Mini Cheesecakes

It’s almost Christmastime! Are you ready, readers? I hope so. We had our department Christmas lunch today, Taco Salad. Delicious! My assignment was to bring a dessert, so I chose mini cheesecakes. These were the easiest thing in the world, so I wanted to share the recipe. Here’s what they looked like right after I mixed the ingredients and put them in the fridge:

Looking good, right? I thought so too. *wink* So then I left them in the fridge overnight, and in the morning, I covered them with cherry pie filling. I would have liked to use raspberry too, but there was not a single can of raspberry pie filling to be found. My only options in the store were cherry, apple, and mixed berry, so I went with cherry. These are them with cherries:

Yum! So for those of you who’d like the recipe, here it is:

No-Bake Mini-Cheesecakes

1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip whipped topping

12 Nilla Wafers or 12 Oreos

1 can pie filling (your choice)

Beat cream cheese and sugar until well blended. Gently stir in whipped topping. Place muffin cups into pan, place wafer or Oreo in bottom. Spoon cream cheese mixture into muffin cups until full. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Spoon pie filling onto each cupcake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

 

These are really good, but they lose their shape, so the muffin cups look a little crazy. Still good though!

Miscellaneous Monday

Well kids, its down to the wire. Christmas is in 6 days. I know what you’re wondering, ‘Vieve, have you completed your Christmas shopping yet?’ and the answer is no. But I’m close, I’m so close! I think I only have 2 people left to buy for, and 1 person left to finish the gift on (it’s homemade with love!) and THEN will I be finished. And after I do, I will throw a party for myself. And I will rock around the Christmas tree, at the Christmas Party Hop. This year was a lot less stressful for me than last year, for some reason, and for that, I am enjoying this year a little more than last year. My Christmas spirit is relatively here, and so far, I’m not completely dreading Christmas, which is a nice change! I hope all of you guys are feeling the same way.

I was recently watching The Polar Express (I love this movie) and as all the kids are in the North Pole, about to receive the first give of Christmas, I couldn’t help but think of how inaccurately this movie is representing things. These kids are at the north pole, standing around, chatting, with no coats on, just in their pajamas, and no one is cold? I mean, I’ve never been to the north pole, but I’ve researched the weather up there. And while during the day, it’s not too cold (it ranges in the 20s!) at night, which is when all the kids are there, it’s only 4 degrees! There is no way those kids are there, just hanging out and being totally fine while it’s that cold. Yes, I’m looking too much into children's movies. This is how I roll.

Yesterday, I finally broke down and made these treats that I found a recipe for on the side of the box of corn flakes. It seemed like a pretty easy recipe, so it didn’t take that long to make, woo hoo! I followed the recipe to the letter – I want to specify this. So I baked them, and took them out, and let them cool. As I was transporting the treats from the pan to a tupperware, they fell apart like crazy. The bottom half completely separated from the top half, leaving me with just a weirdo half of food. So to remedy this, I had to wrap the treats individually, so that they at least would travel well.

So there’s my treat, wrapped in the plastic wrap. I didn’t even eat any last night, because I was so mad at it (that’ll show it!) but someone else ate it, and told me it was good. And here’s what the treat actually looks like, without the wrapping.

And there it is. I don’t even want to share the recipe, because I don’t think anyone should ever have to make this monstrosity, at least not until I figure out how to fix it, I don’t know if the Corn Flakes people have never made this recipe, or just forgot to include something, because this is not what it looked like on the box.

I am a child-care provider

On Wednesday night, I had a friend of mine call to ask what I was doing the following Saturday night. I don't really speak to this person a whole lot, so I was a little hesitant in telling my plans. (Which were...nothing.) So of course, he jumped on the opportunity to ask if I could see it in my heart to babysit his 2 children. Since I had nothing to do, I agreed to do so. And after I said yes, he asked if I could possibly find it in my heart to have them stay overnight. This made me step on the brakes a little. So I told him I'd have to talk to Husband, and I'd call him back.

I called Husband, and we talked about it, and he said, "Well, whatever you want to do, I'll back you up on." Gah this isn't what I wanted! I wanted him to make a decision for me, since I didn't want to make it! So finally I decided that we could do it, we could have these children sleep over. And don't worry, I did warn my friend that we don't even have any beds here, but he assured me that they'd be ok sleeping on the floor or couches. I was told that they'd be over on Saturday afternoon, these 2 children, ages 8 and 10 (one girl, one boy).

Saturday afternoon, here they come, and introductions made. (I should also point out, we had not ever met these kids. Woo!) We did a little tour of the house, and what did the kids zero in on? Our workout equipment. So of course, they start climbing all over the elliptical and the treadmill, and trying to work out. After a lecture about safety, we all just kinda hung out downstairs for a bit, and then the parents left. We let the kids work out for a while (they just wanted to...weird) under our supervision, and then we came upstairs. We watched a few minutes of TV, then the kids kept wanting to work out. They would go down, and we would listen to make sure everything sounded ok, and would go down to check it out every few minutes to make sure no one was dying. Then we got dinner - pizza of course, and then off to a movie. We let the kids choose, which meant we saw Alvin & the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. It wasn't too bad, actually, I kind of enjoyed it. Those dang cute chipmunks!

After the movie, we came home and played MarioKart for a while. Well, the boy and I played MarioKart, I think the girl worked out more (what the heck, kids?!). So finally at 11, I was getting tired, so I told everyone it was bedtime, and off we went. This morning, we all woke up, and had breakfast - pancakes. We had to specially make the pancakes for the gal, she doesn't like thick pancakes. And for her, the definition of thick is anything over the thickness of a crepe. Finally at about 10, the parents came to get them, and our night of being parents was over, thank goodness. It's not that it was tiring, its just that they really mess up your schedule, kids. Maybe it's different if they're your own though, you don't have to worry that much about entertaining them.

There were a few funny things. I actually call Husband husband in real life, so at one point in the evening, the boy forgot his name, and yelled out 'Husband!' since that's all he could remember, it was funny. And the amount of sugar they ate...crazy. Of course, it's probably not a good idea that I gave them all the sugar, but they seemed ok still. But we survived, none worse for the wear. And I could be open to babysitting in the future - except I think I should tell the kids that really, I just want to watch movies...it's so much more low key!

Foto Friday

This entry was supposed to be yesterday, but time sort of got away from me, so here it is today! Yesterday, the 15th of December was National Cupcake Day. As everyone knows, I think cupcakes are the best. I can’t quite explain why I heart them so. They’re just perfectly sized cakes, individual, so you don’t have to share unless you want to. I’ve been to cupcake places in a few states, I just like to try them everywhere. Sometime in my life, I’d like to have visited a cupcake place in every state. I know, I have humble goals. Anyway, Chelle and I celebrated by going to The Cocoa Bean Cupcake Cafe and getting a cupcake, yesterday I (as well as her, by coincidence) chose to eat the Party in My Mouth cupcake. So good!

How delish does that look? It was delish too,

Now, on Chelle’s blog at the beginning of November, she dared people who blog to write an entry every day, to celebrate National Blogging Month and on there, she says that if you accept the challenge, a cupcake courtesy of her would be yours. Of course I took the challenge, and challenged her right back, with the same reward. So naturally, I blogged every day, as did she, and yesterday, we bought the cupcakes for each other, for our reward. And of course, Chelle was amazing and wrote me a tiny note on my box she gave me:

I wasn’t going to put the box on here at first, since it’s my box and for my eyes, but I decided to share with the world.

Thanks to Chelle for buying me a delish cupcake and writing me such an awesome note!

How are People Vegetarians When Meat is so Delicious?

Recently, I was reading an article in Runner’s World about taking one day a week to not eat any meat. ‘Meatless Monday’ they called it. Their claim is that the average American eats 8 oz of meat daily, which is about 45 percent more than the USDA recommends. Going meatless for one day a week will cut down on that a little, and you can cut back on your saturated fat while incorporating other proteins into your diet. So, being a runner, and always on the lookout to be a little healthier (while not cutting down on my treats that I love), I decided to join the Meatless Monday Movement. And since Husband is a (former) vegetarian, he’s the perfect guy to help me with this. It’s not that he’s morally against meat or anything, its just that he finds it healthier to not eat meat. But sadly, since we met and married, he’s started eating meat again since I do. Sorry, Husband.

Anyway, so last night was our first go at it. We decided to have veggie burgers, which I’ve had before – just the kind you get at the store. They’re not too bad, actually, they don’t really taste like meat, but they were pretty tasty. Husband decided (pretty last minute, actually) that he’d be making veggie burgers from scratch, with black beans. I was really really hesitant to try these, but I was going into this with a really open mind. So I parked myself into a seat, and watched Husband put them together. The whole time, I kept thinking, this is totally not something I would eat. He mashed all the beans, added green peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, some other ingredients and smushed them all together. Then he made little patties and cooked them. (I wish I had thought to take a picture last night of the burger, but of course, I didn’t) Of course, to make them taste ok, I added cheese, lettuce, all the regular things. So I put together my burger, and take my first bite.

It was so weird! It just tasted like a bean sandwich. Which maybe some people like, but I’m not all that into beans, so I was like, weird. I finished my burger, of course, because Husband worked so hard on it, and because I was going to do this Meatless Monday – no matter what. By the time I was finished, the taste had sort of grown on me, so I was used to it. And I’m not saying I’ll never eat a veggie burger again, I just think that the next time, I’ll make sure the beans are smoother…the stuff is mixed together more, and maybe mix something else into it, so that its just a little more delicious. Or I’ll buy the pre-made ones at the store. To celebrate my healthiness, and that I finished the whole burger, I ate a caramel apple covered in Butterfingers. So essentially I converted all my healthy points of eating that burger into eating the caramel apple. Delicious!

This is my thought on vegetarianism:

Because I sure didn’t.

Miscellaneous Monday

Ha ha I’m the laziest, all I write is Miscellaneous Monday and Foto Friday. Oh well. Today as I was watching 12 Dates of Christmas off of ABCFamily, there’s a part in it where the main guy is leaving a message for the main girl. So she walks into her apartment, and hits play on her answering machine so that we all can hear what the message is. When this happened, I wondered, do people still have these types of answering machines? I know people have voicemail, because now almost everyone has a cell phone, and rarely do people have solely land lines that they rely on anymore. So my question is, outside of movies, who has these types of answering machines anymore? Anyone?

We decorated the second Christmas tree on Saturday night. I chose silver and red for the colors for it. When we finished, and looked at the tree, all I thought was…meh. Like, it looks good and everything, don’t get me wrong, it just seems…empty. But like, all of my ornaments are there and it’s a pretty full tree, but its just not grabbing me like my upstairs tree was. Here’s a pic, just so’s you can see:

So there it is. It’s a nice tree, and I am really digging the pine scent that’s going on all throughout the house, I just wish I loved it decorated a little more. Chelle gave me some decorating tips to do, to make the tree different and better, so I’m going to attempt those later, and see if it works. I’m also debating on putting on red garland, to see if that helps. I’ll decide later, I’m sure, but so far, that’s what it looks like.

Husband has a brother (Austin) on a mission. I haven’t met this brother (since our courtship/engagement was only about 6 months) but he comes home in about 3 weeks or so. We’ve chatted once or twice on the phone (just for a sentence or two, when he’s called home on Mother’s Day/Christmas) and we’ve emailed back and forth just a little, and from his emails, he’s a pretty funny guy, so I can’t wait to meet him. So this weekend, Husband and I were doing a little Christmas shopping, and we passed by this sign to meet a teddy bear named Austin! Of course I had to take a picture of it, so that I could claim that I met Austin early!

I think I’ll send this email to Austin, to let him know that we’d met.

Advent Calendar

Growing up, I had an advent calendar every Christmas. For those of you don’t know, advent calendars are used to count down the days of from the 1st of December until Christmas Eve. You have a thing that looks like:

And on the package (even though you can’t really see it) there are 24 little doors, numbered, that you open every day. So on the 1st of December, you open the little door with the 1 on it, and you eat the candy inside. Sounds pretty easy, right? I always loved these.

So now that I’m married, I totally spaced that I needed to get one. You see, before, my mama always got them, and just gave them to me, and I happily ate all 24 pieces. But it wasn’t until PJ said something to me about her calendar that I was like, dude I haven’t even bought mine! So I went to the Target post haste, and alas, no calendars there. I checked all the local Maceys, (with mama’s help to get the south end of the valley) and alas, there are none to be found! I was so sad about this. My first year without an advent calendar, what to do? But then…Pops came through!

*this picture turned out a little weird, color-wise* 

There it is! My very own advent calendar. Apparently he got it online, and its a way fancier one than I’ve ever seen. The ones I’ve gotten have been like, these little thin chocolates that you pull out of a plastic calendar. This one has little poems on every door, and the chocolate is a little wrapped present and its delicious. So thanks Pops! I’ll enjoy every one of these chocolates for the next 2ish weeks.

Foto Friday

A month or so ago, my Aunt posted this picture on her Facebook page. I really liked it, and now I’m (finally) posting it on here.

I’ve never really slept with a teddy bear. I’ve had various ones over the years, and when I was younger I tried to sleep with it, but in the middle of the night, I would lose my hold on him, and he would end up on the floor, where I would find him the next morning. I think I’ve only had one bear, since I was about 3, and since then I’ve had like, stuffed animals, but no bears. I still actually have the same bear that I got when I was young. I wish I had thought to take a picture of him, too, but I forgot. He’s a little ratty now, and his eyes no longer glow like they used to (he hasn’t had batteries for years) but he’s still soft and cuddly. Now I sort of sleep with Inspector (whom you all should remember) but he doesn’t really sleep with me so much as he just sleeps on our giant bed where no one touches him so he can’t fall off.

This picture makes me want to get a little bear to keep near me too. And I’d like to equip him with a sword.

Miscellaneous Monday

Again, we have a Monday here where I could probably write a separate blog entry for every one of these, but I just don’t want to. It’d probably take a while, plus how would I have a Miscellaneous Monday?! So here it is.

I decorated one of my Christmas trees yesterday. It sounds like I have a lot of trees, but so far, just 2. This will be my first Christmas being married, so it’s pretty interesting trying to meld together our own traditions/habits. Husband wants a live tree, which I’ve never had, but have always wanted to give a try to. Chelle had a (fake) tree that she was getting rid of, she got a new one, so she bestowed upon me her old one. This is the one I decorated yesterday. We were going to get the live tree on Saturday, but circumstances were out of my hands, so we didn’t get it. Hopefully we’ll get that tree tonight, and get it decorated. I chose to do blue and gold for the tree, and here’s what it looks like:
 

And there it is. I’m proud of it, it turned out pretty good. You can’t really see the star on the top, but it’s a gold star. It’s probably a little small for the tree there, but I don’t care, its what I have.

I had a dentist appointment on Friday, just a cleaning/checkup. Good news, no cavities! But my dentist told me to start using an electric toothbrush, because that would be better for my mouth. (Apparently I have what look to be signs of early gingivitis on one of my back teeth, so this will help. I feel close enough to everyone on here to share that bit of news) So on Saturday, I bought one. I finally opened it last night and it took me about 45 minutes to open it. I first cut open the packaging, then I tried to pry it open, no dice. I got some scissors, and with the way this was packaged, I had to cut, pry something out. Cut some more, pry pry pry. It took me a long time, plus I bled a little from a cut I acquired trying to get that dang thing opened. But finally, finally, I got it opened and used it. It’s a total different experience, using an electric one. Makes me feel all vibratey and weird.

I’ve been watching a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies lately. I love this season because of them. I try not to repeat too many movies, because of how many there are, but there are so many favorites that I do every year. So far, my favorites this year are A Christmas Wish (It was filmed at a favorite diner in Mapleton!), A Princess for Christmas, Trading Christmas, and A Holiday Engagement. I’m currently watching Desperately Seeking Santa. I really like these movies. You already know what’s going to happen, but still, it fills you with such joy when it happens. There are some that I love to watch every year – Recipe for a Perfect Christmas, Snow, Snow 2, Eve’s Christmas, for a few examples. And of course, I love to watch The Polar Express, and all the Santa Clause movies. I love watching the same Christmas movies over and over again.

Foto Friday

Last night, I made Oreo’s for my ward Christmas party (that’s tonight!). I’m in charge of bringing 2 dozen cookies to this fiesta. So I get all my ingredients, and I’m making the cookies, and it’s taking a while, of course, because Oreo’s take a while. When I’m all done with the baking part, before I get to the frosting part, I surveyed all the cookies I had around the kitchen, it was like, 6 sheets full. I was like, dude, I have tons of cookies here, delicious! Then as I kept going, I remembered, all the cookies are in pairs, so that will reduce my cookies significantly. I got all done with the frosting (I used red and green frosting, for Christmas spirit) and put aside the number of cookies for the party. That left me with 4 Oreos. Only 4 cookies left, so I couldn’t even share with anyone like I was hoping. I realize now I should have made like, a double recipe to have deliciousness for all, but sadly, it didn’t occur to me at the time. But don’t fret, friends. Next week, I’ll probably be making treats again, this time to share with everyone. I already have a recipe too, I found one yesterday that I’d like to try. So just hold on for a few more days, and you’ll have something delish too!

* I was going to take the cookies out of the Tupperware for the picture, but that seemed like a lot of work. Sorry for the laziness.

Tweet Tweet Tweet

Ok, I don’t want to say that I’m lazy, but today’s post is going to be a lazy one on my part. About a year or so ago, I joined Twitter. Originally, I joined for work purposes, but after a few months, I got into tweeting. I never say anything important on Twitter. It’s just a place I like to say random (sometimes funny, mostly weird) things to the 6 friends that I have that follow me on there. I like to think I provide a bright spot in an otherwise dreary day. So what I’ve done here is taken a few tweets that I’ve sent out in the last year, just as a “Hope you laugh at my dumbness” kind of post. Hope you enjoy!

I just had a sip of diet coke, so I should be awake until, oh…tomorrow morning or so.

Pretending to be my mother right now on the phone to get some information. The trickiest part is nailing the German accent.

Rebecca Black has a new single today! Great day, or greatest day?

I got all the way to work before I realized my Chapstick was empty. This will be a tough day.

Car in front of me has “Jimmerd” for a license plate. Is this an expression for getting cut off? Because if so, I totally just got Jimmerd.

If my last name was Crunch, I would absolutely join the army and work my ranking up to Captain.

You know what would be a cool job? Snail herding. So easy – plus, if your little guys make you mad, salt is the cheapest punishment ever.

I didn’t even get a cool bandaid for my shot at the doctors. :(

I ran of Superman bandaids this morning. Now what am I supposed to cover this cut with? Regular bandaids? Please.

I just walked by a guy that is considerable bigger than I, and all I wanted to do was jump onto his back like a spider monkey.

When you think about it, Taylor Swift sure likes to break up relationships.

If I see a generic repair van on the side of the road, should I assume it’s an FBI stakeout and drop by with cookies?

Sometimes, after I pull out the third Starburst, I just want to throw away the whole bag.

I snuck some Cheerios into the theater as a snack. I win, movie theater.

How mad would a biker get if I leaned out my car and pinched his bum? He should accept it as a compliment that I think his calves look nice.

A guy at work has a handkerchief hanging out his back pocket. I want to ask him if he’s a Jet or a Shark.

Full disclosure: I never eat the recommended serving size of cereal, I always eat a little more.

So there you are. Twitter is a fun way to communicate with people all over the world (Except most of my people are within about 50 miles of me) and it’s a great way to waste time. I love that you can follow celebrities on it, and get to know a little bit more about them, because some of them are genuinely funny outside of their movies (and some are incredibly boring, but that’s neither here nor there).

And now, this brings us to the last day of the month. I hope everyone enjoyed my blog-a-day, and if not, suck it, you didn’t have to read all of these. But I will be keeping up the blogging, just not every day, of course. Just when something happens that I can legitimately write about, so you don’t get stuck reading about my cookie cutters in the dishwasher. In a related item, I counted all of my cookie cutters yesterday.

I’m missing 3.

This is How I Load

Many many years ago, I bought a cookie cutter set. The 100-piece cookie cutter tub by Wilton. When I moved out of my parents house, there are many things that I just didn’t grab right away, mostly because A: I just plain forgot it existed, and B: I didn’t have the room to take it right then. For example, Thanksgiving was a big day for remembering things I left there. Apparently, (and I hadn’t remembered this at all) I had forgotten some heated hair curlers in the bathroom. I swear I didn’t forget anything in the bathroom, but my brother reminded me that they were there, so I took them. Then, as we were all eating dinner, I looked up at the cupboard, and lo and behold, there are my forgotten cookie cutters!

*Note – my cookie cutters are only 100, but this is the only picture I could find of it*

I celebrated with a shout of hooray! and we got them down from the top. As I was looking at them, I noticed the lid was off (it’s hard to get the lid back on, with that many cookie cutters in there, you see) and the cookie cutters were all dusty, there were tiny dead fly carcasses, the works. So last night when I was looking at them, I googled to make sure they were dishwasher safe (they were! I was just being cautious) and then I loaded up the washer. There were already a few dishes in there, but I thought I could make all 100 of my cutters fit in there also. And I did! Barely. And with many that were overlapping just a little. But since they were only dusty, I thought it was ok if they were. This is what my top shelf of the dishwasher looked like:

Colorful, right? So now they’re all done, everything is washed. I haven’t attempted to take them out yet, fit them back into the tub, but at least they’re clean. I also cleaned the tub, so it’s all shiny and new as well, so I’m excited to see if I can get them all to fit again. And luckily, all the cutters stayed mostly where I left them, there were only a few that fell out and are on the bottom of the washer. But none broke, and none melted. Win!

Miscellaneous Monday

The power button on my iPhone recently broke. On Friday night, it wouldn’t work at all. I couldn’t turn off the phone, I couldn’t lock the phone (I just had to wait for it to go to sleep by itself) so any time I needed to stop using it, I just had to hold it, I couldn’t put it anywhere, lest it accidentally do something. So on Saturday morning, I made an appointment at the Apple Store in SLC, and drove up (by my lonesome, since Husband couldn’t be torn away from his things apparently), and since the Apple Store was running on time (so he said) I only had to wait like 10 minutes! (That’s running on time?!) But it’s ok, I had iPhone, so I got to play games, etc while I waited. Finally a “Genius” came up to me, and I explained the problem. He took the phone from me and said he’d be right back. So then I had to wait…alone…with no phone to play with. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to wait with no phone, nothing to do to pass the time. It was very unnerving. As I was waiting, I thought, I should tweet this out, that I have nothing to do when someone takes my phone, but then I realized, I had no phone to tweet from. It was very strange. Finally he returned (it could have been 2 minutes, it could have been 15, it felt so long!) and told me that he’d unstuck it a little, so it worked now. And then he explained my options to me. Since my phone was no longer under warranty, I could either A: Pay $150 for a replacement phone, B: Pay $200 for an upgraded phone (instead of getting a iPhone 4, I could have an iPhone 4S. Fancy!) or C: I could just deal with the slightly broken phone. Since right now, I have neither $150 nor $200 to get a new phone, I’m with option C. So I’m dealing with it. It’s a little tricky to turn the phone off and on, but at least it sorta works, and I’m trying to see the positive in that. But if it breaks down more in the next little while, I’ll just have to deal with the money loss and buy a new phone. I’m hoping that won’t happen.

I recently saw Savior of the World at the Conference center on Friday. It was amazing – I really enjoyed it. We walked around the Conference center for a little while, waiting for our whole party to arrive. I love that place, it’s just so pretty. Seeing the play was pretty awesome. It started with a prayer – which at first threw me off. But then I remembered where I was, and went with it. It was pretty long for a play, which is fine, but I was a little tired from not having gotten that much sleep the night before, what with Black Friday and all. I encourage everyone to go see this play, if you can. Afterwards, everyone wanted to walk around Temple Square and look at the lights, but Husband and I were pretty drained from the days activities, so we gracefully bowed out. As we filled up the tank with gas, we got some caffeinated drinks, which may have been a mistake. I was sleepy-ish the whole time we drove home, but then after I got ready for bed and laid down, I was WIDE awake for another 2 hours. Curse!

I have some exciting news. Last night, Sunday night, at approx 8:45 PM, I caught up on my TiVo. Since Husband went out of town a few weeks ago, we’ve been at least one week behind on every single thing, but luckily, with this week being Thanksgiving, there’s been nothing on TV, so nothing has been recording. So with a bunch of laying around this weekend too, we got a lot of stuff watched, so we finally caught up. When I deleted the last thing yesterday, I did a little fanfare, and felt really good about myself. Of course, last night recorded some shows as well, which means I’ll never be caught up, but I’m psyched that it’s not full like it was.

And this is a tidbit – people need to go see The Muppet Movie. It was glorious. It’s hysterical. I saw it Saturday night, and I was laughing so hard, I wondered if the people around me thought I was a crazy person. I hope they didn’t, but it was so funny, I couldn’t help it.

Snapshot Sunday

I forgot to have a Foto Friday this week (well, not really forget, but I didn’t have a picture to accompany the entry) so I decided to have a sort of one today. As everyone knows, I run races. I try to get at least one race in a month, no matter the length. I have a board that I pin my race bibs to when I’m finished with them. I have it hung in the room where my treadmill is, sort of as inspiration. With the recent edition of the Turkey Trot this past week, my board is now full:

And there it is. 23 races. 6 10Ks. 3 Half-Marathons. 4 4-milers. 10 5Ks. There are a few more races that I’ve run, but for one reason or another, I’ve lost the bib, and I have no clue how that would have happened. I am proud of all of my numbers, and I like that so far, I’ve not repeated a number. So here’s to a previous 4 years of running, and many many years of more to come.

Winter…is chilly. This message brought to you by Captain Obvious

I have blogged (several times) on the heater in my car. Since 2009 (I didn’t even realize I had been this long!) It has spontaneously not worked. Sometimes, it works like a dream, and heat is flowing and everyone is warm, and sometimes, there is not heat flowing, and its quite chilly. (This also happens in summer, btw. It gets really warm in a car when there’s no air blowing cold on you) About 2 weeks ago, it stopped working completely. It went off one day, and never returned. After a week or so, after I mentioned it here, Chelle came to me with her can-do spirit and said we could look at it ourselves. I was impressed by her attitude and knowledge, and I was like, heck yes we can do this! So we googled some things, figured out where fuses were, etc., and went to my car to look at things. Since I was a little confused, we got someone at work to come and help me look at things.

*photography credit to Chelle here*

So we thought we had found the thing we were looking for, and thought that we should go to AutoZone to get a little help from a person there, to see if he could test the relay we found, to make sure it was still working, because we had figured it out that it was the fan that was broken. So we get there, and the guy comes out to help us. I super sneakily took a picture of him looking at my car with my phone.

So after looking in a few places, he took out my glove box and looked in there. He touched some fan in there, and boom! The fan started blowing! (It also almost took off the guys hand, I felt bad) We celebrated a little, he explained what the problem was, and how to fix it if it stops again (this involves getting someone to fix something in there, its something with the motor I believe) and we went on our merry way. For the rest of the car trip back, we kept turning on the air at full speed, to make sure it worked. It worked on the way home too, so I was so psyched!

And then…on Black Friday, I got into my car during the shopping-palooza and…it stopped working! What the heck, heater, you were supposed to be fixed! So now, I’m playing it by ear. It didn’t work Friday, but then today, it worked. So I don’t know what the deal with it is. It’s possible I just need to give up the hope that it’ll be fixed magically, and get it actually fixed. But for a brief, shining moment…I had hope.

We be shoppin'

Happy Black Friday! (sing it with me...Black Friday...Black Friday...everyone loves Black Friday...) I am writing to you now, done with the shopping of the day, and pretty tired. Black Friday started a little earlier this year - stores opened at midnight. So at 10:30, we (PJ & I) bundled up, and got to Target at about 10:45, and waited.

The line was huge already. We were pretty far out, even though we were over an hour early. Finally, a pretty chilly hour, and some exciting happenings (my button fell off my coat! It's now lost forever), the doors opened at midnight and we finally made it into the store 15/20 minutes later. We quickly grabbed the things we were looking for (DVD's, mostly) and back out. We went to Best Buy...the line was too long to stand in the cold. We went to Kohls...the line there was so long! We then went to Old Navy...no pants in my size/preference there. :( We went back to Best Buy and success! We got in after minimal waiting, got our items, and out again. We went to Shopko, they didn't have any of the things we had seen advertised. It was a little after 3 in the morning when we all shuffled home, tired and sleepy. (Those might seem like they mean the same thing, but in this case, they do not.)

On the way home, as I was turning off of Center street onto Orem Boulevard, I accidentally (in my sleepy state) turned too early and was on the wrong side of the road! Of course, on that road there's that median thing, so I couldn't just swerve back into my own lane, I had to drive for a bit on the wrong side, panicking the whole time that a car might come and hit us. Luckily, there were no cars - phew!

I went to sleep at about 3:30, then woke up at a little after 9:00. Then Husband and I went shopping at about 10. We went to a few stores, bought an elliptical at Sports Authority (we got such the deal on it! Thank you sales) and then I tried to go to Gap to get some jeans for like, 70% off, but sadly, I was about 15 minutes too late, so I didn't get that deal. :( Apparently this was not my week to get new jeans!

Finally, at about 2:00ish, we came home. After a long day, and a lot of shopping, I was pretty tired. But all in all, a successful weekend. I won't lie, this year wasn't as good as others. I think it's because the shopping all started at midnight, so instead of having overzealous people getting up at like, 3 in the morning to go shopping, everyone was like, dude, I can stay up past midnight, so there were a lot of teens this year, whereas previous years, there are rarely any teens. But I survived, and am here to tell the tale. And some advice - always make sure to drive on the RIGHT side of the road.

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope all of your holidays were amazing. This morning I had the standard Turkey Trot, the one I’ve done for the last 4 years. Thankfully, this year was way warmer than last year. Last year, the temp the morning of the race was 2 degrees. This year, about 30-40, so that was a world of difference, and oh so better. It was a good run, felt really good when finished. I went to my parents’ for dinner at 2:00 which was of course delish. One of their dogs (he is technically mine, I suppose, but I think he likes living there way more) has his own chair that he sits on. I was dying laughing when I saw him, I had to take a picture.

Isn’t that adorable?! Sarge is such a card.

I hope you spent the day thankful for any blessings you have. I did – I’m thankful for so much. I’m thankful for my family, my friends, the warm weather today, and my the computer I have to blog this from. ;) Of course, I’m thankful for many many things, but to list them all on here would just be crazy.

Happy Turkey Day!

Chocolate Treasures

I got hit by the baking bug again. I don’t know what it is (actually, I think it’s the time of year. For some reason, in the fall/winter, I just want to bake all the time. Must be the cold weather) but here I go again. This time, I made Chocolate Treasures. I got the recipe in the mail. Ever since we moved into our house, the company that did our mortgage has sent us a little magnet recipe every month. The first month was some barley beef stew, then something else, and finally this month was a delicious dessert. So I set my heart on making it.

And those are them. For the recipe:

Chocolate Treasures

Brownie batter for 9x13 pan

(your favorite recipe or from a box)

48 Rolo Candies

2 Cup Chocolate or Vanilla Frosting

(your preference)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix brownie mix according to directions on the box. Spray mini muffin tins well, or line with small paper liners. Spoon the brownie mix into the muffin tins until 2/3 full. Bake for 13-14 minutes. Remove from oven and insert Rolo into the center of the brownie, the top (or tapered part) pointed downward. Let them cool. Remove cooled mini-cakes, and squeeze frosting on top, covering the candy using a piped star. Sprinkle with decorations.

 

So there it is. It’s really quite easy. I didn’t really look at the recipe before I got started, so I didn’t know that I needed to use mini-cupcakes. So I only had about 24 cupcake cups, which made for interesting times. Half of these got the cupcake liners, and the rest, I just sprayed the heck out of the muffin tin with cooking spray, and hoped for the best. Luckily, it worked out pretty well. They are pretty delicious, too, of course.

A reaction is priceless

I have a friend at work, Dirk. (I originally was going to change his name, to protect the innocent, but meh. I don’t really care) He is funny. He’s quick with a joke, he’s witty and pretty clever. But he does A LOT of dumb jokes. He does puns, he does “dad jokes” (you know, the ones that when you hear them, you can’t believe you’re laughing at it for how dumb it is). So many times when he tells a joke, I am mad at myself for the short burst of laughter that escaped from my lips, but then, it’s already happened, so I keep laughing. We’ve recently started doing some ‘bits’ around the office, mostly so we can laugh like idiots, but Chelle also gets the benefit of laughing. Also, she thinks we’re really dumb, which is just funny too.

Here’s a picture of one of the things we do: 

I’ll explain. Dirk will come over to our desks, and holy cow his hand has disappeared! He always has the reason why, he was over-zealous with a knife or scissors or something, or he just slammed it into a door and it came off. I will have the appropriate reaction, I will jump up in shock, will be looking around for it, etc, with a lot of over-reacting, and then after a second, he’ll pull out the hand, laughing that he just played a trick on me, it was up in his sleeve the whole time! Of course, I laugh hysterically, and say that I had no idea, I really thought that the hand was gone! Then we all chuckle while Chelle just laughs and call us dumb.

When I explain it like this, I realize just how dumb it sounds, and it is, but man do we have a good time with it. There are a lot that we do, foot lost (just up in the pants), an arm falling off, (which is just up in the shirt) and so many more. It’s all in good times, and a lot of the time we get a laugh, at the expense of a little of our dignity.

Miscellaneous Monday

The heater in my car hasn’t worked for about a week now. I don’t know what’s going on with it. And I know, I could bring it in and have it looked at, but whatever needs fixing will probably cost money – and I really can’t afford to pay a lot of money right now for a heater. I should – because my car is so chilly in the morning/evening when I’m driving to and from work, but usually bundling up seems to do the trick. I’ve Googled my problem (since Google is like a magician) and so far, the answers are that either the fan is broken, there could be a fuse that blew, or my whole system is broken. (I’m banking on the first two – since they seem the cheapest) I’m really hoping that its just a broken fuse, that would be crazy cheap to fix. So maybe soon, within the next few weeks, I’ll get my car taken in. Hopefully before all the snow happens…

On my way to work today, I saw a stranger walking to work in the rain. I felt sad for him. Even though it wasn’t raining hard, it must be awful to have to walk places in the rain. Whenever I see anyone walking in the rain, I want to pull over and give them a ride. But then I realize that no matter how sad I am for them to be walking, I’d probably be sadder for myself if they killed me. And I realize that at 8 in the morning, my odds of getting killed by a person I pick up are pretty low, but still. I’d rather not have the chance. Plus, it’s not like they’re hitchhiking or anything, they’re just walking on their merry way, having accepted that they’ll walk in the rain. And good for them. I like the rain, don’t get me wrong, I just think I’d hate walking in it to work, getting there all wet and soggy and cold.

I have a real problem with cravings. It’s not like, I randomly crave things, necessarily, it’s that as soon as I see someone eating something, or I hear someone talking about something, or see a commercial, I’m very susceptible to wanting it. I’m an advertisers dream – their commercials work really well on me. So thins morning, for example, I’m watching something where someone is eating a sub sandwich, and I thought, boy would that be a great idea for lunch. A little later, I see someone eating some Nacho Cheese Doritos, and I think, that would be so good right now. It happens all the time, and for the most random things. I want cupcakes usually all the time, but I’m pretty good at only getting them once in a while, so that I don’t eat cupcakes all day every day. But usually, all day long I wonder, should today be a day I get a cupcake? Should I eat something else instead, to take the place of it? But usually, I abstain, and I eat a tiny candy bar instead. So far, thank goodness, those are the only 2 things I’m craving, a sub sandwich and Doritos. And luckily for me, they go pretty well together. And maybe I can make those things for dinner, and have my craving subsided. Provided, of course, that I don’t see something else I want more…

MLS Cup

Well ladies and gentlemen, today was the MLS Cup game. An entire season boiled down to this one game - and RSL wasn't even a part of it. (Frowny face) LA Galaxy vs Houston Dynamo. I'm not really fond of either of these teams, but boy do I hate LA. Their team is my least favorite - mostly because I hate most of their players. Because I was barely interested in this result, I didn't even record the game, I just followed it via Twitter.

As I understand it from Tweets, it was a pretty boring game, until LA scored in the second half, in the 72nd minute. And then the scored stayed that way until the end, with LA beating Houston 1-0. I wish Houston had won. That's actually what I was hoping for. I wanted LA to lose. I can't even explain why I dislike LA so, I just do. When the game got over, I was really glad I didn't watch it. To watch 2 teams that I don't care about battle a scoreless tie? Boooring.

And there it is. The Cup is taken again, by a team I don't like. I'm hoping next year we can make it to the final game, that would be great. I want another championship for RSL. Go team!

Scattered Saturday

So here we are, 19 days into the month, and here it is. My first time that I legitimately don't know what to blog about. I've thought about it all day. I've thought of a few subjects, even. But so far, they're all so short that they don't have more than a few sentences to say about them. It's almost like a Miscellaneous Monday, but I think I'll make this entry Scattered Saturday.

Today was Mama's birthday. So we took her to dinner to Golden Corral, her favorite place. The thing I like about those places is you can literally have the weirdest meals and no one judges you. I had mashed potatoes, mac&cheese, onion rings, a salad, and some fried chicken. Then an ice cream cone for dessert.

Husband and I were watching a scary show in our room, and just as we were at a particularly scary part, our bedroom door slammed shut and I almost peed my pants with scaredness. Turns out, the heater had just come on, and the introduction of air in there made the door shut. I was scared for about 20 minutes still.

I have been scrapbooking of late. It's nowhere near the quality of what good people do (mostly I compare myself to Chelle, as she is quite good) but I think it's going pretty well. I've been debating on showing them to people, but I don't want to be judged for how not good they might be. I'm so critical of my work on these sorts of things. I've gotten like 10 pages done in the last few days, and that excites me.

I couldn't believe it actually snowed last night. I thought it would be like the last snowstorm, and just sort of not happen, but boy howdy did this happen. Walking out of the theater into a really big snowstorm like that was pretty crazy. It made things so pretty this morning though.

I think that's pretty much all I've been thinking today. I hope you enjoyed these random (and dumb) thoughts. :)

Foto Friday

I didn’t really have a photo for today’s Foto Friday. I haven’t really taken any pictures lately, so I had to go to an outside source. PETA has released this photo, trying to get people to eat healthier this Thanksgiving. No offense to any vegetarians, but I love meat. I love steak and chicken and pork and everything meaty delicious. So when I saw this photo, I just laughed. Really hard.

Uh…PETA. I want to tell you something. Putting a dog head on the body of a turkey creates a small monster that people want to kill and get rid of, not keep as a pet. It doesn’t make me think of a turkey as a dog, something I want forever, it makes me want to hurry up and eat that creature. So now, in honor of PETA. I will be eating my turkey with more pleasure than ever.

Vieve’s Videos

A year or so ago, I posted a video about Marcel the Shell with Shoes on. I hope you saw the video, because I love it. He’s so cute. The other day, they posted a sequel – Marcel the Shell with Shoes on 2. (Fancy title, eh?) So now, in all it’s glory -

I think my favorite line from this is - “Guess why I smile a lot? Because it’s worth it”. I just like it. I hope you like this video too.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Well, I caved and did some bakin’ yesterday. This recipe is ridiculously easy, and I really like the end result. These bars (while hard to cut into then) are good when they’re still warm and gooey.

In case anyone wants to make them, the recipe:

1 (18.25oz) Box Plain Yellow Cake Mix

½ cup butter, melted

1 cup creamy peanut butter

2 eggs

1 (12 oz) package milk chocolate chips

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

2 TB butter

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine cake mix, melted butter, peanut butter

and eggs into large bowl using mixer or spoon.

Press into a 9x13 pan, reserving 1 ½ cup of the mixture.

In small pot, melt chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk and butter until smooth. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

Spread chocolate mixture evenly over the pressed mixture in the pan. Crumble the reserved mixture on top evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Cool completely before cutting into bars.

I cannot stress enough that you need to cool the bars completely. If you don’t, it’s dang near impossible to get through them, as it’s just gooey chocolate coming out. I had to just eat a bit with a spoon, it wouldn’t work the other way. But these are super good, warm or cooled. Enjoy!

Itchy. So very itchy.

I have prided myself on not having any food allergies. I feel bad for people (Chelle) who are allergic to my favorite foods. To not be able to eat delicious things…oh man. That would depress me. I know that for the most part, they usually don’t know what they’re missing, but still. I like my wide open choices that I have for eating. But sadly, this, like all good things, has come to an end. Lets recap.

Last night, Husband and I made Chinese food for dinner. When we were at Target on Saturday, we tried a sample of this frozen Chinese stuff that was pretty good, so we decided to get it. The kind we sampled (orange chicken) was sold out, so we got a different kind (sweet&sour chicken). Husband made dinner while I was reading, and it was smelling pretty dang good, I was looking forward to eating it. As we were eating, there was something in the sauce that was making my gums sting. Right now, I have a little tear or something in my upper gum, behind my teeth, and sometimes, foods hurt it. But I just kept eating, despite the stinging. After dinner, I was sitting next to Husband on the couch, and he looked over and asked if I was ok. I’m like, yeah, totally fine, and he said that my skin around my neck was all red. My chest was itching a little, so I said that, and then, right before our (well, his, I can’t see myself like that) eyes, my skin itching and rash started to spread, and all of a sudden, my whole upper body itched. It was on my chest, neck, chin, arms, back, and it was itchy. There were hives breaking out, and I was trying not to scratch. After a few minutes more, my neck area had swollen up. This was panic time, since this is the first time this has ever happened to me.

We quickly went to the local Target, and got some allergy medicine. I took it as soon as we got home, and after a while, the itching subsided. After a while longer, the redness went away. I’m still not sure what was in the food that did this to me. I’ve eaten frozen Chinese foodstuffs before, but never this brand, so perhaps that was it. Alls I know is, I’ll not be eating this again. I should probably find out what exactly it was that I had the reaction to, but I’m not sure how’d I go about it. Read the packaging, and the ingredient list? Get everything on there, and try them, one by one until I find out what it is? Luckily for me, it wasn’t a super bad reaction (It could have been worse!) so I got through it with flying colors, and lived to tell the tale.

Miscellaneous Monday

We have come to the time of the year when it’s chilly in the mornings when I come to work. It’s not freezing yet, thank goodness, but I do prefer to have the heater on in my car when I drive now. I blogged a little about this a year or so ago, and I’m still having this problem in my car. Sometimes, for no reason, the heater in my car doesn’t work. It’s not like it’s cold air coming through or anything, its that the heater doesn’t blow. So thank goodness, it doesn’t make me colder, it just doesn’t really make me any warmer, either. When I’m driving fast enough, warm air will blow through a little (I don’t understand that at all) so that’s nice.This morning was another morning in which my heater didn’t work. If I wore shoes, it probably wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but so far, I’m clinging to my flip flops.

Speaking of, since I still wear my flip flops, I still get pedicures. This is my one indulgence for myself. On Saturday, Husband decided to take a nap, and I decided to go get my nails done. There’s something about just sitting there, having someone give me a foot massage and then paint my toes pretty that just makes me feel awesome. I’ve decided, I know it’s almost winter now, because instead of my usual flower that I get painted on the big toe, I now have a snowflake. This is how I embrace the winter, painting a snowflake on my toes. It works out for me. (I was going to include a photo of it, but I couldn’t get a good picture that didn’t make my toes look super ugly. I don’t have very attractive toes)

This past Friday, PJ and I went to Tepanyaki for dinner. I don’t know if you guys have been there (which I’m sure you have) but I love it. A guy cooking my food right in front of me, making jokes and doing awesome things? Yes please! I love when the do the onion stack train. I love the choo-choo and the smoke coming out of it. I love all the pranks that they pull, and just how fun that place is. When we went, we were at a table with a family – a dad with his 4 teens, but they weren’t all that fun. PJ & I are like, egging the guy on, cheering, clapping, which is just how you have to be at these places. When it got near the end, the guy did the normal thing, and had us catch the shrimp in our mouths. I hate shrimp, but when he threw it at me, I caught it! I never catch it! Since I hate hate the shrimp as soon as I had it in my mouth, I quickly drank a bunch of water, and ate something good. Since we were so good at cheering the guy on, he started a little fire in a bowl in front of the two of us, and gave us marshmallows on chopsticks, so we could roast it! It was delicious and awesome.

Yesterday in church, there was a child a row in front, and slightly to the side of me. She had held on to her sacrament water cup afterwards (I don’t know why, but I love when kids do that. Maybe it’s because when I was younger, I was never allowed to hang onto my cup – no matter how hard I tried). For the rest of sacrament, I kept watching her, because she would take her bottle of milk, pour it (pretty slowly, because of the top of the milk) into the little cup, then take a “shot” of it. Then she would do it again. I was dying watching her, I was trying so hard not to laugh. She just kept going, though, until the end. That’s determination, my friends.

I have a problem lately. I am finding way too many recipes of things that I want to bake. So far, I’ve been abstaining from doing all the baking, but today, I am feeling the itch again. Except I just barely made stuff less than a week ago, and I don’t want people to be like, “Dude, is Vieve baking again?” Because I know I do it a lot, but its because there are so many things that I want to make! If only I would stop finding these dang recipes! As of today, I’m trying to decide if I should make these bars…it’s very tempting…I think I might…but I’m trying to decided…Eh, screw it. I’ll probably make them at some point this week.

Slow Cookin’

Well, I finally did it. I broke down and bought a Crock Pot. I’ve wanted one for as long as I can remember, after reading recipes that called for it, trying others’ meals that they’ve done in one, and just hearing about the awesomeness. Finally, yesterday, I caved in, and bought one.

*Note: this is not the actual Crock Pot, just an image I got from the web*

I then bought all the ingredients to make a slow-cooked roast (I got the recipe off the internet, of course) and was excited to make it. So Sunday morning, we chopped up the veggies, concocted a juice of beef broth and spices, and turned it on. Throughout all the day, the house has been smelling delicious. I was really psyched to eat it. Finally, church let me out at 5, we came home, and ate pretty much right away.

It was delicious! It was all soft and tender, and the veggies were delish. There was an attempt to make gravy from juices, etc., but holy cow that did not go well. When I tried it, I couldn’t believe how bad it tasted, so I quickly threw it out. But the meal was good besides that. And now, I’m so excited to try other things. I’ve always wanted to try to make a slow-cooker chili, and so many other things. And now, I finally get the chance, huzzah!

My New Friend

I have a new friend. I was introduced to him today. At first, he seems a little off, but then the more you look at him, the more you realize, he’s probably a nice guy. This is him:

This is Inspector General. You can’t really tell from his picture, but he’s a giraffe. His face suggests he has a kind heart. Husband bought this for me at the airport, as a souvenir of his recent trip. He’s really soft, and very cuddly, so I think we’ll get along great. I know his name is quite formal, but I like how formal and fancy his name is compared to him.

Anyway, that’s my new friend. Thinking of things to blog about every single day gets tough sometimes.

Foto Friday

Last night, I had an interesting meal for dinner. As I was in the middle of eating it, I realized, of course I should take a picture, and show it to others! Sadly, I had already finished one part of it, but I can still describe. As I’ve said before, Husband has left me to my own devices this week. Usually, when we’re home together, we make a dinner, it has many food groups represented, and it takes time to make. For instance, the Monday night before he left, we had chicken, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Delish. Tuesday night, my first alone, I had a Totinos pizza (well, half of one) and a bag of steamed mixed vegetables, but I only ate about half the bag. Then Wednesday, I had a salad and a bologna sandwich. So last night, I thought I’d eat my leftovers, so for dinner, I ate leftover mashed potatoes, leftover vegetables, and the leftover 2 slices of the mini pizza. It was delicious, but a very odd combination. But I felt pretty healthy, having eaten vegetables for the 3 days while he was gone. Usually when I’m alone, all I eat is mac&cheese, so at least I’m growing up a little. Ha, that’s not true. Anyway, here’s my plate (minus the pizza)

Delish!

Chai Spice Cupcakes

I found this delightful recipe on Twitter a week or so ago, and decided to make it. Husband is out of town right now, which leaves me with ample time to do what I’d like, one of them being baking. I could do it anytime, but I like to bake when I’m home by myself, and I can sing at the top of my lungs, and dance around the kitchen with no one to judge me. So I set my speakers on high, and got to baking.

This recipe called for tea – so I had to do something I’ve never done before, steep tea bags. For those that don’t know (and I didn’t, I had to Google it) steeping is when you put the tea bags into hot water (I used milk, for baking purposes of course) and then let them sit for a little, maybe even dipping the bag up and down. Doing that made my hands smell delicious, especially after I had to squeeze out the bags to retain all the milk.

Then you just make the cake like normal, and fill up the cups. I used a cream cheese frosting to round it all out, and it tasted pretty good.

After I had done all the baking, frosting, etc, I realized, I didn’t have any cinnamon! (Even though I SWEAR I had some, I couldn’t find it) So I set the cupcakes aside, and went to the store to get some cinnamon. The one I found had really big holes for the cinnamon to come out of, which made the ‘cakes look a little weird, but I still did those. And this, my friends, is the final product:

So there they are, Chai Spice Cupcakes. They are pretty good, but they’re a really dense cake, they almost taste like a muffin. The recipe made 24 cupcakes, plus about 10 mini cupcakes. I’m looking to give these cupcakes away – so I don’t have to eat them all myself. Because if I had the chance – I probably would.

Stamping & Chatting

Every month, Chelle holds a Stamp & Chat. For those who have not heard of this, it’s a class in which she teaches those of us who come to make cards. It’s 3 cards that we make, and of course, there is a theme to the cards each month. I’ve blogged about Stamp & Chat before, long ago, but here I am, again, so deal with it. Chelle is freaking amazing at all things stamping, creative, card-making, etc, whereas I am like a 3rd grader. I have to helped along at every turn, and walked through everything, and she just zips along, so quickly at everything that I do slowly. But I improve, slowly, and I work at it still.

Last night was Stamp & Chat. It’s usually held on Wednesdays, but this time, we had it on a Tuesday due to conflicting schedules. It was a lot of fun, and the treats afterwards were delicious.

And these are the cards from last night. The theme this month is “Thanks”, which I love to make thank you cards, as I believe they will come in handy later. I don’t give out too many of my cards. I’ve been attending S&C for a while now, and I’ve only given out about a handful of these cards. Its because I work so hard on them, I don’t know that someone else will appreciate the effort I’ve done here. So I have my cards, and I hoard them like crazy. I keep thinking I’ll start to give them out, but so far, I still just like keeping them. I’m just selfish, I suppose…

Things I’d Like

Well, we’re 8 days into the month, and so far, I’m already out of things to blog about. Doing this every day sucks all of the ideas out of me, but today, I have one that I just thought of. It took me a while, but I think I have a very interesting topic. It’s called: Animals I’d Like to Have.

The first one is a Munchkin Kitten -

Come on, how cute is this?! I don’t even like cats, but this is cute, so I would like one. But once it grows up, it might be a regular cat, and I wouldn’t like it anymore, but come on. This is a cute cat. I’m name him Mr. Mittens. (unless it was a girl, then Miss Mittens. Obviously she’s not married)

The second one is a turtle. But a specific turtle -

Its a small one! The size of a grape – which is too cute. Now, I fully realize that with an animal this small, the chances of me stepping on it or losing it are high, but if I kept him in a tiny cage, he’d be ok. I’d call him Tuttle.

And finally, we come to these two -

I would like to have penguins, but if I had them, I’d like to put them in tiny sweaters, like these. I know that they don’t necessarily need sweaters, being from Antarctica and such, but nothing makes a cute animal cuter than having clothing on. And on a slightly serious note, the reason these particular penguins have the sweaters on is because the little guys were involved in an oil spill. And the sweaters were knitted by an Australian Relief Society. I thought that was pretty cool – so I especially wanted these. I’d probably get 2 penguins, and I’d name them Zippy and Brigitte. What a fancy couple they’d make.

Now, I realize that all of these animals are just small and cute, but I like my animals small and cuties. When an animal is too big, I’m just like…meh. I get the appeal of the big animal, and sometimes, I like to cuddle with a big dog sometimes, but usually, I like my animals small and able to be held in my arms. So if anyone is looking for ideas of Christmas gifts for me…

Miscellaneous Monday

Today, I woke up before the alarm went off. I couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. You know, doing the things that you usually do…fake that you didn’t wake up, in case your body can be tricked, I just lay there with eyes closed, not moving, hoping to fall back asleep. I didn’t want to look at the clock, because I didn’t want to know how much time I had before the alarm clock went off. If its too close to the time, usually I just say, screw going back to sleep, I guess I’ll get up. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally gave up and looked at the clock. Yup…4:30. I had at least an hour of sleeping before I had to wake up! So I tried…and tried…and I think I may have fallen asleep for a while. But dang it that I woke up in the first place.

I have finished with a little more of my house painting! Slowly but surely, I will finish it. This weekend, we finished painting the laundry room, and I finished painting the trim in the kitchen. Now all we have left is a stairwell, and a little section in the upstairs. Its so close…so close… I can feel it…

I got my towels back! I came home from grocery shopping on Saturday afternoon, and there they were, just sitting on the couch in the living room. Now, does this mean that they came into my house while I wasn’t there? Yes it does, but I’m not focusing on that, instead, I’m just glad that I got back my few bathroom towels, hand towels, and a few kitchen towels. (Seriously, how did they “not realize” that they had taken this many towels? And what were they doing with my kitchen towels anyway?)

Husband has a cold/flu right now that manifested itself yesterday. I had a tiny cold like, 2 weeks ago, so he claims that I must have given to him, but he’s wrong. He couldn’t really stand up (which means I braved church alone, what up? *high five*) and he was so out of it all day. And he kept cracking “jokes” that he thought were funny, so he’d say one, laugh at it until he coughed, then lay still like he died. And I was trying to be nice, and do things for him, get him things, but I was also avoiding him like crazy to make sure I didn’t catch anything. That’s a tricky line – helpful avoidance. I hope it wasn’t obvious what I was doing.

And that's the end.

Well, tonight, RSL had the Western Conference final. They played against the LA Galaxy to see who would be going onto the MLS Cup. The game was at LA, sadly, and I just couldn't afford to go, but that would have been amazing. But I set the TiVo for the game, and settled in to watch.

The teams were pretty evenly matched. LA scored first, and we scored within 5 minutes. We stayed 1-1 until the end of the first half. When the game resumed, everyone was playing really well, and I actually didn't know who would win. After about 20 minutes, LA scored-dang it! Then a few minutes later, they score again- the score was now 3-1. RSL fought and fought and sadly, never came back. The game ended, LA 3. RSL 1.

It sucks that we lost, but at least we played well in the last game. I would have loved to go onto the final again, but this year it just wasn't meant to be. And now, the season is over. There are no more games - which is actually ok, because now its getting too cold to sit at games. But hopefully, we'll regroup in the off-season, and come back better than ever. And next year, we'll win the Cup!

If Only I Could Invent My Own…

I love ice cream. Really, I love all sugary treats, (Well, for the most part. There are a few that I just don’t like) but ice cream…mmm. The great thing about ice cream is you can eat it even if you’re full, because it just kinda fills in the little cracks, because it’s all soft and melty. So even if you ate a big dinner, eating a little ice cream makes everything ok still.

I really like the Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, for many reasons, one of them being that they come in those little individual containers. I know, the serving size of one of those things says its like, 4, but really, its not for 4 people. Its for one, maybe two. There are a lot of delicious flavors, but I really like a few, them being:

This is a really good kind. It’s a vanilla ice cream, with fudge-covered potato chip clusters. Those are crazy – you’re eating a little chocolate ball, and once you bite into it, its Lay’s potato chips. It messes with your mind, but boy is it delicious. I recommend. Another good kind:

This one is awesome – it’s vanilla ice cream with a caramel swirl, and fudge-covered waffle cone pieces. (Wow, I just realized how similar these two ice creams are. Hmm.) When this one first came out (a few years ago) it was really hard to find, I could only find it at like, one Albertsons in Orem, and only once a month or so. But now you can find it anywhere, which is great, because it is delicious.

Tonight, I tried a new flavor of the B&J ice cream. It is:

This is so good. I love me some pumpkin cheesecake, because of the Olive Garden one, and this one doesn’t disappoint. I think the only thing that could make it better is if I added whipped cream to some bites, but maybe that would be sweet overkill. I recommend all of these flavors, but there are so many more that are also good. If you haven’t ever had a flavor of theirs, I say, stop waiting, and go get some post haste, and I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed, no matter what kind you get.

Foto Friday

And welcome back, kids, for a Foto Friday: Marathon Edition!

Last weekend, PJ and I ran a half marathon (which I did mention on here, just not in detail). It was a really cold race – they brought us up to Sundance, (the race finished at the Riverwoods) where we sat around and waited for 3 hours prior to the race. Finally, we got going, and it was chilly and all downhill for the first 9 miles, then we evened out, and I started to get warm. It was a fun race, because costumes are fun, but I just don’t like the way it was planned, so I don’t know that I would do it again. They took pictures of us during the race, and emailed them to us finally a few days ago. I did a (slightly illegal) thing and just saved them to my computer instead of buying them. (Shhhh)

This is PJ and I during the race. I don’t know what mile this is – it must be at least after the 9th or so, because my gloves are off. My hands were getting really hot. Look how great we look as the Power Rangers.

There’s a part near the end where for some reason, the race course narrows so that only 2 people can run through. I was stuck behind this lady, because near the beginning of the narrowing, she grabbed the hand of her son (who was not running, but there to cheer her on) and they were in front of me, and I couldn’t get by, it was driving me crazy. So my face is mad, because I was stuck, but this is finally where I got to get around her and run fast again.

I always look really mad at the end of the race, in every picture. But at this point, I was really close to the finish line, and I was happy to be over, my body was screaming at me to just stop running at this point.

So there it is, the Halloween Half-Marathon. It was a fun race, once it got started, but all the waiting around stuff just drove me crazy. But at least I finished, and had no guilt eating candy the rest of the day. Not that I do anyway…