Wait, what? You can cook food at home? WOW!

There are certain things I am good at and then there are those other things that I never learned or tried. You know, stuff like cooking, sewing, juggling, snapping, watching romantic dramas, shoe shopping, and getting a tan.

But in a recent blog post, I indicated my want to start eating healthier, and with that comes the idea that I need to make my own meals and know what is in the food I eat. In the past four years, I have become a pro at memorizing nutrition guides for many 'fast' food restaurants and sandwich joints in the city and suburbs.

As much as I kick and scream at the thought of growing up (hence my love of coloring books and toys), it's time to grow up and get some big girl skills. So today, I hit the blogs and thanks to a good friend, Stina (her blog is here: ), I was able to browse a few blogs that post great recipes.

The main blogs I found useful:

Eat Live Run

How Sweet It Is

I highly recommend Stina's blog since she has been a large source of information for me since a lot of her goals are aligned with mine (some of which, she is way ahead of me in achieving). We ended up on the topic of food after we were discussing a dessert to make for my boyfriend's birthday--which is going to remain a secret for now.

I chose to make the Spinach-Feta-Turkey-Burger. So I hiked all the way to Orland and hit up Trader Joe's with about five recipes in my purse. After spending about $60 and renewing my love of shopping at Trader Joe's (PLEASE OPEN A STORE CLOSE TO ME!), I headed home with tons of positivity and a sinking feeling that I forgot something.


After putting away groceries in my kitchen, it dawned on me. Hamburger Buns. Yeah, I had regular bread, but who would make amazing Turkey Burgers and put it on regular sandwich bread. How do I always manage to do this to myself? Happily, I had bought ingredients for two other recipes.

I ended up making the BBQ Chicken Quesadillas. Now, I didn't really follow the recipe. I bought wheat tortillas, chicken, low fat mozzarella cheese, and BBQ sauce. I always cheat and take out the onions and bs my way through it. But it turned out pretty good even though it kind of fell apart.

Later, I will be making homemade granola bars. I may opt to go for a run and make the granola bars tomorrow but they will be made. In the past, I have made the mistake of buying ingredients to make a particular dish or try a new recipe but end up being too busy to make it, and the ingredients spoil and get thrown away.

Anyways, I am taking a step in the right direction! Horray for positive changes!

new goals and new beginnings

There is probably a statistic out there that will tell people that if you write down your goals onto paper (or the interwebz), you are ____ times more likely to achieve them. I could google that but statistics don't really matter.

I have spent the majority of my adult life attempting to have a healthy lifestyle and be in better shape. I have at some points gotten very far in pursuing that goal and at some points, lost my way due to stress, overworking myself, and sacrificing a lot to have good grades and a social life.

At this point in my life, I need to finally have the mental capability and determination to stop putting off important things like my health. Besides issues of health, I am creating a list of things to accomplish and work on in the next year. From now on, when I get stressed, I am going to look at this list and put aside petty problems and get working at it.

1. Lose Weight - become more height/weight proportionate. I am consciously not putting an amount here along the lines of "lose 20 pounds" and there's a lot of logic behind that decision. I don't believe number measurement or jean sizes are a good way to determine someone's health. I am more healthy than people who are a jean size 8 because I have muscle mass and do not eat at McDonalds every day. I say more healthy in that previous sentence because I am far from being healthy in my own opinion. I can run a mile in less than 14 minutes but my weight is above normal weight groups. I don't say that because I have low self-estem, I say that because it is the truth and I need to face it.

2. Eat healthy and fresh foods. By all means, I do not have the worst diet in this country. But I do not eat enough healthy and natural foods. I drink a lot of coffee, probably twice as much as the average person. I occasionally gorge on fast food though I often times check the nutrition and chose something 'better' than greasy burger and fries. I definitely do not spend enough time cooking my own meals. I have made a lot of positive steps in the right direction and am beginning to eat more veggies like broccoli, peppers, spinach, cucumber, sweet potatoes, and zucchini. But I need to move towards making those foods an everyday part of my life.

3. Finish my damn Masters Degree. I haven't been at all lazy and slacking in this department in the last few years. I only took one semester off due to stress and issues with my living situation (ie apartment ceiling collapsing). But I need to get it squared away so I can get a full time job and have health insurance again. Not seeing a doctor in two years is a scary thing and its been nagging me for some time now. But I definitely need to focus on completing my Masters with a high GPA (which I currently have a 3.77/4.0) and there are some decisions about school that need to be made in the next few weeks that are important and will take a lot of thought and consideration.

4. Join a sport. This will probably be postponed til Spring or Summer but I'd like to join a team sport that way I can burn calories and have a social life at the same time. I find that going to the gym and studying conflict with maintaining the social life that I enjoy and need to find more ways to combine these things.

5. Volunteering. Okay, I know. That's asking a lot now, isn't it? It's a true story when people tell me that I put too much on my shoulders but something I've really wanted to do but haven't been able to do is volunteer. This is something I want to keep in mind for after I finish my Masters degree and maybe before finding a full time job. It's just something I always want to do and it needs to be set down here to remind me to do it.

6. Quit Smoking. I guess this is an important one that I nearly posted without including. I did quit smoking for a while and saved a lot of money that way but now I am back to being a full time smoker and I don't really need to put down why I need to quit. It costs money, makes your clothes smell bad, reduces your lung capacity, and in general weakens your immune system. It's time to give it up and poor Dan is going down that road with me (which we have already talked about, I'm not forcing him to or anything like that).

7. Get Married and have tons of babies. PSYCH! But in all seriousness, that was a joke as I do not have any desire to be married and popping out babies at this moment in my life. I guess number 7 should be something along the lines of developing a research project to apply to PhD programs.

ending summer in style

I sit in the breeze of Lake Michigan between classes on the first day of a new school semester at Roosevelt University. I try to retrace the steps of my life that have lead me here at this very second and my mind cannot even comprehend the enormity of all the things that lead me here.

So much has happened and so many people and things have shaped the person I have become and the person I am still evolving into. All of the people included in my life have impacted me in a way and it no longer matters whether or not their part was a positive or negative influence at that time because I have found happiness.

It did not come in a neatly packaged box delivered to my doorstep or picked off a shelf in the store. It mostly came from letting go of any desire to control everything around me and force some form of artificial happiness on myself. It also comes from the wonderful people I share my life with and the experiences they share with me, even those dark and surreal experiences you wish didn't exist in the world.

The world is a dark and imperfect place and the sooner you accept those darknesses, you can begin to see how the whole range of your emotions affects the thoughts and decisions you have and make that in turn leads you to change the way you share the world and your experiences with other people and you begin to let more people into your own personal world whether you are merely listening to a story being told by someone you just met or shaping your perspective during a conversation with an old and familiar friend, life is a series of social interactions and too many people live in the center of their thoughts and fail to see the value in that interaction.

The water and lake front reminds me of the hours of reflection I had while traveling in Ireland. Many of those times were dark and tempting thoughts of not returning home. I met so many great people during my travels and learned so much from each of them. Since being home, I have had more darkness in which I regretted my return to Chicago. But I can now see that there are people at home with ideas and experiences to be shared and that traveling the world is not the only way to have a diverse social interaction.

I find that my writing has given me the chance to reflect and sort out the crazy corridors of my mind and that while I ramble too much in conversation, I can write concisely and with absolute clarity.

I wonder that I too often live in a world of fiction and fantasy to avoid reality but that fiction is sometimes a great mimic of reality where you can be comfortable to explore things knowing they aren't real when in fact, they discuss and present very realistic issues found in real life. I am going to set this aside now and finish enjoying the breeze and beauty of a Chicago summer on the lake front with a good book and then go back to class.

This journal has recorded the ups and downs of my summer, and while I chose to not share almost all of these entries, I am consciously choosing to share this one. My motivation is a small hope that my friends and family will take a moment to evaluate their relationship to the world and the amazing people populating it and the hope that only positive reflections and peace of mind follows that evaluation.

Love, Col.

self reliance and consumerism, where's the balance?

I don't know what everyone's childhood experience is like but I can speak from my own personal experience. As a child, everything we ever needed could be found at Walmart or Walgreens or the local mall. When I wanted to buy new clothes, I got a summer job, worked, saved up the money, and then went to the mall and spent all my money.

At no point growing up did the concept of creating the things you need cross my mind. I don't think my experience in this is isolated but rather a product of our generation and the very close relationship our culture has with consumerism. If you can dream it, you can purchase it if you have the money or the credit cards.

When I met my friend Mandy last August and she told me she made her own handmade soaps, VeVe's Handmade, for both her own use and for sale, I had to ask why or how someone starts to do that. I could not tell you what she told me then, it was 3am at a party with lots of people and conversations surrounding us.

But I do recall the impression it left on me as a person. I remember her talking about her daughter Ve and how her daughter inspired her to do it in some ways. I remember thinking that it was such a cool and proper thing to be independent of a job and have your own business and be an intelligent woman and not answer to anyone, and I remember being impressed and thinking about what a great influence this would be on cute little Ve.

Coming up to the one year anniversary of meeting Mandy and my views have changed. It's not that my opinion about it has changed, but there's been an addition to my perspective about what she does. And to give credit where it is due, my friend Ed has also taught me a lot about the concept of making and creating your own things. Ed blows glass and has made some really interesting things.

So here I am, gaining an appreciation for things that are handmade without any recollection of ever making something for myself with some few exceptions. I remember learning to sew for girl scouts, but I cannot recall what I made with that and I have a clear recollection of the fact that I did it for girl scouts, for a badge, and not for my own personal use.

Anything else I have ever created include creative writing, graphic arts, websites, photography, and other artistic projects. But all those things lack a physical feel and an everyday use that I can appreciate. Yes, my old creative writing wasn't good quality but I still gained something from the experience but in a personal and internal way.

After reading about the Make movement and having discussion with people, you begin to look back and wonder what it would be like to be self-sustainable and no longer rely on a corporation to produce products for you. The sci-fi nerd in me looks to the future and sees things like THX1138 as an actual possibility. Will there be a day when we no longer have any creative output into the world and only exist to consume?

So I started to research online and think about what daily things I could make on my own and probably found more than I could have possibly expected and given the right amount of time, the instructions were fairly easy and achievable. Now if I could invent a time machine to give myself the time to do all these things, life would be great.

But I thought that just because I have two jobs and classes starting soon, that doesn't mean I should give up on all the ideas I've collected in my research and ponderings. So my blog here is my way of keeping these ideas somewhere safe so that I can return to them when the opportunities arise that I can actually follow through.

1. Strawberry Jam. Yes, I love this shit. I eat peanut butter and jelly like it's going out of style and I'm still a college student so I'm allowed to not ever cook and eat real meals. My mom spoiled me in this department and made so many of her own jams that I got very snobby about the jams and jelly's I'll use. I don't think my mom has made any recently but now I hate the jelly I buy from the store and the consumption of peanut and jelly sandwiches is at an all time low.

2. With my photography comes the picture frames. This is mainly inspired by the fact that I am struggling to figure out which pictures from my recent travels to be framed and put up on the walls. It would be interesting to create my own picture frames and base their design on the pictures that go into it. This would add another element to the picture itself.

3. Purses. I was thinking about making my own handbags and purses, maybe even with printed fabric using my photography.

4. Candles and Incense.

5. Halloween Costume. Even though I haven't learned how to sew, I think I'd like to try making my own and sewing it together with my own fabrics. I have, in the past, usually put together my own costume but with clothes already in my closet.

I will continue to add new ideas to the list as I think of more things and please feel free to send any ideas my way or join me in creating any of these things. I have a lot going on right now, but by next summer, I definitely want to make Jams and start doing more fun projects like this.

back to reality for me...

So I tried my best to update everyone on my travels and adventures abroad but may have left out some stories and pictures that were really fun and interesting. I'm back home now for over a week and I've taken on a second job to save up money since I've spent it all on the pubs in Ireland and theatres in West End, London.

Working two jobs may seem like a bit overwhelming but it'll be good for me this summer to stay busy and focused on my goals. Another aspect of my summer that I haven't shared on my blog is that I've had some new creative writing projects in mind, but I really haven't the time to sit down and start any of them.

I'm debating whether or not it'd be good to post any of my creative writing on my blog or if I should collect them and look into publishing them in a literary magazine or an online zine. I haven't decided but I am always happy to share them with friends and exchange ideas.

So, I'll be totally honest. I did cry before my flight home. I took the bus from Galway to Sixmilebridge for my last weekend abroad and listened to a Doctor Who soundtrack (which alone could bring tears to my eyes) and I did quietly shed a few tears. But I didn't do it in complete desperation. I did tear up because I was having one of the most amazing experiences of my life and didn't want to go home yet.

I learned that I have friends just waiting to chat with me all over the world. I also learned that the world is full of beautiful and amazing people that you can't meet while sitting in the comfort of your apartment or hometown.

The parts of the trip that I will hold close to my heart are the amazing conversations I had with other people. I met people from all over the world, Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Argentina, Canada, Japan, France, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Mexico, and more.

All I have been thinking about is how to have another adventure before I get too old or too settled into my life to do it again. If I could save up my money and wander the world into my old age, I definitely would. Even now, I am tearing up at the thought of doing it all over again.

I can say that my life has had its ups and downs, it's good moments, and the times where I didn't think I'd leave the dark moods I have found myself in. But I can say that I am growing old of Chicago. I want to finish my Master's Degree and take on the world.

Whether or not I will do that is up in the air at this point. But I feel like I have limited myself by staying in my comfort zone and always being in Chicago. I didn't even go away for college, and I am beginning to regret that (even if it had been a study abroad program).

Maybe all of these feelings explain why Doctor Who has been such an obsession of mine lately. Every companion of the doctor learns to see the world as being bigger than they every knew it could be (and by world, I guess I should be saying Universe). But I think the point is that I am too unique and special to sit in one city for the rest of my life. Yes, I have family and friends here (some of the best family and friends I could ever ask for). But those family and friends have their own family and friends and I wouldn't be leaving anyone to fend for themselves. I also like to think that my family and friends would be happy for me and would cherish all the good vibes I send back toward Chicago via blogs and facebook.

Well, it's time to get ready for some margaritas and chips and salsa with some amazing and wonderful people.

Cheers to my mates, Coco

all good things must end, BUT I DON'T WANT IT TO!!!! WAAAHHHH

Ellen left me in Galway on Friday morning. I went out Friday night but it wasn't as fun as the previous few nights with my aussie mate. But alas, my journey was coming to an end and I was nearly out of money. On Saturday morning, I left Galway and went to the small town Sixmilebridge. Saturday night, I hung out with Katie, a girl from Wisconsin who is moving to Chicago for grad school (and a big doctor who fan, yes, we bonded).

Katie left on Sunday morning and then Sara and Dusty arrived. We walked about the town a bit, played scrabble in the common room, but overall it was a pretty relaxed last few days abroad. I got incredible sad and nervous about going back home. I kept thinking, 'It can't be over yet' and then secretly planning to run off and meet Ellen in Scotland. But I knew I'd be out of money all too soon and that it'd be better to go home and regroup my life and begin planning my next adventure.

Ellen and I are already in talks of meeting in New Zealand or Asia. It all depends on the money situation. She goes home to Australia sometime this fall and will need to save more money for more adventures and I need to finish my Masters Degree.

Overall, I am very pleased with everything I've accomplished in the last five weeks. Rather than focusing on my sightseeing and pictures taken, I am choosing to cherish all the people that I met and all the fun stories we've exchanged among one another. It was a great experience and I am tearing up just now thinking about it all.

I'm in New York waiting for the flight back to Chicago. I miss my extra large bed and not sharing a room with 8 or 9 strangers (most of which became friends but some were creepy).

I think being extremely tired has kept me from being emotional all day today, including saying goodbye to the two new friends from Buffalo New York who had the same return flight as me. But I now struggle to know what direction I should be taking my life. I want to do some more traveling but I'm at an age where I'm supposed to have a career and gag, marriage and children.

So I haven't cried or anything too dramatic, but I do feel the sad pangs of ending an adventure as grand as mine has been. I will do everything I can to keep making positive and interesting friends around the world and am now really determined to leave Chicago as my home and make it my hometown but take up residence somewhere new.

Having a blast in Galway

Galway...



It's been a little while since I've updated my blog. I last posted when in Killarney and since have been to Cork and am currently in Galway.

Cork was fun but it was a little too quiet and laid back for me. I went out a couple of nights and met some interesting people, went to Blarney Castle and got lots of pictures. The last night at the hostel in Cork there was really loud parties and I couldn't sleep at all. I'm going to revise my list of people met at the bottom of this post.



I arrived in Galway on Sunday and met a cool chick from Australia named Ellen. Me and her have been tearing it up in Galway. Monday night, we hit up the bars and met a lot of awesome people. I'm pretty sure that we have some crazy psychic link and that we are perfect partners in crime! Monday night we met some other female travelers and went bar hoping with them and met some local guys, Shane and Emmett. They were pretty cool and showed us where to go for delicious late night foods. I had garlic mayo chips (french fries in America) and they were amazing.

Ellen and I crawled into our hostel beds around 4:30am and by 9am, we were up and about and going to the Cliffs of Moher. We met some guys from Chicago which was the first time in my trip that I met anyone from Chicago. We got some awesome pictures at the cliffs and then went back to the hostel to relax and go out again (without napping).



So then Tuesday night, this time we rolled out with two girls from America (Dusty and Sarah) who actually are on my flight home, which is kind of cool actually. We met up with the west suburban Chicago lads and then went to a few bars. Well it's all kind of a blur, so I'll just tell you how the night ended.

Sarah and Dusty left with the Schaumburg kids to get chips (though they were still saying fries). Sarah had a glass dropped on her foot and was bleeding. I was left talking to a local and then couldn't find Ellen.

So I walked out of the bar in Ellen's shoes and started asking guys who we'd chatted with earlier, "Where's my Aussie mate?". I remember them yelling to stop saying mate because it's an Aussie thing, not an Irish thing and I yelled back but I'm looking for an Australian.




One guy, whose name I don't recall, walked with me to a food place where I couldn't find Ellen or the American gals. So then I stumbled back to the hostel, rang the bell and ran to the toliet. While in the toliet, I hear Ellen's majestic voice carry from the reception area and I go running back. There she is, still wearing my cute flats and starving for chips.

We went back to the Latin Quarter for Chips. The place emptied out and there we find Nathalie and her crew. It was Nathalie's birthday and I met her at the beginning of my journey. While we managed to not have hangovers after Monday night's adventure, we are both properly hungover today and now chilling in the TV room.


So, I've found my traveling drinking mate and we plan to stay in tonight, rest up and make tomorrow night grand. I'll see Sarah and Dusty again on Sunday where we're staying at the same hostel before flying out of Shannon together on Monday. Hopefully Sarah and Dusty will be just as sad as me and get a pint with me at the airport.

The next night was a lot of fun with Ellen. We went out with two Canadian guys and a few other girls from the hostel. I managed to leave the bar with all of them but got lost and/or distracted by a cute boy, but I still somehow got back to the hostel like 10 minutes after everyone else.


An updated list of the people I've met
Jane, from France
Francis, from Sweden
Kohei and Kyon, from Japan
Nathalie, from Canada-New Brunswick
Jessica, from Toronto
Craig, from New Zealand
Alison, from Philly
Sarah, from Canada
Virginia from Argentina
Sally from England
Josh from US-Mississippi
Aeman from Donnegal, Ireland
Brendan from Cork, Ireland
Ellen from Australia
McKenzie and Katie from Texas
Sarah and Dusty from New York
Lenora from New York
Eva from Mexico
Alex from Canada
Dan and Tom and David from Schaumburg, IL
Karol from Galway
Jana from Bavaria, Germany
The two Brendens and their two friends, from Galway
Tess from Washington DC
Chris and Adam from Ottawa
Cassie from Boulder, CO
Katie from Wisconsin
Latrisha from Cali
Ingrid from Cali
Emily from Cali
Pascelle from France