Friday night, I had a few friends over for a dinner party. I've been reading Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist, and it's inspired me to host people for dinner. This particular group of friends and I call ourselves "Letterpress" after the name of the coffee shop we plan to open. More on that later, look for info in the newspaper! Just kidding. 

So we have an imaginary coffee shop and some super fun people. Two of us are out of town and one has work, so it's just a party of four tonight! 

First, I carried tons of stuff downstairs to the kitchen in the dorm basement. 

See all that? It's all mine. Hey, I got my steps for the day after my third trip up the stairs! 

We're having tacos. First, the sides. Lettuce, check! (bought it bagged. swag.) Tomato...I've never sliced a tomato before. How's this look? 

Good enough for me!

Wait that looks just like it's supposed to. YAY nice work. I should get cheese; I'll probably just steal it from the caf... 

Next was rice and beans, which I moved from the styrofoam container into a mug and a Tupperware. Again, college life. 

That's not sketchy at all, right? I'll keep telling myself that. 

Now the guac: Wholly Guacamole  with a few sliced tomatoes and scoops of salsa tossed in. 

Then, in lieu of Saran Wrap, I pressed some chips over the top. Inventive, yes. Will it work? We shall see. (update: it did!)

The meat was easy enough . . . 

It's cracking me up how unappetizing all of these pictures look. Perfect for a blog post about the difficulties of cooking in a dorm room! 

The next step was transport, which was a party. But we finally made it with our strange mix of dishes to Kathryn's house, where we were eating!

We talked and laughed for a few hours; it was lovely and so precious. So today, I'm thankful for amazing people, cooking meals, groups of friends falling together, and dinner parties. 

Love y'all. Go cook some dinner. 

Charlie 

Recently I've found myself running out of storage in my dorm room. I wanted to get a little dresser to go in our entrance hallway, but all the ones I found at antique stores were a few hundred dollars. So I solved my problem with this homemade bookshelf, and it only took a bit of money!

I went to a resale store run by Habitat for Humanity. They had these old cabinet doors for $3! It's all about knowing where to go—the "thrift" store in a suburb will have prices much higher than those of a resale shop in a worse part of town. 

I cleaned them and the floor where they're going to be set up with Clorox wipes. (Yes, this is a paid sponsorship. All college kids need Clorox wipes.) (Actually, not a sponsorship. But Clorox wipes are necessary.)

Then (and here's where it gets complicated) (just kidding) you stack the books and the shelves however you like. Just make sure it won't fall. 

I haven't decked it out yet, but I love it already! (Here's a picture of it with things on it.)

I would do a step-by-step, but that's about all there was to it! 

This morning, I took a load of various packages to the post office. The last one is the celebration, but I'll tell you about two other ones too.

This is a ticket I'm paying. I love this ticket because it is only $15, and I thought it would be 8x that much. (If you're wondering, I didn't put quarters in the meter downtown. Whoops. And I realized it walking back to my car, saw the ticked and hoped it'd be under $100, and thus was so excited that it was $15.)

This is what it looks like to get rid of superfluous five-cent stamps. 

This last one is a birthday present for a dear friend. She left college and is working in Anapolis as a nanny. That is so brave and new places can be so lonely and I'm such a fan of her. I got her a kitchen towel because she loves cooking, because it was cute, and because it symbolized to me that we're growing up and making our own homes in the world. 

Isn't the towel cute! Anyway, her birthday was 10 days ago, but I'm usually late to birthdays. Have a wonderful Thursday! 

Madeline

oh! also, Charlie.