Crime?

Is it a crime to sit and read allrecipes.com while eating a tv dinner? Just curious.

Lack of fictional mom models

I just attempted to enter a contest where it asked me to put in my top ten favorite fictional moms. I was sort of saddened by my inability to name very many moms from fiction. Many characters are orphans, have only one parent or we're unaware of their parents at all. Disney especially is guilty of this. Very few Disney characters begin and end a movie with both parents alive. We did come up with a few such as 101 dalmatians, Mulan, and Sleeping Beauty (although she does not grow up with her parents). Once of the few examples we could think of where a Disney movie had a family intact was The Incredibles.

Moving from Disney, two of my favorite book characters from childhood were Anne of Green Gables and Dorothy Gale. Both are orphans, although luckily both have good people that become their mothers (Marilla and Aunt Em). I also liked Boxcar children, who were orphans, and of course the Narnia children who do have a mom, but she's just barely mentioned. The famous Harry Potter is also an orphan, although his mom, Lily did make my list for her sacrifice.

In television it gets a little better, but even some of my favorite shows the families are either motherless or childless. There's always the example of Full House, although my husband did point out that Becky in it is a good mom. Another of my favorites Sabrina the Teenage Witch, her mom existed, but was absent. Then shows like Seinfeld and King of Queens, adults live their lives without children in the picture.

The world of fiction is not devoid of mothers who care. Malcolm in the Middle has one of my favorite moms, Reba on her show was a good mom, Marge Simpson cares a lot for her family, 7th Heaven's family was intact, Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show and even digging back, Little House of the Prairie. There are good moms out there but so few and far between.

Its no wonder that in our day that motherhood has been slightly lost. On today's television our role models for mothers come from things like Desperate Housewives which I will admit I have never seen, but from what I read, not the mother I want to be. In fiction, where does one go for a modern mother role model.

I'm grateful for a wonderful role model in my mother. I also married into an incredible mother-in-law. Both great examples for me and thousands more around me in my world. But where would a person go who had not been so blessed.

I did want to share my list of my personal favorites from fiction that I came up with. Maybe you can add a few that I missed.

Mama Bear from the Berenstain Bears, Pacha's wife from Emperor's New Groove, Malcolm's mom from Malcolm in the Middle, Dennis the Menace's mother, Peter Rabbit's mother, and Lily Potter. Tell me what you think.

Losses and Gains

I dislike losing things. You'd never know it because I lose things a lot. Objects and such. But its also interesting when you lose friends. Not a permanent loss on these ones. But Matt's brother and family are going to leave us, and one of my best friends of all time is moving clear to Texas. I haven't seen her a lot as of late, but its horribly sad even still, because she's one of the few people I'm not related to that really get me. I'm definitely going to miss both of these people. But I have to remind myself its not really lost, just a greater distance away.

I also am happy to report a follow up on the last post. Today Matt and I did the same workout and much less pain and more strength. So my gain is not nearly as big as my loss, but I'm gaining muscle for the first time in my life! Its very very exciting.

So friends, I will miss not seeing you as often. But I do hope your next adventure is a good one.

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.