Unexpected Pleasure

With every road trip comes unexpected pleasures.
Pinkberrys yogurt
everyday.
Mango yogurt and Pomegranate yogurt with unlimited toppings;
Kiwi
Strawberries
Fresh Coconut
Raspberries
Mango
Honey roasted sunflower seeds
Dark Chocolate crunchies

 It is a very good thing that there is no Pinkberrys in my town.
A VERY good thing.

How to Eat a Mudbug!

Today while I was picking out flowers to plant around my yard
so that I can watch them wither and die..
As I do every spring.
(I swear that I can hear the plants whisper to each other...
"Here she comes, the angel of death"
as I walk down the each row.)
It was then that...
...I was met with a familiar smell.
A most delicious and enticing aroma.
Outside my local grocery store were huge metal pots
of rolling, boiling, spicy beautiful crawfish.
I might have a brown thumb and know nothing about keeping plants alive
But I do know how to eat a crawfish.
Beautiful, big, burgundy red.
So that is what I am going to show you how to do today
In hopes that one of you will be able to trade your knowledge of plants
For my ability to eat.
Deal?

This is a crawfish/shrimp boil. It is a pretty simple concept actually. A big pot of spicy boiling water where you throw in crawfish, shrimp, new potatoes and corn on the cob. After it is cooked to perfection (definitely not overcooked) you put down newspaper and dump. Then everyone just comes running.

My daughter Peanut is my model and champion crawfish eater. (she is such a southern belle)

1. Pick the biggest one you can find in the pile.

2. Next you shake it's hand..er..claw and say hello. (Peanuts idea)

3. You pull it's head off.

4. Next you suck on the head...(completely optional..only hardcore crawfish eaters do this)

5. This is what's left...the edible part. Turn it to it's belly side and crack it in half like a lobster tail.

6. Slowly pull the meat out of the tail. If you are good at it you can pull it out completely leaving only the digestive tract inside the shell.

 7. This is what it looks like all cleaned up. A lot of work for a small piece of meat but......

                         IT IS DELISH!....
(After a while your lips kinda sting from the spices so you eat then with your teeth)And you know what one of the best parts of a crawfish boil is???

THE CLEAN UP!!
You just wrap all of the remains up in the newspaper and throw it in the trash.
No dishes or forks.....
Nothing.
Just a walk outside to the trash can
where I pass by the newly planted moss rose
who have looks of fear on their little petal faces.
I think I can hear them whisper to each other...
"See I told you she was a monster"

Photo Fever...

Is it an illness...
Or a passion?
Do you think that 1231 pictures for a week in L.A. is over the top?
Do I need to start looking into 12 step programs?
Or am I only considered sick if I try to show you all 1231?

There are very few things that give me an adrenaline rush like taking pictures

So I guess I will admit it. I am hooked. There is very little that I DON"T want to capture on film or SD card more exactly. When I don't have my camera I settle for mental snapshots that leave me feeling a little empty, I have started carrying my small camera in my purse....just so I don't go through image withdrawals.

I guess it might be true then.
I am one sick chick
But there are worse addictions.........right?

Too late?

I will strive to work on both habits...
But until there is cure.....
Just one more
photo

THE END.....
(or is it?)

MIA....but here's the weird part...

Dear Readers both friends and family,
I have been missing in action for over a month now......MIA
The funny thing is that I have written a blog entry almost every night..
Funny ones,
Sad ones,
Thought provoking ones,
and probably a few boring ones.
the only problem is......
they were written in my mind while I lay in bed hoping for sleep.
And I had every intention of writing them all down the next day,
But like a petulant child who says they will clean their room in a little bit,
I did not deliver.
So in hopes of getting back in your good graces and to prove to myself that when you fall off of your horse you still need to get back on and ride...
Here is what happened to me last month
(In case you wanted to know)

I sent a package to Elder Nerent who received it just in time for his week spent in bed with Dengue Fever. That post probably would have made you sad because it made me cry, but alls well that ends well and he had plenty of Gushers to get him through the crisis.

I was in charge of sharing time all month in Primary at church and we made valentines to send to children in Guatemala. I tried to talk the presidency into letting me deliver them in person and just write it off to the primary budget but they seemed disinterested in the offer. I was only trying to be a good humanitarian....we are the world after all. That would have been one of my spiritual blogs entries.

I lent Peanut my camera to go to the zoo and she came back with some great pictures including this one of two lions holding hands...er paws. Can everybody say, Awwwwwww. This would have been one of my precious blog entries.

I checked the computer 1,238 million times to see if Peanut received her acceptance to BYU. I mean it...over a million times, muttering under my breath about how lame it is to make people wait this long and what kind of university tortures people like this....... (angry blog entry of course)

 only to recant my position (repentant blog entry) after the long awaited acceptance was received proclaiming it the finest collegiate institution in the America perhaps the world at which point I threw a party for Peanut and her cousin Kavica. (celebratory blog dancing of course)

It was my final waiting for the BYU acceptance game and I was relieved for it to be over, so we partied BIG TIME!

I redecorated my family room

I signed up for a subscription to the photo editing site Picnik and played around a lot with that.

What informative blog entries those would have been......
And oh in the middle of all of those activities I had surgery.
Not a big one but an annoying little one
That I would like to tell you about.
Except that in polite society no one is suppose to say the word
Uterus
And I would need to say the word
Uterus
a lot.
So we will just leave that one alone except to say that it was one of the best and most eloquent and passionate of my "mind blogs"
So there..
That is what you missed.
Maybe you should be grateful
Oh and one more thing....
Uterus.