All I need for Christmas...

Are cooking lessons.

It's true, I definitely have some difficulties in the kitchen. Seems like every meal I make has some type of mistake or mixup, thus limiting the deliciousness of my meals.

Case in point: The day before Thanksgiving I decided that I wanted to soak my 1 1/2 pound turkey breast (it was just going to be me and Ben at Thanksgiving dinner, mind you) in Martha Stewart's turkey brine. The recipe was for a full-sized turkey, however I cut the ingredients to 1/4 to better suit my turkey. Except for the salt. Forgot to reduce that one. Definitely used 1 1/2 cups salt. The result was an insanely salty turkey. Ben and I both took a bite and then threw it out. The upside: all other food was great.

Now that I think about it, maybe I don't need cooking lessons. Maybe I need direction-following lessons. Send me back to 2nd grade please!

Not to be a Debbie Downer, here's something I'm thankful for:

I definitely filled up my tank for $21.44... God Bless America and our unstable economy.

Another exciting event took place on Tuesday... I ventured out for my first athletic(ish) activity since the surg: Bowling at Fat Cats. I definitely felt like a nerd for clomping around in my boot while trying to bowl, but I amazingly achieved my all-time, bumper free high score of 134. Here's a picuture of me and my boyfriend at Fat Cats:

We love each other.

Happy Thanksgiving (belated) everyone!

All I want for Christmas...

Is DVR.

Please, my dear husband? If you don't want to make it a Christmas present, make it a birthday present. Or better yet, and anniversary present. Luckily all three of these holidays fall within 20 days of each other.

This December holiday arrangement is usually frustrating, because I'm usually too holiday-d out from Thanksgiving, birthday, and Christmas to care about my anniversary. No, this year I'm excited, because that means that my likelihood of getting DVR drastically increases than say, getting one in the month of February.

I'm tired of staying up until 11 to watch The Hills. I'm tired of all the stinking commercials during The Biggest Loser. I don't want to plan my evenings around tv shows. Just give me DVR!


ps- I realize it's been like 50 years since I last posted pictures of myself, other than my nasty foot. I'll get to working on face pictures.

Twilight's newest fan...

That's right, Ben is now a fan. Last night we saw Twilight together, and I was surprised to see him actually paying attention to the movie at not looking bored. Halfway through the movie he leaned over to me and whispered, "I want to me a vampire" with a big smile on his face. While he maintains that the movie was "kinda good" and he's still not interested in reading the books, this is a huge step for Ben and I know he secretly loved it.

I really liked the movie too. I knew it wouldn't be able to live up to my imagination, but all things considered I thought that it was great. I think the trick was to go into it with low expectations, which left me pleasantly surprised. The only thing that creeped me out were Edward's scary eyes when he was sucking the venom out of Bella.

Now that my Twilight anticipation is over, I am now shifting to Harry Potter 6 anticipation.

Trying to be an early bird.

I've decided to start my Christmas shopping today, rather than waiting until the last minute. The main thing I want to avoid is getting caught in this:Christmas crowds and lines seriously make me want to throw up. Slow people, stupid people, indecisive people.... geez, get out of my way! That's some Christmas spirit for you, right? All things Christmas I love, except for the Christmas shopping crowds... that doesn't make me a Scrooge, does it?

Onto foot news, here are some pictures... if you don't want to see them, don't look.







Here are my feet 1 week after surgery. My surged foot went from looking green, brown, purple, and blue following the surg. Also, my toes were soooo swollen.
Here's my foot today. I still have to have it all wrapped and booted, but this is what it looks like without all that. Still some bruising and swelling, but the stitches are gone.
Also, it appears that Ashlee Simpson had her baby... and named him Bronx Mowgli. My guess that he was conceived in the Bronx while Ashlee and Pete were watching "The Jungle Book." Any other guesses?

This makes me laugh everytime I watch it.

This is from "Love Actually." I think that these really are Huge Grant's moves, since he dances the same in "Music and Lyrics."

Can you say psycho?

*Disclaimer: If you don't watch Desperate Housewives this post will not be very interesting.

This guy plays Edie's husband on Desperate Housewives and his character is creeeepy. Seriously, the character is criminally insane, killed his psychiatrist, and has it out for one of the male Desperate Housewives characters.

The only thing is, no one knows about any of his past and present craziness, except Mrs. McClusky (my personal favorite character), who did some digging about him.

After watching tonight's episode I think that creepy man has it out for Mike Delfino, although I sometimes wish he would ax Susan because she kinda drives me crazy.

Blah, blah, blah

That's how I feel right now. A little tired, a little achy, a little out of place.

I don't know why I'm tired- I slept in until 11 am today (I justify this by saying that it was only 9 am Utah time), but I'm still way sluggish. Thank goodness for my parent's amazing sectional in the family room- it is my 2nd best friend (handicap permit is still #1).

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why I'm achy- I had my surg a week ago. Things are going well- I'm off my painkillers, but still feeling a little pain, and my foot and toes are purple and green with bruises. I took some pictures, which I'll have to post later when I have my camera cord.

I'm feeling out of place, because I'm at my parent's house, which used to be my house as well. It's home, but it doesn't feel like home at the same time. All you married people who are out of the house know what I mean.

I'm so freakin excited to see my sister and nephews tomorrow- my mom and I are driving up to Hobart for the weekend. Let's just hope that my nephews don't stomp on my foot.

I'll be in Indiana until the 18th and I'll be back at work on the 19th, ready or not.

My new friend.

I guess there are perks to being a hop-a-long. Ben's just happy that I got two of these, because that means one for him and now he can get a great spot in the UVU lot. For the next 3 months, this little permit will be my new bff.

Quick update

My foot surgery went well and I am now recovering at home on my couch. For the first 4 days I have to spend as much time as possible laying down with my foot propped up and iced. I'm not feeling too much pain, but then again I am very medicated.

Apparently I said some interesting things following my surgery while I was still waking up, but I'll blog about that another day.

I just took my medicine, so things are starting to get a little fuzzy. Bottom line: Surgery went well. My mom is taking excellent care of me, and Ben keeps calling me peg-leg and saying "Arrr matey!"

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers friends!

One last thing.

I leave for the hospital in about 30 minutes- luckily it's only 4 blocks away from my house. So here's to me being a hop-a-long for the next 8 weeks- yaaaaay.

Thanks foot, you've been great. It's just that fugly bunion that I hate so much. Please don't take offense, foot.



And just for fun, here are my crazy cats, Oscar and Moo. They were sleeping like this before I came in with the camera. Moo loves having my mom here, but Oscar is still hissing like mad.

Weekend roundup & upcoming events

The weekend was really, really fun. Pumpkins turned out fabulous- Ben actually carved one this year, rather than refusing like last year.

Halloween itself was a great day. Started things with kickboxing class at 24 hour fitness- we kicked to "Thriller" and the Ghostbusters theme song. Then I voted for the first time EVER. Yay for me! I'm being a responsible citizen!

The rest of the weekend continued to be great- dinner and bowling with Evan and Jamie Kleinhenz, Day of the Dead party with the Anderson's... it was a really fun time.

I wish the coming weekend could be as fun as last weekend, but I don't think that's going to happen... which leads to the "upcoming events" portion of my post.

In 3 days... actually like 2 days and 23 hours... I will have my dreaded foot surgery. Actually, I shouldn't gripe, since this surgery is 100% elective. Anyway, I'm having a bunionectomy (not sure if that's the real word for it) to get rid of the nasty bun on my right foot. I'm taking almost 2 weeks off work for recovery and my mom is coming to Utah to take care of me! Thanks momma! Also, I'll be spending 6 days in Indiana during my recovery, so I can be drugged up and whatnot on my parent's couch.

Wish me luck on my surg...hopefully I don't die. Not like I would, but I had to make my hope known. Feel free to visit me post-surg, since I do love visitors (as long as my house is clean).

Also, here's a little gem from Benjamin. When describing a specific person he doesn't like, Ben said, "He has the emotional maturity of a rhinocerous. " Ahhh Benjamin, you keep me young.