The Great Salsa Spill of 2011

It's times like these I wish I had children to blame my messes on...

Yes, this really is my delicious homemade salsa, all over my carpet AND Brad's foot....hee hee hee. (I realize it looks like something else, but it is totally a salsa stain.) I guess it was only a matter of time until I spilled something on the carpet - I am a bit of a klutz. And to make matters worse, instead having a weeks worth of salsa, now I will be lucky if it lasts the night. Ah well. C'est la vie.

Oh and no worries, the stain came out of the carpet super easy. So my carpet does not  look nasty.

Epic Ticket

Recently while playing Ticket to Ride with some friends of ours, Brad and I tied, in every way possible. Not only did we have the same total points, but we also tied with the longest train AND the number of missions completed. 

I know what you are thinking.... that is SOO TOTALLY WICKED!!!

Ok maybe not, but we thought it was worth documenting.

Success!!!!

Sooooo if you have read my blog long enough you might remember these:

My anorexic chocolate chip cookies. 

I thought I had found the solution... but I didn't. Not really. So I just gave up on making chocolate chip cookies. Until last night. I really wanted me some chocolate chip cookies. 

So I went HERE and looked up some recipes, and decided on this one. I followed the directions to a tee and.......

Check it out!

They look normal! And they taste pretty good too.

Happiness

Yes - this post is about this fun craft that I made this week. So, if posts like this make you want to gag or throw a pillow then read no more.

If you want to make a fun Valentines Day wreath than I highly suggest this one. It is SUPER simple, and it kept me busy while Brad was off in Houston for a couple of days. Be warned, you will have to watch 3-4 movies to cut out all the felt circles. (I highly suggest TheYoung Victoria). The only trouble I had was finding a styrofoam heart wreath. I seriously went to 6 craft stores AND looked online until I FINALLY hunted down the silly thing in a hobby lobby 10 minutes from my apartment.

 Yes, I was so excited to find the thing that I did a photo shoot. I almost started dancing in the store, but for my dear friend Marci's sake, I resisted. 

Go ahead and laugh, you know you want to.

Intruder Alert

I have always been a little paranoid about intruders coming into my apartment  or being in my apartment when I come home and Brad is not with me or at work or wherever. I even sometimes think in my mind what I would do if I were ever caught in that situation. I don't obsess over this paranoia, but it is something I think on to kind of "prepare" myself mentally. Just in case.

Anywho. Today I returned to my apartment thinking about what I needed to in the 1 1/2 hours I had until Brad got home from his quick trip to Houston. I start walking to my bedroom when I heard a door open.... in my bedroom... and froze. SOO many thoughts came to my head. I was hoping it was maintenance, but I hadn't put in a work order. I thought through an escape method and started to back up towards the front door and was about to "calmly" yell, "Excuse me, but what do you think you are doing in my home! Get Out!" when Brad steps out of the bathroom with a big grin on his face. He had caught an earlier flight and was home 2 hours early!

Needless to say I was shocked/relieved/confused/surprised/happy all at once, and I am sure the look on my face was priceless. Too bad Brad didn't have his camera ready.

Reading. It's what I do.

So as I hinted before, I have had a lot of time to read the last six months or so, and I am slowly starting to chip away at my list of books to read. Lately I have been on a juvenile/ young adult literature binge. When I was in middle school I went from reading Babysitters Club and Anne of Green Gables (favorite) to Animal Farm, Lord of the Rings, and Great Expectations. So I have been making up for all the wonderful novels I missed out on.

Right before Thanksgiving my sister Allison suggested I read some books from one of her favorite authors, Shannon Hale. So I did. And I must say I love her writing. I read all of the Books of Bayern before Christmas, and I just finished the Princess Academy today. And Rapunzel's Revenge is on my hold's request list in the library. haha. I would say all of these stories are realistic-fantasy, some based of obscure fairytales. But if you aren't against dabbling into a little bit of juvenile/young adult literature, then give these books a try. And please don't judge the books by these silly new covers:

 The original cover is much, much better:

And for those for those of you who do not care for juvenile/young adult literature (you are missing out) I will have you know I am slowly reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, and I am completely enthralled. I am reading it more slowly because it is the kind of book that makes you stop and think about what is being said. It's thought provoking. Every time I read a chapter I am amazed at how insightful C.S. Lewis was.

And as a side note, I am going to start updating my Goodreads account more often, so if for some reason you want to know what else I have been reading - then check it out.

Who Are You?

Today was my second day of  teaching my 2 classes.

Student: "Miss, are you still Mrs. Morgan?"
Me: "Am I still Mrs. Morgan? Of course I am!"
Student: "Well your hair is curly today"


Another class another student: "Miss, your hair looks better today."
What I said: "Thank you"
What I thought: Was my hair THAT bad yesterday?


Yesterday my hair was straight... today I curled it (with a FLAT IRON, cool right?). It seems clear to me that my students prefer my hair curly, and I kind of do too. And I think I could get away with having an alter-ego by wearing my hair differently at different events. It works for Hannah Montana. For now, I will just confuse my students.

Also, note how they say Miss. They say this to me all the time. I love it.

Tutoring and Potatoes

I HAVE A JOB!!!! A part-time job to be exact - that actually allows me to use my college degree!!! (I almost gave up and started looking at tellering positions). I will be teaching for Sylvan Learning Center. I will be going into elementary schools to teach small classes of kids who are struggling in math and help them get back on track.So far I am teaching two classes of 8 students. And all the schools are inner-city schools. Pretty exciting I know.

I am really excited to start working and to have somewhere that I have to be at a certain time. Having all the free-time in the world is way over-rated. Most of you will just have to trust me on this one. After a few of weeks of doing essentially nothing but reading books and staring at screens in pj's you start checking the mirror to make sure you are still a human, and not a potato. Then you start trying to find ways to keep yourself busy, which is harder than it seems. You might even start to miss lectures and homework.(Don't worry - this is a fleeting feeling.)

I digress. The whole point is that I now have a job, and something meaningful to do, and this a good thing. A VERY good thing.

Hello! (hello) Hello! (hello)

During Sharing Time Lesson:

Primary Teacher: "And what do you think it means to 'hold fast' to something?"
Primary Student: "Well, like when we fast.... on Fast Sunday.... well we fast and we want to hold it for as long as we can."

Not quite, but I sure liked this explanation!

Yes, we are now primary teachers. No, this didn't happen in our class - it was during sharing time. We teach CTR 7, or in other words, all the kids turning 8 this year. We are pretty excited about it (at least I am, I can't speak for Brad).

:)

Confused by any of this language? Like what in the world is Primary and Sharing Time or Fast Sunday? Go here and you can learn more about what I believe, and even chat with someone online!

Nosewarmers

Elder Morris and Elder Orr keep their noses nice and toasty by using these bad boys I made for them.

Christmas Shenanigans - The Sequel

Christmas Eve started nice and early for us. We got up at 5:30 and flew into Portland. Once we got there, we had just enough time to wrap presents and get ready for the Morgan family Christmas Eve traditions.

We started with this year's Christmas Eve movie

Not as good as the first two - but still a good movie. I especially enjoyed the character Eustace - the actor did a GREAT job. Kept me laughing until the very end. 

Then we walked on over to this year's Christmas Eve Dinner

'twas delicious!

Somewhere along the way we stumbled across this beautiful, huge tree and took some pictures

 

The Morgan's (minus Kristin and Trevor)

And then we headed on home to listen to Dad Morgan read the Christmas Story and open Secret Pal gifts.

Allison was my Secret Pal...

She knows me so well :)

Christmas Day was filled with presents, dinner at Gramma Morgan's and lots of family game time.

One of Brad's favorite presents:

That's right, dominoes shipped directly from La Republica Dominicana. He was completely surprised.  I love the estatic-kid-on-Christmas-morning expression.

The rest of the week was spent being lazy, building puzzles, playing games, over eating, and just spending time with the family. It was everything that a Christmas Break should be.

Christmas Shenanigans - Take 1

On Christmas Eve Eve Brad and I decided to have our own little celebration that included going out to eat, me opening an early Christmas gift (it was too big for the plane), watching The Little Drummer Boy AND we went to Sea World just to see Clyde and Seamore's Christmas show.

 Check out them halls! Clyde and Seamore decorated for Santa.

 The walrus is ALWAYS my favorite. Just look at all that blubber!

The otter is my second favorite.... look at how cute he is!

On Christmas Eve we caught an early flight to spend the Holiday in good old Boring, OR.... more to come later.