More Local Mecca

It's no secret that I love Costco.  As a dear friend once said "it's my Mecca."  It's also known as the hundred-dollar store.  Whenever I go in, I find things I've never had before and, of course I HAVE to try them at least once.  Weight Watchers has not helped at all.  They tell us at our meetings to try lots of fruits and vegetables.  In fact, try some we've never had before!  Liscense to buy weird food?!  I'm in!  My most recent shopping trips have yielded asian pears (I didn't actually buy these, they're courtesy of Lechelle, but they come from Costco)


Giant grapes


and these little pretties...baby bok choy

They look suculent and beautiful, right? 
They're not.  They're gross.  I have 5 pounds of them.  That's the curse of shopping at Costco. 
Anybody want 'em?  Any ideas what to do with them?

What are you going to be on Halloween night?

Yes, I'm aware Halloween was almost a week ago, but what's a working girl to do?  Sometimes life is just too fast-paced to get it going.  Anyway, here you go...

For Halloween Daniel and I were the Incredibles.  I would say we looked...well, incredible!  I didn't get any pictures of me, because I was busy running around...you know me.  Here's a pretty good picture of Daniel though...
***Picture credits to Shauna Burnett.  I didn't have any time to get any!

I think he had more fun than the kids did. We had a Halloween Party.  It's been my dream to have an old-fashioned Halloween style carnivale.  My husband was very sweet to induldge me. 
We had awesome decorations!  I asked all my friends to give me their old glass bottles and I would turn them into something fabulous! 
We had re-purposed wine bottles...

Apparently I love groups of three...

They were cheap, but they turned out really cute!  I am for sure keeping these for next year.
Next, we had my personal favorite, bottled blood...

and then we had jarred "specimens"

That may or may not be Daniel's practice skull for the Neuro section...

 Yikes!  Shrunken heads, brains, bugs, floating fingers!  What's a girl to do?  The best part is they're all vegetables so they weren't yucky in the jar...I love Hyvee's weird food section.

 Did you know dry ice makes the carrots jump around?  When they were sedentary, they were lame, but when they were smokin' and jumpin' they were my favorite.

We had lots of drinks.  Got to compensate for that broken clubhouse drinking fountain!

I'm still a kid at heart...smokin', bubbly brews still excite my heart!

these were fun...Yay for printables!

I made bat straws, so easy and so fun!

We played some fun games...

And did things we weren't supposed to do...like put stickers/vinals on the clubhouse walls...shhhhhhhhhh they didn't notice a thing.

It was the perfect Halloween!

Thou Shalt Not Covet

This is going to be an interesting post.  I read in one of my "creative and expressive writing" courses in college that blog writing is all about opening up and expressing the "Naked You."  Do you agree fellow bloggers?  Well, here's my shot at it. 

Many of you know that I teach in Young Women.  I teach the Beehives...I think they're the best because they're still so sweet and innocent.  If you tell a Beehive you love her, you get a little plate of homemade burned brownies on your porch.  I love it!  But....because they're so innocent, we often get some pretty strange answers and questions.  My all-time favorite is "what is the law of chastity?"  "Oh, I know!  Don't wear tatoos!"  Well....don't do that either but I wouldn't say that's right. 

We had another "moment" this week.  We learned about Avoiding Dishonesty.  In the lesson book it said "how can coveting lead to dishonesty?"  Judging by the blank looks on their faces, I realized they didn't know what coveting was.  Lucky for me, we had a member of the bishop brick who efficiently dispatched of that one. 

What I wasn't prepared for was the beehive who came up to me after the lesson and said "sister Young, do you ever covet?"  I was taken back.  I wanted to sit down and say "oh no honey.  Sister Young is perfect.  I never have problems like that...someday you can be like me."  But...I said....yes.  I said that I have to watch myself carefully and we talked about some ways we could help ourselves. 

It was thought provoking.  I've been thinking this week that I probably covet more than I thought I did, and definately more than I should.  Here are some of the things I covet.  Help me for I covet!  Does anyone else have a problem with this?  Please tell me it's not just me and my little beehive!

I covet babies

I covet crafty ladies

I covet skinny girls who can eat cupcakes whenever they want (well...not them just being able to eat cupcakes whenever without consequences)



I covet my friend's silhouette...one day....

I covet storybook homes

I covet perfectly clean, organzed rooms

While they're good things, I come to the conclusion that my and my little beehive need to work on being happy where we are and with what we have.  There's no shame in setting our sights higher, but this week, I'm looking at my blessings and loving what I already have.  I am truly blessed, especially to have family and friends like you!


(don't judge me for this post...)

It's Been Since Prom

Yesterday, our relief society had a Princess Party.  It was great.  It was actually a dress up party.  When I saw the invitation, I thought YES!  I have an excuse to dress up like a princess!  Then I thought NO!  I don't have any princess stuff!  Daniel told me we couldn't buy any more stuff until payday :( I hate it when that happens! 

So, being ever "creative" I thought the last time I felt like a princess was my wedding day.  But, I rented my wedding dress so that wouldn't work.  But  I kept my shoes, so those were definitely an option. 

I kept thinking...the time before that that I felt like a princess, was senior prom.  So I called up my mom and told her to send my prom dress. She said ok, but ok like "ok, what are you up to?" 

When the dress came, Daniel opened the package because usually packages from my mom include treats.  He called me up and said "your mom sent you a big blue Cinderella dress! Why would she do that?" I told him it was for my princess party.  He looked at me like "you got permission for a Halloween party not a princess party too..."

Then I had him try to fit me in it.  It was a tight squeeze.  In fact, it didn't close all the way in the back.  So I wore a sweater to cover up my garments.  Luckily it was cold outside!  Here's the finished product:

Whew!  That was a tight squeeze, but we made it work!  There's my wedding shoes, see 'em?  I love those shoes!  We had a great time, full of tiny treats made by culinary experts in my neighborhood, learned how to walk and curtsey like princesses, played bingo (I won a nail polish!), and jammed out to karaoke.  I'm proud (maybe I should be not so proud) to say Pam Peterson and I performed a little ditty...Come away with me.  I think I had some excellent PSHHHHHHH rain sounds that may or may not have happened when I was supposed to be singing words.  It was fun though.

Afterwards, my friend Shauna and I went and got pumpkin spice frozen yogurt at Yogurtini.  Still dressed like I was.  She's a true friend.  When we went in, the cashier guy was really cute.  I said "I know I'm dressed retarded, I'm not crazy."  He said "Oh, I was just worried about you getting icecream on your pretty dress!"  He was a sweetie.  We had a great night!  I love being a mormon!

How Our Blog Was Born

I have been wanting to start a blog for a long time now.  Why didn't I?  Well, I was intimidated.  Everyone had a quite background!  My life isn't that interesting, I'm an editor who loves to eat!  What font would I use -- Seriff/Sans Seriff?  What will I call my blog???! What if I, gulp, spell something wrong or have a dangling modifier?  All these things say so much about who you are as a person, and you'll be judged based on your blog.

After some gentle encouragement from my friend Shauna, I decided to give it a whirl.  I mean how bad could I be judged?  It's not like that many people will read it! 

I was still hung up on the question what will I name my blog? Being the creative individual I am, I made a list...

Cupcake Queen...nope.  On a diet, can't have cupcakes.  Plus my blog isn't about cupcakes.  Most times.

Jumping Jessika?....uh...that's a no.  There's no good words that start with "J"  Why couldn't my name start with an R or an S or an M?

Krazy Kitchen?....there I go with the food again.  Plus spelling crazy wrong would drive me nuts.

My inspiration came when I was talking to Daniel about our Halloween Costumes.  I wanted to be Arial.  He didn't want to be a sea prince.  I wanted to be Mrs. Incredible.  He thought Mr. Incredible was fat.  It went on and on until I said "ok, what do you want to be for Halloween?"  He paused and said "You wear all white and I'll wear all black and we'll wear signs saying Ying & Young."

Ding! Ding! Ding!  That's it!  What?!  No, not the perfect Halloween costume (He'll be Mr. Incredible whether he thinks it makes him look fat or not), the perfect name for our blog!  It's perfect because one day you'll get some nice, comforting food, and the next I'll be ranting on something that makes me mad. 

I've got to start taking pictures too.  Maybe Lechelle and Shauna will help teach me how...I usually turn out red eyes, that is if I get the head in the picture. 

Anyway, until next time.  I'll have photos for ya!  Can't promise any miracles though!