Fasting

I know fasting works. It's been a long and hungry journey to come to this conclusion, but come to it I have. I've fasted a lot. I'm mean, not an abnormal amount, but enough to not look forward to it and to know the "tricks of the trade." (Drinking lots and lots, stay up late and wake up late so you don't feel it as much, stuff like that).

I first fasted before receiving my patriarchal blessing. Good times. Some time later, when I was older, I started fasting more regularly.

As a sophomore in college there was some fiasco with a friend's fiance; I don't quite remember He was being deployed and that was especially bad for some forgotten reason (like the wedding was scheduled after deployment or something). So we all fasted. That's when I learned that chili dogs are not good ever and especially not after a fast. But somehow he didn't get deployed.

On my mission we fasted with Nadja, hoping her parents would be cool with her baptism. I got transferred and a little while later she really did get baptized.

I have this one client that has really been struggling. Like 6 months worth. No clue what to do for him. I put his name on the temple prayer role sometimes. And I fasted for him a couple times. No change. But then, just a few weeks ago, when I'd kind of called it quits, he really started to improve. He has been on the upswing for 6 weeks, which is, like, long enough for me to say he's in "behavioral remission."

On Saturday my mom called and told me that a friend I'd grown up with, Carolyn, was in hospital with H1N1 and pneumonia. Her parents were told to expect the worst. And the ward was fasting so I started one too. And, although we aren't out of the woods yet, she's doing a lot better. They expect to bring her out of the coma tomorrow.

I've had my fair share of lame fasts where I really couldn't see the results or even if there were any results. Of the examples I've named above, some of the fasts I'd forgotten about by the time the desired event happened. Maybe I should write stuff down. Well, I may forget what I fast for, but hopefully I won't forget to fast.

Toronto

My friend, the Queen, is studying for her Ph.d at York University in Toronto (sounds very sophisticated doesn't it?). My friend Em and I went to visit and see the sites. Good times were had by all. I loved visiting the Queen on her "home turf" and exploring a new city. Famous movies filmed her include Fever Pitch, Mean Girls, My Big fat Greek Wedding, Serendipity, Tommy Boy, and (as mentioned later) X-Men.

Me, Em, and the Queen driving between Buffalo and Toronto

Niagara Falls

Canadian Thanksgiving with me, Britt (actual Canadian), the Queen, Karina (another actual Canadian), and Em

I love, love, love the fall.

Casa Loma. You may recognize it from X-Men.

Milk in a bag. What the.

Toronto temple with the Queen.

CN Tower.

Finally, someone who understands me.

Michael Buble!

St. Lawrence Market -- Pike's Place ain't got nothing on this.

With Em, in flight.

Mr. A to Z

This weekend CJ and I took the trek to Boise (Nampa) Idaho to partake in the wonder that is Jason Mraz. We were not disappointed.

Oh, the anticipation.

Can you feel what we were feeling? He sang all the Jason standards. Personal favs "You and I," Beautiful Mess" and "Lucky."

Here's Jason on the screen. Our seats were pretty sweet. The big projector helped, though, to capture every moment more fully.

After about an hour of music Jason was done. He came back for no encore despite a lot of cheering. The lights went out. Disappointment filled our hearts. Then, suddenly from behind us we heard music. we left our seats and go very close as we watched from this smaller venue. Bliss.

New Blog

This blog is kind of like my journal or my scrapbook. And I really love it. But it's personal and really only appeals to people who know me, or friends or friends (sometimes) or creepy voyeurs. So I've made another blog, a more anonymous blog, that is just information -- not journaling or personal photos. Check it out at somethinghrh.blogspot.com.

Millions of Peaches

Saturdays are special days. And so are Fridays. One Friday my mom and I went up to my grandma's to can peaches. Millions of peaches. For free. Here's how we did it and how you could do it too!

First we bought some peaches. So I guess they weren't free after all. Actually my mom bought them, so they were free to me. I want to teach you all a valuable lesson. Peaches weren't put there by a man in a factory down town, but by my mom at my grandma's.

You fill quart jars with about a half of a cup of sugar. Yum. Then you boil some water and cover the sugar. Swirl it around so the sugar dissolves. This is what makes canned peaches delicious.

Don't forget to skin the peaches. It's easiest to cut the peaches in half along the little crease all peaches have, then take the skin off. You can't cut them into fourths or little bite-sized pieces.

Put in your peaches, concave side down, then fill in the cracks with some more hot water.

Wiped the outsides or else it will be yucky-central.

Get the lids ready for gellin' by boiling then first. You have to separate the lids or they'll melt onto each other. My mom uses a fork to get the lids out, but my grandma used her hands.

Make sure your grandma gets a little upset and worried about what your mom is doing. If she's not a little worried, your peaches probably won't turn out very well because no one was monitoring you for mistakes. Also, it's kind of funny.

Put your bottles into a swell canning container pretty full of water. Keep them in this hot water bath (lid on) for 20 minutes. Shhh, the cans are sealing.

Removed carefully as contents will be hot. You can push down on the lids and the tops should stick. If they bounce back up, no sealing has taken place. You'd better stick those jars in the fridge and eat them first, or it will be super nast. Good luck!

Salt Flats

In Utah there is flat salt. There are fields of salt. It has the appearance of snow, but, nay, 'tis salt. We (Heidikins and I) drove from SLC about an hour and a half. We stopped off at Salt Air to take some rockin' band photos. I would go on this drive again in a heart beat. No finer company could be had and the imagery was amazing. It is a desolate beauty.

RSL

Real Salt Lake. As previously posted, I love them. This time I went with my girls and we got to meet "the boys." Check it out.

Jamison Olave

Beckerman!

Me, Heidikins, Leo the Lion, the CJ, and ErinMasi

Beltran - usually has a sweet faux hawk.

CJ and the Fox -- she has a strange relationship with mascots

Point proven. The bear is grooming her.

All the Beautiful Children

I found a great deal on a flight to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Idaho. This was the first time I've ever visited them by myself. Although there were some bumps getting up there (Trev coming a day early to pick me up at the airport, for example) and the trip was way too short, it was so worth it. And you can tell it from these awesome photos.

My little models. I did everyone's hair. Two barrel-curl girls and one faux-hawk.

The girl can handle it.

Our picnic outside: manti chicken, roasted potatoes, watermelon, and corn on the cob.

Our fearless chef.

The corn came from K-dawg's garden box. Best corn I've ever had -- picked moments before boiling. Fresher it could not be.

C-Bear is "slow to warm up," but then she does. And look how cute it is!

How a Friday got even better

Friday I was in Target and I saw this beautiful black woman coming towards me. She was with a man, who looked slightly familiar to me. It was Will Swensen and Audra McDonald!

Now, at this point, some of you are freaking out. Not so much over Will Swensen (aka the sell-out from the Single's Ward, now working in NYC in Hair.... and if you know anything about Hair you understand why I call him a sell-out) but over Audra McDonald. My hands indeed began to shake and I could think of nothing else.

For those of you who don't know who Audra is, this next paragraph will help. She's won Grammy award winner, an Emmy award winner, and -most notably - a Tony award winner. In fact, she had 3 Tony awards by age 28. My personal favorites include her performances in Ragtime and Disney's new (and awkwardly historically incorrect) Annie. She's also been in Raisin in the Sun, but I've never seen it. (Currently she's on TV in a rather lame show called Private Practice.)

Will and Audra (who are dating, seriously Audra?) are in town apparently rehearsing for a show at the Hale.

No one else seemed to know what was going on. I walked around Target, pretending I was having reception problems, in order to get my camera phone high enough to take a photo. I called up Miss J to freak out together, who attempted to rush to Target and get a glimp but was too slow.

They were parked, like, one car over from me. I have a rather noticeable car. I don't think they realized that I was taking photos of them from my car (photos did not make it in to the blog) but if they did, then they now know that the chick in the yellow PT is a freak.

In short, it was a really great day.

PS22

Move over Von Trapps, PS22 "rawks my socks" (as my 17 year-old nephew would say). I don't know who this teacher is but he is amazing! And the kids are amazing. I've never heard kids that can sing like this. Here's their version of Viva la Vida, but you can go to the website and see much more.