I'm crazy for pistachios.

I mean, I really, really love pistachios. Salted, unsalted, as a flavor of ice cream, and now in cookies.

Yes, cookies. I made pistachio (and chocolate) cookies today.

The thing is, I didn't think about how annoying it would be to shell and then chop two cups of pistachios, without a chopper or blender.

Yeah, that was pretty annoying

But, you know what makes any tedious chore more enjoyable? Definitely listening to music. 

Now, normally I'll jam out to Disney and Broadway songs while in the kitchen, whether cooking, baking, or cleaning. Seeing as I have 3 hours and 35 minutes of Disney songs, add that to my 9 hours and 5 minutes of Broadway songs, and I could literally listen for half a day without repeating a song. . . and I have done that before. Maybe a few times. 

But, sometimes I want to mix things up, and today, for the pistachio shelling and chopping, I started out with this fantastic song, which could practically be my theme song as an English major and too-often a grammar-policewoman.

If you're thinking of skipping the song, then don't. It's probably the best thing about this post.

But, why, you may ask, was I making chocolate chip cookies with pistachios in them? Well, I like to bring some baked goods to our Enlgish Honor Society meetings, when I can. 

Meetings are almost always better with food around. If you're hungry, you can have something to eat. If you're bored, you can have something to eat. If you're overwhelmed, you can have something to eat. If you're new, you can have something to eat. Also, just about everyone loves cookies, because they are generally delicious, and the perfect size to hold as you move around to talk to or avoid other people.

That is what my chocolate-pistachio cookies turned out looking like. They are pretty good. The pistachio is subtle, so it's not super strange. They're basically good chocolate cookies, with a hint of pistachio.

I got the recipe here, so you should definitely go check it out.


Going to eat a cookie, now that they've cooled,
The Purple Writer

I've been sick with a flu virus twice in three weeks.

I was really sick for a week, felt great for a week, then have been super sick for a week. I'm not sure if the virus was hanging around inside me, without me knowing it, or if I somehow re-infected myself, but here I am, recovering from the flu for the second time this winter break. Yep.

*Well, I am over the flu, but got an ear infection Friday, which I kind've ignored at first, and then it became excruciatingly painful right after all the doctor offices and urgent care facilities closed. Trips to the emergency room are always fun, but the doctor said it was one of the worst ear infections he had seen, and prescribed me plenty of meds to take. Gotta love that tylenol-codeine mixture.

On the one hand, this has been a bummer, since winter break is when I can see most of my friends from high school, and what not. On the other hand, if it means I won't get sick for another semester, I'm down. I would rather be sick while on break than be sick while needing to work and be on top of a busy schedule.

In other news, you should watch some (or all) of this video, and either be impressed by and jealous of these skilled and disciplined people, or be glad that you're not out doing those crazy dangerous things (or both, probably). 

Also, what's with those people in flying squirrel suits? Is that a thing now? Apparently so, because Wikipedia says the sport is actually 'wingsuit flying.' 

It seems as though the first attempt at a form of wingsuit flying was done by a French tailor in 1912, who jumped off the Eiffel Tower to try out his suit. It may be fortunate that he died of a heart attack on his way down, because he hit the ground with his head. There was not much head left, after that. 

About a century later, these wingsuits are much safer and pretty cool looking, but with how terrified I am of heights, there is no way I'd do more than watch videos of other people doing it.

So, that's basically what I do when I'm sick: watch people do crazy dangerous things on YouTube, binge-watch The Beverly Hillbillies, and read the fully unabridged The Count of Monte Cristo. 

(1,243 pages, ladies and gentlemen. Don't get me wrong, I've definitely read this classic before, and even a mostly-unabridged version, but not the full thing yet, so that's what I started doing the other day, when I was too tired to be on my computer.) 

Good stuff.

Probably going to sleep through the day,

The Purple Writer

Christmas in December

Yes. I figured it was only fitting, seeing as my last post was about Christmas in July, to start with Christmas in it's appropriate month.

Well, before we get to any of the Christmas, holiday goodness, which I know everyone is dying to know about, I really should talk about the elephant in the room. Or, well, the lack of an elephant in the room. (May I say pegasus instead? The elephant metaphor is a bit overused.)

I haven't posted in 5 months and 7 days.
or 22 weeks and 6 days
or 160 days
or 3840 hours, give or take a few, of course.

Crazy stuff, right?
(If you want to be able to impress people with your own list of expired months/weeks/days/hours between two dates, I went here.)

Why was I absent? I'm not really sure. It's not like I had a particularly challenging semester or schedule. I guess I had just gotten burned out while doing my mini, [unpaid] writing internships, and decided I didn't want to write any more posts. That was probably it.


But, no more! The purple pegasus [referring to myself, and in no way connected to the Purple Pegasus consulting/business group] is back on the internet, and therefore very accessible from any room you happen to be in (if you have access to the world wide web, that is). What can you expect from future posts from the purple writer? I will continue talking about whatever recipes, projects, experiences, things found on the internet, etc., that I think you may be interested in. Well, at least ones that I'm interested in, and you can decide if you want to read them all or not. Your choice.


To begin with, how did I know that the term 'purple pegasus,' which just connects two of my favorite things, happens to be linked to a full-fledged company? This is how.

They even have beautiful stickers that you can buy.

That's right. LMGTFY.

Is your mind blown? (Mine was, when a friend first introduced me to lmgtfy). If someone asks you a question, instead of googling the answer for them, you can instead go through one extra step to let them know how easy it would have been for them to find the answer for themselves. Pure genius. 

You can support their genius by buying a sticker. Just one dollar for that beautiful piece of sticky paper. I know I'm tempted.

So, hopefully that was enough randomness for you, in this re-introductory blog post. I acknowledge that I'm a horrible human being for neglecting my blog for so long. But, I also acknowledge that now I have a full 230,400 minutes (give or take several minutes, of course) of content to write about. Are you excited? Because I know I am a lot more excited to be back than a normal person probably would be.

Acknowledging my strangeness in every post,

The Purple Writer