Goodbye youth...

Here's just a few reasons how I know I'm becoming a grown-up:

1. I love to eat vegetables. Grown-up ones like squash, zucchini, broccoli, spinach, peas...all the things I hated as a kid.

2. My night is over at 9:00. Period. That doesn't mean I'm asleep by then (wouldn't that be lovely?) but rather that I would simply laugh in the face of any friend calling to say, "We're going to see this movie and then build a bonfire and then watch the meteor shower that starts at 3:00 in the morning, and maybe stop off at IHOP on the way home. Then we'll go home and sleep for few hours before getting up to go to that all-day event that starts at 10:00 tomorrow."

You get the picture.

3. Often times I prefer listening to talk radio or *gasp* NO radio. There's not a whole lot of music on the radio worth listening to these days.

4. I LOVE documentaries. Really, I do. And it doesn't matter if they're about history, nature and ecology, science, fashion, sports, politics, food, culture, or the rise of the underdog. It helps that we're too poor to go to movies like we used to, and that Netflix has a plethora of documentaries ready to watch at any moment. Here's just a few that I've watched. The King of Kong (I loved, loved, LOVED this one!), Pulling John (who knew Salt Lake was home to such a champion?), Grey Gardens (talk about your hoarders, wow), Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Food, Inc. (I'm this close to investing in an industrial juicer!), and at this very moment I'm watching A State of Mind. It is almost inconceivable to hear the citizens of North Korea say that any suffering their country has experienced or will experience is due entirely to the United States and the United States alone. Though that's not what the movie is about. It's really about training for a HUGE, crazily-choreographed show that is put on each year. Truly fascinating.

5. I drive slowly through neighborhoods. There's small kids out there, you know.

6. My Christmas season is quite complete without eating a single candy cane.

7. I worry about things like bills and taking on massive student debt, instead of buttering up my parents to pay tuition like I did in the early days. (It's nice being one of the youngest, and therefore, more spoiled.)

8. I'd rather eat oatmeal for breakfast than Lucky Charms. I can still enjoy a sugary bowl of the Charms, but just not as a start to my day.

9. I think it's rewarding to pull weeds in my garden, although I would rather they not grow at all.

10. When we went to Disney World last summer, I preferred the slow "floating boat" rides like "It's a Small World" to any of the roller coasters-too fast and jerky for me.

Check out The Amazing Evan!!

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I'm thankful for so many things, too many to list here. And Evan's thankful for a job that he loves! If you want to read all about it, check him out in a nice article that was printed in our town's local paper. Enjoy!!

Seven amazing decades!!!

I'm sure grateful that 7 decades ago this beauty was born...

Married this man...

Spent a lifetime shaping the young minds of today (both of her own flesh and blood and not)...

And is continuing to set an example to us all by serving the people of Guatemala.

Happy Birthday, Mom! You are beautiful inside and out, and WE LOVE YOU!!!

I have a test coming up...

You know how you can tell? Because I'm blogging when I should be studying. I'm a MASTER at putting things off til the last minute. Just to let you all know about school, cuz I'm sure you're dying to know, it's hard and it's only been two weeks. But look, that's all I'm going to write cuz it's back to the books. I promise!

P.S. Utah football rocked this week! (And by Utah, I do mean the whole state-I'm being nice.) While you will never find me openly cheering for a certain team to the south of Salt Lake, I'm glad the South Eastern Conference was shaken up a bit this week. And how about them Aggies nearly taking last year's national champs? GO BIG BLUE!!! Granted, it would have been a better game if the Aggies could have held them off for a few more seconds, but no one can deny that they gave Auburn a run for their money!

Success, finally!!!

What's all this? Did I recently join Bountiful Baskets, you ask? I didn't need to...we just picked all this from our garden last night, and it's only the beginning!

We've not had the best luck with our garden since we moved here because, truthfully, we didn't spend all that much time tending to it. In fact, with school and everything else going on we didn't even attempt a garden last summer, and I was convinced we wouldn't have one this year either for a few reasons. First, the spring was so cold and wet that I didn't think we'd have a long enough growing season. Second, I had to do rotations this summer for school, meaning I worked 40 hours a week at whichever sites the school placed me (while still having to work every week at my regular job), and I didn't think I'd have the time for a garden. By the way, not only was I working for free but I HAD TO PAY tuition in order to do it. Isn't that cruel? I ended up loving it, though, and I learned a ton.

Back to the garden... I am queen of impulse projects, with no thought to planning, and it drives Evan crazy. I came across some seedlings for really cheap and immediately convinced myself that we could not live without a garden this year. So I bought a bunch of plants and came home, expecting a few hours' work to get the garden prepped and the plants in the ground. Evan laughed...and laughed...and laughed...and after few weeks, countless man-hours (mostly by Evan, bless his heart) and a rockin' irrigation system (of course, also by Evan) we had ourselves a beautiful garden!

***This is where I publicly thank my incredible husband because had this garden been left entirely to me, it would have failed within a few days. (Who am I kidding? It would have failed if even 20% had been left to me. He's really done it all this summer.) THANK YOU EVAN!!! You amaze me with all you do.

I'm skeptical about our tomatoes making it, though. We've had a lot of blossoms but not a lot of developing fruit. Any gardeners out there know why that is? (Evan suggested maybe they're not getting pollinated, which led me to dream last night that we enlisted the help of a bee the size of a rabbit to get the job done. Seriously.) I've got 9 or 10 tomato plants of differing varieties, but none of them are doing very well. Anyway, the beans, peppers, cucumbers and zucchini are doing great, and we've got several squashes, cantaloupes, and watermelons growing bigger each day! I can't wait!!!

In case you're wondering, there are two kinds of peppers in the picture-a regular green pepper, and what I thought would be a golden yellow but has turned out to be more of a chartreuse. I know peppers develop their color the longer they're on the plant, but these guys haven't changed color for about two weeks so we decided to cut them off last night. Now the question is, what dish can I make that will incorporate zucchini, green beans, cucumbers and bell peppers? Any suggestions? Maybe just a good pasta salad?