Lord of the Flies

This weekend, Justin and I headed to the Shenandoahs for a little adventure in the mountains. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and when I say it was a beautiful day, I mean that I was wearing a t-shirt all day and wasn't cold.


We started the day by hauling up the mountain. Fortunately, Justin was carrying 50 pounds of climbing gear, which made it possible for me to keep up with him. Once we got to the top, instead of chilling with the scout troupe that was up there, we kept right on going in order to bushwack our way down to a hidden climbing area. I took some lovely pictures of the foliage (or lack thereof) and of Justin climbing.


Throughout the time Justin was climbing, there were little gnat-sized flies buzzing around...and they were very pesky, but I didn't think much of it. After Justin finished the route a couple of times, we made our way back up to the trail in order to find some easier stuff for me to climb. The climb we found ended up being a little harder than expected. I made it about three-fourths of the way, and then had to have Justin hoist me up. In my own words, "I had nothing left to give." We packed up our stuff, and hiked our way back to the summit where we tried (unsuccessfully) to capture the beauty of the day. Instead, we got a kind of lame self portrait in the sunset.


Anyway, it turns out that all those pesky little flies were doing more than just buzzing around. I realized when we got home, that I was being eaten alive!!! I've declared myself the Lord of the flies, since apparently, they LOVE my blood. Justin got a few bites here and there, but I got 22 bites on one leg, and 33 on the other. I look like I have leprosy!

The Clothing-Coordination Connection and Conference

I have discovered a simple truth. I am much more athletic when I'm fashionably clad than when I'm not. I was first made aware of this strange clothing-coordination connection two years ago when I started dabbling in tennis. The summer before moving to D.C. I spent a lot of time playing tennis with people in my ward, and I was never very good, until I bought my sweet tennis outfit. You know, a cute little skirt outfit that the pros wear. I'm not exaggerating, but my skills jumped significantly on occasions when I was wearing the outfit, and dropped back down again when I wasn't. I only bring this up because I have recently decided that I need some fashionable climbing/hiking clothing.

A couple of weekends ago, I went with my friends Katie D. and Roz and Justin to hike around Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. We had a great time--it was briskly cold, and actually snowed for part of the time we were hiking. The only down side to the experience was the number of colors that I was wearing. Note the outfit below: You don't see the full glory of my outfit in the picture, but when it got really cold, I was wearing about 6 different clashing colors. I had on Justin's green pants (I don't own any long pants that aren't jeans, so I had to borrow from my husband, which is clearly sick and wrong, but I will try to refrain from pontificating on the evils of a fashion industry who fails to actually sell clothing that fits a woman over a certain height...), my puffy red coat from the GAP (my sporty coat comes from the GAP because it's the only company that makes tall sized coats with sleeves long enough for my arms...), pink gloves, forest green wool socks, and white and lavender shoes. I'm pretty sure that I would be way better at climbing if I only had an appropriate outfit...And a word about Justin's hat--he couldn't find his beanie when we were leaving, so he just grabbed his biking hat, which is designed to fit under a helmet--in case you were wondering why Justin was wearing a swimming cap. But despite our current fashion-faux pas, we all had a lovely time in the great outdoors. (And, just so you know, I ordered some North Face pants when we got home. I know that I am ridiculous, but I guarantee I am more coordinated when I don't clash...and when I'm not wearing my husband's pants.)

In a totally unrelated note, Justin and I had a great time watching General Conference this weekend. It was a spiritual feast...and an artistic inspiration!


We may need to re-read Elder Child's talk when it comes out in the Ensign...I can't recall exactly what Justin was going for on the pinky-toe (that is Justin's foot, by the way), but we decided it looks like the family beaver. Every knows that every family needs a beaver.

Welcome Home!

I must say that one of the best things about being married is having our own home. Not that we own the apartment that we are currently living in, but at least we know that everything in the refrigerator belongs to us. (I can't tell you how many groceries I let go bad because I wasn't sure if it was mine or my roommates, so we both just let it sit there until it was rotten to a point that we knew no matter who had originally purchased it, neither of us would want it at that point.)

Before we flew out to Utah to get married, we spent the week painting, moving and unpacking (moving and unpacking were actually squeezed into the Saturday before we flew out for the wedding) so that we could return to a beautiful home. Now, a month later, with the TV securely mounted on the wall, I decided that we are officially settled in, and it was time for me to invite you all on a virtual tour of our new abode.

The first thing you will see when you come to our house (everyone is invited to visit!!) is the door. Actually, you will see the gate outside, and you'll have to call us to buzz you up. Ha! No missionaries will be trackting at our house. (Did anyone else hate those door buzzer things on their mission?) Anyway, I included this picture mostly because I wanted everyone to see our doormat. Apparently at this complex it is customary to have a doormat, so we have obliged.


When you walk in the door, this is the view you will see:


If you were to look to your right, you would find our laundry room, which I didn't actually take a picture of because I figured that nobody really wants to see our laundry room. But I'm sure you're all excited to see our bathroom...it is quite spacious, featuring dual vanities and a linen closet, two things that I did not have in my previous apartment. And I didn't even clean it up for the pictures. We are actually that tidy!!


Once you get over the excitement of our lovely bathroom, your eye will probably be caught by the bright red couches in the living room. These couches were my best purchase of 2006. They are comfy, and yet oh so stylish.


This is the perfect place to sit and watch our new sweet TV that Justin mounted all by himself. (We're pretty pleased with the fact that instead of buying a $500 mount and paying an extra $500 for someone to install it, Justin found a similar mount online for $160 and installed himself with no problem...HGTV here we come!) We haven't decided what to do with the cords yet, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. At least we can enjoy the architectural beauty of our fireplace and watch TV at the same time.


When we were choosing paint colors, we actually chose the whole color scheme based on a dishcloth we saw at Crate & Barrel. We really went out on a limb when we decided to paint the kitchen and dining areas Surfer Blue. It's definitely a bold statement. I like to think of it as an ode to our family members in Hawaii, and in the dead of Winter it reminds me of a swimming pool. Overall, I think it actually turned out really well. I especially like the contrast between the surfer blue in the dining area and the grasscloth green of the bedroom.


I also have to say that I married into some pretty sweet bedroom furniture!! (And Justin made the frames above the bed...mucho impressivo!)


You're probably thinking by now, what other amazing features can this apartment have? Well, the answer is a huge walk-in closet! I was particularly excited about this feature since my previous bedroom did not actually have a closet. I had to fit all of my clothes and shoes into a tiny armoire from IKEA. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but we really maximized this space.


And last, but not least, we have a cute little balcony where Justin keeps his garden, and from which you can get a preview of the beautiful cherry blossoms below.



So that is our home!! We're excited for everyone to come see it in person! :)

Adventures in Home Canning, Part II

When you can pickles, you can't taste them right away. (It turns out that pickles are really just cucumbers.) You have to wait a couple of months so that the vinegar has time to work its magic. Justin and I decided that the time had finally come for us to try our home canning experiments. We started with the spaghetti sauce.

I was making stuffed pasta shells for dinner one night, and the recipe called for spaghetti sauce, so I decided to use one of our homemade cans. We had used the recipe from Barbara Kingsolver's book, the one that inspired all the domesticity in the first place. It turns out that while Kingsolver has written several good books, she doesn't really have a flare for writing recipes. The spaghetti sauce was nasty, and we dumped it all out.

Next we tried the pickles, with much the same result: it turned out they were nasty, and we dumped them all out.

After two disappointments already, we turned to the salsa without much hope. Even as we were canning it, we thought that there was a good chance we had chosen a terrible salsa recipe. The thing that clued us in to this was the apple cidar vinegar combined with 7 cloves of garlic. We were right. The salsa was terrible, and we dumped it out.

So what did we get out of more than 50 pounds of tomatoes and cucumbers? A mere 6 jars of tomatoes. Lessons learned: 1. Find a good recipe before you start canning. 2. Instead of canning, just go to the store and buy what you need.

There is something sparkly on my finger...

You'd think that of all blog postings, this is the one that I would spend the most time on...and yet I find myself with an unexpected deadline at work (moved up from March to January 3) and do not have time to create my usual literary masterpiece. Suffice it to say that I am officially engaged!! I'm sure that as you've read the recent postings of my adventures with Justin, you have probably suspected that this would be the outcome, and you were right!!

He totally surprised me. I mean, I knew that it was going to happen, but I was expecting Christmas or Christmas Eve, or at least the weekend. But like normal, I called him after work to see if he had any plans or if there was something in particular he wanted to do that night, and he suggested that I come over to his house and we decorate his little Christmas tree (he has been growing a tiny evergreen tree in a pot for the last two years--if you picture Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree, that should give you a pretty good idea of what it looks like).

So I went over to his house, and his roommate was there having dinner with a friends. I mention that to emphasize that this was just a normal day. So we decorated the little tree, and then we were just chatting, and he looked over at it and said that it needed a star for the top. I suggested that we juts print one out (paper is about the heaviest thing this little tree could support). He said he thought he had a bow--one of those you just stick on presents--that he thought would work, so he started rummaging through his closet, and when he turned around, he was holding a ring, and he said, "or maybe this would work."

I think it took me about 10 to 15 seconds to process. I was staring at a ring, but I was asking myself "Is that a real ring?" "Is he proposing?" (He said I had a look of bewilderment on my face.) And then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, and I said yes!!!!!!! He wanted to do it on a Thursday and kind of low-key (which I'm a big fan of) so that he could surprise me, which he clearly did.

We are planning on getting married in the Salt Lake Temple on February 22, 2008. (Of course we haven't actually called the temple yet, but we figure that our chances in the middle of a semester are pretty good.) So mark your calendars!

And this is us posing with the beautiful turkey Justin made for Thanksgiving. Pretend like there's a ring instead of a turkey, and it would be the perfect engagement shot!

Sucked into the Vortex

Have you ever been bored on the weekend? I mean really bored? The kind of bored that inspires you to do strange things that normal people only do if there are large amounts of alcohol involved? Well, I wish I could say that what you are about to observe was based on that kind of boredom, but I'm afraid there really is no justification for the events that lead to the creation of the Vortex...

Justin and I were doing homework together at my kitchen table on Saturday night. (Maybe this is why nobody will ever hang out with us...) Anyway, after sitting still for a couple of hours, I decided I needed to move around a little, so I went downstairs and turned on some music and asked Justin if he wanted to dance. Those of you who know me well are probably more shocked by me attempting to dance than me attempting to rock climb, as well you should be. And it didn't take very long for both of us to acknowledge that truly, we don't dance.

So when dancing failed to provide the distraction I was hoping for, I dared Justin to jump over the balcony in my dining room (it's split level) down into the living room. So he went up to do it--he's not one to pass up a dare--and I pulled a section of the couch out of the way. While Justin pondered the jumping, the pulled out section of couch reminded me of a game that my sisters and I used to play when we were little. It was called "Hearts on the Fall." I don't have any idea why we called it that. What it entailed was us jumping from couch to couch and then jumping off the arm of the couch onto the floor. I guess that would be the hearts falling.

And then the idea struck me: we should make an obstacle course! I have to say that for all my sponge-like behavior, I'm kind of proud of the fact that this was my idea. Although, I guess technically I should be pretty embarrassed that this was my idea. Here's how it went: First, you had to run up the two flights of stairs and jump over the pulled out section of couch.

Then you had to jump across the gulf over to the next section of couch. I decided to name this move "the cliff dive." It seemed like a good idea that if we were going to have an obstacle course that the various parts should definitely have names. I think I might have gotten the idea to name the moves from American Gladiators, but I can't be sure.



Can you tell which one of us actually had to focus on safely making the cliff dive, and which one of us had the confidence to pose in mid air?

The next move was the one that got me every time. It is called the Vortex. Really it was one of the sections of couch turned on its side to make a tunnel, but I swear it sucked me in every time.

.

My entry into the vortex really needed some work. I somehow couldn't ever gracefully dive down into it.


My exit from the Vortex was also not very graceful. Pretty much the vortex was the main thing standing between me and the Olympics, assuming this obstacle course was an Olympic event.


Justin's descent into the Vortex may not look graceful here, but it was really speedy. One solid movement straight from the cliff dive into the Vortex. I'm using the word Vortex a lot here. Mostly because I just think it's a really funny name for a part of an obstacle course.



So once you got out of the Vortex, you had to run over to the ottoman and roll over it on your back.


Stopping to pose took several seconds off my time.

Then there were several pillows laid out that you had to bunny hop over before running up the stairs for the big finish.

Mine looks more like I tripped going up the stairs, but that's only because you didn't see me fly up them and dive to the finish.

Justin's looks way cooler.

Good times. Good times. And the picture at the beginning actually had nothing to do with anything on this post. It was us canoing in Georgetown. I just thought it would be a waste of a good picture not to add it.

Dude, I think you're in trouble...

This entry is chronologically misplaced. Technically, Justin and I had our adventures in home canning after our trip to Seneca, WV. However, I had to upload the canning pictures for an assignment for class, and I had no such impetus for these pictures, so you are getting an account of my life out of order. I thought about just skipping it and moving on with the next post, but when one scales the face of a very high cliff, one generally wants recognition for it. Such is the case with me. I actually climbed my way to the top of the cliff you see to the right!

How it works is Justin climbs first, and he puts gear in as he goes (so that if he falls the damage will be minimal...), then I follow and take the gear out as I go. The idea is to get both people and all the gear safely to the top.

Everything was going very well until my foot slipped unexpectedly. Usually when I fall, I'm well aware of the fact that it is going to happen. This time I was totally taken by surprise, and my hand was ripped across the sharp rock that I had been holding on to. I thought that I had hurt my elbow, but when I checked it, there was nothing wrong. And then I noticed that my finger was bleeding profusely. It looked pretty bad, but it was actually just a scrape.
And because I am so tough and rugged and outdoorsy, I decided that we should keep going to the top despite my damaged finger.

Okay, this next part is probably totally inappropriate for the internet, and someday if I ever run for office, I will probably wish it weren't here, but it is the funniest part of this whole adventure. So right after I made it to the 2nd anchor point (it took four pitches to make it all the way to the top of the cliff), Justin decided that he would go to the bathroom. Clearly, this is much easier for a guy when you are wearing a harness and standing on the edge of a cliff. I thought it would probably be a good idea for me too, but the logistical nightmare that it represented made me think that I could just hold it. That is until Justin told me that it would be about 4 more hours before we made it to the top, and we were about to leave the tree line. This was my only chance. So I went behind the rock that Justin had been hiding behind, pulled down my pants (a very tricky thing to do while wearing a harness) and squatted. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but something went terribly awry with my squat, and I started tumbling backward. (I think perhaps my backpack weighted me down wrong, or maybe it was just more of a hill than I had expected...either way, I started tipping backward). Though I wasn't super close to the edge of the cliff, I thought it would be a very sad way to go...falling off a cliff with my pants down, so I grabbed onto the rock, and noticed that there was liquid in the little crevace of the rock. And then I noticed that the liquid was warm. And then I realized, not only had I just fallen into the dirt on my naked bum, but I had put my hand into a puddle of Justin's urine. Everywhere I tried to grab seemed to be wet. Apparently, since I had said I wasn't going to go to the bathroom initially, Justin didn't attempt to localize the stream... (sorry, Justin...too much info...) So that was pretty darn funny.

Anyway, then came the part where I stood in a windy crevace for about two hours. This is the part of the story where I stopped having fun. It was so cold. And then when you are so cold that you can't move your hands, it makes climbing out on the edge of a cliff that much scarier. I think Justin realized that I maybe wasn't ready for Seneca when I started shouting at him that I wasn't having fun any more, and I just wanted to get off the stupid rock. (A guy who was at the top at the same time said to Justin, "Dude, I think you're in trouble. You should never take your girlfriend rock climbing." I'm pretty sure that my mom agrees with that guy.)

Fortunately, when I made it to the top, I was out of the wind tunnel and shade of the crevace, and feeling the warmth of the sun (and the possibility of soon repelling off the cliff) made me quite happy to be there, and I'm glad that I made it all the way to the top. I am also glad that now Justin knows not to take me climbing when it is cold and we are going to be in the shade all day. Important lessons for both of us.