Tales of a Shoebox Princess

I'm in danger of turning my own personal Valentine's day into Christmas-like intensity. It's been that way for a few years. I don't know why I like to have so much personal satisfaction sunk into Feb 14. And it's not about what's in it for me as much as what's in it for me when I watch the kids do their treasure hunt and what's in it for me when I sit down to a heart-shapes-and-shades-of-red-infested table at dinner time. I guess I do it for love. And if that isn't a bad pun, I don't know what is. I just love to do it. I love making up puzzles. Thankfully the kids are receptive to the idea of brain teasers and tests of random knowledge based on family favorite TV shows, movies, and silliness mixed in with general knowledge. A small sampling of the puzzle clues from this year's treasure hunts for Matt and Hayley: Where souffle girl crash landed The poltergiest who fears only the Bloody Baron The message John thought he got from the f...

I'm in South Dakota today at the office. I drove in yesterday afternoon/evening. It takes about 3 1/2 hours to get to Mike's from my house, and I usually stop for a fast food dinner somewhere. I shouldn't, but I do. In order to keep myself awake, I have invented a little routine. I have a bag of some sort of vegetable, yesterday it was baby carrots. I have a cut up fruit of some kind, yesterday it was clementines. Then I get a bag of what I call packing material (cheese puffs of some kind. Guess why I call them packing material?). And then I get a water bottle. After every small town I pass through while driving, I eat one baby carrot, one clementine, and 3 pieces of packing material, then I take one drink of water. And yes, that helps me stay awake. I don't get too bored either because I think, "9 miles til the next town and then I get to eat a little snack after that." It's very helpful. The only trouble is that once I get through Clarkfield (takin...

Today was apple-picking day. We have two apple trees in the back yard, one that grows regular sized apples, and one that is some kind of dwarf apple tree that grows smaller sized apples (but they are bigger than crapapples, which, in my estimation, are a total waste of tree. Crabapples are worthless as a fruit because they are too small to do anything with unless you use them to chuck at annoying neighborhood kids to try to get them to leave you alone).  Both trees are heavily laden this year. The apples have started to drop from the tree, and have become fodder for wasps and lady bugs. The wasps like both kinds of apples, but the lady bugs prefer the dwarf apples. I don't mind sharing a few apples with the insects of southern Minnesota, but just a few. They can have the ones on the ground. I get the ones in the tree, thankyouverymuch. Mine. So I had to pick them before the bugs moved upwards.  (Plus Mike wants my apples and I'm going out to SoDak on Sunday. Gotta have 'e...

at the MN State Fair. In fact I was so NOT lost. I was the opposite of lost. A less lost person you could not find at the fair today. I say this because there are people out there who equate me at the state fair with getting lost. I shall not deny that once upon a time, I did get separated, unintentionally, from the people I came to the fair with, which caused consternation and concern, especially on my part. Several times.  BUT no more! I can navigate up and down Dan Patch Ave, through the horticulture/agriculture building, and in and out of the creative arts building.  I can tell the arena from the cattle building and the sheep building, I can pick out the two end points of the sky ride. I know where several of the less disgusting bathrooms are, and I can steer through the crowds in the food building without becoming panicky, and I know which end to exit to get to certain roads. Jim did his annual stint volunteering at the Little Farm Hands booth with his company, and Ma...

I keep thinking that I'm going to update Paul's countdown daily, but it hasn't happened that way. There is too much to do. Like right now, I'm making icing. Just a sec while I pour in another cup of powdered sugar. K I'm back. This is batch one of the icing. I still need 2 more batches. And I need 2 or 3 more batches of ground beef cooked. Maybe another block of cheese grated. All this for Paul's farewell. You're coming, I hope? Anyway, since I don't blog like I used to, I'm going to offer up some pictures. Just a few. And I'll probably blog even less when Paul leaves, mostly because I'll be keeping up two missionary blogs for a while. Here Paul eats a Juicy Lucy. It was his request to eat a Juicy Lucy. He got to go to the 5-8 Club again today for lunch with Jim, Granddaddy, and Matt. This picture is not associated with Paul in any way. It's just a picture of Lemmy. It looks like the crockpot is on, but it wasn't plu...

I added another blog to the Shoebox family of blogs: Elder Paul's New Groove. Guess what it's about? I've added it to my blogroll over there on the right. We'll start that blog up in earnest when we get our first email from Paul, probably late July. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Paul will be leaving in less than 3 weeks. Any last words for him? Food to avoid in Peru? We actually heard some advice from someone we met last Friday at the temple: stay away from "cuy." And then the guy added, "although if you do try it, it's pretty good." Cuy is guinea pig. I wonder if Paul will be offered cuy? More likely he will be offered multitudinous seafood dishes, most likely cerviche. Switching topics: Sewing. I don't know why I don't sew more often. I really do enjoy it. And I get something usable out of it. I recently sewed a very easy skirt pattern with a stretchy knit fabric. I'm sewing a knit top currently, and also hel...

...after being a single parent for a week, teaching seminary, and working. Oh yeah, and in the middle of planning for a wedding. 1. I like eggplant only as a color. There is a lot of the color eggplant going on in my head right now since that is the color Kate wants (along with silver) as a decorative theme for this wedding of hers. 2. I will never ever ever eat eggplant ever. I don't like tomatoes either, but I will eat chili, spaghetti sauce, ketchup and the occasional slice on a Wendy's single with no cheese. If ketchup, chili, or spaghetti sauce were made with eggplant, I would not eat them.  3. Ever. 4. The TV is on in my room. I am not in my room. I am wasting electricity. Mom used to charge us a nickel every time she walked into the basement room I shared with my sister and the light was left on and we weren't in the room. I'd be destitute if mother did that now at my house. Not only do I leave lights on when I leave a room, sometimes even when I leave th...

It rained last night, so both the garden and lawn have had a good, thorough watering. Matt's homemade rain gauge registered over two inches of water just overnight. In other garden news, I have baby purple beans on some of the plants! So the record: With Kate, EJ, and Paul gone, Hayley away at girls' camp and Matt at a friend's house for an overnighter last night, this marks the first time EVER in the Evans household that a batch of chocolate chip cookies, make by Jim on Sunday evening, has lasted until TUESDAY evening--and there are still cookies left! Cookies! Cookies for dinner!

I have started baking for the party. What party you say? This party: I'm starting out easy. I'm doing cupcakes today. I would have jumped right into the cake, but I don't have the giant pan on hand. I have to borrow it from mother. Since I'm not sure what else to blog about, I'll have to resort to the Ten Things. 1. Did you know Hayley has taken up the cymbals? She was bored in band class because they are doing marching, and bassoonists don't march. So she picked up a pair of cymbals and starting banging them together. She'll march in the Memorial Day parade... 2. which Jim and I were looking forward to skipping. Paul's not marching in it and we were thinking we could have a year off for once. We've been going since Katie was in 8th grade. But Hayley and her cymbals have wrecked that plan. 3. Of course I will take pictures. 4. I've been rereading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books since our trip to Plum Creek and Walnut Grove last week. Th...

"How can you ignore lemon bars?" I just know you are saying after reading my post title. Yes, how can I? How can I ignore the sunny yellow and smooth lemony tarty sweet flavor? Mostly because I haven't baked them yet, silly. I can ignore them good and proper if they aren't there. (I really should be baking) But I wanted to share something with you. Something so mind-bogglingly, incomprehensively, earth-shatteringly strange that my brain is almost melting just thinking of it. Click on the image to view it larger. (address crossed out because I felt like scribbling over it in blue). Is this his official graduation party announcement? I don't know. I haven't asked Paul what he thinks of it yet. But that is the date and time for sure because he's already posted it on facebook and INVITED 800 OF HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS. He has no sense of proportion. PS: I photoshopped two objects out of the picture. I'm pretty pleased with myself for making at ...

First off, I'm baking tonight. SOMEbody decided to have his 50th birthday tomorrow. I still don't really have any great ideas for decorating his cake (no over the hill stuff--it's passe. Plus all that black frosting stains everything, especially my tongue) so if you have any brilliant ideas I would love for you to share them with me. I realized this afternoon that Jim is lucky because he got to wait an extra day to turn 50. Normally his birthday is the day after Feb 28th but not this year. Someone squeezed a Leap day in here just so Jim could enjoy an extra day of being in his 40s. In other news, Paul invented a new sandwich, which I had to share with you. In my opinion it is nasty, but he seemed to like it. I like the ingredients individually, but when he put them all together I felt a little queasy. Picture: The official recipe is as follows: one slice of bread, spread with Nutella, evenly space peanut butter m&ms on the Nutella. Nother slice of bread, spread...

I'll post something non-EJ or church related. How about crafts? Or food? Or both? Yesterday was a refreshing day of few commitments. I made dinner but few people were at home to eat it. Dave (not that you read this), I used some of the IQF* beef you are "storing" in my freezer for my chili last night. I learned that 20 lbs of IQF ground beef in a box does not come in smaller quantities when you open the box. Nope, I had to scoop out what I estimated I needed (2 lbs) out of this: Yes, it looks like worms. It weirds me out every time I look at it. But we ate the chili anyway, those of us who were at home. And now for my craft. I haven't crafted in ages. I have been meaning to do a craft for ages because I'm so often at home these days and I have lots of craft supplies. For the craft that I wanted to do, however, I needed vinyl letters and wooden blocks, neither of which I had. But I do have acquaintances who do. So I turned to them in my time of need a...

A couple days ago, I got a hankering for really good bread. Not plain old sandwich bread that I buy at the store for $1.39, but stuff that I have to go to a bakery for and pay a few dollars more. I could just bake some myself, but with getting EJ ready for next Wednesday, work, and seminary prep, I frequently make excuses not to bake, let alone cook dinner. I thought to myself, "I really want to go to a bakery to get some fancy bread. But I never leave my house anymore, except for seminary and that doesn't really count because...I don't know why it doesn't count, but it doesn't." So I've been traipsing around the house for a few days thinking about bread and how and when to get some. Then on my way to seminary this morning, I realized that there's a Great Harvest Bread Company within a mile of the church. And I was pretty sure that since it's a bakery, they'd be open at 7 a.m.!  After seminary ended today, I cruised over to the GHB, and...

Every so often, I'll drive by a chain fast food venue while hungry, and an argument will break out. Me: Mmm, fast food! I wanna stop and get some. Other Me: I don't. Me: But the food is so yummy! Other Me: It is not! The last ten times (at least!) we've stopped there have been incredibly disappointing, remember? We pulled out of the parking lot all the while kicking ourselves for having gone there because the food was gross.  We wasted our money buying it. Me isn't listening: Mmmm, french fries! With ketchup!  Come on, you know you love them. Other Me: Maybe the first three fries. After that, it's like eating cold, salty glue sticks. Me: How about the hamburgers then. You love a good hamburger! Other Me: Yes I do, but fast food hamburgers are not good hamburgers. Me: Soft bun, meat, chopped onions, ketchup--it's all there! Other Me: All there in the most depressing arrangement ever.  The sandwiches always come out squished, and the chopped onio...

I'm up again at an unholy hour of the morning, although sleeping until 5:19 was technically sleeping in. Thank you, seminary, for skewing my perception of time.  If I had told my college age self there would come a time in my life when sleeping until 6 a.m. would be enjoyed and even considered heavenly, I probably would have shot myself for thinking future me was an alien in disguise. As a teen, I never could understand how in the world my mother could get up at these weird morning hours (when technically it wasn't even MORNING yet because, hello, there was no SUN peeping over the horizon) and do housework (and really all I can see now is getting up early isn't so bad; the actual doing of housework I still don't understand. How can I do housework when I have to catch up on emails, cute kittens, and people of walmart? I'd be willing to bet if facebook existed when my mother was in her 40s, she'd have been parked in front of her Apple 2e instead of downstairs grin...

I am in Florida for one more night. I thought I would blog more, but it turned out that I spent my time doing more important things. So my list for tonight is Ten things that are more important than blogging while in Florida visiting my sister and her family for my niece Morgan's graduation. 1. Bake a cake. And when I say I baked a cake, I really baked 8 cakes. 8 layers to make 3 tiers. Picture later. So baking was done rather than blogging. 2. Make frosting. 8 batches of my own special buttercream icing. I had *niecial help in the area of counting cups of powdered sugar. Maddie was the official counter, Rozzie was the backup counter, and Morgan was the assistant to the backup counter. I tend to miscount the number of cups of powdered sugar so I needed their special counting skills. Thank you girls! 3. Assemble a cake. It took some time to assemble the layers in the right order. You can't put a rectangle layer with a circular layer to make a tier. 4. Eat at Sorbello's where...

Mom and I went to a book signing on Saturday. It was given by an author who also happened to be in my 10th grade English class and Math class. At the time, this future author, and future college professor of English, was a rebellious punk rocker. He had a band with a bad name even. And he wrote bad things in my 11th grade yearbook. (But I thought he was cool) Too bad my name didn't ring a bell for him. Sigh. Oh well. I always figured I was unremarkable and utterly forgettable. (said in a way as to show you that I am at peace with the fact) ANYWAY. After I got my book signed, Mom and I tottered off to the deli part of the Scandinavian gift store where the book reading and signing was held. It was a small space with what seemed like a healthy population of patrons. The deli part of the store offered head cheese (Jenni-Dear Old Mr. Dunderbeck should come to mind), Swedish meatball mix, pickled herring, lefse, and all manner of other Scandinavian delicacies. I wanted Kavli and lefse, ...

April Fool's Day. It's not usually celebrated around here (except on my blog. Yeah, no tattoo for me). However, I thought it would be fun to do dinner different tonight in honor of the day of pranks. I printed up a menu of items (food, utensils, drinks, plates, etc) in different languages. Here is the table I set for the kids. All they got to start with was the menu and a marker to circle which items they wanted to order. They got to order 5 things at a time. Paul knew what "huevo" was, but not "cuchara grande." According to babelfish dot com, cuchara grande means big spoon. So he had something to eat his gravy with. He got a plate, a fork too. Matt wasn't so lucky. He got food, but no utensils. He was indignant about the carrots, but he was happy about getting pudding. And a dishtowel bib. He had to eat his carrots using his bib because he hadn't ordered a fork. All three of the kids got lucky in that they happened to order plates during the ...

I'm going to make lasagna for dinner tonight and I will be making a second one to put in the freezer, just like I did with the chicken divan yesterday. Hayley didn't seem to quite grasp the concept of freezer dinners. She kept asking when we were going to eat the second divan casserole. I said I didn't know. Then she asked, "Then why do you have it?" Me: "To save for a busy day." H: "Why not just order pizza?" Me: "Because I want to save pizza ordering for Saturdays." H: "But you have more time to cook on Saturday." Me: "I don't want to cook on Saturday" H: "Then order pizza." Me: "Go away." We also have the same type of roundabout discussions regarding wearing leg warmers and shorts in wintertime (or early springtime), only I'm the puzzled one--Why have leg warmers when you can just wear socks and longer pants? Hayley: "Because I want to wear shorts..." And then I had...

This post is in no way a cry for help. I am not at the end of my rope. I do not complain of serious issues that threaten my well-being on this blog. This the place where I whine superficially about superficial things or I post stuff that if my children had said it, I would tell them 1) chill, 2) wah (in my most sarcastic voice), or 3) if you would like to complain, please complain to the cats because I don't have time to hear it. Or I post about the kids. I've been working outside the home since September and I still can't seem to get a schedule down. I've had a tough time adapting to being gone part of the day. It's taken me 7 months to finally realize that I can do only three things per day. 1) Seminary and all that pertains unto it, 2) work, and 3) make dinner. And sometimes, only two of those things. Today, because I did not fall into a sleep-deprived coma as I did yesterday and the day before, I was able to make dinner. Hooray for me! Not only that.... get th...