Bring Him Home

My Side of the Weekend: 

I recently found out what the term "my other half" means.  How on earth did I function as a human being before I got married?  

Ok to clarify, Scott went on a camp-out on Friday with the scouts, which left me on my own for the first time since we've been married.  It wasn't pretty.  As soon as I got home from my parent's house I was not sure what to do.  Do I go to sleep at 8:00?  Do I start crying?  Do I clean everything in sight?  Luckily, I didn't do any of those things, and I made it through the night.

In the morning, I put in some internship hours, read about business laws, cleaned everything in sight, baked snickerdoodles, and then proceeded to wait.  Unfortunately there was an event at the Jr. High across the street, so I heard a lot of car doors and spent a lot of time running to the window.  Eventually he arrived (several hours later than anticipated), and life could go on.

Scott's Side of the Weekend:

Two hours behind schedule, the Scouts finally left for the West Desert.  It was dark and cold when they arrived, so they pitched tents, built a fire, and ate dinner.  Scott missed a planning meeting, so while everyone ate their tin foil dinners, he ate his Subway sandwich.  Haha.

That night, he slept on a giant rock in 20 degree weather.  He had to share his tent with another scout leader who didn't really think his camping experience through.  Scott beat several levels of Angry Birds in the night, which should tell you how much sleep he got (he couldn't beat any levels before this camp-out).  In the morning, the boys went exploring and Scott wished he had his GMAT book.  After sitting around for a long time, they came home.

I'm starting to think my night wasn't really that bad...

V-Lookups, Bananas, & Brownies

Want to know how to get a lot of blog readers?  Write deceptively exciting titles to your posts.  Seriously.  My recent “I’m So Excited” post got tons of hits, and it wasn’t even about me.  So, I’m just warning you now that if you see a post entitled, “We’re Having a Baby,” it’s probably a hoax.  Scratch that, it’s definitely a hoax, and I’m just tricking you into reading the blog.  Don’t feel bad if you still fall for it.

Anyway, today I've been thinking about buying and making delicious things.  I’m in no way legitimate enough to post recipes on here and get some sort of following, but I do have a few thoughts on everyday eating.  Who knows, maybe something on here will resonate with somebody else (the Essen viewer perhaps?).

First thing’s first, I have a master spreadsheet, which rules the world (or at least our kitchen’s world).  I love excel a *little* too much, but whatever--it's a good idea.

One of my sheets has a dinner schedule (currently projected through April) with meal plans.  I take the meals we love and schedule them once per month or so and leave gaps for new dishes.  It’s nice to have something established when I make my grocery lists.  Just a few more blog visits, and the week gets planned.  The other sheets in the spread include lists of things I’d like to learn to cook and our food storage schedule, which is particularly sophisticated (It’s got about 500 imbedded V-Lookups in it for crying out loud).  In case it’s not obvious, I like to plan things (and find reasons for using excel functions).  Maybe I’ll patent this and sell it to the .005% of Mormon moms who use excel.

Second, we have some things that I just can’t believe we need to buy so often.  Like bananas.  We buy about 9 bananas per week.  For two people!  This is because Scott likes to have one every day, and I like them a few times a week.  Do the math: that means we buy a ton of bananas (approximately 275 since we’ve been married).  We should probably invest in Dole.  Or move to Hawaii and grow our own.  We also buy a lot of tissues, you know, for all of the crying we do.  I’m actually not sure how all of these get used so quickly.

Third, sometimes I worry that we are not very health conscious. I know it’s not a good idea to make a whole pan of brownies for two people, but what choice do you have when the boxes come in one size!?  Anyway, at the same time, we don’t buy most typical junk food (aside from the few brownie mixes) which helps our budget and our BMI’s.  I wholly recommend just skipping the “cookie/cracker” and “beverage” isles.  The margins on those things are ridiculous.  Oh yeah, and they are bad for you.

Well, there you go: a few random things relating to eating that I was thinking about today (probably due to the gross protein drink I was forced to eat for lunch…which is due to not using the spreadsheet very well.  It's perfect in theory.  Haha.)

I'm So Excited

Last week in Sunbeams I only had 4 of my little munchkins, and we made it through 45 minutes before they started asking me to stop teaching the lesson.  This is progress, folks!  Anyway, I taught the Plan of Salvation using awesome little spirit/body/earth/kingdom cutouts.  The best part, however, was the sticky tack.  The kids went crazy over that stuff. 

All they wanted to do was tack stuff to the board, and then take it off, and then re-tack it.  (How did I not know about this teaching tactic before?)  When we had to put the tack away, the kids got upset.  So, I told them they could tack their drawings on the wall at the end of class.  One girl stood up threw her fists in the air and said, “I’m so excited!” 

Wow, if only I could be that motivated by sticky tack.

Used Couches Come with Risks

Remember how we’ve been fixing up our house?  Well, truth be told, we haven’t done a whole lot since last summer, but I haven’t documented much of it.  So, check out the living room transformation!

Hopefully you can tell the difference between the "befores" and "afters."

KSL couches served their purpose: We didn't have to sit on the floor...

I think we decided the couches HAD to go when we found a negative (you know, the film stuff) in the cushion with what may have been a partially naked person on it.  We didn't even look twice to find out for sure what that was. ...Help.

My favorite comparison photo.  It can only get better from a bare wall, right?

Muuuuch better.

You may recognize the mirror from blog entry no. 1.

The best part of the whole room is the piano.  According to me.  And I really love that "Family" frame thing.  I'll just call this the best "view" of the room.  Haha.

Thanks to all of you who gave us wedding gifts and made this makeover happen.  I could pretty much identify every piece of furniture or decor in these photos and source them back to a generous donor. (Brent, Czechoslovakian crystal vase; Annette, awesome clock, Mom & Dad, the piano; the list goes on...)  We appreciate you. :)

The Blueberry Chunk Comparison

The other day I made the greatest smoothies for breakfast.  There was only one problem with the recipe.  If you’ve never blended frozen blueberries, I will tell you that the blueberry skins don’t really blend well.  And they stick to your teeth like glue.  (I’m not sure if glue sticks to teeth, come to think of it, but just stay with me here.) 

So, Scott being the nice husband he is, tried to hint at blueberries hypothetically sticking to teeth in order to help me avoid the embarrassment of the ones sticking to mine.  “Haha, that would be so hilarious to see blueberries stuck on his teeth,” I thought.  A few minutes later I was sending Scott out the door to work, and when he looked at me I could see a lot of laughter attempting to hide behind a very straight face.

Immediately it all came together, and I ran to the closest mirror shouting, “Nooo, the blueberry chunks!”  It was bad.  Like hillbilly-blacked-out-tooth bad.

So, now at our house when we’re talking about embarrassing stories, we throw in a “blueberry chunk” benchmark to gauge just how bad it is.

Thank goodness Julia volunteered her own blacked-out tooth photo.  Goodness knows, I'm not volunteering mine.

2011

It looks like I forgot to recap 2011 via the blog (like everyone else).  This is kind of a bad year to not blog about, so I'd better join the masses and do it.

2011 was significant.  And awesome.  To review, I will include random photos from the year and some excerpts from my journal.  Enjoy.

January: "Good news!  My eye stopped twitching.  I'm sure it will be back once I head back to the Junior Core."  "School was pretty typical today.  I missed a lot of points and didn't know what was going on."  "Oh, by the way...we went ring shopping for the first time!"

February: "Valentine's Day was pretty great.  We went to our Chinatown restaurant we like and after that we drove up to a lookout spot over Provo.  Apparently this was a pretty popular spot because our presence deterred a lot of other couples.  Mwahaha."

March: "Guess what?  Scott went and talked to my parents!  I'm told that he never really asked if he could marry me.  When I brought it up he said, 'Oh.  Well, it was a mutually-understood question.  That was also rhetorical.'  Oh, Scott."  "He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him... Best night of my life." 

April: "I'm writing this as a Junior Core survivor!" "We've been painting and weeding and working on Scott's house...I mean, OUR house."

May: "Mom and Dad bought me a piano for a wedding gift.  That is the most awesome gift ever."  "We found Scott's social security card, so we can actually get married.  Hooray."  "Bad news--I'm the primary chorister for the next month."

June: "Hallelujah it's June!"  "I think time has started slowing down."  "I went to the temple on Saturday!" "I've essentially had a combination of 'The Final Countdown' and 'I Can Hear the Bells' running through my mind all day today." 

July: "On Monday, we went to the final Harry Potter movie.  I was almost tearing up because the franchise is over.  Except during the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Hugged part."  "After attempting to eat breakfast in bed with Scott while checking my email, my keyboard found itself swimming in Cheerios.  Thanks to Brent the laptop survived."

August: "Life is so good right now.  We're going to Chuck-A-Rama with the Bruening's tonight.  That's not why life is so good right now, but I needed to throw that in there at the last minute."  "The Gypsies won, so Scott and I were very happy.  Plus, 'Fab 3' did really bad and finished last, which made us even more happy."

September: "Today I'm meeting up with Beth before ethics.  We'll probably play Skip Bo or search for Hogwarts man."  "We had a sub help out in sunbeams today.  Of course the kids were the craziest they've ever been.  I'd rather run the zoo on my own.  It's far less embarrassing that way."

October: "Life is so good right now." (Which is surprising due to the lack of content in the posts I wrote.)

November: "The obsession with Prison Break continues."  "I got a bathroom scale for an early birthday present.  That could have been a pretty offensive, but I jumped on and found out I haven't weighed this little since the 9th grade, so it turned out to be a pretty great gift.  Haha."

December: "Last night I had prison break dreams, and I asked Scott if 'the bad guys' had gotten away.  Yes, I referred to them as 'bad guys.'"  "On Saturday we did sealings.  I almost passed out because I was kneeling for so long.  Amidst all this, the sealer asked, 'Oh can we do a few more?'  I thought I would make it, but I ended up having to jump up and say I needed a break.  From that point forward everyone in the room just watched me thinking I would faint."

2011 was definitely the best year on the records for the Foley family.  We are blessed to be where we're at, and we look forward to 2012.

Firemen, kittens, and princesses

I've got a new sunbeam class now, which includes 7 little tykes who all come every week.  I know this is a good thing, hypothetically, but righteousness aside, that means I have to manage all 7 every week.  Yikes. 

Oddly enough, this class appears to be better than my old group.  (Or mainly just better than one particular individual in the old group.)  So, I am optimistic that I won't end up in tears after church each week.  Not that that's ever happened before...*ahem.* 

Here are the best conversations from our class yesterday:

Me: "Who knows what they want to be when they grow up?"
Rhyor: "A racecar driver."
Hannah: "A little kitten."
Olivia: "A fireman!"
Elizabeth: "A princess."
Olivia: "Elizabeth, if your castle was on fire, I would be the fireman."

Me: "Ryhor, do you like cowboys?"
Rhyor: "I like anything with a weapon."
...Ooookay.

Also, in addition to these great conversations, the kids had some time to play and do other hilarious things at the end of class.  They decided to play house and live in the toy cupboard, and of course, when the parents arrived, they had barricaded themselves inside.

It's going to be a good year.