Europe day 6 and maybe a bit beyond....

These are some photos of the countryside we drove through...

And then we came to Florence....

 One of the main things we did there was the Uffizi museum. Can you guess what we saw there? Portraits and nudes. Who could have guessed? While we were in there I felt tremors in the floor. It may have just been construction, but a few days later an earthquake hit Florence.

 We also went into the Basilica.

 And then we bought presents for people at this little place outside...

We also found the loveliest leather bookmarks at a leather shop (of which there were several).

Day 7 - Venice

We took a train to the island and stayed for just under 3 hours (that was all much time we had at the parking lot :P)

 These shops were everywhere

 When we got to the main waterway we found that some kind of event was in progress.

 As it turned out, it was the Americas Cup

I've been thinking about doing a post like this one for a few weeks now, but I think this man just did a much better job than I could have, so let me just recommend it to you. It's a very good article!

http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/10/09/youre-a-stay-at-home-mom-what-do-you-do-all-day/

100 positive descriptive words:

agreeable
alert
alluring
ambitious
amused
boundless
brave
bright
calm
capable
charming
cheerful
coherent
comfortable
confident
cooperative
courageous
credible
cultured
dashing
dazzling
debonair
decisive
decorous
delightful
detailed
determined
diligent
discreet
dynamic
eager
efficient
elated
eminent
enchanting
encouraging
endurable
energetic
entertaining
enthusiastic
excellent
excited
exclusive
exuberant
fabulous
fair
faithful
fantastic
fearless
fine
frank
friendly
funny
generous
gentle
glorious
good
happy
harmonious
helpful
hilarious
honorable
impartial
industrious
instinctive
jolly
joyous
kind
kind-hearted
knowledgeable
level
likeable
lively
lovely
loving
lucky
mature
modern
nice
obedient
painstaking
peaceful
perfect
placid
plausible
pleasant
plucky
productive
protective
proud
punctual
quiet
receptive
reflective
relieved
resolute
responsible
rhetorical
righteous
romantic
sedate
seemly
selective
self-assured
sensitive
shrewd
silly
sincere
skillful
smiling
splendid
steadfast
stimulating
successful
succinct
talented
thoughtful
thrifty
tough
trustworthy
unbiased
unusual
upbeat
vigorous
vivacious
warm
willing
wise
witty
wonderful

This weekend was a crockpot weekend

I bought a pot roast about a month ago and Saturday night I decided to make it. I find pulled pork to be very bland, and since I didn't have any barbeque sauce, I decided to marinade it in honey and cinnamon. I tell you what, the pork roast smelled gross when I took it out of the packaging, not because it had gone bad, but just because it did. Once I'd smothered it in honey and cinnamon the smell was practically nauseating. I hoped I hadn't just wasted $10. God was kind, and it turned out that I hadn't. I marinaded it over night and in the morning put it in the crock-pot with some potatoes, carrots, and apples. During the afternoon it smelled like some kind of cinnamon-apple bread.

 Before the pulled pork was finished I had decided that I was going to make applesauce as soon as it was done.  The recipe I was using said it would take 3-4 hours. I started it at 7 and by 11:30 it looked like what you see below. I needed to go to bed so I decided to just call it chunky applesauce and end it there. It tastes rather fabulous if I do say so myself. :)

I put it in an old pickle jar that I'd scavenged from home. After I took the pickle labels off there was still a sticky residue which turned out to be just the right size for a piece of my note paper, so I had a little fun with it.

I went to the State Farmers Market today. It was the first time I'd been to a farmers market, unless sitting in the car next to one while your mom goes and buys a couple of things counts. My roommate asked me if I wanted to join her, thinking I would enjoy it. She was absolutely right! I loved it! I loved seeing all the fruits, vegetables, nuts, drinks, breads, flowers, and other things people had grown or made. And guess what!

I bought something!

Two somethings actually. I bought these lovely plants. I don't remember what either of them are called, but I do know that the one with the purple flowers likes a lot of water and the other likes it hot and dry. If you know anything about them and would like to tell me, I'm all ears! Just leave a comment. :)

 This is supposed to grow back every year, and should start blooming profusely soon. Assuming, of course, that I don't kill it first. We haven't exactly got green thumbs in my family, but I'm hoping for the best. An herb garden may be following....

This one doesn't  look like much but it feels simply lovely! This is what I always imagined heather would look and feel like. In fact, when I first touched it I thought that that is what it must be. I've only ever read about heather, but I believe C.S. Lewis said it was very soft and made a very nice bed. This plant certainly would. The woman who sold it to me said that when it grows it spreads out and covers a large area, or if you hang it up, it will grow down to the ground.

If you follow me on Pinterest you may have seen that yesterday I pinned several remedies for colds, headaches, fevers, and such. I like to use natural treatments when possible instead of pills, simply because, ...well, I don't even know why exactly. At any rate I like them and so the majority of those pins were of the kind. Why was I pinning those things, you might ask?   

I got a cold a couple of days ago.

When I get a cold my nose runs like a faucet.

Constantly.

For days....

....and days.

I only had two little packages of tissues to take with me to classes, and yesterday I (thoroughly) used one and a half of them.Thank heavens for public bathrooms and toilet paper! Just throwing that out there. Anyway, I'd been through this often enough to know that it wouldn't be gone tomorrow, nor the day after that, nor even the day after that. It's irritating enough to constantly have to wipe your nose, and worse still to have to do it in public. "High! *sniff* I'm Lydia. *sniff, sniff* What's your name? *sniiiff*" You probably get the picture....
     It was, unfortunately, advisable to stay home from the first night of RUF because I knew that my meager supply of tissues and patience would run out well before the gathering was over. While I was sitting at home last night I started thinking about one of the cold remedies that I had seen suggested on several different pages.

Eating a clove of raw garlic. Sure it wouldn't taste great, but how bad could it be? I knew I didn't want to sniffling all week so I might as well do it right then. My roommate has a large supply of raw garlic and I had her permission to use some of it, so I chopped two of the cloves up and held them in my hand. My thoughts went something like the following...

"That's a lot of garlic"
"Just stick it all in your mouth at once and get it over with"
"But that's a lot of garlic. I might pass out, and I'm here all by myself"
"Okay half of it now, and if it's not too bad you can make yourself eat the rest in a couple of minutes"
"Get some water to wash it down"

     So I threw the little handful into my mouth before I could change my mind. It sat under my tongue for a few moments where it felt like it was trying to burn a hole into the bottom of my mouth.
I was tempted to swallow it all without chewing but I knew that it wouldn't work if I didn't chew it and then I'd have done it all for nothing, so I chewed as fast as I could and all the while my mouth was on fire and the horrid taste of raw garlic assaulted my taste buds. No, assaulted is too calm of a word. It was more as though my poor little taste buds were being pillaged and burned! I swallowed as soon as I could and tried to wash down the taste with water. Little did I know how long it would last! Meanwhile, I could feel the garlic down in my stomach making a similar ruckus to what which it had just made in my mouth, and I began to feel nauseous.
     I was clearly going to need to cover the taste with something else and I eventually settled on raisins. I lay on the floor and ate clumps of raisins until the sensation had somewhat passed away. The nauseous feeling passed soon enough but the taste persisted even through brushing my teeth. It was one of the first things I noticed when I woke up, but guess what! It worked! The sniffles are almost completely gone!! It is unspeakably lovely to be free of them!
     The taste lasted for a few more hours, but I got my hands on a peppermint puff candy in Statics class this morning and I don't remember noticing the garlic much after that. I was a little more worried about the rather potent garlic gas the came with the morning but that didn't last more than a few hours.

So, after this long and perhaps unnecessarily detailed account, what are my sentiments on the raw garlic cure for colds?

It is simply horrid, but it does work, so maybe, if I find a way to get rid of the taste faster and avoid the garlic gas, I just might do it again.:)

Ladies and gentlemen. It has happened. I am renting my first apartment! I share it with two friends I made last year. Yesterday was the first day that all three of us were here together. We're all moved in, but we still have some work to do on the walls. They are very white and very blank. It's all very exciting! Of course looking at an apartment is much more interesting than hearing about one so without further ado here are the pictures of our new place. :)

The front of our new abode :)

 

The right half of our living room....

....and the left half. The map is the only thing we've put on the wall thus far.

The little hallway type thing that leads to the dining room

The half-bath

The dining room

another shot of the dining room

The kitchen

...which doubles as a laundry room and has a door to the back

The back of the place where our allotted parking is.

the upstairs hallway

The entrance to my room. It looks tidier now :)

Another of my room

and yet another

 It's all very exciting and I'm looking forward to dressing it up and spending the rest of the school year here with my awesome roommates!