Cooking, Cold temps and Medicaid

I had a hankering for cake with light, delicious butter cream frosting to go along with my devils food cake (made with a box stolen from mom and dad).  I found this recipe that is toted as being the "Best ever"  Whipped Buttercream Frosting.  OH MY GOODNESS!  So true!  BEST EVER!  Mine turned out like so:

It was whipped and light and all around delicious!!  So, how could I mess this up you ask (because I ALWAYS find a way to mess up recipes the first go-around).  Welp, I couldn't wait and put it on a warm cake.  So, I got a melty frosting instead of a whipped delicious delight:

Over the last week or 2 ohio has been in the grips of a polar vortex.  Because I don't have insurance right now (explained later in blog), I've been overly careful and have been opting to drive to the library instead of walk and potentially get frostbite.

I dropped by walmart on one of these polar vortex days.  I was outside for less than a minute without gloves on, pushing my cart from the store to my car and this happened:

The picture does not do justice to how truly red my fingers were!

Now onto the mess that is medicaid.  I applied for medicad thru ohio back on december 11th of 2013.  A month and a half later I have yet to hear back from the medicaid office.  I have been calling every other day to check the status of my application (pending) for a month now.

Today I work up at 5am panicking about not having insurance.  I once again called the medicaid line and spoke to someone who said if I went to one of the medicaid sites with my Social Security card, drivers license, proof of residence then it might get pushed a long a little quicker.  I jumped in my car and raced over.  I gave them the documents which they scanned, then met with my caseworker.  Turns out that office only does food stamps (which I'm also in the process of getting) and the ohio medicaid is still a work in progress and they don't know when the applications will get processed.

Exhausted, near tears because of lack of sleep and wasted gas money, I called mom and dad and asked what to do.  They encouraged me to get short term life insurance until this gets straightened out.  I applied online today and will hopefully hear back in a day or 2.  It will be nice to have this weight off my shoulders!  Yay for having good, supportive, smart parents!

This weekend Mitch, Dom and I are meeting up at KW's house for a star wars marathon!  It's going to be awesomesauce!

Now that I'm a Full Time Student, Nothing Much to Report

So not much happened in the past week and a  half.  I hung out with Mitch, Dom and KW and played Torchlight II last Friday night.  My character is up to level twenty-something.  I tried out some bright pink eyeshadow, which got a solid Thumbs Down from Mitch:

I got to babysit for Jared and Chel on Saturday night and got enough money for fancy groceries (read hamburger meat!!)  It snowed a bit, and I saw how two of my walmart shopping cart wheels were wiggly!!

I decided to start a seperate blog about my time in the Kent State MLIS program to show future employers I know blogging and such!  If you get board and want to read some pretty boring stuff about me in school, check out ks-mlis.blogspot.com .

Speaking of being a poor college student, I read this great quote on reddit last night:

While I am on a strict budget and cannot afford much more than lentals, it's still so much better than working full time.  I LOVE being able to spend all day learning about what I love most, Libraries and how to become a better librarian!

Back to School!

Let's start with this weekend.  On Saturday, I metup with KW, Mitch and Dom for a full day of playing Torchlight II.  It's very World of Warcrafty.  We all played together and explored maps and dungeons etc.  Super fun, and even better, it was free to play for the weekend!

We took a break around 5 to go get Chipotle.  Because I'm on a super strict budget, I said I could get something from the supermarket or just have some rice Mitch had at home, but Dom, being the EPICALLY awesome guy that he is, said he'd buy me dinner.  Right?!  So NICE!  I had eaten some potentially rancid bacon earlier in the day, so I just got chips and guac (in case I got sick later, I didn't want to throw up a whole burrito).  It was DELISH!

We started playing around 3 and were at Mitch's till amost 11:30pm playing Torchlight, Pass the Pigs and Munchkin Booty/Star.  It was great all around (with the exception of KW trying to crush my character in Torchlight II every chance he got!)  The next day I got an email saying Mitch had bought a copy of Torchlight II for me, so we can all play it together all the time!!!!  My friends spoil me!

So I started my first semester back at Kent State this week (Monday specifically)!  So exciting!!!

2 of my classes started monday, and then 2 more start mid February.  So far, the 2 classes are WAY hard.  I don't know how anyone does it AND work.  For the past few days I've been waking up around 7, showering, making breakfast (then eating it, nom nom nom), making lunch, making my bed then walking 2.5 miles to the library.

I get to the library around 9:15 and work till noon, eat my lunch (the North olmsted library has a little kitchen area where you can eat your lunch!!), then back to schooling till 4 or 5 depending on how motivated I am, and how much work I still need to do.  Then I walk 2.5 miles home.

The first day  I made the 5 mile walk to/from the library, I found myself exhausted when I got home and I literally passed out for 10 min on the couch.  It's been progressively getting less painful (yay!).

Sorry for so many words.  I'll try to post a more picture heavy blog next week.  Until then!

Coming Home to Cleveland and New Years Eve!

After 2 weeks in Philly it was finally time to come home to Cleveland.  I stole 6 + bags worth of food from mom and dad's food storage, and yet Mom and dad still packed me a lunch for the trip home (turkey sandwhiches on homemade rolls and 2 peeled clementines!

I was lucky again and the drive home was uneventful.  No rain/snow/roadwork!

When I got home I unpacked all 6 bags of food and found my pantry and food storage now packed!!

I put the hangers I got for my birthday (from grandma) and from Christmas (mom and dad) to good use.  I even had enough left over to hang up my jeans!!

I was so excited to have a completed kitchen with my new fancy knife block (which cuts tomatoes like they are butter!)

and my new kitchen aid!!!  YES!  I own a Kitchen Aid Mixer!!!  I used it yesterday to make carrot cake cupcakes and they turned out AMAZING!  Mixing is so much easier with this mixer!!

KW, Mitch, Dom and I decided to have NYE at Mitch and Dom's house.  I brought multiple outfits for the whole evening (well, 3).  Starting off super exciting and moving to pajama's.  I didn't get pics (mitch has them), but here's my face w/ fancy makeup at the beginning of the night:

We played spoons and mario kart with PC Helpers and something else, I can't remember what though.  It was a blast.  I had planned to crash at Mitch's house and I did.  I slept for a few hours then snuck out the next morning to go home and do 3 outfits worth of laundry.

The next week we all got together to hang out and grab some all you can eat pancakes at IHOP and then go home and play Star Munchkin.  It was so much fun!  It's a card game with monsters and it's kinda hard to explain unless you've played it before.  Needless to say it was really fun!  Also, all you can eat pancakes...deliciously horrible idea.  So full of pancakes.  I managed 4 pancakes, KW, had 5 and Dom beat us all with 6!

After playing we were vegging out on the couch and Chester came up and sat on Mitch's lap.  This NEVER happens, so, of course, Pictures were needed

I also got Chester pets and he played with Mitch a bit after that!

Did I mention that Mitch is crochetting me a blanket?!!  I'm so excited.  She's made KW 2 or 3, so she promised me one.  She even let me pick the colors (Black and bright pink!!)  Here's a teaser of the awesomeness to come:

Phew.  Well I'm all caught up on blogging now!!  I start my first day of Master level classes next monday.  I'm excited and nervous all at the same time!!

Dad

I am so thankful I got to spend so much time with dad on my trip home.  If I ever needed him, I could almost always find him crocheting in his room with the puppy at his feet!

I was also lucky enough to get dad to play some songs for me on the harp, which I will now share with you all (you lucky ducks you!)  Enjoy!

A Thousand Years:

Elanor Rigby:

Christmas Dinner 2013

The family decided to have an unconventional Christmas dinner this year.  Dad set the tables beautifully!

We had quesadilla's and pineapple and cheese and crackers for appetizers:

This was our main course.  See if you can guess all of the foods!

Everyone had a great time and lots of yummy food!

Dessert was homemade icecream balls with homemade caramel and chocolate syrups along with walnut wedding cookies brought by grandma and a cookie tray brought by uncle Justin (who also brought the ham and chutney in the previous picture)

Christmas 2013

The night before Christmas, dad was playing at a Lutheran service, so, grandma and I bundled up and drove over to see him play.

Dad did so well!  It sounded so pretty and the service was nice too!  I always love hearing dad play the harp!!

The next morning was finally Christmas!  Joel and Kate had bought and decorated a Christmas Fern, and all the presents were laid underneath with care.

I made everyone Rice heating bags.  Dad said "ok, do see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil"  Kate and Furax refused to play along:

Everyone got lots of fun presents, even the dog:

I got everything I asked for, and more!!

The worst present I got was a scarf (look how excited I am!!):

Nope, it was actually a present for Kate, so Joel snatched it back and gave it to the right person

The dog stayed close to dad the whole time (what a suck up)

Dad made an afghan for Grandma and Grandpa and was sad to see it go:

Kate got Joel an Xbox360!  In return he bought her a tablet computer

Joel also got a throwing ax from Jeff, that didn't throw very well

Mom got some things too

Lol this isn't even half of the pictures I took.  For the rest of the pics, you can check out my facebook photo album.