What I Used To Think

I've made a break through; turned a corner; leapt from the plateau, on which I have spent so many years without direction or resolve. This blog is a testament to that. Also, I recently enrolled in aviation classes to pursue a life-long goal. And, after at least 21 years of nail biting, I've called it quits.
A long study of my life has lead me to analyze the deeply-rooted beliefs I had accepted as a child, and which have corrupted my ability to function as a normal adult.
Some of my more crippling and heinous misunderstandings are as follows:

1. The monster under my bed can only grab my feet if I set them down right next to it, due to its tiny arms and lack of "Bed Monster Commitment."
2. Falling asleep is just a shorter version of dying, making the prospect of being unconscious absolutely terrifying, and giving "bedtime" the same connotation as "death sentence."
3. "Ninja Turtle" is a reasonable career decision.
4. Any child can overcome the fear of bullies or even the effects of physical handicaps through the purchasing of "fast shoes."
5. Girls are lame.
6. When watching an action movie, declaring "I'm him!", or "That's me!", in connection with movie characters, can determine the pecking order for the rest of the night, and dictates who can punch whom without recourse or retaliation.
7. My parents often drug me to get me to sleep, because I can never seem to make it past the opening credits of Saturday Night Live, no matter how hard I try.
8. The correct lyrics to Jimmy Hendrix' "Purple Haze" are "'scuse me while I kiss this guy".
9. Snakes in the sewer can swim up the pipes and bite you on your pooper.
10. Teachers are not real people, but farmed and bread for the express purpose of being cold and authoritative figures without first names. Those seen in the real world doing normal people activities are braking serious teacher rules, and should be reported.
11. All dogs are male and all cats are female, and that puppies and kittens are a direct result of a long and complicated courtship, which included dinners out and other pre-planned activities.
I can see now that a flawed seed will only produce flawed fruit, or no fruit at all. But, my corruption of yesteryear has been purged and set afire, and the soil prepared for a whole new season of sewing.
One fact I still hold to be true: Choosing your school picture background carefully can cause even the most skeptical of people to believe you really were in space.....in a space station.....made entirely of lasers.



Sincerely,
Thomas

Beware

I've had to change my security level on my comments. Some dummy stranger left a comment that has a link that might be a virus link, so I deleted it and will notify Blogger but until I feel safe it will be a little trickier to leave comments, but I'd hate for one of you to somehow link in to a virus!

Love,
Tanya

Magic Spell

So, I was browsing Pyzam for a new template and in my excitement almost dropped the glass balls I was juggling! They have a David Bowie as Jareth from Labyrinth template! I was instantly ready to switch my template over when I remembered how much time it takes to put my sidebars back in. It made me seriously question my commitment to David Bowie. Did I not love him enough to change a simple blog template? Could that sub-par level of affection withstand the storms that threaten all great love? Do I really deserve someone wonderful like Jareth? Think about it: he doesn't discriminate against you just because you may be tall, short, hairy, an ogre, or baby. He loves kids. He can sing. He loves masquerade parties and what woman doesn't wish her husband would drug her, dress her up, and take her to a masquerade?! I've survived this long loving a man in ballerino tights who has a fascination with small children that I can only describe as disturbing. I'm sure I can hold on to the good memories hard enough to keep this crush going well into my old age.


Then again, maybe I need help.

Quinn Snow Day

I need to stop blogging at 1:00 a.m. Maybe I'll post more later when my mind can actually form coherent thoughts, but suffice it to say that we had a lot of fun tubbing last Saturday.

Valentine

First and most important: every reader or peruser of my blog must click on the link to Ben, my brother in law, Tom's brother. Tom and Ben made their first film. They have so many great ideas and a great help and friend in Garret Batty, of Three Coin Productions. "My Valentine" was chosen to produce first because of Valentine's Day of course. So go watch it. It's hilarious!!

Second, we had a wonderful Valentine's. On Thursday I had a lot of studying to do for a big test Friday so we just watched our niece and nephew while Ben and Kat got some well-deserved alone date time. We celebrated last night. We went to a Utah Grizzlies hockey game. They were playing the Bakersfield Condors! I had to fight the urge the whole game to yell out "I'm from Bakersfield. Do you know anyone in Laurelglen area?" We also had dinner at The Garden restaurant at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, overlooking the temple and Salt Lake scene. It was beautiful and the food was great! It was neat because my current chef/professor was the head chef of The Garden for 8 years. A lot of recipes we make come from the Garden because he created 80% of the menu. They still use his recipes. I realized after I ordered the porkloin that I made the apple-mango chutney that accompanies it. I was even more pleased to taste it and know that I created the same quality. It feels good to know I can reproduce good food like that. I think it's what I'll make for our family Valentine's dinner tomorrow. We got to stay at Little America hotel. We love it there. The tower is worth the stay every few years because the rooms are so comfortable and elegant. The Little America has this amazing breakfast buffet. It's so gourmet, with an omelet bar and fresh-carved ham, french toast, crepes, biscuits and gravy, all the fresh berries you can eat, pastries- a total breakfast lover's dream. Go some time!

P.S. I got a 39.5 out of 40 on my written test and a 92% on my practical. I was really pleased with both. We had to prepare duck, a soup, a sauce, and two side dishes with appropriate garnish as well as demonstrate our cutting skills and some other criteria I can't remember all within 2 1/2 hours. It was intense and fun!

Here's a picture. I don't have any for this blog's subject but it's fun to have a picture, right? This particular photo is of Sean right before his mission and our nephew Chase, Laura and Devin's son. They don't have a blog but I want the world to see their cute son.

The First Cut is the Sweetest

Saturday I had the opportunity to prepare the food for my friend Catherine's baby shower. It was so much fun! Rarely do I feel creative. I always feel like I'm just copying other things, but I felt like this time it was my creation. I was proud of my little toothpick holder made out of half a lemon. I rested my little stuffed potatoes on "nests" of alfalfa and it looked like little egg nests. I'm sure it's been done before, but the idea seemed new to me. I used the tops of my melon bowls as bases to add height and angle the bowls. I really enjoyed using food in new ways and thinking outside the box. I'm sure nothing will come of it, but one of the guests called the host after she left to get my number because she wanted me to cater an event of hers. I was flattered and felt very fulfilled at the end of the day. I also want to thank Tom for staying up really late with me and helping me prepare the food the night before.

Here are some pictures. P.S. I didn't make that beautiful cake. Christina did. She makes the best cakes. They're all from scratch and so beautiful and they taste amazing!


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Business Before Pleasure

Cash was on the verge of writing genius and could not be disturbed.


Maggie finished all her dinner, and there was a lot on that plate, so she could have a cupcake. We were all very proud of her.

To show our appreciation and pride we all sang "Happy Thursday to You" to Maggie and let her blow out the candle on her cupcake.

The little disc on the cupcake was a ring, so life for Maggie was pretty great tonight.

Winter Wonderland

We are definitely in the middle of winter. The other day we missed school because the canyon was closed while they blew up avalanches. Today we woke up to a tremendous snowfall. Midway, which is right next to Heber, cancelled church so they could shovel people out of their homes. We were able to make it.



I do love the snow. I do love the snow. I do, I do, I do.


We shoveled our way to our car this morning for church. Tom had to shovel our way from the car back to the house after church.


If you didn't notice, that snow bank behind us is as tall as me now!

I'll update you when we build our snow fort next weekend.

Bowl Full of Cherries

Today we got together as a family. We hadn't all been together since Christmas break. It was so nice. We feel so spread out so it's great to have these fun-filled days together. We went to lunch, then bowling, then to a movie, then played games.

I bowled my usual 75 using the time tested Granny method while Tom rocked the house with a turkey!


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

I don't know why people didn't smile bigger. (Thank you Kat. You smiled when I said cheese.) I promise, we were having fun.



If you caught the tail end of that video you'd hear Tom apologizing for bowling Kay D's frame, not realizing his was over after getting a strike. (He thought it was the tenth frame.)