Biscuit boy

I must have the sweetest husband ever. When I woke up this morning I was a little stressed out about working on my thesis, which I've been neglecting for months. After my shower, I found this in the kitchen:


Steve making my favorite homemade biscuits for breakfast! (my 13 year old sister gave us aprons for our wedding last year... Steve's wearing his)


He even used the heart-shaped cookie cutter. +50 points

Did I mention that I LOVE breaks from school?

Christmas Break

I'm not a big fan of ginormous blog posts, so I'll try to make this one brief.

We have had a great Christmas break so far. I'll just hit the highlights:

GRE

I am studying for the GRE right now (I'm taking it this Friday). My first practice exam was pretty scary. I got a 770. Some points of reference:

• The test is out of 1600 possible points
• The average score for the graduate programs I'm applying for is 1160
• 770 on the GRE is probably like a 19 or 20 on the ACT.

However, after studying for 2 days, doing the math review and lots of practice problems, as well as becoming more familiar with the questions, I raised my score to a more comfortable 1220. Then, after more studying, I got a 1320. I'm kind of skeptical of those scores, but at least they're a good sign that I'm headed in the right direction.

Christmas

We had a great Christmas. Here are all of our presents:

We both got some new jeans; some new Professional Care electric toothbrushes (we don't have dental insurance, so that was great!); the board game Pandemic, which a really fun co-operative game; the card game Guillotine,which is also very fun, as well as funny; a new mirror for the bedroom; a camera tripod (which you can see in the mirror); the movies The Errand of Angels and National Treasure 2; a 4-player adapter for the PS2 (X-Men Legends 2, here we come!) the skirt and sweater that Heather is wearing in the picture; and some money from our very generous parents and grandparents.

We had a great time with Heather's family on Christmas Eve and Christmas. I mean, they got 4 or 5 new Wii games...how could you not have fun with that? Seriously though, it was fun to spend time with them...playing Wii, watching movies, doing a Christmas Nativity, eating lots of very good food, etc. Holidays are just awesome.

Back in Provo

So now we're back in Provo. I'm studying for the GRE, doign my grad school applications and letter of intent, etc., and Heather is working on her Thesis for her Master's program.

But we are able to have a little bit of fun. Here's us playing Pandemic. Unfortunately, our disease-fighting skills fell short, and we lost. Oh well. We won the next game.

We hope all of you had a good Christmas break. Happy New Year as well!

Feeling good about spending money and surfing the web

Okay, my posts are starting to take on a little Christmas theme lately. I think that my attitudes about Christmas are changing this year...I'm a little less Scroogey about the traditions of the season. Heck, I wasn't even annoyed like I usually am when I started hearing Christmas music on the radio (although the Scrooge in me will never like the song "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." What a lame song).

Anyways, I'm posting to talk about some cool websites I found out about: GoodShop and GoodSearch. The idea behind the sites is that if you use them (either to shop or to do normal web searching), then money gets donated to your favorite charity. There's a little box on each site where you just type in the name of a charity (for example: Red Cross, LDS Philanthropies, etc.).

For Good Search, I think it donates 1 cent per search or something. It doesn't sound like lots, but it adds up.

For Good Shop, there's a list of websites you can shop from (and yes, they're places you've actually heard of before: Kohl's, WalMart, Target, Amazon.com, Best Buy, iTunes, etc.). Each of those places has a contract with Good Shop, and they will donate a certain percentage of your purchase to the charity you chose.

So just thought I'd share that. I think it's neat. It's not going to save the world or anything, but you might consider it if you're planning on doing any online shopping this season. It's just one way we can try to help others and remember the spirit of giving rather than the spirit of commercialism and greed.

Sad morning

For those of you who don't know, I'm doing a speech therapy internship at a skilled nursing facility right now.

Last night one of my patients unexpectedly passed away. A few residents have passed away since I've been at the facility but none of them have been my patients so I didn't know them. I shouldn't have been surprised by the passing of one of my patients, considering the facility, but she barely even became sick yesterday. Also, having spent an hour every weekday with this patient for the past 6 weeks, I really became attached to her. It was tough knowing she was gone today and I will really miss her.

A War of Gifts

I just read the novella A War of Gifts, by Orson Scott Card. I thought I'd post a little review here.

A War of Gifts takes place in the universe of Ender Wiggin, so if you haven't read Ender's Game, you won't know what's going on, because there's not enough context given to appreciate or undersatnd most of the supporting characters. But for those who have, it's a meaningful addition to the characters and environment of the Battle School.

The main character is a Battle School Recruit we've never heard of--Zeck, the pacifist son of a fundamentalist Puritan preacher. I don't want to give anything away about the story, except to say that the book is a fantastic little story about tolerance, religious piety -vs- "blind obedience," and the spirit of giving that is such a trademark to the Christmas tradition (regardless of your religion or set of beliefs).

The themes can be a little heavy compared to most Christmas stories. But it's certainly an interesting read that discusses good, uplifting issues of human experience and relationships which transcend cultural and religous boundaries (although there are some subtle  references to Christian themes if you want to find them there). So if you're looking for something positive, but just a little different this Christmas, or if you're a fan of Ender or Card in general, check it out. 

Good food, bad food

Stephen is really good at posting about meaningful endeavors and issues, however, it's my self-appointed job to make posts about nonsignificant things.



Good food ideas:

• If you make rice krispies treats and you have too many to eat try breaking some up into a bowl and then pouring milk on top. It's delicious and tastes just like the Rice Krispies Treats cereal they used to sell. MMMMmmmm!



• Chocolate Grumbles. That is what Steve, his brother, and cousin named these oatmeal fudge bars. Don't ask me why they named them that, but they are a really good treat (sorry, no picture, but you're in luck! there's a recipe).

Oatmeal Fudge Bars from the Lion House
1 cup margarine
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
1 12 oz package chocolate chips
1/4 cup margarine
2 tsp vanilla



Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9x13x2 baking pan. Set aside. In large mixer bowl cream margarine and brown sugar; add eggs and vanilla. In a small bowl mix flour, baking soda, and salt; add to cramed mixture. Mix in oats. In heavy saucepan mix sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and margarine and heat till just melted. Stir in vanilla. Spread 2/3 of the dough into prepared baking pan. Spread with chocolate mixture. Drop remaning 1/3 of dough on top by spoonfuls. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool, then cut into bars. Makes 36.




Bad food ideas

• Burritos from Rancheritos (used to be Betos). My mother-in-law was really generous and offered to take us out to eat when she was here. Steve and I wanted to go to Costa Vida but Steve's brother insisted on Rancheritos because their burritos are so huge. He obviously chose quantity over quality (100% quantity, 0% quality... luckily Steve didn't feel as strongly as I did so he finished mine).

More writing

I know I haven't posted in a while, and this one is going to be lame. But the end of the semester is near, and I have lots to do.

In my Creative Writing class, I have to turn in a final portfolio of all the assignments that we've done this semester (my short story, a personal essay, and two poems). So, as I was going through all my old drafts to make sure that I had made all the changes that I wanted to, I found my first official creative writing piece this year: The Soundfeeder.

Basically, we were supposed to reach into the teacher's "Box o' junk" and pull out an object, then write a 1 page story on it. The item that I happened to pick out was a little thing called The Soundfeeder. You know how you can get a little thing for your iPod that transmits the sound into a radio wave, so you can listen on your car radio? Well, the Soundfeeder is a really old version of that technology.

So here's the link to my very short (less than 1 page) story, The Soundfeeder.