I hate it when the government steals from me!

Now we know how Paul feels about daylight savings time.

I’ll be honest. I sort of love it. I am screwed up because of it though. Yesterday we slept in. Really slept in. Late. Then I happened to fall asleep and got a really great nap. It was long and I didn’t wake up until close to 6:00pm. Oops. I got right up and had to start making dinner. I was awake, wide-awake, until after 2:00 am. I sewed until about 10:30 at night. I got all of my strips finished.

Then I started cutting my squares once the kids and Paul were asleep. I started getting worried I was going to screw things up since I was winding down so I stopped cutting

and started chasing my cat around with the camera. Poor kitty.

I think he is getting annoyed.

Today, praise all things holy, the kids don’t have school. I woke up at 8:30 and thought I really should get us all up and then the next thing I knew it was a quarter after 10:00. I think that we are going to have a hard time sleeping tonight too. Oh well. I love the light in the evenings and the extra time the kids get to play outside. This was taken last night, after dinner, at 7:00 p.m. when normally it would have been dark.

Even the snow flurries we are getting right now don’t bother me because they are so fleeting I know spring is officially on it’s way.

One of my resolutions was to try a new recipe at least once a month. Yesterday was our day. In January I tried the pork and coconut rice (Fail) in February I tried the homemade Cream of Chicken soup (Success) and this month it was Tortellini Carbonara. This is a recipe out of our ward cookbook that was submitted by the amazing Rees. Sorry there are no photos but here is the recipe for anyone who would like to try it.

8 strips of bacon cooked and crumbled

1 C. Whipping Cream

½ C. minced fresh parsley

½ C. grated Parmesan cheese

1 package cheese tortellini

In a large saucepan combine the bacon, cream, parsley and cheese; cook until heated through. My sauce was being weird so I whisked in a 1/8 cup of flour to make it a little thicker and that worked perfectly. Meanwhile, prepare tortellini according to package directions, drain and transfer to a serving bowl. Drizzle cheese sauce over tortellini and toss to coat. Serve immediately.

I served it with our favorite salad (We got this recipe from Joi and it is awesome!)

Use your favorite greens

Add:

Cubed Swiss cheese

Diced Granny Smith Apple

Toasted Slivered Almonds

Mandarins, drained (optional)

Use homemade Italian dressing (the Good Seasonings packet kind that you mix yourself in their carafe with the lines for oil, vinegar and water) Follow the directions on the packet but instead of regular vinegar use rice wine vinegar. It is so delicious!

We also had garlic bread that was topped with a Parmesan/Mozzarella cheese and mayonnaise mixture then broiled with brownies for dessert.

Paul and I really liked it a lot. The kids like the sauce and the bacon but the Romano cheese in the tortellini was too strong for them. The torts I bought were pretty pungent. They ended up nuking themselves a hot dog. I would like to try it again with different pasta because it was so quick and easy to throw together.

Once Again I Fell Victim to Procrastination

Back in February (the 11th to be exact) I earned another free photo book by installing an Iphoto upload tool from Shutterfly. I was wondering how long they would give me to redeem it, a day? No they said I had until March 4th. I was so excited. I knew I could come up with something great in that amount of time.

I had a brain block. There was not one ounce of creativity flowing in my body. I kept waiting for an idea to hit me and nothing came. I had decided to just make a book of random memories. It was a copout, using old pages that had already been made and have been sitting on my external for years, but it also seemed like a good way to get them printed.

On March 4^th I got my good idea with only hours to spare. Good grief why does it always happen that way? I threw out the idea of a collection of old pages and went with memories from all of our Disneyland trips. I got home from work around 3:00pm and had to hurry and scan in old pictures, make up pages (I did get to use four that I already had!), upload them and order the book. I did it. It isn’t great, but I did it.

The only thing that really matters is that the kids love it. Since it is for them that is all that really matters. I will always look at it and wish I had had more time to make it a better or I will think “that element should be there too” or “I should have flipped that piece of paper so it is a mirror image” but I have to stop thinking like that since it is on it’s way.

One of these days I hope to be prepared and end up a really great book.

Bowling

Today, after years of saying "we should get together sometime" we finally did it. We went out bowling with some friends. A couple of weeks ago the kids went over to their house to play and that is when we finally set a date. 

Emily and Steve have two great kids, Kelsey and Sage, that are really close in age to our kids.

Kelsey and Emma have been in the same class for four years. 

Sage is just a little bit younger than Andrew but they get along great. 

Emily and I always have fun chatting it up while we are helping with class parties. We knew we would have a great time if we could all hang out. 

We had so much fun bowling, cheering each other on and comforting each other when we screwed up which was pretty often. None of us will be joining a league any time soon. 

The kids all had their own lane with bumpers and ramps and we had ours without bumpers. After seeing our scores I'm thinking we should have had the bumpers too. 

Emma and Paul were in a stiff competition and tried to psych each other out towards the end of our game. She got under his skin and he totally blew his last shot and she ended up with the highest score out of both lanes. 

Emily and I tied with the totally awesome, completely outstanding score of 59. 

After we got done bowling we went to the BYU Creamery and had ice cream, nachos and garlic fries. It was a great night and hopefully we can get together again soon.

What's a Girl to Do?

I bought several dresses from Nordstrom for the wedding later this month. None of them were flattering at all. The search was back on. I looked high and low before I found some dresses I wanted to try at JC Penny's but I was worried they would be too casual. Paul assured me they were fine. I kept two of them. Later I found another dress that I really liked at Dress Barn and I bought a cute green shrug to wear with it. Paul liked the deep v-necked dress (the one on the right) for the wedding so that is the one I am wearing. I would like to have the others for church. My least favorite is the scoop necked dress (far left) but it is the most different so it would be lame to take that one back. Can I keep all three or are they too much alike? This is not a hypothetical question. FYI~ None of them have black, they are all brown.

Did I just land in Oz?

Today I started to see things that are in color!

Every winter it is a struggle for me to survive. It is so depressing for me to live in such bleakness. After discussing this with others I have come to the conclusion that I am a little different than most people. Not everyone, but most.

I am very visually stimulated. I notice things that often go unnoticed. I see things, for lack of a better word, deeply. Nothing is one dimensional with me. I see patterns in tree bark, notice the subtle swirls in rocks and get excited by unique textures on fruits and vegetables. I can feel a surge shoot straight to my brain when I see something beautiful or something interesting. I like things that are beautiful. I like to be surrounded by beauty. I don’t just see beauty it is almost like I can feel it.

Just as I feel beauty I feel ugliness. I can’t just overlook it or not notice it. It starts to take over my psyche and put me into a true funk. That is why winters here are so difficult. It is like I am living in a world that is black and white. I try to occupy myself with other things during these tough months until my outside would is back in Technicolor.

This is why I have enjoyed the Project 365 so much. I’ve had to search, but I have found beauty or at least something of interest daily and it has helped substantially. That is also why I love to create beautiful things during the winter. Quilting fabrics are bright, colorful ….cheery. Making and working with things that visually stimulate me helps, a lot.

A crocus is the first sign of spring and today it was an indicator that I have made it through another winter. 

It won’t be long before everything around me is in full color. Soon grass will be green again. I will be able to watch the sunlight dance on the brand new, shinny leaves of my cottonwood trees. I will see ladybugs tip toeing across my minnow narcissus,

 my grape hyacinths will bloom

 and for several months all will be right in my world again.

Not much going on around here

Rolls are rising, banana bread is baking, dinner is simmering, whites are washing and darks are fluffing. It must be a Monday. Hopefully something interesting will happen so I can have a picture to post today that doesn't revolve around food ;) Any suggestions?

February is Finished

Two thumbs up. Now I get to start a new calendar. I have only been tempted to NOT take a picture a few times but these calendars are going to keep me accountable. How lame would it look with a black hole? Have I mentioned lately how much I love the finale result?

I have also done one of the pages for week three but it is totally different than week one and two. Should that bother me? Should I use the same "look" for a whole month? Can I change it up from week to week? I think I can since it is mine but truth be told it is now going to bug me that week one and two are so similar and week three is not. I will be looking at it and singing in my head "which one of these is not like the other." The moral to this story? Don't be surprised if I change one of the weeks. On the other hand, don't be surprised if I don't.

Draper Temple Open House

The day finally came for us to tour the Draper Temple. I had made our reservation in mid-December so it seemed like we had to wait a very long time for this special day.

Each time we drove to Salt Lake this past year or so I would check it's progress with great curiosity. While driving down the freeway at 70+ miles per hour it was difficult to imagine how it would look. For a long time it was yellow making it very difficult for me to visualize.

Today I got to see it up close and in person. It is beautiful just like all the others. This was my first open house and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to show the kids the inside of a temple.

They did this one different from others that I had heard about. They had assigned several Stake Centers as meeting spots so that parking at the temple wouldn't be a problem. Our appointment was for 1:40 in the "red lot" but we arrived almost 20 minutes early and no one seemed to mind. We watched a short movie about temples and the Draper Temple specifically. After that we boarded a shuttle bus that took us up to the temple. From there we went through tents (they were set up in case of bad weather) until we got to the temple entrance.

Once inside we just wound our way through the temple. It was a silent tour but there were signs up to tell what rooms were what. It started off with the baptismal font that was very impressive. From there the kids had a bit of a hard time because it was very slow going. It was way crowded and hard to keep them interested while we were in hallways or on stair cases. It was also very warm in some spots making you want to just sit on a sofa and take a nap. They kept asking when they would get to the chandelier room. Once we got to the Celestial Room they perked up a bit. The chandelier was amazing. From there we went to a sealing room where they were able to look into the mirrors symbolizing eternity. After that we made our way out of the temple and into another church building for cookies and little bitty bottled waters.

We enjoyed plenty of cookies before going out to take some pictures. We couldn't have picked a worse time of day for photos. After that we went back and waited for what seemed like eternity (Yes, that pun was intended) for our bus. We felt like we would never get off the mountain. We were in line for more than 20 minutes. It was miserable. The worse part was the green buses and blue buses were coming one right after the other but there wasn't a running red bus to be seen.

Finally we were rescued and got back to our car at 4:15!!! After we got some food we were able to have a discussion with the kids about what we had seen. Bless their hearts they said they really liked the tour. During it they were asking when we would be done! We still haven't decided if we are going to try to go the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It is very close to being finished. If we do it will have to be on a week day.

Slowly but Surely

I will get caught up. I have had a chance to work on week two since I didn't want to leave the house and frighten young children. My eyes are doing 100% better. I think I look normal again but my skin still isn't quite right. It is still rough and bumpy but way less itchy.

Please Laugh *With* Me

I wanted to find a picture of Will Smith from Hitch and use that as my picture. (Do you remember his allergic reaction to something when he goes to dinner and his whole face swells up?) I couldn't get a good one off of Google Images though so I used my own.

The top picture is a regular picture that I have cut my eyes out of. The middle picture is when I got up this morning. I'm shiny because I slept with vitamin E goop on my face hoping it would help me heal quicker. It is a lot better than yesterday morning but still not good. The last picture was last night. As the day goes on the swelling goes down a bit. It seems like the tiny rash (sort of like baby acne) has started to fade.

To answer some questions. I have wanted to try some kind of allergy medicated but haven't. We don't have Benadryl in the house so I have not been taking it. We have an upper-respiratory antihistamine that I tried but it obviously didn't help. I don't want to go out like this LOL and I always forget to ask Paul to pick it up.

I will not stop wearing make-up. Ever. I like it too much. I'm a girly girl and love playing with the colors and deffinately prefer how I look when I do wear it.

So there you go. This is what is going on in my world right now.

Laundry

It is the bane of my existence. It is the chore I find the most tedious. There are too many steps. Let's be honest, I usually don't make it through all the steps. I stop after wash and dry. I think it is from working retail for so many years. I would stand for hours folding clothes and now I am D-O-N-E, done. I only fold and put away clothes after a few days of running down two flights of stairs to the cold garage for underwear. Due to my anal-ness I make it harder than it should be.

I don't like to put a lot of things in the dryer. The dryer fades and shrinks clothing making them look old and worn. I like things that look new. I will put stuff in for 10 minutes to fluff and then it air dries the rest of the time. See? Anal.

I also hate washing jeans during the day because I know the kids will come home with dirty jeans and then I am not really done anymore. I have been missing some jeans since we went to Zion's so I had been holding out on doing that load.

Today I sent Andrew to school in sweats (we have a lot of clothes so it takes a long time to get to this point) so I knew it was time to get serious and find the jeans. They were in the garage, in a plastic bag. We put them there after our hike so they wouldn't get red mud all over the black interior of our car. I thought I had located all the bags with clothes in them but apparently not. I think this means it is time to organize the garage again.

I threw the muddy jeans in, as is, on hot, and hoped for the best. If all goes well tomorrow both kids will be able to wear clean jeans to school. Am I super mom or what?

Still Having Reactions

Today isn't much better. I started getting more of a rash around my face last night, it itches like crazy and there is a pretty significant amount of swelling around my eyes again. I think I am convinced it is a latex allergy and not the make-up. Fun stuff I'm telling you. Wish me luck that this will heal up soon or I might have to scratch my eye-balls out.

Allergic Reaction

THERE WILL BE NO PICTURE!

Last Thursday I used some crazy eye shadow colors and new make-up sponges. The sponges were not latex free. Friday morning I woke up with my eyelids so swollen the tops were hanging over the bottom of the lid. They deflated pretty quick but were still itchy and dry for a couple of days. I didn't wear any eye make-up all weekend long.

Yesterday I only put foundation on my lids when I went out with Paul but I used the new sponges. (I was convinced it was the shadow since nothing else on my face had reacted badly) There was also some crying yesterday, that makes my eyes puffy the next day but this goes beyond any crying puff.

My eyes are swollen from my brows to my cheek bones. The whole area is puffy. Very attractive! I am going to work today and boy am I excited to face the world. I have now set myself back several days. I will not be wearing make-up for a while and when I do I will not be using the new sponges. I hope that does it because this sucks. It is very uncomfortable.

It almost hit 60 degrees today!

This is what it looked like from our deck tonight while Paul was grilling.

I think blogging may be a winter sport. With the weather being nicer I am already starting to slack. Only time will tell if I will have to do another re-cap come autumn.

The sky is bluish gray and there are clouds but it hasn't rained and it almost hit 60 degrees! I am in heaven. I met Paul for lunch to pick out a suit for the wedding. It felt great zipping around town with the windows down in his car. Normally I don't enjoy such things. I even opened windows in the house for the first time in forever. I went and got hamburgers and buns so that Paul could grill for us tonight. Look at the carnage. Yum!

You should have seen Andrew's face light up when he found out what we were having for dinner. The best part? The kids are all outside playing. What more could I ask for?

Last week I finally broke down and bought some stuff for my Project 365. Weeds and Wildflowers Design has been taunting me with emails since the beginning of the year. Their stuff is *so* not my typical linear, symmetrical, clean style but I adore it. I wasn't sure if I could break out of my box and make it work for me but I decided I would give it a try. I am slowly re-doing my January pages after the kids are in bed. I am still not 100% sure how I feel about the first week. (That is all I have done so far) I love the style when I see others use it, but for me, I over think everything too much. I also think I journal too much but I can't help that.

My favorite part of their kit is the monthly calendar review page. That is what really pushed my right over the edge to buy the kit and some accessories. I had to have it. I just got January's all put together today. It took a little bit of time but for February and the months to come I am just plugging in the pictures right after I blog them. It is so easy and I LOVE the outcome. I want the month to hurry up and finish so I can start a new one! I have been neglecting the weekly pages for the calendar pages but that is very typical of me. Wanna see? I think it is so cool.

Something to Look Forward to

Paul's boss is getting married in March and we get to go! It will be a great weekend getaway for us!! It is in California,Yeah!!! In Newport Beach, on a yacht Double Yeah!!!!

I am flying in on a Thursday night (Paul goes in a day early to do some work down there) and then on Friday he and I get to go to Disneyland for the day, alone, without kids. (We love annual passes) It's going to be weird. I think he has committed to taking me to Blue Bayou and since we won't have the kids I am going to try to wait it out and actually see Fantasmic this time.

Saturday we will be doing the wedding and the cruise then going to Frank's house where he is having authentic Mexican food catered for dinner. I have gotten two new dresses, I think I know which one I am going to wear and plan on getting shoes, a purse and some fun jewelry.

Can you tell I am excited?

Photo Overload

I know this is too many picture but I am so in love with this little quilt. Wednesday I picked this up from the quilters. I should have taken a picture before I trimmed it up. Thursday I cut my binding, sewed it together, sewed it on and hand stitched the biding to the back.

Here is a close up of one of the flowers that was quilted into it.
And another.



It is done. Start to finish. Complete. I am so thrilled with everything about it.

A Glimmer of Hope

Carpet dude has come and put down the pad. He is off getting the carpet right now as I type. Maybe by tonight, if all the stars align, I will have all the piles of bedroom stuff, and closet stuff, and furniture and bedding out of my living room and this will all be a distant nightmare, I mean memory.