Why I haven't posted in a million years

I am now, as I like to call myself, a stay-at-home Auntie. I get to spend all day doing my 3 favorite things—playing with kiddos, cleaning, and cooking. And I have to tell you, I now have the utmost respect for stay-at-home moms, especially those who find time to do anything else, like blogging. It's not that it's necessarily difficult, and I love the work that it takes, but it is more exhausting than anything else ever in the whole world. I'm not even exaggerating. I don't really know why, but something about being a Holly Homemaker, no matter how fun and simple it seems, just sucks all the energy out of you. It also doesn't help that in addition to being a stay-at-home Auntie I'm trying to be a 20-year-old girl with a social life. Almost every night I hang out with friends from right after dinner (or after making it but before getting a chance to eat it) until 2 or 3 in the morning, which is the small amount of free time that most moms have to do anything other than take care of the kids. I thought I'd be great at getting little to no sleep with kids because I easily survived keeping up with college on 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. But let me tell you, college is a cinch! It may take more brain power, but it's nothing compared to running a household. And I'm only a part time stay-at-home Aunt. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just explaining. It's definitely worth it. It's the best job in the world! How could it not be with these adorable kiddos?

Clean out the Fridge Brownies

I know at first this may not sound delicious, but trust me, it is. Much better than than clean out the fridge casserole your mom always used to make. Of course, the actual cleaning out part required that you have the kind of leftovers that a crazy baker like me has, because spaghetti just doesn't go well with chocolate. But leftovers or no, I've found that just about anything (within reason, remember no spaghetti) can be added to brownies to make them incredibly delicious. I know that baking is supposed to be a science, extremely precise and all, but that's just not how I cook. So far I haven't had too many major catastrophes. Just start with a basic brownie recipe (I used Alton Brown this time, because I happened to randomly choose it) or even a box, and start adding anything and everything delicious. Some of my favorites are pudding (actually made or just the mix), caramel sauce, nutella, cream cheese, anything extra chocolatey. This time I had some fudge sauce and marshmallow cream that needed to be used up. They did take longer than the recipe said to cook, but other than that they were yummy. A warning: these brownies are always a surprise, which is fun, but they also aren't ever the same twice, which can be sad. Another warning: adding random things to a tried and true recipe can change the texture, for instance mine were very chewy and fudgey, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you're picky about your brownies you might want to stick to recipes.

Kickball

Today as I was thinking of what I was going to blog about I fully expected to do a lot of complaining. Originally my post was going to be something like this:

I love to try new things and I love to do just about anything, but something I absolutely do not love is sports. Unfortunately, in the rest of the world sports are some of the most common hobbies. At school, among friends, and worst of all at church, sports are often used as a way to get to know people or hang out. I feel obligated to go, but I don't enjoy sports and I'm embarrassed at my lack of skill. Maybe one day I'll be an expert at absolutely everything else and I'll finally have to add some sports to my hobby list, but until then, I'm steering clear of them as much as possible!

However, after actually going to a church activity tonight and playing kickball, I've decided to change this post to something more along these lines:

In my whole life, I've tried to avoid sports unless forced to play for PE. I can count on one hand the number of baskets, goals, and touchdowns (combined) I've made in my life. In fact I'm pretty sure I could count on my fingers and toes the total number of times I've played any sport. There's just no appeal to me in getting sweaty and tired and injured. Besides that, when I actually do play it's pretty embarrassing. But tonight I played kickball (of course it's not a very intense sport, but there's a ball and rules and running, good enough for me) and I actually had a lot of fun. Now I wasn't good, not at all, but I had fun and that was more than I expected. I have always attended football games just to hang out with friends, and I do love screaming and cheering and painting my face, but for me watching sports is almost as unappealing as playing them. Actually though, when I was the team manager (pretty much the team mom, but for my peers) of the tennis team and learned all of the rules, it actually became very interesting. Maybe I shouldn't completely ban sports from my hobby list after all.

I Love to Learn

So tonight I'm sitting there with my crazy genius mathematician sister, and when I admire the lovely figures she's drawing, she starts to explain to me all about topology and classifying surfaces and shapes that exist in only a 4D world and why topologists can't tell the difference between a donut and a coffee cup. And you know what, I actually enjoy it, and even understand it a little. It reminds me of her letters and phone calls home from college when I was in 3rd grade, teaching me how to do modular arithmetic. And it reminds me of when I was in high school, teaching myself to do Calculus beyond what even my teacher remembered, just because I could. Now this may all sound very boring to you, but it reminded me of a me that I'd almost forgotten.

Along with my love of trying new things and doing lots of crafty type stuff, I love learning. In fact, I've always loved school and only recently discovered (after several people pointing it out and explaining it to me) that I'm creative as well. I always thought that I was a totally logical, analytical, left-brained type person. My favorite subject by far was math, the only electives I took were AP classes, you get the picture. And even though I've given up the academic university life, I will never stop learning new things and loving it all the time. Mixed in with all my sewing and cooking and painting and crafting, I want to study economics and history and biology and politics. But instead of sitting in a classroom, daydreaming during lectures, stressing about homework, and cramming for tests, I'm going to read and discuss and explore. Learn straight from the source: The Origin of Species, The Federalist Papers, The Wealth of Nations. I just wish there were more time in the day to learn and do absolutely everything!