Frosting is delicious

Yesterday I ate cupcakes in the bath. The frosting alone has two sticks of butter.

Today I helped my new friend Rachel paint her living room a warm apple green. Seems like it would be in bad taste, but it isn't. Rachel has red hair and her husband, Stadislav, is from Ukraine. They are funny.

I got my Ohio drivers license and the only reason I am glad is because it is pink.

Soon I will be in the land of milk and honey, and I am excited.

R.I.P. Martha Stewart

Lookie what I did! Me, in all my domestic glory, and in the same 30 day time frame, I both baked a cake and did crafts. 

A coffee cake for General Conference, because it is tradition. 

Delicious, yes. But not quite as good as my mom's because I didn't have enough sour cream.

And R.I.P. Martha Stewart, because I am knocking off your ideas and busting it out in my own house.

Purchased, glued, and glittered all by yours truly. 

These are my only Halloween decorations, and I'm okay with that. 

El Casamiento de la Betsy

Betsy married Jackson in Manti, Utah. Besty is my supercool friend, and mission companion. 

She made her hairpiece and helped her mom make her dress. I know! So awesome!

Freshly sealed love.

 

Betsy is an art major, and her mom found this creative guestbook. Each half page was reserved for a sketch of whatever the book prompted, plus room to sign your name, obvio. For example, since I couldn't sketch the whole periodic table, I chose to sign on a page that said "secret door" and drew an ugly door covered with vines and rocks. 

Aside from the other delicious food (pulled pork, cornbread, mountains of fruit...) and desserts, this was their charming Tres Leches Cake covered in strawberries and cacti that Betsy made herself.

There we are, standing at the reception, minding our own business when all of a sudden my mission president and his wife breeze through the door! Whoa. Not expecting that. I was shocked to find my eyes filling with tears at the sight of them because I never felt like I deeply bonded with them (unlike most missionaries). I think it was the rush of all those memories and emotions coming back all at once.

Yes, we three (me, Abi, Betsy) were in a trio for three days. It was chaos. 

Cutie Jackson!

Two and a half of Betsy's three sisters. Poor Elise got hacked. Isn't it funny how different the sisters complexions are? Margaret looks like Rapunzel. Oh and their brother Preston is a dead ringer for Prince Harry. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the fab Jini, Betsy's if-you-were-a-boy-I'd-marry-you BFF and bridesmaid. Jini was in the MTC with us, she went to Germany.

Dancing in the backyard. Betsy holding Elise's baby. Lots of crazy dance moves. The reception was at This Is The Place Park in SLC, in the Kimball house. It was cool and old. The whole reception had a rustic, slightly latin-slash-victorian feel. Does that make sense?

 My cutie husband bustin' a move.

It was entertaining to watch Clarissa dance. Here it appears she has broken her wrist.

Amiguitas. Yay Betsy Brown!

Coke Army

Today the Coke Army took over the bottom shelf, engulfing the juice.

Don't you think Danny's orange juice is the icky kind? I don't like the false tangy orange flavor that sticks to the back of your tongue. You know the kind, the one that you got at birthday parties as a kid. Whoever thought cake and orange juice went together is sick. Just sick.

An International Affair

We stumbled upon the International Folk Festival and Street Fair this evening by accident. We were looking for the new barbecue food cart, Blister, and there we found it: smack in the middle of almond-eyed Egyptian dancers, Rexburgian Mexicans with flat tops, and ragged toddlers dodging their parents.

The pulled pork sandwich was okay, but nothing to write home about. A little dry, if you must know. We then sampled various fudges. I preferred the pinoche, but theirs was too soft so we brought home a baby brick of turtle fudge.

Meanwhile, crazy pre-teen double-dutchers were getting down to Lady Gaga in the middle of Main Street. I was a little shocked that the parents in this convent-esque town allowed their children to jump rope to such "controversial" music. Lady Gaga represents everything Rexburg abhors: Bisexuality, free love, and lookin' good.

I'm a tad ashamed to admit I saw Salt this weekend, and enjoyed it. I think I get embarrassed when I want to see something that has Angelina Jolie in it because I think of her as a tramp. I don't care how many kids she adopts or how many things she does with the UN, the woman's trampy. And weird. However. I always like a good spy/action movie. Maybe it's because I'm a total badass in my dreams. That's right, I fight and shoot guns with the best of them.

Holiday Weekend Wrap Up

I just ate Milk Duds and Sour Patch Kids for dinner while watching The A Team for the second time. It's pretty funny, you should see it if you haven't. My stomach hurts. And now I'm going to go finish Girl with a Pearl Earring. Friday we watched The Dark Knight and el DHT said I woke up around 2 a.m. thrashing and yelling. Most likely I was dreaming about the Joker slashing my face. Is it just me, or did that movie get twice as creepy after Heath Ledger killed himself?

Fourth of July was pretty good. More accurately, it was a bit of a bust. The parade in the morning was very commercialized, with only three actual floats. The temp never got above 70 and it put me into a depressive spin in the afternoon. Why does Idaho hate me and hate summer? Why does it have to be cold on Independence Day? People shouldn't want to buy hot chocolate instead of popsicles. It's wrong.

Later in the day Danny coaxed me off the couch and away from my beloved Spanish cooking channel and we made it to the fireworks/wannabe fair/who-can-be-the-most-white-trash contest in Idaho Falls.
We saw:
- a lady driving a motorized cart with food in one hand, while the other hand burped the cat wrapped in a blanket resting on her shoulder. Like a human baby. Please take a moment to fully visualize that.
- fourteen pregnant or still nursing teenage girls.
- various asians and mexicans who have adopted the signature stiff, ratted, extra deep side part Idaho hairdo.

The fireworks were good too.

Around midnight at the grocery store we sighted three unidentified--actually I knew one of them--BYU-I males trying, unsuccessfully, to buy wine without anyone noticing. They waited in the long line, clutching bottles against zip-up hoodies under which were surely hairless chests. All three were carded. I don't know what they were doing with a bottle of wine each. White Zinfindel no less. If you want to get smashed, maybe get something harder?

Happy Weekend

Edible Excrements 

Personally, I would've gone with a vanilla-chocolate swirl.

I love cookies.

I've been so busy watching old seasons of ANTM and making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I haven't really had any time to blog. I have to make cookies every week because I take them to work and when nobody is looking I eat them. That way, I don't have to share.

Quick rundown of the Rexburg life you've all been missing:

- Planting foxgloves and asters... in pots because we don't have planters...or a yard. I hope a green thumb is genetic because it seems like everyone else in my family's got it.

- My sister calls me a "scum sucking piece of trash douche bag" on Facebook.

- Got rave reviews for my work in our magazine dept (phew!) . But El Presidente won't let me change departments, and I might have to work through both of my cousins' weddings this summer. Boo!

- Bought makeup behind Danny's back. He just can't understand why you would ever need more than one eyeshadow.

-Monthly round of swollen tonsils is back. My body is trying to give me strep throat again. Traitor.

- Photo shoot. Pictures to follow. Oh and I've got to post pics from AAA Wedding too.

- An annoyed Danny who is waiting for me to watch Modern Family with him. What a hard life we lead.

New Hair

Today I went and got my hair did. I like it for now. Cabello liso, mmm. I almost never have my hair straight, so it's a big change. To me, straight hair just feels so, I don't know, contrived. Like it's too polished or something. I like to have my hair imperfect, air dried and a little mussy with some character. Is this so anal, to talk about hair this way?

Anyway, I went to The Defining Line salon for the first time, it was great! Getting my hair cut generally makes me kind of nervous because you never know if they're going to listen to you or brazenly hack away. But Marci was fantastic, I got a trim (half an inch?) and a glaze.

I wish my hair were longer--it's been so hard to grow out ever since that cank Hermana Montenegro chopped it to ear length. Argentines definitely don't know what an A-line is, and so she thought she helping me by "evening out" my hair. Boo. July will mark two years since the day she sheared me.

I had Danny take pictures of my hair (I'm bad with the camera timer) but none turned out to be a straight shot of my hair. So here's the Myspace style shot for your viewing pleasure.

Oh, and we made strawberry shortcake. And yes, that's it sitting on our bed. I like to eat in bed. A gross guilty pleasure.

On the Hunt

I hunted for Dove Milk Chocolate Eggs for three weeks. I couldn’t find them at Albertson’s, Broulim’s, Target or even Wal-Mart. Sold out everywhere. I had Danny search online. The phrase, Not in stock, appeared on every website. Desperation began to sink in. So I called my mom to share my plight.

These creamy chocolate eggs are an essential part of my commercialized Easter celebration. I don’t want to dye speckled, pastel or plaid eggs, I want to gorge on perfectly sized miniature chocolate eggs. I’m not a chocoholic like many women, but those round little candies call my name. And they conjure memories of my grandpa Leavitt sneaking me extra eggs when my grandma and mom weren’t looking. And you can’t resist the brightly colored, shiny foil wrappers. Lime, robin’s egg, fuchsia.

Just as I was about to give up the search and resign myself to the hideous fate of no Dove eggs on Easter, I received a miraculous text from Lindsay:

Hey the dove eggs that u like—are they individually wrapped?

She found them at Winco. And bought me two bags. Then a few days later, I got a package from my mom that included two more bags of Dove eggs. Joy! My dinner for three consecutive days consisted of Dove eggs. Only Dove eggs. Now I’m in rationing mode because I’ve got make less than half a bag last until Sunday.

But. Has anyone else noticed the packaging and wrappers this year? It’s all purple and silver. Nothing against purple and silver, but I prefer a mix of bright, fun, spring-ish colors. Not a fan, but I will eat them just the same. The packaging in the picture above is from 2009.

Yellow is for Spring.

I painted our kitchen table yellow. At first I faced opposition, then Danny said he was humoring me, then went with me to buy the paint all the while mumbling that my whole life is based upon "whims." This wasn't a whim, this was necessary. A yellow table is necessary.

How do you think it looks? I feel it's spring-appropriate. Cheery. I don't feel like I'm going to get sick of it any time soon either.

I had a bit of trouble with the distressing. Any tips for distressing the edges? I've never refinished or painted anything before, I feel so very domestic.

More distressing. The milk glass bottle I found at D.I., the ampersand from Anthropologie, flowers from Danny, and the framed poster with the unfortunate glare is something Mother Teresa and I picked up in Paris a few years ago. The cake stand in photos below is from Pottery Barn and was a wedding gift from the Thawley's.

Happy little Danny face. "At first I just thought you were being controlled by your whims, now I think you're a genius." He loves it.

Doesn't that fruit look scrumptious? We ate all of it. Except the lemon in the middle. It got hard.

Some Valentine's Day bounty from Heidi's Fudge. I'm not a fan of caramel apples, but these are the best I've ever tried! The apple pie flavor is delicious--it's the perfect mixture of homemade caramel and white chocolate with cinnamon and sugar. Mmm!

All I really ever need: Coke, a treat, flowers. In that order.