Scrub it Sugary Sweet

Well, well, well...it has most definitely been ages since my last blog, for which, I graciously apologize! Much has occurred in the time between my last blog and this one; however, I am not going to go in to all the updates right now.  Tonight I want to tell you about my fun little adventure down procrastination lane.

Last week I was eating at Hyman's with my wonderful parents and I had to go the bathroom--this of course could not be avoided due to the copious amounts of Diet Coke I had consumed during the evening--If you know me, you know that I suffer from a sad Diet Coke addiction and that my bladder is not big enough to hold all of the wonderful, and yummy, aspartame goodness of Diet Coke.  Anyways, bathroom. I had to go, so I made my way through the carpeted mazes of Hyman's and into their nautically cool bathroom.   My favorite thing about the bathroom in Hyman's is that they always have a yummy sugar scrub for your hands.  I just love this stuff! It leaves your hands feeling all soft and delicate and they smell good for hours.

Of course they don't just put something so wonderful in the bathroom and not advertise for it.  Each time I fall for it too.  After my traditional scampi Swordfish, Mussels, and Lump Crab Cake meal, I find my self wandering into the gift shop contemplating buying the sugar scrub.  Then I turn the pretty little jar over and notice the $24.99 price tag.  Oh wait..."there's a sale sign...yes, yes, it is on sale.  Oh...only $5 off." Ok.  So this leaves me pondering how I can have my own piece of sugary skin goodness.  My solution?

My homemade sugar scrub Left and homemade essential oil Right

Make your own! Yes of course.  This is all of my favorite things rolled into one! I can recycle. Check.  I can do crafts. Check. I can use wholesome organic products. Check. So where do I start?! It's quite easy.  First you will need an easy recipe.  Got it.  Here is the recipe as follows:

1 Cup Sugar (just the regular white kind)
1/2 Cup of Olive Oil
A few drops of your favorite essential oil--of which I also made!

Then you are going to need something ultra cool and hip to store this in.  My solution? That empty ball jar that used to house my Granny's fabulous canned tomatoes.  These are great, but proceed with caution.  If your Granny is like mine she will want those ball jars back pronto so that she can refill them with more vegetable yumminess for the next year.  I'm not telling, and to ere on the side of safety you can always return the ball jars filled with your new sugar creation. Just saying :)

Now.  You have all the ingredients so all that is left is to mix it up and have fun! I also made a homemade essential lavender oil to put in my sugar scrub and it turned out wonderfully yummy! Have fun with this recipe; you can switch it up and vary it depending on what you've got in the kitchen. You don't even have to use olive oil.  You can use any kind of unscented oil.  Although I will say, if you use the olive make sure to put some scent in it because it will smell like the olive oil otherwise.  Have fun and enjoy your homemade spa!

Peace/Love

Danielle

Walking The Beach at Sunset

Tonight is Mom's last night in Chuck, so we decided to take an evening beach walk with Jasper.  Here are a few of the better pictures I captured.  They have been slightly* edited--meaning, I brightened, saturated, and added some color.  Otherwise, the shot is all natural. Enjoy! Cool sunsets in Chuck are the best!

Pier against the sunset

Jasper and I walking the beach--Mom actually took this one.

Pier

Pier with an orange sunset glow

Take Time to Park

Today was another beautiful day in Chuck, and since I had to stay downtown today for my meeting at 7, I decided to go somewhere nice to get some work done.  God knows there is no time in the life of a grad student to have fun, so you have to squeeze it in with work in order to have it.  I usually go to the library on these days when I have to stay downtown; however, the library is such a dreary place to do work on such a beautiful day.

I am still somewhat unfamiliar with the downtown area, although I am getting much better! Since I had a small amount of time between my class and work fun, I decided to just drive around until I found the place I was looking for.  I drove straight down East Bay towards Rainbow Row and ended up in the nice park down by the waterway (name any one?!).  I have been to this little waterway park before while on vacation, but never to spend some much needed reading and relaxation time.  The experience was very liberating.  The weather was absolutely perfect today...a nice warm high of 77 and not a cloud in the sky. 

I parked myself under a billowing palmetto and sat down on natures plushy green carpet, enveloped myself in the warm, yellow, blanket of the sun, and took out my book and read for well over an hour. The park was so quiet and peaceful that I swear I could have just slept there. I took some pictures of the scenery with my cell phone to share.  Enjoy my little piece of today's heaven!

The waterway view

View from my comfy reading spot

Jasper's First Trip to the Beach

Today was such a beautiful day in Chuck with a mild, cool, sunny, temperature in the high 60s.  I had spent most of the day inside reading and catching up on work, when my friend Ashley asked me to join her on a walk.  Since it was so pretty I thought it would be nice to walk on the beach since I can count on one hand how many times I have been to the beach since I moved here.

I am so glad we did because we found so many beach treasures tonight! I even picked up a conch shell! This also happened to be little Jasper's first time seeing the beach, and he loved it! He didn't like the water so much, but he did like trying to chase the seagulls.  He wanted very much to be taken off the leash so he could run around.  I would have, but it made me a little nervous to do so.  At any rate, here are some of the pictures from our little adventure today.  Enjoy!

Jasper and I on the beach.

Starfish that had washed up on the shore.

One of several Horseshoe Crabs we saw lying on the beach.

 

 

Blue Crab that had washed up on shore.

Sauce Box

Surprise, surprise! It's 2am and here I am blogging again! I do believe that my most productive hour is after midnight.  That could prove scary later on.  I have been trying really hard to get my sleeping/waking schedule back to normality but it has proven really difficult.  Most nights I am up late due to the fact that I have several pages of a novel left...fun stuff!

Speaking of the glorious novel, the time for producing written work has arisen...da da da duhhhhmmm...I am going to say then that my reason for being awake at this hour is due to the fact that I am researching paper topics (take that how you may hehe).  At any rate, we have just finished reading a really fun (now some of my fellow grad peeps will disagree with me here, that's ok) novel called Pamela, by: Samuel Richardson.  What a "saucy" little text this has proven to be!

Before I go on, I really must go off on a bunny trail, as they say, for a moment.  So, The class that I read this book in is called, "The 18th Century British Novel." Now, you must admit that the mere title of this class sounds boring, dreary, lackluster, treacherous and any other exciting adjective you can come up with to describe a monotonous situation.  But, surprise! It's not! This class is flipping awesome! Given, the splendor of this class is largely credited to the wonderful professor, Dr. Strong. 

So, after having added and/or dropped this class at least three times, I found myself grudgingly deciding to stay in it and get it over with. Well, needless to say, this class has proven to be an intriguing class studying a period that I thought I would never enjoy and am now thinking of concentrating in if I go the PHD route.

Ok, so I am sure you are waiting for me to get back to this intriguing Pamela.  Alright so here it is in a nutshell (remember, this is 18th Century England).  Pamela is a beautiful 15 year old servant in a rich, soon to be Lord's, home.  This Lord, Mr. B, is by all accounts (and we only get a few thanks to Pamy's first person journal scribbles) a handsome 23ish year old man.  Ok, so here is where it gets fun.  Mr. B tries to rape Pamela at least twice, then tries to buy her with massive amounts of money and materialism and then at the last minuet decides he loves her.  All the while, Pamela is fighting off Mr. B's near rape attempts as she sits around witting massive amounts of texts from whence we get our story. 

But wait, it gets better! Mr. B turns out to be a creeper and on more than one occasion stalks out in Pamela's closet to spy on her.  At one point good ole' B even dresses up as a fellow servant to try and get into bed with Pammy. To top it off, Creeper B isn't satisfied in spying on Pamy, he has to read every single piece of text she has written. But, despite B's creepiness, Pamy soon falls in love with him and guess what? Yup, they get married...yay....Happy Ever After.......

What a weird, but exciting text! And you thought that weird plots like this only existed in modern novels...tisk tisk.  Leave it to the British to supply us with ample amounts of creepy, bizarre, stories.  So you are probably wondering what the point of this post is.  Well, I don't know haha.  I think it is just a rambling post! No, ok, really.  The point, if there has to be one should be this: To use a ridiculous cliche, "never pick a book by its cover."  I should not have discredited this amazing class on the mere title of it.  Otherwise, I never would have met Pamela.

Well, I do believe I have rambled on enough now.  I have given you an interesting, or boring post (depending on how you read this) and I even provided you with a morale...awwwww, how sweet of me.

Night Folks!

Glamour Pup

I absolutely love my sweet, sweet, puppy, Jasper, or like I call him many times, JJ (short for Jasper Jack--his first name was Jack.)  Jasper joined my chaotic, fun-filled life last January after I adopted him from a pet shelter in Asheville, North Carolina.  Since day one, Jasper has been spoiled and has become one of my favorite photography subjects.  He is such a sweet boy, and he absolutely eats up the camera attention! I spent a small amount of my time today taking some pictures of him and here are the results! 

Old English Must Die!

Ok, so it's 2am.  Really? Have I been working on Old English this long? Yes, yes I have.Welcome to life in Grad school.  Wait...life? No, no--hahaha, life is non-existent in grad school! I forgot! Possibly because I have not had time to think about the lack of time I have.  And see, now it has come to writing blogs at 2am because of the lack of time.

I never imagined that grad school would and could take so much of ones life.  I have had time to think of nothing other than my classes.  If a boyfriend were something I found interest in at this stage of the game, he would be an upset fellow because he would get none of my attention.  I have love affairs with my books. Yes, every night we cuddle up together, and get intimate as I delve into the delicate words and pages bound between leather.  

Literature is such an amazing thing.  Through stories, ranging from any and all periods of life, we, the reader can step inside and become a part of a story that we are already a part of, even if it is subconsciously.  Stories live throughout time, and no matter what story we step into, we can find our hearts and souls in that story. 
 Maybe this is why I get sad when I finish a book.  It is almost like a death--ok, so I don't really get that emotional, but sad, yes.

As a reader, I become so involved in the lives and stories I enter through the words on the white pages that are locked within a cover, that when those words cease, the life created in those words, pages, and depths of my inner being cease too.  A part of me, that I have given over to the book, ends with the last word of the book.  And this, I suppose friends, is why I love literature.  After all, I have committed myself to this lifeless life for the next two, maybe more, years in order to obtain an advanced degree in literature. Yikes!

On the cheery side, Chuck is amazing.  When I do have seconds of free time I enjoy getting to spend it in one of the greatest (in my humble opinion) cities in the United States.  So far, I have been to the beach a grand total of two times and it is only ten minuets from my house. Let's see--I have been to the pool approximately five to six times, and only because it is within walking distance to me.  And last, but not least, the downtown sector of Chuck gets my visitations (and dollars) weekly.

All in all, I wouldn't change a thing about life right now.  I have been blessed beyond measure and I hope to live up to, and beyond the expectations of this blessing. 

Until Next Time,

Peace/Love!