Dogs

I am so sorry I haven't posted at all about our journey in Utah.  Honestly, I haven't had a day off since December 21st, and I have three more days of work until I get my first glorious day off.  So, needless to say, I am asleep by 8:30 at the earliest and 10:30 at the extreme latest.

I thought everyone might get a chuckle out of this though...

Brian and I came home yesterday to Mallard having pooped in her kennel.  We get that cleaned up and are about to go ship some packages, and Mallard decides to throw up on the rug.  So no packages got sent, just cleaning.

This morning, Lola throws up on me in bed.

What is going on?  Sick puppies that are destroying my rest.  I don't normally ask why we got these dogs, but this morning the question is on repeat.  Pray for the children I teach today and that I don't get criers.

Happenings

So, we have officially been here for a week and a half.  We finished training, got our uniforms, got our season passes, made friends, went out on the town, may have locked both sets of keys in the car, attended a Santa Bar Crawl, bought a $10 sofa, and have gone hiking a lot.  Brian starts work tomorrow.  I start work on Wednesday.

Pretty season passes fo a dollar!  

Our outfits for the bar crawl.  The hats were a hit.

Some of the friends we've made.  The one on the left is from Florida and the one in the middle is from Canada and is also now Brian's roommate.  

i will update more soon!  i promise.  pray for snow!  do a little snow jig!

 

We made it!

Well, I know that some are anticipating a fantabulous post.  And, as I promised, I will post, but I can't promise fantabulous.  We made it to Park City.  After 3 days (a total of 31 hours), traveling through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and then Wyoming, we made it to Utah.  After the torrential all day downpour on Monday, meaning wet dogs/muddy car, it was a beautiful day on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We saw beautiful sunrises and sunsets, rolling hills, corn fields, windmills, and so much more.  I will post more later, rights now I am just going to have some pictures, feeling very sleepy.

First snow since we've been here.  I think there was a total of 4 inches.  Also, it has been single digits the past two days.  Meaning 7 degrees, and the windchill makes it -1.  Brrrr.  Frozen toes/frostbite.  

This is food from Squatters.  It is a microbrewery.  Surprising for a state so against alcohol.  The pie is a peanut butter/oreo pie.  The beer is called Polygamy Porter - "why just have one?"  Kind of hilarious.

This is the house that I am renting and paying way too much money for.  It is an old miner house.  Super cool.  Come visit.

Very happy puppies.  They get to go hiking almost every day and frolic in the snow.  They are LOVING it!

Till later.  Much love - j

The importance of reading recipes

Hello!  And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope that everyone has a splendid and blessed day tomorrow surrounded by loved ones.  My grandfather always makes us go around the dining room table and say what we are thankful for.  Of course as little kids we thought it was embarrassing and Kelly would name everything and everyone that would come into her head (aka Pochahontas, John Smith, Christopher Columbus, Sacajawea, and name every single person sitting around the table by name).  Reflecting on it today, it is not such a bad tradition and it gives us a moment to realize what we are most grateful for, which luckily, is a lot of things.  Here are a couple quotes on naming the blessings in our life.

Ann Voskamp has a quote in 1,000 Gifts by Alexander Schememann about naming our blessings which helps us to find God's identity - "Now, in the Bible... a name... reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God's gift... To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it, to know it as coming from God and to know its place and function within the cosmos created by God.  To name a thing, in other words, is to bless God for it and in it."

"To name something is to allow you to know it comes from God, the invisible becomes visible." - Ann Voskamp

"Naming offers the gift of recognition; to name is to learn the language of paradise, we name to find an identity which is God's." - Ann Voskamp

If you haven't read 1,000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp, you should.  It's incredible!

So, for breakfast tomorrow, I have undertaken the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls, which are absolutely delicious but I have never made them before.  Well I of course just read the ingredients and not the entire recipe.  So, after making all the dough, watching it rise, and preparing to put the cinnamon in the cinnamon rolls, my assistant (aka, Jennifer, my mom) starts to read everything to me.  Well, this specific recipes yields not 1 or 2 pans of cinnamon rolls, but 7.  Ha, I have concocted enough dough to deliver cinnamon rolls to all of the neighbors.  Woops.  Ha, so word to the wise (this is mainly directed at myself, I learn new lessons everyday), don't assume anything and read the entire recipe before mixing everything together because you may end up with more than you bargained for.  

Here are the rolls pre baked, I will update tomorrow on how they turned out!  

Love yall!  Happy Turkey Day!  Tell the people you love most how grateful you are for them.

4 days!!!!!!! 

   

We survived

"Welcome to the show.  Do you want it?  Do you need it?  Ladies and gentlemen!" (you can hear the song here... from the original team, the lovely Auburn tigers) (and just for the fun of it, see you soon bama)

Heather and I went to the Falcons game tonight, and we survived.  What we survived was not the rowdy fans, or the three hour football game, though we made it through all of that.  But, we survived the car ride there and the car ride back.  I have never feared for my life as much as I did tonight.  I have never ridden in the car with such a bad driver, he shall remain nameless.  I literally thought I was going to throw up when I got to the game and when I got back to Heather's apartment.  Not to mention the nerves and angst that the car ride brought me.  I have never been so thankful for solid ground and so ungrateful for the piece of machinery that we call the car today. 

And to top it off, I sent Brian a text trying to express the emotions that I was feeling.  And this is what it turned into. 

"Heather's [nameless person] cannot die.  I literally feel so sick to my stomach.  And am so uptight right now."

Thanks auto correct.  

8 days

...

i can't tell you lots of things...

1. where i am living in Park City (currently homeless)

2. what graduate school i will get into (if one at all)

3. if my dog is going to be allowed to stay with me in PC

4. what i am going to do when ski season ends

5. where i will go when it ends

i can tell a couple things...

1. going to the Falcons game tonight with Heather

2. Leaving in 8 days for Park City, Utah

3. i have a suit (so if i do get interviews i at least will look professional, i got talked out of the leopard print top... a little too wild for graduate school interviews)

4. and i promise whatever i will be doing, it won't be boring

Update on crayon wreath

I gave up on the crayon wreath.  Not that cute.  So now that I have broken lots of crayons in half, I guess the next step is to figure out something to do with them.  I'm thinking of melting them.

Moving out west

Athens, GA > Park City, UT 

Southern Route

1 day, 13 hours

13 days left

 

AU/UGA Weekend

Well, reflecting on getting wrecked 7 - 45, I had a wonderful weekend.  Full of friends, good laughs, and catching up.  Here is a stream of pictures that describe my weekend.

Here's Oreo.  He is getting pretty old in years, so he has started getting laser treatment for his kidney failure.  I accompanied my mom to the vet.  Oreo and I got to hang out in a room for about 45 minutes waiting on Bess to finish her treatment.  He sat in my lap the entire time. 

Brian joined us for dinner.  We had an empty seat for him.  He was a little camera shy at first.

There we go.  8 people stayed at our house this weekend... Yang, Shane, Steve, Amy, AC, Grace, and Shealy.  My mom cooked a wonderful dinner and breakfast for everyone.

We then went out, and decided to go home. 

As we were walking, this girl, linked arms with AC.  She needed help finding her car.  Poor girl.  Sophomore at UGA (good thing we weren't in Auburn, she would really have no idea where she was), and she had no idea where she was, who she was with, or where she had been.  Lucky for her she linked arms with AC and not some crazy person.  I cannot explain to you the hilarity of this episode on our weekend.  We were literally doubled over laughing the entire time.  Here are some key quotes...

"Why are yall being so nice to me?" - Whitney (girl's name)

"We are going to take your purse while you are not looking." - AC

"I wouldn't blame you." - Whitney

"I'm going to cry in my pants." - Whitney

We ended up giving her a ride home.  She called her friend to tell her she was with three strangers who were about to drive her home... sketchy.  And this was part of the conversation.

"I trust them.  If I am not home in 20 minutes, call me, and I will start crying." - Whitney

"Give us at least 30." - Me

Whitney is an engineer major who is about to transfer to UCF to be closer to her brother, and I guess that the engineering program is easier there.  She also decided that we were all engineers.  AC is the only true engineer, but by the end of the night with her we had formed our own sisterhood of engineering.  

"Promise me when we get home that I can give you waffles." - Whitney

"Are they frozen, like leggo waffles?"

"No they're free." - Whitney, according to AC she did some awesome hand motion

"My godfather likes to play the lottery and when he loses he gets free waffle house waffles." - Whitney

Needless to say, we were all very curious what sort of waffles we were going to be getting.

Sure enough, we got 6 waffle house waffles.  That were NOT frozen.  But free.  And Ms. Whitney earned the distinct pleasure of being double blogged (check out Amy's blog).

Saturday, game day, we had a tailgate and went out that night.

Needless to say, it was a great weekend!  War Eagle anyway.

14 days!

Things that have recently blown my mind...

1. Charles Barkley stating, "Alabama accusing Auburn of cheating is like Snooki telling Halle Berry she's ugly."

2. Toddler's and Tiaras - do these parents actually believe that they are building their children's confidence?  or are these kids living dreams that the parents always wished for themselves?  5 year olds doused in makeup, getting flippers (aka dentures because your kid lost her two front teeth - COMPLETELY NORMAL), and putting fake hair seems a bit outrageous to me.  I would love to see how these children turn out in 10-20 years.  Maybe that is what I should study in graduate school, the effects on the mental health of children pageants.  These may somehow benefit the child, but personally, I think you are setting your kid up for false ideas about beauty and themselves at a very impressionable age.

3.  This guy... Dave Ramsey, became a millionaire in his 20's, filed bankruptcy, and was able to become a millionaire again based on simple economic principles.  Your financial status is 80% behavior and 20% smarts.  It's a good read so far.  I recommend it.  He's also a Christian, even cooler.

4. And one of these kept a couple together through a really extreme rough time that would've driven married people to divorce.  The power of the post it note marriage.  (This is from Grey's Anatomy)

(I have lost count on my countdown, I will resume it again some point soon, I think it is in the teens now!)

Hope everyone is having a great hump day!

My two favorite people

(Oreo on the left, Mallard (or Princess Leia) on the right)

21 days!!!

Mo Money

My fried Morgan did this for vespers one night at camp.  She based it on the story of the Giving Tree.  It was fantastic.  At the end she gave us these print outs to write what we were thankful for and what God had blessed us with.  Well, I loved it so much that I decided to be crafty and make her one on a canvas.  I started it in August and now have finished it. 

Does anyone know Morgan's address????

Also, look at Brian looking good in the cowboy hat!

Crafty

Alrighty, so I mentioned that I was feeling crafty earlier.  I LOVE pinterest because it revives the creative juices in me, but it also distracts from things I should be doing like finishing graduate school applications... oh wait, I am literally about 10 minutes from being done!  SOOOO, I decided to craft.  I have been seeing the wreath that has crayons all over it...  Here is the example

I decided to make it Christmas theme.  I have also decided that it really isn't as cute as I thought it was going to be.  Granted, I am not done, so I may change my mind tomorrow or whenever I finish it. 

SO, step 1.  Go shopping (I mentioned earlier that I don't like shopping, I really don't unless it's something cool that I want to make versus something that I put on).

I bought 2 boxes of 64 crayons (you would be surprised at the limited number of reds in the box and the plethora of greens, apparently there is more green shades in the world than red), I also bought a styrofoam circle, silver ribbon (haven't used this yet), silver wire, silver wrapping paper, and then red bow things.  The crushed wilson ball is not supposed to be a part of this craft (dog toy).

Step 2, cut the styrofoam circle in half... BE CAREFUL, I literally thought I had stabbed myself today.

Step 3, wrap the ring in wrapping paper, you could also spray paint, or cover in fabric, or come up with something else that would be awesome... come to think of it I may wrap red and green ribbon around it like a weave, might spice it up a little

Step 4... Add the bows

Step 5... decide you don't like the bows, so take them off, and start arranging the crayons, I also decided that I didn't like the crayons length.  So I split them in half and lined them up this way. 

So, that's where I am, I still don't know what I think about it.  I will put the completed picture up at some point and you can decide for yourself.  Obviously the last steps would be to hot glue the crayons down and decide on how you want to hang it.  So finished craft coming up soon!  Happy (or not so happy) Crayon Wreath.

Keep on

23 days folks!

Feeling crafty today.

Inspiration of the day

God is great

Beer is good

People are crazy.

~ Billy Currington 

24 days peeps! 

Happenings

The past six days I flew down to Miami to see these two

Mallard wishes everyone a Happy Halloween!

(Pumpkins aren't for decorations anymore!)

And it is official.  I have allowed myself to start a countdown!  There are officially 25 days until I pack up my bags and head out west.  It is still hitting me rather slowly.  We started pulling out all the ski stuff that I already have to take inventory of what I have and then what I need.  It's hard to go buy what I need because I am never in the mood to shop.  Maybe the next week or two I will feel inspired?  Yesterday, i got an email from PCMR.  I signed up for what days I want off each week.  

This has definitely made it more real for me.  Getting excited!  Do not have a place to live yet : /  ha.

Correction

News flash:  Monday mornings were biscuit mornings growing up, NOT pancake mornings...

Love,
My mom

Beauty in the darkness

On Mallard's and my walk this morning, we took the route by the pond.  Right now in Georgia, it is fall.  The leaves are changing colors and dropping from the trees, the temperature is cooling down, and things aren't as bright.  I have been reading this book...

It is incredible.  It is a book about living fully and being thankful for EVERYTHING.  Even the hard and ugly stuff.  One of the topics in the book is about beauty amongst the darkness.  How God's love is transformative.  Well, on the walk, I saw this beautiful flower.  Beauty in the midst of bleakness.  I don't even know if it is supposed to be blooming at this time of the year.  But, it made me smile and think about God's great amazing unchanging love for us.

"All good comes out of dark places, out of darkness God spoke forth life, out of the darkness of the cross  the world transforms into new light." - 1000 Gifts

Pancakes!

I have been trying to perfect the art of pancakes for about 2 years now.  I either cook them for too long or not enough.  Sometimes I have the heat too high and sometimes low.  So, it is really an experimental project for me.  I finally nailed them this morning.  Growing up, every Monday morning was pancake morning for my siblings and I.  Mom would make them, we would eat them, and the dogs would eat the leftovers.  Same for this morning.  I made them, I ate them (didn't have anyone to share them with, sad), and the dogs ate the leftovers.  So here you go for pancakes...

You will need (I haven't learned how to make homemade pancakes, that's next on the agenda)...

1. Some sort of pancake mix.  I have been using Trader Joe's pancake mix

2. Depending on how many pancakes you want, these measurements of ingredients could change (just follow the instructions on the back of the box)

3. Eggs

4. Water

5. Any other deliciousness you want to add

6. Make them, you want to wait to flip them until they start having those little bubbles on top, also don't flip them more than once, I have been told this isn't good, watch them rise too - it's so cool

7. Once they are ready, put them on a plate you have set aside and immediately butter them

8. Stack the pancakes on top of each other, this not only keeps them warm, but also allows the butter to melt even better than you can imagine

9. Once all done with your pancakes, eat them, enjoy them, and feed the lefts overs to your furry friends, you'll be their favorite person ever (oh don't put chocolate chips in your furry friends' pancakes, you might end up at the vet hospital later : / )

10. And I forgot, syrup, go ahead and dabble in it

These combinations are wonderful... 

Banana, Chocolate Chip, and Walnuts (you could leave the chocolate chips out if you want)

Blueberry is always a fave

Blueberry/Banana

Chocolate Chip

Combinations I want to try

Blueberry/Lemon

Cinnamon Apple

Enjoy!

The beginning of recipes

So, I love cooking when I am in the mood to do so.  And I love eating.  So, I have decided to start sharing some good food ideas.  Most of the recipes come from my mother, and I will put them up every so often (probably not that often).  And I have no idea where she gets them from, if I figure it out, I will reference it.  This first one is for breakfast.  I love breakfast.  I would definitely say I am a breakfast snob for sure.  Brian and I tried to eat at a place in Auburn for breakfast, but they were A - out of biscuits and B - out of grits, so we left.  It's all about the combinations for me.  You will learn more about my favorite combinations soon.  But here are the first two things that I will show you.

Bell Pepper Egg-in-a-Hole

I have been trying to make fried eggs for a long time now, and I finally nailed it with this recipe.  If you love fried eggs and love bell peppers, then this is for you.  If you go to the link, they explain in detail how to make it.  They also use cheese.  I haven't tried it with the cheese on it quite yet though.  Cheese isn't exactly in my daily diet plan unfortunately.  But, I am quite positive that it makes it even more delicious. 

Pair the fried egg with an English muffin, and you've got a delicious breakfast waiting for you.  Don't worry if you don't get this on the first try.  Trust me it took me several times of trying it to nail it.  This was my first attempt...

Still extremely yummy.  Enjoy!