For my beloved sister in AZ

July 1, 2009

2:50 PM

62 degrees

Rain

. . . .

My door is always open

Bring a sweater

The age old question

I never thought about this as a kid.

I mean, it was always there for me, every night, without question.

I would never even imagine that it would be missing.

But this week, I feel like I want to scream every time I hear the words:

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

Lately I've been saying, "I don't know . . ."

I teach from 3-7 three days a week. If I don't plan for dinner in the morning, it is too late by 2 in the afternoon to get it started. And usually in the morning I'm trying to do something else. Then there is the problem of getting it in and out of the oven during teaching time without burning it or under cooking it.

Yes, I know about the crockpot. But after awhile, everything starts to taste the same when it is cooked in the crockpot. It gets this . . . "I've been cooking for the past 10 hours" flavor.

Some nights I resort to this:

Then I remembered that I had this!:

MMMmmmmmm. . . . . . .

Our family reluctantly tried this recently. DH was planning on a 3 day backpacking trip and needed some food to go with it. Ah, this was the perfect solution! However, once it is opened it must be eaten within 1 week. So DH portioned out his servings for backpacking, and Ems and I planned to eat it at pretty much every meal for the next week. But hey, at least I can answer that age-old question!

Pass the tums please.

Heavy Loads

**Anyone else having trouble with post options? My posts are not posting when I schedule them. Just wondering. **

DH and I are trying to get ready for a potential backpacking trip when we go to Utah.

I say potential because I'm not sure which may go out first -- his back or my hip.

At any rate, we are thinking positive and are beginning our training.

We decided to go early on this morning because it was expected to reach 95 degrees. Some of you may think that's a bit chilly, but when you add humidity to it, it becomes quite unbearable.

So we headed out early, the two of us, backpacks on and a smile on our faces.

Here the lovely stretch of road lies before us. This is where we live, people. It looks like this all around us. Cool, huh? It's nice to have a trail right out our front door.

It was a nice walk. But by the end I was ready to be done. You can tell by my forced smile.

4 miles, yippeee!!

What do you think?

I need your opinion.

I have an indoor project I'm working on. We are replacing our carpet with new (yeah!) this summer and I have decided that I also want to tile behind the stove. Here is the stove:

Very plain and boring. We have it on a tile platform now, but we want to replace that and also tile behind it. So here are some choices:
Tile choice #1 (The big one and the ones across the bottom:

This is a slate look.

Ok, tile #2

A little lighter in color, no?
And tile #3 - I was looking at the big one, but I'm open to suggestions.

I'm not very good at matching colors and seeing what looks best. I know that some of you are . . . :-) So please share your opinion!

Finishing up Walkways

Here are some pictures of our sidewalks getting put in. They look great!

Watching this come down the driveway was scary! They decided to stop before getting on the pavement. Thoughtful of them.

Concrete had to be brought in by wheelbarrow

Spreading it out

Smoothing it up

First step completed!

Putting the stamp on. They sprinkled a charcoal colored powder on the concrete before they put the stamp on. You can see the dust from the powder flying up.

Ta Da!

They are coming back to clean up and shellac it. They they will be finished!

A Benchmark

It has been 365 days since this boy

entered the MTC.

Only 365 more days to go.

I miss this.

My new love

Ems saw the start of this post and said "uh oh".

I have been busy since February working on this:

Preparing this scrapbook has been a labor of love for son #1, and I have learned a lot about his mission as a result. However, do you know how difficult it is to scrapbook about an event when you were not there?

It is hard. I look forward to his input on the journaling side of things

Here is a sneak peak, son #1! But you will have to come home to see the rest:

True confession time: I really don't like scrapbooking. I get overwhelmed by all the little doodads and I HATE the mess it creates. Then when you put it all away, you don't want to get it all back out just to do one more page. I also hate those moments when you are staring at a blank page and you just can't figure out what the layout should be.

On to the theme of this post--my new love. Take a look at this:

Here is a peak inside:

I purchased Adobe Elements about a year ago, along with a nice new camera. At first I was as overwhelmed by it as I am when I scrapbook. But with a little time and a little practice I got better at using it. And then we had a digital scrapbook class at church.

BAM! I was hooked. No mess, free downloadable materials and ideas, and a place that will print and then ship for free (there's that word again!) My kind of hobby!

I already have ideas for the next book. . .