hot, Hot, HOT!

Have you ever had those times where something was so amazing, disturbing, puzzling, or otherwise that you did a double take? You had to look twice to truly believe that your eyes were not deceiving you? I had that experience today. I glanced at the thermometer on my back deck, thought, "no, that's not right," and had to look again to make sure I was reading it correctly. I mean, the only time I've seen a thermometer get above 110 F is when it was in a piece of meat, candy, or a hot tub. Sure enough though, the thermometer on my back deck reads 112 F right now. Check it out:





Of course, that's a bit inflated because it's catching some of the reflection off of the house, but according to http://www.weather.com/, it's 106 F here. When did I move to Arizona?


My poor lawn (but check out my zucchini in the upper right hand corner of the picture - so awesome!):

Apparently, we're breaking heat records all over the place and this heat will continue for the next few days. People are lining up to buy a/c units, fans, anything to keep them cool. We even had to change our YW activity tonight because it's so hot. We were planning to do some outdoor cooking (part of Girls Camp certification) and make friendship beads to hand out at camp, but opted for a cooler alternative instead - swimming!

In all of this, I'm most worried about my cat. My loud, skittish, unfriendly, will pee inside my house (and not in the litter box) if I don't constantly watch him, only wants attention on his terms cat that just kinda came with the house when we bought it. Did I mention he's also a medium to long-hair, black cat? Now do you understand why I'm worried? He's the closest to a child that we have and I worry, what can I say?

Now, I don't mind the heat so much during the day. Heck, I work in an air conditioned office, all is well. It's the nighttime that can be rough - so hard to sleep in the heat. Some people might call us wimps; I prefer creative. You see, we're rearranging some of the furniture in our house so the mattress for the guest bed was on end in the hallway. Full credit goes to Eddie for this one, he suggested we lay out the mattress on the living room floor so as to be downwind from the window a/c unit in our kitchen. Ah finally, a good night's rest!

Strange Adventure

Every year for our vocal recital, my voice teacher puts on a show. Many recitals tend to have one student perform [clap, clap, clap], sit down, next student performs [clap, clap, clap], and so on until all students have performed their pieces. My teacher likes to make this entertaining for the audience and stretch her students so that they're not just singing, but acting as well. This year we are performing selections from the Gilbert & Sullivan productions of, Pirates of Penzance, Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard, and The H.M.S. Pinafore.

During our rehearsal last night, we practiced "Strange Adventure" from The Yeomen of the Guard. While singing, we will apparently be dressed in Renaissance period dress and dancing. This piece is written as a 4-part (SATB) a capella quartet. I get to sing the bass part (up an octave, of course). This is a great song. Found a version of it on YouTube that I like (the song starts about 2 minutes through the clip) - check it out: Strange Adventure.

As for mine and Ed's 'strange adventure,' we went to IKEA on Saturday. We love IKEA! It's one of my favorite places to shop (along with COSTCO, Michael's and Macy's - but I'll save those three for another day). We could spend the day getting lost in IKEA and just thinking of all of the possibilities. As an added bonus, they have a cafeteria there and serve a Swedish meatball lunch (so yummy!). So, we trekked down to IKEA and wandered there for a few hours. We found the perfect entertainment center for our guest room. Here's the great part, it was on sale for 50% off! The sales clerk saw us looking at it and writing down the warehouse locator number so she went and checked and found that there was only one left in the warehouse. She came and told us so we raced through the rest of the store (not an easy feat) to pick it up and then had to maneuver the cart with two big boxes on it back to where we were, so we could continue our meandering through the store. Now, IKEA is a one-way street. Trying to steer a cart the wrong way through the store to get back to where we started was like trying to run against the current of a raging river! But this story has a happy ending, we got our entertainment center, ate the Swedish meatball lunch, and had a fun afternoon just wandering through IKEA.

Now comes the fun of rearranging things in the house and making everything fit just right. So Eddie has been working hard on that project. Hey, I just do the shopping here, Eddie's the handy man! :)

Yummy Food

I don't consider myself a great cook. I do love to try new recipes though and add my little improvements to others. Today I made some zucchini bread using some zucchini from my garden last year that I shredded, sealed in my Food Saver and froze. Mmmm...

So, I've decided to share a couple of recipes in my post today.

The other day, I found this recipe for Raspberry Jam Bars - so quick, so easy and SO yummy:

Oatmeal Jam Bars
(originally from allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 2 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
• 3/4 cup margarine, melted
• 1 cup raspberry jam
• 1 T water
  
  DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together oats, cake mix, and melted margarine so that it makes nice clumps and there is no dry mix left. Press 1/2 of the oats mixture evenly into the bottom the prepared pan. In a separate bowl, mix jam with water, and spread over the crust. Sprinkle the remaining oat mixture evenly over the top.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 18 to 23 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. Cool before cutting into bars.

I'm pretty sure the water is to help thin out the jam for easier spreading. Instead, I measured out the 1 cup of jam and then microwaved it for about 30 seconds. When heated, the jam is pourable which makes spreading it over the crust so much easier. Also, I didn't have any margarine, so I used butter. I find that these keep better in the fridge so after they're cooled, I cut them up and put them on a plate in the refrigerator. I'm pretty sure you could also substitute other kinds of jams if you don't like raspberry. So yummy!

Ok, here's another one. I got this recipe from Weight Watchers and it was intended as a lettuce wrap, which is really good, but I added chicken and use whole wheat tortillas instead. It's great served with Mexican rice as a side dish. Here goes:

Chicken and Black Bean Wraps

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup canned black beans (rinsed)
• 1/2 cup cooked corn kernals
• 1/2 medium sweet red pepper, seeded and chopped
• 4 medium scallions, sliced (I use 3 green onions instead)
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
• 2 T fresh lime juice
• 1 t olive oil
• 1 t ground cumin
• 1 medium garlic clove, chopped
• 1/2 t table salt
• 2 skinless chicken breast pieces

DIRECTIONS

1. Cut the chicken into cubes and thoroghly cook
2. Combine all other ingredients in a medium bowl
3. Add mixture into the skillet with the chicken until heated throughout
4. Serve in whole wheat tortillas (you can top it with a bit of cheese, lettuce, salsa, jalapenos...whatever!)

Enjoy!

The Countdown Is On...

This will be my third year as a "TeePee Mom" at Girls Camp for church. In case you're wondering, yes, we sleep in giant TeePees at the church campsite and "TeePee Mom" just means that I have a group of girls assigned to me for the week that I help look after, answer questions, make sure they're where they need to be when they need to be there, wake them up in the morning, tell them to go to sleep at night, you know, be a "mom" to them at camp. I love Girls Camp. A lot of sweat and tears go into it, but it's always worth it!

Well, the countdown is officially on and Girls Camp is less than a month away. Today after church, we had a practice for the "Girls Camp Choir." These girls were called upon to learn a lot of songs, very quickly, and then perform them all week at camp. Specifically, our "Golden Hour" on Wednesday will use music as the medium to carry the message. Isn't it amazing how music also carries such a spirit with it? Music has a way to soothe the soul, immediately invoke the Spirit, calm our nerves, and teach us things that no spoken word could communicate, but I digress.

So, we had this practice today. These girls are fantastic! I was asked to help out by accompanying on the piano for the practices. We must have sight read through at least 10 songs today! Most of the songs come from Especially For Youth (EFY) sessions of years past and others are arrangements of hymns. Our theme for camp this year is, "It's Time," and specifically on Friday, our theme will be that it's time to prepare for the Temple. The song selection for that day is especially beautiful. It's a piece by Sally DeFord titled, "In That Holy Place." Take a listen...

I love Girls Camp!

Is Saturday Over Already?

Since October 2007, Eddie and I have had the blessing of being called to serve in the temple. Most Friday evenings, that's where you'll find us. If we can't make it for our shift, they really like for us to find substitutes. Of course, if we're going to ask someone to substitute for us, it's only fair that we substitute for them in return when asked. That brings me to Saturday and yep, we were at the temple today substituting for a couple that could not be there for their shift. When you serve at the temple both Friday and Saturday evening in one weekend, it makes for a very short weekend. Not that I'm complaining, there are tremendous blessings serving in the temple. We love that we've had the opportunity to serve there for a year and a half, thus far.

The downside to all of it this weekend is that I didn't get to call Sarah and wish her a happy birthday until 10:30PM her time. How rude that I called her anyway but unfortunately for me, I got her voice mail. So, here's my shout out to Sarah on her 7/11 birthday:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Hope you had a great day!

Amazing Eddie

I have an amazing husband. There's just so much I love about him; he is incredible!

Take today, for instance. I come home from work to find him working in the yard. He goes on to tell me he's pulled weeds in the side yard, planted the new ground cover plants in the front yard, pulled off the covers to the hot tub and scrubbed them down, and readjusted the water and chlorine levels too.

He is just one of those thoughtful guys. Eddie is not the type to bring me flowers out of the blue, his type of thoughtful is unique. I recall one time I had been asked to complete a special assignment at work that meant I would need to work out of an office in the U-District. Due to space limitations, parking in the garage was assigned and I was assigned to a parking spot on the roof. Not that it was a bad thing, but I related this to Eddie. I came home from work the next day to find a steering wheel cover that he'd bought for me. With a puzzled expression, I just kinda looked at him. He explained that he picked that up for me because he knew my car would be parked in the sun all day and he didn't want for the steering wheel to be too hot to handle when I got in the car at the end of the day to drive home! See? He's just...amazing!

If you're a "Twilight" fan, you'll understand me when I say that he is truly my Edward. Every girl deserves her own Edward. I was lucky enough to find mine!

I love you, Eddie!

Life Happens

Sometimes we fill our days with activities of our choosing. Sometimes those activities are meaningful, sometimes not so much. Other times, life just happens to us.

Monday, for example, I stopped at the grocery store to grab a few remaining items so I could get home, finish making a salad, and we could get up to some friends' house for dinner. On the way out, I was set up in a right turn only lane to exit the parking lot and head for home. Well, this other guy had the same idea - turn right out of the parking lot. I guess he didn't think I really was going to turn right in this RIGHT TURN ONLY lane because he pulled just alongside me to turn right as well.

So, I'm concentrating on the cars coming from the left to find a gap in afternoon traffic where I can pull out onto the road. I had already looked to my right to make sure there were no pedestrians or bicycles coming on the sidewalk, found my gap in traffic and turned right...CRUNCH!!! Huge dent down the passenger side of my car. Take a look:





Pulling back into the parking lot and exercising all the restraint I had within me to not yell at this guy, I asked him where he thought I was going in that RIGHT TURN ONLY lane. He said he figured out that it was a right turn only lane a little too late, as he was in the process of reversing when I made my turn. Still angry with him, he went on to explain that he was headed home because he and his wife needed to get to childbirth class. Ok, at this point, I'm calming down, trying to appreciate his situation and could do nothing more than smile and ask him about his family (when is she due?, boy or girl?, how many kids?, that kind of thing).

He apologized all over the place and we exchanged insurance information. Having worked in insurance for 8 years, I knew what information I needed and what questions to ask, but I still found it funny when he said, "Boy, you really seem to know what you're doing." Again, couldn't be mad at the guy any longer considering my history with cars. At one point, I was the reason my parents' insurance company dropped them. I guess insurance companies don't like it when teenage drivers total 2 cars in a matter of 5 months, go figure. Anyway, that was several years ago but again, trying to appreciate his situation, I shook his hand and we parted.

I was thinking about this again today. Maybe these times when things just 'happen' are meant to slow us down, if only for a moment. Maybe these things are intended to help us realize that with how crazy and busy life can be, we need to take time to prioritize the activities in our lives and focus on what is really important. Reminds me of a conference talk from Elder Oaks titled, "Good, Better, Best," from which the following quote is taken:

"Most of us have more things expected of us than we can possibly do. [...] We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families."

Wonder what tomorrow will bring...

Why not?

I always thought that I would just wait until we had kids to do something like this. Then family and friends could keep up with happenings, see pictures, etc. Well, kids don't seem to come easily for us so I got to thinking that really, this blog would be more for me and Eddie than anyone else. If family and friends want to check out what's going on in our lives, bonus.

So, I've not done this before but figure, why not? We'll see where it goes from here...