the one with the jam

So a few ladies from my ward came over to visit last night and they brought me a jar of homemade strawberry peach jam. Words can not describe the goodness of this jam. For lunch today I unabashedly packed: said jar of jam and 4 pieces of bread. I’ve been counting down the minutes until I can go into the lunch room and enjoy the goodness. You know the episode where Monica has her “Jam Plan” and Joey gets all excited because he loves jam? Mmmmm, she should have made strawberry peach jam.

“Remember when your mom used to drop you off at the movies with a jar of jam and a spoon?” -Joey

happy halloween

Brad's brother emailed us this political cartoon by Gary McCoy. If you are an Obama supporter we mean no ill will by posting this.

You’ve never seen Tommy Boy!?”

When I was a freshman at BYU my roommates and I were at a football game. During one of the slower portions of the game Kristin randomly quoted Tommy Boy. I wish I could still remember which quote she used but when she said it our group and several people around us laughed. Ashley, however, didn’t catch the reference until we told her what movie it came from, to which she replied “Oh, I’ve actually never seen Tommy Boy.” At this remark our group and several rows around us, and now that I think about it probably the entire stadium, turned to her and said “You’ve never seen Tommy Boy!?” This of course was a travesty to which she was quickly indoctrinated before the week was out. Since then the phrase “You’ve never seen Tommy Boy!?” has been used to refer to anyone having lacked the quintessential and, let’s face it, vital experiences that are required of a human being. Well I tell you this story because the other day I told Brad I had never read 1984 (Shock! Dismay! Outrage!) and even worse I had never read To Kill A Mockingbird (“You’ve never seen Tommy Boy!?”). So my shameful secret is out and the next few weeks will be spent becoming a little more familiar with two of the supposed greatest novels of all time. We'll see how it goes.

PS - What is today's equivalent of Tommy Boy? Would someone now say "You've never seen High School Musical?!" I think this involves further investigation, but I'm afraid I'll discover I'm not as hip as I thought and will realize how old I've become.

yeah, we voted, jealous?

Today was the last day to register to vote in Illinois, and since we are considered "late registers" we also had to vote today. We are literally 4 miles from Missouri, a battle ground state, where our vote might have counted more and even though the 21 electoral votes from Illinois have all but been handed over to Obama, we still felt it our civic duty to vote. Plus, we couldn't complain the next four years if we didn't. Here's to democracy!

don't you love the fall?

the lost weekend

So my weekend was just swallowed up by this:


Excellent read. It’s filed under young adult fiction in the library but don’t let that scare you away. It seems I only post about these types of books, but I promise my book shelf reads deeper than Harry Potter and Twilight. Anyway, I almost read this in one sitting. I love books that have you thinking, how is this possibly going to end?

weekend update

This past weekend Brad's parents came to town for Brad's White Coat Ceremony. Basically Brad received his white coat and took the Hippocratic oath - so now he's a dental student with morals. It also means he can start performing on actual patients, which I hear is where the real fun begins.

Here we are in front of the school sign, if you look closely you can see our house in the background - we still love being so close.



Diane was generous enough to bring Brad and I some food storage. Now I don't have to feel like a hypocrite having just given a talk in church on emergency preparedness with out actually being prepared myself. The truth is we have already started to dive into the food; the apple sauce was just too tempting! We also have peaches, jam, apple pie filling, pears and 25 pounds of oatmeal. Good-ness we cleaned up. In this picture you can also see the "vintage" 70's contact paper on the pantry shelves. I'm never taking it off, it's so awesome.

They were also kind enough to schlep down our dining room table that was generously gifted to us by Brad's brother and sister-in-law. This is now my favorite thing in our apartment. It's an old farm house table that has two pieces that slide out from each end and then lock in to place to make the table longer. You can see that they store underneath when not in use. It's a dark mahogany color that cleaned up well with Howard's Restore-A-Finish (plus Ross and Brad's elbow work). We are guessing it could easily be 100 years old, and I am a huge fan! Thank you Ken and Cristie, we will love it as our own.

Aren't the end chairs fantastic? There are benches for each side, but we are using them in our living room as a coffee table.

Here is Brad getting his white coat, so studly!

We also got a tour of the campus, so Brad got to show off the teeth he's been working on in the lab over the last few months.

We'll have to take one like this on graduation day, but maybe without my hand looking so weird.

McMansions

This blog post by mo rocca about the changing stigma of "McMansions" is funny and actually makes some good points. The post reminds me of some of the complaints I hear from Naperville, Illinois natives and there is also a shout out (albeit slightly unfriendly) to Plano, Texas.

Enjoy!

"...bouquet of newly sharpened pencils..."

The zebra z-grip max in red is my favorite pen ever. It writes perfect and it seriously makes my work day just a little bit better. Is it weird to have a favorite pen? Okay, fine. Forget I blogged this.

pere marquette

Brad and I went hiking over the weekend. We traveled up the shore of the Mississippi to a little town called Grafton, Illinois - which was adorable! It had little cafes, candy shoppes, old ladies selling jam, and a fisherman's wharf. We didn't have enough time to stop but we are planning to go as our next outing. On the other side of Grafton is a state park called Pere Marquette which is famous for its Bald Eagles. In the fall bird watchers travel from all over the US to see Bald Eagles nest in the bluffs. We were a little early for bird watching but we took advantage of the mild hills which induced a mild form of hiking like conditions. It was great to see more of Illinois and enjoy the last bit of summer before the bitter bitter cold sets in.

Definately greener than Utah!

I'm a sucker for walking over fallen trees. Its feels very Swiss Family Robinson.

A view of the Mississippi from on top of the bluffs.

Brad is really excited to be in nature.

I'm no politico

I think I've said before that my two best friends and room mates at BYU were Political Science majors. Well not much of that political-ness rubbed off on me because I am seriously un-interested in all things political. Now ask me what movie won an Oscar for best picture in 1994 and I can tell you Shawshank Redemption. However, this presidential race has been different. I probably won’t be using this forum to discuss politics, because I’m pretty sure the two people that read this blog aren’t coming here to become more informed on foreign policy. I will, however, say three things about last night’s debate.

First of all, they both admitted that the VP pretty much does nothing so why do we even have a VP debate to begin with? Or a VP for that matter?

Secondly, one of the radio stations here in St. Louis calls Joe Biden “America’s Drunk Uncle”. For the last week they’ve been playing all these sound bites of ridiculous things Biden has said that the media completely ignores. Watching him last night and thinking of him as the crazy drunk uncle made for high comedy, especially when he kept grinning like he was getting a glamour shot taken.

Thirdly, does it bother anyone else that Palin keeps calling the average American “Joe six pack” and “hockey mom”. Seriously? Even if that is some how true, please don’t admit it. I think Europe can hear you and they are laughing. Embarrassing. Also, does anyone think that Tina Fey looks more like Sara Palin then Sara Palin looks like Sara Palin? Just saying.

Overall, both did an okay job. Brad and I both agree Palin did better than expected and Biden did what was expected. So who will soon be a “heartbeat” away from the highest office in the land? A golly-gee republican or a stuffy old democrat. Hmmm. No thanks.

I promise the next post will include more pictures from the daily happenings of the carn family :) It's been a while.