See ya!

Hey all,

I've moved this glorious creature over to wordpress!

http://theroadto9944.wordpress.com/

Computers.

So, I'm in a bit of a jam, and don't know when I'll really be able to write much. My laptop is slowly dying and I'm about 90% sure the wireless card is out now.

My laptop is 8 years old, and is on it's last legs.. I was just hoping I could get a new one before this started happening. Hopefully I'll be able to figure something out. 

In the corner..

I spent a good portion of my night in a corner with these two hooligans:

After the men's basketball won their last home game, Loren, Shefali and I headed to The Beach Club for dinner. I haven't been out to dinner or drinks with many people lately. Working graveyard (and now not working) has kept me home to sleep or to save money, so tonight it was nice to have good girlfriends, good basketball, decent food and incredible jokes surround me. I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did tonight. 

Long Beach, the CSULB campus and the Walter Pyramid are my homes away from home. It's where I feel comfortable, where a lot of things make sense, and where I really grew up. It's where I've laughed, cried and stayed up learning life's secrets with my friends til the sun comes up. I truly love this city and all it has to offer. I can't wait for the day that I move back. 

It's beautiful, isn't it? 

Fly...

Fly.. Today's prompt is "fly." I knew what I wants to write about when I saw this prompt, I just had to figure out how. 

I live under three different landing patterns for LAX. Planes have alway been a constant in my life, I've been on them while traveling, or under them while at home. 

I have trouble sleeping when the skies are quiet. When I first moved to Long Beach, it took me a month or so to get used to how quiet it was. After the planes hit the towers on 9/11 and all the planes were grounded, I remember being so scared because it was so quiet. The house didn't rumble, you could always hear the tv and there wasn't a "hold on, there's a plane" in the middle of phone conversations.

I used to love the window seat when I traveled, then I grew. When I fly, I prefer an aisle seat with as much leg room as I can find, especially on longer flights. There is one awesome thing you give up when sitting on the aisle in a plane: the window pictures. Seeing the world from thousands of feet in the air is magical. You fly through and over storms, through clouds and you get to see sunrises and sunsets from the most magnificent place. 

In 2009, I was able to cross something major off my life's bucket list. I saw the sunrise on the east coast (on the way to the Dulles airport in DC), flew home and saw it set into the marina in Long Beach that same night. I didn't realize the impact it would have, but you see the sunrise over the Washingtom Monument and tell me it doesn't strike a chord. 

Here's to the land above the clouds, friends. Enjoy it whenever you can. 

Ooooops

This week has been a bit stressful, and in order to do the things I needed to get done, I had to neglect my blog. I've missed the last couple prompts of "on my mind," "something beginning with 'i,'" and "chair." Today's prompt is "fly" and surprisingly, it seems like waiting to write these all at once makes a lot more sense.

This past week has been spent stressing over a cover letter for a job application. This isn't just any job to me, it's a start in a new direction, a way into a world that I have finally realized is the right one for me, and a chance to live a little out of the ordinary. I already have an insane hatred of cover letters, and in some cases I don't really understand the point. In others, like this one, I get it, but I instantly become the most insecure, incapable person while trying to sell myself in a half page letter that is supposed to convince a stranger to take a chance, interview and possibly hire me. No pressure, right?

So that's what has been on my mind the last week, from last Thursday til now. Why now? Because I just sent it in. I sent in my application, and the only thing that I can do is hope that this amazing website takes a chance on me. Hell, I probably should just send them this blog entry and be like, "see? I right good."

Back to the point, cover letters have been "on my mind" because I was stressing over this application, my "i" words are insecure and incapable because no matter how good at something I know I am, that fear creeps when I have to explain why I think I'm going to be the person they want in said cover letters.

That leaves "chair" from yesterday, and "fly" for today's post. Here's my set up at a local Starbucks:

My laptop, water, a drink, crumpled napkins, snack bags, my phone, chargers, and most importantly, the chair that has been my home for the past couple hours while I tried to hammer this out. This chair has been my inspiration to get this done because it's terrible for my back and incredibly uncomfortable. The sooner I got my stuff done, the sooner I don't have to sit in it. Makes sense, right?

I'll write my post for today a bit later, I need to take a break. I need to let my brain calm down and do some yoga to help recover from all this sitting. I'm also not going to post where I applied or anything about the job, because in case something comes of it, I know I'll be incredibly superstitious about it. If the reviewing parties read this post, thanks for looking into what I'm all about. I hope you like me!

My name is..

I'm having a real hard time not making a stupid Slim Shady joke somewhere within this prompt. 

Names are funny things, people often forget them, mistake them for something else or butcher them completely. My friend Sheila has started an album of pictures on her Facebook of the different ways Starbucks baristas misspell her name. I love it, and as of right now, "Chilla" is my favorite. 

I rather like my name. It's different, but not outlandish, but it's not all that common either. I've had my name spelled "Angila," "Angella" and I'm often called Angelica or Angie. For some reason, being called Angie has always bothered me, despite having two friends named Angela and Angie growing up... What a trio we were. 

The only time anyone has unknowingly messed my name was in 5th grade. My teacher, Mr. Baker, had that honor. Originally from Boston, he still had a thick Bostonian accent. The poor guy. Outside of student teaching, we were his very first class. Ever. A class full of 9 and 10 year olds is overwhelming as it is, but I knew all the kids around me. He had no clue what he was getting into with us. 

I remember that year so clearly. The first couple days of school, Mr. Baker went around and learned our names and took a picture of each of us, partly to help him, I'm sure, but also to show us how much we would grow throughout the year. As he went through the roster, he got through about half the class before he got to me... Obviously, since my last name is Morales. Because of his accent, my name came out as "Angeler." I remember saying that I was here, but that my name was "AngeLUH, not AngeLER." He looked at me and apologized for his accent and sheepishly continued through the roster. He purposely called me Angeler the rest of the year, making light of what happened.

Out of all my years in school, that year was probably the best. Mr. Bill Baker taught us about tolerance, world views. how to be kind to one another despite our differences and how detrimental it can be if don't. He was the teacher we could talk to about anything, the one who talked to us like we were people, and the one who would go out and play basketball, four-square and tag during recess. 

He was, and is, the coolest, even still. 

Something borrowed

I don't really know how to write this without getting terrible emotional, so this entry will be short, and quick, because that's probably about all I'll be able to handle. 

I wear this ring just about every day. So did my Grandma. 

I don't consider it my ring. It's my Grandma's, and it always will be. She may have been gone just over 10 years but I'm only borrowing this from her. I don't think I'll ever refer to it as anything but "My Grandma's RIng" because I don't see a reason to. 

That's about all I can write at the moment without losin it completely. I hope that it makes sense. 

xo

Mellow Yellow

Well, I have succumbed to a challenge presented by my friend/writing-encourager Marlon. Last month he decided to take an Instagram photo-a-day challenge and use each photo prompt as a writing prompt. He suggested I do it, but I chickened out (I really need to stop doing that).

So here I am, March 1, writing about yellow. There's so much I could write about. Yellow is my favorite color, I have so many items of yellow clothing, my high school colors were blue and gold and my college was black and gold, I have a lemon tree, a yellow ribbon ('round the ol' oak tree).. Needless to say, I really enjoy yellow. I decided on something different, something not many people know about.

A yellow rose. 

Yellow roses are usually brought in sympathy, but there's nothing sympathetic about this plant. In my eyes, roses will forever represent my family. My grandfather was a test gardener for Jackson & Perkins so we have a few unnamed roses in our yard. After he passed away in 1988, my mom continued to take care of them. We have about 15 planted around our front and backyards, beautifully fragrant and bold in color. This specific plant is one of the unnamed ones. It is tucked back behind our garage, roughly 40 years old and I think it holds a grudge against me. 

The size of this rose vise is deceiving. In the winter, it's small, trimmed back to preserve it's resources, in the late spring and summer, it grows to great heights. I have walked or backed myself into this behemoth countless times, each time ending in thorns stuck in my clothes and my skin. It spent the majority of my youth scarring/scaring me from going into that part of the yard.  

But now, we have seemed to come to terms with each other. I am much more mellow (and careful) and I've learned to love nature a lot more. I think the rose knows because it keeps giving me these:

Happy March! 

Ovenless, Sin horno.

December 2012, the weekend before Christmas, my oven decided to die a slow death. I was in the process of making three types of muffins as part of a gift for my aunt, five types of cookies and my mom and I were making the different parts of the enchiladas we were taking over to my cousin's house. No big deal, right? Just the main course and dessert for our Christmas dinner.

As I was baking late into the night, all the cookie dough made and chilled, the muffins cooling, the oven slowly began getting colder and the smell of natural gas arose. My mom and I had noticed that our oven was being funky and wasn't getting hot like it used to, but we could always get it to work. Luckily, I was just about done baking for the night and we turned the oven off. Over the next couple of days, the oven took longer and longer to get warm, and would not stay hot for very long. I was able to finish the rest of the cookies, but that Christmas was the Christmas our oven died. After looking into it, we found that as that model ages the heating element that ignites the fire in the oven goes wonky and decides to quit.

Since that December, I have found approximately 2,904,785,249,852 different recipes that I want to try, but it seems at least 90% of them have something done in the oven. The challenge over the last year or so has been to either learn to adapt recipes so that they don't have to go in the oven, or find delicious things to make in our dutch oven, slow cooker or on the stove top. Fortunately my mom and I are resourceful and have done a great job doing this, but there are sometimes when I just want a batch of homemade cookies or to roast meats or vegetables for dinner. These are the moments where you realize how lucky you are to have such a problem, but these are the same moments that make it frustrating when you're trying to start your own home baking business. We've been saving, so hopefully a new oven is in our near future. Until then, it's experimenting with all the different things you can make outside your oven.

In the mean time, I'll leave you with this beef stew/pot roast goodness that makes your house smell really good, and while it is made in the slow cooker, it heats up your house rather nicely. In writing this recipe down, I realized how freely I cook, not really knowing how much of different things are added to a dish, so here's my rough version. There's a lot of flexibility here, add more of what you like and less of what you don't. Make it so that you like it and so that you'll eat it. That's what makes food so magical. (Oh, this recipe uses two dried gravy mixes. I'm working on a way to make my own dried gravy mix so that I can control what goes into this a bit more.)
_________
Pot Roast!

Get a package of stew meat. We usually get about two pounds of meat (the family pack size) so we'll have leftovers. Just get as much as you need, you know how much you eat.

Beef stew meat
1 brown onion, cut into 1-2" pieces
3-6 celery stalks, cut into 1-2" pieces
3-6 carrots, cut into 1-2" pieces
(I added a yellow bell pepper and a tomato cut into eighths because they needed to be cooked, but it's still good without, basically whatever veggies you want)
2-3 dried bay leaves depending on how big they are
2-3 garlic cloves, or dried garlic
Salt
Pepper
Oregano
Whatever spices you want
Brown gravy and Onion gravy mix (or two brown gravy) for this amount, we use two of the little dried packs.

Enough water to cover about 2/3 of the stuff. Probably about 2-3 cups of water. If you want to get a fair amount of gravy, add more water.
Cook on high for 6-8 hours or low for 8-12 (depending on your slow cooker and the amount of food)

4 months later.

Well, that was an unexpected break from this thing, but a lot can happen in 4 months.

I decided to give NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a go... whoa. I wrote about 30,000 words in a month, while working graveyard and barely sleeping, so to say it was difficult is an understatement. I have a beautiful half written story that would be somewhat of my fairy tale life, but it doesn't need my attention right now.

I went head first into college basketball season and loving it and my team is doing really well. Work was awful, and I barely slept most of the time, so November through January was kinda awful other than basketball. I did a lot of friend, and regular housecleaning, and since then I've felt a lot better about things. And as of the end of January, I'm no longer working.... again. So, 2014 is yet another adventure, but an adventure with lots of goals and a good outlook.

Here's my list of goals for 2014:
- write more
- cook more
- write about cooking more
- go on adventures, near and far
- write more about cooking without an oven
- budget and use some of the money that I've saved for the baking adventure to get it off the ground
- get tattooed
- get a new oven
- bake and bake and bake some more
- secure a fantastic job that makes me happy and isn't an awful environment
- do really fun things and write about them
- get a new computer and camera

I'm actually really excited about this year. It didn't exactly start off the way I wanted to, but I truly believe that things happen for a reason and it's never for the reason you believe or when you want them to happen. I have working and researching for the last 2 years what it will take to get this baking excursion off the ground, but it hasn't happened yet, much to my dismay. However I know that it will this year. I'm hoping to have it going by the holidays so I can provide delicious things for lots of people.

Here's to starting the year in March and not paying attention to the actual calendar when you're pursuing dreams.