Good Friends

Sunday, it started to get cold...

Monday was miserable. It was dark, cloudy, cold and then it snowed/slushed/rained thing....

Today and the rest of this week will be the same; No higher than the 40's and chance of more snow all week along with piercing winds, no sunlight and cloudy skies. It's so cold, I'm wearing a coat inside the house even though the heat is on.... I haven't gotten much sleep either, but that's another story/rant for another time.

I've tried to find something positive to say. I've tried to find something positive to think about, but whenever I do, it either makes me hate this place even more or gets me even more depressed. I'm tired a lot more than usual and I'm starting to lack motivation to do anything again. No motivation for art, cooking, archery, music or even working out. I think I'm burnt out.

The only thing I can really say I'm looking forward to this week is leaving Thursday to go to Utah. I have responsibilities to church and so I'm stressed out trying to finish things before Sunday, but then again another half of me just wants to say "who cares, they can deal with it"... I know...

I can't wait to see my friends who are in Utah. Especially if I can visit with "Alasse". I miss her a lot. I miss being able to talk to her a lot too. I miss going to the Jones' Clan every so often and going hiking about 2-3 times a month. I miss their parties and their camp outs, jeeping and the obnoxiousness of their fun family. I can't wait to see them again and be able to party this weekend with them and to go there for Thanksgiving too. I'll get to see my old Japan Mission companions this weekend too, which will be nice because I so miss speaking Japanese more than anything. 

Color

Things have been busy since I started taking a class at school and now I've found my way into being a teacher's assistant for Boy's archery class. I haven't forgotten about this though! I'm still trying to find new things to love and do here in this small small town of no where. 

In fact, it's getting colder and colder everyday and it makes me sad that soon, I will not be able to ride my bike as often as I could be due to the weather, but as I walk around campus, to and from my classes, I've noticed the leaves start to change and the beautiful leaves springing up here and there, falling all over the ground, etc. It's beautiful. I love the colors fall (and spring!) bring to the world. (Not to mention the delicious flavors of pumpkin, cinnamon and apples!!) I think that they both equally have amazing color splashes everywhere and it just makes the earth a more pretty place. 

It's VERY cold and SUPER windy here, but if the sun is out, I love to ride or walk to wherever I am going because I can see more of the town, more of nature and I get to hear/feel the crunch of leaves as I go places. As I walked to school today, the tree outside the church building was finally ALL bright red! So pretty. 

I guess that's it for today. :) Enjoy your lemon-aide!

Learning

I feel like I haven't written for weeks, but it's only been one...

I've been having a very difficult time with the environment around me. Mostly the people honestly. It's just all apart of the culture shock and it just amazes me how people can be so inconsiderate, ignorant and unbelievably hypocritical. I've been so upset with people not keeping their word, having respect for authoritative figures and not following the commandments/dress code of the school/prophets council, that I've just have had a total crash on even having hope for humanity.

FOR THE RECORD (before someone else goes off on me) I am NOT saying that I'm perfect. In fact I am far from it! Everyone has issues, but I DO keep the church standards and the dress code at this school (which I signed and agreed to follow), even though I do not agree with many of the silly rules here that have no real relation to the standards of the church. I will try to end my rant here before I go on for an hour.....

So, after heckling the school, gathering funds, running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I finally got back into school. I'm a non-matriculated student (meaning I am not a degree-seeking student) and am taking less than 9 credit hours. I got into a sewing class and have already made my first pillowcase. I actually made two it was "sew" easy. (ha ha...) And although this next project of making pajama pants is a little harder, requiring that we alter the pattern we have (ugh! suugaku ga meccha nigate desu!) I am learning! which is what I need. I miss learning. I want to learn so many different things; gardening, sewing, watercolors, photoshop, etc.

For now, I am a student here, but when Bryan is done, I will just continue my "education" from craftsy.com so that we don't have to stay in this state any longer than we have to. (yeah yeah) So I'm excited to learn what I can while I am here regardless of the annoying hipster girl with an attitude in front of me in class and others around me who clearly do not follow the school dress code. (Why the heck you would want to wear that anyways when it's freaking snowing/sleeting/hailing/raining all at once outside beats me... crazies)

I'll try to keep my other posts less..... rant....
I probably have already said too much and have my foot way deep in my mouth. I tend to do that a lot.... Until next time, LOOK WHAT I DID!!!! It has foxes on it.... Squee~!

Reipes

So, I loved to cook and bake before I left for Japan. Then I got to Japan and realized that they use the metric system and didn't have ANYTHING box mixed or anything I really needed to bake or cook anything American... Go figure. So it took me a while to learn to cook, but I finally got around the Japanese kitchen after a few months and enjoyed cooking again. I fly back to America after 18 months and forget how to cook again... Oi. Not to mention I didn't know any of the correct English terms for any vegetables or other cooking items anymore.... "Oh! It's a bellpepper!!! That's what you call it!"

Well, I'm married now and I've had to learn how to cook pretty fast again because heaven help us, I don't think I could eat pizza, ramen, hamburger helper and macaroni and cheese for the rest of my life.... Not to mention the boy almost set the place on fire by not watching a pot of boiling water and butter.... Bless his heart....

I've been searching EVERYWHERE I can for recipes. The majority coming from Pintrest. I did find a website/blog that I have taken quite a liking to! Not only does she make delicious and amazingly easy desserts, but dinners, appetizers, lunch and breakfasts!! They're all super easy to read and even printable unlike a lot of the websites I end up at after following Pintrest around....

I wish I had more of an elaborate way to display her website other than the URL, but I am not as keen on the ways of HTML as my husband... I just wish to share her amazing talent with everyone:

 http://www.chef-in-training.com/

Thank you Chef-In-Training. You have saved me from kitchen disaster.

Not to mention this weeks post was all about apples... I can't tell you how many apples I have from our Bishop's house to somehow get rid of before they rot. Oi.

Rain

Now normally, I am not a fan of the rain. I don't like this whole.... partially getting wet thing. I either wanna be in a pool or dry as a bone, but not this in between madness that ruins my hair and make up unexpectedly. I like to know when it is going to rain, so then I don't plan on wearing anything white either. That could be hazardous to everyone.

So, I woke up this morning to rain, I knew it was going to be a rainy day and upon looking at my iPhone it's supposed to be a rainy 2 days. Being this is the desert, I knew that the rain would probably be on and off and nothing really alarming like it does back home where it will rain for like.... 4 months straight. Okay maybe that is exaggerating, but it does rain a LOT. Also when it rains it is humid and sticky and muggy afterwards.  Which, despite the majority of the population, I love humidity. (Lotion? What's that?)

Anywhoz, I went to see Bryan at school today for lunch and it started to rain. Big. Fat. Drops. Everyone of course, started to run for cover and towards the buildings, but Bryan and I were quite content slowly walking to where he needed to go next. It was nice to walk in the rain. It reminded me of old times and Oshkosh when we splashed around the in puddles while everyone was huddled in the buildings. Psh. It's just water. It'll dry. It was nice to feel the storm breeze coming through. Though it's not hot and humid, it's still nice to have rain like that. It's been raining like such on and off all day after lunch. I think this is the longest it's rained ever out here! (another dramatic exaggeration) We enjoyed ourselves.