an open love letter

A couple nights ago I awoke at 3 in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep. I snuggled up behind Randy and threw my arm around him. He sighed and brushed his hand with mine before falling back into a deep sleep. As I lay there I began to think about how blessed I was to have someone to sleep next to every night, who I could wrap my arms around, and who would wrap theirs around me. I thought about how lucky I was to have someone who made me feel so safe, so content, and so loved. I had a wave of affection wash over me and I had to resist an urge to squeeze him as he slumbered.

Later, when my arm fell asleep I rolled onto my back. Randy pushed away from the side of the bed and turned, completely crushing my whole right side. He then began to snore; a high pitched wheezy snore like that of a baby elephant.

Lucky guys. Soooo lucky.

technical difficulties and then some...

So lately posting on the blog has been kind of tough. Dell has finally found a way to keep us off the internet. We're not sure how he's done it but so far he has successfully thwarted our efforts to reestablish domination. We can't figure out the problem and have called MSN and Quest. MSN actually told Randy after two hours that they couldn't do anything else for him. I have been posting at my sister's home. Dell is looking really rather smug.

I hate him.

On another note I too have been in and out of commission. It seems that a practice that I have so far been quite proud of has gotten me into some trouble. I call it "holding it" and I felt it was a pretty good ability to have. It seems that you can hold it too long unfortunately and Sunday night it caught up to me. I managed to get a full blown urinary tract infection. Cool huh? That's how good I am. I figured if I am any type of blog writer I can poke fun at this too, so I came up with some pros and cons to go with my current condition.

Pro: Have had 4 consecutive days off in a row.
Con: Spend a good chunk of that 4 days writhing in bed while it felt that my kidney had shrunken up like a nuked potato. Was also peeing or wanting to pee every fourteen seconds.

Pro: Have a new glimmer of hope. While visiting the doctor to see if I would die, I also have another crack at the sinus infection that has been the bane of my existence for three months.
Con: The pharmaceutical cocktail that the doctor set me up with to combat both infections found me heaped on the floor in front of the register, crying, over the 150 dollar drug bill.

Pro: New drug I have received makes me pee bright orange. After the initial shock of finding that I am a living breathing Tang dispenser I decided its cool. I'm easily amused. I have no other excuse.
Con: For a bit I couldn't think of a con for this sweet side effect. Then I found that it can also color tears and in turn permanently discolor my soft contact lenses. Okey Dokey.

So there is just a little bit of what I have been up to. Here's hoping that the next time you have four days off they are a little better then mine!

bitterness ensues

Can someone, anyone, PLEASE tell me what this is about?!? I mean seriously?

What IS this???

Why is it that whenever I buy a candy that has multiple flavors in the package I get a shocking lack of the best flavor?? ONE green? Come-on people! Never fails. But don't worry I will get at least half a bag of the lemon which I believe, in all civilized societies, is looked down upon for its numerous "bleh" qualities.

Its like when you were a kid and picked out a cereal that you didn't really loooove as much as you led your parents to believe so you could get the groovy prize inside. Later you find that after you had searched both sides of the bag and emptied the whole box into your Mom's largest Tupperware bowl, that you'd been ripped off, and had managed to pick the one in a hundred that they had conveniently left the prize out of. Yeah remember THAT disappointment?

Still stings.. doesn't it?

Now you know how I feel.

the not-so-great outdoors

My friend Lucky Unlucky recently blogged about the movie Into The Wild and left a question out there. Do we think we could leave behind all our worldly possessions and live in the wild with a few meager belongings and leave the everything behind?

I could totally see myself doing that.
I'd leave behind my cute strappy heels, my flat iron, my mascara, my internet, and my Murano. All of my luxury possessions would be cast aside; my down comforter, my throw pillows, my fleece bathrobe. I would hunt and fish for just what I needed to survive. I would be one with nature and would become friends with forest foxes and watch the Grizzly from a respectful distance. I'd gather nuts and berries and would make a suitable winter home, perhaps out of a hollowed tree trunk ala My Side of the Mountain. Also, I would be drunk.

No, more seriously, it would take alcohol AND some serious mind-altering drugs to get me to do that.

As a matter of fact I can't think of much I'd rather do LESS. Its ranked right up there with major in trig and take a kindergarten class to a meat packing company. This is more like what would really happen:

I'd try to pack everything. The mascara, the flat iron, the internet. That's right, its all going in my designer carry-all.
I'd drive up to the mountains in my Murano.
I'd walk for awhile. But not too far cause its hard to carry all that stuff in cute strappy heels.
I'd see fish in the river and my stomach would growl. I'd mumble, "sushi" in my delirium.
I'd try to pet a fox unsuccessfully while calling it "puppy" and would get eaten by a Grizzly.

That's it in a nutshell. I'm a city girl.
I don't even like to camp. But that's another blog post.

attention lurkers

I started this blog both as a fun way to keep in touch with family and friends and also as a way to meet new ones (friends that is, unfortunately, I'm stuck with the family lol). Maybe to show off the occassional picture or two when I was feeling real proud of myself or needed a good ego stroking. I write it to exchange fun ideas or just to have someone to comiserate when I needed a good ranting. I like to hear good recipes, or funny stories, or see cute kid pictures.

You know, the usual stuff.

The problem is I need more commenters and less lurkers! Comments are fun guys! I like comments! Even if I don't know you and you just happened to wander by from a friend's blog, if you have an opinion about something written... tell me. I don't mind. I like to hear people's insight.

And to all of my internet or blog retarded friends who are scared of this new fangled technology stuff (Frazier, I speak unto you!) its really easy. I have made my comments so that you don't need an account, google, blogger or otherwise. Click on the comments under the entry and just hit the 'other' key and put in your name. However, the whole blog thing is really easy to set up and if Di can do it anyone can! Yes, that was a cheap shot at my good friend at Cheesy Goodness, but I repay it with a plug, see?

So guys... I'm gonna look real sad and pathetic if I don't get any comments on this thing. I'll be that poor unpopular blogging girl. So give me a shout out!! And if your late no biggie, I'll know when I have a comment.

In the mean time I want to thank all that joined my little blogging family. I felt so proud inside. Here I was, spreading like an infectious rash, or a case of TB. If you have a blog or a website, let me know, I would love to link it.

Peace out.

stick it to the man

I love the Cheesecake Factory. I love, LOVE, LOOOOVE it.

I pretty much want to marry it.

At some point, on any trip to Las Vegas in the past, you would be sure to find me sprawled in the licked-free-of-debris Chicken Madeira plate while doing the Homer Simpson gargle to the last swallow of mango marguerita and berating my server loudly to make my cheese-cake-to-go reeeeal snappy.

I was thrilled when I found out that we, in Utah, were finally deemed worthy to have our very own Cheesecake factory. Sometime back one of our local news stations had ran a report that they were looking for new areas to expand and had several states that they were looking into. Unfortunately they said that the owners of the Cheesecake Factory, in their infinite wisdom, only built their restaurants where the college education rate was above a certain percentage and Utah fell below that rate. Now I never finished college and I don't know how right I may be, but I came up with a few hypothesis as to why maybe they use that percentage as a location factor:

1. College educated people go to school a lot. That makes them hungry.

2. Smart people are fat. Fat people eat more.

3. College educated people generally make more and thus eat out more often.

I'm not sure if any of them are close to their reasoning but I am glad they rethought their decision cause I felt it was pretty weak. Its not that Utah is the Land of the Stupids or anything like that or we just quit going to the school house when Pa needed us back on the farm. Actually the rate of students continuing on to college is pretty high around these parts. The problem actually comes from the fact that many students, once wisened up, leave in a mass exodus like flocks of ducks seeking warmer climes. Our biggest export is good college educated people. They act like Utah is a big family. All the good smart kids go to school move out and get jobs and all the stupid kids stay home and live with Ma and Pa.

Maybe that's why although we finally got our own place its scandalously fun-sized. You can fit three of our Cheesecake Factories into the one in Vegas and probably still have room for Celine's farewell party for her dancers.

Every time I drive by around dinner dining hours there is a crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk with over an hour wait. I went at a quarter to ten recently and was told it would still be 45 minutes. I guess they underestimated us. Do they not know that we all dream of having a family with eight kids and we can only leave one at home locked in the closet before the neighbors become suspicious? That we might not buy the alcohol but we make up for that in sheer numbers? So the next time you stop by (I highly recommend you do if you haven't yet) and you're waiting outside huddled against a no parking sign for warmth for an hour and a half in order to give them money for their delicious moderately priced fare, and then hurried out again like cattle in a shute while still trying vainly to scrape the last crumb off the plate, just feel happy that you're showing those high paid exec types up. Guess we're not as dumb as they thought we were.

any place Kevin Bacon worked is A-OK with me

Today I baked.

I never bake. I cook. As a matter of fact I have said on numerous occasions how much I hate to bake. Cooking is more fun. You can experiment. You can toss a little of this in, toss in a little of that. Baking, if you toss in a little more of this or substitute a little of that instead you end up with something globular, bitter, and strangely deformed. I'm sure my friend Lucky remembers our very brief stint as makers of meringue and sugar cookies. Folks, the meringue ended up looking like overly tanned inverted nipples. They were strangely chewy and I won't even start on how it tasted. Bakers need to be precise. I'm not. Thats why I'm not left brained.

They probably enjoy math too. Yuck.

Today I diverged strangely out of my usual path and made some raspberry muffins. They were GOOD. They had these lovely little cinammon and suger crumbles on the top. I was very pleased with myself. They came out of a bag. Oh how I love Lehi Roller Mills. Way to help out a not-a-baker guys! I figure these are just as good if not better then any made by those baking snobs that think anything out of a box is trash. I have had muffins from a bakery that paled in comparison. The Roller Mills also make the best pumpkin bundt cake EVER.

So, the point is, I will continue to take the easy way out. I like what I get from it and it saves me a lot of work, mess and irritation. For all else... I have a Stubborn Foodie.

Is there anything out there that makes your life so much easier and yet tastes so good that its just not right?? What are your favorite time savers cooking, baking or otherwise? Don't hold out on the rest of us!