Updating my goals and progress/ emerging back into politics

There are two things that I am going to discuss in this blog post tonight. The first is how far along I am in accomplishing some recently set goals. One goal was to being logging and tracking all my food. I have been strong in this aspect for almost a week even though I did not eat the healthiest; I still stuck with logging everything. Unexpected family celebrations definitely contributed to some bad eating but I did not go overboard in my opinion.

I finally set an appointment with a professor to begin working on my thesis topic and have some working ideas about what I can write about. While I didn't get to clean my bedroom and compile a clothing donation for goodwill, I did help Dan do this at his house (a compromise to spend the following weekend on my room). Dan and I both thoroughly cleaned our cars inside and out. I also banned smoking in my car which is a good step towards quitting smoking (and am still cutting back greatly with how many cigarettes I have per day).

I began to work on my lesson plan and assignment for the undergraduate course I am interning with. This involved a lot of time spent reading news articles online and viewing the comments to those articles. I had my hesitations towards reading news articles because of my frustration with politics and getting involved in politics.

However much I try, I can't help but have my opinions and views about our American society in the state that it is today. What started as a discussion of ideas between me and Dan, turned into a lengthy conversation between Stina and I about politics and how our society could change for the better.

There are numerous things wrong in the world today and people are living their lives in chaos without the capacity or direction to make any substantial changes. We live in a world where corporations have way too much control and we rely on them to provide cheap products but at the cost of outsourcing our labor and production plants.

But the problems can't be simply placed there. We have an obesity problem, a lack of interest in protecting the environment, people rarely eat healthy and whole foods, and too many people splurge and live above their means. This issues are not the government's fault but simply the way we have allowed our society to progress and grow into.

The people who want to change those bad habits are the ones that can't afford to spend their time worrying about eating healthier food because they can barely afford the cheap processed foods. How can we grow as a society when the majority of the people in it feel completely helpless and all the education in the world can't get them financial security and job security.

We are so concerned with dividing ourselves into groups and classes that we forget to help one another out, we forget to have sympathy for those in the hard times. Maybe I'm simplifying this all too much or not quite getting at the heart of the problem, but it's frustrating to see people struggle.

But what can one do about any of this by themselves? Well, the answer is not a god damn thing. We can only make the right choices for your own life and hope that enough people begin making the right choices to move our society to a better and more productive society. I hope that it will be one that serves ourselves instead of the corporations we rely on too much.

If you took the time to see how our society has progressed, you see a great advancement in technology but a loss of control for people to manage their own lives and make conscious decisions. Just because something is cheap doesn't make it good for you. I hate dislike McDonalds so I don't eat there. If more people recognize that fast food is ruining nutritional values in our communities and stop eating there, the business would fail and less fast food restaurants would exist. The bad things in society exist because people support them and create a demand for them.

So until we change our behaviors and attitudes, our society cannot reflect the change. It took generations to get where we are today so it will take just as long to progress and change again.

disaster in the kitchen!

I've got two things to discuss in my blog today. First and foremost, my new found (somewhat forced) decision to start cooking and baking more has had its ups and downs. Disaster is not really the right word for it so I may need to change the title.



First, the boyfriend and I made the spicy chicken bake that I recently found on the How Sweet It Is blog. That blog is truly wonderful and has plenty of great recipes and dishes that would make anyone want to cook!

This recipe went incredibly well and make a ton of food which my dad enjoyed the leftovers all weekend. We also made our own garlic bread and it was amazing. The next thing we made was biscuits n gravy which I long ago perfected and no longer need a recipe. I made these for Dan before and even though it was his birthday, he insisted on learning.



Then it was cupcake time. Since I love baking cakes and cupcakes for everybody's birthday (though I haven't for a long time). Dan wanted vanilla and banana. I'm not the biggest fan of banana so I'd never cooked with it before. I decided to top the cupcakes with chocolate covered banana slices (another from How Sweet It Is).

The recipe for the banana slices call for the bananas to be frozen. I didn't even think of the possibility that the bananas needed to be peeled. So I threw them in the freezer and the next day, quickly realized what a bad idea that was. Oh well, I threw those out and luckily had two more bananas sitting on the counter.

I cheated and used a box to make the cake part of the cupcakes but chose to continue my tradition of making my own frosting. Since Dan wanted banana, I just mixed together one mashed banana, a bunch of cool whip, and then threw in some instant banana pudding mix. I let Dan decide when the frosting tasted well and I think the cupcakes were a success, everybody enjoyed them!

Now, there is some other things that need consideration outside the kitchen. For starters, I am in my last week working for Baird & Warner. While I enjoyed writing content for the website and learning Search Engine Optimization, the project is at its end more because of the new head of marketing. I'm glad that I chose to keep working both jobs when school started so that I now can only working at Polmax with a bunch of fun and sassy ladies.

So I went from working 80 hours over the summer to 50 hours at the start of the school semester and will only be working next week 30 hours. I'm not sure how this will feel next week. I'm guessing it would feel like a vacation to finally have time to do stuff around my apartment. This weekend, my goals are like so:

Research for my Master thesis topic (my goal is to have a solid topic developed by the end of October so I can write my thesis proposal)
Clean my bedroom (maybe even vacuum the floors)
Throw out old stuff and useless items (Anti-hoarding cleanse)
Begin drafting my lesson plan for LIBS201
Donate clothes to goodwill and clean out the closets (this should also indicate that I am going to finally put away the clean clothes piled on my floor)
Clean out my car (this includes vacuuming the inside and washing all the windows etc.)
Go for a hike at Swallow Cliffs Forest Preserve (most likely reserved for Sunday)
Shop for Halloween Costumes! probably the funnest thing on this list!


Coming Soon, Colleen attempts to bake a pie!

Memorable Quotes by Col

I know that quotes are typically reserved for people who have done important things, published books, shaped the world, or made a major contribution to society or promoted peace or some hippie crap like that.

Well I say funny shit! So you know what? I'm going to start a list of funny quotes because I'm too funny to not quote.

So, I present, memorable lines from Colleen Boyle, future author of a book or that chick you might of saw on the train.

"That joke was so racist, I hope you have to stand next time you take a bus anywhere"

"I'm sorry, I forgot that at the beginning of the relationship I'm supposed to let you think you make the rules, how silly of me"

"These kids are so annoying, I might punch myself in the Uterus"

"There's nothing scary about a strong man, you should be more afraid of an intelligent woman"

"I don't think anything is scarier than being reserved instead of expressive"

"Don't you think it'd be funny if you [to a guy] slam the door on me and yell "equal rights", instead of holding the door for me? I mean people might think you hit me, but I'd get a laugh out of it"

"If you keep sneaking your dirty clothes into my laundry basket, I'm going to sneak herpes into this relationship as punishment"

"Being a woman is so tiresome, you spend all your energy caring about things that never matter 24 hours later"

"Boyfriends are just like newborn babies, just as sticky, messy, needy, and smelly, except you don't have to squeeze them out of your girly parts"

to be continued.............

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.