just call me cinderella

hello, lovies.

so, a couple of days ago (as in tuesday) i got my cat back.

it's a long and difficult story to explain, so i'll give you the short of it.

when my mom and i moved out of my stepdad's house a couple of years ago, we left our cat (which we had only had for about a year or so - we found her as a kitten, and she was a stray) at his place so it would be easier to sell our house.

plus it gave him company.

NOW we are trying to sell his house and he is moving back in with us (*facepalm*), so the cat got brought back here.

this cat has tried to murder me before. i'm not kidding. i can't make that kind of shit up.

but, since she's back, i've been having to clean. a lot. because i happen to have allergic asthma and am allergic to freaking cats!

makes a bunch of sense, don't it?

so, i've been vacuuming, dusting, doing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning cleaning cleaning.

my room is even clean.

that never happens. ever.

in other news...

i actually lost a pound and a half this week. i know, random, but i was on the wii fit earlier and felt like sharing. mom kept calling me a skinny bitch this week, and i wanted to find out why... though one pound doesn't make that much of a difference...

and my mom calling me a skinny bitch in context actually sounds really bad.

(she was teasing me when we bought me clothes because it looked like i didn't have a tummy. and when she calls somebody a bitch, she means it as a compliment. unless she's calling the cat a bitch... then it's because the cat bit her.)

i *might* be getting a job at the goodwill they plan on opening up in my town.

i'd actually enjoy working at a goodwill more than any fast food place, and i need to get a job for more spending money. i'm thinking of checking out books'n'more as well.

monday, mom and i are going to visit the enrollment offices at the two schools that i might actually want to go to - the district i'm in is a last resort. we're hoping that the best district in the county will let me in because i was in virtual schooling last year, even though one of my old bffs tried to enroll there and the class was full.

aaaand next tuesday.....

i get to see john mayer and train in concert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*squees*

i am SO looking forward to that concert. it will be worth not getting a birthday present from dad or judy this year.

it's john. fucking. mayer.

THIS guy:

room for squares was my first cd. EVER. i was five or six when i got it. i have been a fan of his for just. that. long.

i know that most media portrays him as an arrogant asshat, but honestly, one of the songs on his first album shows that he knows that he runs his mouth.

it was aptly named my stupid mouth.

i basically don't listen to him unless he has a guitar in his hands. even if he isn't playing it, some of his little monologues from recorded concerts (try tracing from the live as/is album in either '04 or '05, and my stupid mouth [i think] from any given thursday) are so freaking amazingly true, it's hard to believe it's the same guy.

and the freaking lyrics!

*ded*

am i going to make you listen to me swoon over the awesomeness that is j.c.mayer anymore?

no.

i will keep that in my head so i don't have to put you through that torture ;)

fare thee well!

xoxo,

rissa

Confessions...

the lovely annie at my sweet old etcetera does a confession posting every week.

i am always wanting to figure out one to post of my own, but haven't been able to come up with anything until this week, where she did one with a "love & marriage" theme.

i have always wanted two kids and a husband. the boy will be older than the girl by about two years, and we will all live in a house with a chocolate lab and a wrought iron fence... at least it wasn't white picket ;)

though i want kids and a husband, i do not want them until i have established the rest of my life. i want to have a job, afford a decent home for my children, and set the foundation with the guy i love before kids come around. both of my half-sisters got pregnant when they were teenagers, as was one of my stepsisters, and i've seen the aftermath.

i honestly do not want to be a stay-at-home mom. i am always grateful that my mom decided to be one, but i don't think i could be happy without a job and routine. unless i write a novel that gets published and i get another book deal with the publisher and my husband has a good job... no stay at home mommy for rissa.

for my sophomore year, i plan on making myself a lonely hearts club style pact. if you haven't read "the lonely hearts club" by elizabeth eulberg, you should. basically, this pact swears off those cruel, heart-breaking guys - not completely, but it really swears off the girl many of us tend to become when we have a crush on a guy. this year i'm staying true to myself, and not changing because i think it will make a guy like me.

when somebody proposes to be someday, i don't want it to be too dramatic or too cheesy. honestly, i'd want him to come to my house or apartment or wherever i'm living for dinner with a white rose and a blackberry lily held together by the ring. the gesture is there, but it's still simple.

i have never wanted my wedding in a church. i've always imagined it to be on a beach or in a meadow.

i have always wanted to wear my grandmother's wedding dress when i get married. though i never got to meet her, she and i could have been twins, both personality and looks wise. plus, though she and my grandfather had many issues, i know they loved each other with all of their hearts, just by the way grandpa spoke of her.

though i do not think chivalry is dead, i do think that every once and a while, the girl should pay. for one thing, when the guy pays all the time for me, it makes me feel like they think i am not competent enough to do anything for myself - though i know that i am competent and that they don't think that.

every guy that i've ever "dated" has been really sweet, and i'm still friends with all of them, even if we don't talk that much.

though i am a total hopeless romantic, i am also a true cynic about love. i've never really truly seen it (romantically) in real life, so i have my doubts that it exists.

ok, i swear, this is my last post of the night.

questions? comments?

xoxo,

rissa

insomnia attacks!

did i just post?

yes.

but it was a recipe, so i get another one :P

for the past two or three weeks, i've been hardly sleeping, and it sucks.

i've been staying up to about two, and as late as four or five.

i always stay up late, but this is pushing it.

it's not like i'm actually trying to stay up late, recently. it's a matter of i can only toss and turn in this bed for so long without losing my damned mind.

so, i write. or i get on the computer. or i watch tv. or i read.

and then, by the time the clock strikes three or four and i'm so exhausted i may as well be dead, i fall back into bed.

just to toss and turn again.

really effing annoying.

so, tonight, i am blogging, since i have no tv shows that i want to watch and the story i've been watching for updates on hasn't since i last checked.

the other night, i played with my blog layout and made a new header.

that is how bored i am.

i am longing for the routine of school, again.

and i mean routine routine, the kind you only truly get when going to a brick-and-mortar school, with bells and schedules and teachers and classes and places to be, and, dare i say it, alarm clocks.

i despise mornings, by the way.

but i miss school.

and, dammit, i'm going back to an actual school next year!

or else me or my mother or both of us will need to be committed to a mental hospital and get rooms completely padded and be subjected to straight jackets.

i went to walmart today.

that may not seem exciting, but believe me, it was.

was it running through a crowded mall, playing hide-and-go-seek with friends?

no. not that kind of exciting.

walmart (and a few other superstores) have begun to put out their school supplies. fifteen cent spiral bound notebooks, quarter composition books, post it notes, pens!

i happen to be a school supply addict.

and my mom is an enabler.

have i mentioned i love my mother?

AND i got a sudoku book.

you are reading the blog of not only someone who loves words, but also loves numbers. and i mean loves.

i, honest to God, have an algebra for dummies problem workbook just. for. fun.

so, i am extremely happy about that sudoku notebook.

along with the first day and picture day outfits i got!!

(did i mention that my mother is an enabler? clothes count as school supplies. now, if she gets me those shoes from forever21, i will be in heaven...)

oh, and seventeen magazine that WASN'T the bieber super issue.

yes, i am back to last summer's stance of "will somebody please kill him?!"

(or at least keep him from ever talking/singing again until he actually hits effing puberty?!)

and all of this has kept me busy, so i haven't had the chance to be furious at myself over something i'd rather not state here... or anywhere.... that secret needs to stay between two people...

*headdesk*

needless to say, i'm excited to be a sophomore, to get the high school experience. i know i'll walk in on my first day with an attitude, and if i'm back at my old school, i'm not going to let myself slip into the old and familiar. okay, maybe with the guys....

but a quick question - why are the popular guys actually genuinely nice sometimes, and the popular girls such... shrews? (mom lets me call her a bitch but not stupid people. being a bitch [Beautiful Intelligent Talented Caring Human] is a good thing - beig bitchy is not.)

and why are the upperclass popular girls actually nice (to me) and not the ones closer to my own age?

and do i even want to effing know?

i am actually starting to feel tired at one'o'clock, so i bid you goodnight, lovies.

xoxo,

rissa

baking... GLUTEN-FREE sour cream coffee cake

hello, lovies.

for those of you who don't already know, i bake.

and i'm pretty damn good at it, too.

my grandpa and i used to bake together every time i spent the night at his house - cookies, cupcakes, pies, you name it, we probably baked it once upon a time.

ever since he passed last year, i hardly baked. but i've been getting back into it some.

tonight, i cranked up norah jones' "come away with me" album and baked gluten-free sour cream coffee cake.

why gluten-free, you may ask?

recently, my mom discovered that she has a gluten intolerance. we don't know if it's just gluten intolerance or celiac.

basically, she as some form of allergic reaction to gluten, found in wheat, rye, barley, etc.

we've always made cookies gluten-free - not so sickly sweet, and it also gave me the fiber i needed because i refused to eat stuff with bunches of fiber.

this recipe is from a really old cookbook - as in it was my grandmother's before my mom was even born. i'm actually supremely surprised that a cookbook from the 1950s or even earlier has gluten-free recipes, and they're actually pretty good.

the ingredients...

BATTER:

1/3 cup of butter or margarine

1 cup of well-packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 eggs

1 cup of sifted oat flour

1 cup brown rice flour (or all-purpose gluten-free flour)

2 teaspoons of baking powder (recipe to make your own if you don't have any later this post)

1 cup sour cream

LAYER CRUMBLY... THING... ;)

1/2 cup of well packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1 cup of broken pecans

the recipe....

this recipe DOES require a bundt pan (in layman's terms, kind of a donut shaped cake pan. really easy to find.)

cream together butter or margarine, brown sugar, and vanilla.

then, beat three eggs into the mixture.

in a seperate bowl, mix together oat flour, brown rice flour, and baking powder.

add half of the flours to the sugar mixture, mix together well, and then add the sour cream. mix again and add the rest of the flours.

pour a third of the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan.

in a seperate bowl, mix together the pecans, cinnamon, and brown sugar. then spoon one third of that mixture into the pan.

repeat until all of the batter and pecan mixture are layered into the pan.

bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

allow to cool in the pan for five minutes, then pop out onto a rack.

voila! you have very yummy coffee cake.

baking powder:

for two teaspoons of baking powder, mix together 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/2 teaspoon each of corn starch and baking soda.

so, enjoy!

to make this recipe with regular flour, replace the oat and brown rice flours with 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose baking flour. the gluten-free recipe has the advantage of being better for you than the regular because oat flour and some other gluten-free flours have more fiber than processed wheat flours, and fiber is something modern day diets are commonly lacking.

not to sound like a smartass know-it-all or anything.

xoxo,

rissa

no copyright infringement is intended. recipe is from the ideals whole grain cookbook, in which all recipes were collected and tested by aline becker.

vanilla caramel tea and TBR

hello, lovies.

did you know that vanilla caramel tea is surprisingly good? 'tis true.

i really love playing on twitter, sipping vanilla caramel tea, searching for books, listening to chase coy, and chatting with my lovely sweets, especially while there is a thunderstorm in the background.

just thought i'd mention that i have added a "tbr" page to this here lil blog -- i think i got close to fifty books, though i've added the ones i've read this year, as well - they have strikes through them.

so, why don't you take a look-see and tell me your suggestions to be added? =)

xo,

rissa

update... again... *facepalm*

hello, lovies.

i know i have totally sucked at keeping up my blog this summer - totally counter-intuitive, but true. i'm trying to get back into it.

SO MUCH has been going on, and i can't even hardly begin to tell you.

remember leila? my lovely best friend who took my profile picture (which she then proceeded to post on facebook with a comment saying "marilyn monroe, anyone?")

yeah, well, she's trying out for the high school soccer team. she's been posting updates about it here, though i have a feeling she's doing better than she says.

also, i hear she's getting back into the writing game...

i better have an email soon, sweetheart ;)

oh, and remember my best guy friend (from know on referred to as "sweets")?

let's just say that the day after i wrote that post, things got a little complicated... and still are.

but, i've talked to him almost every day since then, and that's more than we talked before, so... yeah.

i, myself, have to make a decision about what high school i'll be going to for my sophomore year - one of the three choices at my mom's, or go live with dad...

that really narrows down to three choices ;)

i'm about to say "fuck it" and go back to my old school...

and if you know me in RL,you know how much it pains me to say it.

i have been trying to get back into the writing game, as well.

i have two stories i'm working on right now that both take place in the same fictional town... one is called "lazy sundays," which the lovely livi is beta-ing for me, and the other is "starbucks & sudoku," which i plan on posting online.

oh, and i have found a new writers' site through my library's teen read blog. inkpop.com is specifically for writers who write Young Adult novels, poems, and short stories, and mainly consists of writers who are young adults. if your story gets into the top 5 picks on the site, then it gets read by a harper-collins editor.

i get to see the sexy and talented john mayer a week from tuesday!!!! *squees* i have been looking forward to this for months, and it's finally here! god bless my always annoying daddy!

i am going to a free writers' workshop for teens with author kristina mcbride on august twelfth... three hours of writing goodness. YES! (more info here )

i mentioned inkpop.com before, and would like to mention that if you visit/get an account/etc., do yourself a favor and read "summer rush." it is extremely well-written, and the plot just keeps twisting.

so, didja miss me or anything?

;)

rissa

p.s. i made my blog header! none of the photos are mine, all were found at weheartit.com. let me know if you like!