Master Chef

How excited was I when they announced at work that Sandy (the lady who sometimes does catering for the executives) would be having a cooking class? Pretty excited. Luckily I wasn't the only one who was excited, Marie and Hilary signed up too. So after work we learned to make Beef Wellington with roasted asparagus, spinach salad and chocolate strawberry ice cream sandwiches. Delicious! Maybe my favorite part of the whole thing though was the group that showed up to take the class. There were 9 ladies and 1 man total. All of the ladies are simply delightful and the man is super quirky/nerdy and it was a fun group to hang out with.

We packaged our food to go but I think almost everyone stayed and ate it because it looked too good. And it was. Here's Marie and Hilary enjoying their food.

And I was there too!

So, If you're looking for a good meal just give me a call. I'm a pro now.

And if you know me at all, you know I love a good "that's what she said" statement so a highlight of the night was when one lady said to the one guy at the class "that's a nice package of meat you have there." I'm not making this up people.

Praise to the Man

I feel almost bad about this, like I'm jumping on some sort of bandwagon, but I feel a need to say something too.

Our beloved prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, has passed away.



What a truly remarkable man. I know that I cannot adequately put into words what a wonderful person he was. I loved him for his sense of humor, his humility, his love for his wife and family, his kindness, and his ability to laugh at himself. To me he had the ability to make the things he spoke about feel achievable. After listening to him speak I always felt uplifted and more optimistic about life. I had the opportunity to read his biography for a class I took and I highly recommend it to anyone who would want to know more about him and his life. I was so impressed with how he dedicated his entire life to serving the people and the gospel he loved.

When his wife died I sobbed. I remember being afraid that he wouldn't be around much longer either and that while he was he would be without his beloved companion. When I heard on Sunday that he had passed away I was sad for a moment but I quickly became happy that he will be able to see her again. He lived 97 wonderful years and was such a great example. One of my favorite quotes from him was one he gave at his wife's funeral and I think it applies if you are LDS or not:

"It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, If we will pray to Him, If we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers."

If you have a favorite quote please share!

I want to be friends with Matt Romney...

A few randoms thoughts:

1. The snow has got to stop, it's getting out of hand. Please don't tell me "welcome to Utah" because A. I'm from Colorado and I know what snow is, and B. I've lived in Utah for five years now and it's never been this bad.
2. I want to be a Virginia Opossum. Their gestation period is 12-13 days. Not that I'm gestating but I might some day and 12 days sounds about the length of time I could be patient with that whole situation.
   
3. I had a fabulous coconut shrimp salad with a mango dressing, black beans and jicama for lunch and it has been the one redeeming thing on this wretched winter day. That and my pal Marie who paid for it because I apparently left my wallet at home. (See what I mean about today?)
   
4. Last night I HAD to buy a few new songs on iTunes because I noticed my total songs was at 666. (I haven't recovered all my music from my old hard drive yet.)

If you've got an impulse let it out

Weekend recap. Before Tuesday this time. Go me.

Last week seemed to take absolutely forever. I ended up sleeping in on Friday and I had some errands to run before work so I was two hours late. Oops. My friend Melissa and I had plans for Friday night to go see an improv comedy show called The Thrillionaires. Because I am a model procrastinator I hadn't picked up the tickets yet but that was on my list of errands before I went to work. So, as I'm driving I'm was listening to the radio and they are giving away tickets to the show plus tickets to tickets to U2 in 3D (which I wasn't interested in but thought I might check it out online and possibly become interested in). So I called in and after what seemed like an inordinate amount of rings I won! Hooray! They took my info and told me to check the website to get directions to the office. When I got to work I went to the website and found out that the office was an hour away and closed at 6. I work until 5. And the U2 jazz was on a night I already had plans so I called the radio station and told them to give my tickets to someone else. I love that the one time I win something I don't actually get to use it. I ended up being extra glad to give my tickets up since I ended up working until 8 putting together gift bags for Sundance.

The Thrillionaires show turned out to be really good and I'm glad we went. The first half they perform an improv play from a few suggestions from the audience and then the second half is a musical also with suggestions from the audience. I found out that every show has a different theme and ours was Film Noir. I especially loved the musical which ended up being about a boy who just wants to Etch-a-Sketch. Here's Melissa and I with the evening's special guest performer:

Saturday was, for lack of a better phrase, not what I expected it to be. I had to work to finish the forsaken file folder project but I imagined the whole day going differently. The evil man who had me working on the project was kind enough to send over two temps to help speed things along. The temps could only work between 7 and 3 so to maximize what I could get done I went in at 7. My temps didn't speak English. At least not very well. I found out that at 7AM I don't speak Spanish very well, nor do I give out instructions very well. These file folders all have an individual, 9 digit number associated with them and they needed to be in order but I didn't communicate that well enough to the temps. I found out after they had done about 300 folders that they weren't in order. I showed them how to do more folders in order. We worked with movies in the background until the temps left at 3. I thought I would only be about 3o minutes more but once I tried to re-order the ones they messed up I ended up being at work until 5:30. That meant no nap and no energy to do the things I had planned on working on. I needed new powder for my face so I stopped at Nordstrom/MAC on my way home and decided that I deserved three new eye shadows. And I decided I needed a drink from the cafe. That was where I saw one of the performers from the comedy show and became oddly star struck. Funny moment when I told him I thought the show was great and he asked if I was there. No genius, I just telepathically knew. Here is what 2,700 file folders look like, just in case you were wondering:
Sunday was luxuriously lazy. Sleeping in. Church. Eggs. Football playoffs. (Boo to the Giants) Extreme Home Makeover. Internet. Cake batter. Lovely.

The 23rd Birthday

Today, in thinking about my birthday yesterday, I was overwhelmed with how lucky I am to have such great friends. Luckily my friends don't just show their greatness on my birthday but they did make me feel extra special on my day. I got phone calls and texts from far away friends, cake from my co-workers, a rad mini scrapbook chronicling several years of friendship, pretty earrings, concert tickets, a choir sang to me and my mom told me that I'm her favorite. Okay, not the last one. To celebrate I grabbed some of those wonderful friends and went to dinner. I forgot to get my camera out before Summer and Sean left, and Amy left before the group shot but here's everyone else. Erica, Heather, Myself, Melissa T, Melissa L, Sam then Hilary, Corinne, Ashley and Becky. I swear I have guy friends, they just had dates or basketball games I guess.

Love the funny faces, you might think "what's so funny about sticking your tongue out and touching it?" but I have a treasured picture from what I think is my 7th birthday party and we're all making funny faces except for my one friend who just stuck her tongue out and touched it. Still funny many years later.

Hil, Feath and myself.

Sam, Becky and Erica.

Ashley sandwich! (Not a Melissa sandwich Ash...)

Amy was there for a while but she left to fulfill her church calling and she was pretty happy about that.

After dinner Hilary took me to the One Republic concert at UVSC. I only really knew the one song but I had heard good things and was excited.

This was the first opening act we saw, The Daylights. We really liked them. I guess there was a local group before them... oops.


Eric Hutchinson was the 2nd opening act we saw and he quickly became my boyfriend. He was super funny and I LOVED his music. He played several of his own songs and then last he played this gem:




R. Kelly and The Temptations? Are you kidding me? SO funny, I caught the very end of it with the trusty new camera. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this but the camera shake is due to my dancing.



One Republic! They were really good, or the lead singer was at least. He's got a pretty killer voice. Plus you've got to love anything with a cello right? Cel-lo?
One of the prettiest songs was when the rest of the band left and it was just lead singer dude, a piano and the aforementioned cello. Simply beautiful.


So after the show Hil and I decided that we for sure needed to buy the Eric Hutchinson CD. (I'm thinking I will have to write a full out post about just that cause I love it.) Anyway, we're squeezing through the mob trying to get to the merch table, throwing some elbows along the way and I notice that the guy walking in front of us kinda looks like my new boyfriend. (Cause I totally know what he looks like from behind right?) I called his name and he didn't hear me. Ear plugs, he's very wise. I yelled to Hilary "follow that man!" and I snaked my way up to buy the CD and a shirt. Then I found Hilary again and I found my boyfriend! Woo!
Look how happy we are together! He signed our CDs, mine said Happy Birthday and Hilary's said Not Happy Birthday. See he's so funny. And charming. I'm pretty sure we're meant to be.

I had a wonderful day. Thank you friends for helping me have a great day and thank you mom for the part you played in helping me have a birthday to begin with.

Weekend Recap

Friday involved some of this:

(I love Hil's sad face...Jenna and I...Hot Marie... and me, eating my "Happy Bithday Jodi" cheesecake [complete with misspelling])

And then Saturday was mostly consumed with this (and so will at least 24 more hours of my life):
Sunday always starts with this:

And always ends with this:This Sunday happened to include this in between:

"I F Bomb hate you..."

ANTM

Gross self portrait

Crazy Friends

Thanks Feath

Mmmm, they were delicious. I learned that it is no good to take cookies that are only minutes out of the oven and put them in the freezing cold. It sucks the moisture right out of them. Luckily that's something a little milk can fix. It also helps to leave half the batch inside.

Unibrow of Solidarity

I will be growing mine. Will you?

Major Flashback

*This is slightly long but totally worth it.

Some of you know that my beloved laptop died a slow and painful death last April/May-ish. Thankfully she waited until after finals to die or I might have been the one to die instead. Yesterday I finally was able to look at the files that Corey recovered from my hard drive. I had so much stuff on there (the cause of death). Journal entries mostly from my freshman year, letters to friends on their missions and a certain soldier in Iraq mostly from my sophomore year and many assignments in varying degrees of quality from all my years. I even found my essays from my application to BYU. I'm actually still kind of proud of those, the quality is still pretty good while I'm slightly embarrassed at other essays I've turned in. The most exciting thing was that most of my pictures were recovered and the ones that weren't I can still get. Looking through my files and pictures was kind of an emotional experience. I laughed really hard at some and I also remembered some sad things but mostly I've realized how grateful I am for the ups and downs of the last five years because I've learned so much. (If I'm putting what I learned into practice is a whole other thing.)

I would like to share a few gems with you. There are some other pictures that have longer stories that I'm excited to share later but here are a few that are just fun.

Sophomore year sometime in the middle of February. It had been really cold for a while and we were tired of it so we got out like 4 Forman Grills, laid out beach towels, hung some Ali-made decoration and had ourselves a summer BBQ. Since we wanted it to seem as authentic as possible we all wore capri pants or shorts and cranked up the heat in our apartment.

Junior year sometime right before Thanksgiving. I had a guy "friend" who loved Martha Stewart and so a few friends and I pulled a little prank. You might be able to read the note that "Martha" wrote to him if you click on the picture to make it bigger.


Freshman year during finals but I'm not sure during what semester. Two cute girls lived next door to me in the dorms and one of them was really stressed out about her finals so the other one and I did a little decorating for her while she was at a late night library session. The best part was that we altered a picture of Gordon B. to say "Wear Your Best" instead of "Be Your Best."

Freshman year again in the fall sometime before Heath and Mal chopped their hair. And before it got cold. The windows in our dorms had a lock that prevented you from opening them more than a few inches. I'm sure there were several reasons for this, the main one being to limit your suicide options. We found out that on some windows you could knock the lock out from the outside so we fashioned a bed leg and a blow dryer into some sort of hammer and unsuccessfully tried to knock our lock out. The best part of this one? It was our RA's idea.

Freshman year. I have a vague memory of taking this but I don't remember when or where but I still love it.

Sophomore year in the fall. Just messing around with the roommates and the boys next door taking pictures. Ali decided to try and get her foot in every picture we took that night and mostly succeeded. I am NOT licking her foot.

First Senior Year. My roommate had been in a car accident and Reid decided to use her oxygen mask for... something.

First Senior year in the fall. We had a sweet longboarding gang called the Sniders and we would load up Reid's minivan and go. I think I can count 8 longboards in there. These nights also occasionally involved "ghost riding the whip."

Summer between Junior year and Senior year. Heather and I bought the most beautiful beta fish that I would take care of while she was in Hawaii and then she would take care of him while I was in Colorado. Our Korean roommate named him something that sounded like noonchi because she said he was lashy (lazy). Heath and I named him Petey for reasons that can't be mentioned. Petey also died which seems appropriate if you knew what his name meant.

Wow, this post began with the death of my computer and ended with the death of my fish. You can't just get that anywhere people.

Sad news for former S-Hall-ers

I drove by good old Desert Towers this morning and it looks like S Hall will be gone soon. My old room is where I drew the little red star. Check out R hall:
I feel a little sad, I can't lie. I always thought I could have DT to look at and say "well, at least I don't live in a shoebox anymore."

I took several pictures but after the first one I heard some yelling so I stopped and looked around and saw several construction workers waving at me. I waved back and they laughed. It was kind of odd.

It's not hard to remember where you're car is...

...when you're in the last row of the parking lot.

It should not be that hard to find a parking spot at 8 in the morning. I'm just saying.

I can't wait until people start slacking again so I can actually park.

Can I get some fries with that?

I am angry with the internet. Actually more accurately I am angry with my firewall and McDonalds. I really really wanted to blog and since my firewall blocks Google I could not. (Who blocks Google? It is the epicenter of everything wonderful on the internet.) I went to the McD's that's close to my house because they're supposed to have free wireless but they did not. Liars. (Yeah, I was going to blog from McD's, I'm classy like that.) Now I am stealing internet from a secret location. I hope this shows you (the people who do not read my blog but someday might) how dedicated I am to you.

Really this is all Heather's fault for getting me all excited to blog. We ate lunch at the amazing Pizzeria 712. I'm not kidding when I say I loved it. If you are in the Provo/Orem area (heck anywhere in Utah) I humbly recommend that you try it out. As an appetizer we tried the sweet potato soup with maple cream and pecans. I am making it my life mission to figure out how to make it now. I'll let you know how that goes. Then we shared two "personal" pizzas. Heather had the Speck and Soppressata and I had the house made sausage. There was some Panna Cotta involved for dessert too. Everything was wonderful and we even chatted with the owner/chef for a moment. Look how happy I was:
And look how delicious the pizza was:

Wow. That was lunch and I'm still full.