Links Today

I don't really have anything to say today, it's been a relatively quiet week in my world. So today I'm just posting some links to things I particularly love, or find interesting. Maybe some of you will too :)

 - I love apples. I'm addicted to them actually. By addicted I mean it's normal for me to eat 3, 4, maybe even 5 apples a day. However, this has proven to be a rather expensive habit because I will not eat apples that are not organic. Reading this though just supports my reasoning.

http://www.organicauthority.com/an-apple-a-day-may-kill-you-controversial-diphenylamine-on-80-pe ircent-of-u-s-apples/


-  This took my Harry Potter nerdness to a whole new level, I was SO excited to discover it!!

http://hogwartsishere.com/


- I heard about this thanks to one of my new favorite podcasts "Dear Book Nerd". It's absolutely adorable, and if I hadn't already wanted to spend all my time in bookstore, this would have done just that!
 
http://jen-campbell.blogspot.com/2014/04/children-say-best-things-in-booksh


- How many of these books have you read? I was pleasantly surprised to find that I've read quite a few, and I think I've discovered a new reading list work off of!

http://mentalfloss.com/article/56377/most-famous-book-set-each-state

Big Bend

Big Bend National Park. An 801,163 acre area of land full of desert vegetation, rivers, mountains and canyons at the south west border of Texas, it it also the place my parents met, the source behind my second middle name (Elena) and my second favorite place in the world. I have been incredibly lucky to have visited the park twice in my life, and both times was simultaneously blown away and drawn in by the stunning sights and magical beauty that permeated the land.
While my dreams of Big Bend have been somewhat overshadowed by the visions of Alaska I have each time I close my eyes, there is not a day I don't think of it, and I do long to go back there again...soon.

However, I definitely did not grow up with this love. As stated earlier, this was where my parents met, and so I grew up hearing stories about it's magnificence. I would compare these stories with the pictures posted around our house and didn't find a match. The pictures were a bunch of rocks - so what? Big deal! There was nothing in them that brought truth to my parents words. And then 2008 came bringing with it my first visit to the park, and my life was changed forever. I did, not only understand my parents love for Big Bend, I lived it. When we came home I tried to find the right words to describe the powerful scenes I had explored and found myself speechless. I showed pictures to my friends trying to get them to see what I had, and was met only with the smiling incomprehension I had held towards my parents only a few days before. I realized that there is nothing one can write, no pictures a camera can take, no videos a person can film, that could truly, accurately and fully capture the true specialness of Big Bend. Until one actually walks the land, they will forever be blind to its beauty.

 I recently started reading "God's Country or Devil's Playground", which is a collection of essays written on the nature, land and history of the area. I do love reading the stories and walking with the authors once more over the rocks and winding with them on the Rio Grande through the canyons. I can close my eyes once again and see the sun setting on the Sierra del Carmen. Many of these authors have put, in words more perfect and eloquent than mine, that it is impossible to describe this land, and to show off her beauty with pictures. So far my favorite has come from Walter Prescott Webb who stated that "men of literature cannot confine on the printed page the essential quality of the land, or convey the sense of unreality and romance that overwhelms the spectator and leaves him with a recurrant nostalgia for a land in which he cannot live...The visitor cannot be critical of those who failed because he feels is own inadequacy in the presence of the spectacle. It is this feeling, perhaps, that lifts him to awe and admiration, that tantalizes him into a desire to stay longer, to travel farther, to see more earnestly that he may be able to comprehend...When he goes, he carries his sense of inadequacy with him and is likely to be constantly haunted by a desire to return...he is by spells homesick for a land that was never his home and can never be his home..." Not only it is nice to read the stories of people who know and understand my love for Big Bend, but also share the frustration I feel of not being able to get others who have not been there to share that love too.

I wish that everyone I know could go there, I hope that one day they all will. As Mary Lasswell put it "The glory of the Big Bend National Park starts at Persimmon Gap, the northernmost entrance to the park, and to my mind, ends only when the beholder dies. Maybe not even then."

Everyone deserves to know that passion.

A Poem I Love

This came to me via my daily Poem of the Day e-mail. It's almost scary how truly and accurately this describes me. With the exception of the age (I am thankfully only almost 27), and the words "red wine" (which could easily be substituted with with word "chocolate", it's almost as though I wrote it...


At Twenty-Eight
by Amy Fleury

It seems I get by on more luck than sense,
not the kind brought on by knuckle to wood,
breath on dice, or pennies found in the mud.
I shimmy and slip by on pure fool chance.
At turns charmed and cursed, a girl knows romance
as coffee, red wine, and books; solitude
she counts as daylight virtue and muted
evenings, the inventory of absence.
But this is no sorry spinster story,
just the way days string together a life.
Sometimes I eat soup right out of the pan.
Sometimes I don't care if I will marry.
I dance in my kitchen on Friday nights,
singing like only a lucky girl can.

Chocolate Lovers' Fling a Chocolate Lovers' Delight!

This last Sunday I volunteered at the 28th Annual Chocolate Lovers' Fling. As the name implies, it is an annual event that supports the Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine (SARSSM). And as the name implies, it is focused on chocolate - one of my greatest loves. I had wanted to attend last year but couldn't justify the cost of a ticket with my budget, so I volunteered. I figured I was helping to support a very good cause by volunteering just as much as attending as a guest, and either way would get me some amazing incredible chocolate. I was not wrong; I had a wonderful fun time, and ate an insane amount of chocolate that totally dazzled my taste buds.This year when SARSSM asked if I wanted to volunteer again and I immediately said yes.

The event was held at the Holiday Inn in Portland. I showed up at 9:00, and after checking in made my way to the Chocolate prep room. This is a magical room, where the creators of the chocolate bring all the samples of their treats. My job was to make sure they were all plated and labeled properly, that there were the right number of plates, and to get them ready for the servers during the event itself. The Chocolatiers had been told to bring samples of each chocolate for 450 guests. There were 18 different chocolate treats at the event. This meant that I was in a room of 8,100 pieces of gourmet chocolate. The words pure heaven are the only thing that comes remotely close to meeting the reality of that moment. All of the Chocolatiers were from Maine, and they take a lot of pride in creating unique chocolates and desserts that represent the Maine spirit. Chocolate Stout Truffles, Death by Chocolate Cheesecake, Moose Mint Brownies, Dulce de Yesse Cake were just a few of the delights I got to enjoy. I had a lot of fun, and left with my box of samples, the happy feeling of a day well spent, and looking forward to next to year.