My Return

Well, this is awkward. For a while, I kept telling myself, "Just write up a blog post today or tomorrow, and keep going with it." Except, I never listened to myself, and it never happened. I didn't feel as if I had much to say in a blog as well. Then, I got pretty busy with work in late March and on through September. Then school came around and I simply forgot about my blog. So, here I am. Except already it has been a year. This is quite shameful in my opinion, but then again, I really did not feel like writing very much at the time. However, let us not dwell on the past, but rather look towards the future.

During the time that I have been absent from my blog, I have managed to unfortunately gain back weight. It primarily started from working a lot and eating lots of unhealthy foods. I managed to get down to 194 pounds last March, which was amazing for me. I fell from this and gained back weight due to being careless and not managing my health well. It continued and over the course of 8 months or so, I have gotten back up to 240 pounds. It is just awful. I am ashamed of myself for letting it happen, but I do not want to dwell on that. When I work, I often am too tired and exhausted to work out. But I also eat too much food to compensate for the exhaustion. It's a bad habit of mine during the summer. So that began the process. But I also started back at Oregon State to continue school. Let me tell you, I'd rather be a little overweight and successful with my education, than a normal weight and not ever achieve a degree. Overall, I'm happy. But I could be happier.

I decided to change my major from Zoology to Fisheries and Wildlife. I decided this would be a better fit and the possible career opportunities that come from this degree interest me more than zoology would. I had to get my grades up, after a pitiful few terms of not caring about school, before I could officially transfer majors/colleges (College of Science to College of Agriculture). As of 2/13, I am officially a Fisheries and Wildlife student. I'm very interested in conservation, and I hope to be able to work with organizations to help support our wildlife, especially struggling species. I was able to do this by getting my grades up in fall term, with all As and Bs. Now, most of this came from easy classes, including a writing course. But what I liked about these classes was that they required a lot of easy work. This was able to help me transition from not being in school and having a lack of motivation, to doing a lot of work, even if it was simple. I also found an interest in writing. My brother has been doing some writing of short stories and even published a novel recently. Both of these have made me wonder about doing some writing myself. I would love to get started with short stories, but I have had trouble beginning, mainly due to a lack of ideas. This is one reason why I decided to start writing in my blog again. Hopefully I can find some inspiration. The best way to write is just to start writing.

In other words, I enjoy writing; I'm having a good experience with school again; this transition in my life is a good one. And finally, I am actually enjoying many of my classes. I am taking Animal Behavior and Sustainability for the Common Good at OSU right now, and they're both amazing classes (although A.B. has had some troubles due to the first professor being really boring. But the usual professor for the course took over and it's much better now). I am looking forward to my future classes and experiences with this new department.

I will write more about this past year in order to catch up any readers on my life. But I can do that another day. For now, I want to mention that I will be changing this blog a little bit. First, yes, I want it to focus around a healthy lifestyle and to keep my motivated with exercise and healthy eating. But I have also started to cook more frequently. So I would also like to share my meals. Sometimes I might post a recipe, or just discuss the making of a meal. But I'd also like to share some pictures, so that my blog isn't just a wall of text. I also will post my cooked meals whether they're healthy or not. Sometimes you just need a delicious unhealthy meal.

Last night, I made a wonderful meal for Valentine's Day. Cornish game hens wrapped with bacon, spinach fettuccine alfredo with bacon, BBQ pork brisket, a simple salad, and some sparking rose wine. Lots of meat, but delicious.

Don't mind the clutter in the background, the apartment can be crowded at times and it's difficult to find homes for all of our belongings.

The brisket was labeled as "pork spareribs brisket" from the store, and it was only about a dollar per pound. I thought I would try it out. They're pretty good, but nowhere as tasty as beef brisket. I just baked it in the oven with a simple bbq sauce and brown sugar.

I make most of my game hens the same way, bake it in the oven for around an hour, and rub it with some olive oil, paprika, pepper, oregano, basil, lemon pepper, a tad bit of garlic seasoning (we have some in the cupboard, I use it because I don't want to use too much garlic), and rosemary. But I also layered on 3 stripes of bacon, because we all know, bacon is delicious.

The alfredo didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. My mistake in order to cut down on some calories was using half and half rather than heavy cream. But it was still good. Spinach fettuccine with an alfredo sauce made from half and half, butter, and parmasan cheese. Also I added in some cut up pieces of bacon because I had a lot of leftover bacon. Nonetheless, delicious.

I think I'll leave it at that. If people want recipes, I can do that. Or if pictures are desired of the cooking process. I'm open to suggestions. It's not going to be solely a food blog, but I would like to share my new found passions of cooking, writing, and trying to lead a healthier lifestyle again. Until next time, stay fancy.