Pinterest Updates

Well gang, I recently decided to start actually trying some of the things I've been pinning.  What's the fun if you never use it?!  I started with a Sunday of Pinteresting last weekend.  I decided that for dinner, I'd made "chicken bundles" with apple crisp for two for dessert.  I also decided to treat my fur children with some frozen "dogscicles." 

The dog treats are made of plain yogurt, a mashed banana, and some peanut butter.  You mix it all up and then spoon it into ice cube trays and freeze.  I had three full ice cube trays of the mixed stuff.  I felt pretty good about the potential when I let the dogs try the spoon and they devoured it.  Cherry occasionally eats cat shit though so it's not like she has discerning taste.  I waited the appropriate amount of time to make sure they were frozen and then gave them a try.  It took a bit to actually get the treats OUT of the ice cube tray.  I might have let slip a few profanities when the frozen cubes REFUSED to let go of the plastic tray.  But finally I got some out and fed them to the dogs.  Truman swallowed his without really chewing it, and Cherry took hers and began licking it around the kitchen floor, slowly savoring it.  Truman looked eager to have another, so I gave him one.  This one he actually chewed, and then looked at me for more.  As I was about to hand him a third, and stopped wagging his tail, looked at me with concern, turned around, and hurled the entire contents of his stomach onto the kitchen floor.  Cherry looked at him like he was an amateur as she kept enjoying her first treat.   Turns out lots of cold stuff can clinch a doggy stomach, causing them to get sick.  Poor lil dude.  The good news is he still liked them; I'll just have to make sure he goes slower next time.  I've got three trays of these things and I'm not going to let a little projectile illness get in the way. 

For dinner, I tried "chicken bundles."  It's basically chunks of chicken mixed with cream cheese, onions, and spices, spooned into crescent roll dough that has been formed into squares instead of triangles and baked.  The recipe on Pinterest called for canned chicken, but that is disgusting to me so I went ahead and made an extreme sacrifice and took the 15 minutes to cook real chicken.  They ended up being really good, but I think I'd like to try different spices next time, and maybe less onions.  You can do a lot with that idea though.  Pizza themed next time?  The possibilities are endless!

My apple crisp was badass.  I'm not even going to be modest about it. 

YUM.  The photo doesn't do it justice because I didn't have a food picture studio with appropriate light and all that.

Pinterest win!  Today I made homemade salsa.  Pretty good for a first try.  I did make the mistake of touching my eye after chopping the jalapenos.  Woo that stings.  Tears!  Next time I make salsa I will both try not to touch sensitive body parts, and I'll tweak my recipe so it will be better.  

All in all, a successful first foray into making all the stuff I look at on the internet.  I wonder what I'll try next.

I will NOT take finals.

It's nearly the end of January.  Pretty soon I'm going to blink and I will be 80.  Ok, time probably won't go THAT quickly, but it is hard to believe I'll be turning 27 in a few weeks.  I'll be honest, I never really imagined my life much past 25, since I knew I'd graduate law school when I was 25, and then I guess in my mind planning for the future just stopped there.  Scott routinely tells me I'm getting too old for him, and he "didn't expect" me to ever be older than 22, like when we first had classes together.  But, such is life.  And since I'm turning 27, I'm coming up on the 10-year anniversary of one of the aforementioned awkward moments of my life that I've tried to forget.  It's not the bird shit one, so that leaves you with one other option.

Shortly before I turned 17, I got mono.  It was slightly embarrassing, because in high school everyone calls it the kissing disease, so everyone naturally assumed I got it from kissing my cute little ginge boyfriend.  Hell, even I didn't doubt that was a possibility.  Then I ran into this girl who was in my homeroom at the same doctor I went to.  And she also had mono.  Then the pieces clicked and I remembered sharing a soda with her about a week before I started feeling gross.  From then on I blamed her.  Case closed, I had solved the mono mystery.  What was not solved, however, was how exactly to deal with the disease itself.  The glands in my throat swelled up so much that solid food would get stuck, thus necessitating an all liquid diet (and a GREAT weight loss plan.  Too bad I was twig thin then anyway.  I could use mono now).  I also felt so weak that I couldn't get up and walk the 30 feet to the bathroom without feeling like I wanted to pass out.  It was not a good time.  I spent my 17th birthday bundled up on the couch watching the Westminster Dog Show with Rachel, who had come to entertain me since I was bedridden.  I was on the verge of growing into the couch itself when I realized that I could only have a certain # of absences before I would be forced to take my final exams.  Gag.  So, I carefully plotted out a plan of which classes I would go to, and which I would be able to skip and go home and rest.  I wasn't going to let blinding throat pain, an enlarged spleen, and exhaustion stop me from besting the system.

One morning about 3 weeks into the misery, I forced a slim fast breakfast shake down my throat and headed to class.  At this point, the pain I was in had prompted my doctor to prescribe borderline narcotic pills, so I was a bit loopy, but determined to function.  I made it to first period- pre-cal.  Math has never been my strong suit.  I still have to think long and hard about calculating any number plus 9 in my head.  I was not thrilled to be there, but needed to have my butt in that chair lest I face the possibility of bombing a final.  (For the record, "bomb" to me meant getting like a 91-92 as opposed to high 90s.  That's just how I rolled.)  I walked in and made it to my seat in the last row, middle aisle.  Sami was on my left and Kyle was on my right.  We had formed a pretty close pre-cal bond over the course of the year.  Kyle could tell I was feeling gross, and I'm sure the slightly iridescent pallor of my skin didn't help matters.  About 10 minutes into class, he offered me a piece of gum, because he had done that once before and it had actually helped my throat a little.  I gratefully accepted and began chewing.  I'm not sure what it was, maybe the chewing motion or the juices it stirred up (that sounds gross), but before I could even count to 10, I promptly stood up, looked at Kyle, and hurled my entire slim fast all over his desk, papers and all.  Luckily, he appeared to have read my mind and dodged out of the way just in time to avoid any residual...spatter.  I looked up and the ENTIRE class was staring at me, wide-eyed and open-jawed.  I wanted to cry, but I didn't really have time because I could feel another round coming.  I dashed for the door, stopping just long enough to decorate the trash can on my way out.  I sprinted down the hall and continued to dispel the contents of my stomach, possibly including some organs like my intestines, gallbladder, and maybe even that enlarged spleen.

Following this, I slowly shuffled to the nurse's office, where she offered me the cure all for everything- crackers- and sent me home.  I swore off those damn pain pills after that and just braved my way through the remainder of my mono sentence.  When I returned to class a few days later, some of my classmates eyed me with trepidation, as if I could burst at any moment.  Another told me that my event had been the highlight of his week.  I was dubbed "coke puke" girl.  Awesome I know.  I didn't have the heart to tell them it was slim fast, not coke. Mostly though, I didn't want to correct them because I never wanted to talk about it again.  

Somehow, despite all that, I had few enough absences to not take finals.  Victory.  And look where I am today.  See kids, you can survive mortifying events that make you want to crawl into a hole and die.  And that's my lesson of the day.

"I work in a house"

This story has been dragged from the "awkward moments" folder deep in the recesses of my brain, where it had been sitting alongside such events as "the day I puked all over my friend's desk in front of my entire pre-cal class" and "the day a bird shit on my head while I was riding my bike back to my dorm and I nearly fell off into the grass" because I got an unexpected Facebook friend request. I suppose those stories could be told in more detail sometime, since I've just thought of them again.  I guess that gives you something to look forward to.

Anyhoo, shortly after I started my job last year, it was decided that I needed to have my photo taken for the firm website.  This was exciting to me because it meant I had (sort of) made it.  There have been a few downsides since my picture was posted, such as clients telling me they liked my hair blonder like the picture or that I look "skinnier" on the website.  Thanks for that.  But, it was (and still is) exciting to have my professional profile posted.  I got a phone call one day from the PR lady at the firm giving me the name and number of a photographer to call and set up an appointment.  In fairness to her, she probably had no idea what she had set me up with, because when I later told her she was surprised and felt slightly bad.  I call the number, and a man answers with "---- photo-graphy, how can I help you?"  (I'm not going to name the actual company).  The mispronunciation of the word 'photography' throws me off a little bit, but I power through.  I tell him that I got his number to set up a business head shot for my company website.  He inhales sharply and then trills "oh how wonderful!" and then asks when I'm available.  I list off several available times, and we settle on 10:30am, I believe on a Wednesday.  As I'm about to hang up he offers this piece of advice- "when you try to find it, don't be surprised that I work in a house.  Just ring the doorbell."

I'm a little alarmed because I'm not sure of the logistics of setting up a photo studio in a house, particularly the type I'm imagining based on the address, but I decide to move along.

The day arrives, and after a quick peek at Google maps I'm even more concerned about what I'm going to uncover.  I leave the office with a plea to my coworker Sarah that if I don't return within an hour, she needed to call the police because I had probably been abducted and/or sold into some sort of mid-west sex trade.  I follow my GPS to the address and end up in an older neighborhood lined with mid-70s era duplexes.  I find the address on the mailbox and apprehensively ring the doorbell.  A breathless man answers the door and ushers me inside.


He leads me through the house to his studio...in the garage.  I understand that up-and-comers have to do whatever they can to make it, and I completely respect that.  But the set-up is a little odd.    He has bed sheets draped from the ceiling and plastic shelves lining the walls that are filled with random stuffed animals, hats, scarves, and other props.  As he's setting up his camera, he asks me if we'll be "experimenting" with different outfits or props or makeup.  I just stare at him until I realize he's not kidding.

"Um, no, this is just a business shot for a website, so just your basic portrait is good."  I can see him deflate as I'm speaking.  Despite this instruction, he proceeds to take 100+ shots of me in various poses; from my left, from my right, head tilted back slightly, head tilted slightly to the right, from above (extremely glamour-shot-esque), me looking down into the camera.  He is very into this whole process, and despite how awkward it is that I'm being posed in a garage lined with bedsheets, I can sort of see how he'll be successful some day because he really seems to enjoy what he's doing.

After what feels like hours, he decides he's done, and asks (almost hopefully) if I have any other photo ideas.  I say no, thank him for his time, and leave.  Four weeks later I had to review those 100+ proofs to pick the one I wanted on the website.  Wading through several pictures that looked the exact same, and some that looked like I needed to be wearing bright blue eye shadow and red lipstick to make sense, was tedious.  But, I selected 3 that I really liked.  The picture that made the website was not one of the three.  Sigh.  But, I did make it, despite the incredibly awkward road I took to get there.

The Facebook friend request was from the awkward turtle photographer.  Nearly a year after he took my picture.  I haven't spoken to him since.  Needless to say, I politely declined.  And by politely declined, I mean I clicked the button indicating "hell no."

Magic Gift Cards

So, last we talked, Scott had tricked me into thinking he didn't get On the Border and then he did.  Sneaky.  Then they didn't put tortillas in the bag, which necessitated a trip to the store because tortillas are pretty necessary for fajitas and we didn't have any.  This was obviously very upsetting to Scott, who had been in the car for over two hours and just wanted to eat dinner and relax.  He called and talked to the manager, one of those "I'm not sure why I'm calling because it's not like you can do anything" scenarios.  We've all had those moments of frustration. 

So yesterday I had hearings in Kansas City.  They ran long (as hearings tend to do), and I finally got to head home around 2:15pm.  I had a gift card for Chili's/On the Border so I decided I'd pick up a small dinner to have when I got home.  I called and ordered and the lady who took my order somehow knew I was Scott's wife.  When I went to pick it up she refused to let me pay, or even tip.  Free food, yes! 

Today, I was working in Jeff City and there is a Chili's by our office there.  I decided to try again with the gift card, so I ordered a small salad with some chicken quesadillas.  When I went to pick it up, the woman had somehow put in an order for cajun pasta.  Fail.  When I pointed this out, she was so apologetic and quickly fixed the order.  The manager came out and apologized and said "it's on us."  I had my gift card in hand and I was once again denied.  Not only that, but she told me to keep the pasta too!  So, I suppose that's my dinner.  This card has magical powers; every time I try to use it I end up getting free food.  I'm just going to start bringing it with me everywhere.  "Can I pay for this book with a Chili's gift card?  No?  Damn."

As a sidenote to my KC trip, the SSA office was about 2 miles from the house my dad lived in for a bit when he was a kid.  It's a really weird set up, because the office is in a somewhat shady part of town, and then you drive for about a minute, cross a street, and then it's a whole different neighborhood with beautiful older houses and quaint little shops.  Here are some pictures:

I like seeing the house (I've been by it once before).  It was the last house my grandfather lived in before he passed away in a plane crash.  I don't have much of a connection to him, aside from what I have heard from my dad and other family members.  It feels special to me to be connected to something that was connected to him, because I so wish I could have known him.  I felt the same way when I was in Europe, knowing he had walked some of those same streets 60+ years before during WWII.  Any chance I have to walk where he walked, or see something he saw, I appreciate those moments.

*end of sentiment*

Toodles!

On the Border!

So, I'm pretty obsessed with Mexican food.  That might come as a surprise to some, but if it's THAT much of a surprise you don't know me very well.  Any time I go to Dallas/any part of Texas my friends always ask where I want to go eat and my answer is always Tex Mex.  I love it.  I might be ok turning into a tortilla.  But only if it meant I got to eat myself.  Like a hot dog in fake Harry Caray's world.

Anyway, the Mexican food pickins in Missouri are quite slim, and essentially the nearest thing to legit Tex Mex (aside from the few restaurants in Columbia and a couple that I really liked in St. Louis), is On the Border in Kansas City.  Every time I go to Kansas City I get On the Border.  Even if it's just to have some chips and queso.  I make time for my love.  Scott went to the Mizzou/kstate game in Manhattan a few weekends ago and I thought to myself "this is perfect!  He can stop and get OTB on the way home for dinner!"  My plan was pretty brilliant.  At least I thought so.  This is going to sound so lame but all day that Saturday I was thinking about how good my dinner was going to be.  As I took down the Christmas decorations and cleaned the entire house, I kept thinking "that salsa is so good" and similar lardy things.

Scott called me around 6pm and said he'd be home around 7:30.  He asked me what I wanted for dinner.  I was like "ha-ha so funny" since I had basically talked his ear off about this brilliant plan.  He said "when I called the wait was over 45 minutes for carry out so I didn't stop.  But you can pick where we go in Columbia."  I felt my smile fade and my only-child syndrome slowly turn on.  He asked me how the game was on TV and I snidely reminded him that I had been doing chores all day in anticipation of my dinner.  Showed him.  When we hung up I told several people about my first world problem.  (This was much like the time Scott convinced me that the grocery stores finally had Blue Bell and I turned around and told the whole world about how excited I was...only to find out that it was a cruel joke.  Now that I think about it, it's sad how excited I get about food items.  See Pinterest post below for further proof of this).  The more I thought about the whole "45-min wait" thing, the less convinced I was.  A 45-minute wait at what was around 5:30pm on a Saturday in suburban KC MO?  Yea right.  By the time I heard the garage door opening I had decided I needed answers.

I played it cool though, not looking up from the couch when I heard the door to the garage open and Scott walk in.  He casually asked me if I had thought about dinner, to which I replied that I hadn't, with my eyes glued to the television.  He told me to think about it while he got some trash out of his car.  A minute later he came back in and I still refused to look over.  It wasn't until the OTB bag was completely blocking my field of vision that I realized I had been duped...again.  I knew in my heart of hearts that he'd never let me down!  After a minor "they didn't put tortillas in our bag" crisis, I enjoyed my dinner!  Scott, for all his love and devotion to me, spent the night awake with food poisoning.  :-/

It's only a few weeks later and I have to go to Kansas City tomorrow for hearings.  I didn't get food poisoning, and I have a Chili's/OTB gift card calling my name.  So, you know where I'll be eating lunch.  The end.



(Upon further reflection about my love of OTB, I feel like I sound a bit like Kendra and her obsession with Olive Garden.  I'd like to clarify that OTB is not my favorite restaurant, or Mexican restaurant.  But, it reminds me of home and I love home, so I love it.  There, the end for real.)

Live Blogging Miss America

I thought I'd give you the rundown of Scott's comments on Miss America.  We pick up in the swimsuit competition...

 Miss Oklahoma: "Oh hel-looo!"

Miss Texas: "Oh yea."

Miss North Carolina: "Oh, top 2."

Miss South Carolina:  "You can tell she lost like 100 lbs."

Miss Virginia: "We can get on board with that."

Miss Illinois:  "Hmm...hey girl."

Miss Arizona:  "Alright."

Miss Alabama: "I think her butt will be huge when she's older."

Miss Tennessee: *audible sigh*..."She's hot."

Miss Wisconsin: "Meh."

Miss North Carolina: "Oh top 4."

Miss California: "What up girl!"  (as I point out how...bouncy...her behind is).

Men.

Learning who made evening gowns:

After Miss Louisiana:  "I'll help her change."

Miss Iowa:  "I'm on board."

Miss Illinois:  "I like my redheads."

Miss SC: "Good for her.  I can't imagine her 100lbs more."

Scott is concerned that "none of his girls" have made it.

"I just gave the kiss of death to my girls!"

Miss Tennessee: "Oh thank god!"

Miss Texas:  "Yea!"

Miss California:  *fart noises*

Miss Oklahoma: "Poor North Carolina and Alabama!"

Wait!  There's a save! And it's Miss Alabama!  Scott thinks she'll need help getting out of her swimsuit.

Evening gown highlights:

Most of this was Scott making plays on words about getting into gowns based on the contestants saying "I've worked hard to get into this gown" etc.   He got particularly happy for Miss Tennessee.

Miss Alabama:  "What is that growing off her shoulder?  NO!"  (She had a particularly hideous giant bow sewn to her right shoulder).

Pinterest

Loyal readers!  Rejoice.  I am back.  Ok, I'm on the Pinterest bandwagon.  I think I liked it right away because I was invited by my lovely Diane, so I didn't have to wait for weeks on end for an invitation.  I remember people thinking "I have to WAIT for an invite?!  This is so elitist and stupid!"  Well, they're right, having to be invited to pin stuff onto fake electronic boards is elitist and stupid, but since I was part of the elite crew I was totally ok with it.  I'm in the club while you're being held out by velvet rope and the bouncer with biceps the size of tree trunks.  Once I got my invite, I extended the courtesy to those unfortunate souls who were waiting for an invite.  Spreading the Pinterest wealth. 

So I set out pinning.  I think I did it wrong the first few times, so I have no idea where those pins went, but then I got the hang of it and I became a pinning machine!  It's so exciting when you're down near the bottom of the page and you get the alert that you have NEW pins.  What a rush.  Anyway, I'm pinning along and I take a step back to look at my boards and I notice something slightly alarming.  The vast majority of my pins pertain to food or alcohol.  I would say for every pin that isn't food or alcohol related, 4-5 are.  What can I say?  I like food and I like drinking.  Especially crafty little drinks that can turn beer, frozen lemonade, and vodka into a tasty summer treat. 

Tonight though, I feel like I hit a new low.  I logged in to look at my board because I want to try this recipe soon, and I realized that I had not once, but twice pinned the same food and alcohol item to my board.  I have pinned so much food and alcohol recipes/ideas that I can't remember already seeing it and going "wow that looks delicious, I'll pin it."  Om nom. 

I also pin a lot to the board 'Future Child Evans', even though the thought of actually having a future child Evans is too sobering at the moment.  Plus Scott said I was too impatient to be a good mom, but I think I'll like my own children.  That's how it works, isn't it?

New Year's Resolutions

It's 2012!  Whee!  I hope you all rang in the New Year with laughter, happiness, and a little bit of bubbly.  I know I did.  Scott was working (which turned out to be a very good choice), so I rang in the new year with my coworker/friend and my dogs at her house with her boyfriend, dog, and some of her friends.  Low-key but very fun.  And, as always, the coming of a new year lends itself to me thinking what I'd like to improve upon.  I can't argue that for the most part 2011 was pretty good to me.  But, what can I change about how I live my daily life to make 2012 even better?  There are the obvious things that EVERYONE thinks of, like "I want to be healthier", but I tried to think off the beaten path and here's what I came up with.  I'm posting them so that I can hold myself accountable and I'd encourage you folks to look back at this and ask me in June how this is going.  ;)

1. I'd like to be a bit more spiritual.  I went through a period in middle/high school where I was very religious, and I went through a period in college where I was quite NOT religious, and I've come to learn that neither approach was for me.  I'm not meant to shout my beliefs from a mountain-top, nor am I built to ignore that there are blessings in my life made possible not only by my own hard work, but a little bit of faith and unexplained blessing as well.  A little more quiet faith and more regular reflection will be good to have, especially in a profession where I often have to come face to face with the extreme misfortunes of others.  Counting my blessings a little more can only make me more grateful for everything I do have.
2. I'd like to stop focusing so much on those in my life who want yet don't give, and focus more on the people in my life who give without wanting.  The friends who don't just call me when it's convenient for them, but the friends who truly make me as much a part of their lives as I do mine.  I don't know if that makes any sense, but I will say it's amazing what planning a wedding will do to show you who really belongs in that special "circle of trust" in your life.  I had some friends (actually most friends) who jumped through hoops to make sure my day was as special as possible, and those are (not surprisingly) the same friends who have ALWAYS done the small and big things in the name of friendship, and have since continued to be rock stars, rock stars I don't know what I'd do without.  The friends for whom time and distance don't matter, because when we're together it's like we saw each other yesterday.  For me these friends come from all walks of life- from high school, college, and friends I've met in recent years too.  You all know who you are, and YOU are the friends I want to focus on, because you're the ones who make my life such an adventure. 
3. I want to grow as an attorney.  I've learned so much this past year and a half-ish, but I know there is so much for me to learn.  Cue the "lawyers are scum" and like-minded jokes, but I became a lawyer because I'm good at arguing and writing (my blog posts aren't a good sample of this because rarely do I make sure what I'm saying makes sense here), and because I genuinely wanted a career where I could do more than crunch numbers or sit behind a desk all day reading a computer screen.  This past year has been trying at times, but I'm happy to know that even in some tiny way, I'm helping to improve the lives of the people I represent.  I want to expand on that this year and continue to learn, grow, and get better at arguing.  ;)
4. This last one is slightly material, but I've resolved to purchase more shoes and some new purses at some point this year.  And maybe start saving for that rhinoplasty I keep talking about.  Someday my nose and I are going to have a medical showdown, and I'm going to win.  

What are YOUR resolutions?