Last day with Cami

Cami went into the MTC today. I could hardly handle being in the little orientation meeting with all the crying moms around. I couldn't hold it in. But there is always something about when Cami cries that makes it hard to stay emotionally in control. But we had a really good morning before we took her.

17 March 2009

I watched House this afternoon while I did some Calligraphy homework. Have you ever watched that show? I LOVE it. I think House is hilarious. And the best part about the show today is that when House's team calls him on his cell phone the ring tone is MMMBop. I was dying.

I woke up at 7:52 this morning. I needed to be at work at 8. I was late.

I made an appointment at the Career Counseling Center today to figure out my life. I am not really that excited but hopefully it helps.

My roommate Amy made this cake yesterday for dinner group:

If you're interested, you can find the recipe here.
AND, it's low fat!

The weekend in Eugene brought back lots of memories. My best friend from high school came to visit me in Eugene while she was also in town for the weekend. I haven't seen her for years. We talked for six hours about our lives for the past few years. I told her I had found this picture:

This is Prom 2002. My date and I are in the center. I don't know why Melanie and her date aren't standing next to each other, but she gave me this picture in a 8x10 frame for a little graduation present. I re-found this picture frame a few weeks ago with another picture inside. I hoped that I had kept the prom picture in the back and was delighted when I saw I had. It made me laugh out loud and run to show my roommates. My date was a boy I had had a crush on during high school. I saw him this past weekend while he was home for Spring Break. I was not impressed. When telling the high school friend about this, I coined the term "love vision".

Love vision [ləv vi-zhən] noun. The clouding of rational thinking and actions due to being infatuated by a member of the opposite sex. Love vision generally disappears when the lovesickness fades. Use of this term usually is accompanied with this motion:

I can now say that all former love vision of my life is gone and "I can see clearly now the rain is gone!" Cheezy? Yes.

President Obama is going to be on Jay Leno Thursday. It bothers me that he's still doing things like that. I think he's more of a celebrity than my President. And we don't need anymore celebrities.

I'm planning on my final project for bookbinding. It's going to be fabulous. I'm going to bind my most favorite childhood "girl books". I'm excited. I want to do five books. I have four so far and and trying to decide on a fifth. Here's what I have so far: Ella Enchanted, Goose Girl, Walk Two Moons, and Matilda. But I need a fifth. (I just like odd numbers.) Any ideas?

Home

I'm going home today! I can't wait! Unfortunately the Saturday Market doesn't open until April. Click here or here for the last goodies from the last time I made it to the market. There is just something about the Saturday Market that makes me so happy. Oh, yes, it's home. It's home with all the crazies and originals. I'm thinking we will be hitting up some of our favorite restaurants: Tasty Thai, Prince Pucklers, Bene Pizza. And maybe go to some movies. Cami's gotta have fun before she goes to the MTC! And then I think we'll be doing some serious cooking and baking to get ready for her open house Sunday! Yay for home!

Don't cry over spilled ink

I might not be crying over it but Calligraphy is ruining my life. I just spilled almost an entire bottle of Higgins Black Eternal ink and it is on the carpet. It happened a few weeks ago and my roommate Amy proceeded to work hard to get the ink out. Here is what it looks like now:

Barely visible right?

But unfortunately when I sit and soak up ink it looks like this:

I'm so not getting my deposit back.

And the paper I spilled on is soaked and I almost dripped ink all across the floor but luckily that didn't happen and luckily I decided to do a test on some printer paper before I started on my final project otherwise I really would have been crying. Instead I have have dirty hands.

Cupcakes

Dear Laura asked about the cupcakes I made a few weeks ago and so I thought I'd give my review:

Cupcake: I thought it was delicious and I wanted to eat five. Unfortunately for my taste buds my dinner group consumed most of them, but fortunately for my hips. If I made them again I would tweak the recipe a little bit. I thought it was dry. But then again, maybe I made an unintentional error and totally messed up the recipe.

Frosting: I love Nutella so I loved the frosting. Actually I thought the frosting didn't taste Nutella-y enough so I added more. It probably didn't taste Nutella-y enough because I had a spoonful of Nutella right before I tested the frosting. So I probably added about a fourth cup more Nutella than the recipe called for. It was delicious.

I had left over frosting and so a few days later I made these cupcakes and used the Nutella frosting. It was even better!

Adventures from Miri

"And now, my beloved brethren, seeing that our merciful God has given us so great knowledge concerning these things, let us remember him, and lay aside our sins, and not hang down our heads, for we are not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea." 2 Nephi 10:20

That is Jess's scripture that she chose for her missionary plaque. She's doing so good! She's in Miri, Malaysia right now and they teach the people in Malay or Iban (the indigenous tribe there). I thought I'd post my favorite stories of hers this week. The pictures are actually old and have nothing to do with the stories, but pictures make everything better right?

"The best news of this week was Jarau and Yvonne's baptism! Yay!! everything went really well, me and Sister Clark sang a song in Malay a cappella and it was really nice, we watched Finding Faith in Christ after their baptisms while waiting and everyone really liked it. They were really happy, and me and Sister Clark went home and celebrated with cute little bottles of Fanta and Cadbury chocolate we'd been holding onto it for the occasion for like 2 weeks. But it was really good, Jarau had to be baptized twice because the guy baptizing him forgot to say his name at the beginning...whoops!...and then he left his change of clothes out in the room, and Sister Clark went and took it back to him and he was like half naked standing in the door of the men's bathroom (a lot of Ibans just don't really have a problem with not being fully covered...), and their kids were running around so I broke the rules of the "white handbook" and picked them up and carried them back into the room. On Sunday they got confirmed and they were all dressed up, and Jarau had on a white shirt and tie from one of the members. They are such a great family. We’ve gone and seen them a couple times since then, and they already gave us some family referrals, he hasn't gotten paid for like 3 months and he literally told us that he's IMPATIENT to pay tithing! What the heck? Yvonne almost finished the Book of Mormon (already the D&C), and they are going strong. We have such a hard time leaving their house every time we go over. Oh, and yesterday we went and walked up and looked into their little one room house and they were all laying on the ground reading this English book together and we just couldn't disturb them so we sat watching them for a little bit, and when they didn't know one of the words they were like, "later you can ask Sistah" and it was SO cute! Also, their 3 little girls play "Sistah" after we leave, like instead of playing "school" or "house" two of them sit on the ground cross-legged like we always do in the same spot (leaning against their mattress propped up against the wall because they only have a one-room house), and pretend like they're sister missionaries."

Jess is so cute and doing so good. She makes me remember the good times of my mission and about all the happy things that happened. And even when she writes about bad things that happen I just laugh and nod my head.

Some shorter Jess stories:

"Here’s the best excuse we've gotten for not coming to church from an investigator so far, "My kidneys are heavy..." Whaaaaaat? Seriously, these people make up the weirdest excuses. We were laughing so hard about it when he told us that though."

"Yesterday we were playing UNO with a family after having read the story about Nephi in Helaman when they are standing in the fire (because it's a 15 year old boy we're teaching), and I leaned over to get something, and all the sudden the little girl in the family was like fondling my boobs! What the heck? Yeah, I was like in shock, and then Sister Clark and I started laughing so hard. She’s like 4 years old and I was like, 'I just got groped on my mission.' Wow."

Jess is so cute and I like her.

Lent

So a friend of mine in high school always did lent. She would give up ice cream, or TV or something she loved. I love sweets. Ice cream, candy, chocolate, cupcakes, cookies, nutella, hot chocolate. I will do anything to get a sugar fix. My friend does a sugar fast every other month and she says it helps her not feel so dependent on sweets. In an attempt to have more self control and to curb my self proclaimed sugar addiction, I am giving up treats for lent. Yeah lent is a non Mormon tradition and yes my Fat Tuesday was extended into a Fat Week because I didn't decide to start until this morning, but I decided to extend my not eating of treats into a long month. Hopefully I will gain an appreciation and love for fruit and other natural treats. So this is my public announcement to not feed me goodies otherwise I will be angry and have to exert some serious self control!