Go (quick breath) tell it on the Mou-ntain

Over the hi-ll and ev-vry-wh-eh-ere

Go (quick breath) tell it on the Mou-ntain

That Jesus Chri-ist is Born!

First of all, I love Christmas.

Second of all, this to-do list pass off was something that I never even thought of doing- because it's so awesome! It exceeded the realms of my to-do list dreaming capabilities.

Now I know what you are thinking....

What could it possibly BE?!?!?!

TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME!!!!

I'm DYING to know! DYING!!!
HURRY HURRY HURRY!!

Things like that, I'm sure. It is comforting to know that I hold the fate of your mental health in my capable hands.

SO GET ON WITH IT!

So what happened was this: A friend of mine told me about this person named Alex Boye who was singing for the halftime show at the Arizona v. BYU basketball game in the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City on December 11, 2010. I was like, "who's Alex Boye?" first of all-- and then she said:

"And he is looking for exceedingly beautiful, humble young women..."

Right away, I knew that I was qualified. And then she threw in the clincher:

"He needs a gospel choir..."

Swirling images of chocolate, hazelnut, caramel and vanilla from one of my favorite films Corrina, Corrina began melting in my mouth, and as I was recovering from the idea of accompanying Alex Boye in a Gospel Choir during half time at the Energy Solutions Area, she said the following words that would echo in my heart, possibly forever:

"And you would wear choir robes"

I was sold. Sold heart and oh-so-white soul. Hallelujah! Praise! Mmmmmmmm, sing it Girl!

So for your viewing entertainment, here is the video my brother-in-law took of our stunning performance. I'm the beautiful lady in the group of singers closet to the camera-- the girl closest to the camera that looks kind of awkward and has her hair in a bun. Mighta looked awkward, but I was sure feelin' the soul. Awwwwwwwww, yeah!

In case the video doesn't work, here's the YouTube link

B RATED CHILLERS!

This world is full of danger. Mummies hands out to strangle victims! "Unspeakable horrors from outer space that paralyze the living and resurrect the dead!" "Lost River Lake was a thriving resort, until they appeared... PIRANHAS!" "The FEAR of the YEAR!"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

This to-do list was to watch a B-rated movie. In case you don't know what constitutes a B-rated movie, here is a bit of light reading to illustrate the concept. In a nut shell, a B-rated movie is an extremely low budget film that is mainly produced to turn any kind of profit. Sensational and thrilling, these flicks keep you on the edge of your seat the entire way.

It's finals week in BYU-land, and I am done with 5 of my 6 finals; therefore, I have LOADS of time to kill. SO after taking an Ed Psych finals that kicked my rump, I was feeling a little weepy and Priscilla (my roomie) and I went to the library. We ended up checking out....

DUM DUM DUUUUUUMMMMMMMM!

THE CAT PEOPLE

ANNNNNNDDDDDD

THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE!!!

Here I am sitting in the middle of the computer lab on the fourth floor of the Harold B. Lee Library (yeah, I have a date with Harold...) feeling overly warm, drowsy, overwhelmed, stressed, and hungry because it's that time of year!

"IIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTT'S THHHAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT.....
Time of year!
Where the students are stressed
Every where you hear
Student's saaaaay,

"Happy finals- I just hope I pass this CLLAAAAASSSS!"

SOOOOOOO..... BREAAAAAAAK...
out the snacks
Start those stacks and stacks
Of reviews, papers, projects, homeworks, midterms, and quizzesssssssssss:

It's the week before finals...weeeeeeeek!"

Anyway, the creation of that masterpiece was not one of my to-do's. My most recent pass-off kind of has something to do with that song... in the sense that songs were involved...

Background: At BYU, there is a magical place in the testing center called the Music Room. This room is crammed with students wanting to call down upon themselves any possible assistance; and since classical music supposedly helps the act of remembering, they figure why not?

Background: I have the hardest time focusing with music on. For whatever reason, my wires cease all function in the presence of music: of all varieties. In conversation, when the music switches or increases in volume, suddenly I am transformed into a blubbering somethingorother who is completely incapable of carrying on a conversation.

"huh? I'm sorry. There's music on and... I.... can't.... seem...where was I?"

Background: In my fours years at BYU, I have always wanted to take a test in the Music Room, but have feared the consequences of taking a test with music on.

Background: One of my professors gave us a practice midterm to take the testing center. It was just a practice, so as long as we took it, we got 100%! WHAT A SWEET DEAL!

Background: I studied a little bit, got my midterm, asked where the music room was (it was a magical mystery!!), and went right upstairs to that place. And took my test. And bombed it. BUT HEY!!!

I passed another thing off!!

Now it is your turn to answer a question.

Beautiful Lady's lack of good-scoreness was a direct result of the following:
a. Lack of sufficient studying
b. Taking 2 tests back-to-back (the first being a MathED midterm)
c. Classical Music
d. New test taking environment
e. a & b
f. a & c
g. a & d
h. b & c
i. b & d
j. c & d
k. a, b & c
l. a, b & d
m. b, c &d
n. All of the above
o. None of the above

The world may never know...

This blog may contain graphic imagery: reader discretion is advised.

HUH!

BAD BOYS!
WHATCHA GON' WHATCHA GONNA DO?

All joking aside, it might actually be a little graphic. It turns out that all the things on my to-do list might not be just things that I want to do before I die... they might also be things that I might have the opportunity to experience before I die.

That this is one of those opportunities.

Let me set this up a little bit. This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to spend my time up in Salt Lake with my good friend Miss K. Miss K and I were roommates at one point and are now currently team teachers in an elementary school in Salt Lake. Anyway, we went to her house, and her mom treated us like royalty!

Andies mints.... Hot chocolate (not Western Family brand-- which is the only kind that I can afford...) and Queso with chips.

Amidst the munches, we chillaxed while watching a phenomenal movie called Emperor's New Groove and writing letters to our students. All this happen at 12 am-- about 2 hours past my normal bedtime, and 4 hours past my normal eating time.

Well, the thing about this all is, as fantastic as the marvelous food felt going down, it felt one-bazillionth as good coming back up.

That's right.
I puked.

Definition from Urbandictionary.com:
Puke: The act of vomiting, hurling, barfing, losing lunch, tossing cookies, ralfing, throwing up, yacking, retching, technicolour yawning, spewing, blowing chunks, and/or other forms of physical illness.

That was just a little side note. I especially liked "technicolour yawning"

The tossing of the cookies isn't a major thing in and of itself, but doing it out the window of a moving vehicle is. And boy, howdy, let me tell you-- it was not a pretty picture. Especially given the fact that it occurred right smack dab in the middle of downtown Salt Lake City.

So yeah. Check! I never need to yack out of a moving car EVER again. But boy, was it ever thrilling...

So this is a catch-up (ketchup? Why not mustard?) blog post.

SO!

I sat in a floor seat during a devotional (it was actually for Elder Oaks even! Cool!! I love BYU....)

I watched this movie just 'cuz you know, we share a title. The ironic thing is that I guess "Megane" in Japanese mean "glasses", and see it's funny because I've had glasses since I was two! Funny :) Ha ha.

So here in BYU-land there is this place called the Women's Center. At that particular center for this whole semester they are doing a "Recapturing Beauty" campaign where they are promoting self-esteem in women. A part of that was this cool thing called the Ten Day Challenge where you had to do a challenge every day for 10 days-- things like treat yourself to a little indulgence, no "fat talk", monitor your "self-talk", no media, don't weigh yourself, etc. Anyway, on the last day, we went to a conference thing where we got a t-shirt (mine was pink! But there were other colors, like purple and green and blue and orange that you could choose from) and we completed the last challenge. It was a wonderful experience- really enlightening. If anything, I love my body even more than before! I can do SO much! What a perfect machine! Wow. I am thankful for my abilities every day.

You can't see everything, but today (the day after the last day of the challenge) we were 'possed to wear our shirts on campus. And boy, howdy! Did I ever wear it! And a pink undershirt and a pink headband, and MATCHING pink socks (Big deal! I know!) and pink shoes! I LOVE IT!

I know that there is a lot of other things that I have done recently that I can't remember what they were... but when I do remember, you betta believe I'm goin'a write about 'em!

The Ukulele strikes again!

Here is my most recent attempt at the Uke. The artist's name is Zee Avi, and she's from Borneo. Her style is very cute and ukulele-esque, but her songs are pretty depressing, so I don't recommend them very much. That aside, I LOVE this song! The weird part is this: my webcam has a slight delay, so the audio/visual are off by a little more than a second by the end of the whole thing. So just ignore that part...

There she is, folks. The Kennecott Copper mine located just southwest of Salt Lake City. Isn't it wonderful? If you can't see it cool enough, click on the picture and it'll take you to a larger image (at least, I think it will... it should... I dk!) A long, long time ago in" once upon a time" time, I was in a Utah History class. Sounds enthralling, right? I know, I know, I know. I couldn't agree more! Anyway, we learned about this copper mine in that class and I have wanted to go ever since! To learn more about Kennecott, check out this link... or your local library.

"But Beautiful Lady!" You might ask. "However did you get up to that great height?" Let me give you a hint:

"Well, beatniks for one, folk singers and motorbike riders. Y'know. All those hip, jazzy, super cool, neat, keen, and groovy cats. It's in the fridge, daddy-o! Are you hip to the jive? Can you dig what I'm layin' down? I knew that you could. Slide me some skin, soul brother! " (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

That wasn't a terribly good hint... actually, now that I think about it... but hey! Motorbike riders! Slide me some skin, soul brother! In case you haven't gotten it yet, we (Mycroft and I) motorcycled up to the top! AHHHHHH YEAH!

We only crashed once and that may or may not have broken the brake lever and we may or may not have decided to keep going even with one of the brakes completely out....I can neither confirm nor deny the aforementioned experiences actually happening... but hey! IT WAS AWESOME! I'm a BIG fan of the motorcycleage!

Anyway, as we were coming down the mountain, Mycroft told me not to lean too far forward or else the bike might get off balance, so I was leaning as far backwards as I could BUT WE WERE GOING DOWNHILL for crying out loud! The whole trip down was me bracing myself with my legs, but trying not to brace too much in case we hit a bump 'cuz then my legs might break from the impact- IT WAS NUTS! But no worries, we didn't die, we didn't have broken legs- we just had awesomeness :)

This little excursion passed off three things on my to-do list:

Ride a motorcycle
Wear a real-deal motorcycle helmet
Overlook Kennecott Copper Mine

I would call that a successful weekend!

Those of you who know me, even a little bit, even the littlest tiniest bit, even if you have only met me just one time, will know that the Iowa State Fair is one of my favorite things in the whole, wide world.

It makes the flowers grow!
It makes babies smile!
It has the ability to change lives!!

Well... maybe....

Anyways, I love it. But, even though ignorance is bliss, am I even a credible source if I have never been to another state's fair?

I am thinking that I am not!

Therefore, in order to feel validated in my claim of Iowa State Fair unmatchable awesomeness, I attended the Utah State Fair in order to scope out the competition.

But no worries, the Iowa State Fair still wins. HANDS DOWN!

Not sayin' that the Utah State Fair isn't cool. It is. In a small, not-as-cool-as-the-Iowa-State-Fair kind of way. We (Gnats and I) walked around and saw every single thing there in 2 1/2 hours. The website boasted a whopping 300,000 people go to the Utah State Fair every year, but guess what?!

THE IOWA STATE FAIR GOT ALMOST 1,000,000 THIS YEAR!!!

After all, it is one of the things to do in the New York Time's bestseller, 1000 Things to do Before You Die. Just sayin...

For those of you who have not fulfilled your life's ambition of going to the Iowa State Fair, let me give you a little tidbit about the joy that will eventually enter your life: food on a stick.

YUM YUM YUM! Deep fried twinkies (on a stick), deep fried pickles (on a stick), salad (on a stick), pork chop (on a stick), and pretty much anything you can imagine!! Oh the bliss! Oh the clogged arteries! Oh the unbelievable goodness!!!

Sadly, the Utah State fair did not have very many Iowa State Fair quality things to eat, but I did find a very unusual thing-- and it was even fried on a stick!

FRIED ALLIGATOR ON A STICK!

It was good! Slightly tangy, and so very unlike chicken (hard to believe, eh?). I don't think I would ever eat it again, but it was an interesting experience.

Lastly, I have to give credit to the Utah fair people, because they at least tried to make their fair as cool as Iowa's by imitating one of the Iowa State Fair's highlights: the butter cow.

"OOH!" "AHHH!!" People file past the Iowa State Fair's butter cow in awed reverence while remarking how they had hoped this year's butter cow would be a Jersey, or reminiscing on last year's Angus. A life sized cow- Udders! Veins! Tail hairs!- all made entirely out of butter: COULD ANYTHING GET BETTER THAN THAT?! I submit that it cannot!

Therefore, Gnats and I were pleasantly surprised (and amused) that the Utah State Fair boasted its own butter cow(s)-- two cows on a date eating ice cream, wearing poodle skirts and jackets. Is that not just terribly quaint?
So anyways, Utah State Fair- good, but not as good. I will still be highly encouragative to anyone who has even the slightest inkling of wanting to go to the Iowa State Fair. 'Ees de behhst!"

Caption on the sign next to our chins: "Bushels of Utah State Fair Fun!"
And then you put your face into the cutouts of apples in a bushel!
Oh, Utahns, you are so witty!

Two posts in one day? AKA, this is me procrastinating doing the mountain of homework that is threatening to crush the very sole out of my sneakers.

My mom and I saw this magazine that we will hereby call M. Stewart magazine-- no, no, no, Martha S. magazine. After all, every good blogger knows that it is very important to remain unbiased and keep their work free of product placement.

So, at the grocery store, what did we behold but a BEAUTIFUL, full color eye-treat front cover that was just terribly enticing. After exhibiting all of our super human restraint, we caved and bought a copy.

Cue creepy man-voice:

And THIS is what was on that cover!

AHHHHHHH!!!!! IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"What ARE those?" you might ask incredulously.

"They're paint chips," I reply simply. "Just paint chips."

Now, lest you think that I stole all of those lovely little color swatches, I did ask to pay for them at Home Depot, but they refused me service! Spurned my hard earned money!! Can you believe that?!

Anyway, I thought it just turned out wonderfully!
THANK YOU MARTHA! Once again, she didn't let me down!

HOLY IOWA, BATMAN!

So, my summer cottage is in the magical land of Iowa- where the corn grows "knee high by the Fourth of July" and the air is so thick and humid you could probably cut it with a knife if you wanted to...


This shirt was on my "to-do" list for a LOOOOOONG time! I saw it online once about a year and a half ago and little did I know that there is an actual store that sells these smart aleky t-shirts!! I didn't know that little fact until one fortuitous day. See I was walking along one day after work in Downtown, just a-waiting for my dad to get done and I sees this store, eh? So I walks in there annnnnnndddd....

BAM!
THIS AWESOME SHIRT THAT I COVETED SO MUCH WAS JUST SITTING THERE ON THE SHELF, WAITING FOR ME!
Hello little shirt, welcome to my life!

And see, it's funny because, being from Iowa and all, people are always like, "You're from OHIO, right? You're from IDAHO, right? Does your family grow potatoes?"

Pshhht! HECK NO! IOWA, BABY!

So that's why the shirt is so funny :) In fact, I think that I laugh every time I see or even think of this shirt. I am laughing right now-- are you?

Now...

HOLY SHORTS, BATMAN!

This to-do list passed offness, is to make a pair of cut-offs. These poor pants are from alllll the way back in the 9th grade! They have definitely seen better days. That aside, I cut off the bottoms and used them to patch up the top. But THEN! I got ANOTHER HOLE right at about hand height. SOOOOOOOOOO....

COOLEST SHORTS EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I created a little pocket instead of patching up the whole!!! IT'S SO AWESOME! Yep. Good times! Crafty, crafty, crafty :)

GOAL: Play the Uke (Well)

Be careful reader. You are about to embark on the musical thrill ride of your life.

You be tinkin' dat only de hawaiians be playin' de uke well?
I be tinkin' dat choo be wrong on dat account!

In case you couldn't tell, or perhaps if our singing inspired you THAT much that you want to own the original version of this song, it is entitled You and I by Ingrid Michaelson

So yeah. We are just that awesome. And that attractive.

Good thing:
"There is no charge for awesomeness...or attractiveness..."

"Hello muddah!

Hello faddah!
Here I am at
Camp Granada
Camp is very
entertaining
And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining!"

You might have guessed it--or not, it's kind of outlandish-- but I have (had!) not gone camping before!!

FOR REAL!

I don't think that sleeping in a tent in our backyard when I was 6 counts... especially since we had to go inside when it started raining...

Anyway! So this summer I decided to go to a student congregation instead of a family congregation. All the people in this congregation are AM-AZ-ING! I LOVE THEM! But moving past that, we were planning a boating trip down at Lake Rathbun and I happened to mention that I had never, in all of my 21 years, gone camping. And so all plans were changed and we went down a day early so that we could go camping!! HOORAY!!!!!

We got down there just as it was getting dark, and I helped to set up my first tent. Then we had MARVELOUS food provided by Hibby (the main organizer of this fantastical event!) and Hibby's family. Then we sat around the campfire in true camping fashion and chatted until aboooouuuut... 1:30 in the morning.

Then we went to bed.

Alas, did we sleep? NO! Some raccoons were having a HAY DAY outside of the girl tent. AND THEN the wind had a COW all over the place AND WE ALMOST DIED because our tent wasn't staked down! (I didn't set that tent up!) AND THEN IT RAINED FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT! And the little *plink plink plink* on the tin roof nearby almost DROVE ME NUTS! But no worries! We DIDN'T die. It was an AWESOME adventure.

I LOVE CAMPING!!!

Above is a picture of all of us on the trip-- seriously, one of the. funnest. weekends. of. my. life.

Well, to start off with, here is a picture of Iowa. Is it everything you thought it would be--

AND MORE?!?!?!
(Those are soybeans, by the way- not corn)

And here is a picture of me.
Dead.
In the middle of this country road.

JK! JK! This "pass off" on my list is to lay (lie?) in the middle of a country road. I know, I know, I know. Lame, right? WRONG! There is something terribly thrilling about stopping your car in the middle of the road, getting out, and laying down in the very spot that someone else (whether animal or human) could have been run over and actually DIED before! (did that make any sense?)

Or it could just be thrilling cuz you've never done it before.
OR maybe because it is the breaking of a social norm.
OR! OR! OR!

Above is the view of my on the road. And below is the view from laying down on the road.
And there is my photographer, Padder (after I got the camera from him). Doesn't he look just wonderfully contemplative?
So yeah. It was AWESOME! I recommend anyone and everyone to go and lay down in the middle of the road! (preferably when no one is coming, but hey- who am I to tell you what to do?)

(Sing the following song to the tune of the "Oscar Meyer Wiener" song)

Smarmy, smarmy, smarmy, smarmy smarmy.
I really like that word, oh, can't you see-ee-eeeee
Smarmy, smarmy, smarmy, smarmy, smarmeeeeee
Though it's not my personality.

Smarmy really has nothing to do with this post.

Moving on! Oh boy have I ever done a ton of things this summer that pass things off my list! The problem is finding the time to write down all of the experiences... So I guess that I'll write down the most recent one that I did: make a market bag!

This bag is supposed to the "green" way of doing things- you know, use your own bag at the market to save all sorts of plastic trees and things...
But I already don't use plastic bags very often cuz it's just kind of wasteful, and I generally have really big purses that I can fit things into. (makes the five finger discount veeeeeery efficient! Jk! Jk!) This bag was only supposed to have the handles, but I added a shoulder strap because I just like shoulder straps, that's why.
But see, the next problem is that this bag is made using triple crochet! And what does that mean, class? That there are gigantic holes! But what about coins and pencils and other necessary writing accessories- wouldn't they slip right through? Yes, class, you are correct. Therefore, I made a cute little pencil bag and a cute little coin purse to eliminate that problem. I thought that they turned out rather cute and little.

THE END!

Next: try sugar cane.

You'd think that it would be good right? Sugary? Caney? Delicious..errr...y?

It wasn't.
It tasted like water chestnut.
Gross.

Xie Xie!

I made this quilt for my brother Shadow's graduation present. The design is "Chinese Coin Quilt" cuz I guess the pieces look like a stack of Chinese coins.... I dunno...

Anyway- this quilt passes off TWO things on my to do list! MULTI-TASKING! The first was actually making a quilt with the Chinese Coin quilt design. And that was on the list just cuz its a pretty cool design.

The second part was to make a quilt with a gradation of color. We didn't have a pattern for this quilt, but we just kind of figured it out from pictures, and that left the color scheme up to me! So I sorted out the colors maroon, gold, green, teal, blue, and purple according to their hues then skip counted up and back down so as to not repeat the different fabric pieces up and down the scale. I LOVED the result and might just make one exactly like it for me!

Mamma Mia! One of the things on my "To Do" list is to learn how to make good Italian food. It is going to take a little bit of practice, but what I've learned so far is that, in order to make good Italian food, you're gonna need to prepare yourself for a lot of butter usage. And by a lot of butter usage, I mean be prepared to not eat all day prior to the meal, and then go running for 1/2 hour to work off all of the calories! But boy howdy, it is sooooooo good!
This is an asparagus pesto phyllo dough roll up. We call them asparagus taquitos-- I think that's maybe a little sacrilegious in the Italian cooking world, but hey, I'M the chef here, and that's what they are like. Next think you know, we'll be making a lasagna taco!

I, Beautiful Lady, hereby solemnly swear, NEVER to make a lasagna taco.

These are the regional equivalent to a spinach gnocci (pronounced knee-oh-key). We have a FABULOUS Italian cookbook called the Italian Farmer's Table that is an absolute must have. This gnocci is served with a butter sage sauce. After making them, we decided that these would be better with a thicker, heartier sauce-- like an alfredo, but they were still so, so, sooooooooo good!

Lastly, these pictures are of our Leek and Pancetta tarts. These were the highlight of our meal. I cannot describe the bliss that you will encounter when you try these tarts. They come from the same cookbook as the previous recipe, and all I can say is- try it! Please try it!
Spaghetti-Os? Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever (I will never have enough "evers") EVER again.

You'd think with being home in Iowa that I'd have more time to post things on here- what is there to do here anyway but watch the corn grow? Alas, that seems to not be the case. But no worries! I have been still passing things off!

And another thing, I recently watched the movie Julie and Julia, and feel a little worried about this whole blogging thing now. She got so obsessive about it! Gah! What if that happens to me?!

*deep breath*
I'm thinkin' that it won't-- seein' as how the average update period is about a month...

So that's that! Side note over-- off to the meat of the post!

My mom and I are taking a few cooking classes this summer, and the first one was a Dutch Letters class. For all of those out there that don't know what Dutch Letters are, imagine a cloud pillow of buttery flakeness engulfing a sweet, dense almond dream filling that practically (and literally) melts in your mouth. That, my friend, is a Dutch Letter. Ew. Did you just drool?

Well, we learned how to make them at this class! Now remember, what are the three secrets to French cooking? 1. Butter! 2. Butter! and 3. Butter! And that's pretty much what we did here to make that pillow of buttery flakeness. So good. So good.

That is our cooking preparation area. Note the variety of different rolling pins. It is very important (apparently) to find the rolling pin that works just right for you. And every good chef has at least 2 rolling pins that serve different purposes. Apparently I'm not a good chef, cuz I only have one and I got it from Ikea...

Those are our final product! Typically Dutch Letters are just an "S" shape, but seeing as how I am the chef here, I decided to switch things up a little bit. A word of explanation for the seemingly unsensical and cryptic message (is it pronounced "klahs" or "close"? "Lives" or "Lives"? Who knows!) My roommate KTLN received some Valentine themed window stickies as a party favor. We, being the single and oh, so eligible, attractive, wonderful, and humble bachelorettes that we are/were decided to spurn the "singles awareness day" theme and rearranged the "Kiss" and "love" stickies into the above message. Clever? I'm thinkin' yes.

ANYWAY! Pass off-- one cooking class and making homemade Dutch letters.

As you can probably tell from the sudden influx of blog posts, it is summertime.

And I am at home in Iowa

waiting for my background check to clear so that I can start my job. I figure that I need to write down some goals for this summer-- you know, things I can pass off.

1. Learn to play the ukulele well. A friend of mine and I went to a "learn to play ukulele in your elementary school classroom" class at BYU a few weeks ago. UKULELE IS THE FUNNEST THING TO DO IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!! GAH!!! Anyway.
2. Go to Springfield, IL to the Abraham Lincoln Museum. HISTORY!
3. Learn how to whittle.
4. Get buff arm muscles from splitting wood.

That's all I can think of right now, but there is sure to be some more things added to the list. Until then!

Nightgown,

Floral, quaint
Gown for Nighttime
Wonderful, Jane Austen-esque, prettiness
But not for Around town

That, my dear readers, is a cinquain poem (kind of-- the last line is not following true cinquain style...) Sometimes ya just gotta write a little poem- you know? Is there a better thing to write a poem about than a nightgown? I submit that there is not!

Well, school got out a week ago, and I came home and went immediately to a quilt retreat (or quilt camp as one of my friends called it!) Generally at such events, one sews quilt tops and tries to absorb the incredible quilting talent that is percolating throughout the room. But, see, I have been making quilts since I was a young tyke, and, though none of them are truly spectacular, I really like sewing clothes more. SO. I worked on my seamstressness at this quilt retreat- and boy, howdy! It was FUN!

The below picture is the nightgown that I made. I LOVE IT! It is very Jane Austen-esque, don't you think?
"How long could that have taken you? The delicate pleat! The gathered cuffs! The seamless armholes!" you might ask. "Not long, I dare say, not long," I would reply. "What a fine seamstress you must be! But what could you have possibly done for the other 2 days you were there?" You say incredulously. And I'll tell you! I made a double-breasted crazy floral, collared jacket! COOL!

"I do not profess to be an expert in the field of fashion (though my friends say I have quite the eye) but I can tell you, there is a shocking lack of satin!"
-- Jane Austen's Emma

But it still needs buttons, so you'll just have to hide and watch for those pictures.

Sew Easy! Sew Fun! Sew fast!

(There have got to be a MILLION other little play-on-words for this)

I have had this Buttercup bag saved in my bookmarks for a couple of years now. It has been taunting me! Cute little purse out of 2 FAT QUARTERS?! Is such a thing possible?! Could it be true?! NO WAY!

BUT YES! YES! IT IS TRUE!! I did not have any black semi-fancy purses (in fact, I did not have any purses really...) SO. Being the professional seamstress that I am (*cough*) I figured, why not make one? So I did. The above is the result. SO easy! SO fun! SO fast!

But of course, black is boring. And I am DEFINITELY not a boring person. And because I made it, I can do anything I want with the creative license that comes with seamstressing, so I made the lining rainbow fish scales fabric. Ahhhh. Perfect.

Opening the purse is like a party for your eyes!

Thhhhhhhhis is the night.... it's a beauuuuutiful night! And they call it bella notte (ooooooooo!)

Mamma Mia! Id-a like-a some ravioli! My mom has been tormenting me since the beginning of the year because while I have been SLAVING away getting an education in afar off Provo-land, she has been sitting on the couch, watching soap operas and eating bon-bons ALL THE WHILE trying a new recipe every week. AND she has been taking cooking classes!

For Rude.

But the bright side of it all is, that since I am home, I get to reap the benefits of her labors! RAVIOLI HERE I COME!

























There they are a-cookin'. mmm...mmm... good. Luckily, since I am home and all, I get to go to cooking classes too! And guess what the next class is? DUTCH LETTERS! FROM SCRATCH!

(updates will follow shortly)

Nice new background, eh? Might I say how especially nice the header is? Might I? Oh, please, might I?

It may not seem like much, but that little header at the top of the page took me FOR-EV-ER to figure out!!!!!!! GAH!!!

See, the actual downloading of the header was easy, and the adding text was easy, but grouping the two together was UBER difficult!

DID YOU KNOW THAT...?

Did you know that you can't group a text box and a picture in Microsoft Word? Did you know that Paint is very finicky about their text and pictures too? Did you know that you can't select all and paste into Paint and have it work? Did you know that if you try that, the lot comes out super pixelated? Did you know that WordArt did not count as a picture and therefore had troubles being grouped to a picture? Did you know that you can't copy a select all into the picture gallery?

WELL, NOW YOU KNOW!

Finally, I used the screen clipping technique in Microsoft OneNote and voila! C'est magnifique! Blinging up the blog was the next thing on my to do- and, not to toot my own horn (toot! toot!), doesn't it look wonderful?

Cake Anyone?

FIRST! I forgot to put wax paper down in the bottom of the cake pan. DUH! SERIOUSLY, BEAUTIFUL LADY? I even told myself to do it, and then I just went right ahead and poured it into the pan! It's like Alice in Wonderland when she says, "I give myself very good advice, though I seldom follow it." Kinda like that. Anyway, so the above monstrosity is what happens when you don't listen to yourself. Note to self: listen more often.
But it's all ok if you think about it (really, really, really hard) because fondant makes everything look better! Am I right or am I right? ("right, right, right"--Groundhog Day-- "Watch that step! It's a DOOZY!") I just realized how scatterbrained this entry is so I'll get right to the punchline: the next thing I did on my "to-do" list was use fondant.
The above is Master's cake. She is pretty much the most amazing person in the WORLD because she exhibited an inhuman amount of patience while Skipper and I tried to get our fondant on correctly. (the above is her two-layer brownie cake) I'm thinkin' that we tried to get the fondant on our respective cakes 5 different times EACH with very little success. In the end... well, you can see from the pictures...
Overhead is Skipper's cake: sculpted to perfection via rolling pin, fingertips, and fondant smoother. Oh man. It was SO funny! You shoulda seen it before she used those fancy sculpting tools!
The Master, me, and Skipper displaying our final results. I didn't know what to do on mine, so I just copied the Master, but made the character Luigi. The little red blotches are just because I wanted to try out a certain tip-- and that's what the result looks like! Just for your FYI.

I'm-a Luigi and I'ma gonna win!

A long, long time ago, I swore in my wrath NEVER to crochet around a hemstitched baby blanket EVER again.

EVER!

But see, the thing is, baby mania has approached my friends.

BABIES EVERYWHERE!!!

Side note: there is a hysterical "BABIES!" joke that is pervasive in my life. So I'm thinkin' that I'll share it because I think it's SO FUNNY!

It all started with Chuck Norris. Back in High School, Chuck Norris jokes were a BIG deal. I don't even know why!!! But I do know that I went to a Presidential campaign rally for Mike Huckabee because Chuck Norris was an advocate for him! (The following picture was taken from my very own camera!)
Anyway, so Chuck Norris jokes might go something like this:

Chuck Norris can gargle peanut butter
When Chuck Norris does push ups, he doesn't push himself up; he pushes the world down!
Chuck Norris had his tonsils removed... TWICE!
When Chuck Norris was born, the doctor cried because no body slaps Chuck Norris!

So yeah, there was a Chuck Norris joke that went something like this:

Chuck Norris likes to knit sweaters; and by "knit", I mean kick; and by "Sweaters" I mean BABIES!!

I told that joke to my (then) 15 year old- Chuck Norris joke- loving brother, and he said

"That is not funny. That is cruel."

Ouch. Talk about a slap in the face. So then, we modified the joke so as not to offend anyone. NOW the joke can be used to brighten any situation! For example:

Boy: "I HATE those pants that you are wearing!"
Girl: "Oh. These are my favorite pants. My favorite, favorite pants."
Boy: "And by 'hate', I mean 'love' and by 'those pants', I mean BABIES!!"

So yeah, that's the basics of the joke. Feel free to use and modify it as you like.

But getting back to the story. As you may know, I am learning how to crochet. Back when I was twelve, my mom got really into hemstitching. I tried it, but was SOOO bad at it. (Hemstitching is when you crochet around the edges of flannel blankets, bibs, and burp rags) That was the point when I swore in my wrath never to hemstitch again.

Well, this weekend I broke that promise to myself.

But I think that the results were quite charming!
BABIES!!!!