Spring Semester, Here I Come!

I find it laughable that they term the upcoming semester "Spring" term. Granted we don't have school for most of January, but spring is by no means in sight. I am pretty proud of myself though. For three or four days in a row it was below zero outside and I was comfortable (yes, I wasn't just admiring the cold from my apartment either). We have had a nice high of 20 degrees for the past few days now too --- mmm, toasty. Enough about the nice weather in Minneapolis though.

As I said, the Spring Semester begins this week --- hooray! It couldn't come at a better time. While it is enjoyable and I will be cranky about a week from now, I need a break from my apartment and Netflix. I subscribed when I returned from Michigan and have been quite addicted since. I wont even disclose the number of movies I've watched in the past 1.5 weeks alone.

One of the interesting parts of Netflix is that you can rate movies you have seen too so it can recommend new ones to you. Sad to say, I've ranked over 730 movies. Haha! I knew that I had seen a lot of movies in my lifetime, but I had no idea it was that many! That only includes ones that I have come across on the site too, not ones I've searched for. Terrible. After seeing that it made me realize how much time I waste and how all of those hours could be spent doing something constructive (does blogging count? probably not...). I guess when I think about it though, I am usually doing something else while watching a movie, like finding new recipes or responding to emails.

Speaking of recipes... I have been quite ambitious the past few days in the kitchen. Maybe ambitious isn't the correct word because nothing I made was that difficult, but it sounds impressive I guess... Anyway, this weekend I tackled homemade crackers and corn chips! I'm feeling very domestic at the moment and wanted to see if I could make my own and have them actually taste good. The crackers were a lot of fun. I started with a simple wheat cracker base and added a few extra spices, though I was only working with what I had and have much tastier ideas in mind. I rolled the dough out and used cookie cutters to make shapes instead of plain rectangles. The consistency ended up being similar to Kashi's multigrain/whole wheat crackers or a thicker, less greasy Wheat Thin. I want to give it a few more tries, but I will definitely post my final results as soon as I get them in order.

The corn chips were interesting. The flavor was on, but not the consistency/texture. They were super thin based on the recipe I followed. I have another one I plan on trying soon and again. It sounds like these would be tricky (which is why I said 'ambitious' earlier), but they really are not.

Alright, enough boredem for now. I need a break from the computer and Mea wants her dinner. Until next time...