April 28: Go to graduation at Lander University

(This should have been posted on Saturday, April 28, but I was tired from travel the day before and a fun-filled day on Saturday. This is also the last blog post for my new things, since I had such a hard time keeping up with it. I'll be doing something else in May, which I haven't decided on yet. Probably another picture-a-day? We'll see...now on to the post!)



I have a degree in music from Lander University, but I didn't go to my graduation. In fact, as best I can remember, until today, I've never been to a college graduation before.

My sister-in-law, Megan, graduated with a degree in English today and we went to the ceremony to cheer her on!

We got all spiffied up for it too.

As you can tell from that last picture, Lee needs some coffee.

We strolled through the Cultural Center, where I spent countless hours in the auditorium, the classrooms, the music professors' offices, and the practice rooms.

Maybe this is TMI, but since I was already there, I thought I'd go enjoy the "newspaper" on the bathroom stalls one more time.

Time for graduation! The wind ensemble did a great job while we waited on the faculty and graduates.

The faculty and the graduates finally arrived, and one of my music professors sang "The Star Spangled Banner", after which were many welcomings and introductions. The speaker was a retired director and president of the Exxon Corporation. I couldn't hear him very well. I'm not sure if the acoustics in the building weren't ideal for the "nosebleed section" we were sitting in, or if the mic just wasn't adjusted for him, but unfortunately the family and I didn't hear much of what he said.

After his commencement address, the graduates were presented with their diplomas. Here is our Megan!

Megan was fifth in line! When is a name like Reynolds or O'Dell EVER near the front of the line? This was a rare treat! There were still a couple hundred students to go after Megan, so we took advantage of the time to save the princess and squash some goombas. (Mama didn't approve of the gameboy and the books! :/ At least we were quiet!)

After all the graduates received their diplomas, my music professor sang the first stanza of Lander's Alma Mater. I really enjoyed her theory classes when I was at Lander. Also, I was happy I got to see my piano professor before graduation. I miss my music professors.

While I'm glad I went to graduation, I don't like crowds. :/

Yay, Megan! :D

After graduation and pictures, we had a very nice party at the lake. I wore my Lander graduate shirt in celebration! It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time!

Congratulations to Megan! :)

April 25: No sugar peanut butter

Lee and I have been cutting back a little on sugar intake lately. I'm down to 1/4 cup of sugar per gallon of iced tea, and no sugar in my coffee. I also haven't put sugar in oatmeal for a very long time. The good thing is that I feel content with all this and don't really miss the sugar.

Peanut butter is one of my favorite foods. Not the super-sweet, high-fructose corn syrup kind though. So far, I've only tried the no-stir natural peanut butters that still have added sugar and sometimes molasses. Today I tried natural peanut butter with only peanuts and salt (no sugar).

It's the kind you need to stir, so there was lots of oil on top that I had to be careful not to spill.

It wasn't easy to stir this without making a mess. I sloshed some out of the jar and down the sides despite being very careful. It took a while to stir it too. It reminded me of the consistency of very wet, gritty mud when there is a little water sitting on top of it that isn't part of the mud. And the picture on the jar looks nothing like the product inside.

I served the peanut butter on whole wheat toast just out of the toaster.

I really liked this peanut butter. I didn't miss the sugar at all. Neither did Lee. The texture is more gritty than the no-stir peanut butter, but I liked it that way. The heat from the toast made the peanut butter melt a little and get all gooey and nice.

April 23: Be left handed for a day

This was a hard new thing to try! I got incredibly frustrated with it because it made me extremely slow at everything I did. Also, I'd catch myself using my right hand automatically about halfway through whatever I was doing and would have to switch.

I usually run/jog/walk in the morning after I wake up a bit (takes about an hour and a half), and sometimes I actually have a destination. I ran to the bank today to deposit Lee's check, and I wrote the deposit slip out with my left hand. The teller could read it, so I guess it wasn't too messy. I can't show you the deposit slip though, because of account numbers and pay amounts, but I can show you the grocery list I also wrote with my left hand.

On my way back from the bank, I stopped in the business center in our apartment complex and got some decaf Starbucks coffee. I've never gotten coffee in there before because I've always been afraid someone may have mixed up the decaf and regular and I'd never sleep again. Hopefully that's not the case today, because I took it back home and made iced coffee with it. I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted okay without any sugar!

After the coffee, I decided I should brush my teeth, which wasn't easy at all with my left hand.

After getting ready and going for an allergy shot, I was really behind for lunch. Lee had a meeting at 1:00 and I didn't start on lunch until around 12:15, so I tried to go fast with my left hand. Some of the banana chunks were huge (mainly on Lee's...mine were smaller), and the peanut butter wasn't as even as normal. You can also see the knife grooves in the peanut butter, which I usually don't leave with my right hand. It still tasted good though.

I don't know what thought process led to spaghetti for dinner when I'm being left-handed for the day, but that's what happened. At least I did a decent job of winding the spaghetti with my left hand. But it slowed me down more than chopsticks do.

I am very glad I can use my right hand now!

April 22: Salvage

I don't know what the rules are for salvaging good quality items that people put out with trash, but I'm starting to think that if it's at the curb, it's fair game.

This afternoon when Lee and I came home from Walmart (ugh! it was such a bad trip too), someone had put out this really cool desk chair with a bag of trash (trash day is tomorrow). It was kind of old with scratches, but it had a vintage feel to it and worked properly. We both wanted to snatch it up, but we were worried someone was moving in and left it until they finished with another load, or something crazy like the weird guy who waters the tree left it there. So we decided that if it was still there tonight after most everyone was home/moved in/the plants were watered, we'd go back and get it if it was still there.

Around 9:30 Lee went outside and found that someone had not only gotten the chair, but they switched it out for their old desk chair! Hahaha! If we had to miss out, at least it was funny!

We were sad for a minute and we laughed for a minute, and then we went out for a little Sonic trip to get "Dreamsicle Waters" (water, vanilla and orange). On our way out of the neighborhood we saw that someone in another building had put out a trunk! We snatched it up!

We have another trunk/chest that I love. It looks old and worn.

It has really fun leather handles on the sides.

The new trunk we salvaged is a little smaller and newer-looking, but I like it a lot too.

The lock is different on it this one.

Here is the handle.

I think the reason they put it at the curb was this.

A little glue would fix that right up! And besides it's on the back at the bottom. Reminds me of a few years ago when Lee and I got a perfectly good dryer off a guy for free because the buzzer kept waking the baby. He bought a new one because of that. After we moved into the apartments in TN and I was worried the buzzer might bother somebody near us (it never bothered us before in SC because the laundry room was on the other side of the house), we disconnected it and our free dryer is working just fine without the buzzer. I almost feel guilty about that. :/

Mindy sniff-tested the inside of the trunk and gave her approval.

I don't know how I'll use these yet to decorate, but I'm sure I can figure out a way. I just need to get motivated and find ideas. :)

And also, a picture from last night, because it's funny. :)

 

Hey, I didn't put her there! I only took the picture!

April 21: Izze Blackberry

It's a cold, dreary day. Look at the haze around the mountains in the background.

I had to wear a fleece today it's so cold!

Seems like a good day to go to Noodles & Company. They sell Izze soda there, so I thought I'd try a new flavor. I chose sparkling blackberry. They also had peach, but I wasn't in the mood for that.

Lee wanted to get Dr. Pepper, but they were out! There is a freestyle coke machine there, so he tried lime Fanta.

 

 Ugh! That stuff is disgusting! I didn't like it at all! But Lee approves.

 

Our table number had a different message than the table numbers usually do.

 

Why, yes I did, because it is always so cold in this restaurant regardless of the temperature outside! My fleece was serving me not only outside, but also inside in this case.

 Lee ordered steak stroganoff.

 I got pad thai.

The food was good, and I liked the blackberry Izze. My favorite is the grapefruit, but I think blackberry might still be nice sometimes.

April 20: Create a healthy brownie recipe?

(no, they're not "magic" brownies, I don't do that stuff... and yes, I do realize it's 4/20... :P)

Today I baked a ton of sweet potatoes.

 

Since I've never had them before, after dinner I thought it might be nice to try (or create) a healthy sweet potato brownie recipe, but most of the ones I found online still had a cup of butter and just as much sugar. What is the point of using something like sweet potatoes in brownies if you don't lighten the rest up a little? Lee made a joke and said we should go to Sonic, get milkshakes and put a stick of celery in it to call it "healthy". Haha! The man calls it like it is.

Anyway, I found this recipe: Food and Whine: Sweet Potato Brownies. I think the name of the blog is not my favorite, but at least this one is a little healthier. I *loosely* based my recipe on this (to try to make it even better than that one, and/or compensate for ingredients I didn't have). Here is my recipe:

3/8 cup whole wheat flour

1/8 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2/3 cup mashed sweet potato

1/6 cup white sugar

1/6 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 individual serving container of unsweetened applesauce

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix first 5 ingredients together. Mix the next 6 ingredients together in a separate bowl. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into an 8x8 baking dish sprayed with cooking spray and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool for a while, then enjoy.

Here are the wet ingredients about to be mixed into the dry. I looks a little like baby food on hot cocoa mix.

It looks a lot like normal brownie batter when mixed together.

While I was measuring ingredients, Mindy barked suddenly and made me spill the vanilla. :P

After the brownies went into the oven, I remembered the leftover mashed sweet potato I didn't use!

Salt, pepper and cayenne made it a tasty snack while we waited on the brownies.

When the brownies were done, I cut them and served them with milk.

Lee said, "They're definitely weird, but they're good!" (I accused him of only being nice, but he swears he really likes it.) I didn't like them. They needed to be more cakey in my opinion. I couldn't get past the texture. It was dense, but a bad kind of dense. I guess there are just some things you can't leave out (maybe you can still cut back a little though?) when baking or you'll sacrifice texture, and that's a huge part of sweets. As far as sugar goes, I think a little more would mask the taste of the sweet potato better, so I would probably add that back in. I thought less sugar might equal out to a dark chocolate taste, but it didn't. All in all, I don't think I'll make them again (not even Food and Whine's recipe). It was fun to try, even if I didn't know what I was doing. I still don't, and that's alright, haha!

At least the peanut butter toast I had for lunch was yummy. :)

EDIT: After these brownies were in the fridge for a while, they tasted sweeter and the texture wasn't too bad. I still probably won't make them again, but at least they're not as bad as I thought.

April 19: Sew a pillowcase

I'm not too great with sewing. I know how to thread the needle (yay!) and occasionally I'll sew up holes in old work clothes or sheets. I haven't really tried to "make" anything before, only fix things.

I still have a set of twin sheets from when I was a teenager, with cows jumping over moons, and stars! I love these sheets, and for years I've been using the pillowcase that came with them when I go on trips and take my pillow. I haven't used the whole set in a long time because we only have a queen bed now. I held on to because these are my favorite sheets ever.

Recently the poor pillowcase ripped. :/

But the sheets are still perfect! I decided to make new pillowcases out of the sheets so I can enjoy them on trips. I dug the sheets out of the closet and realized I'd used the pillowcase more than I realized because the case and the sheets are two different colors. Also, remember the flannel I bought the other day with my Electric Orange debit card? Well I didn't really need to buy it, because apparently these sheets are flannel and I had forgotten this because the pillowcase has been so worn out for so many years that it doesn't even feel like flannel anymore. Haha! I told you I loved these sheets.

After cutting the elastic off the fitted sheet and cutting off the ends for my flannel project later, I decided it needed ironing if this was gonna go remotely well. I've only owned an iron for about 4 months. I never iron clothes, and the only reason I bought it was for a melted crayon project.

 

I didn't have a pattern, and instead just cut the sheet in half, then in half again to end up with 4 pieces. I *roughly* (you can see mine is bigger in the picture) measured the old pillowcase and marked the new pieces based on those measurements. I pinned them together and sewed them on three sides after sewing an edge on each piece for the side where you'd insert the pillow. It turned out pretty well! Here is a picture with the old and new cases side by side, and of course, Mindy is there to let you all know that she helped me a lot by bedding down on the sheets while I tried to work.