The Weekend I Met Turniphead

Greetings, dear readers! Samantha, here!

This weekend was tame, but enjoyable. On Friday night, our house continued the tradition of a group movie night. We watched Howl’s Moving Castle, a kid’s cartoon endowed with enough character development and beautiful animation to enthrall college students. Every character had their own interesting qualities, but Lindsey and I consider Turniphead to be the best. As you can see in the gif to the left (courtesy of ghiblistudio.tumblr.com), Turniphead wears a bow-tie and a top hat, and has a cheerful bounce to his step. What's not to love?

Katie was absent from our movie watching party because she was at Relay for Life. As a cancer survivor, she gave a speech. We missed her terribly, but knew she was at an important cause! You go, Katie! 

On Saturday, I went on a grocery shopping trip with Katie, Lindsey, and Bobby. That may sound boring, but thankfully, Katie ran me over twice with her scooter on the way, making it plenty dramatic. Don't worry - it was accidental, she only ran over my foot, and it isn't even bruised!

I greatly enjoyed buying a tremendous amount of food (really, who doesn't?) and figure it might be helpful for fellow college readers if I list a few simple, quick, and fairly inexpensive dishes that get me through my week.

1: Wraps. Vandy students, you don't have to rely on Commons, Rand, or Grins for these. Tortillas are pretty cheap, and whatever you want to fill it with - cheese, lunchmeat, tomatoes, avacados, etc - are also useful in many other dishes. Also, if you fold them correctly, wraps are much neater to eat on the way to class than a sandwich. If you never learned how to fold a burrito/wrap, here's a handy photo from www.lanascooking.com.

Also, if you watch carefully, the Rand workers in the Randwich line are pros at this. Learn from the best, dear readers.

2: Eggs! Protein to power through your day, stressed-out college kids. Take the meat and veggies you'd normally put in a wrap, and warm them in the frying pan before putting in your beaten eggs for scrambled eggs. That adds some vitamins to your dish. You can eat the eggs like that, or put them in between two slices of bread. I'm also a huge fan of omelets! They require more effort than scrambling, but this helpful video can make it easy for you!

3: Pasta. I know, I know, you eat squiggly spaghetti with red sauce all the time, and it's terrible for you. All carbs, no vitamins. You can change that. I'm a huge fan of Jamie Oliver's Pasta Carbonara recipe, which includes an egg (yay protien!), peas (or any veggie you like!) and bacon (yay bacon!). Pasta al Limone is a great way to change up your pasta flavor, as well.

While we're in the kitchen mindset, I'd like to share this photo of the blackberry muffins I made today! There were a dozen of them an hour ago, and now there are five. Conclusion: they're delicious.

They were especially tasty with milk, which our Mayfield has no shortage of right now!

Yes, there are currently 7 containers of milk in our fridge.

Turniphead, grocery shopping, and muffins are honestly the most interesting summary of my weekend I can manage! It's been quiet and studious, but pleasant nonetheless. Since I'm a sentimental sort of person, I'll leave you with an encouraging quote from Mary Oliver, "A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life...Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance."