Exciting News!

I've been wanting to make this post for about two months now, but wanted to wait until is was official. And now it IS official; I am USC's newest full time employee!



I'm working in a biology research lab helping a post doc on his research in genetic sequencing of drosophila. To those who don't understand the importance of this accomplishment, let me explain. The most important is that on top of my salary, Paul now gets HALF OFF his tuition! And since his yearly tuition is more than America's average household income, the tuition break is a big deal. Other great things include health benefits, retirement benefits, I can take classes at USC for free, and Paul and I will get to carpool to school and hopefully eat lunch together. Getting a job at USC is an amazing blessing and we're truly grateful.

Halloween

duuuuhhh... I should have made this post two weeks ago and I just woke up from a four hour nap and I'm not sure if I'll completely regain full mental capacity for the rest of the evening. I had high hopes of a clever blog about our costumes and about you all guessing what we were, but as it stands now, I'll just tell you. I was a bunch of grapes and Paul was Flavor Flav.



We went to our ward Halloween party and I won 2nd place in the chili cookoff. Woohoo!

Here's something else kind of crazy to think about... It was two years ago at our student ward Halloween party where Paul and I fisrt met...
Paul and his roommates Ashton and Sam were lodge folk and me and my roommates were zombie rockers.

My Nanny Kim

After my mom died, my dad hired a nanny to take care of me, my sister, and my brother while he was at work. Actually, she was interviewed while my mom was still alive. My mom was very sick at the time, but the interview took place in my parent's bedroom. Kim was our nanny for about nine months until she got married and moved to Utah. I remember having so much fun with Kim! One of my favorite activites was when we went to the drug store and got ice cream cones. One time Kim promised us that if Erin and I cleaned our room (apparently Erin and weren't very good at keeping our room clean) that she would take us to get to get a double scoop ice cream cone. I remember thinking that life didn't get better than that. Well, Erin and I did get our room clean, but I wasn't able to finish my ice cream cone- it was too big for me, and I was very disappointed that I wasn't able to eat it all.

The first day Kim came to nanny she promised us that the following day we would make a home made pizza. I didn't even know there was such a thing. She was true to her word and the next day Erin and I chose the toppings for our first ever home made pizza.

I remember that we played lots of games with Kim. My very favorite was Hi Ho Cherri-O. I have no idea what the object of the game is, but I remember we played it all the time. We also loved Chutes and Ladders and Go Fish. We had a video called Sign Me a Story. I think it was supposed to be an educational video that taught sign language (Erin used to have a deaf friend). One of the stories that they told/signed was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Kim would sometimes make Cream of Wheat for breakfast and we would pretend it was the porridge from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The first time we came out of our room to the kitchen table, we would say, "This porridge is too hot!" Then Erin and I would run back into our bedroom so the next scene could start. The next time we came into the kitchen, the porridge would be "too cold!" And then the third time it would finally be "juuuuusstt rigghhht."

We were always on an adventure with Kim. We got season passes to Sea World- I used to adore Shamoo and the dolphins. Erin and I also loved the water show- I can still remember the song they played during it. I remember peeing my pants once while we were there, and apparently I barfed on Kim once while we were watching the Shamoo show. Oops.

Most of all, when I think about our time with Kim, I feel a very profound love for her. She stepped in when our mom couldn't physically be there. I was very cuddly with Kim and loved to be snuggled.

Kim now lives in Nebraska with her husband and six kids, and I hadn't seen her in years, but a couple weeks ago Paul and I got to have dinner with her while she was visiting her mom here in California. It was so wonderful to see her again. She looks exactly the same as I remembered her, except this time her hair was staight instead of curly. What a blessing she was to our family! Kim told me that often times when she was having issues with us kids, she felt like my mom would be there helping her. Soon after Kim became our nanny, she took me to the doctor's office for some kind of check up or something. They said that they needed to see my immunization records and if she couldn't find them, then they would need to give me the shots again. Shots were the last thing she wanted me to go through, so she said that when we got back to our house, she called my mom by name and said, "Please Jamey, help me find the records." Immediately it came to her mind to look in our medicine cabinet. She was able to find the number of our previous doctor, who then sent my immunization records to the new doctor.

I'm so grateful that Kim was able to be our nanny! She provided so much fun and so much love when it was so badly needed. Thanks, Kim! I love you!

Bleh! Bleh! Bleh!

Today is a very sad day. As many of you may know, I love to cook and I love to try new recipes. Allrecipes.com has become my new friend this past year. It is a simple website where people can post recipes and others rate those recipes. For the most part, I will only make recipes that have a 4 out of 5 star rating or higher, and at least 30 people have reviewed the recipe. So, naturally, I thought a recipe for chicken tikka masala that scored a 4.5 and 451 people had reviewed it would be a sure winner. I should also mention that along with their ratings, people leave comments about what they would change, things that they particularly loved, etc. Before making the recipe, I should have read this review:

Good grief! This recipe as written has WAY too much salt in it! My fiance and I couldn't even finish it, the salt was overpowering. 7 teaspoons in all. I am going to try it again with about 1/2 teaspoon for each sauce (the marinade and the tomato cream sauce.)

7 teaspoons?! you say? Yes, that's correct. But let me explain. Certainly I would have noticed that there was way too much salt going into this recipe, but Paul and I made the recipe together and didn't realize how much salt the other was using- he made the marinade, and I made the tomato cream sauce. After the first bite I knew something weird was happening inside my mouth- I thought maybe the dish was just spicier than what I'm used to, but then my throat started to burn...
After all that time and preparation, we ended up tossing the whole meal and tried to think of what else we might scrounge up for Sunday dinner. I decided that all I wanted was a piece of zucchini bread that I made yesterday. I made two loaves, but gave 1 1/2 away at church. Paul got me a slice, buttered it, and brought it to me. What a sweetie, right? The first bite tasted strange. I thought maybe my pallet was still moded from the horrible chicken dish, so I took a nice long drink of water before I had my next bite of bread. Hmm... still weird. Then, I was able to put my finger on the weird taste- garlic! Paul had just picked up a knife that was on the counter to spread my butter with. It was the same knife that I had used to cut the garlic for the tikka masala. Gross! And so here I sit, venting to the blog world about my cooking woes- still hungry, but not daring to eat anything else.

"Tolerance"

"Those who favor homosexual marriage contend that “tolerance” demands that they be given the same right to marry as heterosexual couples. But this appeal for “tolerance” advocates a very different meaning and outcome than that word has meant throughout most of American history and a different meaning than is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Savior taught a much higher concept, that of love. “Love thy neighbor,” He admonished. Jesus loved the sinner even while decrying the sin, as evidenced in the case of the woman taken in adultery: treating her kindly, but exhorting her to “sin no more.” Tolerance as a gospel principle means love and forgiveness of one another, not “tolerating” transgression.
In today’s secular world, the idea of tolerance has come to mean something entirely different. Instead of love, it has come to mean condone – acceptance of wrongful behavior as the price of friendship. Jesus taught that we love and care for one another without condoning transgression. But today’s politically palatable definition insists that unless one accepts the sin he does not tolerate the sinner."

- A statement from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

FINISHED!

I proudly present for your viewing pleasure, this adorable sweater I made for myself! Somewhere in my excitement, I gauged the stitches wrong and the final product ended up probably a size or two small.






Oh, man. I tricked you guys so bad. I made this for my niece, Elizabeth. In the process of making this sweater, I've discovered a few things about myself. The first is that I am on the accelerated track to old lady-dom. I would often knit on the bus on my way to work and the look on people's faces screamed: "Ok, early-twenties wannabe, I can see right through that face lift and dye job. You're not fooling anyone!" The second thing I've learned is that sometimes I take on projects and gravely underestimate their time of completion. This definitely is true when it comes to cooking. I have yet to have a meal ready and on the table when we have friends or the missionaries over for dinner. I've convinced myself that this is just the learning process of cooking, but who knows, maybe I'll never figure it out. Anyway, I think I started knitting this sweater about six months ago and anticipated being done with it four months ago. Oops.

But I loved making it. Knitting is a great release... as long as you don't have to rip out too many rows along the way.

And hey, now that I think about it, if my arms were just a little skinnier, I definitely think at least my head could fit through the top... don't be surprised if the next time you see me I'm sporting this sweater as part of my ensemble.

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