A Little Black Dress and a Complementary Headband

I needed a new little black dress for no apparent reason, but this one was too little. Ok, I may have hacked off the bottom so I could do this particular refashion, but like I really liked that joke!!

Luckily I had this really old skirt. I took the lace bottom off the skirt and sewed it to the bottom of the dress.

I love it. It fits incredibly well. And my gorgeous new black pumps are so fun! I just got them in Florida. Too bad I don’t have anywhere to wear this dress in the near future :( Anyone want to go to a fancy dinner?

I also made this headband out of pearl string and gold cording. It’s twisted up and beautiful. I love a fancy headband.

Fancy.

Team MacGyver 321: The Ruby Gold

For Engineers Week (last week), we had a competition at work to see who could build the biggest and baddest Rube Goldberg machine. The point of the machine was to have a light bulb screw into a socket and then turn on.

We decided to build our machine in one of the mostly uninhabited buildings at Nela Park. We have a large library on campus, and there we decided to build our machine using materials found mostly in that building.

The library has many books. I’m not entirely sure that it gets used that often, with the advent of the Internet (and/or Wikipedia).

We walked into the adjoining room and discovered it was a beautiful studio that would be perfect for building our machine.

Here, someone is setting up the cassette tapes that will be domino-ed to set off the next step. I’m not sure who is setting these up because I don’t memorize my co-workers’ clothing.

Here, Joe and Alex are perfecting the screwing in mechanism.

Check out our machine! After 32 or so runs, we finally got it to (mostly) work! Alex had to help it along a little bit but it almost went off without a hitch.

Unfortunately, my team didn’t win, but we did come in 3rd place!! (Out of 4 D:)

Spring Break 2011 Part 3

This last Spring Break 2011 blogpost is more of a hodgepodge of the rest of the pictures I would like to showcase in my blog.

The pool at our hotel was amazing – an outdoor pool on the rooftop, it had an Olympic-sized pool (I’m guessing, I don’t really know how big Olympic-sized is) and a Jacuzzi that cycled between scalding and lukewarm. I did a bunch of laps in the pool. Ok, I did 10 laps in the pool and then I got tired. I wish I had access to a pool in CLE!

We took a 3 Hour Tour around the river in a boat called the Jungle Queen. It stopped us at a little Jungle Island, where they had an alligator wrestling show. I don’t know about this guy…I would never let my head get that close to an alligator’s mouth – remember the 3k lbs of force it can generate!

This trip included many walks on the beach. I discovered that I’m not really a fan of long walks on the beach. However, I do like drinking cappucinos by the beach, eating dinner by the beach, going into the water by the beach, and laying out on the beach. I’m sure I could be convinced that I like running on the beach. But long walks on the beach? Forget it.

Since my dad’s birthday is on March 10, we decided to go out for a surprise birthday lunch. It was supposed to be a surprise birthday dinner, but the place we wanted to go to didn’t take reservations and they had hour+ waits both nights we tried to go there. My parents and brother got veggie enchiladas, and I got Chile Rellenos. Mmm so good.

My dad was so excited that we celebrated his birthday that he gave me a really weird hug.

My brother and I take really nice pictures together. My mom wanted to take this picture so that I could show off the gorgeous sundress that she bought me.

Fabulous trip. Now I’m en route to CLE and 30 degree weather .30F, not 30C. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Spring Break 2011 Part 2

Another day of our trip yielded a short jaunt to the Everglades for a mini-tour and the rest of the day spent at South Beach, Miami.

I found this awesome alligator necklace in a souvenier shop. I guess the necklace isn’t really as awesome as the alligator jewelry holder. Man, if someone proposed to me with this alligator as the ring holder, I would definitely say yes. Also we would have to have been dating for a while and spoken about marriage beforehand.

Look! An alligator! It’s so lazy looking. They barely move but apparently if they snap their jaws shut, it generates 3k lbs of force!

I took this really awesome picture of a rooster. Yay for macro mode on my camera working. My mom thinks the top of the rooster’s head looks like a raspberry, and I’m inclined to agree with her.

An Asian family tradition – bring an excess of meal food on your trip so you don’t have to eat out as often. My mom brought bhel – a bunch of crunchy things, mung beans, potatoes, and chutney mixed together. She brought chutney! I would never think to bring chutney on vacation with me. I also would never think to bring meal food with me.

After lunch, we went to MIA. (The city, not the airport; I can see how you could get confused, though.) Imagine my surprise when I saw an outdoor bar on Ocean Blvd. called The Clevelander! I wonder if LeDouche goes here when he’s feeling homesick.

We got first dinner on Lincoln Blvd. I drank a cappuccino and my camera macro mode was on its finest behavior. My bro inexplicably decided that he likes cappuccinos as well and drank half of it.

Lincoln Blvd. has a bunch of clothing and jewelry retailers. I really liked this display in one of the windows, with the mannequin heads fashioned out of faux-light bulbs. This is definitely something I want to emulate, especially with incandescent light bulbs being outlawed.

We took a walk on South Beach after walking around Lincoln Blvd., and my mom and I took this adorable picture. There was apparently a Food+Wine festival on South Beach the weekend before I was there starring many Food Network stars, including Paula Deen. I’m guessing that whatever Paula Deen contributed to the festival was not aligned with the South Beach diet.

Spring Break 2011 Part 1

Ok, so I’m far past the age of getting a spring break anymore, but this year for my little brother’s spring break, we took a family vacation to sunny Florida. And sunny it was – it was 80 degrees and mostly sunny the entire 5 day period that we were there.

I left CLE at 8:30a. The airport was full of snowbanks and slush, none of which I was sad to leave behind.

I met up with my parents at PBI. I had brought 1 carry-on suitcase and my backpack, full of homework that I chose to ignore for most of the trip. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my parents had brought four suitcases…

The first night there, we decided to walk down Seabreeze Blvd, the street in Fort Lauderdale that runs parallel to the ocean shore. My parents were really cool and decided to match.

I was really excited that was jumping. My brother said, “Why do girls always take jumping pictures?” He was right – but I didn’t have an answer for him.

The second day, we ended up going to the beach. My brother and I braved the 80+ degree heat (Fahrenheight) and the 70+ degree water.

While my brother and I were in the water, my dad found a hammock and decided to take a nap.

We left the water and my dad woke up from his nap long enough to take this very artistic picture of us rehydrating. We look really sweaty, but really, that’s just salt water.

My parents belong on the beach. I tried really hard to convince them that they wanted to purchase a 2nd home in Fort Lauderdale, and they were convinced until I told them that I would visit them every weekend.

This is a v. nice picture of my bro and me. He’s a total dude bro in his purple polo (man there is a lot of purple on this trip!) and I am making a beautiful face. I don’t know why the modeling agency won’t call me back.

I like my Bhindi slimy

Bhindi (Okra) is my favorite vegetable cooked Indian style. Today, I will bestow upon you my classicly simple recipe for Bhindi (provided that you have all the right ingredients).

Start off with your washed whole okra. Chop off the stem part and then cut the rest of the okra into 1/4” slices.

Eat one of the okra bits and decide it doesn’t taste very good raw :)

Place chopped okra into a pan and add a little water (depending on how slimy you want it to be). Simmer on medium heat for about 20 min, or until okra is cooked. To spice it, add haldi (turmeric), lal mirchi (red chili powder), dhania (coriander powder), and salt. Um so I never follow recipes, so I add random amounts of spices and legit, it always turns out ok. I like my bhindi spicy so I add a lot of lal mirchi. I eat bhindi with roti or naan (coming soon). To serve this, squeeze a little lime juice on top.

Yummmm.

Another Paper Mosaic (Reversible!)

So I admit I have a penchant for paper mosaics ok?! They’re mostly environmentally friendly and I don’t have to purchase more art supplies (besides glue). I cut out squares from magazines in the maize and blue color family.

I decided to make a 3-D block M. All my forays into the interpretation of the block M thus far had been in 2-D and I needed something more. I used cardboard I found lying in the parental house and the “funnies” with glue as the binder.

The finished structure stands as tall as a Harry Potter novel (in paperback, of course).

I painted the entire thing black and mosaiced it with maize.

Or did I mosaic it in blue??

We’ll never know.

The Whole Enchilada

I’ve made enchiladas twice this week. I don’t know if that constitutes an addiction, but this is a chance I’m willing to take.

The filling was made from black beans and corn and cheese (cheese not pictured).

Poured into a whole wheat tortilla…

Sprinkle a little cheese on top, with enchilada sauce…

And bake! Then proceed to stuff the entire thing in your mouth rapidly as if it hasn’t just been baking at 350F for 20 minutes.

Ingredients:
1 16oz can black beans, 1/2 16oz can enchilada sauce, 1/2 cup frozen corn, 1/4 cup cheese (filling), two tortillas, 1/4 cup cheese to sprinkle on top (I used “taco blend”)

Mix together the black beans, corn, and the 1/4 cup cheese and stuff the two torillas.
Use a little bit of water dabbed on the flap to shut the tortillas.
Pour the enchilada sauce on top of the tortillas.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup cheese on top.
Bake at 350F for approximately 20 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly.

Sofa Table of my Dream

I had a dream one night that I had a sofa table. In this dream, I built the sofa table with three pieces of wood and some L-brackets. I woke up with the feeling that this is one of my dreams that could be realized with relatively little effort.

So I went to Home Depot, bought a very long piece of wood (that’s what she said), and had them cut it to my specifications. I also bought a bunch of L-Brackets.

I used three L-Brackets for connecting the legs to the top. This is the first time I used my new power-drill since I got it in Dec 2009 :).

This is the unpainted table. It was sitting unpainted for a few weeks because I didn’t have paint. And in the background, I’m pretty sure I was watching Hannah Montana.

I finally bought black paint. I want the base color of my living room to be black. I think this paint is almost black, but it’s close enough for me!

More painting shots. Look at my table with its legs up in the air.

The sofa table in action! I had a conversation with some of my co-workers on why I called it a sofa and why they called it a couch, but I don’t think there is any difference.

Side view!

I love it! So gorgeous :) And you can see a small part of my gallery wall in the mirror.

This table cost me approximately 30$ to build and maybe 3 hours.

Also, follow me on twitter @nidhizzle. Hopefully this one won’t be like the great twitter addiction of ‘09.