I Made That

Last night I got a little crazy and decided to try my hand at making some bagels.

I found an easy recipe on the internet and went for it!

About two hours later, I had a dozen freshly made bagels! They are DELICIOUS! Way better than store bought, they give Panera a run for their money and are super cheap to make. It was very very fun to make them and felt great to smell bread baking in my house-it has been years since I have kneaded dough, and I loved it. Of course, I missed the high school football game because I underestimated the time required to take care of this project, but no big deal. I have bagels to show for it!

This is the recipe that I used: Making Bagels
The only deviation was that I added baking soda and honey to the water while boiling.

YUMOLA!

Tip of the Day

I have been spending a lot of time in my new kitchen; cooking, cleaning and having my trusty laptop nearby.

I just learned a new trick that I wished I'd had when all the drywall dust was flying.

Did you know if you place "Press N Seal" cling wrap to your keyboard, everything-including the mouse-trackpad still works?

But, no spills. No spaghetti sauces. No flour sifting through the keyboard at the same time!

I was just making bagels and afraid of having the flour go right through my macbook.

No worries anymore!

Maybe It's the Socioligist in Me

Yes, I majored in Sociology.

My senior year in college, the sociology department put out a brochure entitled

"What CAN You DO With A Degree in SOCIOLOGY?"

Inside the brochure (and I am not making this up) it said in big BIG letters

"GRADUATE SCHOOL IS THE CHOICE FOR YOU!"

Great.

I just spent three years working towards a useless degree. That's just perfect.

Same year; I had a professor tell us that sociologists had perfected a theory called the "I Knew It All Along Theory."

That meant that sociology was a field based on the idea that they were going to explore thoughts that people knew all along and just prove them right.

Like what makes a long distance dating relationship compelling and difficult is "absence makes the heart grow fonder" AND "out of sight, out of mind." Both are true. Both can be proven. I knew it all along.

What a great thing to get a degree in.

Anyway. I found this blog that uses sociology and social-physc thought processes in parenting and I find it really compelling. Cause I'm a nerd.

It gives me a lot of food for thought and I have liked it a lot lately.

Take a look!

Half Full: The Science for Raising Happy Kids I don't think that social science has the answers for raising happy kids, but I do think it has something to bring to the table!

Remember these 1993 AT&T Ads?

This is a link to a series of ads from AT&T in 1993 that asks you to imagine the future when you will...do a series of nearly impossible tasks like get directions from a machine! GASP!!!

Take a look and see how AT&T has done since 1993. It is really remarkable.

How did the futurists do? link

I don't know a dang thing

I don't know a dang thing about this debate. Seriously.

We have great health insurance with Young Life so I have no reason to complain.

I am UNBELIEVABLY grateful in fact.

But if we didn't have that insurance? I doubt we could do what we do.

So once again, I want to remind you...I don't know anything. Except I know funny.

And this is funny cause it's sarcastic.

Who doesn't love a little sarcasm?

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

I remember back in day in college we used to talk about sarcasm as being "scarchasm" because the literal translation of the word means "tearing of the flesh. So it can cause scars on people because it probably has a basis in truth AND it can cause a chasm between you and other people. Thus scar-chasm.

Sorry that scar-chasm still makes me laugh even after ALL those freaking talks about taking it down a notch.

I think I am a little better than I was then. Maybe.

It's Wristband Night

Matt and I have had one night together in the last two weeks, so what do we choose to do with it?

Take the kids to the Mountain State Fair of course!

We started out at the animals.

Doesn't this look like a cow version of Slappy the Weiner Dog? Weird...

Our state fair is A LOT like the story of Charlotte's Web (which is one of the only reasons why I love it) and so the animals are a must visit part of the fair.

We spent the entire time convincing the kids that this was the coolest part of the fair and NOT the cotton candy or the toys that were hanging enticingly just outside of the animal section.

After the animal section, we moved onto the "I need to get my camera out" section:

My favorite part of this picture? The "metal hands" in the background.

It's always comforting to see this guy is still around...18 years after Vanilla Ice.

No comment, except in all fairness:

The Pig Ears are courtesy of Texas Pete at the Pig Races.

And well...we stayed here all night.

So we hunkered down and let the kids ride all the rides they wanted. Which meant five rides.

The first one was the Bee Ride.

They were so excited!

Until about 12 seconds into the ride, when Asher started to lose it cause the Bee went up AND down. This was horrifying to him and caused everyone to have their ride cut short by about three minutes.

All was redeemed by the car ride.

And then the motorcycle ride.

But for some reason, I had a hard time trusting the reliability of this one:

Take the time to notice BOTH words

Throw caution to the wind mom! Everyone else has!

A bite of cotton candy and a light saber ended the night. But we had to hide the cotton candy or else we were never going to hear the end of it, so Matt hid it in his shirt. (We still didn't hear the end of it)

Yes, we totally got ripped off by the light saber.

It was close to broken before we even made it home.

It's always fun to see how much your kids can cry before bedtime after you spend that much money in one single night.

This Would Totally Happen to Us

Did you see that Dad's grab? Unbelievable!

But his hug on his daughter just completely melted my heart and the mom's reaction made me laugh really hard.
Yes, this is so AshevilleSloan material.

Come Home

My dear friend Ellie Holcomb was on women's weekend doing special music and performed this song "Magnolia" that I have to be honest...not one of my favorites.

Until...she told the story behind writing it. (Isn't that the way it is?)
She said that "Magnolia" is a name that she uses for herself in songs. And the song is written from the perspective of God and how he longs to be with her. And how she busy's herself with a million other things all day long and the price that she pays for missing out on that relationship.

This is a love song from God to Ellie/Magnolia/You/Me.

(clearly sound quality is not super awesome cause I ain't no freakin' professional. Don't blame Ellie. Listen to the words and fill in the gaps. Or better yet-go listen to it on itunes after this!)

Now?
My new favorite song.
Seriously.

I haven't really stopped listening to Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors all summer long.
We really really love them and their music.

Go download A Million Miles TODAY. You won't regret it.
Especially Magnolia, The Valley, Love Will Bring You Home and from a different album Fire and Dynamite.

Brutal

I've been having a few problems with my Macbook this week. I decided to take it upon myself and fix it. Which I did. Awesome. Right?

Except that I ended up accidently deleting every picture that I took in July, August and so far in September because I thought I had backed up my photo library on my external hard drive. I double checked it. Then I deleted my photo library.

Then I went to rebuild it.
It was gone.
Dead and gone.

I am a bit shattered.
Especially because I had some great pictures from last weekend that I never got to send to anyone and they are GONE.
Also, my Amazing Race application with my sister is gone too.
Shellie, I swear...I am about to call you as soon as I get up to tell you.

Shattered.
At least it's only two and half months of photos.
So it could be worse. I guess.

Like Lucy having the flu and infecting the house.
Oh yeah, that happened today too.

Two Jans

Buffy and Martha did these two characters "The Two Jans" and sang songs about things that women care about-it was hilarious. They wore pearls, Lily Pullizter dresses, visors and had sweaters draped over their shoulders. It was enough to make you want to kiss them.

I only captured two of the three songs on the Flip and I am really sad about that. The first song had me laughing so hard.

Anyways, here they are!