Cleveland City Guide: The Cleveland Zoo

After desperately looking for someone to go to the zoo with me I finally went. It's hard because the friends I do have up here usually work the days I'm off. My sister said I should ask my mom which I didn't think was an option because of my mom's MS. It usually makes her tired and she doesn't like to go out and walk around. Luckily, she loves animals as much as I do and agreed to go.

It was so nice to spend the afternoon with my mom. I know it's so cliche, but she really is the best and I love her. We also saw some really cute animals. We realized going to the zoo in fall is great because the animals were all out! But a lot of them were pacing which was kind of weird. I felt like all these animals knew i had a camera and decided it was the chance to do things that are kind of funny. There was a point where I was taking a picture of an elephant and it started pooping. It was funny. I'm immature like that (my mom laughed too though!).

Jasilyn Attempts to Draw

Two of my absolute favorite things on the internet are hand lettering and illustrations. I spend way too much time looking at different blogs and wishing I was as talented as them. Unfortunately, my mom and my sister both got the drawing gene so I can only dream that I can reach their caliber. But practice makes perfect, right?

I got the idea to continue on with my drawing/lettering from Lisa Congdon and an article of Austin Kleon. Congdon has a project she's doing where she creates a hand lettering work of art for each day of the year. Although I wish I could have something on going like that I know I'd keep it up for a week and then forget it. I can't even blog that much anymore. It's like pulling teeth for me now which is such a shame. Kleon's article is about how he learned to draw and improved his handwriting. Basically, he just copied drawings and different hand writings over and over.

Let me just say that it's much harder drawing on my Bamboo Drawing Tablet than it is into a sketchbook. Also, I always welcome creativity ideas! :)

Avocado Grilled Cheese

I'm house and dog sitting for my grandma this week, and she left me money for food. I figured I should actually use the money for ingredients to create something rather than buying a frozen dinner. I scoured pinterest for simple recipes since I am working a lot as well. I came across this grilled cheese recipe but for some reason I thought it had avocado in it so I ended up buying avocado I didn't need. No fear though I put it to good use.

What you need:

• Rye bread
• Your favorite cooking oil
• Basil pesto
• Mozzarella cheese
• Avocado
• Tomato

Directions:

1. I started by pouring a little bit of oil in a skillet/you can also use a panini maker.
2. I then spread a bit of pesto on one slice of bread and topped it with mozzarella cheese and let it warm up in the skillet.
3. I then put a tomato (or two) in the skillet to warm it up. I flipped it once and then placed it on the pesto/mozzarella bread. Make sure it gets soft, but don't leave it on too long.
4. I then put a little more mozzarella cheese on top of the tomato.
5. I layered the avocado after the cheese started to melt. I would slice the avocado very thin or else it will slip out of the sandwich.
6. Finally I added the other slice of bread.
7. I flipped the sandwich once until the other side was toasted.

I finished off my cooking extravaganza with pumpkin scones that I got off Mackenzie's blog! I wish the scone itself was a little sweeter because I love sugar, but with glaze  it made up for it.

Both of these recipes were perfect for today. It was rainy and dreary. But also a perfect fall day!

Cleveland Garlic Festival

A few weeks ago I saw a Groupon for the Garlic Festival, but I didn't buy it because I didn't think I'd have anyone to go with. Then my friend Paul said we should go, and I was excited because it was one of the first real things I have done since I moved back home. Over coffee the other day I invited Laura, one of my good friends from my St. Mary days, and she was excited to tag along.

It was actually a lot of fun. Well, for Laura and me, I'm not too sure about Paul. We walked around and looked at all the various garlic things that were around. There was garlic ice cream! Neither of us were brave enough to try it, but Laura and I did buy some garlic fries! There was also a funny parade that we kept running into because the venue was super small.

Speaking of venue, it was awkward because you had to actually leave the one side cross the RTA tracks and get to the other side. But we did it about 15 times. There was also a garlic super hero that we all swore we would take a picture with but never did.

There was also free wine and beer tasting which was actually pretty wonderful because we got to try some local breweries. We showed up late for the wine tasting, but they still let us try three of the wines. Below are the pictures I took and Paul was right I am blogging about it!