New Business Cards?

I love this idea. I think I'll work on it tomorrow. Although, should I do pictures of me, or pictures that I've taken of other people?

Homemade Ravioli

So I decided to make homemade ravioli the other day before I started feeling tired & ill the way I am now. I used a recipe for homemade pasta I found on thepioneerwoman.com. It's a pretty good recipe except I'd add at least 1/4 tsp salt per dough batch. But you don't want to read right? PICTURES! Oh ya and keep in mind that these are no where near the professional quality I shoot for my clients. Very little time or thought was put into this production. :)

The filling consisted of my own design. 1 garlic clove diced & sauteed in olive oil, 1 tsp garlic salt (it ended up being a bit too salty in the middle, I'd use more real garlic instead), 2 TBS fresh parmesan cheese, 1/4 c ricotta, 3 turkey sausages cooked & diced. Mix together & place 1 tsp onto pasta dough at regular intervals. Then spread a little water on the remaining pasta edges so that the top layer will stick.

Cook in boiling water for 3-4 minutes. Serve with your favorite sauce. YUM!

Lately

Wow, have I been tired lately. I can't sleep anymore. I wake up at least 3x a night. Anyway, I walked home form school the other day, that was pretty weird for me because I live 3.7 miles away... and I had to walk along a 45 mile per hour street with 1 foot between me & the cars. Needless to say my dreams of riding a bike to & from work were shattered. I thought I'd be smart & walk in the farmer's field... but his street ends & I had to trample through some pokey bushes that were probably hiding tarantulas (um no joke we have tarantulas out here, I've seen them!) and rattle snakes but I made it home ok.

Something else entertaining, I got to hang out with my mom & sister & we went to a goat farm! She bought Evan & I my new favorite snack Apricot Honey Goat Cheese. YUM.

Repentance

I am repenting for not writing to keep you updated. I'm sorry. I know every few months I say I will get better, but really lets be honest. I am very forgetful & a busy body. So in a few bullet points the last few months I....

• Went to California with Evan twice, once to San Fran, once to LA for his mission reunion
• Set up my art show at the Freemont Indian State Park Sagebrush Gallery, thanks to all those who came to my reception.
• Went to a photography conference & was a little bored. They go over the same thing every year...
• Went to Las Vegas & had our car break down in 108 degree weather 2 hours before our flight to Europe~can we say stressful much?
• Had lots of LAN parties
• Went to Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, and Spain. Had a blast. More to come on that at Simplified travel.com when will I ever find the time?!
• Relaxed a little bit, read lots of books. Fablehaven series again. :) Now I'm on the Alchemyst my Michael Scott again.
• SAY HARRY POTTER!!! MIDNIGHT! SO FUN! We dressed up & it was awesome!
• Said bye to my sister Jenny who moved back to NC until school starts again for her in January
• Went to a few weddings
• Got released from the Relief Society Presidency-WHEW that was a relief. :) aha, I'm "punny"
• Yellowstone family Reunion with the Johnson's~ got to pet a baby deer!
• Had more LAN Parties
• Threw Evan a surprise birthday party. I made homemade pizza & they had a LAN party. The girls & I watched movies in our room. Drew & Jillaire helped me get Evan out of the house for a few hours by saying they wanted to go on a hike up American Fork canyon, then when we got there I texted them & had them call Evan & say that they had a family emergency & couldn't make it but that they'd be to our house by 7 so we could watch a movie instead. Hilarity ensued.
• Went to Park City for a week for Evan's work. I swam & read books :)
• Saw my friend Shanene visiting from Hawaii
• Said goodbye to my friend Heather who moved to Ohio. Boring, She'll be back! :) Right?
• Started working again, 3rd year at Westlake!
• Helped my mom with the fire that burned 2.5 acres of her land, her shed, parts of her house & barn... Scary! But I'm glad everyone & all of the animals were ok!
• Started my master's program by going to a lecture at the U on Art Education.
• Watched a few football games
• Set up my fall decorations~ can't wait until next month when I can set up my Halloween ones!!!!

And I think that's about it! WHEW! Busy busy at work & school & trying to keep myself healthy. I've walked all or part of the way home from school twice now. Ya, I know, that is still sucking. I'm working on it :)

Because I needed to

So lately I've been having a difficult time concentrating. I have a LOT of work to get done but today during my Commercial Art class I teach I decided to sit down and do the project with the students.... SUCH A GOOD IDEA! Art helps give me some confidence, oh ya, hey I can kinda draw... I forget that. You'd think as an art teacher I'd have more time to make art... but it's actually less. I only get one project completed every year. Sad. I have quite a few unfinished projects sitting around my art classroom because I"ll start the project with the students & then I get distracted grading, or trying to help them.

SUMMER?!

Is it time for summer yet? I really want to get outside and get in my garden (and nope, not your typical "gardener"....fact is, I kill everything, I'm just excited to try to make it look better this year and try to keep more alive). Also, I'm tired, just like every other teacher on the planet. Don't get me wrong, in August a teacher will tell you they love their job. Heck, I will even say it now, I love my job. I'm just so tired of answering the SAME questions 50x a day, 5 days a week. It's very draining. I'm so excited for my Ap students though, they've worked soooo hard! So that's definitely the good part of teaching, seeing everything come together at the end of the year. It's too bad that's when I am the most tired, cranky & whiny because I'd like to enjoy this part more. Can we just get rid of the whole waking up early thing for teachers? How about school starts at 10 and is out at 3? We can eat snacks in the classroom and get rid of the unimportant time wasting stuff we do. I like this plan, who wants to help me implement it? Then maybe we wouldn't look forward to summer with more excitement than the students. I'l just keep repeating my mantra "only 8 more days, only 8 more days" because we're on A B block so I only see my students every other day... so even though there are 18 more "real" school days left, I only have 8 or 9 with each group. And yes I realize not every job gets a summer break, but you know what? I've worked a "normal" job and I was never as tired as I am April/May when I'm teaching. So I'd really rather not hear "Well at least you get summers off & still get paid" Because we teachers also know that's a lie. We actually get paid for 9 months of work, we just choose to divide it up over the course of 12 months so we can budget better. My job is more rewarding though than my "normal" job so there! :) But ya, I'm TIRED. Massages anyone?

New book

So I hadn't intended this to be a book blog, but I've been writing my own book, got a whole ton more to do but I just wrote 5 chapters last week! I'm also reading Book One of the Guinevere Trilogy called Child of the Northern Spring by Persia Woolley. I'm only on page 34 right now but it's really easy to get into & I'm excited to get more into it. I also recently found out that my library is giving away a free book for every 7 you read on their book list! So I'm going to start working on that very soon as well. I just need to quit checking facebook :) Really I need o get off of the computer all together since I'm on all day at work, and read more. I also need to paint & exercise. Right now my life consists of work, coming home and "vegging" for an hour or two, leisurely making dinner, cleaning, getting ready for bed & going to bed. I'm boring & I don't do much else. I think I'm getting burnt out but at least there's only 6 weeks left of school! I'm super excited & it's my goal to start running again before school gets out. It just needs to stop raining... :) Actually I love running in the rain, but I'm a pansy when it comes to the cold. I digress. I just haven't posted in awhile so I thought I'd put this out there. Read this good book. I also finished all of the Young Royals series I was raving about a few  months ago. LOVE LOVE LOVE them. I'd like to purchase them since I'd read them again. I usually only try to purchase books I know I'd read again, or books I find for 50 cents at the library that sound interesting. Other than that I mooch off of free books that people are throwing out. Hmm, for reading so many books you'd think I'd be a more interesting writer. Oh well. I said goodbye to my oldest little sis last week. She is going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to Tulsa, OK and the surrounding areas. I'm very excited for her & we received her first email already! She's with some very nice people and she loves the classes she's taking in the Missionary Training Center (MTC). She'll be heading out to Tulsa in about two more weeks & I can't wait to hear her stories. My dad came out here with her & I got to see him for a few days, which was awesome! He's been dating a really nice lady too which makes me happy to see him happy. Now I'm just getting ready to plant my garden (I found some Sumac plants on KSL that Evan and I are going to go pick up this week sometime) and I'm not really sure what else to plant honestly. The soil is rather crappy out here & I'm not sure how long we'll be in this house so we don't want to invest too much more. On another note, check out my erin imaging blog to see the fun high fashion bridals I shot over spring break, as well as the pics of my golden retriever Marshall. Mom, he knows he's my dog even if he still lives at your house :) Anyway, I took some fun photos of my sis, mom and cousins playing with the horses so I'll post those soon too. OH! Evan just surprised me with some Easter cookie cutters! (Pictured above) There's a bunny, butterfly, flower & an egg! YUM! Now I need a really good sugar cookie recipe. I Just LOVE the pillsbury ones and I can't seen to be able to mimik the recipe. Maybe I'll just try the rosemary & lavender shortbread cookies I found in 101 Gourmet Cookies for Everyone. I don't own the book because I've never tried the recipes, but hey, that's what libraries are for right? The lavender frosting sounds interesting. Anyway, I'm going to read my book now. Cheers!