My life philosophy is that if experience and knowledge are the only things you can take with you, you'd better acquire as much of it as you can. That being said, I also consider the smallest things to be great experiences. For example, in my quest to make as much of Pinterest as I can (actually USING it instead of just looking at pretty things) I came across the idea of growing your own green onions. You just don't use the roots of the bunch you buy from the store, and then put them in a jar of water like so:
I stuck them outside the window in the little hallway that serves as our "fire escape" and sometimes has some natural light. Apparently it has enough! See how tall those suckers got! I don't know if they'll continue to grow as fast as I'd like, but I've gotten much more out of them than I usually get, especially since I never finish them before they wilt. If nothing else if I end up buying more, I can get them to last longer by just keeping them alive. Can I just say how super exciting this is? It's just a little thing, but I really love green onions. I mean I really love green onions.
My neighbors had some friends over tonight. They sounded like they were having a good time. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge them their good fortune in having friends who just drop by, but looking down at my hot date, no matter how much fun we were having together, my glue gun just doesn't have great conversation skills.
ON THE UP SIDE! I now have all these new goodies! All in a night's work for me and my sexy glue gun.
I'm not so sure about a couple of these. The bird clip for instance is really heavy, and I'm scared it will fall off if I try to wear it. The pinecone flower is iffy because it's, well, a pinecone flower. Aaaaand the rusty bottle caps might be too eccentric even for me. BUT I HAD FUN!
P.S. Nice new footstool right? Maybe I should do a blog about all the awesome stuff I find for free in the hall.
Every good little Mormon mommy teaches every good little Mormon daughter to cook right? Well if the fact that my mother shops for groceries three hours away from her house at Whole Foods, and that though she has gone without using shampoo for a while, and the whole energy medicine guruness (whilst being a conservative Republican but that's not strange for a Mormon, just strange for the rest of this stuff) wasn't different enough, she never forced me to learn to cook. Not that she wasn't a FABULOUS cook, which she most certainly was, or that she wouldn't teach me, I just never learned. I was required to make one meal a week as part of my chores, and so I learned two family favorites by heart and rotated every week.
Which isn't to say that I can't follow a recipe. But some things aren't supposed to require a recipe. Scrambling eggs for instance. French toast. Pancakes. Sure there are recipes, but you should be able to make these things without one. At least that's what my husband thinks. Steven made pancakes all the time and tried to teach me. Every batch I've made has had something odd going on with it, although I thought I was basically doing the same thing every time.
Slowly but surely I'm adding to my repertoire. I made up my own (delicious by the way) recipe for chicken enchiladas, I taught myself how to make mashed potatoes, and I even made my first batch of oatmeal cookies which were okayed by the home teachers.Tonight I might even surprise Steven with something new. Twice baked potatoes perhaps?
Those pancakes were awfully cakey... Bad egg to flour ratio perhaps? Perhaps...
Well more specifically 7:30-4:30. As in Steven's orientation at the Ammon Walmart tomorrow! It's so nice to feel secure in our finances. On top of that, my mom was able to figure out exactly what she can pay me for working on her website, and it's perfect! I can work up to ten hours a week, which puts a significant dent in my student loans and leaves room for the other stuff I'm working on this summer! So get on over and check it out so she can continue to pay me!
Usually a special treat for Cinco De Mayo, in the weeks since I participated in my family's time-honored tradition of celebrating Mexican food, these tasty little buggers have become a staple. Steven was thoroughly unappreciative of the chorizo that I drool over, so he made some plain beef ones for himself. Which took about a twentieth of the time that mine had. And were still pretty good, although chorizo will ALWAYS be my favorite. We've even experimented with black beans and turkey. The former worked fine but I didn't like the latter. Turkey is great for enchiladas, but not chimis in my opinion. Anyway all you really do is put your filling in a well wrapped flour tortilla and deep fry it.
Don't they look delicious? Also, admire the platter I made for my amazing mother-in-law!
Which is really the one and only downside to this newfound staple... it's so danged unhealthy! This is why they'd been a special treat up until now! But without the chorizo they're just soooo EASY!
This video was posted on The Carol Blog and it immediately grabbed my attention. I had some similar experiences with my name. My legal name is Jessica, and I've had a tumultuous relationship with it for as long as I can remember. My mother actually told me as well that I was a Jessica, not a Jess or a Jessie, but that didn't bother me. What bothered me is that I couldn't own it. I just never felt like that was me. Something I really did relate to though was being told that it was "the name I was given," and so I was stuck with it.
And I really did feel stuck. I tried everything in the way of name changes. There was a period that I wanted to be called Alex, once I tried to get people to call me Medusa, and there were two times I almost got away with being called by my middle name, Morgan. The first time it didn't work because there was another girl named Morgan in my age group, but for the first (and last) time there wasn't another Jessica. The second time, when we moved to Texas, I was going to introduce myself as Morgan to my new friends, but forgot and so gave up. Oh and at camp I got called Eggs. I really was stuck, and it was right during my most image defining moments as a teenager when the solution came.
A quick segue into something on the subject of name changes that has stuck with me since I read it a decade ago. I say a decade ago with all the wish that I could go back and see myself on the exact day that I first read this book. It's one of those books that stick with you, and you don't always know why. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli was one of those books for me. Also, the colors of this picture as shown on the computer screen do it NO justice. I have it sitting next to me and the thing practically glows. Anyway, a quote: "'But the name,' said Kevin, leaning forward. 'Is it real?' 'The name?' Archie shrugged. 'Every name is real. That's the nature of names. When she first showed up, she called herself Pocket Mouse. Then Mudpie. Then - what? - Hullygully, I believe. Now...' 'Stargirl.' The word came out whispery; my throat was dry. Archie looked at me. 'Whatever strikes her fancy. Maybe that's how names ought to be, heh? Why be stuck with one your whole life?'"
It's interesting to me that one of my heroes is a T1. Also that looking back she stood for a lot of huggly wuggly green bordering on anti-American trash that I don't agree with now. But I still look up to this fictional character as someone who shaped her own self in a way that I always try to.
Which leads me to another point: I made very conscious decisions about the kind of person I was going to grow to become. I think that my name had a lot to do with it.
Scotty. How did I get that name? I offer a variety of answers, but the truth is that in the middle of my struggle to define myself, a boon was granted straight from heaven, and his name was Ed. He walked into my life one night, and walked back out that same night. Sure I saw him around, but it somehow wasn't the same person who asked me "What is your favorite thing about yourself?" Now my family is mostly German. And the rest is mostly Swiss. But there's an extremely small amount of Irish and English in there, and if you go back far enough they're basically the same thing... together with Scottish. On top of that I could swear that my dad once said that he had an ancestor or two from Scotland, which he denies today. Regardless, I was feeling very Scottish that year, and told my new friend that was my favorite thing about myself. He promptly responded that he would call me Scotty.
The first play that I ever worked on was The Rainmaker, by N. Richard Nash, produced at my extremely recently Alma Mater, Brigham Young University - Idaho. I was the props runner. Interesting that props is my favorite thing now, huh? Anyway I had been going by Scotty for a few years at that point, but was still getting a few people asking me why in the world I would change my perfectly respectable, if not unfortunately common, name to
something as "ridiculous" as Scotty. One of the characters, Starbuck (Stargirl, Starbuck, common theme here?), changed his name as well.
I was taking makeup at the same time and I got to give Jimmy his black eye. I gave a few others a black eye as well...
STARBUCK: What's wrong with my name? LIZZIE: It sounds fake! It sounds like you made it up! STARBUCK: You're darn right! I did make it up! Why not? You know what name I was born with? Smith! Smith, for the love of Mike, Smith! Now what kind of a handle is that for a fella like me! I needed a name that had the whole sky in it! And the poer of a man! Star-buck! Now there's a name - and it's mine! LIZZIE: NO it's not! You were born Smith - and that's your name! STARBUCK: You're wrong, Lizzie! The name you choose for yourself is more your own than the name you were born with!
I have to say that I agree with Starbuck. At the same time... and this may come as a shock to some... I'm not 100% certain that I'll be Scotty forever. Like Stargirl, I may grow and change and become someone different. At one point in her life she went back to her given name for a little while. The problem is that I don't want to go through the same things that I went through when I changed to Scotty. I mean, my family still calls me Jessica. Will my husband's family continue to call me Scotty if I change again? Will I have three names?!?! And I don't know what I'd change it to. I don't think I could go back to Jessica, even if I wanted to, which I don't. In the words of a good friend who happened upon my given name while retrieving a book on hold for me at the library (that is what I could actually make out between his peals of laughter) "Your name is JESSICA?!?!?! That doesn't fit you at ALL!!!"
So yes this post is ambiguous, open-ended, and LOOOOOONG, but that was what was on my mind today.
Someday I'll glue these bracelet-holding bottles (or maybe better, two brown ones?) into a wooden box to hang from the wall. No sense taking up the counter space after all.
My necklaces and hair clips.
Snazzy idea for my headbands, yes? I originally thought of using clothespins but this works fine :)
Before I started this project I was only thinking of it as organization. Little did I realize that it would actually transform my bathroom at the same time. Something about all the Type 3 colors makes it such an inviting place now, instead of it being white and drab. I'm surrounded by things I love as I'm getting ready for the day!
