French Cooking

Mom wasn't feeling too well, so I rented a spin on the cooking classic.  Both women are in love with writing and cooking. The words of both J&J on their respected journies - "absolute bliss, each morning at 6 o'clock literally jumping out of bed". I couldn't help but be so passionate watching the movie. It renewed my urge to blog {yes, it's only been but a week, but renewed all the same}, and I've decided I will love cooking. I say will, because I'm bare-to-none on experience in that department thanks to my mother's hatred for cooking and love for OCD cleaning. But I'm going to try it - to teach myself, that is. No, I don't have spare time ever, but the next break I get {summer, a long weekend?} I'm going to tackle the task in some way or another. This break has been devoted to reading and watching as many hollywood's as possible.

Speaking of, next on my list is "Coco, Before Chanel" then "Black Swan" {despite the bad opinions I've heard}.
I've also heard of this "September Issue" movie about the beginnings of Vogue, but I can't find it anywhere...

xoxo
-B

stumble upon

{not entirely true, but hilarious all the same}

The Truth About College: College is a bunch of rooms where you sit for 2,000 hours or so and try to memorize things. The 2,000 hours are spread out over four years. You spend the rest of the time sleeping, partying, and trying to get dates. Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college: 1. Things you will need to know in later life (two hours). 2. Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours). The latter are the things you learn in classes whose names end in -ology, -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on. The idea is you memorize these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to stay in college for the rest of your life. After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: Be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers. This means you must not major in mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, or geology because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: If you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on. Scientists are extremely snotty about this. So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology - subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each: ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say Moby Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly 11,000 times. So in your paper, you say Moby Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English. PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs. PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are obsessed with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology. SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a causal relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory behavior forms." If you can keep this up for 50 or 60 pages, you will get a large government grant.

"Blush" -Plum{b}.

recently discovered. they've worked for vampire diaries and twilight. and their name bares resemblance to my favorite hue. thankyoumissbethanylocklear;)

xoxo
BRob

a child's point of view

Ever since I saw this floating over the AOII listserv, I've continued to marvel at the simple beauty of this child-filled creation. I know it's post-Christmas day, but this beautiful rendition of the Christmas Story is relevant any day of the year... love it!!!

I love book design

This is why I can't wait for Cortona, Italy. My study abroad summer will include: papermaking, book arts, and binding classes. ahhh, the bliss.

winter beauty survival kit

A few nights ago, I discovered a long lost $44.17 Target giftcard that I had misplaced after move-in returns in August. Cynthia [mother] and I ran around picking up last minute presents. It's times when I'm home and not on a squeeze-into-my-schedule-mission [and most importantly, that I have access to the mother-load credit card] that I magically remember items [that I need?] that have been previously put off due to what I like to call college frugalness syndrome [aka Brit wants to please the parentals when her BofA list of expenditures comes out]. So we picked up some winter beauty essentials and I presented them to dad and steven as my survival beautification kit for this break.

[Note: the pre-nates are simply for stronger healthy hair : )] 

Lesson: take some time while you have it at your disposal and focus on you :) 

dainty blissmas {merry christmas}

Merry Jesusmus!! 

white christmas.

Upon waking in my little twin bed in Lake St. Louis, I looked outside to a winterwonderland. What a delightful surprise for Christmas eve morn! I ran to the grocery store for some much-missed Schnuck's donuts and snapped a few pictures that I'll share with you:)

Merry Christmas!
xoxo