The first week of January is usually a rough one for me. I get used to the holidays and all the good times that go along with them, so when real life gets back into full swing I lose my mind a little. However, I'm happy to report that this year's transition has gone better than most, thanks largely to the following:
1) Jazz game with our good friends Hansol and Morgan. An outing to Crown Burger and the good old ESA was exactly what I needed after my first Monday back at work. Thanks for hooking us up with tickets, Hansol. We like you.
2) A new Netflix addiction. It's taken us over a year to get through three seasons of 30 Rock, but I'm happy to announce that husband and I now have a new show to watch together: Yep, we love us some FNL. Something about the mixture of sports and dramatic plotlines has got us hooked to the point where we've watched at least one episode every night this week, eager to find out what kind of shenanigans those Texans have gotten themselves into this time. Mostly I just like it when the players screw up and the coach gives them a "You've gotta (insert reprimand here), son!" speech. It's strangely exhilirating.
Add a bowl of Farrs peppermint stick ice cream topped with crushed oreos to the equation, and this nightly ritual is becoming something I look forward to with the kind of anticipation usually reserved for Christmas morning.
3) "Out with the old, in with the new." (Furniture, that is). Mike and I have had hand-me-down furniture in our living room ever since we got married. It was nice furniture and we were happy to have it, but it wasn't really my style. We've been wanting to replace it for a while but haven't been able to justify the expense of new furniture. Then last week a New Year's miracle occurred in the form of a KSL listing for the couch, oversized chair, and ottoman pictured below for a measly $100. Done and done.
Now I just need to get some fun throw pillows and figure out what to do with that red plaid armchair that is the last remnant of the old furniture. I'm toying with the notion of re-upholstering it with a more modern fabric instead of getting a new one but have no idea where to get it done and I've heard that it can get pretty pricey. Anyone have any advice on the matter? I wish I could just do it myself like some crafty folk out there, but I am hopelessly handicapped in the sewing department. My junior high home ec teacher Mrs. Bridge even told me so.
Thanks to the Christmas gift Smeegs got Butch this year, a corner of our basement now looks like this: My husband is currently debating over whether a Karl Malone or D-Will fathead would best complete his shrine. Heaven help me.
I'm guessing this present was a large factor in Butch declaring this year's Christmas the best one of the four we have spent together. I would have to agree with his assesment, but not so much because of John as the fact that we got to spend lots of time hanging out with family, hitting the slopes, and, in my case, eating about ten pounds of baked brie. Hope your holidays were equally magical.
When we bought our house the upstairs bathroom looked like this:
Pretty disgusting, eh? So Megan and I ripped everything out: And Butch and his awesome Dad and brother rebuilt it to look like this: Most of you are probably thinking "is that a shower cap hanging on the shelf?" Yes, yes it is. Don't judge me.
You're also probably thinking "Dang, that's some bright freaking paint." Exactly. When we were choosing paint for the bathroom the color I settled on was demurely named "English Apple" and appeared to be a lovely true green. Then we applied the paint to the walls and the result was quite different. To be honest I actually don't mind the way it looks in these photos all that much, but if you've been over to our house at night you probably remember that the bathroom walls gave off an eerie glow that resembled a nuclear plant or something. Not really the look I was going for.
I've been wanting to repaint the bathroom for some time now, but with all the other house projects we've had going on it was kind of low on the priority list. Plus I was not looking forward to taping off all the nooks and crannies and whatnot. I had mentioned to Mike that I wanted to repaint the bathroom as a Christmas project and even went so far as to pick out a swatch and sample can at Home Depot but didn't think we could really manage it during the Holiday break.
But then I came home from an annual "girls weekend" in Park City with Mike's mom and sisters on Saturday morning to find this sign posted on the bathroom door:
If you don't watch Arrested Development you're not going to get that particular joke, but the point is that I walked into the bathroom to see a Merry Christmas banner and the walls transformed into a lovely shade of robin's egg blue ("Zen" by Behr): Turns out Butch and his friend Hansol had stayed up until 5 in the morning on Friday creating this Christmas miracle. As cliched as this sounds, I truly think this is the most thoughtful and unexpected gift I've ever received. My husband is awesome.
We continued our early Christmas celebration by heading up to Alta to test out the new ski gear we bought this season. Mike's parents were kind enough to give us money for new ski boots (me) and new skis (Butch) for Christmas and we wanted to try them out before our full ski day at Snowbird next week. So up to Alta we went, accompanied by Smash, Matt, and Smeaglett.
If anything could have made me love Butch more that day, it would be watching him ski. This is only his second season on skis after boarding for most of his life, but homeboy is already dropping cliffs and taking crazy tree runs with the rest of us. I hope our kids inherit his athleticism cause they sure aren't going to get it from me.
Of course we had to make a run to Molca Salsa afterward. Nothing tastes better after skiing than greasy Mexican food. It's funny how, back in my high school and college days when I had a season pass and a schedule that allowed me to ski at my leisure, I totally took the experience for granted and only got truly thrilled about skiing on the most powderlicious of days. Now something as simple as an hour and a half of skiing (for free!) makes me feel positively giddy. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder.
Hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season!
Last night I was talking to Smash and she reminded me that the Patriots were playing the Jets on Monday Night Football. Of course I was out running errands all night so I couldn’t watch the game, and when Butch got home I told him that I really need to renew my former Patriots enthusiasm. To which he responded (in a lovely sarcastic tone) “oh, cause they’re 9 and 2 now?” And right then and there I was reminded of why I kind of hate being a Patriots fan in the first place.
See, my family lived in Boston when I was a kid and we more or less maintained loyalty to that region’s sports teams (or, more accurately, we cheered for whatever teams my jock older brother rooted for, and he remained loyal so the rest of us did too). I can’t stand watching baseball but I hate the Yankees on principle, cheer for the Celtics as soon as the Jazz make their exit from the NBA playoffs, and, when it comes to the NFL, the Pats are my team.
However, as mentioned above, I haven’t really been too invested in them for the past couple of years. This is mostly because I married someone whose loyalties lie more with the NBA than the NFL, and, with the Jazz schedule being as packed as it is, my weekly sports-watching quota is usually met long before the Sunday football games air. But it’s also because being a Patriots fan has kind of sucked ever since they beat the Rams in the Superbowl and went on to dominate the NFL for the next couple of years. During that era I dreaded telling anyone I was a Patriots fan, as I could see the word “bandwagon” forming on their lips before I could even finish a sentence. Superbowl parties also became bittersweet, as my siblings and I were usually the only ones cheering for New England while everyone else was pulling for the underdog. It was indeed lonely at the top.
Then came the Patriots’ inevitable fall from grace, with the whole Belichick cheating scandal, the disastrous Superbowl of ’07 (even my Benedict Arnold of a husband cheered for the Giants), and the tabloid spectacle created by Tom Brady ditching his Baby Mama for Giselle “my body is ridiculously hot” Bundchen. Hoo boy. Rough times indeed.
But the Pats have pulled through it and, after owning the Jets’ trash last night, are 10-2 and looking like the football team that I know and love. So by returning from my NFL-watching hiatus it looks like I might once again find myself cheering for the “bandwagon” team that everybody wants to see lose; the team that has nowhere to go but downhill. As much as I hate to make this comparison, it kind of makes me feel like a Lakers fan (except not really, cause the Lakers suck). But hey, it could be worse. I could be a Cincinnati Bengals fan. Am I right, Phil?
One thing’s for sure. I would have an easier time cheering for my beloved Patriots if the quarterback didn’t resemble a mulleted, post-pubescent Justin Beiber. Tom Brady, please cut your freaking hair. I don’t care if you’re balding, you look like an idiot.
What could account for such a miracle, you ask? Oh, just my boy Paul Millsap scoring 46 freaking points. Nine of which came from back-to-back-to-back three pointers. Holy shiz. My head is still spinning from the magic of it all.
So Paul, you are officially forgiven for ruining my birthday party by playing like crap against the Lakers. Let's be friends again:
And Jazz? Please have more games like the one last night. They make me a happy girl.
November 7, 1874: The Republican Party was first symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly magazine.
November 7, 1917: Lenin's forces overthrow Alexander's Kerensky's government in Russia's Bolshevik Revolution.
November 7, 1929: Museum of Modern Art opens (NYC).
November 7, 1931: Chinese People's Republic proclaimed by Mao Tse Tung (Looks like it's a good day for the Communists).
November 7, 1944: President Franklin D. Roosevelt wins a fourth term in office.
November 7, 2007: This date may never be remembered for anything in history books, but it was on this gorgeous fall day that I made the best decision of my life:
Three years later I still can't believe I'm married to the cute boy whose smile made me weak at the knees. Even though we spend 90% of our time goofing off and teasing each other, I am fully aware of how lucky I am to be married to someone who I not only love, but admire so much. In my dad's speech at our wedding dinner, he said that Mike impressed him with both his strength and humility. Couldn't have put it better myself.
Mike is one of those amazing people for whom no challenge is too great, yet he is the least egotistical person I have ever met. He is currently juggling full-time work and school, plus a demanding church calling (this means he usually leaves the house sometime around 6 a.m. and comes home around 9 p.m. on weekdays), yet the phrase I hear from him most often is "Is there anything I can do for you?"
I could go on and on about the things I love about my husband--his optimism, his sense of humor, his kindness--but in the interest of keeping this post from being completely cheesed-out I'll restrain myself. It does need to be mentioned, however, that Mike might just have ESP. When I suggested splurging on tickets to the blackout game for our anniversary (thinking he'd jump at the chance), Butch said that he didn't think it was a good idea to stick all our proverbial eggs in the Utes' basket. So instead of watching that train wreck in person we got to view it from the comfort of a couch. For free.
So thanks, husband, for making these three years of marriage amazing, keeping us from Rice-Eccles stadium on one of its darkest days, and maintaining your excellent dental hygiene habits. I'm still a sucker for those pearly whites:
Did the awfulness of that pun make you cringe or what? Or maybe if you took Mr. Felt’s class at Olympus High it just made you feel nostalgic. Anywho, the point of this awkward title is that I ran my first half marathon on the day before Halloween. I have always been hesitant about doing this because I prefer to view running as a simple form of exercise rather than a sport in itself, so I didn’t really know if I’d like the experience of running competitively.
I’m happy to report that I ended up really enjoying the race. It was a beautiful course with perfect weather, and because people were all festive in their costumes and whatnot, the atmosphere was decidedly laid back. Here are some photos:
My friend and running partner Marianne. We spent many a Saturday trucking around the Salt Lake valley together:
My costume. I put white duct tape on my running clothes to transform myself into a skeleton. Sadly, only one lone femur survived the 13.1 miles. It’s a shame that you can’t see the beautiful kneecaps or shinbones that Smash created. They were lovely. Butch was a supportive husband and cheered me on at the finish line. This face means that he’s proud of me:
The rest of our Halloween weekend was filled with festive activities like making caramel apples, watching scary X-Files episodes (thank you, Netflix Instant Streaming), seeing the Utes beat Air Force, and just hanging out with friends and family. Thanks to my little sister’s facebook page, I even have photos to prove it:
Is baby Anna not the cutest gnome you've ever seen?
Since we’re talking about Halloween, I have to post some pictures of the Cassity’s annual pumpkin carving night last weekend. My in-laws are pretty much master pumpkin carvers and every year we all get together to show off our skills. My pumpkin usually ends up being the “special” one of the bunch, since I don’t use stencils anymore after this mishap, but that’s OK cause everyone is nice to me about it anyway. Here are this year’s pumpkins:
And my special little owl: Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!
If you've spent any time on the internet lately, chances are you have already seen this video. But I had to go ahead and post it just in case there are any stragglers, since this video is too good not to share. Its charming quirkiness totally reminds me of the Russian cartoons I watched as a kid:
The Cassitys have got me feeling shamelessly nostalgic. A few nights ago Mike and I were over at his parents’ house and Mike’s older brother Ben announced that one of their favorite childhood movies is now available on DVD. This made the siblings fondly reminisce about all the random movies they loved when they were kids, which in turn led to me recalling my own childhood favorites.
It seems like, to a certain extent, people of the same generation share a similar cinematic background (I think everyone close to my age has seen every animated Disney movie ever made), but then there are those movies that are specific to one’s own childhood and wouldn’t be easily recognized if you mentioned them in a crowd of people. You know, the old black-and-white movies you watched at your Grandma’s house or the campy ‘80s flick your five-year-old self selected at the video store. Things like Labyrinth or Scamper the Penguin.
Because these kind of movies stayed firmly rooted in the realm of my childhood (unlike the more mainstream stuff, which remained a constant via babysitting or other experiences with children), they are usually the ones that evoke that warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia when I encounter them later in life or-even better-happen to talk to someone else that has seen them. Here are a few movies that have that effect on me:
The Last Unicorn
I must have checked this movie out from the library at least 1,000 times as a child. I freaking loved it. And then I forgot all about it until years later when my little sister and I found a copy at some cabin we were staying at and popped it in the VCR for old times sake. You know that feeling you get when you visit a place you went as a child and it looks totally different than how you remembered it? Well, that was pretty much the feeling Smash and I got while watching this. We kept looking at each other like “did we really watch this as kids? Cause it is seriously messed up.” Apparently in our younger years we were too hyper to pay attention to anything except the pretty unicorn and somehow blocked out all the crazy going on in this ‘70s cartoon. I would be willing to bet that it was made under the influence of some serious hallucinogenic drugs.
The awesome thing is that the Cassity kids also loved this show, so for Easter one year my mother-in-law gave us the special edition DVD in our Easter baskets. Now Mike and I can witness the awkwardness of the “bosom tree” scene together:
Newsies I swear you have to be either Mormon or from Utah to know about this movie. I only say this because when I’ve mentioned it to anyone that does not fall into either of these categories I am met with a blank stare. And that stare turns into a look of pure confusion when I start describing it: “ya know, that musical about newsboys going on strike in New York way back in the day? And Christian Bale is in it and he sings and dances but you’re supposed to think he’s hard core cause everyone calls him Cowboy? And the red-haired lady from Grumpy Old Men is in it too and for some reason Teddy Roosevelt is involved in their shenanigans? ” If they’re still clueless at that point I start belting out “Santa Fe” and things get really awkward for everyone.
Newsies may not be Disney’s crowning achievement, but it was a downright phenomenon around these parts when I was growing up. Word on the street was that a kid from Olympus High was in it and that might have accounted for all the enthusiasm. I still don’t know if there was any truth to that rumor, but what I do know is that my older sister Elena was a teenager at that time and had the soundtrack recorded on a cassette tape that I listened to over and over. My friend Ashley and I even spent a good chunk of time trying to choreograph dances to the different songs. I’m sure they were awesome. But not as awesome as this bit of internet genius:
Faerie Tale Theater Ah, another gem that I discovered at the Salt Lake County Library. Faerie Tale Theater is a series from the ‘80s in which the movie stars of that era recreated classic fairy tales on what I’m guessing was a budget of about 50 dollars. This show probably originally aired on PBS or something, but by the time I was a kid each episode was available on vhs. I’m pretty sure I watched all of them, some multiple times. I still remember being traumatized when I saw The Little Mermaid and was first introduced to the non-Disney ending of that story. Sad times.
A few years ago I was at Costco and saw a boxed DVD set of this series for sale. Of course I bought it and have since re-watched most of the episodes. Frankly, I don’t know how I watched this when I was younger cause it can be pretty dang boring. Except I still love The Princess and the Pea. And James Earl Jones as the genie in Aladdin still scares the crap out of me and I still think that whoever thought up the concept for Faerie Tale Theater's take on Sleeping Beauty was out of their freaking mind.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m going to admit that my favorite movie when I was a child is one that has probably been seen by very few people in the U.S. See, back when my family lived in Boston we spent some time on a Hare Krishna commune of sorts in Pennsylvania (and you thought your family vacations were weird), where the only source of indoor entertainment was a TV showing one movie. The movie was called Sita’s Wedding, a Bollywood production loosely based on The Ramayana. The whole thing is in Hindi so of course I didn’t understand a word of it, nor could I read the English subtitles, but for some reason both Smash and I loved it. In fact, the good people at the commune sent us home with our very own copy when they saw just how much we liked it. That tape definitely got a lot of use over the next few years. I think I can trace my lifelong fascination with India back to all the hours Smash and I spent watching this movie, then dressing up in makeshift saris with red lipstick dots on our foreheads trying to recreate our favorite scenes.
For a long time I deluded myself into thinking that my family were the only people to have ever seen or heard of Sita's Wedding, but lo and behold the whole thing is posted on YouTube. It is unfortunately missing the English subtitles found on my parents’ copy, but let me save you the suspense by telling you that the lyrics to most of the songs are things like “Lord Vishnu’s countenance radiates with the glory of a thousand suns” or something to that effect. The scene below is probably one of the most boring in the whole movie but Mash and I loved the part where they start chucking the flowers around. For the record, I still think that this movie is quite gorgeous. That’s probably the Indophile in me talking but watching it seriously makes me wish I could wear a sari and pile on the jewels without looking like a complete loon.
Man, this turned into quite the lengthy post. I think my tendency towards wordiness has gotten a bit out of hand the past couple of days, since even a simple post on my recipe blog turned into a novel. Bear with me, friends. Maybe one day I’ll learn how to keep it short and sweet.
“Hey Butch, remember that time we went camping for Labor Day weekend and Lola peed all over everything in our tent at 5 in the morning about twenty minutes after you let her out to ‘do her business’?”
“Why yes I do. Remember how right after it happened you started bawling hysterically and hurling a few choice 4-letter words in her direction?”
“I wasn’t bawling hysterically, I just got a little upset because instead of waking up to the sun streaming in our faces all peaceful-like we had to drag all the wet stuff out of our tent in the bitter cold and wander around like bums waiting for the sun to rise so we wouldn’t wake everyone up. All because our dog is a life ruiner. And as for the four-letter words, Lola really was a little sh*t.”
“She sure was. She was also kind of dumb. I’m so glad we dropped her off at the pound on the way home.”
OK, just kidding on that last part. Butch would never say anything like that about his precious Lola and our spazoid of a dog is still very much a part of the family. Although I did entertain some bad thoughts about her in the bleak morning hours after we left our urine-soaked tent. Luckily they were obliterated by a delicious camp breakfast of pancakes, sweet potato hashbrowns, and bacon. Why is it that food always tastes better in the mountains?
Aside from that little setback, the rest of our campout was fabulous. Beautiful scenery, good company, and gorgeous weather. Thank you, Hanson family, for inviting us. If only we could have stayed longer…
All our stuff laid out to dry. We try to keep it as ghetto as possible while in the great outdoors. The two Mikes: Butch and Hansol. Mike sporting his only shoes and socks that didn't get wet. He looks like a German tourist. Freezing my butt off by the fire. Beautiful view out the car window. View from our campsite. Lola and Jake fighting over a stick. We keep her around for entertaining moments like these.
2) A new Netflix addiction.
Yep, we love us some FNL. Something about the mixture of sports and dramatic plotlines has got us hooked to the point where we've watched at least one episode every night this week, eager to find out what kind of shenanigans those Texans have gotten themselves into this time. Mostly I just like it when the players screw up and the coach gives them a "You've gotta (insert reprimand here), son!" speech. It's strangely exhilirating.
Now I just need to get some fun throw pillows and figure out what to do with that red plaid armchair that is the last remnant of the old furniture. I'm toying with the notion of re-upholstering it with a more modern fabric instead of getting a new one but have no idea where to get it done and I've heard that it can get pretty pricey. Anyone have any advice on the matter? I wish I could just do it myself like some crafty folk out there, but I am hopelessly handicapped in the sewing department. My junior high home ec teacher Mrs. Bridge even told me so. 
