorial Day, by the way! May those who have died fighting for our country rest in peace, and may those who have in the past or are currently serving to protect their countries from harm (no matter where in the world they live/come from) be blessed. [...Amen.]
　

Dogs and Oven Usage

2009-05-21T22:54:00.008-07:00

This is Leo. I'm babysitting (dogsitting?) him for my friend while she's in Oklahoma for a week. I am his regular babysitter whenever she goes out of town, so Leo is used to me & my family's house. All right, so that's a bit of an understatement: the dog loves me. He follows me EVERYWHERE. He won't even go to bed until I do. Good thing he's so cute and sweet or else I'd find this extremely annoying. (I'm a cat person and usually don't warm up to dogs too much, but Leo and Fred [my family's dog] are some of the few exceptions.)

In other news...after hanging out at a friend's house all day, watching chick flicks and getting majorly owned at Batman Monopoly (seriously, I mortgaged all of my properties and still went bankrupt...) I went home to the beginnings of rain! ♥

Rain and clouds are my favorite type of weather, probably due to the fact that I don't see them more than a handful of days each year. So I was very cheerful this evening and decided to do some baking (since no one was available to go to the Cheescake Factory & devour overpriced-yet-delicious cheesecake with me). After some thought I settled on a recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies from my trusty Nestle cookbook. I tweaked it a bit (they never add enough cinnamon in their recipes...and there's no such thing as too much cinnamon!) and they turned out pretty good. Want to see?

They taste better than they look, really.

And since I'm on the topic of baking...for Mother's Day a couple weeks ago I decided at the last minute to make breakfast in bed for my mom, and I found a recipe for blueberry buckle (basically coffee cake w/ blueberries in it) online. I had never made coffee cake from scratch before; I'd always relied on the Bisquik box recipe (which is never quite sweet enough for my taste), so I was excited to try this recipe out. Well, let me tell you, it was AMAZINGly delicious. There's nothing like fresh blueberries to spruce up a recipe.

I ate it for breakfast for the next few days...I think I ate more of it than anyone else, hehe...

Beautiful.

...And that is that.

Oh, by the way, I've a sad confession to make: I just now, after over a year of having this blog, realized that I don't have to use the html view when writing my blog post. ¬_¬;; Speak of this to no one...

No sleep + BBC = fun times

2009-05-20T03:41:00.004-07:00

2 posts in less than 12 hours?! I couldn't fall asleep, so apparently my muses are on hyperdrive.

But really, I was perusing the BBC's news site and stumbled across an article on England's summer weather (which apparently is typically very wet and cool-one word: ENVY) and I was reminded of the reason I read the BBC in the first place:

"The very notion of cramming Wimbledon, Ascot, Henley, the Lord's Test match, hundreds of church fetes, and thousands of back-garden barbecues into the second half of June is clearly an act of extreme provocation. Is it any wonder that Mother Nature cannot resist?" -http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7561411.stm

Subtle yet clever. Or it could just be that I'm really, really tired. At any rate, I'd have to dig around for quite awhile to find that sort of humour on CNN, MSNBC, and the like.

Anyway...off to sleep for real this time.

Peachy-keen

2009-05-19T22:14:00.015-07:00

Aaaaaaah. I'm so terrible at posting here. Even though no one reads this blog, I still feel bad for neglecting it. So, let us begin again...

The spring semester is [finally!!!] over. Unfortunately I didn't do too well in one of my classes so I have to take it over again. :( That's never happened to me before; I've always been a straight-A student. But this semester I kind of fell off the bandwagon I guess. Oh well, I don't mind taking it again if it means I can get a better grade and fix my GPA. Though the thought of sitting through a lab every week again makes me... *twitch*

Anyways, so I'm going to take a summer class (different course) so that I can retake that other class in the fall without overloading my semester.

I saw the new Star Trek movie 2 times in less than a week, even though I am the furthest thing from a trekkie possible. It was well-made: good plot, fast-paced action, great graphics, and best of all a good cast. I haven't enjoyed an action/sci-fi/fantasy/superhero-type movie that much in years.

On Sunday I went to a local peach orchard with my aunt, nana and cousin to [you guessed it) pick peaches. We tried to get there early to avoid the heat as much as possible, though of course this is the Southwest so avoiding the heat is like a fish avoiding water. (At least at this time of year.) Anyway, the peaches were really cheap ($1.75/lb) so we picked about 25 lbs in all.

It was a lot of fun, and afterwards we went to a pancake breakfast (still @ the orchard/farm) and waited in line for about 45 minutes to consume gigantic frisbee-sized pancakes. They were delicious, but we definitely had to share them (Half of one filled me up plenty.)

Then yesterday I went out to breakfast with my cousin @ IHOP and our waiter hadn't come around for awhile, so he told me how one time at a restaurant his waiter left without telling anyone to take over the table. So we finished eating and sat around twiddling our thumbs, looking around, and our waiter still didn't show up. So we finally signaled another waiter and told him our waiter hadn't come around in awhile, and you know what he told us? He went home because he was having back pains. Now, if you leave in the middle of your shift, shouldn't you maybe get someone to take over for you?!? Unbelievable...at least the food was good. -_-

Later he drove me home, and we had to endure a 45-minute drive on the freeway in his car without a/c. In the hottest part of the day. I nearly died. x_x

So that's the latest of my exciting life adventures.

And now, off to bed!

The Ordinary Side of an Extraordinary Man ♥

2009-04-28T22:09:00.004-07:00

Some lesser-known tidbits about JPII's personality.

♥♥♥ He was (& is) a saint, no doubt about it, but he was also an ordinary person.

Wish I could've snuck him some of my homemade desserts. It's the least I could've done for the man whose teaching and life has influenced my own in such a profound way.

JPII, we [will always] love you!!!!!!!

Just an Ordinary Day

2009-04-23T21:54:00.003-07:00

Today I:

♦ Woke up late (15 minutes before class started, to be exact)
♦ Helped dissect a fetal pig (pobrecito!!)
♦ Watched 1.5 Gilmore Girls episodes
♦ Ate 2.5 of my homemade, less-than-24-hours-old chocolate-chip cookies
♦ Went to Old Navy & spent my mom's money on cute shirts :P
♦ etc.

All in all, a good day. Just one class tomorrow, then weekend, here I come!!!

Schoolstervision

2009-04-21T23:33:00.006-07:00

Sorry that I haven't posted in awhile (k, that's an understatement...a long while...) but life has been hectic these days. The semester's drawing to a close (finally! Ready to collapse over the finish line...) so of course I've been spending most of my time as follows:

1. Sitting in class, absorbing (or not) info
2. Trying to have a social life, and putting off doing my hw in the process
3. Frantically trying to finish said hw on time, and failing miserably half the time

This has not been a good semester for me at all, so I'm glad it's almost over. I don't regret spending more time w/ my friends, though-I never spend enough time with them, and I always have the most fun goofing off together. Mostly watching movies @ home & walking aimlessly around various malls since we're poor and mostly unemployed atm, but still. ;) It's like high school all over again.

ANYWAY, so that's what my school & social lives have been like. In other news...Lent came and went, and Easter, too! I kind of fell off the bandwagon as far as my Lenten aspirations went, due to a number of factors (one of which being the death of my uncle Benny-may he rest in peace). But I greatly enjoyed participating in the Triduum services, especially on Holy Saturday evening @ the Easter Vigil-my absolute favorite Mass of the whole entire year. No matter how lousy a Lent I've had, going to the Easter Vigil always brings me back to God. I wish I could adequately describe it-our entrance with candles into the dark church, the multiple Scripture readings and psalms in the dim light, the lights being turned on as the congregation sings our first 'Alleluia' since Lent began, the joyous Gospel proclamation of Christ's Resurrection, and Fr. Ed's ever-beautiful and joyful homiy about the miracle of Easter. Then we get to witness the baptism (always emoional for me, even though I usually don't know the people) and/or reception of other Sacraments by new Catholics ♥ and renew our own baptismal vows. All the while we get to sing beautiful hymns of joy.

Then I go back again on Easter morning to squeeze in with the Christmas/Easter crowd (if you're one of those people, come more often, please!) to celebrate again.

So...I think that's it for blogworthy news. Oh, and I decided to give Twitter a go, as you can see on the sidebar >>>. I like it, even if I'm the only person who reads my tweets. OH! One more thing...I've got myself a new quasi-addiction: the Eurovision song contest. Check out the youtube channel and get yourself addicted, too.

Can't wait for the contest finals on May 16...I'll totally be watching online! Thinking of having someone(s) over to watch it w/ me, but not sure if any of my friends will understand my newfound addiction. So far my top 5 (ok, 6, couldn't make up my mind) favorites are:

1. Serbia's Cipela
2. Finland's Lose Control
3. Bosnia & Hercegovina's Bistra Voda
4. Ireland's Et Cetera
5. Andorra's La Teva Decisio
6. Armenia's Jan Jan

When it gets closer to the finals, I may comment more. Go watch all 42 songs on youtube! There's some awesome music out there.

K, gotta go finish a paper now.

God bless!

Friends + movie-mocking = ♥

2009-03-16T23:56:00.004-07:00

Tonight I rediscovered the value of friendship (and cheap theaters-ugh, I hate the American spelling of this word! I shall forsake it). One of my best friends and I went to the $3 (R.I.P. $1) Theatre this evening, because I had finally convinced her to see Twilight w/ me.

Now, before you disregard this post as another Twilight-obsessed rant, allow me to explain. I am a fan of the books; I enjoyed reading them & thought they were well-written. However, I am not obsessed beyond reason, nor do I think that Edward is The Perfect Guy. He has his redeeming qualities, to be sure, as do all fictional love interests, but I find his obsessive fangirls a bit frightening. Personally, I spend the majority of my obsessive energy on LotR, and everything else is secondary. :P

But I digress. I have seen the Twilight movie thrice now, and it seems to get worse with each viewing. I just did not like the way the two main actors (Kristen Stewart & Robert Pattinson) delivered their lines (it was too awkward-sounding), and throughout the movie they never seemed to convey a sense that they were falling in love. Plus, the screenplay was teeming with cheesy one-liners that, while they may have sounded good in the books, did not translate well onto the screen. However, I thought that most of the supporting actors/actresses did a great job, and the music & scenery was wonderful. So basically, as I told my friend, if you just squint a little (so as to not see the bad acting) and make up your own lines, you'll enjoy the movie.

ANYWAY, so we went to the cheap theatre, and we prepared for a couple of hours of fun. You see, we decided to make the movie enjoyable by adding our own commentary/wisecracks/etc. My friend hadn't seen the movie, but she had read the plots of all 4 books (cheater, tsk, tsk) on Wikipedia, so she somewhat knew what was going on. Let me tell you, the cheap (aka poor people's) theatre is the best place to watch a movie if you want to be able to goof off during the show, because there's hardly anyone else in the theatre with you, and chances are everyone's seen the movie before, so you don't feel as bad about disrupting their movie-viewing experience. We did whisper, though-we're not completely inconsiderate. Let me just say that I enjoyed the movie this third viewing more than the other two combined, due to the constant mocking that my friend and I engaged in.

Two Words: Good Times.

I thank God for: my friends. So often I forget how much they contribute to my well-being and sanity, but every time I hang out with them, I am reminded of how blessed I am to have them in my life. Cheesy and cliché, yes, but true. So thank you, Lord!

And good night to you all (or none, whichever category you readers may fall into).
-Angela

The Weather and Lent

2009-03-01T21:12:00.005-07:00

So, I just took a walk/jog around the neighborhood-my daily exercise. It was refreshing, but now I'm feeling the months spent sitting indoors, not exercising. Maybe I should not have run so much, so soon. Glad to put my sports shorts to good use, though. I could actually wear shorts this evening-can you believe it? The cold weather is subsiding at last-though in about three months' time, I'll be begging for winter again. Alas, that is life in the desert-y regions of the U.S., and the fate of us desert-dwellers: we complain about the heat during the summer and what should be autumn in NORMAL places-we don't really have a fall season around here; just summer and winter-then a few weeks into winter and we're complaining that it's too cold out (well, the wimpier of us, anyways-like me). The only time we really ever stop complaining is during spring, which usually consists of March and most of April, if we're lucky. But even then, we're anticipating the heat that is to come. ...Why do so many people relocate here, again? Mind you, the weather is less neurotic up north, in Payson, Sedona, Flagstaff and the like. But they get snow in the winter, and snow means reeeeeally cold weather. Too cold for a born-and-bred-Valley-dwelling-wimp like me. It's fun to visit for a day or two, but any more than that is just...not fun.

Wow, you know you have nothing significant to blog about when you spend half your post rambling on about the weather...and I wonder why I have no readers. (Actually, I don't wonder, but you get the point.)

Um..oh yeah! I do have something of some degree of importance to say! Hah.
I've decided what to do for Lent! :D This Lent, I'm going to exercise 30 min/day and read two books that I've been meaning to read but haven't gotten around to finishing:
Divine Mercy in My Soul (the diary of St. Faustina Kowalska of Poland) and A Civilization of Love-What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World by Carl Anderson. Maybe those two things don't sound like that big of a deal, but to me they are easier said than done, and that's the point of Lent-to drag oneself out of one's spiritual (and otherwise) complacency and overcome selfishness in order to be able to have a better relationship with God-that's how I apply it to my life, anyway. Whoever says that being Catholic is easy...is a liar. :P The no-meat-on-Fridays thing is the least of my concerns.

Well, that walk tired me out, and I need to get some sleep in order to take notes in class tomorrow morning with some amount of comprehension. So, I shall bid thee, dear invisible audience, adieu.

¡Buenas Noches!
-Angela

Lots of Gibberish (aka a Long-Awaited Update)

2009-02-26T17:06:00.008-07:00

Well, I'm alive. :-o

Here I sit, using my new laptop (a generous Christmas gift from my parents, who were probably sick of hearing me complain about being stuck doing hw on the family desktop computer in the dreary corner of the family room day in and day out). It's an HP Pavilion, 14" screen, Core2 Duo processor, 4 GB RAM, 350? GB storage (I think). Now, normally, none of that would make much sense to me, but trying to shop for this thing has broadened my knowledge of computer properties [albeit infinitesimally]. Here's what it looks like. Originally I had gotten (bad word choice, I know) a Gateway, but it kept freezing and the store we bought it from was no help, so we just returned it, went to a different store and found this one. My only complaint is that the lettering on the keys is difficult to read in certain lighting, but I guess that's just an incentive for me to learn to touch-type (I know, I'm in college and I still haven't figured that out-what can I say? I didn't pay attention during computer class in junior high).

Aaaanyways...it's been way too long since I've posted, and I didn't have much motivation (and had half-considered deleting this thing) until I read a blog that I like to follow, which I hadn't read in a long time (due to the fact that I haven't been online much recently). Anyway, it inspired me to start bloggng again, even though I don't think anyone reads this. It's kinda therapeutic, y'know? And since I've stopped writing in my regular journal (it depresses me, for some reason-bad memories, maybe?) I think posting here will be a nice change of scenery.

So, what's new in my life? Well, I'm in my 4th semester of community college already (I can hear the judgemental thoughts forming in your head-believe me, community college is much better than it's commonly portrayed!)-only one more semester to go after this one until I transfer to a university. Of course, with all the budget-cutting drama that my state's universities have been discussing, I dunno if there will be a university for me to go to (joking, but they are considering closing the campus nearest to my house).

I'm taking less credits than last semester (13 instead of 17-definitely a relief), but I'm not overly fond of a couple of my classes, especially anatomy *twitch* (I am terrible at science) so that's a bummer. And I keep worrying about getting a job, because I want to save up $ for a variety of possibilities. But I've never had a job before (pathetic but true) and I'm a little nervous about trying to find one now. I'll probably wait until the end of the semester, to save myself from unwanted/unecessary stress.

What else..? Oh yeah-it's Lent again! It always takes me by surprise. I'm still not quite sure what I'm doing for Lent (see, I procrastinate in my spiritual life as well! ¬_¬) but I want to do something proactive this year (i.e. doing something rather than giving something up). I had thought about cleaning my room as a penance, which desperately needs doing (I envy those people who keep their rooms nice & tidy) but I don't have much time to do it during the week, and I want to choose something that I can do every day. I've always wanted to read St. Faustina's published diary (called Divine Mercy in My Soul) but I never get around to it. Maybe I'll do that...we'll see. Next time I update my blog (which will be soon, I swear!), I'll let you (O nonexistant readers) know what I've decided.

Well, I must be off to do my homework and other necessary things.

'Ta Lue!
-Angela

"This is [My] Life"

2008-09-03T22:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those days where a song just keeps reverberating through your head?

It's been one of those weeks, actually.

Even when I was praying after Mass today, the lyrics came to mind. It's really a very beautiful song (and I'm a sucker for soul-stirring songs).

Although I do not own any of Switchfoot's cds, I really like their music, or at least all the songs I've heard on Youtube and their Myspace page. I love songs whose lyrics can be taken as Christian or just plain inspirational at the same time, and Switchfoot's songs do just that.

...methinks I need to buy me some cd's.

(:

In other news, I'm getting back into the rythm of the school year. I love, love, love it. <333 Although I'm going to have to curb this procrastination issue if I want to stay sane all semester.

God bless!

WYDSYD08!

2008-07-22T00:34:00.000-07:00

This article nicely summarizes the essence of WYD08:

"Catholic and Cool in Sydney"

More commentary by me later.

2008-06-27T23:54:00.002-07:00

Children: Joy > Cost

2008-06-19T21:33:00.001-07:00

My inbox gets filled up with way too many forwards. Usually I delete them without even bothering to open them, because after awhile all forwards start to sound the same: cheesy and rather pointless. But since this one had "children" in the title, which is a subject I've been giving quite a bit of thought to lately, I decided to give it a try. Well, it turns out it was worth it! Here it is:

The Price of Children

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down.

It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month, or
* $171.08 a week.
* That's a mere $24.24 a day!
* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if you want to be "rich." Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?

* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger- paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs, and
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watching Saturday morning cartoons,
* going to Disney movies, and
* wishing on stars.
* You get to frame rainbows, hearts and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay on Mother's Day and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

* first step,
* first word,
* first bra,
* first date, and
* first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits. So one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!

Although I imagine that parenting is indeed a cross at times, like all suffering, the blessings that come from it are more than worth the "price."

Useless anxiety

2008-06-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Me: Worry, worry, worry, worry, worry. Aaaargh!

God: "I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. . .consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. . .but if [I] so clothe the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will [I] not much more clothe you, O [daughter] of little faith? . . .Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day." (Matthew 6:25-34)

Me: Oh, that's nice, Lord. *goes back to worrying*

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

You know what I need? A good smack in the head. It's a wonder God hasn't given me one yet. I think it would do me some good.

Our Mother's Prayer

2008-06-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.
He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy:
As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

After I recieved a certain blessing today, my heart filled with gratitude to God and I was able to say with Mary, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,. . .[for] the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name." I looked up the Magnificat (above) prayer on Google so that I could read the full text, and in doing so I also found this beautiful yet simple reflection on Mary's awesome prayer: The "Merciless" Magnificat by Rev. Johann G. Roten, SM.

I hope you enjoy & are blessed by it. May we all join with Our Blessed Mother in proclaiming and sharing God's goodness to us.

A little something about Prayer

2008-06-08T23:26:00.000-07:00

I had this idea last night that I thought would make a great YouTube video, but since I'm a bit camera-shy and I know myself well enough to admit that by the time I actually got around to making said video, I would have forgotten what I wanted to say...well, a blog post seemed to be the better alternative. (Plus, anything that will keep this blog alive is a good thing.)

So, where to begin? Oh yes. The Baltimore Catechism. Well, I found it on my bookshelf last night and decided to peruse it, and after awhile I came across a section about prayer which asked the question: "Why do we pray?" The simple answer given is as follows: "We pray: first to adore God; second, to thank Him for His favors; third, to obtain from Him the pardon of our sins and the remission of their punishment; fourth, to ask graces and blessings for ourselves and others." Sounds very straightforward, right? And it is. But it was the order, not the form, that caught my attention. I realized that I have been approaching prayer completely backwards without even giving it much thought. For me, prayer usually goes something like this: "Hi God. I reeeeally need Your help with such-and-such. I'm not doing so well, and if You don't help me I think I'm going to give up. By the way, I'm sorry for doing you-name-it. I'll try really hard to stop doing that. But You gotta provide the grace. Also, thanks for such-and-such. Oh, and You are awesome and I'm so glad that You're my God. Amen."

Now obviously, this is a slight exaggeration. But you get the point: Ask for help, say I'm sorry, give thanks, and adore. Wroooong order. No wonder I so often fall out of a pattern of regular prayer. Adore. Thank. Repent. Supplicate. Rinse and repeat. :P When you think about it, though, the Baltimore Catechism's order makes much more sense than my own and allows prayer to flow more naturally. "I love You, God. You are so great and wonderful. Thank you so much for the blessings that You have given me in my life, especially recently. In light of Your goodness, I see more clearly my sins and how atrociously I have acted. I am so sorry, Lord, for offending You and failing to contribute positively to the world, but rather diminishing the cause and spread of goodness through my own sinful actions. Please forgive me, and help me to make amends and work towards becoming a better person. And please provide me with all of those graces which I am in most need of, especially the ones I am unaware of needing. Please bless my day, my thoughts, words, and actions, and my family and friends as well. Thank You, Lord. I love You. Amen."

"For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy."

"Kneeling before the tabernacle, I can think of only one thing to say to our Lord: "My God, you know that I love You." And I feel that my prayer does not weary Jesus; knowing my weakness, He is satisfied with my good will."

-The Little Flower (Saint Therese of Lisieux)

Faith & Fidelity

2008-03-31T23:29:00.000-07:00

This thought just came to me while I was in the shower (that greatest of thinking places): There can be no faith if it isn't accompanied by doubts. For if there aren't any doubts, how can you call it faith? How is it proven, if there is nothing to challenge it?

Anyway, this thought comforted me a little because I've been experiencing some doubts & cynicism lately in my life. I've not been so good in the prayer department, and I haven't seriously attempted to read a spiritual/devotional book in quite awhile. I know my friends think of me as the Catholic/Christian girl, yadda yadda. But I need someone to pray for me too, y'know. I never claimed to be perfect; people just seem to assume that since I'm into my faith, I'm...I dunno. But that's silly. I just wish I knew more people who share my beliefs; it would be awfully nice to be able to speak about spiritual things w/people. Well, God? Send 'em my way. :)

More political pondering

2008-03-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

So, I've been thinking lately...I either need to delete this blog entirely or else start posting more often. I think I'll opt for the latter (at least for now). I remember my very first blog, back when I had a Xanga account. I would post on there all the time! Of course, that was back in the good ol' days of high school goofing off-ness. And that was also before junior year, if I recall correctly, before I was showered with hw. Anyhoo...having been inspired by some vloggers on youtube, I've decided to give this blog another try. This seems like an opportune moment to shamelessly plug my Spanish blog-go on, read it! I hope I don't sound too much like a caveman-of course, for the most part I just stick with the present & preterite tenses, so it's not too bad or difficult.

Random thought(to borrow one of Kelli's favorite phrases): I desperately need to do some research into the remaining presidential candidates. I know, I know-it's already March and I'm still uninformed?! I wasn't registered to vote in time for the primaries, though, so I didn't exactly have an urgent need to know...speaking of which, I still haven't received my voter registration card, etc. in the mail. Hm. Anyways. I guess I can partly blame my lack of candidate savvy on the fact that, as politicians, they are pretty much inherently annoying, so it's a bit of a chore to listen to/read their points of view for any amount of time. Perhaps I'm too cynical in this regard, but really, they are all a bit power-hungry and will do practically anything to appease the voters-it's sickening how they pretend to care about certain causes or w/e just to get votes. Nonetheless, I must vote for one of them...the lesser of two (or three at this point) evils. The thing is, I could never bring myself to vote for a candidate that supports abortion; it is such an atrocity. Even if I totally agree with his/her views in other areas, that one key issue would prevent me from voting for them. Which pretty much forces me to vote for the other candidate. I know that many argue that you can't or shouldn't base your vote on one issue, and I agree-but I refuse to give power to someone who wouldn't do a thing to prevent thousands of unborn children from being aborted (killed) each year in this country. Of course, I think Republican politicians need to do more to restrict abortion as well. Apart from any religious beliefs, abortion is clearly inhumane and does harm to everyone involved-the baby, mother, father, and country.

So what are your views on voting-are there certain issue that are very important to you? If anyone is reading this...let me know! I know politics is one of those conversation no-no's, but I'm a firm believer that we are all capable of being civil (and charitable) about sharing/expressing our opinions.

Pre-primary ponderings

2008-02-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

Somehow I stumbled across Mark Shea's blog, "Catholic and Enjoying It," and among the many interesting/entertaining posts, I found two gems relating to this year's Presidential race. Unfortunately, I can't link to the individual posts, but look almost halfway down the page for a post titled "Israel and Judah." Also, a bit further up on the page he posted a priceless Foxtrot comic. Enjoy.

And one more thing...vote responsibly tomorrow!! :)

Deep stuff (Lenten style)

2008-01-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

I want this Lent to be different from years past. This year, I really want to dig deep and look past the superficiality that I always seem to succumb to. Lent means so much more than not eating sweets for a month, or whatever. It is a beautiful period of time that the Church gives us to contemplate the very core of Christianity, so succinctly summed up (and oft-repeated) in John 3:16-that the Creator of everything that exists not only deigned to create us so lovingly and surround us with beautiful things, but He also had pity and compassion toward us in our peril and misery, and this One sent His Son to live among us and free us from the clutches of darkness and death. How mind-blowing is that? Sadly, it seems that it doesn't take too long for me to forget it. But that's what makes the Church's liturgical seasons even more valuable; they serve to bring our minds & hearts back to the Mysteries and Truths that define our Faith and (hopefully) our lives. For Lent, this means a renewed pondering/meditation on the Mystery of Suffering and the Cross...and its triumph. I pray that this Lent I'll be able to dig deeper into these Mysteries and draw closer to Him who so loves me.

Prayers and Essays and Sleep, oh my!

2007-10-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

"Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere that I go..."
-"Fragrance Prayer" (song by Tom Booth, lyrics by Ven. John Henry Newman & adapted by Mother Teresa)

I was looking through my song library on Windows Media Player and I wanted to listen to this song, but it wouldn't work...so I, quite naturally, Googled it. ^^ On http://www.spiritandsong.com you can listen to the whole song for free and read the lyrics, too! :)

Anyhoo...late last night I had the unpleasant surprise of realizing that my English essay is due on Monday (for peer editing). So, this weekend will be spent writing! But since I have my thesis written, I'm not too worried about it. It's a cause & effect essay & I chose an easy topic that I care about-what more could I ask for? My hope/plan is to write the rough draft tomorrow and touch it up on Sunday (technically the final draft isn't due for another week, so I don't mind if it's not *perfect* for Monday-just almost perfect.)

And now I'm off to catch up on some much-needed sleep!

God bless,
Angela