Where's the Beef?

Alright...so I bought Ground Beef for the first time this week. And I attempted to cook it for the first time. I was a vegetarian for all of my life until the beginning of this year. Cooking is not my strong suit, but I wanted to try. This will be literally the first time i've ever cooked any sort of meat and I have put together a little presentation.
(side note: I was pretty excited about both cooking the beef and eating the meal - at the beginning of this endeavor.)

So this is what I wanted to cook. The Soft Taco Bake Dinner Kit. Comes with everything except the beef.....

I started to cook the beef on my tiny stove. I was told to cook until I see no pink. I was very nervous about this because I didn't want to poison myself. It looked gross. As a former vegetarian, I still don't feel great about eating it...BUT...im giving it a try.

Looks all brown to me?

Added the taco sauce and some water...starting to smell and look a little better.

So this is the dinner bake. There are 4 layers and then cheese on the top. I am realizing at this point that i'm not really hungry and that this does not look tasty at all. BLARF!

Threw the pile of beef and tortilla shells into my tiny oven for 15 minutes

This is exactly how I feel after cooking for 10 minutes....I do not like to cook because it just makes me want to barf. I don't want to see raw food....raw meat.....ugh.....i'm starting to feel badly now about this endeavor.

And then I got sidetracked and burned the shit out of it. Okay, it's not super burnt, just the top...it just looks like a big pile of gross.

I added some lettuce and sour cream...cause thats what the picture on the box had on it. It looks edible....I guess.

Bon Apatite. Blarf....this is the only bite I took....it wasn't horrible, but honestly, just the preperation....made me not hungry anymore. I have officially decided I will never cook meat again unless I plan on not eating it.

I am now eating a bowl of cheerios.

One love,
Jamie

Feeling Nostalgic

It's no secret I have a horrible memory. I always have. My long term memory is shotty at best. My family makes fun of me for it. My earliest memories are only from about 10 years ago....late middle school, early high school. I cannot remember anything from when I was a kid. It's just sort of something that i've just dealt with....didn't think it was a big deal, until people started telling me they had memories of when they were 3 or 4 years old. That's insane to me...and kind of sucks. But I digress....for now I will stick to photos of my past and the memories I do still have before I forget them all due to early alzheimerz :)

So anyway, this was brought up because my mom sent me an ebay auction for the dollhouse I had when I was a kid. This is it.


It wasn't dolls, but little rabbits and bears. My sister would like to get the same for my niece because she believes (and I too) that it's a little more appropriate for a 4 year old than with regular dolls. For now we can only find it in Europe, not in the US. But we are hoping by my nieces birthday, we will have found it.

So my quest right now is to find this damn dollhouse. Wish me luck!

New JTV site - www.justin.tv/jamie32182 Im going to start broadcasting more, because if ijustine can do it, then so can I.

That's all.

Much Love,
Jamie

Updates

I launched www.saveaserver.com which ended up on a few local news channels here in Orlando. I have never met Vallery, but I am friends with a close friend of hers. I understand what it's like to have a hard time finding a job and it seemed like a fun idea. She didn't get alot of donations, which I think was expected. But i'm hoping she did get some job prospects from launching the site.

I removed my blog from www.jamielynndirect.com, because I don't really think that prospective clients want to know about my personal life. Sort of a concious decision I made after my mother was reading my twitter updates and said that it might seem unprofessional. (example: my twitter about wanting to move somewhere, where the internet doesn't exist, where margarita's grow on trees and where I can smoke dope legally). Hehe, whoops :) I don't want to hide who I am, but I agree, it's unprofessional and if I want to be successful, I need to seperate my personal and business life.

Well, for now i'll just touch on a few topics that I think are important and nobody else probably cares about :)

RIP LeRoi Moore of Dave Matthews Band http://dmband.com/ . I just found out about this. I love Dave Matthews and he was a brilliant musician.

Big Brother 10 - This is one of my favorite seasons. Besides the Dr. Will/Boogie one. I think Dan is going to win it all and it will be well deserved for my fellow Michigander! I like everyone still in the house, they are all a good diverse crowd and it seems like they are all using this experience to truly learn from each other. I love that the two older folks, Renny and Jerry are still in the house!

Tropical Storm Fay - I was a little nervous about this. I have only been in Orlando for 2 years and haven't been through any storms. I live in a very very old (1936) duplex and was worried that my carport would get ripped off my house and thus destroying the entire two story structure. But the storm took a turn and is now pounding the east coast. My thoughts are with my friend Laurel and her family and everyone else out there who are dealing with flooding and tornados. Orlando got lucky and the coast was not prepared. I really don't like hurricanes.

And that's about all that is on my mind right now. I think i'm going to play Halo until my power goes off, since I just heard a tree snap in my yard.....crap.

Much love...
Jamie

things are crackalackin

I'm working on a few websites right now. saveaserver.com which is a funny concept thought up by a friend of mine. Also working on another site but the domain hasn't been chosen yet. I am getting responses daily for website work, which is awesome!! Just trying to stay busy and get things rolling. Nobody wants to spend money and I don't blame them, the economy sucks. It's brutal in fact. I'm hoping to find something full-time to offset my bills and what not after being laid off. It's a bit of a struggle though.

I added a few more sites to my portfolio and am thinking of some ways to improve jamielynndirect.com. This venture is slow going, but going none-the-less =) I thank everyone who's given me well wishes.

I have been toying with the idea of starting a dog walking business. I live dowtown, so i'm sure I could get clients. Something to think about.........

Lots of love,
Jamie

Website Finished

Okay www.jamielynndirect.com has been fully published.

I'm not trying to get millions by doing this, i'm only trying to build my portfolio. So please spread the word if you know anyone who is looking for some simple design work to be done. :)

Thanks,
Jamie

Wekiva Springs

I went to Wekiva Springs (Florida) for the first time today! I didn't know what to expect, I grew up in Michigan and have been on the AuSable River a few times but that's nothing like Wekiva.

They have a huge swimming area where the springs are. It's absolutely beautiful and I was sort of amazed. The water is crystal clear and perfect for snorkeling. The water was a bit chilly at 9 in the morning but you got used to it after a while. There are suppose to be shark teeth laying around but we didn't find any :( It was still fun looking!!

After snorkeling for a little while we got canoes and headed up the river. As soon as we took off we saw a big gator basking in the sun and a bunch of turtles everywhere. There was also bass and huge gar fish everywhere. It was unbelievable. Throughout the trip we saw all sorts of birds and a bunch of baby alligators. I loved it. It was hot, but we brought beers and food and had a great time, the weather was perfect. We canoed for a good 4-5 hours total and made perfect timing back because it started to storm as soon as we pulled back up to the springs.


There are a few campsites up the river that are only accessible by canoe that I want to camp at. It's totally secluded and would be really cool to canoe all day up to the camp site and chill for the night. I think it would be spooky...but still super fun.

I'm totally exhausted but wired from the trip. I had a blast with my friends and hope to do it again soon. It's weekends like this that really make me realize how great Orlando is....and Florida in general.

Thats all for now, I should get some sleep :)

Jamie
www.jamielynndirect.com

First Blog - jamielynndirect.com

Not technically my first blog, but my first new blog. I'm getting ready to launch www.jamielynndirect.com soon. I'm going to offer up some cheap graphic design stuff for people on the net. The internet is insane, it's growing faster than anything else in the world. You have to have a web prescence now more than ever if you want to succeed in business. It's also a huge tool of communication for families and friends. Far be it from me to not try to capitalize on this ;) Just kidding of course. I love design, I love making websites, I love working with dreamweaver and photoshop and all the other crazy software programs that are out there that allow us to create such cool things in our own homes (run on sentence). I hope that a few people give me a chance to create some stuff, because it's genuinely what I love to do.

Alright, so that's about it for now. Just a first blog to get things rolling. Make sure to follow me on twitter to get the word around :)

Peace,
Jamie