What should I make for dinner? This is my least favorite thing about being a mom/wifey type of a person. I do not want to go to the store. I do not have time to thaw anything. I do not want to think about somehow figuring in some type of vegetable. I hate planning meals. I hate planning grocery lists for those meals. But most of all, I hate the consequence of not planning meals or grocery lists: this nagging question in the back of my head- "what should I make for dinner?" I suppose we could just have these lovely lemon-raspberry thumbprint cookies I just made for my visiting teaching ladies. But then I'd have to make up another batch later on, which would be totally okay. Hmmmmm... sounds like I've found a solution. Do cookies count as a proper meal? They have 2 kinds of fruit in them, so that's good right?
Alright Melissa, here it is. My 6 quirks tag, brought to you by the kiwi part of a kiwi & an eagle.
I wish Matt were here to help me, I will call him. He's down in St. George tonight for a golf tournament tomorrow...(insert phone call here)...Okay, I'm back. He says that he just likes me, there isn't much that drives him crazy. But, upon further coercion, he came up with these:
1- sometimes I fart right as I'm falling asleep. I just get relaxed, okay? Geez, isn't that a lovely way to start the tag off. The first time I fell asleep with Matt, we were watching a movie & snuggling & as I drifted off into a comfy, newly in love sleep, I actually heard myself toot a little bit & just laid there praying that he was asleep too and didn't hear it. Let's just say that I was wide awake after that. He said that's when he knew he was in love with me. It can't get worse than that.
2- I HAVE to rearrange the dishwasher if it is loaded by anyone else but me. Otherwise they won't get clean and I'll have to do them all over again anyway. There is a right & a wrong way to do it, and I appear to be the only one on the planet who understands the right way. Plus, I can get way more stuff in there than anyone else I know.
3- I can't go to sleep if the duvet isn't square on the bed. I can't go to sleep with less than 3 pillows: my fancy chiropractic one for my funky neck, a flat and firm pillow between my knees, and a fluffy one to hug. Once I am ready to go to sleep, there should be no snuggling, no touching and NO TWITCHING!!!! (Matt)
4- I love, love, love to work out. Six days a week for at least 90 minutes. I know, I really should be in better shape than I am for all that, but I also love to eat, so whatever. I signed up for a gym membership right after I graduated high school and have had that schedule pretty much since then. I love that I know that this is a life-time habit now. It's more than staying in shape, it's my time to read, listen to music & challenge myself. I don't think about anything else in the world somehow, and that is a fantastic escape for me.
5- I am a picker and a popper. I am physically unable to not pop a zit, pick a scab or pluck an errant eyebrow. The other day, Sawyer had a bit of a hang-nail & I just, without thinking, ripped the sucker out, causing my little girl to bleeeeeeeed like crazy. I was too quick, it didn't really hurt her, but she was a bit freaked out by the amount of blood and the fact that I had caused it. Ooops. Good thing she's so forgiving at this age. The rest of the day she showed everyone she saw her princess bandaid and said "Momma do it." I hope they thought she meant that I put the cute bandaid on, not caused the wound.
6- I am allergic to chocolate. But who cares. What's a little itchy tounge, phlegmy throat, and headache compared to a chunk of semi-sweet? But it has to be good quality chocolate, I don't mess around. There ya go. I hope that wasn't a total waste of your time. Well, actually, isn't that what you're looking for if you're cruising blogs? Thought so.
And now for the cutest thing ever. Sawyer has chosen her Halloween costume. I've done the last two years of choosing due to the fact that she didn't have the abilty to speak properly. But this is her first and probably will be the best costume she will ever choose. But before you can see it, here are the last two years. First, the dinosaur. Second, the octopus. Now, in her third year on this planet, Sawyer has unveiled.... Princess riding a Unicorn!!!! She skips around with her legs in the hind legs, knows how to use the reins and makes the cutest little clop-clop sound. It is sooooo stinking cute. She even fell asleep hugging it. One of those times where you normally would NEVER spend that much for a costume that will be worn for one night only, but when you see how it makes their eyes light up..... you melt into a puddle right there in the seasonal aisle in Target. Same thing happened with Matt when he saw her trotting around the house in it. I love him. good night.
Remember how Matt got so much stuff done while I was away a few weekends ago? Made me feel like a total inefficient loser? Well, one of the things he did was go to the state fair with Danny, Jessica, Max & the Moodys. Luckily Jessica is one hell of a photographer, so that particular night of my daughter's life is documented, even though I missed it. Check out her fantastic pictures of the fair, just keep in mind that I was not around to approve the outfit selections or hairstyling that weekend.
On the way home from dinner at Susie's tonight, Matt & Paisa & I were talking about the big huge houses in her neighborhood and what kind of a house we each would or would not like. Paisa said, "I want horses, I want to live on a farm & be a farmer." Matt said, "I want to golf everyday. I want to live down in Oakridge & be a golfer." Sawyer, who I thought was just ignoring us & looking out the window, suddenly piped up and said "I want to be a princess!"
BTW, Paisa is our little semi-adopted Samoan teenage son. He is living with a family in our ward and stays with us sometimes when his parents go on vacations. He is a total stud, and Sawyer LOVES him!
So we are finally moving forward again on finishing the basement, and I am so stinking excited I can't even tell you! Our contractor is just fantastic, very detail oriented and has great ideas & actually cleans up after himself, which is quite a change from the last few guys who have worked down there. (not you, Doug.) He busted down the wall and door at the bottom of the stairs which was such a good idea, its so much more open and nice now. I'm very excited to have my own little "office/work out room/craft room/land" and more storage & closets and to not have only one area for people to be. I'll be able to have a place where I can leave my cake crap out while I work on them and not feel like I have to order pizza because there is simply no room to cook. We're making a little under-the-stairs play-place for Sawyer, which she is very excited about and most importantly....duh duh duh-da..... we'll have multiple places for my family to stay when they come to visit!!! Because I have a feeling that my parents are just going to keep going on missions, so their house will probably be unavailable pretty frequently. I have a few ideas as to how I want to decorate, but unfortunately, they all involve the Pottery Barn, so they probably won't happen. This is kinda the sectional look I'm shooting for in the family room, obviously white wouldn't be the best choice though. And this is what I'm hoping for in an office, only not red, but I love that project table & I actually have the craft organizer on the wall. And this is the sink console I totally want, but I'm going to get it at Costco instead, if they bring it back. And I want like rainforest green walls in the bathroom, with that dark wood and white linens! We'll see what we end up with. Finding my own style and understanding what I like and making it happen is like one of the more challenging things for me, so this'll be interesting.
Oh, also, I was just asked by the Relief Society presidency to do a bit of a class/demonstration on cake decorating at our Super Saturday activity in October. Since every time I've tried to do something like this in the past, I've felt like an unintelligible & poorly organized idiot, I thought I'd ask ya'll for your thoughts on what you might like to learn about cake decorating in a setting like this. I will only have about 20 minutes.... so yeah. I was thinking maybe just focusing on one thing, like what though? Fondant isn't nearly as intimidating as it looks, especially not if you use my fabulous marshmallow fondant, so maybe that??? I have no idea. Just learning how to use that set of piping bags & tips that you've had for 20 years & never used? Filling & crumb coating & final coating with buttercream? Give me some feedback here, please!
My cute friend Nicky had this on her blog today & I thought it was very, very cool to hear the story of this amazing woman. It's a little "come-to-Jesus" for me, it's an issue on which every person of every religion should form their opinion. My thoughts on abortion are more along the lines of this: Being Pro-Choice should really mean that you choose to control yourself sexually & respect the amazing powers of creation that you have been blessed with. That's about as feminist as you can get, that's respecting & demanding respect of your femininity. Anyway. There's my stolen rant, thanks Nicky.
(if you can tell me the name of the song that line comes from then you win a prize!) So much freaking fun. Let me just say that my friend Rossi is one of those people that you wish had been born into your family just so that you could spend more time with them. We don't get to hang out a whole lot, but when we do I am so in love with her and I wonder why we don't do it more often. Anyway, we went to LA last Friday. We had amazing food. We saw Maroon 5 and Counting Crows & Augustana. We sang duets in the car at the top of our lungs. We yelled at the navigation system together. We talked to random people and saw really cool street performers. We saw Wicked! We had life-changing cupcakes. And then we went back & bought more. We had good talks. Then we came home. And there, my friends, is a quick summary of the weekend. Maroon 5 was pretty much exactly what you'd expect; Adam was sexy, the music was great and all in all it was a great performance. But they totally got upstaged a bit by the AMAZING Adam Duritz of Counting Crows. I wasn't even really that excited to see them, it's been so long since I've liked anything they've put out, but holy cow, his stage presence is riveting! He's just so stinking emotional and he sucks you in and you find yourself holding your breath & hoping that things are going to be okay. He's kind of crazy, I'm not going to lie, but I LOVED it. They brought Augustana back out for their last few songs and they all sang together and it was awesome. It's awesome to see people who are so good at what they do, just enjoying it and each other. I guess it's particularly amazing to me because I am so NOT musical. Then Maroon 5 came out and just performed and didn't really enteract with anyone, but it was good, just not as good as their openers. Rossi & I went to the 3rd street promenade and there were these amazing guys doing all sorts of stunts and break-dancing. I took more pictures of them than really anything else (for obvious reasons.) They were very fun to watch. That bottom picture is kinda hard to understand, but the guy in the black pants is just chillin' there in this diagonal push up position, while the cute frizzy headed guy locked his legs around his waist and leans back until the back of his head rests on the Mexican kids back who also is in a funky handstand/push up position. And this conglomeration of bodies becomes a bridge for the other guy to do a flip/turny/twisty thing over. It was pretty amazing. Kind of like their abs. Wicked was awesome, go see it if you haven't yet. I took pictures of the stage after the show and got thoroughly yelled at by an usher, but that stinkin' dragon was too cool. I'm just glad he didn't take my fancy new camera away. Not that I used it near enough, I feel like a dork about that. Anyway, it is good to be home, where there are a normal number of people on the freeway, and where you can actually see the sky before 3 pm. I don't know if this is normal or not, but every day we were there, it was completely overcast & smoggy until the afternoon & then it was beautiful. I kind of wish I had followed through on my plans to go to makeup school out there, I think I would have loved it. At least it would have gotten me away from Jared. But my life would probably be quite a different story now & that would not be cool at all. I was kind of hoping that Matt would have a hard time being a single dad for the weekend, and would just wonder how I did it everyday, but not so much. He got more done in 2 days than I get done in a week. Nice. Not only did he organize the basement and the garage, he cleaned the house like crazy, did the dishes, but he also took Sawyer to the state fair on Friday and took her to hang out with his friends on Saturday night. Lovely. Apparently I need to step it up.
Tomorrow there will be this: And Saturday night will be filled with this: With a girl who is willing to wear this and make Matt & I laugh our heads off: I am sooooo excited. I invited you all, it's your fault if you are jealous.
Yesterday was quite a day, I gotta tell ya. I had a cake due up at the U of U, and although I am a U of U alumni, I still don't really understand that campus and so I looked up the directions to the Union building online. The way they told me to go, wasn't at all the way I would have gone, but I took it anyway, trusting that maybe I just didn't know a shortcut or something. These directions had me take I-15 all the way to I-80 east & then get off at Foothill Drive; if you are familiar with that exit, you'll know that taking Foothill from I-80 with a cake in the back of your car is quite a feat. There is a nasty merge that caused me to stop a bit short and the bottom tier of my cake, which was "securely" stuck onto my big silver platter, slid completely off the platter and onto it's top on the recently vacuumed floor mat. Actually it was as if the hands of angels had gently placed it upside-down on the floor. It couldn't have fallen in a more fix-able way if it had tried. Not to say that it wasn't completely terrifying. The only other time that anything like this has ever happened, I luckily had Matt there to talk me down from my ledge and make things okay. Not so much yesterday. I couldn't even get through to him on his cell. So here I am, hyperventilating, just blindly driving to deliver it, not knowing how on earth I was going to go through with it. Should I just refund their money & pitch that tier in the bin? Run far, far away & never answer my phone again? I had no idea. So when I finally got there, I realized that I would have to have help getting these 3 parts of the cake into the building, up the elevator and do all this while trying to deal with a tired toddler at the same time. Fortunatley, as I pulled up, I saw the entire bridal party coming out of the building to take some pictures, the bride wouldn't see me arrive with her cake in a rather desheveled state. Luckily, there were two cute little freshmen girls waiting for a ride on a bench outside the building. After I flipped the upside-down tier back onto the platter & assessed the damage, I went over & asked them to help carry my stuff in with me. They were so sweet, I was so lucky that their ride wasn't expected for a while, and they were more than willing to help. Anyway, to make a long story short (although it might be a little late for that), thanks to some extremely kind folk in the family as well as staff at the reception site, things got all fixed up and I did not pass out from anxiety. There was a cute older guy working there, who kept saying all the same comforting things that Matt would have. Word for word. It was bizarre, and really made me feel that someone upstairs was watching out for me and knew exactly what I needed to hear. If it couldn't be Matt, it certainly had to be someone, and this guy was so sweet. I later heard that he got a peice of the chocolate layer & told Amy to tell me that it was the best wedding cake he had ever had, and in his line of work, that was saying ALOT. I am really proud of this cake, certainly not because of my transportation skills, but because of the fantastic flavors. I have spent a lot of time & money on researching & testing out recipes and finding the ones that are dense enough to work as a tiered cake, and moist enough to be delicious even after being worked on for a few days. To have unexpected fillings that totally complement the yummy cake, something that really stands out in peoples memories and makes their wedding day just that much more special, is really something that I have come to pride myself on. I am a cake snob. I am so honored each time perfect strangers or friends or friends of friends trust such a important part of the most important day in their lives.... to me. It is amazing. I never meant to be a baker, but looking back it's kind of a no-brainer. I love making things pretty. I love the fact that I don't usually have to rely on anyone else to make this happen, it's my little pet project and I have no one to blame but myself if it doesn't turn out spectacularly. Anyway, after that prideful little rant, after that completely nerve-racking awful day, (oh, I forgot, after I got the cake all fixed up, they gave me a topper to put on & it just didn't feel balanced, not really secrure, but like a dummy I put it on, stepped away to take a picture & the freaking thing fell down, taking a chunk of the middle tier with it. That's when I really lost it.) after all that, I walked out with my little girl, who had behaved amazingly well, and we blew some celebratory bubbles in the parking lot, and I realized that as much as I LOVE doing this wedding cake thing, no matter how bad a day I have, nothing matters but holding hands with my precious little girl and knowing how much she loves me. Even when I'm completely ignoring her or speaking too sharply at her or being impatient, she loves me. I'll miss that when she turns into a know-it-all teenager and begins to treat me awfully like I did my mom. But for now, things will be okay no matter what, as long as I can laugh with her and blow bubbles on a beautiful early fall night.
It's been a long time coming, but Sawyer is finally out of a crib and in a new "big girl" room I had a lot of fun decorating it and I'm kind of surprised at how much I love it. It's girly but not princessy and Sawyer really seems to like it. We used the huge beach prints I stole from J. Crew and made a surfer/beach themed room with the island toile sheets from Pottery Barn. Matt & I took advantage of Labor Day & painted the room what I've decided should have been called pistachio ice cream. I really love how it turned out, it looks great with the light turquoise headboard & nightstand. We went to Ikea yesterday and got two shelves for the west wall that is totally bare. Now I need to go through her toys and brutally throw out all the random crap, as well as get a small dresser that will (hopefully) fit in the closet. I've got a cake Saturday & next Tuesday, so all that organizing will probably have to wait until those are done. Sawyer did unbelievably well in her bed last night, didn't get out once! It was not that way today during her nap. She was in there for 3 hours, but didn't sleep a wink, then at the stroke of 7pm she fell asleep on the couch while waiting for dinner. The worst possible time to have a little nap. Lovely. We did get some very, very cute pictures this weekend though. Charlie is going to enjoy having the room accessable again. I had the door closed for the last month or so while I was trying to prep the walls and cleanse the room of dog hair before painting. It's Charlie's favorite room because of the beautiful morning sun; makes for a good post-breakfast nap.
Ahhhh.... my boys are back. This show is my little guilty pleasure because Wentworth Miller = nummy. And the two hour season premier was quite delightful. It's gonna be a good season. If you haven't already, rent the other seasons and get caught up, it's loads of fun.
