delicious

For dinner tonight I made:

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

fingerling potatoes
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
garlic
seasoning of your choice

Peel the potatoes and parboil for like 8-10 minutes, then drain. Put them in a baking dish, then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic, sea salt (you can use regular if you must, but I really like the bursts of flavor from the little salt chunkies), freshly ground pepper, and whatever seasonings you like (I used Greek seasoning because it is my favorite of all time.). Cover with foil and bake until done. Mine took about 20 minutes for about a dozen potatoes. BTW, I got a bag of fingerling potatoes at CostCo and it had several different varieties, including a purple one. I thought the purple potatoes were a lot more dry than the others, so next time I think I'll use those for something else that maybe has a sauce with it.

Italian(ish) Bread Salad

good bread (I used a baguette)
artichoke hearts
roasted red peppers
shallots (You can use onion; I had a shallot that needed to be used.)
garlic
tomatoes (I only had regular, but I would recommend that you use grape.)
spinach, torn into bite-sized pieces
olives (I used kalamata, it was just what I had on hand.)
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt (I used kosher)
pepper
seasoning

Rip the bread into bite-size pieces and combine in a bowl with the artichoke hearts, peppers, scallion, garlic, tomatoes and spinach. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar, then season with salt, pepper and other seasonings to taste. I think for this kind of salad, you're supposed to wait a while to allow all the flavors to combine, but I liked the bread better at the beginning, when it was still a little chewy. It definitely had more flavor after it sat for a while, but I didn't like the texture as much. Fresh basil and other herbs would have been awesome in this, but alas, I was using what was around the house and I didn't have anything like that. (And yes, I did just use the word alas.) This would have also been delicious with fresh mozzarella, but that doesn't jive with the whole vegan thing, so yeah.


I'm sorry I don't have measurements for anything. I was just kind of messing around, using what sounded good.

Dear Facebook,

In addition to the "like" button, please add the following buttons for my convenience:

• Dislike
• Um . . . are you high right now?
• WTF?
• Please explain . . .
  
• Please spellcheck.
  
• Your status is far too long for me to read and/or care about.

Thank you kindly,
Kim

thoughts and stuff

• My Felicity/Miley Cyrus motivation is officially gone.
• This season of Celebrity Rehab is awesome. Officially the best (meaning most drama-filled) ever. If you don't watch it, I would highly recommend that you check it out. It can be watched on Vh1 or online here.
• So do you remember that 8 am class that I stayed in because the teacher was hot? Yeah, well the more I get up early, the less attractive he becomes.
• I added my book list to the sidebar again, so if you want to see what I've been reading, you can check it out there.
• I'm currently rereading a memoir about these people that buy/renovate a place in France. It talks about food a lot, specifically meat, butter and cheese. This does not make my life any easier.
• I've seen a couple of good movies lately-Up in the Air and The Lovely Bones. Up in the Air was fabulous, I highly recommend it. I think it's probably the best movie I've seen lately. My parents really liked it too, as did the rest of the audience, almost all of which seemed to be geriatric. It must have just been the time of day I went that drew in the more mature crowd. The Lovely Bones was pretty good, but if you're a fan of the book, I think it's best that you go in with fairly low expectations. Stanley Tucci was awesome; he was beyond creepy in it.
  
• Did anyone watch the Golden Globes? I cheered when Glee and The Hangover won. BTW, I just bought The Hangover and it just gets more and more funny each time I see it.
• You may have noticed, but I changed the feed settings so that you have to actually click onto my blog to read the post. This is only temporary.

That's all.

cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater!

So you know how I've mentioned that I've been doing the vegan thing? Well, I stopped by the store this morning to get a banana for breakfast, but all the bananas were green. Do you hear me? ALL THE BANANAS WERE GREEN! And an orange didn't sound good and I can't eat an apple without washing off all that waxy crap first, so I had no choice but to get a doughnut. Yes, that's right, a doughnut that was most likely made with dairy products. My justification was that there was no nutrition label, so technically I didn't know for sure that said doughnut actually contained milk or eggs. I was feeling semi-good about my decision, but then I ran into someone I know. Someone who reads my blog and who has possibly read about me going vegan. And I ran into this someone immediately after grabbing my doughnut from the case. Why, oh why is there always a witness to my secret shame? Now granted, she probably didn't even think about my healthy lifestyle for even a second, and she probably would never have thought about it had I not been blogging about it, but still . . . I knew. Oh, and to top it all off, I'm having a bad hair day due to the water heater malfunctioning. Oh well, the deliciousness of the doughnut made up for it all.

And since I'm being honest . . . when I say a doughnut, I actually mean two doughnuts.

100 things

I'm stealing this 100 things about me thing from several people whose blogs I read . . .

1. I have a very active imagination. This is why I don't like scary movies.
2. I really want a tattoo.
3. I have problems with doing things in moderation.
4. I don't think I want kids anymore. I am content with nieces and nephews.
5. I love to cook but I don't like to bake.
6. I don't like to talk on the phone.
7. I love my handwriting.
8. I tend to talk about how great something is, and then have a panic attack when I share that thing with someone else because if they don't love it as much as I do, it will devastate me.
9. Few things in life irritate me as much as when people say "I seen it."
10. I recently ate a mushroom and after 28 years of hating them, discovered that mushrooms aren't really that bad.
11. I still believe that I can do/be anything I want when I grow up. Unfortunately, I don't really want to do/be anything.
12. I use eyeliner on my upper waterlines. It just looks better.
13. Walking into a Sephora makes me tear up a little bit.
14. I love purses, especially big ones.
15. The web cam on my laptop freaks me out. I had to cover it with stickers because I felt like I was always being watched.
16. I tend to be slightly paranoid.
17. I wish I were more fashionable.
18. I hate sweet pickles.
19. I have many late night epiphanies that don't seem quite as amazing in the morning.
20. I am not content to have a nice, ordinary life. I crave more. This, combined with my lack of motivation, is not a good thing.
21. I have come to realize that my memory is possibly not as accurate as I have always thought it was.
22. Sometimes I think I shouldn't be as honest as I am.
23. Lately I've been sleeping with my window wide open, just so I can burrow underneath two down comforters and a quilt.
24. I have trouble letting go.
25. Humane Society commercials make me sob. I have to change the channel.
26. I love, love, love to read, but I have a hard time finding books that hold my attention.
27. I reread all the Little House on the Prairie books every couple of years.
28. I believe 100% that things work out the way they're supposed to.
29. I love in the shell sunflower seeds. I tend to sit and eat them until the inside of my lip is raw.
30. I have an 8am class this semester that I am staying in solely because the teacher is hot.
31. I own a mahjong set from Chinatown, but nobody will play it with me, and now I don't even remember how.
32. I love to wear fun, colorful socks. I think I have more Tinkerbell socks than I do normal socks.
33. I don't believe in nylons.
34. I gave myself a trim a while ago. It looks fine to the untrained eye, but now I'm afraid to get a real haircut because I know it will be obvious to the stylist.
35. I like the idea of camping.
36. I really want to go do humanitarian work in Peru.
37. I'm afraid that the second I get rid of something, I'll need it.
38. I own my own full size freezer. It's one of my prize possessions.
39. I like to keep my college textbooks because I think they make me look smart.
40. I enjoy carrot juice.
41. I like the Disney villains. Maleficent is my favorite.
42. I spill all over myself all the time. I really should wear a bib.
43. I am a list maker.
44. I suck at taking out the trash. There is a big bag of trash sitting in my room and it's been there for a couple of weeks now.
45. I miss the early days of The Real World when it was about issues instead of getting drunk.
46. I laugh a lot. I find humor in almost everything.
47. I require significant amounts of alone time.
48. I record The View every day just for the first 20 minutes.
49. I can't stand David Letterman. I also don't care whether Jay or Conan stay or go. I'm a Jimmy Kimmel fan. His show is also recorded every day.
50. I love peanut butter.
51. I don't like mandarin oranges.
52. When I eat Chex Mix I always leave the rye chips and wheat Chex.
53. The Mamas and the Papas are forever ruined for me. Now I just think of incest.
54. I love Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew and I watch faithfully, despite the fact that it irritates the shiz out of me that they're only in there for 21 days and they haven't even detoxed when they get there. That's not nearly enough time.
55. I read a lot of young adult books for my mom (9th grade english teacher) and I am so unbelievably sick of vampires, werewolves, demons, etc. Let's use our imaginations, folks, and move on.
56. My favorite place to buy books is D.I., and within the D.I. arena, I have favorite stores that I swear have better selections.
57. I want to open a farm sanctuary.
58. It has taken me days to write this and I'm only on 58. I'm having a hard time thinking of things that I haven't already discussed on my blog.
59. I inherited my grandpa's seashell collection. He was a Marine and was stationed all over the world, so I have shells from all over.
60. I also have a collection of dolls from all over the world. My grandpa would buy a doll (a decorative one, not a play one) wherever he was stationed, for both my aunt and my mom. My parents then started buying me a doll wherever they went, which was a lot of places. I also now buy dolls whenever I go somewhere cool.
61. I love dog and kid snuggles.
62. I have a thing for koala bears. This stems from a traumatic childhood experience involving accidentally leaving a favorite stuffed animal in a hotel room in Spain. I have never recovered.
63. My dream vacation spot is Thailand. The mom of one of my best friends growing up was Thai and she was amazing. I've wanted to go there ever since.
64. I am a big believer in homeschooling. No amount of making fun of me will change this.
65. One thing that may make me reconsider my belief in homeschooling is that I read lots of blogs written by homeschoolers and a lot of them use incorrect grammar. This breaks my heart a little bit each time.
66. One of my favorite celebs of all time is Graham Norton. I record his show too.
67. I can't listen to Hugh Laurie speak with his British accent. It just seems wrong to me.
68. I'm pretty sure Jennifer Garner and Reese Witherspoon are not nearly as pleasant as they seem to be. My guess is they are the complete opposite in real life. I have no basis for this suspicion, but there you go.
69. I can't see this number without thinking of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
70. Mother Teresa! Are we really only on number 70???
71. The song that just started playing in my iTunes is "Mockingbird" by James Taylor and Carly Simon. This song will forever make me think of Dumb and Dumber.
72. I can't stand to read the blogs of people who are too self promoting. If you're really that great and fabulous, it should just come through; you shouldn't need to tell us every other post.
73. I swear I saw Shia LaBeouf at the University Mall yesterday. It's possible I'm losing my mind.
74. I really wish my favorite movie was something super impressive, like maybe a foreign film or something. It's actually Sixteen Candles.
75. I don't like nuts in baked goods or candy.
76. Movies that have made me laugh so hard I cried (in the theater; this does not include really late nights whilst on a sugar high): Wedding Crashers, Dumb and Dumber, The Hangover.
77. The only movie during which I have fallen asleep in the theater: the second Lord of the Rings movie. The whole thing with Viggo and Liv Tyler killed me. I could not stay awake.
78. I swear a lot in my head.
79. I resent the pressure of having to respond to emails in a timely fashion, yet at the same time, I fully expect my emails to be replied to in a timely fashion.
80. I think people who don't have text messaging and who are under the age of like 40, should be forced to have a psychological evaluation. You know who you are. Cough, Betsy, cough.
81. I enjoy Melissa Etheridge. She's probably one of my favorite singers of all time. So, it understandably drives me insane when I'm listening to Melissa with my mom in the car and, without fail, she asks who that guy singing is. The last time she thought it was Rob Thomas.
82. I moved to Utah when I was 10. My cousin, Wendy, was like 14, and I pretty much wanted to be her. Things that Wendy did/had that I copied: hair parted on the side instead of down the middle, pop music and then later country music, Caboodles, and Lee press on nails (half of which fell off after half an hour).
83. Wendy and I actually used to do our own "cooking show" too. It was called Cooking Cousins. I remember making nachos and orange juliuses.
84. My neighbor and good friend from when I lived in Michigan, is now a stripper in, I think, Gary, Indiana.
85. I have had 7 friends die from drug overdoses.
86. I have been a vegan for 2 weeks now and, against all odds, have come to enjoy tofu. Believe me, I never thought those words would come out of my mouth.
87. I am slightly obsessed with flossing.
88. I haven't been on a road trip in a while and it's bothering me.
89. One of my (many) guilty pleasures: The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family. It's totally ridiculous, but I love it.
90. I am not very patient. I want what I want when I want it, and I want it now.
91. Michelle Duggar is one of my heroes.
92. So is Dwight Schrute.
93. Dishrags creep me out. They always smell funny. I would much rather use a Clorox wipe to wash off the counter. They tend to kill germs instead of spreading them around.
94. I don't believe in getting ready first thing in the morning. I don't get ready until I have to actually go do something. If I don't do anything for days, I also don't get ready for days.
95. I watch Hoarders solely for the purpose of keeping myself in check.
96. Same with Intervention.
97. I love my hair.
98. I cried when Kerri Strug made her second vault in the 1996 Olympics and the US won gold.
99. I'm pretty sure I've been blessed with far more than what I deserve.
100. I have to go get dressed now.
101. I can't leave that as my last thing. It's not a proper ending. Hmmm . . . what else? I just saw the movie All the Right Moves and was slightly traumatized by glimpsing Tom Cruise's peen. Yeah, that's a much more fitting ending!!!

P.S. This post was far too long to go back and proofread, so I apologize for any spelling and/or grammatical errors.

the extent of my laziness

I just realized that in the last week or so I've only been on YouTube once and Facebook maybe twice. Know why? Because the shortcut buttons on my taskbar all of a sudden stopped working and it just seems like far too much effort to actually type in the web address.

Miley Cyrus and Felicity

The new semester started last week and instead of being productive and studying (yawn), I watched all four seasons of Felicity on DVD. You may think this is a bad thing, but it actually turned out to be really good. I've been feeling slightly depressed about school because it just seems never ending and all of my stores of motivation ran out about a year and a half ago. Basically, I'm over it. But watching Felicity totally re-motivated me because Felicity managed to do well in all her classes and finish in a normal amount of time, despite the fact that she had to deal with Ben/Noel drama, Noel/Hannah drama, pre-med/art drama, crazy Wiccan roommate drama, Ben/baby mama drama, being caught in a fire, plagiarizing a paper, Ben constantly getting into fights, etc. So . . . last night at like 1 am, when I was tossing and turning and singing, alternately, the Felicity theme song and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind Part II", I decided that I can do this. I can suck it up, be an adult, finish school, and move on. So this morning I put on "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus to get myself all psyched up, and I went and made an appointment to apply for graduation and (this is the most exciting thing) got permission to substitute my Neuroscience research experience for the Capstone class for my major. That doesn't sound hugely exciting, but it is because that was the only class I was going to have left after this semester, but now, since I don't have to take it anymore . . . wait for it . . . I'M GOING TO BE DONE IN APRIL!!!!! Now I don't know if I'll actually be able to graduate in April because I think the deadline for that is long gone, so it might still be August, but still . . . no more classes after April. The countdown has officially begun!

Oh, and if I should suffer a nervous breakdown from taking 18 credits, working, and trying to survive without Glee, then I'm placing full blame on Miley. I would blame Felicity, but she's not real and all, so yeah.

Oh, and I recently went vegan and have already lost 5 pounds. Yay me!

2010 is seriously going to be the best year ever. Mark my words.

Johnny Appleseed!!!

In my last post I wondered about the Johnny Appleseed movie and Andrea was kind enough to point out that it's actually part of Shelley Duvall's Tale Tales and Legends series, not the Faerie Tale Theatre series. So . . . I am off to the library to check out the DVD!!! I fear that my level of excitement over this says something about the state of my life. Fortunately, I don't really care.

Shut the heck up!

I have just discovered that Hulu now has one of my favorite childhood shows . . . Faerie Tale Theatre!!! Did anyone else watch this? Remember The Snow Queen with Laura from Little House and Cinderella with Ferris Bueller and Jennifer Beals? Ooh ooh, and The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers? That one used to scare me. I also still think their version of Aladdin is much better than the Disney one. And I could have sworn there was a Johnny Appleseed episode, but I guess that must've been something else, seeing as how it's not actually a fairy/faerie tale. Anyway, you should all immediately watch these. If you don't like watching t.v. online, I believe the set is also available on DVD.

I can't stay quiet about this

When I went (unwillingly) to the Relief Society Christmas party last week, I found myself mesmerized not by the food or the music or by the Christmas spirit. No, I was mesmerized by my friend, Emily's boobs. I couldn't stop looking. They were magnificent. I wondered for a moment if she had had some kind of surgical enhancement; it turns out she was just wearing this bra*. I am now also wearing said bra and I have to say, the girls have never looked better. I've spent all evening looking down or in a mirror. And I'm pretty sure my mom is sick of me asking her how my boobs look. Don't be scared off by the fact that it's a Lane Bryant bra, because Em is like a size 5. If she can wear a Lane Bryant bra, so can you. If you have boobs, you need this bra. And they're buy one, get one half off right now, so hurry and buy a couple. You will not be sorry. I was very tempted to take a picture to illustrate this post with, but I held back. For that, I'm sure you are all grateful!

And yes, I did come out of my self-imposed blogger exile to talk about a bra. What of it? If you could see my boobs right now, you would understand. Oh, and while I'm breaking my vow of silence, I would also like to add that I correctly predicted the order in which all top six dancers on SYTYCD were kicked off.



*Any of the plunge style bras will do, it doesn't have to be the smooth plunge bra.

We were on a break!

I'm taking a little break from blogging for the next few weeks. I'm trying to finish up with classes, take finals, survive the holidays, etc. So . . . hope everyone has a great Christmas, and I'll be back in the new year*!



*Unless there's something I just can't bring myself to stay silent about before then.

delicious

I made broth with the leftover turkey carcass today and used part of it to make Turkey Pho for dinner. It was tasty. I love being able to add my own toppings to stuff. And I had a great time charring the ginger and shallots. I'm not entirely sure I did it correctly, but the pyro in me definitely enjoyed it. (You can read how to do it here.) I also had some pomegranates and persimmons that needed using, so I made this Kale, Pomegranate and Persimmon salad. Except Harmon's was out of kale, so I used spinach. This salad was sooooo good! I highly recommend it. For the dressing I used sesame oil and added peanut butter.

Enough already!

OH. MY. GOSH. If I have to hear one more thing about Tiger Woods, I'm going to scream. How is an athlete/celebrity cheating on his wife news anymore? I DO NOT CARE! Move on already!

holiday traditions

I feel like my family should have some sort of holiday tradition. The only thing that is guaranteed to happen is having ham, broccoli casserole and funeral potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner. We don't read from the Bible. We don't even really do stockings anymore. We do switch around baby Jesus's. (Jesuses? Jesi?) Let me explain. My mom collects nativities and my aunt always moves around the baby Jesus pieces so that they're in a different nativity than the one they belong in. Mark keeps up the tradition on the years when she's not here. She will also occasionally gather all of them up together and proudly show off her handful of little baby Jesus's, much in the spirit of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." So pretty much our Christmases consist of gluttony and borderline blasphemy. Possibly not in the spirit of the season.

So does anyone have any special family traditions that they really enjoy? It needs to be something easy and that will entertain sarcastic and/or jaded adults. It also needs to be something that someone who uses a walker and is legally blind can participate in, so nothing like going to see the lights at Temple Square. Perhaps this is why we don't do anything.

surgery update

So I finally had the surgery last Wednesday morning, right in time for Thanksgiving. What fun! It went well, and they did find endometriosis and burned away the lesions. I even have pictures, although I don't know what any of it is. There is an organ in one of the pictures that I'm pretty sure comes with the turkey giblets, but that was all I recognized. I actually felt pretty good after it and I even cooked most of the Thanksgiving dinner the next day. I started feeling crappy on Sunday though, and on Monday had some blood work done to make sure there wasn't an infection, and also had a CT scan to make sure I didn't have any blood clots. Fortunately, everything looked o.k. and I feel much better today. I do feel slightly sick at the thought of the bill for yet another CT scan, but better safe than sorry, I guess.

I think what I have learned from this whole experience is that I need to take better care of myself. Not that anything could prevent cysts and endometriosis, but all the same, I would rather prevent anything from happening than deal with it if it does happen. So . . . I started doing yoga again today! I really like it and there are even full length (like 40+ minutes) on YouTube. If I stick with it (keep in mind that I have stick-with-it-issues), there are several studios around and I may consider getting a membership. But again, the odds of me sticking with anything are slim to none, so take this all with a grain of salt. Sometimes I wonder if I have ADD (definitely not the H part, though!) because seriously, very few things hold my attention for very long. I can't even read one book at a time, I have to have three or four going. But anyway, that's not the point of this post, so I'll be done now.

You irritate me when . . .

• I tell you to get information to me by a certain day and you finally respond the day after, then get all pissed that I didn't hold things up for you. A deadline is a deadline.
• You feel the need to show how intelligent you are by composing paragraphs full of big words, but yet you misspell simple words. Get over yourself.
• You think that microwaving a can of green beans is an acceptable Thanksgiving dish.
  

O.k., that's all. I just had to vent for a moment. Oh, and the surgery has been postponed until tomorrow morning, which is why I am blogging and not curled up in the fetal position, dying from the pain right now.

simply amazing

slightly nervous

The surgery is tomorrow! We had scheduled it for Friday, but then they called back and said the surgical center isn't open Friday, so tomorrow afternoon it is! If something should happen to me, (i.e. I die) make sure my make-up goes to a good home.

Missionary Monday

There wasn't anything that overly stood out in this week's letter, so here's a picture of Mark and his companion eating pig legs. Mark is on the right and appears to be wearing a white tie with his white dress shirt. Or am I seeing things? Interesting.

funny

From Gawker's Gossip Roundup:

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart decided to opt out of going to The Box for their New York New Moon premiere after-party, instead opting to go to Avenue, where they could sit around, drink vodka, drink beer, get trashed, leave, go home, and do it. Robert Pattinson's psychotic, obsessive stalkerfans, are you listening? Tune your teenage to mid-30s adult ears to this: Rather than hang out with Kellan Lutz and the rest of their cast, you know what they're doing? They're going home and doing it. Now, I know, I know, you all think Kristen Stewart is the most evil thing in the universe and that she should die a fiery death while Rob realizes who the real lady of his life needs to be: you. You should probably get used to the fact that (A) this will never happen because you're not movie-star good looking and she is, (B) the love you do find will be some kind of settlement, (C) and they will probably work in middle management, and (D) they will not be a blood-sucking vampire, they will just suck at your will to live. So! While Robert Pattinson enjoys ditching his Twilight castmates for getting drunk and doing it with Kristen Stewart, you're getting prepared for life!