Super Karen

Color Quiz

2012-01-18T21:45:00.002-07:00

Hey folks,

I know, I know... long time no post. I've been a bit crazy and haven't really had the energy to post. Today a friend posted a link to a kind of personality quiz online, and I went ahead and took it. It only took a few minutes, and some of the things the results said were strangely accurate. Since you are probably interested in my life if you read this blog, I thought I'd share. I might share actual details about my actual life sometime, rather than results from a silly test, but hey... this is better than nothing, right?

Your Existing Situation

"Organized and detail-oriented, she has a very precise and methodical manner.  she needs relationships which offer her understanding, respect, and approval."

Your Stress Sources

"Current problems are seen as dangerous and threatening.  she is angry a the thought she will have to continually put off her own goals for the time being, leaving her feeling powerless to change things.  she feels used, overwhelmed, and exhausted at the demands placed on her. "

Your Restrained Characteristics

Open and emotionally involved in relationships and easily finds satisfaction through sexual activity.

Giving more than she is getting back and feels misunderstood and unappreciated.  Feels she is being forced into compromising and even her close relationships leave her feeling emotional distant.

"Believes her hopes and dreams are realistic and sticks to them stubbornly, even though circumstances are forcing her to compromise.  Very precise in the qualities she seeks in a partner."

Open and emotionally involved in relationships and easily finds satisfaction through sexual activity.

"Believes her hopes and dreams are realistic and sticks to them stubbornly, even though circumstances are forcing her to compromise.  Very precise in the qualities she seeks in a partner."

Your Desired Objective

Seeks to be known for something she has accomplished and uses her social abilities to win people over.  Emotional and sensitive and romantic.

Your Actual Problem

"Feeling a lack of energy, she does not wish to be involved in further activity or give in to demands.  she is feeling powerless causing her stress, agitation, and irritation, all which she tries to escape by refusing to participate altogether.  she tries to escape into a fantasy world where things go her way and her desires are easier to reach."

P.S. Yes, yes it did mention the sex thing twice. Kinda funny, seeing as I've had one date in the past 2 years (and no, there was no sex involved on said date).

I'm gonna help Book Bomb!

2011-11-09T16:13:00.003-07:00

Hello Everybody,

So, um... I feel off the blog wagon. I'm going to try and get back on. I do have some fun stories to tell, I just need to sit down and type them up. In the mean time, here's a good cause that may be worth checking out. It involves books, so I'm totally in. I've just copied and pasted a post from Monster Hunter Nation, seeing as how he told the story better than I could:

Mark your calender. On Thursday, November 10th, I’m going to book bomb somebody, and not only that, I’m going to ask all of you for help spread the word because this particular author is in dire need of a boost.

I’ve already plugged Variant by Robison Wells once before. I know many of you read it and liked it. Rob is a friend of mine and a member of Writer Nerd Game Night. Variant is an excellent read, sort of a sci-fi take on Lord of the Flies with a twist, and don’t just take my word for it, it made the Publisher’s Weekly list of the top books of the year. (which is quite the honor, despite PW hating Hard Magic and giving it a sloppy review that made it obvious their lazy ass reviewer only read the first 1/4 of the book. Ultra good Grimnoir and ultra evil Imperium my ass)
But I digress. Variant was one of the best books I’ve read this year. I stayed up late to read it in one sitting.

Normally I wouldn’t bomb the same book again, but Rob is also going through a really tough time. A little while ago he was diagnosed with a severe panic disorder. Basically, something in his brain chemistry has gone out of whack, and his fight or flight reflex is constantly switched on. As a result this has really screwed up his life. He has been trying to get it under control and his doctors have been experimenting with different treatments trying to find the one that will click.
Recently, Rob was laid off from his day job as a result of his illness. This is a real financial hardship for him and his family.

What many people don’t realize about writers is that we keep our day jobs until we have about five or six books in circulation, and sometimes longer depending on how well they are selling. Writing isn’t the most steady of paychecks. (I’m doing well enough now that I could just be a writer, but I happen to love my day job, so I plan on doing it for probably another year). You’ve got to earn back the advance and even then you only get paid every six months. Variant is Rob’s first book on the national market. He had a ways to go before he would be able to quit the day job, but his illness totally wrecked that plan.

So I want to book bomb the HELL out of Variant. I want to shove that thing up the bestseller lists on Amazon and I want to give my friend a hand.

What is a book bomb? Well, Amazon has its own bestseller list. It is calculated hourly and you are given a sales rank based up on how you stack up against the other six million books on there. It is some sort of strange rolling average algorhythm, but what it comes down to is, the more books that are purchased during that particular time frame, the higher you rank. The higher you rank, the more of their top 50 or top 10 lists you show up on. The more of those you show up on, the higher you go, the more attention you get, the more books you sell.

By getting as many people as possible to purchase the book on a single day, it really kicks a book up the rankings.

So mark your calenders, this Thurday the 10th.
Amazon link to Variant: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0062026089&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

If you were planning on buying a book anyway, I highly recommend Variant. I recommended it before its author fell on really hard times. Unlike most of my stuff, it is appropriate for adults and teenagers. My 11 and 9 year olds have both read it and really liked it, but they read grown up books anyway. So it makes a good Christmas present. Even the lovely Mrs. Correia really liked Variant, and she is the toughest critic I know.

If you’ve got a blog, I’d like to ask a favor and please post about this. Rob is a good dude and needs a hand. And you get an awesome book out of the deal.

I’ll put up another post on Thursday linking to some reviews.

EDIT: And here is Rob’s blog, http://www.robisonwells.com/ He doesn’t know I’m doing this yet.

Vanity

2011-07-17T22:16:00.000-06:00

So I am going to brave the Arizona DMV (or MVD as they call it here) this week to register my car. I'm thinking about getting a personalized license plate. You know, to give my mode of transportation that added personal touch. Here are some ideas I have:

This one is self-explanitory

As is this one:

As in "May DAFORCE be with you." I am a nerd, its true...

I'd be worried that someone would think I'm a "do you want to see my rash" kind of a Dr. With this one...

A shortened form of my name. Well, with my pretend middle initial in the middle...

Maikar. As in not your car.

"KAREN" is taken. This one still gets the point across...

This one references the "Mistborn" trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. I'm a HUGE fan of his work.

Karen spelled backwards. Watcher in the woods, anyone?

This one is self-explanatory as well.

So what do you think?

If you think of a different one, you can check the availability here. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post with your idea. I'm sure some of you will think of something awesome that I haven't.

I'll be going in Thursday or Friday, so make sure you pick something by then!

Fun with Ginger

2011-07-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

Here is exhibit A:

Here is exhibit B:

I found a blog post on making your own Ginger Ale and had to try it. It turned out to be really easy.

You just get a few pieces of ginger root and a few lemons

You rough chop the ginger and grind it up in a food processor with some sugar

Until it makes a paste

You add some water, the lemon juice (and the zest if you want) and bring it to a boil. You let it simmer for a half-hour or so and then strain out the liquid. Add some of your ginger syrup to some carbonated water and enjoy!

It's pretty good. Sweet, yet kinda spicy from the ginger. I dig it.

"Winging It" and Caramel Don't Mix

2011-07-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

When I went to Denver last month I had a cinnamon roll that was covered in caramel instead of frosting.

Blew my mind. It was A-Ma-Zing. I took it as a personal challenge.

The cinnamon rolls came out pretty well. The yeast didn't work quite as well as normal, but they still rose some. Good enough. Ive made these cinnamon rolls often enough that I don't read the recipe. I just kinda wing it.

I've made caramel before, so I just decided to kinda wing that one too. Bad idea. You see, to make caramel, you mix sugar and water and heat it. Once the water boils away the temperature starts to rise and the sugar starts to burn. Caramel is burned sugar. The color of the mixture starts to darken and the flavor of the caramel gets a bit stronger.

I thought I would just watch the color of the caramel and know when to pull it from the heat intuitively. Not so much. If the sugar gets too dark, it gets bitter and nasty. This batch got bitter and nasty.

Even though it was 10:30 in the PM, I decided to try it again. Since I had used most of my supplies, I had to go to the store and get more cream. I tried it again, this time using the correct equipment. That is to say, I used an actual thermometer to tell when the sugar had caramelized to the correct degree. But this time I stirred it to much and the sugar crystallized out. I wasn't prepared to accept failure this time. I added several cups of water and wisked the crap out of it until all of the little crystals dissolved. And then I re-boiled it (with a thermometer) to be able to pull it off at the correct temperature. It worked this time.

And it was good... See?

Only When I'm With Amy

2011-07-11T15:00:00.000-06:00

So I'm not a girly girl. Most of you know this about me. I'm not little and cutesy, and that's ok. The aim of this post isn't to elicit sympathy or compliments or anything like that. I just need to establish a baseline for this post.

No matter where I am, I've usually had a friend or two who are little, or cute, or universally pretty. they are the ones that get noticed by the men-folk. Sometimes this results in them being asked out by a new guy every single week, sometimes it has allowed them to bat their eyes and get out of speeding tickets when they get pulled over, and sometimes this results in them getting stuff for free. I am not one of these people. Usually.

Once every blue moon or three, though...

There was this one time I was out with Amy for her birthday dinner. We went to The Trolley in Springville. I was on one that night, and giving the waiter a hard time the whole night. Well, at the end of the night, he asked if we wanted Amy's free birthday treat. We asked if we could have a piece of their famous carrot cake, because Amy and I had talked about how delicious it looked. He hesitated, saying that they normally only gave ice cream or something small, but then looked at me and said OK. This is the only time (that I can remember) flirting my way into something free. And, yes, the cake was delicious.

Fast forward to June of 2011. I went to Utah with the EVMCO (more about that later) and take some time to visit my go to my favorite Italian deli in Salt Lake City. Once again, I was on one, but due to lack of sleep this time. I was joking around with the dude behind the counter as I was ordering. He was kinda cute, but I was skipping town the next day (yes, I did bring this up in conversation) and so chose to be more excited about the sandwich I was getting.

Amy and I sit down and enjoy the food and the conversation. When we were done, we went up to the counter to get something for our leftovers, and the guy (Doug) gets all smiley and asks me if I'm on Facebook. I say yes, so he hands me his card and says that I should look him up if I ever make it back up to Utah.

This is his card...

I thank him, and manage to make it all the way outside before Amy and I start into the giggling. It took me by surprise and left me wondering...

These things only seem to happen when I'm with Amy. I need to hang out with her more often.

Haboobed

2011-07-09T16:02:00.000-06:00

No, Its not something dirty. A Habob is a massive dust storm. One hit Phoenix last week. This one was somewhere between 3 and 5 thousand feet high. Ka-razy.

Here's a video someone put together. It's pretty scary looking!

I should have gone outside to check it out. I just heard the crazy wind, looked up from my book, and said "sounds windy" to my new roommate Wendy. She looked up from her book and said, "yup" and then we both went back to reading. We're an exciting bunch.

I had no idea what was happening, but this is what I saw when I went outside the next morning...

And here's a side view:

There is still dust blowing all over the place several days later. Such exciting weather!

Collin and ShamanKat

2011-05-23T22:07:00.000-06:00

I'm a member of EVMCO, a local choir/orchestra. We had the privilege of playing a concert with Collin Raye this last weekend. It was super fun. That man has a voice like butter. Love it. I didn't shake his hand or anything (I figured that he was being mobbed by enough people) but was a really nice guy. I did give him a thumbs up as he was walking by once and he pointed at me as if to say "No, you are the one that deserves a thumbs up." He was probably right. I do deserve a thumbs up.

Seeing as I play percussion, we're off to the side of the orchestra towards the back. We don't play every song, so we have some chairs set up back there. Well, during rehearsal while he wasn't singing, but I was standing up playing, he did come and sit down in my chair. So there's that. I don't know that I would call it awesome or anything, but I can now say that I've sat in the same chair as an artist that had some #1 hits. I'm pretty much cool by association. Well, maybe just my backside. Since that's the part that was sitting in the chair. My cheeks are 3.4% cooler than they were the day before. Awesome. I took one picture during a rehearsal in a stake center on Friday night. He was way on the other side of the room, so the pic isn't a great one. I jazzed it up a bit, and put a singing-bubble so you could see where Collin was. Butter.

I'm coming up to Utah next week with EVMCO, and then I'll be in Denver for a week for work, so I have a LOT of work to get through this week. So tonight I walked down to Taco Bell to get some grub at dinner time. After I had eaten my chicken burrito and munched on some cinnamon twists, I start to walk back on campus. I was walking along, diet pepsi in one hand, nerdy sci-fi book in the other, and some guy asks me if I'll buy some art off of him for some change. Sure. Why not? He looks like a young, blonde, Chuck Norris with a ponytail, complete with black leather vest. And Chuck Norris is awesome. The internet says so.

Alas, he wasn't Chuck Norris. This guy goes by the name of ShamanKat. Yes, with a K in the middle of it. Mr. Not-Chuck-Norris starts rummaging through a backpack and pulls some pictures out of a binder. I tell him to give me whatever he's willing to part with for $5. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I figured that he needed the $5 more than I did. He gives me a credit-card sized magnifier thingy with a built in light and a picture of an elf.

Its actually a pretty cool picture, even if it does smell a bit weird. Like incense. (No, not like weed. Incense.)

Those are my awesome stories so far this week. Just thought I'd share with all of my devoted fans. If anything else awesome happens (that I'm willing to share with the world) I'll be sure and write a post about it.

May the 4th Be With You

2011-05-04T23:50:00.000-06:00

Well folks, its that time again... International STAR WARS DAY!!!

This year's festivities were a bit more low-key than those of last year, but there were still cupcakes.

These were a little easier to put together. Frost cupcakes in white, color the rest with quite a bit of cocoa to make the hair dark. The amount of dry cocoa powder that I added made the frosting pretty thick, so I had to thin it out prior to putting it in the piping bag. I made the bangs with the chocolate frosting, colored in the middle of the oreos so the white filling wouldn't show, and then I stuck the oreos to the sides with more chocolate frosting.

I did the lips and eyes and lips with gel colors I picked up at the grocery store. It's a pain to get frosting to a good, dark black or red color and I really didn't feel like dealing with it.

I think they turned out dang cute!

I also decided to make a "Bantha Milk" punch, rather than just coloring milk blue like I did last year. (The milk that comes from Banthas on Tatooine is blue. It's a Star Wars thing. Obviously)

"Bantha Milk" Punch

2 cans pineapple nectar (you could use regular pineapple juice)
4 pouches Kool-Aid Blue Raspberry Jammers
1/2 can coconut milk
1/4 cup Lemon Juice (needed a little more tartness)
1/4 cup sugar (needed a little more sweetness)

Mix all ingredients well just before serving. The coconut milk will slowly rise to the top, but just mix it back in and enjoy. It's a pina colada type of flavor. I really enjoyed it. The pineapple nectar was really yellow, so it turned more of a teal than the blue I was looking for, but it was a fun experiment. Pineapple juice would probably be a little less yellow.

May the force be with you all!

One Less Item on my Bucket List

2011-04-21T09:15:00.001-06:00

Turns out, they have a killer Ren-Faire in Arizona. I had a few friends that clued me in and took me with them. At the Faire, I paid $5 to ride an elephant. It was a really, really big animal. Like really big. In the words of the lady sitting in front of me "This is definitely the biggest thing I've had betw..."

Um... I'm not sure how many kids read the blog. Better leave it at that...

It wasn't a long ride, and it wasn't a fast ride, but it was pretty dang fun. And from this point forward, I can say "I have ridden an elephant." Good times!

Here's a few of the folks I went with. Yes, we're crazy, but not as crazy as a few of the folks we saw walking around. I have nothing against dressing up for these things. I was, in fact, rather jealous of a few of the people that were all medevially-gussied-up. But some of the costumes... yikes. Either because the people were rather... corpulent... and their costumes were rather snug... or because others weren't wearing nearly enough costume. Also, there was inappropriate use of chainmail. Nothing against chainmail, in and of itself, but I do question the judgement of females who wear halter tops made out of it with nothing underneath. For one, there were kids walking around. For two, there's a much greater danger of sunburn that way. And finally, I mean, move too quickly and you're likely to be pinched in a rather uncomfortable spot or two. Ouchie ouch ouch ouchie. No thank you.

We walked, we saw some shows (Hey Nunnie Nunnie was hilarious) attended the jousting tournament, and ate some giant smoked turkey legs. All in all, it was a pretty good day!

I do it because I can...

2011-04-19T09:40:00.001-06:00

Pi. A mathematical constant used all of the time in calculating things like the area of a circle and stuff.

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286... and so on and so forth.

Turns out there is a 3/14 that comes every year. And on this day, nerds of the world unite in the eating of pie. That delicious, wonderful dessert.

So on pie day of this year, I went to Village Inn and bought my favorite, strawberry rhubarb. And then I took it home, and started eating it from the middle. That's not something that you get to do very often. Its fun. I highly recommend it!

Finally, a use for ugly ties...

2011-04-17T21:12:00.000-06:00

So I got an email this week that had a really fun craft idea. It involved destroying ugly ties. How is that not something I would have fun doing? I went to DI and picked out my 6 favorites. I was just going to pick up 2 or 3, but they were only $1 each, and there were so many to choose from so I ended up with 6.

It's important that the ties are 100% silk. You'll have to check the labels, either the bit on the large half of the tie, or a little label tucked into the back of the small part of the tie. It will either say 100% silk, or All Silk. Either way.

Once you have your ties in hand, you want to cut them up the back and remove the material inside that keeps them in tie-shape. Also, cut out the lining that you see on the either end. You'll end up with long, skinny pieces of silk.

You can color hard-boiled eggs, but if you want to keep the eggs around longer, you can blow the shells empty and color them like that. If you do use hard-boiled, its important to not plan on eating the eggs. Tie-dying dye is different from food-dying dye. I wouldn't risk it.

To blow eggs, you poke a tiny hole in one end (I used a safety pin)

Then you poke a larger hole in the other end. Put your lips over the side with the small hole and blow into the egg. It takes quite a bit of pressure, but the guts will come out the other end. You can read here for how to do it with a baby snot-sucker thingy.

Once the eggs are have been hollow-ified, you cut a piece of the silk that will cover the egg completely. You also need another piece of material (preferably light-colored) that will fit around the egg as well. This will keep the color from the tie bleeding over from egg to egg. I used some quilting fabric that I didn't really like all that much. You want the right side of the silk (the part of the tie that was seen) to face the egg.

Wrap the material around the egg and secure with a twisty tie. You could use string here, but I think twisty ties make things a bit easier. Also, I would tie the silk bit first, and make sure that as much material as possible was in direct contact with the egg shell. I just tied both pieces of material at once. I wasn't able to make sure that the silk contact was at a maximum, so I ended up with more white swirly bits on my eggs than some of the pictures you see at other blogs.

Here are my little egg bundles. I started out with an even dozen, but had three casualties in the egg-blowing process.

After you're all wrapped up, put the eggs in a pot of boiling water with 1/4 C. vinegar added. I didn't measure the vinegar, just slopped some in. My pot probably had closer to 1/2 C. in there. It worked just fine.

You need to weigh down the eggs. Being hollow, they are pretty floaty otherwise. I used a vegetable steamer and put a glass of water on top. You don't want it heavy enough to crush the eggs, but you do want it heavy enough to keep them down.

Let them boil for 20 minutes or so. My kitchen pretty much reeked of vinegar both during and after this step. Also, the water turned pinkish from the tie dye.

Pull the eggs from the water, and let them cool completely before you unwrap them. I just let them sit overnight.

This is what I found when I did the opening upping. Here's the flowery one. I really didn't get enough of this tie in contact with the egg. Would have been even purdier if I had.

The red stripeys transferred really well, I think...

This tie was really ugly, but the egg turned out pretty fun.

The red paisley one was my favorite. Once again, it would have been even cooler if I had tightened the silk more. D'oh!

The yellow tie didn't transfer as well. Still kind of fun.

This one was fun too.

Here's the other paisley one. Very cool.

Well, I thought I'd share my Easter festivity. Seeing as I didn't really decorate for Christmas. Or Valentines day. I did eat corned beef on St. Paddy's day. That was festive, I guess...

Happy Easter week to you all!

Shoulder Angels

2011-04-15T00:34:00.000-06:00

The Emperor's New Groove is a great movie. Here's one of my favorite scenes. I just love the whole dialogue between Kronk, and his shoulder counterparts:

Great, Right!?!

Well, today I ran across a spin-off on that theme that BYU's Divine Comedy did. Check it out:

I 'bout busted a gut! Serious belly laughter! Just thought I'd share with you all :)

I came for Snider, then stayed for Bayer

2011-03-07T00:22:00.002-07:00

Do you remember how annoying it was to walk all the way around the huge hole that they dug in the ground to expand the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU?

Or the season the BYU football players changed their uniforms to make themselves more visible to each other and it looked like the entire team was wearing bibs?

Remember the old BYU Health Center?

Have you ever been to a Garrens comedy show?

Do you remember the dances in the step-down lounge of the SFLC?

Does the acronym SFLC make you giggle?

Were you annoyed when BYU changed their 'official' colors from Royal Blue to Navy blue because you had to change a large part of your fandrobe? (Fan wardrobe. I just made that word up. I have a PhD now, so I'm allowed to make words up)

If the answer to most of these questions is a resounding YES, you were at BYU during the era of the "Snide Remarks" columns that first appeared in the the Daily Universe. This is where I first experienced the hilarity of a man named "Eric D. Snider." Eric wrote a regular column for the Universe for several years, and I was a pretty big fan. If you were, or are, currently stationed at BYU, you will probably find these hilarious. Eric has kindly posted the entire run of his Snide Remarks articles on his website.

Here are some that I enjoyed during my stay at BYU:

"A Freshman's Guide to BYU"

"NCMOrons"

"Michael McLame"

"Letters Entertain You"

Eric's brother was my home teacher the next year, and I actually got to meet Eric once. Well, I'm not sure we actually met, but he was visiting the Centennial Apartments where I lived, and someone pointed him out to me. If I remember correctly, he was mooning someone up on one of the balconies from the hot tub. It could have been someone else, so don't hold me to that memory. Pretty funny whether or not it was him. Well, funny to me now. I'm pretty sure 19 year old me was pretty shocked. Which makes it that much funnier thinking back on it.

Fast forward a bit. The Snide Remarks Column left the Daily Universe. Sad Day. Luckily for the world, Snide Remarks lives on! Well, they have been a bit sporadic in the past few years, but are about to get regular again. A bunch of us chipped in and talked him into writing the columns weekly once again. It's going to be good.

So Eric has moved on, and is now a professional movie critic. I enjoy reading his reviews, and have come to trust his rating scale. If he gives a movie a A- or B+, I'm probably going to go and see it.

About a year ago, Eric started doing a movie podcast with Jeff Bayer. They call it "Movie BS with Bayer and Snider". Get it? BS? Because their last names are Bayer and Snider? They do a weekly show and talk about movies. Well, mostly they talk about movies. Sometimes they get a little off subject, but mostly they stay on track. The occasional word or two of profanity slips out, but they keep it pretty clean other than that. So don't be worried if you see an "Explicit" warning in iTunes. Yours truly is the official "Arizona Fan" as of Episode 49. Well, I get all of Arizona for now. As more fans claim turf, I'll probably have to share.

Jeff Bayer is "the tallest film critic in America," not that that really matters for radio. I've been accustomed to Eric's snarky humor, and Jeff brings his own. It's so much fun to listen to their banter. Their opinions line up most of the time, but they aren't afraid to butt heads if they disagree. Also, Jeff has the cutest little giggle when he gets really excited about something that a movie did right. Eric is an online critic, working for film.com and cinematical.com (and probably others). Jeff is a TV critic and has a segment on his local news segment (look for "Flicks on 6" to see a clip of him). He goes on more junkets than Eric (Eric has been on only one) and so gets to interview more of the celebrities. He also has a website.

I really enjoy how Jeff and Eric both balance each other out and enable the crazy of the other. I have subscribed to the show on itunes, but listen live whenever I can. I am a Facebook Fan, and I got a twitter account so I could follow Jeff, Eric, and the Show.

Check them out!

Wulfie and the Soldier Boy

2011-02-22T23:37:00.000-07:00

So Jack died. I already covered that. Brian and Caroline upgraded to a Swagger Wagon, and were nice enough to sell me one of their cars. He's a 2003 VW Jetta, Wolfsburg edition. I've named him Wolfgang, Wulfie for short. A good, strong, German name. He's great. A nice, quiet, smooth ride. It has a factory-installed CD player, that may not appeal to the criminal element around here and prevent it from getting stolen. We'll see. They might break in after they see what is right underneath... a tape deck! I know. Awesome, right? I hadn't noticed it until my ride home from work today. When I got home, I looked around and found an unlabeled black cassette tape on one of my bookshelves. Now, I haven't had a cassette player in a decade, give or take a few years. I'm not 100% sure on that timeline, but I do know that it has been a good long while. There have been at least 5 or 6 moves since then. And for some reason I still have it here in Arizona. I was so psyched to find out what was on it that I went out and listened to the first bit of Side A.

Here's the lineup so far:

Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis
When I think about Angels - Jamie O'Neal
Te Aviso, Te Anuncio - Shakira

Any guesses as to what the remaining songs will be? I don't see the pattern yet, but I'm sure the whole tape is great.

Back to the car. It has a beepy thing to open the doors, automatic windows, an automatic transmission, cruise control, a speedometer that goes up to 160 mph, and a full spare. Which is good, because I totally ripped one in public on the way home from LA. Ripped a tire, that is. Yeah, I was pulling into a gas station and there was a truck pulling a trailer taking up the middle of the entrance, and I thought I had enough room to get by. I hit the curb, and just knew. I pulled forward to the pump, got out and just looked at the tire. Some kid pointed out that it was flat. Thanks kid. It was a really busy gas station, so I decided to pull away from the pumps to change my tire. There was a nice handicapped spot directly ahead of me, so I pulled forward. I got out and looked at the tire again. Sighed, and then figured out how to pop my trunk.

I pulled out the spare (yay for full spares!), and the jack. I tried to figure out how to remove the bolt covers (because my new car is hip like that). My brother-on-law Ben taught me how to change a tire years ago, but the bolt covers must have left me with a helpless look on my face. A nice soldier dude (Air Force, I think) offered to help me. He went and got a screwdriver and took off the bolt covers while I started figuring out my new jack. It didn't take very long to get the spare on. I thanked the nice soldier man, and filled the air in the spare with the air hose that happened to be right in front of that particular parking space.

Driving off into the sunset never felt better!

Here's a side-shot of Wulfie. Isn't he fun!

The most comforting smell on the planet...

2011-02-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

Ah, the smell of bread baking... Is there anything that is more homey and comforting?

My claim of domestic-goddesshood rarely goes challenged. There are many women out there with skills, but few who rival my own when it comes to things domestic. Okay, not really, but you do have to admit that I do have some skills worth bragging about. But I do have a friend named Debbie who is even more talented than myself in many of the aspects of domesticity. She comes by her amazing talent honestly seeing as how her mom, Jeannie, is pretty amazing as well. She put together Debbie's wedding cake, and I can say that it was THE most amazing piece of food art I have ever, ever, ever seen. My mom and I make wedding cakes, true, but we are just hobbyists. We are not really cake perfectionists. Our generally accepted rule of thumb is that if a mistake cannot be seen from the back of a galloping house, it's not enough to worry about. Jeannie's creation was perfect. Huge and perfect. Huge, perfect, and beautiful.

I'm not sure I have all the facts right, but I'm sure the story went something like this:

Jeannie got frustrated with the dense, dark whole wheat bread that resulted from the recipes in the cookbooks, so she slaved and toiled in her kitchen until, after years of trial and error, she came up with something better. Light, fluffy, delicious. I first had a taste at Debbie's house. She has shared the recipe with me several times. Several times, because I keep losing the ones she gives me. Partially because I love all of you, but mostly so I won't lose it again, I'm going to post it here on my blog. Debbie said as long as I give credit where credit is due, I was welcome to make this recipe public. To make it the way Debbie does, you need a wheat grinder and the amazing guts that are found inside a Bosch mixer.

The following has been brought to you by the kitchen wizardry of Jeannie Prete:

"The Yummiest Wheat Bread on the Planet!"

Place the following in the bowl of a mixer:

1 cup Potato Flakes
1 1/2 cup Oatmeal
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1/3 cup Honey
1 cup sunflower seeds or grains (optional)
4 cups hot water

Mix a little and then add:

3 Tablespoons active dry yeast

Let proof for 5 minutes.

While you wait grind 4 1/2 cups of wheat. (This ends up being somewhere in the vicinity of 7 1/2-8 cups or so of flour)

Add to mixture (it should be a bit bubbly):

3 cups of the flour you just ground
1 Tablespoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil.

Turn on the mixer and slowly add the rest of the flour you just ground.

Mix for 10 minutes. Yes, I know its a long time. Just set a timer and go and do something else. This long mixing time is crucial for the loaf to turn out light and fluffy. This is where the Bosch mixer really shines. I used to have a Kitchenaid. I tried to make bread in it, but the dough just tended to stick on the dough hook and get a ride around the bowl. Entertaining, yes. Effective, no.

After 10 minutes of mixing, form the dough into loaves and place in bread pans. This would make 3 big loaves, 4 medium loaves, or 8 small loaves. Approximately. The dough is very sticky, and will seem wetter than the dough made with other recipes. If you'll grease your hands before you work with the dough, you'll have an easier time working wit it.

Butter the tops of the loaves, and let them rise until the dough doubles in size.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. If you take a loaf out of the pan and tap the bottom, it should sound hollow. And it should be a pretty golden brown color. That's how I tell if they've baked long enough.

Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan. The bread will come out of the pan much easier if you let it sit first. Turn out onto a cooling rack and let sit until completely cool. Don't wrap them in plastic until they are completely cool. Otherwise, the steam will collect and make the outside of the bread mushy. Mushy = bad.

There you have it folks. Enjoy.

Here are some pictures I took tonight:

Here is my wheat being ground into flour. I used hard white wheat. White wheat has a bit milder taste than the red wheat. Plus, I have a 45 lb bucket of it in my pantry.

Here is the bin of freshly ground flour. There was a late-night incident involving myself, a piece of cardboard, and a bottle of gorilla glue. Its a fairly entertaining story that I will save for another day. The result is that the Magic Mill that I got from my grandma doesn't produce flour as fine as it should. As a result, I have to grind 5 cups of wheat berries to produce the same volume of flour (for this recipe) that Debbie can produce with 4 1/2. I think she has a WhisperMill, or MagicMill, or somesuch.

Here is a fairly low-quality picture of the bubbles the yeast made in the ingredients that were mixed before any flour was added.

This is what the dough looks like after it has mixed for 10 full minutes.

I was able to make 4 little loaves and 2 medium-sized loaves with one recipe of dough.

They rose beautifully. I haven't made anything with yeast since I moved in, so I was a bit nervous that my yeast had died in my freezer.

Here are my happy little loaves, all golden-brown and delicious. Well, I'm assuming they're delicious. I actually binged on pizza and bread pudding tonight, so I haven't actually tried any yet. I'm looking forward to breakfast tomorrow!

This is the least brick-like whole grain bread that you will ever taste! Thanks again to Debbie and Jeannie!

My $100 miracle

2011-02-11T22:14:00.000-07:00

I was pretty crazy about couponing when I was in Provo. I still am at heart, but I haven't had the time to keep up on it. I'll get around to it one of these days. It takes quite a few hours to get organized, but then only takes a few hours each week to keep up with the coupons. I'll blog about the whole process at some point in case any of you turn out to be that particular flavor of crazy as well. It's pretty fun, if you're into that sort of thing. Getting away with 70% savings at the grocery store gives me quite the rush. Right. Back to the story.

So back in my couponing heyday of yester-month, I signed up for a whole passel of couponing newsletters. I still get the newsletters and occasionally sort through my un-clipped coupon stash for a specific coupon so I can get a few jars of peanut butter for $0.50. For example.

Anyhoo, a few weeks ago there was a notice saying that there was going to be a market survey in Scottsdale and we were all invited to put in our information (Marital status, number of people in my household, etc...) to see if they needed someone from our demographic to fill up the study. I've done a few of these and they usually pay fairly well for a few hours of work, so I filled it out. A few days later I got a very polite email saying that they were full and didn't need me. Ah well. C'est la vie.

A few days later I got a phone call from them asking if I had received an email. I told them that I had and that It had said that they didn't need me. I had a sudden burst of excitement that maybe someone backed out and they had an opening to fill. Alas, twas not to be. They just hadn't written down who all was coming so some pore sap had to make a bajilion phone calls to find out.

A few days after that I got another phone call saying that they did want me after all. So Monday after work I drove up to Scottsdale. As it turns out, it was a market survey for a brand of bagged salad. Fresh something or another. They took six of us into a room, gave us each a bag of salad. As instructed, we looked carefully at the packaging before we got to eat some. They had my favorite kind of salad dressing (Brianna's Honey Poppyseed) and that made it even better. The salad was actually pretty good. We went around the table and talked about our collages and what we did and didn't like about the salad. Oh yeah, we had homework. We each made a collage about bagged salad. It was pretty great, in a scissors and gluestick kind of way. Then we went into the other room where there were six women who had only heard about the salad. We talked about it with them, and then the people in charge asked them what they thought about what we had told them. And so on and so forth. After a few hours of this they gave us $100 each in cash.

It was pretty great. So I hopped in my little green truck and started to drive home. I had been noticing all day that I had to gas it pretty hard to get going. And even when it could, it sounded like it was revving more than normal. But, what's a girl to do. I just kept going, hoping to make it home.

But fate was not smiling on my truck. I was fairly close to home, but still on the freeway, when there ceased to be going, and was only revving when I put pressure on the gas. Since I knew there were problems a brewing underneath my hood, I was sticking in the righ-hand lanes. I was able to pull over just fine.

I sat in the seat for a bit, putting the truck in and out of gear, revving the engine, hoping it would catch enough to go. Then I popped the hood and checked the oil. It was low. My truck has pretty much reached drinking age, as it were. I remedied this problem, and then tried going again. Not really surprising, but the transmission had little to do with the fact that my oil level was a little low. But it was worth a shot. The transmission fluid wasn't low.

A highway patrolman pulled over to let me know that if my truck stayed on the freeway past 6 AM that it would be towed. I assured him that I would have it gone by then. I then looked up tow-companies nearby on my Android phone. Hooray for smartphones! I was even able to look up reviews on Google to make sure I was calling a reputable place. I found one that I felt comfortable with and they showed up in less than 30 minutes. The nice tow guy jacked Jack onto the back of his flatbed tow-truck and we dropped him off at my mechanic.

The charge for the loading and towing came to $73.50. I didn't have that much in my checking account, seeing as how I had just purchased a couple of tickets to Comic-Con on Saturday. I couldn't transfer money from my savings account right there. But wait! I had $100 dollars cash in my pocket. It's was a February miracle! Ok, perhaps not. It was pretty amazing either way.

I called a friend (my new Comic-Con buddy) and she took me home. The mechanic looked at my transmission. The hydraulics aren't gone, but it still needs quite a bit of TLC. I may fork out the cash to fix it, or I may invest that money in something a little more reliable. Right now, I'm ejoying the joys that are public transportation. Seeing as how my work bought me a bus pas that's good until August, this inconvenience is costing me a little bit of time, but not any additional money.

Good times.

Eating for Hamilton

2011-01-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks before Christmas, it was suggested by a recent acquaintance that I try out for the EVMCO. That is, the East Valley Mormon Choral Organization. No, not singing. I mean, I have a decent voice and I can carry a pitch and all, but singing isn't really my thing when the option to hit things with sticks is a possibility. There is an orchestra attached to this choir organization. Orchestras usually have percussion section. This was about two weeks before Christmas. Problem is, I didn't have anything to practice on. I knew a few music people, so I'm pretty sure I could have found a band director to let me practice on a marimba or somesuch.

Enter Craigslist. Search term: Xylophone...

This is what now takes up half of my tiny, tiny living room. I've named him Hamilton (after the famous George Hamilton Green). Could I really afford this right now? No, not really. Have I wanted one of these for a really long time? Yes, yes I have. How long? Well, back then my wardrobe involved a grungy flannel and wearing overalls with one of the straps unhooked. Probably with a hyper-color shirt underneath. With pogs in my pocket and a slap bracelet on my wrist. Dreaming about the boy with steps shaved in his hair and rocking the Hammer pants. You get the idea.

It was a good deal, and then someone asked me if I would drive up to Utah with them for Christmas. Paying for gas is a lot cheaper than any plane ticket, so I was able to save some of the money that way. It was a stretch, but I scraped up the rest too. The lady selling it couldn't believe that someone actually wanted a xylophone. It seemed so random to her. I think its random that she had one in the first place. Things will be tight for the next little bit, but its been really fun to play again. Seeing as I only had 4 days to practice before the auditions for the EVMCO, it probably doesn't surprise anyone that I really blew the audition. Like REALLY blew the audition. I got really nervous and started 30 or 40 bpm faster than I can play that piece right now. Don't worry, I'm OK. Failing means I tried in the first place or some other sappy saying like that. I'm not scarred for life or anything. In the past not being part of an organized group meant that I didn't have any way to play. But now I do. Hooray for Hamilton!!

What does this have to do with food? Well, since I've moved down here I've tried several new restaurants. You know, scouting out the lay of the land and such. Problem is, restaurants are expensive. Especially the really yummy ones that have real waiters. Even the ones that involve drive-through windows and/or dollar menus can take a toll on your wallet if you go with any form of regularity. Spending money I hadn't planned on spending to get Hamilton in my life means I really need to keep an eye on my budget. One of my New Year's resolutions is to eat more of the food I already have at home. So today when I saw an ad for Sonic and I really wanted that BLT and Tots for $3. It would have been so easy and Sonic is on my way home. I resisted. Some way, somehow. Instead, I went home slapped something together that ended up being pretty tasty. I thought I'd share the 'recipe' with you. I didn't use a formal recipe, I just threw together stuff that seemed tasty and it worked out:

Chicken Pasta a la Hamilton

Ingredients:
1 lb. Bowtie Pasta
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cubed

1 large onion
8 oz. cream
1/3 C. flour
32 oz. chicken stock
4 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 lemon, zest and juice
~3 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
Salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Add a few teaspoons of salt to the water. While this is heating up, cut the onion up. I peeled the onion, cut it in quarters, and then cut these in 1/2 inch strips. Put these in a large saute pan with the olive oil. Cook over medium heat until they start to soften. Add the garlic and chicken. Cook, stirring occasionally. Add lemon zest, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. When the chicken is cooked, add the 1/3 C. flour and stir to absorb all of the olive oil. Cook this, stirring occasionally until the flour coating the chicken and onions starts to brown. At this point add the chicken stock. I had a box that was 32 oz and I didn't want to store a partially used thing so I added it all. You could easily substitute the canned stuff or even just use water and a couple of bouillon cubes. Oh, I threw in the lemon juice at this point too. Bring this all to a boil, stirring to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat down, but continue to simmer the mixture. The flour will start to thicken the stock. While this is cooking, add the pasta to the boiling, salted water. Boil pasta for 5 or 6 minutes. Drain the pasta (it won't be all the way cooked yet) and then add to the chickeny mess in the other pan. Add the cream at this point. Cook all together, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is done. The pasta will absorb some of the liquid and be more flavorful than if you let it cook all the way in the water. Pull off the heat and let sit for a few minutes for the sauce to thicken up a bit more. It was pretty saucy, so I ate it out of a bowl with a spoon. And then I had seconds.

I didn't take a picture of this one. Once you've seen one pasta dish with a white-ish sauce, you've seen them all. Plus, I didn't think of it until after I had already eaten. You're going to have to use your imagination.

There you have it. A tasty dinner with plenty of leftovers! I had some cheese I thought about adding, but this didn't really need anything else. I know most people don't have fresh thyme on hand, but using the dried stuff will change the flavor quite a bit. It would still be good, but not as good as if you had fresh thyme. I found some fresh thyme on clearance at the store a few days ago. Fresh thyme with lemon is SO TASTY to me. You could use fresh basil and throw in a few sun-dried tomatoes if you are fancy enough to have those on hand. Or, you could just use dried Italian seasoning instead of the thyme. This whole thing was just using what I had on hand. Feel free to experiment. This particular recipe was extra fun, because the lemons on the tree outside my house are finally getting ripe. So I got to walk outside and pick one. It was super cool. I give you permission to be jealous. The grapefruits are still pretty green, so I haven't experimented with them yet. I might make a batch of grapefruit marmalade or something.

We'll see.

Oh gingerpig, oh gingerpig, how tasty is your frosting...

2010-12-16T21:26:00.002-07:00

Maybe because its my first Christmas in 9 or so years without snow, but I haven't really gotten into the Christmas spirit all that much yet this year. So I decided to bake. Food is a great mood-altering substance.

Hmmmmm... What to make. Well, Christmas = Cookies. And the whole Birth of Jesus thing, of course. YAY for the Nativity.

But also... yay for gingerbread!

Nana shared a great recipe with me quite a few years ago. It's pretty much great. So great, in fact, that I don't even feel guilty for eating a half dozen-ish while catching up on The Biggest Loser. I mean, how can you say no t this. (Hint: The answer = you can't. Even Chuck Norris would cave)

I'm going to take some to work tomorrow to contribute to the growing stack of Christmas junk that is accumulating at the office.

Here's the recipe so you can make some of your own:

Stained-Glass Gingerbread Cookies

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Ingredients:

3 1/4 C. Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Ginger
1/2 tsp. Allspice
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
3/4 C. Butter (room temerature)
3/4 C. Sugar
1/2 C. Molasses
2 Tbsp Water
Jolly Ranchers (or other hard candy)

Mix all dry ingredients together and set aside
Cream butter and sugar.
Beat Molasses and Water into butter and sugar.
Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed until completely mixed.
Refrigerate overnight.
Line cookie sheets with foil or parchment paper.
Divide dough into 6 pieces.
Roll out one piece at a time to a thickness around 1/4 inch, keeping the dough you are not using cold in the fridge.
Cut out cookies with your finest cookie cutters.
Place unbaked cookies on parchment or foil-lined cookie sheet.
(Optional step) Cut out smaller shapes from the middle of the cookies and fill with crushed hard candy. Crush the candy by putting in a sturdy bag (Each color in a different zip lock freezer bag inside a paper grocery bags work really well) and then smash them with a hammer. I take this outside and smash it on the cement. If the bag thing doesn't work, you can put the candies in a box, then put that box in another box, mailing it to yourself, and then smashing it with a hammer when it arrives. Either way. Put the cookies on the lined cookie sheet, and then put the candy powder in the cutout. Fill just to the top of the cookie. If you do this step, make sure to line the cookie sheets. I pity the fool who has to clean melted Jolly Ranchers off of their best cookie sheets.
Bake cookies for 5-6 minutes at 375 degrees. DO NOT OVERBAKE. The cookies will puff up, but won't change colors. They may not look baked, but take them out of the oven. Take them off of the hot cookie sheet and put them on a cooling rack. They will cool and stay nice and soft. However, if you like your gingerbread a little crispy, feel free to bake them for a few more minutes.
If you want to frost the cookie, do it after they are completely cooled.

Enjoy!

When life gives you pink lemons...

2010-12-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

When life gives you pink lemons, you can consider yourself better than people that have been given boring yellow lemons.

Just Kidding!

Did you know that there was such a thing as pink lemons? So cool! There was someone giving away a bunch of pink lemons at a garage sale, and I took a handful of them. Since life had given me pink lemons, I decided to make myself some pink lemonade.

Juicing the lemons gave me about 1 1/4 cup of juice. I put this in a 2 quart pitcher, added somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cups of sugar, and filled it with water and poured myself a cool tangy glass.

By the time it was diluted down, it was a pale pink, and was just as tasty as normal yellow lemonade.

Hooray for the citrus-friendly climate of Arizona! In a few more weeks, the lemons, oranges, and grapefruits growing in my yard will be ripe! Yummers!!

The Violation of Jack, in Four Acts

2010-11-30T21:55:00.001-07:00

Act One: The Acquisition of Jack

In contemplating a move to the greater Phoenix area, I decided that I needed a vehicular with working air conditioning. Ron helped me find a cheap truck that fit the bill. We pulled it down behind the U-Haul, and It's served me well so far. There is a bevy of problems with the truck, but it gets me from place to place and that's good enough for me. The suspension is a little wonky so it leans a bit. I named it Jack, after the guy in "While You Were Sleeping"

Act Two: Riding on the Metro

Since I've moved to Arizona, I park and ride to work. You see, the Metro Light Rail goes right through both ASU and downtown Phoenix. (♫ Riding on the Metro-o-o ♫) Some days I work at ASU, and some days I work at TGen in downtown Phoenix, and sometimes I go back and forth between the two. The Metro is pretty convenient for this. Plus, my work bought me a year train pass, so I get to ride the Metro for free.

Act Three: The Violation of Jack

Today I drove Jack to the Park and Ride lot like I always do. I rode the Metro to TGen in Phoenix. I went to my meeting. I had lunch. I rode the Metro back to ASU. I finished my normal workday out. I rode the Metro back to the Park and Ride Lot. (♫ Riding on the Metro-o-o ♫) I went to where I had parked Jack, The first thing I noticed was bits of glass sparkling in the lamplight.

The second thing I noticed was the lack of glass in the driver's side door of my truck.

The third thing I noticed was a bunch of wires sticking out where my stereo used to be. A bunch of other things hit me faster than I could number them. My glove box was open, but the only thing that seemed to be missing was a small box of tampons. Maybe the thief was a female and had a need for such supplies. I resent the taking of the stereo, but I'd never begrudge relevant supplies to a fellow female in need. I had assumed that the thief was male, but I couldn't figure out why a dude would steal that and not the pair of pliers that were right there. Later, I found the box on the floor and alleviated that particular bit of confusion. I was back to resentment. I could tell they looked behind my seat, but I don't think they took anything else. I'll check a little more carefully when its light outside.

I dedicate the following song (starts at around 1:34) to my stereo...

Act Four: Comfort Food

The thieves took many things. They took my stereo. They took my sense of security. They took some of my time, as I called the police and such to report the crime. I'll get back to you on the other things they took.

One thing they didn't take? Maurice the dash pig. (crazy ol' Maurice, always good for a laugh). Also, they didn't take the ten dollars I had in the ash tray! I used this ten dollars to buy myself some comfort food, namely, a Sonic hamburger with green chile on it (hooray living in the Southwest again!), french fries, diet coke with the lovely little pebbly Sonic ice, and a chocolate malt. And then I went home and ate it all as I watched several episodes of "Jeeves and Wooster." There may or may not be a long list of chores that need doing, but I decided to neglect them all in favor of venting to you in this blog post. I think it worked, as I feel much better. A bit emotionally drained, but better.I'll just go to bed early tonight. Things always look better after a good nights sleep...

I'll most likely ride the bus to the Metro tomorrow (♫ Riding on the Metro-o-o ♫), so I can call around and find out the best place to take Jack to have his window replaced. It's not the end of the world. Its just a pain. At least it does't snow in Phoenix. In fact, it's supposed to get back up into the 70s this weekend.

Pros of living in Phoenix include the great winter weather. Cons of living in Phoenix include the rampant thievery. Also, people that with a lack of personal hygiene that ride the Metro. (♫ Riding on the Metro-o-o ♫) Seriously people, would a bath every few days kill you? Blech.

Ah well... C'est la vie... Such is life...

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Several of the Merrells went and spent Thanksgiving with Brian and Caroline in Santa Monica. They recently moved to an apartment that is 11 blocks from the beach. A few of us took a jaunt down to check out the ocean on Thursday morning. Mom was determined to go into the ocean. It was much colder than she had anticipated...

They had lots of toys, and some of them were adult-sized. The boys took a turn climbing (well... trying to climb) ropes.

It was pretty funny. Allen made it up a little higher once he took his shoes off, but didn't quite make it all the way to the top.

Johnny had a great time. He's a fun kid. Quite the man-child. He's big enough that you forget that he's not even a year and a half yet.

Mom and Allen rushed between waves to write "Happy Thanksgiving 2010" in the sand.

It was a beautiful day!

Here's a bit of a better angle on the beach writing.

I flew in a day early to start the cooking. I really enjoyed making so much food... I've had limited opportunities for cooking in Arizona. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Not all that surprising seeing how much I love food. We had turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, yams, corn, rolls, and green bean casserole. The green beans were kind of an afterthought. Mostly because we realized that we hadn't planned for anything green on the plate.

Here's the 'before' picture of my plate. The turkey is hiding under the ham, and the roll hadn't yet made it on the plate. But you get the idea.

And here's the 'after' picture. It was delicious. So was the Thanksgiving-induced coma.

It was a good time. I've missed hanging out with my family these last few months. Seeing family was just what I needed. I got to play with my nephew Johnny.

And I got to meet my newest nephew, baby Tyler.

I took this picture myself with my cell phone camera, and I guess I didn't aim very well. Little Tyler is a super cute little guy. Grandma loved playing with him as well. He was pretty alert for such a new baby. We all had fun passing him around.

We went and checked out the Santa Monica Pier the next day. There were lots of people there that day, including a bunch of people fishing off of the end of the pier. Yuck!

It was beautiful weather, and good times with the family. I took a few pictures of Caroline and Verenda, but they must have been with my mom's camera because I can't seem to find them. Caroline is looking very well, especially for someone who had a baby last week. Verenda looks like she's ready to have her baby any day now! I can't wait to meet baby Valerie, and hopefully, Verenda and Ron's new baby.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Remembering Cory

2010-11-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is a hard post to start. It hurts to refer to a friend in the past tense.

Cory Jenkins was such a great guy. I first met Cory working with him in the Chemistry Central Stockroom at BYU. That was a fun job, and Cory was one of my favorite people to work with. He was a goofy guy, and always happy. Well, he was pretty miserable when his allergies acted up, but would still make the most of things.

He also worked for Lecture Prep., setting up all of the classroom demonstrations that the Chemistry professors use to spice up their lectures. Here's my favorite Cory memory: I was working at the stockroom, and Cory comes streaking in with a panicked look on his face. He grabs the green Merck index off of the shelf and searches the pages for a few minutes. He finds what he's looking for, lets out a sigh of relief, and only then tells me what is up. While working in the lecture prep room one day he had noticed a big bottle of Methylene Blue. For those of you not familiar with this gem of a chemical, it turns your pee blue if you eat it. I guess seeing this big bottle of pee-color-changing potential was too much for him to resist. He opened the bottle, got a scoop of it out, and then ate it. That is when the panic set in. In his own words, Methylene Blue is "OH, so bitter!" It was only then that he wondered about how safe it was to eat. Thus the panicked rushing into the stockroom to check the entry in the Merck Index.

The funniest part of this whole story is that this whole episode didn't scare him off at all. Rather, it made his scientific brain kick in, thinking of ways to mask the taste, alternative methods of ingestion (like putting it in gelatin capsules), and finding the minimum effective dose for effective pee coloring. He was going to use himself as a test subjects, as well as a few volunteer classmates. I'm not sure what came of all of the plans. I think he gave up after a few rounds. It's still pretty funny. There are still blue fingerprints on the Methylene Blue page of the Merck Index in the Chemistry Central Stockroom. Good times!

Cory graduated and I never saw him again. He moved away and got married. He went to PA school, and decided that he could get some good experience in the Army. His daughter was born a month before he was deployed.

Capt. Cory J. Jenkins, 30, of Arizona, died Aug. 25, 2009 in southern Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash.

Since Cory was from Mesa, I thought I'd go pay my respects. It is Memorial day, after all. I went to a florists shop a few blocks from my house to pick up some flowers to take. Funny how its appropriate to take a guy flowers after he's dead, but kind of weird otherwise. Anyways, she was running a little low on red, white, and blue flowers, but she had a few left. I told her what I wanted to spend, and she put together a really nice bouquet. I have a feeling she gave me a bargain. Sometimes people are great. I'm definitely going to her next time I need some flowers.

It breaks my heart that a guy that was only over there to help people was lost to us. And that he was only 30 years old. He was such a great guy. My heart breaks for his family.

Here's a nice tribute I found on YouTube.

I count myself lucky to have known such a great guy... We'll miss you Cory!

Mrs. Rashae!

2010-10-10T00:34:00.000-06:00

So my ex-next-door-neighbor Rashae moved to Arizona last year, met the man of her dreams and got married this last Thursday. I moved down here just in time to be able to make their wedding cake! I normally do one, maybe two a year, but this is my fifth so far in 2010!

l think it turned out really well. The reception was beautiful, with fall colors, great music, and amazing food (including an ice cream bar!)

Brian and Rashae are so dang cute together! Seriously adorable!

The place was packed, and the happy couple barely had any time to eat. They did manage to grab a few bites here and there!

They didn't shove the cake into each other's faces! They were very nice to each other.

Rashae's students will have to get used to calling her Mrs. Aldridge instead of Miss Holt. I remember when I was in 5th grade and a teacher got married in the middle of the year and I thought it was so weird that we had to call her a different name all of a sudden. Funny how things look different from the other side.

I almost can't stand how happy they look!

And I love the comfy footwear!

Corinne and Emily were thee too. It was really good to see Utah friends!

At one point the DJ had the groom pick 4 other men from the crowd, and then made them wear Village People headwear and dance to the YMCA. It was pretty random, but hilarious!

Gotta love any couple that will make a silly face for the camera on their wedding day!

Hooray for the newly-formed Aldridge family!

So far in the AZ...

2010-09-19T22:54:00.000-06:00

I know some of you have been patiently waiting for an update from me. I have been living here for two whole weeks now, so I understand the frustration with the waiting. Especially since I don't really know anyone here yet. And I live alone. How is it that I haven't found time to satisfying my blog-reading public?

All of these things are true, and I sincerely apologize for any anxiety I may have caused any of you. I'm fine, really I am.

I've been waiting to take pictures of where I live when I get everything unpacked. Seeing as organization does not come all that natural to me, unpacking has been pushed to the back burner in favor of other pursuits, like catching up on the most recent episodes of "Lie to Me" and "The Gates" and such. Oh, and I've discovered some great new podcasts. Check out NPR's "Wait, wait, don't tell me" If you want to LOL out loud. Pretty funny stuff.

Whilst you wait with bated breath for photo documentation of my current living quarters, I'll regale you with some thoughts and impressions I have of my time here:

Arizona drivers are a different kind of crazy than Utah drivers. They accelerate fast, and follow close. Merging onto the freeway usually requires cutting someone off. Surprisingly, they don't speed nearly as much as do Utah drivers. Most of the people driving between Provo and SLC go a minimum of 10 mph over the speed limit. People in AZ seem to stick much closer to the speed limit. It could be that there are so much more people on the road.
The roads here are pretty well organized, with a street going North-South or East-West every mile that has at least two lanes going each way that has a speed limit of 45 mph. I like it, but I do miss having numbered streets. Thank goodness for GPS on my phone!
I should have never complained back when BYU charged $60/yr for parking. At ASU its more than $700/yr. Luckily, they can just split it up and deduct it from my paycheck. I'm planning on just pretending I make that much less and that parking is free. It'll be less painful that way.
I've found a great butcher. Like, an actual individual that gets his meat in carcass form and chops it up into the different cuts of meat in the back of the shop. For all of you "So I Married An Axe Murderer" fans, yes he does link his own sausage. They double-smoke their own bacon, make their own beef jerky, and have kinds of meat other than beef, chicken, and pork. Its more expensive and a little out of the way for me, but I'm excited to get my meat there when I can.
Working at the Biodesign Institute is going to be great. I'm working with some great people on some fun research. I haven't done that much yet, but its going to be good. Plus, they have an eye-scanning thingy that lets you in after hours. It doesn't have lights like they show in the movies, but it does say "Scan Accepted" or something when it matches your eye-scan.
I love living alone. I wasn't sure I would, but its great. I love having the fridge to myself, and I love not having to worry whether or not the mess I have created by moving in, etc. is invading someone else's personal space. I love being able to use iSnooze to blast music from my itunes at 6:30 in the morning to help me wake up. I love having only one covered parking spot and being able to park in it every day.
I forgot how it felt to have sweat running off of my body. One day I was talking on the phone outside at lunchtime. After 5 minutes, there was sweat dripping from the crook of my elbow on the arm that was holding my phone. Gross. Luckily, every building here has pretty amazing air-conditioning.
My left leg has gotten a pretty good workout from driving stick-shift for the past month. I really like driving stick. It could be that the suspension of my truck isn't very good, and so it makes driving feel a bit like an interactive video game. Good times. Until the charley-horse in my left calf last night. It was killer. My calf is still aching.
I am going through a lot of ice. I can't get over how thirsty I am all of the time. Must be my body adapting to the heat, but I'm turning into quite the heavy drinker, as it were. The water here does taste a bit musty. I'm going to have to spring for a Brita pitcher or something.
Its fun living so close to the Mesa temple, but its driving me crazy that I can't find my recommend. I'm not giving up on it until I've actually unpacked every single box. I drive right by the temple every single day, but I haven't been able to do a session yet.

Well, its time for me to hit the hay, so I'm going to leave it at that for now. Feel free to leave questions in the comments section if there's something specific you're wondering about that I haven't addressed.

Love you all!

4th of July 2010

2010-08-01T00:12:00.000-06:00

I didn't have any plans for the 4th of July, so I just tagged along a group of people from the area who went up to Park City to see the fireworks there.

The view was great. We went up behind The Canyons resort to watch. There were way too many people in front of the stage where the band was playing. We could still hear the band, which was fun. They were doing a little holiday homage to funk. Play that funky music white boy indeed.

The group played card games while they waited for the fireworks show to start. Well, everyone but me. I just read my book. And shared food with people. I took a lot of food. I'm always worried that someone will be hungry. I think I get that from my Dad's Mom. Thanks Grandma!

Here's me. I look a little worn out, but I was really just in a mood. And not a good one. Just one of those things that happens every few months. I usually avoid people when I get in one of those moods, but I tried my best to be social, in the interest of patriotism.

The fireworks happened. We went home. The scenery was fantastic, and the company was good. Well, present company excepted. Not my best 4th, but I'm still proud to be an American, and feel grateful for all those who have served, are serving, and those who will serve to protect this amazing country we live in!

Kaila's Cake

2010-07-31T10:00:00.000-06:00

So my cousin Kaila asked me to make her wedding cake. She found this picture and asked me if I could make a purple version of this:

I said, sure why not? I'm always up for a food adventure!

It kind of looks like fondant, but it's actually molding chocolate, also known as chocolate plastic. It's basically chocolate melted and mixed with corn syrup. It has the texture of tootsie roll, and tastes 3 bajillion times better than fondant. I hadn't ever made it before, but thought I'd give it a shot.

My mom came over a few days before the wedding and helped me out. I had made several batches of the white molding chocolate before-hand and my mom helped me to figure out how to work it.

We basically rolled out some of the white, and laid a strip of the dark purple across them.

We then used a pasta-roller to attach the strip to the background and to get the strips to the thickness we wanted.

We layered the strips around the cakes that we had previously frosted with buttercream frosting.

We started making dark purple roses, and then added white to make gradually lighter shades of purple. The molding chocolate got pretty soft with the heat of our hands, so we had to work fast. Mom was better at making the roses than myself. We dusted them with purple luster dust to make them shimmery. They turned out real purdy.

A local florist donated some African Violet leaves. We assembled the cake on-site.

Here it is on the table outside, ready to be served. I think we got it pretty close to the picture. I'm pretty proud of this one!

A shot from above...

And, the ever-popular side shot with water cups in the background.

Here's the happy couple cutting into the cake...

And here they are shoving it into each others faces. Notice Sydney taking notes in the background :)

I was pretty impressed that none of the cake got on the dress. It was red velvet, at the bride's request, and all that red food color could have been bad news for everyone involved in the cake-face-shoving that was wearing white.

Cheese!

I used several websites to try and find out how to make and use molding chocolate. One of the most useful ones I found on the Chef Talk forums. Here's the text, just in case something happens and that resource becomes unavailable at some point. Thank you chefpeon!

You need to stir the corn syrup/chocolate mixture just enough to incorporate it fully. Too much stirring (like I did) makes some of the cocoa butter separate out. It makes hard little lumps that you either have to work in or pick out. We picked them out.

Also, I made way too much white. I was nervous that I wouldn't have enough to cover all three cakes so I went a little bit overboard. I used 12 lbs of white chocolate buttons. I got the chocolate at Bakers C&C in Salt Lake. A great place for all things cake-making since Shepherds closed. (A store in Orem. My previous supplier of chocolate and cake supplies.) I made the modeling chocolate in half-batches of the recipe. So 1 1/2 lbs of chocolate at a time. I think we only needed 3 batches to cover the cake. Maybe 4. I definitely didn't need all of the 8 that I made.

In the words of the chef:

There's a lot of recipes around for modeling chocolate, but here's mine:
A NOTE: all brands of white chocolate are DIFFERENT. You may need to adjust the amount of corn syrup you add depending on what chocolate you use and your personal preference. My recipe works perfectly with Guittard White Satin Ribbon, which unfortunately, isn't that easy to find. Do NOT use white chocolate chips!!! Pistoles or disks are fine. Or chop up a bar.

Modeling Chocolate:
3 lbs white chocolate (broken into small pieces, if not already)
1 1/3 cup light corn syrup

Put chocolate into large round plastic microwave safe bowl.
Melt in short time increments of about 2 minutes and stir very well between each increment. White chocolate burns VERY EASILY. If your microwave has adjustable power levels and you have a high wattage microwave, you might want to use 50% power. I do, because I have one of those microwaves. You want to just melt the chocolate with no graininess or lumps. Make sure you stir it well to let any residual heat melt the chocolate, rather than keep sticking it back in the micro. That's a sure way to burn it. If you notice that your white chocolate starts feel thicker, then you've already burned it. I cannot stress how careful you need to be when melting white chocolate. Microwave a little at a time and stir stir stir.

When it's all perfectly melted, stick your corn syrup in the micro for about 1 minute to warm it.

Now, using a rubber spatula so you can scrape the sides of the bowl, pour the warm corn syrup all at once into your melted white chocolate, Stir quickly, using a folding motion, scrape the sides of the bowl. Your goal is to incorporate the corn syrup COMPLETELY into the white chocolate without it becoming too oily and separated. You will notice that as you stir, the chocolate will seize into a thick gooey mass and will clean the sides of the bowl. Look closely to make sure you don't have any streaks of unincorporated chocolate.....this unincorporated chocolate will become lumpy grains later, and you don't want that.

The mass will seem a little oily, that's OK. But the more you stir, the oilier it gets, and you don't want oil dripping off it either. It's a delicate balance.

Line a cookie sheet with at least 1 inch sides, or a rectangular pyrex dish with plastic wrap, so the wrap hangs over the sides. Pour your white chocolate mass into the dish or cookie sheet and press it down with a spatula to flatten it out all the way to the sides of the sheet or dish. Bring up the sides of the plastic wrap to completely cover your brick of modeling chocolate. Place the whole thing in the fridge for a couple hours.

After it's set, bring it out to come to room temp. When it's room temperature, break up the modeling chocolate in easy to handle pieces. The pieces will look very rough. Now you have to knead it smooth. Depending on the ambient temperature of the room and the strength in your hands, you may have to stick the pieces in the microwave to warm up for a few seconds so they are kneadable. Be careful not to overwarm the pieces, because the warmth of your hands will do the rest of that work for you. This is the moment of truth when you'll know how well you stirred it. If you have a lot of lumps and grains, then you know you didn't stir well enough, or perhaps burned the chocolate a little. Most of the time you can knead or roll them out, or if they're really big you can pick them out. But, if you did it right, this shouldn't be a problem. Once kneaded, the chocolate is ready for use. You can color it with any type of coloring....I prefer concentrated gels or powders. Liquid is not recommended, just because it makes the chocolate too slack without coloring it completely enough. However if you desire a light pastel, liquid is ok.

When working with modeling chocolate and especially when you are doing ribbons and such, I highly recommend using a manual pasta machine. The evenness and thinness of rolling is invaluable. At about 40 bucks a pop, it's a reasonable investment. I have one that I use JUST for modeling chocolate and nothing else.

When working with modeling chocolate, dust with cornstarch....not flour or powdered sugar. Always take care to brush off excess cornstarch with a soft brush when your pieces are done.

There are lots of places on the web that sell powdered color. You can google it, or go to Sugarcraft.com or Country Kitchens.

Trever and Kaila Wedding

2010-07-30T10:00:00.000-06:00

My little cousin Kaila got hitched this summer! To a great guy named Trever. The wedding was outside her Dad's house in Mapleton. The sky was an amazing blue, the sun was shining, and everyone was civil to each other. Nay, more than civil. I'm going to go as far to say that everyone was friendly and happy to be there!

See exhibit one: Randy and Nana hugging before the ceremony even started!

Robyn and Babs always have a good time. No surprises there. Always a party when any of the Capener daughters get together.

Here's the people walking down the aisle. I don't know these two...

Here's cousin Jeremiah (one of the Graves twins) and one of the other bridesmaids...

Two more people I don't know...

Groomsdude and cousin Aja (the other Graves twin)

Another groomsdude and oldest Graves offspring, cousin Erica...

Adorable flowergirl Sydney...

And at long last, the beautiful beaming bride and her daddy...

Everyone made it down the aisle without so much as a stumble. Even the bridesmaids in their heels! Pretty amazing...

Here's one of the wedding doggies. He had a little tux of his own...

Allen, Ron and Jer, kickin' it old style...

Ah, sibling togetherness...

The other brothers. One of my siblings thought one of the step-cousins was cute in his face...

Sisters with their mommy. If I was any good at photoshop I would have inserted an Aunt Julie head between Barbara and Nana...

Lots of Merrells! (and Nana)...

Happy Grandparents!

Nana and Nana. No, I'm not going to post the other picture. If you want that one, I'll email it to you. I promised one of the Nanas that I wouldn't post that other one...

Mwah!

Even some of the Great-Aunts made it down!

More Merrell wackiness...

And last but not least, the video I took of the actual ceremony. The audio quality is terrible, and the video height/width ratio is messed up because I had to rotate it in Windows Movie Maker. Don't be a hater... I'm doing this on the laptop I got in 2002. It's a brick and really outdated, but this beast got me through graduate school. Don't judge. With all of the drawbacks, I figured someone might be interested in watching it. Without further ado...

Rags Time

2010-07-29T10:00:00.001-06:00

Sometimes people tell me I have cat eyes.

I beg to differ.

I think certain organisms of the "feline persuasion" have Karen eyes. Including Rags Parker (pictured above)

Hubble Rubble

2010-07-28T10:00:00.001-06:00

Would it surprise anyone to find out that I am a big enough nerd to have a Hubble Wall above my bed in my room?

I think not. You all know me way too well to be surprised at something like that.

When Nancys Fly

2010-07-27T10:00:00.001-06:00

My roommate Brittany has many, many talents. She plays almost every string instrument I've ever heard of. She uses this musical talent in a Celtic band called "The Flying Nancys." They recently played a concert in Pleasant Grove, and it was fantastic. I only had my cell phone camera with me, so the picture is a little low-res...

Brittany is the one in the turquoise shirt playing the cello on the far right. She also plays Banjo and Mandolin in some of the songs. She is amazing! (and so is the rest of the band)

Listen to some of their music HERE.

My Kind of Graffiti

2010-07-26T23:08:00.000-06:00

Found on a bench at the Penny Playground in Centralia, WA.

Aguacate Experimentation

2010-07-12T01:00:00.000-06:00

It's no secret that I love food. And I love science. As a professional I do experiments in the lab. For fun I do experiments in the kitchen.

I follow a few food blogs, partially for the ideas, and partially for the pretty pictures. One of my favorites is Smitten Kitchen. Deb always has great recipes, beautiful pictures of her food, and an amazingly cute baby boy.

Awhile back she made mango curd, and it looked tasty enough to give it a try myself. So I made the mango curd late one night, and when I got done, I found myself eying a couple of ripe avocados that I'd almost forgotten about. As sometimes happens after midnight, I decided to indulge my whimsy and try the recipe with avocado instead of mango.

My avocados were a bit over-ripe, so I ended up using only about two-and-a-half of the avocados after cutting out the brownish spots I found after I cut open the avocados.

The puree was a lovely 60s-era shade of green. After adding the egg yolks and whisking over a double-boiler for 10 minutes, the avocado puree darkened just a bit and ended up taking on a sheen that the mango didn't. Probably because avocados have more oil than mangoes. It didn't look oily, just different.

The avocado curd also ended up thicker than the mango curd. It didn't set up totally solid, but I'd probably add a few more tbsp. of lime juice to the avocado to loosen it up a bit.

The colors of the two actually ended up complementing each other really well.

I got to use my little tartlet shell molds to make shells to put the curd in. I have tons of random kitchen toys, but as it turns out, I don't have a pastry blender. Huh. I used a fork to cut the butter into the flour and it worked surprisingly well.

Aren't they cute! I put quite a bit of lime juice in the mix because I was a little nervous about the avocado puree browning. It ended up tasting like key lime pie. Tasty!

Here's the recipes in case you want to make your own!

Avocado Curd
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen adapted from Bon Appetit, June 1998
Makes 1 to 1.5 cups
3 Medium-sized, ripe avocados
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon lemon juice (I ran out of lime juice. Next time I'll use all lime juice)
Pinch of salt
4 large egg yolks
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Puree avocado, sugar, lime/lemon juice and salt in processor, scraping down sides of work bowl occasionally. Add yolks; puree 15 seconds longer. Set metal bowl over saucepan of simmering water (do not allow bottom of bowl to touch water); whisk puree until thickened and thermometer registers 170°F., about 10 minutes. Remove from over water. Whisk in butter 1 piece at a time. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Pie Crust for Tartlet shells
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold shortening, lard, or butter, in 1/2 inch pieces (I used butter)
scant 1/4 cup vinegar water, ice cold

Wisk together flour and salt. Cut the butter/lard into the flour with fork or pastry blender until the fat/flour forms very small crumbs that looks like coarse corn meal.

Splash a little bit of vinegar (I used apple cider) into the bottom of a 1/4 cup measuring cup. I put just barely enough to cover the bottom of the measuring cup. I then filled the cup with ice-cold water up to just below the brim.

Sprinkle the water/vinegar over the butter/flour mixture and mix gently with your fingers until it just begins to stick together in a ball. It's OK if it seems a bit wet. You'll use flour when you roll the dough out. Flatten the dough ball into a disc shape and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Flour counter and rolling pin, and roll out to 1/8 inch. Fill tartlet shells, and pierce bottom and sides with fork. Bake shells in preheated 400 degree oven until golden brown, 10-12 minutes. Let cool in molds before removing.

Party Like It's Your Birthday

2010-07-10T20:00:00.001-06:00

I have an amazing friend who had a birthday this weekend. Lawanna is always a party, but this time she made it an organized event.

There was a big tent with tables, 3 BBQs going full throttle, a full size cotton candy machine, a slurpee machine, a 100 foot slip-n-slide down a hill in the park, and a beautiful, tasty cake made by yours truly!

It was a water-themed party. We were warned to come prepared to get wet, and it was a good thing we were warned...

A full-blown water fight broke out, and no one was safe...

Even the bishop (above in slacks and button-up shirt) got soaked! Brother Miller was like a giant 3 year old with that super soaker. He even "autographed" my back.

Robadile Dundee kept soaking people with bowls full of water.

There was a big tupperware thing full of water balloons that were originally meant for water-balloon-volleyball that all got used for "payback" instead. There was a good 20 minutes of people running around getting everybody wet. Good times.

Lawanna asked me to make her cake, but let me do whatever I wanted. I decided to use my flower-shaped pan to make a giant pink flower. Lawanna is currently fighting breast cancer, so pink is her color these days. I decided that a plain flower was boring, so I made little bugs out of color-flow icing to put all over it.

It was a crazy-fun party that had over 100 people in attendance, and lasted 5 hours. It all made for a perfect summer evening!

Happy birthday Lawanna! I'm so glad we're friends!!

Brisling

2010-06-21T13:00:00.000-06:00

I love science, and I love food. So I really love when people combine the two. There are fun books like "How Baking Works" that I've read that explain stuff, but sometimes it's nice to have some person explain things to you. No one does this better than Alton Brown. He really knows his stuff and demonstrates it in a really fun way. Good Eats is one of my favorite cooking shows. I never fail to learn several food-related things with every episode. Seldom has his advice led me astray. The popovers were delightful, the fan-made beef jerky was tasty and intriguing, and though my English Muffins didn't look as pretty as his, they were still pretty good. He had built a relationship of trust with me. I admired him. I trusted him. I even bought the book.

But then he convinced me that eating Brislings was a good idea. I should have known better.

You see, there was this episode where he used Brisling sardines as a topping for toast, and he made it look like it was the best thing he had ever eaten. I distinctly remember him saying that he could eat this particular snack for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was sold. I went to the store and bought me some Brislings of my very own.

I assembled the ingredients he said I'd need: Toasted sourdough, lemon zest/juice, avocado, parsley, salt, pepper, and sherry vinegar.

I combined the ingredients as directed, and smoshed the little fishes in a bowl.

Then I toasted and assembled.

The idea of this dish didn't necessarily repulse me, but the reality kind of did. It actually looked kind of pretty. I mean, really... Anything involving fresh avocado should be delightful...

Something about chomping down on little fishy tails almost made me ralph. They weren't bony or chewy or anything, but they were still definitely little fish tails. In my mouth.

Out of sheer pig-headedness, I managed to choke it all down. I wasn't about to let a little can of fish get the best of me. I can't really say that I enjoyed it. I took all of these pictures hoping this would be another Alton-Brown-Inspired success story...

Well, now I know. I'm now going to take any future food recommendations with a grain of salt.

I can have my own opinion, and that's OK.

Fish tails. Blech.

Does this wrist make me look old?

2010-05-05T23:57:00.000-06:00

Remember the Christmas before last, when I was wearing a wrist brace? Yeah. That problem never went away. When my wrist first started hurting, I waited a bit to see if it would go away on its own. About six weeks later, I broke down and went to the Student Health Center. I was still a student at this point, so that was where I had to go. They gave me a brace to wear and told me to take some ibuprofen every day for awhile and wait to see if it got any better. It didn't, and I went back. They then referred me to a specialist.

The specialist had me tuck my thumb into my fist and stretch my wrist sideways toward the pinky side of my hand. This made the side of my wrist hurt, so they decided I had DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis. They gave me a shot of steroids in my tendon, and told me that if the pain came back, I might need surgery. The pain went away for a little over a month, but then came back. The pain seemed to have traveled up to closer to my wrist, but the PA seeing me dismissed this. We talked it over, and scheduled a surgery to liberate my tendon.

So there I was in my cute little backless gown, hairnet, and booties, laying in a bed with wheels and side rails, about to be IVed. Dr. Johnson came out to meet me. He introduced himself, and took my wrist to inspect it. He prodded my wrist and asked if it hurt. He did a bit of a double-take when I said no. He had me do the thumb-tucking, wrist-bending thing, and when that hurt at the base of my thumb, rather than in my wrist, he called off the surgery. He had me come in to see him the next day.

The next morning, he took an x-ray, and felt around my wrist. The x-ray didn't seem to indicate any arthritis, which could have caused the problem. He then gave me a steroid shot in the joint, with the hopes that it would fix the problem. That was last fall. The shot helped for a few months, but the pain gradually came back. Since it wasn't a constant pain, I just decided to baby my hand and see if it would get better on its own. It didn't. I noticed pain with pressure against my thumb, like when I would put on gloves at work, or when I tried to carry a full pitcher of water with my right hand. I finally decided that it wasn't just going to go away, and went back to the doctor. They didn't know what was wrong, so we decided that the best thing to do would be to do surgery and scope my wrist to see what was going wrong.

So there I was: back in the drafty gown, fantastic cap, and brilliant no-slip booties.

I got in another wheeled, railed bed, and had an iv put in my hand. That was just before 10 AM. I then waited for about two hours waiting. There were a lot of grandmas/pas getting their cataracts removed, Including a dude born in 1930 named Richard Nixon. One couple talked to their son (it was his birthday) on speakerphone. I'm glad we all got to share that conversation. Especially since their son neatly dodged questions about the wayward grandson and his court date. Fan-tastic. And now I know that people who have gotten only one eye fixed don't remember many details of the surgery, but everyone seems to remember all of the details of the second one. Two hours well spent.

So they wheeled me into the surgery room, and knocked me out. Next thing I know I wake up shivering with my wrist all bound up. Seriously. I was really, really cold. Something having to do with the way the anesthesia is metabolized by the body. Brrrrrrrr. The nice nurse brought me a heated blanket. It was awesome. Abby was there and she fed me strawberry yogurt and narcotics and drinks of ice water. Such a great friend. I don't know if you've ever been with someone as they're coming out of anesthesia, but it seems that people seems latch onto one idea and just keep repeating the same thing. With me it was something about there being a fire sale on cataract surgery. I thought the droves of old people getting their sight back was funny.

So Dr. Johnson came out and talked with us. From what I can remember, they went in with their little 1.5 millimeter scope and cleaned out the junk that was floating around in my joint, and then they saw this:

The white part in the middle is cartilage, and the darker parts are exposed bone. That means arthritis. Yeesh. I seem to remember something about him saying that it seems to be the result of trauma rather than something genetic. But I can't be sure. The whole coming out of anesthesia thing. I'll learn more next Friday when I go back to have my dressing removed.

This is the end of my first day without one of my thumbs. Bathing was easier than expected. As was typing. Writing by hand is really hard. Peeling a banana is nigh unto impossible. Turning the keys in the ignition was a bit of a challenge.

**sigh** Arthritis at 30. Who'da thought.

May the 4th Be With You

2010-05-04T20:00:00.001-06:00

I am a long-time fan of Star Wars. I remember watching those old VHS tapes over and over. I remember skipping drumline a few times in high school to go wait in line for the new Star Wars movies. So I was very excited to be able to have a party to celebrate international Star Wars Day!

We had pizza, Darth Vader cupcakes, Star Wars fruit snacks, and even Bantha Milk! We watched the one that started it all: Episode IV A New Hope. It was fun, and for once I was somewhere where there were three guys for every girl. I've got to have more nerd parties!

I know some of you are wondering how I made those cute little chocolate Vaders, so I'll show you!

First, melt some white and dark chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring after every 30 seconds, and stopping as soon as the chocolate is melted. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, foil, or waxed paper.

Spoon the chocolate into piping bags and cut off the very tip so you have a small hole to squeeze the chocolate out. Make little bell (helmet) shapes with the dark chocolate on the parchment with the melted chocolate.

Use the melted white chocolate to draw the face details on the little helmets.

You can make storm troopers by making white helmets and doing the details in dark chocolate. Make little lightsabers by cutting some twizzlers pull-aparts and dipping the ends in the melted chocolate.

You can pop the finished decorations into the freezer for a few minutes so they set up quick. Or you can let them set up at room temperature overnight.

Pop your little decorations on some chocolate frosted chocolate cupcakes (come to the dark side). Give the Vader cupcakes little lightsabers (Storm troopers don't get lightsabers)

See how cute they are!? Now you can impress all of your nerd friends! I know I impressed all of mine!

Here's a bonus shot of me in my Princess Leia buns! (And my arm in my post-surgery sling)

May the 4th be with you always!

Free Bird

2010-04-27T00:59:00.002-06:00

I love food. I really, really do. I love making it, I love eating it, I love feeding it to other people, I love talking about it, I love reading about it, and I love hanging out with people that love food. Working at Viking has turned me into a bit more of a food snob than I used to be.

Well, snob may be a bit of a strong word. Maybe I'm not a snob, but I am a bit more food-aware. Not as much as some. I mean, I'm not totally sold on the whole organic movement, especially since reading about some of the politics involved in food. I do appreciate the intention. You know, using less pesticides, and treating animals humanely and such. I'm not sure I trust the labels at the store to pay twice as much, but it has made me think a bit more where my food comes from. It has made me want to eat more food that was produced in the same state that I live. Here in Utah, I have found some great opportunities to eat local. Not always, but at least once a month I try to buy Winder Dairy Milk (it really does taste good enough to pay $4/gallon). I used my tax return money to buy a share from Jacob's Cove, a community supported agriculture venture (CSA) that a cute little family has started in Orem. Those veggies are currently growing, and I won't get to eat them for a bit yet.

While surfing Craigslist today...er...yesterday, I saw an ad for fresh eggs. I have been interested in getting local eggs for a while now, but haven't known where to get them from. There is a guy that sells them at the farmer's market in the summer, but the farmer's market hasn't started yet... So I was doubly excited to see some other outlet to get local eggs. I texted the lady, and she got right back to me! I decided to head out there to check it out!

So after work, Allen and I went on a little adventure. We drove out to Benjamin to check out where these eggs came from. We pull up to this little place way up next to the the west mountains, and chickens come running at the car. Sometimes birds are afraid of people. Not these chickens! Seems like they know that humans are their meal ticket. I actually had to have Allen get out of the car to shoo the chickens out of the way so I could pull into the driveway. It was pretty funny. Talk about free-range chicken... these chickens were all over the place!

There was even a rooster running around, so the eggs are fertilized. This is not really all that important to me, but I'm sure its a selling point to some...

I got me a couple dozen eggs ($2/doz if you plan on being a regular and bringing back the cartons $3/doz otherwise), and headed home. I'm so excited about my cute little brown eggs! I'm sure they'll taste a little bit better, even if it's just because I know they come from happy chickens. I'm pretty psyched to be able to eat them for breakfast tomorrow!

Coming home, Allen spotted a little handmade sign advertising honey for sale. We pulled in to this cute house with a big pen of show sheep out back. Ahhhh... memories....

Anyways, this cute country couple have bees and are so excited to tell us about them. The new honey will be ready around Labor Day, but they still have a bit from the last batch... Something about honey in the pyramids...

So that's my local food attempt for this week. Milk, eggs, honey.

Yay food!

No Time For Losers...

2010-04-15T11:14:00.000-06:00

'Cause we are the champions...

Of the Ward!

This is the video my FHE group (General Mills) put together for the annual BYU 233rd Ward video competition. It's a bit tounge-in-cheek, and more than a little autobiographical in parts. We had a blast making it! Enjoy!!

One of 'those' people

2010-03-22T00:55:00.001-06:00

My newest hobby will come as no surprise to those of you who know me well. I love a good bargain. These days I ♥ couponing. It's good fun and has become quite the thing to do here in the "UC." If you see a woman going into a grocery store with a zippered binder tucked under her arm, she's a coupon-er. You'd be surprised how much money you can save. And not just on junk. You can get some seriously good stuff for little or no money. You save the most money by using coupons for things that are also on sale. There are websites that tell you what coupons match up with sales at specific stores, so you don't have to do much work. I've been following some of the local blogs, and I've seen the pictures they've taken of the groceries they've purchased using coupons. I'll just come out and admit that I've been jealous to see their deals all lined up and pretty. That's all in the past now. Now you can be jealous of me and my shopping prowess. Go ahead. Envy me if you want. I understand how it goes. I was there once too. I won't judge you either way.

I swung by Smiths on Friday night and this is what I picked up:

There are 12 things of pasta, 3 salad dressings, some cooking oil, 10 pouches of tuna, 4 jars of spaghetti sauce, 4 bags of candy, 1 jar of Nutella (I've been craving bananas with Nutella these days), 2 packages of english muffins, two little things of beef, some mouthwash, 3 bars of soap, and 4 boxes of Advil PM (great for those few nights where I have a hard time sleeping).

And here is my receipt... I have tried to rotate the picture, but it is now close to 1 in the AM and I gave up after a few tries. Feel free turn your head, or not look at it. Either way is fine with me.

So The total before coupons and sales was $133.76. The sales knocked off $66.42, and I had $31.50 worth of coupons. Amount I paid = $35.84! I saved 74%!!!! And you'll notice that I paid with cash. I'm paying for things with cash these days. It's really helped me to be better with my money. I'll do a post on that one of these days.

I don't always save this much with coupons, but its nice to know that its possible. Here are some of the websites I follow:

savvyshopperdeals.com - Amy works with the Daily Herald and has a great Shopping Wizard that helps you to know what is on sale at what store, and what is actually a good deal.

utahdealdiva.com - They are based out of northern Utah, but still have some of the same deals down here.

thekrazycouponlady.com - I'm not sure where this one is based. Idaho maybe? Regardless, they have a great printable coupon database. If there is a coupon for a product that you can print via the internet, rather than clip from those that come in the newspaper, it will probably be listed here. A great resource.

So that's my new hobby. Good times. Yay for bargains!!

Birthday Clubbing

2010-03-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

This week was Ron's birthday. Mom, Calvin, and Audrey came up from St. George for spring break, so we were able to play with us! Calvin's passion in life these days is golf. And he has gotten Ron hooked as well. Ron won some golf clubs on ebay for his birthday, and expedited the shipping so he could get them by the time Calvin got up here. Even though it was freezing for most of the week, Ron and Calvin were determined to play a round together. Their tee time ended up being on what was probably the coldest, windiest day of the entire week.

My mom and I had a hard time trying to think up something to get Ron for a birthday present. I thought about us all pitching in and buying some locally-grown pork, but there wasn't a whole lot of excitement for that idea. Sometimes I forget that other people don't get quite as excited as I do about food. At about this point Calvin joined us for lunch. When we asked for his imput he got this 'no duh' look on his face and suggested that we buy him a golf club. So Calvin took me to a golf club store and headed straight for the putting section. Calvin hates the putter Ron had and apparently, a putter was not included with the other ebay clubs. So Calvin started at one end and went through dozens and dozens of putters. Some looked like they belonged on a space-ship, some just looked pretty goofy, and some were pretty wicked pricey. He worked his way down, having handed me a few clubs to hold as 'maybes' and then he got to the used clubs. Pretty much right away he grabbed one particular club and said that he thought we found the one we wanted. He sunk the first putt he tried with that particular club.

I know squat about golf clubs, but apparently the name Scotty Cameron means something to anyone that knows anything about golf. This particular Scotty Cameron club, being used, was cheaper than new. So much so that Calvin examined it minutely to try and find what was wrong with it. It was still a bit out of where I wanted to pay. I mean, I love Ron and all but I'm not sure I love him that much... golf-club wise. So Calvin and Allen both went in on it and we left the store triumphant.

Audrey helped out by wrapping it up in pretty gold paper, and we took it with us to Brick Oven. We hid it under the table, because it was pretty obvious what it was. My mom called it 'soap on a stick.' There's some story about them getting Gramps 'soap on a rope' once for his birthday or Christmas or something. Ask her about it if you want the whole story.

We ended up opening the presents before dinner because there was some other huge party at Brick Oven, and our pizza ended up taking a really long time. Needless to say, Ron loved it. After checking and re-checking to make sure it was really a Scotty Cameron putter, he pretty much cuddled the thing all night. Pretty much the way I would cuddle a really fun new kitchen toy, like a creme brulee torch or a Le Creuset, or something. Manager Paul came over and took the club for ten minutes or so to show it off. Good times. Paul was Ron's manager when he worked at Brick Oven years ago.

A wide section of fam-damily was there Brick Oven-ing out! Mom, Nana, Ron's In-laws and sister-in-law with nieces in tow, Mom, Audrey, Allen, Calvin, and myself. The party even included the singing of the traditional Brick Oven Birtday song. The company was fun, the food was divine, but I think the real success of the night was Scotty Putter.

Happy Birthday Ron!

My Chosen Family

2010-03-08T01:31:00.000-07:00

I've heard said that friends are the family that you choose. I really believe this. You can really understand where people are coming from by meeting their family-family, but you can tell a lot about who people have chosen to become by meeting their friend-family. This week a tragedy has occured, and through it I have learned a lot about a very special friend of mine through interacting with both of his families.

I woke up Tuesday morning to find an email in my facebook inbox from the mother of one of my best friends, Mike. He had been driving home from his fiancee's house just after midnight late Monday night. He was driving on State St. on his motorcycle, when a 19 year old in an SUV didn't see him as she was turning left and hit him. He broke his femur in 3 places, broke some ribs, scraped up his face and banged up his head. He was life-flighted to UVRMC in Provo and has been in a coma ever since.

That first day, Mike's mom told me that she believe in the power of prayer, and asked me to get as many people praying for him as possible. I started making calls and sending messages, and the people I contacted started contacting other people. So many people have expressed their love and appreciation for Mike, all he has done, and the great person he is. Every time I see a member of his family, they express amazement at the outpouring of love they have felt from all of his friends, coworkers, etc.

His family-family has spent a lot of time at the hospital this week. I have been impressed how they have really stood together. They are all great people, and so much fun. I have seen such strength in them these past few days!

His friend-family is a lot bigger than I think anyone had realized. For a guy that was never very far from a computer, he really seems to have gotten around. In a good way. He has left a trail of friends all over this valley, dating way back to 1998 and all of his freshmen tre-dub buddies. He has fixed countless cars and computers, and has always been there for when I all I needed was a friend.

He was there for me when I was stood up one Friday night a few summers back, and I needed a last-minute replacement date to Brian Regan. He knew me well enough that he didn't mind that I was in a terrible mood and didn't talk much at all that whole night. He enjoyed himself that night despite my terrible company.

He was there for my dad when his truck broke down when bringing Allen up to BYU. Mike stayed up almost all night that Sunday dropping the gas tank to get in and fix the fuel pump so my dad could head home. He has always been so happy to help people out. He never accepted non-edible payment for any of the services he has provided to any of his many, many friends.

Mike is an important part of the family that I have chosen. There really aren't enough people like Mike in the world. He's a kind of gentle giant. Well, gentle most of the time. He's actually kind of scarily loud when there he is watching football or hockey, but at any other time he's pretty chill.

The doctors and nurses at UVRMC are taking good care of him. He's still in a coma, but showing some signs that he is healing physically. It's still too early to tell the condition of his brain, but there have been some small improvements over the past few days. His ward held a fast for him today, and his family said that they could really feel the outpouring of love and support surrounding them today. We're all hoping for the best, and hope he rejoins us soon.

Dad

2010-02-23T09:00:00.003-07:00

I can't believe it's been two years since my Dad passed away. Wow... time really flies.

A few months before he passed, my sister Connie took my little digital voice recorder down and asked him a few questions. She had her kids and Audrey ask some questions too. He sounds pretty tired at the beginning, but was much more rested and sounding like his old self by the time the grandkids asked questions.

It makes me tear up to listen to him, but it's great to hear his voice again...

Some People's Kids

2010-02-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

So it's been a crazy week. We've been scrambling to run a bajillion samples at BYU, I've worked at Viking three nights this week, I made an apron for some friends, was on the committee in charge of the stake quilting project that happened on Saturday afternoon, had the normal Saturday-morning band practice, and even watched this week's episode of LOST with some friends. I somehow found moments to sleep and eat in there somewhere. I even managed to bathe several times as well (lucky for those who had to be around me...) I feel like I was sprinting all week long. I've been pretty tired, but since I'm filling my time with things that I love, I've been in pretty good spirits.

Today I managed to make it to SLC a little before I needed to be at Viking, so I popped into Trolley Square to buy some fancy chocolates for Valentines day. I had seen said chocolates at the Utah Chocolate Expo, and was really impressed by how pretty they were. There was one girl working at the Chocolot booth, and she was out giving people samples of Valrohna chocolate. I stood by the booth, looking at the pretty chocolate for a few moments. A lady who looked to be in her 60's came up and looked with me. She and her husband were all prettied up and probably on their Valentine's date. She pointed out the sample lady to me, and I said that I was fine waiting for the girl to get done giving samples to some other people and would wait for her to get back to the booth. I started to tell her a little about Ruth Kendrick (the maker of the aforementioned pretty chocolate) and how she won so many of the categories in the hand-molded chocolate competition at last year's expo. She nodded and smiled, like people do when listening to people rave about something. The sample girl came back and the lady asked her some prices of things on the table. She bought two bars of Valrohna chocolate, one Guanaja (dark) and one Tanariva (milk). Actually, she told the lady what she wanted, and she got her husband to quit looking bored/distracted long enough to pull out his wallet and pay. It was kind of cute.

She then turned to me, handed me the chocolate she (her husband) had just purchased and wished me a happy Valentine's day. I took the chocolate and thanked her profusely, totally taken by surprise at this random generosity. I had never seen this lady in my life, and I had just walked in Trolley Square only a few moments before. I had pretty much walked in the doors and straight to the booth. She couldn't have been watching me, so she must have just made a quick decision to do something nice for me. She just smiled, and she and her husband turned and went on their way. The sample girl asked me if I knew them, and when I explained that they were complete strangers, we decided that they were some of the coolest people ever. Whoever raised this lady did it right. Her mom would be proud. I wish I would have had the presence of mind to ask her name.

We hear so much about the negative these days, and I sometimes forget that there are so many amazing, selfless people out there. A few dollars worth of chocolate isn't going to change anyone's life, but it sure made my week. I shared the chocolate the lady gave me with Bryan, Trish, and Will after we got done cleaning up after the Valentine's class at Viking. It was amazing. This whole experience and how randomly special it made me feel helps me realize that I need to look outside myself a little more and make more of an effort to make someone else's life a little brighter.

Happy Valentine's Day Everybody! I love you all!!

Never Boring

2010-02-08T00:54:00.003-07:00

I absolutely love my family. I'm not saying we're perfect, but I feel like we have the most important things down. Not that we always agree or get along, but we have each others backs when it comes down to the wire.

And for all of the things my family isn't, one thing that will it will never be is boring. I think this is mostly due to our lovely matriarch. She is always spicing things up, and the rest of us learned from the best there is! Thanks mom!!

Get Lost

2010-01-26T09:00:00.001-07:00

Just in case any of you haven't yet experienced the magic that is "L O S T", this nice young person made you an 8 minute summary. Here. Watch. Enjoy. You have 1 week until the premiere of this season. May you become as addicted as me...

Two Takes on Gravity

2010-01-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Gravity 1:
The one that jumps up at you when you least expect it.
Gravity 2:
Song that is great for chillaxin' on a lazy summer morning.

I'm a Contributor

2010-01-13T09:00:00.002-07:00

I know some of you question my value as a friend. (I don't really think this, but I did think that it would be a funny way to start this post...) Just to set the record straight I do things for people that I love. The last few weeks of my life were devoted to making Darcie's wedding experience complete. This involved me expanding my sewing skills and getting up the nerve to cut into really expensive lace. This is what came out the other end of my sewing adventure.

I did learn a lot through that particular experience. There are a few things I would do differently if I were to make this exact same dress again, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It did consume my life for several days. It took roughly 24 episodes of "Angel" (All of season 3 and a bit of season 4), 2 episodes of "The Soup" (The 2009 "clip-down") and 3 episodes of "NCIS" for the non-sewing parts of making this dress. But I did get it done in time. whew...
I also had the less nerve-racking task of making the cake. I've made lots of cakes, and Darcie and Spencer are pretty chill, so I just got to do whatever I wanted with this one. It was fun, and turned out really well. It also tasted fantastic. Nothing says wedding like a huge, tasty cake!
Just so you know, this is not me advertising. I am not looking to get into the wedding dress business. In fact, there are very few people I love enough to make a wedding dress for. Sorry if this offends most of you, but it's a very stressful kind of process, and I value my own sanity too much to do that more often than once every 5 years or so. So the memory will have dimmed enough for me to think about attempting this again in 2015 or so...

Now Introducing Darcer Snones!

2010-01-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

So I managed to get yet another roommate married off. Last Thursday, Spencer Snow married Darcie Jones. I know. Crazy that Darcie got married. I'm sure the people that know Spencer better than I do think that its crazy that he got married. Those crazy kids! Doing crazy things like marry-ing...
The Pastor's wife had the room decorated so cute! The color scheme was pink and black, and they managed to pull off a kind of retro look with the whole thing.
Darcie walked down to the aisle to "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles. She was just stunning in her custom-made dress and birdcage veil!
Darcie had her grandma, parents, brother, cousin, niece and nephew there, and Spencer had too much family for me to keep track of. Mom, brothers, etc...
Darcie's grandma even brought her wedding cake topper purchased for her own wedding in 1952! Darcie and Spencer were allowed to use it on the condition that they played nice when feeding each other cake. Face cake-shoving was not allowed. After taking an unusually long time to figure out how to cut the cake (I have no why this was a challenge, but it was. It was kind of entertaining to watch, actually...) they fed each other delicate little bits of scrumptious chocolate cake.It was the first wedding I have been to where the newlyweds were the last to leave rather than the first. Most people left around 7ish. Luckily for those of us who stuck around a little bit longer, Darcie's cake-topper-toting grandma was there to regale us with stories. Stories of such things as the origin of the word "Testify," and why women are "unequipped" to do so. Think about it. I was unable to confirm the veracity of this story via Wikipedia, but it makes a great story so I'm going to believe Granny. Good times... I can't wait until I'm old enough to wantonly corrupt the rising generation with stories of unsubstantiated, somewhat inappropriate, "facts."

All I have left to say is, Good Job and Good Luck to Darcie and Spencer!

I Are Gradiated!

2010-01-11T09:00:00.001-07:00

Now that December has passed its 100% official that I am graduated. Even though I defended last March, and walked in April, I still missed some of the deadlines with paperwork to have officially graduated back then. My diploma will say "December 2009" on it. Here's a photo montage of the day that I walked to commemorate the occasion:

Rest in Peep

2010-01-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

To commemorate the 2009 Easter season, my FHE group decided that it would be fun to play Chubby Bunny with marshmallow peeps. It was fun, but messy. If you decide to do this, just know that the sugar coating on peeps makes you salivate much more than if you were to use normal white marshmallows. It was a bit icky...

Even after playing Chubby bunny with 8 or 9 people, they still had a dozen or so trays of bunny peeps left over. Everyone else split, so I was privileged with figuring out what to do with all of them. I gave most of them to a friend that REALLY loves peeps, but even he didn't want quite as many as I had. I decided to get creative with them and this is what I came up with:

To make peep-krispy treats you'll need:

4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick) of butter or Margerine
10 oz (35-40) peeps
6 Cups Rice Krispies

Melt butter in a medium-sized pan. Add peeps and cook over medium heat until peeps are dissolved, stirring constantly. Rempoe pan from heat. Add Rice Krispies and stir until coated. Press mixture into a greased pan. Will firm up as they cool

Topping the mixture with severed peep heads is optional :-)

And Just in case you were wondering, here's a video that shows how peeps are made:

Blue-ish-Berries...

2010-01-09T09:00:00.004-07:00

Sometimes I wish I had the time to become better at everything. I love learning new things, but I only have the time to do so much. This was a time when I wished that my photography skills were a lot better, because the pictures I took didn't do these little berries justice. They were fresh, they were sweet, they were juicy and I enjoyed them in so many ways. After days of eating them plain I made a berries 'n' cream variation sprinkled with a little bit of powdered sugar. Delicioso!!

I had a flash of inspiration and decided to slice a few open to see what the inside of a blueberry looks like. I kinda thought it would be blue all the way to the middle. Imagine my surprise when I found a beautiful white interior with cute little brown seeds! So Pretty!!

Those Canaan Days

2010-01-06T12:57:00.008-07:00

My auntie Robin came up to St. George after Christmas to spend some time with us and to celebrate her 50th Birthday. While attending church, she noticed in the program that John Canaan (pronounced Can-Ann) was scheduled to give a free concert at the historic St. George Tabernacle. Since he was a bit of a superstar within the greater Utah-Idaho area in the 80's, my aunt was pretty excited to go and see him. This particular concert was focused on the holidays, though he is most well know for his song "What If I Loved You". Listening to this song, his voice may or may not sound familiar to you. He was the one that sung Michael McLean's song "You're Not Alone." Here's a video montage someone put together featuring this song. Such a great Tenor voice!

He was such a great guy and so happy to greet everyone after the concert. After we met the star of the show, my Mom gave us a Barbara-guided tour all around the Tabernacle. Here's some pictures of us in the balcony of the Tabernacle and on the "Historic Steep Steps."While I was typing this post I had a flashback to when a friend took me to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Here's what popped into my head:

Defensive Bowling

2009-12-18T23:23:00.000-07:00

When Ron, Audrey, Mom and I went Bowling after I defended my Dissertation we proved that the Merrell's are not great bowlers. Only one of us broke 100, but we sure had fun trying!

Props!

2009-12-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

So on my trip this summer I had to take a plane from Cleveland to Columbus. It ended up being a little tiny prop plane. It was crazy small! I was sitting right behind the prop on the left-hand side. It was a short ride, but takeoff and landing are crazy short in such a little plane!

Smells Like Money to Me

2009-12-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a little tiny town called Animas, New Mexico. I didn't grow up on a farm, but I grew down the street from one. My childhood home was on Hog Farm Rd.
M & M Hog Farm was a joint venture. One 'M' stands for my grandpa Adair Merrell, and the other 'M' stands for his cousin and good buddy, Marcel Mortensen. My dad worked for them until the Hog Farm shut down in the early nineties.
As a pig farm, there was a pretty strong odor that was in evidence when you were downwind. My grandpa would always "smells like money to me!" I have so many great memories of growing up in a small town and growing up so close to my grandparents!

Blowing my nose purple

2009-12-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

So for all of the years that i have lived in Provo, I've heard about the festival of colors at the Krishna Temple down in Spanish Fork that happens every spring. There has been something come up every year where I wasn't able to make it, but nothing kept me from it this year! Well, we kind of made it... We had to park so far away, that we were at the street in front of the temple right as they started throwing the colors.

There wasn't any color for Darcie and I to buy, but just wandering around in the middle of the crowd got us pretty colored up.
There were several people from the ward that we met there...
And you can't go to the Krishna Temple without saying hi to the llamas!!!
Breathing in all that dust made me blow my nose purple for days!

Ms. no More

2009-12-14T12:00:00.004-07:00

No, I'm not engaged, or even dating anyone, but I recently reached a milestone in my life. It has to do with getting a Ph.D., but it isn't graduation that I'm talking about. The fact that I have Ph.D. means that when I'm filling out forms and they require me to put a title before my name, I don't have to put Ms. anymore! I can now choose Dr. That's right, Dr. Karen Merrell.

Life is all about the little victories!

Stuff It

2009-12-13T12:00:00.001-07:00

I didn't have much of a garden this year, but I did get a few great tomatoes out of it. I had a few of them for dinner one day. I hollowed them out...
Cooked some quinoa in chicken stock in my little rice cooker...
I sauteed some onions...
Browned some sausage...
Mixed them all together, stuffed the tomatoes, and topped it with some cheese and baked until the cheese was golden and yummy!So Tasty! I love good food!!

Heeeeere's Jonny!

2009-12-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

I know this post is a little late in coming, but I want to introduce those of you who haven't met my newest nephew.

Jonathan Dean Merrell

Delivered 28 Jun 09, at 10:21am

(9 lbs 7 oz, 22 inches long)

He is taking after his Daddy in more than one way! He is so big! In this picture 7 week old Johnny is almost as big as 1 year old Kate!Here's the cute "little" family on the morning Johnny got blessed...

Here he is being loved on by Anna and Jared...

Showing off his ginormous man-baby hands sleeping on Anna's lap...

Here's the rest of the Merrell clan!

You want me to go WHERE!?!?

2009-12-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Karl and Leslie's wedding reminds me of the trip down there. I drove down to St. George and went from there with my mom and little sister. We have to cross the Hoover Dam every time we want to get to NM via AZ.
Apparently, the Hoover Dam hasn't been holding up as well as it should, so the Powers That Be decided to build a suspension bridge over a different part of the canyon. It was well underway when we crossed the Dam. Here's my mom's reaction at the prospect of having to go over the bridge:She has had a fear of heights ever since Nana made her ride the huge Ferris wheel at the World's when she was a little girl. Little Babs had her eyes closed tight and Nana kept yelling at her to open her eyes and that she payed seventy-five cents for her to ride and she better get the most out of it. Apparently, this one experience scarred her for life. It make for a pretty funny picture, though!

A Meal to Remember

2009-12-10T12:00:00.001-07:00

Not only did I get to spend time with some amazing people and visit some great places, I was also got to eat some amazing food this summer. I can't share the actual food with all y'all, but I can share pictures of a few of the most notable meals with you!
I met up with an old BYU friend, Kathy, in Philly and she treated me to some amazing sushi! I didn't eat a lot of fish growing up, but I was introduced to sushi a few years ago and I discovered that I really liked it. Well, up until this summer I had mostly just tried the rolls. The big slabs of raw fish were a bit of a stretch for me, but I did like them. I may even like raw salmon better than cooked salmon. Well, sashimi-grade salmon. I'm not going to go out and buy me some raw fish to munch on.Here is the Philly cheese steak that I ate in Philly. It was so amazing! Cheesy, meaty goodness... soooo tasty!!
These were the foodstuffs at my cousin Karl's wedding. Horchata, yummy fresh fruit, pecan butter cookies and green-chile brisket soft tacos in fresh, soft corn tortillas. I seriously miss the food that I may have taken for granted when I lived in the Green Chile State!
This wasn't all that much to look at, but it was amazingly tasty. True Cod on a sweet potato hash. At a fish restaurant in Philly, and it was so good!
This was quite possibly the best thing I ate on my trip. Also eaten in Philly, at McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant. Blue Crab, Bay Shrimp and Artichoke Dip with fried Pita Chips. We had this for an appetizer on one day, and it was so good that I came back by myself the next day and ate just this as my lunch. Mmmmmmmm........

More of Me to Love!

2009-12-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

Like I said in my previous post, I love all of you, but I also love myself. So here are some pictures of me that I took on the same trip back east!
Here's me at the WWII memorial. It was so hot and humid in D.C. that I bought a hat from a shop in the Old Post Office run by a couple of Korean ladies. I was able to tuck my hair up in the hat and keep it off my neck. Not the most flattering look, but it was a lot cooler than otherwise.In Philly at the Liberty Bell...
Self-portrait at the White House...
At the Theodore Roosevelt memorial
Under the T-Rex at the Smithsonian
Me with Stephen...
Listening to the radio at the Teddy Roosevelt memorial...
In Philly on one of the oldest residential streets in the USA...
Me with Uncle Abe...
With Thomas Jefferson...
In the Dole Line...
And outside the Betsy Ross House. It was so much fun to be able to see all of these amazing monuments. Great tributes to some of the people that gave so much to help make this country what it is today!

Blessed with my Presence

2009-12-08T12:00:00.002-07:00

This summer I was able to take a trip back east to visit some of my nearest and dearest friends. It was so much fun! I visited Kristina in DC. Kristina was my only Poly-Sci roommate, so it's all too appropriate that I got a picture of her next to the portrait of Stephen Colbert's portrait. He did run for president, after all...

How this particular portrait actually ended up in the Smithsonian is actually pretty funny. Check it out!

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Portrait Accepted - Brent Glass

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

U.S. Speedskating

I did hang out with my new friend Mike at the Mass Spectrometry conference I attended in Philadelphia. Mike is a fellow BYU student and neither of us knew the other one was going to the conference. The conference was several days long, and it was nice to have someone to hang out with. Here he is with the infamous Liberty Bell:

Ah, Holly. How I've missed your delightful giggle! I was able to hang out with Holly during the D.C. leg of my trip. We ate some really great food together, and went to a few of the monuments that I wouldn't have been able to make it to. I'm so glad I got to see you!

And then there's Lil Huff! I have missed her so much! I'm so so glad I was finally able to see your home state! And to meet Ben before you two made it final! It was so much fun to hang out with you guys and let Ben buy me food and cook you other food!

There are so many other friends that I love and miss terribly. So many little bits of who I am come from the people that I have lived, worked, and played with. Thanks to all of my family and friends who have helped me to learn and grow! I love you all!!

T - H - I - R - T - Y

2009-11-12T14:12:00.007-07:00

What is it about that particular word that seems particularly ominous these days?

Oh... wait... I know...

It's because that is now how many years I have existed upon this fair planet we call earth.

That's right, I have forever left my 20's in the dust. It really freaked me out for a few days there, but I got over it. I still haven't had to write my age as "30" on any forms yet, so maybe all of the freak-outs haven't passed me by yet. We'll see. What day isn't made just a little more fun with a little bit of freakiness?

I'll make a post about the fantastic dinner I made to celebrate later. For now I want to make a list of some of the fun things I have done/experienced this past decade. The following are listed in no particular order...

I have:

Hiked Mt. Timpanogos twice
Watched the 4th of July fireworks from the Y
Watched the sunset from Squaw Peak (don't get all excited, I was by myself)
Seen Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Diamond Rio, Gary Allen, Sawyer Brown, and several others in concert
Been featured in the Daily Universe not once, but twice!
Been interviewed for a story that aired on KSL (Allowing me to cross "be a TV star" off of the bucket list)
Learned Castellano
Spent 16 months in Argentina on a Mission for the LDS Church
Been videoed walking around the Riverwoods dressed in a Penguin suit
Grown my hair out to my elbows, cut it to my chin, then grown it out to my elbows again (current length. I really do look better with long hair)
Known the glory that is laser surgery (both for correcting vision and the obliteration of hair follicles)
Was told by a man that I am "more of a man than him." He came out of the closet years later. I'm still unsure how to take that particular statement.
Fallen up stairs several times. Trust me, this is something to brag about. Plenty of people fall down stairs, but how many people fall up stairs. I have a scar on my shin from falling up the stairs in front of hundreds of people at the movies...
Got both a BS and a PhD in Biochemistry
Joined a Band (no, not a rock band... a british brass band. Trust me, its cool)
Seen Loch Ness, Stonehenge, Tintagel Castle, the Blarney Castle, Mont San Michele, the David, Venice, the Coloseum, the Mona Lisa, the Eiffel Tower, and the cathedral at Notre Dame
Discovered the tasty deliciousness that is gruyere cheese
Bonded with my Mechanic (he's a catalyst, I'm just stuck in the bin)
Became an Aunt several times over
Won 5 radio contests in one year
Published several articles in scientific journals
Won the 2004 ABRF poster award and gave a presentation at the conference
Leared how to crochet and knit
Read hundreds upon hundreds of books
Made more new friends than I can count
Lived in 9 different Provo Apartments
Learned how to type really fast
Got to know my Great-grandpa Orson and great-grandma Lucinda by compiling a book about their life together
Lost 20 lbs. in 4 months, and gained it back upon frequent exposure to funeral potatoes
Got to hang out with "Majesty" - a Queen tribute band
Tried on Miss Utah's crown
Grown my own food in several different gardens
Almost ODed on fresh cherries (is there anything tastier... mmmmmm...)
Went on a California road-trip with little Huff
Had several awkward conversations in which I found out I was not in the running for "more than friends" status
On a related note, I have not been on cuddling terms with nearly enough guys in my 20s. Here's hoping to do better in that category in my 30s!
Taken 7 dance classes. I'm still not very graceful, but I can hold my own on a ballroom floor with a decent lead.
Learned the basics of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

I'm sure I'll think of other things to add... The past decade has had its ups and downs, but its been fun! Here's looking forward to my 30s!

Stuck in Zions

2009-08-28T05:00:00.001-06:00

I know its now August, but this is a story that I haven't had the chance to tell you all yet. And I'm going to tell you now. Even though we're way closer to the coming Christmas than the one that that involved this story. It's my blog, and I can procrastinate if I want to!

Right... back to the story. Well, this past Christmas it was just Mom, Audrey, and I at home for some of the time. I think my mom felt a little bad that we weren't going to to have as much Christmas craziness as usual, so she planned a fun adventure for us. Saint George is right next to part of Zions National Park and we haven't really had the chance to see much of it, so mom arranged for a jeep tour of part of Zions.

Funny thing is, even though it rarely snows in Utah's Dixie, a huge storm system moved through and there was snow everywhere! We got in the jeep and took off up the mountain. We went a ways and it was beautiful. Not many people see the redrock cliffs of Zions covered in snow, and it was just amazing! As we got higher and higher, there were more and more trucks that had towed snowmobiles up the mountain, unloaded and pulled off to the side of the road. The traffic slowed down a bit and the jeep started slipping and sliding on the road, so we decided to turn around rather than risk getting stuck.

Turning around was a little bit nerve-racking, but we made it OK. We headed back down the mountain, with our guide driving carefully seeing as the road was pretty steep and snow-packed. Unfortunately, because our driver was such a nice guy, when another truck was coming up the road, we pulled to the right to make sure they had plenty of space on the road to get around us. Now, the road wasn't all that narrow, and they probably could have gotten around us in any case. As it was, we pulled right to what looked like road, but was actually just loose snow that the snow plow had leveled off to look like road. There wasn't any paved shoulder to the road, and the dirt shoulder dropped off pretty steeply.

The long and short of it is that we got stuck, and we got stuck good. Our front right wheel was completely buried, and the wheel was just spinning. We spend some time trying to get out. My cell phone didn't get reception, the driver's cell phone didn't get reception, but Mom and Audrey's phones got some reception, so we were able to call for help. Our guide called his Bishop and his strapping sons to come and help us. (Yes, they were all married. My mom made sure to ask.) It took some doing, because the truck that was trying to help pull us out kept slipping.

It was beautiful, but really cold. Especially for Audrey. She has less insulation than Mom and I, so she was really struggling. Her hands got to the point where they were starting to feel numb, so she found an interesting way to keep them warm. Turns out your armpits are one of the warmest spots on your body. Someone else's armpits are sometimes warmer than your own! It was really funny to watch :)

We did finally get out, and headed all the way down the mountain with an entourage. We passed some cowboys driving their cattle in the sunset. We got an additional little bit of tour, and then got dropped off at our car. We went and looked around the museum a bit, saw lots of stuffed animals native to the area, and then went and had a warm dinner at Olive Garden! It was a fun trip, and makes for a good story!

Calvin did drive up and surprise us for Christmas, and we got to spend some time with the Sowards. It was made for a great Holiday Season!!

Tu-Tu Cute

2009-08-27T22:26:00.000-06:00

I am way behind on my blog posts, but am just going to post old stories whenever I get around to it. Hopefully I'll get caught up and things will be in chronological order and recent, but for now just enjoy the stories as they roll out!

My roomate Michèle rented a tutu to run in the Nutcracker 5K this past winter. (The link is pretty outdated, but it'll give you a pretty good idea what it is all about) She mentioned how relatively crappy the tutu was and mentioned how easy it would be to make one. A better one. That gave me an idea. I googled how to make a tutu and was a little surprised at how easy it was to make them. I went to wally-world and bought a whole bunch of sparkly tulle and cut it into strips and looped it onto an elastic waistband.
I made a Barbie pink one for Michèle, a hot-pink and purple one for Katherine, and ones for my nieces: purple for Cindy, pink for Sarah, yellow for Anna, and a little green one for baby Kate. Jared got spiderman pajamas and a cape.
I was pretty sure Ben wouldn't have appreciated me making his son a tutu. Even if it was going to be blue. Everyone was so cute! Merry Christmas to everyone!

Sadistic Summer

2009-06-17T12:54:00.005-06:00

As I was scanning baby pictures for my little biggest brother, I came across these pictures. Proof that my parents used their children as a private source of amusement. This particular incident involved a traditional summertime treat. Most of the time this summertime delight is served in bite-sized cubes or inch-thick slices. Usually. When one isn't intent on using your position as "parent" to construct humorous situations involving young children just to fulfill your sick, sick sense of humor.

This is representative of the size of the slices of watermelon given to the adults:

And these are the slices given to the toddlers:

I just bet my "loving parents" had sooooo much fun watching their kids trying to handle eating 1/4 of a watermelon each.

Sick? Twisted? You decide!

Stand By Me

2009-05-04T16:39:00.003-06:00

In keeping with my love of all of you, I thought I'd pass along this little gem. Make sure you have your sound turned on for this one! I recommend viewing it in full-screen mode. If it doesn't bring a tear to your eye and a smile to your face, I'm pretty sure you and I shouldn't be friends anymore. Consider this your warning...

You can read up on Playing for Change here.

Deep Thoughts

2009-04-27T23:14:00.006-06:00

My home teachers took my roomates and I out for ice cream at sub-zero tonight. One of them got ice cream with little M&Ms in it and I had this thought:

When we think of "colored M&Ms" we think of the red, blue, yellow, orange and green ones, but not really the brown ones.

When we think of "people of color" we think of the brown ones, and not the ones that are pink, yellow, or whatever other color of person that may exist in this wonderful world.

And come to think of it, "colorful language" rarely actually involves the speaking of words describing any colors found in any rainbow I've ever seen.

Funny how that works...

A random childhood memory

2009-04-17T13:50:00.004-06:00

I have no idea why, but I had a random memory pop into my head and I thought I'd share.

Connie had a science fair project back when we lived in Las Cruces where she was testing the effect of subliminal messages. She did it by recording her own voice suggesting a particular number between 1 and 10 underneath a popular song of the day. These voice recordings were inaudible under the song. She then had multiple people listen to the song and tell which number the song made them think of. The song was "Toy Soldiers" by Martika. Connie needed a larger sample set so she had to have me listen as well. I listened for a while and then guessed "4". You see, the song had the lyric "we all fall down" and to me, the number most likely to fall down is the number 4. It only has one leg and top heavy on one side. I didn't guess the right number and Connie got mad at me. I screwed up her science fair project and she didn't like it one bit!

Funny, huh!

I dreamed a dream!

2009-04-16T13:14:00.001-06:00

Just in case you haven't seen this one yet... Gives me shivers every time!

Susan Boyle on Britains Got Talent 2009!! Incredible Voice!! @ Yahoo! Video

If you sprinkle when you tinkle...

2009-04-15T11:51:00.000-06:00

WARNING: This blog post includes some discussion of a... somewhat personal... nature. Be forewarned that some of this post could be considered "too much information".

I am not typically a squeamish person. I really don't mind things that really make other people squirm. I don't mind the necessity of a needle being poked in me when I give blood, I don't mind cleaning up after Pepe when I take him on walks, blood and gore and bugs and spiders don't typically phase me, etc... As some of you know, I did research on bovine lens epithelial cells. This necessitated me going to the slaughter-house early in the morning to get fresh cow eyeballs, bringing them back to my lab, and cutting off the cornea to get at the lens. I won't go into further details because I don't necessarily want to gross any of you out. If you want more details, just ask. I'll be sure to get you a full description. And I had no problem with any part of the whole eyeball process. Just an example of how non-squeamish I am.

There are, however some things that do gross me out. Pee on the toilet seat is one that has always bugged me. It probably stems from having 4 brothers just younger than me and thus, finding frequent drops of yellow marring the pristine white of the toilet seat. I have been told that it's difficult for young boys to learn how to hit the target they are aiming at, but that never really convinced me for several reasons:

1) It's not like the target is moving. And a toilet bowl is really pretty big. And its not like little boys are aiming from a mile away. How hard could it be? I mean, its these same boys who can pee their name in the snow with nary a wayward dribble. Does such skill suddenly vanish upon entering a domestic domicile? I think not...

2) The designer of the modern commode took young "wayward" boys into account in his (or most likely, her) design, and integrated a lifting rim that sits above the porcelain bowl. So if someone (say, a young brother) has noticed a history of skewed piddling in the course of his daily happenings, they could take measures to avoid inconveniencing others by lifting the seat prior to actual onset of tinklage. Whether or not they put the seat back down afterwards is no concern of mine. In my opinion, If they get the seat up in the first place, they have received sufficient training. Any further action taken to accommodate female patrons of the same restroom is to be considered an "extra." I realize that other women will disagree with this, but I have rather strong opinions from time to time and I feel entitled to expressing them. In case you haven't noticed. If you don't like it, make your own blog...

3) In the case that one has managed to "sprinkle" by having forgotten to lift the seat, one can easily correct the mistake by taking a little bit of toilet paper and cleaning up the mess!!! I really don't think that it is that complicated. But for some reason, this seems to be unaccountably difficult for some people. One of my brothers refused to clean up after himself (quite a few years ago) and wound up handcuffed to the toilet in question until he agreed to clean up after himself. I wouldn't go to such extremes to express my personal opinions these days, but it still bugs me.

And yet, when it's boys that are the offending sprinklers, I can see where they are coming from. Maybe. But since our world is one of double standards when it comes to men and women, what bugs me coming from men and/or boys really really bugs me coming from women. Yes, it's true. There are women that sprinkle when they tinkle. Quite a few, in fact. Unless there is one woman (let's call her The Rogue Tinkler) running all over campus sprinkling toilet seats willy nilly.

This baffled me at first. I mean, I always assume that women assumed a sitting position to do their business, as I did. I guess some women are grossed out by putting the skin of their derriere somewhere that has been in direct contact with that of another human being. It doesn't phase me, because the part that contacts the seat is just skin. And skin in that region has usually been protected from environmental pollutions, etc. by several layers of clothing. Considering all this, if one has to be grossed out by something, shaking hands is more germ-spreading than sharing toilet seats. Nevertheless, some women are grossed out by toilet seats and as a result engage in a practice called "hover-peeing." Henceforth I will be referring to this practice as hoverone. It's easier to say, has one less syllable, and since I just received my PhD, I'm exercising my right to make up words as I see fit. But mostly, I'm doing it because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want herein.

So hoverone-ians do not believe in sitting on the seat. Instead, they "hover" just above the seat as they empty their bladder. And this is how sprinkles end up adorning the seats of women's toilets. But this still baffles me a bit. The toilet still doesn't move, still has a rather large bowl, as well as coming equipped with the self-same lift-able seats found in domestic restrooms. It's a little more difficult for women to aim than men, but still not impossible. I mean, the vast majority of women aren't able to pee their names in the snow (though this is partially a question of individual agility, perhaps) but a stream is a stream, and not usually a spray. Maybe they're facing backwards? Rocking out to their Ipods? I don't know. Regardless of exactly how it happens, I find sprinkle-seats several times a week.

It's not that I have anything against hoverone-ing, because I don't. People have the right to hoverone should they have the desire and quadricep strength to do so. And I have occasionally joined their ranks when faced with a particularly nasty commode (either in Argentina or the good ol' USofA) when nature's call is ringing loudly in my ears. (I feel the need to qualify this by saying that hovertwo-ing requires a skill set I have yet to master. It's just beyond my abilities to clench leg muscles while...um... un-clenching *other* muscles. Kudos to those with this ability.) It just really bugs me when people don't clean up after themselves. It seems to me that people squeamish enough to hoverone in clean, though public, restrooms are less than likely to maintain their hover whilst they drip dry. They are already making use of the supplied paper to clean themselves, so is it really to much to ask that they spare a square for the benefit of the next person to use that particular stall?

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned courtesy?

If you sprinkle
when you tinkle
be a sweetie,
wipe the seatie.
If you hover
lift the cover!

Wogging for a Cure

2009-03-27T10:00:00.000-06:00

So a few weeks ago I dug my running shoes out of the bottom of my shoe box, dusted them off and laced them up. I donned my new t-shirt, safety-pinned a number to my abdomen, and went to meet a few members of my family for my yearly run.Seeing as I am a shape, but not generally considered "in" one, what was a run for some people ended up being a wog in my case. That's a walk/jog for those of you not hip with my lingo. After a few minutes huddling together in the pre-sunrise chill, the Rex Lee Run run for a cure started up. Uncle Rich took off to work the 10k, and after all those people crazy enough to join him were safely out of our way, the 5k-ers got to start. Audrey and I started jogging from the beginning, and Mom and Janis brought up the rear. Audrey could have dusted me, but was nice enough to keep me company. At my suggestion, Audrey and I walked up most of the uphill slopes, and then jogged on the downhill stretches. I made decent time for me, especially seeing as I've pretty much been in hibernation between finishing up my dissertation and the chill in the weather. I really haven't gotten out much. I fully plan on remedying that. Soon. Tomorrow, in fact.
Back to the race... There were tons of people cheering along the raceway, icluding Scooby-Dooby-Doo! I got a quick breather while Audrey posed for the camera. I did manage to come in ahead of 183 people! I'm not going to mention the exact number of strollers that were breezing past me in the early, middle, and late stages of the race because that will bruise my ego, and how silly would I be to post that kind of thing on the internet?
Audrey came in 42 places ahead of me. Janis came just ahead of Mom, and they beat 36 and 35 people, respectively, including all of the racers that were in wheelchairs.
Audrey and I got in enough ahead that we were able to capture the moment when Janis and Mom crossed the finish line. Uncle Rich got a medal for his stellar performance, and we got to watch him being interviewed for KBYU tv, and being photographed while being interviewed. Goofy hat and all :)
In order to recoup all of the calories we just burned, we went and had a late breakfast at IHOP. Good times all around!

The little bearded man

2009-03-25T21:26:00.000-06:00

My roommate Michele is engaged to Alan. As such we see him a lot more these days. All in all, I'm OK with the whole thing. He's nice and all, and he compliments me alot. OK, not really all of the time. Some of the times. Mostly when I have food and he wants some of it. But I'll take what I can get these days! I don't relish the thought of not living with Michele anymore because she's so crazy fun. We'll just have to pack in the fun the next month or so!

Alan is a bit of an enigma. Sometimes I don't know who he is. At times he's so innocent and cuddly-looking, and I can see what Michele sees in the dude.

But there are other times when he's anything but. Every now and then I catch a look of pure animosity directed right at me. This sometimes happens when Michele is around, but never while she's paying attention. And that makes me a little concerned. Does Michele know this side of Alan? Maybe she does! That's a scary thought. Maybe she has a corresponding evil side that clicks with the evil gleam I've caught in Alan's eye. Maybe they're plotting against me!

That's it! I'm barricading myself in my bedroom at night from now on!!

I'd Like to Introduce You to Me

2009-03-18T10:56:00.006-06:00

I know many of you already know, either through facebook or through my sister's blog, but I passed my dissertation defense on Monday. So one day I'm just a lowly grad student, and the next I'm still a lowly grad student, but one who will have a title for the rest of my life. I am now Karen Merrell PhD!

I had some great support. My mom and Audrey drove up from St. George, Connie drove up from Cedar City, Aunt Janis drove down from Pleasant Grove, and Brian flew up from LA to hear the public presentation part of my defense. They were very attentive, and impressed my professors with the great questions they asked me. After my presentation, they kicked everyone out except for my committee and asked me questions for an hour. I was a little nervous about this part, since I had no idea what to expect, but it went over pretty well. There were a few questions I didn't know the answer to, the answer to one of them should have been obvious to me but wasn't, but I knew everything else they were asking me. For the most part, I even knew why they were asking me them.

Well, then they kicked me out, deliberated for five minutes or so and then called me back in and congratulated me. And then handed me back the huge stack of corrected dissertations. And now I have to go back and correct them, tweak the format so they can be submitted to the library electronically, and then I make 6 or 7 copies on fancy scmancy paper, and then submit them to be bound and whatever else they do with them.

Well, that's my story. Kind of crazy! It hasn't sunk in yet, I think. But it does feel great to be done. I feel more relaxed than I've been in months!

Smell and Memory

2009-03-04T16:50:00.003-07:00

So there are some smells that instantly transport me back in time. The smell of cinnamon-scented Glade air-freshener takes me back to Grandma Merrell's house in Animas, the smell of Woolite takes me back to washing sheep at the fair, the smell of horses take me back to most of my childhood as does the scent of burning trash (we lived in the sticks, ok? everyone burned trash). The smell of cows takes me back to the interstate right outside of El Paso. The smell of a Pantene sometimes takes me back to the time I went to the Air Force Academy for a week in the summer. Sometimes when I'm walking in the rain, a breeze will rush by adding a subtle scent that I can't really put in words and I'll feel like I'm in Argentina again. All of these are fairly normal to me and don't really catch me off guard anymore. Sometimes I'll pause and bask in the memory before going on with the rest of my life. Every now and then an unusual smell will take me back to an unusual place. Like today, for instance.

I went to the dentist today. Nothing unusual so far, other than the timing. My dissertation is due to my comittee members in about 16 hours or so, so I probably shouldn't have taken the time to go the dentist, but I scheduled my appointment back when I was deluding myself that I would have my dissertation done mid-February. Back to the story...

So I'm laying back in the chair watching the end of Transformers on the ceiling (this is some fancy dentist's office!) feeling a little sad that I had so much work left to do tonight. I wasn't really bemoaning the work, but rather the fact that to keep my wits about me I turned down the opportunity to suck on a little happy gas. I briefly considered it but realized that Dissertation + happy gas+ looming deadline = train wreck. It would probably be a funny train wreck, but not worth it in the long run. I have been working on this degree for just under 6 years now, after all. Not worth the risk.

(Author's note... Some of you squeamish folk might not appreciate the next paragraph. I think it's funny, but my sense of humor runs toward to the macabre at times. Don't say I didn't warn you...)

So I'm in the chair and the dentist is drilling some tooth in the lower left quadrant of my mouth. The sound was pretty much horrible and I could see smoke coming up out of my mouth, but neither of these things really affected me. After all, that's kind of SOP for getting cavities filled. The smell of my own teeth burning, however, took me back about 5 years or so to when I got lasik surgery to correct my vision. Suddenly I was in a different chair, hugging a very large stuffed rabbit for comfort (even though I wasn't all that nervous at first. I'm just saying that if you were laying there with your eyeballs peeled and some nurse puts a large soft plush thing on your chest, you would hug it too!), and instead of my jaws being held open, there were these metal hook things holding my eyelids open. My eyelashes were taped out of the way, my corneas were peeled back, my vision was very very blurry (what with the corneas not being in their accustomed spot and all), and I was staring into a blinking red light smelling my own eyeballs being vaporized. The smell of vaporizing eyeballs isn't the same as the smell of burning teeth, but today my brain linked them somehow. Weird. Neither of these experiences was a bad one. In fact, I'm really happy with my lack of needing contacts and I will be happy with my cavity-free teeth as soon as I can feel the right side of my face.

What smells take you guys other places?

Everything is so Amazing, and No One is Happy

2009-03-02T14:26:00.004-07:00

A friend shared this video with me a few days ago. I think it's a great commentary on how we as a society are so used to the amazing things that we have right now. I, for one, have spent some quiet time alone pondering and being amazed at some of the amazing technologies of this day and age. Indoor plumbing, the interweb, cell phones, chocolate, the list goes on and on...

A Fair Bit of Success

2009-02-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Last fall it was brought to my attention that the county fair was accepting entries. Debbie and I entered several things. I entered jam, an apron I made for Athelia, some produce from my garden, some pictures I took on my camping trip, and some baked goods. Not that there was a lot of competition, but I was pretty proud of myself. I brought home a dozen ribbons, most of them gold. It's just something fun that I thought I'd share with all of you!

Old Timey Country

2009-02-16T11:55:00.002-07:00

I recently found this clip on YouTube. I have memories of my dad singing the first song in the clip, and memories of my mom singing the second one!

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did!

I Like Pretty Food

2009-02-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

I want to share a few pictures of things that I ate that make me happy. One is a salad that I made with lots of things from my summer garden, one is an example of the pizzas that I was making on my free grill (hooray for freecycle) over the summer with all of my surplus tomatoes and basil, and one is a fat lot of cinnamon rolls I made for a special occasion. I really love food!

Karen to the Rescue!

2009-02-07T10:00:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this yet! I mean, I was pretty much a hero. Really saved the day and all. If I did post this just let me know. Even if I have already told this story, it's worth telling again. Since I am a hero and all.

So there I was, walking down the hill from the Benson Building on one mighty fine summer afternoon heading to my car. Walking past a drain gate I hear some peeping. I pull the grate off, hop on down, and lean down into the large hole. Definitely peeping. I call BYU police to ask what I should do and they say that they are the ones that take care of it and will be there shortly. I hunker down to wait for them to show them where the duckies are. At some point I see a friend coming down the hill and I flag him down and ask if he by any chance keeps a flashlight in his truck. Being the boy scout trained guy that he is, he pulls a mag-lite out from under the front seat. I go back, lean down into the hole, and see two little ducks wading in the water.

It was too far down to reach them even if they hadn't run away when I would get close. There was a constant trickle of water so it was too slippery to climb down. I found an old door and blocked off most of where the trickle came in and where the ducks must have slipped down. The drain pipe was pretty broad and was blocked up at the far end. It went back a good few dozen yards and then there was a cement wall.

The mommy and daddy ducks heard their lost babies and would come close to the drain and quack at them. The babies heard and would peep back. It was cute, but made me want to save them all the more. As some other people were walking to their cars they would stop and wait with me. Some stayed and were really trying to help, while others were just interested in the show. A girl called her mother who lived a few blocks away and she brought two pool nets that we used to try and fish the ducklings out of the hole with. A physics student went back to the Eyring and brought back a whole bag of bagel crumbs that were left over from something. Before that we had tried to lure them with a few cake crumbs that some other girl had left over from her lunch.

We fished one out and set it free next to its family and after mom and dad had checked the little guy out, they and the 9 or 10 other babies waddled back down to the duck pond. Much to our surprise, we still heard two little duckies peeping from the tunnel. After much further efforts, mostly on my part and that of the aforementioned mother and daughter of the pool-net fame, we did manage to get the other two out all at once. Since the rest of the flock had already gone back to the duck pond, we carried the little peepers down there in the pool nets. We let them go and they ran back to their family!

Like I said. I'm pretty much a hero. The police never did show up. After several hours, we called them to ask about whether or not they were actually coming. Apparently there was some people-related incidents that necessitated the presence of the BYU cops. After we got the ducks out I saw a momma deer and her two fawns come out and start to eat the bushes. It was cute too! And that's my story. You know, the one where I'm a hero... Yeah... cool... hmmm...

Big gulps eh... welp... see you later...

25 Random Things About Me

2009-02-03T15:34:00.007-07:00

This thing has been going around Facebook and I finally decided to give in to the many requests I was sent to post random things about myself. I worked on it on and off for a bit and decided to post it on my blog as well. Well... here goes:

1) I have broken a leg, but it wasn't mine.

2) At one point I had pierced ears, but I decided the hassle of the whole process was too much to bear just so I could have shiny/sparkly things in my earlobes so I let them close up.

3) I can read really fast as long as it is recreational reading and not a textbook. I haven't really timed it, but I think I average 2-3 pages per minute depending on font size and intended audience of the book. For example, I recently knocked out a 250 page Tamora Pierce novel in 2 hours.

4) Speaking of which, I love love love to read and do it a lot. My first love is SciFi/Fantasy, but I've been branching out a bit recently. I've really cut back in an effort to write my dissertation in time and I feel like I'm going through withdrawls.

5) I can't stand it when the 4 fingernails on either hand (but not necessarily the thumb) are different lengths. And my nails are super brittle and break all the time. When one breaks, the other three get trimmed back too.

6) I make funny faces when I'm really concentrating on something. Like when I'm playing percussion. My high school drumline buddies used to tease me about it all the time.

7) I really like dark chocolate. Sometimes milk. But rarely fruity or minty chocolate. Give it to me straight up!

8) I originally declared Biochemistry as my major because it sounded cool, not because I knew anything about it.

9) I have a terrible long-term memory for detail. I can and do read the same books year to year and still really enjoy them. The same with movies.

10) I prefer my water at room temperature. I like soda and other drinks cold.

11) I don't have very good depth perception. This is one of the reasons I avoid sports where I have to catch things as much as possible. It also meant that I rear-ended several cars when I first got my driver's license. It's improved somewhat since I got lasik, but i'm pretty sure it's still not as good as most people's.

12) I get really punchy late at night. The filter between my brain and my mouth can ceases to exist. Some of you have witnessed this and may or may not have been scarred by the experience.

13) I recently compiled a 620 page book on the lives of my dad's dad's parents. It's pretty cool.

14) A few weeks from now I will be Karen Merrell PhD!

15) I have a 3 month attention span for my various hobbies. Everything gets done eventually, but if it takes more time than 3 months it may have to wait years to get finished.

16) I also go through breakfast phases where I eat the same thing every single morning for a month or so after which I don't eat it for a long, long time. I just finished my porridge kick and have moved on to english muffins.

17) If I'm sitting still listening to someone for more than 30 minutes or so I tend to fall asleep. This happens regardless of how interested I may or may not be in what the person has to say. This also has nothing to do with how much sleep I got the night before. This also happens when I go to symphonies, but not plays, or movies. Almost always happens at church.

18) I briefly considered going to cooking school after graduate school. I decided that probably wouldn't be a good idea and found a professionally trained chef to volunteer with instead.

19) I play the only non-brass instrument in a brass band. I love percussion! Hitting things with sticks really starts my Saturdays off right!

20) My communication style can best be described as blunt. I tend to call things as I see them. It's hard for me to fathom, but this makes many people uncomfortable.

21) My first pet was a dog named poochie.

22) It's really hard to offend or embarrass me. I think my mom used up a lifetime of embarrassment while I was growing up. This is how I can wear things like penguin and superhero costumes in public with impunity.

23) I was in 4-H from the time I was 8 years old until I graduated high school. I made it to state in target shooting (.22s) a few times, and won both grand champion and reserve-grand champion market show lamb at the 1997 El Paso County Livestock Fair.

24) I don't like things to be dirty, but I do like a little bit of clutter out and about. I'm uncomfortable in houses where things are antiseptically clean and nothing is out. Makes me feel like I can't relax.

25) I like having my legs even with my body. So if I'm sitting in a chair, I usually have my legs tucked under my body or propped up on something. When I'm at home I often sit cross-legged at the kitchen table, and I sit on the floor rather than on the couch when watching TV. Weird, but that's just how I roll.

A Glock on Temple Square

2009-01-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

So awhile back I got to do a show with UPB where we got to play in the Assembly Hall on temple square. I ended up parking in the underground parking lot underneath the Conference Center and ended up having to carry my very heavy glockenspiel all the way across temple square. Seeing as I call it my glock, It struck me as funny (because this is what most people think of when they hear the word glock) that I was able to carry it openly across temple square. So I stopped and took a picture. Makes me giggle :) I took a few pictures of the temple, of the assembly hall, and of Chris and I in the assembly hall.

A Pet Peeve

2009-01-23T14:49:00.003-07:00

As I sit here taking a break from the break I've been taking I thought I'd share with you a pet peeve of mine I've recently discovered. You see... it all goes back to about 7 or so years ago when I was taking a ballroom dance class in the WILK. (285 for those of you that are interested in which one) At the time the WILK was undergoing substantial renovations, especially down the hallway where my classroom was located. To complicate things, I had a class across campus just 10 minutes after the dance class, so every day was a frantic rush into the bathroom to change my clothes and shoes before sprinting to my next class. There was a bathroom door directly across the hall from the door of my class. Convienent yes? Well, not really seeing as this was a men's bathroom. For whatever reason, the construction people had taken down the signs normally making it obvious which gender would be welcomed to enter said restroom. The first time I mistakenly rushed into the bathroom, only to be met with a line of urinals (fortunately unoccupied) was quite a shock. Ditto for the second time. You'd think I would have learned my lesson at this point. But no... I was a little less fortunate the third (yes third) time. I guess as soon as the bell rang my brain went automatically out of my head and to the next class. So I push open the door (yes, to the same men's room) and see one of the guys from my dance class coming around the corner finishing zipping up his pants. Talk about embarrassment. I pretty much ran away. This was only half-way through the semester so I still had two months in this class. And I would have to dance with this guy! What's even worse is that he was one of a pair of identical twins that were in the class together and I couldn't tell them apart, so whenever I ended up paired with one of them I never knew whether or not the guy I was dancing with was the one that saw me burst into the men's restroom! Ugh...

Which leads me to my pet peeve. I hate it when women's restrooms are decorated blue. I speak of one I used recently in the law building. Tiles, stalls, everything blue. It really makes me anxious, as if I'm in the wrong one. Because traditionally blue = boy, right? I had to double check the tell-tale signs of a women's bathroom; notably the presence of the little stall trash cans, the wall vending machine, and the lack of urinals. I was in the right place, but did it really have to be so very blue? Really!? Ugh...

A Guilty Pleasure

2009-01-20T22:54:00.002-07:00

Or maybe not so guilty. Well, maybe because I check it several times a day I should feel guilty. But it just makes me smile. I'm talking about getting my daily lolcat fix. Yes, I know it's old news to so many of you, but I've jumped on the bandwagon fairly recently. And I think it's hilarious.

And for all of you (cat) haters out there... It's not just about cats!

Not so Gourmet

2009-01-19T16:14:00.009-07:00

So I started volunteering for a chef a little over a year ago. Chef Jim Light was teaching gourmet cooking classes at the Kimball showroom in Salt Lake City. Kimball recently decided to remodel, I don't have the whole story, but they talked it over with Jim and decided to remodel into a new Viking cooking school kitchen. It's a space that still functions as a showroom, but has five fully functional industrial gas ranges, convection ovens, a high-speed convection oven, a steam/convect oven, several large fridges and freezers, a few induction-style hotplates, and lots of fun Viking accessories. Somehow Jim got in contact with the Viking people and they've organized a cooking school out of the showroom. It's going to be a pretty great thing! I'm really excited about it. Jim has invited those of us who were his culinary assistants to assist in the new cooking school. There was a meeting in Salt Lake last week as sort of an introduction to the whole school thing. There was a cooking school guru lady from Viking cooking school headquarters there to give us the rundown.

Now, I met several of Jim's volunteers when he was doing his own thing, and several of them were experienced in the kithen, but didn't seem to have all that much formal training, as it were. I guess that's mostly what I was expecting when I showed up. Or at least a little bit of that. I mean, I know that the curriculum was being vastly expanded, and that Jim would need more staff to help teach, but I guess it hadn't really computed. So I show up and sit down at the table. There were about a dozen or so people. We start the training and after awhile someone suggests that we all introduce ourselves. People start giving their names and experience. One lady trained at the CIA and has taught at a cooking school for years, one guy has cooked in some pretty good restauraunts for 16 years, one guy had to leave in the middle to go do what I'm pretty sure was a cooking spot for a local news channel, and so on and so forth. I'd say I was a little intimidated. I know my way around my kitchen, but I haven't had any formal training at all, other than what I've obsrved from helping with Jim's classes.

So there was a snack break, with sandwich makings with some great sourdough bread, meat, and cheese platters. There was also some brie, but I couldn't remember whether or not you were supposed to eat the rind or not. So I waited until I saw someone else eat some before I did. Not that I mind looking like an idiot from time to time, but I do try to avoid it where possible. Turns out you do eat the rind, or as Wikipedia informed me when I looked it up later, "The white mouldy rind is edible, and is not intended to be separated from the cheese during consumption." It doesn't sound very appetizing, but is actual quite tasty. So I did end up getting to eat lots of cheezy goodness and keep up the appearance of non-idiocy as well.

Well, that is until I decided to munch on some purple grapes. I sure do love those purple grapes. They go well with cheese. Anyways, I was listening attentively to the Viking chef lady (that description brings a pretty funny picture to mind, btw) calmly popping grapes into my mouth, when one slipped right out of my fingers and down the front of my shirt. Not that my shirt had anywhere close to a low neckline, so I must have hit it at just the right angle. As it turns out, the grape was rather chilly and ended up nestling in an area that was rather warm. And I wasn't in a position to remove said chilly grape from it's warm resting place. There were people seated both to either side of me and across the table from me. I couldn't exactly commence a fishing expidition down the front of my shirt in the midst of a bunch of professionals, now could I? After about an hour or so I was able to angle my body in such a way so as to discreetly pull the grape out. It was, by now, a very warm grape. After a bit I was able to discreetly place it on my plate. After that there weren't any further distractions and I was able to pay attention to the rest of the meeting.

So even though I may be a little bit intimitdated by my whole lack of experience thing, I'm really excited to have this opportunity! I'm looking forward to learning all I can!

Quote of the Day 15 Jan 09

2009-01-15T17:14:00.002-07:00

I keep running into all of these great quotes in random places. In an effort to share them with the world I'm going to post a few of them up here. Here's the first one:

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do."
--Goethe

I really need to be do-ing more, and finding new ways to apply the things that I know. I feel that I haven't been blessed with all of the wonderful learning opportunities in my life just so I know a lot of things. I need to find some way to go out and apply what I know to make the world a better place in a way that only I can. There is only one of me, after all. There are probably things that only I can do. And I do feel willing. But am I really doing all I can? Definitely not. There is so much more I can do. I just need the courage to take on the responsability of doing more.