More Food Projects This Month

I thought I'd post a few pictures of a couple things I've been working on lately. I feel a little behind since I didn't post the pictures when I took them. My photography class starts this week, so I need to be up to date on all this stuff before it starts.

A few weeks or so ago I used red potatoes to make a cheesy potato bake thingy, and I couldn't stop taking pictures of the potatoes. The contrast between the red outside and the white inside was so satisfying.

I made a pork tenderloin roast last week with a chili orange glaze, and I also loved the contrast between the red crust and white inside. I liked the sauce but Trevor didn't. Sometimes it really drives me crazy that he's a simple food kinda guy. "Meat, potatoes, and cheese," he says. Pish posh. There's more to life than meat and potatoes! I love experiencing new flavors, and combining flavors I've never tried before--and I can like them even if it's weird. Trevor is kind of the opposite.

I made spinach lasagna a while ago too, and the spinach leaves were so beautiful! Trevor likes all kinds of lasagna, so I didn't have to worry about that this time :)

I also made homemade reduced sugar strawberry jam more than a month ago. I've only made jam one other time, and they didn't set up the way they were supposed to that time. This time, the jam jelled up and all the lids sealed :) AND I felt okay about spreading it on everything since it had half the sugar (as long as I didn't think about the 3 pounds of sugar that WERE in it).

This weekend I made a new cake. It wasn't as complicated as the last one (thank goodness!), but it was fun and really relaxing to make. Unfortunately for my waistline, cooking is very theraputic for me. And spending my Sunday afternoon cutting, layering, frosting, and making a cake look like a big fish was just the balance of "project" and relaxation that I wanted. Plus, since it was fun and silly, it was okay if it didn't look perfect, so I didn't have to stress out over anything.

I was able to find the balance I've been looking for in my frosting. I've made buttercream frostings with butter, which have great buttery flavor, but that's all you can taste, and they don't hold their shape very well at room temperature. I've made frostings with shortening, and they have great consistency; the flavor is good but very "store-bought." Trevor suggested that I do something about that last time, so I combined the two and I think we found the perfect frosting! The only thing I need to get right now making the frosting smoother. I'll figure it out one day.

If you're wondering what I did with all the extra red, green, orange, yellow, and brown M&Ms... yes, I ate them. Our fish couldn't have mismatching dots, after all.

9/11 on a Personal Note

September 11th isn't about a terrorist attack to me. Yeah, I know that's what caused it. But for some reason I just have to focus on letting the fact sink in that it's possible in our world to kill 3,000 people at once just because. I know there have been many many other instances in the history of the world where more than 3,000 people died when something happened; 9/11 is kind of close to my heart though--probably because I was young when it happened, and it was the first time I'd really understood something awful and huge happening in the world on a personal level. To me, 9/11 is an example of the atrocities the world is capable of. Obviously, yes, historically it's important for us to know that on September 11, 2001 terrorist members of the Al Queda group were responsible for crashing 2 planes into the World Trade Center towers, another into the Pentagon, and another in Pennsylvania. And it's important for us to know why they apparently hate America and feel the need to "teach us a lesson." But to me, the most important part isn't the details of who caused it or when, but how American people and the people of the world responded emotionally. I'm glad that the majority of our human society was appalled by what happened. I'm glad that the world isn't so far gone that we can't connect over the horror of 3,000 people being murdered. I'm glad it's still wrong for something like that to happen--with all the crime and hate in the world, all the uncaring people, all the people who have no care what happens to others, or what happens to society as a whole, or how much we degrade ourselves-- I'm glad that we aren't desensitized so much that we can't come together and realize when we've lost something (the majority of us, anyway).

I always want to remember sitting in 8th grade Algebra, doing my morning worksheet, and having something so important come on the TV that my uncaring, basketball coaching, smelly math teacher knew a room of thirty 13-year-olds needed to see--needed to feel what was happening together. All of my teachers let the students talk with each other about what was happening and how we were feeling throughout the day. And I like to think they let us do that not just because we need to know what happened, but because we needed to internalize how it impacted us individually and as a group. We needed to know how we would respond as the younger generation of the world to harm and the psychological, emotional pain of losing something many of us had never seen before--of losing something that to many of us was intangible. I'd never been to New York City, or to Washington DC. I'd never met anyone who I knew may even be IN one of the towers, or even in the city at the time. I'm sure that was the case for the majority of my classmates. And yet, we still cried. I'm proud that we banded together to dive into the new feelings we were having--and to gain an appreciation for the beauty of our human race and complexity. I'm glad we could recognize the loss of life--the loss of a group of conscious people, who were breathing and thinking, and who had families and friendships--and the suffering they all must have been going through--that there are actual people on the other side of the country, living their lives, just like I am. That's what there is to learn from historical events, I think. And 9/11 was the first time I'd really had the chance to internalize that. It helped me open myself to feeling the personal experiences that other people must have gone through during other historical events. I hope experiences like 9/11 do the same for everyone else in the world, so we can be a more humane, sympathetic, and sensitive society as a whole, and that we can think about the people, not just the event.

I love finding pictures of people on historic dates.

September 11, 2001

D-Day: June 6, 1944

Oklahoma City Bombing: April 19, 1995

Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941

Fall of the Berlin Wall: November 9, 1989

Robyn's Fondant Birthday Cake

Made my first cake using fondant. It turned out okay. I don't really know why I thought it would be any different, but molding with fondant is pretty much like molding with clay. If you stink with clay, you stink with fondant. It was a really fun, challenging project for me though.

I did the cake for my sister-in-law's birthday (happy birthday!) and it tasted pretty good, which is the most important part :)

The cake itself was a marble cake made from 2 boxed cake mixes; dark chocolate and french vanilla. It's super easy. You just make the two mixes separately (or, if you're going all out, you just make two cake mixes from scratch), then pour part of one in the pan, part of the other in lines on top, then take a knife and criss-cross through the batter. Don't stir, just criss-cross to make a pattern. Sorry, no picture.

While your cakes are cooling (in the fridge, to make them hard), that's when you start making the fondant stuff. I tried making the candles completely edible by wrapping Pirouettes with fondant, but they weren't stable enough. So I wrapped wooden dowels and then cut strips for the lines on the candles. Fondant is pretty easy to roll out--you just need to have a bunch of powdered sugar and cornstarch to roll it out on to.

I didn't know this, but you use a little bit of water mixed with some dissolved fondant, and you use it as glue to hold stuff together--really neat :) You let the fondant decorations harden while you're getting the rest of your cake ready.

I made a homemade vanilla-flavored butter-cream frosting to build the cake with. Mix all the wet stuff, then add the meringue and sugar in increments.

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup shortening
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 tablespoons milk or water
• 1 tablespoon meringue powder

I bought a frosting tip that is huge for putting a layer of frosting onto the cake so you don't tear it up trying to get it even. It looks like this, only the opening is about 2 inches long:
So you just frost the cake, then roll out your fondant and put it on top, smoothing out all the surfaces and trimming it up. Then I stuck in my candles, made curly-cues, stuck those in, and dotted on some royal icing to hold it all together. Royal icing is different than butter-cream. Royal icing starts out runny, and gets thicker as you beat it, then gets hard a few minutes after you use it. It consists of:

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons meringue powder
• 1-2 tablespoons water

Then you finish by making a border to hide the trim-line of the fondant.

Then you eat it :) And it's yummy. I think next time I'll stick with making less intricate stuff out of fondant--Stuff I can use cookie cutters for and straight lines :) It took me a bit of time to get used to working with the fondant--especially when you wet it down to glue stuff together. So be sure to plan on your kitchen getting destroyed in the process, and your hands being sticky the whole time--then you should be good :) I think I cleaned my kitchen 3 times that day.

If you're looking for good cake ideas, Joann's website and Wilton's website have GREAT ideas and tips and places to start. That's where I got my ideas this time.

Cheese

Before


After


Yay! I'm learning!

No Non-Pregnants Allowed

I think the world is pregnant or something, because EVERYONE is getting pregnant. And frankly, I feel a little like I've been kicked out of a club or something.

sigh

Don't get me wrong. I'm content where we're at, and I'm happy with our goals. But yeesh; all this good news makes me feel like I fell off the bandwagon. I want to share in everyone's happiness and have a blogpost of my own saying "we're expecting!" I hope people start having showers and parties so I can start celebrating with them and get my fill!

I've been up to...

It's been a while. I feel like I haven't done a whole lot of exciting stuff. Here's what's gone down:

• Work has been crazy busy. Busier than ever. That's pretty lucky considering the economy. Let's hope it stays this way, and I may eventually get a raise :) It's been stressful.
• My bedroom has been clean for at least 2 weeks, going on 3. Frankly, that is amazing. Laundry and all. (I have to give a big thank you to Frasier Crane, Michael Scott, and Will Truman for getting me through the rough times.)
• I signed up for a Digital Photography class to see if I can hone some actual talent out of my hobby. We'll see. It starts in 3 weeks. When it was possible I might be getting a raise, I was looking into it a lot, but then it kind of fizzled out. Then Trevor's brother got a really sweet digital slr camera and I think I about died of jealousy :) So here I am.
• Speaking of pictures. Trevor has been (unknowingly) showing me a lot of stuff in Photoshop lately and I've felt much better about that side of my picture-taking. I've never been really great of detailed editing of pictures, and I've always been worried that I would hate the Photoshop-ing aspect. It's not so bad.
• I think I can say this now--it's close enough. Trevor and I are taking a week off work and life for our anniversary in October. We decided we're going to have a stay-cation and use the money we save to pay off an entire credit card. It's both deflating and bolstering. I want a vacation, dang it; with airplanes and hotels, and no chance of interruption. But at the same time, we'll be paying off an ENTIRE credit card--not just paying it down some-- ENTIRELY. So if anyone has any great ideas about what we can do here in Utah within an hour or so from our house, please tell. I'm thinking I'll be making a list of everything I can think of and then we'll just choose something we feel like doing each day. It's going to be great--it'll be like our belated, shortened summer vacation.
• Speaking of debt. In 29 days I will be making our last payment on the first credit card we intend to pay off completely. It is SOOOOO exciting to see the snowball effect actually happening now. We always have room for improvement, but I'm pretty proud of Trevor and I for sticking more to our budget these last few months (excepting the giant size tv Trevor HAD to have; but that's another story).
• Hm, what else? I read Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake and Abbey Epstein. They're the same people who did The Business of Being Born movie. You can go to Amazon.com and read some of it. Trevor thinks I'm crazy for being so interested in pregnancy even though I'm not pregnant or thinking about being pregnant any time soon. I don't really know how to respond to that except to say I'm interested in what I'm interested in, and there it is. I feel like this is such an important subject, I just can't stop learning about it. I've read a lot of stuff arguing both sides of the issue but mostly pro-natural birth. I think now I might try to find some arguments against natural birth (and everything else like it) that I think are legitimate. I have yet to find anything I can really whole-heartedly agree with. (PS on the book: the introductions by Ricki and Abbey use some swear words.)
• Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience by Ricki Lake
  
  My rating: 5 of 5 stars
  I learned a lot from this book about all the options that are out there. There are only a few parts that I had to kind of indulge them on, and I still found it extremely informative in a way that I haven't been able to find very much of. If you ever get the chance, read the flap on the cover and you'll immediately know if it's something you'll be interested in. It addresses the rising c-section, epidural, and medical intervention rates that "often leave mothers feeling powerless as their instincts are replaced by drugs and routine medical procedures." And a whole bunch of other important stuff.
  
  The book is pretty fair and doesn't badger women who've had c-sections or interventions. It's about empowering women and partners to feel free to make the educated decisions they want about birth, even if that includes a c-section and the like.
  
  View all my reviews >>
• Trevor's been looking for some new people to do a band project with. It's going pretty slow since most people want to "get big" and make millions. Or they just know nothing about the genre but think they do. He got promoted to Collections Manager at work and has been doing a great job. He works really hard; I hope it pays off in a really spectacular way some day. He's been really interested in going back to school lately to learn more design stuff. I hope we can make that work sometime soon.
• Other than those things, everything has been pretty normal around our house. It's been nice to see some friends during the summer, and to spend time with family the last few weeks for different things. I've been devoid of all crafty projects mostly because I don't have any more wall-space or money to fund the craft store; I've just been making food I like (like strawberry jam and texas toast french toast). Now we're just looking forward to our anniversary, my photo class, Halloween, Thanksgiving in Idaho with my whole family (YOU ALL BETTER BE COMING STILL!), and Trevor finally getting his iPhone at the end of November he's been "patiently" waiting for.

Bacon Tomato Cheese Toasts

Today I made some awesome bacon cheese tomato toast thingies that were practically amazing, and I wanted to share them. I found the recipe on Foodnetwork.com, and I kind of made some changes to make them more to my liking. You should try them. They're kind of a really special version of a BLT.

Ingredients:

• 1 tomato
• salt
• 8 strips bacon
• 4 slices thick bread
• 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 3/4 cup grated part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tbls dried parsley)
• 1/2 small zucchini, very thinly sliced
• pepper

Preheat the oven to 400. (I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten to preheat the oven. I'm really glad when recipes remind me at the BEGINNING of the instructions rather than the END.)

Core the tomato and slice it as thinly as possible. Drain the slices in a colander and sprinkle them with salt. Let them hang out in the colander while you do everything else.

Cook the bacon in a pan till they're crispy and reserve the drippings. Use 1 tablespoon of the drippings at a time to toast the bread on one side in the same pan. Put the bread on a baking sheet toast-side down. (The recipe calls for texas toast or really thick sandwich bread, but I didn't have any. So I just used nice wheat bread. I think it would be amazing on some thicker sourdough bread.)

Combine the cheeses, mayo, and parsley (you can also add 5 chopped scallions here, but I didn't). Spread it on the toasts, reserving 1/3 cup. Crumble the bacon on top. Pat the tomatoes dry with a paper towel, and layer them along with the zucchini slices on top. Then put the reserved cheese on top and season with pepper.

Bake 15-20 minutes and eat!

And wow. They are super delicious! Eat them while they're warm.

Lord of Chaos

Finished another book. Really, this series is amazing and I'm totally hooked.


A couple days ago I only had 2 chapters left, but I knew I needed time to sit down and read it all at once so I could focus and not miss anything. The ends of these books generally have some sort of battle or complicated something-or-other going on that needs the reader's full attention. So I put it off--yeah, not sure if that was the best idea. I was supposed to finish it yesterday on my lunch break but ended up having 13 pages left when the clock hit 12:55 and I still wasn't back at work yet.

Seriously, that kind of stuff shatters worlds.

I had to wait all the way until 11:00 to finish, and I was dying the whole day!

But now I'm in the next book and I'm okay again, so don't fret.

1. The Eye of the World
2. The Great Hunt
3. The Dragon Reborn
4. The Shadow Rising
5. The Fires of Heaven
6. Lord of Chaos
7. The Crown of Swords
8. The Path of Daggers
9. Winter's Heart
10. Crossroads of Twilight
11. Knife of Dreams
12. A Memory of Light: The Gathering Storm (part 1) (this one comes out in November!)
13. A Memory of Light: Shifting Winds (part 2)
14. A Memory of Light: Tarmon Gai'don (part 3)

Robert Jordan, the author, died a few years ago after finishing the 11th book, and everyone was pretty worried that the series would never get finished. He still had one more book to write to tie everything up. I was oblivious to all of this at the time, of course. But his editor (and wife) got someone to put all his notes together and finish up the last book. It is so much info that they are making 3 entire books out of it. Needless to say, Trevor is freaking out with impatience. I'm excited, but I'm just relishing all that I have left to read. I read Harry Potter waaaaaay too fast and it was over so quickly. I'm taking my time with this one.

Priscilla Ahn

I got to go see Priscilla Ahn last night and it was awesome! Robyn went with me because Trevor is sort of...banned...from going inside the Murray Theater. Um, long story.

It was pretty super hot in there.



It was really awesome to see her personality, and to hear her voice in real life. She was a little sick, but you could barely tell. This was the first concert I've ever been to that I chose to go to all by myself that wasn't choral or a musical or something. I've been to tons of concerts for Trevor, but not one of my own.

Her band was just 2 people for bass and keyboards/glockenspiel and backup vocals here and there. They blended really well :)



She used a lot of instruments! She did guitar, harmonica, ukulele, and kazoo.




She also does a lot of loops--like, she'll record one part and then play it over while singing a harmony on top, and then again with another harmony. It's SO awesome because obviously she can blend with her own voice really well.


We were pretty close--the show wasn't that big, only about 150 people. So our seats were great.

I recorded a few videos. I realized halfway through that I don't have the software to rotate my videos, so they're on their sides... Oh well, it's all about her voice anyways :) Sorry they're shaky; I was trying to watch her and not really paying that much attention to the camera. Can you blame me?

Dream. The loop was broken on this one so she didn't do her cool voice blendy thing. Still really good though.

Wallflower. This is one of my favorite songs of hers.

This one's called Moonbeam, it's a cover. It's so mellow and nice.

This is called the Boob Song and the description before it drops the F bomb and a few other less destructive bombs so don't listen to that part if you don't want to hear. It's a silly song about her fiance's ex-girlfriend. She uses the kazoo.

Um...What I do all day.

So, lots of people ask what I do, and, because I don't really know how to explain in a short sentence what it is I actually do all day, I usually tell them "I'm an administrative assistant at a financial planning firm" (which sounds so boring). But, as I'm sure is the case with MANY administrative assistants, my job is much more than that. I'm actually fairly proud of what our company does, and pretty satisfied with my job. Being the multi-functioning do-everythinger at the office is pretty great compared to a lot of other jobs because I have a pretty good amount of variety and challenge in my work.

I've really wanted my family to know what I do for a long time, and since you all love me enough to read my blog--you can learn about it too :)



The basics: The company I work for is called Velocity Financial. We're called that because we believe in the concept of "velocities of money," or rather, getting more than one use out of your money, to say it in the most concise way possible. We used to be called Velocity Philosophy, but that's just REALLY hard to say. My boss started doing this thing called LEAP a few years back. I'm not even going to try to explain what LEAP is in my own words, so here's what their website says:

"For over 30 years, The LEAP SYSTEM has helped people to achieve happier, wealthier, and more successful financial lives. This is accomplished by focusing on the strategic positioning and flow of your money. Through the use of a proprietary financial "power tool" called the PS&G Model , you will have a more holistic way to analyze your financial situation and develop a very dynamic approach to achieving an effective and efficient financial life for you and your family."

My boss is an agent of The LEAP SYSTEM and helps people be happier because their finances are happier. I'm not the one who teaches our clients financial strategies, so I don't think I'll go into much more than that.

So THEN, a year or so ago, my boss started thinking up this even BETTER process to give our clients an even MORE expanded and complete financial analysis, and created our own unique process called Thrive.

I really enjoyed being a part of the team while we were developing Thrive. I feel like what my employer does is something I can be proud of. Our website says this:

"Each life is individual, with different opportunities, different dreams, different obstacles. But one desire is universal: to know that your life is everything it can be.
This is what it means to Thrive.
It's a process through which you learn how to maximize your growth while minimizing your risk. It's a pattern of effective personal and financial steps that activate all the energy and resources in your life. It's a plan that gains velocity as you see uncertainty turn into confidence.
It's making the most of you.
Thrive. More than just living."

So basically, we take our clients through a financial process, and I'm the one who does a lot of the background work, like preparing handouts, letters, reminder cards, etc. And also, preparing our software scenarios. We use software that allows our clients to see everything about their financial world at once--and how those decisions integrate, and how they can be coordinated to save the most money, and get the most return. In the last year or so, I've been doing a lot of training to get better at the software so our advisors don't have to spend so much time inputting details. Sounds boring, I know. And sometimes it is--but I learn A LOT about finances.

Lately I've been able to incorporate a lot of my interest in creativity--like crafty or visual things. The owner had professionals work on getting the initial design, but I've been able to help with all the little things. I got to design and make up packages to give to clients, as well as help design our agreements and extra handouts. It's been so satisfying seeing everything we've been working on come together in a visually pleasing way that matches and coordinates with everything.



I also do underwriting for life insurance. A part of what we do helps people protect themselves, their families, their business, whatever, with life insurance. I'm licensed to sell insurance, even though I don't, and I'm the one who takes their application and helps get the underwriter what they need to make a decision. There's a lot of paperwork and rules--and I LOVE IT :) I like checklists and systems, and underwriting just fits my fancy.

I get to interact with our clients a lot, and be the one who helps them follow up on all the things they need to do. So I really get to see them succeed at becoming more secure. Over the last two years, I feel like my role at the business has become a pretty important part. So even though there are hard days and may be slow times or my boss might be having a bad day or something, overall, I like what we do for people.

I hope that doesn't sound like a plug for my work :) Really, I just wanted to say a little bit about what I do all day every day. It's weird, I'm at work as much as I'm at home, but I rarely talk about it anywhere but at work. I wonder how many people are like that...