We are almost done with the bathrooms! I know, I know. I've said that before. But this time, I have photographic proof. See?
We are very happy with how the mirror looks up. And we're also really happy to have the big box out of Drama Queen's bedroom.
General Conference is this weekend. I love conference weekend. I love being able to listen to the words of these amazing, inspired men and women. I love being surrounded by the spirit as I listen and open my heart to the messages. It doesn't matter what words are spoken; if I am open and prepared, the Lord will give me what I need.
I love the gospel with all of my heart.
The last time we ate at Tempiyaki, I was fascinated watching our chef make the fried rice. It made me realize that we could do that at home. On Monday, I made rice while Mr. Perfect grilled a marinated brisket. Once the rice was already boiling away, I found some potatoes and gravy in the fridge (yes, still edible) that would go much better with the roast. So we had to find something else to do with 4-1/2 cups of cooked rice. Mr. Perfect cried out "Fried rice with BACON!"
He's made it before (there was never any doubt in his mind that we could so do this), so I let him be "in charge" of the operation. He even did the shopping. Gotta love that. It's always fun cooking together, and the rice turned out great. If you want the recipe, click here.
I wonder how it would taste with mushrooms, too. Hmmm....
Saturday, Mr. Perfect and I took a couple of nephews to see The Hunger Games on the giant IMAX screen at Jordan Commons. It's always a concern when a movie is made based on a really good book. There's always the chance it won't live up to your imagination. And when the book comes first, it's always better than the movie.
This is the first time that Mr. Perfect has read the book first before seeing the movie. Actually, it probably would have been the first time Mr. Perfect had read the book after seeing a movie, if he'd done that instead.
I loved the movie. I thought they did a great job with the casting and the feel of the different places. Mr. Perfect noticed a few things missing and asked me if I've noticed that before in other movies. He's currently reading the third book, Mocking Jay, so he's really into the story right now, but he enjoyed the movie enough to see it again next weekend when Game Boy and Drama Queen can hopefully come with us.
Mr. Perfect loves everything about cookies. He loves making the dough. He loves eating the dough. He loves scooping the cookies onto the cookies sheet. He loves eating them when they're warm. He loves eating them when they're cooled. He loves eating them with frosting or without.
Last night I baked two dozen shamrock-shaped sugar cookies for a church activity. Mr. Perfect is the Young Men's president for the Special Needs Mutual in our area. They didn't have an activity last week because of the Utah political caucuses on Tuesday and Thursday. The church leaders asked the local wards and stakes to cancel all activities on both days so that people could attend the caucus of their choice. That meant no Saint Patrick's Day fun before Saint Patrick's Day, so it's this week. The kids will be decorating the shamrock cookies and enjoying way too much sugar for anyone's good.
Once we had baked enough cookies for the activity, it was obvious that we wouldn't be getting another full cookie sheet out of the remaining dough. I told Mr. Perfect he could eat what he wanted and to throw the rest away. He asked me to make one last, big cookie, and here's what we got:
Hmmm....Easter is just around the corner. Maybe some massive, intricately decorated egg cookies would be a fun thing to do. I'm just saying...
Well, sort of. Okay, welcome, spring in Utah. I took this picture on my way into work this morning. Literally. This tree is just outside the front door of my office. (Yes, I know that the sun wasn't up when I took this picture. I'm not a fan of Day Light Savings.)
Did I ever mention what Mr. Perfect got me for Valentine's Day? No? Silly me. He bought me a beautiful food processor. Now, I have gone most of my adult cooking life thinking that food processors were for lazy, lazy women who didn't really know their way around a kitchen.
Boy, was I wrong. And I'm fully willing to admit it. I WAS WRONG! See?
There are way, WAY too many recipes out there that I want to try that all have this previously-phrase-of-frustration: "Put XXX in food processor and XXX." I'm very happy to report that seeing this line in a recipe will no longer cause me to sigh with great sadness.
To inaugurate the new kitchen toy, we crushed graham crackers for Mr. Perfect's pie crust. Next, we tackled the remaining carrots in the garden. Winter carrots are incredibly sweet. But they are also HUGE. And carrot juice stains (I'm just saying). But we now have 15 cups of shredded carrots in the freezer to use throughout the coming seasons until the next carrot harvest. And I have a once nice and white bowl that is permanently orange. Well, I guess I could try a bleach bath on it. *shudder
After that, it was fresh salsa. Oh yeah, baby! This was definitely the funnest thing that happened with the new toy. And it was delicious! (Posted on the cooking blog.)
So, you want to make your wife a happy, happy woman in the kitchen? Get her a food processor. Pronto!
That is all.
Things are moving slowly, and I can't make any official announcements yet. I found out yesterday that some things are moving along just fine, but I won't be able to release this information to the world until Easter. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.
Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's Day. As is family tradition with the Parkers, we will be going to my parents' home for corned beef and cabbage. Now, I have to admit that this is a dish I did NOT like as a child. I was never forced to eat a full serving, but I did have to try it. It wasn't until long after my mission that I found I actually LOVE corned beef and don't mind the soup. Mr. Perfect LOVES the whole thing.
Well, this year we've been assigned to bring dessert. I promised my mom that I would make her a blueberry sour cream pie after making one for a Relief Society social a few months ago. Mr. Perfect suggested that we use a graham cracker crust instead of a standard pastry one. So, I researched and found an easy-peasy one online (thank you All Recipes!).
When it was time to pat the mix into the pie dish and "create" the crust, I handed it over to the man who suggested it. As you can see, he did a beautiful job.
(Please forgive him the slightly bug-eyed look. He was trying hard to not have his eyes closed while I took the picture.)
When talking with Little Big Sis, she did admit that she's not very fond of pie. Well, not fruit pies. She likes Jell-O pies, so I will also be taking a lime (it IS Saint Patrick's Day, after all) Jell-O pie. Also in a homemade graham cracker crust lovingly formed by Mr. Perfect.
Me, that's who. I've been disgusted with the condition of the floor in my car for many moons now. Seriously disgusted. I can't believe I let it get this bad disgusted. On Friday nights, Mr. Perfect and I always talk about what we want to be able to get done during the weekend, and this last Friday I mentioned vacuuming out my car, but there was also laundry and the Utah reception for Genius Child #1 and Georgia's Sweetest Peach and family in town from other places (loved, loved, LOVED spending time with Lady Songbird and Nippon Boy) and a MacBook Pro that was refusing to burn disks of pictures and video. It was a crazy, crazy weekend.
So, after setting up for the reception and lunch with aforementioned out-of-towner family members and before the family pictures before the reception official start time, I thought I might have time to tackle the car disgustingness. That is, until we got home and I couldn't move. I laid down on the futon, and suddenly it was 4:00, and Mr. Perfect was whispering in my ear that it was time to get ready, and he had vacuumed the front of the Senta.
What a man. I mean, really, what a man. And I get to keep him FOREVER. Eternity is going to be so sweet.
A dear friend of mine was part of a writing collaboration to help a family whose father was murdered a little over a year ago. They collected and published a book of Christmas stories with all proceeds going to the family and the children's college fund. The book is called Christmas Wishes: A Collection of Holiday Tales. Even though Christmas is past, the book is still available from Amazon.com. Please consider purchasing it. Good stories for a good cause. You can't go wrong.
Brodi Ashton is an old friend of mine from WAAAYYY back. Okay, not high school, but before either of us were married. I recently found out that her first novel was just published (December 2011). That is so exciting! The book is called Everneath. Here's the premises (courtesy of the King's English Bookshop website):
"Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.
"Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.
"As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.
"Everneath is a captivating story of love, loss, and immortality from debut author Brodi Ashton."
There are few ways in which good people do more harm to those who take them seriously than to defend the gospel with arguments that won't hold water. Many of the difficulties encountered by young people going to college would be avoided if parents and teachers were more careful to distinguish between what they know to be true and what they think may be true. Impetuous youth, upon finding the authority it trusts crumbling, even on unimportant details, is apt to lump everything together and throw the baby out with the bath.
--Henry B. Eyring
When the bishop calls up and asks to see both you and your husband, not just one of you, it can make you feel like something is going on, especially when he saw your husband just a couple of weeks ago alone. When you show up for the interview and it's the entire bishopric, that feeling goes away and you now KNOW something is going on. I can't say what yet, but it sure has me sitting and staring off into the distance like a deer caught in the headlights.
All I ask, Heavenly Father, is that you don't let some car plow me over while I'm in this state.
(P.S. I'm still not sure what to think about the fact that Mr. Perfect knew about this almost two weeks ago and was a good boy and said nothing about it to me, not even while we were in Georgia. Good man. I'll have to find a way to make him pay for that later...)
...fun, tiring, pretty, wildly-weatherish, exhausting, made-up of too many roads, spiritual, inspiring, beautiful, green, humid, windy, fun.
Thanks, Genius Child #1 and Georgia's Sweetest Peach, for including us in your wedding. We had a blast.
So, after setting up for the reception and lunch with aforementioned out-of-towner family members and before the family pictures before the reception official start time, I thought I might have time to tackle the car disgustingness. That is, until we got home and I couldn't move. I laid down on the futon, and suddenly it was 4:00, and Mr. Perfect was whispering in my ear that it was time to get ready, and he had vacuumed the front of the Senta.
"Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.
