Oh, the muse of it all

CSU parking is absolutely ridiculously horrendous. Yes, I did need all of those describing words because it is THAT bad. I had a test in my first class this morning. One to which I am habitually late. I did not want to be late today, so when I saw an empty spot for my car, I took it. No matter that it was only big enough to grant 6-inches of exit space on either side. It wasn't MY fault that the other parkers felt the need to give themselves ample amount of room to get out of their cars. So. I smooshed my car in there, climbed into the back seat and out the door and was 5 minutes early to my class!! Success. And I think I did very well on my test, in case you were wondering.

Sometimes there are more important things to do

School takes up a lot of time. So much time, in fact, that getting some much needed husband & wife time often gets placed on the back burner. Not because we want it that way - there are just certain things we both need to focus on right now (i.e. ensuring graduation in a timely manner). But this past weekend, we ignored all the stuff that NEEDED to get done and instead focused on some things we WANTED to do.

Ryan and I met up with Holly and Garrett at my parentals' home on Friday after school. We were going to go on a triple date to the Denver LDS Temple. I love going to the temple, and was excited to get to go with family this time!

After the session we headed to Marie Callendar's for dinner. Wow - gargantuan cornbread. The entrée portions alone could feed two lumberjacks, so I was sure to watch my consumption to make room for some delicious strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert! (I gotta splurge sometimes! ...right??)

When I got home from work Saturday afternoon, Ryan and I decided that we needed a date night. So after a rigorous work out to make up for the previous night's splurging, we headed out! After making a quick stop at REI to check out winter coats, we went to see the movie Morning Glory. Oh my cute! It was quite funny and a good story.

After the movie we ran to Sonic to get some dinner, and then, because our movie quota has not been reached for months now, we went back to the theater and saw Unstoppable. Oh my stressful! It was a great movie, but is not for the faint of heart! All in all, the night was fantastic.

On Sunday evening Ryan and I went to my parents' house for the second time that weekend to whip up batches of pumpkin pancakes and eggnog pancakes for dinner. Holly and Garrett came over again, too! It was really great to see everybody again so soon. Another fantastic evening with great company.

I will probably reminisce about this weekend for the next few weeks, as finals get closer and time for fun diminishes. Thank goodness for Thanksgiving break next week!

'Tis the Season

It's coming to the end of the semester. Ryan and I are becoming accustomed to spending our evenings engaged in a rigorous bout of homework. Last night Ryan had a schoolmate (too 1940's?) over to do homework. I was honored to supply them with dinner and snacks. Chicken fajitas and pumpkin scones! And then I hopped on to Yahoo!Games and challenged my mind with a hidden object game. Those things are addicting, I tell you! All in all, I think the three of us had a very productive evening.

Tonight is Take 2 of Homework Party Central. Although tonight we changed it up a bit. After dinner, Ryan threw some peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies into the oven, I steeped some tea (peppermint for him, bengal spice for me), and then Ryan built a beautiful fire to keep us snuggly warm on this cold night! We have filled our tummies with warming goodness but are still wracking our brains for homework and test answers and working on a paper.

Break time is over - back to the books!

Fall Harvest

On Sundays I love to make bread in my bread machine and dinner in the crock pot. This past week, both items turned out fantastically.

It was the third time I've tried this particular bread - the other two failed miserably because I had tried to do it with a gluten-free bread flour, which is apparently a very wrong name for that product because the bread did not rise AT ALL. So this time I made it with regular bread flour, and it was beautiful. It's called Cranberry Oat Bread, which I found while perusing allrecipes.com. It says to add the cranberries before the final kneading. I didn't do that, and I don't know if it made a difference, but at any rate that direction isn't necessary to follow.

The dinner I made is called Pork Chops & Acorn Squash, which I found in my Oct/Nov 2008 Healthy Co0king from Taste of Home magazine. I have been trying to make sure that Ryan and I eat healthy dinners as the holidays approach. That way I won't feel AS bad for eating all the sweets! The reviews for this dinner on the website don't make it sound like all-the-rage, but it turned out great for us! We added some cranberries and orange wedges, and the squash cooked wonderfully in the crock pot. We ended up having it cook for 4 1/2 hours instead of just 4 - maybe that made a difference as compared to the people complaining about the squash not being cooked all the way. The flavors were great, and I recommend this for a snowy day when you can enjoy the fall harvest in your mouth!

Halloween Night 2010

I am married now. Do you know what that means? No more YSA Halloween parties at church. At least not "legally". And for whatever other reason we didn't get invited to any other Halloween parties. It probably has something to do with the fact that we both found our love penguin and therefore lost all contact with the outside world and now have no friends that are used to hanging out with us on a regular basis.

That being said, we decided to have our own "party"! Guests? The fabulous Duggins clan + 2 Meehleises. The festivities began with dinner. I made spaghetti with orange pepper pumpkins (they had worms for brains!) and Holly and Garrett brought some garlic bread that fills your mouth with goodness.

After dinner we watched Jack O' Lantern, an old Duggins tradition! It's about a million years old, and memories came flooding back while we watched it.

Afterwards, my mom served the dessert she brought: Blueberry Yum-Yum. A childhood favorite of my dad's, and it was yum-yum (ha...)! Then we set up the glorious game of Atmosfear, another tradition of us Duggins children. This game is a "scary" game with a VHS (yes, I know) that goes along with it. It was a close game, but Ryan and I won!

After the game we all chatted for a bit and then it was time for bed. It was so much fun, and I'm so glad that Ryan and I were able to host this get-together. I think one of my most favorite parts was getting to share some of my Halloween traditions with Ryan, and I hope that they will be ones we can continue in our own family along with new ones (like Pumpkin Pancakes for lunch on Halloween! Ask Ryan about them if you get the chance, he is quite proud of his chef skills).

Happy Halloween!

Once upon a time...

Ryan and I got our bridal/wedding pictures! We got some 2000 pictures, and I wanted to post them all, but Ryan said that would probably be overkill. So here are a few of my favorites (they're somewhat out of order - I couldn't move the pictures very easily so I gave up). Enjoy!
PS This might seem like a lot of pictures, but keep in mind that I had 2000 to choose from!

Halloween brings out the nasties

**WARNING** There are some ewie pictures in this post!!! Reader's be forewarned...

My life is filled with wonderful and beautiful things. Changing and falling leaves, the smell of freshly baked spice cake, a new baby (not mine), Bengal Spice tea with soy milk, and Ryan.

But lately there have been a few rather unpleasant things I have had to deal with.

#1: About 5 1/2 years ago I decided it was best to stop wearing my heart on my sleeve and put it on my neck instead. But now I don't want it there anymore. The biggest part of this decision was the fact that I was going to get married in the temple - a huge life change merited getting it removed as a representation that my life was taking a different path than this mark might otherwise suggest. I did some online shopping and found what I was looking for. The process began in late June. I was told that it would take 3, MAYBE 4 sessions. After the second session there was no change whatsoever. I voiced my concern, so the laserist (I made that up) upped the power and zapped me a good one. Still no change. I didn't go back for more than 2 months, and when I finally did I told the man that I didn't want to keep paying for pain that was not benefiting me. I used fewer words, but he got the idea and offered to give me a free treatment. He upped the power again. Blood blisters galore, tight skin, and peeling dead skin later: no change. He joked with Ryan and I at this last appointment: "Maybe this is the LDS curse! This thing isn't going away!" Maybe he was right.

If you want to scare your children into staying away from these, I suggest showing them these pictures of what will happen. (You don't have to tell them it was during the removal process.)

#2: Wind. I do not like wind. I was terrified of the sound of wind blowing during the night when I was younger because it "meant" that a tornado was coming. Now I just hate how it blows my hair and makes me cold when the temperature would otherwise be amazingly pleasant for the end of October. I looked at the weather for the next days, hoping that these unruly blustery days are bringing us a beautiful snowstorm. The forecast? Upper 60s-70s.

#3: I was about to perform my laundry wifely duty - to keep Ryan from being assumed as being one of "those" husbands, I would like to clarify that I imposed this duty and many other household chores upon myself - that requires me going down to the basement. I thought I saw a fuzzy on the carpet by the door and I bent down to pick it up. It was not a fuzzy. At least not a docile one. It is pretty much the biggest spider I have ever had to encounter on my own. I sent Ryan a text to get home quickly because he needed to kill this thing! It is still sitting there by the basement door. And the laundry? Still in the dryer. This wifely duty has been put on hold until Ryan gets home and exercises his husbandly duties!

To help settle your stomach, here is a cute picture of Ryan's and my new nephew, Logan! Brady and Erin welcomed him to their family on October 22, and he is just adorable!