Moving Post!

Dear fantabulous readers:

I apologize for my lack of posting (again). This post is to let you know that I have many things in the works and that I have moved my blog to another site. I have loved this site (Blogger) very much, but I wanted to try a different site that will allow me to customize the blog a little more. Please find the new website here: http://lindseystrain.wordpress.com

Everything has been moved to that site, including all past posts and comments. Please continue to follow me, as I plan to write about things again! I appreciate all your support and look forward to your continued reading at the new site! AGAIN: http://lindseystrain.wordpress.com/

Thanks! 

Class starts up again tomorrow. I swear, I just finished my last torture class and I'm already heading back into the fray. All sarcastic remarks aside, I do really like what I'm learning. Yes, I am paranoid as hell, but I really like this stuff.
Classes for this semester include: Arms Control Theory and Practice; and International Terrorism.
With classes back on the schedule, you should not expect to see much from me on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but I'll try to post at least 3 - 4 times a week.

Speaking of international, big news! I'm going to France with J*Rock! JR is super cool and invited me along (I imagine she will regret it) and I've never been outside the states so I'm super pumped to go! I'm going to make sure I get a stamp in my passport, oh boy. We'll be visiting the south of France, in Nice. Then, somehow, we plan to get to Paris to see a bit before we ride a plane back to DC. I'm excited for this trip and pumped about the chance to go.
FRANCE!!!!

Also exciting, my mom will be here in two days! Maybe we can do some collaborative posts while she is here. I will take lots of pictures of the stuff we're doing so that should be pretty hilarious. Also, while she is here, HH (Hot Husband) and I will celebrate our 2nd year of marriage! I plan to eat cake of some sort. Or ice cream. Something. SUGAR.

As I don't have a picture I want to share at this exact moment, please check out this clip of one of my new favorite comedians, Kyle Kinane. I saw him live in Seattle with Tom. We were mad for stand-up in high school so it's still one of my favorite things. This particular clip is about babies...priceless.

Little baby kebabs!

You and I

Ah, Lady Gaga. Please watch the video posted below before continuing with your reading!

Now that you have seen Gaga's newest video, I can talk about it. OK. With her other videos, I've been able to see a sort of symbolism and figure out what all her crazy antics could mean. But for this video of You and I...not so much. In fact, I had a conversation through Google Chat with Author and Gaga-mega fan, Tominda Adkins, in order to fully understand. Please see below:

Tominda: also, how hard did you laugh at gaga's crazy modern dance run?

 me: Pretty hard

 Tominda: AND HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT VIDEO?

4:38 PM me: I spent a lot of time on that video going, "Yes, she has done it. I have no idea what's going on here. I don't even see symbolism. She wins."

 Tominda: what?

  well, beforehand, she did allude to a mermaid

  she also says it was about her walking back from manhattan to get her boyfriend back

4:39 PM so the way I saw it breaks down as follows

4:40 PM the guy in the barn is her boyfriend, and all the stuff he is doing to her (the water tank, the electroshit, etc) represents how lovers change us into different people

 me: aaaaaahhhhhhhh

 Tominda: better people, sometimes so much better that we leave them behind, realize our mistakes, and then go back for them, only to be killed by the ice cream truck man on the way there

 me: lmao.

4:41 PM Tominda: and in a more literal sense, he found her as a mermaid and they were so in love he tried to give her legs so she could walk around with him

  and all the stuff he was doing were all the phases she went through to make that complete

  so I guess it's about loving all the changes you go through and all sides of yourself, including your inner drunk Italian boy

4:42 PM and recognizing the people who changed you

  TA-DA!

  :D

 me: I'm going to post this shit to my blog that I am writing in again

 Tominda: yay!

  i win.

 me: WINS.

 Tominda: and omfg how HOT is she as a dude????

  so cuuuuuute!!!

4:43 PM me: hilarious

4:44 PM I want someone to do that to me.

  to see what I would look like as a dude

 Tominda: you'd be frickin cute

  imo (In my opinion)

 me: beat the ladies away

 Tominda: I don't think I could pull it off

 me: your boobs are too big.

:D This is what passes for conversation between my best friend of 14 years and myself. We are so awesome it hurts. LOOK WHAT I HAVE. 

Indeed, it is a JESSE CANNON TOUR SHIRT AND YOU CAN BUY THEM HERE. CLICK IT. YOU WANT TO. 

 
 The Sexodus Tour Shirt! Support Vessel!


 

 

 

And if you'd like to see more things that Tominda does, please check out her blog! Also, I'd like to add a shameless plug for Work Friend Josh, who has started his own blog that is way better organized than mine and much more intellectual and cool. The nerd.

The House that George Lived In

In July, during the time when it was hellacious hot and I forgot to blog, I went with the Husband to Mount Vernon, which was George Washington's home. Mount Vernon is right on the Potomac River and is a large plantation style place. HH and I rode on a boat from Alexandria to Mount Vernon, which was really enjoyable. We toured the house and grounds and got to see a few neat demonstrations.

View from the Bowling Green

The Front

The back, which faces the Potomac River. 

"Mount Vernon was home to George Washington for more than 45 years. First known as Little Hunting Creek Plantation, the Estate was originally granted to Washington's great grandfather John Washington in 1674.  George Washington inherited the property upon the death of his brother Lawrence's widow in 1761.

  Over the years, Washington enlarged the residence and built up the property from 2,000 to nearly 8,000 acres. He divided the acreage into five working farms, including the Mansion House Farm, where he lived with his family. At the Mansion House Farm, Washington sought to create a landscape combining beauty and functionality in a serenely harmonious setting.
  When Washington inherited the estate, the farmhouse that we now call "the Mansion" consisted of four rooms and a central passage on the first floor and three bedrooms on the second. The process of enlarging and improving the house began in the years before Washington's marriage in 1759, when he raised the structure from one-and-a-half  to two-and-a-half stories and extensively redecorated the interior. The north and south wings of the house were begun just before the start of the Revolutionary War. The very last room, the Large Dining Room, was completed after the war's end.

  In the meantime, Washington also transformed the Mansion's modest frame exterior, using a process called "rustication." This meant replacing the original plain wooden siding with bevel-edged pine blocks that had been coated with a mixture of paint and sand to give the appearance of stone.
Further, Washington added a stunning two-story porch, or "piazza," overlooking the Potomac.  Here family and guests would gather in warm weather to enjoy the breeze off the river.

View from the house, looking out over the Potomac River

  In designing his estate, Washington organized the outbuildings, lanes, and gardens in a way that reflects both the practical and aesthetic sides of his nature. From the north to the south are situated the outbuildings, or "dependencies," where the work of the plantation took place. Along the east-west axis are the gardens and pleasure grounds. The work area, although located very near the Mansion, was designed so it would not intrude upon the property's scenic beauty.
Today the Mansion has been restored to its appearance in 1799, the last year of Washington's life." (From: The Mount Vernon Website )

While we toured the grounds, we got to see a demonstration by calverymen and by infantrymen.

Calvery dudes showing off their skills.

Infantry men showing off their skills.

Firing demonstration! See below for the video.

George and Martha Washington's Resting place

 Also, it was really neat to see the graves of George and Martha Washington; they're buried on the plantation.

Front of the tomb

The tomb, with the hordes of other people.

They still keep farm life there, as well as grow gardens, and you can tour other parts of the plantation such as the slave houses and functioning hay barn.

Hay barn! They make bread there.

Some of the crops they grow, and some sheep.

It was really neat! I'm planning of visiting Jefferson's plantation this month with my momma, so I'll have more picture then. Please check out the videos below to see the cannon demonstrations they did while we were there!

Blasphemy Cookies: A Picture Diary

It should be well known by now that I love sweet foods. However, they are not the most conducive foods to ingest if one wants to lose weight. It should also be well known that I love the cookbook Cooking Light. Totally helpful and conducive to losing weight. I happened upon a cookie recipe in there, so I thought I would give it a try, but not before telling my glorious friend J*Rock that I would be conducting the experiment. J*Rock shares my love of sweet things, but did not embrace the idea of "low-calorie cookies". Thus, the name Blasphemy Cookies was born.

Tonight, I have conducted the experiment and documented the journey. Blasphemy Cookies! Onward!

  I want cookies! Lots of cookies! I don't want to be a humongoid when I eat a bunch of cookies. What to do? Make Blasphemy Cookies, of course! But will they taste good? What goes into them?

Seriously, this is what goes into these cookies? Flour, apple sauce, and brown sugar? That's about it...oh I smell a disaster.

 

 

Chocolate Chip Blasphemy Cookie

Well, here are the cookies. They look pretty normal. Like a cookie, really. They smell pretty awesome.

The first tentative bite! 

Surprisingly delicious! Blasphemy Cookie results: NOM. You can find recipe from Cooking Light below, I'm going to go have another cookie!

Chocolate Chip Cookies (Blasphemy Cookies) Cooking Light pg. 188
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl; stir well with a whisk.
3. Spoon applesauce into a fine sieve over a bowl; let stand 15 minutes. Discard liquid. Scrape drained applesauce into a large bowl. Add sugar and butter; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in vanilla and egg. Add flour mixture, beat at low speed until well blinded. Fold in chips.
4. Drop by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until almost set. Cool on pans 2-3 minutes or until firm. Remove from pans; cool on wire racks. Yield: 3 dozen
Calories: 78 (per cookie)
Nom Rating: 4 NOMS!

In other news: I have tons of things to post and I'm working on getting a schedule worked out for myself so that I will not drop off the face of the blogging universe anymore. Thanks for sticking with me, you'll see me again soon!
Thanks!

A Month, You Say?

I would like to make a list of excuses right here, for your enjoyment, for why I have not been blogging. Are you ready for this? It's a seriously good list of excuses. I mean, I'm not sure you'll ever come back, because the excuses are so good and there is just no reason to expect I could possibly continue a blog with excuses like these. Yeah.

1. I went on a trip to Seattle! I watched my adorable cousin graduate from high school, not to mention spend time with the rest of the unforgettable Kohout family. Also, there was time lavished upon one Tominda Adkins, writer of Vessel. (I have read segments of her upcoming second installment; I can't wait, I can't wait, I must book pimp.) Exploits from Seattle feature: foods from every ethnicity, grandparents, Tom Shoes, coffee, trains, planes, graduations, new friends, cupcakes, car rides, scheduling debacles, a gay bar, and a tattoo. (Yeah, I have one of those now.)
2. As soon as I returned, more family time! The in-laws! Cheesecake Factory, cooking, movies and madness!
3. Fantastic excuse: work is hard. I had to remember how to do it and was tired by the end of the day.
4. Getting back on track with exercising and reading for my summer reading course. I have been cramming information about jihadists into my mind and getting ready for a 5K this weekend, July 2.
5. The pool opened at our apartment complex. Enough said.
6. I went to an Owl City concert. Check out the video I took of my favorite song! The song you hear playing is also the song that plays when Tominda calls my phone.

 
Those are my best excuses. However, the good news is I have all sorts of great things to write about now that I have the time and inclination to do so. I have recipes, stories, pictures, and videos to post. Also, I think I need to do a creep of DC and look for more historical goodies to share with everyone.

So, here are some posts you should look forward to in the upcoming days:
- Tattoos and how they hurt like hell to get
- Concerts and various experiences at them
- Why 5ks are both awesome and awful
- Planes and babies and how they do not mix well
- FOOD blogging!
- Thoughts on terrorism (oh, you big nerd)
- Ramblings about weight loss and exercise
- Why the dentist is the worst place to visit
- Things I learned in a gay bar
- Whatever other ramblings I can think of

I leave you with this:

I have this game and I'm gonna go play it. YEEEEEEEEAAH! I'm 12.

Irish in Old Town

On my way to get an ice cream treat with HH in Old Town today, I came upon a bunch of Irish dancers practicing in the open. I took a video of it. Please excuse the moments when I forget to follow the dancers with the camera because I'm watching them with my eyes. It was pretty neat!

However, it is sideways and I don't care to fix it. Enjoy that new crick in your neck!