S'mores!

Over the last few months, I've had the chance to play with food a little. In order to encourage socializing at church, a friend of mine* decided to start bringing treats--so people could munch on something after church, and mingle. This activity is inventively called munch & mingle (where do people come up with these names?). Somehow I got roped into being the sous-chef for this project--and it's been fun. We've made forays into the realms of orange rolls (and strawberry rolls), pretzels, cream puffs, and the occasional cop-out cookie; but about a month ago was the pièce de résistance. S'mores.

No, wait, you don't understand!

So, we did buy the chocolate. But we made these marshmallows and these graham crackers.

And they ended up looking like this:

And yes, that is a moose. Who may have been nibbled on.

It was a messy project (I think marshmallow goo ended up in a few random places around my kitchen...and on my clothes...and in my hair) but the marshmallows weren't very much work. I did get to see my Kitchenaid beat the marshmallow cream for 12 minutes, on high. That was an impressive sight. (I'm sorry...I'm a total geek. I don't think anyone else gets excited about seeing their mixer work that much.)

The graham crackers were very delicate in dough form, but with a little coaching from one of my cooking mentors** (pictured below) the task of rolling the dough and transferring them to the pan became easier.

*Names have been avoided to protect the guilty. We will call this person A. Wong, or Alex W. for short.
**Those dark marks on her arms are temporary tattoos. No children were bruised in the making of these crackers.

Bloggapalooza!

Warning: I haven't blogged in a few months. Some cool things have happened since then. You may experience blog post overload in the next few minutes.

You have been warned.

This last week...

1. I went to the dentist this week for the first time in a while (yay insurance...). I got the deep cleaning special. They had to do half my mouth on Wednesday, and half on Friday. Having only half a clean mouth was such a weird feeling.

2. My firm has a community softball team; we played on Wednesday, and I got a kick out of our game. We lost badly, but we all supported each other. But each of us was mourning our lack of ability--that was what I chuckled at the most, I think--that we all said each other did just great, but we each were so hard on ourselves. I think I was the most justified...I can't even throw from home plate to the pitching mound (anyone want to teach me how to throw?).

3. A duck blocked me in the intersection this week. I honked at him, but it didn't even ruffle his feathers. He finally waddled into the next lane, letting me squeeze by.

4. I went hiking on Saturday. I stayed mostly unburned, except for the backs of my legs. The fronts of my legs didn't get burned though.

5. I think I have motorphobia. If, that is, motorphobia can loosely be translated as fear of being run over by a semi.  I'm not the only one who dislikes driving alongside a semi, but in the last month or two I've caught myself tensing up when a semi pulls up behind me...I just wait for it to plow me into the car in front of me. Anyone else feel that?

Man cannot live by cookies alone

My 26th birthday was a great one. First of all, it was an even year--and turned out to be a really good year. Second of all, it so happened that I had been in the same apartment complex (Courtside) for the summer before, and so when my birthday came around I actually had friends to celebrate it with. Third of all, it took place on Labor Day which meant that I got to join the masses and hike Mt. Timpanogos in Orem, Utah. My friend Jared W. decided that it was a good year to host a lemonade stand on Timp, so I got to join in those festivities and pass out free lemonade to passersby

But after we made it down the mountain again, it was still my birthday. So we went home and made several cakes. I think we made five. I definitely had made friends over the summer, but not enough to eat five cakes. So I ended up eating cake at breakfast, lunch and dinner for the week after. Turns out, when you do that, your stomach hurts. Funny how that happens.

Today, I didn't make five cakes. I did make two batches of cookies to share at church...but when I got to church I found out that four other people had also brought cookies to share...and I may have eaten cookies for breakfast. And I may have eaten only one small non-cookie meal today. Alas, today was a refresher course in my best lesson learned from my 26th birthday. Eating cookies all day, every day may sound like a lot of fun. It may even come about as we try to emulate our role models

But in the end, it's a bad idea. A very tasty bad idea. Which is why the very last thing I ate tonight (about half an hour ago) was milk and cookies, and why for the next two days I'll be regretting every last one. Mostly regretting, anyway.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2011 is apparently a year of change. New job, new roommates, more new roommates, new ward, another new ward, new home...another new home...and, wait for it: another new home.

Remember the quaint little home I first posted? Moved from that in February. Remember the fantastic new place we found? Yep...soon (or maybe not so soon) we're being booted from our beautiful Irvine home. Our landlord has decided to sell his house which means we need to start looking for a new place to live. There's no telling how long it will take the house to sell, either, so we will be keeping the town house looking beautiful.

I'm sad. My roommates have worked to make this little townhouse into a home, our neighborhood's beautiful, and I've settled in well here...and here's another uprooting coming my way.

Odds and ends. And evens.

While I was in Bolivia about five or six years ago, I was teamed up with a girl from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Some time while we were together, I learned that she was biased against odd numbers. She only liked even-numbered things. I thought that was a really strange preference to have.

Well, it turns out, I'm the same way. My favorite years of age were 24, 26, 18, 14, 10...my favorite years in school were 8th, 2nd, 12th...my favorite straight-up years include 2002 and 2010 (though it didn't hurt that I graduated in both those years. Except maybe that was fate). But it's not just that those are all my favorites; it also happens that I disliked 2003, 2005 was maybe the hardest year of my life, my 7th grade year was probably the worst school year ever (except maybe in 5th grade when the kid who was my desk buddy refused to sit next to me. I guess I was ugly or something). (Oh, there was also first grade. That was a bad year too...I got yelled at by my teacher for talking in class so when I really needed to go to the bathroom I was too scared to ask permission to go...and my mom had to bring me new clothes to change into.)

There are lots of other even-numbered things I like, and plenty of odd-numbered things I don't like. And some things I can't make up my mind about (for example: do I have four toes, or five? Do I like my toes, or not?). I guess the only thing I really have discovered is that I shouldn't laugh at other peoples' preferences, because they may be contagious.

Early to bed, early to rise, eat all your veggies and throw out your pies.

Busy season left a lasting impression on me for a few reasons, but one of its hopefully delible repercussions was making my pants too small. I think my clothes all got together and decided that they would play a joke on me. Since things have settled down, I've been eating better and sleeping better. And I've learned a couple things:

1. It's not my body that craves those brownies. Turns out, my body's pretty chill as long as it's fed and watered.
2. When I'm used to not eating sugar all the time and I do have a craving for something sweet, I can have a taste and that satisfies me.
3. My mind is my body's worst enemy. Especially when I'm grouchy. All I want on those days is chocolate. But as it turns out, because it's not something my body (or mind) actually needs, my body (and mind) aren't just satisfied with a bite or two.
4. When I'm sleeping at consistent times and getting up at consistent times, I start feeling something I haven't felt in years. I feel awake! It's a totally different feeling...I think I can get used to it.
5. When I'm not tired, I don't crave junk food. My mind doesn't crave it and my body doesn't want it. And life goes on, my pants get looser, I'm less crabby, and everyone is happy.
6. Contrary to common belief (well, my commonly held belief), I can get out there and exercise. And while it hurts, it starts to hurt less and feel better every time I go.

I guess what I've really learned is that the human body's pretty amazing. And that I, as the driver of the body, would do a lot better to just sleep when I'm tired, drink when I'm thirsty, eat when I'm hungry, and get out and exercise...my body likes it. But my mind's not always sold. So in the end, what I've been needing is a change of mindset and regime. And common sense.