A Temple Trip

Some of you may well know that on July 1st of this year, the Atlanta Temple closed for a year and a half of renovations. This makes the temple a little less accessible for us--the nearest one being Birmingham, AL--three and a quarter hours drive from here. Our area has been asked to attend the next closest temple--Columbia, SC--a three and a half hour drive away. After a pretty stressful week at work for the both of us, I felt like we needed to make the drive and attend the temple today. Since we didn't have anything else going on, it worked out perfectly. It was so nice to be in the temple again. I LOVE the small temples. They are so efficient, yet cozy and beautiful all at the same time. I love all the windows, and how each small temple has its own unique theme with the patterns on the stained glass. But aside from the experience of being in the temple, I think the most marvellous part of the day was the drive to the temple. When we go to the Atlanta temple, it takes us about 50 minutes to get there, and we are usually hurrying to make a particular session. We were hurrying today too, but you can only feel so much of a sense of urgency on a 3 1/2 hour drive, especially when you don't recognize the landmarks. It was neat to have a large amount of time to sit and ponder about the temple, to listen to quiet music, and prepare myself spiritually for the experience. I also enjoyed simply being with my husband, playing the alphabet game and laughing and joking with each other. Although it was a long day which involved a LOT of driving, it was completely worth it. I am really looking forward to our next temple trip!!

Trip to Chattanooga

Very last minute I decided we ought to go somewhere and do something for our anniversary. I had visions of sitting a home being bored all weekend (the usual for us), and I just thought we ought to do something memorable. So, Friday morning I booked us a hotel in Chattanooga (only 2 1/2 hours away), and we drove up there after I got off work. The hotel we stayed at was really nice. It was a 3-star hotel that we only stayed in because I got an incredibly good deal on Priceline. The next morning I dragged my husband out of bed and we went to Ruby Falls: a pricy attraction that features an underground waterfall. It was pretty cool though--we enjoyed ourselves. We drove around for a bit after that, ending up at Point Park on the top of Lookout Mountain, the site of the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. We wandered around there for a while, watched a red ant drag a dead black ant up a 90 degree rock face, walked up and down some stairs and got tired out. After the park we headed back into town for some Sticky Fingers BBQ, which I thought was pretty good. Ben thought it was ok. After a late lunch we headed back to Atlanta, stopping at some outlet stores and buying Ben some much needed new pairs of jeans. We took a small detour through downtown Atlanta, stopping at my favorite ice cream place, Zesto, which is the only place I've found decent soft-serve here. We NEVER get to go there except when we are downtown and only if we get there before it closes. So--it had been a while. By the time we got back, it was nearly 9pm and we were exhausted! But, we had a great time and I'm so glad that we decided to go somewhere for our anniversary. We definitely made some memories what we'll have forever!

Our lovely 3-star hotel room plus a bonus husband!

Us inside the cave at Ruby Falls

The beautiful Ruby Falls

Poor dead black ant. I wonder what the red ant is going to do with him?

Ooooohhh this makes me want more Zesto's soft-serve!!!

First Anniversary

Ben and I are celebrating our first anniversary today! I can't believe it's been a year already. I made the best decision of my life one year ago today and I couldn't be happier!

I'll Do It Later

That's what I think every time I think about blogging lately. I've just not had the blogging bug! Time to get over it, I guess. Or rather, time to get it, again.

Things around here have been hot hot hot. No really--the weather is hot! I finally went out this morning and bought myself a pair of capris so I wouldn't die of heat outside in my jeans.

My family is here in town this week. Well, my parents and my brother Matthew. I worked Monday and Tuesday and now I'm off the rest of the week. Hallelujah!!! My brother is off work today so we're going with them up to Canton, GA to have lunch with some cousins. My landlords are so nice--they let us use the rest of the basement so my parents can stay there while they are here visiting. It works out perfectly. The only thing is, I can't seem to keep my kitchen from getting cluttered up with everyone's stuff and it's driving me nuts!

I can't believe it's almost the 4th of July. Ben and I will be celebrating our 1-year anniversary in about 11 days. It's hard to believe we've been married for a year already. It's flown by, but it's been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to many more fun, happy years, and a family too, hopefully!

A couple of weeks ago we had a "Southern Family Reunion" for our ward. Lawrenceville Ward was formed 20 years ago, so we had a lovely activity which featured myself, my husband, and our friend Shellie singing "Man of Constant Sorrow" from O\O Brother, Where Art Thou. We were really crazy and weird and so everyone loved it. I wish I'd had someone take pictures. Yeah--we were THAT good ;)

In other news, I bought some basil plants that I repotted and put outside. They are growing beautifully, but I have to water them just about every other day. It's so nice to have fresh basil any time I want it. I can't wait until we have our own place and I can have a real garden!

The grass is green, here and there, and sometimes blue

What a week this has been, and it's only Thursday! It's one of those weeks where I've been thinking a day ahead all week so I woke up this morning thinking it was Friday. How disappointed I was to discover that no, there is still one more day to go before the weekend! We have had one piece of good news in the last couple of weeks--Ben landed a couple of jobs for his company to work on so he still has a job and so does everyone else; for a few more months anyway. Jobs are good--we like when we can pay the bills! My job has been going strong. Our summer camp (of all things) is growing so that means we can afford to stay in business for a little while longer. This week I went to management training, which means I can officially open and close the building. I'll probably be doing more closing than opening and since I'm usually there until close, I pretty much know the drill anyway. Management training was good--it was better than I expected. I expected to be bored, but Corporate's resident Ph. D. was pretty interesting to listen to, and I actually learned a lot. I definitely feel more inspired to do my job and to help make our pre-school a better place. I didn't like the 40 minute drive to and from, however. I'll be glad to ditch that tomorrow and go back to work at the school. A piece of sad news this week--the owners of our center lost their baby--she was 30 weeks pregnant. I can't imagine how devastated I would feel losing a baby, especially that late in pregnancy. Obviously that made things a little crazy at the center, but luckily the other assistant director was able to handle everything so I could finish my management training which I've been waiting so long to be able to go to! I'm looking forward to this weekend. Ben and I are going to the temple and then we'll have to be practicing together with another gal for a performance at a ward activity next week where we'll be doing some bluegrass numbers, including "Man Of Constant Sorrow", "I'll Fly Away", and "You Are My Sunshine". Stay tuned for a full report ...

Mother's Day 2009

This Mother's Day, our Primary children sang during sacrament meeting. The Music Leader had chosen "An Angel To Watch Over Me" by Sally DeFord and we had been practicing it for over 2 months. I have never considered myself an extremely accomplished piano player and so I was very nervous about accompanying the Primary children. But what I lacked in ability, I almost made up for in determination. I knew that I would never play the piece perfectly, but I hoped that I would be able to play it with minimal mistakes--I wanted so badly to do it. I practiced that song more than I have practiced any other song. I played through nearly every day at least once. At the beginning, it didn't sound so great. One month into it, it was sounding okay, but I was doing a lot of skipping over notes. I kept practicing and although I didn't improve much in the last month, my knowledge of the piece improved to the point where I felt confident that my fingers would move on their own for most of it, and that if I messed up very badly, I would be able to pick up again quickly. During our last practice in Primary, 2 hours before we were supposed to sing, I was so nervous! I messed up in places that I had never messed up in before! But I had prayed and I knew that I had done all I could do. When it was time to sing, I walked up and sat down at the grand piano. I am very unaccustomed to playing a grand piano, and it is tricky because the music is higher so it is more difficult to cheat and look at your fingers when you need to. But I just took a deep breath and when everyone was ready, I began the introduction. As the children started singing and I continued playing, I could feel the Spirit's peace fill me. I listened to the words that those little angels were singing and tears filled my eyes at the sweetness of the song. Through the course of it all, I missed a couple of notes and I played a couple of wrong ones. But I think I played that song better than I had played it previously and better than I had hoped to! I know the Lord blessed me and that He had been watching over me as I played for this Primary choir. As I returned to my seat, brushing away tears, I looked at my husband whose eyes were also wet. He knew how much I had been worried about playing the song, and I knew he was rejoicing with me. I saw many other people in the congregation who were also very obviously touched by this sweet song. I share this song with you, sweet mothers and children of sweet mothers, and hope you will be touched by the message.

An Angel To Watch Over Me
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It's Ready

After weeks of hemming and hawing over a name for my new cooking/homemaking blog, the moment has finally arrived. Today I am officially launching Adventures in Homemaking. I'm sure you'll all be thrilled that I'm no longer posting such boring things like recipes and cleaning tips on my personal blog. I hope you will enjoy reading the new blog as much as I will enjoy updating it!

To be or not to be ...

This week my hubby took me to Shakepeare's Tavern for a special treat. We went there on our first official date, just over a year ago, and saw A Midsummernight's Dream. We laughed our heads off during that one. We were so impressed by the artistic and comical ability of the actors! This week was the last showing of Hamlet, so we went on Thursday (half-price tickets) and despite being a tragedy still laughed our heads off at parts of it. I would highly recommend Shakespeare's Theatre to anyone living in this area. We also ate dinner there; I got a Cornish Pasty and Ben got the Shepherd's Pie. The play was fantastic, the food was awesome, and it was very special to reminisce about where we were one year ago.

Suggestions Please!

I've decided to start a new cooking/home blog with recipes and ideas for making life easier. I can't decide what to call it though! Any ideas for a name?

A Day of Service

Yesterday my church sponsored a "Day of Service" during which hundreds of thousands of volunteers across 11 southern states got together with members of other faiths to do service in our communities. Our local ward was assigned to help clean Bethesda Park, a huge county park not far from my home. Ben and I arrived at the park at 8am, signed in, and were given our assignment. Together with about 12 other people, we had the responsibility of cleaning a cluster of 3 ball fields: picking up litter on and around the fields, cleaning out the dugouts, cleaning the restrooms, and painting the inside of the concession stand. Our team leader asked Ben and I to clean up one of the ball fields, after which we assisted the painters in cleaning up the area they had been painting. It took us about 3 hours to shovel out the sand from both dugouts, sweep them clean, and pick up the trash that littered the entire field. We must have picked up over 200 cigarette butts from around just one baseball field. It was disgusting. By the end of the 3 hours we were hot, sweaty, and sore from the effort of bending and straightening to pick up litter. To be honest, I was surprised I had that much energy. Sometimes I think I'm a really big wimp. I'm sore today though! But I'm grateful that we were able to do this service and give back to the community we live in. Service feels great!

A date

I used to be a creative person, really, I was! There was a time in my life when I could actually write stories, and then there was a time when I could blog and make things sound interesting. I fear that my creativity has taken a sabbatical. I want to be blogging right now about as much as I want to go clean my bathroom ... oh wait ... I did that already yesterday.

This past Saturday Ben and I went on an actual date! We don't get very many dates, with me not getting home until 7pm on Fridays. Ben usually goes to the gym after work so we usually sit down to eat dinner around 8pm. Up until a couple of weeks ago, our Friday routine was to eat dinner, wash the dishes, watch the latest episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, read for a little bit, and go to bed. Terribly exciting, I know! So, it was way past time to get out and do something. Last Saturday I had a CPR class in the morning, and when I was done, Ben and I got ready and went to the temple! The temple was great, but I have to say, the highlight of the day was going to IKEA for the first time ever. I had heard so much about IKEA that I had high expectations. That store is so huge--I could hardly take it all in. We walked around for an hour and a half, that is to say, we started at the very beginning and dutifully followed the arrows to the checkout and it took us an hour and a half to do it. That's only because we didn't stop and look at very many things. We spent about $30 on odds and ends, but I could have spent a fortune, I'm sure. One of the advantages of having a small apartment is that you can only have so much stuff before your apartment is full. But I got a good idea of what is there so that in the future ... if I am needing thing ... I know where to go!

After IKEA we had planned on going to this Mexican cantina to eat, but after being informed that the wait was an hour (no thank you) we turned around and went back to this pizza place that we had driven by on our way to the Mexican restaurant. It was the first time in a couple of months that we'd actually gone to a sit-down restaurant to eat. Man, it is so nice not having to cook! But more than that--it's so nice not to have dishes to do! On the way home we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of grocery items for the week, so by the time we got home it was after 9pm! Busy day, but it was a good day. Hooray for dates!

The beauty of Borax

When I was growing up, 20-mule team Borax served 2 purposes in my house: as a laundry booster, and an ant killer. A couple of months ago we had a soap-making class at church, and they gave us a recipe for homemade laundry detergent. 2 parts 20-Mule Team Borax, 2 parts Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (not baking soda--this stuff you will find in the laundry detergent aisle), to 1 part Fels Naptha or other commercial bar soap. I finally bought all of the "ingredients" last week, and after hearing that Borax is a fantastic household cleaner, I decided to tackle my stovetop with it. One cup of Borax and one half-hour later, I must say, I was quite pleased with the results. 409 does NOWHERE near the job that the Borax did. My stove positively sparkles!

BEFORE

AFTER

My husband is wonderful

Occasionally I will wake up to things like this:

Enough said!

Songs and chefs

I have kids songs playing in my head. Working at a pre-school (daycare), I hear music all of the time. We have a big CD player that holds about a billion CDs and it plays on the audio system throughout the building ALL DAY LONG. Of course, the classrooms can turn their speakers off, but in the lobby, we leave it running. So, if I'm humming a song, you can pretty much be guaranteed that it's a kids song. I don't even know the name of the one that's stuck in my head right now, nor can I really remember the words, but by golly, I remember that tune and I'm singing it over and over and over and over ... I do have a few favorites among the ones that I hear all the time, especially "Waltzing Matilda". That song makes no sense--that's probably why I like it. If someone can explain to me what Waltzing Matilda is all about, I'd greatly appreciate it. I finally looked up what a "billabong" is--it means "small lake". So there you go.

I get home from work every day at about 7, which makes cooking dinner really difficult. Although I love to cook, at 7pm the last thing I want to do is cook dinner! I just want to stuff something in my face because I'm typically starving by that point! On Wednesday night Ben had Young Men's and so I was cooking dinner while he was there, and waiting for him to get home. I was getting so frustrated because he should have been home by that point and I was really hungry and you just don't mess with a hungry woman! So I texted him and asked him if he was coming home soon, and the answer I got back was "Y". Getting more frustrated I texted him back to tell him that I was really really really hungry! About a minute later he walks in the door with a bunch of lilies that he had stopped and bought for me. So of COURSE I couldn't be frustrated at him anymore. Last night I called and told him that he was in charge of cooking dinner. He enjoys cooking, but he's not done a lot of it in his life. He survived college by eating fast food. Typically he is my "sous chef", so I didn't know what to expect when I got home last night, but he had found a recipe for "Shepherd's Pie" in one of our cookbooks and was busily engaged in making it! I helped with a few finishing touches, and it was just delicious! He doesn't realize what he's gotten himself into. He's definitely going to be cooking a lot more now ...

I wish I lived in a fantasy world

Lately I just haven't felt like there's been anything exciting to write about. We are just going on with our same boring lives. In reality, maybe that's a little sad. We should do something exciting so I have something exciting to blog about! Ben's been working, I've been working ... that's pretty much what I do. I have been doing a lot more reading lately. When I was subbing, I would always have a book with me to read during those down times (few as they were). And, I managed to get through several 1,000 page fantasy novels in a relatively short amount of time. Ben got me hooked on the "Wheel of Time" series. It's by far the best fantasy series that I have ever read. I think fantasy has really become my favorite genre. I've always enjoyed fiction, and while have enjoyed a murder mystery or two in the past, fantasy has really become the bulk of my reading. I guess that's partly because of who I married! But mainly I think for me the appeal of fantasy is this: in a world where the dividing line between good and evil has become so marred, in the land of fantasy it is much more clear cut. In the end, the good guys usually win because they are right and good, and not because they have more money or more connections. Frankly I'm disturbed by the direction our country and our society are headed. Well, for that matter, the way is HAS been heading for a very long time. Only now things appear to be escalating because the government is taking unprecedented control in this country. The thing that saddens me the most is the destruction of agency. People seem to forget that there are two parts to agency: the ability to choose, AND, the application of consequences. There was once another person who wanted to destroy agency. His name was Satan, and he got kicked out of heaven for it. I'm beginning to see how his argument could convince so many people. I'm still holding out hope that we can somehow reverse these unfortunate trends. Well, I'm holding out a very little hope ...

Beyond behind ....

It has been so long since I have posted that I am beyond behind! Usually I get up in the morning and putter around the house, then go swimming at they gym, come home, shower, get ready for work, eat lunch and leave. By the time I get home at night it's about 7pm, and sometimes I'll check my email. When I'm done with that, I really have very little energy to sit and type anything that's even remotely well-thought out. Tonight, however, is the series finale of Battlestar Gallactica, which I don't watch, but Ben does--religiously. I was going to read a book but instead I decided to finally update my blog! I know you are all so thrilled. Actually, you've probably given up even checking my blog since the last ice age, but that's okay. The post is here when you get around to it.

This month has been so crazy. I've been working at my job for about 6 weeks now and while I really enjoy it, I miss my housewifing days. There is something so much more fulfilling and relaxing about managing a household instead of managing a business. Not that I'm managing a business, but I have been given the responsibility managing employees for the first time in my life which is very challanging, to say the least. Sometimes I think I'd rather just be a peon! It's helping me to grow in so many ways though. I used to get quite nervous when I had to get serious with someone about their behavior or talk to an unhappy customer. Well, when I say "used to", what I mean is that I still do. I'm just learning more how to deal with people. I always thought I was a people person but ... anyways ...

Earlier in the month Ben and I went with his parents and his sister up to Tennessee for his niece's wedding. We left on a Friday afternoon and arrived early Saturday morning. We stayed at a really dumpy Day's Inn which had a "hot breakfast" consisting of biscuits and gravy that you had to warm up in the microwave, and Eggo waffles. Yum! It had been a long time since I'd eaten Eggo waffles. I forgot how tasty they were! The wedding was beautiful and altogether we had such a fun time just getting away for the weekend. It was the first time we'd gone away since we got married.

The hightlight of the month has been getting my ring back! After a lot of consideration and talking with Scott Kay (the ring designer) the jeweler opted to simply cut off the prongs and install a completely new head with 6 single prongs made of white gold. (My ring is palladium). I am SOOOOO happy with the result. To be honest, I like this ring better than the first one! AND ... there is NO way that diamond is going to fall out of that setting! Even so, we have purchased renter's insurance and added a jewelry rider to the policy so we are all set. When we got the ring back, the jeweler gave us an appraisal and we were shocked to see that the diamond is apparently worth about 25% more than we actually paid for it, from that same jeweler. We were obviously very pleased with that!

I'm looking forward to the summer, although I've had the worst time adjusting to Daylight Savings this year. I'm still not adjusted, and I had a pretty good schedule before! Oh well. Working until 7 every night, I'm glad there will be a little light so that I can do outside things, even after work.

Well, I guess that just about covers it. Ya'll have a great weekend!

Milton Friedman on Greed and Capitalism vs. Socialism

Snowshoes in Georgia

It's snowing here in Georgia. We're supposed to have 1-3 inches by nightfall. It's just one more reason why you can never trust the weather from one day to the next. It's been so warm this last week and a half that the daffodils have bloomed and the fruit trees have also started. We've actually had a pretty wet weekend. It started raining on Friday and it was still raining when we left for church this morning! It stopped several time in between, but I haven't seen this much rain since I moved to Georgia. It's great because we really need it!

Loose diamond ... Lose diamond

Life has been so crazy since I started my job! This is the first time in a while that I've been able to sit down and put together a blog post. I'm working from 1-6:45, so I don't get home until around 7pm. By the time I get home, it's cook dinner, do dishes, and hang out with my hubby until bedtime, if there's not something else going on! And while it seems like I'd have a lot of time in the morning, it just disappears so fast! Between doing laundry, cleaning my house, constant decluttering, and going to the gym, life is flying by. However, I have to say, I LOVE my job. I also feel so lucky to have a job in this time when so many people are out of work. I feel so blessed!

Last week was a crazy week. It was our 7-month anniversary on Thursday, and of course Valentine's Day on Saturday. I decided that I would do my Valentine's surprise for Ben on Thursday since I wanted to do something while he was at work. I blew up a whole bunch of balloons (as many as I could fit in my tiny car), wrapped Ben's Valentine's present and drove over to his work. I was grateful that his car was parked a few spaces away from the front door, but it was well within the view of the front of the office. So, of course, while I was busy stuffing his car full of balloons, he came up to check the fax machine and caught me! I waved him off but it was too late! He'd seen the balloons. Oh well. I came home and did some cleaning, washed the dishes, took out the recyclables, sat down at my computer to check my email and noticed the diamond from my engagement ring was MISSING! I don't know if that's ever happened to anyone but I freaked out! The worst part was, I couldn't remember when I had last seen it! I went to the curb and picked through the recycling bin ... not there ... I took the traps out from under both sinks ... not there ... I looked through the trash ... not there ... I scoured the ground outside ... didn't find anything. By this point Ben had come home to try and console me (I was very upset). How do you find such a small thing?? We looked together inside and outside, then we drove back to his work and looked in the parking lot there. I was so sad. It had been one of my biggest fears to lose my diamond. Of course, I hadn't gotten around to getting insurance on it! I took the ring to the jeweler and told them what happened. They took the ring and said they would look at the setting and see if they could do something. I came home with every intention of continuing to look for my diamond, but I had a horrible headache from crying and the stress, so instead I feel asleep on my bed. When Ben came home from work we spend some more time outside with flashlights looking for sparkles in the grass. It's amazing how many things actually sparkle on the ground! But, we didn't find it. I was devastated, but by this point I has kind-of come to terms with the fact that it might have washed down the drain or otherwise might never be found, and I was ok with that. I simply felt grateful that I had lost a diamond instead of something that was irreplaceable, like my husband. We continued to pray and look for it over the course of the next few days, but didn't have anything to show for it. Yesterday I had some laundry to do, so I gathered it all together, shaking each article as I placed it in the laundry basket. Still no diamond. When I opened the lid of the washing machine, I felt impressed to run my fingers around under the agitator in the center of the drum. I had gotten nearly all the way around, when I felt and heard something small and hard slide out from under the agitator. I looked down in the drum and saw something white-looking nestled in one of the holes in the drum. I held my breath as reached in to pluck it out. Was that my diamond? Was it stuck in the hole? Would it come out? As my nimble fingers closed securely around the object, I exhaled, pulled the object out, and put it in my hand. Then I stared at my diamond in my palm and I was overcome with gratitude and relief. I had found it! With all the credit going to God, of course. I believe it was one of His tender mercies. Certainly I did not need that diamond, but it was meaningful to me for more reasons than one, and I'm grateful that God let me have it back. As for the ring, neither I nor the jeweler feel comfortable with putting the diamond back in that ring so we're going to see if the ringmaker will re-do the ring in a different metal or something of that nature. I'll have to keep ya'll posted. I'm just so grateful to have my diamond back, and of course, I'm shopping for renter's insurance.

Life, jobs, cars ...

I started my new job on Tuesday, hooray! It's kind-of a new job, kind-of old job, which is nice because I already mostly know what I'm doing. I'm working at Legacy Academy, the same company I worked for over the summer, but at a different location. I'm really enjoying it so far-- admittedly much more than I enjoyed substitute teaching. Plus, I'm working part-time, from 1:00-6:45 every day, so I can still have time in the morning to run errands and take care of my house. Since we've been working out every day, the laundry has begun multiplying exponentially and I feel like I just barely stay on top of it as it is!

In other news, Ben's car decided it didn't want to start on Wednesday morning. He jumped it with my car so he could get to work, but then in the afternoon it didn't want to start either. There was one guy left at work but after trying and failing to jump it, Ben called me to come pick him up! Now, a few years back while I was still living in Provo, I took a community education class in Auto Mechanics. I will forever be grateful for some of the basics that I learned in that class. Those skills have proved invaluable. (It helps that I have mechanical brain.) SO I knew that it would be helpful to diagnose the problem in case we couldn't get the car started. I left work a few minutes early, ran home to get my volt-meter (thanks, Dad!) and drove over to Ben's work. After attempting and failing to get a read from the battery on the voltmeter, I discovered that the battery terminals must have a cap on top or something. At any rate, they don't conduct electricity on the very top. I couldn't even get a good reading on the rings. I had to use the screws on the side to get any sort of voltage reading. When I finally got a reading it was around 11 volts. A good car battery should read around 12.5, or at least 12.0. So we got the jumper cables hooked up to the battery making sure to catch those screws on the side, and we got his car started in no time. Once the car was started, the voltage on the battery was over 14 volts, which was a pretty good indication that the alternator was working. So--we'll replace the battery and hopefully that'll do the trick! But we don't have the time or the light to do it together until Saturday so Ben's been driving one of his parents' cars while they are out of town. Hopefully it is just the battery. I can't think what else it would be. I guess it's my car's turn next. So far we've done the brakes and now the battery in Ben's car ... knock on wood ...

My new favorite book

I found this book at the library last week and since then have decided I need to get a copy for myself! Now, I love cooking and sometimes I like getting creative and exotic. But on our budget, we can't afford to buy fancy food most of the time. Not to mention, I'm always looking for cheap, healthy recipes that use ingredients I already have in my pantry and freezer. I've already made two recipes from this cookbook and I'm impressed with how simple and yummy they turned out to be! I highly recommend at least checking this cookbook out from the library.

Wrapping up January

It's nearly February! Ben has decided that he wants to celebrate Valentine's Day on February 12th (our 7-month anniversary) instead of February 14th. I'm not so convinced. Stay tuned.

I went to the doctor on Monday and he gave me a steroid pack to try and help my feet. I must say, so far it's helping! Staying off my feet has also been helping. I haven't really been working since before Christmas and that's helped a lot. I'm currently on the hunt for a new DESK job and I have a few leads so maybe I'll have some good news soon.

I'm also pleased to announce that my clothes are feeling looser! Hooray for working out! Even Ben is enjoying working out. Last week he said to me, "if I'd known working out was so easy, I would have done it a lot sooner!" He's losing weight too. We're thrilled to have made exercise a habit in our lives. We're working on eating more healthily--one itty bitty baby step at a time!

Happy Inauseation Day!

It's all going down in Washington today. I'm just waiting for Congress to change our national motto to: "In Government We Trust". The libs have done a great job of eradicating personal responsibility (unless you're rich), and destroying our faith in God. Oh what a great nation we've become ...

Boring boring boring ... did I mention that I'm bored?

My life is very boring lately. My plantar fascitis has gotten the better of me for the time being and so I have not been able to substitute teach. I'm actually in the process of searching for a new job, but I gotta say, there's not a whole lot out there right now. This I'm actually subbing for the school nurse. The pay is less, but it's a sit-down job and it will keep me busy.

Last night we went over to another couple's house for dinner and some games. They have a little 3-month old baby, so it was fun to play with him and chat with them. She called me around lunchtime to say they had decided to fire up the grill so we could bring whatever we wanted for that. Initially I was going to try and do spiedes (the grand Triple-cities tradition), but I didn't have any thawed chicken and they were out of chicken breasts at Sam's Club (go figure!) so I did shish-kabobs instead. I bought some low-fat kielbasa and skewered that with green peppers, tomato chunks, onions and fresh pineapple. If it's been a while since you've barbecued then you have probably forgotten how much better everything tastes when it's barbecued. Maybe our cave-men ancestors knew what they were doing when they cooked everything outside on the fire. Man those kabobs were tasty!! And pretty inexpensive too. I'm going to be using our landlord's grill a lot more--I can tell you. After dinner we played "Pirate's Cove" which I had never won in my life. I actually won last night, but it was purely because my husband chose me as the winner. When it came down to the final play, it was going to be me or the other gal, and my husband, smart man that he is, picked me. I don't know if I would have forgiven him otherwise!

New haircut!

I got my hair cut today and it looks fantastic! I'm so happy with the way it turned out. I have had so many bad haircuts in the last two years. I actually did a little research before making this appointment. It's so hard to find someone to cut hair that you can trust, so I went online and found this girl who had been given a really good review. I called and she had an appointment available for today so I said, "sign me up!" Here's a pic of my hot new do. You can see how layered the back of it is. I LOVE that because my hair is naturally so thick and layering took off a lot of that bulk. Now I will actually be able to style it.

Happy 6 Months!

Ben and I celebrated our 6-month anniversary yesterday. I can hardly believe it's been six months! I'm so grateful that I married the man that I did. He is so wonderful! AND, yesterday for dinner he made me chicken cordon bleu. I told him he's allowed to cook any time he likes!

How NOT to make a chimichanga

Step 1: Make your own special blend of meat and spices to go inside the chimichanga

Step 2: Warm a tortilla in the microwave for 20 seconds

Step 3: Place a generous portion of seasoned meat in tortilla and wrap securely

Step 4: Ignore husband's idea to secure chimichanga with toothpicks (as per Emeril, he says). Tell him, definitively, that you do not like to mess with toothpicks.

Step 5: Gently and lovingly place chimichanga on basket in deep fryer, seam-side down

Step 6: Carefully lower basket into 375 degree oil

Step 7: Watch in horror as the chimichanga floats to the surface of the boiling hot oil, flips over, and unravels with a flourish, exposing your once protected and very tasty meat blend to a fryer full of hot oil.

Step 8: Lift basket from oil

Step 9: Sadly discard the very greasy remains of a once-promising chimichanga


(And the moral of the story is ... listen to your husband when he's making sense!!)

Who needs a personal trainer?

I've come to the conclusion that personal trainers are overrated. Last Friday night at the gym we got cornered by the sales manager for the personal training program at LA Fitness and he signed us up for a free "consultation" on Saturday morning. After going through all the questions, "what is your fitness goal," "what is your biggest obstacle," he ran us through a couple of straining arm exercises. Ouch!! Then we sat down again and got the sales pitch. My favorite part of the conversation was:

Manager: (drawing two numbers on a piece of paper, 149 and 160) So, which price would you choose? (referring to the initial fee for getting started with a personal trainer)

Tabitha: Well, really neither. It doesn't fit into our budget.

Manager: Are you telling me that there's a price on your fitness?

Ben: I majored in economics in college. EVERYTHING has a price.

Manager: (Dumfounded) Okay, don't think about budget right now. Let's say you're going to buy clothes ...

Tabitha: (laughing) Yeah, clothes aren't in the budget right now.

Manger: Okay okay, so let's say you're going to buy gas. Which price would you choose, the lower one, right? You don't have a budget for gas, right? You need it!

Tabitha: Actually, we do have a limit for gas in our budget.

Manager: Ok food. You gotta buy food.

Ben: We have a budget for that too.

The guy just could not get over the fact that we couldn't pay $150 initiation fee and THEN $40 per session on top of that. Go figure!! Who DOES pay that is what I want to know. If you go 3 times a week, that's nearly $500 a month! However, we decided that we definitely needed to hit the weight machines, me to tone muscle and Ben to build muscle, so we started doing research on training and muscle groups. Then we figured, hey, we can do this ourselves! Both of us have come up with a schedule for training that we thing is going to work pretty well for us. So, who needs a personal trainer when I can do it myself?

More info on food storage

So just a couple of hours after blogging about food storage, I realized that my best friend out in Washington had been spending a lot of time recently researching food storage. She has found a brand new website that launched today, which is a collaboration between several food storage gurus. They are having some really neat givaways this week, and in general it looks to be a fantastic resource no matter what stage you are at with your food storage. At the very least, you should enter the drawing for the cool prizes!

Food Storage For Thought

Lately I've been thinking a lot about food storage and making sure our house is in order. Getting started with food storage is very intimidating, especially when you have next to no space to keep anything. When I first moved in, about 2 weeks before we got married, I managed to keep all the food in the kitchen, along with all of my pots, pans, bowls and other kitchen gadgets. If you know me, you know that's no small feat considering I used to sell Pampered Chef and I just LOVE to cook. So, I have a lot of kitchen "stuff".



Then when we got married we got more kitchen stuff of course, and I had to struggle to find places to put the new kitchen stuff and still have room for the food. At this point I decided to start keeping some of the extra cans of food in the 3x4 closet in our second bedroom/TV room. There were a few very small shelves in there, but with the other regular storage stuff it soon got too crowded in there. Finally we found a black steel shelving unit at Aldi for $60. Woohoo!! We got that set up in our kitchen/main room and BAM! Food storage became so much easier.



A couple of weeks later we noticed the same shelving unit at Aldi had gone on clearance for $30 so we bought another one and with permission, put it in our landlord's food storage room which happens to be just off our apartment.



I have 2 food storage goals for this new year:
1. Get our 3-month supply of everyday food in order
2. Implement a plan for water storage

In order to accomplish the 3-month supply, I've been compiling recipes with only a few "problematic" ingredients. Normally I like to cook with a lot of fresh ingredients, but in an emergency situation, there is the possibility of no fresh food available, so I've decided that I'll build the pantry ingredients into my pantry supply, and then find freeze-dried versions of the "problematic" ingredients. I've found that my most common problematic ingredients tend to be: celery, onions, eggs, and butter. All of those can be purchased freeze-dried. My mother-in-law gave us a bunch of wheat and other food storage for Christmas. Now it's just a matter of testing these recipes I've compiled to make sure that we can palate them once a week for 3 months.

Water storage is not proving as difficult as I thought it might. I'm planning on purchasing six to eight 5-gallon stackable containers for a start. These cost $8-$12 a piece, depending on the kind you get. I think 30 gallons of water would last the two of us 15-20 days, with minimal water for washing. A 55-gallon drum would be ideal, but we have nowhere to put one so we're sticking with the stackable 5-gallon.

I'd love to hear what your ideas are about food storage and any recipes you have found or creative ways to implement both short and long-term food storage!

What do you do on New Year's Day?

If you're me, you teach your husband how to change the brakes on your car. It's times like this that I realize I'm not your typical girl! For some reason something always goes wrong when I change the brakes. This time, after changing the front brake pads we pulled the rear tire off only to realize that they had given us the wrong brake pads. We went back to the store and exchanged the wrong ones for the right ones, only to end up putting the driver's side pads on the passenger side. I didn't realize they were side-specific! Actually, we put them on and took them off again about 3 times before finally figuring out how they went. All's well that ends well, I suppose.

Other than new brake pads, New Year's was pretty quiet this year. We spend a little time with some friends on New Year's Eve and that was fun.

Yesterday I bought some orthotics to put on my shoes. After trimming the edge I threw the sliver of foam at my cat and she went nuts with it. What a crazy cat!

Christmas 2008

Christmas this year was really busy, but very wonderful. For the first time in nearly 2 1/2 years, all my siblings were together. We didn't have a lot of plain down-time, but we did get to spend time together and that was the important thing. My sister Samantha and her husband Kris brought their new baby and stayed for the entire week leading up to Christmas. We went to the park, we hung out at my house, we played Rock Band, we ate good food ... does it get much better than that? My parents arrived 4 days after my sister's family, so we had 3 very busy days all together as a family. We decided that taking a family portrait was a priority, and after much discussion and disagreement over how, when and where to do it, we all met at the Target photo studio. Considering there are only 13 people total with all my brothers and sisters and their children, our family is not as big as some families. But trying to fit 10 big people and 3 wiggly children into that small studio space was a challenge! Nevertheless, I think the picture we chose was pretty good. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to take another family portrait and that it kind of saddening to me. It's an end, I guess, but it's also a beginning. New lives, new families.

The other main activity that we did while everyone was together was a pizza "throwdown" (cookoff). I wouldn't mind if the pizza throwdown becomes a Christmas tradition! We ended up with 6 different pizzas which were all very good in their own right, except mine which was a veggie pizza and was cold by the time everyone got there! (Oh well!) Everyone got three votes, 5 points, 3 points, and 1 point and the pizza with the most votes won. Bet you can't guess who won ... well it wasn't me, I already said my pizza was cold. My sister-in-law gave me 1 point out of pity I think. Actually, my dear husband Ben won the pizza throwdown this year! He made a "Bodocious Barbecue Pie" the secret to which is our own exclusive technique of mixing regular tomato spaghetti sauce with a little bit of barbecue sauce. So it's neither plain tomato sauce nor plain barbecue sauce. If you like barbecue pizza and you've never tried it, you really should try the mixture! Of course he put bacon and chicken on it and who doesn't like a little bacon? I think a lot of times bacon on pizza is like having a trump card. Jim Gaffigan would agree with me. "Bibbity, bobbety, BACON!"

After Samantha, Kris, and Marin left on Christmas Eve, we made gingerbread houses which was so much fun to do with the kids. Actually we made one gingerbread house, and one gingerbread train. Austin and Jacob worked on the house, Scott and I worked on the train. Emily went back and forth between the two, picking off the candy we had just carefully placed. It was so funny!

Christmas day we went to visit my late grandmother's cousin David, who lives with his wife Phyllis up near Canton, GA. It was a long drive but I had not been up there before, even though they have been down here several times! It was good to see them and to see where the live. We ate Christmas dinner there and hung out for a bit before heading home.

Altogether, Christmas this year was wonderful. I'm so grateful for the family that I have living close to me and I'm sad that the rest of my family lives so far away. At this time of year you truly realize that it's not the gifts or the decorations that make Christmas so special, it's savoring precious moments with beloved family members.

Christmas pictures first, details later

Sick Ramblings

For nearly 2 weeks I've had a scratchy throat and slight sinus discharge. (I know you all really wanted to know that.) For several mornings in a row, I've actually woken up with a slightly sore throat. I don't like this very much because it has severly cut down on my exercise time. I've been trying to mostly go swimming every time I go to the gym (because my feet are usually killing me by the end of the day), but I'm paranoid about swimming with a scratchy throat and extra mucous in my sinuses! My mom always used to tell me that would make me more sick. Or maybe it really has made me more sick in the past ... I can't remember. Perhaps it's one of those things that's more psychological than physiological. I've decided that sometimes paranoia can in fact make you sick. Well yesterday I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to be sick anymore, so I went to Sam's Club on my way home from work and bought a gallon of orange juice. I'm not so sure that orange juice has been medically proven to help you when you're sick, but for me I've noticed that chugging orange juice really does help me get better. So I drank a tall glass of orange juice, texted my hubby at 5:15, told him I was laying down for a nap, and asked him to bring something home for dinner because I just couldn't cook. I put my earplugs in a zonked out, dreaming about very strange people. I had just gotten to this part in my dream where some random guy was hitting on me and then I thought he put his arm around me but then I woke up and realized it was Ben who had just gotten home and came in to wake me up. I was glad I hadn't slapped the guy! Then he told me it was already 7:30! I had slept for a long and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to sleep that night because that's what usually happens if I nap at all during the day. Nevertheless, I was sleepy again at midnight and so I went to bed and slept again! I'm pleased to say that I woke up this morning with no soreness in my throat which is a promising sign as my family all starts getting into town this week and I sure don't want to be even the least bit sick for that!! I'll just keep drinking my orange juice and sleeping for 10 hours a day and I should have this thing knocked out soon ... I hope ...

So busy!

Life has been a little crazy lately, I admit. Last week it seemed like we had something going on every night. On top of that I've been doing a little stint of long-term subbing. Altogether I'll have been in the same classroom for a week and a half. And believe me--that's PLENTY. I'm not sure I want to do any more long-term subbing. It's really stressful and I really hate that feeling of dread when I get up in the morning, not wanting to go to work!

Our choir sang at Stake Conference this past Sunday. I was really impressed with how the songs came together. One song we had already sung a couple of months ago and it was super easy. The other song was a medley of "The First Noel" and "Jesus, Once of Humble Birth". It is such a beautiful song. If you have never heard it you should really look it up. It has become my favorite Christmas song. We ended up with nearly 35 people singing in the choir and I think we had some angels too! I thought that is sounded beautiful and several people commented on how good it sounded too. I'm really having a lot of fun with this calling as ward choir director.

After gaining 15 pounds in the last (ahem) 4 months, (what about that newleywed 19???) I decided to finally join a gym a week and a half ago. I decided working out at the gym was no longer a budget luxury, it was a budget necessity! We have an LA Fitness just down the street from us but when I went there a month ago, I wasn't ready to pay $45/month plus the registration fee. But after going around to some other places and finding myself less than impressed, I went back to the LA Fitness and discovered they were running a deal for $30/month plus a registration fee. "Sign me up," I said!! So I've been going pretty regularly for the last week and a half and I'm really enjoying it. It's a kind-of "me" time when I get to take time just for myself. As much as I can, I try to get some treadmill/bike/elliptical and also get some swimming in. Then if I have a couple of extra minutes I get in the hot tub! It's really relaxing most days and I like the feeling that at least I'm not getting any fatter!

I'm getting veeeerrrry excited for Christmas, not for presents, but for seeing my family! My sister and her husband are flying in from Las Vegas with their little munchkin next week and they're staying until Christmas Eve. My parents and brothers from NY come in a week from Saturday and so we'll have the whole family together for the first time in over 2 years. My sister and her husband have not met Ben yet so that will be fun! I still don't really have Christmas decorations up in our apartment--not because I don't have time or desire, but we really don't have a budget for extra Christmas decorations this year. Oh well. I plug in my tree as much as I can and enjoy that!

We went to Ben's holiday work party last Friday. Ben works for a member of the church and it's a really great working environment with great people, both members and non-members. We had a catered dinner from one of my favorite Tex-Mex restaurants out here. I ended up saving the secretary's life with the Heimlich maneuver. She was choking on a chip and as inadequate as I felt, I was the closest person around and she was looking at me for help so I just set my plate down and grabbed her around the middle! After only 2 thrusts she could breathe again. I am grateful for the first aid training that I had a year and a half ago, and I'm also grateful that the chip probably wasn't stuck very far down!

They gave all the employees generous gift cards, and we got one for Best Buy so we went and bought another guitar for our Rock Band so we can have 4 people playing it. We figured with Christmas coming up and things that we could have some fun with that. And we're hoping to make some closer friendships with some of the other young couples in the ward. For some reason people's busy lives always seem to get in the way of get-togethers, but we'll figure it out somehow. Well, I've got bread in the oven and dishes to do. A woman's work is never done ... A revoir (or however that goes)!!

What a lovely time we had

I fell more in love with my husband over Thanksgiving. He was off work Thursday through Sunday so instead of the normal 2 weekend days we get to spend together, we got to spend 4 glorious days together! It's the most time we've spent together since our honeymoon I think. It is so fun to wake up each morning knowing that you are married to your best friend, FOREVER!

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We spent the actual Thanksgiving Day at a friend's house--well, they're kind-of family. It's Ben's sister's husband's family who live just minutes away from where we live now. We've done a couple of things with them already, mostly related to watching Auburn football games, so we had already met everyone who would be there. Ben's brother-in-law's step-father is an awesome cook and so he had made such a variety of dishes and enough to feed an army! It was crazy! We had deep-fried turkey, ham, mashed potatoes with mascarpone, baked beans, candied sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, salad, amish noodles, asparagus with tomatoes, cornbread dressing, regular dressing, and the list went on and on. And the desserts ... it was a dessert lover's paradise. It was all so good! I have to say though, I was not a huge fan of the deep-fried turkey. I thought it was rather tough. I think that's probably because it cooks so fast. About 3 1/2 minutes per pound apparently.

After dinner we played the Rock Band on the Wii. We actually have Rock Band at our house, although it's for X-Box but for some reason we haven't played it in since we got married. We decided we need to bust it out a little more often. Altogether we had a great time.

The desserts!

The spread

Drowning in hot oil

Grandpa Phil frying the turkey

Rock Band

Us on Thanksgiving--so thankful for each other!

Have you been to the temple lately?

Just a friendly reminder. If you don't recognize either of these guys, chances are it's been a while for you. Go soon; go often! You need the blessings of being in the temple.

Prop 8: Some final comments

In response to my last post on Prop 8, I am offering a few links that may be of interest to people who wish to understand the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with respect to same-sex marriage and the passage of Proposition 8 in California.

This link from the Church's newsroom provides and extensive commentary on why we support the protection of traditional marriage.
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-divine-institution-of-marriage

The next link is also from the Church newsroom and is a response to the passage of Proposition 8 in California.
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-responds-to-same-sex-marriage-votes

This last link is also from the Church newsroom and provides some comments from other organizations regarding the backlash aimed at our church following the passage of Proposition 8.
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/measured-voices-provide-reason-support-amidst-proposition-8-reaction

The information from these links is quite comprehensive and conveys the message in far more eloquence and depth than I with my limited capacities could. But, I add my testimony to that of others before me, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as a newlywed, that marriage is ordained of God and is sacred. The marriage relationship as defined by God has the capacity to bring the greatest joy of any possible earthly relationship. We need to protect marriage as the fundamental unit of our society.

Quick post

I'm on my way to work in a few short minutes. I am subbing for half a day today. I'm so excited for Thanksgiving week, other than the fact that there's almost no work this week which means less income, but I guess I'll just have to enjoy my days off! We're going to Ben's brother-in-law's parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner. For the last two years I have made Thanksgiving dinner, or at least a big portion of it, so it will be nice to have a year off. I am however going to make jello-pretzel salad to share with everyone. I haven't had it for a long time and I'm really excited about it. I'll post the recipe later if I have time. It's a mixture of cream cheese, whipped cream, and strawberry-jello goodness, all on a baked pretzel crust. How good does that sound? I still can't believe that it's already time for Thanksgiving and that one month from tomorrow is Christmas! Unreal how fast time flies. Saturday we got to spend some time cleaning our house. I got everything picked up, and the kitchen cabinets rearranged so I could get some stuff off the counter, and Ben even cleaned the dust off the fans! But it seems like no matter how frequently I clean, by the end of the day there's papers and other things all over my newly dusted and once clutter-free surfaces. I know what you're thinking, Austin, "just wait till you have kids!!". Yeah--we are enjoying our kid-free days at the moment, thank you very much! We actually had my sister-in-law, niece and nephew over on Saturday for lunch and it was very fun. I made some fantastic ice cream cookie sandwiches that are oh so yummy! We had fun playing with the kids, as always. Well, gotta go--time to leave for work! Catch ya'll later!

Proposition 8: A Mormon’s Perspective

I admit I am saddened by the negative and hateful response toward my church following last week’s passage of Proposition 8 in California. I can understand why people are upset. For some, their lifestyle has been rejected by a majority of voters, for others, they may have friends or relatives who are gay. Still others have simply come to accept the gay lifestyle as acceptable and feel that to deny homosexuals the right to be married is to deny them their civil rights. Trying to put myself into other people’s shoes, I can understand why they feel that way. I cannot, however, change my mind about my position, but I do hope that some who now see Mormons as bigots and an enemy to progress can perhaps take a second to understand why we supported Proposition 8.

Firstly, I hope people will understand that the traditional family is the most important thing to a Mormon besides his faith in God. We believe that families can be together forever, and we do everything we can to strengthen our own families, and help teach others how to strengthen their family relationships so that they can enjoy the blessings of a strong and happy family. When God created the earth, he also created Adam and Eve, and married them for eternity if they would be faithful to each other and to God’s commandments. Then, instead of creating all of us individually and placing us one-by-one into the Garden of Eden, he gave Adam and Eve a commandment—to have a family. Thus the family became the fundamental unit of our human society. God is the one that set up the concept of the family, not the Mormons. We believe this principle and commandment remains in force today, and that God intends for His children to continue to be born into families. In 1995 in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” a Prophet of God declared, “Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.” This is an enormous part of God’s great plan—that His beloved children should be born into homes with a father and a mother who have committed themselves to each other through the marriage covenant and who love and rear their children in righteousness. Same-sex marriage has no part in that plan.

Feeling as strongly as we do about the history and eternal nature of families, we simply cannot ever support same-sex marriage and in fact, we must strongly oppose it. It is not because we hate gay people or wish to impose our religious views on the world. (Although, if the world of its own accord would accept Christ’s gospel, it would indeed be a much happier place). We do our best to be accepting of all people as we are all God’s children and deserve to be treated as such. But that does not mean that we must support or even simply allow same-sex marriage in the name of tolerance. Acceptance of people and acceptance of behavior are two separate issues, and something that many people have trouble differentiating.

I know that my words will convince very few if any who are passionately devoted to their cause. Only the Spirit of God can truly convert a person. But if I can shed a little light on a very touchy subject, and soften a few hearts, then my mission will have been achieved. I do not wish for there to be violent disagreements between the sides. Let us hope that when anger subsides, we will be able to find peace and understanding.

(For more details on the official stance of the LDS church on same-gender attraction, please refer to: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/same-gender-attraction)

Good Saturday

Today was a good Saturday. I feel like I got a lot accomplished. I made pancakes for breakfast, tutored for an hour, we ran some errands, picked up a bookcase at Ben's parents' house, moved some of Ben's books, went grocery shopping, baked a cake, cleaned the house, and watched some football. That's a lot for one day! This week has been pretty productive also. I worked 4 days, which was also every day that the schools were open. (They were closed on Tuesday because some schools in the county we used as polling locations.)

I found out last Saturday that our choir is supposed to sing in Stake Conference 4 weeks from tomorrow. Yikes. Let's hope that more folks decide to show up for practice tomorrow!

Well, it's late and I'm going brain-dead so, let's call it an evening!

I'm back!

I know I know, I took a very long hiatus from blogging. Somehow it seems like when I don't blog for a couple of days in a row, I don't feel like I can really sit down without blogging ALL of what's been going on. This keeps going for a couple of weeks until I basically forget everything that's been going on and figure I'll start afresh.

Yesterday was decision day in our country. I couldn't wait until too late to vote, so I showed up at the polls around 9:30. I was there for an hour and 20 minutes, and as I stood in line with over 100 other American citizens waiting to cast their vote, I felt a huge sense of pride for our country. Despite the pessimism I had felt about the future of this country, (especially if it was to be put into the hands of a certain Senator from Illinois), it was inspiring to see so many people waiting in line, feeling the immense responsibility and importance of choosing the next leader of the greatest country on earth. To be honest, I'm not sure why so many people were able to place their faith in a man we as a nation hardly know. The impression that I get is that so many are simply dissatisfied with the way things are, and they saw John McCain as "more of the same". In fact, I think Obama ran his campaign very well. All the platform he really needed was: "change ... change ... change ..." and "we need change", and 6 million Americans fell in lock step. But the problem is that promises of change are just that--promises. Does anyone really know what Obama will do in the White House?

Despite my previous pessimism, I am feeling strangly optimistic today. Although Barack Obama was not my chosen candidate, good things have and will come out of this election. While I dislike every platform he ran on, I hope Mr. Obama can be successful and do good things for this country. Only time will tell. If nothing else, there's only 2 years until we can return conservatism to Washington.

Super Sunday

Why is it Super Sunday? I don't know--I just liked the alliteration. We ate both meals in bed today. I told Ben he shouldn't move too much and he didn't argue with me on that point. He's been in bed nearly all day. It smells like pancake syrup in the bedroom now but oh well.

I got the baking bug tonight. I'm just addicted to baking--I can't stop! Despite the fact that we're trying to keep Ben on low-fat foods, I just really wanted to make cookies tonight. But I decided to get creative and I made up a new cookie recipe. I used whole wheat AND oatmeal for these cookies so if you want some more whole grains in your cookies, try this recipe. VERY tasty, by the way.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Oatmeal and Whole Wheat

Sift together:
1 C. whole wheat flour
1 1/4 C. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Cream well:
1/2 C. butter
1/2 C. canola oil
1 C. brown sugar
1/2 C. white sugar

Add and mix well:
2 eggs, 1 at a time
1 tsp. almond extract

Add:
1 C. oatmeal

Mix until blended well

Slowly add previously sifted dry ingredients until just blended. Don't overmix.

Add 1 1/2-2 cups mixed chocolate chips. I used a combination of white and semi-sweet.

Bake at 375 until just brown around the edges--about 8 or 9 minutes.

I could hardly believe there was whole wheat flour in this recipe. You could probably even mess with the ratio of whole wheat to all-purpose flour and have more whole wheat than all-purpose. Well, that's all she wrote! Enjoy!

A Long Thursday

We've had a bit of excitement in our house this week. At 4:45 Thursday morning Ben woke me up with a horrible pain in his upper right abdomen. He just couldn't get comfortable, and after doing some research on the internet I thought he was probably looking at kidney stones or gallstones. We got dressed and headed over to the emergency room via his parents' house, where his dad and uncle Larry were able to give him a blessing. The emergency room was completely empty so we were seen almost immediately. Not that it made the whole process much faster. The ER doctor came in and after a bunch of poking and prodding decided that It was probably gallstones, but that they needed to do an ultrasound to be sure. After that the nurse came in and said that Ben couldn't have any pain medication until after the ultrasound and that someone was coming in a few minutes to take him to ultrasound. An hour later, they finally did come and take him to ultrasound. When he came back, Ben said that the technician found gallstones, and the doctor came back a few minutes later and said that it was gallstones and Ben would need surgery to get his gallbladder out. We asked if he could have some pain medication and an hour later someone finally came to give him some meds. To make a long story short, they admitted him into the observation unit of the hospital and he finally got into surgery at about 5:30 that evening. When he got back from surgery he was coherent and feeling much more comfortable. They did the surgery laproscopically, making only 3 small incisions. Apparently his gallbladder was completely blocked with a stone about 1 centimeter in diameter. No wonder he was in so much pain! He spent the night in the hospital and came home yesterday morning. He's really doing very well. He's a little more sore today than he was yesterday. We had to go to the grocery store yesterday to buy some more low-fat ingredients. With the removal of his gallbladder (which stores bile--the stuff that breaks down the fats in the food you eat) we're not sure how he'll tolerate fatty stuff. So at least for the next two weeks he's on a low-fat diet. Although he didn't feel too much discomfort from all the walking around yesterday, I think he's feeling it a little more today. He'll probably go back to work Monday since all he has to do is sit at a desk and work. Altogether, we feel very blessed. It could have been much worse. Ben had a very skilled surgeon and he's recovering very well. We're so grateful for all the prayers in our behalf. Trust me, we've felt them.

Making decisions

So this whole subbing thing isn't working out as well as I thought it would. Instead of working 20 days a month like I thought I would, I'm working about half of that. When I went one week subbing 1 1/2 days, the next week subbing 4 days and the next week subbing 2 days, I decided enough was enough. The main reason why I wanted to sub was to open the doors to potential teaching jobs. For better or for worse, the doors just aren't opening right now, so I've decided to move on from that, for now. I'm still planning on getting my teaching credentials and possibly start teaching later on down the road, but for right now, I'm going to explore other avenues. Initially I thought I would just go ahead and get another full-time job. I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving home at 6:30am and not getting home until 6:30pm, so I began looking for full-time administrative jobs here in the area. I didn't find a whole lot and I wasn't feeling really motivated either. Last week I went for a walk in the park and I realized that getting a full-time, hum-drum job wasn't really what I wanted to do. I realized that I wanted desperately to explore my talents and passions: teaching, creativity and music. I have an opportunity (through networking) to teach science lessons at a couple of local preschools. I also have a piano, and with a little brushing up I could teach piano lessons. In addition I happen to be quite smart and there's got to be some people out there looking for math/science tutoring. It took me about a week of going back and forth, weighing the pros and cons, discussing my options with friends, but I've finally decided to follow my passions. I think my mom summed it up best when she said, "what do you have to lose?" Well, I realized, absolutely nothing. So, yesterday I put an ad on Craigslist for tutoring, I sent out a proposal for the science lessons, and I'm planning to make up some little flyers for piano lessons. I've already had one response about the tutoring. It's all coming together and I'm very excited and happy. I'm especially grateful for my wonderful and supportive husband without whom I would not be able to do this so easily. Despite the fact that I was initially very depressed and angry that teaching has not working out, I think the Lord has blessed my life and given me an opportunity to bless others with the talents and gifts which He has blessed ME with.