dreams, news, and food

The night before last I had a dream in which I was moving (away, presumably). I don't remember any of the details except for seeing a lot of furniture. When I was in HS I took AP Psych and my teacher would sometimes "interpret" our dreams. Really it just involves looking up meanings associated with certain symbols and themes and then applying the interpretations to your life. It sounds cooky, but I really enjoy doing this (surprise, surprise). I find that the elements of my dreams tend to make sense in terms of what's going on in my life at the time. Anywho, here are the dream dictionary entries for "moving" and "furniture" (via dream moods dictionary):

To dream that you are moving away, signifies your desire or need for change. It may also mean an end to a situation or relationship; you are moving on. Alternatively, it indicates your determination and issues regarding dependence/independence. 

To see furniture in your dream, represents how you feel about yourself and your family.  It refers to your relationships with others and how they fit into your life.      meanings by DreamMoods.com

To dream that you are moving furniture, indicates that you are going out of your way to please others. Also, you may be changing your ways and trying to reevaluate your relationships/attitudes. Consider how easy or how difficult it is to move the furniture as they may indicate the level of burden or responsibility you are feeling.

To see old or worn furniture in your dream, symbolizes outdated attitudes, former relationships, and/or old ways of thinking.

Interesante, no? Man oh man if yall only know how applicable these themes/interpretations are! As you know, I've gotten disappointed news regarding grad school over the past few weeks. I began thinking about alternatives if I didn't get in. To say that moving/change have been on my mind is quite accurate. The really interesting thing is the meaning associated with furniture -- that it regards family and how they fit into your life. Without putting anyone on blast going into great detail, I've had some stuff happening on the home-front that have been heavy on my heart, so to speak. Dreaming about moving furniture makes total sense. (Aside: another weird thing about dreams...a friend of mine texted me the other day asking is everything was ok with me because they had a dream in which I had stuff going on at home...weird huh?!) 

Now, for the news! Yesterday (i.e., the day after I had this dream) I found out that I've been offered a spot in the Master's program at one of the schools at which I am on the waitlist for the Ph.D program!!!! YAY! This was an immense relief because up until yesterday all I had were a pending decision, 2 waitlist spots, and rejections...ouch :-/

Needless to say, this is super super exciting for me. That being said, I also found out that I am very high on the waitlist at the same school's PhD program. One key difference? How much I have to pay...the Master's will mean me coming heavy out of pocket. The Ph.D program provides great funding. Sooooo, I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed that something may open up. If not, Master's it is...where there's a will, there's a way :-D 

Finally, FOOOOOOD. This week, Nix and I made our own pizza, with a store-bought dough crust. It's a great way to control what goes in (on) your food, and how it is cooked. We did a yummy veggie pizza with fresh mozzarella cheese slices. Yum, yum yum! (btw, these pics don't do the food justice, because they're taken on my phone...but you get the point!)

We're going to start experimenting with different types of pizza as well. For example, a mediteranean style pizza with hummus instead of red marinara sauce, and more greek-inspired toppings. Another good one would be a mexican pizza with ground beef, beans, corn, etc. Oh man I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

The other cool thing we did this week was use some leftover cupcakes that nix took one day for class to make a heavenly indulgence called cake balls. Because I subscribe to an embarrassingly high number of food blogs, I'm always getting great ideas for recipes. This one is a super easy and different thing to do when you have cupcakes (or cake) that didn't come out great or that taste good but with which you want to do something fun. All we did was crumble up the cupcakes, mix the crumbs with a peanut butter frosting (a "stroke of genius" on my sis's part, right Nix?), form into balls, and coat in melted chocolate. 

 I cannot even begin to describe how amazingly scrumptious these were. Nix and I shared 1...then another...then another! I could have eaten the whole batch. Thank goodness she had already planned to take them to the family she babysits. They apparently loved them too and want to make them with her soon. 

The great thing about this (aside from how on they taste) is that it's not really is "recipe" in the sense that you need to follow it exactly, so you can do whatever variations float your boat. For example, we're planning to do a take on German chocolate cake with these. 

As far as upcoming cooking, we're traveling out of town this weekend so we'll be baking up some goodies for our hosts. I'll  take pics and let yall know how everything turns out.  

Today's *big chune* comes from Zouk artist Kenedy, originally from Guadelope. I really like zouk but I don't know too much about who the big/best artists are (Ms. O, a little insight?). And I wanted to make a Pandora station but nothing came up for zouk, Kenedy or several other artists I tried. Anyway, enjoy!



:-D