Hello, Lover...

Oh, how I do love me some Reese's Snack Barz. It's sick and wrong, how much I love them. And the tragedy of our love affair is how ridiculously hard they are to find. I haven't seen them in... I-don't-even-know-how-long. To tell the truth, the only place I ever saw them regularly was at the convenience store/gas station across from the bank. I used to stop in and get a coke and a snack bar (because if you call it a snack bar, it sounds more like a granola bar (read: healthy snack) and less like a candy bar) on my way to work at least twice a week. (And since I'm confessing, I'll come clean and confess that the snack bar I ate this morning was found in a box of bank stuff. So, it was probably 6 months old. And I didn't even care. I gobbled it right up without even looking for a "best before" date on the packaging.)

Aahhhhhhh, Reese's Snack Barz. I love you so, even with the grammatically incorrect (and stupid looking) z on the end of your name, I love you. (And for me to be able to overlook grammar is saying something about the kind of love I feel.)

Reunited and it feels so good. Mmmmmm...

Yet another reason that being a grownup ROCKS!

This is what I had for breakfast this morning.

It was pretty darn fabulous.

Happy Easter!

I'm pretty sure this was my favorite conference talk last week. I do love Elder Holland. The man has a gift with words.

This Easter Sunday, I'm incredibly grateful for the knowledge of the restored gospel, that I know that Christ lived here on Earth - that He lived for us, that He died for us, and that He then lived for us again. The knowledge that He loved us (me) enough to have suffered all that he suffered, so that we (I) may have the gift of eternal life is truly humbling. I'm so incredibly grateful for the peace that knowing this brings into my life, for the love that this brings into my heart.

I love Easter. I love Him. ... And I love all of you who come and check my blog out every now and then. (Even if we haven't ever met in real life.) I do hope you enjoy this little video clip. It's the most life/faith affirming thing I've seen in some time, so I wanted to share it with you on this special day.

Happy Easter!

Wednesday - my new favorite day of the week

I've been hanging out with Christian on Wednesdays lately, and this week we made a little trip to our favorite store (ABC) for cake decorating supplies. Check it.

Like I needed any of this stuff (not so much). I went, knowing that I wanted to get a little thing of red dye and some more marshmallow flavoring - and a big tip for cupcakes.

What I ended up with...
2 candy/Bakerella-style-cupcake-bite forms
1 ginormous thing of red food coloring
1 little guy of burgundy food coloring
1 little guy of blue food coloring
1 bag of pink chocolate (for the afore mentioned cupcake-bites)
3 pkgs of SUPER CUTE cupcake cups
1 cupcake shaped cookie-cutter
1 pkg of Easter Bunny sprinkles
1 container of raspberry cake filling
1 4 inch cake pan

Not quite the $4 I was planning on spending, but it's all good. Because with these goods, I was able to make some pretty cute little Spring/Easter cuppycakes this week.

How cute are these cupcake cups? (Adorable, right?) On a scale of 1-10, I'm pretty sure they're a 12. I'm in love with the polka-dots.

And I got to use two of my new tips. I'm a pretty big fan of this tip. I only had to squeeze once, and a huge rush of icing came out. I'm pretty sure I'll never frost a cupcake with a knife again as long as I live.

And with this super sweet tip, I had to squeeze for a second longer than with the first. It's more than one squeeze, but it was a pretty easy little swirly move that gave me the Hershey kiss-esque look in the center.

Sprinkle the tops of my adorable little cakes with some pink Easter Bunny shaped confections, and... voila!

The cutest little cupcakes of all time. (And they tasted pretty darn good, too.)

I've always been a messy eater...

I'm on the far right (the only child at the party who merited having a parent sit on the couch with her). You'll note that the rest of the kids are eating their ice cream cones peacefully - nary a smeared face amongst the bunch (other than the kid who is, again, being held on to by her parent).

Good grief. Some things never change.

A funny thing happened Thanksgiving weekend, 2008

I ate ham. And... I liked it.

For those of you who haven't known me for 32 years, let me just say... that I even ate the ham right off the bone one time was a pretty big deal. That I eventually ate about a third of a whole ham over Thanksgiving weekend is absolutely mind-blowing. I mean, I'm the girl that grew up telling my folks that I didn't want a Mormon funeral if it meant that they were gonna have to eat ham and scalloped potatoes at the luncheon after the service. I'm not even kidding. For years, I told them that if they ate ham at dinner after they buried me, I'd haunt them and give them ALL the worst case of food poisoning EVER. When I moved away from home, my mom told me that if I was that adamant about the no-ham-at-my-funeral, I would need to let my RS President know - in every ward I ever lived in. And I have. I'll admit, it's a little awkward, telling a woman you just met that if you die while you live in her ward, you (under no circumstances) want to have ham served at your funeral luncheon, but... I've done it. More than once. Why? Because I was that anti-ham.

And then I went home for Thanksgiving last Fall, and... it all changed.

Why? I'm not sure. Maybe it was because I'd just lost my job and food (esp food that I didn't have to pay for) was tasting that much better. Maybe it was the homemade bread that I had in one hand, while I held a chunk o' ham in the other. I don't know what it was, but what I do know is... I fell in love with ham. Mind you, it still has to be a REAL ham. None of that processed "pressed pork" for me, thanks. But real ham, spiral cut and falling right off the bone? Oh, I'm in love.

So in love, actually, that I bought a 7 lb ham at the store on Saturday. (It's Easter, so it was less than $2 a pound, which I thought was pretty awesome.) I just opened the package today and... well, now I'm sick because I ate too much of that stupid pig. But it was worth it. I do love ham even more when it's dripping in the sugary honey glaze.

Oh, how I love to eat little piggies (snort). In all their salty goodness, they are my favorite of all the farm animals. (Except for when I'm sitting in front of a rare steak. Then the cows are my favorite.)

And... we have a contender

For placement in the Five Worst Movies I've Ever Seen, that is. Honestly, Duplicity? DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. (Or your dollars.) Lucky me, Liz is the kind of date that pays when we go to the movies (I know... how did I get so lucky as to have her for my friend/movie buddy?), so I didn't lose anything but 2 hours of my life. But wow, that movie was horrendous. And it's officially in The Top Five. Which, for you curious folk, I'll lay out here in no particular order:

The Brothers Grimm
Batman & Robin
Paycheck
American Sweethearts
Duplicity

And yeah, I know. Julia Roberts is in two (TWO!) of those top five. Which is putting her in the same placement as Ben Affleck (ouch). It's gonna be a while before I'll be able to trust that she's read the script and knew what she was getting herself into before she made a movie. I'm telling you... this movie was B-A-D, bad. Like, talking out loud (not whispering) in the theater to the friend next to you, saying "Really? Is this movie never gonna end?!", bad. Oh, it was painful. So painful that even Clive Owens' smokin hot accent couldn't carry it. (And that, my friends, is saying something. Because his accent? It's... something else.)

Yeah, do not go see this movie. It's 2+ hours of your life that you'll never get back. Blagh...

The best damn waffles this side of the Rio Grand

As requested...

Waffles
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
1 3/4 cup flour
1 Tab baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
cinnamon

Separate the two eggs. Beat the egg whites on high until they form stiff peaks. In a second bowl, beat/stir the egg yolks gently as you add the milk and oil. In a third (larger) bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and a dash of cinnamon.

Into bowl #3 (the dry ingredients bowl), add the yolk/milk/oil mixture. Stir until well blended. By now your egg whites should be where you need them to be (I whip them in the Kitchen Aid while I'm getting the other ingredients together, so they're good to go by the time I'm ready for them). Gently stir the egg whites into the batter - don't worry about breaking down the egg whites and actually mixing them in. (You WANT to have some lumps, because the lumps keep the waffles light and airy while they cook.)

Enjoy!

Yield: 5-6 Belgian waffles

Tradition!

As has been my custom for the past 15 or so years, I made waffles with strawberries & cream for breakfast/lunch today. Every April General Conference Sunday since, oh... I'd say 1995 (my first Spring in Provo), this has been the standard mid-day fare. Cousin Julie and I did it together for years (and Greg, Doug, Rustin and Brad would come over). When she got married and I came back to Arizona, I started a family tradition with my parents and younger sister. It's gotten to be such big thing with my folks that we'll talk about the fact that it's coming weeks ahead of time, and my mom and I will call and tell each other when we've picked up the goods and we're ready for Sunday morning to come. (She went to Bashas' yesterday and they were - get this - out of whipping cream and she had to settle for Cool Whip. How tragic is that?!)

Anyhoo... today was a great day at my house. (How could it not be? I had a quart of whipping cream on hand. I not only whipped it up for the top of the waffles, but I put half cream/half milk into the waffles themselves. Yeah, I know. It's like a heart attack on a plate. ... I heart cream.)

Here's a snapshot into my life for you. (And rest assured, the lumps you see in the batter are supposed to be there. They're the egg whites that I whipped and then gently folded in.)


And... here's a lovely shot of my lunch. Yeah, I know... that's almost a whole carton of strawberries and an unholy amount of whipped cream. And it's exactly the way that I like it. :-)

Seriously, these waffles are divine. As anyone who's ever gone to breakfast with me can attest, I order pancakes or Belgian waffles with strawberries & cream every time. That having been said (and I'm saying this, having eaten a copious amount of restaurant waffles), I'm pretty sure that I make the best damn waffles this side of the Rio Grand. I think it's the combination of the egg whites and the cinnamon. Oh, and my magic touch, of course. They're good. I mean... freakishly good. Which seems just about right for Conference weekend.

I love my life. I really, really do.

It really IS a wonderful life!

So, I had someone send me this little inspirational email at work today,

What you do makes a difference. What you think, what you say, what you take the time to understand makes a difference.

Life changes because you are part of it. And you can always make it change for the better.

Every moment, a new world is being born. You can make the world more beautiful and fulfilling than it has ever been before.

A positive and purposeful intention leads to effective, creative action. And suddenly, you've made the world a better place.


When I read that, my mind immediately went to one of my favorite movies EVER, It's A Wonderful Life. It's funny, I know, how I associate the movies and music of my youth with life. But I do it... Because I love them. I love the truth that can be found in film (and in music), and the tale of George Bailey is one of my favorites. Why? Because he was human. Ridiculously, almost tragically human. The upside of his humanity? He had a heart. A huge heart. And he changed people's lives, a whole town of them, for the better. Oh, how I love the example of George Bailey. This email this morning reminded me of him. So, in turn, I am reminding you of (or telling you about) him. If you've never seen the movie - do. It's one of my top ten favorites, easily. And could (and probably should) be watched any time of the year. There are so many lessons to learn in It's A Wonderful Life, not the least of which is that, often unwittingly and unknowingly, we have an effect on every person that we come in contact with. I love the sentiment "Remember no man is a failure who has friends". Oh, It's A Wonderful Life is a beautiful thing, in large part - I believe - because it helps me remember that life is a beautiful thing.