Did you ever feel like this?

I came to work late this morning because I wanted to check out a kitchen store first. The store was awesome. It reminded me of a store in Missouri that we went to when visiting Bud's daughter on her mission at Adam-Ondi-Ahman a few years ago. At the time, I remember thinking "I wish they had a store like this where I live." Turns out "they" do. It just took me awhile to find it. I finally bought my breadmaking ingredients and now I'm ready to bake! Watch out Little Red Hen! My excitement dimmed, however, when I pulled into the parking lot at work and saw Bud's car. The whole rear end was smashed in. I couldn't believe it. I ran inside to see what happened and if he was hurt. He told me that he wasn't hurt, but that a woman ran right into him while he was waiting to make a left-hand turn. I asked him if his neck hurt or anything. He said he was fine, but now we have a smashed Jeep. So the question is, do we repair it or just go get a new car? We've been wanting an economical car to take back and forth (why isn't it forth and back?) to St. George, but we didn't want to have to buy it just quite yet. I guess we'll decide in a couple days.
April Fool's day is today. Hmm. Okay, just kidding on the whole car crash story, but the kitchen store story is true. I really did find an awesome kitchen store. And we really are considering a new car, but not because anything happened to the old one.
Have a good day and watch out for dumb pranks and jokes. Tomorrow for sure I'll give you the cookie recipe I promised.

Domestic Goddess, sort of

Ever since I went to the breadmaking class last week, I've been wanting to make the bread I tasted that night. I haven't yet purchased the required ingredients though. So, instead, I made this bread and you can see by its small size here that it was pretty tasty. It was either that or the fact that yesterday was fast Sunday. After I made the bread, I made these oatmeal cranberry cookies. Karen tends to like me to rate the cookies. I'd give them an 8 1/2. I'll probably share the recipe with you tomorrow.


After all that baking, I decided that it was high-time to organize my cookie sheets. If you recall the blog regarding my Kitchen Aid lifter, you may realize that in order to put that in, something had to come out. What came out was a handy-dandy holder-upper for my cookie sheets. I started to install said handy-dandy holder-upper, when Bud came to my rescue. Evidently it was more difficult than I thought to install 6 screws. Two hours later (and two highly frustrated people later) it was finished. But I couldn't leave it at that. I then had to completely re-organize my pantry. Now it's gorgeous. Take a look, and pay particular attention to the bottom right side of the photo where you will see cookie sheets stacked nicely in vertical fashion.



Sweet.

The Perfect Message

I wanted to talk about this person today. Do you know who it is?


Hurry...guess now! Time's up.

For years I've been worried about how I would feel about President Monson being the prophet. At the funeral of President Hinckley, I felt good about the things Pres. Monson said, and thought maybe I'd be okay with him after all. This month in the Ensign, Pres. Monson wrote an article called Treasures of Eternal Value. I was very pleased with what he had to say and am in complete agreement with him. For those who want the Reader's Digest version, he said there are 3 things to guide us to eternal happiness.


1- Learn from the past.
2- Prepare for the future.
3- Live in the present.
Last week, a friend told me if a thing was worth doing, do it now. And, if it was worth doing once, do it again! Same adage as if you get the choice to sit it out or dance, dance (just try not to step on anyone's toes while you're dancing unless they're wearing steel-toed boots).

Yesterday's skiing adventure at Deer Valley was terrific.

This is a picture of me going down a fairly steep slope. The powder was all around me and I was really sailing down the mountain. The sky was a beautiful blue and the serenity was sweet.
Okay, I can't possibly continue with that version of the story. No, that's not me. No, I can't ski like that. No, the sky wasn't blue, it was cloudy and a little snowy. We didn't even TAKE any pictures yesterday. Larry tried at one point, but his camera was so cold it wouldn't work. THAT'S the kind of day we had yesterday. But, I didn't fall (okay, so I kind of slipped a little when I was approaching a lift, but it wasn't a fall, exactly. Bud fell once and hurt his already hurt shoulder, but no medic was needed. Besides, if we'd needed one, we had our own medic skiing with us (that always comforts me).
After a few hours of skiing, we went back to the Cohen's and watched a longer version of Mark Gungor's idea of Men's Brain and Women's Brains.
Dinner was back at Deer Valley at the Seafood Buffet.
All I can say about that is "wow." Although I didn't eat much seafood (I think the place is really misnamed because there's a lot more to eat than just seafood), what I did eat, was soooo tasty.
So not only did we get one-on-one private skiing lesssons all day (Larry was my coach, Lenore was Bud's), we got entertainment that made us laugh, and we got a fabulous dinner that Larry wouldn't let us pay for. Mark that down as a good day.

New Shoes

Okay, so most people don't call them shoes. But I'm puttin' on these babies and going up to the steep (or not so much) slippery (but hopefully not icy) mountainous slopes and coming back down really really fast (or not so much).
We bought these pretty shoes boots last year at the end of the ski season (pretty much the very last day the resort was open) and swore said we were going to use them a lot this year. Uh-huh. They're still n-i-b, new in box, this year. Well, today's the day.
It's now time to sing the George of the Jungle theme song..."watch out for that TREEEEEEE!" If I never post again, you'll know that a big tree snuck up on me when I wasn't expecting it.

Little Red Hen

Last night I learned how to make really tasty bread. Shall I share with you what I learned? I shall. If you were wondering what to do with all your wheat in your food storage, this is it. But, you have to have a grinder. Drawback for some. But, I have one, so hooray for me.

10 Grain Whole Wheat Bread

1 c. 10 grain cereal (never heard of this before, but they sell it in the grocery store in the healthfood aisle- at least here in Utah)

1 c. fresh-ground whole wheat flour

3 cups very warm water

Measure these ingredients into mixer; turn on low until blended. Continue mixing while adding remaining ingredients.

1/2 c. gluten (never heard of this either as a separate ingredient but it's a floury-type product that is also available- at least here in Utah)

1/3 c. oil

1/3 c. honey (measure the oil first so the honey doesn't stick to the cup)

1 Tbsp salt

1 1/2 Tbsp yeast (if you use the rapid-rise you don't have to proof it)

1 1/2 Tbsp dough enhancer (never heard of this either, but it's also available- yep, at least here in Utah)

5-6 cups additional fresh-ground whole wheat flour

Knead for 7-10 minutes. Form dough into 2-3 loaves (depending on the size of your pans), put into bread pans and let rise for 1 hour (or until it reaches 2-in. above the pan).

Turn oven to 350 degrees and put bread into oven (do not pre-heat oven).

Bake for 30 min. Remove bread from pans immediately and rub top of bread with butter.

Wait for 5 minutes, (if possible) before cutting bread. Mmmm. So good! It's the fluffiest tastiest wheat bread I've ever had. For those who can't find these "special" ingredients where you live, you can either move to Utah (or just come visit me, I have 3 guest bedrooms) or I can bring them to you next time I visit you. Good stuff Maynard.

On another note...remember the playset from just a few days ago? How everyone was having fun playing on and around it? Yeah. This is what it looks like this morning.

And my little pretty yellow and purple and white flowers? Hang in there! You can survive this!

I hope!

Tidbits

Here are a few thoughts to ponder, and maybe a new word you hadn't heard before...

From a little book on my library shelf whose pages have all yellowed, called The Goodness of Life-

"If you made mistakes yesterday, forget them. No strength was ever built on continued regret. Today is the result of yesterday, but is more important to remember that tomorrow is the result of today."

From God's Little Instruction Book for Mom-

"Women should not have children after 35-
35 children are enough." -Author Unknown

and... "Remember, when your child has a tantrum, don't have one of your own." -Dr. J. Kuriansky

From Pooh's Little Etiquette Book-

"Keep a bottle handy so that you can send a letter in the event that you are ever Surrounded by Water." -Winnie the Pooh

Finally, from the inside of a Snickers wrapper- my word for the day...

Nougatocity (noun). A heightened yet fleeting state of acomplishment that makes you realize how unbelievably unmotivated you normally are.

PS- Good luck today, Samuel. Hugs and more hugs.

Party Pix

On Saturday, the weather was nice enough that the party people got to go outside and play. The kids and their parents were loving it! Swarming like honeybees, they went down the slide, tried out the swings and climbed up the "rock wall."


When it was time to open the presents, Caleb did a great job. After all, he had some practice just the day before, so he was a pro! This is him checking out his new piggy bank from Aunt Cheryl.




"Hey, who gave me this one?"


I love the Elvis sneer he's got going on in this picture! "Uh, Thank you, thank you very much!"

Animal activists, be aware that no living turtles were harmed in smashing this piñata. Caleb didn't like hitting the turtle. See how he's crying? Maybe he thought it was cruel to beat on a helpless turtle. Besides, since he didn't get to have any of the candy inside, he probably would rather have kept the turtle for a decoration for his bedroom. The other kids appreciated the results of the broken piñata though.


No need to scramble for the candy, there was plenty for everyone. It was a good party.

This Little Piggy

Yesterday Caleb hunted Easter eggs (see Karen's blog for more on that story). Because Caleb's parents don't want him to have any sugar until after he's two (trying to instill good eating habits while he's young), they hid coins inside the eggs. He liked that because it made a rattly sound.


Caleb loved putting the coins into the piggy bank he just received from Aunt Cheryl for his birthday. It's a great piggy bank!


There was a $20 hidden in one egg. At first, Karen thought it was empty and tossed it aside. I had to grab another egg for its coin to add to the twenty-dollar egg so it would get opened. They were surprised when they opened it! They discussed if they should keep it or give it to Caleb for his bank (since they didn't know where it came from or how it got there). It was decided that if Caleb could get it in the bank, he got to keep it. On first try, he didn't want it because it wasn't as fun or easy to put into the slot. Karen thought she was home-free but then Caleb grabbed it again and slam-dunked it into the bank.


Way to go Caleb!
Sorry for the poor quality photos. My camera phone is lacking in clarity and megapixels.

Happy Easter

Today is Easter. We think of the Bunny. We think of eggs. We think of chocolate. We think of the big dinner.


May I stop myself long enough to think of the real reason for this day. I think of my Savior and his birth and his life and his death and his resurrection and his gift to me of eternal life.


I love Him.

Chocolate, the Sequel

Due to Samuel's comment on Thursday's blog, I will now post the recipe he used last December to make truffles. Hold your horses...this one is really complicated (or not)!

Chocolate Truffles according to Samuel

1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 oz chocolate, chopped (not chocolate chips)

Heat cream. Remove from heat just before it begins to boil. Pour over chopped chocolate. Stir until chocolate melts. Refrigerate for 24-48 hours. Roll chocolate mixture into walnut-sized balls. Roll chocolate balls in whatever floats your boat (such as cocoa powder, powdered sugar, nuts, chili powder, etc).
You are now empowered to make whichever truffle recipe makes your heart sing.

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Caleb arrived on Planet Earth 365 days ago. Happy Birthday sweet boy!
I remember how Karen kept saying "isn't he so cute?" on the day he was born.

Our Easter basket was especially precious last year.

Caleb's first concert was Colors. Appropriately, he wore a colorful sweater. He'd just returned from Hawaii.


Now he's one! I'm so happy Caleb lives close-by, so I can see him often. He is such a precious boy, and so darned cute!

Chocolate

This morning on whatever morning program I was watching (might have been fox), they asked how much chocolate, on average, a Swiss person eats annually. They gave four different possibilities, but the answer was 22 pounds! Can you imagine? That means almost a half lb of chocolate per week. Do they exercise it off? Are they all huge people? Do they eat other sweets as well or are they exclusive chocolate-eaters? Now it makes me wonder, how much chocolate do Americans eat? And since we are super-sizers in America, does that mean we eat more chocolate than the Swiss?
In honor of this chocolate post, and because I only have four Christmas truffles left, I found this recipe online. I haven't tried it, but perhaps I shall this weekend. After all, it's Easter, right?

Chocolate Truffles
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup cocoa
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Cocoa or powdered sugar

Directions:
Melt butter in heavy saucepan over low heat. Add cocoa; stir until smooth. Add sweetened condensed milk; cook and stir constantly until mixture is thick, smooth and glossy, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Cover; refrigerate 3 to 4 hours or until firm. Shape into 1 1/4 inch balls; roll in cocoa or powdered sugar. Refrigerate until firm, 1 to 2 hours. Store, covered, in refrigerator.

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen candies.
And unless you're Swiss, try not to eat them all in one sitting.

The Civil War

Last night we went to dinner at Cracker Barrel with my mom and Walt. This very grainy picture shows Bud playing checkers with Mom. He told us after the game that he's never lost a game of checkers in 60 years. We never knew. Now we'll never play with him anymore unless he shares his strategy with us (or at least me).

After dinner we went to Hale Theatre to see The Civil War, starring Merrill Osmond.

I highly recommend this to anyone that lives in the Salt Lake area to go see it. It was such a good production. I loved the music so much I think I will go buy the soundtrack for it. I'm such a crybaby. Lots of tears thinking of all the men and boys that lost their lives for a cause they believed in and tears for the people who spent their lives without freedom because of slavery.

Two Good Boys

Yesterday I posted Karen's million dollar question incorrectly. I apologize! See her comment on yesterday's post for the true question. Oops.
To make up for my mistake, I thought today I would post something about her two favorite boys.
Here is Caleb showing off his standing skills.


Just hanging out looking cute. Maybe he's thinking that there's only 3 more days until his birthday!


He was peeling off the wrapper from a package of CD's.




In this last photo, Caleb was trying to help his daddy fix a clock. The hour hand was in the wrong position. When it was set with the minute hand on 12, the hour hand was between numbers. Dumb. So Brandon fixed it. Yea! I was ready to DI the dumb thing, now I don't have to. Brandon also set up our new computer and printer yesterday, and he fixed the remote problem in the theater room. What would I do without him? As a reward, I made him dinner and dessert. He thought it was a good trade. So did I, but I think I got the better deal.

The Big Game- no, not the Superbowl

Yesterday Brandon, Karen and Caleb came over. Caleb can stand up all by himself and it's so cute to see him just stand there forever. He doesn't want to move his feet yet, but standing is a cinch now.



After dinner, we went down to the theater room and played Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader on DVD. Bud and I sailed through all our questions and before we knew it, we were having to decide if we wanted to go for the million dollar question. In the meantime, Brandon and Karen got stuck on one of their questions (which came first, Maya, Aztec or Inca. Glad it was their question, not mine) and they decided to use their peek. They went with the kid's answer and got it right, Maya. They were also now at the million dollar question. Bud and I had to go first. The category was Social Studies. I felt pretty confident with that. I told Bud we should go for it. After all, it wasn't REAL money, although Jeff Foxworthy makes you promise to say "I am not smarter than a 5th grader" if you miss or flunk out. Our question was:
What does a Neanderthal man do after a good meal?
1- uses bones to make percussion music
2- smokes corn silk
3- draws on cave walls
The question and answers are paraphrased and not the actual words used in the game. Karen and Brandon's question was:
What does the Neanderthal man use to make fire?
1- Basalt
2- Limestone
3- Flint
Goodness! How easy is THAT one? Ugh. Yeah, so they answered flint and won the million. We answered draws on cave walls and got it wrong. It should have been the answer about the music. That million we could have won? Easy come, easy go. I am not smarter than a fifth grader.

Easter Trivia

Found this little sweetie at Kohl's. Yes, the day they thought I was 62. So in its honor I thought I'd pass along a little trivia.

Easter this year is: Sunday March 23, 2008
As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox which is March 20.
This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228. The last time it was this early was 1913 so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that, but I don't think I have any readers that old.
Eggs are a symbol of the new life that returns to nature at Easter Time. The custom of exchanging eggs began long before Easter was celebrated. It was a custom of the Egyptians and the Persians. They exchanged eggs decorated in Spring colors. They believed Earth hatched from an egg. Early Christians used red colored eggs to symbolize the Resurrection.
In the 1800's, candied eggs were made. They were open on one end and a scene was put inside. They were used as table centerpieces. My mom made sugar eggs for my kids when they were little. We kept them for years, but we no longer have them. After all, they were only made of sugar.
The top four candy holidays are Halloween (nearly $2 billion), Easter ($1.9 billion), Christmas ($1.4 billion) and Valentine's Day (just over $1 billion).
Ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced each year.
According to 76% of Americans, chocolate bunnies should be eaten ears first. Five percent said bunnies should be eaten feet first, while 4% favored eating the tail first. Adults prefer milk chocolate (65%), to dark chocolate (27%).
Each Easter season, Americans buy more than 700 million Marshmallow Peeps, shaped like chicks, as well as Marshmallow Bunnies and Marshmallow Eggs, making them the most popular non-chocolate Easter candy. As many as 4.2 million Marshmallow Peeps, bunnies, and other shapes can be made each day. In 1953, it took 27 hours to create a Marshmallow Peep. Today it takes six minutes. Yellow Peeps are the most popular, followed by pink, lavender, blue, and white.
Americans consume 16 billion jellybeans at Easter, many of them hidden in baskets. If all the Easter jellybeans were lined end to end, they would circle the globe nearly three times. Jellybeans did not become an Easter tradition until the 1930s. 70% of kids aged 6–11 say they prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time, while 23% report eating several at once. Boys (29%) were more apt to eat a handful than girls (18%). Children indicate their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%). I guess I'm not a kid (see top of this post for what others think my age is) because my favorite color of jellybean is BLACK!
Now you know all about Easter, other than the obvious, the reason we celebrate is because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for that every day of my life.

Edward Scissorhands- the sequel

For the past week, my hair has been driving me batty. My bangs were so long they were blocking my vision completely. Without the aid of lots and lots of hairspray to keep them stuck to some other place on my head except where bangs normally belong, I would have been bumping into walls and crashing into cars for lack of visual clairity. Yesterday I got my hair cut. I evidently didn't communicate well enough how I wanted my hair cut, so she just got after it and whack, whack, whack, got 'er done. I now look like I did during the summer between they sixth and seventh grade (sorry, I looked for pictures this morning and couldn't find them. I realize now that I looked in the wrong scrapbook). I went from having very long hair that my mother put into a braid every day to very short hair.
This was the summer that while my mother was working at South Coast Plaza at Lindberg Nutrition, she'd bring us to work with her for the day and we'd go shopping. My sister had entered a beauty pageant and needed glitzy clothes for it. We were in one of the big stores (the likes of Dillards or such, but I don't remember what store it was) and Cheryl had taken some clothing into the dressing room. I was coming in after her and a sales lady stopped me. She said, "Little boy, little boy, you can't go in there." I stopped dead in my tracks. I turned around and waited for Cheryl to come out. I was embarrassed, but I'm not sure if I was more embarrassed because she called me a little boy or because I was too timid to tell her I wasn't a boy.
That was also the summer I bicycled to the high school to go swimming one day. I paid my dollar and they let me in. However, when I was ready to get into the pool, I was stopped again. This time, they told me girls had to wear swim caps (they could tell I was a girl because of the bathing suit). I was astonished. My hair was shorter than most of the boys in the pool. I was being unfairly discriminated against because I was a girl. I thought "ha! tell that to the lady at the mall!"
That was the only summer I had short hair. I immediately started growing it out again (although it went through some strange wavey phase in the process) and didn't cut it short again (except for bangs) until I was almost 40.
I wonder if anyone will think I'm a boy now.

Hanging Around

First, as an update to yesterday's post regarding Spring, there's now a little yellow bloom popping out of one of the green shoots. Yippee.
We're starting to get some of the walls fancy-dancied up. This is one wall of the upstairs bathroom. Today's project is to paint/decorate the frame that holds the 8x8 picture for the other wall.


Here's how the bedroom is looking these days. Sorry for the glare on the pictures. They are very color-complementary to the bedspread. Liking it! Loving it!


And this is in my craft/sewing room. Bud says that it reminds him of me (the girl on the stool pouring the bird feed) and Nora (the girl watching- obviously). I just don't know where the dog came from.

We have more pictures to hang. That's Bud's project for the day. That, and hanging mirrors. Sounds like fun.

It's Coming!

Last night I had a R.S. function. I didn't really want to go, but decided I should anyway. On my way out the driveway, I glanced over at the yard. What? To my great surprise, I saw this!

I got so excited! I called Bud and told him. Strangely, he didn't seem as excited as I was. I couldn't understand that really, but it didn't diminish my excitement. Last October, before we got to move into our house, I saw all the packages of bulbs for sale. I could just picture lots of tulips (and whatever the other two bulbs we planted were) springing up (no wonder they call it Spring) in my new yard. I purchased several bags of bulbs and then after letting them "ripen" in my car for a couple weeks, we finally made arrangements with the previous owners (who hadn't yet moved out) to let us come over and plant the bulbs. Their four year old daughter was overly zealous in her willingness to help us. I taught her how to put the bulbs in the right way (something I had only just learned for myself), and then I could only hope that most of them got planted happy-side-up, rather than upside-down. I guess it worked, at least for some, because I see green! In a few more weeks I hope to post another picture with our yard in spectacular full-blooming color. Or as NBC used to say just before the peacock spread it's feathers, "in living color." Yea for Spring!

Happy Birthday Danny!

Cute boy at the beach! Look at those curls! Look at those kissy cheeks!

Danny loved G.I. Joe stuff. The rifle he's holding was made by my father and shot rubber bands.

Wow, my baby boy is 24. How did that happen? It was just a minute ago that he was 4. Or 12. Or 17. But 24?
It's a well known saying that you save the best for last. Danny was the sweetest little boy. I look at pictures of him and wish I could jump back into time for just a few moments and hug and squeeze him and tickle his ribs till he screams "stop!" But he'd always let me tickle him for a little bit before he'd use the magic stop word. Stop was law. My kids were taught that they had ultimate power when we were playing and if you said stop, it was over. I remember one day when Danny was a teenager, strong and wirey. I was writing in my journal (which nearly never happened) and he came in the bedroom. We somehow ended up in a tickling-fest. Normally, I could pin his arms under my bent legs, but he'd become so strong that I was going to lose from then on. Still though, he let me have a few brief moments before he flipped over and got away. In the process, the page I'd been writing on got totally crushed. I treasure that crushed page now.
I can't hear the song Danny Boy without getting very emotional, usually to the point of tears, because I have a Danny Boy. I love my Danny Boy. I always will, and he's the best Danny Boy there ever was. Happy Birthday my son.

Absent Minded

Last night I put some pictures into frames and was going to share them with you today, however, I forgot the cable that connects the camera to the computer, and not having time to go back home for it, I don't get to show you how they turned out. So, second best is to just show you the pictures that got framed. I know how excited you are about it.
The first two pictures go in the bathroom upstairs where it is decorated in chocolate brown and turquoise.


This last one is in the main floor half-bath, along with two other barn pictures. I'm thinking I will unframe one of the barn pictures and put up a wild horses picture courtesy of The Pioneer Woman.


By the way, Pioneer Woman won two Bloggie awards yesterday. One for best food weblog and one for best writing of a weblog. Seriously, if you have never read her stuff or tried one of her recipes, you need to reconsider your priorities.

Wowzer Salad

We were in St. George (Santa Clara) for the weekend, in case you missed me. It seemed like such a fast trip and I took three projects with me, foolishly thinking I would have time to get them all done. I was going to cut out Sara's quilt, cut out my new grandson's quilt (name still being decided, but I've heard a couple possibilities) and finish cutting out a Santa quilt that I started cutting last November. Yeah, go ahead, guess how much got done. I cut three strips for the Santa quilt and that was it! We spent the rest of the time either cleaning, shopping (we bought a mattress for the other basement bedroom so now all the bedrooms have beds... that's what makes them bed rooms) or while Bud was being a plumber on the kitchen sink, I spent hours on the computer deciding which pictures to frame for the bathroom walls.
We tied the mattress (still in its protective heavy-duty plastic wrapper)to the top of the Grand Cherokee and drove home Sunday morning, crazy early, so we'd be able to go to a missionary farewell. It was for the Gessel's (our canyon-neighbor) youngest son, the same boy we had in our Sunday School class when he was 15. It was our first calling in the ward. The boys chewed us up and spit us out, but somehow we survived - barely. This was our first time back to that ward since moving in December and it was SO nice to be back there again, where we knew everyone and people were happy to see us, etc. After Sacrament meeting, we were invited to the Gessel's house for lunch (along with 50 other people...we're not THAT special to warrant an exclusive invitation). I'm going to duplicate this lunch for Caleb's birthday party. It was just right. Among the rightness of the meal was a salad that was incredible. Don't laugh when I tell you this. Okay, laugh if you want, but it was dang good.
Three ingredients.
1- Granny Smith apples, cored and chopped into bite-sized pieces.
2- Snickers bars, chopped in similar sized pieces as the apples.
3- Enough Cool Whip to hold it all together.
I know. You're thinking, that's not a salad! Okay, call it whatever you want, but it's on my new favorite things list.
PS- for those of you with Google Reader (or equivalent), sorry for the multiple posts of the same thing. I noticed a couple glitches after the post was published.

I'm must be old

I went to Kohl's to look for a picture for the half-bath just off the kitchen. I didn't find one but I did find two pillows that work well in the livingroom, and a couple of other things. I went to make my purchase and the girl there totalled it up. Then she looked at me and asked..."Did you want the senior discount today?" What? I wonder how old you have to be to receive the senior discount. Obviously the answer must be only 50! Then later, Bud and I were watching a PBS program about how the brain works. In this study, they took terminally ill patients and blah, blah, blah. They explained that these patients were all elderly, in their 50's and 60's and 70's. Sheesh.

What Love Means

I received this e-mail the other day. Watch out for Mark's comment. It's a little gross.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?"

Rebecca- age 8
"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

Billy - age 4
"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."

Karl - age 5
"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."

Chrissy - age 6
"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."

Terri - age 4
"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."

Danny - age 7
"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

Emily - age 8
"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"

Bobby - age 7 (Love this one!)
"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

Nikka - age 6
"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."

Noelle - age 7
"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."

Tommy - age 6
"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

Cindy - age 8
"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."

Clare - age 6
"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."

Elaine-age 5
"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."

Chris - age 7
"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."

Mary Ann - age 4
"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."

Lauren - age 4
"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."

Karen - age 7
"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."

Mark - age 6
"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."
Jessica - age 8
"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.
The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.
The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.
Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.
When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
"Nothing, I just helped him cry."

Happy Anniversary Karen and Brandon!

Three years ago Karen and Brandon got married in the St. George temple.

It seems like just a moment ago, but it also feels like Brandon has been part of my family for a long time. I depend on him so much for a lot of things. He's my computer setter-upper, my unclog the drain guy, my ladder on legs,

and the daddy of my grandson!
Karen is a sweet daughter that I must talk with every single day or I go nuts. And, because Karen and Brandon got married,

I have sweet, cute, adorable Caleb to hug and love and spoil.


Happy Anniversary you two! I love you.