wisdom teeth

so tomorrow at 8:30 am i am getting all 4 of my wisdom teeth extracted.

yeah.

so today, as reality is sinking into my terrified self, i began looking online for lists of food that i am actually going to be able to eat in the next week or so. because there is no way i'm living on applesauce and smoothies and chicken broth for the next week. i NEED more flavor than that. plus i think i'd drop like 10 pounds. unnaceptable. i love food way too much. (for example, in honor of it being my last day of solid food, i had a bacon cheeseburger - two patties of course - and fries from "5 GUYS" SOOOOOO DELICIOUS!). so here's what rules i've come up with, along with some things i actually CAN eat mañana.

A. EAT SOFT FOODS

B. DON’T CHEW (IF POSSIBLE)

C. EAT LIQUIDY FOODS (they can just slide right on down)

D. NO STRAWS (can dislodge the blood clots forming NASTAYYYYYYY)

E. NO ACIDIC FOODS/DRINKS

F. NO SODA/CARBONATED DRINKS (carbonic & citric acid=can disolvethe blood clots)

G. NO CITRUS (see above – includes drinks)

H. NO CRUNCHIES

I. NOTHING HARD

J. NOTHING CHEWY

K. NOTHING SPICY (lameeeeeeee. No hot sauce to spice things up.)

L. NO WARM/HOT FOODS

and finally: OK FOODS---

mashed potatoes – w/cheese & herbs; mashed/pureed canned fruit (peaches, pears - not pineapple); ice cream – softened; campbell’s soup at hands – ex: creamy chicken, potato; milkshakes – NO STRAWS; soup – but not w/past, rice, little chunks, etc; applesauce (brendan went out and bought berry, apricot, cinnamon, and regular flavors of applesauce today... what a cutie pie!); pudding; jello; carrots, corn, - in the blender etc; fruit smoothies; yogurt; refried beans – with melted cheese etc; oatmeal (runny-ish kind); rice pudding; creamed corn; broth – ex: chicken; butternut squash soup

anyway, i am sincerely hoping that everything goes well. i'm probably stressing myself out. asdfghjklasdfghjklasdfghjklasdfghjkl. lets see what happens. 

sewing accomplishment!

today i finished a project i'd been working on for a little while... a homemade skirt! brendan and i had been at walmart a while back, and i'd stumbled across their fabric and sewing section - i was like a kid in a candy store! - i was fawning over the buttons, the ribbons, the fabrics... it was bad. so my sweet husband, knowing my love of crafts and how i love making my own accessories (headbands and bracelets and such) offered to spend $10 on me for whatever i wanted. then once he started looking around with me, he encouraged me to broaden my horizons and try making an actual piece of clothing. since the pattern was only 99 cents, i agreed to making a skirt. it had pleats, pockets, an elastic waist, would fit my body, and looked adorable. then i found gorgeous fabric. the only problem was it was that sheer fabric that is insanely difficult to work with, so we got a plain white cloth to go underneath. basically that meant instead of making the simple skirt, my first attempt at a skirt would be a double layered skirt with the fabric that likes to move around and not sit still (anyone who's worked with fabric before knows what i'm talking about). but i dove in. fortunately, momma kyle has sewing machines and that made it way easier, since before i'd just been stitching everything up by hand. there were a couple mishaps but everything was fixable and it all got easier as i went along. so as it goes... TA DA! my skirt is completed!

A. it has an elastic waist
B. pockets on either side of the skirt
C. is two-layered: a plain white underneath, then a sheer, silky, patterned fabric on the outside
D. it is pleated around the top underneath the waistband

first attempt, success. next time though i want to try something a little simpler. no double layering - it made it way to complicated with all the extra pinning and extra sewing.

baking joys

my hubby was on tv today! around 7:40 and 8:40 this morning channel 3 (good morning arizona) was talking about his dodgeball team and showed them practicing for the world championships coming up. it was so fun to get to see him this morning on there.

on another topic, i'm beginning to discover that i love to bake. i'm not crazy about cooking so much, but i'm enjoying baking quite a bit. last night i made snickerdoodles for family home evening with our neighbors. then today i took some bananas that were QUITE overripe and instead of making banana bread, i made a banana cake with a cream cheese frosting. i just had a slice and it was DELICIOUS!

tricks and interesting details i learned baking my cake today:
A. it took an hour+ in the oven (at 275 degrees which i thought was surprisingly low, but it is cooked so delicately. it was only slightly browned, but cooked all the way through since you cook it for so long but on such a low temp. not a bad idea.)
B. then the recipe said to take it from the oven and stick it straight into the freezer for 45 min in order to make it extra moist - and it worked, i was surprised because i'd never have thought to stick a hot cake into a cold freezer... but it worked.
C. whenever i make cream cheese frosting, i always put in some lemon juice. i think it adds a little zing and brings out the flavors even more. but then again i love citrus, and cream cheese frosting is my favorite, so the two together is just perfection.
D. use a MIXER whenever you are making cream cheese frosting. i can whip regular icing (ex: powdered sugar + milk, etc) with a whisk easy, but this frosting is just too thick to make it completely smooth when you try to do this one by hand. still tastes incredibly delicious though :)
E. i only had 3 bananas, which turned out to be slightly over a cup of mashed banana. i needed 1 & 1/2 cups of mashed banana. my solution? i blended in a half cup of applesauce with the cup of mashed banana. - it had similar texture, and would give another good flavor. apples & bananas together = yummy cake!

television

tv wasn't something that we watched much of in my house. in fact, we practically NEVER watched tv. we'd watch movies or tv shows we recorded. then in college i started watching more tv. i watched the competition cooking shows and the america's next top model and law and order. here i've discovered what a huge part of culture tv is. we have the tv on like 24-7. even if no one is watching it. it's just background noise and something to watch, if there is nothing else to do. at first i loved it. being able to watch tv whenever i wanted. it was like a surge of power! power i'd never truly experienced. the power to control the remote and channel flip through show after show after show... but over the past week-ish, i've started to truly understand why my parents didn't let us watch tv - ok, ok so they had different reasons. they were concerned about the commercials and content and messages being portrayed through the tv to us. which they have every right to be, oh wow. i would NOT want my little siblings watching a lot of the stuff on there. i don't want ME watching a lot of the stuff on there, and i'm an adult! - but it's mind-numbing. it sucks you in. you end up watching things you don't care to watch. just to watch something... i've started avoiding the tv room/living room to avoid the temptation to just flip it on. because half that stuff i don't actually care to watch. a few of the shows i really enjoy and am intrigued by. but most of the other shows? not worth my time.

i started a book yesterday. it feels so good to read again. i've taken it to our community pool with me yesterday and today. it's hot outside, but the pool is refreshing, and it feels so good to get in some reading and some vitamin d.

pillow talk

brendan and i aren't the type of couple who can just lie down and fall asleep in a heart beat. we also aren't the type of couple who can cuddle ourselves to sleep. we can cuddle and then separate and THEN fall asleep, but we CAN'T sleep within a foot of each other. in the first week of marriage, these are some things that we immediately discovered:

we both:
A. toss and turn in our sleep
B. swing our elbows and knees (as we toss and turn)
C. need to be in control of the blanket
D. like to spread out on the bed

any one of these could be a problem when trying to share a bed with someone else. but take two people with all these habits and then throw into the mix that our bed for our first month of marriage was a full size. not a king size. not a queen size. but a full size bed. that's barely a step up from a twin! having a full size bed meant we started drawing imaginary lines on the sheets to keep our sides separate. it wasn't just to make sure that neither of us was getting jipped out of our "fair share" of the bed space, it was a matter of safety. if one of us strayed too close to the other, you couldn't be sure if you would accidentally get a kick in the middle of the night. i remember waking up in the middle of the night one time wondering what was pressing on my face, only to realize it was brendan's elbow. and in the morning he'd tell me about the elbows and knees i sent flying during the night. FORTUNATELY, most of these situations have been resolved. the biggest fix in this case was:

A. getting a king size bed - we can finally toss and turn without injuring each other, and spread out enough to be comfortable
B. brendan's genius brought along this second change - we each have our own separate sheet to sleep with (it's too hot here for blankets, but sheets are perfect). that way we can pull and twist and turn all we like, without stealing them from each other. we used to have mini-battles over them in our sleep, but now it's all better.

now we can actually sleep... minus incidents with the dogs during the night. the dogs are upstairs during the night with my mother-in-law, while we are downstairs.
sometimes during the night the dogs:

A. bark - what dogs don't? - but even worse, if one dog goes downstairs for a drink or to use the bathroom outside, the other dogs bark like mad whenever anything is on the stairs. so any movement in the house, the dogs bark. good for safety, but annoying if it's only other dogs roaming.
B. if my mother-in-law isn't home, the dogs just whine because they miss her. one night they barged into our room - yes, one of the dogs literally knows how to open the closed door to our room. so annoying when ur in a REM cycle at 4am and then 3 dogs come in whining and wanting attention. we had to lock the door after the second time it happened so they wouldn't come in again.
C. early every thursday morning the dogs go crazy because it's landscape day and they freakout with having people so close to the house. early morning wake-up calls. no need for an alarm clock on thursdays mornings.

update on the last few days, but mostly today

A. on the driving front... with brendan in the passenger seat of our truck, i've driven to and from walgreens twice, and today i drove to and from church! woo hoo. driving to and from walgreens i had no idea how to get there, especially because we took side streets the whole time so i was even more clueless on where i was. but getting to church was easy! i made it there and back with like no directions!

B. today was my first day of my new calling in church. they haven't officially sustained me or set me apart, but they asked me to do the job last week, and today was my first day. i am the new sunday school teacher for the 11-12 year old kids, but there was only one girl in class today. i was nervous going in today, but it went really well i think. our lesson was on 'the parable of the talents' in matthew 25:14-30. it was the perfect lesson for a new class, because it let me start to get to know the girl i had in class. when they asked me to be a primary teacher it almost made me laugh because my mom has had callings in primary for as long as i can remember. i think this year is the first year my mom ISN'T in primary. we'll see if this becomes a trend, like mother like daughter? haha

C. today brendan taught the lesson in priesthood, and apparently everyone loved it. he's gotten asked to teach several times, but this was the first time in this ward. he seems to really have a knack for teaching, and people can see it. :)

D. i feel bad for missing friends and family. i feel as though i must not be trying hard enough to make friends, but then i have to stop and remind myself that it takes a lot longer to make solid friends than just a month or so of church (i was out of town for 3 weeks, so i've really only been here for a month and a half-ish). it isn't like college or high school where you see people every day, so it will take more time to build friendships. the ward is wonderful, though, and everyone is so kind and sweet. i'm excited for enrichment activities to start soon because hopefully i will be able to make some more friends out here.

E. it's a lightening storm outside! crazy.... no rain, just wind and lightening and stuff. weird.

ok well that's all for now. have a lovely day!

being a housewife

my hubby and i are living with my mother-in-law and her three dogs. having three black dogs means lots of dog hair to clean up. even though two of the dogs are older, they still bark at anything outside, and the younger one likes to get into the trash and eat any food we leave out. so today i came home from the MVD and discovered kali had gotten into the trash. there was food remains all over the kitchen floor.

in the first several weeks living here i discovered that the chores i did most often were laundry and sweeping the floors. the downstairs floor is all tile, and with all the dog hair, it seemed to take forever when i wanted to do a thorough job. so today, coming home to the kitchen floor being a mess, when i'd worked on the floors so intensely just the other day, i started a new system for my household chores:

i set a timer and work fast for ten minutes on a chore around the house. after that, i take a 50 minute break. so it's a total of a one hour when you add it all up. so every hour, you spend only ten minutes. so easy. but the trick is that once you get into your groove during that ten minutes, you HAVE to stop when the timer rings. and when the timer goes off to get back up, you HAVE to get back up and start again (i'm taking a break to write my blog. yes, i know. fail #1: inconsistency). but so far today, i've accomplished tons. the thing i like about it is that i get a quick burst of accomplishment every so often, without burning out by doing too much at once. it keeps me feeling productive and keeps things getting done. plus, that way i can get other things done. like hang out with my hubby, eat, blog, etc etc. there you have it: my new plan for chores and daily life.