Ni hao ma!

Bahahaha, if only I could relay how hysterical it is to hear my mom say those very words. I mean, her fondness for Cantonese isn't just some random phenomenon, but it makes me giggle every time. My family and I lived in Taiwan until I was two. I had a glorious nanny (apparently, of course these are all things that are told me because what the hell can I remember from this time period? Zilch) who would strap me to her back and wander me around town to basically make me shut up whenever my mom had had enough. My mom even swears that by the time we left Taiwan for wait for it...fancy fancy New Jersey, I was a well adjust Cantonese speaking tot. Clearly it didn't last, but at least I didn't develop any kind of New Jersey accent...that would have been just terrible ;-)

Okay wait, so back to my mom and her random bouts of Cantonese. I swear n any given day, if you so much as whisper something vaguely reminiscent of "ni hao ma," she, like one of Pavlov's dogs will burst into her repertoire of any and ALL things she could ever possibly know how to say with handmotions...and for whatever reason this happens at a the level of screaming. It goes something like this:

Marty (my boyfriend who gets a kick out of it, so often starts these situations): Hey Mrs. Roark! Ne hao ma!

My Mom: NE HAO MA! YUHT, YEE, SAHM! JELLYTING! (and it goes on and on and on and on...and on)

On the same subject, my mom and I decided to grab lunch this past weekend. She needed to go to an Ann Taylor and I needed to go anywhere along the North East Corridor train line so that I didn't have to drive (Marty had the car) so Princeton was decided upon. Priinceton of course is a cute little town snuggled up under the University (which of course is no where neeaaerr as amazing as it's other NJ counterpart (cough cough RUTGERS!! cough). I took the train down, we argued over the fact that we couldn't find each other once we were both there, and then happily set on our way. Shopping, Greek lunch, a little walk about town, it could have ended perfectly right there, but no, it got better, how you ask? And what the hell does this have to do with Cantonese? We took a bit of a detour to the glorious, GIGANTIC, awesomely smelly, Hong Kong Supermarket in North Brunswick....god I love that place.

Call us crazy, but both my mom and I looove the way Asian supermarkets smell...like the possibility of dinner I say. Due to the fact that I'm 22 going on 4 and 1/2 I ran straight to the live seafood and tried to poke everything in a bucket, she played it cool, picking out veggies like this wasn't the most exciting thing to happen to her all week, and I ran a muck...typical. I decided I would make wontons for dinner, probably in some soup, maybe some fried, but who knew! The night was young!

Fighting through the snow the New Brunswick train station I finally got home, and proceeded to wonton the night away. I did some lurking obviously on foodgawker for awhile until I came across what I decided seemed like some legit authentic wonton recipes. I borrow both my techniques and recipes from here: http://thenovicechefblog.com/?p=2185 and from here: http://thenovicechefblog.com/?p=2185 and ooooooo let me tell you they were not only delicious, but delectable, and delicate, and down right damn awesome...i recommend you all go eat them immediately! Here are some photos of how mine turned out...minus the cooked completed versions because Marty and I are starving animals who demolished off probably close to 20 wontons before I got around to taking the pictures...oops?

 Here is my wonton mush...mmm if only you could smell it, so much yum...nomnomnom

And here are my little wonton babies all ready for their scalding broth bubble bath! Aren't they cute? Like little savory pork filled hugs hahaha....I'm being serious here. 

Again, sorry there are no finished product photos but my mouth and stomach took full advantage of these babies way before my camera was even thought of, oh well! Always next time! Otherwise, look at these fancy finger nails I created the other day:

I did them with a water/marbling technique that was surprisingly easy! I've got a really neat glitter fade effect on them right now, but I'm feeling too lazy to take pictures, I'll show you all later, mwah!

This time it's for real...Okay well hopefully!

Sorry for the mess while I'm renovating but stay tuned...I've got lots of exciting things in the works!

6 Months later Lindsay? Really?

......
right.

So! Now that I'm no longer a lazy jerk and winter is slowly but surely creeping ouuuuttt of New Jersey, I'm going to post things and you're going to like it!

Apparently senior year sucks up more of your time then you ever think it's going to initially. What have I done this fall winter? Here is the last 6 months of my life in a photo round up...

SEPTEMBER:
It was still warm, and clearly we took advantage of it with spending all of our summer earnings on booze! These are my gorgeous roommates Emily and Shenai :-)

OCTOBER:
God Fall was gorgeous...this is the glorious Passion Puddle at Douglass (where I indeed got to school). Rumor has it if you walk around the puddle three times while holding the hand of the person you're dating, the two of you will get married...Martanion and I have yet to do this haha.



NOVEMBER:
Ah, November I don't even remember, but the one fantastic thing I did was drive down to Washington D.C. with Erin to go visit our friend Krissy. This resulted in too much fun and me learning that Julia Child died on my birthday...creepy. Here are Kris and Er attempting to kiss the "Do Not Touch" Bison at the American History Museum.


DECEMBER:
Ooooo December was a good month for pictures. I went to a cookie exchange at Marty's mom's house and produced these little beauties: Carmel Delight Bars...so so so good, the chocolate drizzle is still in the back of my car from when all the cookie slid off the tray...oops! Also we had a fantastic Ugly Sweater Party here at our house...it was amazing, I'm not even sure how else to describe it!



JANUARY:
January....January was fun? This was winter break mostly so there wasn't too much picture worthy material. We did make a trip to Atlantic City through for our roommate Kelly's 22nd birthday.


FEBRUARY:
IT SNOWED. ALL MONTH. JUST SNOW. Bitter? Me? Nooooo....okay a little. I mean, don't get me wrong I LOVE snow...but only if it's canceling my classes and work. It did for a few days, made driving impossible, and caused many a cat fight about shoveling and snowy related things, glorious!

Okay! That's all you get for now! I mean what would the point of a March picture be when it's only March 3rd?? Hopefully you all feel good about what I've been doing etc. And stay tuned for tonight for COOOOKIEESSS!


Oh p.s. I love this...

Christening the blog!

Well, where to start?

Lets put it this way, while putting this whole thing together over the last hour or so the following has happened in my house (of 6, 21 year old females might I add)...

1.) A scandal (of course) has surfaced regarding one of our friends and one of our previous, ahem, professors
2.) An entire GALLON of nail polish remover has been opened, and you think I'm joking? I'll post a picture of it, you'll see, and entire flipping gallon of the stuff
3.) An argument over a pizza box has arose
4.) Plans for dancing in the city on Friday night already set

Needless to say, the house we all share is never boring. Whether we're fighting, drinking, laughing, singing, or just stomping around in high heels on a Tuesday afternoon there is always an endless amount of entertainment.

Five of us actually spent the last semester all studying abroad in Florence, Italy...I will talk about this a lot, haha, not because it wasn't the greatest experience of my life, but because everything else around me is sick of hearing about it.

Okay okay though I feel like I should set some goals for this blog, you know, something to work towards, and maybe something you guys could be excited about? Maybe? Yes? Good, moving on...to another list that is! (this, list making, is another thing I have a terrible habit of doing, my life isn't really organized so I like to make lists to pretend it is).

1.) Relay as accurately as possible the ridiculousness that are the lives of me and my friends. We like to get into mischief, and generally just try to laugh 24/7 so if that means playing dress up and riding the campus bus around just to make ourselves giggle, so be it.
2.) Make your keyboards slippery with drool with the innumerable things I cook, bake, grill, mix, blah blah blah and the large quantity of photos that result.
3.) Inspire any and all of you to pick up a paintbrush, pen, pair of scissors, pot of modge podge, can of paint, etc and create....well, anything. My most recent project was this cubby-hole of a bedroom that I rent for $525/Month. Ah the things you can do with some paint, pictures, and spool of ribbon!
4.) Document this should-be final year of college in all of its bittersweet goodness. From the stresses of graduating, working, trying to find a "real" job, finishing my internship, maintaining some kind of mediocre GPA, loving my BSRB (Big Sexy Rugby Boyfriend, Duhhh) and making the most of having all my friends in the same place for what could be the last time...tear.

So should I stray from these goals just remind me, otherwise, here's to the posts to come...may they look delicious, make you laugh, and maybe even inspire a trip to the craft store. I'm going to be as real as possible, which means I just might recite to you the drunken tale of the previous night that ended in me changing my facebook picture to that of Paula Dean (true story) otherwise...enjoy!