Small confession

Confession: for at least the last week I've purposefully gone back to sleep in the mornings until most of it is gone because I have no idea what to do with it.
 Sad. yes. Pathetic. I know.
I do know that there are things I could do (like exercise, read, practice guitar, cook extravagant meals...) but I don't really think about that when I wake up. All I think about is how I have nothing on my agenda for the day and that's too much time to fill by reading 3 different news pages online, so I go back to sleep. Now that I've confessed, maybe this will be the start of longer/more full days for me. Indeed, I actually didn't do this today. I was woken up at 9 by my friend Alycen, who is staying at our house for a day or two, calling me because she locked herself out of our house. So I was up at 9 and decided the best thing to do was to just stay up (especially since I wasn't really tired. I usually am quite awake when I first get up, but then go back to bed anyway).

I decided to finally make some soup that I have been meaning to make for a long time now. I had all the ingredients and had set out the pot several days ago to remind myself to make it. It was just going to be a basic veggie soup in chicken broth, such as I have made before, but with the addition of some soup mix I bought (the kind with lentils and alphabet shaped noodles...). I pieced together what the package said and my prior experience with making soups and came up with, what sounded like, a good plan. Cook soup mix, when it's almost done throw in chopped veggies. Yum.
Yeah, it didn't quite turn out like that.
The soup mix absorbed a whole lot more liquid than I expected, and between it and the potatoes it made more of a stew-like gloopy-ness instead of a broth-y soup. It doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't taste really good either. And that's the grand accomplishment of my waking up at a reasonable time. Though I did have 2 thoughts based on this whole experience:
1. It's at times like this that I'm glad I'm not married. There's no husband who has to dutifully eat this soup-paste and pretend it's really good. No one has to eat it but me, and I don't have to pretend it's any better than it is. And hopefully when there is a husband expecting a good dinner I'll have soups down a little better.
2. Sometimes things really just don't turn out as expected. (shocker!) But that's life and that's half the fun of it. If everything turned out like expected I imagine life would be pretty boring. I much more enjoy a good surprise. Ok, maybe not always at the time, but i don't like always knowing what's coming next. So, while I'm not really glad that my soup turned out like gloop, I am glad it got me to write a blog post. (I'm sure most of you thought I died somewhere in the last 3 weeks...)
So, here's to the unpredictability of life. Maybe tomorrow my morning productiveness will be a little more tasty...

Magical Things

I'm sitting in my kitchen/dining room area at about 2:20 am (don't ask. I'm just good at staying up late) (ok, fine- I beat Portal 2 and then had one thing to do on the compy before I went to bed and I just got distracted... yes, distracted by my blog.)

Ahem, I'm sitting here listening to Of Monsters and Men and I began to think about how that's how my last blog post started too. They were introduced to me by a friend who is much more into the music scene than I and generally has good taste. I originally only knew one or two songs, but after acquiring the entire album recently I've just been swept away. Whatever my mood is it seems like they hit the spot.

Another story and then to tie them together.

Awhile back we had a shin-dig for something (new years, I think) and a friend brought over his X-box so we could "Just Dance!" the year to it's close (and we did! and then we sang Auld Lang Syne in the street, barefoot, with bottles of sparkling cider like we were wasted. This was followed by a ridiculously long game of uno, then sleep. Who could ask for a better start to the new year?)

Ahem, so he brought over his X-box then forgot/neglected to take it home. Not just once, but a few times. Eventually I told him if he wanted to forget a few other games, besides Just Dance!, at our house to go with it we'd sure be ok with that. Well, the other day he brought over FIFA soccer and then Portal 2 (when he found out I'd played the original Portal) and then left them for us. I said something about this online and got a comment back amazed at how we end up with quite a few cool things being left at our house for a while- e.g. a giant love sac. My reply to this comment: it must be some sort of magic.

This post is just to say, magic is totally real. It's what happens when a band has a song for every situation. It's what happens when friends are extraordinarily nice to you. It's what happens when it snows that really dry sparkly snow and it's a full moon so the world looks like a fake Christmas village.

Like tender mercies, magic is a matter of observation. I'm sure God is bestowing blessings on us left and right and we only notice a small portion of them each day. In the same way, I'm sure our lives are full of magic and we just don't take the time to take notice. So, need a little magic in your life? Just.. Look Around You. (another magical thing. Bonus points if you know why I capitalized that.)

Last Day Thoughts

Well, it's all done. I'm sitting here in (was used to be) my classroom at the seminary, listening to Of Monsters and Men, looking at empty desks, and typing. I've cleaned up all the things I put around the room, thrown away all the papers no one needs anymore. I just need to go do the same to my office upstairs and I'll all be done and ready to give back my keys. It's a sad feeling, but I'm not really sad. (if that made sense...) I've loved working here and with all the other teachers and students. I almost feel like LHS is my school after 2 student teaching jobs here. However- honestly, I've been pretty sure I'd only do one semester. (there was a moment there I was afraid I wouldn't even get to finish out the semester...) So it's not really surprising, and I've had a very long time to come to grips with it. I was kinda hoping for a while there that I'd get to do the whole year, but this is probably for the best. I'm glad I got this chance though. It's funny, the thing that was always the hardest was when I would tell people I was teaching seminary they would almost always say such nice things about how lucky the kids were, how good I was going to do, how they're so glad because they always need more female seminary teachers... But as they were saying these things I knew in my heart it wasn't going to work out. It's hard disappointing people.  It's hard to not be a good at something as everyone thinks you will be, everyone including yourself. But, as I said, I'm glad I did it. I've learned a lot and hopefully I was able to help a few kids along the way understand the scriptures better.

So, now the question- what's next. I only wish I knew. I applied for grad school at USU at the urging of a professor I knew during my undergrad time. It's all done and "Ready for Review", and just sitting there since Tuesday. How many other applications for this semester can they have to look at? Really? I mean, school started monday? I doubt there are very many people wanting to start late... So what that means is I don't know what I'm doing Monday. I guess that just means the opportunities are limitless! There's a line from a song I really like that says "You can't get to where you're going till you say goodbye to where you've been" So- Goodbye where I am! Future- Here I come. I don't know exactly what's in store but like Marriner (my bro-in-law) said, maybe there's a reason for all of my not settling into a job and everything yet. Time will tell. Ooh, maybe it will bring a lot of exciting changes. That would be fun...

Bac-on!

Bacon! What a delightful piece of meat. Yet, it's frequently so difficult to cook well! I simply cannot abide soggy bacon. But sometimes in the quest for delightfully crispy bacon you end up with cracker like meat with no flavor. But I have made a break through. I have done an experiment and discovered the best way to cook bacon in order to achieve edibility of the whole piece (not just the actual meat part) and maximum bacon-y flavor. No one should be surprised at my findings, the name of the food itself implies the proper way for it to be prepared. It is, after all, bac-on. Bake it!

  Now, this is how the story goes. I bought some bacon a while back because it looked like it had a high meat to fat ratio and promised some good hickory flavoring or something like that. Moving forward to a few days ago I had the grand idea to make up a few slices and crumble them into some soup or a salad for dinner. So I pull out the package and open it up to begin making the bacon. I think I had planned on microwaving it, since it's quick and makes for crispy fat. But something on the package caught my eye. It read "Baking instructions". Baking bacon? The thought had never occured to me. What an idea! So I decided to try it. I lined the tray for my toaster oven with some tin foil and fit 4 pieces of bacon on it. "Bake at 350 degrees till crispy", easy enough. Then in true Turner fashion I decided to go ahead and just try them all and compare them to find the best way to make bacon.
   I placed 3 slices in paper towels for microwaving and 3 slices in a pan to fry. The package said to do 1 minute per slice in the microwave. I only did 2 minutes and they were quite crispy. I put them in for another 30 seconds just to be safe and then ate them all up, leaving only a strip of meat a couple inches long for comparison later.
  The pan frying was still warming up really, so the bacon was just sitting there, starting to cook a bit. The oven was up to temp and I could smell the bacon sizzling up nicely in there. There wasn't really much to do while i waited. After a bit the bacon in the pan started sizzling and I decided also to flip over the bacon in the oven. After a few more minutes the bacon in the pan was frying up well, but the fat was just not getting cooked. It kept curling so I'd have to flip it over and squish it down so it could cook. But the baked ones were done, so I pulled them out and enjoyed eating all but a sliver that I saved for later comparison. I then finished frying the remaining 3 pieces and consumed them in a similar manner to the other 2 batches.

The results are as follows:
The microwave piece was a bit leathery though without much taste in the meat part itself. The fat was all cooked crunchy though and so there was almost no gicky pieces I didn't want to eat. (I'm really picky about bacon fat. Gicky bacon fat is just inedible for me...) But it wasn't greasy at all, and clean up was a snap because of the paper towels it was surrounded by. Pro: crispy, non greasy, easy clean up, really fast cooking. Con: low taste, bit leathery
The baked bacon had a nice meaty texture, kinda reminiscent of thick jerky. It tasted great because it was still cooked in the drippings, unlike the microwaved slices. It also had very well done fat and I consumed all but a few small pieces of fat that were a bit too fat like for my tastes. Pro: Tastes good, easy clean up (just let the drippings cool in the tin foil then roll it up and toss it. Done! No gross looking can of nastiness) wonderful smell! Con: takes a while, bit greasy
Pan frying took the longest, or at least seemed like it. (The baking might have taken longer, but just finished first since I started it first... who knows) It created a very tasty, crunchy meat- but had the most gicky fat pieces. And I had to wash the pan when I was done. Pro: tasty! Con: most clean up, needs constant supervision, clean up, under crisped fat.


Well, guess which one was the best... oh wait, I already told you. Bake that bacon. You will not regret it! As a funny side, I actually ended up not making anything else for dinner that evening (lazy me) and so I got to tell everyone how I had 10 slices of bacon cooked 3 different ways for dinner.

 I made the rest of the package today and had the most wonderful BLT ever with it. And it was so nice. I popped it in the oven then went about my business. I checked back on it after a while and flipped the slices once, then a bit later it was all done and we consumed every speck of the bacon. Yummy!

Being all homemaker-y

I read an article the other day about the saddest and most disgusting thing I've ever read about food. There's a reality tv show (oh, the depths we have sunk too that this passes as something worth spending time on...) called "Here comes Honey Boo Boo" about a super red-neck family who's daughter Alana (aka Honey Boo Boo) is in pageants or something. I guess a while back the show featured what this family eats when they haven't gotten any road kill for a while and are out of meat. The meal it showed them cooking they call 'sketti' and it's spaghetti noodles with a concoction of half butter (probably margarine actually, even worse...) and half ketchup melted together and poured on the top. It looks like spaghetti sauce... but it makes me sick just thinking about what it would smell like, or taste like, or do to your body...

   Anyway, this article was about how a blogger saw this and decided she could make a cheaper and healthier spaghetti from store bought goods, and she did. Before reading this article I had been sitting around thinking "Gee, I've got so much time today, what am I supposed to do with it?" (I did nothing with it, btw) But then I read this and realized- I should cook! I can cook, I'm just really lazy when it comes to cooking (or most things...) and so I usually eat things like mashed potatoes, rice and veggies, burritos, frozen veggies and raviolis. Things that are quick and easy (but not THAT quick and easy, cuz then you get into the sketti and easy mac realm, and that's scary) But since I have time on days when I don't have meetings and activities to go to, I should try to make cooking something I enjoy more. This article had some nice links to blogs and such that feature recipes that are easy and quick, but not potato flakes, which is just what I'm looking for. (though I'll still eat my fake mashed potatoes...)

    Now this is not going to become a food blog, but I did want to show off some of what this new resolution has produced: Behold carrot/cucumber/cream cheese sushi and "Squaketti" (the recipe the blogger made that was cheaper/healthier than sketti)


























Et voila. I think I'm going to like this cooking thing.
And as a bonus, here's a cake I made for my roommate a few weeks back. I feel so culinary-y.

It's the Bat sign... in case you were wondering... I'm not much of an artist, so just take what you get.

And I crocheted a hot pad/wash cloth something Sunday, but I left it at school. I'll talk about that later... so stay tuned!

Pumpkins!

I have really out done myself this year with the pumpkins.

Carving pumpkins is really my favorite part of Halloween. I just have come to love it for some reason. I have enjoyed the last few years making my own pumpkin patterns (at least somewhat) and this year I got all sides of the creative spectrum. One Kyle and I made completely free hand, one I took an idea from a picture online, and one I printed out and carved fancy pants style (I added the shadow to it though...) I love them all. Let's go through one by one shall we...

I call it: Crazy face with a "BOO" shadow. Creative name, I know. If you get your computer screen at just the right angle you might be able to actually see the "BOO" on the wall.
So, my friend Kyle needed a date for a double date with his friend, and knowing that I'm a fan of pumpkin carving he asked me to join them. We had a pretty big pumpkin, with really thick walls, so we went easy and big cuts. We drew this all on our own. We wow-ed the socks off of the other couple with the shadow. We even put 3 candles in it so the shadow showed up on the wall 3 times at different angles... "Science!"

This is

 "Totem Pole Tiki Face"

He was carved based off a couple different designs I saw online. 

My friend Abby got this awesome idea last Halloween to create a pumpkin totem pole that would have a nozzle in the mouth of the top pumpkin that would spit flames. The closest we could come this year was creating a totem pole by stacking 4 pumpkins up a fence post, then balancing the 5th one on top, putting a can with kerosene soaked wick in it, and lighting it on fire. We put a little ethenol on the top to try to make the flames blue, but it didn't really work. But it looked amazing anyway! I don't have a picture of the whole totem pole, but the carvings were (from bottom to top) a moon sliver, an eagle silhouette (think Native American), a jack-o-lantern face, and a haunted house. We realized later how cool it would've been to put the flame several pumpkins down and light them all up with the fire, but I kinda liked the foot tall flames out the top.

And the 3rd and final entry I call: Avengers: Unite!

If you can't tell what it is, it's Captain America in the shillouette of the Hulk with the Avengers' A on the wall. It was pretty darn neat. The problem was the pattern for the Captain/Hulk carving was definitely meant for a larger pumpkin, so some of the details got lost... along with part of the Hulk's fingers and the Captain's head. But don't worry, we found them and I reattached them with toothpicks. And you might notice the picks in the back holding the A pieces in place. The other thing that caused trouble is that this pumpkin was very very thick. I spent a long time thinning it out and still was carving through too much. So when I would try to carve away extra stuff to get a clear picture it would tear some of the more delicate features. Like the Captain's head... But it all came back together and looked fabulous on our front porch. 

It was a pretty fun Halloween season. We didn't do much tonight. Half the evening was spent with people just watching me carve my pumpkin, but that's ok. As a bonus I'll show you a couple shots of my costume. "I'm a Hufflepuff!"

I saw a bird once!

My name is sewn into all of my clothes!

I'm a Hufflepuff!

If you have no idea what is going on, I suggest you watch this. Even if you do, I still suggest watching this:

So many reasons to love...

the Farmer's Market! Bet you didn't think that's how that title was going to end.. ha.

We have a terrific farmer's market here in Logan. It's not huge, but I love it. It's been in Merlin Olsen Park for the past few years and is moving to Willow Park next year. (I hope I'm around to enjoy it at the new location. It's so much more convenient!) But they have the farmers and the artists and the craft-ers, and the food, and the park, and live entertainment, and it's just great. If you've never been to a farmer's market: REPENT! (a Greek word meaning to have a change of mind or heart...) You'll love it too. They have great produce during harvest season. I love going each week with a handful of cash and seeing what I can get for it. I usually have less than $10 but come home with bunches of fruits and veggies.

A couple weeks ago I found these delightful treats:

Yes, my friends those are purple green beans and purple potatoes! Yay! Unfortunately the purple cooks out of the beans, and the potatoes turn more of a blue/grey color (the insides are purple and white which combines to make bluish gray...) But they were sure yummy!

Then yesterday when I went I got 5 yummy small white peaches for a buck that we used for crepe filling last night. Also, when I went yesterday they didn't have an actual band playing, like usual, they just had a sort of open mic thing going on. I think my 'favorite' act while I was there was a little 9 year old pop star who sang Don't Rain on My Parade twice. Yep, twice. In a row. The first time the track had the singer on it as well and she did fine for a youngin. The second time there was so singer on the track... Maybe it's bad that I was laughing at a 9 year old, but it was really funny. Not so much that she was bad, but it was funny that she was still posing and holding her mic up like she's on American Idol. All in all, it really added to the fair atmosphere and I had more fun wandering around the stalls looking at everything.

Most of all I think I just like the feeling of the farmer's market. Whether I get a good deal or not, it's a lot nicer just buying what you need/want from the people who grew it or made it. It's so much fun shopping in open air markets and seeing people you know in the park. I think we should have more farmer's market style things. It just makes Saturday even better.