englandsword

It has been 75-85 degrees out for the past several days. AMAZING. I've been spending as much time outside as possible. On Friday I went for a hike in Griffith park with one of my friends. Today I spent more than five hours outside, reading and studying Italian and Arabic. This was my day - Look how much my plants have grown? There's a mystery plant that started growing a few weeks ago. It's on the right: There's little berry-type things - Does anyone know what that plant is? I have no idea! My other plants are growing a lot, too! I just hate that the sun goes down at 4:45! I recently bought a new kind of almond milk at Trader Joe's - and it's refrigerated and $3! By the way, in most places you can recycle the refrigerated boxes if you tear out the plastic spout. The nutrition facts are very similar to Almond Breeze but the flavor is slightly different. It tasted less sweet to me and more vanilla-y. Putting it in my coffee reminded me of Silk vanilla so...

I had an audition downtown on Friday. I snapped a picture on the drive home: The audition went well - thanks to the people who wished me good luck! I felt really good about it and got positive feedback. I'm supposed to find out on Monday or Tuesday. Friday night I watched "Winter's Bone," a critically acclaimed indie about a 17-year-old girl in the Ozarks hunting down her meth-cooking dad who jumped bail after putting their house up for bond. Jennifer Lawrence is getting potential Best Actress buzz and it's definitely a good movie with a very authentic feel and a surprising twist at the end. Saturday morning I had a workshop with Sara Isaacson, the casting director for Fringe. I love that show! I watched a couple more movies last night - East of Eden and Sin Nombre. East of Eden is a classic, loosely adapted from John Steinbeck's novel and featuring James Dean's arguably best performance. He really was great to watch - you feel like you can see stra...

I booked a job! Yay! I had a great weekend, capped off by the booking today. But let me start at the beginning. Friday night I got home, unpacked, and watched Children of a Lesser God. Stupid title aside, I really liked it. The acting was great and because I studied ASL in college, I had a really great time trying to keep up with the ASL dialogue. Ahh I love sign language, it's so expressive. On Saturday morning, I had to go grocery shopping because I had left myself absolutely nothing to eat in the apartment. So I walked down to Whole Foods and bought a delicious array of produce. There you see almond milk, two plums, a bunch of basil, two yellow onions, yellow split peas, french green lentils, one bunch of kale, one bunch of romaine, two yellow potatoes, one heirloom tomato, brussels sprouts, two golden beets, one red beet, sundried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, a turnip, carrots, and celery. The damage? Less than $30. This is my proof that Whole Foods does not have to be ex...

The other day I saw something at Ralph's that I found pretty exciting: That's Daiya vegan cheese, nestled in with all the dairy-based cheeses. Cool! Daiya is all the rage in those fortunate parts of the country like mine where it is widely available. I've only tried a bite of someone else's pizza with Daiya, but it was definitely good. The general consensus is that it's melty, delicious, and stretchy. If you want to see more, check out quarrygirl because she posts about daiya-laden foods on an almost daily basis. This discovery made me think that maybe I should write a little bit about vegan milk and cheese substitutes. You may see them spelled "mylk" and "cheeze," and while I get the point of such labels, I think they're pretty silly and something akin to writing "womyn." There are tons of brands of vegan cheese, from the classic Follow Your Heart to Teese, Cheezly, VeganRella, and now Daiya. Daiya is especially known for m...

Yesterday I had an audition in the morning, then got my oil changed. Yay! I have been meaning to do that for a while and it really felt good to get it done. While I was waiting I walked to Trader Joe's and picked up a few items -- mango salsa, which makes my salads that much more enjoyable, a tomato that did not end up being extremely tasty, and some seitan strips which were low-cal, very low fat, and low price. I'm not the biggest fan of TJ's in the world because I dislike how focused it is on packaged items, but when there are certain packaged items you need, it can be really good deal. For example, I picked up a jar of crushed garlic for about $1. Not bad. After the oil change I met my friend for a hike in Runyon Canyon. I can see why it's so popular -- it's amazingly beautiful!!! I had a big old salad in my new salad bowl, topped with mango salsa. Today I didn't go to my Cardio Barre class because I was too sore and realized that not only do I need to...