Cooking is boring

Hiya, cool people. I don't mind cooking, but I don't love it, either. I usually only cook stuff that takes 20 minutes or less to prepare. I figure that a lot of people might feel the same way; they'd prefer NOT to eat Ramen everyday, but they also don't want to roast a turkey on a spit.

So to make your life a little easier, here's a list of some of the awesome things I've been cooking lately:

Delicious onion-flavored baked veggies. Instead of cutting up a bunch of veggies though, I just used a bag of frozen vegetables, plus some diced potatoes. Bam. Super easy and DELICIOUS.

Chicken-potato-tomato thing. This was especially good because a friend brought me some fresh, garden-grown tomatoes the day before, and they were so so good.

Marinated chicken. I was surprised at how good this was, considering the kinda weird ingredients. I intend to make it again sometime.

Chicken rice soup. I used brown rice instead of noodles, since I had lots of rice leftovers. I followed the recipe very loosely in general, actually, but how can you mess up soup, anyway?

Sweet potatoes!! This is so easy to make it's almost silly to have a recipe for it. We like to have beans with this, but I'm thinking rice would be pretty good, too.

SMOOTHIES. This is my afternoon snack pretty much every day. I don't technically have a recipe for this one. I just put half a banana, some strawberries (or raspberries) and rice milk into a blender and blend. I like to use a small amount of milk to make the smoothie really thick. But maybe you're weird and like to drink fruit-flavored milk.

Fer cute

Today is day three of my migraine-safe diet. It's been prooty good, although it's hard to come up with quick snacks I can eat throughout the day that aren't fruit, veggies, or rice cereal. Suggestions?

In other news, I've been further improving my legit crochet skillz. The tiniest project I've done was this little set of flower earrings; I'm planning on making other little crochet things so the earrings can be switchable.

I'm currently working on a big ol' basket. It looks weird in this picture. I'm (loosely) following this pattern, but I used t-shirt yarn that I made instead of normal kind.

I made what the interwebs folks call a boutique bag. Look at it.

Finally, I've been crocheting around the edges of GAJILLIONS of baby blankets and stuff my mom made. It's strangely addictive.

Elimination

What do the following foods have in common?

I love all of them. Also, I can't eat any of them for the next 6 weeks. Along with beef, soy products, corn products, caffeine, and sugar.

What is this madness, you ask? I'm embarking on my second attempt at an elimination diet to see if I can identify any migraine triggers. Here's how it will work: for two weeks, I eliminate all the above foods from my diet. After that, I challenge each food, one at a time, to see if reintroducing it into my diet triggers migraines. When I introduce a food back into my diet, it is only for 24 hours; after that, it's gone again. I don't want different types of food interacting with each other somehow and messing up my experiment.

I'm gonna be eating lots of fruits and vegetables for the next little while. Wish me luck.

Lately

Exciting things have been going on around here for us. First and awesomest, we get to work at the Provo Temple as ordinance workers! (Once renovations are over.) I say "awesomest" because it's a cool word, and also I've always wanted to work at the temple, and now I have my chance. It seems like you can only do it when you're really young, or when you're really old, so why not now?

Second and pretty awesome, I've been feeling normal, as in happy. I'm still not up to my former level of productivity or self motivation, but feeling so good makes up for that.

Third and sort of awesome, I'm rededicating myself to figuring out my migraines. I've had pretty bad migraines since I was about 14, and in the past few years, they've become more severe and I've had them more frequently. While the good news in the migraine department is that they aren't nearly as gross and painful as they have been, the bad news is that I've been getting them almost every day for the past month and a half, so... ugh. I'm hoping that keeping track of daily activities and (eventually) talking to a specialist will help me conquer this illness so I can have an even more normal life.

Fourth and also awesome, I really like my ward. Maybe it's because I'm more interested in socializing now, but this ward seems friendlier than the last one I was in.

I know this has been a pretty boring post, so sorry about that. To make up for it, I'm going to include some pictures of babies with animals.

Also, this:

Cool tapes

If you like learning without the obligation of homework, check out this list of FREE online lectures, courses, and other good brain food. I've already checked out a lecture series on happiness/mood disorders, and am currently watching a series on Ancient Israel. Awesome stuff! Now I don't have to worry that my brain will waste away from lack of nutrients. Y'know, metaphorical ones.

Time to mow the weeds!

One of the great things about living in a basement apartment is that we get to take care of our own house! (The other great thing is having a driveway.)

For example, I spent an hour on Saturday with a broom and a hose annihilating spider webs and crushing their grotesque hosts. I felt so manly, protecting my helpless maiden from the hordes of monsters invading our castle.

The only downside to taking care of a rental home is that the people there before you may not have left you with an easy job. When Dria started asking me to mow the back weed patch, I knew it was time to do something about this invasion on our turf. So to speak.

After a little digging on the internet, I discovered two things about killing lawn weeds. First, there is a variety of miraculous products that somehow kill weeds while leaving the lawn intact. Second, pouring a cocktail of poisonous chemicals onto an expanse of tender earth can lead to clubbing baby seals. Or something like that. I didn't really pay attention to the details, but it definitely involved mass destruction of nautical biospheres.

But since the only alternative to polluting the urban water table was weeding the lawn by hand, the weed killer was my only option.

After reading several reviews online and a quick trip to Walmart, I returned home armed with a gallon of Ortho Weed-B-Gon, a pump spray nozzle, and a herbicidal spirit, ready to go to work.

I began by carefully reading the instructions, which were conveniently hidden inside of the back label:

1) Aim at the center of the weed.

2)Cover the entire plant with a mist of the spray.

Amidst the thick underbrush of weeds, I discovered a colony of snails. It was only after I had sprayed the poor creatures that I thought about how the weed killer was supposed to work:

"This product works by causing uncontrollable and unsustainable growth..."

An hour or two later, I emerged victorious, having both sprayed the entire weedlawn and realized my dream of having Popeye forearms. I couldn't move my fingers anymore. Needless to say, I decided to wait a while before spraying the front lawn.

PS--I also sprayed a spider.