Happy Birthday Megan!

    

    

I can’t believe my baby girl turned 14 this weekend!  She is the joy of my life… I am so lucky to have her.   Although I wondered if I would survive her two year old phase, she has become a wonderful young woman.  She is caring, loving and thoughtful.  She loves to give me hugs, and not just at home… she’s not embarrassed to be affectionate with her family in public either.  She will still let me go clothes shopping with her, she is a certified book-worm, and she loves to help in the kitchen.  (I should clarify that… she loves to cook and bake, NOT wash dishes.) 

Some of her favorite things:

She loves the Percy Jackson books (R. Riordan), (anything and everything that is about Percy Jackson… she is a HUGE fan.)  She also loves the Mortal Instrument series (C. Clare) the Twilight series (S. Meyer) the Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling), the Narnia books (C.S. Lewis), the Hunger Games books (S. Collins) and many more. 

She loves to eat French Toast for breakfast and Texan Haystacks for dinner.  She even loves to be the one to make them.  She also knows how to make pancakes. tacos, sloppy joes, brownies, cakes, and cookies.  I love when she walks into the kitchen, asks what’s for dinner, and then offers to take over cooking.  (And no, she is NOT for sale… just in case you were wondering!)

She loves Taylor Swift, but NOT Justin Bieber.   Her favorite colors are red and purple.  She loves Texas Roadhouse and IHOP.

She loves to watch Bones, Project Runway, Mythbusters, Phineas and Ferb, and Amazing Race. 

And the thing I loved most about her this month?  She asked for her own digital camera for her birthday.  (A girl after my own heart!)  This is the one she got… For some reason, I missed getting a picture of her with it.  The night before her birthday she had two friends sleep over and early the next morning we took them all up to Flagstaff to play in the snow.  Here’s a sneak peek of her on her birthday… more snow fun to be posted soon!

    

FAQ

Every time I see ladies from church, the first question they ask me (without fail) is,

“So what are you doing with all your free time now that you aren’t Relief Society President?”

It’s a valid question.  For years, I fantasized about this day and wondered what my answer would be. 

The Short answer is this:  I’m playing “catch up” from the last 2 years.

The Long answer is, well…. LONG.   (I won’t have my feelings hurt if you stop reading now.)

For example, I was stunned this morning to realize it’s been nine days since I last posted on my blog.  Nine days!  When did that happen?  And I have my blog set as my home page so I see it often.  (I keep it as my home page so that I will remember to keep it up to date more… a reminder multiple times a day to not forget blogging.)  It’s not like I’m sitting on the couch all day watching Oprah and eating Bon-Bons.  (For the record, I lost all respect for Oprah a few years ago when she and Gail when on a Road-Trip where they had to drive themselves, check into regular hotels and eat average food, like the rest of us… what spoiled brats they were!)  I haven’t even had time to sit and watch TV yet this week!

This is what I have been working on for the last week.  It’s almost been six years since we bought this house… it’s about time I had a living room worthy of company.  It’s still not done yet, but progress is being made, finally!  It’s amazing what window treatments will do.  (A super shout out to my cousin-in-law, Tiffany, who inspired me finally with an idea that would look great in this room!)

I have this long list of projects and deep cleaning/dejunking chores that I want to whittle away at for the next several months.   Things like:

*finish I-spy quilt

*paper scrapbook the remainder of 2006

*digital scrap Jan-Aug 2009

*make a plan to scrap 2007-2008 (digital, paper, or both?)

*learn how to shoot in manual (on my camera)

*learn about clipping masks in PSE

*decorate laundry room

*window treatments for Taylor’s room and Game room

*take a magic eraser to my entire house (baseboards, doors, doorjambs, trim, stair rail, etc.)  I probably need 5-6 magic erasers to do this job

*clean windows, inside and out (I will have to hire someone eventually to clean my outside upper level windows)

*clean out dead plants from yard

*plant new plants where plants have died (most of my yard falls into this category)

*pull weeds from backyard

*exercise more regularly

*read scriptures daily, study Sunday lessons and read Ensign monthly

*write the life history of my Grandpa and continue to research his family tree

*de-junk closet under the stairs and guest room

And amidst all that, I am going to Science Camp with Ian in March,  we are planning for a Disneyland/San Diego trip over spring break, Girls Camp, EFY and Cub Scout Day Camp all in June and a visit home in late June, early July. 

Some of these chores will take less than an hour of time, some will take days and some are on-going daily things that will never go away.  I expect to feel like I am in a constant state of “catch-up” for the next six months… when summer break is ended and the kids start school again in late July, I think that might be the time that I actually start to get restless and bored… but with this list to work on, I will have plenty to keep me busy for a very, Very, VERY long time!

Awesome, Easy (and Healthy, too!) Pizza Dough

I know why the pioneer women weren’t fat.  They had to make their own bread.  And they didn’t have a wheat grinder or a KitchenAid to do all the manual labor for them.  Come to think of it, most of them didn’t even have a husband or teenage son to help them, because the men-folk would be away all day doing other manual labor/chores around the farm.

Sunday night for the Superbowl, we made homemade pizza.  I usually make 2 large thick crust pizzas with this recipe, but this time I split it into 6 small balls and let each member of the family make their own.   

Since I like to use white wheat in my recipe, I needed some boys men to grind it up for me.  I’ve thought about buying an electric wheat grinder, but my kids LOVE doing this.  Yes, they are weird, but I’m going to milk the free child labor out of them as long as I possibly can!  I would also never do this if I had to knead my dough by hand, even though hand-kneading would be a great way for me to get some much needed arm muscle.

 

Here’s how I make my dough:

First proof the yeast:  2 T yeast, mixed into 2 c. very warm water.  While the yeast is doing it’s magic, mix the dry ingredients into the mixer bowl:  3 cups white flour, 1 cup red (traditional) wheat flour, 2 cups white wheat flour.  (If you don’t have both types of wheat, I would do 4 c. white and 2 c. wheat).  Then add 3 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons garlic powder, and 1 teaspoon dried basil.   Mix all dry ingredients in bowl well and then add yeast/water mixture, plus 1/4 cup olive oil. 

Turn on the mixer and let it work for 3-5 minutes.  If the dough is too dry, add water a tablespoon at a time until it is just moist enough to stick together.  You can immediately roll out the dough and top it, but because it has wheat in it, I find it’s better to let it raise for 20-30 minutes before rolling it out.  It will taste lighter and less dense once it cooks that way.  (And it’s easier to roll out after it’s raised a little bit.)

After it raises a bit, roll out and put on pizza pans.  I have two round large pans that I normally use, but this time, we grouped them onto cookie sheets.  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.  If you have two pans in the oven, make sure they both get equal time on the top and bottom.  (In my oven, that makes a difference.)  My kids know they are ready to take out once the cheese starts to brown and the pepperoni curls up and shrinks a bit.  (Nothing is less appetizing than undercooked pepperoni, IMHO.)

 

There are very few (like less than 5) meals I make in our household that everyone actually likes, but everyone LOVES homemade pizza.  If you know how picky my kids are, you will definitely want to give this one a try soon!

One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure

This morning, I had an experience in the likes that I have never had before.  Last Sunday at church, I signed up to do a volunteer shift at our local DI store. (Not this one… I forgot to bring my camera, dang it!)  We arrived at 8 a.m. and were give some quick instructions.  There were several carts with merchandise on them that needed to be shelved for purchase before the store opened at 10 a.m.  We had to take each item off the cart and find a home for it on the shelves with like items.  I was really impressed with how clean and orderly the store and shelves were.  We had some odd things to shelve, but there was a place for everything.  (Except the rusted pruning shears… I couldn’t figure out where to put those.) 

We worked and shelved and as the store opening approached, the employees started to tell us about what it’s like on a typical work day.  I looked outside and saw about a dozen people standing outside the side entrance at least 20 minutes before the store opened.  Ray (our employee mentor) called them “blackbirds” and “ravens”.  They were more like “hawks” and “vultures”, but Ray insisted on using the more charitable nicknames.  (Whatever!)

As the doors opened, the people would rush in and look through the carts of stuff to be shelved looking for “new” treasures.  You see, 90% of these people come EVERY day… and spend hours, combing through the shelves looking for bargains and/or treasures.  Most of them know what’s been on the shelves a while.  Most of them are professional thrifters.  And they are a unique bunch.  I thought that Ray was exaggerating.  Until I saw them in action. 

Holy Crap!  These people spend hours in the DI each day… pouring over the shelves, looking for new treasures, and racing to get the best stuff.  Then there is the group of husbands, that come along with their wives, but don’t really care about shopping.  They grab a couple of books from the book section, and park it around one of the dining room table sets that’s for sale, and chew the fat.  For hours!  Honestly, I couldn’t believe it!

One request I want to make of all my friends who donate to the DI.  Please don’t donate complete junk.  Because they will try to sell it.  Seriously, I couldn’t believe the stuff I had to put out on the shelves.  And if it doesn’t sell in a few weeks, they pull it from the shelves and run it through the trash compactor.  DI shouldn’t have to pay to dispose of our junk.  And believe me, I saw plenty of stuff that should be in the garbage pile.  Unsold clothes get bundled and sent to SLC for Humanitarian Aid, but unsold household goods get sent to the landfill. 

So the next time I have the urge to go to thrifting, I’m going to budget in some extra time to wander around and people watch.  Now that’s entertainment!