Eat meat sparingly.

Tonight I went down south for FHE with the Tanners and Hulberts. Many months ago Lora and I had the grand idea that we would like Ben to teach us how to grill meat. We never did anything about this idea until last week when we planned a meat grillin' good time. We each brought meat (or pumpkin muffins in my case...) and Ben showed us how to season and grill it to perfection. Tucanos could close down tomorrow and I wouldn't care. They've got nothin' on Ben's grilling skills. We had tuna (so so good), boneless pork ribs (cooked two different ways with bbq sauce on them), chicken (marinated by the lovely Lora) and steak (my favorite, the tuna was a close second).

I will direct you to what I am sure will be a wonderful blog post about this evening once Lora writes her blog. She took lots of pictures and she's just a fabulous blogger. :)

I'm so glad that after a somewhat long day I was able to go and spend time with my friends that have a way of always lifting me up. When I lived close by I called the Tanners house my safe place. No matter what is going on in life I always feel completely safe and peaceful there. I hope that I will be able to have that same spirit in my home someday.

It was, by no means, a bad day it was just a tense day for me and I left with a happy and grateful heart. The weather was perfect, the food delicious and the company exactly what I needed. I laughed until I cried and I learned some stuff too! I love when that happens.

And then I drove home and rocked out to my favorite car song (of late). No pictures in this post, so enjoy a video. :)

Today I made Pumpkin Bread

This is how it went.

Start putting sugar in bowl, spill sugar.
Put eggs in bowl to beat, drop entire egg shell in eggs.
Take out applesauce (to replace oil) notice mold on applesauce (really?! it's not that old!)
Open cupboard to take out oil, accidentally hit open bag of chocolate chips.
Spill half bag of chocolate chips on counter and floor.
Don't move bag of chocolate chips off of counter while picking up spilled chips.
Knock over bag and spill more chocolate chips.
Add oil to eggs and sugar, drop spoon in mixture.
Add pumpkin mixture and spill some.
Mix dry ingredients together (no spilling or dropping, miracle?)
Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture. Mix.
Turn to get water, drop spoon into pumpkin mixture.
Get new spoon add water, add rest of dry ingredients then more water.
Add chocolate chips & leave left overs on top of hot oven.
Spray loaf pan and muffin pan. Pour batter into loaf pan (success!!)
Use measuring cup to pour batter into muffin pan.
While trying to stop spoon from falling into batter drop measuring cup (handle first, of course) into batter. (Oh, and don't worry the spoon still fell into the batter)
Put muffin and bread pans in oven (thank goodness!)
Get tupperware to store leftover pumpkin, drop lid into left over batter.
Turn to wipe down stove, notice chocolate chips on top of very hot stove.
Pick up bag, look inside, notice 1/4 bag of melted chocolate chips.

All I have to say is, this bread better be DELICIOUS.

***Just went to check on bread, loaf pan slipped and was tilted to the side, almost spilling contents on bottom of oven.

Moving! Again!

I'm aaaall about the change these days. Nothing hugely drastic this time but, a good change! I'm moving again! For a girl that hates moving I sure have done a lot of it in the last year! I really love having my own place but have not once felt at home here. I never finished unpacking and I never hung anything on my walls. No matter how hard I tried it has felt temporary. My former roommate Allison and I are in the same ward and a senior missionary couple that is serving in our ward told us that they are looking to rent out the other half of their duplex in October. It has 3 bedrooms and lots of storage and a 2 car garage. I quite like it and the price can't be beat! I'm excited to have so much space and to share it with just one person. Allison and I got along great when we lived together before and although we both feel ready to be out of the roommate situation we also both feel that this is the right move and that it will work out well. If I have to have a roommate Allison is a great one to have. Anyway, I plan to make this new place feel like home and actually have people over. :) I'll be moving sometime next month. The best part is that it's just around the corner! Nooow...who wants to help me move again? haha! ha! ha...ha. Yeah, don't worry I'm going to try to do this move as independently as possible (that's a note to my lovely friends that helped me last time.)

As a quick update I just want to say that I love my life right now. I'm busy, involved in my ward, loving (loving loving loving) my job, spending time with great friends and making new friends. I feel, once again, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Life isn't perfect but it is pretty great! I enjoyed my last job and am really grateful for the timing of it and all that I learned but I can't ignore the fact that when I imagined my life a year from when I started I felt dread at the thought of still working there. I don't feel that way here. I feel so fulfilled and have so much love for the people we support and I feel so passionate about helping. I don't want to jinx myself or anything, but I can see myself in this field for a long time to come. (cross your fingers that a month from now you won't see a blog about me changing my job...ugh) Anyway, that's my life in a nutshell!