Macarons

I finally did it, made macarons, my favorite French pastry. They are tricky to cook, and it took me double what it ought to have, but I have them in my kitchen and belly now. You better believe this is not the end of my experimentation. More to follow.

Velma Burrows

Velma is a dog who know what she wants. To be warm. She will find the warmest place in the house, guaranteed. Often this involves finding the nearest heating vent, at other times it's crawling under all of our covers and squeezing herself in between Greg and me, and still other times it is clawing her way into my sweater. This photo is evidence that she knows the best spot in a 68 degree house. I know we're both looking forward to 2 weeks from now, when the heat-emitting machine of our dreams is installed in our very own cavernous, covered by a piece of ply wood fireplace. A gas burning fireplace will find its new home there, and Velma will find herself a new hobby.

Velma-ween

We have no children. But we do have a dog, and you better believe my mom knows how to treat her grandbabies. In the mail, this little surprise clown costume showed up. I think it looks a little like dog lingerie, personally. You can see how Velma felt about it in the third photo.

So we decided maybe the clown costume wouldn't work for the evening of the 31st. Velma has been freezing, shivering, sneezing in this cold weather. She burrows, crawls in bed with us, and sometimes tries to get into my sweaters. Needless to say the dog is small and needs some extra fur. So we decided it was time for a sweater. When perusing the doggie clothes at Ross, I spotted this red and white sweater. I loved it. We bought it, brought it home, and realized that it looks exactly like the Where's-Waldo stripes from my childhood. Thus, Velma became Waldo's girlfriend, Wilma, for Halloween. Complete with homemade wire nerd glasses.

Sunday Soup & Soap

I'm only going to go into detail about the latter, but we did make a very nice Sudanese Piaster Soup as well. This post will be on the soap I just made. Easy peasy.

I've been on a kick where I decided to make my own toiletries - it started with deodorant, went to shampoo, and today it turned to soap. I read an article on the Mother Earth News website that gave a simple recipe for homemade soap, and so I decided to acquire the ingredients and see for myself just what all this business was about.

Simple Soap Recipe
2 cups glycerin soap base
2 tbsp shea butter
essential oils of your choosing
colors of your choosing (food coloring)

You can buy the soap base from most craft stores. I found it at Michael's - 2 lbs for $10, but if I had thought ahead I would've waited and used the 50% off coupon or 40% off coupon that I found in my Saturday newspaper. I bought soap forms there as well for around $3.29. I put my first order in a week ago to Swanson Health, which has great prices on essential oils, shea butter, coconut oil, and jojoba oil (all the pre-requisites for your own beauty products). The products came on Friday, and I decided to use them today.

To start off, you need either a microwave or a double boiler. I opted for the double boiler because you can easily mix your colors and essential oils and see how things are turning out as they combine. I started with 8 blocks (the 2 lb brick is divided into 24, 1"x1" blocks) and a tbsp of shea butter. This made a little extra that what was required to fill 1 of my large soap forms and 1 of the smaller ones. The second set I only used 4 blocks and a tbsp of shea butter. This time I didn't have enough to completely fill the forms. The first set I made were lavender peppermint (and then dyed purple), and the second set was orange, tea tree, peppermint (dyed orange). Voilà! Here they are.



Eventually, I plan on making soap from scratch, but I think I need a mentor before I start combining dangerous chemicals that require all new cooking equipment because the chemicals can poison you. Just a thought. This one was a lot safer and beginner friendly. Don't be surprised if you get a small, special package from Pullman this year around our favorite winter holiday.

Scattered

I'm not sure when it all began, this scattering. I have come to find that very few of the people I love ended up where we expected to be. I had no idea where Pullman, WA was even 10 months ago. Now here I am for the next 4 years. And similar commitments or non-commitments are spread throughout the world.

I find that my communication with all friend and family is done online or on the phone and frequency of contact is also decreasing. It is disappointing to get out of contact with people. I struggle to find the balance between feeling upset and being willing to move on. Maybe moving on isn't quite the idea, but not getting stuck on the changes in locations and in people. So much is so very different.

Life keeps moving. Sometimes it creeps along steadily other times it flashes by you, sweeping you up and away. Other times it grounds you and plants you there, disabling movement for a time. Any way it goes, it is still going, going, going.

In the meantime I enjoy my Friday night greetings, having been away from home for 2.5 days in a town 70+ miles away makes it sweet to come back home. I am learning to appreciate the quiet of my home in the daytime, the yipping of Yoda and Zen above, the deep bellowy bark of Frankie in the yard. I am surrounded by dogs and dog noises. Mine is always nagging me to take her out in the fresh air. She does not walk; she drags. And when you jog she still drags. When she gets tired to pretends she needs to smell something and halts abruptly, yelping if you didn't figure out her next move before she made it.

The process is fulfilling. Sometimes getting stuck on the everything and nothings. But going it is, and I'm trying to keep up.

Fall and Winter Mean School

Greg and I are back in school. Both of us. However, for most of the week we are 85 miles apart, me in Spokane and him in Pullman. He's at WSU, working up a math storm while I am at EWU driving at least 30 miles a day back and forth, house to school, house to internship, house to agency for meeting, and any number of combinations of those locations. It's been quite the adventure, and I don't think I have ever consistently driven this much. I've been very lucky to locate some kind people who will let me stay at their homes a few nights a week free of charge too. I am grateful for very trusting members of the church.

Due to the winters that have a reputation for being awful, I fear I might be spending more time up here than I anticipated. This would cut back on the driving I do (assuming I don't get stuck in a snow storm), but it would also mean I see Greg less, something neither of us likes much. I currently have a system set up where I can drive up to Spokane Valley for LDS Family Services (LDSFS where I am doing my internship) and back on Mondays. Spend Monday night - Wednesday afternoon in the comfort of my own home, and then drive back Wednesday afternoon to get to my evening class. I then spend Wednesday and Thursday nights here so I can get to work and school, and then I am back home Friday evening. I have yet to implement this plan as this is my second week, and I had a class scheduled irregularly on Tuesday afternoon, but I am crossing everything I can on my body hoping this will work. Today this means I have spent an 8 hour day in the library on campus mostly catching up with friends on chat instead of doing research for the papers and projects I have coming up in the next few weeks. Such is life. Especially when your'e me.

Back to the family, Velma has begun whining incessantly. We make fun of her mostly for doing it; isn't it nice that dog's don't have the same sorts of emotions we do (watch, I'll read this in 5 years and there will be a new study out on the adverse affects of bullying on dogs). Making fun of them and their misfortunes, what German's term as 'schadenfreude', or malicious joy. Hehe.

Anywho, Greg and I are really enjoying Pullman. It definitely has a small town feel, but this does not mean that I haven't been able to get some awesome finds at thrift stores. The most recent and happiest find, a wicker headboard. Picture to come. XOXO.

New Home Photos

Because I fooled all of you into believing this would be a blog, I feel like I have some making up to do. This is a blog! And it is going to be updated regularly. I know, promises promises. But this should take care of a few months of absence. I have internet now and hours at my disposal for a week and a half.

I feel some pictures are in order. Let me introduce you to our new home in Pullman.

Here is the kitchen (yes, that's an oven from probably the 1950s)

The cabinet in the back of this photo opens up to expose an ironing board. It's pretty nifty.

These are the hinges on all of the antique cabinetry. It's in the kitchen as well as in the hallway on the cabinets (the wood is different. You shall see.)
The Dining Room (I am working on drapes for this room):


The Living Room:
The Bathroom:

The Second Bedroom (still needs quite a bit of work):The Antique Telephone in the Hall (Greg wants to set it up to the internet) :
Our Bedroom:
I love the glass knobs throughout the house. Every door has one.


Cabinets in the Hall (the handles are all glass too)

And this is Frankie, who likes to make sure we don't use the backyard. He is a Labradoodle and roughly the size of a small horse. He barks at us until, thinking it will send us back inside. When we walk towards the door, he follows us, barking all the while. Just when he thinks we're leaving his territory, I walk towards him. He goes running. Clearly, all bark no bite.


So most of you probably won't be visiting anytime too soon, but if you are interested. Let us know, and we'll fix up the extra bedroom/office/space-for-everything-we-don't-know-what-to-do-with. You're always welcome in Pullman.

Absence and Thrift Stores

So, my original intent of posting on this blog fairly regularly has not yet occurred. Mostly because we don't have internet at our apartment, and we decide that we'd rather spend $40 a month on thrift store purchases, which is exactly what we did at the annual Saver's Memorial Day Special. 50% on all clothing and accessories. It was awesome.

Greg and I, due to our love of thrift stores want to incorporate our thrift store finds into this blog. So look forward to that. Even though we haven't been writing on here, we have been collecting photos for posts with our thrift store purchases. These posts will be intermingled with everyday life posts because, let's face it, thrift stores are a way of life for us. I work at one currently for goodness sakes! (You can only imagine what lunch breaks are like.)

XOXO to all!

Home is Wherever I'm with You

Past Weekend

2 finals (Heather, 3 finals (Greg)

1 MSW party to attend

1 Hathawastill party to throw complete with homemade sodas

1 bridal shower to attend

1 Nelson-Smith shower to throw (cupcakes to make and decorate)

Doublebooking in Salt Lake leads to 7 mins at bridal shower and Chinese food at the Jenkins

2 batches of laundry to do

1 crazy Sunday family dinner to attend

Thank goodness I have such wonderfully helpful friends and family to help me get through both days of intense party planning and throwing.

This Week

Take those finals

Mason's birthday party Monday night

Pack up all of our things (a much longer process than expected)

Gradumicate Gregory

Attend Honors Luncheon

Move out of 1 apartment

Move into 1 other apartment in Boise

Quitting 1 job (Heather), 2 jobs (Greg)

Dinner with friends every night of the week

In the Next 4 Months

New job (Heather), looking for and hopefully finding new job (Greg)

Finish honors thesis and defend it + all the other honors dealios (Greg)

Adjusting to a new city

Attending the Nelson-Smith Wedding back in Utah

Packing up and moving everything again - this time Pullman

2 moves, 4.5 months

As many of you may already know, Greg and I are leaving Utah Valley. After a cumulative 15 years here, we're on our way out - most likely permanently. UTV you've been good to us, but the time has come to make our way to Boise. By name it may not sound too exciting, but you just wait we're getting a 2 bedroom apartment, an internship at D.I. (for Heather), a completed Honors Thesis (Greg), living in a neighborhood with a purported 59 sex offenders, and multiple blog posts about our adventures. And there will be adventures.

Then 4 months later we'll be in Pullman, WA. Another adventure in the West where we should be for 5 years or so that Greg can do his PhD at Washington State University. I will be finishing my MSW at Eastern Washington University, an hour and a half drive away. Wish me luck with road closures in the winter. Brrr and scary.

I like to believe that I'm going to Mongolia when I see pictures like this. (Nearby Palouse, WA).

Stay tuned for more details on the Hathawastill adventures.