I CAN cook! I promise!

Despite my best efforts to prove otherwise today in my labors of a boston cream pie (Brother's birthday) and brownies (visiting teaching), I really can cook! (We won't go into the terrors of my kitchen today.) I mean, really... I made a boston cream pie!

So why is it that we got two fire extinguishers for wedding presents? Do people not know me at all?! (Heartless, you may remain silent on this one.)

Plant Spotlight - Iris Daphne of Guild

This beautiful orchid was one of my favorite splurges at IKEA. Isn't she pretty? Soon after I got her, I decided that all of my plants needed to be named. I enlisted the help of my roommates in doing so. The Cold One was quite fantastic about helping me come up with names... except for this beauty. The Cold One insisted upon calling her Iris. I can't call her Iris! She'll have an identity complex. Problem is, Heartless also liked the name Iris and every once in awhile I'd even find myself slipping. [sigh] However, I liked the name Daphne much better for her. It seems a royal name... also, it's the name of my best friend when I was a small child. Finally, a compromise was struck. Her name is officially Iris Daphne of Guild. When I initially named her, it was a lot more complicated. Probably something inspired by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. The several names were forgotten, however, and it just became Iris Daphne. But that sounded... empty. It was missing something. It wasn't royal enough. So she got a place as well. Where is Guild, you ask? No idea. But I have the strangest suspicion that it was subconsciously influenced by Myst.

Sadly... she's down to only two flowers. However, I moved her to a windowsill and she has been much happier. There is a bud about ready to bloom and another one that I expect will bloom in a week or two.

Finally!

When you're done with the game, you can watch an instant replay. Typically this only takes a couple of minutes. As for this game...
Breakdown
Taking over all other colors: 2 mins
Battle over that one territory: 4.5 mins
Final takeover, once I broke through that bottleneck: 1 min

Dice Wars... indefinitely

This is a horrible position to be in.  I've been battling green for probably the past 20 minutes and it always comes back to this.  Unfortunately, Dice Wars is addicting, so I just keep playing... I wonder who will give up first, me or the computer.

Randomness for Sanity

Heartless and I went to a meeting today at work that was amongst the most chaotic meetings of my entire life. We took 4 pages of notes... not on the meeting itself, but commenting on the mayhem flying around us. We quite enjoyed them, so we thought it might be fun to share parts with you as well. And now you know the secret as to how we stay sane at work.

• I'm not a user.  :(
• Since when is red and blue opposite?
• Funny thing is, I think
• Sometimes you have to think
• If you chance to meet a frown...
• TOO MANY VOICES!!!
• Reskew = rescue?
• afghpqklmna  (apparently my attempt to recreate "asldfkjal; dfj;law klwe" (what I type when I'm frustrated) comes out in mostly alphabetical order when I actually have to write out the letters by hand.)
• "No.  That's a Kofax bug."  Isn't this a KOFAX MEETING?!
• Valid.  But dumb.
• Look how [coworker] eats her cheese.
• So, maybe we just need training.
• "Oh!  I can zoom!"
• "Hello!  That's what the list was!"  "Apparently not!"  (This reminded Heartless of a dinosaur comic (The 2nd frame of the comic))
• Can I go home?

And just for randomness with no context:

HHoowwardaraandndgered

angered

anGgeeorregde

WWWoWGooooodoo

Time to get up!

Yellow's alarm clock is set to the radio. This morning we woke up to the oddest words ever:

"Can Jesus and Satan worship God together? This morning, here to sing a song together, now we have Jesus and Satan."

I love working internationally

I just got off a work phone call where I was told to "make haste" and "give a shout out".

That long phone call was totally worth it for those two phrases at the end.

Just a little thing

I love it when books have obvious breaks in the middle of chapters. Like, a few extra lines or three stars or something. You know what I mean.

Why do I love them? Because it gives me a good place to stop reading where I can easily see where I stopped without being a chapter break. Because chapter endings almost always leave me on the edge of my seat wanting more. Half the time if I stopped 3 paragraphs before the end of the chapter I would be fine. But noooo... I always have to read those last 3 paragraphs and force myself to close the book, then spend the next several hours wondering what in the world is gonna happen.

I suppose authors are just smart that way.

It's creepy when these things are so true

You Are Aurora! (A.K.A. Sleeping Beauty.)

Thoughtful and loving. Authority figures probably have been sheltering you all of your life. Thankfully you're a very tranquil person who is content with what life has given you, but secretly you want to know how the outside world works.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

A+ to O-

So, remember how I was so sad about not being able to give blood? Well, I was free and clear to give blood again in July. But the beginning of June I went to France. I didn't know if that would affect my blood donor eligibility or not, though. I kept meaning to call and ask, but kept forgetting. I made Yellow promise to come with me because he has the most amazing veins that were made for giving blood. Yet, I still kept forgetting to call.

Today I got an email from the Red Cross reminding me to give blood and I decided this was the reminder I've been needing. So I called. After calling two numbers and talking to three different ladies, I ended up finding out that 1 week in France is nothing and I can still give blood. And one year after returning from Egypt is enough time. Then she even walked me through what I would have to answer on the little computer questionnaire thing.

Red Cross, here we come!

Plant Spotlight - Amber

I love plants. I fell in love with house plants in particular back in August when Chilly introduced me to Plant Day. What a blessed, life-changing event. Thanks Chilly! In fact, Azriel came to my house last night and one of the first things she said was, "Your house is a greenhouse." I took that as the deepest compliment.

I took pictures of all of my plants awhile ago. I love them. I've named them. Of course I must photograph them. And now, I shall blog about them. If you don't like plants, or think I am silly, feel free to skip any post starting with "Plant Spotlight" in the title.

For now, I present to you, Amber:

 

This is most likely going to be the most artsy picture of any of my plants. I can't even guarantee that it's a good artsy. Whatever. I like it.

Amber is my avacado tree. She's the first of my house plants, but she didn't start the obsession. She was planted after a dinner at Brother Sr.'s house when we had three avacado seeds leftover and Brother Sr. thought I should plant them. Why not? It took ages for those three little sticks to poke up, but then they thrived beautifully. Y'know, once they got leaves. I love Amber.

Sadly, she went through a time of tragedy, which is documented here. After weeks of death, I plucked off all of the dying leaves and she started to produce more leaves. That's when this picture was taken. It's purpose was actually to show the new growth at the top.

Since then, a second stem has died. I mourned. But the third is holding strong. She guards my front door at my new house and is closely monitored. Her leaves are slightly wilted, but this time she hasn't turned all orangish/brown.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed that she'll make it out of this one.

Harry, meet Edward.

I love Harry Potter. I don't think there's any secret about that. My 8 GB iPod is currently full with the audio books. Yup, all seven of them. They fit beautifully in 8 GB. As I drive or do boring, mindless tasks at work, or even while I'm cooking or cleaning at home, I listen to them. I'm currently listening to book 5. I would tell you what part, but the memory is being drowned by a more prominent literary memory. What could drown out Harry Potter?! you might ask. Well, it would be a excellent question. What could possibly drown Harry Potter from my mind? Part of me is ashamed to admit this.

Twilight.

My Relief Society bookclub is reading the newest book this month. I decided I wanted to participate in this book club for two reasons. 1) I wanted to socialize with these new sisters; find a niche in my new ward and 2) I've actually been finding time to read lately. I started going through the books on my bookcase at breakneck speed, and this new book club offered me a chance to get a library card and start reading new books. I haven't read new books in a long time.

But Twilight? I've watched as the world around be became obsessed with this Vampire-centered world. I wasn't turned off because they were about vampires. Meh. Who cares? More, I think, it was because many people were becoming obsessed and many others were rolling their eyes. I don't like people to roll their eyes at me. At least, not unless I did something on purpose, hoping to get them to roll their eyes. Also, I was never handed the opportunity to read the books; I had no desire to seek them out. Thus, I simply never read them. I wasn't against them, mind you. But I was... skeptical, I'll admit.

I felt like I had no choice. Yellow has read them. He's been telling me for months now (ever since he read them at Christmas) that I would like them and that I should read them. And now the girls at the book club were telling me that I would like them and if I wanted to participate in the next book club, I'd have to read all of them.

I suddenly empathized with everyone I have ever met that has not read Harry Potter and has no desire to do so. I'm sure I put on as much pressure, if not more. Though, I think I give much better arguments.

I gave in and borrowed the first book. It took me a couple of days to get started. I had better things to do, like teach my former roommate how to play Ticket to Ride. Or cleaning our room so that I could walk into it without a death wish. Last night I gave in and read. Until around midnight. This morning I woke up and read. Until 2:30 in the afternoon. Y'know... until I finished. Yellow was grateful, though. It gave him quality time to play whatever video game it is that he's been craving playing... and got bismark re-addicted to. Civilization something or the other. Something more specific. I could go look, but whatever.

Ok, I am addicted. I'll admit it. I joined the ranks of girls fawning over Edward and secretly hoping that he'll turn Bella into a vampire, but at the same time, scorning the thought because, really.... he just can't do that.

I put down the book and came out to catch up on the masses of news in my Google Reader. I read through my Harry Potter feeds with a laugh. Only I would put Twilight and Harry Potter together. Until I started reading things about Twilight in my Harry Potter feeds! Things about how "Harry Potter fans are mad for vampires" and about the new Twilight movie coming out. Then it hit me. Cedric Diggory is going to be Edward! Of course the two worlds are going to come smashing together. Did I ever have a hope of staying out of this one, too?

[sigh]

The one thing that really irritates me, though, is the fact that I can never name my daughter Bella. In the last two days I have fallen in love with the name, but my poor daughter would be forever linked with a book. Yes, I'm lame.