The Inovative Artist

Lately I've had a lot of projects, especially with my Illustration BFA application coming up too soon, so I've been working on campus as much as possible to get them done. Today I got to work around 2pm and planned on staying till about 9pm, so I brought some ramen noodles to eat. However I forgot a fork. Problem? Never! A couple paintbrushes and I have chopsticks, perfect for an Asain dinner!

Taste of Fall

 Yes, this post is all about food. Some may be tired of food but I have 2 reasons why I keep taking pictures of those things I cook. First, to show that I can. I feel like so many of my teen years were wasted because I did not take up the chance to learn to cook more, so now I am teaching myself. The second reason is for my own self-esteem. Taking pictures of my food, reminds me that I can make things that are tasty, healthy, beautiful, and--most important--edible. Besides, food is such an important part of life, why not have fun with it?

Yesterday was a big cooking day as I tried new things. First, spiced pancakes to start me off in that fall mood. (Thank goodness my friend Lara has cinnamon and nutmeg.) Topped with maple syrup, it really did taste like fall and made me very happy.

I have yet to make any main dishes from the 4 cookbooks I have. Determined to make something exciting from them I looked through each and found a recipe in my chicken cookbook: Chicken and Ham Croquettes. Now there were several problems for this to happen. 1) I don't have a frier. 2) I don't have ham. 3) It called for ground chicken, again I don't keep a storage of this. So nearly everything in the recipe was changed: ground chicken to fine chopped chicken, ham to diced potatoes and onions, basil and thyme for parsley. I also made home-made bread crumbs and roux. Thank goodness Mom taught me how to correctly pan-fry food this summer, it helped so that I didn't burn myself.

My roommate Jen was the only other person home so we had a little party of our croquettes and a movie. I will definitely be making this again.

This is Jen.

Since I only needed half a potato for the croquettes, I have half a potato to make something with. I've never made hash-browns so that was the winner.  I'm so glad they turned out because I wasn't sure they would. I made scrambled eggs to go with it. I attempted to make them lie the fluffy yellow ones you get at restaurants by my pan was on to high for the potatoes so my oil darkened and thus my eggs darkened as well. Note: turn heat down for eggs.

And finally a picture of myself this morning to show I'm alive. Note the gray sweater. It's a really warm sweater, because it is freezing! Heater's on.

When the Adventurer finds Adventure - September

We start the exciting month of September with homemade mashed potatoes! Never made it before, didn't have a recipe, just went and winged it and turns out I can fly in the kitchen. So delicious. (Funny thing though was that I was already having some potatoes going bad, surprising since I had bought them less than 2 weeks before making these potatoes. I'm not sure if that was because they were Betty Crocker or from Albertson's...)

One Saturday, my friend Shelley decided were needed to go to a popular, Rexburg student destination, the Civil Defense Caves about an hour outside of Rexburg. Her husband Eric, sister-in-law Celisse, and I had all never been, so she was our guide. Granted, we got lost on the way there, but it was just part of the adventure. The nick-name of the Defense Caves is the Ice Caves, because it generally has ice in it. Today there wasn't any ice, but it certainly felt cold enough. I'm glad Shelley told me to dress warmly before she picked me up or else I surely would have frozen.

(Note: a lot of these pictures are Shelley's since her camera had different pictures than what I got.)

Celisse, Shelley, and Eric.

It got cold almost immediately after descending down the path into the cave. About where Shelley is in her red shirt is when I stopped and put on my jacket.

 

The entrance. Cold.

The cave is about 1/4 to 1/2 mi long and there were a lot of places that were not kind to someone tall like me, but there were also a couple spots where everyone was bent over. At the end (or the point where we decided to turn back around), was a ledge that was perfect for a snack of some banana bread I made the Tuesday before.

 Half way through our journey we found some glow sticks on a rock from previous hikers. We decided it'd be a good idea if we all carried one in case a flash light went out and we couldn't see each other. Turned out we didn't need them but they made great mustaches.

 

I survived.

The caves were out in the middle of no where... Thought I should show that.

I love that we have technology today where I can be with my family even when I'm not. Celebrating JaNel's birthday was a special treat. Happy (very-late) birthday shout out to a wonderful sister-in-law!

 The next day I got to celebrate with another friend. My bestest friend Lara Boyle turned older than me and I was determined to make her birthday the best one yet. I started by making nutella crepes, which she requested. She was super excited last semester when I told her I'd learned how to make them, and so she asks me to make them from time to time. For dinner we went to Costa Vida with our other friend Shelley (seen above at the caves, not shown here), Lara had coupons so it was a cheaper, special night to those paying for it.

When Shelley went to the bathroom, Lara and I fooled around with her camera. The second one is one I took, but for some reason I forgot to look at the camera when I took the picture. Funny Lara liked making faces. 

For the whole month, Lara kept repeating that the only thing she wanted for her birthday was Reed's Dairy ice cream (a local farm up here). They apparently have the best ice cream, and I wouldn't disagree. There are several places in Rexburg that sell it, but our favorite is G's Dairy, an ice cream parlor that sells Reed's dairy food items. The photo was taken by our roommate Jen who tagged along for the ending of our celebration.

And finally I end this post with my biggest adventure in art in quite a while. I've never been much of a watercolor artist, though I've always wanted to be, and this semester I finally was able to get into a watercolor class. Last week our assignment was to paint an object. After debating on my owl statue, I finally decided to go with Lara's Scentzy, with my hair flower and a leaf for some extra color. I feel like it could use more work, but everyone in my class loved it, especially my teacher, so I won't touch it. Definitely expect more watercolor paintings from me, though!

New Colors

Walking home from class the other day I looked up and realized the leaves on the trees I was walking next to were turning red! This made me so excited. A new season! I'm already wearing jackets and cardigans, so of course its the change of a season!

Idaho has been having some wildfires so its been hazy lately with all the smoke. Last night as Lara left to teh library to study she called called me a little frantic to look at the sun. It was strawberry red from all the hazy and so pretty. Of course the image here is Photoshopped because my camera couldn't capture the color. Isn't it pretty?

Back in Rexburg

 So after surviving my first semester away from home I'm back again in Rexburg, 900 miles from home.  But here I am so I'll try and make the best of it. Last time I promised some pictures of my apartment. This semester I live right next to my last semester apartment so everything is the opposite of before. Overall its pretty nice place except the cable is whacky and the stairs and second floor squeak like crazy (but you get used to that).

Thankfully even with our whacky cable, Food Network still works. Last Friday morning, I was watching Paula Dean and she made what she called "A One-eyed Sailor" and it looked really good so I tired it, too. I was a little nervous because I've never had my eggs anything but scrambled. However there wasn't too much runniness and I liked it a lot, maybe I'll make it again sometime.

My roommate has a star cookie cutter~

We begin the tour in the kitchen. I used one of my Command Strip hooks to hang aprons. 

The living room from the door. It is very difficult getting such a long shot and still mange to make it wide enough to get everything. 

The Saturday after I got up, my roommate Stephanie and I went to DI because I wanted a cup to put spoons in for next to the stove. While there she found this ceramic owl. Now, of course, I freaked out, for 3 reasons: 1. ITS AN OWL! 2. It had completely no damage done to it like most ceramic pieces you find at DI and Goodwill. And 3. because in my 3D Design class at MCC this statue was sitting on a shelf in the classroom and I loved it (the only thing I liked about that class).  So it came home with me and its now our bar decoration.

The bathroom is right at the top of the stairs. 

On to my room. I chose the back bedroom that I share with my best friend Lara. She's kind enough to put up with all my owls.

This ribbon was wrapped on my apron so I had to find something to do with it.

Lara is a big cooker, and one of her favorite dishes to make is ratatouille. We bought most of the ingredients at the local Farmer's Market on Friday and made it Saturday for dinner. And I made cookies from one of the mixes Lara got from her grandma. The ratatouille was really good though it needed salt. Lara served it over wheat noodles to make it more filling and the next day we turned it into a sandwich. So good!

Leaving Home

Labor Day was spent cleaning followed by hanging out with my college art-mate, Priscilla. Then I rushed home where Ryan, Amy, and family were over for ribs. I'm glad I made it because I was able to play with my niece Evelyn a bit and hold my new nephew Ammon before I won't see them again for 3 months. Then Wednesday Mom, Dad, and I were able to take Grandma out for dinner. I love my family so much, its sad to leave them but I won't be gone long... Now to just keep repeating that too myself till the holidays.

Thursday was the day. I drove up with my best friend Lara, who, after some difficult contract tracking, was able to get a last minute contract for my complex and is now my roommate! Our first destination was Provo, UT where we stayed the night with my best friend and Lara's twin sister Haley. We arrived around 7pm and immediately headed out to the Brick Oven Pizzeria  right by her apartment for pizza and a Sasquatch (their Cookie Monster dessert with a brownie added to the middle).

Friday morning Lara and I went walking around campus to print off coupons for Einstein Bagels, and it made me both appreciate and regret going to BYU-I instead of Provo. It was so gorgeous, being under the mountain and seeing all their beautiful landscaping. Across the street from Haley's apartment was a duck pond which had a river and water fall overlooking it. What made me appreciate Rexburg though was (1) the amount of people we had to fight through and (2) stairs. Rexburg has hills, but the Y has stairs. No me gusta.

There are more stairs to this picture, you just can't see there through the trees.

Friday night was filled with unpacking the car, followed by filling it back up with things from my storage locker, followed by filling any and all extra empty spots with groceries (never shop at Albertsons for a major shopping trip). Then I sat down to a sad Chinese dinner (with my chopsticks) that looked better than it tasted and "Rosemerry and Thyme" on Netflix (thanks Mom for getting me hooked).

Lara and I are still unpacking, organizing, and decorating our room so I will have pictures to follow on that soon enough but for now this post will end with my wonderful mishap this morning as I was cutting an onion and my knife slipped and sliced off a hunk of my nail. My poor left hand has been a through a lot this week with scratches covering it already.

Yellowstone - Tuesday and Moving On South

Tuesday we left our campground south of the park and moved on through Wyoming and Idaho and on to Utah.

Just before or in the Grand Teton National Park we visited the National Wildlife Art Museum. Dad said we could only stay for 20 minutes, but the Museum wound under the mountain it was built on so it took several hours to look through. But even with its high price tag for entrance, I think seeing all that art was worth it (says the artist).

Awesome bike racks. A raven, bear, and fox.

Dad's favorite and one of mine, as well. An acrylic painting of a buffalo. It was HUGE!

Moose Fountain that was in the lobby.

Later that evening we drove through Paris, ID because Mom and Dad remembered that there had been a tabernacle built there and thought it would be nice to see it. It definitely was worth it. And even though we arrived late for the scheduled tour hours, the volunteers were still there waiting for more visitors. The building was beautiful and had many details that really impressed all 3 of us.

Dad, Mom, and our tour guide and some pretty stained glass.

Scary stairs to go down, but pretty nonetheless.

I saw this down the street from the tabernacle. You have to love old cars, they are very artistic.