After lengthy pool trash-talk from me, I shoot one of John's few remaining solids in.
John: See, now it's awkward. You got me a present, but I didn't get YOU anything.
Oh, internet. It's college basketball time, and that usually means I'm ignoring you. But with St. Mary's, Gonzaga and Drake losing today, and with UConn currently trailing, I just don't have the emotional ability to handle watching it right now. (Just so everyone knows, I only lost two teams out of my bracket yesterday, and 14/16 right ain't half bad. But today, today is another story.)
Instead of telling you about how awesome basketball is, I'm going to tell you why you should be jealous of me. And the reason you should be jealous of me today is because I recently discovered BlakeMakes.com, and you probably haven't. And since you haven't discovered it until today, you haven't eaten any of his Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche, and you haven't had any free Tcho chocolate.
Since I discovered him already, I have done both. THAT is why you are jealous of me.
First of all, the food blogosphere is currently blowing up about him, so it's not like I'm the first to promote him. Google around and you'll find entirely too many of us swooning. The real beauty is in the recipes he posts - the extra bonus is the fact that there are food giveaways.
I first found him through twitter - or, to be more appropriate, he found me. He added me as a friend, and I added him back. When I posted my valentine's day menu, including peanut butter ice cream, he asked me if I had heard about the Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche that he had been giving away free samples of. No, I hadn't, but I was about to. I was lucky (read as: obsessive) enough to have a fast mouse button on a day that he was giving away mini samples. Shortly, a little white box containing a little glass jar came to me.
All I can say is that Blake got it right. It is delicious. And it has to come along with a short confessional disclaimer: I don't really like peanut butter.
There, I said it. I just don't. Reese's are okay. I throw down the occasional bag of peanut butter M&M's when they call out to me from a vending machine. I ate peanut butter sandwiches as a kid. But really, I can take it or leave it. Peanut butter sandwiches make my mouth feel all funny, which is why I dipped them in milk when I was little. (Toast the peanut butter sandwich, grab a cup of milk. Feel seven. Thank me later.) My husband LOVES peanut butter, and I LOVE chocolate. This means we don't compete for one another's desserts - which is for the best, because I'm bigger, but he's scrappy. It also means we don't like the same things, ever.
This dulce is different. It's just peanut butter-y enough, you know? It's not knocking you in the face with peanut butter. It is enough for those of you who love it, but it is also a perfect amount for people who are sort of apathetic. It is pleasing without being overly sweet, and it has this smooth texture with just a little bit of grit to let you know that it was handmade with love. It is amazing, and when he decides to start selling it, I'll be keeping a jar on hand at all times. It will make a fabulous addition to anything you want to eat, ever. I'm just saying, it's a good thing that Bridget already snatched him up, because the competition for a man who sends you jars of this would not be a pretty one.
The other contest I was lucky enough (again, obsessive) to win was for Tcho chocolate. People, I'm really serious about my chocolate. My former roommate turned me on to Scharffen Berger and I have never looked back. I made my mother drive me 25 miles to buy a bar when I was in Kansas City because I was making chocolate mousse and I COULD NOT make it with anything else. Do not. stand. between. me. and. chocolate.
Blake suggested eating it with a tall, cold glass of milk, so I did. Hey, when someone is responsible for getting you free chocolate, you do what they tell you to do. First of all, I'm a designer, so let's chat about the packaging. It's brilliant. I agree with Blake - I would buy anything that came in packaging like this. There were three cards with it describing the Tcho philosophy of chocolate, which you can read about at their website.
This is the perfect chocolate for my hot chocolate obsession of 2006. Tcho is definitely one to watch - they're "beta testing" their chocolate now to keep tweaking it, and I think that's a fascinating process. In a world where we're so concerned with carefully guarding recipes and formulas, Tcho wants to make the consumer a part of their product, and we're all the better for it. Go support them, buy a bar, and thank me later.
Me, upon seeing Duke win and therefore not completely screw up my bracket: That's how we do it! SUCK ON IT! (makes lewd gestures toward the television and punches couch)
John: Classy.
Me, still on entirely too much of an adrenaline high: You knew this when you married me! You knew that when it was March Madness time...
John: (interrupts) It's just madness time.
I have all sorts of stuff to talk about, but you won't get any of it tonight because I'm still cheering on West Virginia. Also, in case you were wondering, my championship game is Kansas vs. Texas, and Kansas will be coming home with a title this year.
I don't think I've mentioned this before here, but I don't see myself ever having children. Say what you will, but be warned I've heard it before. Any combination of "you're young", "wait till you're older", and "it's just because you're in college" has probably been launched at me by mothers nationwide.
It's not that I don't want kids because I hate kids. I think kids are really awesome. I'm not very good with them, but that's probably because I didn't have a lot of experience with them when I was growing up. My mom is the baby of the family by a lot of years, and that makes me the baby by a lot of years. (About six and a half, or so, and I only know this because I just called my mother in a state of panic and asked if all my cousins except me were finally in their thirties.) There were no moments of me taking care of the kids, unless you count a very short babysitting stint when I was 13 or so. (12? Who knows.)
So, sure, life plays a part in it. When it comes right down to it, though, I honestly don't have a desire to be a mother. I have friends, and have had friends for years, who knew they didn't want kids RIGHT NOW, but knew it was coming and they were looking forward to it. Even back in high school, there were people with desires to be mothers. They weren't keeping their fingers crossed for it any time soon, but even at sixteen years old they were telling me how great their kids were going to be, the type of mother or father they wanted to become, and so on. My best friend wants children more than anything, and I have always respected that.
This was cemented for me when he and I were in Central Park a few years back (I am getting the strange feeling that I've told this story before, but I'll go on) and a few kids involved him in their game. The game has been lost to time now, though he might remember, but it was a game like all kids make up. Someone's good, someone's bad, we all have to run, and we should probably squeal a lot. He was so into this game, and I just sat there on my slightly detached hillside, and I realized this was the way I wanted to be involved with kids. I felt this feeling that I honestly couldn't understand at that very moment. It was a feeling of love, combined with a vision of what I wanted my future to be. I really, really want to be a cool aunt. I want to visit and bring sweet presents (P.S., Nathan, your kids are going to be raised on Cincinnati chili and chocolate.), I want to be the one that kids run down the front steps to jump up on, I want to swing them around in the driveway and pretend I didn't bring them sweet presents. But these moments, they are special because they are fleeting.
I don't have the desire to be the main influence on a child's life. I don't want it to be me and one child forever and ever. Much to the potential grandparents' dismays, I just don't have a desire for my own kids. But to be honest, I can't wait for it to be about ten years down the line so I can convince kids of how super cool I am.
I am also not envious of parents in any way, because to be honest, kids today scare me. Hell, if I was being honest, I'd admit that my generation was probably kind of scary. High schools are filled with little 14-year-old adults that are sure their parents are stupid. I don't think I realized my mom was smarter than me until I was 18 or so. I read stories like this about 1 in 4 teenagers having an STD, and it freaks me out. I am only 22 (pushing 23), so let's not forget that I only graduated high school five years ago. It was not like that when I was in high school. I seriously, honestly did not know anyone with an STD. I'm not even saying that for my mother's benefit because I know she's reading this. Sure, I knew people who were having sex (sorry, mom), but STD's? We had a few girls in our graduating class who were pregnant and had children very shortly after or right before graduation. I went to a "smart" high school, but it was still in a very urban neighborhood, so it's silly to pretend that we were "better" than anyone. Hell, we were probably worse in a lot of ways.
I've been reading a lot of feminist blogs, and a lot of mothers' blogs, because I'm doing research for this capstone where I talk to parents about educating their little girls. I am never once envious of their situation. I can't imagine what I would say to a little girl who was thirteen years old and crying because she slept with some boy who broke her heart. It breaks my cold little heart to read stories like that. I have a friend of a friend who works at Planned Parenthood. For confidentiality's sake, I will not be sharing any specific stories, but the ones about the really young girls just hurt. A girl here in Cincinnati just had a child at ten years old (it was all over the news here if you want to look it up) and cried because she couldn't keep it.
TEN YEAR OLDS CANNOT BE MOTHERS. I do not care how you want to spin it, they just can't. As far as I'm concerned, honestly, ten year olds should be clinging to their childhood and screaming to not let it go, not looking toward being adults. I have friends whose mothers were very young when they had them, and those friends are turning out to be brilliant, amazing adults. So I'm not judging in any way, but I am scared.
In researching for my capstone, I've come across some things that make me so angry that I have to turn off the computer and go for a walk to clear my head and then come back to view it objectively. T-Shirts that say "I left my brain in my locker", "Excellent growth potential" and "Who needs brains when you have these", all directed at teenagers. Panties from Wal-Mart found in the junior's section that say "Who needs credit cards". They are enough to turn my stomach and make me cry.
I graduate in just over three months, and I really feel like I need this upcoming break. My capstone is inside my head, and I just need a couple of days to not think about it. This is the last week of classes. My preliminary capstone findings are due by Monday at 1:00, and I have one final presentation on Wednesday. Then it's a week and a half where I don't have to do anything except go to the gym and lay around the house. I'll come back to my final quarter as a 23-year-old designer, I'll get my project done, my whole family will come to see me walk across a stage, and it'll be July before you know it. I'd expect "Where did five years go" posts sometime in the future.
Also, as a complete sidenote, I finished my portfolio and it's all ready to go. You can check it out at http://www.jenrizzo.com.
The DAAP Digital Design capstone process is a funny one. We meet with our adviser once a week in the winter quarter, which is based around research and concept development. At the end of Week 8 (out of 10 weeks in the quarter), we meet with a panel of professors and give a 20 minute presentation of what we've done so far and what we plan to do in the next quarter.
Twenty minutes isn't terribly long, especially if you're someone like me that doesn't know how to shut up. My presentation lasted about 15 minutes, which only left 5 more minutes for them to discuss my topic with me. Instead of "discussing", it was more of a rapid-fire series of questions that I didn't get any time to respond to. I didn't mind, really. If we only had a few minutes left, it's much more beneficial for me to listen to them talk than for me to spend another few minutes telling them what I already know.
The problem is that I walked out of my review feeling less confident than I have in the two months I've been developing my topic. The general consensus is that they're worried, and I guess they have good reason to be. My topic is huge, and I haven't made any decisions as to how I'm going to accomplish my project. Do I make one three-minute piece? Do I make a series of little PSA-type pieces? Is it video, motion graphics, 3D, some hybrid of all of it?
I graduate college in three and a half months. It's sort of starting to set in that this is really my last project that I'll ever show at DAAP. My second-to-last quarter is over in two weeks. I'd ask where all the time went, but I know that answer. It went to five years of incredibly hard work, late nights, angsty tears over coffee, and happy times over beers with friends. Here's to the rest of it.
P.S. Thank you so much to everyone who responded to my last fitness post! As an update, I've lost 9 pounds total, and I'm kind of at another plateau. I have a feeling this is going to be a long struggle, but it'll all be worth it when it's over. I'm still going to the gym like crazy and making changes that I think are really going to benefit me. Also, I'm taking an extended hiatus from my job, which gives me all the more time to try and develop a healthy lifestyle. (And more time to face my elliptical nemesis.)
