A New Kind of Brownies

My friend, Chelle, has been put on a special diet of late. She can’t eat dairy, soy, wheat, sugar, corn, or anything delicious, basically. So, for fun, I decided to try a new recipe – a sugar free, dairy free, gluten free brownie. I’m not going to put the recipe on here, because I don’t know of anyone that wants it, (if you do, hit me up in the comments, and I can post it, I suppose) but it contains pumpkin puree, eggs, almond milk, rice malt syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, coconut flour, unsweetened cocoa, cocoa nips, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Combine it all together, and it makes a brownie.

Unfortunately, with no real binding agent here, the brownies wouldn’t stick together, so I had to just scoop them into a cupcake liner, and hope for the best.

There was supposed to mousse to put on the top, and that had avocados, cocoa, almond milk, rice malt syrup, coconut oil and vanilla as well, but it was just so awful, I couldn’t subject other people to it. Eating it myself was bad enough.
So, the end result of the brownies is thus: they are very bitter. Not sweet at all. They’re not bad, not necessarily, but they’re just very...bland, bitter brownies. I have a few changes that I’m going to make the next time I make them, but for a first attempt into this kind of baking, I have to say, they’re not that bad.

Juicin’ It

For Christmas, we were gifted a juicer. I’ve never used one before, it’s never really occurred to me to ever have one. Nothing against a juicer, or even juice, but it just seems like so much work, to make your own juice. When I got home from work Thursday, Husband had made a batch of juice. It was pretty good. Then Friday morning, he made some more. Friday evening, another batch. This morning, another. Basically. we’re going through fruits and vegetables like crazy, and we’re basically running the dishwasher non-stop, because it uses so many dishes to make some juice.

I do like the juice though, and I’m learning what makes a good juice. I don’t know why he did this, but Husband juiced a banana. That doesn’t juice well, in case anyone wonders. Apples juice well, of course, but juicing a pineapple, while delicious, makes the pulpiest juice ever. Mangos are good at making it thick, and oranges you have to be careful pulp-wise. Husband went on a fruit spree this morning, and bought a lot of fruit, so I’ll keep you all updated on what makes a good juice. And for right now, I’m probably so healthy, getting all of my fruits and some veggies. Happy drinking!

Foto Friday

It occurs to me that I never included the pic of how my upstairs room looks now. I know that you probably don’t really know what it looks like before, but here’s what it looks like:

I took a panoramic view of it, so you can see the whole view. I know, we need to find something for this corner now that something isn’t there, and so far, I don’t know what to put there. But it is growing on me, and I don’t hate it as much as I did anymore.

Pies

Tonight after work, I ran a few errands, and when we were finished, we just grabbed some dinner, since it seemed way easier than making it when we got home, since it was late anyway. Husband and I were trying to agree on a pie to get, and we never do. So instead of getting just one pie that we could agree on, we got two different pies. Two different WHOLE pies. As we were driving home, I was like, how dumb are we? We’ll never even finish these! It helps that right now, we have twice as many people living here with my sister being here, but still, 4 people for two pies? The pies we got were the Pumpkin Supreme Pie

And the Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Can you guess which one is my choice? The rhubarb. I really like that pie, and I don’t know that many people who like it. None of my people here seem to, so every time I get one, I’m basically eating it alone. Hopefully this one will get eaten soon, so that I’m not trying to finish it a week from now. Has anyone out there had this? Do you love it?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Toes

Today, after work, I went and got a pedicure after work with Michelle. I was wanting one, since my toes were getting too long and grody, so it needed to get done. We went there, and even though there was no line, and we didn’t have to wait at all, it still took forever! They did a good job, but holy cow they just went so slowly. I wanted something Christmassy, even though it’s already over after tomorrow, but I don’t care. Here’s what it looked like:

Cute, eh? And now, I’m ready for Christmas in this regard. Merry Christmas Eve!

Miscellaneous Monday

I am in full panic mode. Christmas is in 2 days, and I have nothing done. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, I have some things done, but not nearly what I need to. There’s a Christmas gift I still need to finish, and while I am close to it, I’m not nearly close enough. I need to wrap every single present that I’ve bought still. I have to get everything finished...by tonight, since there probably isn’t going to be time tomorrow. I am panicking big time.

Another thing to add to my panic is that my car wouldn’t start this morning. And then Husband wouldn’t answer his cell phone when I called him (he had left about 2 minutes before this happened). 3 times. So then, I did what anyone would do, and wake up their pregnant sister that’s staying with them and ask her for a ride. Which I did. I didn’t know what else to do! Luckily my sister is a champ, and did so, but I felt bad. Hopefully we can figure out what’s going on with it tonight.

My sister and her husband made us Thai food tonight, from scratch. Usually I don’t like Thai food, at least, I haven’t when I’ve gone to a restaurant, so I only took a little bit, but then it was actually pretty good. I have such a sissiness when it comes to other cultures, I get nervous trying their food, but this makes me think that maybe I should be more open, and try other things more often. I probably won’t, but I have every intention right now!

Decision Made

We looked this morning at what we could do, and decided to just change up the room, and see how that looks. We took down the pictures on the walls, and moved everything around. After getting everything into a new spot, I don’t know if I like it. I don’t hate it, necessarily, but looking at it, I just...don’t like it. Maybe I just need to let it grow on me, and see how I feel after a week or so, but as for right now, I am just trying not to hate it. I know this isn’t even a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, having to get used to a new configuration for a couch, but for me, even with all of the holiday stress I have, this is one of the things that’s just getting to me a lot. I’ll work through it, though, don’t worry.

Couch Shenanigans

Recently, we bought a new couch at RC Willey. We were told it would be delivered yesterday, and it was, but unfortunately, the people at RC Willey sure didn’t tell us the truth. When I was buying the couch, I made sure to ask if they would move the previous couches out of the room, and the salesperson said they would. So when they came to deliver, they refused to move the old couches, said there was no way they would do it. So in turn, they decided against delivering the entire couch to the right room, because there was no room for the couches with the old ones up there. Instead, they left a giant piece in the front room, because that makes sense. We tried to call to complain, but our complaints fell on deaf ears. Today, we finally got a ragtag group of people together, and tried to get the couch upstairs. After many attempts, and not having any luck, we decided to try another approach. As we were trying this way, the couch hit into a low hanging light, and busted the light. It didn’t even hit it very hard, but it just shattered on the people down there. This is what it looked like after it broke:

It cut PJ’s nose, and the back of Husband’s hand. We had to stop to clean up the glass and blood, but then we FINALLY got the couch upstairs. After getting it up there, we learned the couch (it’s a sectional) is just a few inches too big for the room. At this point, my brain just broke, it couldn’t handle it anymore. We gave up for the night, and decided to tackle it in the morning.

A Road Trip

Today, I took a sort of impromptu trip to Colorado. Chelle was going, and I went with her. It was a blast. We left at about 1:00 in the afternoon Friday, and arrived there before 5:00, so we made some pretty good time. The drive there was fun, we listened to a book on tape, The Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites. It was a good book, listening to it made the miles and the time fly. The drive was pretty scenic:

And finally, we made it to the border!

we battled some fog on the way in, but other than that, no real weather mishaps. We watched a basketball game there, and it was fun, of course. A lot of yelling, and cheering, and good times ensued. I had myself a bag of popcorn as a treat, and Chelle had a pickle, and that just made me laugh. It was delicious though, I had a bite of one. We snapped a selfie during the game:

And before we knew it, it was time to head back. We hit the road again, and this time, we had some more fog, that made me nervous a little, but we made it back in one piece, just a little after midnight. It was an awesome trip, and it was just so fun and impromptu to just head to Colorado for a day and come back. Sadly, we didn’t get to finish our book on tape, but hopefully we’ll get to do that soon, because I just want to know how it ends!

A Post of Nothing

We’re more than halfway through the month, and I have nothing to blog about now. I’ve done my best. I’ve tried to be interesting, but here it is, and no, I have nothing. I’m busy preparing for the holiday, and trying to finish everything, and I am panicking. I don’t think I’m going to have time to get everything done. I’m going to work as hard as I can these next few days, and hopefully, I can finish everything in time! Wish me luck!

Vieve’s Videos

Ok, I know I just did a video last week, but after seeing this, I couldn’t resist. Chelle showed this to me at work the other day, and I just died laughing, and I keep showing people now.

Christmas Jammies

I wish I was half as clever as that! I don’t know how people think of this stuff!

Soup Night

With everyone in my house being sick right now, except me, and I’m holding onto my good health as tightly as I can right now. For dinner last night, I thought I’d make some chicken noodle soup, to help heal people (since soup has magical powers, of course) and because I just like to make it. My recipe is thus:

4 cups chicken broth
1 carrot, sliced
1 celery stalk, sliced
Dash of salt
1 cup cooked cubed chicken
½ cup uncooked egg noodles

Combine the broth, carrot, celery and dash of salt in a pot, bring to a boil. Stir in chicken and egg noodles, and cook for 10 minutes.

Easy, right? I did some modifications. I think I did like, 6 or 7 cups of broth, 3 each of the carrot and celery, a half a bag of egg noodles (just using it up) and for the chicken, instead of cooking and cubing it, I just bought a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from the store, and shredded the chicken off of that. It was really pretty good though, and I’m betting it made my people all feel better. If not, I don’t care, it was still delicious, and I gave it my best shot.

Miscellaneous Monday

People in my house are getting sick. Husband was starting to feel sick on Saturday night, and it went into a full-blown cold/whatever Sunday, and today, my sister is also sick. I am trying to avoid them both, basically. I feel like I finally am just now all the way over my cold. I have been done with it for a bit, but now, the cough is all the way gone, and my voice is back to normal – I can sing and everything finally, so I don’t want to get what they have! I know it’s not nice to avoid people, but in this case, I think its ok.

Yesterday in church, they announced the new time change when church will start in the new year, and we’ll be moving to 9:00 church, which means I’ll be having an infinitely harder time getting to church on time. I know, I know, the time of the church shouldn’t matter, and I would be awake anyway at that time, but I just like to be lazy on a Sunday morning. Church at 9:00 means awaking and actually getting right up, and hurrying to get around. Church at 11:30 (I am right now) means getting up...hanging out in my PJ’s...eating breakfast...having a run...getting ready...and going to church. I just will miss the lazy Sunday mornings come January 1.

On Friday night, after eating dinner (ribs, yum) I had many much rib bones left over, so I thought I’d be nice to the tiny dogs and give them a small treat. When I was walking down with the bones, and Cookie was so JAZZED about what was about to happen, she jumped higher than any dog has ever jumped ever, and bit my hand. Maybe bite is the wrong word, because her mouth never closed, but her tooth grazed my finger, cutting it open, and it bled a whole lot. I dropped the bone, which she of course grabbed right away, so I guess her plan worked. I’m still waiting for this cut to heal by the way, several days later.

Slim Pickings

I went to Bath & Body Works on Saturday; I needed to pick up a few things. I went to the nearest mall to me, and after getting in there, I couldn’t find a single lotion I wanted, they were all sold out. I went to the other mall, in the hopes I could find it. As I searched the store, my balloon was deflating. It was nowhere. I was standing in front of a display, lamenting my bad luck, and a worker popped his head around, and asked me what I was looking for. I told him, the Warm Winter Apple, and he quietly said, “I have some of that hidden.” He turned away, grabbed some bottles, and came back over to me. I was so happy; I thanked him profusely, and went on my merry way. I was looking for the last bottle of lotion that I needed, and I did find it – hidden behind the body sprays. I was so glad my purchases worked out! As I was checking out, I hoped that they would let me use my coupon along with the sale I was already getting, and they did! It was a merry night at Bath & Body Works, and I was glad I made the last minute choice to shop there as well. Good luck with all your purchases, friends!

Winter Coat

Today, my sister’s dog was acting lethargic, and not full of its usual energies, so my sister was convinced that her dog had caught a cold. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know, because I don’t know how to tell if dogs get colds, or even if they do, or what to do when they get one. We went to Petsmart at 9:30 tonight, to find the dog some clothes. She was sure that if she only got the dog a sweater or coat, it would be healed, and would never be sick again. She spent some time, comparing the clothes, and finally, chose a few. This is one of them, an extra small plaid coat with a hat, in case the dog wants to protect her ears.

As soon as she put the coat on the dog, we took this pic, because the dog looks both ridiculous and adorable. Hopefully the coat stops the dog from getting anymore colds.

Foto Friday

I have made this recipe before (link to blog) but I wanted to make some cookies last night, and ended up making these. It took me like an hour to decide what cookie to make, because every cookie sounded good to me. Finally I made these, and improvised on the frosting, and they ended up looking pretty good.

A Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookie with Cinnamon Frosting. Yum

Vieve’s Videos

I saw this video on Facebook, and I’ll admit, it had me teary eyed.

Santa

I don’t even know why, but when things like this happen, I just wish I had been there to see it! I would have loved to play the secret Santa here, and hurried to get the presents that everyone got, and seen their faces when they opened the presents. What an awesome thing that company did! I hope you enjoyed it like I did.

Stampin’–Christmas Style

Last night was the delightful Stamp and Chat, full of fun like always. Lets cut to the chase and show the pictures:

How cute are these?! I had a little trauma here, with the Christmas tree, when I was trying to punch the star through it, I ripped a hole in the entire page, and then it ripped all the way through, to the top of the page. I’m not explaining that right, but it was so dumb of me. Chelle had to fix it for me, because I couldn’t do it. But they all ended up being cute, and we had delicious treats to boot!

Christmas Trimmings

Last night, I went over to Tai Pan to get some ribbon for my tree. I spent a little time to choose the right one, and home again to garland up my tree. I had my sister help me with it, since I had no idea what I was doing, and finally, when finished, this is what it now looks like:

It’s not too bad, but I just am struggling with my tree this year! Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to try a new color theme. And I do like my stockings on the fireplace this year, so you can see these as well:

Now my house feels complete and I am ready for the holidays – in that regard. Now onto shopping!

Miscellaneous Monday

Friday night was our ward Christmas party. It was a nice affair, good food. They did a program, of course, and Husband and I were asked to sing in it, with another gal. When we practiced, we sounded really good, not to be too prideful. But then when it came time to sing, I must have been so nervous, because I just sounded awful. Husband sounded great, and so did the other girl, but I was shaky and awful, so I regret it. I think next time I get asked, I’ll turn it down. No need to go through that again.

At work, Chelle has had a Christmas tree on her desk last year, and it was just so cute (link to her blog here) and this year, she happened to have an extra one, so she brought it in so that I could use it.

I think it’s really cute, I’m glad she decided to share with me.

I can’t handle all this cold weather. There is just too much of it, and I’m cold the SECOND I step outside, and I can’t seem to get warm inside. I know that it only just started, and we still have a few months with this weather, but already, I just want it to be warm and nice. The countdown to spring has begun. 100 days, everyone!

Santa Hats

Today, we found a hat around the house, a dog hat, bought by my sister, for her dog. I decided to put it on Cookie.

Look at that rage! She looks like she wants to kill me. Since we were on a roll, we put it on Cadence as well.

I think she just doesn’t know how to deal with life. These poor dogs. We basically do this to them all day long.

Festival of Trees 2013

I only realized a few weeks ago that it was the week of Festival of Trees, and it was ending today. So of course, I made plans to go there. The weather did try it’s darndest to stop me, but nothing could stop me. I was planning on going up in the early afternoon. RSL was playing Kansas City in the MLS Cup, and I was jazzed and ready. The game started at 2:00, so it would be over around 4:00. That’s not exactly how it went. Started at 2:00, didn’t really start at 2:25, and then it had a thirty minute overtime when we were tied 1-1 at the end. After the overtime we were still tied, and went into a shootout. After 2 shootouts, we lost the game, and it was just sad. So the game instead ended at 5:30. Then, the trip from my house in Orem to my SIL’s house in Provo took about 1 hour because of all the snow that has been dumped on us.

Finally we made it there after about an hour. We made it in, and it was all as glorious as it always is. We walked, ate a snack, walked, and ate a snack, walked around. I saw some really great trees, and I’ll share those.

There was one tree that I was really impressed with:

You can’t tell, but that tree is made out of soda rings. And the ornaments are made out of soda cans. I just couldn’t believe it when I saw it. That takes some serious preparation. I hope to maybe decorate a tree next year. I’ll start brainstorming now!

Foto Friday

With my sister moving in, so did her dog. The dog is a super weirdo. It looks a little bit like a cross between a bat and a rat. I like to torture it (not like, crazy torture) and I just laugh at it all the time. After doing some torturing last night, she was being a weirdo, and shaking either from that, or because she’s a Chihuahua and shakes all the time, or because my house is always freezing now. So I put her in my jacket, and she had such a sad sack look on her face, we had to take a picture of it. I tried to mimic her face.

What a freaking weird animal.

Christmas Tree 2013

Tonight I decorated my Christmas Tree, finally. We set it up on Monday night, and then just left it this whole time. I’ve just been so busy! I haven’t had time, all of a sudden, things were crazy. But I was told by Chelle that the ornaments were on sale at JoAnn’s, and I have been wanting to mix it up, so I took a gander. I decided on brown and gold, it just seemed so fun and different. I’m not sure it looks as good as I thought it would be. In my head, I imagined it very differently, and I don’t think it translated very well. But I gave it a go.

The lights take out the ornaments, for the most part. One of the best parts this year, was the addition of some new (newer) ornaments. We got these in Disneyland, and I love them.

Maybe they don’t mesh with the color theme, but I like them anyway. They’re fun, and they add some life. Merry Christmas everyone! 20 more days!

A Snowy Kind of Evening

Last night for scouts, we had a pack meeting, and it was decided many months ago that this pack meeting would be our caroling one – we’d all get to visit the elderly ladies in the ward, and sing some songs, and we all thought it sounded like fun. Then, as everyone noticed, the skies opened up, and snow just DUMPED all over everyone. Of course, we scouts are tough. About half of the kids showed up last night, I’m guessing parents just didn’t want to brave the elements. After handing out all the awards, and two of my favorite Webelos moving onto 11 year old scouts, and they both had their Arrow of Light ceremonies, it was time to go.

It was still snowing when we were out, which made things just cold. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, my scout shirt, a fleece jacket, my winter coat, gloves, and a hat. But still, I was chilly. My feet were cold, my legs were cold. We went to about 7 houses, singing the same 5 songs, until finally we were finished. We all reconvened back at the church for some hot chocolate and donuts. We had lost about half of the scouts from the meeting to the singing, and that’s fine. It was cold, and if I was a kid, I would have just left. But hopefully we got to bring a little sunshine to some people’s hearts.

Mini Pumpkin Pies

I meant to post this last week, but the entries got away from me, so I am just going to do it this week. For Thanksgiving, I wanted to contribute to my dinners with a dessert – individual mini pumpkin pies. I found the recipe on Pinterest, of course, and finally made it. The recipe is as follows, if you’d like it:

1 15oz can of pumpkin
1 12oz can of evaporated milk
2 eggs
2 Tsp pumpkin pie spice
3/4 cup sugar
1/2tsp of salt
2 boxes of ready-made crust (how many you use will determine if you need three or all four)

You will also need a cookie cutter (or some sort of circle) that is about this much bigger than your muffin tin, both the regular and the mini one. Lightly spray your pans with cooking spray. Unroll your crust and cut out circles, lay the circle on top of the muffin hole and gently press down to the bottom. From there gently press the crusts to the sides, covering the whole muffin cup.

Once I cut out as many circles as I can with the pre-rolled out dough, I combine it together and roll it out again and again. Combine sugar, pumpkin pie spice and salt together with a whisk. Beat eggs and then slowly combine pumpkin and add sugar mixture to that. Once that is all combined, stir in the evaporated milk. I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup that wasn't quite full to fill the regular muffin cups. I used 1/4 cup measuring cup that wasn't quite full to fill each mini muffin cup.

Fill all your mini pie shells to just below level with muffin pan top. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes for the regular sized ones and 25-30 minutes for the mini ones. Check done-ness by putting a knife in the center, if it comes out mostly clean they are done.

Enjoy with some fresh whipped cream!

Now, it was pretty easy to make this, just very time consuming. I forgot to take a pic with the whipped cream on it, because come one, Thanksgiving is a busy day. But this is delicious! Make it next year, guys.

Miscellaneous Monday

On the way home from St George Saturday night, my mom texted me, to ask where we were. She had left about a half hour before us, and was letting us know where we were. A few minutes later, she randomly texted me what her mile marker was, and I let her know mine. Then she kept texting me hers, so I decided to have some fun with it. Instead of telling her what mine was, I moved myself up a few miles. Then hers again, and I would move mine up more. So after a while, I actually “passed” them, and just kept moving. Finally, she told me she was near home, and I told her my real location, somewhere near Nephi. Her reply text of “what?” made me laugh so hard. Thanks for letting me troll you, mama.

After getting home from St George, and having a family meeting of sorts, it was already 9:30 at night. I still had to go grocery shopping, so after getting into the house, and getting everything unloaded from the car, it was 10:15, but luckily with it being Christmas season, the store is open late, so I went grocery shopping at 10:30 at night. It’s fun to do this! The place is empty, it’s quiet, and you don’t have to worry about hitting into anyone. It’s kind of awesome.

After shopping so late, I had to get some food, because I hadn’t eaten anything since St George, at like, 3:30, and I was starving. I stopped at Taco Bell on the way home, and when I was trying to unload my car, I was more interested in my taco than I was to any situational awareness, so I smashed my forehead into the still-opening car trunk, and holy cow did that hurt. Even to today, 2 days later, it still hurts. Lesson learned – look at the trunk before you try to lean into it.

The End of One Month…the Beginning of Another

It’s officially over, friends! National Blog-Every-Day month is over, and finally, we’re done. Luckily, I didn’t struggle as much as I thought I would (or my standards for how lame my blog can be are getting lower) so hopefully, if you stuck with me all month, you didn’t suffer too much.

Unfortunately for everyone, in order to reach my goal of 250 blogs this year, I need to keep blogging every day. Hopefully things will stay interesting, or maybe I can find good stuff on the internet, but stay with me, guys. It’s only 31 entries until the end of the year, so maybe only half of those will be awful. Lets all cross our fingers that it won’t be too bad!

A Baptism

Today my niece and nephew were baptized, and they live in St George, so we made the trip down to see them. I left after work yesterday, and got there at about 10:00. After checking into the hotel, I was getting ready for bed, and was in the middle of washing my face, and I realized, I didn’t pack any underpants. None. So I put on my clothes (since I was already in my pajamas) and went to find a Walmart at 11:30 at night. Luckily, we found one, and I got what I needed. Then, when I was getting dressed the next morning, I realized I also forgot a slip. Sheesh, I’m surprised I had anything, with how many things were going wrong! Luckily, my skirt had a built-in slip, so it wasn’t too bad, but all day I felt weird without it.

Finally, it was time for the baptism, and after going and sitting down, I was handed a program. I scanned it to see when I would be giving the talk, and:

They spelled my name wrong! Dang it! I pointed this out to my parents, and we had a good chuckle, and I wondered out loud if, because my name was spelled wrong, I didn’t have to get up and talk. It was my turn to get up and talk, I was giving a talk on the Holy Ghost. Luckily, Chelle had really hooked me up with both an awesome talk, and a great object lesson. I gave the talk, and was SO NERVOUS during it, I was so glad when it was over.

The day was pretty awesome, and I’m really glad I got to be a part of it. Hopefully the nephew and niece had a day that they’ll never forget!

Foto Friday

On Thanksgiving morning, Husband’s family decided to have family pictures, since we’d never done them. They took many many pictures, and this was a good one of all of us.

There is a really awesome one that was taken that I haven’t gotten a copy of yet, but when I do, I’ll put it on here. Stay tuned…

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has had a lovely Thanksgiving day today. Myself, I ran the Earn Your Turkey 4-miler this morning, and while it was of course cold, it wasn’t freezing – by the end of it, I was really warm. I’ve eaten 2 delicious dinners, and had a lot of fun times, and now that it’s the evening, I feel confidently that my turkey is going to help me get to sleep in about 5 minutes. Happy Turkey Day!

Fall Toes

I got a pedicure last night, I needed one, my nails were getting so long. I finally chose a color that wasn’t the same and that in itself is a victory. I chose brown this time, because I wanted to have fall color nails, which I told the person doing my nails. I went back to my previous place that I haven’t been to in a while, and after he asked why I hadn’t been back in a while, I told him I’d had some crappy experiences the last few times I’d come, I think he made sure to try to make this a good time. It wasn’t too bad, but then I ended up having to wait about 10-15 minutes for the gal to come over and paint a flower on there. She added some pink to the flower, and a red jewel, which I didn’t want, I wanted fall colors, but she put it on there before I noticed what color she had chosen, curse my for reading my book. They are cute, just not exactly what I wanted:

And now they’ll look pretty for the next week or so, until they start to chip and get monster-long.

The Installation of a Door

Last night, we had to install a door at my parent’s house. My little sister is coming to live with us for a while, and with her comes 2 cats and a dog. Since we have Cookie, I told her the dog was ok to live with us (so long as she’s house trained, and won’t make messes) but the cats were a no-go. No matter what. I don’t want cats in my house, I hate cats, and I hate the messes and smell of them. So to compromise, my parents very graciously will take the cats in their place for the next few months, but we needed to install a door leading to the basement, to keep them down there. We ran to the local Home Depot, bought a simple, plain door, and went over to the folks’. We brought the door down there, put it up to compare, and...it wasn’t the right size. It was 1/8 inch too small on the top, the perfect size in the middle, and 1/4 inch too small on the bottom. GRRR! So we went back to the Depot, had them shave a quarter inch off the whole thing (which was a fight in itself, we had to go to a few departments to get the help we needed) and tried again. This time, the door fit, and after chipping off the places for the hinges, we got the door hung, we put in a doorknob, and everything was peachy. The door shut, it opened, and everything was fine, so we left it. Thank goodness everything ended up okay...I’m definitely not having cats in my house.

Miscellaneous Monday

Last night, I was cleaning up our room, and asking Husband to pick some stuff off the ground. As I knelt down to pick up something near his foot, he brought his leg up, to take off his sock, and ended up kneeing me in the face. Hard. In my eye. Immediately, I hit the bed, and just lay there, cradling my face in my hand. I went and looked at my eye, and the area where I was hit was read and puffy, and I thought, this is my chance to have a black eye! No such luck. Today when I woke up, it’s not swollen or discolored, just painful to touch. I never get a bruise, unless it’s on my leg, and then I have no idea where I got it from.

Friday evening, I had a call from an older sister in my ward, asking if we (well, if Husband) could come over and help her move a nightstand that she had bought, but it was too heavy for her to lift. We said yes, of course, and went over. Husband picked it up, and after some struggles (I think he picked it up lengthwise, so it was too wide for him to carry that way, but he wasn’t going to put it down) we got it in the right room, in the right place. She was really grateful, and I was just glad that she called us. It’s kind of nice to do a service, especially for your neighbors. I told her to call any time she needed anything, and I hope she does so.

I’m getting more excited for Christmas by the day. The more Christmas movies I watch, and Christmas songs I hear, and Christmas decorations I see, I just can’t wait for it to happen. And since I mostly know what I’m getting everyone, I feel like I can relax, and maybe enjoy things a little bit more. I’m excited for these next thirty days – Christmas is in 1 month!

It’s Down to the Wire

Tonight was the Western Conference Final for MLS. Real Salt Lake was in this final, with Portland as the other team. We had already played one round at home, and came away victorious in a 4-2 victory. Basically, we just had to play 90 minutes, hold onto the score (or even score more, I’m not picky) and come away the Western Conference Champions. The game kicked off, and it was a hard battle. The other team scored twice, but both goals were taken away, as they were offsides on both of them. What luck! We ended up scoring a goal in the 29^th minute, and for me, that clinched our victory. After a well fought and hard played 90 minutes, RSL is the victor!

Now, there is one more game in the season. The final final final. Since they’ve won, we’ll play Sporting Kansas City (seriously, worst name ever) in Kansas on December 7. I’ll be glued to my TV, and hopefully, RSL will come away with another trophy. Think positive thoughts, friends!

Sale, sale, sale!

A week or so ago at Stamp and Chat, Chelle was telling all of us about a sale that happens once a year, a scrapbooking sale that takes place at different venues and at different times each year. Last week, we had heard about when it was starting, Friday the 22nd. She invited me to go with her, and I readily agreed, as I love myself some sales, and I’m still working on building up my scrapbook supplies. They picked me up at 9:00 this morning, and off we went.
When we walked in, it was just rows and rows of everything! Paper and tape and books and stickers and embellishment, oh my! We started at one end, and slowly made our way around, picking up more and more things. I got loads of new papers, many much tape, a lot of stickers, and embellishments galore. It was pretty awesome. I spent just a hair over 50 dollars, but I got so much stuff, so many deals, that I just kept calculating how much I saved, and didn’t care about what I spent. I’m psyched to have all this stuff, and I’m glad that Chelle asked me along. And maybe we’ll go back…to see what else they’re setting out!

Foto Friday

I saw this picture on Twitter, and I laughed for so long, I thought it was so cute.

Look how happy the stick is! It’s almost like I can hear his tiny voice saying, “Yay I’m a stick!” Let’s all be as happy as this inanimate stick is, everyone!

Vieve’s Videos

I watch the Ellen Degeneres show every day, and I just love it. I love having that laugh every day (or whenever I seem to come around to watching it) and it’s just lovely. I saw this video on there the other day, and I died laughing.

Tap-dancing Seagull

It’s just so funny. Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I did.

Chocolate Crinkle Kiss Cookies

I found these cookies on Pinterest, and was jazzed to make them. I’ve made a similar one before, but with a completely different recipe, so I was excited to see how these turn out. First, the ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tsp baking powder
½ Tsp salt
2 cups sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1 Tsp vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar
Assorted Hershey’s kisses (I chose peppermint, like the original pin, but I wanted to make it with mint, but couldn’t find them)

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla until smooth. Slowly mix in the flour mixture until just combined. Place plastic wrap over bowl and refrigerate dough for 2 hours. Meanwhile, unwrap Hershey’s kisses and place in a small bowl; freeze until ready to use.

Preheat oven to 350. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray. Put the powdered sugar in a small bowl. Scoop dough into ½ tablespoon balls, roll in powdered sugar, and place on baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes, or until cookies crackle and no longer look raw. Remove from oven and immediately press a frozen kiss into each cookie, and then put cookie sheet into the freezer, just until the kiss is set and is no longer shiny. Remove from freezer and allow to cool completely.

Now, let me tell you the variations I did, and not on purpose, but because I didn’t read ahead. I was getting everything ready, and had just mixed the dough together (this was at about 7:30, in case you wondered) and then I read the part about putting the dough in the oven. Well, forget that, I said to myself, and just continued on with the process. The dough was really sticky, but I sprayed my hands with PAM, and just kept on trucking. I did put the kisses in the freezer, though, but maybe they should have been in there longer. Read the recipes first, people, is what I’m saying. So then I rolled them into the balls, and baked the cookies, and then I removed them, and put a kiss in the center, and put them into the freezer. Now, I changed the wording on my recipe here to help you guys out, but in the original recipe, it says: “then put cookie sheet into the freezer, just until the chocolate is set and is no longer shiny” I assumed it meant the chocolate of the cookie, so that was confusing to me. I pulled the cookies out of the freezer, and as they were just chilling on the counter, the kisses kept melting, and I was like, well shoot. So, it wasn’t until I was putting the very last batch of cookies into the freezer that I realized, they meant the chocolate in the kisses is set. Oooops. Its ok, the rest turned out ok, they just had a small amount of meltage. But then finally, I got to eat one and..

*chorus sings*

They’re delicious! Seriously, with how easy these were, everyone should be eating them. Post haste. Make them, eat them, love them.

Shave and a Haircut

It was time again for Cookie to have a haircut, because she was looking super scraggly. And this morning, before work, she got into the garbage and got chocolate all over her face, so she definitely needed the washing. I decided this time to not get the all-over shave; because of how ridiculous she looked, so she got the Yorkie haircut again. Behold:

She was really jazzed when I went to pick her up, I swear, dogs think that once you leave them, you’re never going to return. She spent most of the drive home looking out the window:

And now she’s clean and looks really snazzy. Of course, that’ll last for about a month, and then she’ll look like a homeless mongrel again.

Miscellaneous Monday

For our card swap club, we decided to have both a set of cards, and a neighbor gift. After looking through Pinterest, I found one that was cute and pretty easy. Behold:

I watched 2 episodes of Cupcake Wars this weekend, one on Saturday night, and one on Sunday morning. While I was watching it on Saturday, I knew I wanted a cupcake, so I went to a bakery near my house and picked up a few. I don’t know why, but after I watch the show, I need to have a cupcake. I haven’t eaten cupcakes there, before, so I was interested in finding out if this place was any good. I didn’t get around to it on Saturday, and then Sunday evening, I went for it, and tried all of the cupcakes at once, just eating small pieces of all of them.

And I critiqued them, to myself. End result: the place wasn’t too bad, but I prefer other places more.

It’s coming, you guys. The cold. The snow. The winter. The holidays. I’m jazzed.

Lasagna Soup

I’ve decided that for the duration of the winter that’s just started, I want to have a crockpot meal on Sunday. It warms the house, it makes everything smell delicious, and it’s just so easy to throw everything in a pot and leave it alone for the day. To kick off Crockpot Winter 2013, I made lasagna soup, and it was really easy. Ingredients are:

1 LB ground beef (or, if you want it to be vegetarian, omit this)
3 cups beef broth
1 cup water
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 TB dried parsley
1 TB dried basil
½ cup chopped onion
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 cup V8
2 cups uncooked shell pasta
¼ Tsp pepper
¼ Tsp salt
Shredded mozzarella cheese, optional

In the crockpot, mix together the tomatoes and can of tomato paste. Add broth, beef, garlic, parsley, basic, onion, V8, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours. When there is 30 minutes left of cooking time, add in the cup of water and noodles. Put lid back on and cook for final 30 minutes.

So, I put ours in at 3:00, and added the pasta in at 6:00. I omitted the water, because I was like, this is runny enough, but then when it was finished, it wasn’t soup at all, just a pasta dish. I may add the water, if I cook this again. But it was really good, and I added some mozzarella cheese when I spooned myself up a dish, which I think made it much better.

Hardest OCD Decision of My Life

Tonight, I was filling my car up with gas, and I just put the nozzle in, put it on automatic, and just hung out, waiting for it to stop. As soon as it stopped, I looked over at it, and it read as such:

What do you do?! I’ve never had the tank read as just 10, and to have it at 29.99, which would usually just have me kick it up to 30, but then I’d lose the evenness of the 10! What do I choose? I really sat there and pondered it for a minute, and finally, I decided to make it go to 30.00, and the gas read 10.003. I was sad not to have them match up, but at least the amount was even.

Foto Friday

For the most part, my cold isn’t really awful anymore, it’s just a nuisance. I don’t feel sick, really, I just have this stupid cough that won’t go away. And I feel really bad for my co-workers, because if it bugs me this much, it must be bugging them like, 50 times more, and I apologize to them for it. I do apologize at work, too, because I hate myself a little bit more every time I cough. But I have been popping cough drops like crazy, and trying to stop it, and trying to end it. Every time I open a drop, I read the pep-talks they’re trying to give you on here, and it makes me angry. They’re not even helpful! They’re just dumb! Here’s one I snapped yesterday:

And it just makes me mad. Pick better sayings, Halls. Pep me up for reals.

I’m a Survivor…Bracelet

Today, for scouts, we had the boys make rescue bracelets. I don’t know if you’ve seen these, I’ve seen them at various sports stores, and they’re pretty cool. They look like this:

And the theory behind them is that if you’re hiking or something and you get into a pickle, you can unravel the bracelet, and it turns into a rope that you can use to get yourself out of your predicament. I didn’t know we were making these until I got to scouts! So I get there, and we all cut our ropes, 8 feet of every rope. These were tricky to make. After you cut the rope, you need to measure it to your wrist, and then tie a note at the place where you want the bracelet to be, size-wise. After you tie the knot, then you follow this weird guide for how to braid it. It’s not quite a braid, but it was really tricky to follow it, and remember which one you had just done, and keep going. We worked for the whole hour on the bracelets, and even went over about 10 minutes. But finally, the braiding was finished, and for the final step, we had to burn the ends that were still over. That was the boy’s favorite part, I think. After we let it cool down, I tried mine on again, and...it didn’t fit. Shoot! After all that work and I can’t even wear it! But that’s ok. Here’s my final product:

I want to make another one, to have it actually fit, but it was so much work, I just don’t know if I want to start that again. But if anyone needs a survival bracelet, I think I can help you out.

Stampin’ & Chattin’

Last night we had another Stamp and Chat, and ended up with some really cute cards. I had some issues trying to ruffle my paper on one of them, but it ended up being ok, I think.

See, adorable!

One Last Thought

Now, I know I’ve said all there is to say on our DLand trip, but I wanted to include this. There were only a few rides that we went on that had cameras for pictures, and of course, we know where they all are. We did the same pose on basically every ride – the duck face peace sign. The reason for this is because after the first ride, we saw a girl that did it, and decided to make fun of that for the rest of the weekend. So, here they all are:

I know they’re tiny, but I thought you may be able to see them still. My favorite one is the one in the bottom right, that I’m not in. The reason behind this is because when the camera was coming up, I shifted in my seat, told Husband what I was doing, and crouched down so that I wouldn’t be seen. I think it ended up being pretty awesome. In case you wanted to see that one better:

Disneyland pictures are really the best.

Miscellaneous Monday

So in August, I started a new running streak. I may have blogged about it, I can’t remember, and I’ll be honest, I’m a little too lazy to go searching for it. But, alas, my running streak has come to an end. After almost 2 months of running every single day, I had to quit. The cold/whatever I have took over completely, so I couldn’t run Sunday, then this morning, when I woke up, I just couldn’t make myself run, so I walked. Really slowly. For 11 minutes. On the treadmill. At 2 miles an hour. So, now, I have to start a new one. Hopefully I can start one soon, but if not, that’s ok.

For scouts, every 2 years, you have to take the Youth Protection Program, or as I like to call it, the Pedophile test. Basically, the test is to ensure that you’re not a pedophile, and you recognize pedo behavior, and that you know how to help the kids without molesting them. It is such a weird thing to do. For 25 minutes, you just hang out, watch weird creepy videos of possible scenarios, and then answer questions about what was wrong there, but I just hate watching the videos, they make me so uncomfortable about it. So, I passed the test, and now I’m good to not be a weirdo to kids for 2 more years.

I got Cookie back tonight, and it feels so good to be reunited. Ok, it’s not actually all that different, but dang it, if I didn’t miss that little rat dog being around. I don’t know if it’s the actual Cookie that I miss, or just because in my brain, she’s my tiny friend that listens to me when I walk around the house, but now she’s back, and this morning, she helped me get ready for work. And by get ready, I mean, scratched my leg a lot while I tried to put on my makeup. What a dumb dog she is.

Coming Home

This morning, I woke up, and I still felt like death. After dragging myself out of bed to meet the family for breakfast in the hotel, I slowly got ready, and we checked out. We had decided to hit up Downtown Disney for a few minutes on the way to the airport, and grab anything we need. We went there, and hurriedly shopped, to make it to the airport on time. We made it there with an hour to spare, so after getting through security, that gave us a good 45-minute cushion, we figured. We got through security (and I got a special pat-down, nice) and then learned that our flight was delayed by about an hour. SHOOT. So we all got comfy, and waited it out. I hooked my kindle into their WiFi, and watched some TV shows on Hulu, and finally, after buying more cough drops to last myself for the flight, and finally finally, we got to get on the airplane.

We landed a little after six, which was fine, because it’s not like I had anything to do besides lay down. We finally got home a little after 7:00, and we started the RSL game that was going on. Since they won on Thursday, they had to play today against Portland for the next leg of the playoffs. We made some chicken soup, and lay down to watch the game. Of course, we also had to do some laundry, because we were out of some things, but otherwise, I just rested, and watched RSL squash Portland, 4-2. Next game is Sunday the 24^th and I am ready for another victory!

Disneyland, More of It

This morning, when I woke up, my throat was hurting worse. It hurt to swallow. It hurt to talk. My whole body hurt. I was not liking this – how would it bode for DLand? Turns out – not well. We got to CA first, and after eating breakfast, and securing fast passes for both World of Color and the new Cars Land, we walked around the park. Lines were a little longer today, being the weekend, but we worked with it. Sadly, I was getting sicker as the day wore on. We rode some rides, and the more the day went on, the more it hurt to talk, so after a while, I just used hand signals to talk, and used words once in a while. Finally, when it was lunch time, I was offering $100 to anyone that could get me some cold medicine. Luckily, younger brother’s wife’s family was coming to meet us, and he could bring me some. Happy day! So a few hours later, after shuffling through lunch, and some Cars Land rides, finally, her dad came, cold medicine in hand. I immediately took some, and popped some cough drops in my mouth. While it helped, and believe me, it did, and I’m eternally grateful that they hooked me up, it wasn’t enough, I was still free-falling into sickness. For the remaining, oh, 9 hours of DLand, I wasn’t doing very well. We rode rides, and then, went to dinner in the park, that had a 30 minute wait. We didn’t know where else to go, so we stayed there, and waited. As we were waiting, I was basically just lying on the ground, having given up, and my SIL came over and told me she thought she just saw a famous person, Henry Czerny, who people here may know better as Conrad Grayson from Revenge.

I told her that was awesome, too bad we couldn’t see for sure if it was him. After like, 10 or 15 minutes later, he came back – he was actually going to eat in the same restaurant we were going to! So SIL parents went up to him, and asked if we could get a picture with him, and he said yes! He came back out, and was actually a really nice guy. He snapped a couple of pics with us, and went on his merry way.

After eating dinner, and continuing my free fall into illness, and shopping a little, finally it was time for World of Color. We hung out for a few minutes beforehand, because we got there a little early, and then it was time to get going. Originally we had planned to shop in Downtown Disney while we were there, but I was so sick at this point, I couldn’t make it. I barely shuffled back home, and went to sleep.

Disneyland!

This morning, we got going bright and early, and got to the park right as it was opening. We decided to do Disneyland on Friday, and then do California Adventure on Saturday, since we had only 2 days, and needed to maximize our time. We immediately got to work, riding rides, eating meals, enjoying treats, and riding more rides. It was also picture-palooza, apparently, these guys like to take pictures a lot. I got in on the action, and got a selfie with everyone.

And then we got someone in the Finding Nemo line to take a picture of all of us:

We still had one more family member to come, but he wouldn’t be landing until about 10:00 that night, he still has school. So after riding every ride that we wanted to in DLand, and watching Captain Eo (that’s right, I love that show), we decided in the afternoon to head over to CA. We immediately got into rides, there were basically no lines all day today, it was awesome! We got the younger girls to ride Tower of Terror for the first time, and they were really scared before we got on it, it was so funny. After we rode them, Bonanza turned to me and asked, “Is that all? I thought it would be scarier.” and I couldn’t help but laugh at how nervous she was before to her being just fine afterwards. That night, Husband and I went to Blue Bayou to eat, and it’s delicious, but we didn’t bring everyone, because it’s just so much money. My throat had started to hurt during dinner, and I’m hoping it doesn’t turn into anything.

After dinner, he went to pick up the final brother from the airport, and I joined up with everyone else for Fantasmic, and it was awesome. I just love this place.