So outside my apartment right now, it looks like this:

Geez, just look at all that snow! :P To be fair, I did wait until noon to take this photo, so it had melted considerably. But, you are seeing correctly! Overnight, it actually snowed and, for the first time this season, stuck on the ground. And it only took until January 20th to happen. This isn’t quite what I expected when everyone told me to “just wait until January” and I’d be frozen solid.

Just watch, because I’m complaining now, the weather is probably going to get me back in February with snowpocalypse 2.0. I say: bring it on. I have in my possesion the warmest winter coats that money can buy in June in Orlando, FL. So I’m clearly extremely prepared for whenever Washington D.C. decides to bring winter around. 

So I spent last weekend on a ski trip to Seven Springs, PA with several of my law school friends. And… it turns out skiing is NOT my thing. I found it to be scary (I hate the out-of-control feeling and feeling like I could fall at any moment.)  Call me a control freak, but it was just not for me. I only had the skis on my feet for a little while before I gave up and retreated to the much more stable area of the ski lodge. Oh well, at the very least, now I know the answer the next time someone asks me if I want to go skiing! :P I was disappointed that I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would, but I guess everyone has their thing, and skiing certainly is not mine.

The rest of the trip was nice though, it was great to get away from school and spend the weekend enjoying the snow (it snowed a lot! I can hear my Northern friends laughing at my use of “a lot” here…). Turns out that while skiing isn’t for me, I do rather enjoy sitting in a hot tub in the snow, much more my speed. We also cooked out over the fire-pit one night! 

Just for kicks, here’s a photo that makes it look kind of like I actually went skiing. Enjoy it, it’s likely the only photo ever to be made of me on skis. :D

On to the crochet project! 

This is actually my favorite thing that I’ve ever made, and once I figured out the basic stitches, it went really quickly.

Presenting: the spiral flower headband/earwarmer!

I can vouch for the fact that it makes a really good earwarmer!

You can purchase the pattern for a few bucks here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/spiral-flower-headband—-earwarmer

This is the first pattern that I’ve paid for, and it was definitely worth it- I didn’t see anything similar that was free.

Anyway, I hope you’re all enjoying the weekend- I actually only had 3 school days this past week (Monday was off and all my classes were cancelled on Friday!). It’s nice to sit and relax, but I need to kick myself into gear with job applications! If anyone wants to hook me up with a sweet summer law job, feel free!

So I’m officially two days into my second semester of law school. I’d like to say I’m not losing steam already, but the truth is, it already feels routine again. I’ve still not even had one of my classes yet, but there we are.

Breaking up the routine, it snowed yesterday! Which was made even more exciting by the fact that snow was not forecasted, so it was basically a matter of looking out the windows at school and realizing it was snowing! Being the Florida girl that I am, I immediately jumped up and went outside. It continued to snow off and on for the next several hours, but none of it stuck- it really wasn’t that cold outside… At one point it appeared to be snowing fairly heavily (or at least quite a bit more than the flurries I saw here back in October…), and I commented that it was “like a blizzard” outside. This elicited several laughs from my Northern friends, who say they can’t wait for me to experience “real” winter. To which I say, when is it coming? I didn’t assume January in D.C. would be so mild!

In case you’re interested in seeing pictures of snow falling yesterday here in D.C., I direct you here: http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/washington-dc-sees-snow_2012-01-09

The first picture is my favorite, but I’m not sure that it’s actually from yesterday because, last I checked- the reflecting pool was still drained for construction. Fail, Weather.com (unless of course I’m wrong about that but it certainly was all last semester.)

Yesterday I ventured out at night (in the snow!) to join some friends at the local Melting Pot as part of D.C. Restaurant Week. In case you don’t live anywhere in the U.S., Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant. Restaurant Week is a week where local restaurants feature $35 fixed price dinners at local nicer restaurants that usually cost more. At The Melting Pot, we had a four course meal, and it was delicious (though led to each of us eating way more than we needed to.) The meals came with cheese fondue, salads, meat entrees (you get plates of raw meat and cook it at the table in various broths), and dessert fondue. Everything was very good, and we got to sample several different types of each category. My favorite of the evening was the dark chocolate/peanut butter dessert fondue we tried- yum!

Because I have clearly not discussed the weather enough in this post: keep your fingers crossed for more snow- I’m going skiing this weekend (for the first time ever- eek!) and would like for it to be something other than icy! 

Wow, so it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything- I apologize for my extended absence. (I know you’ve all been refreshing your browsers constantly and pulling out your hair since I last posted. How irresponsible of me!)

Sorry, finals season kicked in at law school, and between actually studying and participating in the collective hysteria that law school students fall into, I didn’t find the time to post (or have anything interesting to post about unless you wanted to hear about what constitutes valid consideration, when removal to a federal court is allowed, or the requirements to sue someone for intentional infliction of emotional distress.) And then after that I hitched a plane to Florida for Christmas break and enjoyed the time relaxing and goofing off with family and friends (don’t worry, I sent out a few summer job applications too!). 

But now I’m back in D.C. and excited for another semester! However, I did just buy my textbooks, and my ConLaw book is the the largest book I have ever owned, and cost a cool $200 bucks by itself. Awesome. 

I can’t believe I missed my year-in-review post! Geez. I guess you’ll just have to go back and read all of my posts from 2011 to catch up :P Happy 2012 though!

I’ll be back sometime this week with a craft update (assuming I finish it), and more. Thanks for coming back even though I’ve woefully neglected you, dear readers, for so long! 

I’ve never seen “Dr. Who”, the TV show that seems to be absolutely sweeping the internet. I know tons of people who are absolutely obsessed with the show, and keep telling me to watch it, but I’ve never gotten around to it.

However, I just stumbled across this clip, and if this is what the show is like- I definitely need to start watching it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q4MY8yOsDk

Obviously though, now is a bad time to get caught up in a TV show, as I have finals looming this week and next. (See: how I got caught up in reading The Hunger Games last week…)

But maybe I’ll have to start watching over Christmas break- any suggestions of where to start?

Right now, D.C. is unseasonably warm. After our delightful Halloween snow experience, the weather has now decided to swing the other direction. Yesterday it was 70 degrees. It’s practically December- the weather here makes no sense. 

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving celebrations! My first time hosting one went off more or less without a hitch. The turkey ended up taking a lot longer to cook than we anticipated- a little more than 5 hours. I guess that’s what we get for buying a 19 pound turkey. But it was well worth it in the end; the turkey was one of the most delicious ones I’ve had (sorry, mom, but it’s true!). We didn’t follow any recipe strictly, but here’s the just of what we did.

1) Take out the disgusting bags of giblets and neck, trying not to scream/puke when you realize that inexplicably the bags are OPEN instead of being sealed.
2) Drain the extra juices off the turkey and dry it off with paper towels.
3) Loosen the skin around the breast meat (again trying not to gag), and put pats of butter between the skin and the meat.
4) Pour chicken bouillon over the the turkey
5) sprinkle with salt, pepper, and herbs (we bought an herb mix specifically made for turkeys at a local spice shop and it ended up being amazing)
6) tent the turkey with aluminum foil and put in the oven at 350
7) if the turkey looks like it’s getting dry, baste it with the juices from the bottom of the pan
8) take the aluminum foil off for the last 30 minutes of cooking

And we ended up with:

Terrible photo, delicious turkey. 

We ended up having a ton of food, desserts, wine, and eggnog. We sat around and watched football and played with a friend’s dog and generally enjoyed a day spent not doing law school work.

And in true Andrea-fashion, I forced everyone to pose for a group photo taken by my camera’s self-timer.

Now back to law school stuff as I attempt to survive the next few weeks on finals!

Sorry for the total lack of posts recently. Law school really starts to pick up toward the end of the semester with memo-writing and finals coming up. I try to get all of my work done promptly so that I have time to do fun things with friends, and I generally do a pretty good job at this (as evidenced by all the random things I post about here), but I suppose blogging has fallen off my priority list as of late. I’ll try to remedy that.

Anyway…

I recently had a conversation with some friends about how we live so close to the Kennedy Center (only a few blocks away), but had never been there.

I can’t claim that anymore though, because as of this week I have now not only been to the Kennedy Center, but also seen my first opera! I went to see Lucia Di Lammermoor, a tragic opera. Having never been to the opera, I didn’t know what to expect, but I was very impressed. The singing was great (despite the female lead apparently suffering from bronchitis at the time…), but the staging and set-design was really cool. The sets were all pretty sparse, but they made interesting use of the lighting and shadows that really added to the somber tone. 

Plus, look at the gorgeous interior of the opera house:

The opera had a good plot, though true to the tragedy name, was kind of a downer… Basically it’s the story of a woman who is forced into a loveless marriage because she thinks her real lover is no longer interested in her. She (SPOILER ALERT) goes mad and kills her new husband in what the playbill described as the “prototypical madness scene”. 

I enjoyed the opera, and I’d love to see another sometime (maybe a comedy this time). 

Oh, in other news- I’m looking forward to getting to cook my first Thanksgiving dinner this year. I’m staying in D.C. and celebrating with some friends, so it should be an adventure. I’ll be sure to update about that next week.

I hope you’re all ready for Halloween! Though the big day is tomorrow, the law school community celebrated on Thursday night with a big costume party at a local bar. 

I’ve never really been the type of person to buy a prepackaged Halloween costume. For example, last year I made a Wonder Woman costume out of random fabric scraps, safety pins, and gold wrapping paper. 

This year, several people told me I should go as Taylor Swift (read the tale of the first time I was told I look like her here.) That seemed like an easy enough costume, so I went with it.

Basically, I just wore a dress and my cowboy boots, lots of bracelets on one arm, and red lipstick. I also cut a cardboard out of guitar and painted it with glitter paint and a T.Swift signature to carry. (And yes, carrying a giant cardboard guitar in a bar is a pretty bad idea- it’s seen better days.)

How’d I do?

Anyway, I hope you all have a happy and safe Halloween!

Just a quick shout-out to my mother, who is celebrating her birthday today!

I love you and miss you, mom, and hope you have an awesome day!