Ooey gooey and DELICIOUS

Q: Who thinks it's a good idea to make cinnamon rolls over the weekend?

A: This girl.

Q: Who then thinks that what she needs in her life is a warm (leftover) cinnamon roll for breakfast on a workday?

A: Again, this girl.

Q: Who prefers her cinnamon rolls with extra (by which I mean, EXTRA) icing?

A: You can figure it out.

Q: Who's usually running too late to sit down and eat breakfast in her own kitchen, so she takes it with her and eats it in the car on the way to work?

A: Yup... Again, me.

So, you can probably see how it happened that I wound up with cream cheese icing smeared down and across my dress today. (Stupid seatbelt. Also, I'm a bit of a slob, even when I'm not trying to balance and/or eat pastries from behind the wheel.)

And thus we see the perils of taking warm, ooey gooey cinnamon rolls (with too much icing) on the road. Doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. And it doesn't mean I won't do it again!

Like, tomorrow, maybe...

Sometimes I get confused and think I live in Gotham City

As some of you (read: ALL of you) may know, I do some pretty stupid things in the AM.

And when I say stupid, I mean... STOO-PID.

So, I thought it would be fun this month to do a post a week chronicling my early morning idiocy. You know, just to help you feel better about your own lives. I'm such a giver, right?

You're welcome.

I like to buy gas on my way to work. Why? Because I loooove gas station breakfast. Gone are the days that I could have Cheetos and a Cherry Coke for breakfast, but I'm still down with donuts and/or chips with a bottle of water. I mean, a girl may as well fill her own tank while the car gasses up, right?

The last time I bought gas, I picked up a glazed donut from the bakery. (I heart QT. They have an actual bakery section. ... Don't get me wrong. I will eat Hostess, but I do prefer glazed raised.) I got back in my car - after having put the nozzle/hose back in the tank, don't you worry - and headed off to work.

Now, my car's a stick, so driving can be a little tricky when you're holding a bottle of water in one hand and a donut in the other.

I know. I paint quite a picture.

But I'm not done yet.

Imagine this: Me. At a stoplight. Water in one hand. Donut in the other. Needing to shift down in order to turn onto the freeway. ... So I did what any rational person would do; I put the donut in my mouth to hold it while I made a tight turn.

About halfway through the turn, with my mouth holding a half-eaten glazed donut, I thought... "Oh my gosh! This is EXACTLY what the bank employee felt like in Dark Knight, when The Joker pulled the pin and stuck the grenade in that guy's mouth and drove off with the school bus full of money. Ahhhhhh!"

I'm not kidding. My mind started racing and I totally panicked...

And then I remembered that I was holding a pastry between my teeth - not explosives - and I was able to breathe again. Also, I was able to eat again. ... Which was lucky, considering I still had half a donut to go - and a whole lot of post-Joker-anxiety to relieve.

True stories from my actual life

One of my good friends sent me this a while back:

I love her.

Anyone who's been on this site more than twice may have noticed, I have absolutely no shame when it comes to telling people the stupid (aka: embarrassing) things I've done in my life.

I tell these stories because I think we ALL have stories like this, and it's my belief that the more we tell them, the more we realize that doing silly (aka: embarrassing) things is just part of being human.

Also, I think they're funny.

To that end, I've decided that I'm going to tell EVEN MORE of them!

True story.

Here's the plan:

There will be a theme every month (ie: peeing my pants in public, gas station escapades, indecent exposure, super glue accidents... you get the picture), and once a week, I'll do a post that tells a story that falls under that theme.

That'll be fun, right?

True stories from my actual life will be starting on Friday of this week. Be looking forward to that!

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?)