I'm all about that avocado.

No, for real, I might even be a little obsessed.

Avocados are yummy, good for you, easy to make fun recipes with.

What's not to love about them?
(Unless you're allergic, in which case, I am very sorry.)




I bought a bag of avocados at Costco two weeks ago. Then I checked them last Sunday and all but one had ripened at the same time! Well, I love avocados, but that's quite a bit to eat in a few days if I didn't want them to go bad.

Therefore, I went to Pinterest to find recipes using avocados. There were some expected recipes, some interesting ones, and some that were completely ingenious. I realized that I had nowhere close to enough avocados to make all the recipes that I wanted to try, so I will just need to keep buying avocados in the future.

But here are some of the recipes that I tried, with pictures, of course!

Avocado, Bacon, and Cheese {ABC} Puffs

Now this just sounds fantastic, right? Combining creamy avocado with crispy bacon and delicious cheese? Unfortunately, I did not have any bacon, because if I bought the stuff I would just end up eating it, and I try to avoid that situation.

So, my puffs were just avocado and cheese, but they were still super yummy.

These morsels of savory goodness were super easy. I used one of my mini cupcake pans to hold the shape (and was therefore able to cook them in my toaster oven, which I use whenever possible).

I cut crescent roll triangles in half, and pressed them into the cupcake indents. Then I took cubed (or rectangled is more accurate, I suppose) avocado and cheese, and just layered them in. I picked up the overhanging bits of crescent roll and pinched them together at the top. 

Including the 10 minutes to cook at 375, this recipe probably took about 15 minutes altogether. Not too shabby if you're pressed for time or if hunger catches you by surprise.

Guacamole Grilled Cheese

Now, putting avocado on sandwiches shouldn't be a new concept for you. I particularly enjoy avocado slices on hamburgers  and clubs. But this slightly different recipe combines the richness of avocado with the classic grilled cheese sandwich.

Now, I didn't have all the ingredients the recipe called to be added to the mashed avocado. I had the fresh onion and garlic, as well as salt and pepper, of course, but not the tomato or cilantro or jalapenos (which I would never add anyhow). I compromised by adding a tiny bit of salsa.

Making the grilled cheese was pretty straightforward. Heated up a skillet, put butter on the side of bread touching the hot surface, layered on the cheese and avocado mush, put on another piece of bread, flipped the whole monster after a few minutes, and I was done! 

Now, I could have used my faithful toaster oven, but with how much of the guacamole I put on, there probably would have been an explosion or some other kind of mess. 

This is an easy, yummy, twist on a comfort food.

Although, if we're talking about simplistic, comfort food, why not just eat straight guacamole?

All you need are some chunks of avocado, some salsa, and a bag of chips.

Now, I know I'm kind've cheating by using store bought salsa, but if we're talking about saving time, as long as you have fresh avocado, it will still taste great.

Step 1. Mash up the avocado.

Step 2. Add salsa.

Step 3. Mix.

Step 4. Eat guacamole with chips.

Step 5. Be happy (and eat more guacamole with chips).

The brownish-green goop may not look so appetizing at first glance, but once you start eating it, there's no going back. It takes about 3-5 minutes to make a delicious (and mostly healthy) snack. Whether you have the guacamole just to color your favorite chips or use your chips to scoop up giant mouthfuls of guacamole, this is a perfect way to feed your stomach while pleasing your tastebuds.

If you're interested in some of the other avocado recipes I found, they will be in my "recipes to try" board on Pinterest. Go check them out. :)


Trying to decide what avocado combination to use next,

The Purple Writer

Am I a 'Gleek?'

I watched the [final] finale of Glee this weekend. Like many other people, I started watching Glee because I heard about it all the time, and stayed through all the drama and plot holes for the music.

Glee is a show full of fun music and drama-loving characters in the glee club at  William McKinley High School. There are tears, love triangles, and halls filled with vocally-gifted, angsty teenagers.

Glee was a show I watched when I was bored, or wanted to pass a couple hours. I never thought of it with any particular fondness or attachment. But looking back at it, Glee actually did make an impact on my life. Specifically, there was the time when Cory Monteith died.

I've always been awful at knowing and recognizing celebrities, and I can only remember the real-life names of maybe 10 of my favorite actors (most of them BBC actors, of course). But I remember checking out of a grocery store in July 2013 and seeing magazines with Finn Hudson's face and headlines about his death. Well, the death of the actor who played him, Cory Monteith.

When the fifth season aired that Fall, and Finn was in one episode and then not the next, it hit me. He was dead. I had watched several shows up to that point in time, and gone through multiple para-social breakups with characters who were written off those said shows. But this time I knew that the death of a character I liked was because of the death of an actual person, who had his own dreams, skills and overall potential.

That gave me a change in perspective about the relationship between characters and actors, and my own para-social relationships with those individuals.

But to get back to the show Glee itself, I have not liked the most recent season(s).

First off, the show is about a glee club in high school, but then it started following key members of the glee club after they graduated and moved to New York and their college and careers. It was a little strange, but there was still plenty of singing and dancing, so I decided to suffer through the 'college phase,' and kept watching Glee, if you want to call it that. (In general, I would forget to watch it for a month or two, then catch up when I was bored, as opposed to my actively watching shows as soon as they came online each week.)

Season Five should have been the end of Glee, or so I think. It had a lot of unnecessary, post-high school drama, but it seemed to end on a good note. Everything was tied up with a bow: a little breaking of the 4th wall and some snappy musical numbers.

But then, I was surprised when I found out there were new Glee episodes to watch. A sixth season was airing!
This sixth season essentially ripped open our finally-scabbed over cuts that come with the end of a show, and yanked us back into the Glee universe. There was more painful drama, a worse plot (if possible), and in general I think the sixth season should not exist. I have not heard a single person say they loved that Glee was back, or were so excited for each new episode to come out. Not a single person.

The only good thing to come out of season six was the two-part finale. They took the time to really wrap everything up, tell us where the characters were heading, and end for good. This time, there should be no new-season-that-breaks-every-promise-made-in-the-previous-finale or questions about whether or not the show actually ended. This finale was beautiful, made me cry, and is the end of a show to which I gave a good portion of my time.

There may be a lot of hate towards Glee, but it was a fun and very colorful show. I am glad I watched it, but I am also glad there will be no more.

Off to watch other shows,

The Purple Writer

I have a job now.

Well, it's really an internship, but I get paid for my 20 hours a week, which is more than I expected for my first internship.

Beginning this February, I have been a Social Media Intern with the Office of Communications & Marketing at Texas Tech University. (Not the College of Media & Communication, although it seems many people make that mistake when looking up phone numbers.)


I get paid minimum wage, but this is basically my dream internship:
-> I am getting experience in managing social media accounts, which is what I would like to do in the long run.
-> I have a great boss and coworkers.
-> I sit next to the window in our office (a small room with three desks for us social media interns), and although it is very dirty, it has a gorgeous view looking out over Memorial Circle.
-> I enjoy what I do (writing tweets and posts, finding content, monitoring our streams and feeds, analyzing and comparing our stats with the universities we 'compete' with in the social media world of follows and interactions, and so on).

If nothing else, you should probably be jealous of this window that I sit next to for 20 hours each week. Lubbock has its dusty days and not-so-pretty days, but the campus is well-maintained, and the sky is almost always a beautiful sight. 

Mostly because West Texas is so flat in general, we get a lot of sky. A normally 'pretty' sight of clouds or color is simply transformed out here. You'll know what I mean if you ever see one of our gorgeous Lubbock sunsets. 

It's Spring Break this week, so campus is pretty empty, beside the visitor tours and staff members, but it's a great feeling to look out of my intern window on a normal day and see the streams of students flowing through Memorial Circle. 

Beside being the center of a lot of traffic on campus, the World War II monument, the Pfluger Fountain, as well as the grass which should not be walked on, come together to make a beautiful memorial for fallen soldiers and veterans of all wars. 

So, I'm taking 12 credit hours, working my internship, and living my life. 

I should be blogging more often (especially after I posted in January and said I would be better about posting more regularly), but that hasn't happened. Maybe I will be motivated to be a better blogger now, but who knows.

I'll leave you with a photo I took for one of my first assignments at this internship.

I went out and took pictures of the first blooming tulips on campus (for the #TexasTech Instagram account, of course). Have I mentioned how great this job is?

Off to increase my social media presence some more,

The Purple Writer

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

Christmas in July

So, July has been a pretty busy and fun month. Lots of exciting things happened, like seeing the workers at Costco wear elf ears, to celebrate Christmas in July.

I feel pretty bad for neglecting my blog. Like, I've majorly neglected it. It seems that writing two articles a week for my internship (articles like this), on top of running around and doing stuff, generally fills my writing craving for the week. So, I will try to summarize my summer in this one post.

To start off the month of July, I went down to Houston on July 3rd, and spent a week there with my grandparents and relatives. For several years, my grandma has had July 4th be everyone's birthday. The whole family gets together, exchanges cards and gifts, and then it's not such a big deal if you forget someone's birthday later on in the year. This was the first year I went down there to participate, and it was fun. I will probably try to head down to Houston in future summers, mainly because it's a great reason to see family, and July 4th is a holiday, so it's pretty plausible.

 I then came back and celebrated my birthday with my family and boyfriend. I spent most of the weekend hanging out, watching movies, and playing board games. I'm pretty chill like that.

But, I did turn 21 on July 12th, so my sister bought me my first legal drink. She is a pretty fun person, and spending time with her has definitely been a positive side of me spending the summer at my mom's house in DFW.

#crazysistersatfunkybajascantina

I spent the next week, the 14th through the 18th, out in Lubbock. It may sound strange, but Lubbock is my home. Not only do I spend the majority of my year out there, but most of my friends stay/live there year round and it just feels right when I return.

Anyhow, I went to Wild West that Thursday, and it was the first time I didn't have to get the giant Xs (well, usually hearts) on my hands, and I got the 21+ wrist band. Exciting stuff. I had to buy a drink, of course, because it was my 21st birthday week. So, I asked for something strong and fruity. Man, drinks are expensive! (But they're also pretty yummy. . . especially when they're fruity and strong.)

Since I'm such a party person, I only had that one drink at Wild West, and my friends and I left around midnight. The next morning, I drove back to DFW to make the final meeting with my mission trip to mexico team. . . .

Somehow, the phrase "mission trip to Mexico" always makes me think of this song:

It's been years since I last listened to those old, Christian CDs, but this is just one of those iconic songs, I guess. Is it stuck in your head now?

So, that Sunday, July 20th, we got up early, piled into vans, and drove down to Reynosa, Mexico. That week was a blast. The team was filled with great people, and we were able to interact with fantastic people in Mexico.

Our sports outreach team had 60 teens participate, the VBS team had 280 children show up, the Bible Study had 35 ladies attend, and the medical team was able to provide eye care to several people.

We stayed at Big Heart Orphanage for the week, and we were able to hang out with the kids there, which was lots of fun. One of the girls was pretty upset that we were leaving so soon (possibly because I had the magic phone which played the VBS songs we sang and danced to every day), but was pretty ecstatic when I told her I was planning to come back in December with the house building team. That is one promise I really can't break now.

We drove back to the U.S. on Saturday, the 26th, and I've been chilling this week. I was actually pretty sick for a few days, all congested and coughing and headaches, and all that fun stuff. I had started losing my voice on Wednesday, it was really bad on Friday, and it's taken almost a week to get to get it back. That was mostly just annoying when I would try to sing, and nothing would come out. Singing is a part of my life (I start singing randomly without thinking about it, if there's no music to distract me), so that was lots of fun (sarcasm).

My boyfriend finished his 7-month internship last week, so we were able to hang out some this week, which was great. I think we watched six hours of Sherlock on Wednesday, and then we played board games with  my brother and his girlfriend yesterday (Thursday) evening.

Today, August begins, and July is a fun month of the past. I also finally got motivated to write this overly long blog post. You are welcome.

A fan of July (and Christmas),

The Purple Writer