Long Time Friends

I was going to say "Old Friends" but that wouldn't be true because they aren't all that old. I was so excited to go to Women's Conference today because I was anticipating listening to my previous Stake President speak. He's a remarkable man and I love him dearly. I found out something about him today that I never knew before. He used to work at Disneyland as the bricklaying little pig! His talk was excellent. I loved every moment. In the picture with him is another friend of mine. I hadn't seen her in a very long time. It was good to see her again. She was glad to see me too. In fact, so glad, that she asked me to say the prayer to start that lecture time!
After the conference sessions were over, I arranged to meet two other friends for dinner.
Wow, was it good to see them again! It took us almost three hours at Cafe Rio to catch up. I'm sure there were a lot of people wishing they could have our table! It was busy! But we just kept talking away. My heart is happy. There's nothing like good old friends, even if they aren't that old.

S'no(w) Fair

In Utah, we expect snow. Some of us even LIKE the snow. But not like this.
When you start messing with my tulips, that's just not right.
How sad. Especially if they die prematurely because of this cold harsh white stuff.
On a happier note...Women's Conference, here I come!

Weekend Work

This is what we did on Saturday. Hey, Karen, can you see the Gerbera daisy just behind the other yellow flower? I bought it to remind me of you, which is does.
And, of course the planting is not complete until I put one of these guys in the ground.
However, it's supposed to be snowing again today and tomorrow. I hope these guys survive the storm.

Happy Birthday Laura

Remember when she looked like this?

How about this?

Or click here to see lots more!

You are my happiness. You are precious to me. You are an amazing person. You are an awesome mom. I love you a million-kazillion. Happy Birthday. Sorry you have to make your own cake today.

Better Than P-Dub's

Do you know P-Dub? PW? Pioneer Woman? Ree Drummond? Okay, either you do or you don't. If you look back at the previous post, her cookbook is in the cupboard on the right, bottom shelf, near the right edge, with the orange spine. Now that you're thoroughly acquainted, let me say this...I found a pizza dough recipe that is better than hers! When Laura was here, we made PW's pizza dough 2 or 3 times. We liked it, especially the very first time. But now I have a better one. Here it comes. Oh, and if you cook your pizza on a stone, turn your oven on now to 425 to heat that thing up!

Pizza Dough

1 cup very warm water (not HOT- about 115 degrees)

1 T active yeast or instant yeast (I use instant- SAF)

1 T sugar

2 1/4 cups flour, divided

1 tsp sea salt (yes, I used sea salt- but I don't know if it made that much difference)

1 T oil (I used EVOO)

corn meal

If you're using active yeast, put it and the sugar in a 1 cup glass measuring cup and fill it with the warm water. Let it sit for a few minutes until the yeast gets "happy." If you're using instant yeast, you can skip this process and just put all the ingredients (using 2 cups of flour) together in a mixing bowl (I used my Kitchen Aid).

Mix it for about 3 minutes. It is going to look really sticky, and if you touch it, it will feel really sticky! Cover the mixing bowl with a kitchen towel and put it in a warm place. I turn my oven on for about 45 seconds (the other oven, not the one that's preheating the stone) and then turn it back off again, then place the bowl in the oven. Works great. Leave it there until the dough has doubled (about an hour). Put the remaining 1/4 cup of flour on your countertop and using a rubber spatula, plop the dough into the flour. Knead it a bit until it no longer feels sticky. Roll (or toss! I'd like to see that!) the dough out to the thickness you prefer.

Pizza Sauce (found recipe here and I'll be using this one from now on!)

1 can (14 1/2 oz) diced tomatoes

1 can (6 oz) tomato paste

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp basil

1/8 tsp garlic powder (I used less than that. If you know me, you'll know why)

1/8 tsp onion powder

1 T sugar

Mix it all together in a small saucepan. Simmer gently for about 5 minutes.

At this point, your oven is hot and your pizza stone is ready because it's been heating for an hour. I sprinkle my pizza peel with corn meal so I can slide the pie right off the peel and onto the stone. If you don't have a stone, or a peel, just press the dough onto your cookie sheet. I make no promises for how it turns out that way though, because I haven't tried it, but I've heard it's just fine.

Cover your dough with the sauce, add your toppings, and bake for 15 minutes or so, depending on how loaded down your pizza might be.

Want to know what made me laugh? When I was preparing this post yesterday, I stopped to read my friend's newest post. She posted the very same thing that I did- homemade pizza! Great minds think alike, or something! Maybe you'll like her pizza better than mine, but you have to cook her sauce WAY longer than mine! Jenny, I almost didn't post this, just because you did! So funny. But no problem- not that many people read both of our blogs. Maybe only Wylie. Hey Wylie, where's your pizza post?

Conquering My Addiction

It lies just beyond these doors.
I collect recipes and the books that bind them.
After having just bought the newest cupcake book, "What's New Cupcake" Karen said I had to throw a cookbook away to make room for it (it's all because she used to collect sweaters and it finally came down to the same thing- she had to throw one away if she bought a new one) I decided I would try to downsize my collection.

Here's the left side.
Here's the right side.
And here's what it looks like after I downsized!
What? You can't tell any difference? Huh! I'm so surprised! Because look at all the ones I got rid of! There's four and a bunch of magazines. See? I DID get rid of some.
You might not understand how hard it is for me to give up my collection. I really did try. Really. Really! Well, sort of. Perhaps I need therapy?

As for the new cupcake book (and the old one as well), I mailed them off to Laura yesterday. Hey Lar- they're coming your way!

Those Blooming Tulips!

Recently, I showed you this picture.
Now look at the same spot! Red!!
Those red ones are in the backyard. In the front, I have other colors. I promised Agnes I would show her pink and orange and yellow today!





I'm so happy to have pretty flowers to look at because this one just wasn't cutting it for me anymore.

Empty Nesters

Last week, Cheryl and I were in charge of the Empty Nester's dinner.
Sorry for the glare on this one...we used the chalkboard side of the easel to track the points for the game we played after dinner. It's called Last Word.
Almost ready! I told Cheryl that her outfit made me want to go back to Prince Edward Island. Something about the blue and white stripes mixed with the yellow jacket. She said we should visit there in every season of the year. Wouldn't that be cool?
And a few close-up's of the different decorations...




We had apricot chicken, rice pilaf, rolls and a salad that was more fruit than salad. Two of the recipes were from "My Home Based Mom," Leigh Anne Wilkes. For dessert, Cheryl made her famous strawberry danish dessert. I think everyone had a good time!

I've Been Waiting For This

I got this on Friday. The weekend before that I went to three stores looking for it, unsuccessfully. It's got some crazy stuff in there this time! There are two cupcakes that had me saying "gross, gross!" but the rest are clever and cute.
My only problem with the book is this. You have to be pretty motivated to go through the creation process to get to the finale. Although they say the cupcakes in this book are easier than the ones in their first book (Hello Cupcake), I don't think I would ever get enough motivation to make them unless Laura was here to coax me into it!
Therefore, should I just mail the book to her?

A Flood-free Basement, Maybe

Problem solved? We're hoping so. We called in the big guns to help us solve this one, but kept it in the family.
A little of this...
a little of that...
and it led them here. To a stuck pop-up release valve that the grass had grown over so that it couldn't pop up. I noticed how much greener and longer the grass is right around this spot. That should have been a clue as to where to look for this bugger.
Time will tell if that's all we needed to keep the water out of the basement. Cross your fingers.

So Happy!

Two things just happened that made me so happy. The first thing that made me happy was seeing that my former Stake President from CA was a speaker at Women's Conference. You may not understand the implications of that statement. If there were a voting system instead of just a sustaining procedure in our church, I'd be writing his name on the ballot for the next G.A. Seriously. He is such a remarkable man. Love him!

The second thing that made me so happy was realizing (after 2 1/2 years of living in my house) that I could put a magnet on the door that leads from the house to the garage. Yes, I am this simple. I used to hunt down post-it notes, or a paper and tape, to leave a message for Bud. No more! Mr. Magnet is now my best friend and I can just slap one on the door and then smile. I'm sure it will take quite awhile for me to get over this one. Why did I never realize it before now? My refrigerator is NOT magnetic (I was always so sad about that), so I cannot put notes there. Or kid's artwork. Or kid's photos. I even bought a magnet board and hung it in the laundry room, but Bud never goes in there to look for a message (it's not like I leave him many messages...we're almost always together!) Wouldn't it be funny if the next time you come over you see my inside garage door slathered with pictures etc.? It's a possibility!

Remember Mervyns?

Do you remember the commercial for Mervyn's where the lady is standing outside the door in the wee morning hours chanting "open, open, open?"
Well that is what I'm saying to these little cuties.

Open

Open

Open

In other news... we're trying to figure out why our basement keeps flooding, so we're investigating this guy as the culprit. We think maybe this drain is plugged down there somewhere and when it rains, it gets backed up and has nowhere to go, so it goes into our basement. Or maybe not. I don't know.
But here's a nice view from my rooftop...
I'd never been to this part of my house before. Hope I don't have to be here again anytime soon. It was a little unsettling.
We don't know for sure what's causing our floods, but we hope to uncover the mystery soon.

Blog to Book

With a little help from my friend (thank you,Jenny), I think I've decided to make this blog into a printed book. I've done vacation books before, but didn't quite know the ins and outs of making a blog into a book. After some frustration, I've been able to figure out most of what I need to do, but it's not just an automatic happening. Therefore, I've been a little absent in current postings. Not that you probably even care!

At first I started out sucking the whole blog into the format, but it took over 2600 pictures and almost 400 posts. Too big, too much. I decided to do from "start" to 6/09 and work at it to that point. However, I'm not entirely sure that it even needs to be printed into a book form.

Do any fellow bloggers feel like they want to put their blog into a bound book? Since this encompasses everything I do (more or less) and is what I call my journal (well, I do have another one that is personal), does that mean it needs to be in a book?

What do you think?

Would You Buy It?

I went to Smith's to buy some peanut butter. It was on sale for $1.30 (limit 2 cases). Great buy. While there, I happened to see this, which I felt was NOT such a great buy.
It was a plastic bottle of basically just crumbled/crunched up Oreos.

4.4 ounces of Oreos for nearly $4.00 just so you can have the convenience of sprinkling them into whatever it is you're needed broken-up Oreos sprinkled into/on/over instead of breaking them up yourself from a package of cookies.

I'm sorry. I'm missing the whole idea here. I guess there are some people out there that have more money than time. As for me? I'll break up my own Oreos and save a whole lot of money. And then I'll eat the leftover unbroken ones when I'm done. But I probably won't dunk them into my newly purchased peanut butter.

Missed it by a Minute

Pulled into our driveway in Santa Clara at 9:00 PM exactly, on Thursday night.

Pulled into our driveway in West Jordan at 9:01 PM on Sunday night.

We had such a wonderful weekend watching Conference. I hope you did too.

We've Made a Decision

Because we've been so slow at work, and because we're so tired of looking at this white stuff when it should be so over with by now...
and because it would mean being closer to these girls...
and this girl...
and even this boy...
we've decided to retire immediately and spend the next several weeks (and maybe even months) here.
It's our other house in sunny Santa Clara, Utah. We're leaving today. I'm sure no one will even realize we've gone!