Family

Today was one of those Sundays when I just wanted to stay home and read. My spirit and my body fought a small battle between the hours of 7:00 and 8:00. At around 8:30, I swallowed hard, got myself up off the couch and walked back to my room to find a skirt.

I'm not sure if that means that my body won, or my spirit won... but I went to church.

And, as is usually the case (esp when I have an inner war waging about whether or not I should suck it up and go to church like a good little Mormon), I ended up being glad that I went.

We had a special class today on the new Family Search site, and they passed out these handy-dandy little fill-in-the-blanks-and-write-your-own-life-history pamphlets.

I'm a fan.

They also asked a series of general family history questions:

Where did your parents go to high school? (Escondido, CA)

How did your parents meet? (My dad came to do a presentation on Institute and the Seminary teacher set them up. ... Unbelievably, I'm spacing her name right now, but I know that she made really good brownies. I think they were called pottage.)

Where did your grandparents grow up? (Tempe, AZ, Joplin, MO, Logan, UT and Berkeley, CA ... I think)

Do you know of a history of illness/untimely death in your extended family? (Yup. ... Kate.)

It made me happy to know that I knew the answers to so many questions off the top of my head. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for telling us stories. You guys rock!)

And, as people kept talking, sharing their family stories and experiences, I started to remember more of my own:

My mom's cousin David, who became my friend through having read my blog last summer.

Texting my cousins, across state lines, quoting old movies -- esp at Christmastime.

Grammy and Grandad's vhs tapes with three movies per tape.

Grandpa's Red Eye Gravy.

My mom's sisters showing up after my first surgery.

Homemade ice cream.

Uncle Jeff with his 36" pizzas that he used to bring over on Sunday afternoons.

Vegetable lasagna and Kathy's fruit salad.

Ping and Wally.

Frozen Milky Ways and Root Beer on the front porch with Grandma.

So many memories. So many incredible people who've blessed my life. So many shared experiences that have bonded me to the people I love more than I can articulate.

I am grateful. I love my family,and I am glad they are mine. Forever.

Wa-FREAKIN-hoo!

People....

I. AM. BACK.

It seems that my old browser wouldn't support ye olde blog.

Tonight, I updated to Google Chrome, and... voila! I can type again!

So, consider yourselves warned. The ridiculousness is about to begin. (Again.)

Argh

Blogger and I are still friends-off. Just wanted to pop in and let ya'll know that I still can't log in through my phone, and my computer will only let me type in HTML. (And I hate HTML.) I have loads of things to say: Ice creams and movies and books to recommend, gray hairs to show off and funny stories to tell. But I can't bear the thought of typing anything up, only to have it all run together. So... you'll have to wait awhile longer. (It may be time to replace my three year old $75 laptop, perish the thought!) I'll keep you posted.

Grumpy Gus

Who hates HTML?! That would be me. All my posts are posting w/o any paragragh division. (And we all know that i like to pretend that one sentence, a paragraph makes. Listen, I like to break stuff up for dramatic inference.) Seems that HTML has it out for me, and the paragraph breaks won't happen. I need a personal IT guy. (Seriously. I do. ... And if he could help me carry the groceries up to my 2nd floor apartment, that would be great, too. ... I'm not even kidding.) HELP!

Do Re Mi

I went to a fireside last night. (I know, recreational church. Like a crazy person.) And I sang. To clarify: I sang a couple congregational hymns. It's not like I sang a solo from the mic or anything. Anyway, I sang. I sat between two people I hadn't ever met before (dudes, both taller than me - wahoo!), and I sang my little heart out. And after the meeting, both men told me that I had a nice voice. Which, in and of itself, is a nice compliment. But I'm writing about it, because it reminded me of last Sunday, when my Lizzie went to church with me. (Liz moved to Prescott last October, and is temporarily back in town because she has a little one at Phoenix Children's.) On the walk home from church last week, Liz said something about how she could tell that I'm feeling better, and how great it is that I can sing again. I love my Lizzie. I love that she knows me well enough to know that a) I couldn't sing for a while there, and b) that was hard for me. It's totally awesome to be able to sing again. ... It took over a year, and I can't hit anything over an E, but I can hit an E again. And I'm not gasping for breath anymore. And my voice doesn't just give out if I try to hold a note for a full measure. Life is good. I mean, it always has been... but it sure seems better when I can sing High on the Mountain Top with vigor.

Technical Difficulties

Long time, no post. Here's the skinny: 1) I've been working long days. Like, all summer. And when I've been at work from sun-up to sun-down, the last thing I want to do is come home and sit in front of a computer. (It seems that what I want to do is come home and fall asleep on my couch, watching the Netflix. I'm pretty cute that way.) 2) My life is boring. Well... sort of. I mean, I still drive off with gas hoses and have complete mental breaks between the hours of 5:00 and 7:00 AM. But there really hasn't been anything of any actual merit going on. 3) See the title of this post: Technical. Difficulties. Big time. Between my phone that has a mind of its own (Android and Blogger are friends off) and my computer that, for some reason, doesn't want to let me type when I'm in Compose (currently, all blog posts have to be put up in HTML, so I don't have spellcheck... forgive me for the typos!), I am challenged. But I'm sick of working long days and have decided that if you all want to read stories about gas station incidents and brain lapses in the early AM, the very least I can do is oblige with posts full of shoddy spelling. (Yeah, shoddy. That wasn't a typo.) You're welcome. Anyhoo... I had some older posts that were in the half-finished phase (read: stuck in limbo land in my phone), but I'm pretty sure I figured out how to get them to pop up here. Here's hoping that I can find the time, the energy (no more coming home from work and crashing on my couch until the wee hours of the morning) and - most importantly - a way to get my computer and/or phone to work with me. *fingers crossed*

Our wild (WILD!) weekend

As you may recall, I baked up a bunch of sugar cookies last week.

Like the dutiful sister/daughter that I am, I took a couple tupperwares full of leftovers home for the weekend.

Katie was pretty stoked. It had been while since she'd had the beloved sugar cookies:

Later, Saturday afternoon, we took a family trip over to the Taylor Bashas, home of the $2 two scoop, and Mom and I got matchy-matchy ice cream cones.

Sunday morning, we woke up, went to church... And then Mom had A FREAKING HEART ATTACK.

I only wish I was kidding.

She'd been tired that morning - having woken up early, like a kid on Christmas, excited about her RS lesson. (I kid you not. We Evans girls heart teaching and public speaking.) 

The VERY CLEAR upside is, even when Judy's been taken out of the house on a stretcher, she's smiling for the camera. (I know, we're a little sick, but Kate and I were following her - and the EMT's - with our cameras throughout the entire ambulance pick-up. If there's one thing we know about Mom, it's that she'd want us to take full advantage of a photo op.) *She's doing well. No permanent damage. With some diet modifications, she should be good as new in no time. (Good thing we got those double decker cones THE DAY BEFORE the big event, eh?)

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

It's a funny thing, Christmas in July. It doesn't seem to matter that it's technically five months too soon, or that it's WAY too hot outside, whenever I celebrate Christmas, it feels like Christmas! Maybe it's the sugar rush (I ate fudge for breakfast - true story), but I'm telling you... I'm pretty much in love with everything in my life right now. Ahhhh... The power of sugar cookies and Bing Crosby. This is why I do Christmas in July. This happy little sugar buzz, combined with memories of parties with my cousins and roommates. The music, the food, the movies = Joy.

It's... Christmas in July!

How did I spend my night last night?

Why, baking and frosting sugar cookies to take to work and make them think I'm a crazy person, of course! 

Listen, it's how I roll. If I am well enough to bake in July (something I have not been able to do since July 2009 - not that I'm counting. ... Oh, wait. Yes, I am!), sugar cookies are on the tippy top of my list of things to do. I mean, they're right up there with fudge and dipped pretzels.

It's not the full-blown affair that Jule, Weez and I used to do every year, but ... in a dark corner, on a late shift, it'll do.

(Ha! I do love throwing a little TMM humor in every once in a while.)

And now I must be off. I have a movie to start. At 7:00 PM sharp!

Because, again, this is how I roll on the 25th of July.

Too much of a good thing

Do you know what this is?

Yup. Cherries. 20 POUNDS of cherries.

Well, at this point, it's more like 10 lbs of cherries. (Because I've dealt with half the box.) But that's still A LOT of fruit for one person!

This is how this happened: My AWESOME friend Emily orders fruit by the box from the great state of Utah. (And Utah is a great little produce producer. Best cherries and peaches EVER!) The cherries were $30 for a 20 lb box. You heard me, $1.50 a pound. (That's awesome, right?!) So, I ordered a 20 lb box and planned on splitting it with Jo when it came in. Too bad Jo took her own self (and 80% of her cherry-eating young) to Utah last week, and the cherries didn't come in until yesterday.

The good news: Now I have 20 lbs of cherries all to myself.

The bad news: Now I have 20 lbs of cherries all to myself.

I've already frozen two cookie sheets full of them, and given a gallon ziploc-ful away... I have another ziploc in my fridge, you've seen the box on my counter, and this is what's in my sink:

Good thing I like them....