God is Good :)

Whew. so the past couple of days have been extra hard for me, with the adversary working all kinds of discouraging plots and ploys...ugh. So it's definitely been a trial, as I struggle to bend my stubborn will to His, and not be so demanding and instead just be grateful and work with what I have... So to help myself feel better, I went to the lovely park behind our house and lay in the grass and soaked up some sun. It did help a bit, and afterwards I brushed the little grass bits off my jacket and headed home.. only to discover when I got there that I had lost my CTR ring! :( (not the one you gave me Kristin, just one that I had bought myself in Flagstaff, but still, I was sad) But I figured I would never find it in that huge park!, and so I sadly went on with my evening..

And then today, I did the same thing, only this time I was feeling more humble and contrite, and being a good little mormon I took my scriptures along to read while I soaked up sun. I chose about the same spot as yesterday, and it was lovely. :) When I had read and soaked for awhile, I brushed off my jacket to go home, thinking 'that's how I must have lost my ring the day before', but I noticed also that the grass had been cut since then, and envisioned my ring being happily munched and crunched by the mower! :( But I took a quick glance around anyway, and guess what I spied?





Can you see it? Here's a close up:





My ring! :) Draw whatever spiritual conclusions you will, but that is a lot of grass and a little ring! :) So yes, I feel better, and very blessed :)

Fargo fun! :)

So, having just relocated myself and two 50 lb bags to Fargo for a couple of months, I've been applying for jobs/ exploring the downtown area where I live for the past few days, and today I stumbled across this awesome antique/ junk store! I should have taken pics of the store front, but honestly I didn't expect it to be so cool. It looked teeny-tiny from the street, but then when I went in, it went alll the way back to the end of the block! Awesome sauce :)

Mostly tea sets, records, etc, but then I discovered a ton of old clip and screw earrings which I thought were pretty rad:


And then! I wandered upon the mecca of tantalizing tarnished treasures- tacky salt 'n pepper shakers of all kinds! boxes and shelves of them! It was a hard decision, but I think, ultimately, I'll go for...







The dead bear family. Tacky, morbid, and kinda cute, all at the same time! Now all I need is a job to pay for them and roommate approval to let them into the house! ;) Good times in Fargo, I'm for sure going back to that store sometime soon, with some mad money! :)

Really?

So here's another one- not only is it annoyingly sappy, but they got the whole phrase wrong; what the heck is a bo-bo?!

oh, dear...

So, you'd think if you were going to have something carved in stone, you'd be sure and have it correct, right? Maybe these people just haven't read the books yet:

Prolific Procreators :)

Alright, there's something in the air right now. As of today, these friends are currently pregnant;

1. Adrea Ricke
2. Cammy Engler
3. Kim Shellenberger
4. Angela Messinger
5. Malitha Nguyn
6. Sara Ekins Castillo

alright, so 5 isn't a lot, I swear there's more...
and now there's 6!!! eeek! (but in a good way)

Eureka!!! :)

After a full day (not the most patient person ever) of brainstorming bakery names and rejecting most of them as too cutesy, I've hit upon the perfect one! It has a good sound, would lend itself well to a nice iconic sign and logo, and also has a sentimental attachment as well. Before I unveil this great name, (which you are not allowed to borrow and/ sell to anyone else, or I will find you!), let me tell you the rejects so you too can marvel / cringe at what might have been: (you can steal these, have at it ;)

Berry Basket Bakery- Pies & Pastries (I like alliteration ;)

The SnowGlobe (I'd just finished watching Coraline, where snow globes play an important role)

The Cookie Jar (this was my fav so far, although it wasn't sweet enough yet for me...)

Serena's Kitchen (yeah, wanted to create that homey countrified feel, but it also made me envision hot and sweltery kitchens and stoves.)

Sugar & Spice Bakery (not bad, kinda overdone)

Sweet Nothings (sounds more like a lingerie store- maybe you get a free nightie with every order? ;)

Sweet & Sassy Bakery (ehhh, too much like sugar and spice, just Sassy would have been enough)

AND FINALLY, the eureka moment that hit me as I was driving home from the gym and gong past some of San Antonio's regal but crumbling old manor houses:


The Orange Blossom Bakery (& Cafe, in the future)

isn't it perfect?! alright, maybe you don't see it, but I think it sounds perfect- warm and fuzzy, sweet and simple (maybe I"m getting too into the adjectives here), and plus it reminds me of my roots- our big orange VW camper van was named, guess what?, Orange Blossom. :)

So there you have it, folks, the name of my future bakery :) Now it may be off in the way distant future that this finally comes to fruition, after I've gotten some bakery experience to make sure this is what I definitely want to be doing, plus maybe some culinary schooling, not to mention raising a substantial amount of money to start my own business, but still, there's one part that's finished. :) Now who wants a cookie? ;)

This post is cheating, but oh well ;)

25 Random facts about me, in no particular order:

1. The whole concept of marsupials creeps me out- they give birth, then the incomplete baby worms its way around the its mothers pouch?!! awkward.

2. One of the coolest facts I remember learning in college was that black pepper is considered a "negative calorie", in that it requires more calories to burn the pepper than are actually in the pepper in the first place. This endeared pepper to me forever after. It's also sadly true that I learned this neat fact in the lunchroom, not the classroom. Yay, tuition! ;)

3. I have several grandmotherly-type hobbies; knitting, scrapbooking, baking, making greeting cards, and reading an excessive amount of novels. Sometimes I've been known to do several of these at once.

4. I first got interested in baking as a survival skill- my mom not being big on cooking, the baking sections of cookbooks were the simplest recipes for me to follow. Just mix all of these things together, stick in the oven and presto!, hot food :) plus I kinda have a full set of sweet teeth...

5. I first tried sushi this past summer and Juneau and wasn't really a fan, but Wasabi is amazing! I was so excited that I scooped up too much with one bite, and had the unique experience being slightly paralyzed as it cleared all of my sinuses!

6. After living in both Washington state and Alaska, I have yet to go kayaking, or be on the water in anything smaller than a catamaran. Must remedy this..

7. I may someday be persuaded to go skydiving, but only after I've done everything else on my life to-do list, and would be relatively okay with dying. Like at 90 or so...

8. If you've read or watched "The Golden Compass," remember how the humans all have daemons that are their souls in animal form, and usually embody the main characteristics of the person? After careful and truthful soul-searching (ha!), I'm pretty sure I would be a fluffy hamster.

9. I'm a big fan of puns and cheesy jokes, the more obviously terrible the better :)

10. I always wanted braces like all of the "cool kids", but alas not to be. They could change their bands to match their outfits or the season, how awesome is that?!

11. Cinnamon is the most heavenly smell I know of. Also good are roses and honeysuckle, gasoline and yeast.

12. I would always rather play games with children than do "adult things".

13. I head straight for the comics in the newspaper first, and then sometimes read the news articles later, after being fortified with Mutts and Pearls Before Swine.

14. I'm in love with pies :) First berry pies and crumbles, then pumpkin, peach and pecan.

15. My dream future includes a small farm with big farmhouse kitchen, veggie garden, many barefooted happy children, chickens and a goat. As self-sufficient as possible.

16. I collect stamps. Not postage stamps, but rubber stamps with wooden handles. silly :)

17. My favorite game is all variations of hide-and-seek; sardines, easter egg hunts, treasure hunts, capture the flag?, and any wrapped packages, they all count.

18. My friend and I used to have an imaginary elf friend- his name was Pinky, he fit in your hand, and when she moved we "mailed" him back and forth in envelopes..

19. I have a memory for real events like a leaky sieve, but I can quote movies, especially animated films, like nobody's business.

20. I would live in pjs and fuzzy socks if it was even mildly socially acceptable.

21. I never went to camp when I was little, but was a camp counselor the summer after my first year of college. My camp nickname was "moo", because I was in charge of the camp pet farm, which included 2 baby cows. Teaching those calves to nurse from first a bottle and then buckets on my own was one of my proudest lifetime achievements :)

22. I'm a stickler for punctuation and sometimes spelling, it drives me crazy when people use "there" instead of "their". I will judge you quietly, so sorry!

23. I would love to learn how to dance, but I have absolutely NO rhythm! it's bad.

24. I'm pretty sure I could happily live off of bread and cheese for the rest of my life.

25. And I've recently determined that until I get married and have babies, I really want to be a baker, and have my own little bakery and tea room :) we'll see...

Blog on! :)

So I hope you all know, I live vicariously thru my friends' blogs...

When I'm online (about 2-3 time s day) first I:

1. Briefly glance thru e-mail, save the letters and junk most everything else, 5 min tops.

2. Spend most of my time on facebook, wasting goodness knows how much time reading posts to my page, send out the requisite superpokes, then check updated statusii, (sure it's a word), and then sometimes depending on my boredom that day, I will pick a random person and look at ALL of their pictures, postings, etc. Well, at least until I can't justify any more facebook time...

3. And finally, I check blogs. I love having this insight into my friends' lives, especially when you all post pictures, and just talk about the quirky things that happen in your lives that I'm missing by not being around each of you every day.
Ideally, I would like to read at least one new blog per day, and since I have 10 blogs that I follow regularly, that means each blogger needs to create a new entry less than once a week. That's not so difficult, right?
Well worth it to save me from the exquisite boredom of living in Texas and only knowing my family. Yay. So.... start bloggin! :)

Travel Advice

Howdy! well since I'm now blessed by having wifi in my home, I thought I'd catch up on all of those random thoughts that went thru my head recently, specifically during my first trip overseas in October to Thailand. Eventually I will do a Thailand blog, about my experiences, etc, but for now, I wanted to pass on random travel advice, in the hopes that it might possibly make someone's international trip easier. Or maybe so I won't forget and make the same mistakes twice! Either way ;)

1. Bring enough climate appropriate clothes to last the entire trip.
I can't tell you what a difference this would have made to me- I thought I was being really smart by bringing only a few items of clothing, telling myself I could buy more once I was actually there. I hadn't, however, taken into account that I was headed into a country where bargaining is the primary means of shopping, and I HATE haggling over prices! So for the first couple weeks of my trip I wore the same clothes over and over, washing them constantly, but getting throughly sick of them in the process. Plus, for some reason I was trying to be extra modest and brought jeans to a hot and humid country, and no shorts! silly.

2. Traveler's cheques are a thing of the past.
Another way I thought I was being smart was by spreading out my money into various theft-proof forms, such as traveler's cheques and travel credit cards. While it was indeed a safe way of carrying money and would have been great if I'd stayed in nice hotels and shopped in department stores, it was just inconvenient for the small backpacker hostels and market stalls I shopped at, all of which only accepted cash. Next time, I will take only my debit card and one backup credit card, and do what I ended up eventually doing after I liquidated my cheques, which is just withdraw a moderate amount of cash to last thru each week. If necessary, you can always find an ATM and get more money, but I usually had more than enough with budgeting.

3. Relax and enjoy the trip!
I invested so much time and energy being paranoid and worrying about my belongings, and dragging around a big bag of stuff with me wherever I went. Then I met Emma, a savvy Irish girl who was at the end of a year long world trip. She would leave her room for the day with nothing more than her wallet and some water, and laughed when I asked her if she felt nervous leaving her things in her room. (I had read numerous stories, you see.) Now that I look back, I don't blame her for laughing- we were on a quiet and idyllic beach at the tail end of tourist season, right before the monsoon rains. She and I were the only tourists at our hotel, and had only met a handful more along the beach. Really, who would care about our tired clothes and toiletries enough to break into our huts? I should have saved myself the sore shoulders and left my heavy bag in my room, only carrying money and my passport with me.

4. Don't push too hard.
This goes along with relaxing- at first in my trip, I tried to bounce out of bed early to beat the heat and try and see as much as possible before the baking sun forced me back inside. I returned around midday exhausted, panting, and would quickly shed off all my street clothes and lie in front of the cooler for the next couple of hours, only to force myself out again as soon as I physically could- I HAD to see and cram as much as possible into my vacation! After a few days of this I realized I wasn't even enjoying myself, and felt cooped up when I tried to stay inside for one full day on Sunday to rest. It wasn't until I went to the more relaxed pace of a northern city that I began to relax, enjoy eating breakfast and talking to other guests, before sometimes setting out on sightseeing, and sometimes just lying in a hammock and reading on the porch. Plus I gave up the cooler and got a room with a fan, thus giving my body a chance to acclimate. That's when I truly began to enjoy my trip- I may have had less pictures to bring home, but at least I was actually liking the country and truly having a vacation!

5. Bring a friend.
Yes, I was brave and went to a foreign country on my own. It definitely forced me out of my comfort level, and taught me not to take companionship for granted. I saw so many beautiful and wondrous things, and would have loved to have someone to share and enjoy it with. Even more, I would have given almost anything to have a friendly face with me when I was lost and out of my element in a strange civilization. My happiest times in my whole trip were the two times I was in a group, when I could really relax and not constantly be on my guard as a single American woman traveling alone- when I joined a trekking group for a day in Chiang Mai, and when I met Emma later on in the islands, and we made our own small group for a few days. Having someone else there to talk to and share with made all of the difference.