Random Surveys

So every now and again I decide that I need to take a random survey. Over the years they have covered a variety of topics. Generally it is when I am curious about something and I am not sure how else to gather the information so I just start asking people to find out what the consensus is. I have asked people in my ward, at work and most recently my family. I would like to share the results of my most recent survey. It took almost a month to complete…let me explain.

Mid October I was thinking that I have never asked my mom and my sisters about when they were dating what kept them wanting to go out with their now husbands. Then I realized that it is something that everyone always asks when they meet new people. You know the “tell me how you guys met” story. Well it’s not like I met my family. So I started one by one calling all of my sisters and asked them the following 3 questions.

When you were dating your husband…why did you keep dating him?
Did you think that he was hot?
Do you think that he is hot now?

I received some of the funniest responses that I almost ran right off the road (I call them when I am driving to and from work). Then I decided that I wanted to ask my mother as well. About 4 ½ weeks had passed and I had 2 requests from the women to ask the men in our family the same questions. They had already heard about my survey prior to my asking but still I had some pretty funny responses which I don’t think that anyone would have expected.

DISCLAIMER: Before I tell you all of their responses I first and foremost want to make it clear that they are all VERY happily married!! This will maybe open your eyes to what is really important (if you haven’t figured it out already). Also…the names have been withheld to protect the innocent (or the honest)!!!

Read on…and enjoy~

Wife 1:
1. I honest have no idea. After every date I thought it was over…but we kept dating.
2. No
3. Yes (I have changed a few things in the wardrobe)

Wife 2:
1. He made me feel comfortable, I could be myself and we had a good time
2. No
3. No…maybe though depends on what he is wearing.

Wife 3:
1. He treated me really well, we had fun and I liked him
2. Of course
3. Yes

Wife 4:
1. I wanted to
2. Yes
3. Yes

Wife 5:
1. We were engaged
2. No, I don’t think that was in the top 5 maybe even the top 10 reasons that I married him
3. Yes

Now here are the responses from the men

Husband 1:
1. She said she would
2. Yes
3. Yes

Husband 2:
1. We had similar interests; I thought that she was having a good time. But first she was my friend
2. Duh
3. Of course

Husband 3:
1. Because he thought it was fun
2. No
3. Yes (then laughter and I had to remind him to keep it clean)

Husband 4:
1. We hit it off, we enjoyed each others company
2. Good looking, better than the others that I had seen
3. Yes, in her own way

Husband 5:
1. She liked me
2. I did, she was good looking
3. More so

Now if you would like feel free to try and guess the matches – good luck...

My very own Mill & Mix!!

Okay so I sound like I am an old lady…but I am pretty excited that I got my own Mill & Mix. For those of you who are wondering what in the world that is let me explain. My mother has one, and it is a really loud/large machine but it is the machine that I learned to make bread with. It grinds the wheat and mixes the dough all in one. Plus – it has a hand crank on the back so that it can be used when there is no power. I have been really turning my thought towards food storage for some time and this is just another thing that I can check off of my list. I am not sure how or when I will get it to AZ, but I have it and that is what matters. Plus it is what I grew up using so I already know how to use it!!

Next on my list is a generator. I know that seems odd as well, but I live in the desert and if the power goes out I don’t want to loose all of my frozen food. If you an are expert on generators I would love input…

(Here is a picture, and yes it has a drawer, it just is not pictured...I am hoping it will clean up nicely)

Affirming words

There was a General Conference talk given by Jeffery R. Holland in April 2007 entitled “The Tongue of Angels”. I have been thinking about this lately and how much our words affect those around us.

Our minds are the most amazing sponges that have ever been created. We take what others say to us, about us, or around us and we keep it all in our minds. Memories are stored in our minds for an indefinite amount of time. Now that doesn’t mean that they are always fresh on our minds, but there are times when those words are brought back to our remembrance. Sometimes it is because of something that we see or hear. For instance when we watch a movie we don’t memorize all of the lines but sometimes even years later you are racking your brain trying to figure out where you may have heard a similar phrase. When you finally figure it out it was from a movie. Same it is with the words that we speak. Depending on the environment that you are surrounded by those words can bring either good or bad memories to mind. I encourage everyone who is reading this to make a conscious effort to slow down and think things through and remember those words that we speak to others – try to use words of affirmation so that our loved ones and friends will have wonderful memories when they are reminded of the words that we have spoken to them.

-----if you are interested in reading the entire text of Jeffery R Holland's talk it can be found on www.lds.org

*** My Neck ***

OK...so I have blogged before about having a trainer, well we had to change trainers and we have had a new one for almost 2 weeks now. I think that he looks like Charlie Brown but with a really big neck. Maybe it is because he looks so young that I think of Charlie…not sure where it came from but it fits for sure.

Anyway he is “killer” or at least that is how I feel after we have worked out with him. For instance take Tuesday for example. He decided it would be a good day to work abs. I have worked out for years, especially on my abs…I mean who didn’t get the abs of steel movie and do crunches forever at home?!? (by the way did you know about the others? Buns of Steel, Hips & Thighs of Steel, Abs and Arms of Steel and Legs of Steel, they really do work – I found mine on eBay for really cheap) Anyway…first he puts each of us on an incline bench (yes instant head rush) and then he has us do 3 sets of 20 sit ups, but there was a twist…after the first 15 you had to do 5 to each side then finish the last 5. Then we turned around and did reverse crunches where you lift your lower body instead of the upper and so the work out went. An entire 30 minutes on solid abs.

When the workout is over I ran for about 30 min and felt totally fine…that is until Wednesday morning. How is it that I can hardly twist my neck without feeling it…uh lets just say that if I had stronger abs I wouldn’t feel it in my neck so much (no laughing please). It is getting better, but I just realized that anyone with great abs probably has a really strong neck, clearly I have neither, but I am at least attempting.

Disclaimer…I don’t want a big neck! I keep asking if it will get bigger and I am assured that it will not. If you see me and think that my neck is growing let me know and I think I can handle the weak abs…

How could I forget...it was the cookies~

So I must have been a little tired or something this morning. I was on my way to work when I glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed that I hadn’t put any make-up on!!! I turned around and headed back home to correct the situation. When leaving the second time I noticed that I was on empty so that I would have to stop and get gas as well…I finally made it to work nearly an hour late.

However, when I got to work I pointed out that the important thing is that I remembered the cookies! I had them with me the first time I left the house.

It is fall time and I was thinking the other day that I haven’t made pumpkin cookies yet…so after I went to the market last night I started working on them. I managed to eat my fair share while they were hot out of the oven…but I just keep trying to remind myself that since they have pumpkin in them that they aren’t too bad for me, right?

Anyway for any of you out there who are aching for a new cookie recipe these are delicious!!! I like a chunky cookie (although sometimes a good sugar cookie will set me just fine) so I add lost of stuff…alter it as you like.

Pumpkin Cookies

½ C shortening
1 egg
1 ½ C Sugar
1 C pumpkin
½ C nuts
1 C raisins
1 tsp: Baking soda
Baking powder
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Salt
Vanilla
2 ½ C Flour
½ bag Chocolate Chips

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes

Food Storage

For as long as I can remember the prophets have told us to get our years supply; I haven’t really worried about that much in the past. I don’t know if it is because I lived at home or that I didn’t have my own home and when you are renting there is limited space to store food. But over the past year or so I have found myself more than once thinking about food storage. Early this year I purchased a chest freezer and then 1/3 of beef from my parents and in March/April of this last year I took the plunge and started getting more things together for me. I am now excited to say that I have several 5 gallon buckets that are full of food, as well as a large box of other items I might need. I have researched and found the nice air tight lids and am excited that I have something that I can call my food storage.

I find myself thinking about it more often then not and I realized that if the need arises there are other things that I will want to have on hand as well…so I purchased soap, laundry detergent, toiletries and toilet paper as well. I find that when I go shopping I will throw in 2 or 3 instead of just 1 so that I will have a supply at home. My disclaimer here is that I don’t have everything that I need, but I have started working on it and it is amazing how much it makes you feel better. I don’t want any of you thinking that I am totally prepared by any means! However, growing up my parents always had us saving all kinds of bottles that were empty and filling them with water. I started saving a few so that I have a little water supply as well. Even my old cleaning supply bottles are filled with water and in the garage just in case…

Anyway I was talking with my older sister one day and she was making jam. I did a quick memory check and I think I made jam a couple of fall’s ago…after looking I had only 4 bottles left. I also noted that I only had one jar of sloppy joe mix left. I decided right then on the phone that I would need to “beef up” my supply. So I called my friend "H" and told her that she needed to come early on Friday night so we could go to the farmer’s market. She wanted to come over and catch up since she was only home from Costa Rica about 5 days when I left for Greece. I am sad to say that we didn’t end up talking about our trips until late on Saturday. But…we got so much accomplished.

First I absolutely love my farmer’s market. We went there and I was able to get 2 cases of pears for $24 (3 lbs for a $1) the tomatoes were the same price and I had taken my recipe book with me so I bought enough tomatoes to make up a double batch of sloppy joe mix and a batch of salsa as well…why not right?!?

Much to my dissatisfaction the pears were not as ripe as I would have hoped, but I had to get them all made up and into jam since I couldn’t let them ripen too long (I was leaving for DC on Wednesday). So we pulled out my smoothie maker and my blender and went to work. After 4 batches of jam on Friday night we called it a night…then we got started early on Saturday. The salsa and the sloppy joe mix went really quickly since you just add it all together and boil forever. Then we started peeling the pears again. We had to keep stopping and go to the store for more jars. In the end I think we may have went a little overboard on the jam…95 jars, 16 batches and 15 flavors…yeah maybe a little over board, but hey…I will have jam.

The salsa was so good that we ate an entire pint the next day…I might have to make salsa on a quarterly basis. But the sloppy joe mix should last me a while (last time I made it was 2002 and I still have a quart left).

Anyway…I just wanted to blog about this so that those of you who don’t think that you have time for food storage will think about it again and realize that maybe you don’t have time not to have food storage. It really didn’t take that long and we had such a great time while preparing all of it…we might even make it a General Conference Weekend tradition going forward!