Food Coma

Yesterday I went to Big Jud's, it's a burger place about 10 minutes outside Rexburg that is a local favorite. I had never been there before, even though I've been up here forever. It kind of reminded me of Kirk's in San Jose, it was small and incredibly hot inside .

Any who, Big Jud's is famous for having massive hamburgers. Like really really big. My roommates and I all just got regular sized burgers but I think it would be fun to go back and split one of the big ones. I got the Bleu Bacon burger, and it was pretty tasty. My favorite thing about Big Jud's were their onion rings. They were excellent! I am tempted to go tomorrow just to get an order. Pretty much the best onion rings I've ever had.

Retraction of Comment Made in Baby Laptop Post

It has come to my attention that it was my mother, not my father, who fixed my curmudgeon of a computer. All future compliments of awesomeness should be directed to her, thank you.

The 4-1-1

So, it's been almost a week since my last post, I could say that I've been busy, but that would be a lie. I only had 3 days of classes this week due to an awesome holiday weekend I spent camped out on the couch watching season 1 of Supernatural. I've seen it before, but my roommate had not. We watched it and I loved it just like I did last time.

I've never really had trouble sleeping after scary shows, but it turns out that Beth ( roommate) has a ridiculously hard time. She hardly slept at all last weekend , she kept thinking about all the creatures from the show coming to attack her. I was literally out in like 5 mins every night. Haha! I feel a little bad.

Any who, life in Rexburg has been pretty uneventful as of late.

Here's the rundown:

1. Recharged my batteries over a long weekend.
2. Fell in love with the movie Australia.
3. Watched Season 1 of Supernatural.
4. Fell in love with Jensen Ackles. Look him up... oh, never mind I'll post a picture.

5. Made a pair of baby pants, bib, and shirt ( pictures forthcoming)
6. Made a loaf of French bread for my baking midterm. I rocked it :).
7. Completed my first ever month of visiting teaching. 100%!
8. Cleaned my room.
9. Saw 17 Again, again.
10. Summer has finally come to Rexburg. :)

Baby Laptop

I'd like to announce the arrival of the newest member of my family.

Introducing Baby Dell
Birth: May 22, 2009
Weight: 3.5 lbs
Battery Life: 9.5 hours
Screen: 10 inches
Color:Green

We ordered this little baby when my other laptop was on the fritz. My dad managed to fix my old one, so now I have 2 computers, which knowing me will be a good thing.

I have a tendency, through no fault of my own, of breaking computers. I personally think that they don't like me because they know how much I hate working on them. Working with my dad in the fall was torture. Computers confronted me at every turn. I'm sure he's in hog heaven with Katie home to work with him. The Golden Child is following in his footsteps into Computer Information Systems.

I briefly bandied the idea about my head until I realized that I'd rather watch 9 hours of Richard Simmons everyday, than work with computers professionally for the rest of my life. I literally die a little each time I'm forced to do work on a computer in an unfun capacity. I'm thankful for a dad and sister that can find joy in what I hate, and for Baby Dell. This puppy is going to be great for taking notes in class.

Taking Over the Tradition

I seem to be the only person in my family who thinks that we have cinnamon rolls every Christmas morning. My family likes to joke that it's our longstanding tradition that I started 3 years ago.

I don't know what's up, but I would swear that this is a real tradition, that I'm not just saying it because it's another reason for delicious cinnamon rolls. Anyways, the last couple years of the "tradition" , others have been kind and stepped up and made the rolls. There was Grandma, Pat, and my mom. This Christmas I think it's my turn.

I finally learned how!

We made cinnamon rolls in my baking class yesterday, and it was awesome!

So, come December it's my turn to take the "tradition" into another year.

Completed

It's just screaming, "Wear me!".

It is finished! The sleeper I've been working on for the past couple weeks is finally done. I did the finishing stitches yesterday. I can't wait until a little baby can actually wear this! I've been having so much fun learning all this stuff! I never pictured myself as very domestic, but I've been doing pretty good the last month or so.

I think I'll take another sewing class next semester. It's not as hard as I thought it would be, you just have to follow the patterns. Well, I'm off for now. I have to shower, get gas, and go grocery shopping, hopefully all before my class at 2, we'll see if I can make it.

The Blessed Event

The happy couple and I

They tied the knot!! Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Chris and Julie Phillips, married May 16th, 2009 in the Fresno LDS temple. It was freaking hotter than all get out, but it was beautiful overall.

We had the reception in my Aunt Amy's backyard that we all swankified for the special event. We all made like a million desserets for all to enjoy, they were delicious.

After toasts and dancing many proceeded to jump into the pool fully clothed. Including my sister and I , we held hands and took a leap into the water. Despite flashing everyone a glimpse of our panties as our dresses proceeded to float above our heads, the water felt amazing! It was so hot and our little feetsies were super sore.

I'll be adding more photos to my facebook soon, so if you're lucky enough to be my friend, some cute pictures are coming your way.

The girls withthe bride.

Going Back...

to Cali, Cali, Cali! See you soon California!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today is that special day that we get to once a year honor and recognize those special women in our lives. That's right folks, what a sharp crowd you are, it's Mother's Day! Being away at school right now makes it a little difficult to really make my Mom's day special. I want to take this opportunity to lavish attention and love upon her.

All growing up I thought that everyone's family was like mine. That they too had mom's that would come in and play Crash Bandicoot on the Playstation after they were in bed, and would occasionally let them play a round. I thought that they too had mom's that took them out of school to go see Mission Impossible 2 the day it came out. I thought that when they played Phase 10, that in between turns they decorated their faces with army camoflauge paint, in what we like to refer to as Face Paint Phase 10. It had never crossed my mind that people's families weren't like mine.

I grew up with laughter as a constant companion, whether I was being laughed with or at, it was always there. You know the phrase if mom's not happy, then ain't nobody happy? Well let's reverse it to say, that if mom was laughing, we were all laughing. I am thankful for that laughter because it has made me who I am today. I often think that the only reason I ever had any friends is because I am vaguely funny. Katie loves to say that one of her greatest fears is that all her friends are only being nice to her so they can hang out with our mom.

In all seriousness though. My mother is an incredible woman. She has been through things that I can't even imagine surving. Everyday she gets up and does what needs to be done. She is just incredible.

I remember in 7th grade we had to write a report on one of our heroes and I stupidly chose Phyliss Wheatley, one of the first African- American female poets, because I wanted to be the girl who was different from the rest of the kids who were writing about their parents. I can't remember if my mom made a fuss about it or not, but I would like to retract that essay I wrote oh so many years ago. My mother is my hero. She is inspiring, loving, encouraging, AND she is funny. She calls me on my crap, but does so in a way that I can learn from. I want to be the kind of mom that she is now. I want to surprise my kids with shopping trips, and take them out of school to go to the movies. I want to give them a pair of my earrings if they show even a slightest bit of interest in them, because that's who she is. She is fantastic, and she is my mother. My hero.

Other women I wish to wish a Happy Mother's day to...

Le Boulanger

My loaf is the smaller looking one in the back. As it turns out, my score marks were better...

As of today, I am one step closer to being a baker. I made my first loaf of French bread and it was very tasty! My lab partner, Lulu, and I had some pretty cool adventures in the kitchen today.

First, our digital scale wasn't working right, so we poured 5 oz of sugar instead of .5 oz (Apparently, there's a big difference ;) ) in to our mixing bowl. Being the quick thinkers that we are, we decided to just scrape off the top layer and compensate for the flour that came out with the sugar.

Well, it turns out that this was a blessing in disguise because with the added prep time this pretty much ensured that our dough was finished last. Thus, by the time our bread was rolled, shaped, scored, and ready to go in the oven, some loaves were already coming out.

Our loaves, double panned and waiting to go in to the oven.

Some of these loaves had burnt bottoms( This reminded me of my dad always saying "My biscuits are burning! My biscuits are burning! Haha, sorry.), seeing this my teacher mentioned that he likes to double pan his loaves to prevent that very thing. Wonder of wonders, we hadn't put our bread in yet, so we were able to double pan ours!Others were jealous to say the least.

Lulu and I have decided to take it slow on other lab days as well, so that we can be sure to glean all that we can from the mistakes of our classmates before potentially messing up our own product.

Lulu putting a water wash on her bread.

Lulu took more pictures on her camera, and when I get those I will post some of them.

Happy early Mother's Day to everyone!!!

Under Construction

Partial sleeper missing the sleeves and ribbing.

"Oh, we're half way there! Ohhh-oh! Living on a prayer!" These lyrics describe the current state of the sleeper I'm making in my sewing class. I put the zipper on and sewed the soles on yesterday in class. I previously posted that the zipper was going to kill me, but as it turns out it was probably the easiest component of this project yet.

We should be finishing it up tomorrow, and I am way excited! In other news, my laptop has decided to die with no notice or anything. How rude! Due to this recent unforseen tragedy my posts may be even fewer than they are now. I will do my bests to stay recent but blogging at the library isn't my favorite.

I like to sit and ruminate over my ideas and tweak things until they're just right. The enviorment of the lib just isn't conducive to that. Especially the 3rd floor, where I am typing now. I feel like I stumbled in to a photoshoot at a middle school. I am surrounded my Beautiful People and Elementary Education majors. Ugh...

Coming up:

Me in California for my splendiferous cousin's wedding!

Martha Stewart Watch Out!!

A salt pretzel on the left , cinnamon sugar on the right.

I'm am well on my way to becoming the next big thing in the cooking and overall craftiness industry. With all the cool stuff I'm learning in my baking and sewing classes I am almost unstoppable! Until we get to sewing zippers, that part may prove a hindrance to the rise of my Fortune 500 company.

For our first baking lab we made some really delicious Amish Pretzels! I have no idea what the Amish do to their pretzels that the rest of the world does not, but whatever it is I'm a fan!!!

It was way fun wearing my chef coat for the first time and can't wait until next Friday when I get to make French bread.

I also made lava cakes again at the request of my roommate Kelli, she's a huge fan. Shout out again, to my aunt, Amy, who gave me this wonderful and scrumptious recipe. I love it!!! I think that makes twice in one week that those tasty cakes were devoured by the girls of Apt# 110.

It kind of blows my mind, learning about all this stuff that is supposedly all domestic and housewife-ish. A lot of people equate being a housewife as not a real job or of less status, but let me tell you, it's serious business! I'm not even working with the added stress of an actual spouse or kids to deal with. But sewing is not an easy skill, or baking for that matter, to master.

My baking textbook reads like I'm taking a math course. There are intense conversions and scaling and proofing to manage. And have you ever seen all the buttons on a sewing machine? It looks more like the dashboard of a space rocket, and not a contraption designed to stitch fabric together. Even differentiating between jersey and interlock knit is a little bit intense.

My hat goes off to the women of old and of today that have mastered these skills. That's some serious dedication and effort.

Homemakers of the world, I salute you!