Anything I can do, you could do better...

You could do anything better than me.

(Am i the only nerd who knows that song from Annie Get Your Gun???)
So the missionaries were coming to dinner on Sunday and I rarely get to have guests so I sortof go all-out and I was bustin' my (quickly rounding) rump to make rolls and dinner, set the table, clean up a bit...and they called and said one of the Elders was too sick to make the appointment. Anyway, point of the story is....I made some suprisingly sweet dinner rolls! I think I've made rolls maybe 3 times in my life and they turned out fabulously, hence my title for the post- if I can do it, you can do it, and probably better than I can. SO, HERE is the recipe from my all-time favorite website, Allrecipes.com. I check this site ritualistically for the featured recipe of the day. YUMMMMM!!!

So my project this summer was to work hard on food storage. When I started I honestly didn't know the difference between a pint and a quart. While we don't have much stored up in the way of dry stuff- wheat, flour, sugar...I have filled almost all of my newly-bought collection of jars with lots of nummies. I took inventory yesterday and here's how we've come out:

15Q. 1pt. tomatoes
12 pints ground beef
6 1/2 pints apricott jam
2 pints apricott juice
11 pints yellow peaches
51 pints pears
1 pt. raspberry jam (not my favorite. The recipe used 6 cups of shredded zucchini and a box of rasp. jello)
4Q. 4pts. dilly beans (spicy, garlicy, dilly...oh so yummy)
And just look at this beautiful rainbow of delicious preparedness...
Like I said, if I can do it, you CAN CAN too. (p.s. if you have ?s or need help, CALL ME!!)

I mentioned that my mom and I did some redecorating while she was here. It has been requested that I post some pictures and I wasn't very smart and didn't take any "before" pics, but here are some after.

I would take some of the bathroom but my bathroom is seriously too small and all you'd see would be the texturing on the walls. But my Mom can really do decorating better than me. My home looks half-way decent because it has been graced by her hands. I'm really hopeless. Mom, please stick around always so I will have a beautiful home (and so you can buy stuff to put in it).

What's your favorite thing your Mom does better than you??

Some Random Catching Up...

Last week Spencer was on a backpacking trip in Colorado with his dad and some friends which would have meant that I would have been all alone with my kids for 8 DAYS except I got smart and called my Mom a couple months ago and lured her into coming (MUAHAHAHA! You fell into my little trap, Mama) and having girl time, which turned into "redecorate my house" time and "spend lots of money" time (so serious girl time). It was awesome and SUCH a relief to have her here (I honestly don't know how people single-parent. I would be the whiniest single parent ever) but I am glad to have my hubby back. He just can't quite be replaced and I like it that way.
In other news, the orthodontist's office called as a follow-up to my appointment and asked what I wanted to do. I asked how much the retainers would be. She said the Dr. would only charge me for one (benefits of being friends with the Dr.) but it would still be $210.
I think I threw up a little in my mouth.
So bottom line, I'm not doing anything right now. Thanks everyone for your comments. But I seriously had a SERIES of nightmares concerning me and braces and spacers, bands, wires, bracets, and cancer sores. It was aweful and I didn't want to make those nightmares a reality.
Thirdly, Dallin H. Oaks was here this weekend to reorganize our stake (I'm sorry if you have no idea what this means. He is one of the 12 apostles of our church) and it was SO SO awesome to have him here. He gave some awesome talks and Spencer, Carter and I all got to shake his hand. I got to sing in the choir and it was just so great. So this weekend was just really special.
So for a story about an annoying person I encountered yesterday...I was in Walmart and had to get the oil changed so I pulled into the TLE and dropped off the van, did my shopping, paid for groceries and headed back to the TLE to stand in a short line to pay for my car. Anyway when I first entered the store upon dropping off my car I didn't want to haul my kids alllllllllll the way to the front of the store to get a cart and there was a very convenient cart parked by the tires. SO I threw the baby in it and off we went, everything okay. Back to the line...there wasn't a lot of room in the line so I had the cart kindof off to the side (maybe 5 feet away) and did not have Nolan buckled in because the buckle was busted (convenient cart, remember??) and this guy in line starts "talking" to Nolan (in a totally obvious way wanting to start a conversation with me) going, "Hey, you sure are cute! Where is your seatbelt? You could just fall right out of there and that would be it! You should be buckled in, etc..." (first of all, can I just say I hate when people do this? its a lame excuse for trying to tell you what they don't have the guts to just come out and say directly to you) So anyway, I'm all, "Yeah, this one is broken and I didn't have time to get another one (thinking: yeah, yeah, the kid is fine, leave me alone)"
"Well I bring my 13 month old Granddaughter all the time and i always buckle her up. It only takes one time of them falling out and that's it" (what exactly does "that's it" mean??)
"I got the cart over there and it was broken and since I am in front of him the whole time I'm shopping I didn't think it was a big deal"
"Sometimes ladies have their bags wide open and they are reaching for something and I tell them that I could have taken whatever was in their bag when their back was turned."
(me thinking "I'm sure you do")
But DUDE, this guy would NOT let it GO.
I paid for my oil change (finally) and walked out to the car, started unloading and I KID YOU NOT, HE WAS PARKED RIGHT BY ME AND CONTINUED TO BADGER ME ABOUT THIS.
"He is just too precious and all it takes is one time"
Now I'm not a rude person but I finally had to go, " SIR, I UNDERSTAND. THANK YOU." (Yeah, and you thought I couldn't get FIESTY, huh?? : )
WHAT IS WITH THESE PEOPLE??? WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON WHO HARPED ON YOU???

I'm FREAKING out

So recently I've noticed more and more that my front teeth seem to be jutting out a bit. I decided to investigate and ask a guy in my ward about it and what I could do.
Here's what I expected him to say: "Oh, it's really not that bad and no one notices but you" or "Yeah, we'll just fix you up a little retainer thing to wear for a bit and that will push those babies right back where they came from"
Instead, here's what I got: "Yeah, I see that. Come into my office and I'll check it out more thoroughly and we'll talk."
Me: Crap.
SO, I made an appointment thinking he's gonna say:
"Well thank goodness you've already paid your dues with braces. Everything looks really good and this will be an easy problem to fix. And by the way, nice pearly-whites! What toothpaste do you use? Are you a regular flosser? Those are some pink gums!"
Me: With a slight blush in my cheek "Oh, it's nothing. I just have good genes, I guess. But I do use Aquafresh Empowermint with whitening."
Him: "Well, I'll be...I think I will start recommending this to my patients because of your dazzlingly white smile."
Okay, maybe my imagination got a little out of hand there. But seriously. Here's now it really went.
Him: "What's causing your teeth to "flare" is your lower teeth. This one in particular (mandibular tricuspid 3rd (just kidding, I swear that's what he said, though) but it is one of my canines). We have options. They are
(1) Don't do anything and see if it gets worse.
(2) I can make a retainer to keep your teeth in this position. However, it won't fix the problem of this one tooth on the bottom sticking out more than it's supposed to and its basically throwing everything off.
(3) I recommend BRACES.
BRACES.
BRACES.
BRACES.
BRACES.
BRACES.
BRACES.
BRACES.
BRACES.
(I swear, he allowed this to come out of his mouth! Directed at ME, even! I'VE ALREADY BEEN THERE, DONE THAT!!!!! I HAD THEM FOR 2 1/2 YEARS AND IT WAS PURELY MISERABLE AND WRETCHED AND I HATED IT SO BADLY. I was about to burst into tears. And by the way, I think there should be a stronger symbol to use to empasize things instead of the exclamation mark because I would totally use it here)
But okay, we still have one more option
(4) And because of the crowding we COULD just TAKE OUT four of your teeth and give the others some room to move. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHERE THE HECK IS OPTION 5??!! You don't just TAKE OUT teeth! They are supposed to stay IN the head!
AM I THE ONLY PERSON WHO WOULD FREAK OUT ABOUT THIS?
I mean, you only get to be 25 once. Why would I want to spend the rest of my 25th year as a brace face, railroad track, metal mouth who looks 17 even without braces? Oh, jeez.
Oh, and for those of you thinking I should do Invisalign...not only is it more expensive but according to the orthodontist it's not as effective in moving the roots of the teeth and keeping them in the right spot. Meaning in the long run I could just have to get braces again.
So, what to do, what to do??? What would you do?
Would you do braces again???

Had to Happen

It was perfect. The baby was asleep. Carter was playing in his room. I was about to enjoy "me" time and catch up on some blogging. Then...
I finished my delicious lunch of pesto chicken pasta with squash and a healthy serving of butternut squash soup and thought to myself, "What could top off this meal better than some steamed squash? Mmm. I think I'll have that." I proceeded to the kitchen, washed, cut, steamed my squash and was garnishing it with some spray butter and parmesan cheese (is your mouth watering yet???) when I noticed the condiment tray in the door of the fridge was not quite snapped in all the way. I set the parmesan cheese on the main floor of the fridge and tried to adjust it (using one hand, if I may add, because what was in the other hand? The squash.) and the drawer came completely off in my hand.
Oh, crap.
Hurry, think fast! Try to swing it around and set it down on the counter!
Well I made it half way to the counter before the ENTIRE tray slipped out of my hand and went flying (in slow motion).
NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It crashed down on the tile, sending a happy little rain shower of glass shards, stir-fry sauce and pepperoncinis ALL OVER MY KITCHEN. Lovely.
There goes "me" time.
What ruined your "me" time lately??? (other than the obvious every day answer of "my children")