Not a hermit :)

I swear, some days it feels like the only places I go are work and school. And occasionally the grocery store. That's what happens when you work full time and go to school, though, so I suppose it's my own fault. But tonight, I did things a bit differently. Some of my friends had a get-together to carve pumpkins at one of the second year's apartment and I decided to go. I didn't really want to, because I'd thought I would go to bed early-I've been insanely tired the last few days for some reason.

I did go, though, and I had a ton of fun. I got a wee baby pumpkin and carved it; I'll try to find my camera cord before the pumpkin goes belly-up, but here's what I did:

My new state's flag! And now I'm going to go to bed, having done no work at all, but feeling pretty good about life-I must have just needed a bit of a rest!

Walk On The Wild Side

I need to be a better blogger and not just update my blog on Saturdays, and trust me, I've got things in the works, but for now, enjoy this:

Walk On The Wide Side

The good folks at the BBC actually have a whole show that takes clips of animals and dubs the clips, giving the animals human voices. There's a whole treasure trove of them over on YouTube, and I watch them frequently for study breaks. Go ahead, enjoy a laugh on me.

Happiness is...

Happiness is... sleeping in for the first time in a month.

Now, granted, I've been busy in a good kind of way (especially last weekend, having my family here :)), but it was nice to know when I went to bed last night that it was OK to sleep until 10:00, which I definitely did, because I knew that all I had to do today was homework, and it was glorious.

Happiness is... a cool fall day spent reading.

Some Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, some Kipling, some Richard Wright-kind of random, all for homework, but all good. Speaking of reading, if you have not read Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, you need to. Right now. We read it for African American lit this week and it was one of those books that reminded me why I'm doing what I'm doing. Hurston uses dialect for the speech, which can be a little difficult at first, but it is so worth it. I'm planning a blog that details exactly what I loved about the book, but while I'm working on that, you should be reading :)

Happiness is... a clean apartment.

Before I went out last night, I got my apartment mostly straightened up and finished it this morning. It feels so nice to have it neat and clean-it's doing wonders for my productivity!

Happiness is... homemade bread.

I found a recipe here, in a link that popped up in my Google Reader (I like going through the suggested links, even though I don't subscribe to a whole lot of them, since Google tends to suggest a lot of super-fundamentalist evangelical blogs for me, which is not me at all!). I modified it quite a bit, as you can see by clicking the link and comparing it to the following; I haven't tried it, but am looking forward to a simple dinner of soup and a sandwich:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 packets of yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp)
• 1 tbsp sugar, divided
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3-3 1/2 cups flour

Dissolve 1/2 tbsp sugar into 1/2 cup of warm water in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top of the mixture and allow to foam for 5 minutes. Add oil, additional sugar, salt and milk; mix well. Add three cups of flour; mix 50 times clockwise, then 50 times counterclockwise.

Add 1 1/2 cups of additional flour until dough forms a ball. If necessary, add additional flour. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. The dough should be slightly sticky.

Roll the dough into a ball and place in a buttered bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place for an hour. Punch down the dough and let rise for an additional 30 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes, place into greased loaf pan and let rise for an additional 30 minutes.

Bake the loaf in a 425-degree oven for 25-30 minutes. Remove from the loaf pan immediately after baking. Let cool for at least 15 minutes.

Sorry to have been AWOL for so long; it was midterm season, so I was swamped with work. At this point, though, I'm almost done with my work for the beginning of the week and just need to finish my Wednesday presentation and do my Thursday reading. Also, in 20 days, I'll be home for Corn! Yay!!