Gimme a Break....

As is evident from my frequent comments about needing to be studying when I am distracting myself with blogging or other activities, I am pretty much always up for a diversion when it comes to school work. So as you might imagine I was SUPER excited last week when I got an email from a classmate about a Slinky competition. That is right, my classmate(s) decided that we should have a contest racing Slinkys down the stairs of the Tanner Building atrium. The idea was genius and the event turned out to be just what was needed to start our week out on a good note.

It was quite possibly THE best activity of the year!



For more event details including video, you can check out our blog @ http://mbawomen.blogspot.com

Skillet Brownies Anyone?

No, I have not gone crazy. I realize that brownies are not typically cooked using a skillet. However, sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. Several years ago when I was living in Ohio with my good friend Kara, our apartment that was furnished using donated goods. Everything was donated - from the couches to the silverware. Unfortunately the only pan we had for cooking was a humongous skillet. One day Kara and I were craving brownies but we didn't have a cake pan. As necessity is the mother of all invention, we decided to use the skillet. We had a really good time making those brownies. We hoped it would work and that we wouldn't burn the apartment building to the ground. The brownies actually turned out and were some of the best brownies I have ever eaten. Wow, the laughs that we had. I wish I had those pictures in a digital format so that you could enjoy them. Those were some good times. And everyone once in a while I kind of want to bust out the skillet brownies for old times sake, but the pans that I have now have aren't really cut out for that sort of thing. (While I like having nice stuff, sometimes I miss the days when I had crappy stuff and it didn't matter if it got ruined.)

This Christmas Kara was particularly excited about giving me my Christmas gift. Unfortunately our crazy schedules didn't allow for us to meet up until after the holiday break. She was so excited about her gift to me. I was REALLY curious what could be such an amazing gift. She said she found the gift months ago and wanted to give it to me then, but had restrained. When I opened the gift, this is what I found.That is right folks, I got my very own set of cast iron skillets (complete with the handy-dandy skillet hot pads), designed especially for baking brownies and cookies! I took one look at my gift and said to Kara, "Shut Up! Where did you find this?" amongst my laughter. Apparently Kara found it while wondering through BB&B one day. Seriously who thinks of this stuff? If only Kara and I had thought to sell our idea, we could have been rich!

I love this gift for several reasons:

1. It is funny. It is probably funnier to me than to everyone else.
2. It makes brownies - one of the seven wonders of the world I am quite sure.
3. The cute little hot pads makes it seem like I am eating out.
4. Because it reminds me of the great times that Kara and I had (and still have) together. She has been a great friend to me for the last 7 1/2 years (has it really been that long?) If I can be just like her when I grow up, I will have accomplished a whole lot

Thanks for the great gift Kara!

Oh yeah, if you have a craving for skillet brownies, come on over!

January is for....redecorating?

For months, perhaps even a year, I have REALLY wanted a new duvet for my room, but since a new duvet typically runs in the neighborhood of $200-$300, I have resigned myself to what I have. Not that the duvet that I have is bad, I just wanted something different. Perhaps it is the ADD in me or my propensity to get bored with things really quickly. Well, Saturday (when I should have been doing homework - like right now) I went to Bed Bath & Beyond with Julina. She needed to get something to help her be organized and since she LOVES a bargin we wandered through the clearance section of the store. I decided to look and see if they had anything that I could afford on my stupid student budget (Can I just say once more how much I dislike living on nothing? It is REALLY cramping my style!) Much to my surprise and happiness I found a new duvet that cost $25! I could definitely afford that, so I made the purchase and now all I want to do is spend time in my room. My new decor makes me so happy. It has made the typically miserable month of January much more bareable.

Happy 1/2 Birthday to Me!

I love the symphony! And thanks to my student status and subsequent lack of money, I get a student discount when attending the Utah Symphony. For just $8 (less than the price of a movie) I can attend the symphony. However I haven't really taken advantage of this limited perk of being a student because it is hard to convince my non-student friends to fork out the $50 that a regular ticket costs to go with me. From time to time I do go to the Utah Symphony's website to check out what they are playing. Last time I checked (early January when I should have been doing my homework) I found that they were performing Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," one of my very favorite orchestral pieces. I asked my roommates if they wanted to go with me and they both did, so on Thursday, which coincidentally happened to be my 1/2 birthday, we went to the symphony and it was fantastic. I love it. Here is a picture of the roommies and me @ Abrovenal Hall. Sadly the lady who took our picture thought we wanted the entire sculputre in the background, so she took it at an up angle and we all look much chubbier than we really are(We don't really have double chins :) ) I guess it goes to show that beggars can't be choosers.

New Year's Resolutions

I know the month is half over and I now just getting to my resolutions, but I have had to do a lot of thinking about this over the past few weeks, plus I had to adjust to being back and school and on a schedule, but I am obviously not there yet, or else I would be sleeping now instead of blogging, but whatever.

I am sure that I will come up with new resolutions but below of some of the ones that I am working on presently.

1 - Journal writing - I have been using the same journal since the end of 2005, and I am only 1/2 the way through it. Sad, I know. Plus so far that journal contains more ridiculous boy drama than all of my other journals (around 7 or 8 volumes) combined. So lame!

2 - Getting priorities straight - that means that I am going to try to attend more church related functions (not really my fav, but I need to try more)making sure I am reading my scriptures and saying my prayers on a daily basis (I kind of let that slide last semester and I am determined not to let it happen this one!)This also means not obsessing about school at the expense of family relationships.

3 - Better expressing gratitude, love and appreciation - Due to some conversations I have had recently I have decided that I really need to make this a priority. If I am thinking about someone, I need to let them know about it. If someone does something that I especially appreciate, I need to express that. I have tons of great friends whose friendship I haven't maintained as well as I should have, and I want to remedy it as best as I can. I also think that it will help me be more aware of the blessings that I have in my life, which is never a bad thing.

4 - Move on! This is an on-going goal for me and it has taken various shapes and forms in the past, but essentially it means letting go of things that I have been holding onto both good and bad, that are preventing me from moving forward. This means forgiving. It means accepting my flaws and resolving to change them and loving myself regardless. In some instances it means letting people go...

Those are the big ones this year. I am also going to exercise more (that dance aerobics class and mandatory workouts 4 days a week is really going to help!)and hopefully find an internship. Obviously I am sure that I will have times when I am doing better at these goals than others, but I think it is part of the process to at least try to be better. Even if I don't have 100% success, I will at least have improved, right?

Christmas & Stuff

Christmas was great. I got to spend just over 2 full weeks at home & since Rhonda & Jared and their family and Sam & Kelsey and their family live near by I got to see my adorable nieces and nephews as well. Abe & Ann were also able to be there, so it was a pretty decent sized group when we were all in one place.

Tedi & Doug ended up staying in UT due to really crappy weather and since Becky is too pregnant to travel, she and Eric stayed home. But Becky did get a fun Christmas surprise a few days earlier. Eric arranged with Reuben's mission President for Reuben & his companion to go to Becky and Eric's house for breakfast Christmas morning. Becky and Eric live in Reuben's zone. Tedi and Doug also joined them for breakfast. As Tedi (or maybe it was Becky) said, "seeing Reuben was a good consolation for not being able to go home for Christmas."

We had a really fun Christmas Eve party at Rhonda and Jared's house. It was a good time. We played games and ate food. I took more video than pictures because one of the games was ridiculous and the video more accurately captures the chaos that is my family.







Here are a few pictures. We had our traditional New Year's Breakfast, but we decided that perhaps Breakfast was a bit too optimistic and went with Brunch at 11:30. It worked out a lot better! Unfortuately I didn't have my camera with me. Someday I will be better about
documenting life events!Now it is back to the grind of school work...Ugh!