The Number One Reason I Love To Visit...

and number two.

Confessions of a Professional Foodie

I made soup for the first time today, and recently bought my first cookie sheets. No more baking non pizza-type things on my pizza pan.

Moving

I scored a chunk of the Maple Lodge. In about two weeks I will be enjoying my first rent-free residence (with a washer and dryer even!) since I lived with my parents. No, the bunk beds won't be staying, neither will the curtains.

Introducing...Lisa Richard, Youth-Slave!

At our last Christian Camping Sectional Conference, I attended a seminar geared toward twenty-somethings in ministry. The speaker was awesome (how twenty-something of me to say) and he talked a lot about Paul's relationship with Timothy and how people our age are often wise enough to listen to our Pauls, but neglect to seek out Timothys of our own. He did so, of course, much more eloquently than I've so far lead you to believe. At one point during his message he asked for a show of hands from those who have a million things to do without enough time to do them. I was the only person in the room whose arms stayed planted on the armrests. A-ha! I'm lazy.
So, after some prayer for direction and a meeting with the youth pastor last spring, I am now completely buried (or another word with a happier connotation) in youth group functions. I've had twelve already this month, including the 30-hour famine sleepover extravaganza. It didn't take them long become savvy to my grossly uncluttered calendar. I had to laugh yesterday after Keith commented a second time how fast I was "keyed in" at the church. Some people are even beginning to recognize me (couldn't resist)!
Why do I tell this story? Mostly because my collection of recent pictures have all been taken at youth group events and I feel weird about posting the kids' pictures without parental consent. The highlights though, include some pretty good throwing-homemade-pizza-dough-in-the-air shots. So, here's a picture taken by the kids.

Conversations That I Could Really Only Have With Sarah

Her (as we cross paths with a typical Palm Desert type): I'm glad you don't wear that much makeup.

Me (sarcastically-I know, weird): Well, not yet. Just wait 'til I'm thirty, then I'll really start to pack it on.

Her: If you did, I don't think we would be friends.

Me: Oh, please. We'd be friends.

Her: Yeah, you're right. But we wouldn't hang out.

Not My Typical Seinfeld Post

Jessica Seinfeld has a cookbook out which is full of sneaky ways to get vegetables in your diet via food processor. This piqued my interest immediately, and I tried her brownie recipe last night.

It includes pureed carrots and spinach,

which looked fairly commonplace until I dumped them into the chocolate.

They turned out pretty well. They are very dense, but moist and the vegetables are undetectable once they've cooled. Next time I plan on increasing the sugar a bit since they taste more like bread than brownies.

Okay... what is Newman's favorite candy bar?

Ipod Nation

Disclaimer: Kelly- I am completely addicted to your cd mixes, and am in no way speaking poorly of them in the following post.

One of my favorite things to do as a music fan is sit down with a cd and fully claim it by listening to it from start to finish, liner notes in-hand. As a teenager I was in a cd-buying club, and spent tons of time pouring over the contents of those little brown boxes that so often appeared in box 274. And although I do own an ipod shuffle (that I don't know how to load or recharge without my brother's help- it is currently juiceless and useless) hearing the music alone, for me, does not match hearing it holding the band in my hands.

Dave got me an Arcade Fire cd for my birthday last May, and I immediately put it into my car's changer where it stayed and played until I took it inside the other night to really make it mine. I wonder how much longer it would have taken me to realize how much of it is in Frenglish had I left it in the car.