Pinterest.

really, the title says it all. 

I have no idea why this website astounds me and literally EATS up my time as if it's a starved child from new guinea... (questionable analogy?)

maybe it's because, to me, it's brand spankin new, and i'm on a new kick..

maybe it's because all the stuff on it is soooo puh-rettyyyyyy...

maybe it's because I love all the stunning photography and lovely quotes that I find....

or mayyyybbeeee it's just because I like to procrastinate and pinterest is literally THE BEST website to help procrastinate....

• better than myspace  (but ummm who even uses that anymore?)
• better than facebook
• better than cleaning your room (don't really do that either...)
• better than reading fun people's blogs!!! (like this one and this one and THIS one... and this one)
• better than tumblr
• better than twitter
• and yes, even better than stumbleupon
• basically.... better than anything else that I've ever found ANYWHERE on the internet. besides online shopping. that's it's own animal.

anyway. pinterest. if anyone wants an invite into a world of procrastination, 

il y a que demander..

you only need to ask....

you're welcome.

The Ocean.

The Ocean astounds me.  The ocean is always constant, through everything I might go through, the ocean is always resolute, though I might falter in the storms that life brings me.  The ocean is always enduring everything, never changing, but rather forcing other things to change in the presence of it’s power.   The Ocean crushes  immense boulders into sand without balking at the seemingly intense challenge.  The ocean rolls sharp shards of glass into soft, touchable artwork.   The  ocean is fierce enough to provide a challenge for the daredevils who wish to  ride it’s power, yet gentle enough to softly brush the toes of the toddler who’s sole wish is to build a sandcastle.  The ocean can crash over you and beat your body,  slamming your face into the sand and leaving you with battle scars as memories, or the ocean can  wash over your feet as you dig your toes into the sand, feeling the cool, refreshing salt water against your skin, teasing, inviting, begging you to stay a while.  The ocean is always there waiting, never impatient, never expectant, but always welcoming.  The ocean seems calm and simple at first glance, but  underneath the surface is a wild and complex world that even the most extensive research cannot fully explain.  There’s so many different levels to the ocean; one can just play tag with the waves on the shore, or wade in and feel the waves crash on your legs,  or one can swim in deeper and catch the waves on a surfboard, and ride them back to the shore with a feeling that you’ve conquered something. The ocean is one of my favorite creations.

The ocean is a lot like God.

God is always constant through everything I go through in life. God is always there to welcome me with open arms when I come out exhausted and wounded on the other side, even though He was right there next to me cheering me on, even carrying me when it got too difficult.   God is immutable.  He never changes, but rather, I am changed in His presence, in His glory.  The Lord can reduce the most strong, hard-hearted, callous person to tears in a moment, and He can see the beautiful finished masterpiece in people even at their worst, ugliest moment.  God’s love is fierce enough to fight for the lives of His children, although it required great sacrifice, and yet His love is gentle enough to whisper healing into the hearts of the broken hearted.   God can crash over you, and around you, hitting you like lightning and filling you with His Spirit, or He can slowly wrap his arms around you, showering you with love.  God's always longingly watching, and waiting ever so patiently and calmly for us to give Him the slightest attention.  Even if I turn away from Him, He'll always welcome me back with a dazzling smile on His face, and He'll invite me to dance with Him again.  God is simple enough for children to understand and love, but complicated enough so that we'll never fully grasp the full extent of His character.

God astounds me.

I've fallen in love with sneakers...

I'm the type of girl that never really works out...... (but when I say never really, that sounds a little non-commital, and I actually mean that I NEVER WORK OUT!) I ran for two days in a row, but then I quit because the cost-benefit ratio was kinda 5-0. unequal. unfair. and III do not enjoy it when things are not fair!!! (orrrr that's just my excuse for not exercising my butt off all the time.) 

Anyway!!!! I had a pair of Asics running sneakers from when I ran track in high school (11th grade, hated it. never did it again) but for the modeling job I got this week, we have to wear white sneakers (um can we say racist?? DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.....you're awful to think such a thing!......) tangent, sorry..... ~story continuing~ I found a pair of white and teal Adidas sneakers at (ummm heeellllooooo) COSTCO! *cue angelic "ahhhhhh"* and they were $20, and they just had my name stamped all over em!  soooooo I bought them! (*cough cough* my dad bought them) andddddd that solved my white-sneaker-less problem! 

Lemme break this week down for you..

-I wake up at 5:45 every morning.
-Take a 6:43 train into Penn Station.
-Take the A,C, or E subway to 50th st.
-Walk over two LONG blocks to Rockefeller Ctr.
-THEN STAND ON MY FEET IN THE BLISTERING HEAT SWEATING BULLETS (i was gonna say something else but decided not to. use your imagination k?)
-I stand there for 9 hours while people ask me the stupidest questions I've ever heard.
-Then I get off at 5. and sprint back those two blocks to the subway (after getting my stuff from our secure storage area in CHINA) push through the crowd s of disgruntled commuters, and squeeze my little sweaty body into a nasty subway car with a bunch of other not-so-little sweaty bodies, and hold my breath for about 10 minutes...
-Then I take my 5:33 train back to Glen Cove
.........IF I happen to make the right switch at Jamaica and have a ride home from the station..

WOW.... 

after re-reading that....

phew, it's a good thing I'm not a complainer.....

just kidding.

I have my moments.

sue me.

Ok so back to my point.. my original point... wayyy up at the top of this post.. 

I was never much of an exercise freak... but I have fallen in love with sneakers. probably the most freakin comfortable shoes ever!!!! andddd these are just $20 Costco sneaks. seriously. new addiction??? and some sneakers are LEGIT so cute!!!!!! like these and these and these oh andddddd these!!!!!!(but just because the bottoms are so fun and wrinkly!)

BTW: I spent all of my saturday painting the 2nd floor. check it

pretty boss, huh?

pedicure anyone? YES! ME!

thanks dan...

anddddddd i got freckles..

LOTS of freckles!!!!

That's it!!!!

Peeps, it's freakin hot outside.

The humidity makes it 10 degrees hotter.

Stay cool (as in temperature) , and stay cool (as in...cucumber)

payce..

Blue raspberry...

Today was a boring day... So right now I'm sitting and watching shows on hulu.. they're not the best shows, sci fi with bad acting. but it's my guilty pleasure, so hush.  

Anyway! I'm a fan of a lot of things!!! I like strawberries, sunflowers, chocolate, music, lemons, lemonade, the beach, the water, the first snowfall, crocuses, and many other things.  One thing that i am NOT a fan of, is blue raspberry. Blue raspberry flavored anything. hate it. PEOPLE, there are no such things as BLUE raspberries, unless they aren't ripe yet. stop kidding yourselves! I hate it for a couple reasons. 

1.  It just doesn't taste very good.

2.  It used to make me sick to my stomach (dont ask me why, I have no idea)

3.  It turns your mouth unnatural colors. mainly blue. gross.

Basically, I never eat anything blue raspberry flavored. I just don't. ever.  

Tonight I was lookin for a snack to eat with my bad tv show, and remembered seeing a box of italian ices in the freezer. SCORE!!!!

So I went and got myself one!!!

HOORAY!!!!!!!!

but no.... it was blue raspberry flavored.

Nasty blue raspberry....

So now in your head you're like "aww that's so awful now poor eri-poo has no snack to eat with her tv show!!!" *sad face*

But you know what people.. I ate it. I DID!!!

Maybe just because I'm lazy and I didn't wanna go look for something else, maybe because I know, deep down in my subconscious that there just ISNT anything else, or mayyyybeeeeee I decided to be adventurous and not a 5 year old... or maybe i secretly wanted my mouth to turn blue.

so although you may have been picturing me looking more like this when I was eating my ice....

The reality is that the first bite looked a little like this...

Then this.....

Then we had some of this going on....

Maybe a little of this....

And just a smidgen of this....

but this is actually kinda normal. sad, i know.

I decided to suck up the weird taste, and half-melty texture, in lieu of a really cool blue tongue.. for the first time ever!!!!!

You wanna see it???

Youuuuuu wwwaaaannnnnnnaaaaaa??????

.............

...........................

.............................................................

.......ok fine.......

VOILA! 

 Truth: it could've been bluer... 

I didn't finish my ice. 

I just couldn't persevere...

I JUST COULDN'T!!!!!!

don't you be lookin at your screen with that judgemental look!!!!

you knowww that you would've vomited all over your pretty little keyboard if you had tried to eat it...

(wow sorry about that.)

nasty.

anyway.

back to my show.

HELLOOOOO SUN CHIPS!

There's a new Martha Stewart in the hizzouse!!!

AND HER NAME IS ERIKA...

Today I made dinner.

I found a recipe online, and I made it.

It was healthy too!!! You betcha bottom dollar!!

It all started out nice and simple.  I was actually very excited!! (I mean come on... who wouldn't be?) (...Well, Martha Stewart wouldn't be.) The ingredients were easy, the recipe was easy, so you'd think it would be a piece of cake, right???

no... if you thought that, then you were horribly wrong. and so was I.

Let's reminisce, shall we? 

(ok fine I'll reminisce, you just pretend you know what I'm talking about...)

smile and nod people.. smile and nod.

FAIR WARNING: (just so I can say that I gave you fair warning....) This is a long story.. so if you really don't wanna read it, then just look at the pictures. I won't be offended....

For those of you who do not know (I say "those" as if so many people read this blog... oy vey.) My house has been under construction. and when I say construction, I mean rip-your-walls-down-and-your-roof-off-and-make-erika-sleep-in-a-dungeon-for-MONTHS kinda construction.  So since then... we've been eating out a lot.. A LOT a lot... not so healthy. sorry. (but I'm really not all that sorry?...sorry.) (but again, not sorry.)

ANYWAY! Today started off as a very boring day, and by about 6pm I decided that enough was enough, and III was gonna do somethin about my day!!!!! So, after reading this post from this blog, a week or so ago, I decided to make that food.  If you didn't click the links, then YOU are in the dark right now about what kinda food I made... unless you scrolled down. YOU CHEATER!

So. I was bored.

and I take pictures when I'm bored I guess?

I did not know what to do with myself!!

Then I got an idea...

A very fantastic idea!

that I would make this awesome recipe

and that I would love it....

pretty :)

So I made a list!!!!!!
actually I didn't, but this is just for visual aid.

then I ran out of our kitchen into.... the kitchen?
^which looks like this^
...and now you see why we've been eating out so often...

the stove isn't even connected to anything... ANYTHING!!!!
just sittin there on the floor, supposedly minding it's own business. but I know better.
ok that's enough.. ANYWAY!

and I had to plug in the plug... which was the
of a SOFTBALL!!!
(I'm exaggerating, it was a golfball.)
BUT STILL.

So i had to clear off the various
cereal, soda, water bottles,
gatorade, and floor tiles that were
on top of it.

plugged it in, pre-heated it to 450... we're definitely getting somewhere
(it was NOT 2:07 by the way. that is a bold-faced lie.)

And now it was time to clean the chicken!!!

(yesss it's gonna be chickennnn!!!! get. excited.)

....................

well.. are you excited??? ya should be.

Except that I couldn't, because there
were a bunch of dishes in the sink...
and our dishwasher's not plugged in.
i wouldn't even know where to LOOK
for that plug.. AND the plumbing.
*shudder*

...........

BUT that was no hinderance to me!!!!!
the hair went up, and the ninja warrior inside of me
reared it's ugly head..
it was a beautiful moment.

I cleaned those dishes...

I cleaned them well....
and apparently left the water running.
we're not all perfect.

Then I had to clean the chicken.... First and foremost, I have never cleaned chicken by myself before... and it always looked easy, right??? WRONG!!! wrong again!!! Lemme just lay it out for you..

1. Chicken Smells freakin gross.
2. It's so slimy that when you try to cut off that nasty white stuff all over it, the stupid chicken cutlet flies out of your hand and ACROSS.THE.ROOM. (maybe not across the room. maybe just to the bottom of the sink. but STILL.)
3. About that white stuff.... yuck. a million times over, yuck. I have no idea what I cut through tonight, but I am SO glad that it's not inside.my.body. right now.

I did what I think people usually do when they clean chicken... put it in a bowl with some water and swish it around a bit?? 

("swish" makes me think of mouth wash. guess THATS ruined for me now)

The worst thing about the chicken cutlets was that they LOOKED like fish, swimming in a pool of nasty, cloudy, chickeny water. I wanted to rescue them... and get the H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS away from them at the same time.

I really had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but you better believe that those things were CUH-LEAN when i was finished!

tangent over...

So then I gathered my supplies!!!! after a half hour of shoving stoves closer to plugs and doing carrying wet dishes 5 ft to the stovetop-turned-countertop.

I got spices... salt pepper and garlic powder!

I got tin-foil!

two eggs (i actually needed three.)

some corn flakes.....

ok a lotta corn flakes..

organized my work space!!!!!
(after crushing the corn flakes into smaller pieces so they stick...
and after adding the S, P and Garlic Powder to the egg.)

Then after I dipped those cutlets in the egg, and rolled them in my crushed flakes, I put them on tin foil in any pan i could find, and shoved em into the oven for 15-17 minutes!!!! (how legit did THAT sound... not.)

ummm YUM! 

*SCHLEEOOOOOOP*
for those of you who DON'T know,
that's the sound I make when something tastes really good
(or even looks like it tastes really good.)

That was my adventure today.... and after making FOUR trays of this chicken while i was home... alone... I realized that no one would be there to eat it..

UNTIL my unsuspecting younger brother and his friends walk into the house

HERROOOOO GUINEA PIGS!!!

so they ate half... and loved it!! begged for more!!! PLEADED!!! but i had to refuse them... I needed to save some for the rest of the family!

how responsible of me...

anyway. I'm sick of this now.

make this recipe

and love me. (and this girl)

thank me later!