Favorite Memories

I really struggled a while to know if I should write this here. After some encouragement from Chelle, I’ve decided to go ahead and do so. All of us children (well, the children and the spouses) were asked to speak at the funeral, and of course, I said yes from the get go. And then a day or so, I started to panic. There would be so many people there, and I’d have to speak in front of all of them. So tonight, after the viewing, I finally sat down to write out the talk. I knew that if I didn’t write it out, I wouldn’t be able to remember any of it, and I’d mumble and cry, and that would be it. We had all decided to talk on our favorite memories of them – the memories we had that we enjoyed the most, and after I thought, I had my memories, and here they are to be shared with you.

One of my favorite memories of Sue is when she was helping me. It was a while ago, and Husband was out of town on business. It was a Thursday night, I think, and after I got home from work, I just didn't want to be alone in the house. I don't know why, I don't know what was going on with me, but I didn't want to be alone, and I felt dumb just calling up anyone to admit what a sissy I was being, that I couldn't be alone. On the drive home, I was trying to think of reasons that I could call someone or invite them over, but I couldn’t come up with anything plausible. Of course, Husband and I talked for a few minutes on the phone, like we always do when he’s out of town, and I told him what I was feeling, and he just kept telling me to call someone, which my pride wouldn't let me do, so I said no, and that I'd just tough it out by myself. I hung up with him, and about 20 minutes later, there's a knock at my door, and when I open it, there's Sue, Anne, and Autumn, arms full of cookie dough, ice cream, cookies, and banana-split fixings. Of course, the first thing out of my mouth is “Adam called you, didn't he?” and yes, he had. So instead of them doing whatever it was that they were doing, they spent the evening with me, stuffing ourselves to the gills with unhealthy delicious food. And as they were leaving, Sue offered to spend the night, in case I needed more support, but I was just blown away by the whole thing. I know she had other things to do that night, maybe even important things, but in true Sue fashion, she stopped what she was doing to help someone else, and I'll never forget that, I'll always remember her coming to my aid when I needed it, and was too proud to ask for it.

My favorite Steve memory is one that happened when we invited them over for our first home dinner when we bought our house. Steve is really smart. Like, always has been really smart, honor roll, etc. So on this day, after we had finished dinner, Steve finds out that I own Mastermind (the game) and immediately he wants to get a game going. I'm sure people probably know this game, but just in case, two people play. Person A, or Steve in our game, picks 4 colors of pegs, and sets them in a specific order. Person B, or me, is supposed to pick the right colors, in the right order, to win. Now, he is great at this game, but I am terrible. So I remember playing this game for like, a straight hour, and I am HORRIBLE at it. And I can tell he feels bad for me, because he's giving me so many more hints than you're supposed to be given. And he's trying to help me win, and even Sue is trying to help me, but I keep thinking, I can do this by myself, I don't need help! Of course, I didn't win, I didn't even come close, but it was just so much fun. And then, we switch places, and I pick the pegs, and I think he won within, like, 5 moves. I haven’t played that game again since then, and that was 2 years ago. I’m not saying he scarred me, but still…

So there they are, my memories. These are ones I’ll definitely remember and hang onto, as well as the tons of other memories I’ve had. And as the old saying goes, as cliché as it is, they may be gone, but they’re not forgotten.

Week Events

This has been a crazy week. With the loss of my in-laws, there have been too many things we need to do before their funeral this weekend. I took time off work, and stepped in to help as much as I can. At one point, I was watching the little kids while people were dealing with things. It had been about 30 minutes, and I was trying to get them to go down for a nap, because I thought that’s what kids did. So I told them we’d all be going downstairs for movie time, and led them down the hardwood stairs. After a few steps, I had turned the corner, and I heard a huge THUD and an immediate cry. I turned around, and my niece Lily, who is 3, had slipped on her flip flop, and smashed her face into the stair. Her eye immediately swelled up, but luckily, it didn’t break the skin, no blood. I picked her up in a hurry, got some ice, and tried to get the swelling down. After a few minutes, she whimpered herself to sleep, and we (there was someone else there too, a cousin) covered her up with a blanket, with the ice on her face, and waited a while to tell her mom. Not because we’d be in trouble, but with so much going on, we didn’t want to add more to her plate. Here’s what Lily looked like, 4 days after the incident.

Believe me when I say, it’s a huge improvement over what it did look like.

After taking care of Cookie for a couple of days, I brought her back. Since we were spending the bulk of our time at the big house with everyone, it made sense that we had her there. I think that with the amount of people in for everything, and maybe someone fed her something she wasn’t supposed to eat, or something, but she got sick. Like…go to the bathroom all over her cage…and herself…and everything else…and vomit…kind of sick. The foreign exchange student that lives with my sister-in-law was graduating from high school today, so while everyone went to the graduation, I stayed behind to clean up Cookie. After cleaning her cage, and mopping the floor, and giving her a bath, the desire for me to have a dog vanished completely. Thanks, Cookie.

Our Great Loss

I’ve thought for a few days of how to write this post. I’m really only good at writing light hearted, semi-funny blog posts about cooking or running. So this one will be different. I’m sure that most of you who read this have heard the news already, but this past weekend, my in-laws tragically lost their lives in an accident in their motor home in St George. Here’s a pretty good news piece about it:

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=25306526

We’ve been getting through it ok. There are less tears with each day, and things are coming together. There are sad moments still, and will be for some tine. They were amazing people, my Momsie and Papa Steve. We had so much fun together, all the time. I know the cliché is to not get along with your in-laws, but I did, and really well. As I sit here and ponder our relationship, and the many fun times we had, I will miss so many things in the years to come. My heart aches for Adam and his siblings, especially the younger ones, who will now face growing up without their parents. The rest of us will try to step up, and help in every way we can, but of course it won’t be the same. This week will be one of the hardest ones I’ve ever had to go through, but I’m sure with the help of loved ones, I’ll get through it with the strength I need.

I think one of the things I’ll miss most were the half-hugs that my father-in-law would give. I don’t know why he did this – but he gave an odd sort of half-hug, and it always made me laugh. I can’t even explain it properly in here, but it was just something he did. And with Momsie, I’ll miss the excitement and fun we had together, plotting future vacations, and ganging up on Adam. They were two really awesome people, and were so welcoming of me into their family. I will miss them a lot.

Cookie

This is Cookie.

I’m taking care of Cookie for a couple of days.

Cookie bit me in the face today.

I don’t care for Cookie.

Cookie and I aren’t friends.

Miscellaneous Monday

Saturday, as I was at home, doing nothing in particular, the doorbell rang. Since it was a Saturday night, and people usually don’t come over on the weekend, I had no idea who it would be. When I opened it, it was someone from my ward, asking me if I would substitute for her for Primary the next day. I’ll be honest, I absolutely didn’t want to, but since she was right in my face asking, I couldn’t think of an excuse quickly enough, so I had to say yes. That was the weirdest thing to me – I’ve never had someone come to my house before to ask me to sub, so now I need to know how to deflect that. I’ll work on it.

On Friday night when I got home, I had given myself the goal to do my laundry before I went to sleep that night. I got home from seeing the new Star Trek movie (great film, everyone) at about 9:30, and got to work. I threw some clothes into the washing machine, then killed time by cleaning the kitchen, including wiping the counters, sweeping, mopping. Then I vacuumed the whole house, threw in another load, dusted the house, and folded the clothes before, finally, it turned 12:30, and I thought, I really should get some sleep. I felt so productive! I encourage everyone to stay up for hours and hours to clean your house. (I don’t)

TV shows are coming to end. The finales are here, the shows are all wrapping up, and that makes me happy, I think now I can finally feel like my DVR isn’t completely full all the time of a hundred shows. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m caught up on stuff, I’m still at least 2 weeks behind on every single show, but at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel…I know that things are very nearly over.

Foto Friday

I went and visited my older sister the other day, and she has three small kittens that were born recently, they are really small. I wanted to take one home with me, even though I think cats are the devil. Honestly, there is not a worse animal in the world. But I think kittens are to die for, because they’re just so small and cute. When they get bigger, they’re awful and gross and evil. But I held this kitten anyway.

It may look fancy, being in black and white, but that’s only because I have super red eye in the pic, and the cat has devil shiny eyes, so this way, we look ok. But look how small it is! We’re best friends! Until he gets bigger, and then I don’t want anything to do with him.

Peanut Butter/Cool Whip Treat

I was the hostess for this weeks Stamp & Chat, and I was excited to finally make these treats – I’d been saving them for the next one. This one always looked really easy, and sort of healthy, so I was psyched. The recipe is thus:

3 tablespoons peanut butter
8 oz Cool Whip, thawed
Hershey’s chocolate sauce

Mix the Cool Whip and peanut butter together, until smooth and totally combined. Spoon the mixture into 12 lined cupcake tins. Drizzle with chocolate sauce. Freeze.

These were so easy, and super yummy. I only put chocolate sauce on some of them, I wanted to see how it would taste both with and without, and to be honest, they were both really good, I liked it both ways.

So, make this one and all, and enjoy!

Miscellaneous Monday

This past week, Chelle and I were down in the breakroom, grabbing a drink, reading the local paper, and getting some candy. It’s possible we figured out that you didn’t have to put a quarter in one of the machines to get some candy, so we kept turning the dial, and kept getting candy. I plan on putting quarters in at some point to make up for the ones we got for freesies. This is how many I squirreled away.

Yesterday, I was getting ready to do my morning run, and my finger hurt, so I looked down at it. I don’t even know how it happened, but all of a sudden, I had a cut on my finger about a half an inch long, and it was bleeding. For the life of me, I honestly can’t remember at all where it came from. I’m not sure where it even COULD have happened, but that’s ok, I’ll just keep it covered until it heals, and try to figure out where the heck I cut myself, to avoid it for the future.

Now that it’s time for summer, its race season time. I was looking over my upcoming race schedule, and I have like, 2 races per month until September. In case you were dying to know what races I’ll be doing this year, in case you wanted to do one: Memorial Day 10k, Art City 5k, Summerfest 5k, Roundup 10k, Freedom Festival 10k, Lindon Days 5k, Hobble Creek half-marathon, Color Run 5k, Swiss Days 10k, South Jordan half-marathon, and the Turkey Trot. So in the upcoming 7 months, I’ll at least be running 67.4 miles, or 106K. I look forward to the challenge…but not all the money I’ll be paying to run these.

Foto Friday

Tonight, I saw the Great Gatsby. I went to a different theater than my usual one – my usual one was all sold out. As we were walking in, I saw a REALLY big, bigger than life-size cut-out of Iron Man, and I am always pleased to see Robert Downey Jr, no matter the context.

Naturally, I took a picture of myself with him. I wish I got the face in with it, but that’s ok, I know its there.

Also, I want to point out that I’m not crazy.

A New Table

For some time now, I haven’t really liked my coffee table upstairs. But I have really specific requirements for the table up there, so it’s been a slow process for it. It has to be high enough for me to work on (because I like to make my cards and scrapbook up on it) and it has to be wide enough to have people sit at it and eat (for when we have game day and we use the table as a sort of dinner table. We’re just lazy is all) so it’s been hard to find one that fits both of those. But after having been to many a place around the good cities of Orem, Provo, etc, I finally tried a place I’d never been to, Furnish It. I found a table, that came in a 3 piece of a table, and two end tables. So after placing an order for it, it finally got into the store a week or two later. When it came in, I got the call, and I was trying to figure out how to pick it up – since my car and Husband’s car is pretty small. Luckily, Chelle came through for me – she had an SUV that she drove and helped me.

After I got home with it, it took me a good ten minutes to move the box from outside to inside. Then I tried to get it up the stairs with no luck at all. After about 30 minutes, I gave up, and 30 minutes later, Husband came home and helped me move it upstairs. Then we put the table together. Here it is after it’s done:

Ta-ddaaaa! Looking pretty good, if I do say so myself. By the time we got this together, it was time for me to go to bed, so I just left everything where it was, and the next day, I came back to put together the end tables. They were time consuming, and by the time I finished, my thumb hurt from using the allen wrench to put it together, but they were together good.

And now, my tables are complete. And one of the greatest things about this new table, is that it can come up to meet me! I can be so lazy!

I can hide things like candy in here! I really enjoy this table, and I’m psyched I finally have a table that I like.

Miscellaneous Monday

Yesterday, I was getting ready to put my dinner in the crockpot, so I was gathering the ingredients that I needed. I noticed that I didn't have one thing - cornstarch. I SWEAR I had some, I swear, but the only thing I found in the pantry was cornmeal, so that must be what I was thinking. Since people were still outside my house, walking home, I was like, who can I text to see if they have cornstarch? I had my visiting teacher on my phone, so I shot her a text, and luckily, she texted right back, and had some! So, in my Sunday best, I walked over to her house to get my cornstarch, and then my dinner ended up being delicious.

Good news, everyone. As a follow up to last week, my basement is dry. It finally dried up on Wednesday. Last Monday, we steam cleaned down there, soaked up a TON of water, and that really helped. The carpet is dry, and nothing smells weird, so I'm hoping we don't have any lingering problems, or mold, or anything. I just don't think I could handle things like that very well right now. Anything house related, where it might be a big or costly repair, I don't do well with that.

I sang in church yesterday. I know, I know, everyone sings in church every Sunday, but this week, I was singing in a trio with 2 other ladies. A few weeks ago in RS, they passed out a sign up sheet for people that were willing to sing in a group. I did put my name on this, mostly because I was pressured into it by my visiting teacher. I got a text on Thursday evening from a new friend I've made in the ward, asking if I would sing on Sunday, with my VT and her. I for sure thought that because of this sheet, I felt like I couldn't say no. They told me the song we were singing, and I had never even heard it before! I listened to it, and I thought...this song sucks. But, I was still going to, obvs. On Sunday morning, we all met to practice, so after we ran through the song a few times, we were confident in it. Well, they were, I was terrified of the prospect of singing in front of people, even if it's just RS women. So, RS came, and after sitting through some of a lesson, they called us up to sing. I was SHAKING and NERVOUS, but up I went. I had to hold my hands behind my back so they wouldn't shake too much. So, we sing, and I honestly don't know if I sang on key or what even happened, but we finished, and we sat back down. Of course, as soon as we sat down, my body just reacted to all the nerves of being so terrified so of course, I cried like a sissy, and then it was over and done with, and I am just happy it's over.

A Good Day for a 5K.

Yesterday was the Provo City Marathon/Half Marathon/5k. Having just done the SLC half, I opted to do the 5k for this one. The race started pretty late (well, for race standards) at 9:00. PJ and I rolled into the race at about 8:45, and getting my race packet, and affixing my number to myself, I waited around for it to get started. At the Provo race, they have a thing where the mayor of the city does this race, and he starts 1 minute earlier than the rest of us, and if you beat the mayor, you get a sticker for it. I’ve never been able to do this. I think one year, I was close, but he was definitely ahead of me. I’ve been feeling no good going into this race. Not like, sick or anything, but I feel like my running has slacked off this winter, because I’ve been lazy, and I’ve been running shorter distances all season, and at slower paces, so I went into this knowing I would struggle. We all lined up, and after the mayor took off, the gun went off.

I took off at a pretty good pace, not too fast, but not a slower one. After a few minutes, the people did what they usually do, and we all thin out, we don’t run right next to each other. I do this thing in races, I pick out someone a little bit ahead of me, and I want to beat them. So, I keep them in my head, and if I happen to pass them, I pick someone else. There was a girl that I had run passed, and after a few minutes, she passed me again. and went a bit in front of me. I still had her in my mind as someone I wanted to pass, but I was just right behind her. We were almost side to side. I got to the second mile, and in my brain, I went, ok, there’s just one mile left, so I can give it all I’ve got, and then that’s it, I’ll spend the day recovering from it. So I took off, and left the girl behind, and finally, there was the finish line, and I went as fast as I could at this point, and crossed the finish line. When I got there, they cut off my chip, and handed me a slip of paper. I got to the water, took a cup, and then looked at the paper they gave me:

I beat the mayor! I didn’t expect that to happen at all! I waited a few minutes, then PJ crossed the line, and we cooled down. After a couple of minutes, they posted the race results, and I went to look at how I did. And…I was third in my age group! I couldn’t believe it, I was so psyched. So, after a loooong time of waiting (seriously, it was an hour) finally, they had an “awards ceremony” (really, just a guy standing by a table shouting names) and I got one!

Huzzah! I was really psyched for this, because I was just so doubtful, and I thought I had no chance. I’m going to step up my running again, I need to get back to the fitness level I was at last year, but at least now I know I’m not as far back as I thought, and that makes me feel pretty good.

The Last Game

Today, sadly, was our last game for the Angels. I have had so much fun with these girls, I’ll always be thankful to Chelle for including me in this team. We had an awesome last week of games, we won both of them! Tonight’s game was a good victory, but I felt so bad for a few of the girls, one of them was really sick, another one also had a tummyache, so they were doing the best that they could, but they just didn’t feel 100%. But they played so well, and they won! I tried to snap a pic of them, and this is the one I got, but only like, 2 of the girls are looking at the camera, I had zero luck here:

It was a warm game, they were so thirsty! After the game, we had a season wrap up pizza party at Two Jacks pizza, it was really good. And we, as coaches, got the girls their own mini pizzas. Chelle and I shared one with delicious toppings (as soon as we took off the mushrooms):

After a lot of farewells, our season is now done and over. I really want to coach again in the fall, I hope we get the opportunity! I’m sad the season is all done with, I had such a blast doing this!

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve been trying to make these cookies for days now, and time just hasn’t been on my side. But today, even though things were a little busy, I finally got to make them! First of all, my and Chelle’s team The Angels had their first win tonight! Too bad our last game is Friday now with this win! But I got home, I immediately threw some laundry into the machine, and made the cookies. I successfully made the cookies while doing a couple of other things, and it worked out, for the most part. But here’s the recipe:

1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup + 1 TBS brown sugar, packed
2 eggs {at room temperature}
1 TBS. pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
1.5-2 cups shredded coconut (Optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Spray a cookie sheet. In a mixing bowl, use a mixer to beat the the coconut oil and brown sugar.  Add in the eggs and beat until fluffy.  Add in the vanilla extract. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder with whisk.  Mix the flour mixture into the coconut oil mixture a little bit at a time until all the flour is incorporated.  Add in the chocolate chips and coconut and mix well. Drop by small rounded spoons onto prepared baking sheets. {I used a small cookie scoop)

Bake for about 8 - 9 minutes or until slightly browned around the edges. They will be really soft and chewy, with a slightly crispy edge. Let them rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before removing to rack to cool completely.

I’m not going to lie – these are pretty delish. I really like them. After I made the first two batches, the washing machine was finished. So I went in, switched the whites out for the colors, and then after that was done, I did some things on my iPod, then did this and that, and then Husband came in, and I said hello, and then we were chatting, and after I grabbed the mail, and was going through it, that’s when I remembered the last batch of cookies were still in the oven! GAH! So I quickly got them out, and while they are overcooked, they’re not super burned. I still don’t know if I’ll eat them or what, they’re just sitting on the table…looking at me. But anyway, I recommend these, and they’re super easy!