What the What??

I pulled up in front of my parents house today and found my Dad digging a hole in our backyard. I yelled from the street to ask what he was doing and he replied, "I'm putting our Christmas tree in the ground." It's been sitting in the backyard for weeks because we missed the tree collector. He decided it was better to put it in the ground than to have it laying on the ground. Good logic? I was laughing so hard. My Dad is such a treat. Later I heard my brother teasing him in the garage about it and he said, "Gosh, I can't go do anything around here without someone watching me!" That's right Dad, watching you is our favorite thing. You never stop entertaining us.

I tried out that lemon cake that was posted on shemakesshemakes.blogspot.com. I guess it was from Martha Stewart. I had quite the time making it. I felt like I was having an out of body experience. Usually when I cook, at least lately, I am in complete control of everything. Today I was dropping bowls and whisks and thermometers all over the place. I mis-calculated a bunch of ingredients and burned the candied lemons. After all of that I realized that I wasn't going to have enough lemons for the lemon curd filling. I turned to the phrase- When life gives you lemons.... blah blah blah. Instead I just used my last two lemons to try the candied lemons again and just use the frosting for the filling. It turned out just great.

Here is the link for the recipe on Martha's show with the tutorial. Maybe if you follow her video closer than I did you will have even better success.

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/lemon-variation?autonomy_kw=lemon%20cake&rsc=header_

P.S.- Don't worry, that frosting is a meringue variation, it's okay to have a lot.

Strawberry Swing

This is one of my favorite songs on Viva La Vida. I don't know how I never saw the video for it. It's delightful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9X5jMofEo


So far this year I have been completely content with winter. I have loved all the snowboarding I have been able to do with my brother. I loved snowshoeing with Janelle at the cabin. I love being bundled up. I love all the deer in my neighborhood. I love pretending I am in Alaska when I am in the mountains and I love that I live in a place that can actually feel like Alaska in the winter.

Listening to this song makes me miss the warmth! It sounds like summer. Dang it! How many more months do we have? Ugh... Maybe you shouldn't listen to this song.

I'll repost this in April.

This job makes me blog a lot... sorry.

So I saw this documentary today and I found it very interesting. I learned a little about the corn industry in my Political Science class last semester so this sparked my interest. It's called King Corn. Ever seen it? Well, if you like documentary's and you have some spare time you might like this one. The guy with the goatee is a gem as well as the guy with the Love One Another shirt. If you are a soda drinker or a burger enthusiast, such as myself, you should watch it.

http://www.kingcorn.net

It's on Netflix if you have it.

This is why...

My friend Jordan told me to look at this website. When I heard what it was called I rolled my eyes, but later on I got bored enough that I started looking at it. After a couple dry heaves and countless cringes I continued to press on. This web site is not for the faint hearted, and sadly, I found a couple things that I actually want to make. This giant Oreo cake is the most pleasant looking and delicious thing I could find. I will make it as soon as I find that cake pan.

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

Apparently they update this daily, so get excited... or disgusted.

Well, look who I found. He got all cleaned up.

I try to not waste too much time on the internet at my new job but I do get sucked into photography blogs. When I find someone with a style I like, I waste a lot of time looking at pictures of people I don't know and will probably never know.

I stumbled across Matt Clayton. I can't get enough of his pictures.

http://mattclaytonphotography.blogspot.com

I even found pictures on his blog of Truman. This guy gets around.

Dear Gnomes

I've been trying to sneak a picture of sweet little Gladys for you guys. We went to a bake sale for Haiti and I got one. Here she is with her granddaughter. Kelly is the cutest 9th grader I've ever met.

Hayley, I hope you can stop picturing me caring for Gladys Knight now.

On top of the World

I've never been on back mountain at Sundance when it's clear. The view was so great. I could not get enough of it. It was a such a good day with such a good posse.

It's almost time

It is getting close to Valentines Day. The past two years, my significant other (at the time) and I, could not think of a better thing to do on Valentines Day than to go to this Film Festival. It's inspiring and delightful to watch. So get your special someone and get a ticket and get excited.

This post is for myself as well as Janelle. I have been extremely impressed with Redbox since the day it was explained to me. I want to give a pat on the back to whoever came up with the idea and then executed it. It's brilliant. We just got my mom a Netflix subscription and I have heard that it is better than Redbox. I will be the judge of that, and until I judge it I have some questions for Mr. Redbox (or any of you that can answer them).

1. How come you never get a scratched DVD?

2. What would happen if you put another disk in the case and returned it?

3. When do they stock them?

4. Do the employees drive Redbox vehicles?

5. Do the employees have uniforms?

6. What if you returned the case with no disk?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

"I think wizards just have different taste buds."

Saturday was a day for my journal. Since I don't have a journal at this moment, its going on the blog. Janelle and I decided that since we didn't accomplish one thing on our list of things to do together during the break, we would have to squeeze all of it into one day. The most important thing on the list was to go to IKEA together. I've never been there with her and IKEA is just a place that you are supposed to go to with your sister. Since Jessie is my adopted sister she came too, and we had quite the time. Janelle has these weirdo blisters on her knees that make it so she can't bend them or walk sometimes. I'm skeptical of the walking handicap because today I caught her running into the house. But on saturday, she claimed she couldn't walk so Jessie insisted she have a wheelchair. The wheelchair could easily hold two people which made it incredibly difficult to maneuver around the store. Jessie was so patient, as usual, with her as Janelle refused frame after frame that she would bring to show her. In the end Janelle didn't like any frame in all of IKEA. Figures. Jessie and I caught each other in about 48 eye rolls that day. While we were checking out, I ran to the bathroom and left Jessie with the cart and the crazy in the wheelchair. While I was using the restroom I hear Jessie bust through the door and say "Riana, Janelle needs you!" I told her I would when I was good and ready. When I walked out of the bathroom I see Janelle in the chair with the cart next to her but no Jessie. I figured Jessie finally broke her patience with her. Janelle told me that she was giving her a hard time while she was checking out and Jessie had to raise her voice at her to get her to stop. I guess everyone in line was just staring at the lady yelling to the handicap girl in the chair. Then Jessie had to push Janelle and the cart all the way to the bathroom. Janelle was laughing so hard she was crying. I wish so bad I could have seen it.

The rest of the day consisted of seeing Blindside again. I love that movie so bad. Jessie got a taste of my mom's scary side, again. Jessie got to be our driver all day as we shopped for my moms birthday. To bad the only thing that we ended up buying were the ingredients for butter beer. You know the stuff they drink on Harry Potter?... Well, we made it. We should have guessed how it would taste by the ingredients- butter, sweet and condensed milk, butterscotch topping and cream soda. We tried so hard to drink it and like it. We even had Harry Potter playing in the background. Jessie kept trying to dilute it by adding more milk and soda, the result made her so sick I really thought she was going to throw up. One of my favorite quotes of the night was from Jessie, "Janelle, can I dump this out now, the butter is separating on top." Janelle answered, "Yeah, I think that wizards just have different taste buds." It was a hilarious night. Now we can check off drinking butter from our life list.

I got to see my best friend and her two boys. It looks like we planned our outfits for this picture, I love it.

These two boys are best friends. I love them. My brother is wonderful and Hayden has helped him become wonderful. I used to babysit/live with Hayden when he was young and I used to teach him piano. Needless to say, we go way back. I haven't seen him in years and I'm so happy I got to capture this image of them. It looks like they walked off the set of That 70's Show. I love them.

More Light?

Did anyone watch Oprah yesterday? Gladys hates Oprah but I caught a couple minutes and was intrigued. I watched what I missed on YouTube and was brought back to when I lived in Germany. The lifestyle in Germany is very similar to Denmark in lots of ways, I think. They have free healthcare, high income taxes, small organized apartments furnished by IKEA, small families, very little religion, fresh produce, lots of exercise etc. I was just curious about what you all think about this lifestyle. Part of me envies different things about it but because I am LDS and a conservative republican, in some ways I am sad for them. Watch this and tell me what you think. Watch part 2 if you have time.



I do agree with that mans philosophy, "Less space, less things, more light."

Cheryl, I hope you read this post. I miss talking to you about this stuff, and hearing your opinion.

My New Life

Well, the first week of my new life is almost over. I've survived. The first couple days were kind of tough but I've adjusted pretty well.

For those of you who I haven't told, I moved in with a little old lady named Gladys. She is the sweetest little lady in the world. I stay here Monday through Friday. Its a pretty cushy job and pays unbelievably well. I end up with a lot of free time so if anyone needs me to do homework for them, or read a book for a book report, or needs a beanie or wants to skype with me, I've got all the time in the world.

Anyways, I miss my gnomes so much but I am doing well.

P.S.- I found a cruise to Alaska for $499 for 7 nights and flights for $250. Start saving your pennies if you want to come.

P.P.S- You are crazy if you don't want to come.

I have really enjoyed reading this book. It is very simple and inspiring. It's Richard Proennekes journal while he built a cabin in the wilderness in Alaska. He didn't just survive there, he lived and loved every second of it.

It's a good read.

New Years Resolution

This morning I decided that I would make myself a Wikipedia page. I have no idea how to do it but I thought now is as good time as any to create one. Before I could even figure out how to start creating one I realized my life is not intriguing enough yet. 2010 is going to be the year to change that. This year I am going to bump up the intensity level as Ina Garten always says.

Besides going to Alaska, I hadn't even thought of New Years Resolutions for this new year. I just want to thank Maridee for inspiring me to make them. Instead of making a whole list right now, I am going to make one resolution every month that I will accomplish in that month.

For January I will make a minimum of twenty beanies to donate to the Humanitarian center. We live in a cold place and I bet there are a bunch of cold heads out there. I'll start tomorrow.