Smithsonian

I have finally ventured out of my apartment! I decided to go downtown to my absolute favorite Smithsonian, and one I hope to work at one day. The National American History Smithsonian. Full of all things American from pop culture, wars, people, and presidents. It took me about an hour to get there. I left my apartment later than planned and after a 15 minute walk got onto the metro. From there it was maybe a 20 minute ride to the Smithsonian station. I then took a wrong turn out of the station and walked around the USDA building (an entire block) finally found my way to the Mall and found the building. By that time it was about 10:30am. I got a free map, and the woman asked me what I wanted to see. My answer: everything, and I did just that. I was in the Smithsonain until 6:30 ( a total of 8 hours) and I was exhausted afterwards! I completely fell even more in love with this new city that I lived in. I just love the fact that I can take a trip downtown and basically have a free day to wander around a museum for free!

Some of my favorite exhibits were of course Julia Child's Kitchen, The First Lady Exhibit, The American Presidency, and The Price of Freedom: Americans at War. But by far I think my favorite exhibit was For All The World To See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. It combines two of my loves: history of the civil rights movement, and how media shaped and influenced it. That is what I love studying in addition to of course Women. I thought the easiest way to share my adventure was through some random pictures I took. I did see everything, but there are some items like the Civil Rights exhibit, and the Star Spangled Banner where for preservation reasons pictures are not allowed. Also I apposition for the quality of the pictures. I took them with the flash off (because I believe in conservation), and my camera died so I also used my phone.   Enjoy my favorite things at the Smithsonian. 

Lunch counter from Greensboro, N.C. where the first Civil Rights Movement sit-in occurred. 

Women factory workers during WWII

This is a shoe that a Chinese woman with bound feet would have worn. 

I thought it was funny that a van similar to what my family had when I was little is now in the Smithsonian.

Cartoon of the Scopes Monkey Trial. 

Atomic Fire balls, part of American after WWII and how the atomic bomb and plastics began to change and influence our lives. 

Modern 1950s kitchen, plastic is everywhere!

1950s living room.

The invention of "The Pill" I personally liked the header 

Julia's Kitchen 

Julia's copper pan wall!

Julia's cookbooks and videos

Another view of her kitchen. 

Me and Julia's Kitchen!

Vintage lace from the late 1700/1800s

A very blurry picture of one of Martha Washington's gowns. It still looks beautiful and pattern on the dress was actually hand painted! 

First Lady Michelle Obama's dress!

The Red Slippers! They are not as beautiful as they once were.

Fifinella! The WASPs mascot during WWII. 

Vietnam nurse

Vietnam nurse

Vietnam POW bracelets. People used to buy them, and each bracelet had a name of someone who was MIA/POW.

A piece of the World Trade Center from 9/11

Freedom of Americans to petition. Civil Rights Era

Vietnam War protesting poster.

March on Washington button. 

Votes for Women button. 

Hope you enjoyed this extremely long post about my recent adventure. More to come!

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Vlog

So I decided to make a video during our first day of travel. The sound seems to be a bit wonky, and I totally look ridiculous, but whatever. Enjoy!

Random Topics

Well tomorrow I'm off to the District! There will be many posts about that in the next coming weeks! However, I have some new foodie items and recent knitting projects to show off.

First, my favorite part the food! When I went to the farmers market I had already decided that I wanted to buy eggplant. I have never been a huge fan of eggplant stemming from a bad experience as a child. The kind of eggplant that I bought was considered Asian eggplant, and supposedly has smaller seeds. So I searched the internet for panini recipes because I also wanted to use my beautiful foccacia bread. I didn't really see one I liked so I made up my own.

I pan "grilled" eggplant, sauteed onions and peppers, put tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese on the sandwich and stuck it in the toaster oven. 

I also made roasted broccoli, so yummy! I used a recipe from the Food Network. 

A few days later I also made Eggplant Parmesan, but unfortunately never got around to taking a picture of it. However I used a recipe from Weight Watchers, so including pasta I believe it equaled out to about 9 points or so. 

I also completed a first birthday gift for "A". I decided to knit her fruits and vegetables to play with. Her mom also made her a bunch of felt food, so we had some overlap in items that we made, but I think A will have a lot of fun playing with the items, and I loved making them. 

The banana was the funniest thing! She recognizes bananas and tried to eat it. She was very upset when she realized it was not a real banana. 

Celery 

Pear

Broccoli

 Apple

Pumpkin 

I'm also planning one more special item to be sent a little later, because well sometimes I'm really slow and behind at what I do. Well that's all, if you are reading this over the next few days, please pray for safe travels to D.C. and prayers of peace and direction once I'm there! 

Farmer's Market

Saturday, I decided to hit up the local farmers market with my friend Meg for the last time. I went in determined to buy some different vegetables than I normally would. We got there and went straight to the Anastasia Kitchen booth and got sweet potato and black bean burritos which were awesome! Then we walked around, and just kinda looked at what was there. I ended up buying quite a few things, and Sunday I did my first round of cooking with my farmers market items.

Pretty peppers, and a red/purple onion.

Apparently these are Asian eggplants. They are supposed to have less seeds in them. 

A beet!

Goat cheese!

5 beautiful peaches.

Delicious Garlic and Rosemary Foccacia bread from Maria's Bakery

I decided to make roasted peaches with goat cheese, honey, and toasted hazelnuts. It came out pretty well. However, I did have a couple mishaps. First, I totally burned my first batch of hazelnuts, and secondly, the goat cheese I used was not as soft as I would have liked. Therefore, I am going to try this again with a softer goat cheese. It was really good though!

I also made a delicious roasted beet, peach, and goat cheese salad. I have come to adore roasted beet, and really should come up with more uses for it!

That concludes my farmers market adventures. I am still looking for something to make with my eggplant. I just haven't narrowed down the perfect item. And in other news I move out of my home for 3 years, in just under a week and a half. I can't believe it, and I'm going to miss it so much!

The District

Well it's been a few weeks since my trip to The District also known as Washington D.C. I really had a great time although it was a whirlwind trip filled with business and not much pleasure. My Dad flew us up there and we spent 3 days traipsing around D.C., Maryland, and Virginia looking at the school, apartment hunting, and airplane business. I did find an apartment, and recently found out that I did get it! I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to secure an apartment in my price range, but I was successful. Another bonus is that it is about a 10-15 minute walk to a Metro station. So I will have easy access to and from school. There is also a bus that will take me tot he station if I don't feel like walking.
So the main purpose of my trip was to find an apartment and see GWU. However Dad and I also got to go to the National Air and Space Museum on Sunday night when we got there. During the summer months some of the Smithsonian's are kept open a little later to account for the tourists and such. I really enjoyed the exhibits and I think my Dad did as well. After we left the museum we took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures on the National Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol building, while heading back to the Metro Station.

The next day, we were able to take a tour of the GWU Foggy Bottom campus, which is just a few blocks from the White House! The campus is huge compared to Flagler, and walking around I totally fell in love with it. Below are some pictures I took of the campus. 

The 7 story library! I'm sure I will know every inch of it soon!

24-hour Starbucks on the 1st floor of the library. 

The Women's Studies Department building. This house has a great story behind it!

John Quincy Adam's House, He was one of the original founders/financial contributors to the college.

I look disporportionally short in this picture, but this is where the main admissions office is located. I think it is also the official address for the college as well. 

In honor of Mr. Washington himself, these are on the four main boarding corners of the campus, and they look out onto the city. 

The GWU Bookstore. There are three levels, enough said. 

Campus map, they are posted around campus on the street. I can't believe I'm going to a school so big they have maps on the sidewalks. 

Oh the Hippo. The unofficial mascot of GWU. I'm kinda in love with how ridiculous it is.

That pretty much sums up my whirlwind trip to the District. While we were there, we were able to meet up with my cousin and her fiancee which was really cool, as I had not met him yet. I am so excited to begin my journey in the big city. The countdown is on, and we will be on our way in 21 days! I only have 3 shifts left at lovely Panera, and then we will see what kind of wonderful jobs await me in the big city. 

Leavin' on "Jet' Plane

Well tomorrow I will be heading to The District to do some apartment hunting. My Dad is flying us up to D.C. so that I can finally see GWU and tour the school. We will also be trying to find a potential apartment for me, probably in Virginia. I can not wait for this trip, and I'm sure that there will be much more to share once I get back!

Adventures in the Kitchen

What is this three blog posts in the past two weeks. I feel like I'm setting a record for my blogging.
I've got the cooking bug again and I've been experimenting with pizza. My goal has been to create "semi-gourmet" pizzas that are low in weight watchers points.
This time I made a sausage and peppers with mushrooms pizza. I used low fat Italian cheese, tomato paste sauce, and Jennie O Italian Turkey Sausage. It was so good! I have found the trick is to use half a pound of dough per pizza. It is the only way to truly get a thin crust!

I also had an abundence of zucchini that I bought from the framers market. While looking through recipies on the interent. I found a recipie for stuffed zucchini. I hollowed out 2 zucchini's, chopped up the zucchini, tomatoes, onion, asiago cheese, and bread crumbs. I put the rest of the low-fat Italian cheese from the pizza I made on top and baked for 15 minutes. They ended up being around 3 Weight Watchers PointsPlus each!

I'm excited to be cooking again. I feel like since it is now summer, I have wanted to really create good food again, rather than mediocre food. I'm also trying to create really good low points food. I've been working out everyday. I have lost 37 pounds on Weight Watchers, and want to keep a good trend going, and not be held up by my diet. As my good friend and I have discussed, Food is an addiction and it is hard work to break that addiction

Food

So with increased time again now that is summer, I have begun to experiement with recipies a bit more. Last Saturday I went to the farmers market and picked up zucchini. I didn't know what I was going to do with it. Later that day my friend was telling me about this delicious recipe from Vegetarian Times Magazine. Zucchini, Red Pepper, Goat Cheese Pizza. It was really easy to make and was so good!

In case anyone is interested the recipe is at Vegetarian Times Magazine

Grad School

It's been a long time since I wrote on my blog so I thought a little update was in order and I'm going to try and blog at least once a week.

A few posts ago I wrote about the grad schools I was applying to. Well the results are in and I decided about a month ago to attend George Washington University in Washington D.C.

Talk about a shocker. I never thought I would get into the school (that actually happened to be my dream school), and now I'm accepted and actually going! I still can't believe it, and I don't think it will really be real until I'm there.

I'm still trying to figure out how everything will get paid, but I'm trusting and relying on God to help me figure out how to pay for school and everything else associated with it. The more important thing is that I'm going to be studying what I love at the best school for it. I will be getting my Masters of Arts in Museum Studies, and I cannot wait for all of the opportunities that will be available for me in D.C. This is truly a dream come true.

Personal Victory

It's only 10:30 on a Monday morning but I already have achieved a personal victory this morning. Since I joined Weight Watchers in July I have lost 30 pounds, and while that is a victory in and of itself this mornings was almost better. I began working out sporadictly when I began Weight Watchers (and I still do not work out as regularly as I should). I decided to check out the work out room at my complex because lets face it, if I'm not going to use it if it's free I'm certainly not going to pay to use equipment. Well I walked in the room and just saw machines. I was not familuar on how to use the machines spart from the treadmill and stationary bikes. The first one I saw was the infamous eliptical. I had never been on one, and it seemed like the most popular machine based on facebook/internet comments about it. Well I got on the machine 6 months ago and about died. I could barely use it for 2 minutes. I moved on to other machines.
Well today after walking on the treadmill, I decided to get on the elliptical and just try it for a few minutes to see if I could do it. To my surprise and delight I could! And I was on there for 12 minutes! It totally has made my day. To me these things and even smaller clothes show me how much better my health is getting in just these few short months with Weight Watchers. It also shows me that of all the weight loss programs on the market Weight Watchers is the only one that works! I need the accountability of a weekly meeting and that is what has helped me to be successful.