Resuming Talking About Food

I made chicken, mushroom and cauliflower risotto for dinner tonight, accompanied by a delicious salad with roasted pears. Where did I get these recipes? Culinary Competitor.

Oh man! I could totally gobble it all up!

On Tea Olives and Nineveh

We had several wonderful moments in our Stake Primary inservice meeting last week. Our guest speaker had many great things to share about the importance of music in the Primary, and how the songs teach gospel principles.

For instance, he talked about the song, "My Heavenly Father Loves Me", and how every creation reminds us that Heavenly Father loves us.

1. Whenever I hear the song of a bird
Or look at the blue, blue sky,
Whenever I feel the rain on my face
Or the wind as it rushes by,
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
Or walk by our lilac tree,
I’m glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heav’nly Father created for me.

2. He gave me my eyes that I might see
The color of butterfly wings.
He gave me my ears that I might hear
The magical sound of things.
He gave me my life, my mind, my heart:
I thank him rev’rently
For all his creations, of which I’m a part.
Yes, I know Heav’nly Father loves me.

Words and music: Clara W. McMaster, 1904–1997. © 1961 IRI. Arr. © 1989 IRI

The tea olive bush outside my front door is something that reminds me of this love. It's scent is so beautiful; not quite peach, not quite magnolia or honeysuckle. Every time I walk outside and smell that, I say a prayer of gratitude for that creation. It brings me joy. God didn't make tea olives just for me, but I'm sure he knew that they would make a lot of people, including me, happy. And I know he loves me.

(Can you tell that smells are on my mind lately? I'm not sure why.)

Our speaker also talked about the story of Jonah, and how every child can tell you that it's a story about a whale, but there are more important lessons to be learned from that story. One sister shared with us how she had really struggled with accepting her daughter's boyfriend, who wasn't the kind of person she wanted her daughter to be with. One day, as she was praying about the situation, the thought came to her, "(X) is your Nineveh." Jonah tried and tried to get as far away from Nineveh as he could, because he didn't think the people were worth teaching, but the Lord knew them better than Jonah. So to her, the story is about understanding, accepting and loving others. (It was a richer, more powerful story than I think I am relating, but maybe you get the gist.)

It made me think, who or what is my Nineveh? Who or what is yours?

More Teenage Humor

Scene: Church parking lot

I arrive at Primary Inservice meeting in my "new" car.

Cute High School Boy: "I LOVE your car!"

Me: "Thank you. I do too."

CHSB: "No, I mean, I really LOVE your car. I love it so much that I want to marry you."

Sense Memory

The most recent New Yorker includes an article by David Owen titled, "The Dime Store Floor: What did childhood smell like?"

This made me think about some smells from my early childhood:

My Grandma Dahlstrom was a fanatic about cleaning. Her house smelled like detergent (I think it was Gain) and lemon Pledge. She smelled like Estee Lauder lotion. Yesterday, I used a sample of an EL product from a magazine, and it smelled just like her. When I think of her mother, Grandma Chaffee's, house, I can smell zinc. It makes me think of her basement, and the washtub that (I think) was down there.

The smell I associate with Grandma Bright's house is baking, like pies or cookies.

The odor that heralded our arrival in Pocatello on visits to my grandparents was the horrid, sulfurous smell of the FMC fertilizer plant just outside of town.

Oregon smelled like dill, grass fields burning and rain.

Daddy smelled like coffee. Mom smelled like Tigress (I think--or maybe she just had a bottle of it), but the perfume I associate with her now is Elizabeth Arden Red Door. That's erased any prior scent memory I had of her.

Share with me what your childhood smelled like.

Am I Really Old, or Is He Really Young?

K went to a service project at Deseret Industries with the Stake youth today. He was delighted at his $10 purchase, "(A) really, really old typewriter!"

It's totally a manual, but I expected to see one like this:


which is like the one we had when I was growing up, or this:


which to me is a "really, really old typewriter".

The funniest thing was that he said, "And it has a caps lock key on it, and the keyboard is set up a lot like a computer keyboard!"

Cheap Date

At work, when a patient doesn't need much sedation to put them in LaLaLand, we say that they're a "cheap date". I am definitely a cheap date. I had one dose of R's codeine cough syrup (because I now have his cold), and I am feeling quite peculiar.

So, instead of drunk-dialing, I may be drunk-posting.

He's so hot right now

We were discussing what to name the new car. The Lexus was Rune. The truck is Taco. The Acura doesn't have a name, for some reason.

Rowdy likes "Laeticia Casta". For the uninitiated (which includes me), she is some Victoria's Secret model.


I can't call the car that. R, K and I were riffing on different Germanic names, and we came up with Hansel. That Hansel. He's so hot right now.

So R can call it Laeticia, I'll call it Hansel.

Today is brought to you by the letter P

Rowdy declared today "P Day". In honor of that, so far I have...

worn Pants and a Paisley top to work and looked Pretty
eaten Potatoes and eggs with Plants in them for breakfast

I will...

do my work with as much Perfection as is humanly Possible
care for Patients

I had Peanut M&Ms as a snack

and what else????

The real reason for "P Day"...

is...

we Purchased a Porsche!!!!

Wonderful, Wise Words

I have this friend, who I'll call Nettie (because that's her name). In the nearly-ten years we've known each other, more than once has she said just the thing that has given me new insight or hope during a rough time.

Last week, she sent an email out to her friends (and I have always felt blessed and honored to be a part of that group) recommending a marvelous BYU devotional talk by Elder Holland. I listened to it this morning as I took a walk in the neighborhood. It truly was heaven-sent.


http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1819&tid=2

(You probably will have to cut and paste it. It is also found in a abbreviated form in the January, 2010, Ensign, but it is much better to hear the whole thing.)

Consistency

That's what I will be working on this year.

It's a New Year!

I must admit that I feel a little bit like this--a little upside down, a little bit like I'm down a rabbit hole. But things will work themselves out.

We didn't do anything on New Year's Eve. Well, R and I didn't do anything. K went to the multi-stake dance. On NYD, we went on an easy bike ride around Lake Hodges, watched the Rose Bowl, window-shopped for cars, went to a Korean chicken restaurant, then saw Fantastic Mr. Fox.

On Saturday, we drove out to the desert, specifically Anza-Borrego, which is northeast of SD. We hiked up to the Wind Caves formation, which was really neat.


We were walking along a side canyon in Sandstone Canyon, and both K and R said, "Oooh! It smells like water!" I said, "I think it smells like pee." R started to joke about how there was a cougar in there, marking its territory. At just about that moment, he looked down and saw a big wet spot in the ground, with a slightly-smudged pug mark in it. Needless to say, we quickly walked back to the car.