Hello Friends!

Hello, hello, hello! I have missed blogging so much this past week, I can't even tell you. Well, I probably could. But then I wouldn't have the time to catch you up on everything that's happened these past sad, lonely, blogless seven days.

I believe, when we last talked, that I promised the second recipe of the Pancake Games was imminent. I lied. Yes, good people, I lied.

But not on purpose, I swear! The thing is, last Saturday, I moved out of my house. But not to H2. To the house of some friends of mine, who were going on vacay to North Carolina (I cannot believe I just used the word vacay. Someone, slap me, please!). They have the cutest little cocker spaniel ever (she's black and white and named Oreo!! How cute is that?), and so they needed someone to stay in their house and keep the cutie-pie company. So that's where I've been for the past week.

"But Em," you ask, "don't these friends of yours have the internet?" Yes, they do have the internet. But because they have teenagers, they also have parental controls. And sadly, they did not leave me all the passwords necessary to override the controls (thankfully, they did leave me the code to get past the controls on the TV. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to watch, for example, My Cousin Vinny on TNT, which is one of the best movies EVER. Although my favorite cable show is What Not To Wear, which isn't blocked, so I think I would have survived. I've only been home for five hours and I already miss Stacy and Clinton. I wish they'd take me to New York . . .)

So that, dear people, is why this has been a blogless week. It is also why this has been a pancakeless week. Because despite my best intentions, I was simply too lazy to make a complicated pancake recipe involving numerous flours and sour cream when there was a pool and What Not To Wear tantalizing me in the background. I really don't know why I thought things could be any other way.

Plus, I found this show on the Food Network called Everyday Italian, and shockingly, many of the dishes made on this show are gluten-free or can be easily adapted to be gluten-free. Total score! I've downloaded about a million of Giada's recipes and can't wait to try them.

But now that I am back in the non-cable, no-pool environment of my home, I promise the Pancake Games will be my first priority. I swear. I won't even do Giada's recipes first. This is my pledge to you.

Plus, it wasn't just the Pancake Games that suffered due to my laziness. I wrote nary a word on my book, and nary a word on my query letters. But hey, I was on vacay (argh! Did it again! I've been watching way too much Legally Blonde). That's my excuse. Vacay all the way.

Just before I left to go hang with Oreo, we went out to H2 and did an enormous, crazy, all-day push to get things going. My furniture was delivered, I washed all my dishes and put them away, my dad hooked up my TV and DVD player, and the place looks pretty fantastic. There's still a bunch of little stuff to do, and I still have a TON of crap in my room to pack up and move over, but things are looking great. While I was showering and doing other bathroom-type things, and sitting around watching WNTW for hours on at Oreo's pad, I kept thinking, "This is what it will be like at H2, only BETTER, because my stuff is cuter (no offense to Oreo's family intended)!"

Here are some pictures of the rooms that look completed (the bedroom just has the bed, and the kitchen is basically done but everything is in the cupboards, so that's kind of boring):

Clearly I have to get some decorations or posters or something for the walls in the living room, but isn't the bathroom the cutest thing ever? What you can't see is that the soap dispenser and the garbage can match the shower curtain. That just takes it to a whole 'nother level (can I just say how awesome it is that you can look up "whole nother level" on Google and it leads you to a Wikipedia page about Eugene Struthers? You can find ANYTHING on Wikipedia!)

Now all I have to do is finish packing up all my junk. Let me tell you, it is shocking how much junk one person can accumulate in 22 years, eleven months, and 9 days. Seriously shocking. I mean, what is all this crap? Where did I get it all? And it is all so dusty due to sitting around on my shelves for months/years without being touched (because, of course, it's junk that I don't need), that I'm kind of afraid to start going through it. It's an asthma attack waiting to happen, people.

So instead of packing things up the way I should be, I've been playing around on Blogger, looking at other people's blogs. I think some of that WNTW laziness is still in my system, because that's honestly all I've done since I've been home. And here's what I've discovered: a blog's name is by no means an accurate representation of what it is. It's true. For example, I found this blog called Queen's Crap, which sounds pretty cool, right? Like it's secret dish on Elizabeth or whatever. Or maybe a bunch of funny pictures of queens around the world. No. I am sorry to tell you that this blog is just a bunch of whiny complaining about Queens, New York. Not to say that bad things don't happen there. I'm sure they do. But unless you're an outraged citizen of Queens, why would you care? Not living anywhere near Queens, myself, and having expected to see some sparkly pictures of tiaras or diamonds or something, I was hugely disappointed. And their logo? Who came up with that little piece of . . . dare I say it? . . . crap?! Although it is kind of cool that the contact email for this site is QueensCrapper. Nice play.

Then, in the opposite direction was this blog, which is basically pictures of real estate. BOORR-ing, right? Turns out, it's actually pretty funny. No joke (wow, I'm really sorry about all the puns). The pictures are all really bad ones, so the blog is kind of mocking people who post nasty pictures and then think their house will sell (I, personally, love the castle one best). This blog is great when you're in a crabby mood and feel like mocking something. Or if you're in a mocking mood and feel like laughing. Or if you're in a bad-day-I-hate-stupid-people-mood and need validation that people really are stupid. This blog totally has you covered.

Then there's this blog, which I didn't have time to read, but left a lake of drool on the floor just from looking at the pictures (the first one looks kind of gross, but scroll down. They get infinitely better). I'll definitely be hitting this one again in the near future. YUMMY!

Also, in response to the clamoring from all of you, wanting to know how Lane and Zach's date ended, here's your answer.

Okay, there wasn't any clamoring. I made it up because I really love this clip. Plus, you know, I couldn't leave you in suspense. So enjoy.

Okay, since this post is now inordinately long, I'll sign off. But I'll be back . . . and I'll be bearing pancakes.