Ketchup.

Ok, so it's been a while. A little over a month, to be exact. Yes, I admit my gloomy week turned into an extended hiatus from blogging, but not because there was nothing happening. So let's play "ketchup," shall we?

--We have decided to use part of our tax return to finish a room downstairs for Brendan. Right now, his room looks like this:





It gets darn cold down there in the winter, although it's quite nice in the summer. And before you call child protective services, please understand that I've invited Brendan to move back upstairs numerous times and he refuses. He's just not too keen on having to share a room with little Carter and be bound by his bed/nap times and such. I can't say I blame him.

--We also used a little bit of our tax return to get some much-needed clothing for our kids. You see, when in the midst of a financial crisis (or financial cri-SES), things like clothing and shoes and such utter nonsense get placed quite hastily on the backburner of our lives. And so, with a little money in our pockets, we indulged the kids. And then,

--Randy indulged ME by inviting a business friend of his to our house to evaluate my closet and take me shopping.

This is Sarah. She's an image consultant and jewelry designer who is also part of Randy's small business networking group. As a surprise, he gave her some money with which to buy me some clothes, invited her to the house, took the kids, and left. And I was alone with....her. Any woman like me (one with issues. I mean SERIOUS issues.) would have reacted the way I did in the face of her cool sophistication, fashionable breeziness and shopping savvy--I started to get sweaty, I had a hard time looking her in the eye, and I began to think over all the clothing in my wardrobe and immediately decided it was all frumpy and I hated it. EVERY. SINGLE. PIECE.

And then 20 minutes later we were best buddies, heading to the mall to try on millions of outfits and be brutally honest with each other. We (or I, at least!) had a blast. Sarah helped me choose some good solid wardrobe staples and made me try on some things I NEVER would have tried on myself, which was good for me. All in all, I was completely happy with our session.

So, men (or sneaky wives who need some pampering and are good at dropping hints), go to her websites and see what she has to offer. She's AMAZING. (And thanks to my sweet husband for putting it all together!)

Cable Car Couture
Blue Bijou

--Carter has a new favorite game. It's called Cash Cab.

(I'm totally attracted to this guy in a "You seem really nice and funny, but there's something in your eyes that makes me think you could rob someone at knifepoint in a dark alley" kind of way. It's one of my issues.)

On the TV show, you get in a cab, answer trivia questions, and many people walk away with a couple of thousand dollars. In Carter's version, he climbs into my mom-taxi and then begins grilling me with questions like, "What is your middle name?" and "What street do you live on?" and "When is my birthday?" It doesn't seem like it would be that funny, but I'm telling you, the kid knows how to work it. He has his TV gameshow hosting duties down to a T. So, dear reader, next time you ride in my car, I'm putting YOU on the hot seat.

--I applied for YET ANOTHER job. (I know, I know, enough with the "trying to find your destiny" crap, Stephanie.) But this is the one job that I promised myself I would apply for if it ever came up.

Until three months ago, I worked for a small community newspaper called the Valley Journals covering Cottonwood Heights' city government. Two weeks ago, the city opened a job for a part-time Public Relations Specialist. My heart just about dropped through my feet, and I applied the following Tuesday. I would LOVE this job, the salary is phenomenal, and I would be able to spend more time home with Carter than I am now. So we've got our fingers crossed that it works out. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, that's about it for now. On my honor, I will be better at updating the blog. Now, don't you wish you had a nice hot dog to go with all that ketchup?

Gloom.

I'm having a week. I don't have them very often, but this is one of them.

So, I present the folks of HEE HAW, who express my feelings so much better than I can. And with nifty overalls.

Uncanny.

I think this man--whoever he is--is living the EXACT SAME LIFE as me. Weird.

Scenes from a cell phone camera.

It's been a while since I transferred pictures from my phone to my computer. I found some cool stuff.



These are my men. So alike. But they're cute so I'll keep them.



This is Chef Adalberto Diaz. He taught me and my sister Kiirstin how to make all kinds of bread during a cooking class at a bistro called The Blue Lemon in Alpine, UT. I almost asked him to run away with me just so that he could cook for me for the rest of my life--even though I'm married and he's about a foot shorter than me.



This is the pizza he cooked for us. That's fresh pizza sauce, prosciutto, fresh mozarella and tomatoes. Eat your hearts out. (PS--I successfully replicated this crust at my house last week. Because of this, I am planning a gourmet pizza party, my friends!)



I posted this on facebook, but I still find it laughable. What's a woman to do--stay true or go rogue?



These guys are part of my Wednesday night volleyball crew. I love me a good game of volleyball!



Fact: I love the Olympics. Fact: Carter was forced to love the Olympics, too. he became so enthralled with Apolo Ohno that I decided to take him ice skating at the Olympic Oval in Kearns, UT.



He tried to be brave and let go of his old man walker a few times.



But he felt more comfortable like this. He made it all the way around the oval eventually, though. I was proud of my little man.



I hate the pre-springtime brown yuckiness in Utah. But last week, all the snow melted and it actually got warm enough for Carter to go outside to play without whining the whole time. It was nice to get out of the house (despite the admittedly redneck swingset).



This last weekend, we packed up the fam and drove to Island Park, ID, where Randy's family has a cabin. We snowshoed and snowmobiled, drank hot cocoa and ate junk food, played the Wii and watched movies. And Camryn had her first honest-to-goodness snowball fight. (We had three of them to be exact.) All in all, a great weekend. It was nice to escape for a while.

The end.

A Little Bit of Innocence Lost.

Today, in the car on the way to a training for my job, Carter and I had a moment. It was not a particularly pleasant moment (for me), and I hadn't really realized until it was upon me that I would have to meet this particular challenge at some point. (I think it was like most parenting challenges--you know you have to tell your kids about unpleasant things at some point or do the whole "tough love" thing, but it's never quite as hard in your mind as it is in real life.)

This morning, my son learned about war.

Our war. Our warS.

We were listening to NPR's Morning Edition, and the lead story after the news update was an in-depth report about the suicide car bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan this morning. 17 people died. People were shooting at other people. You know, the same kind of news headlines that have become all too common, and therefore have faded into our subconscious mind. They are now just a fuzzy background noise that accompanies all of the "real" stuff going on in our quiet lives here in the states.

But for Carter, it was like a lightbulb went on.

"Mom, who was shooting?" he asked.

I paused and then explained that some people don't like other people, so they use guns to hurt them. I asked him if that was an OK thing to do, and he replied that it was not.

"But, why did they do that?" he asked.

"Because they are in a war," I said.

"What's 'war?'" he asked again.

I turned off the radio. I tried to figure out how to explain hatred and terrorism and politics to a four-year-old who has never had to deal with any of those things before. And tears came to my eyes.

This was the moment when Carter was going to start to see the world for what it is a lot of the time: a scary, hate-filled, uncertain place. This was his first look into all the things that make all of us parents fear for the future of our children. This was his first step out of innocence.

I DID NOT want to have that conversation. But I did. I told him that when lots of people fight lots of other people, it's called a war. I told him that it's sad because people get hurt.

He was fine with that explanation. We talked a little bit more, and then he seemed satisfied and let the topic drop. I didn't tell him that hate-filled people killed almost 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11. I didn't tell him that a sadistic, empty-souled tyrant named Adolf Hitler killed 6 million people almost a century ago. I didn't tell him that there's a good chance that he'll have to live with wars of one kind or another for his entire life.

Am I over-reacting? Maybe. I know that he still feels safe here at home with his family and that what we talked about today will probably not affect his day-to-day life at all right now. But a seed has been planted. A precedent has been set. And it makes me sad to think that this is the day he learned that people hurt and kill other people, a concept he will now begin to witness every day for the rest of his life.

And so it begins.

Green with......

I took these...



...and made these...



...so Carter and I can make cute things like this...



...and ended up with this.



Oops.

The volleyball crew is not going to let me hear the end of this tonight. It's hard to take a spike seriously when it's hit by a hand like that. *sigh*

I think it's time to invest in some rubber gloves.

Give it up for the Greeks.

Anyone who knows me knows that I adore food--good, well-seasoned food and lots of it. And though I love all types of food (except tofu and tripe) Greek food is what I crave a lot of the time. Not only is Greece the birthplace of philosophy and mythology, it's also the cradle of civilization when it comes to seriously yummy eats.

My obsession with all things Greek comes as no surprise to my old co-workers at APX Alarm. When I was pregnant with Carter, I ate Greek food from a little restaurant a couple of miles from the office almost every single day. For at least two months, it was pretty much the only food I ate, period. I never got tired of it. It was so much of a sure thing, in fact, that my friend Lindsay remarked one day, "Steph, I'm really concerned that your baby is going to come out Greek." He didn't, but I probably wouldn't have minded.

Skip ahead five years to present day: specifically GIRLS NIGHT OUT tonight! I got put in charge of making a pasta salad for dinner. I decided that instead of making a run-of-the-mill Mormon pasta salad (though they're also very yummy), I wanted to make a Mediterranean pasta salad. I thought about it for a few days, and with a little help from the internet I came up with the most divine pasta salad EVER in the history of salads! Ok, I may be exaggerating and it could prove to be a huge flop at our shindig tonight, but to me it tastes like the holy grail of pasta salad.

So, long story short, here's my first-ever recipe! It may still need some tweaking depending on the response it gets at the party tonight, but it's still pretty darn good. I hope you like it!

Stephanie's Mediterranean Pasta Salad (I'll think of a better name for it later.)



Ingredients:

Salad--

16 oz. Rotini pasta, cooked to al dente, drained and cooled
1 large cucumber, diced
3 vine-ripe tomatoes, diced
1/2 red onion, diced really small
1 cup pitted kalamata olives, roughly chopped
3-4 oz. crumbled feta cheese
1/4 c. chopped fresh parsley

Dressing
(Note: I modified this recipe from a similar one I found on Allrecipes.com. It can be used for any type of salad, and I think you could probably also use it as a marinade. This recipe makes more than you need to dress the salad, so pop it in an airtight container and keep the leftovers in the fridge for a few weeks....though I doubt it will last that long.)

1 c. good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 c. red wine vinegar
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. dried oregano
1 t. dried basil
3/4 t. pepper
3/4 t. salt
3/4 t. onion powder
3/4 t. dijon mustard

Combine all the ingredients for the dressing in a large mixing bowl. Using a wire whisk, beat the heck out of it until the mixture has emulsified. Set aside. (You can even make this a day in advance to allow the flavors to blend.)

In a large serving bowl, combine all the salad ingredients. Pour some of the dressing mixture over the top. Toss the salad together and then taste it to adjust the amount of dressing if needed. Serve with grilled chicken or steak kababs or just eat a huge bowl of it all by yourself. Live and let live, I say.



P.S.--Trying out recipes is hard on my kitchen.