Two J's

Warning! Do not attempt to watch the movie “Julie & Julia” on an empty stomach!!! You’ll be sorry….trust me. Even after scarfing down lunch right before catching a matinee yesterday with my DF Rose and one of her daughters, I was still salivating like a Rotteweiler eyeballing burgers on the picnic table in front of him.

Oh dear people, believe me when I tell you that it is unfathomable that anyone could sit through that movie without feeling even a small pang of hunger. If the Strawberry Bavarian Cream or the soufflé (never made one, never had one but darn if it didn’t look scrumptious!) doesn’t get your mouth watering, the much talked about Boeuf Bourguignon (which I am soooo making!) should incite twinges and even rumbling in your belly. It all looked so very yummy. And I feel I should caution you about the butter these recipes use in the film…a veritable ‘butterpalooza’…so brace yourself. It’s not for the faint of heart. Julia Child was apparently a firm believer in there being no such thing as too much butter, as evidenced in her cooking…copious amounts of butter in EVERYTHING! Maybe it is just a French cuisine thing that rubbed off on her? Although I have to say I would rather cook with real butter than with the spreads, margarines and certainly Crisco. Food made with butter is just so much tastier. So now that I’m done talking about the food part of the movie, I will tell you my opinion of the movie as a whole. Enjoyed the heck out of it. What a wonderful storyline! I learned so much about Julia Child the person….she was adventurous, funny, determined and very engaging. I had no idea that she was married, let alone to a government employee assigned to different embassies around the world (which is how she ended up living in Paris and attending the famous Cordon Bleu culinary school). The thought that Julie Powell actually cooked every single recipe in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” (volume 1) left me in awe, grateful to have the chance to peek into the madness that was her life for the year she tackled the Julie & Julia Project. How she worked full time and still found (or made) time to whip up from scratch the over 500 different recipes in the book is beyond me. Makes me exhausted just thinking about it. Besides, I would have had to stop at the Lobster Thermadore. No lobster killing for me, Jack. Uh-uh. No way. Sorry, Julie; sorry Julia. I doff my topper to you gals….

On another subject, I noticed this morning that the large locust tree growing outside the door to the office has dropped quite a few leaves and many on the tree are turning. Does this alarm anyone besides me??? It’s not even September yet! ((((sigh))))

Friday

Lots has happened in the past couple weeks, too much to get into so I will just tell you all that the kiddos were sealed and it we enjoyed a nice lunch afterwards with both sides of the families, all my children together in the house that weekend for the first time in a long while was wonderful, school is back in session, still haven’t finished painting the kitchen and I bought the cutest little purse for October/Halloween….it looks like a spider :0) Not a icky spider, a cute spider. I’ll take a pic so y’all can see it.

There is some turmoil in the lives of a few people I love dearly, which breaks my heart. Some involved are family, some are friends but still family (since friends are the family we choose). I am praying that these issues will get resolved in a positive way so that these people will have peace and joy in their lives once again (hang in there and I love you guys!!!)

Some pics from the last couple weeks…sunset from the hill at the Temple, my oldest and my son-in-law (they’re so stinking CUTE!) on the day they were sealed, my beautiful middle child, a funny sign in the parking lot of the Temple (gotta love a church with a sense of humor!), hubby and son lounging on the grass. Not necessarily in that order ;0)

Enjoy your weekend!!!!

Been a few days

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, so I will give a bit of an update on our ‘thrill a minute, adventure-filled, action-packed’ life. Still haven’t found the geocache at the tank. Not that we’ve given up or anything, just haven’t made time to go look any further.

We finally got our living room painted. The white walls are GONE, baby!!! Woo hoo!!!! The weekend of the 24th the hubby, son and myself wiped, spackled, trimmed and rollered our little hearts out. We managed to paint the entire living room, hallway and stairway going to the basement. And a wall in the kitchen. Have the paint for the rest of the kitchen, just haven’t gotten it done yet. I think I’ve changed my mind on that color. Again. Sigh. (Honey...if you're reading this post, just make me go with it, ok?)

Last Friday was our anniversary. 17 years that man has put up with me….the patience of Job my husband has, let me tell ya. Like any married couple, we’ve been through a lot…lotsa good stuff….some bad stuff….pretty much covered the ‘richer or poorer, sickness and health’ stuff. And there is no one else I’d rather have taken this journey with than my wonderful hubby. We (and by ‘we’ I mean hubby, son and I) spent the majority of the day in SLC, first having a sinfully good lunch at Moochies, then the rest of the afternoon out at Rocky Mountain Raceway at the drag races. The son has never seen drag races before so it was pretty cool to watch his reaction to all the cars. They had quite a variety of racing vehicles – from the little “Tokyo Drift” looking things the kids street race now (dragsters do NOT do a burn out with their FRONT TIRES…ever…that was just wrong on so many levels) to motorcycles, old muscle cars, new muscle cars, the classic “rail” style dragster, and even – brace yourself – a snowmobile. Yes, some guy drag raced on a sled…and beat 2 motorcycles! I am here to tell you that if I ever had a chance to race, I would TOTALLY do it...in a second. Don't even need to think about it...sign me up, Jack. We had a special treat that evening, however – we got to watch 2 nitro-fueled Harleys race. Holy moley!! Now those were awesome!!! One of them set a new track record for the nitro bikes in both MPH and time…he posted a time of 6.6 seconds at 212.4 MPH. Think about that for a second....it took that man just a tad over six and a half seconds to drive 1/4 of a mile. At over 200 miles per hour. That bike went faster than most of (if not all) the cars racing. I can’t imagine.

This weekend we’ve got a family event going on…my oldest daughter and her husband are being sealed in the temple. We’ll have family in town starting tomorrow – both daughters, my son-in-law, mom- and dad-in-law, and my SIL’s family. All our kids will be under our roof tomorrow night for the first time in several years. I’m looking forward to that.

I am NOT looking forward to trying to find something to wear, however. Since I’ve given up trying to be ‘thin enough’, am not constantly on the go - juggling class and work and housework and swim team for Chris, and am letting my metabolism reset (it’s reaaaally slow) I am no longer able to fit in most of my pants. My body has been hording calories so every minute bite of food I have eaten in the last 2 months has materialized on my butt and thighs with a vengeance...neither region have been this big since I was preggers. The weird thing to me is that my legs are pretty well muscled up until the upper middle thigh area, then the saddle bags start to appear. It doesn’t seem to matter how much or little I exercise, what I eat - still follwing the South Beach diet guidelines...lots of fruit and veggies, whole grains, lean meats, almost no sugar (I eat ‘junk food’ very seldom…a couple slices of pizza or a Moochies once in a blue moon or some chips with my tuna sandwich on occassion are about it) or how much I eat…I am still ending up with an expanding jean size. I know that it will take a little bit for my body to get out of storage mode and begin to release the fat reserves so I will try to get through it without freaking out.

Enjoy your day and have a great weekend!!!!