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.