Notes from the Conch Republic

Jules in the Kitchen

2012-01-22T18:38:00.001-05:00

So, I like to cook on Sundays. Saturdays are for cleaning, and such, but I find the process of cooking -- the cleaning, and the chopping, and the sauteeing and the simmering -- to be very relaxing when I have a whole afternoon open and no real deadlines to meet. I like to turn on General Conference, or my MoTab Pandora station, and its very uplifting and spiritually (and physically!) enriching. I'll usually do two or three dishes in a row, and that way I actually eat good food during the week.

Here's what came out of my kitchen today.

Cranberry Orange Jam with crystallized ginger, from this recipe at Serious Eats:

Not just gorgeous, also delicious.

This bread:

The texture is wonderful, but I forgot the salt. Ooops. I had some carrot ginger soup in the freezer that I made a while ago, but never ate because it was disastrous as a soup. Seriously awful. But then I had the genius idea of subbing in the soup for some of the water in the bread, which made up for SOME of the salt lack, but otherwise, you can't really taste that it's there beyond a kind of earthy flavor to the bread.

And finally, Cilantro, Chicken, and Black Bean soup, adapted from this recipe at Kalyn's Kitchen:

This is a winner. And paired with the crusty homemade bread above? Yum-mo!

I realize that my blog has been super boring lately, but that's mostly just because *I've* been super boring lately. Basically, I've been working, and reading, and going on run/walks, doing the Young Women president thing, and cooking. And that's pretty much it. Whee! I'm not complaining, though. Last year was pretty hectic, so I'm enjoying the slower pace. For now anyway...

Key West Bucket List

2012-01-15T21:25:00.000-05:00

In no particular order:

Dry Tortugas
Snorkeling
Sunset Island
A play at Red Barn or Waterfront theater
Florida Grand Opera

Am I missing anything?

This I Will Miss

2012-01-09T12:26:00.000-05:00

This and the fact that when I took this picture an hour ago it was 78 degrees out with a mild breeze.

Borscht and MORE Borscht

2012-01-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

So, I had some beets that needed to be used. I thought: borscht (Russian beet stew). The recipe that I had also called for cabbage, potatoes, and onion, which I happened to have on hand.

Did I metion it was RED cabbage, RED onion, and PURPLE potatoes?

All those rich reds and purples combined to make a particularly beautiful red stew.

Gorgeous. And it is moreover delicious. However, even though I froze half of it, I've still been eating borscht for DAYS! Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays! So many days of red Russian beet stew that I'm not just seeing red, I'm literally pooping red.

HELP!

Starting off the New Year Right

2012-01-01T20:57:00.002-05:00

You probably already know this, but I have a huge fan crush on Ken Jennings. Big time. So I read his blog regularly. And occasionally, on that blog, he writes about books he's read and enjoyed. Just recently, as I was finishing up one of the books he recommended (1Q84 mentioned a few days ago and easily my favorite work of fiction that I read last year), and loving it, as I have loved all of the books I picked up on his recommendation, I decided that I needed more Ken Jennings book recommendations and sent him an email requesting a list of his top recently read books.

This is the email that I got today:

Novels I have recently read and liked:
Little, Big by John Crowley
The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt
Falconer by John Cheever
Habibi by Craig Thompson

Nonfiction books I have recently read and liked:
Life by Keith Richards
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam
The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem

Let me know how my hit rate holds up.

Best,
Ken

An email from Ken Jennings, with book recommendations? On 1 January? This is clearly a sign that 2012 is going to be the best year ever!

As soon as I finish the giant novel I'm reading now, I will set out on the Ken Jennings reading list. I will keep you and Ken Jennings posted on how it goes.

Ken Jennings!

Goodbye, 2011! And Good Riddance!

2011-12-31T11:36:00.002-05:00

Guys, 2011 was not my favorite year of all time. Don't get me wrong, there were good times, like when I went to El Valle de San Anton, and Girls Camp, and of course, that trip to Yellowstone National Park in June. There was also the Spinster Cousin Cruise, a couple of other trips to Panama, some time in Virginia in the fall. Seriously, this year was jam packed with trips and activities.

But on a really personal level, this year was a roller coaster, between all the fun trips and good times there were a lot of hard days. A lot. The good news is that nearly all of the tough quandries have been resolved and I don't think there is any need for 2011 to leak into 2012. Thank goodness!

In fact, 2012 promises to be pretty incredible, so I'm looking forward to it. I've been thinking a lot about what I would want my goals for the year to be, and decided that I wanted to approach the year a little differently than I have in the past. Instead of setting activity goals, I want to set some character goals, some Make Jules a Better Person goals. So as I've pondered this, I've come up with two kind of theme-y statements for 2012, the first is "Cleanse and Sanctify" and the seconds is "Be Possessed of Charity."

I know how the goals things works, so I do have some concrete parts of those theme statements. Each month I plan to have a diet and exercise plan to follow, a Scripture Study program/topic, and at least one compassionate service project. You'll likely being seeing me write about all of those things over the next year.

So bring on 2012! It's going to be good...

Books and More Books

2011-12-30T21:36:00.003-05:00

So... 2011 was not a stellar reading year for me; only 54 books (according to Goodreads, 22,822 pages (compared to last year's 75 books and with 27,220 pages. I don't have page stats for 2009, but I apparently read 83 books that year)). That's barely one a week. I may have to have a 100 books goal for next year, because I feel like that was a lot of time watching TV and ew. Since I have all my read books recorded on Goodreads, instead of listing every single one this year, I'm only going to list eleven (in honor of 2011) that I really loved:

1Q84, Haruki Murakami -- "I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It started out as a pretty straightforward alternate timeline tale and just got more and more surreal as the novel went on. But in a good way."

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman -- "Bushman did a good job of at least seeming to be objective about the subject matter, although obviously favorable. It is well sourced and I appreciated the source descriptions included as well since there are few neutral sources on Joseph Smith."

Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs, Ken Jennings -- "It made me literally laugh out loud more than once, which is difficult to do, and I loved how Ken Jennings the narrator seemed to fall a little in love with all of the people he talked to about the history of trivia."

Nation, Terry Pratchett -- "You know when you find an author who can do no wrong? That's Pratchett for me, this is the second of three books that I've read of his and they have all been wonderful (review of the third coming soon)."

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro -- "I LOVED the conversational narration of this book. I loved how quiet it was. I loved how brilliantly British it was."

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles C. Mann -- "A very interesting and highly readable book."

The Path Between the Seas, David McCullough -- "Epic. That is the word for this book. Well, really its the word for the whole building the Panama Canal undertaking, but McCullough is a narrative history genius and does a fantastic job of getting you all caught up in the thrill and the horror and the absolute hugeness of building the canal."

The Lost Gate, Orson Scott Card -- "As good, if not better, than Ender's Game."

The Modern Scholar: World War l: The Great War and the World It Made, John Ramsden -- "The lecture series is well structured and detailed enough to be interesting without bogging down a novice."

Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris -- "Morris again does an excellent job with his subject -- totally readable (in my case listen-to-able, despite a slightly over-wrought reading by Marosz) and super interesting.

Jar City, Arnaldur Indridason -- "I hugely enjoyed this book. It's not life-changing (which may be one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much, I've been reading too many life changing things lately), but it's got that thing that makes a book excellent."

Christmas En Español

2011-12-28T17:18:00.000-05:00

I spent Christmas in Panama with Panamanian Pal, et al. I know you were really hoping for a post full of photos, but, as is often the case when PP and I are together, there are no photos. Unless we are, like, BOTH on vacation away from home, we just don't do that much that is photo worthy. Let me list for you now our Christmas break activities:

Shopping: I did not know what to get PP's parents for Christmas, so on my first day there, we hopped over to the mall so he could help me. It was a pretty quick in and out proposition, but we had fun dawdling and meandering.
Movies: I don't know if you know this, but it is *HOT* in Panama. A couple hours in the uber VIP theater (recliners? seat service? full on lunch? I say yes!) with delicious air conditioning was welcome.
Cooking shows: Seriously, more cooking shows than I have ever watched at once in my life. Cooking shows all the time.
Making fruit cake: technically, watching fruit cake get made. I was not entrusted with any kind of assistant activities.
Eating Panamanian Christmas food: the above fruit cake, tamales, ham, turkey, I think three kinds of rice, and arrocha, which is their special Christmas bread.

Also, we spent Christmas afternoon with PP's extended family, at which there was a gift exchange, fer funsies! However, by the end of the night my brain refused to parse any more Spanish sentences. Seriously, it's exhausting to spend all day communicating in a second language, but I think it's even more exhausting spending all day switching between two languages, and that's what I was doing all day in Panama. Yikes.

I should probably also mention the migraine that I got on Christmas Eve. Gross. Luckily, by Christmas morning it was all gone. I will also complain a little bit about the paucity of sweet treats. So much delicious savory food, but nary a cookie in sight. Sad.

The above aside, it was a fun and merry Christmas!

Winter

2011-12-12T19:14:00.001-05:00

The best thing about Winter is that temperatures drop to a delightful 73 degrees and the humidity drops way off. Just delicious.

The worst thing about Winter is that it gets dark SOOOO early that I start feeling ready to curl up in bed at like 6:30pm. And sometimes I do. 'Night y'all!

Let's Talk

2011-12-10T11:11:00.001-05:00

So, I want to talk about something that has been on my mind the last couple of weeks, and it is this. You just never know what people are going through. Remember when I asked for stories and recipes a few weeks ago? Well, I've been really touched as people have actually responded to that and shared their stories -- you guys are awesome. Among the responses that I got was this heartbreaking/heartwarming tale. I don't actually know whose story it is (it was sent anonymously, and when you read it you'll understand why), but its one that I'm sharing with the permission of the author because we think that there are a lot of you out there also suffering in silence, and we think you should know you're not alone:

This is only part of my story. That's what makes it so poignant. Our lives are so multifaceted that one aspect of our life can't define it. But each part of our stories shape us and strengthen us.

This is the story of my secret battle--the secret that brought me closer to my God than I even realized was possible.

You see, my husband struggles with an addiction to pornography. Sure, there are many people in this world who look at pornography and don't see anything wrong with it. And there are many people who drink alcohol and don't see anything wrong with it. Do you know why the leaders of our church (the LDS church) caution so strongly against these things? It's because there are people out there who see pornography once or take one drink of alcohol and are instantly addicts. Their brains are wired differently than the rest of us. It's a very sad and very real thing. My husband made the mistake of looking at pornography when he was a teenager and has struggled to stay away from it since. Is he a creep? No. Is he a bad person? No. In fact, as far as addictions go, he is not in very deep and is doing quite well. But you mention the word "addict" and people suddenly picture a manipulative, dirty, weak person.

This is why my battle is secret. I will not tolerate anyone judging my husband based on this one part of him. This is one part of his "story," not something he should be remembered for. If he feels confident enough in the future, he may reach out to others in order to help people in similar situations, but until then I do this in silence. Out of respect for him. But wading through a trial in secret is hard and lonely.

I believe that there is no mistake that this is one of my trials in life, because I can handle it. I am a very confident person. Sure, I have my insecure moments in life--comparing myself to others or feeling left out--but for the most part I have always been quite confident. I don't think this was a coincidence. I needed every ounce of confidence possible to stare this battle in the face and say, "It is not my fault my husband looks at porn. He looked at it before he knew me, and he would look at it if I left. I did not cause this. I will not be blamed for this. This does not make me ugly. This does not make me less attractive or sexy. This does not have to do with me." It still breaks me down and sometimes I think I'm not cut out for this kind of trial, but I fight back with a strength that wouldn't be possible had I come into the relationship lacking in confidence.

I wish I could make every woman going through this truly, truly understand that. This is not your fault and is not a reflection of how attractive/smart/fun you are. This is an addiction. Heavenly Father helped me understand this in one of my darkest hours when I was feeling anger, hurt, and disgust after a relapse. I was begging for God to help me stop crying. I felt a comfort I had never felt before. The crying stopped instantly. I had never felt a peace and calm quite like I did that night. And I knew my husband's problem had nothing to do with me.

I'm sure you've heard people say, "We plan. God laughs." This saying actually makes me mad. God doesn't laugh at us. He doesn't laugh at our efforts. God encourages us to plan and prepare for what we want in life. Then he provides us with the tools necessary to get through hard times when our plans don't work out the way we had hoped. God prepares us. I was prepared.

This battle has brought me closer to God and strengthened my faith more than anything else in my life.

Sometimes I think, "Wait. This isn't how my life is supposed to be! This isn't how I saw my future!" And then I sit back and remember that no one is living the life they imagined. And that's what fascinates me about life. It happens. And we survive. And if we let ourselves, we can still be incredibly happy.

That's part of my story.

Seriously, I'm so inspired by my friend, by her faith, and by her strength. And her story just kind of brought home what I've been thinking about for a long time: that we just don't know what others are dealing with. And it's a pretty safe bet that they are dealing with something. And knowing that makes me more disposed to be kind to people, to give them the benefit of the doubt, to look closer. And to remember that despite what it looks like, no one has a perfect life. No one has everything figured out.

And her story also reminds me that there is always room for faith and for happiness in our lives. Maybe not every single second will be rainbows and unicorns, but there is always room for faith and joy if we choose it.

Post Script:

My friend added at the end of her note to me, the following:

If anyone is struggling with something similar and needs some support, feel free to email me at stepbysteptoeternity at gmail dot com.

And I only have awesome friends, so if one of you maybe is struggling or knows someone who is, I think you should take her up on the offer.

December

2011-12-01T21:24:00.002-05:00

Dear December,

Listen, you and I have historically been on pretty good terms -- I have no reason to doubt that this year will be any exception, but just for the record, I have a few requests. I will enumerate them below:

1.) It would be great if you could make the next 20 days go by fairly quickly. I don't mean they have to be a faster than light blur of days, but just faster rather than slower

2.) To make up for that, I would be totally fine with the 22nd to the 26th going by very slowly. I'm going to be with my honey in Panama, you see, and we don't get to see each other that much, so if you could make those days last longer, that would be great.

3.) You were kind of pushing your luck with the 65 degrees today. If at all possible, please maintain an average temperature of about 70. Thanks!

4.) I know I said that I wanted the next 20 days to go by fast, but I also have a lot to do during those 20 days, so if you could just work around that, that would be great.

5.) December, you've not been historically kind to my bank account. Do you think this year you could go a little easy on it? I've got big plans for next year, and they are going to require some cash, so on behalf of my pocket book, please be nice.

6.) You know what I want for Christmas. It would be really nice if I could get it.

And that's probably all for now. I don't think that's asking too much, is it?

Sincerely,

Jules Q. Lindgren

Grateful

2011-11-25T21:39:00.000-05:00

So, Thanksgiving is a holiday that I usually spend a lot of time anticipating. I plan menus and think about what I'm grateful for and just really enjoy this part of the holiday season. This year, however, there's been so much Other Stuff happening that Thanksgiving decided to lay in wait and ambush me in a surprise attack. (To the point that I literally used the very last of my sugar, the very last of my shortening, the very last of my milk, and the very last of my honey preparing my contributions for yesterday's Thanksgiving meal). Seriously, One day it was the beginning of November, and then the next it was Thanksgiving.

I have a LOT to be grateful for though, this year especially so it was nice to have a minute in the middle of all the Other Stuff to think about the good stuff. Like:

All the amazing people I know.
Faith
Life lessons about choosing
Opportunities to serve
A great job
Being debt free
All of the awesome travel opportunities I've had in the last few years
My library's e-lending for the Kindle.
Learning to cook and eat like a foodie
Key West

And on and on and on. I have a rich life full of meaningful relationships, and it's nice to sit down and think about that for a while.

Apparently, I Don't Have It After All

2011-11-21T12:23:00.002-05:00

So I'm at the grocery store buying five turkeys for our Young Women Thanksgiving service project, and the cashier's (who, important for the story is probably 17 or 18) like "woah!" and we end up having a playfully bantering conversation. An hour later I'm back at the same store in the same line with the same cashier, and we exchange further banter, and then I notice him slipping a paper into my bag, and all I can tell from a distance is that there's a handwritten name and a phone number on it. But I'm like, "Oh yeah! I've still got it!"

And then I get home, and the phone number is actually for the grocery store's events planning department and it's on the back of a flyer for its catering department. Which, when you think about it, makes much more sense than a 17 year old giving me his number after some lame turkey banter, but was still kind of disappointing.

The End.

What I Want For Christmas

2011-11-17T19:13:00.001-05:00

So... it's getting that time of year again! It's the holiday season, and I'm in love. My favorite, favorite, favorite holiday of the whole year is Thanksgiving, as you may know. And I really enjoy Christmas shopping. I love finding that perfect gift for someone. You know, that thing that you know they'll love, use, and/or cherish. It's my favorite. So I've spent the last week, partially on my mom's behalf, talking to all my siblings, sussing out what they want, and what they need, and what they will cherish and I've loved every minute of it. So just now Mom sent me and email and was like "Well, now that you've gotten everyone else's wish list, what do YOU want for Christmas?"

I hadn't even thought about it. And the thing is, I'm pretty set for Stuff. I've upgraded all my furniture and kitchen tools, I'm pretty set in the clothing department, and I probably wouldn't let you pick something out for me anyway, I've got tons of books, and a library to access. And not only that, I'm going to be moving sometime next year, and so I'm actually looking to get rid of Stuff, not get more. So I thought about it for a while, and I finally figured out what I want.

I want your stories and your recipes.

I love hearing from other people the stories of their lives, the things that made them into who they are, and I would love having this super amazing compilation of all the stories of the people that I love, and that have influenced me. The stories about how they found their faith or how they lost it, the stories of the moments that shaped them and sent their lives on unexpected pathways. I think it would be extremely awesome.

I also am always on the lookout for delicious recipes. I keep them on postcards in a binder, and I think your recipes should be there too. Particularly the ones that you think of as "your" recipes. For example, my chili recipe (which yes, I did initially borrow, but which I put a Jules spin on) is a recipe that I think of as a "Jules" recipe, because it's one that I make and serve others regularly. And if you send it on a post card, twice as good.

So this year, you can skip the stores for me. I don't want Stuff, I want stories. And recipes.

11 Nouns

2011-11-11T08:47:00.001-05:00

What!? Two blog posts in one day? That's just crazy, but I also could let the last binary date for the next 89 years go un marked. So, herewith 11 people, places, and things:

11 People That Have Made This Year Great:

1.) Panamanian Pal
2.) My Momma
3.) Ed
4.) A2
5.) Momma Bear
6.) Niece
7.) Nephew
8.) The Boss
9.) Mrs. Salas
10.) Tim
11.) The Spinster cousins

11 Places that Made Me Happy This Year

1.) Key West
2.) Yellowstone
3.) Panama City
4.) El Valle de San Anton
5.) The church ranch near Orlando
6.) Puerto Vallarta
7.) Los Angeles
8.) Orlando temple
9.) Target
10.) Northern Virginia
11.) Hollister, CA

11 Things I'm Looking Forward To

1.) The Great African Sarafari
2.) Christmas in Panama
3.) Young Women Thanksgiving service project
4.) Moving somewhere new
5.) My longest run ever
6.) New books to read
7.) Getting those continent pillows
8.) Finding out what's on the other side of If Mountain.
9.) The next episode of Castle
10.) Next year's surprises
11.) Christmas shopping (I know, it's weird, but I love it.)

Veteran's Day

2011-11-11T06:51:00.002-05:00

So... I'm not usually the one getting all goopy on holidays, and almost especially not on patriotic holidays. Not that I'm not patriotic, I love my country and such, but I like to think that I have a low simmer going on all year. This year though, for a couple of reasons, I'm feeling a little extra simmer of appreciation for our military members.

While in DC we stopped at the Vietnam memorial and there was like a ranger-type guy there talking about the monument and it was kind of stirring to see the deep reverence he felt for those who had given their life in Vietnam; he was of the age when many of them would have been his friends and I was never clear whether he had been in Vietnam or not.

While I was there, I thought about my brother who was overseas for two years (not consecutively) in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's pretty closed about those experiences (part of the, "you wouldn't understand unless you were there" thing) but I sometimes do get a sense of how much those years cost him.

I've been reading about Theodore Roosevelt, who was probably the first president to truly see himself and our country as tapped with influencing world events -- this had obviously been growing for a while, but I think he was the first to actively step in to world events that the US had no direct connection to, and I was thinking about the fact that that sense of world duty is what has put so many of our young men and women on the line in wars since: WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq -- most of which we joined on behalf of allies and not as the primary attackees/ers.

And the crazy thing is, I know a lot of those service men and women, and you know what? they really believe in what they are doing. They really are willing to put themselves in harms way to do what they feel they can to protect the freedom and rights of others, of strangers. They really do think they are doing the best they can to help people in other countries; to bring them that thing which we place so high a value on here in the US: Freedom.

And no matter what you think about our current or past wars; no matter how you feel about US foreign policy in general; no matter what you think about whether or not we should be imposing US-style freedom on other nations; I think that its incredible that as a nation and a culture we foster those kinds of young men and young women. I think that a nation that can produce so many people willing to make such huge sacrifices on behalf of others must be doing something right.

So a big thank you today to all current and former members of the armed services. You make our country proud. And you make me proud of our country.

A Really Boring Trip Report

2011-11-09T19:09:00.002-05:00

In case you hadn't heard, I made a trip to the Washington, D.C. area last week. I was going up there for a bunch of work testing that I needed to do, and that part of the trip was both stressful and kind of boring, so we're putting it in the past and not talking about it anymore. Yay!

But the trip was not a total bummer. Far from in fact. This was due to three things, mainly. 1.) Panamanian Pal decided to make a trip of it too and came up to hang out with me, 2.) My dad decided that DC is considerably closer to Vermont than Key West is and decided to make a trip of it, and 3.) I have awesome friends who live in the Washington, D.C. area and was able to see quite a few of them!

Do you want the blow by blow? No, you don't, BUT THAT'S NOT GOING TO STOP ME! MWAAA HA HA HA! Ha.

Tuesday, 1 November: Arrive at Washington Dulles airport after a perfectly incident free pair of flights around five. Have easiest baggage claim ever (seriously, as I was walking toward the baggage spinny thing (I know there's a better name for it) my bag and I hit the same spot on the spinny thing AT THE SAME TIME!). Rent a car (the guy renting me the car said that I was his favorite customer all day and gave me a fancy Volvo with heated seats. It was genius.) Check into hotel, unpack a little, refresh a little, drive to Chili's and have a delightful dinner with friends! Go back to the hotel, fall asleep.

Wednesday, 2 November: Have Panamanian Pal (who got in late on Tuesday) drop me off for day one of tests. Day one of tests. Dinner at a yummy Vietnamese place with Tim, then hanging out with Listy McListerson, Beans, and Mel.

Thursday, 3 November: More testing. Dinner at home with the Salas family. Much cheek munching of their adorably cute baby boy.

Friday, 4 November: Visiting our office, yummy Japanese lunch with office friends, hanging out with former neighbor/branch president (he's still coworker/friend) and family. Too much fun with a 4-year-old. Yummy Indian dinner.

Saturday, 5 November: Fancy brunch (Okay, this deserves an aside. We went to this place called Blue Duck Tavern in the city, and it was AMAZINGLY delicious. The dish that was probably the highlight was a smoked sturgeon rilette -- kind of like a potato, eel, pudding consistency -- that was just exploding with flavor. Paired with a crispy toasted bread and just... wow. SO delicious. There were also lemon ricotta soufle pancakes, eggs benedict with pheasant, some really really tasty beets, cheese cake stuffed figs, oh, and this heavenly vanilla honey ice cream. Everything was wonderful. And even better we were sitting right next to the kitchen area which was open to the seating area and it was hugely fun to watch everything being prepared. Loved it).

Then meet up with Dad and Vermont Lady and get lost a couple of times while walking around, visit the Vietnam memorial and the Lincoln memorial and the Washington memorial, have lovely low key late lunch/early dinner at a chinese/asian place.

Sunday, 6 November: Sleep in, go to late breakfast, hang out and talk with Panamanian Pal, catch a place back home, getting delayed an hour in Atlanta because the plane had to turn around and drop off a drunk lady, awesome. Go home and go to bed.

And that, readers, was my penultimate trip of 2011. I certainly have been around this year, for reals. I'd like to hope that next year will be quieter, but it probably won't. Well, no it definitely won't. But, that's kind of how I like it.

note: you may have noticed that there are no pictures in this post. That is because I didn't take any. I think PP may have taken maybe five, but he'll probably not get them off his camera for another year or so, so I wouldn't hold my breath on seeing them any time soon.

What You're Getting For Christmas

2011-10-25T22:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I was skeptical when I ran across a recipe for a banana preserve. Because, banana preserve, who's ever heard of that ever? But I have like fifty thousand frozen bananas, so I figured why not:

So, um, I don't know why this isn't a thing. This stuff tastes exactly like banana bread. Spread it on toast? Banana bread. Spread it on some biscuits, banana bread biscuits. Spoon it on ice cream? Banana bread ice cream. I'm in love. And you will be too if you're lucky enough to get a jar for Christmas this year.

I modified the recipe a little. Instead of using store-bought pumpkin pie spice, I used my family's spice blend for pumpkin pie. And I subbed half of the sugar with brown sugar, which I think added to some of the richness. I think next time, though I would do a cup of dark brown sugar instead of three cups light because the texture was a bit off. But seriously. Spread it on steak? Banana bread steak.

Rainy Days

2011-10-17T21:30:00.001-04:00

It's been raining pretty much all of the last three days. I've kind of enjoyed it, but I'm starting to get over my "this is a nice change of pace and isn't rain cozy" feeling about it and into my "sigh, more rain..." feeling. But anyway, I think rain is kind of cozy, so here are some cozy, rainy things I've been doing:

watching Mary Poppins
drinking hot chocolate
reading books while all wrapped up in a blanket
texting Panamanian Pal
cooking and baking
doing a serious, under the furniture sweeping and mopping (it's cozy, I promise)
running in the rain (maybe not cozy, but something that I did in the rain.

Things I'm thinking about doing if the rain doesn't let up:

sewing
crocheting
more baking!
more reading
more hot chocolate!

What do you guys like to do on a rainy day?

Pet Peeves: Gym Edition

2011-10-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

The woman who won't stop talking to you: I get that some people think the gym is a great time to meet people and make friends. I'm not really one of those people, but when others at the gym start talking to me I try and be polite while making it clear that I'm not real interested in conversation. But there are some people who just do not pick up that. Not even as my hostility grows to the point that I no longer respond to what they are saying. Seriously.
Grunters, squeakers, squealers: I can forgive the occasional "woah, that was harder than I expected" noise outbursts. However, is grunting/squeaking/squealing on every single rep really helpful?
Weight droppers: I REALLY have a hard time with these people. The ones who push up the last rep and then just drop the dumbbell to the floor. Once or twice, maybe (see above: that was harder than I expected) but not at the end of every set. If you can't control that last decent, may I suggest you're doing it wrong.
The guy who gets on the elliptical right next to you even though all the rest of them are empty: This is for two reasons, 1.) I know I can't help looking over at the other guy's display to see how he's doing so I know he's doing the same thing to me. 2.) I don't want you that close to me when I'm all stinky and sweaty and nasty if I can help it.

A Post Script to the Spinster Cousin Cruise

2011-10-13T07:17:00.018-04:00

So we arrived in LA early Sunday morning, but there were no good flights back home on Sunday so I was stuck in LA for the day. LUCKILY! My mom, Loo, Little Brother, and Married Sister, and MOST IMPORTANTLY my niece, Chewie:

decided to come on down for the day. So fun! The above is one of the pictures from Chewie's 3-month hotel photo shoot. Here are a couple of others that I LOVE:

I can't decide which one to print and hang on the wall. Which do you like best?

We actually had a pretty quiet day watching conference, chatting while I did some laundry (didn't pack enough clothes, it turned out), and just hanging out and catching up. And I did Loo's hair in funky braids:

Which she hated. And then we went out to a place called Paco's Tacos for dinner. It was incredibly delicious. Kolby won the ordering contest with some cochinita pibil, but I had a yummy snapper and nopales, and really, everything was delicious.

It was really fabulous to see the fam, especially to meet Chewie, who, obviously, is the cutest baby girl in the world. Yay! Thanks for making the drive, family!

Spinster Cousin Cruise: Puerto Vallarta

2011-10-12T06:05:00.020-04:00

Puerto Vallarta was far and away my favorite part of the cruise. I think it's because it was the only day that I felt really immersed in Mexico. Donna Jones was great and I enjoyed all the delicious food, but we were a step away from the people of Mexico because we were with her speaking English. The same thing during the canopy canyon tour -- super fun, but a step away from the Mexiconess of Mexico. I spent a lot of time on the ground in Puerto Vallarta, haggling with the merchants (who all gave me a "spanish speaker" discount. hilarious), chatting with the taxi drivers, and just generally being in the thick of things. I would love to go back. Besides, it's gorgeous:

So anyway, after I spent all my money at a market in the morning, we decided to head back to the ship so I could get some more. Unfortunately, the cousins wanted to move a bit faster than I did and we split up. I wandered a while and then gave up on the long, hot walk back to the ship and convinced a taxi driver to drive me there on the cheap. I restocked with funds, and since the cousins were back yet (they were troopers and didn't wuss out like I did) I hired a taxi driver to be my friend for the next couple hours. First stop, I asked for seriously authentic food, and ended up at La Langosta Feliz (the Happy Lobster) with this:

Yeah, that is a platter of food! And SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO yummy. For dessert I had a sweet corn ice cream, that was a little weird, but also really yummy and creamy and sweet. Then it was more haggling with shopkeepers and more spending all my money and generally chatting with the people. Seriously, I loved it. Then the cousins and I met up again and topped off the night with a horseback ride:

It was lovely and peaceful. My horse, Canguro (Kangaroo) was super aggressive about eating, but otherwise a fine ride. And we crossed a river a few times, and that was fun. Afterward was a delicious traditional Mexican dinner -- barbacoa and beans and rice -- and a show! This guy danced with a rope:

And this cutie sang a traditional ranchero song:

And then we headed back to the ship for the night and the long trip back to the states. Seriously, not enough time in Puerto Vallarta.

And that's about it. There are a million bajillion more pictures here. Well, not a million bajillion, but a lot. You will like them

Spinster Cousin Cruise: Cabo San Lucas

2011-10-11T08:41:00.000-04:00

We were docked in Cabo San Lucas for two days. On the first day we went on a culinary/marketing tour with this lady:

Her name is Donna Jones, and she owns Casa de Colores, which in the cool season is a cooking school at which she teaches tradition Mexican cooking. If you're ever in Cabo, look her up because she's all kinds of crazy fun. She's been living in Mexico for like 28 years or something, and she's hilarious. We very much enjoyed our time with her. She took us to this sweet artesenal market with tons of tradition Mexican cookware and other things. We loved it. Then she took us to a tortilleria where the ladies make tortillas in the same way people have been making tortillas for hundreds of years. SOOOOOO yummy:

Then we went to the super market and learned all about how to use dried chili and how to choose a Mexican cheese, and we bought churros, and by the end we were a little saturated with information. So a stop for carnitas sopes and tacos was welcome. And also delicious. Seriously.

Our second day in Cabo, we went on a canyon canopy tour. There were zip lines:

and a commando bridge:

and rock climbing:

and rapelling:

and more. And the tour guides were HILARIOUS! Always saying things like "wait! come back!" after sending someone down the zip line. Or talking about how the equipment was broken. Hilarious. Also, they did a lot of flirting, and there was definitely salsaing on one of the decks. Super fun. Super tiring though. Whew! What a day. We were back to the ship just in time to head out to Puerto Vallarta...

Spinster Cousin Cruise: The Ship

2011-10-10T16:36:00.003-04:00

So, a couple months ago a couple of cousins (who are also 25+ and single) decided to go on a cruise. Yeah. My life is really hard. Anyway, I wasn't really sure what to expect from the cruise. What I certainly did NOT expect was for the ship to be so... Vegas...

Seriously. Glitzy, gaudy, garish. Not mention the actual casino (which, don't worry, didn't open til we were on international waters) and the Vegas shows, and the free flowing alcohol. And let's not mention the noise. No... let's do mention the noise. EVERYWHERE! Music and people and TVs seriously. Our matre'd one night described it as "a floating city" and it totally was. Which is why we spent a lot of time here:

The serenity deck. There were never many people there, and when there were, they were all quiet. It was lovely. I managed to finish three books, it was great.

I'm making the ship sound terrible. It wasn't really, just most of it wasn't really my scene. The food, however, was totally my scene. Frog legs, and escargot, and shark and lobster balls, and... oh yeah, and some kind of cheesy polenta that was amazing, and decent mac and cheese, and a wonderful lamb/steak duet. So good. A burrito bar for lunch, and a mongolian grill. No wonder the average person gains 5-15 pounds on a cruise. Seriously. We also had some delightful dinner companions, the Oregonians:

The first night, I confess, was a little awkward. I did a lot of the talking. Which, as you might imagine meant we talked about the Panama Canal. Because everyone is interested in that, right? Harry Truman? Theodore Roosevelt? That's what you would want to talk about with complete strangers.

As the week progressed, though, and we got over "I'm finding it hard to relate to you guys" (actual quote) we had much more fun. The younger Oregonians and we managed a few rounds of (mini) golf:

We also ate ice cream cones (the ship had soft serve ice cream available 24 hours a day, another not awful thing about it), and chatted ("You two are not much like your cousin are you?") and had a good time. Hooray for making cruise friends! I liked them a lot (as the cousins heard pretty much every night). Oh, and we watched a movie on the Lido deck's outdoor big screen. Fun!

Oh yeah, and we saw dolphins:

Also a turtle and some flying fish. I tried to spend most of the time out and about, but the last day I had to spend half the day wrapped up in the comforter in my room because I was getting frostbite (not really, I'm just a thin blooded Flordian wuss when it comes to any kind of cold). Seriously, we were all huddled under towels. And I didn't bring a sweatshirt. Because it's September and that's still summer, right? I'm awesome.

Anyway, moral of the story, cruising is probably not my favorite mode of travel (although it was nice to not have to worry about where to stay and what to eat). But we did have three days in port that were LOADS of fun. More to come...

Preview

2011-10-04T17:18:00.000-04:00

Coming soon:

Trip wrap up of the Spinster Cousin Cruise to Mexico

More pictures of this cutie.

Sunday Sermon: Faith

2011-09-25T09:56:00.001-04:00

So, I've been thinking a lot about faith lately -- it's been a recurring theme of the summer actually -- and last night at the General Relief Society Broadcast Elder Uchtdorf said something that summed up how I've been feeling about faith, church, and the gospel in general lately. He said:

"My dear sisters, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not an obligation; it is a pathway, marked by our loving Father in Heaven, leading to happiness and peace in this life and glory and inexpressible fulfillment in the life to come."

I love it. I have spent the last few months pondering the role of faith in my life and the one thing that has really stuck out to me through all of my reading, all of my conversations with others, all of my pondering is that faith, and by extension faithful living, truly is a choice. We are not obligated to live gospel principles. No leadership is forcing our obedience. The God we worship does not impose His will on us; He invites us to walk his pathway, promises us that if we do we will receive blessings, and then allows us to make the choice.

A few weeks ago I was told that God loves His children so much that He allows them to leave Him if they choose. That is the kind of God that I can have faith in -- one who so completely respects my right to choose that He lets me decide whether or not to even believe that He exists. And one who trusts me enough to make decisions without Him telling me what to do every step if the way.

So faith is not a obligation for this life, it is a pathway we choose to follow with the hope of promised rewards. It is a choice, and as for me, I'm choosing faith.

I Covet

2011-09-21T07:04:00.001-04:00

These pillows:

at Uncommon Goods

And this shelf (but in white):

by Kartell

Just for the record.

I Love to See the Temple

2011-09-20T19:04:00.002-04:00

So, life, man. It gets crazy. I decided that I needed to step back and get some perspective about things and started planning a trip up to the temple. My cute little A2 had missed the last youth temple trip, so I invited her to come along as well. And then I figured, why not make it a party, and brought along Ed and Squidge, and also A2's mom (not pictured below) who couldn't go in cause her temple recommend expired, but who generously offered to babysit Squidge while we were in there:

My one error over the weekend was to underestimate the amount of additional time things would take by adding a baby and three other people. We NEVER left on schedule, and things like eating and stuff just took longer. We left Friday, spent the night in Ft. Lauderdale, and meant to come back home on Saturday, but things just didn't work out as planned. Luckily, one of the members of our stake happened to also be at the temple and offered to let us spend the night with them if it got too late. Which it did. Hooray for nice people! We then got up early Sunday morning and made it back in time for church. Which we attended unshowered and in kind of dirty clothes.

But other than the slower-than-I-would-have-liked-ness, it was a fabulous trip. Fun times with some of my favorite people, and OH-SO-GOOD Mexican food (can't wait for the real thing next week! Whee!), and good times all around.

And I got the perspective I needed to deal with life. The temple is awesome.

Oh Yeah, I've Been Doing Stuff

2011-09-10T07:41:00.003-04:00

Stuff like, hosting Jules's Third Annual College Football Season Kickoff Barbeque. Bratwurst, and burgers, and hot dogs, and wings, and chips, and soda, and BYU coming from behind for a fouth quarter win! Fun time.

And stuff like, going to Miami for a work trip and taking advantage of the malls and Target to buy some cruise clothes and get a pair of earrings repaired and, stuff.

And stuff like, getting ready to go on a cruise in two weeks.

And stuff like buying cheap books at Borders' going out of business sale. You know, fun stuff.

Also, stuff like reviewing my budget. And making a mock budget for after I move back to the DC area (where I will once again have to live like a pauper) so I know how much I can afford in rent. And opening an IRA. And doing the dishes. And mopping. You know, boring stuff.

But definitely stuff. I've definitely been doing stuff.

Everything About Sunburns Is Lame

2011-08-30T14:04:00.000-04:00

Getting a sunburn is usually fun. Because usually its because you're out playing and having a grand time. Sometimes it's cause you're working, but then you can be all accomplished-feeling and stuff.

Having a sunburn is really horrible. I'm usually pretty careful with the sun, so it's been a really long time since I've had a really serious sunburn. And this latest episode has reminded me of why I'm usually really careful with the sun.

Stage 1: Pain, of the I cannot bear to put any clothes on variety. Except that going around clothesless is socially unacceptable, so you have to do it anyway. This is combined with, there are no non-painful positions to sleep in pain, and is often compounded by hearty folk giving you hearty claps on the shoulder in greeting (I'm looking at you, Hno. Aguas) and small children who like to rough house.

Stage 2: Slightly less pain, and also grossness. Once the pain subsides to the point that you feel like you can move again, and you go to the gym, the now-dead layer of skin discovers it is not permeable and you wind up with nasty tiny pockets of sweat everywhere that you are still red and sunburned. Ew.

Stage 3: Peeling. This, friends is just gross. All around. And worse still when the peels are so thick that they get kind of crusty around the edges. And the schlipping sound the peels make as they pull from your skin. Seriously, just gross.

Stage 4: Itching. Seriously. Everything that was once painful is now itchy. And while I will take itchy over pain, it's still awful.

Stage 5: Freckles. Maybe this doesn't happen to you, but I get freckle patches. Lame.

Haikus are Easy...

2011-08-23T20:31:00.001-04:00

...but sometimes they don't make sense.
Refridgerator.
-- This tshirt

For our combined Young Men/Young Women activity tonight we had a "Back-to-School-a-Thon" in which we had a bunch of knowledge-based competitions. Among them, a haiku competition. Haikus are awesome, so I thought I would share (all spelling and punctuation is maintained):

Fruit Ninja, by Cody and Sara

Flying fruit passes
The silver blade's window is gone
Sensei disapproves.

AGUA! by Ali and Sam

The water rushes
It is extremely lushious
It flows beautifully

Sheepish Sheep, by Kiersten and Isaac

Prancing round & round
While they help me get to sleep
Fluffy Fleece and hooves

That is a black piano, by Emmanuel and Sarah

Roses are Blue
Violets are green proportion
Any or all
Green Four's

And now for the winner as voted upon by the group!

Untitled, by Ben and Chrysla

runing runing to to fast
we lost are way home
run run we just now got home

So Much For a Quiet August at Home

2011-08-22T21:56:00.001-04:00

So, I keep saying that I want to have a quiet month at home, but I keep not doing it -- maybe a little bit during the week (although quiet doesn't mean not busy), but the past two weekends have been busy busy and fun fun fun.

Last weekend (the 12-14th of August) we had the Young Women end of summer sleepover at my house. I did not take any pictures of this, except to photograph the cinnamon roll pancakes that we had the next morning so I could send them to Panamanian Pal's sister. So here you go:

Other than eating life changing pancakes, we also played card games, talked about boys, made pizza and homemade ice cream, and generally enjoyed ourselves.

Directly after the sleepover, we went to the ward softball game. I did take LOTS of pictures of this, just none of me. But here's a cute one of Shi-bud instead:

And that was pretty much Saturday. The activity ended with just enough time to go grocery shopping and cleaning. This past Saturday (20 August) was even crazier busy. Ed, Mr. Ed, and I were invited to go out on our friend's boat in the morning. We went tubing:

For the record, tubing on the ocean is NOT like tubing on a lake. For one thing, it's WAY bouncier, because the ocean is choppier. Plus, face full of salt water when you finally give up? No. Fun. I'm sticking to fresh water from here on out, thank you.

Mr. Ed courageously rescued my hat when it blew off my head and into the ocean:

And then we went fishing. And I caught the first fish of the day, and also the first keepable fish of the day:

and then Ed and I kept catching fish. And Mr. Ed caught far far fewer. And we like that, because it means we are better than Mr. Ed. Or at least better at catching fish.

And then I got back home with just BARELY enough time to shower and start picking up kids to go up to the stake dance. Super cute kids:

And, for the record, yes, yes I did get fried on the boat:

And then Sunday we cooked up all the fish that we caught, and I'm pretty sure that it tasted like 12 times better because we had caught it. (And also, likely, because we had just barely caught it the day before.)

Next weekend should be quiet, though, except that I agreed to babysit all day and there's a Relief Society swim party to go to, and...

Soliciting Your Thoughts

2011-08-19T18:48:00.002-04:00

Panamanian Pal and I were having a conversation today about movie ratings. And how we think that, like the rest of the world, the movie rating making people should create a rating between PG-13 and R. Because a lot of what is rated 13, and probably doesn't deserve an R rating is still too thematically mature for what I would take my hypothetical 13 or 14 year old child to. And then I mentioned that I'm going to be an obnoxious parent, because I'm always going to want to talk to my kids about the movies they see and the books they read not just in terms of plot and character, but also in terms of messages and culture and such.

You see, I want my (as yet theoretical) kids to be conscious of the messages that they get through their exposure to media in all its forms. I know that they are going to pick up attitudes and opinions and worldviews because you can't help it, but I want them to at least be aware that they are being influenced and skilled in discerning and evaluating the messages they are receiving so they can be more deliberate in choosing their own attitudes and opinions and worldviews, and not just soaking up whatever is around them.

And Panamanian Pal said "Ew. Yeah. You are going to be obnoxious. Even I will have to roll my eyes." So my question is, how DO you talk to kids about seeing, understanding, and evaluating media and media messaging without making them roll their eyes at you. For the purposes of the above conversation my theoretical children were probably somewhere between 10 and 17, but I think these kinds of conversations should probably start happening at a much younger age. I'm seriously interested in your thoughts on this.

As an addendum, Panamanian Pal said that if my kids happen to also end up being his kids, he's going to occasionally let them sneak movies I wouldn't necessarily approve of. And I said that was fine, and that I would give such sneaking in a wink and a nod as long as it really was only occassionally. And he said "YES! I have 'cool parent' all locked up then." But I want to be the cool parent too.

Did you know about this!?

2011-08-11T09:15:00.000-04:00

One of my coworkers stopped by my desk yesterday and was like "Can I tell you about my favorite thing on the Internet?" And I'm like, sure, and he's all "Go to the Merriam-Webster website." And that's when I knew it was going to be good.

First of all, have you ever played around on the Merriam-Webster website? I hadn't. And I've been missing out. There's all kinds of awesome there. e.g. a trend watch that let's you know when there's a spike in word look ups (Best one up right now? Spikes in look ups of ignominious after Alex Trebek's descriptions of his actions during a break in. No. Lie.) Plus a timed vocabulary quiz and a bunch of word games. All very cool.

But not as cool as my coworker's favorite thing on the Internet, which is the "Ask the Editor" videos. There's this one about flat adverbs, which ends with the editor saying "I admit, I like flat adverbs. Maybe I'll start ignoring the competing -ly versions entire." Or this one defending the use of "hopefully" to mean "I hope."

Unfortunately, I can't seem to embed them here, but seriously, check them out. 'Cause, um, this is everything a word nerd like me could ever want. You're welcome.

My Latest Project

2011-08-09T11:38:00.000-04:00

A kitchen window herb garden!

Left to right, parsley, basil, and oregano (which I just planted)

July, In Brief

2011-08-07T19:59:00.001-04:00

So before we get too much further into August, let me give you a run down on July.

1-4 July: TMERTMGMYNP -- for more information about TMERTMGMYNP in July see chapters 5, 6, and 7.

5-7 July: Unpack, do laundry, get groceries, clean house. Prepare for work conference. Hang out with Little Brother.

8 July: See Transformers with Little Brother in 3D:

9 July: Go to the beach with Little Brother:

10-15 July: Make sure youth have places to stay in Miami for stay-at-home EFY. Clean house. Spend all week preparing for work conference we are hosting. Gym once with Little Brother. Bike ride to Mallory Square, where we saw a guy dressed as a banana playing a guitar. Because, why not?

16 July: Panamanian Pal arrives. Dinner out at Santiago's and then Harry Potter 7.2. Not in 3D (thank goodness).

17 July: New Friend is baptized! Whee! Missionaries come over for dinner with new friend. Much fun is had by all.

18 July: Work people who have just arrived in Key West come over for chili and cornbread. Which is yummy.

19 July: Work conference begins. Some work people come with us to play bocce ball, which is fun!

20 July: More work conference, followed by a sunset cruise.

21 July: Last day of work conference, followed by happy hour, followed by sushi dinner. Little Brother is pleased by the dining selection. I stress out making sure that all is in order for the youth temple trip.

22 July: Panamanian Pal and I go on a date. And eat Thai food. Awww... We did something earlier with Kolby, but I don't remember what it was, I think it was just errands, though.

23 July: Everglades! Here we are on a backwater tour:

24 July: Goodbye, Panamanian Pal. :-(

25 July: Missionaries come over for dinner again.

26-28 July: Jules tries to rediscover her sanity. Jules and Kolby go on a long bike ride.

29 July: Meet with missionaries to meet E. Sorenson's new companion. Surprise! It's a birthday party for E. Sorenson, followed by Cowboys & Aliens with Little Brother, New Friend, and Lou.

30 July: Trip up to Ft. Lauderdale so Little Brother can fly home. Goodbye, Little Brother! I will miss you, but my grocery bill will not! Get stuck in traffic for 1.5 hours, stay in Florida City.

31 July: Leave early in the morning and make it back to Key West just in time for church in our new church building. A2 comes over for dinner, home teachers also come, YW presidency meeting.

My plan for August? Stay on the island. Stay home as much as possible. No guests.

Crafteriffic!

2011-08-07T19:04:00.001-04:00

Hey! Check it! A (mostly) non-TMERTMYGMYNP post! For the first time, since, like JUNE! I thought I would catch you up on my monthly crafting! I know, you're thrilled.

Obviously June and July were mostly spent preparing for, going on, and recuperating from my trip to Yellowstone. And also living through July, which was insane. But I did find time to keep up with my 2011 craft monthly goal. For June, I thought I would get prepared for the onslaught of freezing which I expected Yellowstone to be and whipped myself up this little cloche/beanie/tuque/whateveryouwanttocallit:

It's made from leftover yarn from Niece's blanket, so not really my colors, but eh, whatever, right? It was warm. Very, very warm, and that's what mattered.

The Young Women and I started a 90-day Book of Mormon reading challenge on August 1, so my July craft was making them some sweet bookmarks:

The bookmarks have a reading schedule on the back and each bead represents one chapter in the Book of Mormon. Every week we take off as many chapters as we read that week and putting them in a common jar/vase thingy. It's fun! But those beads actually took FOREVER to count out and string, and I eventually had to switch the kind of string I was using. The girls are excited about the challenge, though, which makes me happy.

Now to figure out what I'm crafting for August.

TMERTMGMYNP Chapter 7: Homeward Bound

2011-08-05T05:52:00.000-04:00

On Saturday morning, now the 2nd of July, we spent the morning eating breakfast and packing. But since we were only planning on making it to Elko, NV we decided to hit up one more Yellowstone feature before we left. The Artist Paint Pots were lovely, ploppy mud pots:

Totally worth the extra drive. We then had to leave, but not without stopping in West Yellowstone for some bison burgers and some elk burgers. DElicious. I can't think right now of anything terribly notable about the drive to Elko, except for the fact that every time we got out of the car, we realized just how stinky it was in the car. Seriously. Foul. The showers at the hotel we stopped at were very much appreciated by all. And then we had dinner at a Chinese buffet. Most people ate a lot, but as for me, I was so bone tired even eating was exhausting. So pretty much I went back to the hotel and straight to bed.

The next day was more driving. I will tell you something, up to this point Loo and Little Brother and Harry Potter had been dream charges. Helpful, cheerful, wonderful. But then something happened. We decided to have lunch. Our original plan was to seek out some fast food, but we picked the wrong exit. There was however, a little Mexican place and Panamanian Pal and I were like "Sweet! Mexican! And we can get out of the car for a while!" Loo and Little Brother however SNAPPED at the change of plans and for the rest of the day were little grouch monsters. Which didn't stop me from forcing them to go see the Golden Gate Bridge:

And have clam chowder in a bread bowl on fisherman's wharf:

(Note Loo's snarky expression). Getting lost on the way from the wharf to the hotel did nothing to improve their attitudes either. But we finally made it, picked up Mom, and went to bed. And early the next morning, Panamanian Pal, Little Brother, and I flew away from the west coast to Panama and Key West. The End.

Coming soon... a recap of the month of July.

(Oh, and for anyone who's interested there are about 7 bazillion more pictures of our Yellowstone trip on my smug mug page.)

TMERTMGMYNP Chapter 6: Penultimate Day in Yellowstone

2011-08-04T21:08:00.000-04:00

Hey! How about since it's been a month since we got back from TMERTMGMYNP, I go ahead and finish up my trip report?

So, Friday morning we finally had everyone who was coming on our trip there with us. And it was our last full day in the park, so we tried to hit as many of the geological features as possible. We started at the Fountain Paint Pots because it's an area with all three of the thermal features the park has. Hot springs:

Mud pots:

And gysers:

This was the day that Kolby began to have a brief love affair with photography, so he took most, if not, all of these pictures (I don't remember when exactly I handed the camera over). He did a pretty good job, there are quite a few really nice shots, as you'll see. We stopped for lunch after Fountain during which Muscles kept us supplied with tunes, and then headed over to the Grand Prismatic Spring. Which was Grand. And Prismatic. And also hard to photograph due to steam, and general largeness:

We had fun. And then we headed over to Old Faithful for a second viewing. We got there a bit before the scheduled eruption so we explored the visitors' center for a while, and caught a flick describing stuff about Yellowstone, which would probably have been more useful earlier in the week, and then we watched the gyser erupt:

And that was cool. By then everyone was getting kind of tuckered out, but we soldiered onward and walked the short loop of features in the area, and we saw what I think is Grand gyser going off from a distance:

This is probably a good time to mention that I noticed when we got in the truck that morning that the maintenance required light was on in the truck. We checked the oil and discovered we were about a quart and a half low, so after gazing at the gysers and surrounding awesome, Panamanian Pal and I set off in quest of oil, the hoodlums set off in quest of souvenirs, Momma Bear and her kids headed back to camp, and Grandma and Grandpa waited in the car. Good times.

When we finally made it back to camp, Grandma and Grandpa has delicious stew waiting for us! Cook in beanbags! (I forget the real name of this cooking method, but it's very cool). And also, this happened:

Panamanian Pal and I stayed up WAY too late that night trying to get pictures of the stars, which were AMAZING, but it was FA-reezing! Seriously, it was the coldest night and the coldest morning of the whole trip. But luckily/sadly it was our last in Majestic Yellowstone National Park.

Pause Button

2011-07-20T07:06:00.000-04:00

So, I have at least one, probably two more posts about Yellowstone, plus I'll upload an album with many, many more pictures for your viewing pleasure. I promise this will happen soon.

In the meantime, I've been super busy with a work conference, plus attendant extra curricular activities, a visit from Panamanian Pal, and Little Brother's continued stay with me. Which sort of pushed pause on everything else in my life.

Just thought I would let you know because I know all of you anxiously check my blog every single day hoping there will be some awesome there for you to read.

TMERTMGMYNP Chapter 5: Hither and Yon

2011-07-13T21:14:00.000-04:00

So, Thursday was really the first day that we were all together exploring the park, what with getting in late Monday and hikes and sick days. So we tried to make the most of it. First we had to wait for Grandma and Grandpa to show up, and they got stuck behind the migrating bison. So after we'd breakfasted and cleaned from breakfast, there was about an hour to kill. During which Little Brother asked Panamanian Pal to tie him to a tree. PPwas more than happy to oblige:

You may have noticed that I haven't posted many pictures of Loo. That's because while Harry Potter and Little Brother were doing things like this:

Loo was doing this:

She's not a camera hog. Anyway, the grandparents eventually arrived and off we went. First stop was the top of Upper Yellowstone Falls. So pretty:

We hung out in the Falls area most of the morning. We made a stop at a Grand Canyon overlook area that was breathtaking:

And we had lunch and then went over to Uncle Tom's trail for a good look at Lower Falls:

In case you are unfamiliar with Uncle Tom's trail, it consists of about 4,957.3 rickety metal steps. Which was tough on the muscles going down, and rough on the lungs coming up. Somehow Panamanian Pal and I ended up with Owl and Bamm Bamm on the way up, and they were really distracted by some pieces of tree bark that they were pretending were space ships (I think) so it was slow going. Not that I'm complaining; I never really adjusted to that 50% of my normal oxygen content thing:

We spent the rest of Thursday afternoon at Mammoth Hot Springs:

There were some really pretty springs, and many more pretty views. But pretty much everyone was done walking around by this point so we only stayed there for a little while. But I did take a picture of my favorite sign in the whole park:

I mean... the kid! on the gyser! with the camera! And the girl on the boardwalk pointing! What the! I love it.

Anyway, that night Muscles was supposed to show up late and all of us had the best intentions of waiting up for him. But we were all exhausted:

I post this picture in the interest of faithful journalism. Also in the interest of faithful journalism, I will relay you this story that was relayed to me the next morning to be filed in the "I am SO awesome" file. As you can see, I fell asleep on Panamanian Pal around the campfire. Apparently some time after I fell asleep, I shouted "Pickles!" and when PP asked "what about pickles?" I asked where the pickles were. PP then informed me that all the pickles had been eaten, and reportedly I was quite dismayed by the news. I have no recollection of this. I discovered myself in my tent later without remembering how I had gotten there. I am SO awesome!

Everybody ended up trickling to bed before Muscles arrived. Loo finally gave up maybe 15 minutes before he got there actually. That was the first interruption to my sleep last night since Muscles was not quiet about looking for a storage box to put his food in and accidentally set off the alarm on his new car. Then a little while after that Harry Potter got up and started throwing up loudly. I confess that my first thought upon hearing that was "What are my adult responsibilities here? Do I have to get up?" and then was like "You okay?" through the tent. But when Harry Potter managed the most heartbreaking "heeeelp" in the world, I got up (and Panamanian Pal decided he also as a responsible adult needed to get up) and got him some water and gave him a hug and made sure he was feeling better and sent him back to bed. He was fine in the morning -- dinner apparently didn't disagree with him. (The same dinner that he had proclaimed just hours earlier was so delicious he wouldn't even mind doing the dishes for it.)

A word about minions: I dislike doing dishes. Laundry, sweeping, vacuuming, bathrooms even, I don't mind, but dishes are NOT my favorite. So it was delightful to claim "I cooked, so y'all can do the dishes" to the teenagers. For the most part all three of the were SUPER helpful and not whiney at all. I may or may not have abused my minion privileges a little. But hey, I live alone! I totally deserve some minions every now and again.

TMERTMGMYNP Chapter 4: Sick Day

2011-07-13T19:19:00.000-04:00

So when we woke up on Wednesday morning, we noticed that Babydoll was feeling a little droopy and it soon became evident that she was pretty sick. So we had a slow moving morning, and then we headed down to the Old Faithful Inn. Where I paid $20 to get everybody showered. Worth it. We finished just about right on time to watch Old Faithful erupt. I don't have pictures of this however, because I was carrying a sleeping Babydoll. Panamanian Pal has pictures I think, maybe if you're nice he'll upload them and you can see them. Then we decided that Babydoll wasn't really up to exploring the park so we headed into West Yellowstone to see the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center:

It was pretty cool. Inside they had a menagerie of stuffed bears and information on bears. Here's Babydoll in front of a stuffed polar bear (you can tell she's kind of out of it):

And outside they had an enclosure for bears!

And wolves!

A note about the bear pictured above. His name is Sam. When we got out there he was up on his hind legs and prancing and digging and moving around a lot. We thought he might be showing off for us. But later we talked to one of the staff and she said that he was actually just exhibiting stress behavior. Which she thinks was related to the fact that they had planted some new trees in the enclosure over night. So there you go.

There was a cabin-y building thing by the wolf enclosure that had a really fascinating movie about Yellowstone playing. Seriously. At around four we met up with Grandma and Grandpa who were in the area for some other family reunions and so got themselves an RV site at the nearby KOA and hung out with us for the rest of the week. We all bought tickets to a sweet IMAX movie about Yellowstone. The movie was seriously awesome. Panamanian Pal and I were a little late though, because while we were standing in line I saw some people with soft serve ice cream cones and I suddenly NEEDED one. And then I was like, well I can't just buy one for myself, so I'll get them for my crew. And then I was like I can't just buy them for my crew, I probably need to get them for everyone. Luckily they were $0.50! Woo! So Panamanian Pal and I serve up ten cones (plus an apple juice for Babydoll who's allergic) and get them to the register, and I discover I've lost my ticket. And then I knock one of them on the ground. So we have to fill another one. But finally we pay, and Panamanian Pal gets 6 cones and I get the other four and by this time we're late so we have to be let in from the back. And then we sit down and start passing ice cream cones down the line. It was awesome.

After the movie we headed down to Grandma and Grandpa's motorhome for dinner. (Let's pause here for a word about food. We ate SO GOOD while were in Yellowstone. Seriously, every meal was just amazingly delicious. This night we had pulled pork sandwiches. And there were tacos and steak sandwiches and stew and mountain man breakfasts. Seriously, everything was just amazing.) While dinner was cooking Harry Potter and Little Brother rented one of these wheely-gigs:

And tooled around it in for a while, taking turns on who was steering. Later they came up and were like "Jules can we rent the single person bikes please? So we don't have to take the little kids with us?" Of course, I consented. My crew was SO GOOD about playing with Momma Bear's kids and stuff, they totally deserved some teenage play time. After that we sat around roasting (the biggest) marshmallows (you have ever seen):

And swapping tales, and generally enjoying each others' company. Excellent times.

TMERTMGMYNP Chapter 3: An Interlude

2011-07-09T23:10:00.000-04:00

I was not navigating when we were driving back to camp from the hike up Mt. Washburn. As evidenced by the fact that we totally missed our turn. And didn't notice for about 20 minutes. By that time though we were pretty close to Mud Volcano and decided to hop out and take a look:

It was pretty cool, but not that exciting, although we did see some elk way up on the hill:

We weren't too sad about spending some extra time out and about because seriously, Yellowstone is just gorgeous any where you go:

Plus there were loads of bison chilling near the roads. We learned later that the bison were slowly migrating from our side of the park to the other side for mating season. Fun!

We made it back to camp in the late afternoon, and Harry Potter, Little Brother and I were pretty beat from the hike, so we spent the rest of the day just hanging around the campsite. Little Brother and HP got creative and rigged up a swing from a two by four we'd brought for firewood and rope. It was supposed to be for the little kids, but you know that LB and HP monopolized it pretty well:

Check out how nasty dirty Little Brother's feet are. Gross. Meanwhile, Momma Bear was cooking up some delicious chili for dinner in the dutch oven. And a dump cake as a late Jules's birthday celebration:

Seriously, very delicious dinner. Also, Panamanian Pal found a white bug that he was very interested in:

And the teenagers... well, they were just weird:

This was also the night that a pair of bison decided to just stride right through our campsite. Seriously, the truck in this picture is ours:

Yeah. Yellowstone is awesome. I call that a very successful first full day in camp.

To be continued...

TMERTMGMYNP Chapter 2: Commence Yellowstone

2011-07-07T19:45:00.000-04:00

Monday morning (27 June), my crew and I left Alpine Auntie's house a little bit later than I wanted, and that was the first of several delays that morning. Just as we were leaving the driveway we got a call from Formerly Tuscon Journalist who hereafter shall be known as Momma Bear saying they were having a little trouble with their car. By little trouble I mean it wouldn't start. She expected it would be at least half an hour before she could leave, so we decided to make a quick stop at temple square:

And when she still hadn't called, we stopped in at this little bakery for breakfast and it was really tasty, but then we realized we had missed her call, and she was already on her way, but we hadn't gotten food yet. So then she had to wait for US for about half an hour at a McDonald's a little farther up the road. Well, we got there and we all pottied and got back in the car and about 10 or 15 minutes into the drive, discovered that Eeyore had been left at McDonald's. So we turned around. And then we got stuck in traffic for a LONG time. And then Eeyore wasn't there anyway. And then we finally got really on our way. There were another couple of bumps but we made it to Yellowstone with daylight to spare to set up tents and make tin foil dinners and sit around the campfire chillin' and making s'mores. Yum! Oh, and giving piggyback and shoulder rides:

The next day (now Wednesday 28 June) we split into two groups. Momma Bear and Babydoll headed off to have a quiet day and my crew, Owl, and Bamm Bamm headed toward Mt. Washburn. I'd heard that the three mile hike up didn't have a terribly steep grade and Momma Bear figured her boys could hack it. Well, when we got there, this is what we saw:

Um, yeah. Snow. Do you see the very top of the sign in the background? That's the trailhead. Everybody hiked up over the snow on to the path, but there were big patches of snow everywhere and the little boys weren't listening very well. So we split up again cause I didn't want to tell Momma Bear that one of her boys had fallen off the mountain. Panamanian Pal, Loo, and the boys went back down and headed elsewhere and Little Brother, Harry Potter, and I kept hiking up the mountain:

Do you see how the snow is in the picture? How there's a giant pile of it, but there's still a narrow dirt trail? That's what I expected the whole hike to be like. This is how the whole hike ACTUALLY was:

Yeah, the only "trail" to follow was the dirty footsteps left by people who hiked before us. The snow made the hike extra hard and I was REALLY glad we'd decided to send off the less hike-worthy folk. Little Brother, Harry Potter, and I had a blast, and the views were TOTALLY worth being soaked to the knees and short of breath (what!? I was working with like 30% of my normal oxygen levels). It was even worth being sunburned and sore the next day. Little Brother got all Survivor on us and caught some snow runoff in a bag to drink.

Plus we saw a marmot:

And that was cool. We didn't actually make it all the way up the mountain because we got to a point where we couldn't tell how the trail went anymore. So sad. On the way back down Harry Potter decided run down this snowbank instead of using the switchback:

*I* decided to slide down the snowbank on my derriere. Which, I will contend was VERY much more fun. Although my bum stayed wet pretty much the whole rest of the way back down.

To be continued....

TMERTMGMYNP Chapter 1: Departing, Arriving, and Departing Again

2011-07-05T21:32:00.000-04:00

Remember that one time I planned The Most Excellent Road Trip and Mighty Gathering at Majestic Yellowstone National Park (TMERTMGMYNP)? It was awesome. The week prior to the trip I was VERY very busy getting things ready, packing, cleaning, and, of course, celebrating my birthday (yes, all week long).

There was a young women birthday activity to celebrate EVERYBODY's birthday. And then a birthday date with Shi-Bud who turned four the same day I turned 30. There was of course, the annual girls night out birthday dinner at Sarabeth's:

And then it was the big day! The fly to California to begin TMERTMGMYNP day! But First! It was Jules's 30th Birthday 5K day! This was a genius plan, everybody showed up at the church at 7a and at precisely 7:30a we started running. Once everyone got back there were muffins and smoothies! Yum! Seriously, birthday 5K was genius, I think I will do it every year!

Anyway, I rushed home for a shower and then headed to the airport. For the record, the flight across the country is LOOOOOOOONG. But I was pretty tired, so I slept quite a bit. And also, Panamanian Pal was there to keep me company when I wasn't sleeping. Our flight was a bit delayed, but we finally landed, found Mom, Loo, and Little Brother, got our bags and headed home. Not before stopping at In'n'Out for deliciousness though.

We got home around 10pm (which is, of course 1am Jules time), packed up the truck for heading out, played with Mechanic Brother, Sister-in-Law and Nephew for a while, gave Panamanian Pal a tour of the old homestead, and finally went to bed around midnight. And then we woke up ridiculously early (2:30a) to take Nonna to the airport so she could go play with Married Sister and Niece (and also Brother-in-Law, I guess) (Oh, and did I mention I have a new niece? Born 20 June. She's pretty cute:

)

And then we started driving. And driving. And driving some more. Even Loo got a turn behind the wheel (when did these guys get so old?):

And as you might imagine, with three teenagers in the car, things got a little crazy through Nevada:

We finally made it to Utah that night and had a good time catching up with cousins, and Muscles (formerly Marine Brother), and his girlfriend, and Alpine Auntie and Uncle. We had SO much fun we didn't even have time to take pictures! And there was CAKE! and ice cream! because it was my birthday! And finally it was time for some real sleep. Which I was very, very grateful for.

To be continued...

An Update of Sorts

2011-06-16T15:25:00.001-04:00

No, I have no excuses for the paucity of posts around here. I've not had better things to do, and one could argue I've spent a great deal of time doing things that have much less return on investment like watching terrible teenage TV dramas (the high stakes world of gymastics! And eating disorders! And teen pregnancy! And come-backs! And drug abuse! It's a LOT of drama!) and crying (we had a bit of an existential crisis at the beginning of the month; we're better now). I'm now going to give you an update based on the pictures that I just uploaded from my purse camera.

I made a super yummo zucchini and red pepper lasagna:

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think I adapted this Whole Foods recipe, and added sauteed zucchini to the sauce, and also used ricotta instead of cottage cheese. Delicioso!

Also, I saw this creepy looking bird while waiting for the missionaries to show up so I could be introduced to one of the people they were teaching:

That person was not there, but this excursion gave me a chance to have an awkward moment with one of our awkward elders. Hooray! See, one of the elder currently in the branch is just... I'm going to be frank, a bit of an odd duck and he delights me. So I don't remember exactly what he said, but I was tickled and in characteristic Jules fashion exclaimed "Oh, Elder, I love you!" which is what I say any time that someone says something that I find absurd or ridiculous or nerdy or delightful or insightful. What I'm trying to say is that I say "I love you" to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. In this case "I love the fact that you are a bit of an odd duck." However, as a young single girl, probably not the best exclamation when speaking with a missionary, who's not supposed to be thinking about girls. Things just haven't been the same between us since...

That night there was a branch dance! And my cute young women did the decorating for it! Surveying their work:

Also, I went to the scouts' court of honor one night:

It was fun. There was pizza.

And finally, yesterday for our young women activity we hopped on the conch train cause it's free cause it's local's month! I love local's month! Here's me and Squidge hanging out and learning about Key West:

And that's enough for now.

One of Those Days

2011-06-12T14:01:00.000-04:00

You know those days when everything just works out, and you have hilarious experiences that aren't funny to anyone who wasn't part of that day and you just come out of it feeling like life is good. I had one of those days yesterday (and let me tell you, I needed it too).

An old friend from my hometown that I grew up with and then haven't really talked to in a decade or so was in Miami for a professional conference and also, Miami is where Target and Michaels and the mall is, so I decided to drive up and do some shopping before meeting her and her family for dinner. Ed and Squidge tagged along as well and it was just a really good day. Here are some highlights:

AMAZING dinner at this Asian fusion place. Food was amazing, company was amazing, just a really grand old time. Meeting up with old friends is a mixed bag -- sometimes its great and you walk away going :I really need to stay in better contact with Old Friend" and sometimes its really awkward and you don't have anything to talk about and the whole encounter feels forced. This was the former. Yay!
New clothes! I found a bunch of cute shirts and it was exciting since I was getting really bored with my wardrobe.
Foam sheet. It was blowing along the highway and for a minute I was afraid it was going to plaster itself against my windshield. It did not. Instead it got caught on the rearview mirror.
Dude in the back of the truck in front of us. When Ed and I were driving back, she was like, "I think there's a guy in the back of that truck" and I was like, "no way" but she was like "just watch." So we watched for a while and nothing happened so eventually we forgot to keep watching closely and then this dude's head just like POPS! up out of the back of the truck. And I screamed. Because I'm awesome. And it was hilarious.
Free bath ball! One of the things I wanted to do while in Miami was stop and buy some Lush lip balm and also some kind of indulgent treat like a face mask or a scrub because it's my birthday and I'm debt free and I can. So anyway the sales lady asked me what I was looking for and I told her, "It's my birthday and I want to treat myself" so she showed me some stuff and I ended up getting this divine salt scrub, but then she was like "I'm gonna get you something fun cause it's your birthday" and gave me a free blackberry bath bomb! Rock on!
Target. Any day that includes Target is a good one

We got home kind of latish, but as I gave a contented sigh as I was drifting off to sleep because seriously, it was just one of those days.

May Craft: Curtains

2011-05-28T10:39:00.001-04:00

So, the other day I was organizing the linen closet and came across these pillow shams that came with my bed set:

It occurred to me that I was never going to use them as pillow shams and with a little effort they could be easily turned into a valence for the window. So I busted out my seam ripper and my sewing machine and a few hours later and Voila! Valence:

I hung it with thumbtacks, because I'm cool like that. Someday I might come up with a different system, but in the meantime I think it adds a nice, finished look to the room:

Oh, and I also crocheted this dish rag:

On Running

2011-05-18T20:29:00.001-04:00

So clearly, I'm not really doing that great at posting every day in May. It turns out that I can only be really consistent about one new thing at a time, and I'm more focused on being consistent in my run(jog)ing. Some of you may recall that one of my 2011 goals is to run around Key West (about 10 miles) by my birthday. Well, my birthday is just around the corner, and I've been inconsistent with my preparation because I don't know if you remember the beginning of the year, but it was crazy busy. So, I've spent the last three or four weeks really focused on that, and, according to my preparation plan, I will be running 6 miles this Saturday which is officially the longest distance I have ever run in my life. Go me. Or something.

So, I've been out running a lot, and every time I'm out at least one person says something encouraging to me. You know "You can do it!" or "You go, Girl!" stuff like that. Usually this is because sidewalks are not very wide, and in the process of passing someone there's that awkward "I'm really close to you, so I might as well say something" moment. Sometimes, though it's less like that and the person will be across the street or something and they have to shout. Today, actually, some dude in a red car, who was on the phone slowed down and paused his phone conversation so he could shout out the window "Keep it up, Girl! I'm proud of you! You'll make it!" I'm pretty sure that I don't know who it was, but maybe I just didn't recognize them.

Anyway, the point of all this is that almost every time I'm out running, right when I'm getting to the point where I'm like, "ugh! I hate this!" some random stranger shouts something encouraging to me and it gives me that extra boost to keep up my pace and I just wanted to say "Thanks, Random Strangers! I appreciate that." I've never really felt the urge to shout encouraging things to strangers, but I maybe I should start.

Conversations with Sisters

2011-05-13T21:30:00.000-04:00

Loo and I had the following text conversation:

Loo: Tiramisu is now officially known as fluffy death
Me: You're officially known as Fluffy Death.

And I have been calling her Fluffy Death ever since. And it makes me laugh. Every time. You can practically hear Loo's eyes rolling. I love being a much older big sister.

Married Sister and I had the following text conversation:

MS: Should I go to bingo with people from [Hubby's] squad.
Me: Is that even a question!? YES! you should go!

Because seriously: BINGO! Everyone should always take advantage of every bingo opportunity they ever have. Because, Bingo!

BEES!

2011-05-11T20:01:00.000-04:00

This made me laugh today, so I thought I'd share:

The sign says "No Crime -- BEES!"

BEES!

What I Did Today

2011-05-09T21:19:00.000-04:00

Deoderized and vacuumed the upstairs
Washed and dried three loads of laundry (but not folded)
Did the dishes
Straightened the living room, dining room, and library
Dustbusted the couches, including under the cushions
Mopped the whole downstairs
Showered and got pretty for the day
Cooked banana pancakes and eggs
Attended two meetings while I
Worked for eight hours
Cooked lemon chicken and mashed potatoes
Ran four miles
Took another shower
Blogged about it

I'm pretty sure that I can feel okay about putting off folding the laundry until tomorrow.

Mothers' Day

2011-05-08T14:13:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am going to join the legion of Mother's Day posts, because that's how I roll. Let me start off by saying that I have an amazing mother. Seriously. Some of you may already know 100 awesome things about her, and if you've ever met her, you know that barely scratches the surface of how awesome she is. So here's to my mom!

And now I'm gonna get real with you. Sometimes it's super lame on Mothers Day when you're almost 30 and your whole life you've planned on having a passel of kids by now and all your friends are on kid number two or three or four and you're unmarried and childless. Mostly you focus on how awesome your mom is and what fantastic examples of motherhood you have all around you, but there's that part of you that feels a tiny bit sad for the children that you don't -- and may never -- have.

So today for mothers' day, I also want to say thank you to all the wonderful moms that I know that let me be a part of their kids' lives. For example, the moms of my young women. Who let me take them for an hour on Sunday and a couple hours during the week, and a week every year to be an instructor and a leader and a friend. I don't and may never have teenagers of my own to influence so thank you for letting me borrow yours every now and again. And the moms who trust me to babysit their little kids and steal their babies on Sunday.

And especially to Ed, who lets me be such a big part of these little boys' life:

I'm grateful to be blessed with opportunities to develop a mother heart, though I may not yet be blessed with motherhood. And so yeah, being part of the "other crowd" on Mothers Day can sometimes suck, but I have a whole lot of awesome moms in my life, and a slew of wonderful children too.

Covenant-keeping women with mother hearts know that whether motherhood comes early or late; whether they are blessed with a “quiver full” of children here in mortality or not; whether they are single, married, or left to carry the responsibility of parenthood alone—in holy temples they are “endowed with power from on high” (D&C 38:32), and with that endowment they received the promised blessings and are “persuaded of them, and embraced them” (Heb. 11:13). Every girl and woman who makes and keeps sacred covenants can have a mother heart. --Julie B. Beck, April 2004 General Conference.

Friday Night Date

2011-05-06T20:38:00.000-04:00

Since Panamanian Pal is in Panama and couldn't take me out tonight, I found someone else to go on a date with:

I think he's pretty cute. And we had a great time.

Geckos and Critters

2011-05-05T20:57:00.000-04:00

When I moved to Key West, I thought geckos were kind of cool. After a couple years I found them bothersome. Now, they make me shudder with their nasty red throats that puff out when they want to look tough and their horrible croaking. Bleh. And yesterday Lilo killed a gecko in my house and left the carcass on the floor. *Shudder.* This is something else it would be nice to have a husband for. Remembering trash day, and removing gecko carcasses.

May the Fourth Be With You

2011-05-04T20:40:00.000-04:00

Here's what I love about Cinco de Mayo: Everyone thinks that it's a Mexican holiday, but it's not, really. It's a holiday in the state of Puebla in Mexico, but pretty much everywhere else, no one cares. Cinco de Mayo is totally a US holiday and I love it. I grew up in California and I loved the chance to celebrate how much California culture is influenced by Mexico. But, Jules, you all are saying to yourselves, it's not Cinco de Mayo today. And this is true. It's not. But for our young women activity tonight we did taco night and a piñata to celebrate the fact that TOMORROW is Cinco de Mayo. I decided to go all out and get my streamers on:

And then after tacos we headed out to play with the piñata. First up was M. She took three solid wacks and missed on one. KL was next, I love the look of concentration on her face. Seriously adorable. Next KD took a whack and then got disoriented -- she's pictured here looking for the piñata about 90 degrees from where it was.

And here's the kill shot:

I loved that all four girls got a swing at Rex here. And seriously, do you ever get too old for piñatas? I think not.

So basically, a big win of a Young Women activity. Yay!

Buisness Proposition

2011-05-03T21:31:00.001-04:00

So, when I was in Panama this last time, Panamanian Pal and I came up with a genius plan: The Car Company. Basically, we decided that we would create a car company whose branding came from not having any branding at all. We would build reliable, aforable cars with no logos or special designs or anything. Just a car to get you from point A to point B. We would build a compact car, called the Small Car, a sedan called the Big Car and then a van called the Big Family Car. Slogan: When all you want is a Car.

And once we had a big following we figure we could expand our line to include a Fancy Car (marketed as the Posh Car in Britain), and a Sports Car, and a Utility Car. Maybe we would also make a Tiny Car. And we'd of course have to have a Green Car which would be environmentally friendly and would be only available in green. Cause that's hilarious. We'd make a deal with insurance companies for the First Car, which would have special safety features to get new drivers a discount on their insurance. Seriously, the possibilities would be endless.

So, in addition to the cars we'd have a whole line of Car Company t-shirts and hats and junk saying things like "Why, yes I do drive a Big Car" which is funny because Big Car would be an actual vehicle. Plus, the opportunities for hilarious YouTube commercials are endless. I'm telling you, this whole thing is genius. And PP and I had a good long laughing conversation about our future car company (though I realized it was probably in the "you had to be there" funny conversations category).

Now we just need to somehow get our hands on a billion dollars to do it. So how about it? You in?

Something About May

2011-05-02T18:46:00.001-04:00

Do you guys want to hear something really delightful about May? I have nothing planned in May. No trips, no visitors, no events, no nothing. For a whole month. The one small blight on this, is that I do have to work one Sunday, but on the upside, that gives me a whole Wednesday off. I'm terribly excited about it.

And I want you to be excited about it too, so I have decided that for the month of May I will post a blog every day for your enjoyment! Are you thrilled?

Fair warning, I have nothing awesome planned for the month of May, so it might get a little boring around here.

Do You Like to Dancy Dance?

2011-05-01T14:32:00.002-04:00

Three pictures:

can, can, can you do the can can?


The Cha Cha Slide: crisscross, crisscross

Of course they're congaing to Jason Mraz, How else would you dance to Jason Mraz?

These are from the youth stake dance last night. After girls camp, I promised A2 that I would drive her up to the next stake dance so she could see all the friends she made. We ended up having five of the kids go, and they all seemed to be having a blast, so I think that was a big win.

It was awesome when we walked through the door and A2 and Cute S were swarmed by camp friends giving hugs and being so excited that we were there. I loved it. And I think I enjoyed dancing with the kids and watching them enjoy themselves way more than I enjoyed stake dances I attended as a youth. Of course, there were no conga lines at the stake dances I attended as a youth, so that might be part of it.

Usnavy

2011-04-29T20:19:00.000-04:00

This is Usnavy:

Listy McListerson bought him for me for Christmas or my birthday. I think Christmas. He is a drinking bird. Once you get his head wet, he will tip forward til his beak hits the water and then stand back up. As long as there is water, he will keep doing this. I keep him at my desk. Yesterday was bring your kids to work day and one of the kids discovered him at my desk, so we started him going and we started counting how many times he "drank." One girl suggested that he might drink a million times.

When we came in this morning, Usnavy was still going. And these are the kinds of people that I work with: someone timed Usnavy to get an average drinks per minute ratio and did the math to translate that into how long it would take for him to drink a million times. Which is just over four month.

And so... now we're going to see if we can keep Usnavy going for the next a little more than four months. Because we are that kind of people.

(We are also the kind of people who name drinking birds Usnavy)

Trajectory Heart

2011-04-23T23:27:00.000-04:00

Hey, do you guys remember the giant metal rooster? The one in the Alvin Frazier III Memorial Park? And how we learned that Mr. Frazier was a metal working and all around good guy? Well, I've been meaning to tell you for a while that the statue was changed several months ago. I finally got around to snapping a picture of the new work. It's called "Trajectory Heart" and I'm a little bit in love with it:

Although, I have to tell you, I kind of miss that rooster, but at least there's still a rooster painting in the park:

Also, I'm more than ever convinced that Alvin Frazier III is someone that I hope to meet in heaven. I want to sit and have a long chat with him because the more I find out about him from people leaving comments on my blog, the more I wish we were friends.

You Can Call me Al

2011-04-21T17:55:00.001-04:00

So, I officially became an aunt yesterday. Congratulations to Mechanic Brother on a healthy and beautiful baby boy! Ed has referred to me as Auntie Jules for a while now, so I've adapted to my new title quite easily. My 15-year-old sister, Loo, on the other hand, thinks the title Aunt is weird. I told her that Auntie Loo sounds awesome and that she should just go by that all the time, for everyone. She disagreed. Probably wisely.

I asked my mom what she wanted to go by now that she's got a grandchild. I expected her to say "Grandma" but apparently that's not what the cool grandma's are going by these days. No, according to the Internet, hip grandmas these days are going by such names as Glamma, GG (Gigi? GeeGee?), Bebe, Honey, Lovey, Mia, and Mugga.

Let me state for the record that I'm very glad my mom is not that hip. There's no way she would EVER convince me to call her Mugga or Bebe. Ever. In the history of the world.

No, my mom wants to go by the cooler-than-grandma-but-not-quite-to-glamma-level-hipness name of Nonna. Which is cute. (But not as cute as Abue (pronounced Ab-way) or Buela (bway-la) which is what I would call the grandmother of my children if she were a native Spanish speaker because I think it's the dang cutest thing in the world when Spanish speaking babies call their grandma 'Abue').

Congratulations, Nonna! Now you go give that baby boy some loving from his Auntie Jules.

April Craft: Denim Quilt

2011-04-16T22:37:00.001-04:00

My Sister-in-law is going to pop out a baby any day now, so I got this baby quilt done just under the wire:

It's made from the pile of old jeans I've never thrown away and some thick flannel backing with a very thin batting inside. SIL is going with a farm animals theme for the nursery, so I was looking for a brown cow or sheep themed flannel, but couldn't find any. I did find the bandanna-style red flannel with cowboy boots that I thought worked well. Anyway, it's cute and I think it will make a great tummy time blanket.

Now I need to start thinking of what my May craft is going to be.

Art and An Anecdote

2011-04-16T22:33:00.003-04:00

When Panamanian Pal and I were in El Valle in February, we bought a couple of paintings which I just loved. But which have been hanging out in a pile on my desk because they needed framing. Well, I finally went to the local craft shop to look into framing options and decided the best (i.e. cheapest but still good looking) thing to do would be to matte them in a regular frame with glass I LOVE the result:

They only had enough of that specific matting for one frame, so for now only one of them is up. But the place ordered more matte material and the other one should be up soon, but just for the record, here's a picture of the other one.

And here's a funny story about the purchasing of the art. I really, really loved these paintings, but I wasn't sure about buying them. I wanted a pair, but didn't want to have to PAY for a pair, and I didn't know how I felt about buying just one of them. And etc. Anyway, after a bit of dithering the following conversation ensued:

Panamanian Pal: Let's buy them together.
Me (in an overly serious tone of voice): I don't know [Panamanian Pal], buying art together is kind of a big deal. Are you sure you're ready for that level of commitment?
Panamanian Pal (also overly serious): Yeah. I think so. But if we do break up, I get this one (points to the one with colorfully dressed figures)
Random Lady: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Random Lady then proceeded to tell us how hilarious she thought that conversation was. It was awesome. Then, several hours later, we decided to go to lunch, and guess who was there! Random Lady. Who told us again how hilarious we were. Best. Ever.

The Continuing Adventures of Jules and Panamanian Pal

2011-04-13T21:33:00.000-04:00

Today is a monumental day, everyone. This post, this one that you are reading right now, is my 500th post on my blog! Woo hoo!

It is also my and Panamanian Pal's anniversary. And cute PP sent me flowers, which was totally unexpected, since we celebrated our anniversary while I was in Panama last week. So cute:

Oh, by the way, I was in Panama last week. Unfortunately, we didn't do terribly much that was exciting. Partly because we were both working during the day, and partly because it was nice to just relax and hang out together. Like we would if we didn't live in separate countries.

What we DID do a lot of was going out to eat. Let's see... Saturday was the sort of vegetarian place where I had delicious pumpkin raviolis with an almond sauce, Sunday PP's cousin invited us to a barbeque with some friends of hers after conference. YUMMO! Lots of good grilled meats. Monday was a mediocre work meal. On Tuesday we went to this hole in the wall Chinese place where the menu was actually in Chinese. PP's Chinese friend ordered for us. Along with delicious dumplings we had pigs ear, and a tripe-type of dish. I'm very brave. And also, I learned how to use chopsticks (sorry for the blurry cell phone pic):

Wednesday was Lebanese food, Thursday was Italian food. Friday night we celebrated our anniversary with steaks and burgers and passion fruit ice cream. Awww... One year of Jules and Panamanian Pal!

After dinner we went out to the causeway, and I meant to take pictures, but instead we just walked hand in hand talking about life and stuff, and then cuddles on a bench looking out over the water for a while. (Are you gagging on the adorableness of it all yet?)

Saturday morning was Chinese breakfast with PP's sister and his Chinese friend:

And Saturday night we had Portuguese food with his family. So, a good international dining experience.

Other than that we just hung out with PP's parents or just the two of us at home. We'd hang out in the living room/den and I would be curled up under a blanket (because the AC was always on high in the den and I would get cold) with my Kindle and everyone else would watch TV. Or we'd just chat and stuff. I loved it. But it's makes for a boring trip report. Oh well.

The Miracle of the Running Shoes

2011-04-11T21:40:00.000-04:00

Listen, I know that you don't want to hear about my running shoes right now. I know that what you want to hear about is my trip to Panama, which was awesome, and which I will tell you about soon; although I'm going to warn you right now, it will not be very exciting to read about. Neither will the following story, but I think it's awesome. And it's my blog, so I can write whatever I want.

See, the thing is, it was time for new running shoes. And I was going to be all "you can buy running shoes if you run four times a week for a month" but it was at that "shoes are so worn they are starting to hurt" phase, and so I decided that I was just going to save myself some misery and buy news ones. And after a bit of research, I decided that the new shoes that I wanted to buy were the Nike Frees.

So, I live in Key West, so that means options for purchasing athletic shoes are slim, but I went to try my luck at Foot Locker. I walked in and asked for the frees in my size -- ladies 12, men's 10 -- and dude looks at me and is like "yeah, we've never had a ladies 12, and we sold out of men's frees." Awesome. But then he's all, "Let me just go check and make sure." AND GUESS WHAT! Some lady had ordered the size 12 online, but they didn't fit like she wanted to she returned them to the store, and so there was, IN FACT, a pair of Frees in my size. Cue angelic "Ah."

And that's all. There was miraculously one pair of women's size 12 running shoe in a store. Which I'm pretty sure has never before happened in the history of the world.

And way, I took these babies out cruising tonight for the first time (I twisted my ankle at camp and between this, that, and the other hadn't worn them to run yet) and can I just say they are delicious. Not to sound cliche, but running it them felt free, like a gazelle across an African savanna.

Red

2011-03-29T10:30:00.000-04:00

harvested from my garden this morning:

I wish I Had Something Cool To Tell You

2011-03-27T19:40:00.000-04:00

But I don't. I spent most of Friday and yesterday in the car. I decided Friday morning that I really, really needed to go to the temple, and the nice thing about being single and middle class is that I could just pick up and go. I packed an overnight bag during my lunch break and went. It was awesome, but mostly it was a lot of driving and a hotel with no hot water. And also the temple, which is always awesome.

So, since I don't have anything really cool to talk about, here's the very first picture ever taken of Panamanian Pal and I as Panamanian Pal and I. PP finally sent it to me, since it's been almost a year since then.

Jimmered

2011-03-25T08:27:00.000-04:00

Listen, I like college sports. I love college football and I enjoy college basketball, especially the NCAA tournament. Of course, my team is the BYU Cougars and this has been a fun basketball season to watch as Jimmer Fredette pretty much rocked everyone's world.

I did not realized how deeply Cougar basketball mattered to me until last night, however, when, after a heartbreaking loss in overtime to the Florida Gators (Boo!), my subconscious refused to accept it and I literally dreamed up a new ending to the game. In my dream, the game still went into over time, but the actual ending of the game turned out to be a Jimmer nightmare. And in "reality" in my dream, Jimmer wakes up from his nightmare and scores 14 points in over time, leading BYU to the Elite Eight. Woo!

I didn't realize I cared that much.

CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMP!!!

2011-03-20T15:30:00.001-04:00

Where to even start talking about camp this year? It was so much and so awesome. Camp was centered on the value virtue and our theme was "Once Upon a Time," based on the talk that President Uchtdorf gave at last year's General Young Women's broadcast:

We had lots of awesome talks about the importance of living righteously to gain our "happily ever afters" and along the way we also had tons of fun. There was horseback riding:

And hula hooping:

And this thing called the C.O.P.E course (a Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience):

And S'mores:

And service projects:

And certifications:

And the polar slide:

And a bunch of other funnity, including an early morning activity I led on meditative breathing. Which I don't have pictures of because I was leading it.

But best of all were my cute girls, and the fact that they were positive and upbeat all week. They were always willing to help out when asked, not one of them complained the whole week we were there. They were always ready and on time to everything. They reached out to everyone around them, and their enthusiasm for camp was contagious. They always had people from other wards in our cabin or they were with the other wards, and the spread a love and a joy wherever they went. Just awesome, awesome girls:

Since our branch president couldn't make the long drive for the bishop talks, a member of the stake presidency who was there came and gave the girls a perfect message about being faithful even when everyone around you isn't, and about holding on the gospel no matter what, and I was just SO grateful for inspired priesthood leaders. Yay! We also were invited by another ward to join them while their youth leaders (girls 16-17) gave discussions on being virtuous, which was awesome since our oldest girl is 15 and hasn't had older, righteous young women to look up to. We also made a lot of close friends over the week with girls from all over the stake, which I loved because it's good for my girls to know that there are other girls their same age trying to do the same righteous things they are:

I taught my girls and then the rest of camp a lot of camp songs from when I was at girls camp and learned a few new ones. We also learned a few signs in American Sign Language while at camp since the leader who came with me is deaf. Obviously, one of the most important ones we learned was Camp:

We usually held up the sign while yelling CAMP!!! loudly and longly. We were really only going to do that the first day, but then other girls from other wards would walk by and make the sign at us and start yelling CAMP! and what choice did we have? None, that's what. We may have had only three girls, but by the end of camp at testimony meeting many, many of the girls talked about how much they loved and appreciated the (loud and enthusiastic) girls from Key West. I loved it.

So basically camp was awesome. It was fun, spiritually uplifting, loud, and a little crazy, just the way camp is supposed to be. Yay!

UPDATE: I've uploaded about a bajillion pictures of camp to my SmugMug page, if you'd care to see them.

By the Way, It's March

2011-03-11T17:52:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,

I'm sorry for the paucity of posts. See, the thing is that Girls Camp is coming. In two days. And I've been working the weekend shift the last two weeks. And I went to Miami for work. And did I mention Girls Camp is in two days. So for the last ten days I have been either running around like crazy, or brain dead and watching late nineties sci-fi high school dramas. (Seriously. It's an addiction and I need help.) The good news is that Girls Camp is in two days. And then I'll have five days of outrageous fun (and probably at least one meltdown from the stress of it all during which I will go sit on the floor by my bunk and eat a bowl of cocoa puffs. (Ed made sure to pack a big box for me)). And then after that, Girls Camp will be over. And it will stop consuming my life.

Until then, sit back and admire the Girls Camp-related craftiness:

I made these bandannas with extra fabric from the sheet we made our banner from and a few fabric markers

Got these boring, kind of ugly hats for $0.25 on Amazon. And then I cutified them

The girls and I think this year's mailbox is a major step up from last year's

And also the cuteness:

Taken at the end of our "hike" for Girls Camp.

I hope that will tide you over until my life settles down a bit. Oh wait, I forgot, this is *MY* life we're talking about. It doesn't settle down. Ever. Nevertheless, I promise to blog again soon. Until then I remain

Yours faithfully,

Jules Q. Lindgren

p.s. Married Sister got my niece's blanket, so here's the picture of it in all its glory:

and I also made these cute matching booties and hat with some extra yarn:

Adventures in the Kitchen

2011-02-27T19:35:00.002-05:00

So, I've been on this do it yourself/homemaking/projects kick lately. Latest projects: canning and pasta making.

Saturday morning I started some red, black, and white beans soaking. After hemming the banner for Girls Camp, finishing some fast crochet projects, and watching an awesome BYU basketball games with Ed and family and some other friends, I cooked them up, borrowed Ed's pressure cooker and voila! canned beans:

A few days ago I decided that I wanted to try and recreate this watercress ravioli and creamy walnut sauce pasta that I had at a place in Panama. Because it was ridiculously yummy. And because I like a challenge. So today I made some pasta dough and filled it with some watercress and spinach from my produce box that I sauteed with garlic and shallots. They are now in my freezer waiting for me to buy walnuts to make the sauce sometime this week:

Clearly I'm no ravioli making expert, although I did find that hand knead and rolling out the pasta dough was very therapeutic. Trying to use my neighbor's little ravioli maker tray thing was less so... I never really got the hang of it.

So basically, you can just call me Holly Homemaker. If you want.

Finito!

2011-02-25T22:55:00.001-05:00

So, January's craft project ended up being February's craft project too. It turns out the crocheting takes forever, but as of 10:30pm tonight, the baby blanket I've been crocheting for my niece who will be born in June is DONE! I can't post pictures yet because it's a gift and I want Married Sister to see it in person first, but here's a little sampler to whet your appetite:

There are a couple of things that I would do differently if I could do over again without having to do it over again. 1.) I would have swapped the pink and the green on the edging. Didn't think that through. 2.) I would have joined the squares using a needle instead of a crochet hook, but over all, I think it turned out really adorable and I think Married Sister and Baby will love it.

And now I can move on to baby blanket number two!

I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

2011-02-24T21:07:00.000-05:00

Here's what I made at the Relief Society sisters' social today:

Red velvet cake balls dipped in milk chocolate and oreos dipped in mint chocolate. Happy debt-free day to me! (oh yeah, did I mention today was debt-free day? Totally sent off the last car payment, the last grandparent loan payment, and the last Newegg payment this morning. Jules <--- 100% debt free)

This is War

2011-02-23T07:28:00.000-05:00

Went outside the other day and found this guy and a couple of his friends eating my tomato plant:

I'm sorry, tobacco hornworm, you are both disgusting and eating my tomato plants which I have cultivated into their current jungle-like state with love and sweat; we cannot be friends. We cannot live in peace together. I am officially declaring war. You and all your kinsmen will die cruel deaths by my pruning shears. I will show no mercy. And I will not rest until I have achieved your complete annihilation from my garden.

(I spent three days after the original sighting searching for and then cutting in half these nasty caterpillars. It was long, really disgusting work, but I actually haven't seen one in a couple days now, and there seems to be no new destruction of the tomato jungle. I think I won't declare victory just yet, but the war is very nearly mine)

(Finally) The Post You've Been Waiting For!

2011-02-22T22:03:00.000-05:00

So I went to Panama a couple weekends ago to hang out with Panamanian Pal and celebrate Valentine's Day and also his birthday. Since he ended up having to get a hotel when he was here in January, I said that I would make it up to him by paying for an excursion while I was down there so after arriving Friday night, staying up too late getting caught up, and not sleeping well, we got up ridiculously early and drove out to a place called El Valle. It's about three hours from Panama City and it's this tiny town in the middle of volcanic crater. Very cool. The first thing we did when we got there was check out this waterfall called Las Mozas:

It was a very pretty walk along the river, and fun scrambling over rocks and tree roots and so on. Once we got to the waterfall we kicked off our shoes and waded out to the middle (to get the above shot) and then sat on the riverbank dangling our feet in the water, watching the local rascals jumping into the deeper parts, and feeling the warm sun on our backs. It was indescribably refreshing and relaxing. Seriously. PP decided to forgo putting his shoes back on for the walk back, and when we came to a kind of narrow stretch of bank, tried tossing his shoes across so he could use his hands. The first shoe made it just fine. Here's his second shoe:

By the time we'd gathered our wits and gone through the "deciding whether to jump in after it" process, the shoe was a lost cause. Luckily, PP had flip flops waiting in the car. We grabbed a bite to eat on the way to our bed and breakfast and then went to check into the Toucan Suite, which was just lovely:

By that point we were both pretty tired, so we took advantage of the lovely evening weather, the beautiful, bird-filled gardens, and the hammocks and spent a couple hours napping/relaxing outside before heading off in search of dinner.

The next day was full of adventures. We started in the artisan's market where we bought a few items as Christmas gifts and where we also bought a couple of small, matched paintings that I'm completely in love with. After the market we went looking for the trail to hike up La India Dormida, which really does look like a sleeping indian maiden:

but couldn't find the trail and ended up at Piedra Pintada (painted rock) instead:

The we headed out to see El Macho, which is another waterfall. This one had lots of fun signs featuring Dora, one of Panama's golden frogs. These signs were naturally all read out loud and in a high-pitched frog voice. After all that traipsing about, a trip to the natural hot springs was just what we needed. Then we went home, showered, and headed to this SUPER classy restaurant called La Casa de Lourdes. Seriously, SUPER classy, and way delicious. Some of the highlights of the meal were an amazing creamy vegetable soup, corvina in a light and lovely tomato dressing, pasta with a nut-based creamy sauce, and this amazingly delicious and refreshing and light passion fruit mousse. Super romantic, super yummo, super perfect.

After checking out the next morning, we went to the local zoo where I finally saw a toucan, albeit in a cage. So, I'm still working on toucan in the wild, but at least I've seen one:

Then we headed back to the city. We hung out with PP's family and friends, took a trip to the mall to get him some new shoes, and generally just enjoyed being together. Perfect. And then I had to leave, which was sad, but I'll be heading back in April, which isn't that far away... right?

(Still Not) The Post You've Been Waiting For!

2011-02-20T08:37:00.000-05:00

So, I've spent pretty much this entire week since I've been back from Panama either at work or getting ready for the Girls Camp yard sale or cleaning my house so that it would be presentable for guests or hanging out with said guest. And all that hard work led to a very fun-filled busy weekend.

My friend Tim arrived Friday evening getting to Key West just in time for us to go sit at the church and wait for any last minute donations to the yard sale. (My friend Tim is awesome and when I realized I was scheduling him and the yard sale for the same day, he was all, "I'd love to help you with your yard sale!" Oh, Tim! I love you!) So we sat around and caught up at the church for a while and then went to dinner at a Thai place that I haven't tried yet. It was decent, but nothing to write home about. There was a birthday party going on at the restaurant and about mid way through the meal, this woman comes out in a belly dancing costume and proceeds to put on the least alluring belly/lap dance I have ever seen. Sadly, I did not have my camera with me, but seriously, it was just awkward.

Saturday morning we got up early and headed churchward to set up. We were swamped with customers before we were even finished getting everything out:

We had tons of stuff to sell, including a bunch of big items that I was like "these better sell because I do NOT want to deal with them after we're done" including a couch set, a patio set, and a drum set. The drum set went early and at a really good price, but the couches and the patio set were literally the last two items we sold. Phew! We also hade a lot of bottles of hard surface polish that when they were donated I was like "seriously?" but dude, I sold a solid dozen of those bottles of polish. Rock on me. Tim helped out by modeling some of the fine clothing items we had:

Fierce!

And here are a couple of my cute girls guarding the cash box.

We made lots of money and will be able to pay for all of our girls to go to camp which is very exciting. Yay! us. Once we had everything cleaned up and all the leftovers safely donated to Salvation Army, Tim and I were exhausted so we hung out in the back yard for a while, and then made a yummo dinner: grouper with a creamy tomato and kale sauce (the kale was from my garden) over farfalle with roasted green beans and peppers on the side. Fancy!

Then we wandered over to Mallory Square for the sunset celebration:

We bought this pastry thing called a kurtosh, which was SUPER yummy, soft like bread in the middle, but the outside was crispy like a pastry crust, and it was crusted with coconut and this light sweet, kind of orange zesty syrup. Seriously delish. Then, by the time we got home I was REALLY exhausted and fell asleep during the movie we put in. Awesome.

Tim left early this morning, but it was super fun having him here for the five seconds he came. And I think that I might finally have some time later today to tell you all about my fun and romantic weekend in Panama.

(Probably Not) The Post You've Been Waiting For!

2011-02-18T07:04:00.000-05:00

The tomatoes are getting ripe:

And, in contrast to last year they are sweet with every sun-warmed bite. (Last year the three that actually ripened left a kind of bitter after taste.)

Once I have more than 2 minutes to sit down and also when I figure out how to convert my RAW photos to jpegs I will tell you all about my amazingly fun, romantic weekend in Panama.

Good Day

2011-02-05T21:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm worn out, slightly sunburned, covered in melted ice cream, ketchup, and baby spit up, and I only got about half of the to do list checked off, which, really, means that today was a pretty great day. After a morning getting what chores I could done before viola lessons, and then going to viola lessons, I went over to Ed's house, and we piled the kids in the car and headed to the Key West Airport open house. They had a bunch of planes on display, many of which you could climb up into. Shi-bud and Little Man loved it:

They also enjoyed watching the planes taking off and landing. Well, mostly landing; I don't actually remember seeing one take off:

Baby Raz just hung out in his stroller:

That is, until he decided he was done and started screaming. Poor bud. That wasn't until the big boys were pretty much done as well, so that worked out. After left the show we headed over to Matheesen's for some yummo cheese fries and ice cream. It got messy:

Finally, after a bath and pajama's the big boys came over to my house to watch Legend of the Guardians. We had popcorn and juice and pillows galore:

This picture cracks me up because Little Man saw me get the camera out and totally posed with his hand on his cheek like that. Hilarious. I can't actually tell you much about the movie because I was answering the question "what happened?" every five minutes. I did notice the art had a sort-of 70's wolf painting feel to it though which was fun.

And then it was bedtime. Good night, Shi-bud and Little Man! Good night, Baby Raz! And now I think it's bedtime for me.

Downright Unruly

2011-02-03T15:45:00.000-05:00

So, my tomato plants are out of control. Seriously:

And look what I discovered while I was taking these pictures:

Just Go Fly A Kite

2011-02-01T20:22:00.000-05:00

So once upon a time, Panamanian Pal and I bought a kite. And tried to fly it. And failed.

So today, I decided to bust out the kite again to entertain the neighbor kids to give Ed a break while her hubby is out of town. Good idea in theory. In practice, PP's and my's kite is not really a kids kite. And also, I never got it to fly.

So basically the point of this story is that I suck at flying kites.

Oh, and My Dad Came Too

2011-01-30T20:54:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that my dad was here? Cause he was. For like three and a half seconds, but he was here. Seriously, he got here Monday night, and left Wednesday morning. We had just time enough to eat out at the floating thai place, go to viola lessons, and eat at the vegetarian/vegan place. Oh, and we went on a sunset cruise. Because they are awesome.

And since that's pretty much the only thing we did that was cool, here are some more picture.

Oh yeah, and the dude totally let me steer the boat for a while. Awesome.

And here's the pretty sunset.

And here's some pretty post sunset.

And here's the pretty water. It was a bit rough out.

And I'm pretty sure that's enough. Good times.

Seriously, I Never Get Tired of This

2011-01-30T19:32:00.000-05:00

This was the view from my yard around 6pm tonight. When it was about 70 degrees outside. THIS is the way to winter, man.

Postponing Retirement

2011-01-26T16:23:00.002-05:00

This is my bosch mixer:

It does not have a name because I don't really believe in giving inanimate objects names, but it has on occasion been affectionately referred to as "the dinosaur." As you can see, it's not new. My dad bought my mom this mixer when she was so pregnant with Mechanic Brother that she couldn't comfortably knead her bread by hand anymore. Mechanic Brother turned 26 last November. The bowl has since been replaced, but if you can do math, that makes the machine itself 26.5 years old.

So anyway, I inherited the dinosaur while I was at BYU, shortly after it wobbled its way of my mom's counter, earning it that missing chunk of plastic in the front. My mom happened to be on the phone with my grandparents at the time, and also going through some Stressful Life Experiences, so my grandparents bought her a spankin' new bosch for Christmas and I claimed the old one. I have made many loaves of bread and batches of cookies in it since then -- not even counting the many loaves of bread and batches of cookie I made in it while it still lived at my mom's house.

Last week, I was having a bread making tutorial at my house and was preparing some dough ahead of time and the bosch was having a hard time staying on. And then the cord started sparking by the plug, and plastic started burning, and I ended up kneading that dough by hand and giving the bosch up for dead. It was a sad day.

But then my dad came! And my dad is pretty handy, and since we determined the problem was broken wires, he went out, bought a new plug and patched that bosch right up:

It ain't pretty, but it works (though for how long is a matter of debate since Dad says the wires are kind of corroded). I think I'm gonna whip up a batch of peanut butter cookies to celebrate!

Oh! And We Saw The Bubble Truck!

2011-01-20T08:35:00.002-05:00

How could I have forgotten to mention the bubble truck. Panamanian Pal and I saw this on the way out of town:

Photo courtesy of Panamanian Pal

It was blowing bubbles as it drove down the street ahead of us. Seriously, I love this town.

Wonderful

2011-01-19T08:07:00.001-05:00

So, you will be shocked to learn that I did not take one single photo of Panamanian Pal's visit this last weekend. I know, I'm pretty much the worst person ever. Nevertheless, I hope that you will believe me when I say it was an amazing and wonderful weekend despite the lack of photo documentation. Here are some things that we did:

Eat. We had lots of fun eating. We went to a steakhouse that a coworker had described as "elegant," but which ended up being a Longhorn Steakhouse. Hilarity ensues. We went to Hogfish Cafe on a double date with Ed and Mr. Ed. Fun! We ate at this delicious vegan/vegetarian cafe. We had breakfast at Sarabeth's. We had the missionaries over for dinner and the missionaries are hilarious. We ordered a pizza and stayed in eating it and watching movies. Good food, good times.
Watch movies. We watched Waitress, The Orphanage, a Sade concert, and an episode of Eureka. All quite good.
Fly our kite. Or at least make the attempt. It was probably a little two windy and we thought we'd be cool and buy one of those two stringed kites. I think the record was about a minute in the air before I crashed that sucker into the ocean. But I kid you not, there was applause. And that was awesome.
Play at a toy store. Possibly the coolest toy store I have ever been too. Seriously, if you're ever in Key West, check out the toy factory. We bought a sweet truck made out of bamboo as a birthday present for PP's nephew.
Killer Bunnies. I introduced PP to the amazing world of Killer Bunnies. If you have not played this card game yet, do. It's super fun and super hilarious. Seriously, there's a Magic Spatula and Green Jello with Evil Pineapple Chunks involved.
Talk. PP and I talk all the time via the Internet, but it was MUCH more fun talking to him in person. Awww....
Snuggle.

Seriously, one of the best weekends ever. Yay! It was sad sending him home at the end of it, but you gotta do, right? Luckily, we'll be together again in less than a month when I head to Panama for his birthday weekend!

The Last of Christmas

2011-01-12T09:03:00.001-05:00

So I took down the tree and stockings and such a while ago, and put my furniture back the way it was, and generally recovered from the holiday season, except for one thing, all my Christmas cards were still on display:

Until today. As I was finishing up a week of deep cleaning, the cards came down. Christmas is officially over.

Single, Female, Mormon, Loved

2011-01-10T06:46:00.003-05:00

The New York Times on Friday published an article in their "Modern Love" column titled Single, Female, Mormon, Alone, which tells the story of a mid-30s Mormon woman who -- and this is my sum up based on the article; the author may have chosen to express this differently -- decided to leave the church because she felt alienated from the church because at 35 she still wasn't married and didn't want to have children, and felt alienated from the rest of the world because of the church's Law of Chastity which prohibits sex outside of marriage. Its a well-written and moving account, and my blog post here is in no way an attempt to judge her for her decision -- if I had the same feelings she describes, I would probably make the same decision -- but I sometimes feel that they only voices on Mormonism that get published in mainstream media are from those who've decided to leave (which I get -- a Mormon staying a Mormon is hardly news), and I want to tell my story about this too. Even if it is to the, like, 11 people who read this blog, most of whom are members of the church.

I do want to make this disclaimer that I won't be 30 until June and that, in contrast to the author of the article, I do someday want to have children, which are probably important differences, but in many ways I did identify with her. Being single and older within a doctrine and therefore a culture that so heavily emphasizes family is not exactly easy. People sometimes say thoughtless things, and sometimes well-meaning efforts at encouragement can sound a lot like pity and judgment. And sometimes people mean to express pity and judgment. And of course, sometimes the longing to be married hits hard and makes me cry, and I can't escape the occasional bout of "what am I doing wrong?" And I have had more than one someones tell me that my "problem" was that I was too independent for Mormon men.

And yeah, it can be lonely sometimes, but I have never really felt alone, abandoned, disconnected or discounted. During my years in Single Adult Wards I made several intimate friends, both male and female, most of whom I still have a relationship with today even though I now live pretty far away. And when I began attending a family branch after my move to Key West, instead of feeling looked down or pitied because of my advanced age for singleness, I was embraced and supported. I've inherited a bushel of "nieces" and "nephews" -- none biological yet -- been invited to participate in family gatherings for families I wasn't technically a member of, given responsibilities, and felt the love of many members of the church who view my singleness not just as a trial to be gotten through, but as an opportunity to grow and to serve in and outside of the church in ways that I wouldn't otherwise be able to.

Nor do I feel that my decision to be celibate for religious reasons has stunted my personal growth. Of course I want to have sex. It's kind of a biological imperative. And that issue has been a big one lately, since I'm totally in love with Panamanian Pal, and with that comes a desire to be intimate on not just an emotional level. And it's difficult. But luckily Panamanian Pal is probably the most wonderful guy on earth and is incredibly supportive of my decision to live the law of chastity and gets that I have Major Reasons for doing so even though he is not a member of the church and doesn't have the same reasons to choose our chaste relationship. And so maintaining our relationship without sex is not my rules or his sacrifice, but our decision, and in many ways being in it together has deepened our relationship even more.

The woman in the article says "Turns out, though, that there is no place in that community for a single woman who doesn’t want children. My only available choice within the church was to wait for my reward in heaven, as Mormon doctrine promises that single members denied marriage, family and sex lives on earth will have them after death. Needless to say, this wasn’t a compelling argument."

In some ways, I can identify with that feeling. But mostly I don't. I think that there can be a place within the Mormon community for anyone, and I've definitely found a place because of my 30-something singleness that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I don't feel that my only choice is to just wait around until God gives me my hot husband in heaven; I have the choice to find personal and spiritual fulfillment in other ways. I may not be having sex, but I have loads of amazing and rewarding relationships with people. I don't have a husband, I don't have kids, but I do have a family that extends beyond my parents and siblings.

And I have a Heavenly Father who is aware of me and who has a plan that ends in glory for those willing to keep his commandments, including the law of chastity. And I have a Redeemer who, through means I don't fully understand, has felt exactly what it feels like to be 30-something and single in the Mormon church. And I do find hope in the promise that any opportunities for personal growth that I don't get today, I will get to have eventually, and in my case the growth that comes from a healthy marriage and sex life may have to wait until after my time here on earth. The path to perfection, which is the desired end state is not the same for everyone and I think that a lot of the things that I get to learn here and in this time because I'm nearly 30 and single are things that others who married young will have to learn in the post-mortal life while I'm there learning about marriage. You know?

I just want to reiterate that I don't mean this blog post to be a judgment on the woman in this article or anyone who has had the same or similar experiences. I just wanted to let people know that those aren't the only experiences to be had, and my experience in the church has been, on balance, incredibly good.

I'm Very Good at Growing Leaves

2011-01-08T14:16:00.000-05:00

I know that all of you have been anxiously awaiting an update on the garden, so here goes. The Great Garden Experiment of '10-'11 has already been much more successful than my '09-'10 attempt. Everything is looking green and healthy and I've had a bounteous spinach harvest:

I haven't gotten any fruit out of the garden yet, though. The zucchini plants have been blooming and I got really excited because there were tiny zucchini's on it, but apparently they were never fertilized because the flowers fell off and they never grew. So today I went out there with some q-tips to see if I could, ahem, help things along:

The leeks are starting to get good and fat, although the cold spells we've been having have kind of stunted their growth. I'm hoping the warm weather lasts because they're started to get big much faster now:

My poor peppers are putting up a good fight, but, honestly, they aren't getting much sun. They're still green and leafy though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed:

Speaking of leaves, the kale got a later start than the rest of the garden and then chickens ate about half of the row, and the zucchini steals a lot of sun (I'm trying to train the zucchini to grow in the other direction. Nevertheless, I think they'll be ready for eats in the next couple weeks:

And last, but certainly not least we have the tomatoes, which are tall and green and starting to bloom (and part of the reason the peppers aren't getting much sun):

And I don't know if you can tell, but if you look to the left of the flower you'll see a teeny tiny green tomato starting to grow. Cutest!

So I'm really excited. My family enjoyed a lot of fresh spinach while they were here and that was pretty much the coolest. And I'm having people over for dinner next Sunday and they too are going to enjoy the bounties of my spinach row. And maybe my q-tipping will work and I'll be eating fresh zucchini soon too!

Back to the Old Routine

2011-01-07T11:44:00.002-05:00

So after all the chaos of holidays and visitors and trips and so on, I'm glad to be back to my routine. Okay, who am I kidding? There are always visitors and trips and things getting in the way of my routine, and I have a different work schedule every week (but in a regular pattern). Seriously, I don't think I've ever been able to have a consistent routine for more than about two weeks at a time. But if I HAD a routine, I would be it would look something like this:

Monday:

5:00am - 7:30 am: Wake up, get ready for the day. This varies depending on what work schedule I'm on.
(6:00am - 8:30am) - (2:30pm-5:00pm) Work
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Practice the viola*
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm Run/gym
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Shower, make dinner, run errands, etc
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm Viola lesson
9:00 pm - 12:00 pm chat with Panamanian Pal, read scriptures, get ready for and go to bed (again, varies depending on when I'm working)

*obviously on weeks that I'm working til 5pm, I don't practice viola in this time slot. Those weeks, I actually run/gym before work and then practice viola from 5-6.

Tuesday:

5:00am - 7:30 am: Wake up, get ready for the day.
(6:00am - 8:30am) - (2:30pm-5:00pm) Work
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Practice the viola
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm Run/gym
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Orchestra
7:30 pm - 12:00 pm dinner, errands, chat with Panamanian Pal, read scriptures, get ready for and go to bed

Wednesday:

5:00am - 7:30 am: Wake up, get ready for the day.
(6:00am - 8:30am) - (2:30pm-5:00pm) Work
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Practice the viola
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm Run/gym
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Young Women midweek activity
8:00 pm - 12:00 pm dinner, errands, chat with Panamanian Pal, read scriptures, get ready for and go to bed

Thursday:

5:00am - 7:30 am: Wake up, get ready for the day.
(6:00am - 8:30am) - (2:30pm-5:00pm) Work
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Practice the viola
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm Run/gym
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Shower, make dinner, run errands, etc
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm Viola lesson
9:00 pm - 12:00 pm chat with Panamanian Pal, read scriptures, get ready for and go to bed

Friday:

5:00am - 7:30 am: Wake up, get ready for the day. This varies depending on what work schedule I'm on.
(6:00am - 8:30am) - (2:30pm-5:00pm) Work
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Practice the viola*
5:00 pm - 12:00 pm NOTHING! and chat with Panamanian Pal, read scriptures, get ready for and go to bed

Weekends are exempted from the routine, although I do have an 11:00am Saturday viola lesson and church from 10am-1pm on Sunday.

It would be a good one. But I have way too much fun, I guess so there's always something else going on. I need like an extra 10 hours in the week that I can just use when I need them. Oh? A2 wants to go out to dinner on Thursday, NO PROBLEMO! I'll just add in a couple of hours to that day right between running and viola lessons. Panamanian Pal is coming for the weekend and I never have time to clean my house, PRESTO! An extra 8 hours before I have to leave for the airport. I'd be all Super Routine Girl with my Super Schedule Powers! And it would be awesome.

Ze Goals

2011-01-01T21:26:00.002-05:00

So, 2011, huh? I guess that means it's time to write down my annual goals. Good times! But first, let's see how I did at last year's goals, which were:

learn to play a string instrument (lessons start tomorrow!)
run in the Seven Mile Bridge race in April and run around Key West by December
meet all the requirements for the Young Womanhood recognition

So, I did in fact learn to play the viola last year. Rock on me! I learned to play well enough that I felt comfortable playing in Sacrament meeting. This year I think I'll keep the viola in the goals mix, so in 2011, I will:

Become an advanced violist.(i.e. good enough to join the Reston Community Orchestra)

I did not make it into the Seven Mile Bridge race, unfortunately, and so the farthest I ran in 2010 was 5 miles. I think we can up the game. So in 2011, I will:

Run around Key West by my birthday.

I also am only about halfway done with my Personal Progress. So I think that I will make sure and finish it this year, probably in the next couple of months. For my spiritual growth goal, though, in 2011, I will:

Read the entire standard works (Old and New Testaments, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price)

I have also been feeling the need to be creative, in the sense of creating something and not in the sense of having fun ideas, so in 2011, I will:

Do at least one "crafty" thing every month. (Since I'm going to be an auntie twice over in 2011, I'm gonna start with crocheting a baby blanket.)

And, I don't know if this really counts as a 2011 goal, since I've been working toward it for a couple years now but I'm finally at a point where I can say that in 2011, I will:

Finish paying off my car loan and my grandparents loan and therefore be 100% dept free.

And there you have it. Guys, I have a really good feeling about 2011.

What a Year!

2010-12-31T21:25:00.000-05:00

Dudes! Do you have any idea how totally crazy awesome this year has been for me? Well, you might, but lets talk about it.

Well, okay, January was pretty quiet, although I did start taking viola lessons, which was cool. But then my dad came to visit in February, and then March exploded on me with a trip to Virgina and Girls Camp, plus a visit from my grandparents.

April brought more visitors (in the form of Panamanian Pal and Listy McListerson), and oh yeah, Panamanian Pal kissed me. WHAT!?

In May I went to the ballet and also over Memorial Day weekend flew up to Cincinnati to hang out with T3 and her family and we went camping and caving. Super fun! June, as always, was my birthday, but was actually pretty quiet, which was a nice reprieve. And then in July my brother came to visit after getting home from Afghanistan and I went to the temple and rescued baby sea turtles and moved and Panamanian Pal came to visit again. And that was just the first part of the year.

Late August started Jules' Marathon of Doing Stuff with another trip to Virginia and then I don't think I was home for the weekend the entire month of September what with the youth temple trip, the BYU-Florida State game in Tallahassee, and a week in Panama. October brought me a week in Italy with friends (and family and honey), followed almost immediately by another trip to the temple. No wonder I'm getting grey hair!

The final stretch of the year brought the Thackers down for Thanksgiving and my family down for Christmas.

To sum up, this year I went on six long trips, hosted people on seven occassions, got a boyfriend, and went to the temple three times. And that's just the big stuff.

And in case you were wondering, 2011 is probably going to be just as crazy busy. Already on the agenda: a visit from Panamanian Pal (in less than two weeks! yay!), probably two trips to Panama, Girls Camp, and a week camping in Yellowstone. And that's all before June.

A Year of Reading

2010-12-31T21:00:00.060-05:00

So, I only read 70 books this year compared to last year's 83. I blame this on two factor: 1.) I was really busy this year, not just with big things going on, but also with viola and orchestra and young women and a new boyfriend and so on, 2.) if you look at the list I think you'll find that there are a lot more substantive books in it -- fewer books, higher quality. Enjoy! (Okay, I know you're not actually going to read this, but I want it posted for my own records (but to make it slightly more useful to you I DID list books by my good reads ranking (which is my just after reading impression, and may not necessarily by an absolutely accurate rating))).

In the 9-10 range:

Title	Author	Date Read
Sphere	Michael Crichton	16-Nov
Anne of Green Gables (Aladdin Classics)	L.M. Montgomery	1-Sep
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)	Suzanne Collins	26-Aug
Something Upstairs (Avon Camelot Books)	Avi	14-Aug
Bad Kitty Gets a Bath	Nick Bruel	31-May
I Am Not A Serial Killer (John Cleaver, #1)	Dan Wells	24-May
The High King (Chronicles of Prydain, Book 5)	Lloyd Alexander	18-Apr
Taran Wanderer (The Chronicles of Prydain, #4)	Lloyd Alexander	5-Apr
The Black Cauldron (The Prydain Chronicles #2)	Lloyd Alexander	29-Mar
The Book of Three (The Prydain Chronicles #1)	Lloyd Alexander	7-Mar
The Good Earth (Contemporary Classics (Washington Square Press))	Pearl S. Buck	6-Mar
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society	Mary Ann Shaffer	19-Feb
Once Upon a Curse (Tales of the Frog Princess, #3)	E.D. Baker	22-Jan
Dragon's Breath (Tales of the Frog Princess, #2)	E.D. Baker	16-Jan
The Frog Princess (Tales of the Frog Princess, #1)	E.D. Baker	3-Jan

In the 7-8 Range:

Title	Author	Date Read
Behemoth (Leviathan, #2)	Scott Westerfeld	16-Dec
Genghis: Birth of an Empire (Conqueror, #1)	Conn Iggulden	10-Dec
Leviathan (Leviathan, #1)	Scott Westerfeld	27-Nov
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values	Robert M. Pirsig	14-Nov
WAR	Sebastian Junger	9-Nov
Ringworld	Larry Niven	29-Oct
A Short History of Nearly Everything	Bill Bryson	20-Oct
Journey to the Centre of the Earth	Jules Verne	28-Sep
The Swoop!, or How Clarence Saved England	P.G. Wodehouse	24-Sep
Neverwhere	Neil Gaiman	4-Sep
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)	Suzanne Collins	28-Aug
Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)	Suzanne Collins	28-Aug
A. Lincoln	Ronald White	25-Aug
Something Upstairs	Avi	16-Aug
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold	John le Carre	4-Aug
Keys to the Demon Prison (Fablehaven, #5)	Brandon Mull	30-Jul
Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary (Fablehaven, #4)	Brandon Mull	27-Jul
Grip of the Shadow Plague (Fablehaven, #3)	Brandon Mull	19-Jul
Rise of the Evening Star (Fablehaven, #2)	Brandon Mull	16-Jul
Fablehaven (Fablehaven, #1)	Brandon Mull	12-Jul
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	Jonathan Safran Foer	25-Jun
The Vampire's Assistant (Cirque Du Freak, #2)	Darren Shan	13-Jun
A Living Nightmare (Cirque Du Freak, #1)	Darren Shan	12-Jun
Outliers	Malcolm Gladwell	12-Jun
Gone (Gone, #1)	Michael Grant	2-May
The Castle of Llyr (The Prydain Chronicles #3)	Lloyd Alexander	2-Apr
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit	P.G. Wodehouse	10-Mar
Sent (The Missing, #2)	Margaret Haddix	20-Feb
Enchantment	Orson Scott Card	5-Jan

In the 5-6 Range:

Title	Author	Date Read
Extras (Uglies, #4)	Scott Westerfeld	26-Dec
Matched	Ally Condie	25-Dec
The Red Tent	Anita Diamant	22-Dec
Friend Is Not a Verb	Daniel Ehrenhaft	11-Nov
Imprints	Rachel Ann Nunes	31-Oct
Hidden Empire	Orson Scott Card	22-Sep
The Judas Strain (Sigma Force, #4)	James Rollins	19-Sep
The Stalin Epigram: A Novel	Robert Littell	7-Sep
The Windup Girl	Paolo Bacigalupi	14-Aug
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud	Ben Sherwood	1-Aug
The City & The City	China MiÃ©ville	9-Jul
Tunnels of Blood (Cirque Du Freak Series #3), Vol. 3	Darren Shan	27-Jun
The Unincorporated Man	Dani Kollin	1-Jun
Hunger (Gone, #2)	Michael Grant	9-May
City of Thieves	David Benioff	30-Apr
Ilium	Dan Simmons	20-Mar
The Plague	Albert Camus	14-Mar
The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Aircraft and America's Finest Hour	Andrei Cherny	14-Feb

In the 3-4 Range:

Title	Author	Date Read
For The Win	Cory Doctorow	4-Dec
Hostile Intent	Michael Walsh	22-Oct
The Accidental Demon Slayer (Demon Slayer, #1)	Angie Fox	1-Oct
Anne of Avonlea (Anne of Green Gables, #2)	L.M. Montgomery	17-Sep
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan & Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001	Steve Coll	16-Jul
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian	Sherman Alexie	10-Jul
The Thirteenth Tale	Diane Setterfield	22-Jun
Past Imperfect	Julian Fellowes	10-Jun
Push	Sapphire	19-Apr
The Last Song	Nicholas Sparks	3-Apr
Roman Blood (Roma Sub Rosa, #1)	Steven Saylor	2-Mar
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life	Barbara Kingsolver	28-Feb
The Electrical Field	Kerri Sakamoto	17-Feb

In the 1-2 Range:

Title	Author	Date Read
Her Fearful Symmetry	Audrey Niffenegger	21-Nov

Remember That One Time It Was Christmas?

2010-12-31T20:56:00.000-05:00

So my family came down for Christmas. It was delightful! They got here Tuesday. Poor Married Sister landed in Miami at like one and the soonest I could leave work was noon, so the poor dear had to sit for a few hours before I could get there. And then my mom and Loo and Kogeman didn't land until nine to Married Sister went to lunch and then spent hours at Target. It was awesome. We totally took over Christmas and stockings and such. And we went to the mall, but that was somewhat less awesome. But still good. And then we still had an hour to kill so we sat in the airport and wrapped the sticking presents we had just bought. And then finally everyone was here and we drove back home and got there super late.

The next day was Mom's 50th birthday! Happy 50th Birthday Mom! We started the day at the Hemingway House. Here are Kogeman and Married Sister waiting to go in:

After Hemingway House, which is nice because they let locals in free and because the grounds are awesome and was better this time than the last time I went because the tour guide was better we headed out to Mallory Square to watch a dude breath fire:

And that's pretty much when I stopped taking pictures. Whoops! So after Mallory Square we went to Sarabeth's for dinner and it was so go and we were all totally stuffed and we loved it. And that's pretty much when we stopped doing tourist things. We went to the beach one day, and we went out to breakfast one morning but mostly we just hung out together playing games and wrapping and unwrapping presents and making delicious food and reading and watching movies and stuff. Oh! And we went to see Tron, and it was pretty but I kind of hated the 3D thing. Anyway, overall pretty low key. And friends, that's it the way that I like it.

And then we left obscenely early so everyone could go back home. And I was sad for them to leave, but kind of glad to have my house back. Even though I have yet to actually put it back in order.

Craft Day

2010-12-17T21:07:00.000-05:00

So, my boss is awesome. And she scheduled a craft day at work. All the little squidoos that belong to my coworkers came over and we made reindeer ornaments and they are super cute:

But seriously. Craft day. At work. Best. Ever.

That is all.

Loom All You Want, The Future; I'm Not Even Looking at You

2010-12-15T17:30:00.001-05:00

So, lately The Future has decided to make a looming appearance in my life. It was very rude. All of a sudden, career decisions which I thought were a year or so off we actually now. And they were complicated by the fact that I'm in an awesome, but kind of complicated relationship and so I had to be thinking about career decisions in terms of my life and also Panamanian Pal's life and also how much to allow PP's life to affect my decisions about my life and basically it's been a little stressful. Stupid looming The Future.

But, right at this moment decisions about the future are not in my hands, they are in other people's hands as work stuff goes through work processes and such. So for right now, I can live completely in right now without worrying about the timing of a potential move or the ramifications of my relationship or whatever. The Future can loom, but right now I don't actually have to think about and BY GOLLY I'm not going to.

So let it be written; so let it be done.

A Special Double Episode of I Am SO Awesome

2010-12-13T21:36:00.000-05:00

This Afternoon

So there's this gate near my house. Most of the time its closed and you have to have the magical card to swipe and open it. Sometimes, though it's open and there's a guard. Today when I got there it was supposed to be closed, but the guard was there. Another car was going through the gate and your supposed to wait for the gate to close before you flash your magic card, but since the guard was there he waved me through. Except he took me by surprise and I totally stalled the car and couldn't get it restarted in time to get through the gate before it started closing. I am SO awesome.

A Little Later

This is Ezzy Ezra von Ezzenstein:

He is the 3-week old son of my dear friend Ed. Ed also has two other rambunctious boys so she likes to hand off Herr von Ezzenstein to me when we go places together. And I like to take him from her. So tonight we went to a school Christmas concert because one of my young women and the daughters of my boss were in it, and I was holding Ezzy here. And of course everyone likes to see babies so a lot of people were oooing and ahhing and such. Then as we were leaving some random dude sees the baby and says "congratulations" and I, in auto response mode go "yeah, thanks!" Except a.) if he was congratulating me on the baby, and well, the baby's not mine. Plus the baby's mom was right there, so kind of lame of me to be all, "yeah, thanks for congratulating me on the existence of this child." and b.) Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not entirely sure he was even talking to me.

I am SO awesome.

Oh! The Horror!

2010-12-10T16:46:00.000-05:00

So there's this activist group in Monroe County called Citizens Not Serfs. And it's awesome.

First of all, can we talk about how awesome that name is? I mean, I'm a touch Libertarian so I'm not really all about involuntary government intrusion into my life, but I also don't think that the government system in Monroe County, Florida, or the United States even approaches the feudal system. SO awesome.

And then there are the radio announcements that they do. There's always this Jaws-style imminent threat music in the background and this dude warns you in a dramatic voice about all the horrors coming to Monroe County if we don't DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

They're latest thing is trying to push is a move to charter county government instead of a constitutional one, because, If I'm understanding the commercials right, Florida's Governor-elect is looking to reduce expenditures by cutting some oversight group which would then mean the imminent destruction of the Florida Keys by high-rise condos and hotels. Not even kidding, the ad says that we need to move to a charter government so it can codify the 3 1/2 story height limitation on buildings and thus eliminate forever the QUOTE "fear and horror of high-rise hotels and condos" UNQUOTE. Fear and horror.

And guys, I chuckle every time. Every. Time.

Garden Update

2010-12-06T08:26:00.011-05:00

I brought in my first batch of spinach from the garden yesterday:

Not too much, enough to make spinach and eggs for breakfast or a green smoothie or something. The real reason I harvested is because I needed to thin the row a little. I should have done it when they were a lot smaller, but they were so cute that I couldn't bring myself to do it. So I waited.

And here's what the rest of the garden looks like:

Can you tell which side of the garden tends to get more sun? The kale seeds I planted when I first planted the garden were either eaten or bad because they never sprouted. I just barely got a new pack and planted them so they should be sprouting soon. The leeks are started to look leek-like instead of just sprout like. The peppers are doing fine. And the tomatoes are looking like they might need a training stake soon:

This year's garden seems to be thriving a lot better than last year's. It probably a combination of a better location and my greater skill/consistency tending to it. And also maybe the worm poop my mom sent me. In the mail. (Best conversation ever: "my mom sent me a package!" "Oh? What was in it?" "WORM POOP!")

Officially Christmas

2010-12-05T18:52:00.000-05:00

So, I've been listening to Christmas music off and on since July. It was more off than on, but every now and again I'd feel the urge and throw in my Josh Groban Christmas CD for a once through. Or whatever. And I kind of enjoyed it, it felt kind of sneaky listening to Silver Bells or Away in a Manger when it wasn't Christmas. And now, I no longer have that guilty pleasure because, friends, it's officially Christmas season. Know how I know? Well, last night Santa Claus came to town in the Key West Christmas parade:

And today the orchestra that I play in had its Christmas concert and a lot of people came to listen:

And my Christmas tree is up:

Yep, definitely Christmas time.