Daringly Domestic

Today I learned something new! During my last grocery shopping adventure, I picked up a can of cream of chicken soup. Why? Who the heck knows why. Originally I thought, well.... my mom always has a lot of this stuff around... maybe it's good for something. Also, I feel like I always hear people say, "yeah you can dump a can of cream of chicken soup into anything to make a meal!" Not a bad start right? Continuing on throughout the grocery store I noticed a recipe on the back of the cream of chicken soup can. Curious, I picked it up and started reading. Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas! Mmm! As I continued through the recipe an idea dawned on me. Maybe I could make this.... Luckily no one can read my thoughts, because I'm sure if they could they would be instantly scared for whomever I invited to dinner. Running with this crazy idea I zoomed through the aisles to pick up all the ingredients for this fantastic meal. Living outside of my frozen meals and pb&j sandwiches can be scary and somewhat intimidating but I figured I'd be daring. Just this once. Well I got home, and laziness got the best of me. It took me a week and a half to try that recipe. Sad....I know. However, with a good day behind me and a dinner guest to be expected, I tried that new recipe! Guess what... it was AMAZING!! With Kaylyn as my witness, I share with you my victory. We had a grand old time eating our enchiladas (meal also complete with green beans, mixed rice, apple juice and an orange) and it shall go down in the history books as a miraculous success. MOM: I even cleaned up right after too.... who would have thought.

Maybe next time I hit up the grocery store I'll venture out to cream of mushroom soup... daring, oh so daring.

The Written Word

Today, the random thoughts deal with the subject of Journals. As I was driving to work I wondered if the written word would soon be extinct. Will the "written word" become the "typed word?" Not very catchy right? For years and years and some more years we have treasured the old journals from our g-parents and/or ancestors. Heavy duty-hardbound journals consisting of: exquisite penmanship, yellowed pages, and words like "thither and felicity" popping up occasionally. Yet another You've Got Mail reference.

I use to write in journals; you know the whole pen and paper thing. Of course how often I wrote in my journal would depend on the young women lesson we had on Sunday, or an inspirational devotional I had attended encouraging a new found commitment to write in my journal every single day! Many new found commitments, most of which were short lived.

A little while back, my friend Spencer suggested that I keep a journal online in the form of an email address dedicated to only my journal. That way I can type the journal entries meaning that I might actually write more consistently. Brilliant! I'm going to write in my journal every single day! Many new commitments, most of which were short lived.

So back to my original thought process which was, what will happen to journals in the future? Are our grand kids going to go rummaging around the attic, find a box of flash drives, blow off the dust and jump for joy at their find? Sad day.

I am vowing to you, that I will try and physically write in my heavy duty-hardbound journal at least every so often. I figure since my commitment is so ambiguous I can't technically break my it as easily as before. I also extent the ambiguity to you, to help save the written word!

No picket signs or pitch forks needed.

203!!!!

You see this picture and think, Nice! Way to go Hailey! Although, BYU basically hands those out like candy during leagues... so what's the big deal? Well I'll tell you what the big deal is. Last night, bowling league at BYU was EPIC. For some time now I have invested time, money and stress into bowling. Mostly for entertainment purposes, but the deep down competitive gene I carry is always striving for the ultimate goal. Breaking 200. Long shot I know, but you gotta dream big right??

Well my friends, after a long road filled with tears, a sore arm after bowling 12 games straight, and bulging arm muscles I didn't know existed; I have finally acheived my all time goal of breaking 200!! 203 to be exact! Looks like their is a new number on the block competing to be my new favorite?? gasp! I tell you, this was no walk in the park and who knows if it will ever be duplicated. I went through each frame, picking up a crazy combination of strikes and spares until the last two frames. Then I choked. I was sweating like a sinner in church. haha okay not really, but it was a little warm in there, and I've always wanted to use that phrase. Here's proof that I'm not just making this up..... Great name eh? :) It took awhile to be able to completely comprehend the magnitude of what I had just done, but when the realization hit I felt so giddy I just could not contain myself! Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of all that went down at that moment such as: jumping, screaming, smiles and looks of disbelief on the faces of the other team. Now maybe in other bowling alleys you would get a pat on the back, maybe even a high five from those around you if you had just broken 200. Not at good ol' BYU! They gave me this super cool shirt for free!!

Oh, you wanted to see a close up?? ;)

I do have to say, that I could have never done this without the support of my biggest fan. Even when the rest of our team is emotionless, you're always there to cheer me on and share my enthusiasm!! Thanks Kay!!

So uh....Anyone wanna go bowling??

History Certainly Does Repeat Itself

I'd like to think that I'm not the only one that has a list of those few chores that I despise doing. Those chores that cause you internal pain to even think about and you'd rather give up your first born than do. Alright, maybe that's a bit dramatic.... Thankfully I have only two chores on my list that match the criteria previously described. So far.

1. Changing my bed sheets, including but not limited to: washing all the sheets and pillow cases and then REMAKING my bed. bleh.


2. Loading the dishwasher, including but not limited to: the inevitability of touching sick nasty food that oozes off of the places you would never expect and wonderful smells. eww

I realize that these chores are everyday chores, and that I will eventually have to suck it up and complete them on a regular basis. However, that does not change the fact that I hate every second of performing them.

Yesterday I had a small victory over #1. After having my sheets washed and ready to go for a week.... I finally made my bed!! I was hesitant to post this since my mom reads it sometimes and I was sure she would disown me as her daughter if she found out how long I had slept on my bed without sheets... Sorry mom. However, she already found out so the cat is out of the bag! We went shopping yesterday, she decided to come inside to wait for me and she saw it all. The glorious sight that was my clothes infested room. I say was with an emphasis because you can now walk freely in my room and see the floor! It's a Christmas Miracle. Guess what else, I'm still owned!

Let me tell you, making my bed was no easy task. I had to call in a reinforcement to keep me motivated. Kaylyn accepted the seemingly impossible task and performed with excellent statements of encouragement. Secretly I was hoping she would be so annoyed at my snail-like pace that she'd end up doing it for me. No such luck. Looks like I was just spoiled when Jake use to make my bed for me. Of course this was during the time that he and Karlie were dating, so there may have been some ulterior motives but who cares! Such a good man.

I don't know how to express how much I despise making my bed besides saying.... I despise it. Having to walk around the bed a bajillion times and sometimes climbing on it, then counting to three before you hurry and do a lift, tuck and jump maneuver to get that far corner taken care of. Plus, for my flailing sleep patterns, the next day the sheets will just be untucked and shoved to the bottom of the bed anyways! I should learn how to tuck myself into a burrito baby and maybe that would solve it...

I post about this to prove that I am now sleeping on my newly made bed, complete with sheets and pillow cases. See mom! No more bed bugs!

Until next time.....

"It's The FINAL Countdown"

In a matter of 4 days one of my best friends will come home from his mission!! Elder Dustin Day has honorably served the past two years in beautiful Brazil, spreading the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Portuguese! I cannot even wait to have him back and to hear all his mission stories! It'll also be interesting because he is one of the first of our friends to come home from the mish. Once he comes home, they all start coming home! YAY!!!!!! I cannot even wait until the day when all of us are reunited! I am so proud of all of those boys. I couldn't have asked for better examples. I'm also excited to see how weird they are... haha Missionaries are always a bit odd when they first get home, Can you blame them?? but the RM's I meet nowadays I take their weirdness as their normalness since I didn't know much about them before their mission. When my friends start coming back it'll be funny to see the changes! Weird or not, I'm so excited!! From a good song which Anisa has been singing for the past week, "It's the Final Countdown!"

Legal Influences?

This post will make more sense if you keep in mind that I work at a law firm, and I'm taking law classes in school. More or less, I'm surrounded by all things legal. (technically we all are... but I'll stop this tangent right here ____) Now that you've been forewarned, I will begin. Sometimes I wonder about Causation. For example, I purchased a f'real strawberry banana smoothie today, and out of curiousity I looked at the ingredients. I wondered, have producers always had to include the ingredients on the side of each product they make? Or was it a lawsuit from some peanut allergy that caused every product to list its ingredients on the packaging? P.S. those that are allergic to peanuts should just choose to never eat anything. Ever. Harsh? Maybe, but I'm pretty sure that every package containing food has that little warning at the bottom saying, "May contain some traces of peanuts." Mmmm Strawberry Banana Peanut smoothie... What?! Really, you have to cover your butt and say there could be some peanut traces in my watermelon sucker, or frozen lasagna meal? Anyways, I wonder if a lot of safety precautions and such are brought on by lawsuits. I'd like to think that Target just put handrails on the side of my bathroom stall only as a courtesy to their valued customer but sometimes I wonder. Taking this wondering to the next step I create a lawsuit in my head that would cause stores to put handrails next to toilets. Too many people fell in huh? :) Think about it. Or don't.

By the way, my smoothie was fantastic. Just sayin'

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For Reals This Time.

I have anxiously anticipated this day for quite some time..... Monday teased me with some rain/slushy almost snow, but today we received the greatest blessing yet. SNOW! I checked the weather this morning and loved seeing the little image of snow flakes falling. While I was getting ready for the day I started the cocoamotion. Thanks Kar! I made sure to be prepared, so I dressed in layers. Thermals - of course.

This morning was a very eventful morning and here is how it played out:

My LAST follow up knee appointment with Dr. Wallentine. The verdict....... drum roll please.... I'm cleared!!!!! He said everything looks great and I'm good to go! I contemplated admitting to him that I have infact been playing soccer since October 18th Best. Day. Ever. and figured it would probably be for the best. Of course, this was only because he had already given me clearance... oops. He asked about how soccer has been going and I told him honestly. FANTASTIC! I feel great, my knee doesn't hurt, it feels perfectly stable, and I can run like no other. The first time I stepped on that soccer field I will admit I was shaking like a leaf, had visited the bathroom 3 times in the past 20 minutes and prayed A LOT. Once that game started and I began running around, all my cares went away. I felt free. By the way in case you didn't know, our bodies are amazing. While I wasn't able to walk for awhile the fact that I can run full force was liberating. Bringing me back Dr. Wallentine made sure that I knew to keep up on strengthening my knee and assured me it will only get better from here. Isn't he so great?!

Once I left Dr. Wallentine's office, my smile got even bigger when I stepped outside. Carelessly falling snow flakes greeted me and I responded with a cheerful "Good Morning!" I thought, it's only 8:04 am and I wonder how this day can get any better. I stopped by WalMart on my way to school to pick up a super cute umbrella for Kaylyn and I (zebra for me, purple and lime green polka dots for Kay) and headed to class. While I was driving, I glanced upon a single duck eating among 15 goats. so random, but so great.

What's up ahead for the rest of the day:

Bowling League. Yeah that's right, I'm super nerdy and bowl in a league at BYU. :D Someday I'll have my own ball, shoes and personalized bowling button up. It is sooo much fun! Spencer, Adrian and I are on a team and I'm not gonna lie.... we DOMINATE!! So far we have the best record out of the league and on many occassions have beat a team by 140+ pins.... Mostly due to the amazing bowling skills of the rest of my team, but I try to help out as much as I can. Hopefully today I'll be able to beat my high score of 179 and break 200!!

That'll be the day.