Cold Kisses

The blinding white snow fluttered and fell into a perfect pile all around.  It was so cold and perfect, without blemish as it laid untouched.  Sparkling, like diamonds, the snow swirled up into the wind only to be gently laid down again.  Never ceasing, it falls evermore to cover the earth before anyone can wake, and appreciate it’s beauty.

The Familiar Place In An Unfamiliar Place

Keeping my eyes open, feet softly padding over the soft carpeted hallways that were deserted at this hour of the night.  I yawned, feeling my shoulders ache under the weight of my heavily loaded backpack. Finally reaching my destination after walking the seemingly endless airport hallways, I took a deep breath and walked up to the bored looking desk tenant.  Giving her my most sympathetic smile, trying my best not to bite my lip from nervousness.  "Hey, I, umm.., I need a room please." I said with the slightest stutter tucking my hair behind my ear.  She responded with the slightest raise of her left eyebrow and violent typing that should have been labeled as keyboard abuse at the length she kept her nails.  I smiled and thanked her as she handed me the key card then walked quickly to the elevator, pressing the button.  I stood impatiently, feeling the growing ache in my shoulders under the weight of my backpack.  After an eternity the elevator door slid open and I stepped in.  My luck, never failing, caused the door to open one floor later to produce a young man dressed in a purple pair of footed pajamas with a monster in hand. I gave a slight smile then proceeded to slowly sway from standing on my heels to toes then back again, avoiding eye-contact.  I clenched my teeth trying my hardest not to yawn as we passed floor 10 in complete silence with only the elevator dings at each floor to let us know time hadn't suddenly paused without our knowing. The moment the doors opened on floor 13 I made a break for it and left with a small "Night" before heading down the hall.  As I walked I was completely caught up in the hypnotizing carpet patterns that always seem to line the floors of hotel halls, sadly forgotten and under appreciated  that I only just realized I was going the wrong way when I reached the end of the absurdly long hallway.  Backtracking, Careful not to get caught again by the intriguing carpet again I found my door and slid my key feeling like an agent and slipped into the room.  Honestly wiped out, I dropped my bags and fell onto the end of the bed slipping off my shoes before I curled up, letting out my breath.  Eventually I made my way to the top of the bed where I pulled open the stale feeling covers like a sardine tin and slid my feet in feeling the cool but soft sheets.  I laid my head down on the pillow and sank into it, smelling the familiar scent of hotels that I never could quite explain, except that it was that of hotel. Mildly like plastered walls and fresh linen, but also something else that will most probably always remain a mystery to me.  I laid there in the dark room with the lights from outside seeping through the edges of the thick curtains, trapping the room in prison bars of light. Letting out my breath trying to sink into the soft bed and relax my still complaining shoulders I said a silent prayer then passed out in moments to face the next day.

Golden Rays

The golden grain swayed in the wind like the careless blond curls of a child.  Bending down playfully and catching the light reflecting it right back in a radiant warm joy.  Small individual grains escaped into the wind without worry, as the curls run away from behind a small girl’s ear, without caution.

Curiosity Caught The Boy

He peered my way, the curiosity practically pooling around him.  Fidgeting, unable to pay any attention to his English, now that there was a secret to be heard.  I couldn’t help but smile, trying to keep from giggling like a little girl at a boy with cooties.  I accidentally slipped, teasing him with comments only to be met with even greater curiosity.  I could see it in his eyes, just bursting to know.  He grabbed the toe of my shoe, shaking it pleadingly, like an adorable child wishing with all his might for a toy in the window.  He threatened with joking, knowing it was useless.  His insistence, however, didn’t drain.  He continued, making it known that he intended to know my secret.  As the minutes slipped away before the starting of our class he tried frantically to get me to spill.  It was too enjoyable to see him be so unexpectedly curious that I could hardly give up such a small secret.  It was underwhelming compared to the mountain that now stood in its way. 

Night Walk

    

I walked up the hill towards the golf course, letting my shoes sink slightly into the snow with each new step.  The cold seeped through my shoes and kept my toes captive, but I hardly noticed as the wind demanded my attention, tugging at my scarf insistently.  It rushed past my ears filling the quiet night like the echoing trains in a deserted subway station, complete with the flickering lights of the campus left far behind. Lacing my numb fingers through the chain metal fence I peered through the smooth metal rings to see the familiar ever billowing smoke clouds push and shove as rude as always to make their way out of the smoke stacks, over the icy Ohio river and spread far and wide across the sky to keep all possible stars out of sight.  The river, however, was not put out.  It cleverly reflected just as brightly as the hidden stars, making due with the multicolored lights.  The waters continued the milky way of sparkling glimmers up the mountains on the other side of the flowing river of stolen lights. 

Life Is Like Knitting

 Life is like knitting.  You start out small, and it seems to take forever to make any progress, watching the yarns slip through your hands, unable to hold onto it more than a moment if you wish to go on.  No one knows what you’re making and you yourself are not quite sure how it will turn out, but you go one anyway because you can’t stop without giving up all hope.  You only wish to look back on your hard work and progress at the end and be content with how you managed to pull through all that time.

Cream Cheese Crescent Rolls

CREAM CHEESE CRESCENT ROLLS

This is pretty amazing for a morning with coffee, or milk!

It's also simple and cheap ;) 

All you need are:

2 cans of Pillsbury Crescent rolls

2 (8oz) pkg cream cheese (original) softened 

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 c melted butter (I found that was way too much so I only use half that, which is 2 Tbs)

cinnamon

1 c Sugar
(and if your family likes jelly then a half a jar of jam I used blackberry)



And it all goes into a 9x13 pan

 If only it were that easy :P


Toppings: 
set aside for later

 

 Put on back in the fridge to keep from getting gushy

         

 Open one pack of crescent rolls and if you're unlucky like me this will happen and you'll have to do that nerve racking muscle testing pull apart maneuver but however you get it open, just open it. 

 Then lay it out in the pan without separating it.
I finger pressed it against the sides just for my own sake.

 Next to the cream cheese!
I lied, the butter doesn't go with the cream cheese, it goes up with the toppings,
 but I'm not taking the pictures again, so just be happy.

 Put them all into a mixer
except the butter, I lied again...
 
 sine this troublesome butter is being annoying let's just deal with it right now
you're gonna melt it it.
I feel like they lied to me now...

If your microwave desiced to make the butter spit up after 20 seconds of time 
then just stir it up it'll melt the rest on it's own.
Then set this aside with the toppings for later.

The real toppings picture
 
Now, back to the cream cheese! 
Make sure your cream cheese is soft, you can do it with a knife
by just making sure it's easy to cut. 

Or you could just do it my way... 

Note: plain cream cheese isn't the best tasting thing in the world... :(

 mix it altogether

 then, if fate loves you like he does me, this lovely thing will happen to you
take a knife and push it out mostly then put it back down.

 Mix it on a high speed till it looks something like this.

 glop it all into the pan on top of the crescent rolls

 spread it out nice and smooth

add the jelly is you please.
Note: spread it nice and thin, it's easy to let it overpower

then just open the other pack of crescent rolls
 I swear every time...



 careful to keep it somewhat together and lay it over carefully

Then paint it over with the lying melted butter. 

 because mine is half and half I only put cinnamon sugar on half and the half over the jam side is plain sugar. 
Hense the bad farmer's tan.
 
Place it in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes
or until nice and bubbly and brown
 should look something like this:

Then just cut it and dig in! 
kinda messy but amazing! 

  

Truly yours,

Belle

Cooking Hard? Don't be silly!

So, I'm gonna be totally honest.  I don't like to cook if, one, it's not easy, and two it's not gosh darn good.  I'm no amazing chef.  I simply do what I'm told and hope it comes out well.

And sometimes it just doesn't,...

But that's okay.

 and as Taylor puts it just 

 I honestly think cooking is one of those special things that will be easily lost.  

It's so important, but with all the fast food restaurants now a days it's so much easier to go out and get food than cook it yourself. 

Or maybe you don't think you're good enough.  Well, that's a lie cause, 

Anyway, I'm gonna start putting up some things now about cooking because I think that people should know how easy, fun, and no big deal it is.  If you're a perfectionist you're not gonna like me, but I promise to have lots of pictures of it! 

So, I hope you like my new tab! 

Truly yours,

Belle

Classical Taste

Today, I was kinda hit with a question. 

What happened to classical art?

 

Okay, yeah, it's not that great of a question at first, but just wait, just wait.

So, I love, absolutely love marble sculptures. I think they are just about the most amazing artwork ever.  If there was just a museum filled with marble sculptures I'd be in heaven and could stay hours upon hours just going through it.  

It just amazes me. 

These guys had some serious talent.  

To get such detail out of rock and keep it completely smooth.

But, a question that was brought up to me by a friend was, why are we not doing this anymore?

I actually don't know, and I wont pretend like I do, but I thought it was an interesting thought, 

because if you think about it, if people want to have talent and be great why don't they want to get better, not get worse...

The way you can see through the veil almost is an absolutely incredible.

I think people are missing out when they don't see these statues nowadays. 

The value of talent in art is being lost I think.  Art now is definetly not being over taken by modern art, but it's giving more attention to it, which I think is sad because this art here has so much talent and time, and effort that went into making it.

There is a natural beauty that anyone can see in the human body, or in nature, but to ignore that and make useless junk that's glued to a canvas is silly because there's truly so much potential. 

Where has our search for beauty gone?  We're going downhill in so many ways.

Not only in art but in all areas, but our art is a good example of our downhill slide.  In 100 years will our new generations want to look back at a bunch of trash glued to a wall?  Will they want to see a black canvas with a white dot.  To be honest... you can only look at a white dot on black canvas for so long... there;s only so much depth to that... Does this tell us something about our society?  Are we becoming more and more shallow?

Truly, the most fun part of this post was laughing at these statues with clothes on them.  It's pretty great, don't you think? I would personally be a fan of people picking up this art, sculpting new age marble people with modern clothes. I would go to that museum. :P

Summertime Sadness

Summer classes,...

If you've ever taken one, you know what I'm talking about here. 

You get out of finals and you feel like you're free, but.....

then you realize you're actually stuck here for a while longer, but come on, it can't be that bad... Right?

Wrong... okay that's a lie, it could be enjoyable, but the one I got stuck in was like purgatory on earth.

I start at 12 pm, and go all the way till 7pm.  It's 3 hours of lecture, and 4 of lab everyday for three weeks.
It's so boring and really hard.
I was like, hey no problem, I can do this, but then I realized I get over a 100 slides everyday that I have to  memorize.

So, I went right to work. 

The professor said it wasn't a big deal,

After the first test, my grades weren't horrible, but they weren't great because turns out, instead of being nice and testing on the material he put in bold and highlighted he tested a lot on the little tiny words you need a magnifying glass to read.

So, I go, "There's a lot of material is there anyway we could focus our attention? What are you looking for exactly?"

and he responds, "Everything important is on the slides, just study those and you'll be fine."
well,....

that's kinda the LOT of material that I was TALKING ABOUT!!

Oh well, you can't do much.... so, I went back to work.
You'll be fine, they say,
Sure...

 

But, not only in lecture is there trouble,
I actually love lab.  Lab is great, I'm good at handling bacteria and all the lab type stuff we do, I'm good. The thing I tend to have a problem with is being traumatized by the educational videos that we're shown every time. 


We sit there and are scarred by the disturbing videos about diseases, and such things that over dramatize everything making you feel like you can't breath, eat, touch, look at, or do anything without getting a deadly infection, worm, or virus.  It's pretty terrible. 
so we sit there going,

 but it will be over, it's only three weeks, and I'll make it through, and be fine.  But if you ever wish to take a summer class, just stick it through it'll be okay, then you can be on your way and start the rest of your life without ever having to look back.

Nice knowin' ya, glad to see ya go!