I Think This Is What Exhaustion Feels Like...

Wow. Talk about a full day.

Well, I'll start off by saying I'm fully awake now, and that waking up that early was kind of draining. I couldn't sleep after that random post, so I raided the fridge for water and grabbed a peach. After finishing that sweet bit of goodness, I just sat in bed and started + finished the first story of a Nora Roberts book. That took about two and a half hours... Upon getting a little bit into the second story in the book, I felt my eyelids start to get a bit heavier and I finally dozed off. I recovered the hours of sleep I lost by waking up officially around noon. Got up, showered, and ate a proper breakfast of cereal and milk-- fit for a king! I got myself ready to face the day, and headed out about 1:45pm to see J one last time before he's out of reach for 4-5 days. He's leaving tomorrow morning to go conquer the highest peak on the east coast, amongst other things-- like sightseeing with his cousins. It was absolutely horrid outside heat-wise, but I still biked over; however I was thankful when he opened the door and AC rushed at my face. And it's funny... He was up early too, apparently. He had picked up some family at the airport earlier that morning around 3am and slept late like I did. I met his two cousins (they're awesome-- one's my age and the other is in college) and their aunt and it was fun (: We ate stuff together (s'mores, home-made nontraditional pizza*, and lemon jello pudding FTW)
*I'll put this awesome and easy pizza "recipe" as a comment to this post if you want to try it (:

We hung out together for a bit, and even watched a portion of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog" in his basement-- his cousin (the one my age) has a liking for the song "Brand New Day"... if you haven't seen this, click the link-- it's definitely worth the 42 minutes. It's a short web musical-movie in three acts featuring Neil Patrick Harris, (<3) Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day.. But Neil Patrick Harris is definitely the best.

I believe you can buy the non-web awesome version on iTunes... :D
And if you like THIS... you'll definitely like the commentary they did on this mini-movie called
"Commentary! The Musical". It's not a movie, but rather a group of songs that describe the making of the movie. It's very clever and funny as well, so I'd recommend checking it out (:

But anyways. Enough of my fan-girling.

We basically chilled until I had to leave-- my bike was having issues (gotta fix it AGAIN) and so J's dad gave me a ride home. It was quite a busy few hours-- but full of laughter and new people.

After getting home, had to get into a bathing suit for those blasted swim lessons that I am ALMOST DONE WITH. :D Tomorrow is the last day... LAST DAY UNTIL I AM A PROFICIENT AND MEGA AWESOME SWIMMER. Tonight's lesson was kind of exhausting with 2 IM's ( = individual medleys-- 4 laps with each one a different stroke in the order of fly, back, breast, and free) one after the other, combined with 200's of various strokes and some work on butterfly. (ew.) We stopped by J's house to get the bike I left there (it's in sad shape..) and shoved it in the back of the car and came home.

Annnnd now I'm here in the lowly office, just sitting, getting tired... and I'll probably eat something... my appetite has been so sporadic lately. And now, since I'm already speaking of food, I'll screw the "put the pizza recipe thing in the comments" thing and put it here instead. Why not, right?

Home-Made Pizza A la J
Great if you're in a hurry and want a quick, warm and Italian snack!
Also great if you don't quite have a pizza on hand or the ingredients to make a full-fledged pizza pie.
*Caution: Do not make if you cannot bear to see pizzas in other forms (i.e. not in a circular shape)
***DISCLAIMER*** I am not to be responsible if you have heart problems later due toadding copious amounts of cheese when making this snack.

INGREDIENTS:

Whole wheat bread (I believe we used Arnold's whole wheat bread, but you can use anything you like...I just found that this type of bread was sturdier and would hold up well compared to that white WonderFluff that isn't good for you anyways, lol) And it's healthy, too! Well, as long as you don't mound the cheese on like J did... I swear, that kid. XD
Mozzarella cheese (we used a tubish thing that was pre-sliced)
Italian seasoning (a little handy dandy spice thing filled with a mixture of oregano and basil and all that Italian goodness)
Garlic salt/powder
Marinara/tomato sauce (we used marinara)

INSTRUCTIONS TO ACHIEVE THE DELICIOUS RESULT:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. (You could also use the microwave if you'd like, but we used the oven)
2. Determine how many pieces you'd like, and lay out the appropriate number of bread slices.
3. Cover each slice with a layer of marinara.
4. Add the Mozzarella cheese slices, placing them evenly on the slices atop the marinara. OR you can do like J did and just pile so much cheese so that the marinara is no longer visible.. I mean, that's cool too...
5. Sprinkle the cheese covered marinara slices of bread with the Italian seasoning
6. Once oven has reached temperature, place on a cookie sheet or other piece of flat oven-approved metal and keep it inside until the cheese is fully melted. (We didn't take note of how long this took, we just kept the oven light on and checked on it time to time. Everyone's oven is different, and what could take 10 minutes for one person could take 5 for some and vice versa.) It shouldn't take longer than 15 minutes... And again, you could always use the microwave if you're short on time.
7. Once cheese is melted to your desired taste, remove from the oven and slide pieces off onto a plate, and if you desire, sprinkle on some garlic salt/powder.
8. After letting it cool down a bit, either pick up with your hands or use fork and knife and enjoy!

Stay tuned for later posts in which I may disclose my mom's quick and easy, make-shift meatball sub recipe! (Great for the wallet, those are!)

Oh, wow-- just reading that was yummy. Now I want to make some... I love Italian food... or anything with marinara/pasta/garlic/oregano in it. I swear, I could be an honorary Italian-- I like all the right food! All that's missing from my life right now is a gondola, a river to float down, and the man in the red/white striped shirt crooning some Italian melody. OH and gelato... Which reminds me, J loves gelato. Apparently that's something he ate non-stop on his trip to Italy a couple years ago.

Whew. Long day. I think my muscles are going to fall off... And I hope it's not as hot upstairs as it was last night... because I've got a comforter-clad bed upstairs, and I am so ready to fall in it.

xoxo