Embarrassment and Pain

Luckily not from the same source. I'll start with the embarrassing story. I'm sorry I'm not a story-teller so its not as funny as if someone else told it. I was at school on Friday and I had decided to wear a skirt, not for any particular reason. Its sort a an old skirt, not really old, but I wore it on my mission. I have recess duty and I had two coats on. So I went outside and came back in and took off my coats. I was working with my student and stood up to do something and she told me that I had a hole in the back of my skirt and I looked and the zipper had broken and burst open and I did have a 3 inch gaping hole at the pack of my skirt. It took me forever to get the zipper fixed and now I think it's permanently broken. There was only the one student in the classroom at the time and I desperately hope she's the only one who saw it. Thank goodness for the coats.

Now pain. I remember once doing a leg workout with my middle brother and not being able to walk for several days. You would think I would have learned. Nope, just Thursday I did another crazy lunge workout and I'm just now gaining the ability to walk again. Which would be better if I could raise my arms today. But I can't. Yesterday was push-up/ pull-up day. More soreness. So yes, its definite pain. But good pain. Matt & I are getting in shape! We are doing P90X, which really is crazy intense luckily its a lot of fun. Its a little strange how the person on the videos reminds me a ton of one of my brother's friends. So, here's hoping that I get actual muscles for the first time in my life! Go pain!

One year

Dear Matt,

What a fun day it was to celebrate your birthday. I bet you would have never guessed on your last birthday that the next day you would meet your future wife. It was good to see you so happy and having fun today. I'm sad that once again I forgot to take pictures, but it happens. I don't think when either of us met, there could have been any clue of everything that we would see, do, and go through together. I have to be perfectly honest that this last year has been the most challenging of my entire life, but I know we have both grown so much and the best part is, we've grown together. You've heard this before, but my reaction of our first date was that I could be myself around you and that's still very true. The good, the bad, the wonderful and the ugly - you've seen it all and your still here and I know that no matter what you'll always love me. I love you so much and I'm very grateful for this past year and all I've grown to know. I know it will just get better.

Forever yours,

Emily

Emily actually gets a little creative!

I had a lot of fun making birthday presents for my brothers. I got some awesome books that give instructions on how to make cookie bouquets and fruit bouquets and candy things too. These ones were appropriate for the brothers. For my fishing brother there was this one.

Please excuse my iron in the background.

I'm very proud of this one. I had a blast making this. We went to Walmart to get some stuff including cookie cutters. I was surprised, Matt was very excited when we found this box of 100 cookie cutters for just $10. Only 10 cents a piece which is pretty good. Brother gave me a big hug when he saw it which made me really happy. So for my all-star brother:

And with my leftover cookie dough here are my attempts at decorating. And for the record, I had no patterns in my decorating! I think they actually look pretty good. Happy Easter everyone!

Kitchen Fun

I've been having a lot of fun in the kitchen lately and this post is badly overdue. So many weeks ago we decided to have a cooking around the world week. It was great fun.

The pictures went in reverse order, so I'll just do it in the order they came out. This was our last dish, paella. We had to include a Spanish dish in Matt's honor. Bad recipe and I didn't do it right either, so this was the closest to a failure. Next time we make paella, Matt's going to do it.

Next try was the tamales. Mmm pork tamales. We faked it and used aluminum foil instead of corn husks to wrap them in. They turned out very well and I'm not quite sure why they are rumored to be so difficult. It wasn't that hard and they tasted good. I don't even have this recipe and I altered it so much and don't remember what I did that I couldn't put it here now.

And the next one is not actually a world food. Its name is "alfredo egg bake" so we'll pretend in our tour that it is Italian. Really pretend. Matt loved this one, it had a little too much fat in it for my tastes, between the eggs, bacon, and alfredo sauce but it was good. Got the recipe from the bisquick website if anyone wants to try it.

This was by far my personal favorite. We made Pad Thai using a recipe from the Betty Crocker website that I love a whole bunch. It was really really good. We had to use ramen noodles because I couldn't find rice noodles that day and I would cut down on the amount of cayenne pepper unless you like it really spicy. I highly recommend this recipe.

Bleed on the Page

So as a teacher's assistant some of the students complained about the red pen of death. The red marks that covered the page and hacked their essays to pieces. They had spent all of two hours last night, between 2 and 4 in the morning, and I in 15 minutes had the audacity to pick it apart like I was paid to do. How dare I!

Anyway, I don't understand them. I've just done a little red pen work on my own work (actually it was pink highlighter of uncomfortable moments, not the red pen of death). The mistakes were horrible, I repeated words and couldn't get my years right. Somehow my character had spent 8, 10, and 9 years locked up in prison within two pages. That's not the next greatest superhero power, able to serve several prison sentences simultaneously.

But it wasn't just a pen cutting into my heart like the students whined about. The parts that I like get to stay (maybe changed) and the parts that I don't like are cut. More of me surfaces in the pages and I can actually read it and say, "Hey, I like that."

inspired by I seek to Delete

Cleaning out the email inbox

So, I had my sister and brother-in-law over this evening. Actually they invited me over to keep me company while Matt works. It makes for fairly long nights with him gone. Although I do have to say when you start texting things like "A parakeet with a machine gun!" or "I do not think that word means what you think it means" it gets more entertaining. Anyway, we looked at some random videos and funny stuff (if you haven't seen the sleepwalking dog on youtube you need to look it up. I almost died laughing. Its the short video with over 10 million views) which led to sharing emails I'd been forwarded which led to me decide (probably not a decision but just a default action technically) that rather than kill time on facebook this time I would clean out the email inbox. Which also leads me to an apology. I'm really bad at responding to things or forwarding things that I really actually should. So I'm sorry if I ruined recipe swaps or didn't respond to your email. That's why the email inbox is now getting cleaned out and I promise to repent and do better in the future. You do also find some gems when you clean out the email inbox, which I love. You feel very loved. So tonight I just want to say thanks for the email.

Three Things

So my sister did this a while ago, but I'm a little behind on my blog reading, so its now time to catch up. The question is what three things we would do all day if we could do three things and include all members of the household. Mine are:

1. Teach something. Most likely piano. But being with kids (almost any age) teaching something.

2. Play the piano

3. Organize stuff - rooms, shelves, files, you name it. And alphabetizing things. And putting things in rainbow order. And numerical order. Ok, I've got OCD.

Matt's are:

1. Play video games

2. Write

3. Shoot the breeze with people. Just have good nice conversation.

So I'd look forward to reading anyone else's.